A/N: Again, thanks for reading and reviews. I corrected errors (probably still missed a few) in the last couple of chapters and have decided to not rush writing and posting, so, unfortunately, expect a longer wait between chapters.
Once again, thanks for reading. I truly appreciate it.
Chapter 12:
Las Vegas
12 Hours Before
After hours of processing the crime scene, Nick finally was able to get to the morgue. The body had been cleaned, autopsy completed, and it wasn't even noon yet. Once this was done, he'd be able to clock out, go home, and sleep. Pushing the door open, he saw Ben Williams sitting at the desk instead of Doc Robbins, who had already gone home. Lucky guy.
Ben turned his head when he walked in and smiled, "Stokes. My man, how's it going?"
"Busy night. I heard Doc Robbins finished my autopsy. He left you the report?"
Ben grabbed the file off the desk and handed it to him as he stood. "He also left instructions," he said before walking over to the cold locker, as they called them, and opened one of the cabinets.
Flipping open the report, he read it over as he stopped beside the opened cabinet. Ben pulled out the body. "Says here that he died of a drug overdose. All the mutilation to the body happened post-mortem."
"That's not all." Ben pulled back the sheet and showed him the right shoulder of the male victim. He had a tattoo of a tank with an American flag along with '1st Armored Division' printed above the tank and '2/27/91' below it.
Nick tilted his head as he got a better look at it. "It's military. First Armored Division. February 27th, 1991. Gulf War vet."
"He also has old needle marks here," Ben said as he showed him the crock of the left elbow. "And…" He pulled the sheet back to expose the feet. "In between the toes."
"Long time junkie. Probably started after he got out of the service. Anything else?"
Ben shook his head as he covered the body. "That's all I got. Are you and Warrick still up for our game on Saturday?"
Every Saturday they met, along with three other members of the LVPD, for a 3-on-3 basketball game at the gym they all frequented. "Rodney's sick. Our team's one short."
Ben shrugged, saying, "Plenty of players on the bench. Pick one."
"I'll ask around," he said as he headed for the door as he pulled out his cell phone. Walking through the door, and almost hitting him with it, was Brass. "Oh, whoa," he said as he blocked the swinging door with his hand. "What's the hurry?" Seeing the look on Brass's face, he regretted the question.
Brass was normally an emotional guy. He looked as if he had a huge weight on his shoulders and was on the verge of tears. Gesturing for him to leave, he said, "Could you, uh—" He had to clear his throat before he continued, "Can you leave us alone, Nick."
Nick glanced back at Ben and saw sympathy in his eyes. At least he knew what this was about. "Yeah, uh…I have to call Grissom. Give him an update."
He stepped out of the autopsy room with a sinking feeling settling in his gut. Waiting in the hall for when Brass came out, he placed a call.
After a couple rings, he heard, "Nick?"
"Hey, Grissom." He hoped he wasn't bothering him, seeing how he took off to go to San Francisco to further investigate the serial case. And to see Sara. That was his first question as he asked, "How's Sara doing?"
"She's good. How can I help you?"
Grissom knew he wasn't calling to ask about Sara. If he wanted to talk to her, then he would have called her, not him. "I'm helping you, actually. That 4-19 I had last night, get this, a wallet was left at the scene. It was Nathan Cole's. Now, before you say anything, the male db was unidentifiable. No other wallet was found on the body. His face was busted in, broken teeth to prevent dental, and his hands were removed. I just left the morgue. There's a tattoo on his right shoulder. Gulf War tat. I'm going to see if I can ID the guy that way. But I'm telling you, my dead guy is not Nathan Cole."
"I think you're right. Everything I've learned so far says that Mr. Cole was never in the military. What was the cause of death?"
"Drug overdose."
"Okay. Thanks, Nick."
"No problem. Looks like I'm working on this serial case after all," he said the moment the door swung open as Brass stepped out into the hallway. Whatever weight had been there before was gone, but in its place was tiredness. He was completely worn down. "I gotta go," Nick said before ending the call. As he pocketed the phone, he asked Brass, "What's going on?"
