Instinct - Part 5
Title: Instinct - Part 5
Author: Lindao
Pairing/Characters: Harold Finch, John Reese, Will Ingram, Nathan Ingram, OFC
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Survival instinct. Some people have it in spades. Will Ingram doesn’t have it at all. But his new girlfriend has enough for both of them. Unfortunately, she’s not who he thinks she is. And her Number just came up. If Finch and Reese are going to save a life - and a budding romance - they’ll have to find out who she is, who wants her dead, and why, even after she brutally dumped him, she won’t stop following Will all over the city.
Season 1, before Firewall.
Warnings: Language, violence
Word Count: 56,000 total
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Just over an hour later, Reese heard Julie Essex ask the concierge to secure her a rental car. He promised to take care of it. For what she was paying for her suite, Reese imagined the man would have carried her on his back all over the city if she’d asked him to.
Shortly afterward, the woman walked briskly from the hotel. She wore shorts and a t-shirt and running shoes, carried a bottle of water in one hand. Once she hit the park itself, she began to jog slowly. Reese started his car, but let it idle for the moment. As he’d expected, before she was out of his sightline she dropped onto in the grass a few feet from the sidewalk and began to stretch.
She was stiff at first. Overnight in a small airplane, John knew from experience, would kink up most of the major muscle groups. He would have walked it off a little more. But it was clear that she stretched often; she limbered up quickly, her body responding to long training with the desired response.
Once she warmed up, she was very flexible.
While she stretched, Julie pulled out her cell phone. Reese watched on his own phone. The number she dialed, from memory, not speed-dial, was in the DC area. It rang four times before a cheerful woman answered. “Oracle of Quantico. How the hell are you, girl?”
“Hey, sweetie,” Julie answered with equal warmth. “How are you?”
“I’m good. Busy, of course.”
“The monsters never stop.”
“You got that right. And this week’s special is …” the other woman paused. “Never mind, I can’t tell you. But it’s really gross.”
“I don’t need to know,” Julie assured her. She moved to another stretch position. “Just promise you’ll be safe.”
“Oh, I never leave the lair. Almost never. Safe and sound. Where are you?”
“Central Park.”
“Dude! Come to DC, we’ll hang out.”
“I thought you were busy chasing monsters.”
“Well, we’ll catch this one and I’ll take some time off.”
“Riiiiight,” Julie answered. “Why don’t you come here? We’ll catch a show or ten. Hit the clubs. Stalk boys.”
“Make the Big Apple our personal bitch,” the woman agreed. “I hear you.” And then, “Hang on a minute.”
After a pause she returned. “I’m gonna have to go. What’cha need?”
“When you have time,” Julie said, “I have this picture of a guy and I need to know if he’s anybody.”
“Send, send.”
Reese glanced at the image on his phone. It was the single half-way decent picture she’d taken from the car.
The woman from Washington growled. “That picture’s awful.”
“Moving car.”
“You should have slowed down. I’ll do what I can, but I dunno.”
“Give it your best shot. It’ll be better than anybody else’s in the world.”
“Flatterer. Don’t you have people of your own for this?”
“Yeah,” Julie answered, “but I’m kinda pissed off at them right now.”
“I thought you sounded kinda off. You okay?”
“I’m stretching. Going for a run.”
“Ughh, why? Is someone chasing you?”
“Sadly, no.”
“Ohhhh,” the voice from Washington said. “I know that tone. That’s the sound of a broken heart.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. Spill it, sister. Was he hot?”
“Yes.”
“Smart?”
“Yes.”
“Got a job?”
“Doctor.”
“Good kisser?”
“Yes.”
“Good in bed?”
“Probably. Didn’t get a chance to find out.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Wrong agency,” Julie said. “We don’t do that.”
“Well there’s your problem right there. Come to the dark side, sweetie. We have cookies. And condoms.”
“I’ve met your boss. He wouldn’t let me sleep with my assignments either.”
“No, probably not. You gonna keep him?”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Transference. Counter-transference.”
“Piffle. Psycho-babble. There’s no such thing.”
Julie chuckled. “Don’t you work in the very hive of criminal psychology there?”
“Yeah, but what do they know? You’re clearly hot for the boy. You should keep him.”
“Can’t,” she said again. “I already drove a stake through his heart, anyhow.”
“Oh.” Her long-distance friend murmured sympathetically. “Sorry, Jules.” After a beat, she added, “Sooooo, this transference thing. You can’t date him, but it would be okay if you, like, sent his phone number to a close friend, right? I could, uh, watch over him, maybe ease his pain a little?”
Julie laughed out loud. “You are such a bitch sometimes.”
“Hey, I’m just sayin’, if you can’t have him, there is no point in letting a perfectly hot doctor go to waste.”
“If he seems lonely,” she promised, “I’ll send him your way.”
“You better. I gotta go. Have a good run. Don’t get lost.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
Julie tucked her phone into a holder on her shirt and plugged in her headphones. Reese held his own phone, ready to turn down the volume on whatever music she played on her run. She put her ear buds in, but there was no music. Just a decoy, Reese supposed. A polite way to ignore anyone who tried to speak to her. She started to run in earnest.
___________________________________________________________________
“You’re not going to follow her on foot, Mr. Reese?” Finch teased gently.
