Devils & Gods 6/12
Title: Devils & Gods
Fandom: Nikki & Nora
Pairing: Nikki & Nora
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nikki & Nora are not mine, but it kinda feels like they are. The characters from the pilot aren't either. BUT - there's a whole lot of original ones that are in this little story so...*yay* for me.
Author’s Note: It’s Thursday…*yay* and this chapter marks our mid-way point for the story.
Ch. 6 - Violent Amends
The chatter in the room is enthusiastic to say the least. The headache I have is similar. Nora must know because she’s been kneading the back of my neck over the past few minutes trying to get the knot she found to go away.
I appreciate the effort and let our colleagues do all the work. Benny and Lucy have been working on using the wall opposite us as a case board, they have all five vics up. A head shot is at top and below that their information, crime scene photos and other pertinent details. On the far right of the vics closest to the door is a picture of our new person of interest, Peyton Davison.
We spent the entire afternoon and a good part of the evening vetting the other two names. It was unanimously agreed upon that neither were viable candidates. Abbinanti wasn’t in the right age bracket and also, he’s been in the hospital for a week after having quadruple bypass surgery. Cager was in the right age range, but nothing else fit. Lucy said he was too stupid and wondered how he ended up as a combat medic.
John’s guess was that he was a runner and just loaded in bodies.
We were left with Mr. Davison.
A middle-aged, Army E.M.T. who hits all the bullets on the profile the S.I.U. team put together.
“Uh-huh,” John says into the phone. “I can see how that would be problematic. Is this standard for you Sgt. Richmond?” John leans back in his chair and looks wholly unimpressed. “I can tell…Don’t ‘sir’ me, Richmond. I want your man found and I want him found yesterday…it’s need to know.” John rolls his eyes and mimes the man on the other end talking with his hand. Ann smacks him on the shoulder and he frowns. “Twenty-four hours, Richmond or you’ll be seeing me in person. If it comes to that, you’ll be in a shit ton of hurt.” John pulls the phone away from his ear and stabs the ‘end’ button. “Stupid doughboy.”
“You done whining?” Ann asks from her spot on top of the conference table. Her thigh flexes under the charcoal grey linen pants. Her right leg swings from the edge of the table.
“Yeah.” John tosses his phone on top of his note pad and rubs one of his large paws down his face.
“You going to tell us why you shoved your foot up that C.O.’s ass or can I guess?” Travis asks, wiggling his eyebrows. John waves his hand and Travis takes that as his signal. “Peyton’s not checked in. How long has it been, forty-eight or seventy-two hours since he’s showed his face at Fort Leonard Wood?”
John’s frown deepens.
“That’s seventy-two,” Lucy cuts in and snickers.
“Well, shit.” Dom chimes in.
“Yes!” Jesse gives a little fist pump.
“I second everything,” Ann says, hopping off the table. “Ladies and gentleman, we have confirmed our person of interest.”
Nodding, John grumbles, “Good, maybe something on this shitting case will go our way now.”
“Det. Delaney?” Spencer asks from her spot at the credenza.
“Nora works, Spencer,” my partner tells her.
Nodding, the young woman asks, “You said that you had someone in A.I.S. that can help me pull Davison’s full background? I know we have his military record, but Aunt Ann always like to have a full background. Can I give them a call or go see them?”
“Kiddo, let’s wait until the a.m.,” her father suggests. “We’ve covered a lot of ground today. Your sister isn’t back from the morgue and I’d like to have some dinner that has some type of protein. Why don’t we call it?” he looks around the room and every single one of us nods.
“We can pick up tomorrow and maybe Nora, if you don’t mind, take her to see your contact?” Ann asks.
“Sure, it’s Luke, by the way.” Nora stands and starts to shuffle the piles of files in front of us in to a somewhat orderly stack. “Spencer, why don’t I meet you at the hotel tomorrow morning and I’ll take you over and introduce you?”
“Sure,” the doctor agrees and picks up her phone. “Bamby says she and Dr. Ophoven are going to be there a while, dad. She said to just go back to the hotel or whatever.”
“All right, folks, good work today,” John dismisses us all as I slump back in my chair and close my eyes and focus on the sounds of everyone getting ready to go.
“You ready?” Jill’s whisper causes my eyes to pop open.
“Jesus, woman!” I try and laugh off the fact that she pretty much snuck on me.
