Electricity

By LMR

Disclaimer: The One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater stole CI and then dropped it on my head. I decided to keep it.

A.N.: Happiness is a kitten (check), raspberry hot cocoa (check), a new chapter of "All About Him" (check!), and Best Beta In The World, aka guitar73girl (check!). Extra thanks this week for pointing out some serious "duh" moments. If there are any bonehead mistakes in this chappie, it's almost certainly in the parts I fixed up after she had a look at it.

A.N. 2: Oh, so many reviews! You tolerate me! You really tolerate me!

Chapter 15: Confessions (but unfortunately not the confessions we all want)

xXx

After a brief discussion of their devious plot, Eames brought an audio tape player into the observation room, getting quizzical looks from Deakins and Carver. If she noticed, it didn't show. On the other side of the mirror, her partner entered the room where Simmons was waiting. He sat down and started shuffling through the paperwork he'd carried in, looking hurried and doing the class-act bumbling she admired so much. How does the smartest man in the state manage to look like such a convincing buffoon?, she wondered, somewhat proud. The door to the interrogation room opened and a nameless, unimportant officer wheeled a TV into the room, giving Goren a questioning look. "Yeah, that's fine, right over there," the detective gestured to the corner. He turned his attention back to Drake. "Okay, looks like you can get out of here."

"Finally! I told you everything a million times," he insisted.

Goren regarded him with a measure of annoyance. "We're letting you out of here without an obstruction or accessory after the fact charge, you might not want to get too short with us. You, you know, revise your statement to tell the truth, and we let you go. I think that's more than fair."

"But I already-"

"Oh, drop the act!" he said loudly, feigning impatience. "Look, Nicholson already confessed, so you can cut the crap, okay? It doesn't matter anymore."

Simmons scowled. "Nice try, Detective. You really think I'm going to fall for that?"

Goren shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me. Believe me, don't believe me, it's done." He gave the suspect only half his attention, preoccupied with nonexistent, more important things. If you could just sign here and here," he indicated a couple lines on the paperwork. The paper was, in fact, the donation form for the annual police auction. Simmons would have, had he signed, agreed to donate two dozen ceramic cat figurines to the cause. Fortunately, no one ever reads the fine print, and Drake was no exception. He tapped the paper with his pen, still not ready to cave. Goren spared a look at Drake. "You wanna see it?"

"What?" Drake wondered wearily, massaging his temples.

"The confession. I mean, you're lying for her, you should at least see- I mean, Iskra was your fiancée, after all. You really should..." Goren examined his target for signs of an imminent cave-in. Eames too could tell it wasn't far off.

Drake just shrugged at the offer as if to dismiss it, but both Goren and his partner could see the curiosity in Simmons's eyes.

"You know you want to." Goren sounded like a kid offering a cigarette to a peer (which is Very Bad. "I mean, that's why I brought this in here." He gestured to the TV in the corner. He held up a DVD that had been stashed in the paperwork, letting it glint temptingly in the light. Goren put it in the player, and blocked Drake's view as he turned the volume all the way down.

Eames gestured for quiet from Carver and her one and only Captain. (Oh yes, I did.) With the perfect, almost supernatural synchronicity the detectives were known for, Eames reversed the feed of the sound system between the observation room and the cold cement space her partner was so artfully dominating. She clicked the tape player on.

Goren's own voice came out of the speaker.

"So you admit that you killed Iskra Kent?" She reversed the feed again and clicked the player off.

"Yes I did," the woman on the screen insisted as Goren upped the volume. "And I don't regret it. Why should I have cared about her? She was pathetic. She didn't deserve him!"

Drake's face had gone a sickly shade of gray. "Foul, vicious, evil little-" he hissed. "She told me she'd been talking to Iskra, that they'd been alone. That if I just said she'd been with me, they would leave her alone. Told me she looked guilty." He let out a snort of unfunny laughter. He started to sob. "I loved Iskra. I wasn't good to her, I admit, but I loved her. It's my fault."

"No, it's not," Goren said softly, pushing down his aversion to the two-timer. Cheaters made him sick. "There's only one person to blame, and she's sitting in that room over there." He pointed to the observation room, and on the other side of that, the other blank interrogation room where Audra was sitting. He pushed a legal pad toward Drake. "You'll need to revise your statement."

xXx

Questions to be answered:

Will Drake revise his statement?

Is Audra really the killer?

Does anyone care?

If you don't tell us what's in the gift bag, we will cut you.