“I’m not sure I could keep up with her,” Reese admitted. He took his foot off the brake and let the sedan roll; traffic was heavy enough that he could nearly keep pace with her without seeming to lurk. “What was that, about a six minute mile?”
“Five-fifty-five,” Finch answered. “If I’d tried to run that kind of pace I’d have vomited.”
“You were a runner, Finch?”
“I was, yes.”
Reese thought about that for a moment. Of all the things that Harold Finch had lost when he was injured, he probably didn’t consider running very high on the list. But it was likely something that had let Finch be normal, ordinary. If he’d been avid about it, it had been part of his lifestyle. Something that made him feel good, physically and mentally. And it had been taken from him. “I’m sorry, Finch.”
The genius did not answer.
At the cross street that dissected the park, their target turned east. Reese navigated through the traffic with some difficulty. Finch was right; he was going to have to leave the car. He glanced down at his leather shoes and his suit pants. He could probably keep her in sight, even if she kept up that blistering pace, but there was no way he was going to do it without attracting attention.
At the east end of the park, near the end of her second under-six-minute mile, Julie Essex stopped at a trash can and threw up.
“Mr. Reese?” Finch asked anxiously, “what is that?”
“Lunch,” Reese answered, “and breakfast. Aaaaaand … whatever she ate yesterday.”
He watched while the girl took a long swig from her water bottle, rinsed her mouth and spit it out. Then she drank, deeply.
“That shouldn’t make me feel better,” Finch said, “but it does. Has she stopped running?”
“No.” Reese watched her for a moment. She’d turned south, back toward her hotel. “But she’s slowed down. I can’t tail her this way. Can you get eyes on her?”
“Certainly.” There was clicking. “All park cameras online.”
“Good.” Reese drove back toward the hotel, found a parking spot. He could still see the girl through the trees. She’d settled into a more reasonable pace. She ran easy, relaxed. Obviously she ran a lot.
Past the hotel, she turned north again and ran along the outer perimeter of the park.
“Looks like she’s on a circuit,” Finch observed.
“Like she doesn’t want to be too far from her hotel,” Reese agreed.
“Or Will’s.”
Reese turned his head and looked behind him. The hotel Finch has stashed his nephew in was directly across the street from Julie’s running route. Maybe she was hoping to run into him. But that didn’t make any sense. Standard protocol was to break clean, cut off all contact with the subject, preferably forever, but definitely for a significant period of time.
Until all the emotions settled out.
Reese waited until she’d made the east turn again to be sure. Then he left the car, strolled into the park, and sat down on a bench. He faced Ingram’s hotel. Julie Essex continued to run large circles around him.
Her loop, Reese calculated, was about three miles. He knew Finch could tell him the exact distance, but it didn’t matter; call it three. She ran steadily. No one tried to kill her, and except for a pack of four other joggers that ran with her for a time and one small dog that barked ferociously at her, no one excited Reese’s attention. Will Ingram did not come out of his hotel.
Reese enjoyed the sun on his face and the cool breeze. The girl ran the circuit four times in just over ninety minutes.
The last half mile she dropped to a walk, cooling off. “I think we’re done, Finch.” Reese stood and strolled toward her hotel.
“Good run,” Finch said. “Will did say she was kind of a health nut. Speaking of whom, excuse me a minute.”
Reese crossed the hotel lobby and dropped into an armchair. Julie might see him when she came in, but she wouldn’t think anything of it. If she saw him later in the hotel, she’d recognize him as a guest that she’d seen in the lobby.
He heard a phone ring in his earpiece and wondered why Finch had left the call connected. It rang twice, and then Will Ingram said, sleepily, “’lo?”
“Are you ready for dinner?” Finch asked.
“Uhhh …”
“You’re still sleeping, aren’t you?”
“No. I mean, yes. I was.”
“We could reschedule.”
Reese looked up. Julie Essex was in the doorway, still pacing slowly, cooling down, with her phone in her hand.
“No, I’m starving. Let me grab a quick shower.”
“I’ll pick you up in half an hour,” Finch offered. “Meet you out front?”
“Great.”
The phone went dead. “Mr. Reese?” Finch said.
“I’m here.”
“You heard that call.”
“Yes.”
“I cut you off.”
“I heard every word, Harold.”
“I know you did.”
Reese looked at the girl again. She walked toward the elevator, putting her phone away. “I heard it over Julie’s phone,” he realized.
“She still has Will’s phone tapped,” Finch concurred. His voice was tinged with worry. And anger.
She might have forgotten to disconnect, Reese thought, but that was unlikely. She’d run with earphone but no music, and she’d kept Ingram’s hotel within easy distance. “Either she’s still worried about him …”
“Or she’s stalking him,” Finch snapped.
“Or both.” Reese tumbled the ideas around in his mind. He still didn’t think their target wanted Ingram dead. She’d passed on too many chances for that. But stalking him was another matter. He and Finch had seen stalking escalate toward murder before. She’d been following him for nearly a year, and close to him for several weeks. Maybe this was simply her own technique for easing out of the relationship, to return to passive observation until she was comfortable leaving him. Transference cut both ways; she’d been very involved with the young doctor.
And maybe she’d slipped over the thin mental line between transference and obsession.
Maybe she was in danger. Maybe she thought Ingram was in danger. Or maybe she was putting him in danger.