I look around and Nora and Ann are cleaning up a little. The rest of the team is gone. Huh. I think I’m more tired than I thought. “How’d the rest of the evening go for you?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “Sitting around blows.” Her lips purse and she sighs. “Although, given the situation, I don’t think either of you three’ll let me wonder around my stomping grounds unchaperoned.”
Admittedly, the pout is adorable, but it won’t get me to budge. I don’t think it’ll work on our partners either.
“You would guess right,” Nora says and picks up Jill’s messenger bag and hands it over to Ann.
“D’you guys want to do dinner?” Ann asks slinging the bag over her shoulder and then slipping her arms through her back pack. I frown wondering when she was downgraded to pack mule. She doesn’t seem in the least bit bothered by it, so I’ll just keep quiet and shake my head.
“The only thing I’m good for right now is a shower and some sleep,” Nora answers and looks to me.
“Maybe,” I put my two cents in. “I could be talked into some T.V. and a sandwich, but that’s the extent of my commitment to the rest of the night.”
“Oh, The VMA’s are on.” Jill sounds a little too excited as we follow behind Nora and Ann.
“You hate MTV,” Ann reminds her wife and snickers.
“I do, but I like the performances, so…” the model trails off as if that’s going to explain it. “Oh, and I like to see what they wear. Aldo’ll probably call and play Joan Rivers.”
Ann groans as we hit the bottom of the stairs. “I can’t take listening to you and him through the whole thing.”
I look at my friend and see her smirk. She leans in and whispers, “I do that just to annoy her.”
Jill watches the uniforms in the bull pen and asks, “Did you ever consider doing something else?”
She tears her eyes away from a uniform questioning a woman sitting in a chair next to her desk and looks up at me. My left foot taps gently on a drawer as I perch along the edge of Nora’s desk. I offer a noncommittal shrug. “Not really.” Wondering if maybe she didn’t get enough sleep last night. We all went to bed about an hour after we got home.
She seemed fine this morning, but…
Her left eyebrow rises. “You’re shitting me?”
I shake my head. “I mean every job has their moments you know? The only time I ever gave it serious consideration was when Nora and I came out at work.”
“Huh,” she mumbles and looks around again. “I just…I look around here and I see some things that
Ann does and…” She shakes her head. “I can’t imagine doing this daily.”
Patting her shoulder, I say, “That’s probably a good thing, sugga.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Her brow furrows and she pushes her hair back, trying to resettle her pin straight hair. “I think sometimes it’s not enough.”
“Come again?” I ask because for some reason I don’t think we’re having the same conversation anymore.
Her lips purse, puckering over the obvious displeasure of her thoughts. “Sometimes, and I don’t need to tell you how much this stays between the two of us…” She waits for a slight nod from me, which I give her before continuing, “Okay, so a lot of the time actually, I think Annie deserves better, someone that…someone like you or Nora.”
If it weren’t for being brought up in the Beaumont family and the New Orleans “elite” I’m sure my jaw would be to the floor. I’m sure I didn’t hear her right, but the look on her face, the pain there…no, I heard her right.
I’m just…
Kind of speechless.
“There’s a rational part, a voice, that tells me that’s silly, but you guys…you do a lot. You save people and help them.” She shrugs her shoulders again and I’m still a little shell shocked. “Stupid, right?” she asks, finally looking back up at me.
My jaw works, I feel it move up and down a couple of times, but no sound comes out. I finally squeak out, “Why are you telling me this?”
Her mouth screws to the side and she shrugs. “Brutal moment of vocalized doubt?”
I shake my head. “You have paid attention to the woman you think you’re not good enough for when you’re around, right?” I scratch my temple and try to process what Jill’s said.
“Yeah, but I see her interact with you and I see her interact with Nora and…it’s different. You two get this side of her that I don’t. I want to, but…” She looks away and sighs. “It’s a side I resent because it takes her away from me, emotionally, sometimes in the literal sense too, but it could be a permanent thing. She could die and it’s ‘cause of that side that you and Nora get that I don’t and some nights or days…it’s pretty fucking hard to breathe because of it.”
Jill lets out a shuddery puff air. “How do you handle that?”
Ah.
The missing pieces of this conversation sort of fall into a shape I can work with. “She’ll be fine. You will be fine…”
Jill shakes her head. “You can’t guarantee me that. She won’t. You can’t. I just don’t get how you and Nora do this together. I’d like…and then with this psycho running around with a hard on for my wife...”
