A/N For some reason when I loaded Chapter 14 it didn't move up the list. So, if by some chance, you are reading this and don't have an alert please make sure you check you have read the previous chapter. That'll learn me to update 2 chapters in 2 days!!
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The door shut without a sound behind them. Megan stood awkwardly in front of the purple sofa which had faded from the sun shining through the adjacent window onto it. Don's face displayed a slight twinge of trepidation, which did not go unnoticed by Megan.
Sophie stood by the front door staring at the two agents. Something seemed strange about her manner to Megan but she couldn't put her finger on it. Certainly there was blame emanating from Sophie but they were FBI agents, they weren't exactly going to be welcomed into the home. Still, Sophie didn't exactly convey the image of a grieving widow, there was something more to the anger that she was radiating.
"I know this is difficult," Megan began before gesturing towards the sofa as a means of asking if she could sit down. Sophie barely managed a nod, she seemed distracted by Don. "We were wondering if you had any additional information about where Marcus may have been that night. Anything that's come to mind since. Agent Eppes…well we, believe that perhaps Marcus was…" Megan searched her internal thesaurus for a less attacking word than 'involved'.
It wasn't coming easy and Don interjected. "Affected. Sometimes when…this job isn't easy. A case like this, it can surprise us just how differently we react as agents. Perhaps Marcus was acting a little different to normal. I mean he'd lost a work colleague. Nothing about this case was going to be normal for him after that."
Sophie cocked her head in surprise at Don's comment. She considered what the agents were saying and she hid her disbelief perfectly. When she saw the car pull up she was certain they'd worked something out but here they were as useless as ever, clutching at wrong threads. She'd lost everything, she had nothing left to lose. Perhaps these agents could help her out with a swan song.
"Are you seriously telling me you came round here to accuse Marcus of this?" Sophie marched across the room and sat down at a desk, half facing her interrogators.
Don sat down on the sofa and looked across to Megan. Nothing was coming to him. He had carefully scanned the room when he'd entered and lingered on photos of Marcus but nothing was causing the cogs in his brain to turn. Don began to think he had dreamt of the vision of Marcus. PTSD…great, Bradford gets richer.
Megan stood up to face Sophie better. "We aren't accusing anyone of anything. We just need some answers and everything keeps leading us back here."
"Ever wondered why?" At that moment Sophie slid open the drawer of the desk and pulled out a gun. She aimed and fired at Megan's right shoulder, the bullet finding its target effortlessly. Call it instinct but Don span round the instant he heard the drawer open. Don reached for Sophie and he made contact, only not the kind he wanted. The butt end of the glock, still warm from the heat of firing, crunched against Don's skull. The impact broke open the stitches covering the old wound. Don almost laughed when, for a split second, he realized he remembered something – this felt familiar.
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A slam of the phone gave the rest of the team a clue that Liz was mad. Her face confirmed it. "Nobody checked?"
David moved in to calm the situation. "You're gonna end up blaming one of us or yourself and I don't like the idea of any of those scenarios."
"David, nobody checked!"
"We had no reason to. Besides, we were running at a half crew. Mistakes were going to happen. We had priorities, this wasn't one of them. Hindsight's a bitch."
Any other day and Liz may have smiled, but not today. She had just phoned Sophie Field's mother's nursing home. Sophie Field hadn't visited in the last month. In fact they were kind of worried as to whether she was alright herself. It was all Liz could do not to spit venom at the chirpy nurse.
Thankfully Charlie had moved out to the cubicles with Colby; David wasn't sure who needed whose help more at this point. Charlie was terrified. He'd done what he promised, solved Don's crime but in doing so had discovered his brother had walked straight back in to harm's way. Just what he didn't want, and with another agent, a friend.
David looked away from Charlie and back to Liz. "You think we can get a warrant in time?"
"Do I care?"
With that Liz barged out of the war room. David followed her as she made her way across to Colby. He was on the phone but it didn't sound like he was talking to Megan like he was supposed to.
"Megan's cell's off. Same with Don. He's trying the closest police department." Charlie was frustrated and displaying some of the same tell tale signs Don displayed when unable to do what he wanted, or needed.
At that moment Colby's eyes widened in surprise and he looked up at his team. He finished his conversation as quick as he could. "That's LAPD. Gunshot reported at Stoke St…"
"Sophie Field?" Liz had no time for details.
Colby looked up at Liz, then Charlie. "They're on their way."
"And so are we." David pulled the keys and his flak jacket from his desk. Liz and Charlie followed suit. "Sorry Charlie. No can do. This isn't a crime scene, it's a potential hostage situation." I hope…the alternative was too difficult to contemplate at the moment and David needed to focus.
"It's my brother." Charlie stood his ground, he didn't do all this to save his brother only to fall at the last leg.
"Charlie I can't." David had already begun moving to the elevators, time was wasting.
"You'll need me."
"I need you alive. Alive for when your brother chews me out for listening to you in the first place. You have to stay here, Colby is our ground support, that's what you do best."
And with that Liz and David disappeared behind the elevator doors. Charlie turned around horrified and looked at Colby back in the cubicles. He was on the phone to someone else, his attention diverted. Charlie pressed the button and waited, bobbing up and down impatiently as time seemed to stretch, every second an extra chance that Colby would look up. Finally it dinged and Charlie stepped out of sight. He was a consultant. Sure they could tell him what he could and couldn't do when it came to the FBI but there was nothing to stop him making his way out to Stoke St right? That wasn't a crime, just happening by a police scene, was it?