“You know, Finch,” he grumbled, “your Machine would be more helpful if it was just a little more specific.”
Finch sighed heavily. “I am aware of that shortfall, Mr. Reese. At this moment, I am abundantly aware.”
Reese shook his head. “It doesn’t change anything. We’ve got eyes and ears on the girl. If she makes a move at Will, we can stop her. If it’s something else, we still need to uncover it.”
“I am not at all comfortable with the notion of using my nephew as bait,” Finch answered tightly.
“I won’t let him get hurt,” Reese answered. There was a long silence. “Harold?” he prompted.
“I’m here,” Finch said. “I know you’re right, John. I just …”
He tried to cover the raw pain in his voice, but only partly succeeded. It was the same tone he’d used to talk about Grace. The tone Reese used on those rare occasions when he spoke about Jessica. They both knew what it was to lose someone. The knowledge that it might happen again was suffocating, and all too real. “I know,” Reese said. “Harold. I know. No one gets to the boy. I promise.”
After another long moment, Finch exhaled. “Thank you, John.”
__________________________________________________________________
“I’m not really hungry,” Will Ingram said morosely.
Finch looked across the table at him. “Half an hour ago you were starving.”
“It went away.”
Harold simply nodded and ordered for both of them. “And bread right away, please,” he added. “They have excellent hearth-baked bread here,” he told Will.
“Okay.” The boy put his elbow on the table, his head in his hand. “I feel like such an idiot, Uncle Harold. How could I not have seen what she was?”
“You weren’t meant to see,” Finch answered. With some difficulty, he resisted the urge to make the young man get his elbow off the table. “Ms. Essex makes her living by not letting others see what she really is.”
“Essex. Is that her name?”
“It was the name on her badge.”
“On her badge,” Will moaned. “She has a badge. She probably has a gun, too.”
“Perhaps. I don’t really know.”
“I can’t believe I fell for it.”
The waiter put a basket of warm bread next to his elbow. Will glanced at it, looked away. But Finch could see the aroma tempt him. He reached out and took a slice for himself. It was tender in the middle, a little chewy at the crust, and so flavorful that he didn’t bother with the butter.
“I mean, my dad used to harp at me about it all the time. Do some homework, find out about the girls you’re dating. He always thought they were after his money.”
“And some of them were,” Finch recalled softly.
Will glared at him. Then he mellowed, picked up a piece of bread and tore at it listlessly. “Some of them,” he admitted. “But most of them just liked me. I thought. God, I don’t know. Maybe none of them really cared about me at all. Maybe he was right, maybe they were all about the money.”
“I doubt that, Will.” Finch watched with satisfaction as the boy chewed one piece of bread and reached for another. By the time their entrées arrived, he was sure he’d have his appetite back. “And in any case, this one had no interest in your money.”
“No. I was just a job to her. An assignment.” He sighed heavily. “That makes it worse. I thought she was my girlfriend, and it turns out she was my babysitter. It’s like having a crush on your nanny.”
Which you also did once, Finch thought, but he didn’t see any reason to mention it. “I know you’re very disappointed, Will. But I am glad that you’re home safely, whatever the circumstances.”
The young man mulled through a third piece of bread. “I thought this was the real thing, Uncle Harold. I thought … I thought I was in love with her. And now I never want to see her again.”
There was more resignation than heat in his last statement. “The sea is full of an infinite number of fishes, Will,” Finch said gently.
“I know.” The boy shrugged. “I guess I’m just tired of fishing.”
“Then sit on the shore and rest a while,” Harold advised. “The sea will call you again soon enough.”
Will cocked his head at him, and for a moment looked uncannily like his father. “You can sit there and do that all night, can’t you?”
“I can try.” Finch smiled at him, but gently. “I know it hurts, Will. But you’ll get through this.”
The boy put his other elbow on the table and buried his face in his two hands. “I think I’m going to become a monk.”
Harold nodded solemnly. “Perhaps you should think about that for a few days.”
Will Ingram simply groaned. But when his steak arrived - medium rare, just like Nathan liked them - he ate without protest, much to his uncle’s satisfaction.
___________________________________________________________________
“Mr. Reese?” the voice in his ear said.
“How’s dinner, Finch?”
“Better than expected. Where are you?”
“At the Mandarin. I’m watching Julie Essex swim laps.”
Reese settled deeper into the corner. The girl swam much like she ran, with easy confidence and determination. Her kick wasn’t as strong as it should have been; Reese could tell that her legs were tired. But her arms took up the slack readily.
“She’s swimming, after that run?” Finch sounded surprised. “Is she training for the Iron Man?”
“Haven’t seen any signs of a bike yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out.” Reese watched as she executed a polished flip-turn against the wall. She rolled over, began a significantly slower backstroke lap. She was getting tired. “She’s trying to sleep, Finch.”
“Don’t sleeping and swimming generally add up to drowning?”
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Reese promised.
“Will’s back. I’ll check in later.”
Reese touched his earwig off and shifted his shoulder against the wall. The girl flipped again and resumed her steady freestyle stroke. She was definitely slowing. Five more laps, he thought, and she’d be ready to drop. If she tried for ten, he might very well have to go in after her.
He wouldn’t really mind. He knew what she was doing, and he knew why. He’d done it himself.
Kara Stanton had helped him.
