I'm sorry for the delay. It took awhile to finish this, but it is my longest chapter thus far. Hope you enjoy! I'm hoping this chapter will bring some drama. As always, please leave reviews, whether they be good or bad. I love all types of feedback. Thanks!
Kevin's POV...
"Anything on Travis Welker's alibi?" Beckett asked. Castle was right behind her, as always. He looked desperate for good news. At this point, we were all desperate for good news.
Javi stood up. "He was at his cousin Bobby's wedding, from 6 until 11. I confirmed it with Bobby and his new bride, Allison." Javi, sat down in his chair and rubbed his temples. We were exhausted.
"Well that's it." Beckett, sighed. "We hit our last dead end." She stood there for awhile. We didn't say anything, just racked our brains. We chased down every lead. Went over his financials. There was nothing. We were empty handed and Jacob Wilson's murderer was free to do whatever he wanted. He was able to kill whoever, whenever, and wherever he chose.
I stood up and walked over to wipe the murder board clean. "I should go inform Gates." Beckett said, finally moving from the place she had been standing for the past several minutes. "Good effort, guys." She said, before walking over to Gates' door.
"A lot of good that effort got us." I muttered, to myself. This whole case had been a cat and mouse game.
"Want to come over and chill tonight, bro?" Javi, walked over and patted my back.
"Thanks, but I actually have some plans."
"Plans? What kind of plans?" He asked, perking his head up. I should have known he would. I think he sensed what my plans were. He was very interested in my life. Specifically, my love life. I think it was because he was worried about me after the divorce.
"Just plans, Javi. Don't need to worry about it." I turned around and walked over to my desk.
"A date?"
I sighed. This could go on for awhile. I gave in "Yeah. You happy?" I asked, with sarcasm. He came over.
"Who with?"
I grabbed my keys and jacket and smiled. "Someone very special. I'd love to stay and talk about this and give you all the details, but I need to go." I added, sarcastically. I walked past him and headed towards the elevator. I heard him mumble something, but I decided to ignore it and keep walking.
After having a case end this way, I knew the only thing that would make it better would be to see her face. I always felt like I had a force field around me, when I looked into her beautiful brown eyes. Nothing could hurt me, when I was with her. Nothing, but her.
Cheyenne's POV...
When I got home, exhaustion had set in. Not that work was strenuous. It actually went by pretty quickly and smoothly. The only bad part was that, Brandon, my clumsy coworker, elbowed me in the eye. I was having a hard time seeing, so he had to drive me home. It looked more and more like, by the end of the night, I would officially have a black eye.
Brandon apologized repeatedly. At first, I did blame him, but if I were to be honest, it was my fault. I was the one who wasn't paying attention. Something that was causing me problems here lately. I was finding it hard to concentrate at the bar and with school. I was even blanking out when I was around Kevin. I would either space out around him or fall asleep. He never once complained about it though. I was having difficultly being around him, ever since Shane brought up Tess.
I would be lying if I said, I hadn't thought about it. It seemed to be all I could think about. If Kevin, Espo, Beckett, and Castle could help, wouldn't it be worth it to tell him? I mean, after years of knowing nothing, I could have all the answers I had dreamed of finding out.
Someone knocked on the door, when I was in the middle of changing. I knew Kevin was coming over since he texted me when he was leaving the precinct, I didn't want him to have to wait on me. "Come in!" I shouted from the bedroom. I heard the door open and close, but nothing else. I finished getting dressed and walked out of the bedroom to find nobody.
I stood there for a moment. I knew I heard the door open. I knew it. I tried to find any traces of someone in the apartment, but didn't see anything. Just when I thought I may have imagined the whole thing, I heard someone moving around in the bathroom. I would have tried to call out, but I was a little unsure if it was Kevin. I walked towards the door, slowly. Right about now I was regretting I didn't have anything to protect myself with. Just as I got to the door it popped open. I nearly screamed, until I noticed it was Kevin. I jumped back.
"Sorry." He said, but his voice didn't sound the same. He sounded, stressed. I turned around.
"What's wrong?"
He wouldn't even look up at first. "Nothing, just a hard day at..." He stopped when he looked at me. "What the hell happened?" He asked, rushing over to me. It took me a moment to realize what he was referring to.
"Uh, nothing. Just me being clumsy." I laughed, to cover my embarrassment.
"You were so clumsy, you punched yourself in the eye?" He asked. Okay, he had a good point.