Brass let out a breath and said, "Ellie's missing. She uh, she's been staying with me since she got here. Last night, she never came home. Won't answer my calls. She was at a meeting, NA, and uh, said she'd take a taxi. Less than an hour ago, Ben sent out a notice of a Jane Doe that matched the description of our female victims. Brown hair and eyes, cause of death is a drug overdose. She wasn't stabbed, but uh…"
Nick realized where Brass was going with this. "You thought the Jane Doe was Ellie."
He almost laughed, and it wasn't humorous. "Ah, Nick, sometimes I don't even know why I bother."
"She's your daughter. You love her."
"Yeah," he said with a nod. "She's probably slumming with some guy she met. Getting high."
He felt for Brass; he really did. "I hope she's okay. Have a little faith. She'll show up."
"Yeah, right," Brass said before walking away.
San Francisco
Present Time
~"Could it be I was the one that you held so deep in the night…"~
Aside from Doug's interruption at the restaurant, they had an otherwise quiet evening together. They had spent a few hours after dinner sitting out on the restaurant patio drinking. She'd had a couple glasses of wine while Gil drank some whiskey. Neither talked about their day. His case or her mother. In fact, they hardly spoke at all for the rest of the night. She was still trying to process it all and work through how she felt.
They'd gotten back to the hotel room and while Gil took a shower, she made a cup of the tea he'd brought. Sitting out on the balcony, she focused her eyes north past the bright lights of the parking lot and toward the darkness of the bay. She felt as if she was on the brink of something. The edge of an uncertainty that she hadn't felt or known since she was a teenager. In that moment, staring into the dark night and hearing Gil in the shower, she realized she didn't know what her life was anymore. She didn't know where she was going or what she was trying to find.
All she knew was her mother couldn't give her closure. All she would ever give her was more reasons to fear herself.
~"On the back staircase you fell to your knees with tears in your eyes…"~
Doctor Chelsea Tran walked beside her down the long white corridor of the hospital. "I wish I could say that your mother has gotten better, but, unfortunately, her delusions have only gotten worse over time." Her voice was soft and calming, sounding much like a doctor used to having to console family members of the mentally unstable.
She was anything but calm. The last time she was in a mental hospital, she'd been held at knife point by a crazy man. She still remembered how unless she felt, how scared, feeling that blade against her neck. The worst part was Gil. His eyes on her through the glass, his fear, as all he could do was watch. His calm, yet urgent voice, pleading for the nurse to open the door. That was the thing about Gil. Even in the face of danger, he remained so calm and in control. He rarely, if ever, panicked.
Right then, she was trying not to panic. The walls of the hospital were making her throat tight and body stiff. Every sound had her looking over her shoulder. She knew Dr. Tran had noticed. How could she not? Maybe she was used to people being uppity when they came to visit.
As they neared the "visiting room" as it was called, she asked, "What'd you mean? Therapy hasn't worked or…?"
Dr. Tran had a file in her hand. Her mother's file. "In the beginning, Laura became nearly catatonic after what happened. Then over the years with medication and therapy, we thought we were making progress. That all changed when she became friends with another patient. It seemed like all our progress was instantly erased."
They entered the room with big open windows and round tables with plenty of chairs, as well as a long table with snacks and beverages. It almost appeared as a cafeteria. Sitting at one of the tables, she asked, "What patient?"
"A young man. He was also suffering delusions. Have you heard of folie à deux?"
"It's a delusion shared by two or more people. Usually with a close association like family members or a husband and wife. Members of cults have also experienced similar shared delusions based on their beliefs and indoctrination. It's easier to believe something so bizarre that it eludes all logic if someone else also believes it too."
