A/N – so sorry about this delay, my laptop had to go in for repairs and it needs to go back in soon. Especially sorry for leaving you waiting with Don in danger…
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"I remember this."
"Thanks for that. Maybe you could have remembered this like two hours earlier."
"Two hours."
"Yeah. I'm guessing that's one hell of a headache you're sporting."
Don tried to reach up and feel his head wound but his hands defied him.
"Don't bother. There's no way you can get out of them."
"Really!"
"Yes, really. She sealed the lock with a soldering iron. No doubt the FBI will take the price of the cuffs out of our paychecks."
Don's vision swam as he looked down at his hands and realized Megan was right. "How you doing?"
Showing Don her own handcuffed arms Megan couldn't hide her wince. "With any luck this won't kill me. But that all depends on what Sophie has in mind."
She could see the responsibility wash over Don as he began to feel not only his pain but hers. To be fair, she was feeling more than her fair share of responsibility and had spent a good part of the last two hours worrying about Don. A new concussion certainly, and there was so much blood. Megan also bore her own share of guilt at allowing Sophie to weaken her. She felt sick that she couldn't stop Sophie handcuffing them both.
Blood had dried on Don's face and it created a scratchy sensation. His vision was blurry and he was finding it hard to concentrate. Despite this he definitely recognised his surroundings. "How did we end up here?"
"Sophie Field definitely works out…maybe a volunteer firefighter. But that's not the question you wanna be asking."
Don swallowed carefully as he felt bile rising in his stomach. Definitely concussed. "What should I be asking?"
"You wanna enlighten me as to how you made it out of here the last time. Crack team of FBI agents and a genius weren't able to do that one." Megan shifted slightly to manoeuver her arm to a more comfortable position. She struggled to keep pressure applied to the bullet wound in her shoulder due to the handcuffs.
"That's still a bit fuzzy. But this…" Don indicated the deserted room they were in. "…this is definitely familiar."
Megan leaned her head back against the wall and sighed. "Figured that. Also figure Sophie is in the process of dumping my car on the other side of town."
"So we don't have much time?"
"Not as I see it. So how 'bout you hurry up on rememberin' how you skedaddled out of here last time before everyone starts to worry. I know what it's like to think your colleague is dead. Not something I want to put anybody through." Megan regretted it as soon as she said it, but she couldn't take it back. She'd added more guilt on to Don, but in her defence she was cranky and in a lot of pain. Hot rods of pain seared down her shoulder blade and seemed to connect straight with her mouth making her snappy.
"Think it'd be more productive just trying to figure out how to think. I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders here. Guessing you aren't either but considering I got out of here once before and I had a concussion and a bullet wound you can do the thinking for this one."
"Hey no fair, I'm just a girl."
It was the first smile she'd managed to rouse out of Don since he'd come to.
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"Salamander Ave. No. No, like I said that's not where she'll….what? You kidding me?"
David slammed his phone shut and looked across to Liz and Charlie. Liz was trying to lure the mathematician out of the house but Charlie was desperately searching the room for a clue or inspiration. Liz looked up as David shut the phone.
"What's up?"
"That was CHP. They picked up Megan's car…"
"Yeah but we're not interested in…"
"With Sophie Field still in it."
Everything in the room fell silent at that point. Charlie's eyes begged to know more as they bore into David but he didn't seem able to get any words out. David guessed the question and answered it for Charlie.
"Just Sophie Field."
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"Room 7."
Colby stared at Sophie as she was led handcuffed to an interrogation room. He hid his crutches behind the cubicle wall so she couldn't see them as she walked by. Don't want to show any weakness to this bitch.
The highwaypatrolman nodded as he walked past Colby to indicate there was no update on his friends. Colby hung his head, took a deep breath and prepared himself for what was to come.
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"Still nothing huh."
"Give me a break, I can hardly see straight here." Don gulped down another breath as the nausea hit him again. He was beginning to see himself shake in time to the throbbing in his head and it just make him feel even sicker.
Megan looked across to Don and realized she needed to keep distracting him; he wasn't looking so good. Of course, Megan was beginning to wilt severely herself. She desperately wanted someone to find them and pump them full of warm and gooey medication to make their pain go away but she knew that Sophie Field couldn't be too far away.
