Author's Notes: Big hugs to everyone reading this story and enjoying it and feeling for Courtney. Of course, I'm always grateful to my beta, PhDelicious, for her help, but she was especially great with this chapter, taking the time to go over it with me almost line by line.
Warning! There are minor spoilers in this chapter for 7x02.
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Courtney Wallace
by Kristen Elizabeth
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My mom never drank while I was alive. It was one of the bad habits she gave up when she became pregnant with me. My dad was the other. Not ever having a father isn't as bad as you might think. It's like if you were born blind. You wouldn't ever know what you were missing.
So, the woman who saw me get into my killer's car was the first drunk person I ever saw, except on TV. By the time Gil and Sara sat down to talk to her, she wasn't even all that drunk anymore. I kind of would have liked to have seen her when she was. Kids at my school talked about getting drunk all the time, but I never even had a sip of wine. Even at church it was just grape juice.
"Judy Jones?" Sara had a cup of coffee with her when she and Gil went into the room at the police station. "Triple sugar, double cream. Just like you wanted."
The woman's eyes couldn't seem to focus on Sara. They were really red and she kept blinking them. Her hands were shaking when she took the coffee. She didn't say 'thank you.'
Gil let Sara do most of the talking. He did that a lot, I noticed, when they were interviewing suspects or even just talking to Greg and the others. Sometimes he'd just sit back and watch her talk. I guess that's what happens when you really like someone. Anything they do is interesting.
"So, Judy," Sara started. "Tell us what you saw at the McDonald's."
I guess I always figured that if you knew something about a crime, you just told the police. 'Cause it was the right thing to do. When Captain Brass said there was someone who'd seen me the day I was killed, I was so happy because it was like there was finally someone who could talk for me. She was going to describe my killer and my killer's car, and Gil and Sara would solve my murder.
I never even thought that it wouldn't be that easy.
"McDonald's?" Judy said, like she'd never heard of one.
Maybe she just didn't remember. Maybe she was still drunk. I crossed my fingers really tightly.
"You told Captain Brass that you saw Courtney Wallace on the day she disappeared. You said she got into a car at the McDonald's on Bellevue. Do you remember?" Sara was using her slow voice, making sure Judy got every word.
"McDonald's has pancakes," Judy blurted out.
She wasn't still drunk. She was just hungry and wanted food. And she wasn't going to tell them anything until they got it for her. This probably should have made me feel sorry for her. But it didn't. It just made me mad.
And I think it make Sara mad, too. She looked at Gil. He lowered his eyelids, and I think that meant something to Sara because she looked at the guard who was standing by the door. "Can we get some pancakes for Judy, Officer?"
"And sausage!" Judy added. She was smiling. I told myself that she had no idea I was standing behind Gil and Sara, watching all of this. Maybe she would have been more helpful if she'd known.
But maybe not.
"While we're waiting, can you tell us about Courtney Wallace?" Sara had my file with her. She opened it up to a big copy of my school picture. "She was fourteen. She probably liked pancakes, too."
I loved them. And I really liked that Sara knew that.
Judy looked at my picture. "I saw her. She got into a car."
"What kind of a car?"
"White," Judy said.
"Do you remember anything else about it? Was it big or little?"
Judy didn't smell very good, and it got a lot worse when she lifted her arms up and started scratching her head. Gil and Sara didn't seem to notice. Or maybe they'd just smelled too many dead bodies to be bothered by it. "Little," she said. "One of those Jap toys. Four doors."
"That's really good, Judy." Sara looked to make sure Gil was writing it all down. "Anything else?"
Judy tipped her head back to drink the rest of her coffee. "Nope."
I guess it was stupid to hope she'd noticed the license plate number or the dent on the side door. But maybe she had, and she was just trying to get lunch, too.
"What about the driver?" Sara asked. "Did you see him?"
"Kind of."
Sara looked like she really wanted to stop being so nice to Judy. And I think Gil knew it because under the table, he squeezed her knee. She took a deep breath and went on. "Just tell us what you can remember about him."
"He was white."
Sara's eyes got kind of narrow. "How close were you to the car?"
"Not very."
Gil was really squeezing her knee now. "Could you see enough of his face to describe it to an artist?" she asked, getting louder with each word.
"Nope."
"Okay, I've tried to be nice." Sara leaned forward. "A young girl was raped and murdered. You are the only person who saw the man who did it. Now I want to know everything. Every detail. And I don't want to have to keep pulling it out of you! So if you want your damn pancakes, you'll start talking!"
It was cool seeing Sara get mad over me. It felt like being hugged.
Judy looked really surprised at first. And then she glared at Sara. But I think she finally figured out that Sara wasn't joking.
"He'd be old to you." She pointed at Sara. "Not to you." She pointed at Gil. "He had glasses. He didn't have to grab her. She got in on her own. Stupid kid."
That wasn't fair! My killer wasn't a stranger, and they only ever tell you not to go with strangers. I really wanted Sara to get mad at her again. I think Gil thought she was going to, because he kind of took over. "Anything else?"
"I was on the other side of the parking lot. They keep the dumpsters there. That's all I saw." Gil didn't blink as he stared at her. He can have a pretty mean stare when he wants to, the kind that makes you squirm in your seat. "I swear!" She bit her thumbnail.
I didn't like it when he stared like that, even though it worked. It made me remember things I didn't want to remember. I stood closer to Sara until Gil went back to looking like Gil. Until I stopped hearing my killer grunt my name in my ear.
"Okay, Judy," Gil said very quietly. "Stay put. Your breakfast will be here soon." He stood up and waited for Sara to stand, too.
I followed them out into the hallway.
"I know," Sara said before Gil could say anything. "I lost my cool. I just hate when they hold out for food."