She was reminded of a recent case they had. It was the first case she worked since coming back from leave after everything that happened with Lecter in France. Though being transferred to Swing Shift, she'd been on-call to help Night Shift. The cult leader had been running a scam. He was only in it for the money and had only intended to knock the twelve members of his cult unconscious with sleeping pills. One of the members had been a "true believer" and had murdered not only the cult leader, but an innocent man, as well as all the other eleven members of the cult. While watching them all die a violent death from the ketamine that she'd spiked their drinks with, she couldn't go through with it. She could murder others, but not take her own life.
Dr. Tran was watching her, and she realized she'd been distracted and not paying any attention. "I'm sorry. I was thinking about a case we had not too long ago. It involved a cult." They'd been talking about folie à deux. "I'm assuming you're asking about folie à deux because my mother and this young man shared a delusion which caused her to relapse?"
"In a way, you can call it a relapse. Her beliefs being validated caused her to spiral."
"And who was this young man? I know he's a patient here and that's privileged—"
"He was a patient here." Dr. Tran regarded her for a moment and then the file in front of her. "He was only known as John Doe. He wouldn't tell us his name and he voluntarily admitted himself. Since he voluntarily checked in, then he could leave at any time. He was here for nearly fifteen years."
"Why did he leave?"
"There was an accident. A fire. He was transported to the hospital for treatment. Before we could regain custody of him, he escaped. We haven't seen him since."
"When was this?"
"This past September." Dr. Tran opened the file and read. "Patient has recurring delusions of demons and angels existing here on earth and that her son is the punisher of all imagined evils. He is the rightful king of the world blessed by the sun."
Her mother's words to her decades ago entered her mind as she told the doctor, "My mother once told me that I was special. The angels told her so. She could hear them in her head. She called us, um…"spiritual royalty". Descendants from the sun God. She said that me and my brother were chosen saviors, not punishers."
Dr. Tran took a breath then told her, "She believed that this John Doe was her son."
She stared at the doctor for a very long moment. A fear crept up from her stomach into her chest, aching her heart. The tightness in her throat grew tighter as she tried to form words that couldn't be spoken. All she could think about was what if…
Had John Doe been Nathan?
~"All that you suffered, all the disease…"~
Sara felt his hands on her shoulders. She momentarily tensed at the touch as it brought her out of her memory before she relaxed into his warm touch. The wine really hadn't helped her to relax. She barely sipped the tea that'd been forgotten in her hands.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
This was it. The moment if there ever was going to be a right moment. They were both haunted people. Both had a past that had caught up with them. Gil had been open with her through it all. He'd let her in so she could be there for him when it mattered the most. She knew he'd understand. He knew sleepless nights due to nightmares. He knew obsessions and horrifying realities of death. He knew what it was like to lose everything.
Closing her eyes, she let out a breath and told him, "I have no idea what's going to happen next. I haven't felt this uncertain since that night, all those years ago, being taken away from my home."
Gil's hands kept massaging the muscles over her shoulders before they moved to the nape of her neck. His physical touch was relaxing her better than anything else. He knew what she needed and gave it to her. All the tension from the past few days seemed to slip away. She leaned her head back and looked up. In his eyes she saw all the love he held for her.
"I think I rushed things." A different kind-of fear gripped her heart as he kept talking. "Getting back on the job was my way of getting back to normal. I'm not good at being…stagnant. If I get stationary for too long, I lose perspective. I can think too much." She nearly smiled at his attempt at making a joke. "Once I got back to normal, I stopped paying attention to you and what you were dealing with." She went to speak when he hurried on, saying, "You needed more time, and I didn't see that. Then, it got to be too much. You felt like you were falling apart, and you stopped being able to talk to me. I'm so sorry for that."
Of course he'd put all the blame on his shoulders. "It's not your fault." His hands leaving her shoulders made her instantly cold as she felt the chill of loneliness. It even caused her to shiver a little as she fought it off.
