Had a bit of time today and wanted to get one more update out before I'm fully mired in holiday overtime. Hoping to maintain weekly updates if I can, but please bear with me! I may not have time right now to answer all of your reviews as I like to do, but please know that all the feedback is greatly appreciated. :)
Dreamcatcher
Part VI
When she woke the next morning, Vic groaned and threw one arm across her face in delayed embarrassment.
It wasn't that she thought she did anything wrong, so much as she was angry with herself for wanting to leave the bar with Walt even though he was acting like a jealous, overprotective asshole. She was even more pissed at herself because a deep and unregulated part of her enjoyed his behavior, up to and including the hazy memory of his arms wrapped around her in the dim light in front of the house.
And maybe that was the embarrassing part— how much she'd craved that physical contact and allowed herself to sink into Walt like the past six months since she'd signed her divorce papers and everything between them went to shit had never happened. Stretching her legs beneath the covers Vic reminded herself that she'd had sex exactly once since she and her husband called it quits, and she briefly reasoned that lack of orgasms could be clouding her judgment to a certain degree.
If she were honest with herself, and she'd really been trying to be, she knew that it was less of a sex thing and more of a Walt thing. Which didn't help, because when the two got mixed up together in her mind Vic almost inevitably forgot the part where Walt had been a cold-hearted son of a bitch and instead remembered every conceivable way that she wanted to rip his clothes off and fuck his brains out. It was problematic, to say the least.
The alcohol certainly hadn't helped Vic to reconcile any of these issues, and she could only imagine the amount of crow she'd have to eat next time she talked to Eamonn. Probably a whole flock of the things. Or were they an unkindness, like the damn ravens? No, that wasn't right. It was 'a murder of crows,' which was oddly apropos considering the fact that her morning-after headache was on a magnitude sufficient to facilitate homicide.
Coffee might help with that— at least it was her day off, so most of the citizens of Durant would be safe. The clock on the bedside table indicated that it was 9:45am so she'd best get moving, day off or not. Donning a slouchy Flyers sweatshirt and pulling her hair into a haphazard ponytail, Vic wandered out to the kitchen. She was surprised to encounter Cady, who was wearing a black belted raincoat and pouring coffee into a travel mug.
Cady gave a brief, alarmingly Walt-ish smile as she greeted Vic with a sidelong glance. "Good morning. How are you feeling?"
"Fine, I think." Rubbing the side of her neck with one sweatshirt-covered arm, Vic leaned against the counter. "Better if there's a bit of black gold left in that coffee pot."
"You know, that glorious 'black gold' loses most of its inherent health benefits when you dump in half the state's sugar reserves." The pot was cheerfully proffered, along with a large mug bearing the inscription Wyoming: Like No Place on Earth. Wasn't that the fucking truth…
Vic watched as Cady moved to the living room and swung a red backpack from the end of the sofa to rest on the floor in the front entryway beside a petite black rolling suitcase. "You going somewhere?"
Pausing as she placed the travel mug on the small table beside the front door, Cady turned back distractedly. "Hmm? Oh— yeah! Sorry, my mind is already on my work and I probably didn't get a chance to tell you. I'm headed down to Boulder for a few days. I talked to the director at the National Indian Law Library and he said I could have special access and a work space while I get started with my first few case files. I'd rather be closer to my clients, but to be honest I really need a crash course in American Indian law. I had no idea how little I knew about how the system handles these cases."
Even with a hangover Vic couldn't help but smile at Cady's enthusiasm. "That's great." She sipped her coffee, feeling it warm her from the inside. "I promise I won't trash the place while you're gone."
"It should only be a few days, I have a meeting on Friday I'll need to be back for." Hand on the door handle, she paused abruptly. "Hey Vic?"
"Yeah?"
Cady seemed tentative, which wasn't normal for her. "Is… everything alright?"
"You mean apart from how my brain and my mouth feel like they're full of cotton balls?" Vic was almost sure she knew what the other woman was asking, but deflecting seemed like the sensible thing to do.
