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Notes Chapter 24: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged.
Thank you to Fat Kat, Shadow Fox and Juliette for your reviews, sorry I couldn't send a proper review reply. Thank you to iluvCSI4ever, Lost in New York and chrysalis escapist for discussions, and to Blue Shadowdancer and sarramaks for reading.
Lost Letters: Chapter 24
31st July
… The end of another month; not so long ago, that meant a pay check, nice and regular. I miss them. It's good in a way I guess being my own boss as it were, trouble is though of course, it means I have to write my own pay checks. Still, a new month tomorrow, maybe a new start. I'm wondering already what August is going to bring for Joe and I…
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Rich listened to the rasp of breath through dry lips. They were above. He was below. He waited, poised, ligaments and muscles strained, and then he sprang up the stairs; gun held out and teeth bared. Sunlight threw him a lupine shadow; and a little splash of red fell into its depths.
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Angell waited, weapon cocked, heart too loud. Her companion stood hushed behind her. Sun through the window lit her back; throwing her into relief and bouncing a gleam off a silvered sheet of glass against the wall. It caught her eye. Finger to her lips, she turned to Zee; he nodded, wrapping his arms around himself, disappearing further into the dust motes. Footsteps coming up the stairs, louder, closer, ready to pounce. Zee, she could see in a half-turn, was terrified, fear dripping from him; eyes huge with whites glistening. Their pursuer, her pursued, had reached the landing below them; she heard feet prowling. Her hand tightened round her weapon. Car doors opened outside. Voices. Amongst them, she recognised Flack's. Feet began to ascend the stairs.
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Flack ushered the team through the door; vests on, weapons ready; efficient and moving in tessellation across crushed shards of glass. Rapid glances, signals, gestures to the floor: a blood-red trail leading to their prey. They moved swift and silent onwards.
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Rich bled unnoticed from a fragment of glass embedded in his hand. To anything other than the euphoric blood-lust that drove him on, the banging of want, the desire to hurt and fight back, he was insensate. At this moment, he was only and all a killer. Death had eluded him in past days, twisted away, drawn him along, laughing out of reach. Until now. A death's head, raw skull and bloody bones, grinned from the shadows. He reached the landing and breathed slaughter in the air.
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The steps outside slowed. He was outside, on their landing and Angell felt her chest tighten. Zee's breathing was too loud; hers too. She backed up, choosing her position carefully, and without her eyes leaving the door, made sure Zee was invisible behind her. His hand clutched the back of her blouse as the footsteps approached and stopped outside the door. A real and an unreal hand lifted a weapon to eye level.
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Up the stairs, Flack at the head, the flock of officers swooped in formation. Blood sang in his ears; they were close, converging. Close enough? Time winged past. His feet flew to the landing, and he saw a door at the end of the corridor open. An open door. A shadow on the threshold. Flack lifted his weapon and aimed.
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Rich fired and the image of her face in front of him as he stepped inside, exploded, shivered and crashed into a million sparkling diamonds.
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Angell moved in a light-speed second after her doppelganger was destroyed.
"Never heard of doing it with mirrors?" She hissed and pressed her gun to the back of the suspect's neck, caught his arm behind his back.
A growl and a loose-limbed convulsion hit her in the stomach. The man jerked out of her grasp and she stumbled, her gun skittering across the floor.
"You! You're the one who ran away! I remember you!"
Zee launched himself from the corner, the mask of fear fallen, and threw himself on to the man, who, unprepared, fell under his weight.
As running feet sounded along the corridor, Angell dived for her lost weapon. The man flipped Zee and pinned him to the ground with an elbow in his chest and a gun jammed into his face. She kicked out and a bullet fired.
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Flack tumbled into the room as the echoes of the shot reverberated. The horror-chilled shout on his lips froze at the sight inside: Angell kneeling on top of a man; his arms locked behind him in her white-knuckle hold; a gun lying a yard from him, next to a bullet hole torn into the floor. An officer immediately ran over and kicked it further out of reach. More guns crowned the suspect's head.
