Sorry it's been a while everyone, thanks for staying with me.
…
Chapter 8
…
Three days later
Dembe walked in to the room just after 6am to see Red sitting on the couch, his back to him as he kept his head down. As Dembe got closer he could see Red was holding something tightly in his hands, the younger man came over and took a seat beside his friend, watching as Red closed his eyes tightly.
"Has she called?" Red asked.
"No, I can always ask her to come over and…"
"No, it's all right Dembe…she's obviously still upset with me, clearly she needs more time."
"What's that you're holding?"
Red released the item from his grasp and passed the piece of paper to Dembe, who turned it over to examine it.
"I took the picture minutes after she was born, just in case."
"In case of what?"
"I don't know really, a memory. I thought Kate might like to have it one day."
"So why haven't you ever given it to her."
Red took back the photo of their daughter, looking at it for a few moments as he ran a finger over the face of the little girl.
"Kate was so…distraught after she gave her up that there never seemed to be a right time to give her the photo, year after year it just became harder to give it to her. I don't blame Lizzie for being angry with me, she was right. What I forced Kate to do was unforgivable, it's something I can never make right. I can't give her back the years she's lost, forcing her to give up the baby was quite possibly the worst thing I've ever done."
"But you did it to protect her, to protect them both."
"Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I just said that to ease my own conscience, what ever the choice I made back then, whether it was for their own safety or not, it was the wrong choice."
Dembe watched Red get up and walk towards the front door.
"Where are you going?"
"I need some air."
"Well I'll come with…"
"No…I just need to be by myself for a while, don't worry about me…I won't be long."
Red offered a small smile before he disappeared out the front door.
…
Elizabeth walked in just after 9am to see Aram pacing back and forth in front of his desk, clearly preoccupied.
"Aram…"
"Liz thank god, I was expecting you in an hour ago?"
"Yeah sorry, I couldn't settle Agnes, the nanny was late…sorry. Where are the others?"
"They're heading back now, I got a call from Ressler, he said he tried to call you too."
"What?"
Elizabeth got out her cell and noticed the three missed calls from Ressler and two from Aram.
"Shit, I'm so sorry. What did you want?"
"We got the finger prints back from the carousel."
"Well it's about time, what the hell took them so long."
"They've got so many cases going on and they were going by priority."
"Mr Kaplan missing isn't a priority?" Elizabeth asked, anger in her voice.
"Look it doesn't matter about that right now, what matters is what they found."
"Why, what did they find?"
"The finger prints came back with someone on the police database."
"So this is to do with Reddington's organisation?"
"Not exactly, the finger prints belong to a young woman called Abigail Sanders, she was on file because she did a lot of theft and vandalism as a teenager, she spent years in and out of foster homes, she spend a year in Juvenal Detention for breaking in to a house for money and injuring the resident, she beat him up pretty badly. Anyway her DNA is on file and we got a match."
Elizabeth straightened up when Aram mentioned the DNA results, taking a seat as Aram sat down.
"Go on then?"
"Abigail Sanders DNA matches that…of Mr Kaplan."
Elizabeth's eyes went wide when she heard what she herself had already been sure of from the moment Red had told her about the baby.
"Liz?"
"I knew it, so…this Abigail, she's the one who has Mr Kaplan and killed Molly."
"It looks that way."
"We need to find her and fast, god only knows what she's done already to Mr Kaplan."
"Mr Kaplan's a pretty tough woman, I mean come on Liz, the things she's done for Reddington I mean…"
"This is different, this is her Daughter Aram. This will be really hard for her to deal with, she can't just kill her way out of this."
"Then we better find her and fast, before the girl really does something she'll regret."
Elizabeth nodded her head in agreement as Aram went back to his laptop, working his way through every programme they had to trace Abigail.
…
Abigail stood outside the bathroom door, the sound of the shower running as she waited for Kate. Another half hour passed, Abigail starting to get worried when she couldn't hear Kate moving about.
"Mr Kaplan…are you okay in there?"
When Abigail didn't get a reply, part of her began to wonder if Kate had tried to escape through the bathroom window. She pulled out the key and unlocked the door, a gasp escaping her lips when she walked in and found Kate lying in a heap on the bathroom floor.
"Oh my god, Mr Kaplan…"
Abigail rushed over to the woman's side, turning her over, brushing her hair away from her face.
"Mr Kaplan…Kate come on, open your eyes…please…don't do this to me."
Abigail jumped when she heard a low groan from Kate before the older woman started fitting, in front of her. Abigail looked down in fear, knowing she had no choice, as she pulled out her phone and called 911.
…
To Be Continued…