Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or ideas from The Killing. It's all just for fun.
Spoilers: Season 3, episode 10
Holder beats mercilessly on the Skinners' front door, over and over, until Jen, the Lieutenant's wife, opens it. She looks concerned about why a stranger is pounding so hard on her door, until he tells her who he is and why he's there. Her concern then turns to annoyance at the mere mention of her husband. She tells him that Skinner left twenty minutes ago, and that she doesn't know where he's going. She tries to slam the door in his face, but he wedges his foot in front of it to stop her.
"Ask his girlfriend," she tells Holder bitterly when he asks her again, more forcefully, where her husband is, "and get your foot out of my door before I break it," she adds, venom dripping from every word.
Holder looks confused, then asks, "Wait, his girlfriend? You're talking about Detective Linden?"
"Yes, her," Jen spits in disgust.
"She was here? They left together?" He steps back from the door, looking surprised.
"Yes," she hisses, and closes the door without another word.
Holder turns to leave, but he gets as far as the front steps, only a few feet away, before he stops. His phone is already flipped open and he's holding it up to his ear, looking out at the street absently as he tries to think of where the two of them could have gone, when it hits him.
He has a pretty damn good idea where he'll find them. Standing there on the steps, he's just had a flashback to teasing Linden about a conversation she was having with Skinner that he'd overheard, in the other man's office, when he'd been trying to convince Linden to come to his lake house to relax... the same day they'd caught the body of Angie Gower, the one that made everything fall into place for them. It was her body that set them on the path to figuring out that the killer is a cop. If she'd taken Skinner up on his offer, or if they hadn't gotten that case when they had… they might not have figured it out, might not have gotten so close so fast. Linden might not have been in danger right now.
Too many fuckin' "if"s! he thinks, trying to sift through his thoughts.
He remembers sitting beside her in the car, teasing her. "Goin' to the lake. Makin' a fire," he had said mockingly, out of Skinner's earshot.Linden hadn't been able to help but smile, looking embarrassed at having been called out.
If Skinner's taking her somewhere now, if he wants somewhere remote… that lake house might be it.Adrian may or may not be there. Skinner and Linden may or may not be there. Anyway, it's somewhere to start. It's somewhere no one else will know to check… except him, and that's reason enough to start there, as far as he's concerned.
For a split second, Holder also remembers the smile that Linden gave him after his singsong imitation of that conversation. It had seemed so ridiculous to him. Linden… at a lake house? Linden… relaxing anywhere? Maybe that's part of the reason the whole thing between Linden and Skinner has always seemed so ridiculous to him. Linden doesn't do relaxing. Why does it seem like no one knows that about her? How is he the only one who sees that?
People see what they want to see most of the time, the voice in his head chimes in helpfully.
Well, she doesn't belong at a lake house any more than she belongs in Sonoma, he replies to the voice. He's sure of that.
So where does she belong? With you? The first voice asks. He doesn't have an answer.
He feels so many things at once then, watching her smile play again in his mind's eye as if it's a recording stuck on a loop. Anger. Frustration. Worry. Fear. She'd trusted Skinner, and Holder had been glad to see her happy, even though he hadn't liked the whole thing. It isn't necessarily a great decision to sleep with your married boss, but you certainly shouldn't have to worry about him being a serial killer of children!
If I had done more to protect her… he thinks miserably, but the thought is gone almost before it has time to form. He's going to do something about it. He's going to fix this, to find her.
He closes his phone and whips back around and steps back up to the door. He bangs on it again, only slightly less aggressively than the first time. Jen answers angrily this time, opening the door quickly and demanding, "What is wrong with you?" He supposes that it's a fair question, considering how he's acting and how little she knows about what's going on.
But there's no time to tell Jen Skinner a single bit of what would be a long and quite frankly, completely unbelievable story, so Holder gets right to the point. He simply asks her, without any pleasantries, "Where's the lake house?"
"The lake house?" she echoes back at him, completely confused. The look on her face is baffled and hostile, and she doesn't look inclined to tell him. He can't really blame her, because in her shoes he'd been equally as lost and definitely just as pissed off by this point. But Holder just nods impatiently, his mind screaming Yes, lady, I just asked you where the fucking lake house is, and you'd damn well better tell me before I lose what little patience I have left. He's trying very hard not to grab the woman by the front of her shirt and shake her. He does not have time for this.
"Yes, the lake house. Your husband has mentioned it. I have reason to believe that he may have gone there. It's urgent that I find him, immediately, and he's not answering his phone. So would you please just give me the address?" Holder's barely holding it together enough to explain that little bit of what's happening, but he knows that talking to Jen Skinner is the fastest way to get the information that he needs. He drops the aggressive edge from his voice – or tries to, anyway – and now seems to almost be pleading, in his eyes if not as much in his voice. "Someone's life is in danger, and the only way to save them is to find him," he adds, taking care not to mention whose life is in danger. It wouldn't be surprising if she didn't feel much sympathy for Linden right now.
Jen's face softens slightly as Holder eases up, though she still looks more than a little annoyed. She sighs heavily before saying, "I'll write it down for you. Let me get a pen."
Holder's about to tell her that he doesn't need it written down, that he's not going to fucking forget something so important, but Jen leaves him standing at the front door, which she pushes closed. At least she doesn't slam it in his face this time. She's back only about ten seconds later, handing him a scrap of paper.