Gil sat in the chair next to hers, his eyes on hers, as he said, "Isn't it? I knew something was going on, I never thought it would be something bad enough to drive you away. They say that, uh, that love can be blinding…I never thought it could blind me to your pain. The proposal could have waited. Work could have waited. You needed time, and I didn't give you any." Out of the pocket of his sleep pants, he produced an envelope and handed it to her.
~"You couldn't hide it, hide it from me…"~
It was the letter she'd written to him before leaving Las Vegas. She didn't understand why he was giving it back to her. "What's—"
"Read it."
She nearly laughed. "I don't need to read it. I wrote it."
He nodded but insisted. "Please, darlin', just read it."
Humoring him, she opened the envelope, pulled out the letter, and started reading. The words she'd written him cut once again like a dagger to her heart.
"You were tired, hadn't been feeling well…and I was oblivious. Sara, you told me goodbye."
She read the word and felt a tremor in her hand. Their conversation from earlier that day replayed in her head.
"I didn't know what else to bring since I don't know when you're coming back home," he said with a hint of fear in the soft timbre of his voice, "so…I hope this is okay?"
He didn't know when she'd be back. Her letter to him had put that fear inside his head. She made him doubt their relationship, their future. "I said that I'll be back in the letter—"
"I know what you wrote. Believe me; it's burned into my corneas. I also know that uh…It's been tough, for us, for a while—"
She hadn't told him that she'd be back. She hadn't told him to wait for her. She had told him goodbye. "I'm sorry. I hadn't meant—I had thought I'd be back. I wanted to believe I would—for you." Goodbye. Everything all at once welled up inside her as she felt the tears sting her eyes, causing his beautiful face to blur. He stood, took her hands into his and pulled her up into a hug. Feeling his loving arms around her waist, she told him, "I'm so scared."
His embrace tightened around her waist as he told her, "I know. So am I."
She was sorry. She had done the one thing she told him that she would never do: she'd left him. She'd left him alone in the same uncertainty that had swallowed her whole. There was still so much to tell him, but right then she couldn't. The secret that clenched her heart made her feel so lonely, and distant, but right then she felt it was needed. Sleep awaited them. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him behind her into the hotel room. She was in no mood for sex and he was exhausted. She could tell he hadn't slept in days.
They quietly got into bed together and he wrapped his arms around her from behind. Giving into his warm embrace, feeling his body heat and breath on her neck, she drifted into a peaceful sleep.
Gil, on the other hand, fell into a nightmare.
~"All alone scared in your room, would you swear there's nobody home…"~
He opened his eyes to be staring at a dark ceiling. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't dreaming. Taking a breath, he felt it ease the burning of his lungs as the sweat coated his chest. He was on fire. It felt like his entire body was being ignited by a million tiny flickers of flames. He felt each and every one. Each separate prick of fire on his skin until he was burning. The heat engulfed his chest, his back, making him sweat. Then, he felt cold. So cold his body felt as if it was covered in ice. He was shivering. Breathing out, he saw his breathing in the dark.
~"On the bed laying awake as you prayed he'd leave you alone…"~
Trying not to disturb Sara from her sleep, he rolled out of bed and pulled the wet t-shirt off his sweat soaked body as he shivered into the bathroom. He tossed the shirt into the shower stall and turned to stare at himself in the mirror. Only, he didn't see himself at all. The pieces of his mind twisted and rotated until an unrecognizable face stared back at him. It was distorted as it was a blend of many different faces.
Who are you? He asked the many rotations of the reflected faces. He swore he heard an answer spoken too softly from the lips that answered. But he could read lips, and the answer he was given from his own mouth was: 'you'.
It was getting hard to breathe. His breaths came in quick, short gasps as he was no longer in the bathroom. He was standing in the middle of the room. Out the windows and balcony door he saw the San Francisco skyline. On the bed, Sara slept. His head felt heavy, distant, and his body not his own.
~"I'll let the darkness swallow me whole…"~
Under him, the floor opened. Stepping back, he saw the darkness spreading. It filled the floor, walls and the skyline, the ceiling, and devoured the bed where Sara slept until there was nothing but the void where he stood. Blinking into the dark, he turned around in a circle as he listened. A voice in the dark. It was soft, like a child, and it recited a poem.
