Hey Guys,
A huge thank you to everyone that has read and reviewed so far.
There's only another two or three chapters left in this story, so thank you to everyone who has stuck with the story so far.
Chapter Twelve
He drummed his fingers against the dashboard as they sat waiting in the car, singing along to the radio in a thin, off-key voice, his watery blue eyes cutting through the sparse traffic, searching, seeking.
"Can you stop that?"
"Why?" He picked up the speed, his fingers striking harder and harder against the cheap plastic covering.
"Cos it irritates the living shit out of me." He leaned forward from the drivers seat, switching the radio off with an almost audible, angry, snap. "Christ."
"Sorry."
The driver didn't answer, settling back in his seat, resting his forehead in the palm of his hand, watching, waiting.
He started to fidget, shifting in his seat, uncomfortable in the cheap seat, the noise scraping across taut, expectant nerves like a knife across fabric.
"Cant you sit still for five fucking minutes?"
"Sorry, Paul."
Silence, filling the car. Drumming its fingers against their strained nerves. Waiting, like them, hanging around them like a shroud, filling the space in the small car like an avenging spirit, hungry and impatient.
Expectant.
Paul drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, forcing himself to stop abruptly when he felt his companion's eyes fixate on him, knowing that that familiar, smug smile would be painted across his face.
He glanced at his watch, allowing another few seconds to tick by.
Close enough.
"Time to go, Kieran."
"Now?"
"Yeah."
They got out of the car, pausing for a minute to adjust their hats and sunglasses, pulled low over their faces, shading them from the slowly setting, beautifully fragile sun.
Pausing for a minute, to check the weapons, hidden beneath the coats, as cold and icily, perfectly beautiful as a New York winter's night.
"Paul? Don't forget to bring the keys with you."
xxxXXXxxxx
"Mr Cassidy? Who…."
"McCannn…"
"Dammit!" Angell sat back, throwing her pen down against her notebook in disgust. It slid across the pages, landing with a clatter on the floor. "Sorry."
Katherine shrugged, leaning against the wall at the back of the small room, her eyes fixed on the patient. "It's okay."
"So damn frustrating." She sighed, leaning over to pick her pen up. "I'd hoped he might give us something more."
"He has suffered a fairly major trauma. This type of fixation on one person is not uncommon, given his level of injuries."
"When will he come out of it?"
"I don't know. We're doing everything we can to treat him…"
"but there's nothing definite you can tell me." Angell watched the battered man in the hospital bed, his breath wheezing, wincing, chewing on her lip as she thought. "He's an old man. Why would the McCann's want to beat an old man like that."
Katherine's sigh was soft, defeated, a whisper lost in the cold night. "Sometimes it's better not to ask."
xxxXXXxxx
"So where are you with the case?"
"Nowhere." Mac took a long drink of the bitter, turgid coffee, grimacing at the taste. "Steele is backtracking, trying to put the fires out, but its too late."
"Has the Judge thrown the case out yet?"
"Not yet, but he will." Mac shook his head, gulping down another mouthful of the coffee. "We don't have enough to nail that sonofabitch and this whole mess with Sean O'Neill…"
"How's Jim doing?"
"Not good."
xxxXXXxxx
"bout time you guys got here."
Danny grimaced, ducking under the police tape. He ran his hand through his short hair, looking about the carnage in the bar, the scattered, spent shells, the spilt liquor, smashed glasses and bottles.
"Déjà vu, huh?"
"Tell me about it." He smiled wryly, setting his case down on the floor, snapping his gloves on. "You wanna take a bet who owns this place?"
Hawkes glanced about it, moving carefully through the wreckage, his footsteps light and careful. "I'll give you good odds on Tommy Cassidy."
"Coincidence?"
"How long have you worked for Mac?." Hawkes glanced back over his shoulder, almost smiling. "There's no such thing as coincidence."
"Detectives!"
A young uniform stood just on the other side of the tape, hovering like a ghost, a notebook clutched in his hand like an anchor. His face was white, slicked with sweat, his eyes too large and bright.
"You on the canvass?" Danny walked carefully across the bar room floor, his small pen torch shining into the shadowed corners, spent shells and fallen quarters gleaming as the light brushed over them.
"Yes, sir."
"You get anything?"
The uniform swallowed hard, tearing his eyes from the CSIs, hastily reading from the scribbled, scrawled notes in his notebook. "Witnesses said they saw two men fleeing the premises. We got one woman who says she saw them throw 'a couple of guns' into the trash outside."