"Here," she says, shoving the paper at him. "I don't what's going on, but that's the address. As far as I know, he hasn't been out there in a year, at least. But then again, what the hell do I know? He's only my husband." Sarcasm drips from her voice, but Holder knows it's not directed at him, and he ignores it.
He takes the slip of paper and looks at it. He's going to have to look up the street name, but he's heard of Lake Sawyer, which is scrawled neatly at the bottom. Despite how she has acted towards him, he feels badly for Jen Skinner. She has no idea what her husband has been doing for God knows how long, or what a sick bastard he really is. She's collateral damage in the fucked up mess that Skinner has created, and when she finds out what he's done, it's going to hit her hard. Luckily for her, she seems to be a pretty tough woman.
He glances up and as he nods his thanks, she's already slamming the door in his face once again. He's not bothered by it, however, because he has what he came for. He sprints back to his car and pulls out a map from the glove compartment, cursing the department's resistance to the whole smart phone technology movement. This would be so much easier if he had a phone with GPS. Cost saving measures, my ass, he thinks as he plots his course.
…
He's been driving for what feels like forever, and it's now pitch black outside. He's left Linden voicemail after voicemail. This time, when he gets the recording again, he simply says, "Call me back," and hangs up. He's attempting to navigate in the dark, with the map spread across the steering wheel. Glancing at it as he drives, he thinks he knows where he needs to go.
He sets the map aside just in time to turn a corner, which he takes too fast. He cuts off another car, but he's not even sorry. His partner's life is in danger. He considers putting his police lights on, but if there's one thing he doesn't want, it's to alert Skinner that he's coming and give him extra time to get away. Or hide. Or… he can't even complete that thought. No, it's bad enough that Skinner's a cop and knows all the protocols, knows how they all operate, how each of them thinks and reacts. The one thing Skinner seems to have underestimated is how hell-bent Holder would be on making sure that Linden is safe.
His foot unconsciously pushes down harder on the accelerator, and he urges the car to go as fast as he dares in the blackness that goes along with the lack of streetlights so far outside the city. Holder tries not to think, but it's hard. There's so much uncertainty, so much many ways this could go wrong. He tries to take deep breaths, to calm himself down. He needs to stay focused. There's two people in danger right now, two people who need him not to lose his shit, and at least one of them is actually with Skinner himself. Who knows what that psychopath's going to do…
I'm coming, Linden, he thinks to himself, unsure of whether or not he'd said the words aloud.
…
When his phone finally rings, he's still driving, his knuckles clenching the steering wheel so hard they're aching, but it's not Linden on the phone. It's fucking Reddick. He tries not to sound pissed off that he's the one calling. None of this is his fault, and after everything that's happened between them in the past few days, the man is still doing him a huge favor by looking for Adrian. Reddick tells Holder that he's at the kid's house, that he found something in his backpack. After a short conversation that Holder barely hears, with his focus remaining on the dark road ahead of him, he hears Reddick say he's going to check something and get back to him. Holder is once again alone in the silence of his car. Alone with his thoughts.
He keeps driving, thinking only of finding this damn lake house, and trying not to imagine what he'll find when he gets there. He prays that Skinner won't have done anything stupid, that Linden will be okay, and that Adrian is somewhere safe, somewhere not with Skinner. Skinner and Linden aren't too far ahead of him… less than thirty minutes. Jen hadn't said anything about a kid being with them, but who the hell knew. Not like he hasn't seen his fair share of people stuffed in trunks.
A wave of nausea sweeps over him at the thought, and for a second his vision blurs slightly. He's thinking of Bullet, and the guilt and sorrow over what had happened to her threatens to overcome him once again.
In any other situation, he may have pulled over and given himself a moment to recover from the feelings that had just overtaken him. But there's no way in hell he's going to take a moment while Linden's out there somewhere, with a psychopath. If he doesn't get to her in time, he's never going to forgive himself. If he misses saving her by the amount of time it would take him to pull himself together and stop lamenting a girl who's already dead, well, he won't be able to go on.
He stays focused on taking deep breaths. He can't afford to lose his shit now. Up ahead he can see the reflection of a sign, but it's too far away to see what it says. His fingers drum impatiently on the steering wheel as he mumbles, "Come on, come on, come on…" He can only hope that this sign is the one he's looking for. It feels like five years before the sign is close enough to read.
Finally, mercifully, when Holder slows down to read the sign, it's the one he's been hoping it was. Lake Sawyer. He consults his map again and turns toward the lake, proceeding slowly into the foggy blackness. The narrow dirt road feels like it will never end, and the house numbers are few and far between. He drives for what feels like fifteen minutes down the winding road, wondering if he's gone too far, if he's taken the wrong road, if he's ever going to find the lake house or any sign of Linden and Skinner. Just when he thinks he's completely lost, he sees a post with the house number he's looking for.
Knowing that he may need the element of surprise, he decides that it's better to go the rest of the way on foot. He turns off the car there and gets out, closing the door quietly and walking into the darkness. He walks slowly, straining to see in the dark, and cocks his gun so that he's ready as he continues forward.
The cabin is set not too far from the road, and he peers inside cautiously. He tries the doorknob, which is locked, then finally he just kicks in the door. Not hearing or seeing anything obvious, he calls Adrian's name and looks around quickly, his flashlight now on. Nothing. No signs of life, but no signs of death either. No clues. Nothing. Maybe this hunch was all for nothing. What now?
Dammit! he things angrily. He kicks a chair in frustration and it skids into other furniture, rattling dishes. He looks around frantically, trying to figure out what to do next.
Where the hell are you, Linden? he asks the darkness.