___________________________________________________________________
2006
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna. It was a grand name, Reese supposed, that the Basque separatists had given themselves. He and pretty much everyone in the world had shortened it to ETA. They were terrorists, and whatever their cause, they didn’t deserve a grand name.
The intelligence had been shaky. Four ETA members had taken a vacationing American businessman and his family captive, but the suits weren’t clear if it was an officially-planned attack or simply a group of guys going freelance in search of ready cash. It didn’t matter much to the team on the ground. They were just supposed to free the hostages.
But someone had tipped the terrorists off, and by the time Reese kicked the door open the hostages - the man, his wife, an eight-year old boy and his six-year old sister - were all dead. So were the terrorists. The house the family had rented was more than a hundred years old; the kitchen floor had warped gently, and the blood of the family pooled at the center of the tile.
There was a small stuffed dog at the edge of the pool. It had probably belonged to the little girl, and it had probably been the color of a golden retriever. It was red now. It had wicked up the family’s blood.
Dead children always got to Reese. He was aware that Stanton had kept him on the perimeter until the little bodies were covered, and for once he didn’t mind her patronizing protection. But the little stuffed dog was still there. And it sliced through his carefully-cultivated mental armor. It reminded him that they were not cases or assignments or clients or numbers. They were children. The day before they’d been splashing at the beach, afraid of jellyfish and slimy seaweed. Today they were dead.
The team did what they could and went back to their bunk. Reese paced for a while. Stanton told him to eat something, and he tried. But he couldn’t get the dog out of his head. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. He scrounged in the closet and found someone else’s old running shoes. He had shorts of his own.
“How far are we from the beach?” he asked.
Kara shrugged. “Twenty klicks or so.”
“Good. I’ll be back.”
She said something to his back. He didn’t hear the words, and he didn’t care. He hit the street and he started to run.
He didn’t warm up, didn’t stretch. He just ran. When his muscles began to cramp, he slowed down. When the few bites of food he’d taken came up, he vomited. But he didn’t stop. He ran.
No identification. No weapon. No phone. No socks, and he could feel the blisters start to form on his feet before he’d gone the first klick. No shirt. Nothing but the shorts and the shoes, his muscles and his lungs and his sweat and running.
After five klicks the endorphins kicked in and he was able to stop seeing the damn little dog in his mind.
Ten, and his lungs burned, his thighs screamed, and the sweat in his eyes all but blinded him. The blisters on his feet swelled and burst and rubbed. It hurt.
He ran.
He was visible and vulnerable, and he knew Stanton would be pissed off about both. He didn’t care. He needed to run, and to drive the little dog from his mind. And the children. He would not think about the children. The boy was only eight, the girl was six, and they had been held for ten hours before they were killed. He hoped they’d been killed first, that they hadn’t had to watch their parents die. He would never know. However it had gone down, they’d died in fear.
He felt the breeze before he saw the ocean. It tasted like salt. His right calf spasmed; he kept running. The cramp spread up to his thigh, and suddenly he was limping, but he didn’t stop. Uphill, faster, and the muscles gave up and relaxed back into the run. He crested the hill, took a very deep breath and ran down toward the ocean.
On the beach, he only slowed long enough to kick the sneakers off. He felt the blistered skin peel away with the shoes. The sand grated against his open wounds. He knew the salt water would hurt worse. He didn’t care.
Six and eight, and they had died screaming.
He ran into the surf until it reached his waist, then dove into the next wave. The water was cold enough to make his gasp when he came up. The salt burned his feet and his eyes. He put his head down and began to swim, hard, straight out from the shore.
Somewhere in the swim time became meaningless. And then everything else did. The pain of his small wounds disappeared. The children vanished, the dog, the pool of blood on the ancient floor. There was nothing. Only himself and the ocean. Only the waves and the water and him.
His legs cramped and relaxed, and he ignored them. His arm cramped, and then his shoulder. He kept swimming. And then his abs cramped and doubled him in half and he sank under the water.
It was peaceful and cool and dim. John let himself sink towards the bottom of the ocean. He was far from shore and it was probably a long way down. It didn’t matter. He would get there eventually. He relaxed, surrendered to the gentle caress of the water as it pulled him down. In a moment he would run out of air and have to take a deep breath. The salt water would fill his lungs, speed his journey to the sand below.
He would miss Jessica. But there was nothing else.
Jessica, he thought vaguely. And suddenly he could hear her laugh. He could smell the warmth of her skin, feel the tickle of her long hair across his chest.
He blew a little bubbling sigh, straightened, and kicked hard for the surface.
When he finally got there, he rolled onto his back and floated, arms outstretched. He looked at the sky. Felt the waves. Let the air gradually soothe his burning lungs.
It had taken no time to swim out to sea, but it took forever to swim back. His muscles continued to spasm, and he had to stop and float while the cramps worked themselves out. At least the tide was in his favor. He relaxed and let the water carry him. Eventually, he came to shore very close to where he’d entered the water.
He swam until he felt his knees bump sand. Then he stood up and walked out of the water.
Kara Stanton was leaning against the hood of her car. His borrowed shoes were on the sand beside her. She watched him approach without comment, then threw a towel at him. “Feel better?”
“A little.”
She shook her head. “Next time you’ve got a death wish, just let me know. I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“Thanks.”
