Spoilers: Season 8 episode 'Playing Dead'.
Warning: Language, adult situations and relations, violence, sensitive subjects with mentions of abuse, child sexual abuse, suicide, and drug references.
Enjoy!
One Week Later
As he turned the corner on the last street before he hit water, he slowed as he took in the sand dune ahead of him and then beyond that the Atlantic Ocean.
The house they were staying in was the last house on the beach road. It was grey in color, white trim, and had two wrap-around porches, one of each floor of the house. Pulling up into the driveway, he hit the button that opened the garage door and slowly pulled in and parked.
He turned off the engine and looked over at Alex who was dozing in the passenger seat before glancing in the rearview mirror. The young woman they were protecting had yet to say anything for the entire drive. Stacey Hayes-Fitzgerald stared out of the side window but had yet to register that the car had stopped. Bobby knew she was mentally preoccupied.
Being almost killed in a car bomb just a few days ago would make anyone a little distant, but being almost killed by someone hired by your own stepfather...Well, he couldn't blame her wanting to be numb. What saved her life was a bodyguard her mother, Josie, had paid to watch her since she started receiving death threats soon after the start of her step-father's trial.
Stacey had survived, but the bodyguard, Jay Irvin, was killed when he used his body to shield hers from the explosion. Stacey didn't come out unscratched however; she was bruised with a few major cuts that required stitches. The worst of her injuries was her left shoulder. It had been dislocated when Irvin threw her to the ground.
The case, even though it had ended for him over two years ago, had gone on while he was thrown into another case, and then his firing, before he knew it twenty-six months had past. It had gone through the stages: dispositions, pre-trial motions and the usual push-and-pull from the prosecution and the defense until now.
Through it all, Stacey, the main witness against the abuses of her stepfather, had held her own. She had remained strong against the media outcry and all the accusations by her stepfather and his mother. The bombing and Irvin's death had shaken that resolve.
Nearly dying, and knowing that it was to silence her, had set her back in her healing. Hopefully in the next week or two, before she took the stand at the trial, they could get her back to that sense of empowerment that had given her the courage to face her abuser.
"Stacey, we're here."
She tore her eyes away from the window and looked around the interior of the department issue SUV. He saw the surprise in her eyes but she still didn't speak as she pushed open the door, grabbed her purse and backpack, and then got out.
Bobby looked at his sleeping partner and sighed. He really hated to wake her but he wasn't about to let her sleep in the car all night. "Eames, wake up. Eames," he said again as he gently shook her shoulder.
Alex grumbled into the hoodie she had balled up to use as a pillow. He smiled slightly at her irritation as he opened his door.
"Finally," she mumbled as she unbuckled her seatbelt and rubbed at her eyes. "I hear a bed calling my name."
He wished he could say the same but he felt the energy pulsing through him as he rounded the car and opened the back hatch to the cargo area. His mind was turning with the Hayes-Fitzgerald case and the young woman who he hadn't talked to in years.
He remembered being the only one to get through to her, to help her stop living in denial, and to own up to her obligation of not only the victim but as the mother of her child/step-sister. He wondered what Stacey's relationship with Sophie was like now; if she ever told her the truth.
Bobby shouldered two bags then took hold of three more as Alex appeared next to him.
"I can take one or two," she said as she reached out to take the one out of his right hand. On her shoulders was her laptop case and purse.
He let her carry a bag as he slammed the trunk close with his elbow then headed to the door. When he looked up, he noticed Stacey standing there waiting. "Oh, sorry," he apologized as he quickly hurried to the door, dropped a bag, and then unlocked it using the only other key on the keychain besides the one to the SUV.
Stacey went in first and he followed, Alex came in behind him to shut the door. He heard her click the lock in place as he surveyed the interior of the house.
When Hannah gave him the address to the safe house, a colonial three-story on Long Beach, this wasn't what he had in mind. Going down the long hallway, he could see the wide open living room ahead of him and beyond that the glass windows and sliding door that lead out onto the porch. Then beyond the porch was the sandy beach and the ocean. He couldn't see it, but he could hear the waves hitting the shore and smell the salt in the air.
Off his right just inside the garage door was the kitchen and to his left was a dining room. He continued down the hall, walking into the foyer and looked up the staircase toward the second floor and then toward the back of the house. Dropping the bags at the foot of the stairs, he made his way down the hall and took out his gun. Around the right corner at the back of the house was a breakfast nook that overlooked the yard. To the left was another room, almost like a family room, that lead into the living room where he saw Stacey standing as she peered out the sliding door toward the ocean.
He stepped around her and unlocked the sliding door to go out. Once on the porch, he took in his surroundings and the fact that they were basically secluded. On the next street over there was a huge open lot where a house once stood and the house next to theirs was vacated; he had seen a 'For Sale' sign out front when he'd driven by.
"Upstairs is clear," Alex said as she came out onto the porch. "I haven't checked the basement." She kept the porch light off just as he had when she came out. "This makes me miss living in Rockaway; waking up every morning to the smell of salt on the air."
Bobby holstered his weapon as he said, "Well, I think we're actually going to be safe here. And Hannah said that besides us, he's the only one who knows our location."
"Right, the less people who know the better," she said, speaking the words he heard coming out of Joe's mouth nearly eleven hours ago. Alex looked at her watch and frowned. "Two a.m. and there's nothing in the kitchen. We should have stopped to pick something up on the way."
"If you hadn't fallen asleep, you could've reminded me."
Alex shot him a look as she smirked, "It was a long drive."
"Huh-huh," he teased back.
"And if you hadn't called me at three in the morning yesterday, I wouldn't have been exhausted. I can't go twenty-four hours with no sleep anymore like I used to."