In the centre of the room, sitting with his arms wrapped round his knees, eyes wild, sat the man he recognised as Stella's rescuer. He breathed again. Angell was alive. Everyone was alive.
"You okay?" He dropped a hand on her shoulder.
Flack saw the yellow bruise on the side of the man's jaw turned towards him. They had him. At last. The man responsible for so much suffering to his friends. It left him loathing and hollow in victory though; the damage done would not be undone even by this.
"Yeah. Great. Got the bastard." Angell's knee pressed harder into their suspect's back, provoking a muffled growl. "Shut up!" She pulled his arms more tightly and pushed her hand down onto the back of his head so his face was forced against the floor, "You're disarmed and surrounded by armed officers, don't even think of trying anything!"
"He all right?" Flack jerked his thumb at the other man, who remained rock-still amongst the turmoil washing round him.
"Zee? You okay?" Angell turned a concerned face to him.
The name was familiar; Flack knew someone had given it to him, somewhere in the last eight days.
Zee returned a dazed stare, "Yeah, I'm good. Did he hurt you detective? Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine."
They pulled the suspect up and hauled him towards the door.
Eyes flicking back to life at the movement, Zee bounded to his feet "He's the one who ran away from the car! He hurt Stella, didn't he? That's why he tried to shoot us too…"
Flack guessed a millisecond in advance what he was about to do, and wrapped his arms around Zee's middle as his body launched and his fists swung in mid-air, not least to stop himself mirroring the action, "Hey! That's enough, okay? You can't do that, much as I know you want to, and believe me, you're not the only one, but we got to follow rules here, buddy. Which means you got to let us do our job to make sure he gets what he deserves, okay? That okay?"
He hung onto Zee, and the room trembled with fury. The knot of officers braided tightly round the spitting suspect.
Zee sputtered and then went limp, letting Flack relax his hands, "Okay? We're going to take him, and we're going to question him. Make sure we stop him hurting anyone else."
"Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay."
"Take him." Angell gave the order, "I need a minute here."
Wrestling and snarling, but trapped now, their suspect was dragged out of the room and Flack looked expectantly at his colleague.
"Out with a whimper and a bang?" He jerked his head towards the splinter fringed hole in the floor, "Nice work, Jess."
She pushed her hair out her face and blew a stray wisp upwards, "You too."
"You got him." He wished the words were his from her.
"We got him." Her eyes understood. Then she turned to the other man, "Zee…"
"Guess you've got to go now too, huh? Go ask him questions. Find out why he hurt Stella?" He stuck his hands in his pockets.
Flack felt his lips curl bitterly. If it was only so simple. Questions blew round in his head, raven feathers; swirling and suffocating.
Angell answered, "Yeah, and we're going to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone else. You've helped us do that, Zee." She looked at Flack, "Don, I need to make sure Zee is safe. I'll join you at the precinct soon as."
"Sure. We'll let him cool for a few hours, get the scene processed."
Angell gave him a final glance from calming brown eyes; liquid and welcome, "Take care."
She was gone. Flack stood in an empty room.
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Caught, trapped, failed. They had him. For now. Arms held him; no way to escape, yet. Rich suddenly laughed. Doubling over, sick, retching laughter spraying from his lips as he staggered forward in an unyielding grip.
They did not have him. They did not know who he was. It was only then he saw the blood dripping from his hand and the laughter died.
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Janie, with one last muscle-tearing stretch, reached the pane of glass that separated her from the outside, and the catch to release its closure. A short, sharp tug…
"No!"
It would not move. She hit it with the heel of her hand, "Come on!"
Stuck fast. It brought a scream of frustration to the edge of her lips before she held it back with a fearful glance down at Alisha. No good. The glass would have to be smashed.
