The events in this chapter take place the day after the events is the last two chapters, just so you know.
Disclaimer: Don't own etc.
Horatio stopped in his tracks when he walked into the department after lunch and saw the disturbing scene that was playing out before him. The victim from the previous day was sitting on the department floor, shaking uncontrollably. The rapist, Jonas Kin, was standing close by with a smile that got Horatio to feel sick. Amanda was standing between the two looking like she felt for ripping the guy's head off, or even more; his privates.
"What the…?"
"You don't want to know." Like always when anyone had a question O'Connell seemed to have magically appeared next to him. "But I'll tell you anyway: The guy came here again to see the woman he raped to tell her that he was sorry over what had happened."
"Really? Because he doesn't look very sorry." Horatio said skeptically.
"Well, he isn't. The moment he saw her he started laughing and calling her… Well, let's just say if anyone called my wife that, I'd kill the guy. And speaking about killing: how long do you think it'll take Wolfe to do it?"
"She wouldn't kill him in a police station in broad daylight." Ron was suddenly standing next to them too. "She would wait until it got dark and try to get him on his own. On that way she'd be able to dispose of his body privately." He shrugged and walked closer to Amanda, who seemed to have just directed two officers to get young Maria out of there.
"He's kidding, right?" Horatio asked O'Connell.
"Come on Caine, you know better than that. Of course he's not kidding."
"Why is there a hysterical woman in your office Wolfe?" He suddenly heard Morris say as he walked in to the reception area. Horatio looked around and noticed that Ms. Santos indeed wasn't there anymore, and that most officers had gone back to their work.
"Don't worry about it Morris, I'll take care of it when I come back." Amanda responded with a surprisingly calm voice.
There was no trace of the anger she'd radiated when Horatio first walked in and she had a small smile on her face. What the hell?
"Come back? Where are you going?"
"I'm driving Mr. Kin home. You know, I figured that since I was going that way anyway so…" she shrugged and gestured to the smiling Mr. Kin to go outside.
"Amanda, I don't think that's such a good…" Morris started in a low voice when the man had left them.
"Don't worry, I won't kill him." Morris looked at her doubtfully and she sighed. "I'll take Hill and Caine with me, okay? I'll probably need them at the scene anyway." She went outside, quickly followed by Hill and a confused Horatio.
"Why is she so calm?" he asked Hill carefully, but he only got a silent shrug in return. And, as if thing weren't strange enough, she actually made him and Ron sit in the back while she drove and Kin sat next to her. And during the whole ride she nodded in agreement to whatever he was babbling on a bout.
There was definitely something strange going on.
The car stopped in front of a big, yellow house and they all walked out.
"Thanks for the ride lieutenant." the man said with a cocky smile.
"Oh, it was nothing. I told you; I was going this way anyways." Amanda gave him a sweet smile and Horatio got the feeling that she actually meant it.
Who are you and where's the real Amanda?
"Well, if you have time, why don't you come inside for a drink?"
"Sure." she shrugged and followed the man inside.
"You might want to wait here." Hill said in a low voice as he followed, but Horatio didn't listen. There was something going on and he was going to find out exactly what it was.
The inside of the house was just as impressive as the outside and he couldn't help but notice that the kitchen alone was bigger than his own apartment.
"Sit down." Jonas said and gestured for them to sit by a small table by a big window. Horatio glanced at the window and was surprised to notice that Ron had already started closing the blinds on it.
"No, Mr. Kin, why don't you sit down." Amanda responded with another sweet smile.
"Why…?" Ron quickly grabbed the man and pushed him down on one of the chairs. "What's going on?"
"Let, me tell you what's going on, Mr. Kin." She still had that sweet smile on when she whet over to the stove, which was placed in front of the table. "I made a promise to Ms. Santos that I would find whoever hurt her and make him pay." she turned on the stove and picked up a fork that was lying right next to it. "And since I've found you already, it's time to make the rest of the promise come true." she put the fork on the stove and waited for it to get hot.
"Wait a minute, you can't do that!" He tried to stand up while talking but Ron just pushed him down again and pressed his face down on the table. "Let go of me! This is police brutality!" he exclaimed. "Your boss told you to let me go."
"Well, since when have I cared about what Morris says?" She turned off the stove and picked up the fork again. She slowly walked over and let it swing in front of Kin's eyes so he could see how orange it'd gotten by the heat. "And when it comes to police brutality: It will be your word against three police officers'. Who do you think they'll believe, huh?" She moved it closed to his deer in a headlight big eyes and he tried to move away, but Ron's grip was too strong.
"No, don't, please." he whimpered, still trying to fight Ron off, even though they all knew it was a lost battle.