"Well, no, but I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking, and a friend from work ended up elbowing me in the eye." I noticed that his body grew tense. I placed my hand on his cheek. "Don't worry, it was an honest mistake. He apologized like 15 times."
He moved closer. "You should put some ice on that." He said, shaking his head in what resembled, disbelief.
I nodded. "Yeah, I know." He got me some ice to put on my eye. I could tell he was upset. Either it was because of my eye, he didn't need to be though. It wasn't like it was intentional. Accidents happen all the time, he should know that. Or he was upset over his day at work. "So?" I asked, waiting for an explanation.
"So what?" He asked, putting his arm around me, while watching TV.
"You said, you had a hard day." I reminded him. "What happened?" He kept his eyes on the television. I knew being a homicide detective, couldn't be easy.
He had to see terrible things, and go out and find the people who did those terrible things. I knew he had to be going through something, if he wouldn't even look at me. I grabbed the remote and switched off the TV. He was going to talk to me about it. I wasn't taking 'no' for an answer. His eyes didn't leave the screen. I looked over and noticed his eyes weren't bright blue, like they normally were, they weren't like looking into a bright sky. They were darker now, like a storm was coming. I grabbed his hand with mine and kissed it. I heard him take a deep breath. I wasn't going to let him shut me out. I moved closer to him and faced him. He closed his eyes.
"Talk to me." I whispered. I didn't get a response. "I could really use a distraction, my eye is really hurting." He finally opened his eyes. He put his arms around me tighter, and I leaned into him.
"Can you do me a favor?" He asked, in a serious tone.
"Of course."
"I need you to sit here next to me and not talk. Just listen. Can you do that?" I nodded and interlocked our fingers. He rubbed my hand with his thumb. I didn't want to pressure him, but he wasn't talking.
He cleared his throat. "Today was one of those days cops dread." I moved my head, so I could face him. "We dread it, because it makes us feel hopeless and like failures." He stopped and took a breath. I wanted to tell him that he wasn't a failure, but I knew he just needed me to listen. "About a week ago, a man named Jacob Wilson was murdered. He was 36 years old. He was married and had 6 year old daughter and 4 month old son. He was found in an alley, shot several times and robbed. He didn't live or work on that side of the city, so we didn't know how he ended up that far from home. After a week of chasing down every lead we could and interrogating many suspects, we came up empty handed. Today, we had to dismiss the case." He rubbed my arm with his hand.
What was he saying? They gave up? I squinted my eyes, questioningly, at him.
"We hit a dead end." He said. I looked away and put my head against his chest. He felt so warm. So that was it? This guy, Jacob Wilson's murderer walked free? He or she wouldn't be brought to justice? What about his wife and kids? It didn't make sense. How could they just give up? I felt his chest rise. He must have known that I had a million questions going through my mind, because he kissed the top of my head. "It's the absolute worst part of the job, but we only can do so much. We can only go so far into the investigation. Sometimes, the only thing we have left, is just wishing for a miracle that the person will just come forward and confess." I could tell he was bothered by what he just said. It made sense. Sometimes life sucked. I knew it all too much.
"Some days, I just feel like quitting." I jumped a little. Quit his job? Why would he do that? "Sometimes, no matter how much good we do and how good we feel about doing it, it still hurts like hell, when we fail." He took a ragged breath. "Okay. I'm done. I don't want to bore you anymore with my incessant ranting. You can talk now." I had so many questions, but the only problem was that I couldn't bring myself to say anything.
"Cheyenne, are you still awake?" He asked, rubbing my back.
"Yeah, I'm still awake."
"You were really quiet."
"Just thinking."
"About?"
"Nothing."
"I know better than that." He let out a small laugh. I sat up and took the bag of ice off my eye.
"How often does that happen?"
"Does what happen?"
"You know, when you can't solve a case?"
"More than we would like. I mean if you were to map it out, we solve a lot of cases, but sometimes you just can't solve them all, no matter how much you want to." I would ask him what was going to happen to Jacob Wilson's wife and kids, but I already knew. They would have to go on with their lives, not ever feeling whole or safe again. I shook my head. Images of Tess, kept filling my head. I remembered the day I found out that my sister's case got dropped. It felt like the world stopped and for a long time, I didn't want it to ever start moving again. I wanted to crawl in a hole and stay there for the rest of eternity. I didn't feel whole anymore, but I knew I wasn't alone. Shane and Drake were there and they helped show me that the world didn't end.
"You have to talk to me." He said, rubbing my cheek. I nodded and leaned into his touch.
