WORTH WORKING FOR
CHAPTER TEN
Good morning, beautiful.
Kate grins, her cheeks warming at the text that comes in while she's getting out of the shower. She takes a moment to type up a quick response before pulling her damp hair up in a messy bun.
Good morning, handsome. Sleep well?
Would have slept a lot better with you in my arms.
She draws her bottom lip between her teeth as heat travels all the way to her toes. If she hadn't been on call today, she probably would have woken with him in her bed, instead of alone. But after poker, and their brief conversation culminating in an intense, but all too short, makeout session in her kitchen, they'd bid each other goodnight with a promise of more in a few days when she's off, and they can have all the time they want.
But oh, there's a very loud part of her that wishes he'd stayed over anyway.
She reaches up to grab a shirt and gasps in pain, the scar on her side tugging painfully with the movement.
Fuck!
Pressing her hand to her side, massaging gently, she abandons her original outfit and grabs a simple white t-shirt from her dresser instead. She manages to pull it on without any further pain, and she tugs on her slacks, groaning in frustration when she can barely button them.
Apparently, the recent move into her second trimester brought a growth spurt.
She stands sideways in front of the floor-length mirror and lifts her shirt, runs her palm down her front. It's hard for her to see the change day-by-day, so she grabs her phone and takes a picture, decides on a whim to send it to Rick.
Sixteen weeks.
Holy shit.
She chuckles at his immediate response, but before she can tease him about it, another text comes through.
Oh my God, Kate. You gotta warn a guy before you send porn. I almost spilled my coffee.
She pulls on a blazer and grabs her badge and gun from her safe, clips them on her belt before responding.
Is that a euphemism?
Do you want it to be?
Rolling her eyes and fed up with texting, she moves to call him. Before she can, though, another notification appears, this time from dispatch.
She sighs, disappointment settling over her.
I just got summoned to a crime scene. Pick this up later?
Gladly. Maybe I can come by with coffee.
She grins and shuts the door behind her.
I'd like that.
She spots Ryan talking to a witness when she arrives, so she goes directly to the body. There's a larger crowd than normal surrounding them – louder, too – but she sets that curiosity aside as she greets Esposito.
"Morning. What do we have?"
"Sarah Vasquez, 28-year-old kindergarten teacher," Espo says, holding out a purse.
Ryan appears on the other side of the body. "Her friend confirmed. They were on their way to yoga, talking about Sarah's upcoming wedding, when she just dropped."
"Did she see or hear anything?"
"No."
The skin on the back of her neck prickles, and she feels goosebumps erupt on her arms.
She doesn't like the sound of this.
She spots Lanie near the wall, removing something from low, near the ground, and she kneels next to the body. Before she realizes what she's doing, she presses her fingers to her chest, rubs the scar hidden under her shirt.
"Bullet wound straight to the chest," she murmurs, noticing the hole in the victim, a hole almost identical to hers.
After a few seconds, she stands and turns her attention back to Ryan. "You said nobody saw or heard a shot?"
"No."
"Maybe they used a silencer." Even as the words come out, she knows how unlikely that is, especially in a crowded street. Someone definitely would have seen a gun with a silencer at chest level, even in New York.
She feels her phone buzz in her pocket, and she glances at the new messages.
You need that coffee yet?
I just really want to see you.
As sweet as they are, Rick's texts do little to calm the dread and anxiety that have settled over her. She tucks her phone back in her pocket without responding as Lanie comes up to her, a small evidence bag in her hand. "What did you find?" she asks, hoping her friend doesn't tease her about last night, how Rick had stayed behind after poker wrapped up. But there's no glint in Lanie's eyes, no smirk tugging at her mouth. She's all business today.
And Kate's been a detective – and known Lanie – long enough not to recognize the concerned look she's met with.
"The bullet," Lanie announces, handing it to Kate. "Judging by the angle it hit the doorframe, it went front-to-back."
Kate furrows her brows as she examines the slightly damaged bullet. "Huh. This looks like serious firepower. Any idea where it came from?"
Lanie shakes her head. "I'll know more when I do a full exam."
"Okay. Thanks, Lanie."
Lanie hesitates as if considering something else, but she simply takes the bullet back and squats next to the body.
Kate lifts her hand to run it through her hair, but drops it back to her side before she can ruin her bun. A single victim, nothing of use from the witnesses, and a bullet that was powerful enough to go straight through their victim and lodge itself deep in a door frame?
She has a bad feeling about this case.
She just hopes she's wrong.
"That was fast," Kate says when she steps into the morgue. "Did you even do a full autopsy?"
Lanie picks up her clipboard and motions towards the lifeless body of the victim. "Cause of death was pretty obvious," she points out. "I got more info on the bullet, though. It's a .308, specifically a 168 grain Sierra Matchking."
"A rifle bullet."
"It's a common ammunition favored by..." Espo pauses and shares a glance with Lanie before turning his attention back to Kate. "Long-range shooters."