They were in a dark basement, bereft of furniture. A window up top had been cemented in and the only source of light came from the many cracks in the brickwork that had formed. She had tried yelling for an hour while Don was unconscious but it only resulted in a sore throat. Now that Don was conscious she needed to keep the yelling for a moment when she knew someone would hear. And there was nothing but her quick breathing and heartbeat to fill her ears at this moment.
The worst part about all this was that they were only a few feet from Sophie's house. She'd marched Megan across her backyard, through a hole in the fence and into a deserted house right after she'd handcuffed Don. The real surprise was when she had come back a few minutes later with Don swinging over her shoulders. Any other situation and Don would definitely be mercilessly suffering for that little gem.
"You think maybe that window was cemented up recently?"
Don looked up. An image of a window flashed through his mind and he caught his breath. He looked across to Megan and could only manage a nod initially. "Yeah, yeah, I think so. Guess that rules out my exit plan. All up to you now. Don't you think you look better in red?"
Startled by the comment Megan looked over and frowned at Don.
"Silk. Silk is good too. You look nice in silk."
"OK fedcake, you're officially of no use to me." Megan sighed as she realized Don's concussion was ruling him out for any serious thinking now. "And here I was thinking she'd clobbered you on the least useful part of your body."
Don smiled and seemed a little confused. Not sure what's going on here. Not sure I like it. He looked up at where the window used to be and smiled, no image flashed in front of his face. "Charlie'll work it out."
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Twenty minutes and not one word was spoken by Sophie. Colby was desperate to get up and walk around the room to vent his frustration but he'd already played out his lie. He'd walked in without his crutches on his plastered leg, so as to not seem weak. The thing was, his leg was now being to ache.
"I'll say it again. We have connected you to all the crime scenes. We know you kidnapped and attempted to murder a federal agent and we know you used federal resources to commit these crimes. You killed your husband. You no doubt caused the explosion that caused this." Colby tapped his leg. "Trying to clean up any links back to you. Thing is. This is now more personal than you care to imagine so there's nothing saving you from a needle in your arm right now. Nothing unless you tell us where Agent Reeves and Agent Eppes are. That is your ONLY hope of getting that needle out of your arm, so I'd take it."
Still no reaction. Colby felt like slamming his fist into the table but instead he stared down at Sophie and said nothing. This continued for several minutes as Colby considered his next plan of attack.
"Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was all Marcus Field. Maybe you had nothing to do with all this. Maybe you found out what he'd done and you confronted him. Maybe he tried to keep you quiet, permanently, but you fought back and killed him first."
"Shut it pig."
Contact.
"Or maybe Marcus never loved you and this was your way of paying him back for it. Maybe you set him up."
"I said shut it pig."
Just a little push.
"Maybe Marcus loved the job more than anything and you were jealous of the job."
"Get stuffed."
An agent tapped on the glass and motioned for Colby to come out. Colby tried his best to rise without difficult but it was an almost impossible task. The young agent had a file and he pointed to a part of it that had warranted dragging Agent Granger out of an interview with a suspect. A smile formed across Colby's lips and he patted the young agent on the back, took the file and walked back into the interrogation room with a lot more ease than when he'd exited.
"So, The job wasn't Marcus's life it was yours wasn't it. Or should I say it should have been yours."
Colby threw out the file and pointed to the relevant part.
"How did it feel to be rejected from the force not once, but three times? I guess being an accountant for an abattoir is the next best thing but hey."
Bingo.
Anger flared in Sophie's eyes as she looked across at Colby. She knew she shouldn't say anything and she had remained silent for this very reason. They'd taken away her only access to the life she loved. The calculated butcherings, the beauty as the blood flowed out of a body, all the things she had perfected over so long had been taken away from her the night Don Eppes turned up at the abattoir. He'd gone to see Marcus at their house and told him about her. Marcus was crying when he'd finally found her. He threw off his wedding ring and raised his gun on her. On me! Either way she had lost the life she'd fought so hard to keep, all because of Don Eppes. She was stronger than Marcus, mentally and physically. She had more practice in killing people. The bullet had left the gun at the same moment a tear formed in her eye. In one foul swoop she had killed her husband and her only access to ever killing again.