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Co-ordinates were robotically sounded out as each street made its presence known to the GPS. Liz fastened her vest with some difficulty due to the restrictions of the seatbelt, the lingering injury to her shoulder and the jerkiness from the speeding car. She held her heart in her throat from the moment she'd heard about the gunshots. The what ifs were creeping in.
"Don't go there."
"What?"
"Don't start second guessing yourself. This is how it is, let's just deal with the situation as it really is, not how it could be."
Liz squinted a stare at David. How could one man be so annoyingly right and also so annoyingly thinking what she was thinking. Does that make me annoying?
"It's like we've got our answer, Sophie Field, without really knowing what the clues mean. Unsatisfying. Plus we don't know what this woman is capable of because we don't know the answers, only that Charlie was right."
"We know enough. She shot Don and took his car out to the desert to throw us off the scent. She's cold, calculating and manipulating. She works in an abattoir for crying out loud. She knows how to butcher. We should have pegged her from the start."
"That's not what I'm talking about. Sure we know she did this to Don but explain how Don was shot on a Friday and turned up in Pasadena on a Monday. This whole dumping of the car was clever. It certainly threw more than a spanner in the works, a whole toolkit to be sure, but it doesn't answer what happened to Don, to Marcus. It doesn't tell us what is going down at Sophie's right now. What if that's Megan's shot?"
"Then why isn't she on the phone calling it in?" David dared to glance at Liz, his eyes leaving the road for the briefest of seconds.
"I'm not Charlie. All I'm saying is we don't have all the answers. We need to be careful."
"Agreed. But we aren't going to get the answers sitting around here." David motioned ahead and stopped the car.
Flashing lights and sirens filled the air, swat had already assembled behind doors awaiting a command. David and Liz jumped out looking for who was in charge. After a few seconds and a quick surveillance David realized something; he was the senior agent in charge. This was all on him. Thanks Megan. You better be alive so I can kick your butt for this dereliction of duty.
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A purple flash crept forward, conspicuous in its attempt to be inconspicuous. Several cars lined the streets and Charlie could barely see his way through to the road, let alone the house. He parked his prius and got out. The familiar site of swat and local police swarmed in front of him but no David or Liz. No Don or Megan for that matter either. He inched forward, not thinking about his own safety.
A policeman had begun cordoning off the area and stopped Charlie. He flashed his FBI consultant badge and was waved through. If Don was alive he'd no doubt ensure that guy didn't rise through the ranks quickly. If Don was alive. Dammit Charlie…Don IS alive.
Charlie never knew Don not to fight. For this to end right here, right now, like this, well it just wasn't Don. The numbers were desperate to calculate the odds for Charlie but he tried to ignore them as he made his way through the crowd.
People milled around as though this was any other day at the office and Charlie wanted to scream at them that this was not any ordinary day. He wanted to grab them and tell them to go into the house and pull out his living and breathing brother and best friend's girlfriend. But he didn't because he realized something. He realized that if this was a hostage situation they would not be milling around, they'd be frozen in their positions ready to strike.
Air seemed difficult to find and Charlie found his body lowering itself to the gutter as though it would find it there. It was a strain but he finally managed to drag two breaths deep inside his lungs. His heart beat a rhythm in his ears that he found most unpleasant due to the speed. Don.
"Charlie?"
His eyes widened as he saw Liz staring down at him. She looked pale and drawn. Charlie gulped and swayed.
"Charlie, you alright?"
"Don?"
Liz sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She collapsed next to Charlie on the sidewalk and took a second before she went on the attack. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Don?"
A sigh blew out and Liz picked herself up. She put out a hand to help Charlie up and he tentatively took it. She pointed towards the building. "Come on."
It took a second for his feet to respond but eventually he followed Liz. Suddenly he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to 'Don?'. He grabbed Liz's arm and stopped her, she winced slightly at the tug on her painful shoulder.
"Trust me Charlie." Her brown eyes conveyed sadness but Charlie trusted them.
A few yards more and Charlie was looking at the wall Don had leant on earlier that morning. Charlie could almost sense his brother's presence. He hesitated at the front door step. Liz had walked in and he could see her whispering to David. David's arms moved in a way suggesting he too was mad at Charlie's appearance. They finished their conversation and Liz came out to chaperone Charlie through the final stages.
The tug required was harder than expected but Charlie stumbled into the house and steeled himself. A quick look around the room revealed nothing. It was perfect. Obviously wherever his brother was it wasn't here.
"They're not here." David's voice was gentle as he spoke.
"Then where? The bathroom? The hospital already?" There was a slight inflection of the last phrase as though Charlie had concluded it was the best case scenario.
"No Charlie. They're not here. No car. No agents. No Sophie Field."
"But…"
"Yeah. We know. She did this once, she almost got away with it. She can't hide behind evidence this time and get away with it. We know how she operates now. We've got LAPD looking for Megan's vehicle but we're not going to pay much attention to where they locate it. In fact we may even need you for this."
Charlie looked up at David and then at the room he was in. He could almost feel his brother's presence. "Where?"
"Charlie, we're going to find them. They're agents. They're trained."
"She did this to Don already. She did this to Marcus."
"No Charlie. Don got away. He got away. Besides. There's two of the kick-ass super-agents now. We'll find them."
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A/N A little shorter than usual but only because I need to break it up…next chapter will be longer and not too far away. Stay tuned.