Hey, thanks again for the reviews...you are great!
Hope you enjoy this chapter, although their is not much Charlie inside...a lot of Don and FBI-Team.
Have fun!
Disclaimer: I don´t own ´numb3rs´.
The stalker
by elessar 73
3. chapter
The signs lay plain
Don Eppes entered the bullpen, a starbucks coffee and a double dose of aspirin had cleared his mind. Still he tried to avoid quick movements, in order to keep the headache abay.
He had enough experience with hang-overs to know exactly what to do. The best thing was to wait,,just sit still as long as possibly and the cause for the unwellness would disappear on its own account.
So he was looking forward to a quiet morning in the office. After two very busy weeks,with an unsual high amount of cases, his team was now assigned to fill in all the missing reports....-
which meant time enough for him to do nothing.
Don smiled, `Yeah, that would work out perfectly.´
But he hadn´t count on his fellow agents.
Megan Reeves was the first one to perceive Don Eppes, as he stepped out of the elevator.
"There he is.", she other agents rose from their seats and took position behind Megan´s desk.
" He didn´t look that good." Colby remarked when he saw the sun-glasses covering Don´s eyes and grinned. "Maybe a little too much beer, and than all the worry!"
The agents giggled.
After his first six pack, their SAC had broken into a flow of words and had related the whole story of the roses-incident in a very colourful speek.
First Charlie had tried to stop him, without much success.
Charlie´s attempts to drew Don´s attention in an other direction only made it peppered his story with anecdotes of their childhood, and while the agents had their fun listening, Charlie ´s indisposition grew.
The best of all was, when Don, swaying on his feets, got up, turned towards Charlie, hugged him tightly and stammered:" I will always take good care of my baby brother, no woman will hurt him....!"
First there was silent, nobody dared to breath.
Charlie stood stunned, his cheek flushed,while the rest of his face paled. And suddenly laughter broke off.
Charlie struggeled to get away from his brother and pushed Don onto the sofa. " You better stay with soda."
Charlie vanished into the kitchen, where Alan was busy cleaning up and returned after a while with a bottle of offered it to Don,who took a swig, distorted his face and grabbed an other bottle of beer instead. "Beer is better.", he announced, a sheepish grin on his face.
After a while the laughter ebbed away and they returned to a more serious conversation, but the image of Don dragging his brother in a protective manner to his chest remained.
When Don came closer he was greeted by three pairs of eyes, observing him precise and three silly grins.
Don felt uncertainty rising and it was not from the headache.
´What had happened yesterday?´
He couldn´t remember much, but if it was something serious Charlie would have told him, wouldn´t he?
"Already here Don?" Colby´s voice echoed loud in his sore head. " Charlie is safe and sound at CalSci? No secret admirer was lurking around the corner?"
`What?´
Don couldn´t make much sense out of it and his ignorance was evident on his face.
Megan couldn´t hold on and a loud laugh escaped her, soon attended by Colby and David.
´Think Don... what have you done...come on Eppes!´
Don tried hard to recollect.
´Yeah, he knew, the story of the roses,but there had to be more,- too much beer and laughter and hugging his brother? No, or? Oh yeah, he remember partly, but what was so funny about it?´
Don thought about how to react.
He stifled a grin, took of the sun-glasses and fought the need of closing his eyes against the bright light.
" Very well then," Don´s voice was cold as ice and reflected all the seriousness he could provide. Given the state he was in,he did an admirable job.
"I wonder if you would still laugh, when the whole situation had turned out bad. You know Charlie could have died."
Don watched his friends closley and felt satisfied when they stopped laughing and looked ashamed at each other.
But it only last a minute, suddenly Colby burst out in laughter again.
Don looked grim.´What was that about? He had thought he had made his point, but apparent there was much more he couldn´t recall.´
He cleared his throat. " So, Granger, are you ready now..?" Don´s voice had become hard.
Megan and David glanced his way, realizing a glimmer of rage sparkeling in his brown eyes and felt relief for not joining the laughter.
Colby froze immediatley, the last and only time he had heard Don spoke in such a ton, was as he had lied to Don about his old friend Dwayne and his entanglement in an swallowed hard.
"Sorry..I don´t mean to upset you."
Megan felt, that Don´s body relaxed a little and so she took the chance to soften the situation.
"So, Charlie is okay then?" Megan´s voice was tensed, and forced Don to an answer.
He looked straight at her. " Yeah, he is fine, but after yesterday evening and your reaction I guess I have to fix some things...was it really that bad?"
"Not really bad, Don," Colby sat down at the edge of Megan´s desk,feeling more comfortable again "just extremly funny, when you explained, that you would fight off every woman, that would harm Charlie."
Don´s eyes grew wide, he couldn´t remind that part. ´Oh my god...that´s not good.´
"The expression on Charlie´s face was beyond description, I never thought someone could pale so much."
"Gosh,...I wonder why he hadn´t mentioned it.." Don shifted from feet to feet, unable to stand still.
The ringing of his telephone saved him from thinking, for now........
Don took the call, his expression was earnest.
They had a new case,homicide. He briefed his teammades in short words and soon they were on their way to the crime scene.
A yellow tape, fluttering in the breeze, shut off the entrance of a warehouse.
Don and Megan got off the SUV, waiting for Colby and David to arrive in a second car. Don assigned the tasks and soon he walked toward the warehouse, followed by Megan, while the other agents started the investigation outside the building, looking for witnesses and traces.