Bobby would have shot something back at her if he hadn't walked into an empty room. Looking around and not seeing their witness anywhere, he headed further into the house. The large duffel bag that had been Stacey's was missing from the pile at the foot of the staircase. He picked up his own bag, his briefcase/laptop bag, and headed up the stairs in search of a room.
He heard Alex climbing up the steps after him and when he looked over his shoulder, he asked, "Need help?"
"Bite me."
Barely controlling his laugh, he shrugged his shoulders and headed to the right once he got to the landing. "You're the one who said you were getting too old for this."
"I never said that. All I said was that I actually like sleeping, unlike you."
"You can't get anything done in your sleep," he said off-handily as he studied the layout of the second floor.
It was a three bedroom, two bath, and he immediately realized that the master bedroom was occupied. He didn't mind Stacey taking the bigger room; she was his main priority and if the space made her feel more comfortable then he would let her have it. He continued down the hall and got to the bathroom and peered in. It looked as big as his kitchen at home. It had a Jacuzzi tub and a separate shower stall and two sinks. Roomy, he liked that.
Coming upon the other bedroom, he kicked open the door with his foot and stepped inside. The room was furnished with a queen size bed, dresser, walk-in closet, a flat-screen TV was mounted on the wall across from the bed, and on the far wall by the window was a desk with internet hookup.
He dropped his duffel bag on the bed and sat his briefcase bag on the desk then unzipped both compartments. He pulled his laptop out of one slot along with his binder; out of the other compartment he pulled out the case files he had on the case; not only the attempted murder of Stacey, but also the original case file.
Back in Manhattan, Detectives Ronny Douglas and Kristen Hurt were working on tracking down the hired hit-man who had tried to kill Stacey and had succeeded in killing Jay Irvin. Bobby figured it would be good to review the file and try to help. Plus, he also had to freshen up on the case seeing how he and Eames both had to testify as well in the upcoming trial.
He plugged in the laptop and as he waited for it to boot up, he hooked up his cell phone to the computer to charge-seeing how there was no landline-and then left the room.
Alex was closing the door to the master bedroom when he entered the hallway. Looking up at him, she smiled a little. "She's out like a light."
"Go ahead and get some sleep. I'm going to be up for a while," he told her as he went into the bathroom and closed the door.
It had been a long drive and he didn't stop for any reason expect to refill the gas tank. Once he was done in the bathroom, he went back into the bedroom and froze.
Alex was sitting cross-legged on the bed and flipping through their copy of the case files. She had turned on the bedside lamp and it cast a dim glow over the room. "Alex-"
"I napped in the car. Besides, you weren't the only one affected by this case. Neil Hayes-Fitzgerald, I can't believe he plead not guilty."
"He hasn't accepted responsibility; he still thinks Stacey's to blame. Child pedophiles, you know, they don't think like the rest of us. To him, he did nothing wrong. She seduced him." Bobby sat down at the desk and opened his NYPD email account. After typing in his password, he turned in the chair to look at Alex.
"Well, I for one can't wait until he gets on the stand and tries to sell that bull to the jury." She looked up at him and asked, "Are we sure it's him and not his mother? If I remember correctly, she was the one that hired the hit-man to kill Stacey's blackmailing, crack-head boyfriend."
"Siebert," Bobby said as he picked up his binder and sat it next to the laptop. "Rick Siebert. And I thought about Neil's mother too, but I don't know. I mean, she could have resorted back to her old ways, trying to protect him, clean up his messes. "
"But?"
"But, somehow, I dont think it's her. She turned her back on him when she realized that he wasn't going to change, that he had ruined everything she'd built for him. Once she realized that he wasn't going to be the Golden Boy councilman, running for Mayor...she gave herself up, and him."
"Yeah, but she's also a mother. You saw her in the interrogation room, crying with him and saying that she'll always love him. She had done everything before to protect him, why not now?"
"Because she no longer has anything to protect," Bobby explained as he saw a message from Douglas sent to him at 5:32 that evening. "Her drive to protect him for all those years wasn't solely because he was her son. What she was really protecting was his reputation, his career. Now there's nothing to salvage."
"Where is she anyway? Camille, right?"
Bobby nodded as he confirmed her remembrance of the woman's name. "I don't know. Last I heard she cut a deal to flip on her son, testify against him. I think she's in some fancy woman's prison."
"Fancy? Prison?
He smirked as he opened the email and the attached files. A few seconds later, his smile faded. "Shit."
"What is it?" Alex asked as she came up beside him and looked over his shoulder. Much like he always did to her at work.
"It's from Ronny. The lead they had on a fingerprint found on recovered debris belonged to a Daniel Barz, but it's a dead end."
"Dead, as in not breathing?"
"Exactly. They found his body in a storage unit at his apartment building. M.E. report puts time of death, uh...at least 48 hours before the hit on Stacey."
"Great, we have nothing." Alex sighed as she sat back down on the bed. "What was cause of death?"
"It was uh, undetermined when this was sent." Bobby watched her a moment before saying, "We've got time. As long as we're here, she's safe."
She looked up at him and nodded. "I know."
"Good, because my second wind has died down." He saw her smirk and knew what was coming before she said it.
"Now who's sounding old. Twenty-four hours is your limit now, Goren? I'm shocked."
"Yeah, well, what can I say, I'm not as young as I used to be, and sleep does sound good."
"I think I can hear this bed calling your name."
He smiled right back as she started to gather the papers and photos up into the file.
Tossing it on the desk, she said, "Get some rest, partner. I'll see you in the morning."
Bobby watched as she left the room and then turned back to the email. He hit the reply button and wrote Douglas a quick email pertaining to his thoughts on the case and the newly discovered body, before powering down the laptop.
Alex was right, it was time to get some rest; however, once he was rid of his clothes and under the covers, staring at the ceiling, sleep was hard to come by.
TBC...