Taking a step, he started walking. As he walked, the child's voice grew louder. A tree appeared out of the dark. It was a Quercus virginiana, otherwise known as the southern live oak. Out of the trunk of the near 70 feet tall tree were what appeared to be a hundred branches that stretched out to nearly 100 feet. The southern live oak was native to states in the American south, including Louisiana. He knew that because he was the child sitting under the tree reading a poem.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler, long I stood, and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth…"
He sat down beside his younger self as he listened as Robert Frost's 'The Road Not Taken' was recited and wondered at this memory. Was it even a memory, or a dream? He didn't remember much of his childhood in Louisiana. He knew of his life, he knew stories, and there had been pictures. He remembered learning how to fix boat motors because once he got back to Los Angeles he could fix boat motors. He had known that his uncle had taught him his trade.
"Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear; though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same…"
But an actual memory of his time there, before he went back with his family when he was much older, was all a blank. Darkness, except for a flip of a picture in a photo album. A child reading a book under a tree. He was younger than he was when his father died. He was never in Louisiana before his father's death, so this was a dream. This wasn't real. This was a fantasy.
"And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back…"
Without looking down at the little boy, his younger self, he finished the poem, saying, "I shall be telling this with a sigh…Somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I—" I what? What had he done? "I took the one less traveled by…" Finally looking down into the eyes of the little boy staring up at him under the shade of the southern live oak, he said, "And that has made all the difference." Seeing the boy smile, he said, "Hello, Will."
"You don't remember me."
He shook his head somberly as a guilt struck him in the chest. "No, I don't." It was an odd feeling. This little boy was him. It was the boy that grew into the man, but he really only remembered the man. He knew the dream that had invaded his mind while diving deep into his mind to confront his shadow. The desert, the shadow, that determination of a little boy wanting to become a hero, a superhero, to save lives.
But this little boy eyed boy and all his memories and his pain and his life under his tree he did not remember. How did he get from the grief of his father's death to the man that could empathize with criminals, murders, and become them in order to stop them?
Behind him, a gunshot. He flinched and glanced over his shoulder but didn't see anything. As he looked back at his younger self, the boy's face blurred. It twisted and morphed right in front of his eyes and out from the boy grew a monster. His monster.
The Dragon stood over him as the tree faded into the void.
~"I need to find you, need you to know…"~
Standing, he faced his Dragon whose hands were now scarred with burnt skin and covering the right side of its face was a smooth white mask. It reminded him of the mask in the Broadway play the Phantom of the Opera mask. The phantom had become obsessively infatuated with the opera singer Christine Daaé. He had abducted her, kept her a prisoner, and forced her into agreeing to marry him by threatening Raoul, her lover's, life. He often wondered at the moral of the story. Was it that love can't be forced upon someone no matter how much you loved them? Or was it that love was so strong within the phantom that no matter how hard he tried, no matter that Christine couldn't love him back, he had to let her go, even if it meant her being with another man? In his heartbreak, the phantom died. Unrequited love was something he'd never experienced himself, but he'd felt it in the hearts of many.
Looking at the smooth white mask that covered the Dragon's face, he saw the eye staring back at him. In that eye he saw the obsession and the rage that hid beneath. It was the same rage that he often hid within his own body, behind his intellect, and disguised it by using another name: Gil Grissom. Will Graham couldn't disguise that rage, because Will was the rage.
He wanted to take the mask off his Dragon, but he knew it belonged there.
"Who are you?"
That time when he asked, he didn't receive an answer. He didn't know.
~"I'll be your friend in the daylight again…"~
A light was rising up behind him. It was so bright it lit up the void, and for a brief moment, he saw what was beyond the darkness. Sara, alone, and asleep as a red fox circled the bed.
