Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
A/N: Okay, that was funny! So many of you went from threatening my life to accusing me of trying to kill you! I hope this chapter makes you feel better.
I have to shout out to marialisa who posted the 900th and the 1000th reviews for this story! That is amazing and you are all wonderful (even the ones who are still threatening me). I am speechless at how generous you have all been with your time and responses (well, you'd be shocked if I was really speechless, wouldn't you?)
Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY; all song lyrics are from The Beatles.
It's A Long Journey Home
Chapter 60: Showdown
Rocky burst in and grinning a grin
He said Danny boy this is a showdown
But Daniel was hot, he drew first and shot
And Rocky collapsed in the corner
Lindsay swallowed the scream that tore at her throat, dropped to the floor, and scrambled away from the windows.
Her mind went completely blank, but her body reacted in predictable patterns. By the time the door swung open, she was huddled in the chair in the corner of the room, tears streaming down her face. She turned her face to the intruder and spoke in a deadened voice.
"It was you. Ross Adams. Why? Why all this now?"
"Why Danny?" her heart moaned.
He eased into the room, eyes checking out the space, and stepped nearer the stove. "Warm. Very cozy." He kicked the woodpile Danny had built up, and Lindsay jumped at the sound.
She wanted to shout at him not to touch it, but that was foolish. It was too late. She'd seen the blood, heard the shot. McKim had been right, she thought, as the darkness threatened to fill her eyes. Danny had ended up like Cam. Just like Cam.
"What do you want now? Haven't you done everything you could to ruin my life?" That was better. Her voice sounded a little stronger as the rage began to stir.
"What the fuck are you talking about? I saved your ass. I knocked you out so Justin wouldn't shoot you. If I hadn't, you'd have been dead just like the rest of the assholes." Ross moved into the room all the way, unzipping his snowsuit against the warmth in the room. He'd left the door open though, and Lindsay, caught in the draft, was beginning to shiver.
"Why did you do it, Ross? I get why Justin did – to pay us back for keeping him off the Science Team. It was a sick and fucked up reason, but at least he stood up. At least he tried to explain it. What about you? Thirteen years you hid behind his wheelchair? A wheelchair you put him in?" Lindsay said, scornfully.
In her head, she could hear Danny, "Go slow, Montana. Take it easy. You want him to talk. You want to draw him out. Someone's on their way; you can feel them. Just keep him talking." She sobbed once at the sound. Danny. His blood on the snow. If he had just listened to her in the diner, just, for once, done what she told him…
Ross held his rifle loosely by his side, but Lindsay was under no illusions that she was safe. She had hung around target practice enough to know how fast a trained marksman could get into position when he had to, and Ross was a more than competent marksman. He walked over to the couch and sat down heavily.
"Don't talk about him like that. You don't get to talk about Justin."
She stared into his eyes, sitting at a slight angle to him, still curled up in the chair. "What else do we have to talk about?" she said, in an exhausted voice. "If you wanted to kill me without explaining yourself, you'd have done it by now."
"I don't have to tell you a thing, bitch." His voice, which should have been hard and angry, sounded uncertain, a little boy aping a man, pretending to be an adult.
"A dangerous and unstable little boy," Danny's voice counseled.
"No, you don't. You could just shoot me. Like you tried to before. It was you, wasn't it? In the field?" She moved ever so slightly, and stared into his eyes again.
He stared back, and said defensively, "It was dark. I wasn't ready. You'd gone out slow; I wasn't expecting you to race back. McKim said always aim ahead of a moving target." He narrowed his glare, looking tough, like a little kid sulking after being reprimanded by a teacher.
"McKim? John McKim trained you?" Lindsay almost laughed; that was irony for you. Danny had been sure McKim was involved – turned out in a weird and twisted way, he may have been right.
She nearly broke down at the thought that she would never hear him say "I told you so."
"He spoke to the Biathlon Team in the fall. He could have gone to the Olympics, you know. He was ranked number four in the world," Ross's eyes lit now with a disciple's glow. "He was that good. Then he got injured and couldn't compete. But he did something with it. The army recruited him. He was in the Middle East. He was Special Ops. He was a sniper and was after some of the biggest targets. When he came home, he did workshops and training sessions with us."
Grey eyes, with a black line around the iris. She knew those eyes; they had haunted her dreams for thirteen years.
She thought in dismay, "I saw him. I saw him. If I had just put it together then, if I had just told them then, Danny would be safe in New York. I'd be in New York. I did this. I killed Danny. Just like John said I would."
In spite of the agony whirling through her brain, Lindsay did not break eye contact for a moment with Ross. She was pretty sure Mac's supposition was right; Ross would have trouble shooting her in cold blood if he could see her eyes.
Of course, that didn't mean he wouldn't do it.
Lindsay took a deep steadying breath and started again. "How did you know Forbes?"
Ross startled, then sat back, his rifle now held across his knees. "We were friends."
"I never saw you." Big mistake, Lindsay realized, as his hands tightened on the rifle butt.
"No one ever saw me. I made sure of that."
"How come? Why didn't you want to be seen?"
"Come on," Lindsay urged him silently, "You know you want to tell me."
