Note: Ronnie's internalized thoughts, opinions, and reactions do not at all reflect my endorsement of how one might perceive or experience SA. This is a narrative of a flawed and deeply damaged character, not a politicized message on events that actually happen.
WE'RE ALMOST DONE WITH THIS BOOK! I can't believe it. Obviously I'll start up season two as well, but there will be a small break since I have other projects I want to work on before starting the next season. I have a Primeval story next and part of me has been dying to attempt a (don't laugh) Supernatural x Gilmore Girls fic but holy cannoli that would be a monster.
Alsooooo we have been #1 in KIMBALLCHO rating for WEEKS, thank you all so much for the engagement! We've come back around to #1 in TERESALISBON, too. Thank you guys so much. I can't believe how great you are.
Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe found the body of Felix Hansen, shot to death, in an alley on Hollywood Boulevard. Six-year California state Representative, Hansen was a frontrunner in the fight against the drug trade in public campaigns for years, and evidently had a number of enemies. He was found without a set of car keys and no valet ticket in the depths of Hollywood, where nobody ever walked.
"So, you didn't hear anything unusual?" Cho got the lucky job of interviewing Marylin and Charlie while the others checked out the body.
It had been five days since Ronnie had been abducted by Shiralai Arlov, and so far the only leads the CBI had gotten was the recovery of the car that had been driven to grab her before they swapped vehicles. Arlov's mob and diplomatic connections had kept him well under the radar with a state agent for nearly a week.
Cho's capacity to effectively do his job had become limited. Short of temper, quick to enraged outbursts, all due to the prolonged disappearance of his partner who was almost certainly being tortured. She would be punished for Vanya Arlov's death, she would be punished for humiliating Arlov in front of his men and his guests over the Moro. His dreams were filled with the possibilities of the hell she must be stuck in.
He scribbled the irrelevant details that Charlie and Marilyn had provided so far into his little flipbook. "And where were you going when you found the victim?" The past few days of picking up a case here and there had him working on autopilot. The basic interview questions were textbook, his focus almost completely removed from the witnesses and suspects he'd had to confront.
Rigsby had been forced to step up more than usual to cover the more sensitive details of the cases and let Cho worry about the data processing. For the most part, all he had to do was file things and type up reports following every turn in each case.
He didn't care.
At the new line of questioning, Charlie pointed a finger at himself, appalled. "I don't speak." His face paint had cracked and flaked off in patches, and his gelled hair had fallen around his face in greasy clumps around the sides of his bowler hat.
"In the movies, no. But here in the real world, you speak." Cho returned impatiently. "You just did."
"I'm saying nothing more." The entertainer stated angrily. "Five hours we've been here."
Marilyn, an anxious, pouty woman in cheap costume, butted in, flustered. "For the umpteenth time, I was going home from work. Victor was walking me to my car." She gestured to Charlie.
"And what is your work?" Cho asked, not looking up from his scribbling pen.
She stared at him in disbelief, arms extended to indicate her white sixties-style dress and butter-blonde wig. "I'm Marilyn."
Finally looking up to take her in with an almost distasteful expression, the perturbed CBI agent was not impressed in the slightest. "How is that your work?"
"I stand on the street, people take photos of me and give me tips." Her voice took on a defensive whimper, tilting her chin to hood her eyes at him.
His response was flat and unfeeling. "Why?"
She all but came apart at his lack of response, throwing her hands up and scowling at him bitterly. "I don't know. Where are you from?"
Cho just stared back, unsure of how to respond when he hadn't really been focused on the conversation to begin with.
"What are you staring at?" She turned her accusing stare to Jane, who now stood next to Cho with a cheeky little grin.
"You." Jane shot back. "What's your real name?"
She sniffed, lifting her chin haughtily. "Norma Jean Baker."
"What's your real-real name?"
Marilyn deflated. The agents weren't playing her games and they didn't care one bit for her impersonation of the doll of Hollywood. "Yolanda Quinn."
"Yolanda. You don't actually look very much like Marilyn at all. You do this kinda work because you feel a deep connection with her, yeah?" Jane ignored the annoyed glance that Cho shot at him, instead choosing to maintain intense eye contact with the false blonde impersonator.
"I guess." Her shrug indicated that he was closer to the truth than she was willing to admit to.
Jane nodded without judgment. "Yeah. She was a lonesome soul, poor woman. Longed for attention, affection, acceptance. She got it. She came out here, she worked hard, and she struggled—and she got it, all the love and respect that she longed for. And you can too, you will. You will, Yolanda, if you do the right thing now."
"What thing?"
"Hand over the valet ticket, Yolanda, that you stole from the dead man."
Cho went for his notebook again, relieved to finally be getting somewhere.
"I haven't got any valet ticket." Marilyn pouted.
Jane didn't back down. "Then tell Charlie to hand it over."
When Charlie merely closed his eyes, frustrated by being caught, Marilyn elbowed him. "Give him the ticket."
"Son of a bitch." Charlie snapped angrily. He tugged his hat off of his head and scratched around inside it.
"Give it." Marilyn ordered again.
Charlie yanked the ticket out of his hat and passed it to Jane.
"Thank you." The mentalist chirped.
"Can we go?" Marilyn whined.
"Sure." Jane jumped forward to lift the crime scene tape. "I'll keep the cops at bay, you guys run."
"What?"
"Run! Run!"
The two entertainers awkwardly ducked under the tape and trotted off down the wet sidewalk.
"Go, go, go, go!" At Jane's behest, they broke into a sprint and dashed down the block, out of sight.
"Nice." Cho grumbled. "I could arrest you for that."
"You'll never take me alive, copper." Jane returned smartly.
"Seriously."
"Seriously, it's Marilyn and Charlie. What, do you wanna make a comedy arrest? See your name written in the Weird News section?"