The irony that she had to kill her life supply to save herself was not easily forgotten. Don Eppes was not the only one who had been waiting in the abattoir that night. Her two stupid co-workers had come running at the sound. Tears streamed down her face freely as she soaked in both their deaths, knowing they'd be her last for a long time. Then Agent Eppes had provided one last opportunity. One last. She had wanted to make this one memorable. Take her time. Make it slow and painful for the man who had brought about the downfall of her lifeblood essentially. The shot to the head was a result of the struggle she'd put up. It was messy and it wasn't intended but she had decided it could be for the best. She took his warm body back to her house in Marcus' car wrapped in a plastic tarp. She'd kept the agent locked in the basement and that was her error. While she rode her vespa out to his SUV and dumped it in the desert, spilling some blood as a ruse, he'd come to in the basement.
The anticipation of what she was going to do to the agent was bittersweet. Knowing it would be her last kill for a long time, she wanted this one to last. It was her fatal error. She'd waited too long. She thought his head injury was worse than it was. When he'd escaped during the Sunday night, she couldn't describe the utter misery she'd felt. She felt dead herself.
There was no way she was letting Agent Eppes get away twice, not now her life was over.
"Screw you."
Colby leant back and sighed. It was going to be a long day.
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David and Liz were now both trying to extricate Charlie from the crime scene but he was being particularly stubborn,
"Charlie, Colby should have something for us by now. There's nothing for you here." Liz explained.
Charlie shook his head. "No, see, it doesn't make sense. Nothing about this case has ever made sense. The timeframes have all been out."
"We know that Charlie. Sophie soiled the data with false evidence, you couldn't have known." David reached out for Charlie's arm.
"No David, that's not what I'm talking about. Sophie is in custody right. How long did it take you guys to get here after the report of the gunshot?"
"LAPD were on the scene in 20." Liz offered.
"Right, so how could she kill two agents and end up across town in under an hour?"
David and Liz looked at each other, Charlie had a point but it's not like they hadn't considered it. "It doesn't help us though Charlie. Does it?"
"Yes it does Liz. It means probabilistically they're alive and certainly they are somewhere near here. Even if they were…" Charlie couldn't bring himself to say the word 'dead' so he just skimmed over it. "Even if they were, they could only be a matter of yards. Think about it. Two bodies. She has to dispose of them and dispose of Megan's car. Assuming they're alive and even mobile, they wouldn't have gone anywhere with her quickly, not willingly. No. Wherever my brother is…wherever Megan is…I'd say they'd be no further than a few hundred yards."
David looked at Liz and nodded. Every law enforcement officer in the vicinity was prepped in under two minutes for the task ahead.
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"Tell me, when you were in fugitive recovery, what was the best part?"
Don smiled groggily at Megan and his head lolled to the side a little as he tried to think. She was worried about him. For the past fifteen minutes his conversation had slurred slightly and it wasn't making much sense. Her focus now was on trying to keep him thinking so he would be a little bit lucid.
"The girls. Lots of girls. I wish they all could be California girls though."
Despite her worry, Megan smiled a little. "Oh yeah, I heard you partner got all the girls, you just caught the bad guys."
"Coop? Coop? Nah. He went too far. Job. All about the job. Had to get out. Slippery slope y'know. You a natural redhead? Coop's a redhead. You could have little redheaded babies. Nice."
That one made Megan laugh slightly. A noise made her stop suddenly. Megan listened intently, her adrenaline fighting the pain as she began to think Sophie had made it back. Again a noise. Again Megan was on the alert but the basement remained dark and silent. The noise was coming from outside, and above.
"FBI Agent. Help. FBI."
Megan's yelling caused Don to start, his vision swimming and his nausea rising more ferociously than before. "Shh."
"FBI. Help us please. I'm Agent Reeves and Agent Eppes, we're in a basement. Please call the LA FBI and report this."
A frown burrowed across Don's forehead. "I said shut up. Geez. You'll wake Dad."
The level of Don's voice startled Megan. He'd almost yelled it and she forgot herself for a second. She was about to yell again when she heard a familiar sound. Liz's voice.
"Megan? Don?"
"Liz? We're in a basement. House directly behind Sophie Field's, cemented in window. You can't miss it."
"Miss, I said be quiet." Don's eyes began to droop as his reality slipped away from him.
Liz's response was quick. "We're on it. Are you injured?"
"Gunshot wound to my shoulder, I'll live. Don's got a pretty bad concussion, he's not so coherent. Hurry. But be careful, Sophie Field. It's Sophie."
"Yeah we know. She's in custody. Just stay put, we're coming." Liz's mumbled words were drowned out by the sound of shuffling feet, no doubt from the rescue team. Megan couldn't help but wonder what Liz meant by the last comment; where did she think they were going to go?