"Not safe." Ross continued to glance around the room, as if continually on watch for danger.
"Who wasn't safe? Ross, did someone hurt you?" As if she cared, her brain continued the conversation without her. As if his unhappy childhood made this heinous behaviour all right.
"Give him a chance," Danny's voice counseled. "You don't know what weapon he'll hand you to use. Keep it slow, and don't look away."
"Justin listened. He was my friend. The rest of you. You never saw me. You never looked at me at all." His voice was rising now, a little higher, a little louder.
"We should have seen you. We should have paid attention."
"We should have had you strangled at birth, you maggot," her brain commented.
"Justin wanted to be with me. He talked to me. He told me how fucked up people were, that he wanted to make them pay. We planned it, for hours and hours some days. Every step of the way, every detail. We stole the plans for the security system, to get into the lab. That was easy; the Captain practically gave them to me. All I had to do was tell him I wanted to be just like him when I grew up." His eyes were rolling in his head now, his voice rising and falling as the story fought its way out of him.
The final piece fell into place. She remembered her parents talking about Aaron Graham marrying poor Alicia Adams, whose first husband had mysteriously died in a hunting accident. He was a bad man: an abusive drunkard who had provided a fund of shocking and tantalizing gossip over the years. Graham hadn't wasted much time, people said, marrying Alicia only six months after Rick Adams had been planted in the local cemetery.
Speculation ran high that the hunting accident had been more act of man than act of God but, with the sheriff stepping into the family so quickly, speculation had remained just that.
"Ross, what was your Dad like?" Lindsay's voice was quiet, calm.
"Go ahead, take the risk. He's gong to kill you anyway," her brain hissed.
Ross leapt to his feet, the rifle held more tightly in his hands. "No, no, no, no, I'm not going to talk about him. He's gone. He's not coming back. He went away and he didn't come back."
"Why not? Why didn't he come back?"
"Is there something here I can use?" she thought.
"He went out with a gun and he didn't come back." Ross spoke firmly, as if he had said the same thing many, many times.
Lindsay recognized the tone of voice: Speak firmly, be sure, don't add anything, don't change your statement.
She said slowly, "Ross, did you have to testify? At the inquest on your father? Did you get up on the stand?"
"Million dollar question," Danny's voice joined the conversation in her head. "Did you kill your father, or did the sheriff?"
Ross stood almost at attention, and repeated, "He went out with a gun and he didn't come back."
"And before that? He used to hurt you, you and your mom?"
Ross turned away, still straight and stiff, "He taught me. He taught me to be a man, to be strong, to hunt."
And that, thought Lindsay, is why I won't have any choice. She adjusted her weight in the chair.
"Why did you shoot Justin, Ross?" she still spoke softly, moving her hand slightly, but never taking her eyes off Ross's face.
"I had to. It was the plan. He was going to kill you all, make you pay. Then when we got there, he wasn't going to do it. He was going to chicken out, so I had to show him. I had to kill that girl; he wouldn't do it. He was afraid of the blood. You can't be afraid of blood if you are going to kill things." Ross sounded very logical as he explained his decision.
"So I shot her, and then Justin shot the other one, the bitch who was running. That guy she was with, he ran too. We took him down together. Then Cameron. He never looked at me either. He was just worried about you. Justin did that. He shot him, and I hit you." His face was calm, although his eyes were still jittery, like a crack addict's. Lindsay eased back in the chair again.
"He was supposed to shoot two, and I'd shoot two. We were supposed to share. But then he shot that guy too. It wasn't fair. I was going to kill you, make up for it, but Justin said, 'Don't.' I don't know why, but he didn't want you dead. Or he didn't want me to kill you. So I just hit you."
He breathed in, a long slow breath, "He wanted the cops to kill him. He said that was how a hero went out: in a blaze of glory. But I could tell they weren't going to kill him. They aimed for his arms and legs, not for the core."
Ross looked at her seriously, "You have to aim for the head or chest, or you miss the kill shot."
"But you didn't. You hit him in the back, severed his spine. You left him paralysed, Ross. Not a hero. Just a murderer in a wheelchair."
Ross said simply, "He shouldn't have shot that other guy. He should have let me shoot you."
He sat down again with a sigh. "And you should have stayed away. Why did you come back? You started this whole thing again."
They sat a moment in silence. Lindsay could feel a thrumming in her blood, one that seemed to come through the chair from the floor.
"Keep him talking," Danny's voice counseled her.
"Your stepfather, Ross? Did he know? Did he see you?"
"The Captain? Why? He sent me away, did you know that? He sent me to my aunt in Billings."
Lindsay put her hand over her mouth to hold back her scream of rage, "He was trying to save you. He knew. He knew. How could he do that? How could he just let you go?"
The words came out in a whisper. The thrumming grew louder; she could feel it in her chest cavity now. Her ears were ringing with it.
Ross raised the gun. "He didn't know. It's not true. He took my mother. He sent me away. Don't talk any more. You don't know what you're talking about. Shut up. Just shut up." His voice took on a hysterical pitch, and the rifle was firmly pointed at her head.
Lindsay closed her eyes. Time was up. No one had come. She had been so sure someone would come.
"Danny," she thought. "I'm so sorry."