I reach to my side and grab the chair next my desk and slip into it, making sure that I’m as close to Jill as I can be. Our legs slip together and I grab her shaking hands. “Sugga, you are thinking about this all wrong.”
Her head rears back and she scowls at me. “How the fuck else am I supposed to think about this? Some fucking psycho’s gunning for you, for Nora, for Annie. You guys fucking sit back and act like it’s business as usual, but Nikki, she’s never once thought of sending me away or hiring body guards or for fuck’s sake, I’ve never fucking camped out at a goddamn police station because she doesn’t want me left alone. How the fuck else am I supposed to think about this!”
I shake my head and press a finger to her lips. “Stop,” I whisper firmly. “Listen to me. Being scared is smart, Jill. Being worried and cautious is smarter still. You don’t think that Nora and I don’t get scared or worried or frightened about the other?” I shake my head. “If you only knew…there have been times that I swear to God my heart’s stopped from sheer terror that something’s happened to her. I get that. Nora gets that, too, but…” I lick my lips and remove my finger. “You need to trust her…”
“I do…” Jill insists.
“I know, but what I’m saying is that what’s going on now is different. It’s going to require you to trust her on a different level.”
“What level would that be?” Jill spits incredulously.
“Your life. Mine. Nora’s…”
“I d…”
“You do, but the unspoken rule to that trust is that she puts your life ahead of hers. She will chose yours over hers every single time, Jill and I know it doesn’t seem like it’s a trust thing, but it is because you don’t get a say here. It’s what we do,” I try to explain to her.
“I don’t get a say in that? That she can just fucking die on me, she can just toss away her life for…” Jill can’t even choke out the words and my chest physically aches.
I manage to get out a solid, “No. Not in this.”
Her face crumples, but she doesn’t let the tears escape. Her jaw clenches and she spits, “Well, just…fuck that.”
I can’t help the snicker. She’s angry. It’s a good thing. It’ll help her. “I know that feeling too.”
She pulls a hand away from me and runs it over her face. “This fucking sucks. Like worse than anything, in the history of ever. This just fucking sucks.”
“I know, sug, I know.” I reach out and tuck some hair behind her ear and let my hand travel across her cheek and cup her jaw. Forcing her to look at me, I say confidently, “You’ll be fine.”
Her lips purse, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Uh, Nik?” Nora calls out from behind Jill. She cocks her head to the side and motions at the two of us. I shake my head and she drops whatever else she was going to say in response to my position with Jill. Instead she says, “Bamby’s back. We’re getting ready to start.”
“I’ll be there in a second, Delaney.” I stick my tongue out at her. “Hold your horses and give me five.”
She rolls her eyes, but says nothing and disappears around the corner, leaving me with Jill again.
“I agree,” I tell her and lean in and kiss her cheek. “But we do want to find this bastard and you’ll be fine. Ann will be fine and for the love of all that is holy, those ridiculous thoughts that you were having about not being good enough or whatever it is that you were getting at…get it out of your head.” I let her chin go and rest my hand against her cheek. “I’m pretty sure if you ask the woman in question; she’d tell you that you hung the moon. She loves you.”
“I know,” Jill says this time the tremor in her voice is gone. It’s firm once again, free of the hurt and anger of a few moments ago. “I just…you know what it’s like when you have so much to lose.”
I nod.
I do.
I slip into the conference room as one of the doctor’s is talking. It takes me a moment to figure out that she’s talking about Charlie. I look at the other one and try to determine who is who. I haven’t ever really been around twins before and these two look…exactly alike.
But their personalities…
Those are different.
It’s how I tell them apart and the one speaking is Bamby. She’s more animated, bubbly. I have a feeling she gets this from her father. From all that’s been said about Mrs. Malone, Spencer seems to take after her.
“So, we’re like elbow deep in the chest cavity and he’s just this awesome chatter box. He was telling me about how Nora, his son and him occasionally go fishing and then, right there in the middle of the story, he pops out the start of the intestinal tract…”
I close my eyes and take my seat suppressing the nausea that bubbles up at her description. Thankfully, Nora leans over, drowns out Bamby’s chatter and whispers, “Everything okay?”
I nod and whisper back, “You know how much I hate even thinking about what Charlie does.”
Nora pulls my chair closer and says, “That’s not what I was talking about.”
I keep my voice as quiet as possible and say, “She just needed to vent. Everything is as good as we can expect right now.”
Nora takes my word and I feel her nod against my neck before she pulls away.
“So, anyhow, Charlie’s like my official brother from another mother,” Bamby finishes and I come back to the conversation.