"I'm tired and my eye hurts." I said, which was fairly honest. "Would you mind if we went to bed?" He looked at me and nodded. He looked disappointed. I knew, I just spent the night trying to get him to open up to me, and he did. It wasn't fair to him. "We'll talk tomorrow, okay?" I knew he wanted me to say what was really on my mind, but what was on my mind was Tess and she was off limits, for now.
He grabbed my hand as we headed into the bedroom. We went to bed and didn't say another word to each other. We just laid in silence. I knew both of our brains were running a thousand miles an hour, but we didn't let the other person know what about. We just laid there, entangled with one another until we drifted to sleep.
The next morning, I woke up to find Kevin sitting up and staring at me. When I tried to open my eyes to get a better look, my eye felt like it was on fire. I whimpered.
"Do you need ice?" He asked.
"I'll go get it."
"No. I can get it. Just stay here." He hopped up and kissed my forehead, before leaving. I sat up and stretched. He came back with a bag of ice that he placed on my eye.
"Thank you." I said, trying to get used to the coldness of the ice.
"Anytime." He smiled a smile that gave me butterflies.
"So, are you feeling any better today?" I asked, leaning against him.
"Of course. Being with you always makes me feel better." He kissed my head. "How are you feeling?" He asked.
"It will just take awhile to heal, but I think the ice is helping." He wrapped his arms around me and I relaxed.
"I'm glad it is helping, but I wasn't talking about your eye. I was talking about last night."
"What about last night?" I asked.
"I noticed how you looked. You were all for talking and then once I told you about my day yesterday, you got very quiet. You weren't exactly subtle about it." I sighed. If I wanted answers, or to at least try and get answers, I needed to speak up.
I took a deep breath. "I know and I am very sorry, but there is a reason why my mood changed."
"What is it?"
"Well after hearing you talk about that case, it made me think about someone very close to me." I was feeling very unsure about this until I looked at him. I sure hoped he wouldn't be upset after I told him. This was the first relationship I was in, where the other person actually showed concern for me and who genuinely cared about what I had to say. "You see, about 5 years ago, someone close to me was murdered and, well the detectives working the case couldn't find her killer." I sighed. It felt good to finally tell him. It felt strange and good all at the same time. "So when you were talking last night, it just brought back some memories."
"I'm sorry." He started, but I couldn't hear him apologize.
"Kevin, you don't need to apologize. You didn't know." He nodded.
"Can I know who that person was?" He asked, pulling me back against him. I felt my heart begin to race. I didn't know if I could do this. All I knew is I couldn't back out now.
"Tessa."
"How did you know her?" I knew he would ask that question. I just wasn't ready to answer it. At least not honestly.
"She was...a friend of mine." I spit out and instantly felt bad. I just lied to him. What was I doing? "My best friend. I met her in school." I couldn't stop it.
"What happened to her?" He asked, kissing my head.
I didn't have to lie this time. "She was supposed to be out on a date, but never showed up to where she was supposed to meet her boyfriend. He waited for over an hour before, leaving. He decided to start calling people to see where she was. She was missing for two days, before her body was found in a lake. She had apparently been stabbed a few times and then whoever killed her, decided to tie a tarp around her body." It was hard to talk about and I was starting to get a lump in my throat. I took a deep breath. Kevin must have sensed how it was affecting me, because he wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed my head. He didn't ask anything else. I wasn't sure what to say to him, now. I wiped away a tear from my eye.
"I'm sorry." He whispered. Before the topic got pushed to the side, I needed to ask him.
"Do you ever.." I stopped, losing my nerve.
"What?"
"Do you ever take on cases that other detective didn't solve?" My voice was shaky.
"We have, but it doesn't happen to often." I was starting to feel stupid and was going to change the subject, by the time I tried to say something to lighten the mood, he cleared his throat.
"I don't want to make any guarantees or promises, but I might be able to look into the case. But that doesn't mean anything. If the case turned cold, it might be impossible to find anything now." I didn't say anything. I couldn't ask him to do to anything for me. He had just went through a case that he couldn't solve. I didn't want it to seem like I was using him. "What do you think? Would you want me to look and see?" He asked. "I mean, it would be just me. Espo, Beckett, and Castle would be helping as well."
I sat up. "I can't ask that of you."
"What if I offered to do it?"
"Why would you do that?" I asked.
