Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
Thankfully, Lt. Peale was put in charge of the investigation. He took Winston's statement himself and then had him brought to a backroom of the restaurant. There the warehouse crew would be able to easily get to him without being seen by too many eyes.
Granted, he was not exactly running it by the book, letting these people so close to the crime scene, but they had helped many a victim out of a tight spot where the police force had simply been at a loss. He still frowned upon their connection with Guerrero, but that didn't matter now. Peale had first met Winston when he had still been a cop and he knew that Winston had suffered from the divorce, had seen him drinking his pain away in the cop shops.
The man needed his friends right now. To hell with the book.
Guerrero and Ilsa were the first to arrive on the scene, Ames came in right behind them and even Chance, although he had been furthest away with his visit to the wrecking yard, made it to the restaurant in less than twenty minutes.
This was about Winston. Nothing could have stopped him or any of the others.
… … …
"I stood there like an idiot!" Winston's voice was an outraged roar. He was pacing the room like a caged tiger. "One shot! I fired exactly one shot! Goddamnit, I could have stopped them!"
"Or killed your ex with a ricochet bullet", Guerrero stated evenly.
Not evenly enough.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, wiseass? What the hell are you saying? Are you saying she's lucky I didn't stop them? Could have hurt her? Cause I'm such a dumbass, I don't know how to handle a gun? Don't know how to help my wife?" Winston's words were stumbling into each other, falling over one another other. He was breathing heavily, like an old-fashioned locomotive, and spit was flying as he spoke.
Ilsa was getting concerned about his blood pressure.
"You asshole, how dare you say that!" Winston gave Guerrero a violent shove that sent him flying to the floor.
Now Ilsa was getting concerned about something else, but Guerrero did nothing but hoist himself to his feet again. "Dude…", he said calmly.
"I could have saved her!" Winston turned around and knocked the small table in the middle of the room over. He kicked it and then slammed his fists against the wall, so hard, the skin on his knuckles broke.
"I thought this was about parking tickets!" Once more he punched the wall, living bloody prints. A framed picture on the far end came crashing to the floor.
"Winston!" Chance stepped in quickly before he could pound his head in, put a hand on his shoulder.
The light contact was all Winston needed. He wheeled around and lashed out at Chance, shaking with wrath. Hurling himself at him with his full weight, he was desperate to do something, anything to make the unbearable pain, the despair and the shame go away.
He could have saved her. But it had taken him too long to get his fat ass out of the restaurant.
Chance easily sidestepped Winston. All the energy of his enormous momentum suddenly going nowhere, he lost balance and crashed to the floor like a ton of bricks, but not for long.
Outside the police officers overheard the sounds of Winston's breakdown with raised eyebrows, but Peale had ordered them to stay away from that room and so they did.
Inside, Chance threw Guerrero a quick glance. Guerrero understood.
Making a howling sound, like a hurt, angry animal, Winston clambered to his feet again, ready to attack Chance once more. This time Chance didn't avoid contact. Instead he grabbed his arm, twisted it around, kicked him in the back of his right knee so that he went down again and thus managed to hold him still just long enough for Guerrero to ram an injection into his upper arm.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry", Chance whispered, holding on to Winston as he helplessly tossed and turned in his arms. "You're not alone in this. Trust me. We'll get her back. Just let go now. Let it go."
Winston's struggles died down, his movements became slower, more and more uncoordinatedly.
"This is it", Chance softly murmured in his ear, his restraint hold now an embrace. "Just let go. We'll find a way."
Winston's head sagged against his chest as he let out one last desperate grunt of protest. Cautiously Chance hooked his arms under his shoulders. Dragging Winston out of here would be a bit of work.
"I'll get the car to the backdoor", Ames offered as Guerrero proceeded to pick up Winston's legs.
"Do you habitually walk around with a loaded syringe full of tranquilizer?", Ilsa asked him, quickly moving broken pieces of furniture out of the men's way.
"No, just didn't need it for this morning's … meeting … ", Guerrero grunted.
Ilsa held the door open. Don't tell me details, the look on her face said.
… … …
Waking up was like emerging from cold water. For a moment Winston was completely disorientated, then he recognized Chance 's bedroom. Of course. Ames was staying in the guestroom… Thankfully they hadn't accommodated him in Guerrero's secret prison chamber downstairs… but ugh, they could have changed the sheets, couldn't they? Housekeeping tasks were pretty low on Chance's list of priorities.
Like a wave crashing down on him, Winston suddenly remembered why he was here, in Chance's bed, still drowsy from whatever they had sedated him with. Hatred and anger washed over him, leaving him seething with shame.
Michele had been taken! Right in front of his eyes! And he hadn't been able to save her!
The last remnants of whatever shit Guerrero had dosed him with threatened to pull him back to sleep, but Winston was fiercely determined not to let that happen. There was some thought, a vague ghost of an idea… who had known that he would meet Michele at that restaurant? Had she been followed or…?
The ding of the elevator caught his attention.
"How is he?" Guerrero's muffled voice downstairs.
"Still asleep." Ilsa. "Any developments?"
Winston guessed the silence that followed was actually filled with a shake of Guerrero's head. Then: "This Hank knows nothing. Policed searched her house. Looks like she wrote everything down on paper and put it into that blue file. No trace of anything on her computer… damn traditionalists. Can't hack into a folder."
A small smile flitted across Winston's face. Michele hated computers. Of course she had written everything down by hand.
Which meant all the clues had been taken away with that blue file.
Except…
If there was one person on the face of the earth Michele would have confided in, it was Ethan. They were friends since childhood days. She had helped him with his coming-out. He would know what was going on. And maybe … there was the ghost of his earlier thought again … maybe Ethan had told someone where Michele was meeting him. By accident, most likely. Probably someone tapped his phone. They were old friends.
Or did he do it on purpose? If he had anything to do with Michele's kidnapping at all…
Winston was fiercely determined to find out.
Guerrero left again. The telephone rang and Ilsa went to answer it. Winston took his opportunity to sneak out of Chance's room and leave.
Of course the thought of informing the others crossed his mind. It would have made sense.
But the shame… he hadn't been able to save her… instead of doing something productive he had suffered a nervous breakdown… he'd do this alone. She was his wife, for heaven's sake!
… … …
While Winston decided to finally do something productive on this horrible day that was slowly turning into night, someone else was already done with being productive.
Smiling, Innokentij shone a flashlight down the grave he had just reopened. Sure, he could have made one of his men do the dirty work, but he preferred to keep some things to himself. A philosophy that had saved his life more than once in the past few decades, especially during his spell in Siberia...
Anyway, since the grave was only a few hours old – the wrecking yard owner had really had to struggle with his pickax in the hard ground, impressive that he managed to dig so deeply – it hadn't posed too much of a problem.
With the help of a stick he pushed back the black tarp to get a look at the carcass, resting the beam of his flashlight on the two wounds, studying them carefully. Finally he nodded. "Not a bad beginning…"
Meanwhile, in his bed back at the warehouse, Ash was tossing and turning, caught in a nightmare.
And in the third floor corridor of an apartment house in the Castro district, Winston was about to enter just another nightmare of his own.