Fic: The Ghosts in the Halls (2/?)
Title: The Ghosts in the Halls (2/?)
Pairing: Quinn/Rachel (eventually), Santana/Brittany (eventually)
Rating: R (eventual NC-17)
Length: 2348/9000+ (so far)
Spoilers: None.
Summary: AU. Quinn and Santana are FBI Agents based in New York City.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. I’m just taking them out for a spin.
Author’s Notes: Big thanks to spencer_t for the gorgeous art, marshmallowhobo for pushing me despite me thinking it’s crap (most of the time). And an_an0maly for continuing to help me with the plot and characterization, even though I complain and bug her tirelessly. :D Here is Part 2, and yay, it’s longer than the first part! Happy Friday!
Part I
By the time she gets off the 6 train at Canal, it’s already 7:15. She walks a couple blocks to Worth Café before walking the final block south to Federal Plaza. Santana would be pissed if she didn’t get her coffee-she already wasn’t happy with the early start.
Juggling the coffee and her briefcase with the case files she shows her credentials, giving the security guards a smile and duck of her head as she heads to the elevators, hitting the button for the 23rd floor with her elbow. She weaves through the desks and cubicles when she reaches her floor, balancing the two coffees precariously, one on top of the other. She sees Santana at their adjoined face to face desks and gives her a tired smile, raising the coffees carefully.
“What are you doing?” Santana hisses as she jumps up to grab the teetering coffee.
Quinn rolls her eyes, “Don’t worry, yours is the one on the bottom. I didn’t endanger it.”
Santana narrows her eyes, taking the coffee and opening the top. “Whipped cream!” She lets a grin slip through as she peers into the cup, and Quinn has to fight her own smile.
“Do I ever forget?”
They’re interrupted before Santana can respond. Santana’s face turns sour, her upper lip curling as she looks past Quinn at the intruder.
“Ladies, good morning.” She hears the voice before she turns to see him. “You are looking good enough to eat.”
Quinn grimaces as she faces a clearly leering Noah Puckerman. She’d like to remind him of the classes he had to go to for sexual harassment, but he’s been put through them several times, and he always seems to come out the other end with a still clean record. It was infuriating.
She finally grinds out, “What do you want, Puck?”
Puck looks her up and down, eyes lingering. His right hand comes to rest on his belt buckle.
Quinn does her best not to punch him.
He gives her a toothy grin that she is sure many women would find charming, before saying, “I would love to show you.” He gives a small chuckle when he gets no response. “Just wanted to see if you girls needed any help over here.” He rolls his shoulders before crossing his arms, no doubt trying to showcase the muscles through his (possibly tighter than necessary) white button down dress shirt.
Quinn sets her jaw, just staring at him for a few seconds before she states clearly, “We are fine, Puck. But the grownups here,” she gestures to herself and Santana as she sweetens her tone, “have some work to do, okay? Why don’t you go play nice with Finn on the playground?”
Santana cuts in, “Speaking of your boyfriend, here he comes now.”
Puck glares at the brunette as Finn ambles over, jovially smiling at the three of them. “Hey, guys.”
Quinn sighs, “Hi, Finn. Can you take your partner somewhere that is not here? I don’t have time for him, and that doesn’t seem to be getting through his thick head.” As it takes a few seconds for Finn’s facial expression to change from one of confusion, Quinn wonders why she even bothers at all with either of them.
“Oh. Sure, Quinn,” Finn nods happily. He smacks Puck on the shoulder good humouredly, before tilting his head toward the opposite side of the office. “We’ll see you in a little while.”
“I doubt that,” Quinn responds as they walk away. “We have a meeting in a few minutes, and then we’re going to actually get some work done.”
Puck turns around to face her, still backing away with Finn. “I’ll see you soon, Fabray.” He winks and turns before moving around a row of cubicles and out of sight.
Trying to write off the sense of foreboding that Puck’s smirk left her with as merely one of disgust, Quinn pulls off her grey suit jacket, revealing toned shoulders and arms in her form fitting black tank top, and hangs it on the back of her chair. She slides into her seat and opens her briefcase, her shoulder holster digging into her slightly as it pushes against the chair. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Santana hasn’t moved. She looks up to see the Latina staring at her with her eyes narrowed. “What?” She knows Santana isn’t doing anything to deserve her snapping at her, but the short time Puck had been around made her uneasy.
Santana ignores Quinn’s tone, “What was that all about?”
Quinn tries to keep from snapping further. Her hands form fists under the desk as she tries to rein herself in. “What was what all about?”
The dark haired woman moves closer, resting on the edge of the desk. “I mean, what was going on there with you and Puck? You’re usually able to ignore him pretty easily. And what the fuck is all this attitude?” She raises her brow, clearly disapproving.
Quinn remains seated, clenching and uncurling her fingers a few times before looking up at her partner. “I have no patience for his idiocy.” She looks back down to the case files on her desk pointedly. “And while some people were out partying late and trying to get laid, I was actually trying to find a killer last night.” As she ends her sentence her eyes flick back to her friend.
Santana looks like she’s been slapped, but she recovers quickly, eyes flashing as she leans in close to Quinn. “Don’t you dare question my dedication to my job,” she growls, her voice low. “You should know as well as I do that if we don’t get away from it from time to time we’ll lose it. I know this is taking a toll, but if you ever, ever do that again…” She trails off, leaning back and raising off the desk before moving around to her side and taking her seat. She looks long and hard at Quinn, and Quinn’s hazel eyes seem to show some regret.
“S, I-”
“No,” Santana cuts her off. “I’m not going into that meeting when we’re at each other’s throats.”
