Story: Sebastian (part 9 of ?)
TITLE: "Sebastian"
AUTHOR: tess_dicorsi
RATING: R
GENRE: Mystery
CHARACTERS: Ensemble
DISCLAIMER: Recognizable characters are not mine. Just playing with them and promise not to break them. There are a few original characters, they're mine. I'm also trying not to break them.
SUMMARY: An old collar from the LAPD and an angry colleague from the FBI are back and looking for Marty Deeks. Established Deeks-Kensi. Multi-chapter story.
9. "Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets." - Arthur Miller.
"Deeks, that woman you had brought in this morning - she's not Elizabeth Kelly."
Deeks turned to Callen. "Who the hell is she?"
"According to her fingerprints, she's Tina Ann Deavers. As far as Nell can tell, she had a shoplifting charge and a ticket for public intoxication charge in Palo Alto both in the summer of 1992. Other than that, a 1974 birth certificate, a 1978 Social Security number and a high school diploma with honors from Palisades High School are the only documents that say Tina Deavers exists."
"Where's Elizabeth Kelly?"
"Good question. Eric found a picture of Elizabeth Kelly at a social event with her parents when she was about ten that was in the Philadelphia Enquirer and after running it through software that would age her, facial recognition software said there's no way grade school Elizabeth Kelly grew up to be Boothe Financial' s CEO."
"Unbelievable," Deeks shook his head. "Is she, Tina, Deavers, whoever, talking?"
"She wants to talk to you. She hasn't invoked her right to an attorney..."
"She is an attorney. Or Elizabeth Kelly is an attorney."
"And she may have a fool for a client since she doesn't want a lawyer, just wants to talk to you."
"Not leaving."
"She's not seeing anyone until tomorrow at the earliest and that's only if you want to see her. I think that's the first thing your Lt. Bates and Hetty agreed on."
"My Lt. Bates? He'd love that. Once I know Kensi and Matthew are okay, I'm back in. I'll talk to her."
"I know Sam and I wanted you to wait but you did a good job back there."
"It was important to me that Boothe be as far away from Kensi as possible." And not touching her, he thought to himself. Definitely, not touching her. "Did Sam figure out where Kelly now Deavers walked up from?"
"There's a lot of news on that. You sure you don't want to take this out in the hall?" When Deeks just stared at him, Callen started to talk. "There was a hidden path, from Boothe's house to the house next door."
"The soap star's house?"
"No, Bianca Roman's house."
"Another alias for not-Elizabeth Kelly?" Deeks wondered.
"No. She's an 82-year old retired private duty nurse in Pennsylvania who has never been to California."
"Okay." Deeks stopped looking at Kensi and gave his full attention to Callen.
"Roman spent a few years in the mid to late 1990's carrying for Caroline Kelly, Elizabeth's mother. The Kellys are old Philadelphia money. When Elizabeth Kelly was ten, her parents were returning from a wedding when their car was in wreck. The family's driver was killed, her parents were badly injured. Daniel Kelly was left in debilitating pain. Caroline Kelly has been in a persistent vegetative state. She's been in the family home for over twenty years in her bedroom with round the clock care. Elizabeth was home schooled by tutors after the accident and graduated high school at 15. Daniel Kelly killed himself a few weeks after his daughter finished high school."
"Yeah, that's in all her bios."
"Well, Elizabeth Kelly got into Stanford but all the ID photos from Stanford are of Tina Deavers."
"What happened between the time she was in Philadelphia and Tina Deavers showed up in Palo Alto?" Deeks asked.
"Good question. There's more."
"With this case, of course there is."
"Bianca Roman was hired in 1995 by Deavers as Elizabeth Kelly to care for Caroline Kelly. Around the time she was 70, Roman retired and Elizabeth Kelly gave her a nice suburban Philadelphia home as a retirement gift."
Deeks shook his head. "LAPD gives you a dinner and a watch."
"Hetty buys the staff a cake. Back to Kelly/Deavers, she was finishing up Wharton at that point. Bianca Roman signed a number of papers to take ownership of the Philly house..."
"And wound up starting a charity and buying a place in Malibu."
"You've got it. It is all a trust that covers the taxes so a personal audit of Bianca Roman would show nothing. Her death would not impact the charity or the house either. Does the name Brittney Russell ring a bell?"
