Hey guys... :))
I know...I know, it really has been long.
My semester exams has just ended a few days back.
And I was kinda lazing around a bit. :P
So, here is the third chapter.
The known characters, I have only borrowed for the purpose of spinning this story.
Every thing is purely fictional...so please treat it as fiction.
And don't take any incident or joke or anything at heart, please.
It's only meant for the purpose of entertainment.
Also, kindly forgive any discrepancies in the police procedure or such.
I am a naive idiot with too little research to her credit. :P
Without any further delay...I bring you the third installment.
Enjoy!
The Peck & Stewart Spin-Off
Fostering A False Hope - III
Every morning Gail climbed down the stairs of her building with a content smile. The reason for that early, selfless vibrancy resided in the ground floor. That particular soft, sweet, and delicious scent lovingly caressed her olfactory senses like every morning and like every morning, she sent a silent thank you out to the universe for reasons she didn't know, rather didn't want to acknowledge. She unlocked her car and gently lay down her blazer on the passenger seat before locking the door. Standing there on the street, she took in the surroundings. She really had lucked out with this place. Not too far that it would take ages to drive in to the city but far enough from the mad chaos of the city rush and she just loved the peace and silence. She went back into the building and pushed open the glass door of the ground floor cafe. The bell above the door chimed her entrance and she smiled wide seeing the familiar dark brown messy hair peek out from the kitchen area.
"Ah...so begins my day," Aamir exclaimed gleefully wiping his hands on a paper towel. "Good morning, Abigail."
Instantly the smile transformed into a frown, "Call me Abigail again and I shoot you without warning."
Aamir pouted, "aaawww...you are just too cute for words. My day only starts after receiving a heart-warming threat from Detective Peck. You know that..." He gently laid his right palm on his heart to show his earnest gratitude.
Gail made a sick-of-it-but-still-adorable humming sound, shook her head and got comfortable at one of the stools by the long, shiny counter. "Stop being a drama queen and bring me my coffee, Aamir."
"As you wish, Princess Gail," Aamir curtsied and whirled around to pour freshly brewed coffee in two mugs. Placing them on the counter, he lifted his finger, "just a sec," before rushing back inside. A few seconds later he came out gingerly holding a hot croissant on a thick wad of tissue papers. "For you," he smiled at Gail.
"Mmmmm," Gail grinned. "Now this is a good morning." She pulled off a small piece of it and after blowing on it for a few seconds popped it into her mouth humming in satisfaction when that cooked dough melted on her tongue. When she opened her eyes, Aamir was looking at her funny. "What?"
Aamir chuckled and lifted his coffee mug, "nothing...just imagining how you would sound during an orgasm."
Gail blinked and tried to fight off the flush taking over her cheeks. She was by now quite used to Aamir's jokes and good natured sexual jibes but it never failed to make her blush. "Do I need to go and get Irfan?" She took a tentative sip of the hot brew and sighed happily when the right amount of bitterness bathed over her taste buds.
"You can go try. He won't wake up," Aamir snorted.
Gail knew Aamir and Irfan had recently adopted a sweet little baby girl. Last night she had heard the relentless crying of that poor child all the way up to her flat. "Sara still not sleeping properly?" She asked gently.
"Nope...," Aamir dramatically deflated his posture. "Nobody warned me children are such a nightmare when it comes to sleeping."
"Oh...it wasn't in the handbook?" Gail countered seriously.
Aamir could easily pick up the detective's snark and sarcasm but sometimes he still found himself doubting his abilities. Such as now. For a moment he thought if there really was a handbook that came with Sara. Idiot, he chided himself inside his head and replied glumly, "no."
Gail smirked but remained content in sipping the black coffee. Silently she savoured the heavenly combination of the brew and now warm Croissant. These moments every morning were very precious in her usually restless and agitated lifestyle. Every day she came face to face with the worse side of humanity after stepping into the station. The sweet happy gay couple who were her only friends outside of work provided a small semblance of normalcy she so badly craved; had craved since childhood. Aamir and Irfan and now their sweet daughter Sara effortlessly eliminated the loneliness and fear that gradually and insistently kept gnawing at her soul, though only momentarily.