~"There we will be, like an old enemy…"~
Turning, he had to raise his hand up to block the light that burned his eyes. It kept climbing in the void. All the way up above him until it was overhead. It was the sun. It was glowing bright and hot over him as out of the darkness walked Horus. With a staff in his hand, a pharaoh headdress sitting atop of his falcon face, the Ancient Egyptian God dwarfed both him and his dragon as it blocked out the sun's light. It cast them into shadow like an eclipse.
~"…Like the salt and the sea…"~
He blinked and the void was gone. He was on the balcony outside the hotel room and in front of him was the city of San Francisco and the warmth on his face was from the rising sun. It was morning. As he watched the sun rising over the protruding, jagged, buildings of the city, he knew at that very moment that their killer, the one taking men's lives as his own, was doing the same in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas
~"And they wrote all these prescriptions, they wrote me off like a heel…"~
Her brown wondrous eyes were staring up at Nathan as he stood over her. His shadow casted out across her as he felt the heat of the rising sun on his back. They were on the roof of his building. Earlier, they'd been down on the third floor with the sweet smell of sex and sage filling the air. They'd come up to the roof to smoke and watch the sunrise.
As the sun rose up over the mountains, he told her, "We, Ellie, we humans are made of stardust."
She rolled her eyes.
"No, I'm serious. The elements that make up us, all of us, were formed in stars billions of years ago. Every atom, every carbon, every bit of calcium and every drop of blood inside our bodies was created inside a star long before the Earth was even formed. We were made, born before the world. We are stars. We are space and time. We are descendants of the sky," he said as he raised his hands up to the sky as he watched the dark give way to light.
"If we're the stars, how come we're on this dreadful planet? Why aren't we up there in space?"
She had the eyes that did things to his head. She made him want to do something crazy. His head was filled with angels and demons, chained wrists and slit wrists. Flying birds and broken bloody wings on the road while the sunlight roasted the blood into the pavement.
"Because problems of man can't be solved by man. Men don't know how to save themselves. They have always needed one thing to do that for them: God. They need a savior, always have. They're weak that way. And when they fall down to their weakness, delta level of thinking, that's where they reach out. And what are they reaching for? What do they always tell you in your NA meetings to do? What's step one?"
Ellie leaned back onto her hands, crossing her ankles, which closed her legs off to him, and said, "Admit you're powerless to your addiction. That you need help."
"And then, step two?"
"Hope by looking to a higher power for support and guidance," she told him as her brown eyes pulled him down along with her into her sense of powerlessness.
Her hopelessness angered him. It wasn't right. She was an angel. She'd been judged, he'd judged her, and she passed. She was here and protruding out from her back were wings. "You're not powerless, Ellie. You're not a hopeless cause. That's all bullshit!"
~"Yeah, the doctors with their medicine left me to rock in my filth…"~
Ellie didn't believe him. She wasn't angry. She wasn't even happy. She was in a state of numbness. Of powerlessness. He knew what that felt like. He knew too well the pills and the therapy and the numbness of the mind. He also thought he was powerless. Doomed to die a slow death while staring at a white wall. In his mind a wet sponge that soaked every amount of life, want, passion, need, and desire out of his body.
Through the slits of light and darkness that filled his time while medicated, he'd seen her face. There, on the screen that showed the news, he'd seen her face. Her brown eyes, her smile, her diastema. It was Sara. He'd asked for a sign from Ra and had received one. He knew it was time to leave. He had to take his rightful place in the world. She'd help him. She had to. She was a savior. An angel. Their blood was the same.
They'd never let him out on his own. He had to escape. He had to burn in flames so he could die. Once he died, he'd rise again like the Phoenix. Born anew out of the flames. And he had. It worked. He knew it would.
~"From the destruction, out of the flame…"~
He pulled the small packet from his pocket to show her. Her eyes lit up as she uncrossed her legs and nearly jumped to her feet. In between his fingers was the white powder she desperately wanted. The street name was Dagon. He knew what it really was. Dagon granted kingship, was the son of the sky, and the judge of the dead.