"The missing USC student from New Mexico. Disappeared after some big blow out with her visiting parents. Her parents have been sniping at LAPD about not enough attention being paid to her as a missing person. They're looking for her but it's possible she's a twenty-year-old on a walkabout."
"She wasn't on a walkabout. She was chained to a towel bar in a bathroom inside the Roman house. Sam found her with some members of LAPD CSU."
"Oh my God, Boothe had her. Well, Kelly now Deavers had her."
"The Roman house next door to Boothe is going to be a career's worth of work for LAPD CSU. There are body parts in two freezers in the guest house. Remember the playroom your neighbors had when you can Kensi were playing house in Hollywood Hills?"
"We weren't playing house, we were capturing a Russian spy." Deeks was actually proud that was the truth.
"Of course you were. Anyway, the main house had a playroom that was anything but. There's video, years and years' worth of video. Back to 2000. Missing persons may clear up a number of cases with what CSU took out of the video room."
"This gets worse by the minute. How's Brittney Russell?"
"Malnourished, beaten, she's been badly abused since Boothe returned home. Sam actually found her. She's been holding his hand like he's a lifeline ever since. He promised her he won't let go until her parents arrive."
"That's Sam." Deeks shook his head. "How badly did we screw this up? We all thought that men were Boothe's thing."
"Nate has an idea about that."
"Nate's involved in this?"
"Everything that you're involved with, Nate is going to be involved with. Same with Sam. Hetty's still worried about you two.
"Based on the damage I've caused on this case, she's got a point."
"You blame Sidorov and not Sam for what happened to you. I have no doubt that Kensi and Bernhart will blame Boothe and not you."
"What does Nate think?" Deeks changed the subject.
"The women, even Brittney Russell, were similar in appearance to Deavers. Unlike Deavers, though, they were tattooed - that's what caused the blow-up with her Brittney Russell's parents. Some of the women had non-traditional piercings. For someone who grew up like Boothe, those would be unacceptable for a woman to date. But he liked them."
"So Boothe wanted what he thought was a trashy doppelganger for Elizabeth Kelly, who isn't Elizabeth Kelly."
"Doppelganger?"
"I went to college," Deeks said. "So these women were substitutes for Kelly, sorry Deavers."
"And whatever violence Boothe wanted to unleash on Deavers, he'd take it out on the kidnapped women. Based on the injuries Brittney Russell suffered, based on the women you thought were victims, Boothe would keep them, use and abuse them to death and dump them."
"Then how did the men get involved?"
"Nate has a theory."
"Why do I think this is going to make me sick?"
"Because it is. Nate thinks Boothe collecting women gave Deavers the thought of finding her non-Boothe to use and abuse. Boothe wanted someone who looked like Deavers, Deavers wanted long-hair, tattooed, muscular men. The anti-Boothe."
"But the men were gay or bi-sexual."
"And Nate thinks Boothe picked them up with the idea that they wouldn't be a rival for Deavers's affection."
"God. These two are the sadistic Bonnie and Clyde."
Kensi's right arm started twitching, startling both Deeks and Callen. "I'll get a doctor and then I'm going back to the Roman house. Nate's there."
"I thought he was in...well, I don't know where I thought he was but I thought he was out of the country."
"Hetty recalled him when you moved into the cover house."
"I screwed this up today but I'm not an invalid," Deeks said as he pulled his chair closer to the bed.
"Nobody said you were Deeks. And only you think you screwed up today. Hetty takes care of us all. What happened to you last spring still eats at Sam, still worries Kensi and is my fault. And you can play things like you're back to your old self but even trying to get you out of here to eat, you weren't going. You would have last year. Not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing; just a different thing and we're all getting use to that."
Kensi moaned and Callen left for the doctor. "Hey Kens, you there?" he asked as she started to move. He stood over the bed, watching her slowly come to the surface. "Hey, Kensi."
Kensi opened an eye and the other. "My head hurts. I'm in the hospital?" she wondered as she looked around. "Why am I in the hospital? Did we have an earthquake? Did I get hit on the head?"
"No. Does anything else hurt but your head?"
"Why am I in the hospital? We went to..."
"Miss Blye, I see you're up," a nurse said walking into the room. "How are you feeling?"
"Confused," Kensi answered honestly. "What happened?"
Kensi started to pull at the nasal cannula but the nurse, Jennifer Simmons, stopped her. "Ms. Blye, I'm going to have to insist you keep that in. One of the side effects of Rohypnol is respiratory depression. It is for your own good."