Danny glanced over at Hawkes. "You wanna toss a coin for dumpster diving?"
xxxXXXxxx
The room was too small, too quiet for all of them.
Silent, but for the sound of their breathing, their nervous, uncomfortable movements.
Silent, but for the sound of the machine, helping Nick Potter to breath.
Silent.
"This wouldn't have happened if he had come to work for me. At the family firm. Like he was supposed to do when he finished law school. Like he should have done." James Potter's eyes fixed on Jim, spoiling, eager for the one fight in the room he thought he could win.
"This isn't the time or place, James." Mrs. Potter raised tired, grief stricken eyes to her husband, darting between him and her son, seeking to reassure herself that he was still clinging to life. "Please, let it go."
"Like Hell I will. He should never have been there."
His anger was hot, burning, after the brooding chill of the silence.
"Don't you think I would change this if I could, Mr Potter?"
"This is your fault, Steele. Your fault. You put him there. You left him there. You put my boy there and he got…."
He seemed to splinter in front of Jim's eyes, great wracking sobs tearing through his body, robbing him of his strength, his bluster. His wife, reaching for him, drawing him close to her, the Potter family huddled around their son's bedside.
Jim slipped out of the room, closing the door softly, gently after him. He sighed, rubbing at his eyes, feeling them sting and burn beneath that hesitant touch. His fingers itching, craving a cigarette, a drink.
"I want to try cases."
"Are you here to quit or to work"
"I'm here to work."
James Potter was right. It was his fault.
It should have been him.
xxxXXXxxx
"I've got this all figured out."
"Have you now?" Don closed the door after him, sitting down opposite Tommy Cassidy, leaning back in his chair to study him over the rim of a Styrofoam coffee cup.
"Yeah." The Auld Man leaned forward, blinking owlishly through his glasses, smiling conspiratorially at Don. "It was that slimy bastard Sean O'Neill, wasn't it?"
"What was?"
"That gave me up." He leaned back, wincing in the uncomfortable seat, still smiling to himself. "Come on Don, you can tell me. Humour an old man."
"How's Declan doing?"
The smile disappeared in an instant, a heartbeat. "Why would you ask me about Declan, Don? You know that broke his mother's heart."
"With Declan on the inside, you reach out to anyone, Tommy? Bring in a little help, see if that could get Declan home?"
"I knew your mother, Don. I knew your father too. I remember you when you were just a kid, playing baseball in the alley. You were a little rogue in those days."
"Did you order the hit on…."
"How is your mother, Don? That pretty little red head doctor? I heard things got all messed up between you a few months back."
"Leave them out of this, Tommy."
"So you can come after my family, but yours is off limits?" The Auld Man laughed, wheezing and wet, cold and cruel. "I think its time you grew up, Don, and realised this isn't baseball anymore."
They stared at each other across the table, blue eyes clashing together like storm clouds.
"I think I want my phone call now, Don."
xxxXXXxxx
"What have you got for me, Lindsay?"
"Nothing yet, Mac. There's no hit in…"
"Dammit! We need something. Otherwise this case is going to fall down around us."
"I know, Mac. I'm doing the best I can. But there's just nothing here. I cant make the evidence go somewhere it doesn't."
Her voice trailed off and she looked back at the pitiful pile of accumulated evidence. She knew where that train of thought laid, what price it could lead to.
"Keep working."
xxxXXXxxxx
"Christ, I hate this." Danny sighed, planting his hands on his hips, looking around the deserted streets. Anything to delay having to go rooting through the garbage….
Deserted streets, but for…
"Officer, what's that car doing here?"
"We couldn't find any owner for it." The uniform shrugged. "We went door to door and no-one seemed to know who owned it.
"You couldn't find an owner for it." Garbage forgotten, Danny started to walk towards it, his excitement growing, building. This is was it, this was their car. He could feel it in his blood. "Go get Hawkes, tell him I've got something out here."
"Yes, Detective."
He circled the car carefully, forcing himself to stay calm, reluctant to touch it, just in case it was their car and he ruined any prints they may have left.
Careful. Slow. He couldn't afford any mistakes
He tried the door, slowly, carefully, pulling against the frame.
Nothing. No give.
"Shit."
He dropped to his knees, running his hand across the ground, searching for a dropped key. Maybe they just might get lucky….
Green light reflected against his glasses.
He looked up, staring at the flashing numbers, counting down slowly, ominously.
"Oh shit."
End of Chapter Twelve