"I love you. You mean more to me than you will ever know. You were there for me last night. You got open up and say how I was feeling. That wasn't easy for me, but you made me feel comfortable about it. You were respectful and kind. I opened up to you because I trust you. I want to help you. Obviously, she meant a lot to you, so if I can do anything to help, I want to do it." He rubbed my hand. I couldn't believe he was actually volunteering to do this. I thought I would have to go through a lot of convincing, to get him to even consider it. I looked at him and couldn't believe how lucky I was to have him. He was so sweet and generous. He seemed to know exactly what I needed without me having to say it. I would definitely have to try harder to make him see how much he meant to me.
I leaned forward and gave him a kiss, to show him my appreciation. "Thank you." I whispered. "Don't thank me yet." He said.
"I love you." I smiled. "I'm so lucky that you are with me, out of all the other females out there." He leaned forward and cupped my face, carefully.
"I'm the lucky one in this relationship." He whispered, before kissing me again. I didn't care what he said. I felt like the luckiest person in the world.
He rolled over on top of me and looked at me. His bright eyes were back and I never wanted to see them any other shade of blue again.
"Thank you."
"For what?" I asked.
"Opening up to me." He smiled, before his lips met mine. If only I were completely honest with him, then maybe I wouldn't feel so guilty.
Later that day, I was cleaning the apartment. Kevin left after getting a call from Beckett. He asked for Tessa's whole name. I gave him all the information he needed, before he left. I was feeling anxious when he left, so I called the only person I could.
"Cheyenne?" Shane answered, obviously, surprised. I never called him.
"Hey, how are you?" I asked, trying to remain calm. Cleaning dishes wasn't exactly easy with hands, that were shaking with anticipation. I ended up dropping a couple of plates once or twice in the sink, which caused water to slash on me and get my shirt completely wet.
"I'm okay. How are you? Is everything okay?" He asked.
"I did it."
"Did what?"
"Told Kevin."
"Sis, I'm going to need more to go on."
"I told him about Tessa." I said, a little to impatiently. There was a long pause, before he said anything. "He is going to help?"
"He is going to try. He said he couldn't guarantee anything."
"Right, well that's great, sis!" He laughed. I knew he was feeling relieved.
"I know. He said, with him and his partners, Esposito and Beckett, they will have a better chance of finding something."
"Beckett?" He asked.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Nothing. Name just sounded familiar."
"Oh, she's the detective that Richard Castle shadows." I reminded him.
"They are all over magazines."
"Yeah. That's probably where I remember the name."
"Yeah, so I mean, there are no guarantees, but maybe this will lead to something."
"I hope so. Thanks for bringing it up to him, I know it couldn't have been easy." He could read me like a book.
"I told him that she was a friend. I couldn't work up enough nerve to tell him the truth."
"Well if he can actually get us some answers, maybe you could tell him the truth then."
"Yeah, we'll see." I was just glad that I would be able to tell him on my own terms. Five years ago, I was a curly headed blonde, with a weight problem. Now, I looked the complete opposite. Plus, I knew it wouldn't draw any red flags, when he read her file. My last name was no longer Harper.
After hanging up with Shane, I wondered how long I would have to wait, to get answers. I also wondered if there were any answers out there. If there were, I knew Kevin, Espo, Beckett and Castle would be able to find them.
Kevin's POV...
"Tessa Harper?" Beckett asked, grabbing the file, I handed her.
"Yeah, why?" I asked. She flipped open the folder. She looked at me and sighed.
"Now I know why the name resonated with me."
"Are you saying, what I think you're saying?" I hoped I was wrong. Please, for the love of God, let me be wrong.
"We worked this case." She said, still looking over the file.
"Are you sure?" I asked, with little hope.
"I'm afraid so." She closed the folder and handed it back to me. "Sorry, Ryan." She started to walk away, like it meant nothing to her.
"Wait, maybe we missed something."
"What?"
"Well it was 5 years ago, maybe now, with fresh eyes, we could open the case again."
"Ryan, I get that you want to help Cheyenne. I do too." She assured me. "You know we can't open a case, without new evidence." I looked down and sighed. "If I go in there and tell Gates, she will just turn me down, you know that." I knew she was right.
The case went cold, and there wasn't anything we could do now. I felt bad, because I really wanted to help Cheyenne. I opened up the folder and glanced it over again. I knew when a case went cold that we, as cops, were supposed to put feelings aside and move to the next case.
In a perfect world, I wouldn't even have this job, because there wouldn't be any crime committed. We didn't live in perfect world though. We lived in a world, where horrible things happened. Being a detective, I loved being able to get criminals off the street, but sometimes, more than I would like, we didn't always have success.