"Come by sometime," Aamir's soft whisper invaded the silence gently. "We miss you...you haven't seen Sara in a week." He ducked down a bit to hold Gail's thoughtful gaze. "She misses you."
Gail's lips involuntarily pulled at the corners. She remembered the first time she had held that little bundle of cuteness in her arms. That overwhelming sensation always made her too emotional. Not trusting her voice, she only nodded an honest promise.
Aamir smiled in return. "Sara needs to know that there are people with boobs too...not only hard chest," he wisecracked puffing his flat chest out.
"And you ruined it," Gail chuckled and stood up. Both Aamir and Irfan's families had abandoned them for being gay or "this way", as they preferred to call it. Besides the couple's a few friends, she was the only significant female in sweet little Sara's life and that dangerously magnified her maternal nature. But, of course, she kept that thought only to her. "As soon as I wrap up this case...okay?"
"Tough one?"
"With kids involved...it's always tough," Gail thoughtfully provided before offering a small smile and leaving for work, waving at Aamir as she walked out.
With every step Gail took, her scowl deepened. It had to. After all the stench kept amplifying the nearer she got to her desk. "Gah," she grumbled in disgust. As she kept walking, the reason of that odour revealed itself...rather himself. The man who reeked of alcohol and almost two weeks of stubbornly deposited sweat was handcuffed to a chair by her desk. His clothes, his face, his hair, everything looked shabby and disgustingly dishevelled. She grimaced in the next breath, "ugh." Draping her blazer on the back of her chair, she called out, "Diaz."
Officer Diaz came stumbling around with two coffees in his hands. One he kept at Gail's desk without asking and sipped from the other.
Gail lifted the coffee in a gesture of silent thank you. "Why is there a live distillery sitting at my desk?" She inquired before taking a sip of warm coffee that was nowhere near as good as Aamir's.
Chris smirked at the description. It was symbolically suitable. Hooking his free thumb in his utility belt, he nodded to the reeking man. "This here is Claude Queen." He replied with a grin.
Gail blinked. "Vicky Donovan's husband." After sipping once, "Where did you find him?"
"I didn't," Chris snorted. "Rookies last night got called in for a brawl at a strip club downtown. Claude has been hiding there for last two days. I picked him up from booking this morning."
"Two days?" Gail wondered aloud. "That means he was already missing when Vicky was stabbed." She sighed. So, the husband wasn't a suspect anymore which she technically knew after talking to Dr. Stewart yesterday. But still they needed him and who knows maybe his testimony could help them. Later he would be handed over to the 'Organized Crime'. "Shove as much station coffee as you can into him. Make him puke, make him hurl. I don't care. I want his statement as soon as possible," Gail instructed with polite authority.
Chris unhooked his thumb from his utility belt, nodding. "Hey man," he shook the guy who was as good as comatose and shook him again when he didn't move. After third shove, the man snorted awake blinking at his surroundings. Chris grunted as he pulled the man on to his feet and directed him to the nearest interrogation room.
Gail breathed in relief. Now with the husband and the social worker in police custody, they only had to wait for the identification of all the kids that were fostered by the Queen duo. Chloe and Dov were yet to come to station. After finishing up more than half of that bland coffee, she dumped it in the bin. Resting against her desk, she stared at the pictures and different coloured scrawls at the white board. Her staring competition with the inanimate board came to an end an hour later when she received the word from Officers Price and Epstein about getting a final list of children from the Social Welfare office. She wanted this case closed today. Picking up a folder she made her way to the lift.
The door to Detective Nash's cabin was open and Gail found herself facing another white board as she entered. Different faces of adults and children were pinned all over that board.
"Morning," Traci greeted Gail. She never said good morning as she believed that no morning would ever be good. After all every morning brought only bad news to her desk, no matter how many cases she closed.