Quinn knows her well enough not to push further. She watches as Santana turns away, logging into her computer and undoubtedly pulling up the imaged files. Santana knows them as well as she does, and her stomach turns once as she plays back what she just said. It wasn’t just out of line for her to accuse a partner of what she did, but knowing Santana’s history made it worse.
With a quiet breath, Quinn pulls the files from her briefcase. She doesn’t know why, but holding the hard files always made it feel more real, and though she has used the imaged files on the computers at times, she felt like she might miss something if she could only look at what a machine would show her. Otherwise it could just as well be a game. They could just be back at Quantico, doing test scenarios. The folders were tangible, as were the losses the victims’ families and friends had endured. She looks back at the pile of brown folders in front of her and she picks up where she left off before her eyes got too heavy early that morning.
Alisha Spence. She was twenty-one years old when she disappeared. She had grown up in the Bronx, her dad gone, her mom working sporadically when she wasn’t fostering her meth addiction. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence in Alisha’s neighborhood. The fact that, despite all that, Alisha kept her grades high, herself and her brother out of gang life, and got herself into NYU’s journalism program on scholarship was unusual. She had been only ten weeks into her internship with The New Yorker. They called NYPD when she didn’t show up for the third day running and no one could get in touch with her. Two days after that, Quinn opened an envelope at her desk that showed a picture of Alisha bound to a bed, completely naked. She looked almost peaceful. They thought she was dead, but when they found her body a week later, legs splayed out and a foot-filled shoe on either side of her hips, propped up against her mother’s apartment door, the autopsy results showed she had only been dead for half a day.
The image is burned into Quinn’s mind. It’s what she sees when she closes her eyes at night. Alisha haunts Quinn the most. She had been unable get department approval for a stakeout at Alisha’s mother’s apartment. They said there was no clear connection of the picture to her case. It had been the first they had received. No evidence was found in the envelope, and there was no message. There had never been any evidence of sexual abuse on the previous victims. Without something conclusive, she was told that there wasn’t money (or manpower) to warrant such a move. Her pleas fell on deaf ears, despite the fact the envelope had been addressed to her.
Quinn had been sure, though, and Santana backed her. They spent five nights in an unmarked car in the Bronx watching every person that came and went. On the sixth morning, Quinn looked at Santana and told her that she must have made a mistake. Assuming that Alisha had already been dead in the picture, it didn’t fit his MO to wait so long before returning her to her home. Santana agreed, and was unaware that Quinn returned once again that night to watch.
She finally convinced herself the next morning that she was wrong. But she wasn’t. The following day she had just reached the office when she got the call. Alisha’s younger brother had opened the door, and Alisha’s upper body fell into the entryway. All while Quinn had been on her morning run.
Her mind flits back to arriving at the scene with Santana. The people in the area shied away, and Quinn knew they weren’t going to get anywhere with questioning what they might have seen. No one there sees anything, not when it comes to informing the authorities. They climbed the stairs to the fifth floor (the elevator was broken, telling them their killer was either very strong or had an accomplice), and made their way past the yellow tape, showing the NYPD officer their badges. The ME was standing over the body, but thankfully he hadn’t moved her yet.
He looked up at them as they approached and skipped pleasantries, “Lividity suggests she died about 8-10 hours ago, and she has most certainly been moved since then. I’ll know more once I get her back to the lab.” He held up a clear plastic evidence bag that contained a familiar looking envelope. “This is the only other thing we found with the body.” Quinn reached for it. The ME raised his eyebrow. “Gloves.”
Quinn took the proffered bag and the latex gloves, and they thanked him. He told them to take their time examining and then he’d get Alisha back to his lab for a complete autopsy. They knew they wouldn’t find much here, especially since she had been moved, but they checked the hallways and stairs for footprints, fibers and anything else that could give them some insight as to where she had been murdered. It was a high traffic area, though, so there was little chance of them finding anything that hadn’t been tainted.
Quinn gently removed the envelope from its sealed bag and felt her stomach drop. Santana peered over her shoulder as the blonde removed the slip of paper. Give up yet? You should.
The rest of the morning seemed like a blur of flashpops from the cameras taking crime scene photos, and the muted sounds of Alisha’s mother sobbing into her son’s chest. Neither had heard nor seen anything, and their neighbors hadn’t either.
They made their way back to the car in silence. They were driving east on Tremont, not more than half a mile to 895 (that would take them to 278, that would take them to FDR Drive) when they slowed to a stop at a light. There was no warning. Quinn didn’t really know exactly what had happened, but the next thing she knew her arms were flailing and her fists were making strong contact with the steering wheel, the roof of the car and the driver’s side window. She screamed as she beat the wheel, causing the horn to go off sporadically, and if she had been able to see her surroundings she would have noticed the people on the streets staring at her. As it was, Santana tried to tackle her while still seated, catching a fist to the face and several punches to her arms and chest as Quinn continued flailing. It took several seconds of Santana restraining her before she stopped fighting, and her head dropped forward as the tears flowed freely. She could feel Santana slowly loosen her hold-tentatively, in case of another violent rage-and the brunette pulled her toward her, cradling Quinn’s head to her shoulder. Thankfully there had been room for people to drive around them, though that didn’t stop a lot of honking and angry hand gestures. Santana responded in kind when she thought Quinn couldn’t see.
At least ten minutes passed before Santana had forced Quinn into the passenger side of the vehicle and they continued on, Santana stopping at Quinn’s apartment to let her take some time to pull herself together.
Her reverie is cut short when she hears Santana telling her they have to get to their meeting. Quinn’s eyes flick to her watch, noting it was nearly eight. She closes the files, storing them in her drawers to the right of the desk before hopping up. She grabs her suit jacket from the back of her chair and slides it on in one fluid motion, snugly concealing her weapon, before following Santana toward the office at the other end of the floor.