With one hand steadying herself, braced against the window, Janie patted her pockets frantically for something heavy. All the while churning in her mind; he could be coming, he could be coming…
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TJ kept his eyes on the sidewalk as he walked, entrenched in thought. Hands still clenched at his sides; arms brushing against his pockets, feeling the shape of gloves and a handgun inside. Early afternoon on the streets, linen blue sky that he did not see. He eeled through the crowds; no fuss; never touching anyone. Mind on his destination.
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Nothing. Her pockets were empty. A frantic sob rose in her throat; she could see freedom. A stretch of concrete just above the window, and beyond it, she presumed, the street. But they were still trapped.
Not while she could do something. For someone. Alisha relied on her, she would not let her down. Alisha was hers, she had to protect her; the ferocity of a mother sharpened her nerve and resolve. Janie looked at the window and then at her hand. Swaying and wobbling on the top stool, she cast her eyes around and alighted on a rag of curtain at the adjacent window. Just another stretch away…
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The streets of New York were unpredictable. Every day the iridescent threads of pedestrians, tourists, passers-by spun and moved; spindrift across the city, cast out to all destinations.
And their pace was set by an unspoken signal that they followed in rhythm. TJ paid it no heed and moved to his own metronome. But with the skill of the maestro; no one noticed the syncopated tune he played for himself. He glanced at the passing faces - some laughing, some blank, some listening to the inner pulse of the streets - and remembered them all. He turned down a side street filled with the sound of a salsa beat playing from a hidden apartment.
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One sharp tug and it gave way, and Janie almost gave way with it. As the piece of cotton ripped from the curtain rail more easily than she had predicted, she almost fell. Her arms pin wheeled for a moment before she jerked herself still; locking her body into a crouch whilst she caught her breath and the tower she balanced on rocked to a standstill.
Alisha slept the sleep of the unaware as Janie wrapped the piece of material round and round her hand. Then taking a deep breath, she straightened, steadied and smashed her fist into the glass. It shattered and Alisha woke with a yell. A breeze of music danced into the room as Janie made a rapid descent to the floor.
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The crowd thinned as TJ left the main thoroughfare. He wondered for a spare second where Rich was, and then tossed any concern away. He was safe; Rich did not know enough to betray him. Let him do what he would; be caught, kill himself, kill others. He did not care. As he made his final turn, TJ heard the crack of breaking glass.
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Gasping for breath and trying to ignore the bruising she had just suffered, Janie clutched her wailing baby, and slung a blanket around her, tying her tightly to her back, soothing her with murmurs as she did so. Her bags, what was left of her possessions, she would have to leave. Things, trifles, they did not matter. Alisha would be safe…
Sounds of a ruckus upstairs. Someone coming. It had to be him. Returning to do what she did not want to imagine. Stifling a moan of fear and tears catching in her chest, Janie scrambled back up the rickety construction to the gap in the window she had knocked through, trying to soothe Alisha.
"It's okay, sweetie, hush, hush, Momma's got you, we're going to be out soon, promise, then you can have a feed, okay? Hush, please hush…"
Noise coming down the stairs towards the door, keys jangling. Janie spurted up and grabbed the window ledge, scraping her fingers on the jagged glass teeth left in the wood. No time to feel the pain. She heaved herself up, wriggling carefully so she was balanced and then unwrapped the screaming Alisha and laid her gently on the slab of concrete just above the window. A key turned in the lock and the door juddered as something kicked it. She thanked whoever was listening for sticking door frames, and began to squeeze herself through. And stuck.
"No, no, no!"
It was the blanket, snagging. With a yank, she tore free, at the moment the door banged open and the man who had closed her in there burst through.
Janie squeaked in horror and wrenched her torso through the gap. It took an instant for the man in the baseball cap to look up and malevolence to sweep across his face. He leaped, and swung his arm, knocking the tottering tower to the ground. Her legs were dangling into nothing and she was slithering, falling, her hands hurt, they were slipping… Alisha's howls stopped her fall. Her baby needed her. A last desperate heave and she was through the window. Free. Janie gathered Alisha into her arms and bloody hands, stumbled to her feet and ran.
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"Mac, I want to ask you something."
