BREAKDOWN

—The Finale—

Several months later…

"Finally" said Maurizo.

"You can fix about everything, eh, sexy?" said Amanda and slapped his butt.

"I do my best." He finished adjusting the video image on the TV screen and pushed the forward button. "Eccolo! There! Look!! I finally got the recorder to work the tapes and… that's me and you, gorgeous… ah! And there's Beth and there's the rest of us —you looking stunning as always, dear— and there's Betty. It's her turn to declare now."

He hit the play button and the image of the courtroom filled the screen.

"I do look gorgeous, don't I? Oh dear Lord! Look at Beth!" Amanda said, getting closer to the TV. "She's so scary! The way she looks at Betty! It's like she could chew her alive and eat her like a big fat tamale filled with pork meat."

"Well… she always looked like a big fat tamale, anyway" added Marc.

"Hey! I'm right here!" she said, coming from inside the deli from the backroom, a large sandwich in her hands. "Watch your mouth!"

"No. You watch yours!" responded Marc. "You're eating like a famished cow. It's disgusting."

"Silence, for Christ's sake!" protested Pietro. "I'm trying to listen."

"Come on, sit here" I said and put my hand out for her to hold. "Are you sure you can watch this? How are you feeling today?"

She sat by my side and dared to rest her head on my shoulders.

"I'm much better, now" she smiled and pretended to scold me. "I'm not a baby, so stop worrying about me so much, okay?"

Pietro came with a couple of beer bottles from the fridge and also sat by our side.

"A twisted one, this girl" he said, staring at the screen. "One of our smartest criminals, I tell you. How she found out that Matt picked up the candidates from women he'd slept with and how she killed them one by one. To think I got a serial killer case on my first assignment… Wow! Am I lucky or what?"

I glared at him. Lucky? I was there every single day of the trial. I head her confess how she took each life in her hands, how she saw them die slowly in front of her. No, it wasn't lucky. It was nauseating.

"Okay, fine. But lets at least admit she was a freaking nutjob" he continued after sipping from his beer. "She used all means: she stabbed them, she shot them, she tried to poison them… and she almost got away with it."

"But the Detective Squad got her!" beamed Amanda.

"She got discovered by her own mistakes" said Maurizo. "She wasn't as clever as you all think."

"Maybe she wanted to get caught. I've heard cases like those. And the truth was always in front of us." said Pietro. "She always stole and wore a piece of jewelry or accessory from the victim or the potential victim she was stalking: a watch, a pair of earrings, a bracelet, even shoes... something insignificant that we would overlook. But it was there. Maybe she wanted us to stop her. I don't know."

I looked up and checked the recording images. I have to admit was somewhat disturbing to see them, even after all these months. It'd been a short but painful trial. Big money pouring from both parties: the Hartleys and the Meades clashing in court. But she had no choice but to pledge guilty. It was a wise move but it didn't prevent the heavy weight of the law fall upon her. At least I was glad there was no death penalty in the state of New York.

I also knew she didn't keep those little "treasures" to give leads to the police. She confessed that she'd wanted to become those women. How she sometimes envied the victims and tried to absorb something from their personalities. It started as a little game, trying make Matt Hartley look up to her the way he looked at them, to make him love her back. Then it became a hobby and she couldn't control herself. Like a savage hunter collects trophies of their preys, she felt the need to have a keepsake from each of the victims.

"And the motives!" continued Pietro. "You all thought it was a scheme to take over MODE when it was nothing but a crime of passion. She killed those girls, out of jealousy" Pietro continued. "But one day she got fed up with Mr. Hartley Jr. She went to the deli, picked that butcher's knife that was always hanging around and killed the young Hartley for revenge."

"It's freaky. How Matt was obsessed with serial killers" Amanda said. "I bet he never thought he was going be assassinated by one."

She stared at her ipod for a second, turned it off and threw it inside her purse. That was the last time we heard of her detective novels.

"It is really a sad story, especially for the Hartleys. Poor rich people. The mother is in a mental clinic now. The poison severed her nervous system and they say she won't recover anytime soon."

I couldn't help but feel sad for Mrs. Hartley. I remembered how many times Beth thought she was the one behind the killings and how she ended up being nothing but a hopeless victim.