"Caine, get out of here." Amanda said suddenly, her eyes still glued to Kin.
"What? Why?"
"Just go, I don't need you to see this. It's an order." she said in a stern voice and Horatio couldn't help but to obey; he'd never broken a direct order. Although he had broken a few indirect ones; you were kind of bound to do that while working with Wolfe.
When he got outside he saw another police car in the driveway which O'Connell, Herm and Wilson were currently emerging from.
"What are you guys doing here?" he asked them surprised.
"Morris thought that you might need some help at the scene, but when he went through the calls it showed up there wasn't any crime scene to go to. So he sent us here instead, to make sure that she didn't indeed kill the guy." O'Connell said with a shrug. "Has she done it yet? I'm kind of hungry, I didn't have time for lunch, and there's a great diner not too far from here." As a response a terrible scream came from the house and everyone turned and looked at the closed door. "I'll take that as a no."
"Wait, you're telling me that she's killing him in there?" Herm asked when the scream ended.
"No, it didn't seem like she was actually planning to kill him, it just looked like she wanted him to suffer." Horatio responded when another scream was heard.
"Then we have to stop her!" Herm said.
"Why?"
"Because it's against the rules."
"The guy broke the law, he doesn't really have the right to complain about some rule." Horatio responded.
"All he did was to buy sex from a prostitute. If we'd arrest every guy who did that the prisons would be filled by now."
"He didn't just buy sex, he raped her."
"Oh, please, girls don't get raped. It's just something they say for attention." Horatio stared at his friend. Normally, he'd probably just let the matter go, it was Herm after all. But after last night, when Amanda had told him her story, he couldn't help but to take it as a personal insult.
"That's not true. Getting forced into…"
"They're not forced into anything. They ask for it."
Both Horatio and O'Connell had their fist raised at the time, but to everyone's surprise it was Wilson who hit him first. Horatio and O'Connell had to grab on to their friend's arm so stop him from giving the grounded Herm another few hits to the face.
"You don't know anything about this, so you can shut the fuck up!"
And now Wilson was cussing. It seemed like someone had made a huge effort to make everyone's behavior surprise Horatio during the last 24 hours.
"What's happening out here?" With everything going on no one had noticed that the screaming inside the house had stopped and that Hill and Wolfe had emerged.
Amanda's eyes were going from the bloody nosed Herm who was coming up to his feet and O'Connell and Horatio who were still holding an angry looking Wilson by the arms and she gave them a questioning look. Horatio and Jack quickly let go of Wilson who's expression changed from angry to guilty in a heartbeat.
"I punched Herm in the face ma'am." he said while looking down on his shoes like a child who'd just been caught steeling from the cookie jar.
"I think I figured as much, officer Wilson, but why?"
"He insulted my sister ma'am."
"What? No I didn't!" Herm said and everyone turned and faced him.
"Yes you did! You talked about her… You talked about her accident."
Wilson was blushing furiously as this was a subject he really didn't like discussing and Horatio suddenly remembered their first day at the academy, when they'd been asked why they wanted to become officers. Everyone had answered the same thing: 'To serve and protect'. But Wilson had broken the chain and said he'd wanted to become a cop because his sister had been in an accident and barely survived, but the police had never been caught the man who caused it, and he wanted to make sure that another man like that wouldn't get away. Everyone had assumed that his sister had been in a drunk driver accident or something like that, but now…
"I never mentioned…" Herm protested.
"Yes he did." Horatio interrupted. "And if Wilson hadn't hit him first, I would've done it."
"Same here." O'Connell said, giving Amanda a look that clearly said 'I'll explain later'.
"Okay. Let's just get going. O'Connell and Wilson, you come with me back to the station. Hill, Caine, you drive Herm to the hospital and make sure that he gets fixed up, then meet me by Morris's office in an hour."
"Wait, what about Mr. Kin?" Horatio asked.
"Don't worry about him, he'd not going to bother us for a while. And no, he's not dead. He's just been taught a lesson." she said and looked at O'Connell.
"What? I never said anything."
"Of course you didn't."
-/-
"So what's happened while we were gone?" Horatio asked as he once again found himself outside Morris's office while watching him and Amanda in what seemed like another argument.
"Not much. First she talked to Ms. Santos before she had her driven home. Then she asked me about what happened outside Kin's house and then she came here to talk to Morris." O'Connell answered simply. "Where's Herm?"
"We left him at the hospital."
"Did I really hit him so hard that they had to keep him over him over the night?" Wilson asked anxiously.
"Actually they cleared him really quickly. We just left him there anyway." Horatio shrugged.
"And you took his wallet with you too to stop him from being able to take a cab, right?" O'Connell said slightly amused.
"Of course." Hill answered and took up Herm's wallet from his pocket.