Apparently Cady was willing to put in the work on this case too, a scenario Vic's under-caffeinated brain wasn't prepared for. "I mean with you and my dad. I just wondered if something's up. He's been acting… kinda weird, and then last night when he brought you back here, I thought I saw—"
The iPhone vibrated in Vic's sweatshirt pocket, obliterating all images of what Cady might have seen and what Vic still felt right down to the white of her bones. She was about to sing the silent praises of sweet technology until she noticed it was the station calling. "Shit," she grated out, adding "Sorry," for Cady's benefit.
She tried to rein in her irritation as she answered, expecting Ruby. "This is Vic."
A gravel deep, distinctly un-Ruby-like voice responded. "I sure hope so, otherwise I've got the wrong number."
Walt was doing that thing. That slightly awkward but grudgingly charming thing that he used to do much more often, where he tried to counteract the unpleasant request he was about to make by softening the delivery with jokey or slightly flirtatious small-talk.
Sighing and hoping her cheeks weren't as red as they felt, Vic waved to Cady as she shuffled out the door with her bags. "Why do I have the feeling you're about to ruin my day off?"
He paused for a moment on the other end of the line, and she could almost imagine him shifting his weight from one foot to the other and placing one hand on his hip. "Zachary woke up about an hour ago. I—" She visualized him chewing his own lip. "It's not exactly appropriate for me to take his statement so I was hoping you would do it."
If there could possibly be anything in the universe Vic wanted to do less, she couldn't think of it at the moment. She swallowed her dread. "What about Ferg? He worked the scene."
The scene. Your cabin. Where you were reportedly in a significant state of undress with Donna Monaghan before shooting Zachary and discovering that Dr. Perfect had been sleeping with her patients and prescribing them medication that made them paranoid and unpredictable in order to keep them in her thrall. 'Not exactly appropriate' doesn't really fucking cut it.
"Ferg got called down to the substation in Kaycee. They've got 20 missing cattle and a related assault, so he'll be tied up for hours. Besides, Vic…"
Exhaling slowly Vic's feet carried her to the bathroom, where she opened the medicine cabinet and rustled around for ibuprofen. "Besides what Walt?" She didn't have the patience for his oblique bullshit. Not today.
"I know I can trust you. That you'll be thorough."
It should have felt like the compliment on her professional prowess that it was, but somehow Walt's gentle, measured words simply fueled the spark of anger that was still smoldering in the bottom of her stomach. "Fine."
"Thanks, Vic. I really—"
An important fact occurred to her as she heard Cady's Jeep pulling away out in the street.
"I need a ride back to my damn truck, so be here in half an hour."
She tapped the hang-up icon before he had a chance to reply.
I didn't know what I was doing, you have to believe me. It had been getting worse ever since that day with Monte, like my head was in some kind of fog. I thought it was just the stress— she never told me the pills could have side effects like this. She never told me anything. The Zoloft was supposed to help with my depression and the little bit of OCD I've always had. Sticky drawers, you remember?
She told me I was doing well way before that, encouraged me to apply for the Deputy's job. I wasn't sure I was ready, but she said it would be fine. After I started she got a bit weird. She asked about Walt a lot, started saying I shouldn't trust him. Called me at the station, wanted to know what Walt was doing. I thought she was just looking out for me, you know?
To me everything seemed good. I liked the job, I liked working for Walt, but Donna— Dr. Monaghan— she said he was out to get me. What happened with Monte just put me even more on edge, and when Walt fired me… I don't know. It all seemed to be true? I guess I kind of went off the rails. She tried to keep me calm, told me she would be at Walt's place and what I should do.
I'm so sorry, it was the only thing that made sense at the time. I thought it would make those feelings stop, that I could get back to Tai Chi and start feeling normal again. If the enemies outside went away, I knew I could handle the enemy within. Donna told me that was right, that it was the right thing to do.
I have no idea why she wanted me to kill him…
The setting sun cast an orange glow through the blinds as Vic quickly knocked and side-stepped her way through the half open door to Walt's office. She was feeling physically better now, despite the circuitous, lengthy, and somewhat disturbing conversation with Zachary. Doc Weston said the former deputy would be fine once he'd had time to recover from the gunshot wound and readjust his mental health with the assistance of legitimate therapy and proper medication.