Sniper.
Her chest tightens, but she pushes through, focuses on her breathing.
Inhale, exhale. Don't let her friends see.
"Based on her wound and how deep it went into the door frame, it was fired from about 200 to 300 yards away."
200 yards.
Her own sniper was half that distance, and he missed. If he'd been a half-inch to the right...
And this guy hit a moving target on a busy sidewalk.
Shit.
"We're canvassing, and we estimate that he was in one of these buildings," Espo continues, pulling up a 3D view of the neighborhood and zooming into a cluster of mid- and high-rises. "There's a lot of real estate to check, though."
Kate nods, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. "How good is he?" she asks, somehow managing to keep her voice from cracking.
"As good as any shooter in my unit."
God.
A short burst of vibrations in her pocket brings her from her thoughts, and she looks down at the victim, at the small hole in the middle of her chest.
"Did she feel it?"
"No. She died instantly."
Lanie's quiet words are hardly a comfort. Sarah Vasquez may have died instantly. But Kate didn't. Her shooter missed, left her with months of recovery, ugly marks on her skin, therapy – physical and otherwise – and never knowing if they'll come back for her.
Pain. She was left with pain.
Her phone goes off again, and she's about to shut it off when Espo's and Lanie's also ring. All three of them answer, and the message makes her stomach drop.
Another shooting.
Ryan's already at the scene when they arrive, and he ushers them past the throng of reporters setting up.
"Same shooter?" she asks him.
She startles when there's a loud bang, looks in the direction to see a news van, a man hoisting a large camera onto his shoulder.
A door. It was just a door.
She sees the body immediately, covered with a sheet to shield it from prying eyes.
Ryan continues, oblivious to the battle raging inside of Kate's mind. "Henry Wyatt, 38-year-old attorney. No connection yet to the previous victim, but we only just started looking."
She nods a greeting at Lanie, who's crouched next to the body, holding something in her hand. "Is that the slug?" she calls out, taking it when Lanie stands.
Lanie nods. "Looks like it, but I'll confirm at the lab. It's a little banged up from the concrete." She pauses, and Kate notices her share yet another look with Espo.
She rolls her eyes. "You guys can stop it with the telepathy," she snaps, rapidly losing her patience. "Give it to me straight. What are we looking at?"
"The angle's more extreme," Espo says. "He was shot from higher up."
Kate instinctively looks up, searching the surrounding buildings for a clue. An open window, a sign that says "Sniper was here," anything. But she sees nothing. Nothing but the glint of sunlight off the glass.
Off the end of a rifle.
"Kate!"
The sharp snap of her name brings her back to the scene. To the dead body.
Killed by a sniper.
"You okay?" Lanie asks in a low voice.
No.
Kate nods.
She tunes Espo out when he explains the sniper's recon, what he'd do to scope the place out. It doesn't matter how he'd calculate the angle, or arc, or whatever. He's choosing to kill, to take innocent lives, no apparent rhyme or reason to his victims.
None of this matters if they don't stop him.
When Espo spots a small flag on the side of a parking sign, though, she lets herself feel a tiny bit of optimism. If there's a print, or any cameras nearby...
"We might be able to get eyes on him," he points out.
She nods. "We should canvass the area for security cam-"
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thinks she hears a voice that tries to reason with her, assure her that she just hears the chirp of a siren, a fellow cop rolling up to the crime scene.
But still she drops to the ground, pressing herself against a telephone pole, hiding from a bullet that she prays will never come.
Chaos.
It's all chaos.
The crime scene, the precinct garage, her mind. Trying to make sense of it all: two dead people, killed just two hours apart on opposite sides of the city, two random victims. Either this guy's extremely organized, or extremely unhinged. Or both.
She needs to stop him.
Before he takes her out, too.
"Detective Beckett."
She hasn't even reached her desk when she's intercepted, and she winces when she notices the stern look in her captain's eye.
Does she know about her reaction at the crime scene? Is she going to take her off the case? She's already beating herself up over it, anything Gates does would just be salt in the wound.
"The precinct is no place for unannounced civilian visitors," Gates snaps. "Especially when there's a gunman terrorizing the city and we're all hands on deck."
Kate sets her bag down and looks around. What is she talking about? "Sir?"
Gates jerks her head towards the conference room. "In there. I tried to make him leave, but he refused. Get him to go home, Detective. You have a case to solve."
Kate nods, dread creeping down her spine as she realizes who her visitor probably is. She got so wrapped up in the case, in her own mind, that she forgot that Rick texted her several times, and she never answered.
She lets out a long exhale when she spots him through the window, pacing, his hands on his hips, obviously nervous. He stops when she shoves open the door.
"Kate," he breathes, closing the distance between them in three long strides and pulling her into his arms.
She tenses and pushes against his chest, stepping back, putting the distance between them again. "What are you doing here?"