Before Megan joined Don in the warehouse, she looked around, scanning the environs.
The structure was situated in an industrial area. Most of the buildings looked abandon. Windows were broken and shreds of glass covered the sidewalk. Trash amassed on the street and the air was filled with a smell of decay.
An unfriendly place to work, but the perfect place for a homicide. Megan was sure, the search for witnesses would be fruitless.
Meanwhile Don had walked on the warehouse, he took off his sun-glasses, flashed his badge to the officer holding watch and stepped closer.
The light inside was a little dusky, it took a while till Don´s eyes got accustomed to the twilight, he blinked a few times and when his vision was clear, he absorbed the crime scene.
The porch was almost empty. An old looking, wornout blanket, coloured lucid brown tainted with red marks, apparent blood, laid in the middle of the room.
From above the ceiling hung several ropes with ironhooks fastened at their end. One of those hooks hold the rags of a shirt. Don strained his eyes, but he couldn´t preceive the original colour of the shirt,it was almost tainted red.
Beneath that hook laid a lifeless prone figur, naked down to a pair of boxers.
A huddle of clothes laid in the right corner.
Don´s view was cut off by the coroner and members of the CSI-Team, collecting evidences. But he could see, that the whole body was covered with bloody cuts and nasty swellings.
Don shuddered by the sight of it and stood, suddenly, frozen in shock, when his eyes beheld a mob of curly hair.
A vision of Charlie penetrated his mind-´no, Charlie was save, he had dropped him up at CalSci.´.
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the vision was gone.
Megan had witnessed Don´s reaction from the door, with concern in her eyes, her body tensed in expectation of what to find she stepped behind him.
" Are you alright, here?" Her voice was low, though it had the force to startle him, but he didn´t answer. Megan wondered, if her SAC had heard her, she punshed his shoulder. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah, yeah everything is fine." Don´s voice told other, it was a little shaky, but it became steady when he continued," It´s just those hairs, they reminded me somehow of Charlie." He shrugged his shoulders. " I guess it´s because of the incident with the flowers."
Megan peered at him with amazement, she knew about Don´s tendency to be overprotecting when it came to Charlie, but this was weird.
" What are you talking about, Don?"
Don cleared his throat, he felt a little foolish, even from their position it was obvious, that the corpse had nothing in common with Charlie, and even the curls were blond and not dark brown.
"Nash.. I don´t know, just an uneasy feeling..." Don stammered an explanation. " Just forget about it and let´s start work."
" He,", Don announced the coroner," you´ve something for us so far?" The coroner looked up from his work, shaking his head.
Don came closer to the victim and had to swallow hard. The victim´s face, or better its remainder was a mess. It was covered with bruises, the skin above the cheeks showed deep cuts and partly the skin was ripped from the skull.
Don had seen a lot of things during his career, but the brutality of this assault was beyond words.
He heard Megan inhale deep and turned around,her face had turned almost white. " I´ll do it Megan, go and help Colby and David."
Megan didn´t need to hear this twice, she turned on her heels and dashed to the was a trained agent as well, but the image of that tortured body made her stomach turn.
Don faced the victim again, absorbed the extent of the injurys.
Besides the cuts and swellings, Don could see, that the shine bone of the left leg had ruptured the skin, the bone stood out in an awkward position, the wrists showed abrasion. Most likley the man was chained. A puddle of blood spread out beneath the body..... that was evil.
Don looked at the coroner inquiring, who noticed eyes on him and looked up again.
"Nothing specific, right now,apperent the man was tortured and then left to bleed to death." The coroner rubbed with his gloved hand over his head." He´s dead for nearly 6 hours, more precised after the autopsy."
Don nodded." Okay,.. do we know who he is?"
" No, there was no wallet, no I.D. or driving licence...I´m sorry."
The coroner returned to his examination and Don left wordless.
The four agents met outside the building.
Don put his sun-glasses back on, the bright light still hurt his head,and the look of the victim didn´t help either.
" You´ve got something?"
Colby and David appeared disappointed. "No,nothing.", Colby reported," no witnesses at all."
"Which is no suprise." David took possession of the report. "Just look around, the area is almost deserted, not even a gang claimed the territory."
" So how it comes, that we found him so early? Coroner says he is dead for approximate 6 hours, means time of death is around 3.00 a.m."
Now it was Megan´s turn to fill in her report."Well, here we get lucky... A teenage couple found him, obviously they use this place for some kind of romantic meeting, they wanted to have some fun before or better instead of school."
"Nice place, they choose." Colby had to comment on,scanning the area again.
"However, they are both shocky, and were brought to Huntington for observation."
Don nodded." Okay, have we their statements?"
Megan looked down at her note-pad." They gave a short one, but I intend to ask them again, go to Huntington and see how they are doing."
" Fine, that´s your task then Megan." Don glanced her way, perceived her slight nod. " The three of us have to do some research concerning the victim, see what CSI had found out , he isn´t identified yet. So let´s get moving." Don clapped in his hands,the discussion was over.
The team splitted up, Megan took David´s black sedan and headed for the hospital and Don drove with his teammades in his SUV back to the FBI-headquater.
So, that´s for today, hope you like it and the grammar isn´t that bad at all....
There is still much more to come....Mary became more and more obsessed by Charlie and Don struggeled between solving the homicides and keeping an eye on Charlie.