“Bae, I think we all understand that you have a big ole straight crush on the man, but can you please move this along,” Spencer remarks from her spot sandwiched between Georgia and Travis.
Shrugging it off, Bamby gripes, “I’m just sayin’, dude’s awesome.”
“I’ll get you a t-shirt to take home to Christal. It can say Team Ophoven,” Spencer razzes her sister a bit more.
“Pffftt, too little too late, Spence. We broke up right before we boarded to come down here.” Bamby waves her off.
I’m not sure…
“What?” John asks perking up at this bit of news.
Rolling her eyes, Bamby gives a long suffering sigh and apologizes to the team, “Excuse my family and me for a minute while I catch them up.” She directs her attention to John, Ann and Spencer who are all sporting equally concerned looks. “We broke up. Done. She was all pissy about my job anyhow, she was okay in bed, but she started to bitch about you,” Bamby points to Spencer. “I told her to take a leap off the Washington Monument.”
John and Ann look at each other and the look says, ‘we’ll be fucking someone up when we get back.’
“No,” Bamby interrupts the silent conversation. “You will not hunt her down. Really, I’m good, dad, Aunt Ann, seriously. Let’s get back to the case since no one here seems to appreciate the awesomeness of Ophoven.”
This earns a round of chuckles from the table and Bamby winks at her sister.
The other one shakes her head, but the smile can’t be hid.
“So back to the actual findings on the autopsy. Show of hands for good news first?” Bamby folds her arms across her chest and waits for us to comply.
A few hands are raised.
“Bad news first?” she asks and the same ones that raised their hands for the good news raise it for the bad. She huffs, “You guys suck. I’ll just have to do this my way.”
She goes to a stack of glossy eight-by-tens and tacks them up on the wall. All are clinical autopsy photos and I’m assuming key points of interest for her and the findings. “There are several notable differences to the signature of our unsub’s killing. I know we’ve got Davison as our P.O.I., but I’ll wait for better confirmation. Our primary identifiers have been manipulated here. Addison was not killed over a matter of days. The estimation that we were able to generate from the evidence collected indicates that he was killed pretty quickly. Tox screens came back negative for the standard levels of epinephrine and cocaine in the system that we’ve seen with the previous victims.”
She goes to tap the photos of each of the women and continues, “We know that he kept them alive for days as he excised the skin on the face. We know that he was deliberate, meticulous and allowed them to even out before he began taking more skin.” She walked over to the photo of Addison.
Tapping his picture, she shakes her head. “I can’t decide if Addison was lucky or not in those regards. The attack was sudden. There are contusions and lacerations consistent along the arms and hands to indicate defensive markings. He put up a fight. A pretty good one by the fracture left behind on his left forearm. Addison’s C.O.D. was cardiac arrest; Charlie and I are willing to speculate that it was brought on by shock due to the amount of pain he was in.”
“Why shock?” Lucy asks.
Bamby presses her lips together and apologies to the group, “If you haven’t ate breakfast yet, lunch isn’t going to sound too hot right now, so I’m sorry.” She licks her lips and taps a photo of a head shot of Addison. “Addison’s face wasn’t removed in strips. There was one cut made along the forehead before, what we can only determine by the damage to the tissue in the surrounding areas, before his face was literally ripped off.”
Well, there goes my hope at lunch.
“Oh,” Spencer hisses, “ew.”
Bamby shrugs. “I warned you.”
“I’m so not taking you up on an internship again,” Spencer gripes and folds her arms over her chest.
“So it was quick and violent,” Ann surmises across from me.
Bamby nods. “Really, super-duper, extra violent with a side of frenzy.”
“Wonder what Addison did to piss him off?” Benny asks.
“What?” Travis perks up from his spot next to him.
“Well, I know we’re thinkin’ that they weren’t working together or whatever, but buddy, if it were me, doing that to someone…I’d have to be pretty pissed off to fuck up my ritual,” Benny explains.
“That’s a pretty big leap,” John agrees with Travis.
“Not really,” I step up and defend Benny’s point. I agree with it. “If Addison was a stooge in all of this, I’d definitely take my time with him. I’d want him to look like the others. This was clearly not the case. Something triggered our guy. Addison did something or something happened for him to take out that kind of aggression on the man.”
“And,” Ann pipes in, “location and other markers really don’t fit the pattern. This wasn’t planned. It was spontaneous and done out of anger.”
John’s face sours at the implication. “Well, hell.”