"Morning," Gail murmured, her attention still on the white board. She perched against Traci's desk beside the senior detective and crossed her arms and ankles. "Progress?"
"Yeah," Traci assented. "Three other couples booked, they are in holding for now."
"Just three?" Gail had expected more.
"Another couple currently being interrogated...involved in murder of two kids...probably more and another couple is on the run," Traci informed. After a beat of silence and a few deep breaths she added. "Border patrol has been notified and we have also declared a countrywide BOLO. Hopefully they will be in custody soon."
"Hmm...," Gail agreed, still focused on the board.
Traci moved around her desk fumbling with different files and Gail stayed that way. "Your case...any development?" Detective Nash asked while leafing through yet another file.
"Yeah...Diaz is trying to bring the victim's husband out of alcohol induced coma." Gail provided and sighed heavily, finally moving to face her back to the haunting white board. "Chloe and Dov should be here soon from the Social Welfare office with the list of all the children and maybe with a few kids too."
"Yeah well, being that Sydney wasn't the only social worker involved in all this... that list of children is going to be a lot longer than I would like," Traci's tone was part sad part angry.
Gail didn't say anything. What was she supposed to say? That the work she did only depleted her faith in humanity every day? That she feared whatever she was doing would not be enough...ever?
"Trace?"
The dejection in the younger detective's voice prompted Traci's immediate attention. "Yeah?"
"Will it ever be enough?"
"What?"
"This...what we do or we try to do every day."
Detective Nash cleared her throat and closed the file she was distractedly perusing. Situating in her chair, she tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Moments had gone by when she opened them up to stare at the blank ceiling. The blankness of that ceiling was very similar to the emptiness she found in the depth of her mind as she searched for an answer. "Not a day goes by when I don't question it myself." She straightened and fleetingly felt cornered by the sharp, inquisitive clear blue stare directed at her. Gathering some resolve she continued, "why? For what? When will it end? I could, just like many others, be working a 9 to 5 job, you know. I would get a lot more time to spend with Leo, have a life to call my own or even begin to think of having another kid." She exhaled deeply; the heaviness inside her chest adamantly closing tighter and tighter. "But I don't know Gail...something inside me just doesn't permit me to stop...doesn't allow me to just...give up," she helplessly shrugged her shoulders, aware that her answer wasn't an answer at all. It only raised too many questions. The dissatisfaction caused by her unhelpful reply liberally floated in Gail's twin sapphires. She had to look away when it got too much to bear.
Gail knew it was unfair of her to put Traci on the spot like that. "Yeah...," she drawled. "Fucking hope, right?"
It took a second for Traci to adjust to Gail's effort to defuse the seriousness of the conversation. She snorted. "Yup...hope is a bitch."
Gail snickered along with the dark haired senior detective, delighting in knowledge that Traci wasn't feeling cornered anymore. "Are you thinking what I am thinking?" She comically flicked her brows.
"That I feel bad for every one named Hope?" They both laughed out loud at the same time not aware and blissfully uncaring of the strange looks they got from the detectives and officers passing by Traci's cabin.
Relaxed and not in a gloomy mood anymore, they both went back to talking about the case, carefully skirting away from all the gory details. Somehow, Gail didn't know exactly how, the newly appointed pathologist, Doctor Holly Stewart was mentioned.
"What about her?" Gail immediately posed the question.
"She will be working with us...on this. And she comes much recommended," Traci sounded impressed. "I asked around," she coyly added in reply to Gail's raise of an immaculate eyebrow.
"Not so lucky, that Dr. Stewart," Gail smirked.
"What? Why?"
"Being hit with all this on her first day," Gail waved exaggeratedly to the white board. "She is going to be grounded...that too with a sledgehammer." She chortled, shaking her head. A part of her felt bad for Holly but well, the brunette's luck wasn't in her control anyway.