In the crook of her elbow, he saw the injection mark in her vein. The night before he'd tested her blood. That's the way it had to be taken, right into the vein, into the blood. He rubbed the mark in her elbow, felt her vein, her life blood, before reaching up to cup her face. She reached for the drugs.
He pulled it away. "No," he said as he gripped her face a little hard in his palm. He didn't want to hurt her. "You're so much more than this. You're stardust, Ellie. Last night, you were judged. Your life was in my hands, and you were reborn in the morning sunlight. You've arisen anew, Ellie. You're an angel among the demons that roam this earth. Don't you get it. You're free of this powerlessness. Of hopelessness. You reached out to your higher power, and I answered your plea. I am your guide."
Going over to the roof's edge, he tossed drugs over the side. Ellie's eyes were on his as he walked back over to her. There were tears in her eyes. The numbness was lifted. She was so alive. And he made her that way.
Putting her face between both his hands, letting her feel the sacrificial burns that allowed this moment to exist, he told her, "You're free, my angel. Now, you can truly fly," right before he kissed her.
~"You need a villain, give me a name…"~
He turned around as he held Ellie's hand in his to embrace the sun's rays that he felt surging into his own veins. It was the most powerful drug there was. They were the stars. And he was— "I am the Sun King!"
~"I'll be your friend in the daylight again…"~
It'd been long hours of work, and by the time morning broke, he and Greg were staring at walls of information, trying to find any connections between all four victims. The only good news they had was that there hadn't been another murder.
"I think he's finally cooling off," Kevin said as he leaned back against the table and eyed lists under each name.
Greg was packing up his stuff, cleaning off the trash that he'd scattered around from the take-out to the snacks and cups, cans, and bottles from all the coffee, soda, and water. 'Who's cooling off?"
Glancing over at him, he told him, "Our killer. They always have a cooling off period. Time to regroup, lay low, and plan the next kill. He could have ran out of girls. How many women do you know with a diastema? It's rare."
"Does that mean he'll change his type if he can't find anyone else that fits the criteria?"
He shrugged. "He could. Or he could always dye a woman's hair and break her teeth to make her fit his obsession, but it won't be the same." He saw the grimace on Greg's face and said, "I'm sorry. Shouldn't have said that to you."
"It's okay. I can handle it. Pretty grim, but…" He gave a nod, like mostly to himself that he was okay. "I can handle it. I see death every day. It's part of the job."
Kevin couldn't help but be reminded of his life outside of the job. The townhouse he'd bought off his dad was perfect for everything he had to have a well-balanced personal life outside of work. A garage for his motorcycle and hobby of working on it. Gym on the lower floor, office on the main floor, and a nice and quiet bedroom on the third floor along with a walk-in closet and pretty nice bathroom. Nice yard for Jack to run around in. And then there was the desert. The flat dry desert of sand. All around them in the distance, beyond the desert were mountains. He'd been rock climbing already. He'd been hiking in the Red Rocks. Took a trip to Lake Mead. He had fun. Just him and Jack.
"Got plans after work?"
Greg seemed surprised by the question; even startled by it. "Uh, yeah, actually. Gotta date. You?"
Kevin smirked slightly as he shook his head. "Is she cute?"
"Oh, gorgeous. And she smells great, like strawberries. I really hope she has great looking DNA."
He eyed Greg as he headed for the door. He wasn't about to ask. Once Greg was gone, he picked up a marker and circled all the commonalities he'd noticed. There weren't too many. Then he finally left the evidence room.
~"There we will be, like an old enemy…"~
He found Warrick in the break room, pouring over casefiles. "Find anything?"
"Yeah, I hope to never wind up at 6th and St. Louis any time after midnight." Warrick glanced up at him as he gestured to the files laid out in front of him. "All four of them have arrests for possession and prostitution. On four separate occasions, they were picked up at the corner of 6th and St. Louis."
"What's there?"
