"Do I need an attorney?" Harvey Davis, Scarlett's father, asked them as they stood in his living room.
"That's your prerogative," Leonard told him.
"Just a moment," Harvey said before he pulled his phone out of his pocket a made a call.
"Hey, Harvey, I'm just in a meeting," a voice on the other end said.
"You've got to be here. I'm with the police," Mister Davis told the other person. After a moment, a hologram of a man popped up in the middle of the living room floor.
"Allan Shaw. I represent Mr. Davis. May I see your credentials?" the hologram of the lawyer asked. Leonard pulled out his badge and let the lawyer scan it. "Thank you. What's this about?"
"It's about Scarlett's overdose," Harvey said.
"We're just gonna ask a few questions," Jemma told the two men, they both gave her a nod. "You sent a message to your daughter, saying you 'took care of it.' What did you take care of, Mister Davis?"
"Don't answer that," Shaw told him.
Leonard looked at Harvey, "Did you kill Irina Hoving?"
"What? No," Davis said to them, the shock written on his face.
"I would remind you, Detective, my client is grieving. This is grounds for harassment," Shaw said.
"This is not harassment," Jemma told the lawyer. "We're questioning your client in relation to a triple homicide."
"Homicide?" Harvey asked.
His lawyer seemed surprised too, "What do you mean, homicide?"
"Scarlett didn't die from an accidental overdose. We have evidence that someone deliberately spiked the doses meant for Scarlett and Elinor," Leonard told them.
"Are you sure?" Davis asked.
"Positive," Jemma said.
"You had a problem with your daughter. You weren't talking at the time she died. Something you did upset her. What did you do, Mister Davis?" the detective asked.
"Harvey, I suggest that we discuss this in private, and when we're ready, we'll get back to the detectives…" Shaw said but Harvey hung up the call.
"Scarlett was with Irina that night, yes. Elinor, too. They took the drugs together. But when the girls went back to the school, Irina stayed behind," Harvey told them.
"Why not just say that?" Jemma asked. It was a good question.
"Scarlett wanted to, but I wouldn't let her," Harvey said. "There was nothing anyone could do to bring that girl back. I did not want my daughter's life ruined. What happened wasn't her fault. Why should it follow her around?"
Leonard nodded, "The recordings of the girls talking? Do you have anything to do with that?"
"I heard Misses Hoving hired a private investigator. I paid money to make him and the evidence disappear," Harvey replied.
"So, you 'took care of it'," Jemma said.
"I was trying to protect her," Davis sighed.
"But she didn't want your protection, did she?" Leonard asked even though he could guess the answer.
"No. She was always very honest," Harvey said with a small smile. "You know, she said I'd pay for it. That we all would. And now we have. All of us."
"Your daughter?" Jemma asked.
"No, Misses Hoving," Harvey said. Leonard and his partner shared a look.
They thanked Mister Davis for talking to them and left the house. Leonard decided that taking him in for evidence tampering wouldn't be worth it, Jemma seemed to agree. He'd get off unscathed with that high-priced lawyer of his before Leonard could even finish the paperwork.
"It's interesting that Misses Hoving never told us she contacted any of the parents," Jemma said.
"Yeah and when she told us the recordings were erased, she acted like she had no idea who did it," he replied just as his phone rang. "McCoy."
"I got something from Julian's bedroom. Found another one of those vials, hidden behind a picture of Irina. This one opened with Julian's DNA," Stiles told him.
"Yeah? What was in it?" Leonard asked.
"Image stick," the other detective told him.
"Thanks," Leonard said and hung up the phone. "We gotta talk to Julian again."
"This," Leonard held up the small memory device, "is encrypted. You want to tell us what's on it?"
"Not really," Julian sighed.
"Here's a theory, tell me if I'm off. Misses Hoving discovered that you were selling drugs to everybody, including her daughter. So she threatened to tell the cops unless you were willing to do what she wanted. Give lethal doses to those two girls," Leonard said.
"This thing's locked up pretty good, must be important to you," Jemma said. "Is it an insurance policy? Did you record her threatening you?"