"I was roofied?" Kensi's confusion moved to outrage. Deeks found comfort in that.
"I'm going to find the doctor. I think Officer Deeks can fill you in," she said as she started to leave. "And sir, your friend is out of surgery," Nurse Simmons told Deeks as she opened the door.
"What the hell happened? What happened to Matt?"
"What do you remember?
"We went to bed. You were complaining about how I fold my clothes."
Deeks smiled. "No, I was complaining you don't fold your clothes. Stuffing things into a drawer is not folding. So you remember last night."
"What time is it?"
"It is nearly three Ms. Blye, I'm Doctor Mason," a fifty-ish doctor walked into Kensi's room. "If your friend will excuse us, when the nurse returns, we're going to do a quick check-up," Almost on cue, Nurse Simmons walked in.
"You OK with this?" Deeks asked Kensi.
"You're coming back?"
"Of course." Deeks backed out of the room and took a deep breath. He walked down the hall to the nurse's station and asked for Brittney Russell's room.
Without his badge, Deeks was lucky the officer guarding the room knew him. After being allowed in the room, Deeks found a badly beaten Brittney Russell sound asleep in her hospital bed. Callen wasn't kidding, she was holding onto Sam's right hand as if it was a teddy bear. He was leaning on the bed rail, humming "Yellow Submarine" to the sleeping girl.
"Looks like you made a new friend," Deeks whispered as he stood next to Sam.
"The poor kid. I saw some things with the SEALs that I thought were the worst things I was ever going to see. The marks on this poor girl, where she was kept, what she told the Sex Crimes Detective," Sam shook his head. "They need to put Boothe and Kelly away for a very long time. How's Kensi?"
"Just woke up. Doctor is checking her out. Wanted to see the rescued girl before I go to talk to Matthew's family."
"None of this is your fault."
"She's not. Matthew's on me. He told me to wait and I didn't." Deeks patted Sam on the back. "Brittney's luck turned around the minute you found her."
"Michelle's coming down after the kids get out of school and her Mom can watch them. Give this poor little girl another person on her side until her parents get here."
"You're a good man Sam Hanna. Brittney is lucky to have you," Deeks told him as he left the room.
Walking over to ICU, Deeks saw Frannie Bernhart sitting alone outside of her brother's room. "How's Matthew?" he asked as he sat next to her.
"Alive. Doctor is amazed how he managed to survive all that blood loss but he's alive. My parents are in the room with him. Only two visitors at a time according to the doctor."
"Matthew isn't going to let the bad guys win," Deeks smiled at his friend's sister. "And he'll be thrilled to wake up and see his family with him."
"He's a good cop, isn't he? I know Dad had to bail him out of trouble a while back. He never talks about work. Says he does what he does so Mom and I never have to deal with bad people."
"He's not a good cop, he's a great cop. He's gotten into trouble when the system lets him down. The time your father had to really step in a child molester got off on a technicality and moved right back into his old neighborhood near a daycare center and a Catholic grammar school."
"What did he do?" Frannie asked, half worried-half proud.
"Well, since he was never charged with anything, he did nothing."
"But..."
"Well, someone stole some orange reflective paint the DoT uses to paint dividing lines on streets. The child molester heard something outside his house and found "Kid Toucher" was painted in orange reflective paint on his garage door. Matthew was found four blocks away with a paint brush, the can of stolen paint and paint on his hands and clothes. He claims he found paint and was looking to return it to the DoT."
Frannie was laughing. "That's Matt."
"Well, not really since nobody could prove he did it but yeah, that's Matthew." Deeks turned serious. "I can't give you the specifics of the case but Matthew tried to stop the abduction of a federal agent today. While he was bleeding and waiting for the ambulance, he helped lead LAPD and the feds to the place where the agent was being held. From there, LAPD and a different federal agent found a kidnapped girl who was being beaten and abused. Matthew is responsible for the arrest of two sexual predators who could have gone on abusing victims for years. Matthew's a hero. Make sure your family knows that. LAPD certainly does."
"Thank you, Marty."
"Do you have my number?" She opened her bag and pulled out her phone. After Deeks gave her the number he told her, "You call me if you want someone to talk to. If there's any change in Matthew, the hospital is going to call me but if you need someone to talk to about Matthew, about how much he's helped people, about what you can do, you call."
"What can I do?"