If I handed the picture of Tessa to anyone in this room, they would say, some thing like, "That's too bad." then they would go back to their job. Tessa Harper would just be another girl, who was killed. It was scary to think that I had filed away, people, like Tessa, and just put them out of my mind. She was someone's daughter, sister, niece, and now she was gone and her killer roamed free to get away with murder again.
If it weren't for Cheyenne, I would have never remembered her. I worked this case, and failed at solving it. The worst part about it, was that, I didn't remember this case. I could use the excuse that, I had worked a lot of cases, but that was just an excuse. I never really thought about it this way before. I always felt bad, when we couldn't get justice for a victim and their families, but right now, looking at Tessa's face and thinking about Cheyenne, I felt like a heartless monster. How could I go to Cheyenne and tell her that her friends murderer was still out there, because I didn't do my job? What would she think of me? Could she still love me? I threw the folder down and went to the break room. I needed to figure out how I could ever face Cheyenne again?
Cheyenne's POV...
I knew I would need my car back, so I could go into work tomorrow. I called Brandon to see if he could pick me up to go get it. He came over and spent nearly the whole ride there telling me how much he hated the new shift manager, which made me feel uneasy as well. I already had problems with the former shift manager. She was a bitch. I guess the new manager wouldn't be any better. I was kind of glad that he was ranting. It was a nice distraction.
All I had been doing all day was cleaning and impatiently waiting to hear from Kevin. I was sure he could do something for me. He was a great detective. I had complete trust in him. He wouldn't let me down, like those other detectives did. They obviously, were just there to get a paycheck. Not Kevin. He cared about people. It mattered to him whether, the criminals were brought to justice or not. If anyone could find out what happened to my sister, it would be him.
Driving was easier than I anticipated. I guess it wasn't as bad as I originally thought. I made a mental note to apologize to Brandon for yelling at him. I was going to today, but my mind was on other things. When I pulled into the parking space in front of my apartment, I noticed Kevin was sitting on the bench. I noted that he looked confused, almost like he was a little boy who was lost. That wasn't a good sign. I sighed before I got out of the car. I had a feeling I was in for some bad news.
"Hey." I said, walking up the pathway.
"Hey." He echoed, then swallowed, thickly. I wasn't ready to start talking about Tess, so I kept it casual, knowing he wasn't ready either.
"I can drive now." I said, with a nervous laugh.
"Good. That's great." He said, rubbing his palms on his pants. Okay, this definitely wasn't good.
"Do you want to come in?"
"Yeah." His voice was squeaky. I opened the door and walked in.
"You don't lock your door?" He asked, following me in.
"I was only gone for like 20 minutes."
"Anything can happen in 20 minutes." I rolled my eyes.
"You really are a cop." I laughed. He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck.
I walked into the kitchen and sat on the counter. "So, what are you doing here in the middle of the day?" I knew the answer. I just wanted to get it out of the way.
"Listen, the thing is..." He stopped and looked like he might get sick.
"You can't do anything with Tess's case." I said, a little too blunt. He nearly choked when he breathed in. I didn't want him to suffer anymore than he needed to. It was a long shot anyway. I couldn't be mad at Kevin. At least he made an effort to help, unlike the other detectives. "Don't worry about it, Kevin. You don't need to be nervous. I'm disappointed, but that's not your fault." He looked at me and shook his head.
"Listen, about that..."
"Kevin, I will be fine. Those detectives who worked her case in the first, are the screw ups, not you. They didn't do their job and let her case slip away. They're the reason her killer is still out there. I can't blame you for them being incompetent." He looked like a child. I jumped off the counter and hugged him, sensing, he needed my reassurance. His body was so tense.
"Babe, it's okay. You tried to help and I can't ask for more than that." I let out a small laugh, in hopes of trying to lighten the mood.
"Cheyenne..." He started, loosening his grip. "We need to talk." His voice changed. A lot of emotion came out in those four words.
"What?"
"It's about her case." I was going to cut him off, but he would let me. "Just listen, please." I sighed and nodded. "I showed her case file to Beckett and well..." He let out a sigh. "This is going to be hard to say."
"You can tell me anything." I held him closer.
"Cheyenne, I'm so sorry." He said, before pulling away from me.
"Sorry?" I asked, confused. "For what?"
"Beckett informed me today that..." He hesitated. "We were the ones who messed it up." I knew I heard him wrong.
"What? I don't think I heard you correctly."
"Beckett, Esposito, and I, worked Tessa's case. We were the ones who screwed it up."
He had to be lying. There's no way that was possible.
Special thanks to, wayouttamyleague! Can't thank you enough :)