"Not nice, Gail," Traci reprimanded the blonde although she agreed that the doctor's luck wasn't all that favourable currently. "Anyway, all I want from her is to be excellent at her job. Who knows how many skeletons we are going to unearth." Her gaze travelled all over the white board once again.
"Uh...actually I think she is quite good at her job," Gail admitted almost shyly and picked up a stray folder from Traci's desk to frown at.
"Are you saying that because she put you in your place yesterday?" Traci teased.
"What?" Gail's head snapped up to glare at the senior detective. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh don't play dumb now," Traci huffed. "I heard what happened in the lab yesterday. You better be careful with this one." Despite knowing that Gail wouldn't stir unnecessary troubles, she felt like warning the detective beforehand. Sometimes, Gail did stupid things just for the sake of pure amusement.
Gail grunted which was the best she could do to show her disagreement. It wasn't like she went on a war path with each and every pathologist. The previous one was just... he had a long stick shoved up his ass and that made him quite unbearable to Gail. "Whatever...I guess, we'll see." Her phone beeped indicating a message and unconsciously she nodded her head.
Traci noticed the subtle approving nod. "Good news?"
"Something like that," Gail locked the phone. "Chloe and Dov just arrived."
"Good."
"Yeah...I just hope I can close this case today."
"If you need anything..." Before Traci could finish, she was interrupted.
"I know," Gail smiled gratefully at Traci. Sometimes Traci's kindness made her wonder about how opposite of a personality she had in comparison to Senior Detective Traci Nash. "Thanks...I will."
"Gail?" The blonde stopped just as she was about to step out of the cabin. She knew that tone extremely well and a familiar irritation surged over her conscience that very second. "Don't Trace," she hissed without turning to face the other detective.
"How do you know what I am going to say?"
"Your tone...," Gail exhaled visibly and audibly, "it's the same when you get prepared to take the brunt for Steve."
"Talk to him," Traci pleaded like every other time.
"Not yet."
"He has apologized a hundred times, Gail."
"But I haven't heard it," Gail growled. Closing her eyes and taking a few calming breaths she said, "I need to be ready to hear it...to listen to it."
"When though?"
"I don't know yet."
Traci sighed, "okay."
"And Trace?"
"Yeah?"
"Stop being the go-between...it's infuriating."
"Sorry...I uh..," Traci kept fumbling for proper words but thankfully she was interrupted.
"Don't be," Gail's voice was soft and understanding, sympathetic to a degree. "Just...please stop trying to close up the wound before it is properly healed, okay?"
Gail's whispered request tugged at Traci's heart. Taking a few steps ahead, she lightly hugged the blonde from behind and rested her forehead on the left shoulder. "I know I should. But it's hard...not being able to do anything. I can't see both of you suffering in silence like this."
Gail inhaled sharply and closed her fingers around Traci's wrist, squeezing in understanding. "I know," nodding twice, she gently unwound those hands from her midsection. Without giving Traci a chance to reply, she briskly walked out of the cabin...feeling enraged and gloomy at the same time.
Chloe and Dov had successfully picked up three kids from the names that Sydney Wells had provided them. Upon interrogation it was clear that none of them knew about Victoria Donovan's murder and had no part in it. Each of them had a solid alibi for the time the murder took place. The other two missing kids were proving difficult to trace. For the time being the two officers were with Organized Crime Unit going over the list they had acquired from the Social Welfare office just this morning. Chris thankfully had made Claude Queen conscious enough for interrogation and Gail was getting prepared to do just that.
"Take someone with you and go look for the other two kids," Gail told Chris as she methodically folded her shirt cuffs three times and pushed them up to settle just below her elbows.
"Okay...if you are sure you don't need me here," Chris suggested. They were two officers down with Chloe and Dov gone.
"Nah...I can handle the refined distillery," Gail jested with a smile.
Chris laughed lightly and picked up the keys to his cruiser. "I will call you if I find anything, okay?"
"You do that," she picked up a pad, a pen and walked to the interrogation room where Claude was waiting to be questioned.