He got in the car and let her drive him back to work.
Author: Lindao
Pairing/Characters: Harold Finch, John Reese, Will Ingram, Nathan Ingram, OFC
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Survival instinct. Some people have it in spades. Will Ingram doesn’t have it at all. But his new girlfriend has enough for both of them. Unfortunately, she’s not who he thinks she is. And her Number just came up. If Finch and Reese are going to save a life - and a budding romance - they’ll have to find out who she is, who wants her dead, and why, even after she brutally dumped him, she won’t stop following Will all over the city.
Season 1, before Firewall.
Warnings: Language, violence
Word Count: 56,000 total
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Just over an hour later, Reese heard Julie Essex ask the concierge to secure her a rental car. He promised to take care of it. For what she was paying for her suite, Reese imagined the man would have carried her on his back all over the city if she’d asked him to.
Shortly afterward, the woman walked briskly from the hotel. She wore shorts and a t-shirt and running shoes, carried a bottle of water in one hand. Once she hit the park itself, she began to jog slowly. Reese started his car, but let it idle for the moment. As he’d expected, before she was out of his sightline she dropped onto in the grass a few feet from the sidewalk and began to stretch.
She was stiff at first. Overnight in a small airplane, John knew from experience, would kink up most of the major muscle groups. He would have walked it off a little more. But it was clear that she stretched often; she limbered up quickly, her body responding to long training with the desired response.
Once she warmed up, she was very flexible.
While she stretched, Julie pulled out her cell phone. Reese watched on his own phone. The number she dialed, from memory, not speed-dial, was in the DC area. It rang four times before a cheerful woman answered. “Oracle of Quantico. How the hell are you, girl?”
“Hey, sweetie,” Julie answered with equal warmth. “How are you?”
“I’m good. Busy, of course.”
“The monsters never stop.”
“You got that right. And this week’s special is …” the other woman paused. “Never mind, I can’t tell you. But it’s really gross.”
“I don’t need to know,” Julie assured her. She moved to another stretch position. “Just promise you’ll be safe.”
“Oh, I never leave the lair. Almost never. Safe and sound. Where are you?”
“Central Park.”
“Dude! Come to DC, we’ll hang out.”
“I thought you were busy chasing monsters.”
“Well, we’ll catch this one and I’ll take some time off.”
“Riiiiight,” Julie answered. “Why don’t you come here? We’ll catch a show or ten. Hit the clubs. Stalk boys.”
“Make the Big Apple our personal bitch,” the woman agreed. “I hear you.” And then, “Hang on a minute.”
After a pause she returned. “I’m gonna have to go. What’cha need?”
“When you have time,” Julie said, “I have this picture of a guy and I need to know if he’s anybody.”
“Send, send.”
Reese glanced at the image on his phone. It was the single half-way decent picture she’d taken from the car.
The woman from Washington growled. “That picture’s awful.”
“Moving car.”
“You should have slowed down. I’ll do what I can, but I dunno.”
“Give it your best shot. It’ll be better than anybody else’s in the world.”
“Flatterer. Don’t you have people of your own for this?”
“Yeah,” Julie answered, “but I’m kinda pissed off at them right now.”
“I thought you sounded kinda off. You okay?”
“I’m stretching. Going for a run.”
“Ughh, why? Is someone chasing you?”
“Sadly, no.”
“Ohhhh,” the voice from Washington said. “I know that tone. That’s the sound of a broken heart.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. Spill it, sister. Was he hot?”
“Yes.”
“Smart?”
“Yes.”
“Got a job?”
“Doctor.”
“Good kisser?”
“Yes.”
“Good in bed?”
“Probably. Didn’t get a chance to find out.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Wrong agency,” Julie said. “We don’t do that.”
“Well there’s your problem right there. Come to the dark side, sweetie. We have cookies. And condoms.”
“I’ve met your boss. He wouldn’t let me sleep with my assignments either.”
“No, probably not. You gonna keep him?”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Transference. Counter-transference.”
“Piffle. Psycho-babble. There’s no such thing.”
Julie chuckled. “Don’t you work in the very hive of criminal psychology there?”
“Yeah, but what do they know? You’re clearly hot for the boy. You should keep him.”
“Can’t,” she said again. “I already drove a stake through his heart, anyhow.”
“Oh.” Her long-distance friend murmured sympathetically. “Sorry, Jules.” After a beat, she added, “Sooooo, this transference thing. You can’t date him, but it would be okay if you, like, sent his phone number to a close friend, right? I could, uh, watch over him, maybe ease his pain a little?”
Julie laughed out loud. “You are such a bitch sometimes.”
“Hey, I’m just sayin’, if you can’t have him, there is no point in letting a perfectly hot doctor go to waste.”
“If he seems lonely,” she promised, “I’ll send him your way.”
“You better. I gotta go. Have a good run. Don’t get lost.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
Julie tucked her phone into a holder on her shirt and plugged in her headphones. Reese held his own phone, ready to turn down the volume on whatever music she played on her run. She put her ear buds in, but there was no music. Just a decoy, Reese supposed. A polite way to ignore anyone who tried to speak to her. She started to run in earnest.
___________________________________________________________________
“You’re not going to follow her on foot, Mr. Reese?” Finch teased gently.