"She was so close to us, she could have killed us anytime." Amanda jumped. "My hair just gets spooky. Look! Goosebumps!"

Maurizo came to her and stroke her arms.

"Better now?" he said and then shook his head. "She was mostly after the Hartleys wasn't she? But as soon as she got tired of that guy, Matt, she got infatuated with my cousin, Gio. Giving him those heavy sleeping pills, breaking into the deli and stalking him and all that stuff she did while he was sleeping… now, that is creepy! I'm not staying in this deli late at night, ever again, even if it pays me a million."

"Fifone!" Amanda giggled, practicing her Italian.

"Hells yeah, I am a coward! And I'm also pretty damn sure she was planning to kill him, too. Yeah, probably when she found out he was drooling for another chick. At least she didn't put poison in the pills. This is like a horror movie, I tell you. American women surely are scary."

"So you see… behave well or else" Amanda teased him.

"Puoi scommetterci!" he said and kissed her on the lips.

"Please, stop with the telenovela or I'm going to puke!" Marc said and then added: "The scariest part is I'm sure Wilhelmina knew all this time she was the one. She didn't even care to expose us to the danger of her company as long as she got what she wanted first."

My thoughts drifted to the fate of my poor friend, Daniel Meade. I didn't envy his fortune, I pitied the man. To had lived all his life on a stalk of piled lies. He was still sorting his relationship with his mother.

"Damn it!" Marc continued and threw himself in the nearest chair. "I can't believe she was right in front of our noses all this time. Honestly, I can't believe it. I was so certain it was Beth up until the last minute. I couldn't expect less from the 'Lover boy' over there, but how I got fooled so easily?!"

"Aw, don't feel bad, Marc. Who would have known?" Amanda said always trying to sound smart. "Betty was always so harmless. And Beth was so obvious, maybe she was like…like… the red-hairing."

"Ah, Bella mia," Maurizo pretended to eat her nose. "You mean red-herring."

She giggled again. "Whatever."

They were right. How easily Betty played all of us! She used us to see how far we could go in the investigation. To be sure we weren't in the right lead. Keeping us close to her surveying eye, misleading us, watching every move we made.

Matt Hartley had always being of weak character and could never stand up properly against his family decisions. Not even back when he was in love with his cousin Beth and his mother poured all those lies into his head that made him despise women and all they represented, turning him into a hopeless sex addict.

And Matt was not different with Betty. His parents were both against their relationship. Betty was desperate and she believed she had to take matters in her hands so she could finally live her happily-ever-after fantasy.

First, she took care of Mr. Hartley. And for that she befriended Manolo. Poor Manolo, probably had a crush on her since high school. She seduced him and made him reprogram the surveillance cameras, also to mess with the elevators system. He probably couldn't take the secret anymore and was about to declare the truth to the police but she ended his life pushing him down the East River.

With Manolo out of the security department she had to keep the position vacant until she finished the job. She picked a day and, while having breakfast with Matt, she told him she was going to get some files so they could discuss before the meeting. She went to his office and got the little gun, shot Mr. Hartley and then put back the weapon in Matt's safebox.

She was probably thinking nobody would look inside it until she could get rid of the weapon. She didn't count that Claire was going to find the body so quickly or that police was going to show up immediately. She didn't count with the fact her boyfriend, Matt, was going to notice the weapon was tampered even before the police arrived and was going to react in such panic. Much less that he was going to ask Beth to hide the weapon for him.

Beth knew the police could register her belongings, her desk and the apartment so she unloaded the weapon through me and finally kept it in my van. But she could never find a moment to be alone and get the weapon back without me noticing her. One day Matt asked it back but she had to admit she didn't have it with her. That's the day I saw them arguing in the office.

After Mr. Hartley was out of the picture it was Mrs. Hartley's turn. Betty's former plan with the elevator failed. So she changed her tactic. She'd learned a lot from Matt's books about poison and weapons. So all she had to do is pour some solution inside Mrs. Hartley's champagne at her engagement party and it was going to be like a walk in the park. She even had time to break into the Deli. Not that it was the first time she ever did that.

Betty probably despised Beth more intensively than he'd hated any of the other women. She hated her for her past with Matt. That must be when she started sending those notes to her, at her old apartment then, finally, at mine. She'd probably wished for a perfect moment to kill her. But that day never came, she miscalculated that Beth was going to ask me for protection, I was always by her side. Except that day she decided to finally get rid of her. I should've known better.