Next>>>
Fandom: Nikki & Nora
Pairing: Nikki & Nora
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nikki & Nora are not mine, but it kinda feels like they are. The characters from the pilot aren't either. BUT - there's a whole lot of original ones that are in this little story so...*yay* for me.
Author’s Note: It’s Thursday…*yay* and this chapter marks our mid-way point for the story.
Ch. 6 - Violent Amends
The chatter in the room is enthusiastic to say the least. The headache I have is similar. Nora must know because she’s been kneading the back of my neck over the past few minutes trying to get the knot she found to go away.
I appreciate the effort and let our colleagues do all the work. Benny and Lucy have been working on using the wall opposite us as a case board, they have all five vics up. A head shot is at top and below that their information, crime scene photos and other pertinent details. On the far right of the vics closest to the door is a picture of our new person of interest, Peyton Davison.
We spent the entire afternoon and a good part of the evening vetting the other two names. It was unanimously agreed upon that neither were viable candidates. Abbinanti wasn’t in the right age bracket and also, he’s been in the hospital for a week after having quadruple bypass surgery. Cager was in the right age range, but nothing else fit. Lucy said he was too stupid and wondered how he ended up as a combat medic.
John’s guess was that he was a runner and just loaded in bodies.
We were left with Mr. Davison.
A middle-aged, Army E.M.T. who hits all the bullets on the profile the S.I.U. team put together.
“Uh-huh,” John says into the phone. “I can see how that would be problematic. Is this standard for you Sgt. Richmond?” John leans back in his chair and looks wholly unimpressed. “I can tell…Don’t ‘sir’ me, Richmond. I want your man found and I want him found yesterday…it’s need to know.” John rolls his eyes and mimes the man on the other end talking with his hand. Ann smacks him on the shoulder and he frowns. “Twenty-four hours, Richmond or you’ll be seeing me in person. If it comes to that, you’ll be in a shit ton of hurt.” John pulls the phone away from his ear and stabs the ‘end’ button. “Stupid doughboy.”
“You done whining?” Ann asks from her spot on top of the conference table. Her thigh flexes under the charcoal grey linen pants. Her right leg swings from the edge of the table.
“Yeah.” John tosses his phone on top of his note pad and rubs one of his large paws down his face.
“You going to tell us why you shoved your foot up that C.O.’s ass or can I guess?” Travis asks, wiggling his eyebrows. John waves his hand and Travis takes that as his signal. “Peyton’s not checked in. How long has it been, forty-eight or seventy-two hours since he’s showed his face at Fort Leonard Wood?”
John’s frown deepens.
“That’s seventy-two,” Lucy cuts in and snickers.
“Well, shit.” Dom chimes in.
“Yes!” Jesse gives a little fist pump.
“I second everything,” Ann says, hopping off the table. “Ladies and gentleman, we have confirmed our person of interest.”
Nodding, John grumbles, “Good, maybe something on this shitting case will go our way now.”
“Det. Delaney?” Spencer asks from her spot at the credenza.
“Nora works, Spencer,” my partner tells her.
Nodding, the young woman asks, “You said that you had someone in A.I.S. that can help me pull Davison’s full background? I know we have his military record, but Aunt Ann always like to have a full background. Can I give them a call or go see them?”
“Kiddo, let’s wait until the a.m.,” her father suggests. “We’ve covered a lot of ground today. Your sister isn’t back from the morgue and I’d like to have some dinner that has some type of protein. Why don’t we call it?” he looks around the room and every single one of us nods.
“We can pick up tomorrow and maybe Nora, if you don’t mind, take her to see your contact?” Ann asks.
“Sure, it’s Luke, by the way.” Nora stands and starts to shuffle the piles of files in front of us in to a somewhat orderly stack. “Spencer, why don’t I meet you at the hotel tomorrow morning and I’ll take you over and introduce you?”
“Sure,” the doctor agrees and picks up her phone. “Bamby says she and Dr. Ophoven are going to be there a while, dad. She said to just go back to the hotel or whatever.”
“All right, folks, good work today,” John dismisses us all as I slump back in my chair and close my eyes and focus on the sounds of everyone getting ready to go.
“You ready?” Jill’s whisper causes my eyes to pop open.
“Jesus, woman!” I try and laugh off the fact that she pretty much snuck on me.
