Hello, friends. Happy new week. So we pick up in the story still in the past, in our faux-Rashomon style of Bo's POV of the story so far. Hope everyone is still doing okay with the retread. I think it should still be clear where we are, and when I wrote these they were side by side with the original parts, so if you go back and read them together they should mostly hang together. Alright, hope you enjoy!
Wednesday
The CID, short for Criminal Investigative Division, meeting began to 6:15 the next morning. It took one quick scan of the dark and exhausted faces around the room to tell Bo that today would be no better than yesterday. The first thing Bo learned was that Peters – bright, happy Peters, who was always willing to go the extra step to help a victim, who loved his chocolate lab and his cheap cigars, who laughed easily at dumb jokes and who had a perpetual baby face even though he was at least 47, had died during the night.
Bo expected the news to hit with force. They had all known his condition wasn't good last night, and she had assumed that if the worst happened she would feel the air turn solid in her lungs, she would feel the world tilt and threaten to spill over. But that didn't happen; instead, she felt…empty. It was like the news had been shouted down a cavern, and she was only getting the vague and imprecise echoes from a great distance away.
The first twenty-four hours… If she hadn't told her to get a protective order, would Peters be alive?
She surveyed the others in the room and saw the blank, haunted, hollow looks in their eyes. None if it felt real. She had a moment where she wondered if she was awake. She cast her gaze down at her hands and flexed her fingers, though for what purpose she couldn't say. Maybe to see if they would move. Maybe to see if they were hers.
When she looked back up, Towns was staring over at her. Helpless to do anything but look back, they shared a silent moment, two ships passing and acknowledging. As swiftly as the moment came, she saw Towns drop his gaze, breathe, and then lift his face again, his professional mask slipping back into its place. Bo dug a fingernail into her palm, counted to five, and did the same.
By 9, Bo was back at her desk, the mass of files, reports, videos, photos, anything and everything she could imagine for what seemed an infinite number of cases laying in front of her. She knew she needed focus. There were a lot of important cases, and they all deserved her attention. In front of her were peoples' families, their property, their dignity. She reached over to her chilling cup of coffee and drank, the liquid bitter and unsatisfying on her tongue, her mind remaining unsettled.
She picked up another file, scanned the charges. Domestic related. The first twenty-four hours… She put the file back down and dimly thought about leaving it there. Maybe if she didn't touch it, the events would just halt. She thought of butterflies.
A quick rap sounded on her door and then it opened, revealing Towns, holding two coffees in paper cups.
She looked up at him and said nothing. He said nothing in return, placing one of the cups in front of her on her desk before sitting in the wooden chair to her left, taking a sip.
She took a drink, the coffee still unsatisfying but at least hot. He volleyed back, answering her sip with a second of his own.
The silence stretched between them, a living thing. Each sip a silent toast to their fallen friend. Each burning, bitter drop a quiet reflection of his absence. Her shoulders ached. Towns' eyes were shadowed. The silence breathed again.
She drank deeply again, willing the caffeine to worm its way between in her muscles, to meld into her cells and fire her neurons.
She turned her attention to Towns to say nothing again, and to listen to him say nothing in return.
They continued until the cups were empty, and even then they took a few more sips of the air from the hollow shells, practicing the rituals of being alive.
Towns rose from his seat, reached onto her desk, the creak of the wooden chair shattering the quiet, and lifted her empty cup. With practiced ease he arced first his and then hers into the trashcan near her desk and gave a final wordless nod. She answered him with her own silence, and then he turned and left.
Bo forced herself to work, forced her focus onto the files in front of her, and slowly found herself slipping into a rhythm. Towns' coffee seemed to have reactivated her, and by 11 she had made a little bit of a dent. She sat up straight, stretching her arms straight up over her head, trying to pull at the taut muscles of her back. Her eyes burned, and she felt exhaustion settling into her like a weight in a swimming pool. She needed to go home; Lauren had been right when she said Bo needed to sleep.
She closed her eyes for a moment, leaning her head back on her desk chair. Her mind swirled through the last day and a half; three vics, two kids…row house apartment…blue and red, blue and red, blue and red, blue and red…faux island music, SpongeBob DVD menu…blue and red, blue and red, red, red, red, red, red…tan wall, arc of red…the first 24 hours, did you tell her?...blue and red, blue and red, just a little bit, just a few goddamn dollars, you never loved me…I just need some help, I'm putting some things together…blue and red, blue and red, blue and red…a body on the floor, slumped in a corner, a man over it…BO!
Bo shot upright, her heart hammering in her chest. Her intercom on her desk phone repeated Helen's voice. "Bo? Call on line four."
Bo's eyes reflexively looked at the clock on her computer screen. 11:04. She had been asleep for four minutes. She ran her hand down her face. "Thanks, Helen," she answered, lifting her phone from its cradle.
The day continued on. The brief dream had been enough to keep Bo from having any more interest in sleep, and she opted instead to get through as much of her desk as possible. Her handwriting was awful, she noted, but it was the best she could do right now. She continued to make notes.