"You're a minor. We can cut you a deal, call it coercion. What's on the stick, Julian?" Leonard asked.
The kid looked at it for a long moment, "It's the last thing that Irina ever said to me. She was special, my best friend. And she was such a good person." The kid sighed and wiped a tear away. "She was under so much pressure."
"What kind of pressure?" Jemma asked.
"All her mother's hopes and dreams," Julian told them. "Nothing was ever good enough. Her mom rode her so hard. She didn't know how to manage it all. She always felt she wasn't good enough. But I loved her. I just wanted her to be her. When you're surrounded by perfect things, you learn to appreciate the beauty in flaws. I could never get her to believe that. I didn't want her to take Vero. It's the only thing we ever fought about."
"What happened?" Leonard asked.
"The drug opens up a world of possibilities for chromes. But for naturals? Well, I'll let her tell you," Julian said before he unlocked the image stick and played it for them. The three of them watched the last moments of Irina's life on Leonard's tablet.
After a few minutes of silence, Leonard looked at the kid, "Thank you for showing us that. Jem, grab Uhura, we need to go see Misses Hoving."
"I know you said I shouldn't take it. But I did. Out of all the people in the world, Julian, I love you. And I want you to understand. I see now why I shouldn't have done it. Taken the drug. I'm limited. I'm not good enough. I'll never get to where I need to be, it's true. And I can see that now, that's why you didn't want me to take it. You see something in me that isn't there. Like my mother. She sees it, too. And what you think you see will never be there. There's no way you can feel what I'm feeling because you're not born that way. You're my best friend. You're going to do amazing things, Julian," Irina said before she walked into the water.
"No," Misses Hoving whispered as the Julian on the screen looked for his friend a minute after she disappeared into the waves.
"The drug didn't kill your daughter," Leonard said.
"That's not true. You heard her. She saw things she wasn't supposed to see. And that drug helped her do it," the woman told them.
"Misses Hoving, did you hire the hacker to up the doses of those two girls?" he asked.
"They acted like she didn't count. Like she was nothing. I tried to do it the right way but they destroyed evidence. They didn't care what I was going through. Their money and influence took my justice and I wanted them to feel what I felt. They don't know what it's like. The rage. It overtakes you. The fury. You try to let it go. I prayed for it but it consumes you. That's all there is. There's no peace, there's just noise. It's like static, constant and loud. You can't eat, you can't sleep. You can't look at other people's children. You feel like your insides are on fire. You stop living. She was just as good as any chrome."
"So you killed her friends? You killed someone else's children?" Uhura asked. "You put two other families through all this? For what?"
Misses Hoving looked at her, "You wouldn't understand."
"Understand what?" Uhura asked softly. "This is all Irina will be remembered for. She killed herself and her mother murdered her friends."
"Go ahead," Leonard told Uhura's VX, who took Misses Hoving out to the waiting squad car.
"You alright, Nyota?"
"I think people forget that chromes don't ask to be different," the other detective whispered.
"Someone made you that way," Jemma offered.
Uhura smiled, "Of course you figured it out."
"That you're a chrome? It wasn't hard," Jemma said. "If it makes you feel better, I understand what it means to be different."
"Bones," Jemma stood a little closer to him than usual and whispered. "That's Detective Finney from Internal Affairs." Leonard followed her line of sight to the man in the suit.
"I'll be right back," he told his partner. Better now than never.
He walked into the room and Finney offered him a seat. Pike had already given his report, so Leonard didn't have to do anything but answer a few questions.
"How long have you been getting these flashes?" Finney asked as he manipulated a holographic interface that Leonard couldn't see, Finney was wearing special glasses.
"A week."
"When you first met Jocelyn Darnell, did she approach you or did you approach her?"
"She approached me, like I said in my report."
"Mm-hmm. Right, she rear-ended your personal vehicle on your way home, obviously a setup."
"It wasn't obvious at the time. People meet each other in all kinds of different ways," Leonard said.
"Were you in a relationship at the time?" the other man asked.
"What's that got to do with anything?" He wasn't seeing anyone but he also didn't think it mattered.
"Did you check her out? New girl coming out of nowhere? What cop wouldn't, right?"
