A/N
Hi everybody.
Thank you so much for all your kind reviews. I'm so happy that you all enjoyed the last chapter.
This chapter was firstly written as two chapters, however, I changed my mind, rewrote it a bit and made it into one chapter.
Hope you'll like this chapter too :)
Please don't forget to R & R.
Enjoy!
Chapter ten
Charlie arrived at the scene and once again saw a blue plastic sheet covering another dead woman. This time, however, it wasn't like all the other times, this time it was personal. She swallowed hard before bending down to remove the plastic sheet from the body and willed herself to look at the pale lifeless face of her friend Martha.
She closed her eyes, trying to get control of her emotions, thinking to herself that she had to be strong and control herself; it wouldn't look good if the Senior Constable was sitting at the crime scene crying. She looked up towards the Surf Club sign and couldn't help but wonder if it was the last thing Martha seen.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Alf standing up against the wall looking pale and grief stricken. He looked ten years older than usual, Charlie thought to herself. She had been informed on the phone that it was Alf that had found Martha when he had arrived to open the Surf Club for the day.
She stood up and walked over to him, and at that point she didn't really care about professionalism as she just took Alf in her arms and hugged him. She stood embracing the broken man for a moment without any inclination to say any words, she just wanted to comfort him for a little while, eventually she pulled back and looked at Alf's distraught face, noticing the unashamed tears silently running across his cheeks.
"Alf I'm so sorry... I will find the person who did this to Martha... I promise you that" she spoke looking straight at Alf, whose only response was a solemn nod. After standing looking at each other for a while, Alf spoke hoarsely.
"Charlie did you see what was done to her... who or what would do this to my granddaughter... why Martha?" the sobs wracked throughout his body as another wave of grief washed over him.
Charlie didn't know what to tell Alf, she simply hugged him again stroking his back soothingly as she latched onto her and spilled his tears onto her uniform. She knew that Alf must have seen the puncture marks on Martha's neck and she knew it now it would be very difficult to keep the case under wraps, but she didn't know what to say because she didn't know why this was happening or who was behind it.
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Hours later Charlie sat in her office felling totally drained. She hadn't eaten lunch or breakfast; she had been too busy working. Her superiors had decided to come public with Martha's murder, but to keep the rest as quiet and confidential as possible to avoid public and media frenzy.
She had been busy all day talking to the press, interviewing Alf and other possible witnesses who may have seen or heard anything that could blow open the case and breaking the news to her friends and family, trying to comfort them, it had been such a hard and emotional day.
Now she finally sat alone in her office, the grief started to overcome her as tears started to fall down her cheeks as she hid her head into her palms, quietly crying into them. Seconds later she heard a silent knock on her door, she quickly dried her eyes and yelled "come in" trying not to look like she had just been crying.
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Joey was walking along the beach thinking about Charlie and the latest murder. She had found out that it had been one of Charlie's, Ruby's and Leah's friends that had been murdered. She felt so sorry for them, for the pain they were feeling. She couldn't help but feel guilty, after all it was her brothers doing that caused their pain. She got so angry thinking about what her brother had done, she wished she could find a way to stop him.
Still walking along the beach she kept thinking of the expression on Charlie's face, when she had gotten the phone call this morning. It was heartbreaking for Joey to see, she felt a lone tear run down her face as she once again felt partly responsible for Charlie's heartache. She sat down tugging her legs up, resting her head on her knees just looking out on the water, trying to clear her mind, but images of Charlie kept coming back to her.
Her stomach growling interrupted her thoughts, she decided to head to the diner and grab some lunch; that was one problem she could fix easily. As she got up a thought crossed her mind, she smiled as she picked up her pace as she glided towards the Diner.
Joey entered the station carrying two bags, she didn't feel comfortable walking into the police station, but the need to see Charlie over wrote the discomfort and nerves, she needed to see if she was ok. Walking towards the reception desk she saw a police woman fiddling with some papers, she instantly recognised the long curly brunette as someone she had noticed Charlie with at some of the crime scenes.
She quickly asked for Charlie as the nerves coursed through her, the police woman just pointed towards a door; too busy answering the phone to really notice Joey. Joey took a deep breath, knocked on the door and heard Charlie yelling come in.
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Charlie looked up at the door as it opened not expecting her visitor to be the one person she actually wanted to be knocking on her door.
"JOEY!!... hi... come in... What brings you here?" Joey entered the office closing the door behind her. She immediately saw Charlie's red and puffy eyes and knew she had been crying. Showing the bags in her hands she replied softly.
"I come with some refreshment... I got you coffee and a doughnut... I figured it was the right thing to bring to a police officer." She walked towards Charlie with a smile and continued. "But if you don't like doughnut's I also brought you a BLT sandwich."
Charlie couldn't help but smile towards Joey and the sweet gesture she had made. "Thanks, I think I'll go for the sandwich." Joey put the bags with coffee and food on the table in front of Charlie. Still looking at her, she saw Charlie's smile disappear again.