She lifted her phone and looked at the screen, he shaking fingers hovering near the messages tab. She wanted to talk to Lauren. But…she knew she couldn't. Not right now. If she talked to Lauren right now, Lauren would be worried, and she would come get her and make her lay down, and want to talk about what was going on, and she would be kind, and good, and caring, and perfect, and everything that Lauren always was. Bo surveyed her shaking hands, unsure if it was exhaustion or adrenaline or both, and lifted them to her face, letting the tips rest in the cavernous dark circles she was sure were hanging under her eyes.
Why don't you call and tell Lauren about your mother? a voice in Bo's mind hissed, and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, willing it back.
She gingerly rested the phone back onto her desk. She would talk to Lauren, but she needed more time. She couldn't process this, at least not right now. She would talk to Lauren. But she would talk to her later. She would let her bleeding nerves clot first. She would talk to Lauren when she was able to find words, and if she still couldn't, she would find a way to accept Lauren's words instead.
It's not over yet…you know how this goes…it isn't over… Bo shivered, felt her muscles contract without instruction from her brain.
She drew in another shaking breath and startled at the sound of her phone vibrating in front of her. Lauren's name flashed in her mind and she snatched at it greedily.
hey babe im sry i yelled i jus need a lil to get goin
Bo was frozen, reading and re-reading the message. She looked at number displayed at the top. Her mother. Of fucking course.
She felt a chill go through her, down her right leg, across her feet, back up her left. Her fingers hovered over the message as she waited like a spectator to see what she would type back to her mother.
rember we went on that trip we can do it again jus a lil and youl see jus a bump to get goin pls
At the phrase "just a bump" Bo felt the rage that had ravaged her the night before flood her system. She felt it rinse away the exhaustion like a sandcastle in a wave. She felt it coil, alive, vicious in her chest, clawing up her throat and lighting behind her eyes, a caged beast raging and on the brink of escape.
She felt white crowd the edges of her vision, tinging pink, now red. She felt hatred more purely than she could remember in years. She felt an addictive swell of strength, and knew with certainty she could reduce her phone to dust with just a flex of her fingers, with a crushing of her hand. She wanted to kick, to punch, to primally scream.
Her wild eyes cast around the room, animal, not her own, until they connected with a photograph. It was a snapshot in a frame on the corner of her desk, candid. Lauren, smiling on the couch, a book that had been in her hand fallen forgotten beside her, and Zeus in her lap, his nose turned up and pushed under her chin. She saw the soft edges of Lauren's sweatshirt, a well-worn college hoodie with fraying cuffs near her palms, and her socked feet just peaking up at the edge of the frame.
She took a shaking breath and felt the animalistic rage slink back away, abashed, quieted, but never forgotten.
You're talking to the addiction her logical mind told her again. This isn't your mother. This isn't your mother. You're talking to the addiction.
A few moments later, Bo lifted the phone and dialed.
"Bo?" the voice was somehow both slurred and jittery. Her mother's drugs were wearing off, not fully withdrawn, but coming down and now desperate to line up the next score.
"Hey, Mom," Bo replied, suppressing a heavy sigh.
"I promise you won't regret it, I swear you won't, this time is different, I'm going to do it this time and then –"
"I'm not giving you money," Bo cut her off.
Bo's mother went silent, and in Bo's mind she saw a snake waiting to strike out.
"I can help you find a shelter or assistance for battered women wherever you are," Bo pressed on. "They'll drug test you, though. I can help you find a rehab."
"A fucking shelter?'
Bo sighed. "Mother, these are your best options right now."
"BullSHIT, I just need some cash! I can do this on my own, I just need some money."
"You clearly cannot do this on your own."
"He can find me at a shelter, is that what you want? You don't think that's the first place he'll go?"
"So, get a protective order against him." The first twenty-four hours are the most dangerous…
"You know I can't do that!"
"Why, do you have open warrants?" Bo shot back.
Her mother did not reply.
"Jesus, Mom, why do you have warrants?!"
"It's not my fault!" she replied.
"Right, because nothing ever is." Bo pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger, closing her eyes. "Well, there you go then. Go to the courthouse, get an order, and while you're there turn yourself in. He can't get to you if you're locked up I guess, and it'll be harder to use."
"I'm your mother and you want me to be in jail?!"
"Of course I don't!" Bo nearly yelled back, silently relieved she had closed her office door. "But you don't want to fix anything for yourself, so here we are!"
"Can't you call the DA, get my warrant dropped?"
Bo went still. "Are you fucking kidding me right now?" she asked after a beat of silence.
Her mother didn't respond.
"No, Mother, I cannot call another state and ask the prosecutor's office to drop a lawfully issued warrant because it's inconvenient to you."
"You're always telling me he's going to kill me, he's going to kill me, he's going to kill me. Those are your words. I just want you to remember that when he does because you refused to help me."
"Money won't help you. I can't help you. Only you can help you. I don't even know why I called."