"Of course I checked her out. I did a full background. She was clean," Leonard said. He knew where this was about to go, where it always went.
"Mm-hmm. You and Jocelyn were moving along pretty quickly, huh?" Finney asked but Leonard didn't say anything. "She infiltrated you. Gave Section Thirty-One precinct files. And there were consequences."
"Look, I did everything by the book. I don't know how she got my files," Leonard asserted. That was one of the things that was driving him crazy.
"I know, of course you did. I mean, it says right here. You wrote it down. You were in a coma, hmm? You have trouble remembering things. Isn't it possible that maybe you forgot to follow protocol and now you just can't remember?"
"You mean, conveniently can't remember."
"I don't know. Are you sure you don't remember anything else?" Finney asked.
"I don't. Are we done?" Leonard didn't bother to wait for an answer before he stood up and walked out of the room.
"That bad, huh?" Jemma fell into step next to him.
"Jem…" He didn't want to deal with any of this shit at the moment.
"We don't have to talk if you don't want to but I'm not letting you run around all pissed off by yourself. I'm sure as hell not letting you drive," she said. Leonard looked at her and he could see the genuine concern on her face.
"Fine, come on."
"This is nice… aside from all the notes," she said when they stepped into his house. Nobody can see the digital post-its he had all over the place… except his partner who sees in like a dozen different spectrums.
"You were right, I'm a little obsessed." He watched Jemma as she scanned the room with her eyes.
"Why are you showing me all this?"
"Because Chris all but told me that I can trust you. I'm gonna need you to pull me back if I go too far, get too deep."
"I will," she told him just as his phone rang. He used the interface on his desk to answer it. Chekov popped up on the holographic screen.
"Hey, Detectiwe, we found something," the kid told him.
"Whatcha ya got?" he asked. Chekov was looking over his shoulder at Jemma. "It's okay, she's my partner." He wasn't even surprised at how each that rolled of his tongue.
"Oh, okay. Ze department did a high-lewel sweep of your place before you were reinstated but we missed zis. Ze doll is a listening dewice. Within the pigment of the doll is nano-circuitry. It is a radio transmitter. Someone's been listening to you. The last upload was sewen hours ago."
"Can we trace it?" Leonard asked.
"Working on it," Chekov told him. "I'll let you know if I find something else."
"Thanks, kid," Leonard said before he cut the connection.
"That's not good," Jemma said.
Leonard sank into a chair, "She's tormenting me."
"We're gonna find her."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because you're a good detective. Finding answers is what you do, Bones," she smiled.
"I guess you're right," he said. "Come on, I should get you back to your housing."
"I can't stay?"
"Seriously?" he asked. "What are you gonna do, watch me sleep?"
"No, but anything's better than hanging out with the VXs." He couldn't blame her for not wanting to spend her nights with those things.
"Don't you have to charge or hibernate… whatever you do at night?"
"I can go a few days on a charge-cycle, skipping one night won't hurt me."
"Alright," Leonard sighed. "Just don't stand around all night and don't snoop though my stuff."
"Sit down and no snooping, got it."
"You called me 'Jem'," his partner said out of the blue a few days later.
"What?"
"You called me 'Jem' seven times in ten days."
"Uh… huh. Sorry, if you want me to stop…"
"No. It's just… One way to connect with someone is to create a nickname for them. A name that says 'I know this person', essentially, showing them that they belong. I call you by a nickname simply because I prefer not to call you by your last name, using your first name on duty feels oddly personal and calling you 'Detective' means we're either detached or we're in trouble. You calling me 'Jem' denotes affection, however mild it may be. You like me."
"You read too much into stuff," he chuckled.
"Maybe, but you didn't deny it," she pointed out.
"I… I like you better than the VXs."
"That's still not a denial, Bones."
"You're frustrating," Leonard chuckled.
"As are you. Still not a denial," Jemma smiled.
"You're not gonna let this go, are you?" he asked.
"Just admit that you like me. It's not that hard."
"I will admit no such thing," Leonard told her.
"Maybe not today."
"Not ever."
"We'll see."