"Should you really have done that?" Wilson asked.
"Of course! After what he said about…" Horatio got quiet and Hill and O'Connell immediately turned away and started talking about football, leaving him and his friend to talk on their own. "…your sister. She was raped, wasn't she?" Wilson nodded. "But I thought you moved out of our old apartment to and live with her and help her with problems with the aftermath of the accident."
"Well, I do! Even though it's been a long time she's still rather depressed and scared. She spends her entire days locked into her own closet, or the bathroom, and she goes ballistic if she's around too many people, and if anyone but me or my parents touch her she start screaming. She doesn't talk very much, she barely eats unless you force her and she barely sleeps because of nightmares. My parents got tired of looking after her and kicked her out, so I decided to take care of her instead."
"I'm guessing that's also why you didn't want to talk to your mother when she came to the station to see you?"
"Yeah, I still can't forgive her. Or dad if that matters."
"What about the guy who did it? They still haven't caught him?"
"Actually, they did catch him. But the case never even made it to court. The guy said she asked for it, apparently all rapists do." he said bitterly. "I promised myself that if I'd ever end up arresting that guy, I would…" He got quiet as Amanda and Morris came out of the office.
"I'll get Herm a new partner tomorrow." Morris said.
"Good. Wilson, a word please." Amanda said and looked over at them.
"Ma'am, I know I stepped over the line, but if you'd just give me another chance…"
"Okay." she interrupted.
"I could prove to you… What?"
"Okay, I'll give you another chance. Or better yet: I'm promoting you." she handed over the new badge everyone in homicide was given.
"But I hit a fellow officer."
"You stood up for your sister, nothing else. Now, do you want the badge or not?" Her hand was still in mid air holding the badge towards him and Wilson quickly took it from her.
"Thank you lieutenant."
"Don't thank me, you deserved it. And tell you sister to call me some time, I think we have a few things in common." Wilson nodded towards her and she smiled. It wasn't a smile like the ones she'd given Kin earlier, but it was a real, genuine smile that got Horatio's legs to go soft, again. "So, who's hungry?" Everyone immediately acknowledged their hunger. "Great, then let's go for dinner."
"Yeah, and Herm's paying." Hill said and showed them the content of Herm's wallet.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." Morris said from behind them.
"Why don't you come with us? As Hills just said; Herm's paying." Amanda asked him.
"Yeah, sure, why not?" he shrugged.
-/-
"You know what they call this team, right?" Morris asked while signaling for the waitress to get him another beer.
"No, what?" Amanda responded.
"Wit."
"What?"
"W-I-T. Wolfe's investigation team." O'Connell said with a smile.
"That's a terrible name."
"No it's not." Horatio said, noticing that the alcohol was getting to him. "I think it's nice."
"No, change it!"
Okay, obviously he wasn't the only one the alcohol was getting to.
"What about just investigation team? IT." Ron suggested.
"Isn't IT something with computers?"
"Okay, what about Crime fighting team?"
"Wolfe's crime fighting team."
"Keep my name out of this!"
"And your job isn't to fight, it's to investigate." Morris pointed out, giving Amanda a meaningful look.
"Crime investigators." Jack said thoughtfully.
"Crime investigators on the spot." Ron said.
"You mean on the scene? Crime investigators on the crime scene."
"No, that doesn't sound right. What about 'Crime Scene Investigators'? CSI for short." Wilson suggested. Everyone got quiet while thinking the name through.
"Nah." Amanda said at last.
"Okay, what about…"
"Look, you guys, we don't need a name! Let them call us what ever they want." Amanda exclaimed.
"You're right. We don't need a name. What we need is a photo." Ron said and to everyone's surprise he fished out a camera from his front pocket.
"No…" They groaned but he ignored them.
"Just stand up everyone, it's going to be quick. Morris, would you mind?" He handed the camera to Morris and everyone stood up. "On the count of three."
"One." Horatio looked over at Amanda who was smiling calmly against the camera.
"Two." He went closer to her and slipped his arm around her waist and was happy that she didn't pull away, which meant that things were like normal again, because even though they'd normally never hug the way they'd done the day before in her kitchen, it had happened very often that he'd ended up wrapping one of his arms around her shoulders or her waist like now and every time her smile would just get bigger.
"And three." He barely even noticed the flash that came from the camera when their picture was taken.
Oh Herm, why did you have to end up to be as bad as Emerson?
And now we know where Horatio got his violent methods from. And yes, I took the part with the fork from the scene in "Hunting Ground". And no, it's not a coincidence that Ryan happened to have been in that scene holding the guy down. Like mother like son, right?
Now this time, please don't forget to review!
Or, as I always say: RnR away!