"The hell if I know."
Kevin made a note of it to check it out later. "Hey, uh…" Once he got Warrick's attention, he asked, "Doing anything after work?" He glanced at the clock. "It is quitting time."
Warrick glanced at the watch on his wrist. "Damn," he said while scooting the chair back while dropping the casefile. "I'm late for a breakfast date with the wife."
"You're married?"
He saw the smile appear on Warrick's face as he walked by him. "Happily, so far. I plan to keep it that way."
Kevin watched Warrick walk down the hallway before letting out a breath. He figured he would just go home. Have a beer. Take a shower. Get some sleep.
~"I'll be your friend in the daylight again…"~
Leaving the crime lab, he was pulling out his sunglasses as Nick was walking up the sidewalk. "Aren't you supposed to be going home?"
Nick smirked as he said, "What can I say? With the boss man gone, someone needs to work overtime. I'm following up on my John Doe. I think I have a way of finding out who he really is. Everyone I need to talk to is awake during regular business hours."
Kevin felt the dejection in his chest and thought to himself strike three. He was out. "Well, uh…You need anything, give me a call."
"I just might," Nick said as he went to walk by him. "You're former military, right? Army?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"I think my John Doe is as well. He has a military tattoo on his shoulder. I'll get with you later about it." Then, as he started for his car, he heard Nick call out, "Hey, Kevin!" Turning, he was Nick walking back towards him, saying, "What're you doing Saturday?"
It was Thursday and he had no plans for the weekend. Shaking his head, he told him, "Nothin'."
"We, uh, Warrick and I, play 3-on-3 basketball at the gym every Saturday. Our third man is out sick. You game?"
Smiling, he told him, "I'm game."
"Alright. When I get with you later, I'll let you know time and place. Have a good night—morning," Nick corrected before heading into the crime lab.
Kevin felt himself smiling all the way to the car.
~"There we will be, like an old enemy…"~
Once he got home, the smile was gone, along with any good feeling he had. He let Jack out in the yard, grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, and then checked the messages on his home phone's answering machine. He didn't like personal calls to his work cell phone, so any and all calls unrelated to the job went to his home phone.
The blinking red light only indicated one message and he could bet who it was from. The machine told him he had one new message before he heard a receptionist from his doctor's office.
"This message is for Kevin Collins. This is Nurse Morgan calling from your oncologist's office confirming your appointment with Doctor Edwards for Monday, June 19th at 10 am—"
He took a hefty chug of the beer as he ended the message and then went to let Jack back inside.
~"Like the salt and the sea…"~
Leaning against the wall, he felt himself slide down it to the floor as he gave into the exhaustion. It'd been a long seven months, and even though his leg was good, his body wasn't. His mind wasn't, and he knew that both would have to be addressed before they got any worse. The thing was, he didn't know how to address either.
Jack was pushing his head into his legs as he dropped the rubber ball out of his mouth. Giving into his dog's needs, he grabbed the ball and tossed it across the open living room. It hit the opposite wall and Jack jumped up to catch it in his mouth.
Taking the ball once again from his dog, he tossed it again. It was mindless, and something he didn't have to worry about. He tried to shut himself down, tried to numb his mind, so he could finally get some sleep, but there was too much to worry about. He'd also felt a great deal of protection for those he loved. His dad had instilled that sense inside of him and it'd never left him. He wanted to protect his mother, but in the end, he couldn't as cancer took her away from him.
He had wanted to protect his dad, but couldn't as Gil's own mind and fear had taken him away for close to half his life. And now, after getting his dad back and trying to figure out his new way of life going forward—
Jack dropped the ball into his lap. He picked it up and threw it across the room.
—he realized that he couldn't protect anyone from anything. Not his dad, not Sara, and definitely not himself.
~"Like the salt and the sea."~
TBC…
Disclaimer song used: "Salt and the Sea" by The Lumineers (which was a song I also used for inspiration while writing 'A Beautiful Crime)