I look around and Nora and Ann are cleaning up a little. The rest of the team is gone. Huh. I think I’m more tired than I thought. “How’d the rest of the evening go for you?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “Sitting around blows.” Her lips purse and she sighs. “Although, given the situation, I don’t think either of you three’ll let me wonder around my stomping grounds unchaperoned.”
Admittedly, the pout is adorable, but it won’t get me to budge. I don’t think it’ll work on our partners either.
“You would guess right,” Nora says and picks up Jill’s messenger bag and hands it over to Ann.
“D’you guys want to do dinner?” Ann asks slinging the bag over her shoulder and then slipping her arms through her back pack. I frown wondering when she was downgraded to pack mule. She doesn’t seem in the least bit bothered by it, so I’ll just keep quiet and shake my head.
“The only thing I’m good for right now is a shower and some sleep,” Nora answers and looks to me.
“Maybe,” I put my two cents in. “I could be talked into some T.V. and a sandwich, but that’s the extent of my commitment to the rest of the night.”
“Oh, The VMA’s are on.” Jill sounds a little too excited as we follow behind Nora and Ann.
“You hate MTV,” Ann reminds her wife and snickers.
“I do, but I like the performances, so…” the model trails off as if that’s going to explain it. “Oh, and I like to see what they wear. Aldo’ll probably call and play Joan Rivers.”
Ann groans as we hit the bottom of the stairs. “I can’t take listening to you and him through the whole thing.”
I look at my friend and see her smirk. She leans in and whispers, “I do that just to annoy her.”
Jill watches the uniforms in the bull pen and asks, “Did you ever consider doing something else?”
She tears her eyes away from a uniform questioning a woman sitting in a chair next to her desk and looks up at me. My left foot taps gently on a drawer as I perch along the edge of Nora’s desk. I offer a noncommittal shrug. “Not really.” Wondering if maybe she didn’t get enough sleep last night. We all went to bed about an hour after we got home.
She seemed fine this morning, but…
Her left eyebrow rises. “You’re shitting me?”
I shake my head. “I mean every job has their moments you know? The only time I ever gave it serious consideration was when Nora and I came out at work.”
“Huh,” she mumbles and looks around again. “I just…I look around here and I see some things that
Ann does and…” She shakes her head. “I can’t imagine doing this daily.”
Patting her shoulder, I say, “That’s probably a good thing, sugga.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Her brow furrows and she pushes her hair back, trying to resettle her pin straight hair. “I think sometimes it’s not enough.”
“Come again?” I ask because for some reason I don’t think we’re having the same conversation anymore.
Her lips purse, puckering over the obvious displeasure of her thoughts. “Sometimes, and I don’t need to tell you how much this stays between the two of us…” She waits for a slight nod from me, which I give her before continuing, “Okay, so a lot of the time actually, I think Annie deserves better, someone that…someone like you or Nora.”
If it weren’t for being brought up in the Beaumont family and the New Orleans “elite” I’m sure my jaw would be to the floor. I’m sure I didn’t hear her right, but the look on her face, the pain there…no, I heard her right.
I’m just…
Kind of speechless.
“There’s a rational part, a voice, that tells me that’s silly, but you guys…you do a lot. You save people and help them.” She shrugs her shoulders again and I’m still a little shell shocked. “Stupid, right?” she asks, finally looking back up at me.
My jaw works, I feel it move up and down a couple of times, but no sound comes out. I finally squeak out, “Why are you telling me this?”
Her mouth screws to the side and she shrugs. “Brutal moment of vocalized doubt?”
I shake my head. “You have paid attention to the woman you think you’re not good enough for when you’re around, right?” I scratch my temple and try to process what Jill’s said.
“Yeah, but I see her interact with you and I see her interact with Nora and…it’s different. You two get this side of her that I don’t. I want to, but…” She looks away and sighs. “It’s a side I resent because it takes her away from me, emotionally, sometimes in the literal sense too, but it could be a permanent thing. She could die and it’s ‘cause of that side that you and Nora get that I don’t and some nights or days…it’s pretty fucking hard to breathe because of it.”
Jill lets out a shuddery puff air. “How do you handle that?”
Ah.
The missing pieces of this conversation sort of fall into a shape I can work with. “She’ll be fine. You will be fine…”
Jill shakes her head. “You can’t guarantee me that. She won’t. You can’t. I just don’t get how you and Nora do this together. I’d like…and then with this psycho running around with a hard on for my wife...”
I reach to my side and grab the chair next my desk and slip into it, making sure that I’m as close to Jill as I can be. Our legs slip together and I grab her shaking hands. “Sugga, you are thinking about this all wrong.”