On the desk, there was a half finished bottle of water and three large empty coffee cups. "I see you are ready for a chat Mr. Queen," Gail greeted as she stepped inside the interrogation room.
Claude blinked a few times and merely nodded. He had been informed of the circumstances about his wife's murder and the investigation being conducted by the Organized Crime Unit.
"You know why you are here, Mr. Queen?" Gail settled opposite to the suspect and placed the pen across the pad before crossing her knees under the table.
Claude lifted his green eyes to look at the lady detective sitting in front of him. "Yeah...I know. But you can tell me again. My mind is still a little fuzzy," he sniggered and grimaced when that aggravated his headache.
Gail could the smell the leftover stench of alcohol when Claude talked but she kept her face impassive. "Your wife, Victoria Donovan-Queen was found murdered in your house. According to our investigation you have been missing for two days. Any chance you went back to the house to kill her?" She posed the unnecessary question as she needed his answer on record.
"No, I didn't," Claude replied calmly. "We had an argument three days ago...I went out...got drunk...snorted some coke...got drunk again...passed out a few times, I think and kept getting drunk and high mostly."
"Okay," Gail shoved her left hand into left pant pocket and picked up the pen with her right. "Any one in your mind who might have wanted your wife dead?"
Claude laughed out loud. "Ugh fuck," he held his head with his free right hand, trying to soothe the headache. The cuffs across his left wrist rattled against the metal chair. "A lot of people wanted Vicky dead."
"Care to give us those names?"
Claude shook his head and slumped back into his chair, catching the detective's gaze. "That won't help, you know."
"Then tell me something that will help," Gail countered calmly.
Claude remained silent. Gail sat patiently, waiting. "Vicky...the woman who was killed wasn't the woman I fell in love with."
Gail didn't say anything. If Claude needed someone to hear his life story before he got to the point, then she would do just that. Listen. "Go on."
"My Vicky was sweet, innocent, and a dreamer," Claude smiled indulgently. He knew that feeling, that purity of his love for Victoria was still buried inside him...somewhere. "When she told me she wanted us to get married...I felt like the luckiest man in the whole universe, you know?" His voice wavered slightly. "I was a high school dropout, a low life, a thug who made his main living by selling drugs here and there. But Vicky, she made me feel like a king...the captain of the universe," he laughed fondly.
"What happened to her?" Gail kept her tone professionally sympathetic. Claude's eyes snapped to her and she could see that he wasn't looking at her. He was, in a way, but still he was distant...his mind was somewhere far away.
"We used to live in a not so good neighbourhood," he sniffed and clenched his jaw. "Almost everybody made a living by doing something shitty. My stupid job didn't pay enough for the both of us...so I still was into dealing drugs." He exhaled shakily and licked his lips. "By that time I was addicted to coke...Vicky hated that. She always told me to treat it as what it was...a source of income, a job. One weekend we made a pretty descent...actually good deal of money. Three of the guys that I knew worked with us too on that delivery." His fingers began shaking and he felt the familiar need inside his veins. He closed his fingers into a tight fist before continuing. "We were celebrating...in our dingy one bedroom apartment. All five of us...Vicky was only drinking but us, the guys, we were getting high too. I vaguely remember her telling me not to snort so much but I didn't listen. I was so far gone that I didn't realize...I couldn't move, I saw everything but I couldn't move," his lips quivered and his eyes watered. He started sweating profusely and his limbs shook vigorously.
"What happened, Claude?" Gail had a feeling she knew the next part of the story.
"I...huh...I...," Claude couldn't breathe. The whole incident was so clear in his head. Those guys laughing and talking...and moving around, the forced rustle of clothes, the sound of clothes being torn apart. But the most haunting of all...he remembered so clearly, Victoria's helpless whimpers...her defeated pleads for him to save her...requesting him to get up and do something...get those men off of her. "I couldn't do anything...fuck, I was so far gone." He was openly crying and he didn't care. He lived that nightmare daily. No matter how far high into the drug induced oblivion...the nightmare still haunted him.
