Alec Winters is like Alex Cross (Kiss the Girls, played by Morgan Freeman)
10.) Enter Alec Winters
It was a long drive into the town along the Great Lake. It was a cold fall. Colder than D.C. He was making good time. This was not a vacation though he'd taken personal time. The leaves were barely hanging on in the early fall in Port Charles, New York. It was a lovely town with an unfortunately high mob presence.
His first stop was going to be the PCPD. He'd placed a call earlier and advised that he would be in town earlier. His niece had been kidnapped nearly a week earlier. No one had heard from Dr. Laney Winters.
She'd followed in his footsteps to a certain extent, he was both a police officer and a criminologist. Lainey was a Board Certified Psychiatrist at a prestigious hospital. Her family was so proud of her. She got accepted into school on an Opera Scholarship. Lainey is an amazing young woman, and he couldn't face his sister back in D.C. without getting answers. He was afraid that the police might not take her disappearance as seriously. She was a black woman, and while the world had come a long way, he wanted to guarantee that her disappearance would be given the attention that it deserved. Lainey wasn't the first woman that that was recently kidnapped. Port Charles had a missing women issue.
The man was a student of all the best predators and was fond of his craft. The good doctor, parked in the PCPD parking lot. It was only about 10 am. Officers were everywhere. Tape was up around one of the exits. For a moment he wondered if perhaps a massacre occurred at the police station. It was pandemonium.
He made his way inside. The desk sergeant was on the phone and hadn't noticed him yet.
After a minute, the desk sergeant looked up and acknowledged the older man in front of him, "What can I do for you?"
"I called and spoke to your Commissioner earlier, I'm Detective Alec Winters from D.C."
"Ah…yes…Dr. Winter's uncle. It's going to be a little while. We've had a prisoner abducted."
"Oh, that's unusual," Alec Winters replied.
"Please take a seat, our Commissioner will be with you as soon as possible."
Alec took a seat on the hard wooden bench and waited. After an hour and half he was approach by a young buck, "I'm Detective Rodriguez. Our commissioner is at a crime scene and you're welcome to ride along. We think it's your guy."
Alec stood up and left the police station with the detective. It was a twenty minute ride to the crime scene. Units were investigating the scene and a sheet was covering the victim who was tied to the tree. She had obviously been there for about a week.
As Alec walked behind Detective Rodriguez he was approached by Commissioner Scorpio, "You must be Dr. Winter's Uncle. I'm very sorry about your niece. It wasn't her, by the way. This girl is Caucasian. Identified as an Evelyn Pritchett. Local school teacher at Port Charles Middle School, and an accomplished violinist. Look you can stay, but we don't need too many cooks in the kitchen if you get my meaning."
"I understand. I'm just here to find out about my niece. I might be able to lend perspective but I'm not trying to hinder the investigation."
"By all means, given your degrees and fields of study we would be fools not to have you take a look. We might be able to gleam something from your expertise, but the actual policing stays in our jurisdiction," The Commissioner stated.
After leaving the crime scene, Alec Winters made his way to Lainey's Condo. He was wearing his leather gloves not to contaminate the scene. Her condo was on the north side of town not far from the General Hospital. He had the super let him in, the crime scene unit had already been in and dusted. He noticed that her music books were missing. All of her operas were gone. He went to her closet and noticed that she had no formal wear, which was strange. On the weekends, Lainey would occasionally sing, and every formal dress she owned was missing. He looked through her drawers and all of her intimates were gone. Not a pair of underwear to be found, nor her pajamas. He searched her bathroom and noted that she had no feminine hygiene products. Her soap for bathing was missing as was her lotion. The person who abducted her was methodical and patient.
He left Lainey's condo and made his way to General Hospital. Alec spoke briefly with her boss and a couple of her coworkers. Laney wasn't dating anyone, not that she wasn't searching but she hadn't found the right guy. Then he heard that some of the staff including Lainey frequented Jakes.
Jakes was a dive bar. The bartender stated that Lainey was a regular but noted that she never came in with a man and he never noticed anyone paying special attention to her or giving her a hard time.
Alec made his way back to the PCPD, in hopes that they had established a more complete profile of the unidentified subject. Three black boards were located on the back wall. All of them had photos of the women that had been abducted. Only two had been recovered, deceased.
"Alec?" The Federal Agent stated.
"Joe?" Alec said.
"I heard about your niece, I'm very sorry."
"Any news?" Alec asked.
"Everything we have has been taken to Quantico for Analysis," Joe stated.
Detective Rodriguez piped up, "If you ask me, all these ladies are gone. Just waiting to be found."
"I disagree. This man considers himself a collector. Like an art broker. Look at the women he abducts. All of them are educated and extraordinary in some way. The bodies that we have found haven't been found in the order that they were abducted, and the killer makes no attempt to hide them. There must have been a violation or rules or something along those lines."
"What rules?" Commission Scorpio asked.
"I don't know. Something that breaks an established trust."
The sun was starting to set by this point, when a phone call came into the station.
"Commissioner Scorpio, They found Elizabeth Morgan," the desk sergeant relayed.
"Alive?" The commissioner asked.
"Barely, she's just been admitted to General Hospital," the Desk Sergeant stated.