Her head rears back and she scowls at me. “How the fuck else am I supposed to think about this? Some fucking psycho’s gunning for you, for Nora, for Annie. You guys fucking sit back and act like it’s business as usual, but Nikki, she’s never once thought of sending me away or hiring body guards or for fuck’s sake, I’ve never fucking camped out at a goddamn police station because she doesn’t want me left alone. How the fuck else am I supposed to think about this!”
I shake my head and press a finger to her lips. “Stop,” I whisper firmly. “Listen to me. Being scared is smart, Jill. Being worried and cautious is smarter still. You don’t think that Nora and I don’t get scared or worried or frightened about the other?” I shake my head. “If you only knew…there have been times that I swear to God my heart’s stopped from sheer terror that something’s happened to her. I get that. Nora gets that, too, but…” I lick my lips and remove my finger. “You need to trust her…”
“I do…” Jill insists.
“I know, but what I’m saying is that what’s going on now is different. It’s going to require you to trust her on a different level.”
“What level would that be?” Jill spits incredulously.
“Your life. Mine. Nora’s…”
“I d…”
“You do, but the unspoken rule to that trust is that she puts your life ahead of hers. She will chose yours over hers every single time, Jill and I know it doesn’t seem like it’s a trust thing, but it is because you don’t get a say here. It’s what we do,” I try to explain to her.
“I don’t get a say in that? That she can just fucking die on me, she can just toss away her life for…” Jill can’t even choke out the words and my chest physically aches.
I manage to get out a solid, “No. Not in this.”
Her face crumples, but she doesn’t let the tears escape. Her jaw clenches and she spits, “Well, just…fuck that.”
I can’t help the snicker. She’s angry. It’s a good thing. It’ll help her. “I know that feeling too.”
She pulls a hand away from me and runs it over her face. “This fucking sucks. Like worse than anything, in the history of ever. This just fucking sucks.”
“I know, sug, I know.” I reach out and tuck some hair behind her ear and let my hand travel across her cheek and cup her jaw. Forcing her to look at me, I say confidently, “You’ll be fine.”
Her lips purse, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Uh, Nik?” Nora calls out from behind Jill. She cocks her head to the side and motions at the two of us. I shake my head and she drops whatever else she was going to say in response to my position with Jill. Instead she says, “Bamby’s back. We’re getting ready to start.”
“I’ll be there in a second, Delaney.” I stick my tongue out at her. “Hold your horses and give me five.”
She rolls her eyes, but says nothing and disappears around the corner, leaving me with Jill again.
“I agree,” I tell her and lean in and kiss her cheek. “But we do want to find this bastard and you’ll be fine. Ann will be fine and for the love of all that is holy, those ridiculous thoughts that you were having about not being good enough or whatever it is that you were getting at…get it out of your head.” I let her chin go and rest my hand against her cheek. “I’m pretty sure if you ask the woman in question; she’d tell you that you hung the moon. She loves you.”
“I know,” Jill says this time the tremor in her voice is gone. It’s firm once again, free of the hurt and anger of a few moments ago. “I just…you know what it’s like when you have so much to lose.”
I nod.
I do.
I slip into the conference room as one of the doctor’s is talking. It takes me a moment to figure out that she’s talking about Charlie. I look at the other one and try to determine who is who. I haven’t ever really been around twins before and these two look…exactly alike.
But their personalities…
Those are different.
It’s how I tell them apart and the one speaking is Bamby. She’s more animated, bubbly. I have a feeling she gets this from her father. From all that’s been said about Mrs. Malone, Spencer seems to take after her.
“So, we’re like elbow deep in the chest cavity and he’s just this awesome chatter box. He was telling me about how Nora, his son and him occasionally go fishing and then, right there in the middle of the story, he pops out the start of the intestinal tract…”
I close my eyes and take my seat suppressing the nausea that bubbles up at her description. Thankfully, Nora leans over, drowns out Bamby’s chatter and whispers, “Everything okay?”
I nod and whisper back, “You know how much I hate even thinking about what Charlie does.”
Nora pulls my chair closer and says, “That’s not what I was talking about.”
I keep my voice as quiet as possible and say, “She just needed to vent. Everything is as good as we can expect right now.”
Nora takes my word and I feel her nod against my neck before she pulls away.
“So, anyhow, Charlie’s like my official brother from another mother,” Bamby finishes and I come back to the conversation.