Stella drew her knees up carefully and clasped her wrists around them, feeling the healing skin underneath the dressing on her side pull slightly, "What happened to my gun?"
Since the attack in her room, it had worried at her; the vulnerability of her present situation, all she was missing, all that had been taken from her. She was a detective, a CSI, but she was lacking some of that identity.
Mac looked at her, and she guessed the question before he asked, giving him a half-smile, "I need to know."
In answer he dipped into his pocket, "Your gun is at the lab. But I have something else you might want to have back."
He held her badge out, and it lay between their palms.
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"You got a few minutes, Lindsay?"
Lindsay's eyes left the sorbet coloured drifts of letters to see Hawkes and Adam standing opposite her; the thrill of the chase and catch a match in their faces.
She gave them a questioning smile, "If you're offering me some yourself, then have as many as you want in return. I'm not getting too far here." In Adam's gloved hand, she caught sight of a clutch of items, "What've you got?"
They glanced at each other with a grin, that Lindsay couldn't stop transferring to her own face, "Seriously you two, what have you found? What's with the smiles?"
Adam passed the items over to her, "We got another identity. This is what was inside the post office box, the one the key in the corpse opened. You, uh, might recognise the people in the photograph."
She did.
"Rita Franklin. And the guy with her…"
"Our first John Doe, the body in the lake."
Lindsay studied the couple in the well-handled image, noting the heads pressed together and the arms entangled with each other. She sighed, "They look pretty close in the photo…"
"Girlfriend and boyfriend close wouldn't y'say?" Adam pressed his palms onto the table and leaned over, a thoughtful expression replacing the grin.
Lindsay frowned, "I would, and it would fit too… Her neighbour, the old lady who all these letters belong to, mentioned a boyfriend, said she hadn't seen him since she disappeared. She didn't tell me his name…"
"Joe Delaney." Hawkes twitched the photograph out of her fingers, flipped it round and passed it back, "Name's on the back."
"Seems awfully convenient." Lindsay drew her eyebrows together, "What else was in there? And why would someone write their name on a photo, leave it in a post office box, and then swallow the key?"
"Exactly what we've been asking ourselves, which is why we came to you, Lindsay. We figured three great minds working together." A smile from Hawkes warmed her, and Lindsay welcomed the reassurance of her skills, and her part of the team.
"I'm flattered… what answers have you got so far?"
She stretched her arms behind her head before dropping them back on the table.
"So far? Not many. We have a hundred dollar bill, the photograph and an envelope containing a copy birth certificate, a list of addresses, but most interesting of all, a letter, 'To the finder' which brings us back to Joe and Rita."
"How so?"
A softer look came over Hawkes's face, "You see, the letter gives instructions in the event of his death; tells us who he was, who he loved, and what he wanted to do for her." He took the bill from Adam and smoothed it out on the table, "We're looking at a life's savings here. According to the letter, this is all the guy had, and he wanted to give it to Rita, to make sure she was okay."
It sighed out of Lindsay, and she felt her eyes hot with sadness, "But he was too late."
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Danny…
Just a finger moving, but it moved a room into action, and a host of people that flurried around the fragile family. It broke their hands apart, but Mrs Messer held her husband; dredging up the memory of too little time ago when they had almost lost him. But this time, she knew, the strength was on their side. She knew, she knew Danny was coming back to them. He was her son, and she did not let go of what gave life to her. The life she had given, and been given.
They waited. And finally she knew for certain. A nurse came out of the room with the first smile Mrs Messer had seen given for her son in too long, "You can go in and see him. He's not quite back with us yet, but he's coming along nicely. Go in, go talk to him…"
They sat at his side. Watched his eyes fluttering, stroked his hands.
His mother placed the letter from Lindsay on his chest, "You get yourself back to us soon, Daniel Messer, you got people waiting for you."
I hope you liked it, please let me know what you thought even if not. I got a bit worried about last chapter - still not too late to review that either :D Please review! Helps the job hunting too… Thanks, Lily x