“I’m not sure I could keep up with her,” Reese admitted. He took his foot off the brake and let the sedan roll; traffic was heavy enough that he could nearly keep pace with her without seeming to lurk. “What was that, about a six minute mile?”
“Five-fifty-five,” Finch answered. “If I’d tried to run that kind of pace I’d have vomited.”
“You were a runner, Finch?”
“I was, yes.”
Reese thought about that for a moment. Of all the things that Harold Finch had lost when he was injured, he probably didn’t consider running very high on the list. But it was likely something that had let Finch be normal, ordinary. If he’d been avid about it, it had been part of his lifestyle. Something that made him feel good, physically and mentally. And it had been taken from him. “I’m sorry, Finch.”
The genius did not answer.
At the cross street that dissected the park, their target turned east. Reese navigated through the traffic with some difficulty. Finch was right; he was going to have to leave the car. He glanced down at his leather shoes and his suit pants. He could probably keep her in sight, even if she kept up that blistering pace, but there was no way he was going to do it without attracting attention.
At the east end of the park, near the end of her second under-six-minute mile, Julie Essex stopped at a trash can and threw up.
“Mr. Reese?” Finch asked anxiously, “what is that?”
“Lunch,” Reese answered, “and breakfast. Aaaaaand … whatever she ate yesterday.”
He watched while the girl took a long swig from her water bottle, rinsed her mouth and spit it out. Then she drank, deeply.
“That shouldn’t make me feel better,” Finch said, “but it does. Has she stopped running?”
“No.” Reese watched her for a moment. She’d turned south, back toward her hotel. “But she’s slowed down. I can’t tail her this way. Can you get eyes on her?”
“Certainly.” There was clicking. “All park cameras online.”
“Good.” Reese drove back toward the hotel, found a parking spot. He could still see the girl through the trees. She’d settled into a more reasonable pace. She ran easy, relaxed. Obviously she ran a lot.
Past the hotel, she turned north again and ran along the outer perimeter of the park.
“Looks like she’s on a circuit,” Finch observed.
“Like she doesn’t want to be too far from her hotel,” Reese agreed.
“Or Will’s.”
Reese turned his head and looked behind him. The hotel Finch has stashed his nephew in was directly across the street from Julie’s running route. Maybe she was hoping to run into him. But that didn’t make any sense. Standard protocol was to break clean, cut off all contact with the subject, preferably forever, but definitely for a significant period of time.
Until all the emotions settled out.
Reese waited until she’d made the east turn again to be sure. Then he left the car, strolled into the park, and sat down on a bench. He faced Ingram’s hotel. Julie Essex continued to run large circles around him.
Her loop, Reese calculated, was about three miles. He knew Finch could tell him the exact distance, but it didn’t matter; call it three. She ran steadily. No one tried to kill her, and except for a pack of four other joggers that ran with her for a time and one small dog that barked ferociously at her, no one excited Reese’s attention. Will Ingram did not come out of his hotel.
Reese enjoyed the sun on his face and the cool breeze. The girl ran the circuit four times in just over ninety minutes.
The last half mile she dropped to a walk, cooling off. “I think we’re done, Finch.” Reese stood and strolled toward her hotel.
“Good run,” Finch said. “Will did say she was kind of a health nut. Speaking of whom, excuse me a minute.”
Reese crossed the hotel lobby and dropped into an armchair. Julie might see him when she came in, but she wouldn’t think anything of it. If she saw him later in the hotel, she’d recognize him as a guest that she’d seen in the lobby.
He heard a phone ring in his earpiece and wondered why Finch had left the call connected. It rang twice, and then Will Ingram said, sleepily, “’lo?”
“Are you ready for dinner?” Finch asked.
“Uhhh …”
“You’re still sleeping, aren’t you?”
“No. I mean, yes. I was.”
“We could reschedule.”
Reese looked up. Julie Essex was in the doorway, still pacing slowly, cooling down, with her phone in her hand.
“No, I’m starving. Let me grab a quick shower.”
“I’ll pick you up in half an hour,” Finch offered. “Meet you out front?”
“Great.”
The phone went dead. “Mr. Reese?” Finch said.
“I’m here.”
“You heard that call.”
“Yes.”
“I cut you off.”
“I heard every word, Harold.”
“I know you did.”
Reese looked at the girl again. She walked toward the elevator, putting her phone away. “I heard it over Julie’s phone,” he realized.
“She still has Will’s phone tapped,” Finch concurred. His voice was tinged with worry. And anger.
She might have forgotten to disconnect, Reese thought, but that was unlikely. She’d run with earphone but no music, and she’d kept Ingram’s hotel within easy distance. “Either she’s still worried about him …”
“Or she’s stalking him,” Finch snapped.
“Or both.” Reese tumbled the ideas around in his mind. He still didn’t think their target wanted Ingram dead. She’d passed on too many chances for that. But stalking him was another matter. He and Finch had seen stalking escalate toward murder before. She’d been following him for nearly a year, and close to him for several weeks. Maybe this was simply her own technique for easing out of the relationship, to return to passive observation until she was comfortable leaving him. Transference cut both ways; she’d been very involved with the young doctor.
And maybe she’d slipped over the thin mental line between transference and obsession.
Maybe she was in danger. Maybe she thought Ingram was in danger. Or maybe she was putting him in danger.