"People who live on the streets are in perpetual survival mode, Sara. You can't blame someone who eats out of a dumpster for being opportunistic." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Besides, we didn't leave empty-handed."
She nodded. "A white sedan. Japanese make. I'll cross-reference the DMV database for male drivers over age 40."
"Judy said Courtney seemed comfortable with the man in the car. Maybe we should start looking around her neighborhood."
I wish they could have heard me. It would have saved them a lot of time.
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Gil and Sara weren't always working on my case. They had lots of cases from before I was murdered, and a lot more that happened afterwards. It's not that I wasn't interested in seeing them try to solve other people's murders, but most of the time when they weren't working on my case, I would go hang out with my mom, who I thought was starting to do a little bit better.
I don't know if any of the other people who were murdered stayed with Gil and Sara while they worked. I never saw anybody else. I don't think ghosts, if that's what I am, can see each other any more than living people can see them.
And if there's a heaven or a hell or something like that, no one was showing up to tell me about it.
I didn't go to my killer's very often. But one time when I went, my clothes weren't lying on the bed anymore; they were in a box underneath it. For five whole weeks, ever since I was murdered, just my picture had hung on the wall. Now, there was another picture hanging beside it, another girl who kind of looked like me. I think she's next, but I can't warn her. And I can't tell Sara she's in danger.
After seeing the picture, I went back to Sara. It wasn't that I felt safer when I was with her, because I knew nothing could actually hurt me anymore. I just liked being around her.
She wasn't with Gil that day. She was with Catherine at a restaurant having lunch. I guess they were better friends than I thought. Maybe they just didn't like to talk at work, which was the only place I'd ever seen Catherine. She was pretty, too, but in a different way than Sara. If you saw Catherine, right away you'd know she was pretty. You could look at Sara for a long time and not get that she was beautiful. But when it finally hit you, it was like you couldn't believe you didn't get it all along.
I sat next to Sara in the booth while they ate and talked about some work stuff. I guess they'd worked together on a case a long time ago, and the killer they'd caught was finally going to have a trial. I kinda got the feeling that they didn't like talking about this case, but they couldn't really get out of it.
"I don't even know why I'm on the witness list," Sara said. "I wasn't an active part of the investigation."
Catherine shrugged. "You IDed Svetlana. You were present at Melton's initial interview."
"Yeah, but I wasn't around for anything else after that, was I?" They looked at each other. "Well," Sara said. "Water under the bridge, right?"
"Right." They'd both ordered salads, but only Sara was actually eating hers. My mom does the same thing. She orders one because she thinks it's healthier. But she'd rather have a burger. Catherine was poking at her lunch with her fork. "I was just thinking the other day...as horrible as the kidnapping was, in a lot of ways, it solved problems that maybe we didn't even acknowledge existed."
Sara nodded. "I think it did. It made everything…clearer."
I wanted to know more about the kidnapping. Was it another kid like me? But they didn't say anything else about it.
Catherine gave up on her salad and just drank her iced tea. "I wish they all ended like that. I hear you have a rough one right now. The Wallace case?"
I sat up a little straighter, like I always did when someone started talking about me.
"Courtney," Sara said. "I just keep wondering…did she realize in that spilt second before death that she'd never get to do all the things you're supposed to be able to do after fourteen?" Sara had stopped eating, and was just staring at her food. "And I will never understand how someone could look at that beautiful girl…and want to destroy her."
I put my head on Sara's shoulder, but she didn't feel it.
"I get to be a little more selfish," Catherine said. "I just thank god it wasn't Lindsey. But it so easily could have been."
"How is she doing?" Sara asked. Her voice got a little softer.
"She has nightmares. I got her in to see a counselor. Best in Vegas. "
"Expensive."
"Sam was generous even in death." Catherine cleared her throat, like people do when they're tired of talking about something.
Sara must have noticed because she changed the subject. "We're closing in on a suspect. We've got about a hundred possible matches from the DMV. We're going through them one by one." Sara stabbed her salad with her fork. "Some cases you can leave at the lab. This one goes home with me."
I don't think I've ever been quite as happy I was when I heard that. At least not since I'd died.
"It happens." Catherine looked at her lunch. Not a lot of it was gone. "I don't know how you can eat this bunny feed." She caught the waitress as she passed by. "Can I get a hamburger? Medium. With onions." She looked at Sara who was trying not to smile. "Yeah, yeah, what can I say? I'm weak."
"That…" Sara said, "…is not a word I'd ever use to describe you, Cath."
Catherine did this tossing thing with her hair. "No one would dare."
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After lunch, I got into Sara's car with her. I thought she was going home, and I figured that if she didn't mind me going with her, I actually would. But she didn't go home. She went to Gil's house.
I followed her up the steps and waited while she looked through her key ring until she found right one. She opened the door and went inside. I went with her. I don't really know why.
Gil was lying on his couch. He must have fallen asleep reading because he had a book lying across his chest. Sara walked over and carefully picked it up and put it on the coffee table. It still woke him up.
He tried to say something, but she put her fingers on his mouth, then bent down and kissed him.
What Sara had said earlier about never getting to do all the stuff you get to do when you're older…I don't think I realized it when I died. I realized it right then. They were kissing, and she was trying to get out of her shirt, and I just thought…that won't ever happen to me. No one's ever going to love me like that.
My killer didn't love me. My killer just wanted to hurt me. There's a big difference, and I get that now. What Gil and Sara were doing…it wasn't going to hurt her. And for just a second, I really wanted to be her. Just to see what it would be like when you wanted it. When someone didn't force it on you.
I left because it was the nice thing to do. I went back to my house. My mom was unloading groceries. She'd bought a couple bottles of wine.
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To Be Continued