"I'll be right there," Mac stated. "Where was she found?"
"That's the strangest part. She was found at the River Fork, not but a half a mile from our other crime scene."
At hearing this, Alec lifted his head and raised his brow. Mac immediately noticed, "You think they're related Doc?"
"It's worth checking out," Alec said. "I'll follow you. There were additional coworkers of Lainey's that weren't working when I was there earlier. I'd like to speak to them. Perhaps, I can be of some help with this."
"Follow me, Doc."
General Hospital 20 minutes earlier.
Jason, Sonny, Diane and Spinelli were all waiting outside of Carly's room, when a rush of doctors and nurses came through. On staff, was a newest Neurologist, also the town Egomaniac and hunk doctor Patrick Drake. He had just transferred from U of R. The women who worked at the hospital either loved him or hated him.
"What do we have?" Patrick asked as he met the bed.
"Female, Jane Doe, 26, no I.D. BP is 52 over 30 and dropping. Heart rate is 45 bpm. She's hypoxic, hypothermic, has multiple contusions, and lacerations across her torso. She has a busted blood vessel in her left eye. She has edema around her left ankle. She's also been in and out of consciousness and when she's awake she exhibits possible symptoms of PTSD. Very fidgety."
"When she's awake has she said anything?" Patrick asked the EMT.
"No, she sort of mumbles," The EMT replied.
As Patrick got a closer look at her face, he realized that he knew her, "Oh my God, I know this girl. It's Elizabeth Zacchara."
At this Jason, Sonny, Diane, Justus and Spinelli all perked up. Jason stood up and made his way over. As he entered, her room he realized it was indeed Elizabeth. She looked so small in that bed. Her color was a bluer shade and she was shaking. Sonny walked up behind Jason.
"Holy hell, what did he do to her?" Sonny asked.
"I don't know. But when I find him he's going to pay," Jason said clenching his fists in anger.
Patrick looked up, "Excuse me gentlemen but do you have business here?"
"Yes," Jason answered as he looked at her broken form. "That's my wife."
"Your wife?" Patrick questioned as he looked at Jason with a penetrating gaze. "Oh yeah, you're the gangster she married after she left U of R's Children's Hospital. I thought you turned your back on her. Rumor had it you cheated on her all the time."
"Ours hasn't been the easiest marriage. That doesn't change the fact that I'm her husband and I want her to receive the best care," Jason said with his arms crossed never taking her eyes off of Elizabeth's blue form.
"Fine, as her husband I will consult you as I learn more about what's happening with her. Right now we're trying to warm her up, she's hypothermic and has some hypoxia. I don't see any attempts at ligature strangulation on her, so I'm going to assume that she was exposed to the water and extremely low temperatures. We're going to order an X-ray for her lungs and her left ankle and check her for other injuries," Patrick said as he strode down the hall ordering labs, x-rays, and a myriad of other tests.
Jason and Sonny walked into the room. 'How did this happen?' Jason thought. 'Just yesterday, I was shrugging her off. All she ever did was offer kindness and affection to me, and I threw it away. "Look what they did to her Sonny."
Elizabeth was shivering and fidgeting, obviously uncomfortable. She had small lacerations on her face. She had an oxygen mask over her mouth, but her fidgeting made the mask slip. Jason stepped forward and gently adjusted it.
"I know," Sonny responded before he continued, "From this day forward she'll never be without protection whether she's mine or not. No one, should have to endure what she has had to. Reading that file that your grandmother pulled together. Hearing what you and Justus said, I'm sickened that someone could get treated that way. That it may have happened to my own daughter is almost more than I can take. I never thought I'd care for a woman more angelic than my mother, but if half of what was done to Elizabeth was true, and she is mine, I'm going to burn every one of those bastards alive, starting with Ric. You're her husband see if you can pull some strings, get me a paternity test to match against Elizabeth. When I go up against Ric, I want to be certain of everything. We'll send the tests to Mercy. Even if Elizabeth isn't mine. They're going to pay. You don't rape women or little girls. You don't beat them and you certainly don't stalk them, and you don't pass off an innocent girl as a con. Every last one of them deserves to rot," Sonny said, "I only hope that Elizabeth wakes up. Maybe then we can start to set things right."
"Maybe, but how do we even achieve that?" Jason asked perplexed. For her what would that even mean? Where would he begin? He realized in this moment that he really wanted to make things right. That she was a woman who deserved only kindness from him and the utmost respect. She'd fought for so long and was so alone, yet she had maintained her dignity.
"By being there for her," Sonny said, "Right now that's all we can do. We've messed this up so badly. Me most of all. I didn't even know that there was a possibility of me having a grown child out there, or what that would mean to my enemies. If all this really is true, then I will do everything I can to set this right. You know I love Michael, and I love the baby that Carly's carrying, but if Elizabeth is mine, well it changes everything. A daughter is to be protected and cherished, and thanks to Anthony, Trevor and Ric, I've managed to do a piss poor job of it. And if she turns out to be not mine biologically, I may just adopt her, but I'll never turn my back on her again," Sonny admitted as tears crept to his eyes while he looked down that the beautiful broken girl on the bed.
"Excuse me gentlemen, but I need to get X-rays of the patient. You'll have to step out," the radiology tech explained.