It comes out sharper than she intended, but she can't take it back, can't change it, can only watch his expression harden.
"I texted and called, and you never responded," he explains. "I saw on the news about the sniper, and..."
Her brain stalls on the word "sniper." She knows that's what the killer is, and has even thought it herself. But for Rick to just throw it out there, so casually?
His hands on her arms bring her back to the present, to the conference room and the din of the precinct outside the windows...and the killer running loose in her city.
"Are you okay?" Rick asks in a low voice, his eyes roaming over her face. He drops a hand, brushes the back of his fingers low on her belly. "Is-"
"I'm fine," she interrupts, stepping back even further, putting the table between them. "God, people keep asking me that. I've been working the case."
"Oh God, you're on the sniper case?"
"We all are."
She startles at the loud knock on the window, her hand flying up to her chest, fingers pressing against the scar between her breasts.
The same place as her first victim.
Espo gestures for her to join him in the bullpen, and she looks behind him to see everyone gathering, facing the murder board that someone had put together when she was out.
She turns back to Rick, but the look in his eyes has her turning away. She can't handle his pity, the way he seems to see right through her soul. "I gotta go, Rick. Go home."
He needs to leave. To lock himself in his apartment, where he won't be in danger. Needs to leave her before she loses it, before she breaks into pieces, showing him parts of her that she isn't ready for him to see. Before her walls and doubts and insecurities push him away.
"No."
"Rick-"
"I'm not leaving you, Kate. If you're gonna be out there in the streets, putting yourself – and our child – in the crosshairs, then I'm gonna be with you."
She clenches her jaw. "There's been no indication that the shooter sticks around," she argues. "And he's not targeting law enforcement. I'm about as safe as I can be."
Tell that to your racing heart, she thinks, her mind flashing to the last scene, to doors slamming and sirens chirping and her inability to see anything but rifles pointed at her from every building.
She jumps when Espo knocks on the window again, and she nods and holds up her hand, gesturing for him to be patient. She turns her attention back to Rick.
"Go home," she repeats.
Rick crosses his arms, a muscle in his jaw twitching. "I'll call the mayor."
She narrows her eyes. "And do what?"
"He's a friend. He'll let me stay."
"Yeah, right," she scoffs.
Time stills, the air between them thick with tension as they glare at each other, both convinced they're right, neither willing to budge. The silence is broken when the door opens, letting in the chaotic noise from the bullpen.
"Beckett," Gates snaps, barely sparing Rick a glance. "If you're done, we have work to do."
Kate inhales sharply, her cheeks burning with the admonishment. Gates already seemed annoyed that Rick showed up in the first place, and now he's holding up the entire team, just because he's too damn stubborn to just let her do her job.
She nods, and Gates gives her a long stare before shutting the door.
"Great," she murmurs, pinching the bridge of her nose. She's already stressed, barely holding it together, and now Rick got her in trouble.
She can feel everyone's eyes on her through the windows, wondering who she's talking to, probably well aware that she doesn't usually get visitors. If they can see her struggling, barely able to hang onto a shred of sanity, if they know just how close she is to losing it...
She needs...something. She needs to solve this case, to solve the sniper from going after random people on the street, going after her.
She has not just a target on her back, but a spotlight. She's primary on the case, everything goes through her...
Like the bullet that killed Sarah Vasquez.
Like the bullet that almost killed her.
She gasps for air, her hand flying up to her chest, presses her fist against the scar there. Her heart pounds under her skin, and she's just waiting for it to burst through-
A warm hand covers hers, the other curling around her side, over the scar there, a scar only a few people have seen. Familiar lips press against her forehead, and she closes her eyes, leans into his touch, feels his firm grip, his strength, seep into her soul, comfort her in a way she isn't used to.
"You should step away from the case."
Her eyes fly open and she steps back, the moment ruined, the warmth gone in an instant. "Excuse me?"
At least Rick has the decency to look apologetic. "Step away, Kate. Come home with me. It's obviously affecting you, you should let someone else take it."
"Let someone-" It isn't funny, but she lets out something akin to a laugh anyway, little more than a sarcastic chuckle, as she moves towards the door. "I'm not going to pass along the case because it's hard. That's not how it works."
"I didn't mean anyth-"
"No," she interrupts, "of course you didn't mean anything. You're not a cop, Rick. You don't control me, or my job. It's my case, I'll see it through. Now, you can either go home-" She opens the door, letting the bullpen noise in, "or I'll arrest you for obstruction and make you sit in holding until I solve it."
Rick's nostrils flare at her threat, and he inhales deeply, his broad chest expanding under his button-down shirt. He stares at her for several seconds, his jaw clenched, until he nods and grabs his coat. "Fine."
She follows him to the elevator without a word, and she presses the down button for him, stands to the side as he puts his coat on.
It only takes a few seconds before the doors open, and he steps in, turns to face her.
The last thing she sees before the doors close are his cold, angry eyes.