After a few seconds of deliberation, Cho conceded with a reluctant side-eye and a relenting nod. He didn't care one bit about making an arrest of insipid witnesses. He wanted to forget this case and go back to hunting for Ronnie and Arlov, and call every organized crime contact they had until he smoked them out of hiding.
But he couldn't, because Felix Hansen had gone and gotten himself killed.
the MENTALIST
Cho closed himself into his car, turning the key. The rain outside from the night before made his interior smell musty and damp, so he turned on the air.
Nothing made any sense. Nothing processed. Even thinking back five minutes prior, he couldn't remember the name of the man who had been killed in that alleyway.
She was still out there.
Russian Organized Crime wasn't known to be sympathetic or merciful.
And from what he'd learned, neither was Shiralai Arlov.
The moments that he sat in that parking spot before heading back to the CBI passed without his notice. Many moments over the past couple of days had passed like that—lost, silent, stolen away before he realized they were gone.
He closed his eyes and leaned back against his headrest. Would he know if she had been killed? Would her body turn up or would she be missing until he turned old and gray and some young local beat cop discovered bones in some reservoir somewhere?
How could he ever forgive himself for that?
The rear driver's side door opened and something hit the floorboard, followed by the hissing sound of an aerosol release. The door slammed shut again, and then the locks clicked.
Twisting in his chair to see what had happened, Cho found a gas canister on the floor pan, between his seat and the backseat, spilling out plumes of gas. Reason never entered his mind as instincts took over. He didn't ask himself who had done it, he didn't even wonder why; he held his breath and tried the doors but the locks held, no matter how many times he tried to release them.
His cellphone had fallen between his center console and his chair, and in his last few seconds of hazy consciousness, he reached for it as best as he could, but his arm wouldn't fit in the narrow space enough to find it.
His gun entered his mind next. He could bash out the window, or even shoot through it and crawl out into open air, just as long as he could hold on long enough to unsnap it from its holster.
But Cho was unconscious before his hand ever grasped the grip of his pistol.
the MENTALIST
The walls and rafters of the stall came into focus like scenery pieces sliding onto a stage set. Hay covered the floor and dusty particles rising from it floated in every ray of light.
Ronnie could feel it tickling the back of her throat, settling on every surface like dust kicked up on a dirt road.
Blood splattered on the floor. Not a lot of it, but enough to know that something drastic had occurred. She realized it was her blood, drawn from the backs of her legs. She felt as though she were coming back to that stall after days of reprieve from it, but she knew she'd only gained distance from within her mind.
Cold air from half a dozen rotary fans wafted over her skin, cooling the sweat that coated her, and drawing her attention to the fact that she wore no clothes. Her nice, new Rachel Zoe suit that she'd felt so confident was crumpled in rags on the floor beneath the metal table that she found herself strapped to.
Echoes of that feeling paraded through her skull hauntingly. The nausea from her concussion had passed, but a new form of it rolled through her stomach in cramping waves as the distorted memories of Arlov's touch worked its way through her muscles.
She really shouldn't be bothered by it.
After so many times, from so many people, dating back to her earliest years, she shouldn't even be affected by it.
She'd told her peers, Cho and her team, and Hotchner and her legal team, about the assaults she'd endured throughout her time under Carla's thumb. They knew she'd been taken advantage of and used as lures and incentives. They knew that Carla had trafficked her own daughter in her own way.
So why did it make her feel so sick to lay there exposed?
Why did it make her feel so humiliated?
She'd protected herself, at least. When her mind recalled the events, she didn't remember Arlov—she'd saved herself from the predatory look in his eye, the cruel sneer on his lips; there was no haunting recollection of his body or his voice.
The events that she'd crafted in the depths of her mind took the place of those visuals, softening the impact of that trauma. She'd been with Cho the whole time. Cho had protected her. The strangely advantageous fictitious version of Cho that she'd created in her head, but Cho nonetheless.
She wriggled within her binds and found the leather straps tighter than ever, cutting into the flesh of her arms and legs. Each movement sent shocks of pain from the lacerations on her legs and the burns on her stomach. Waves of nausea crashed through her once more and she forced herself to lay still.
How could she have done that?
Guilt ate at her conscience. Guilt and confusion and regret.
How could she have put Cho in that place?
It felt wrong—sick and twisted, and wildly inappropriate to replace such a horrid and violating moment with her best friend. How dare she put him in that place in her mind?
Was that wrong?
None of the world that she'd invented made sense.
None of it except for that strange familiarity she'd had of Rick Tiegler.
Somewhere beyond the stall, a huge door crashed open and footsteps pounded closer. Craning her neck to see from her horizontal position, Ronnie caught a glimpse of two men dragging someone into the stall, and then Arlov coming to stand near her shoulder.
"Well, don't you look bright and awake?" He smiled down at her with that wicked, slimy grin, and brushed a gentle hand over her forehead.
She tried to shake him off, and when she couldn't, fixed him with a glare instead. "You really are stupid, aren't you?" Because, if she'd judged it right, based on the number of nights she'd actually been aware of and the number of outfits he'd cycled through, they had wound up on Tuesday, the week following her abduction.
The Russian oil baron raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. "Veronica, you are strapped to a table with not a shred of dignity left to your name. How does this translate to me being the stupid one?"
She quite disagreed with him regarding the whole dignity comment. "You probably should have done a little more research."
Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned her head just as Arlov's two men moved out of the stall. With them no longer obstructing her view, she could see clearly who they had dragged in and tied to the chair that she used to be sitting in.
Kimball Cho.
Head hanging low over his chest, hands cuffed behind his back, shoes scuffed from them dragging him, her partner sat mere feet away, unconscious.
Note: I swear we're almost out of here