“Bae, I think we all understand that you have a big ole straight crush on the man, but can you please move this along,” Spencer remarks from her spot sandwiched between Georgia and Travis.
Shrugging it off, Bamby gripes, “I’m just sayin’, dude’s awesome.”
“I’ll get you a t-shirt to take home to Christal. It can say Team Ophoven,” Spencer razzes her sister a bit more.
“Pffftt, too little too late, Spence. We broke up right before we boarded to come down here.” Bamby waves her off.
I’m not sure…
“What?” John asks perking up at this bit of news.
Rolling her eyes, Bamby gives a long suffering sigh and apologizes to the team, “Excuse my family and me for a minute while I catch them up.” She directs her attention to John, Ann and Spencer who are all sporting equally concerned looks. “We broke up. Done. She was all pissy about my job anyhow, she was okay in bed, but she started to bitch about you,” Bamby points to Spencer. “I told her to take a leap off the Washington Monument.”
John and Ann look at each other and the look says, ‘we’ll be fucking someone up when we get back.’
“No,” Bamby interrupts the silent conversation. “You will not hunt her down. Really, I’m good, dad, Aunt Ann, seriously. Let’s get back to the case since no one here seems to appreciate the awesomeness of Ophoven.”
This earns a round of chuckles from the table and Bamby winks at her sister.
The other one shakes her head, but the smile can’t be hid.
“So back to the actual findings on the autopsy. Show of hands for good news first?” Bamby folds her arms across her chest and waits for us to comply.
A few hands are raised.
“Bad news first?” she asks and the same ones that raised their hands for the good news raise it for the bad. She huffs, “You guys suck. I’ll just have to do this my way.”
She goes to a stack of glossy eight-by-tens and tacks them up on the wall. All are clinical autopsy photos and I’m assuming key points of interest for her and the findings. “There are several notable differences to the signature of our unsub’s killing. I know we’ve got Davison as our P.O.I., but I’ll wait for better confirmation. Our primary identifiers have been manipulated here. Addison was not killed over a matter of days. The estimation that we were able to generate from the evidence collected indicates that he was killed pretty quickly. Tox screens came back negative for the standard levels of epinephrine and cocaine in the system that we’ve seen with the previous victims.”
She goes to tap the photos of each of the women and continues, “We know that he kept them alive for days as he excised the skin on the face. We know that he was deliberate, meticulous and allowed them to even out before he began taking more skin.” She walked over to the photo of Addison.
Tapping his picture, she shakes her head. “I can’t decide if Addison was lucky or not in those regards. The attack was sudden. There are contusions and lacerations consistent along the arms and hands to indicate defensive markings. He put up a fight. A pretty good one by the fracture left behind on his left forearm. Addison’s C.O.D. was cardiac arrest; Charlie and I are willing to speculate that it was brought on by shock due to the amount of pain he was in.”
“Why shock?” Lucy asks.
Bamby presses her lips together and apologies to the group, “If you haven’t ate breakfast yet, lunch isn’t going to sound too hot right now, so I’m sorry.” She licks her lips and taps a photo of a head shot of Addison. “Addison’s face wasn’t removed in strips. There was one cut made along the forehead before, what we can only determine by the damage to the tissue in the surrounding areas, before his face was literally ripped off.”
Well, there goes my hope at lunch.
“Oh,” Spencer hisses, “ew.”
Bamby shrugs. “I warned you.”
“I’m so not taking you up on an internship again,” Spencer gripes and folds her arms over her chest.
“So it was quick and violent,” Ann surmises across from me.
Bamby nods. “Really, super-duper, extra violent with a side of frenzy.”
“Wonder what Addison did to piss him off?” Benny asks.
“What?” Travis perks up from his spot next to him.
“Well, I know we’re thinkin’ that they weren’t working together or whatever, but buddy, if it were me, doing that to someone…I’d have to be pretty pissed off to fuck up my ritual,” Benny explains.
“That’s a pretty big leap,” John agrees with Travis.
“Not really,” I step up and defend Benny’s point. I agree with it. “If Addison was a stooge in all of this, I’d definitely take my time with him. I’d want him to look like the others. This was clearly not the case. Something triggered our guy. Addison did something or something happened for him to take out that kind of aggression on the man.”
“And,” Ann pipes in, “location and other markers really don’t fit the pattern. This wasn’t planned. It was spontaneous and done out of anger.”
John’s face sours at the implication. “Well, hell.”
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