Gail had to blink a few times to keep her composure. She lightly cleared her throat, uncrossed and crossed her legs. "She was raped," she filled in the obvious blank.
"Gang raped," Claude's quivering voice meekly protested.
Gail offered him the water and he shakily gulped the half of it down. Nobody spoke for minutes. Claude sat sniffling and almost crunching the plastic bottle in his tight hold and Gail felt a combination of sympathy and anger for the victim.
"It left her pregnant," Claude whispered into the void.
Gail's eyes widened visibly and her whole body moved to the edge of the chair, her forearms coming to rest at the edge of the table. "Pregnant?"
Claude sighed heavily and wiped at his nose once. "She didn't abort it...I suggested her to but she didn't. She kept the baby. She drank heavily and smoked and occasionally did drugs. It was as if she wanted the foetus inside her to suffer for existing." He looked at the detective. "That was when she changed. I saw her transform into something so dangerous...I started fearing her," his eyes were in fact wide with genuine fear. "She gave birth to that kid in that apartment itself...it was a little premature, weak, and his legs were weird. I watched her take care of the little guy like a mother. She worked day and night to keep him alive but after a year she told me to give that baby away." Claude shook his head in wonder. "Back then, I didn't get it but years later when she tracked him down...I remember the sick smile on her face when she saw that nine year old boy limping toward her. It was as if she had found the reason of her misery and had planned the proper regime of punishment for him."
So there was a kid that was left out of the list they got from Sydney. Gail had a feeling that her search for the murderer was over now.
"We took him in," Claude's lips pulled at the corners in to a feeble smile. He liked that kid. "Marcus Donovan...Mark was the only kid that stayed with us for so long."
"Did he...umm did Mark know who he was?" Gail asked curiously.
"Not at first," Claude replied shaking his head sideways. "Vicky tortured him as much as she could. Inflicting physical pain was not her style. She knew those were only superficial and that time would heal them. But she knew very well that the scar tissue of an emotional trauma only swelled with time. The gaps she created in these kids' mentality...she revelled in it, took pride in it." His tone went dark and haunted. "She was a sadist...the most dangerous kind there could be."
"So when did you or Vicky tell Mark the truth?"
"Years later one day when Vicky's efforts seemed to not affect Mark's attitude, she told him the truth. She told that poor kid that he was the result of a gang rape...and that he was getting the life he deserved for being the survivor of that rape...for being brave enough to fight the odds, to live despite all that she put him through when he was just a foetus inside her. After that, Mark surrendered to her like a lamb...accepting whatever task she gave him. Taking care of the foster kids that we trained to be drug mules, keeping an eye on them, making them as perfect as he could." He laughed in amusement. "But she forgot that Mark was not like her...Three years back Sydney came to us with a wildly rebellious teenage girl...Cathy Sung. Asian little wild cat, she was," he chuckled at his description. Taking a few moments to breathe, he forced himself to relax. His hold on the bottle was not as tight and he wasn't shaking that visibly anymore.
Gail knew that name. She was one of the two missing kids they were yet to trace. If they could get their hands on Mark and Cathy, the case could be closed today itself. "What happened then?" Gail admitted to herself that she was quite curious.
"Vicky didn't see it at first but I saw how Mark favoured Cathy. I saw those two kids become each other's support system in Vicky's personal hell." His smile faltered before he went on. "When Victoria realized it, she deliberately tortured Cathy to keep Mark on his toes...unknowingly enough, it provided the required oxygen to the fire that was burning inside Mark and soon he left us."
"He just left?" Gail was confused. "And Vicky let him leave?"
"No...she didn't," Claude clenched his jaw tightly. "She knew Mark wouldn't...couldn't just leave Cathy behind like that. So she did anything and everything to make that girl's life as miserable as her own life had been." He gulped and disgust took over his features with passing seconds. "One time she even tried to convince me to do to that girl what happened to her," he faltered. "I might be many things detective, but a rapist I am not." He softly declared, fingering the label on the plastic bottle.