Thankfully, Beth always carried her knife with her and she could defend herself against Betty. She pledged self-defense and she wasn't charged. I have many times apologized to her for misunderstanding her, and for leaving her alone that day. But I will never stop blaming myself for putting Beth in danger. When Betty suspected Beth and I were an item, she lost it. She tricked me, lured Maurizo out of the Deli and took the chance to put an end to the only one that stood between me and her. Because she realized, far too late, that I was the one she loved.

The one she loved or the one she hated?

I recalled the bloody jacket on her. I'd lied to her too and she knew it. She'd seen us both in the archive room. Was Maurizo right? Was she going to eliminate me the same way she did with Matt?

I had a final conversation with Betty while she was in a small confinement at the court hall waiting to be sentenced. That was the last time I saw her. Even with all the legal help from the Meades Betty Suarez couldn't avoid the fate of spending the rest of her life in prison.

Even though her actions turned her against the world, her family, her friends, society... I couldn't help but empathize with her. Because I'd finally understood what was inside the psyche and the heart of a murderous mind.

I knew now how fragile was the divide between the good and the evil. How you could break inside and loose your soul. My old Betty had disappeared years ago and transformed into something else. Not only her clothes, her lifestyle, her whole self became another. She was no longer the simple girl from Queens, the only one I used to trust, the one who couldn't tell a lie, tricked us and fooled us right into our faces, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

A Betty able to frame her best friend, Daniel, without blinking an eye; who was able to date a guy just to force him to work for her evil schemes; someone who lied, killed and manipulated to her own will, all in the name of love.

I was glad it was all over.

"So... doesn't this mess make you like… a real millionaire now?" Marc turned his obnoxious face to Beth.

"Even if my uncle or cousin hadn't died," said the woman by my side, her strong red curls falling over her shoulders and mine, "the family properties would have been disposed the same as they are now. I'm hardly any richer than I was at the beginning of all this."

She then looked at me and her fingers caressed my well trimmed beard. "Well, maybe I am."

Her grey eyes weren't tormented or cold anymore, they were smiling. She had found her peace.

I also have found my own peace: no more nightmares, no more yearning for an impossible love.

"I guess I should thank you" said Pietro. "If you wouldn't have stopped her that day here at the deli, she'd have gotten away with it. It scared the hell out of me when I saw my sister's silver brooch in her possessions. I think she was going to find her and finish the job she started that awful night."

The shadow.

I never got the chance to tell Pietro that I was the one who gave her the hint that Jenny was moving to Brooklyn with some family. She told me herself she was going to 'pay her a visit'. I was really glad Betty was behind bars and Jenny was safe.

"By the way" asked Beth. "How are they?"

"She's fine. If everything keeps going normal, she's gonna be due next month."

"I'm so glad we'll be back in time to see the baby" Beth's eyes sparkled. "Pietro, I'll make sure that your sister and the boy are always being taken care of. I promise."

It was sad and somewhat ironic that the last member of the Hartley dynasty wasn't going to be born between silk sheets in a golden cradle.

Pietro blushed. He was a proud man but he was also thankful for her offer.

"Wait a minute, Cugi" Maurizo complained. "Hold it! Are you going somewhere?"

"Actually, yes. I'm going to take some vacation in Seattle."

"There you go again!" Maurizo scratched his head. "I'm always alone in this place!"

I was more than confident Maurizo would handle the business better than me. He'd been doing a pretty fine job without me, anyway. I considered selling my part of the business to him; let him take over so I can start a new life, fresh and free; to find renewed dreams of my own. I was going to engage in another self-discovery trip. This time I wasn't going to travel alone.

I looked at the skinny freckled redhead sitting by my side. Her beautiful delicate hands over mine, that seductive spot caressing her chin in the shape of a heart —I love you.

Maybe Betty's change made her a monster. But sometimes change was good. A change of plan. A change of dreams. A change of heart.

There were so many new things to me, these days. But it was all right. More than right, it was perfect.

LA FINE

Notes: Ah, come on. The biggest hint was always in the dedicatory. You shouldn't expect any less from a Foxy-fic. :D

Fifone! = Coward

Puoi scommetterci = You bet!

La fine = The end