“You know, Finch,” he grumbled, “your Machine would be more helpful if it was just a little more specific.”
Finch sighed heavily. “I am aware of that shortfall, Mr. Reese. At this moment, I am abundantly aware.”
Reese shook his head. “It doesn’t change anything. We’ve got eyes and ears on the girl. If she makes a move at Will, we can stop her. If it’s something else, we still need to uncover it.”
“I am not at all comfortable with the notion of using my nephew as bait,” Finch answered tightly.
“I won’t let him get hurt,” Reese answered. There was a long silence. “Harold?” he prompted.
“I’m here,” Finch said. “I know you’re right, John. I just …”
He tried to cover the raw pain in his voice, but only partly succeeded. It was the same tone he’d used to talk about Grace. The tone Reese used on those rare occasions when he spoke about Jessica. They both knew what it was to lose someone. The knowledge that it might happen again was suffocating, and all too real. “I know,” Reese said. “Harold. I know. No one gets to the boy. I promise.”
After another long moment, Finch exhaled. “Thank you, John.”
__________________________________________________________________
“I’m not really hungry,” Will Ingram said morosely.
Finch looked across the table at him. “Half an hour ago you were starving.”
“It went away.”
Harold simply nodded and ordered for both of them. “And bread right away, please,” he added. “They have excellent hearth-baked bread here,” he told Will.
“Okay.” The boy put his elbow on the table, his head in his hand. “I feel like such an idiot, Uncle Harold. How could I not have seen what she was?”
“You weren’t meant to see,” Finch answered. With some difficulty, he resisted the urge to make the young man get his elbow off the table. “Ms. Essex makes her living by not letting others see what she really is.”
“Essex. Is that her name?”
“It was the name on her badge.”
“On her badge,” Will moaned. “She has a badge. She probably has a gun, too.”
“Perhaps. I don’t really know.”
“I can’t believe I fell for it.”
The waiter put a basket of warm bread next to his elbow. Will glanced at it, looked away. But Finch could see the aroma tempt him. He reached out and took a slice for himself. It was tender in the middle, a little chewy at the crust, and so flavorful that he didn’t bother with the butter.
“I mean, my dad used to harp at me about it all the time. Do some homework, find out about the girls you’re dating. He always thought they were after his money.”
“And some of them were,” Finch recalled softly.
Will glared at him. Then he mellowed, picked up a piece of bread and tore at it listlessly. “Some of them,” he admitted. “But most of them just liked me. I thought. God, I don’t know. Maybe none of them really cared about me at all. Maybe he was right, maybe they were all about the money.”
“I doubt that, Will.” Finch watched with satisfaction as the boy chewed one piece of bread and reached for another. By the time their entrées arrived, he was sure he’d have his appetite back. “And in any case, this one had no interest in your money.”
“No. I was just a job to her. An assignment.” He sighed heavily. “That makes it worse. I thought she was my girlfriend, and it turns out she was my babysitter. It’s like having a crush on your nanny.”
Which you also did once, Finch thought, but he didn’t see any reason to mention it. “I know you’re very disappointed, Will. But I am glad that you’re home safely, whatever the circumstances.”
The young man mulled through a third piece of bread. “I thought this was the real thing, Uncle Harold. I thought … I thought I was in love with her. And now I never want to see her again.”
There was more resignation than heat in his last statement. “The sea is full of an infinite number of fishes, Will,” Finch said gently.
“I know.” The boy shrugged. “I guess I’m just tired of fishing.”
“Then sit on the shore and rest a while,” Harold advised. “The sea will call you again soon enough.”
Will cocked his head at him, and for a moment looked uncannily like his father. “You can sit there and do that all night, can’t you?”
“I can try.” Finch smiled at him, but gently. “I know it hurts, Will. But you’ll get through this.”
The boy put his other elbow on the table and buried his face in his two hands. “I think I’m going to become a monk.”
Harold nodded solemnly. “Perhaps you should think about that for a few days.”
Will Ingram simply groaned. But when his steak arrived - medium rare, just like Nathan liked them - he ate without protest, much to his uncle’s satisfaction.
___________________________________________________________________
“Mr. Reese?” the voice in his ear said.
“How’s dinner, Finch?”
“Better than expected. Where are you?”
“At the Mandarin. I’m watching Julie Essex swim laps.”
Reese settled deeper into the corner. The girl swam much like she ran, with easy confidence and determination. Her kick wasn’t as strong as it should have been; Reese could tell that her legs were tired. But her arms took up the slack readily.
“She’s swimming, after that run?” Finch sounded surprised. “Is she training for the Iron Man?”
“Haven’t seen any signs of a bike yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out.” Reese watched as she executed a polished flip-turn against the wall. She rolled over, began a significantly slower backstroke lap. She was getting tired. “She’s trying to sleep, Finch.”
“Don’t sleeping and swimming generally add up to drowning?”
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Reese promised.
“Will’s back. I’ll check in later.”
Reese touched his earwig off and shifted his shoulder against the wall. The girl flipped again and resumed her steady freestyle stroke. She was definitely slowing. Five more laps, he thought, and she’d be ready to drop. If she tried for ten, he might very well have to go in after her.
He wouldn’t really mind. He knew what she was doing, and he knew why. He’d done it himself.
Kara Stanton had helped him.