"Me either. Goodbye, I guess. Hope to talk to you again before I die."
Before Bo could respond, her mother hung up.
Bo gently laid the phone back on her desk, breathed in, counted to five, and exhaled. It was a dance they had done many times before. How much money had she given her mother over the years? More than she wanted to acknowledge, definitely.
It's not over yet…you know how this goes…it isn't over…She lifted her pen and legal pad, and returned to work.
Calls came in, new information about the case, new information about other cases. Bo answered e-mails, issues subpoenas, talked to witnesses, made notes. She picked up her phone a few times, thinking about sending Lauren a message. She wasn't exactly sure what was stopping her, other than the unrelenting voice in her mind whispering that then Lauren would be a part of it, she would be sullied by it, and the concept felt intolerable.
She couldn't let her mother get to Lauren. She couldn't let the cancer spread that far.
Bo's thoughts were jumbled and floating, not well connected due to her sleep deprivation. As she thought of Lauren her mind somehow cast back to her years in college, to Ulysses of all things…at least she thought it was Ulysses…to the siren's song calling the sailors to crash into the rocks. That was Lauren to her at that moment; a siren song, irresistible, forcing Bo to tie herself to the mast of her ship to avoid devastation.
It was an imperfect metaphor, but somehow also fitting to Bo's mind. Giving into the siren's song, allowing herself to go to Lauren, would end in decimation. If Bo's mother got to Lauren…no, that couldn't happen. Bo would crash. She knew that if her mother made it that far, if her mother was able to destroy Lauren too, Bo would become a black hole, consuming all light, until all that was left was darkness, a yawning chasm, and the sound of splintered wood bumping unfazed against unseeing rocks.
No, she had to keep moving forward. Onward, sailor, raise the main sail and bring me that horizon. Pirates of the Caribbean? Whatever. Yo ho.
Glancing at the clock, she saw it was now 12:30. She ran a hand down her face and pressed the intercom button on her desk phone, buzzing to Helen's desk.
"Want some lunch?" Bo asked. "I'll buy but I don't have a car."
"Sure," Helen answered. "DiPietro's?"
Bo agreed, giving her a quick order. When they finished, Bo stood up and walked to Helen's office, dropping her debit card on Helen's desk.
Helen regarded her for a moment. "Are you doing alright?" Helen asked, tentatively.
Bo dropped heavily into the chair across from Helen's desk. "Yeah," she replied. "Just a little tired."
Helen nodded. "Maybe you should go home. I can give you a ride."
"Thanks, Lauren," Bo said with a weak, joking smile. "But I'm alright. I have a sentencing hearing at two, anyway."
Hearing their voices, Mae walked in from the adjoining office. Helen, Mae, and Bo had worked together for years. While Helen was Bo's primary administrative assistant and sometimes paralegal, Mae was a shared secretary with other attorneys in the office. The three had developed a friendship over their years together. In the time they had worked together they had seen Mae through a messy divorce and pitched in with her struggles being a single mother to three girls, supported Helen through a long struggle to get pregnant and the eventual adoption of a beautiful son, to say nothing of the turmoil that had been Bo's love life prior to Lauren. They had the shorthand friendship that comes from shared lives.
"Why don't I give you a ride home after the sentencing?" Mae offered, leaning her hip against the doorframe of Helen's office and crossing her arms.
Bo gave a wry smile. "Guys, I'm fine. Honestly."
"Unfortunately for you it's not our first day," Mae quipped. "You need to leave and go to bed."
Bo glanced at her and didn't respond.
"Don't make me call Lauren," Helen added. "You know I'll do it."
Bo sighed. "I'll go home. I swear. But I have things I need to do first."
Helen and Mae gave her disbelieving looks. After a few moments of quiet, Bo stood back up. "Alright, I need to go read over the pre-sentence investigation for this afternoon. Let me know when lunch gets here?"
With a resigned nod, Helen silently agreed.
As she walked back to her office, Bo could hear Mae and Helen quietly talking to each other, though she couldn't make out their words.
Bo ate quickly when her food arrived and soon after donned her suit jacket and heels, headed to the courthouse. The judge for her sentencing hearing had a well-earned reputation for being slow and methodical, and the hearing stretched out longer than Bo felt was necessary.
At 3:30, Bo walked back into her office and paused at Helen's door.
"Three calls," Helen said. "Brown about court next Wednesday, and two civilian witnesses for cases at the end of the month."
Bo nodded, absentmindedly rubbing under her eye, and started to make her way out of the room. "Let me know when you're ready to leave," Helen called after her. "I'm ready to take you any time."
Bo pushed her office door shut and then kicked off her heels into the corner. She pulled off her suit jacket and draped it over the arm of the chair near her desk and stretched her back, her muscles sore with exhaustion. She dropped back into her desk chair and picked up her phone, which she had forgotten to carry with her to the courthouse.
A text message displayed on the screen.
I jus need lil help pls
Bo read the message from her mother three times before quietly standing, walking to the bathroom connected to her office, and vomiting.
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