What was far more disturbing were Zachary's accusations regarding Dr. Monaghan. Vic had stopped at the Busy Bee for some fresh juice and a B.L.T. (two of the components were vegetables so it almost counted as health food in this god forsaken county), re-reading her notes three times and trying to find a way for Zachary's statement not to mean that Donna Monaghan had intended for her mentally unstable patient to burst into Walt's cabin and gun him down in a fit of paranoid rage.
In the end Vic figured the best thing to do would be to deliver Zachary's statement to Walt, who could cross-reference it against the one that Dr. Monaghan had delivered to the station a couple weeks back. Maybe he would find something to explain the inconsistencies.
Walt was sitting behind his desk wearing a new-ish black snap front shirt, and Vic briefly wondered if it was one of the ones he'd bought because of her. She pushed the thought away, along with the un-ignorable feminine observation that he was handsome.
"Hey."
"Hey. How'd it go?"
She knew what he meant. Of course she did— and although a small part of her wanted to be a bitch and play dumb just to wind him up after everything he'd put her through, the part that was worried about what all of this meant won out by a narrow margin.
Flopping into her usual chair in front of the desk, she sighed heavily. "I'm not really sure. We might get something a bit more coherent out of Zachary in a few days, but I don't like his statement. At all."
Handing the folder across the desk, she watched Walt as he read it. As hard as it was to tell in the dimly lit room, Vic could swear she saw the color drain from his face as he reached the bottom of the second and final page.
"Doesn't make much sense, does it? I mean, it's not like Donna wanted to kill you. From what I could tell that was probably the last thing on her mind."
Walt shot her a look.
"Sorry. I umm… thought you might be able to check Zachary's story against the statement Dr. Monaghan dropped off a couple weeks back. Maybe they'll make more sense together?"
His eyebrows scrunched. "What statement?"
She tilted her head to the side. "I left it on your desk? Green folder." Her brain calculated. She had been out with Eamonn after Donna's visit. "Two Thursdays ago?"
Shuffling the papers around on his desk, which Vic always assumed was organized with some brand of weird high-level cowboy sheriff logic, he spotted the folder in question beneath a manila envelope and a pile of un-signed invoices. He opened the folder and gave the contents a cursory scan.
"And you didn't think to mention this to me?" Walt couldn't seem to choose where to focus his gaze, on the folder or on Vic.
Standing, she perched one hand on her hip and gestured to the top of his desk. "I assumed you would find it!"
Walt took a deep breath, evidently on his way to accepting the oversight. He nodded his head toward the folder. "Okay. So what does it say?"
Was he being serious? "I don't know. I didn't read it."
He dropped the folder onto the desk top, placing one hand on either side of it as he rose to his feet. "A witness and possible person of interest in a crime came into this station to make a voluntary statement and you didn't bother to look at it?"
Fuck, he was actually serious! "The contents were meant for your eyes only. Dr. Monaghan made it clear I wasn't welcome to read it."
"She had no right to decide that and you had a duty not to ignore it." He ran one hand over the bottom of his face, rasping against the stubble. "This is my life, Vic!"
Oh no he didn't. No, ohhhhh no.
Vic could feel her head performing an involuntary disbelieving nod as her arms crossed over her chest. "Yeah? Well that's proof enough that whatever's in that folder is none of my business."
Staring across at her Walt's eyes widened, and she knew that he realized the raw thoughtlessness of what he'd said. His tone softened, rationalizing. "Whatever's in that statement, Vic, it could be so important—"
"You can take that statement and shove it up your ass."
She refused to let the angry tears fall as she slammed her way out the private door, down the stairs, and out of the station, without even bothering to wonder whether Walt might follow.
Oh deary me, just when it looked like these two were making some progress. LOL! Did you really think it would be so easy? Feeling a bit bad for Zachary, but it looks like the bad guys might still be out there... What was in Donna's statement anyway? And what is Walt going to do now?
Reviews will be lovingly adorned with gold thread and hung on the Christmas tree. Oh, and there's probably some egg nog or other festive drink involved, just saying! *bats eyelashes* ;D