___________________________________________________________________
2006
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna. It was a grand name, Reese supposed, that the Basque separatists had given themselves. He and pretty much everyone in the world had shortened it to ETA. They were terrorists, and whatever their cause, they didn’t deserve a grand name.
The intelligence had been shaky. Four ETA members had taken a vacationing American businessman and his family captive, but the suits weren’t clear if it was an officially-planned attack or simply a group of guys going freelance in search of ready cash. It didn’t matter much to the team on the ground. They were just supposed to free the hostages.
But someone had tipped the terrorists off, and by the time Reese kicked the door open the hostages - the man, his wife, an eight-year old boy and his six-year old sister - were all dead. So were the terrorists. The house the family had rented was more than a hundred years old; the kitchen floor had warped gently, and the blood of the family pooled at the center of the tile.
There was a small stuffed dog at the edge of the pool. It had probably belonged to the little girl, and it had probably been the color of a golden retriever. It was red now. It had wicked up the family’s blood.
Dead children always got to Reese. He was aware that Stanton had kept him on the perimeter until the little bodies were covered, and for once he didn’t mind her patronizing protection. But the little stuffed dog was still there. And it sliced through his carefully-cultivated mental armor. It reminded him that they were not cases or assignments or clients or numbers. They were children. The day before they’d been splashing at the beach, afraid of jellyfish and slimy seaweed. Today they were dead.
The team did what they could and went back to their bunk. Reese paced for a while. Stanton told him to eat something, and he tried. But he couldn’t get the dog out of his head. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. He scrounged in the closet and found someone else’s old running shoes. He had shorts of his own.
“How far are we from the beach?” he asked.
Kara shrugged. “Twenty klicks or so.”
“Good. I’ll be back.”
She said something to his back. He didn’t hear the words, and he didn’t care. He hit the street and he started to run.
He didn’t warm up, didn’t stretch. He just ran. When his muscles began to cramp, he slowed down. When the few bites of food he’d taken came up, he vomited. But he didn’t stop. He ran.
No identification. No weapon. No phone. No socks, and he could feel the blisters start to form on his feet before he’d gone the first klick. No shirt. Nothing but the shorts and the shoes, his muscles and his lungs and his sweat and running.
After five klicks the endorphins kicked in and he was able to stop seeing the damn little dog in his mind.
Ten, and his lungs burned, his thighs screamed, and the sweat in his eyes all but blinded him. The blisters on his feet swelled and burst and rubbed. It hurt.
He ran.
He was visible and vulnerable, and he knew Stanton would be pissed off about both. He didn’t care. He needed to run, and to drive the little dog from his mind. And the children. He would not think about the children. The boy was only eight, the girl was six, and they had been held for ten hours before they were killed. He hoped they’d been killed first, that they hadn’t had to watch their parents die. He would never know. However it had gone down, they’d died in fear.
He felt the breeze before he saw the ocean. It tasted like salt. His right calf spasmed; he kept running. The cramp spread up to his thigh, and suddenly he was limping, but he didn’t stop. Uphill, faster, and the muscles gave up and relaxed back into the run. He crested the hill, took a very deep breath and ran down toward the ocean.
On the beach, he only slowed long enough to kick the sneakers off. He felt the blistered skin peel away with the shoes. The sand grated against his open wounds. He knew the salt water would hurt worse. He didn’t care.
Six and eight, and they had died screaming.
He ran into the surf until it reached his waist, then dove into the next wave. The water was cold enough to make his gasp when he came up. The salt burned his feet and his eyes. He put his head down and began to swim, hard, straight out from the shore.
Somewhere in the swim time became meaningless. And then everything else did. The pain of his small wounds disappeared. The children vanished, the dog, the pool of blood on the ancient floor. There was nothing. Only himself and the ocean. Only the waves and the water and him.
His legs cramped and relaxed, and he ignored them. His arm cramped, and then his shoulder. He kept swimming. And then his abs cramped and doubled him in half and he sank under the water.
It was peaceful and cool and dim. John let himself sink towards the bottom of the ocean. He was far from shore and it was probably a long way down. It didn’t matter. He would get there eventually. He relaxed, surrendered to the gentle caress of the water as it pulled him down. In a moment he would run out of air and have to take a deep breath. The salt water would fill his lungs, speed his journey to the sand below.
He would miss Jessica. But there was nothing else.
Jessica, he thought vaguely. And suddenly he could hear her laugh. He could smell the warmth of her skin, feel the tickle of her long hair across his chest.
He blew a little bubbling sigh, straightened, and kicked hard for the surface.
When he finally got there, he rolled onto his back and floated, arms outstretched. He looked at the sky. Felt the waves. Let the air gradually soothe his burning lungs.
It had taken no time to swim out to sea, but it took forever to swim back. His muscles continued to spasm, and he had to stop and float while the cramps worked themselves out. At least the tide was in his favor. He relaxed and let the water carry him. Eventually, he came to shore very close to where he’d entered the water.
He swam until he felt his knees bump sand. Then he stood up and walked out of the water.
Kara Stanton was leaning against the hood of her car. His borrowed shoes were on the sand beside her. She watched him approach without comment, then threw a towel at him. “Feel better?”
“A little.”
She shook her head. “Next time you’ve got a death wish, just let me know. I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“Thanks.”
He got in the car and let her drive him back to work.