"Charlie are you okay" Charlie nodded as she tried to force a smile onto her face.
"Yeah sure just a little tired" Joey sat down turning Charlie's chair so they now were facing each other, their heads only inches apart.
"Charlie you don't look fine to me, it looks like you've been crying" Joey looked straight into Charlie's eyes.
Charlie couldn't hold back any more, and started to cry again. With tears streaming down her face, she sobbed "I'm so sorry Joey" Joey immediately took Charlie in her arms gently stroking her back
"You have nothing to be sorry about... so don't say that." They sat silently like for what felt to both women like an eternity yet both knew that the embrace would be over far sooner than they wanted. Charlie cried into Joey's neck as she clutched her tightly. Taking a deep breath, Charlie tried to compose herself she drew back from the embrace looking straight into Joeys brown eyes,
"Thank you" Charlie whispered softly. Without any planning or realisation of what her body was doing, she pushed her head forward capturing Joey's lips with her own.
Charlie pulled away from the kiss slowly with a smile, happy that Joey had kissed her back and had not pulled away the second their lips connected. She couldn't help thinking that it must mean something, perhaps Joey liked her too.
Looking into Joeys eyes, she searched for a reaction from Joey; she found surprise, confusion and fear. Not knowing what to think she felt a panic rise inside of her and started to ramble "I'm sorry Jo... I don't know why I did it... or well I do... I just know that I needed to feel close to you... I'm so sorry... I shouldn't have done that Jo... sorry"
Joey, still surprised by the kiss, watched Charlie before her rambling looking more and more distressed by the second. She felt her heart beating hard in her chest, she wanted to lean in and kiss Charlie again, it had felt so good and right to share a kiss with her, but she was afraid, afraid of her feelings towards Charlie and of hurting her.
"I... I... I've got to go" Joey mumbled and ran from Charlie's office and out of the station. She could hear Charlie calling her name behind her, but she couldn't stop, she needed to get away and clear her thoughts.
Charlie stood heartbroken in the entrance door to the station looking at Joey running away from her. She was about to chase after her when she heard a voice calling her.
"Senior we have just received the coroner's preliminary report by fax" she turned around looking at Watson with a sigh.
"Okay let's look at it in my office" she said wishing the day would end soon, she felt totally emotionally drained now.
"Damn" Charlie sighed from her desk as she threw her pen across the room, realising that the report didn't bring anything new to the case. Watson looked at her in surprise; she had never seen such outbursts from Charlie before
"Are you okay Senior?" she asked attentively.
"Yeah I'm just tired and annoyed that we can't get a break in the case" Charlie replied quickly, not wanting to show any weakness to her colleague.
Watson eyed Charlie suspiciously not believing her, she had seen the girl run from Charlie's office and had even seen the look on Charlie's face as she tried to run after her. She got up to leave the office to follow up on some more leads.
"Okay Senior... You know I'm here if you need me" she said closing the door behind her.
Charlie turned her attention back to the case, after nodding with a small smile towards Watson when she left her office. Her stomach had begun to growl as her hunger took over her mind. She peered into the bags Joey had brought and grabbed the sandwich and began to eat it.
She knew she had to focus on the case, but she couldn't get Joey off her mind. This was the second time Joey had run away from her, why did she do that, did she not like her, and if she didn't why had she kissed back? Had she read all the signals wrong? All the questions kept running around in her head driving her mad.
She needed to talk to her, she rose from her chair and picked up her keys and coat walked out her office and towards her car, telling Watson on her way that she had to go for a drive but would be back shortly.
Determined to figure this out with Joey she once again sat in her car as she drove in the direction of the caravan park to look for Joey. When she arrived she exited her car and almost ran towards Joey's trailer, she needed to talk about their kiss and find out what was going on between them.
As she neared the trailer her confidence fell, she stopped for a moment as the nerves began to get the better of her, what if Joey didn't want anything to do with her. Shaking her head to rid the thoughts, she took a deep breath and walked the rest of the way to Joey's trailer.
She had to know that it wasn't all in her head, that she hadn't imagined the signals from Joey. Knocking on Joey's trailer door, she waited impatiently only to discover that there was no response, Joey wasn't home.
With a heavy heart and full of disappointed, Charlie turned on her heel to walk the short distance back towards her squad car, she froze when she found Joey standing in front of her only a few steps away. They both stood frozen not quite knowing what to say or do, Charlie finally broke the trance as she began to move towards her.
"Joey I really need to talk to you... I..." She didn't get chance to finish her sentence as she watched Joey turn away from her and run.
"Joey... Joey please don't run away... we need to talk about this" With a determination to not allow Joey to run away from her again, Charlie began to give chase, but within just seconds Joey had disappeared. Charlie paused to take a breath as she took in her surroundings, wondering how Joey had managed to run so fast away from her.