Gail's frown deepened and her disgust for Victoria amplified dangerously. "That's good, Claude." She offered a genuine smile to him. "You want to know something?"
"What?" Claude tentatively asked, a little rattled by the detective's soft tone. He sighed and combed his right hand fingers through his messy hair a few times. For the first time since the interrogation had began, he saw - actually saw - the detective. He wanted to smile back; after all it had been ages since such a beautiful woman had smiled kindly at him.
Gail could see the handsome man peeking out of this unkempt personality. His eyes, trained on her, were kind and expectant. She knew he was a criminal but he was a human being too. And criminals weren't born, they were made. "You, my man," she clucked her tongue twice, "are one of the most interesting suspects I have interrogated so far in my short career."
Despite not wanting to, he laughed openly; a bit shy at receiving that almost meaningless praise. "Tell me you are joking," he chuckled.
Gail saw some of the light return to his light green eyes. He really was handsome. "Actually, yeah I am joking," she smirked.
He shook his head and smiled in gratitude. Finishing up the water, he asked. "What happens now?"
Gail bent ahead and clasped her fingers on the table, over the notepad. "Now...we go look for Mark and Cathy. And you will be a prestigious guest of honour for the Organized Crime Unit," she stated sympathetically.
"Wow," Claude snorted. "Makes me feel wanted...almost."
Gail laughed lightly too. "Any idea about where to begin our search for them?" She asked hoping that Claude knew something about Mark or maybe Cathy.
"The last I knew, Mark worked as a manager in a diner...in the city." He offered as much as he knew. "Get him and Cathy will come to you automatically or if you find Cathy first he will come to you. Those two are inseparable. Good luck putting them behind bars."
"You leave that to me," Gail accepted the challenge and stood up. "Get prepared...you still have too many questions to answer."
"Honestly? I just want to get this over with," he sombrely accepted his fate. "With Vicky gone, I really don't care what becomes of my life."
Gail looked at him for a few seconds. He could have been a decent man with a loving family if only he had gotten a fair chance earlier in his life. "Hey Claude," she decided to ask the question that had been plaguing her for a few minutes now. "Why did you stay with Vicky? Why be a part of everything she did and made you do? From the looks of it, you didn't really like what she did. Was it guilt?" She hoped she wasn't rubbing salt in a gaping wound by asking that.
Claude blankly stared at Gail for a few seconds. He could feel think blanket of wetness cover his eyes. "Guilt...love...vows...didn't know how to do anything else? Take your pick, detective." He folded his right arm on the table and rested his forehead on the forearm. "I am here if you need anything else. Good talking to you," he sighed and closed his eyes. He was tired...so tired. He was happy and relieved too...thinking of Vicky's death not as a loss but as a gift for her sweet Victoria's tortured soul. Her Vicky was free to soar as high as she wanted...at last.
Gail said thank you but her words fell on deaf ears as Claude fell asleep almost instantly. She pulled out her phone and dialled the number. After two rings the call was answered. Without giving Chris a chance to say hello, she impatiently rattled off. "Stop whatever you are doing...look for one Marcus Donovan."
"Who?" Chris's confused tone was a tad high pitched for Gail's liking.
She scowled. "Just do what I tell you to do, please. Marcus Donovan...biological son of Victoria Donovan-Queen. He has some kind of birth defect in his legs or something...there has to be a medical file, Chris. Find him as soon as possible, okay?" She could only wish that Mark was ignorant enough and hadn't gone underground. That could prove to be troublesome.
She excitedly plopped down on Chris's chair and began hurriedly tapping away at the keyboard, mumbling to herself with a pleased smile, "Now Cathy Sung...where are you, my Asian little wild cat?"
So? Thoughts?
Liked it? Didn't like it?
Please let me know through reviews or comments or PMs.
Hopefully it was worth your time.
I really apologize for the mistakes you might have come across.
Next update should come in a few days.
Until next time.
Ciao.