"Matthew adores you. Adores all of you. Be his really smart little sister and when he's feeling better, sneak in some In 'n' Out and eat it with him. Having a meal with people he cares about means everything to him. We had dinner together almost every night during this assignment."
"He had to love that. Mom and Dad were always doing charity and political dinners when we were kids. We never ate with them."
"He only left the case to have dinner with your Mom Sunday night," Deeks told her as he stood. "Double-double with no cheese. Side of fries. Strawberry shake."
"You remember that?"
"I lived with him for nine months on a different case. That's what he ate for nine months. Call me if you need to talk."
Deeks found his way back to Kensi's room just as Nurse Simmons was walking out with a clipboard. "How is she?"
"Persistent," Simmons answered. "The doctor wanted to keep her overnight but she said she was fine..."
"She's always fine," Deeks told her.
"That's what he thought but since she was leaving anyway, he's releasing her under the condition that you or a close friend stay with her."
"Won't let her out of my sight. Thank you for everything."
Deeks walked into Kensi's room and recapped everything she missed.
x-x-x
Deeks took one of the uncomfortable dinner table chairs from Kensi's apartment and the foot stool from the kitchen and sat outside her front door. Some fresh air was needed after a day inside the hospital. It took nearly two hours to get Kensi checked out of the hospital - shift change and all. Deeks hit the Subway drive thru before returning to Kensi's place. Kensi tore through her cold cut combo; Deeks nearly inhaled his turkey sub.
Kensi was nodding off during "Sports Center" - Deeks had no interesting in the evening news - so she decided to shower and rest. Deeks left his cellphone next to her bed and was watching her sleep on the iPad he set up on the foot stool.
After checking on her for the third time in person, Deeks was sitting out in cool night air when a surprise guest appeared - Nate. And Nate had a friend. "Monty," Deeks greeted his dog. Looking at Nate, he said, "Thanks man, sit for a second." Deeks opened the door and returned with the other table chair.
"Hetty had Pete, who has three beagles, take Monty to the groomer. He had some blood in his fur."
"He helped me find Matt. Stayed with him until we could help. Did the same with me last summer. No matter how bad I felt, he'd stay right next to me. Didn't you boy?"
"Well, picking him up from the groomer and bringing him here was the best part of my day."
"Callen told me you were in the Roman house."
"I was in hell on earth. When this is all done, I can't care if that house is worth millions. Get a bull dozer; knock the damn thing down, burn what's left and salt the earth."
"Going biblical there."
"As a psychologist, I understand that there are severely damaged and mentally ill people in this world. As a man and a human being, I'd like to see Boothe and Deavers put down like dogs."
Deeks feigned a gasp. "Not in front of Monty." When he got no reaction from Nate, Deeks asked, "You okay?"
"I was happy to have Monty and the ride over to end my day. How are you?"
"I thought your day was over."
"As a friend, how are you?"
"Furious at myself for letting Andrea Miller bate me. Sorry I didn't kick the speaker into the pool and fry that evil bastard and that evil bitch. Sick that I let them near Kensi and Matthew. Terrified for Matthew."
"I know a doctor at Los Robles. Det. Bernhart is holding his own."
"He needs to do more than hold his own. He needs to be able to work when this is over."
"He doesn't need to work, you know."
"Matthew's a cop. He does crazy, stupid things that gets him in trouble but he does it because he wants to save the world and prove he's worthy of the life he has."
"The anti-Boothe. Trust fund kid on the right side of the law."
"Yeah, well, barely on the right side of the law but yeah. How do you know about Matthew's money?"
"Hetty looked at you and Det. Bernhart as possible team members while I was working with her fulltime. I was given both of your backgrounds to study."
"And?"
"You're both proof that there is no model background for a good law enforcement officer."
"I wasn't all that good today." Deeks pointed to his iPad. "Look at her. She got into a car with a psycho because she thought he had me. Why the hell did she do that? And if you tell me it has to do with last spring, I'm going to scream."
"She'd have gone to rescue you long before last spring. She's always going to look out for you just as you always look out for her."
"He could have killed her. He could have taken her to that house of horrors, he could have..."
"None of those things happened. Don't live in a world of hypotheticals. Both Boothe and Deavers are in jail. Speaking of that, Callen said you're willing to see Deavers tomorrow."
"If Kensi's OK, yeah. I want to hear her story."
"I'd like to come with you." Before Deeks could react, Nate put his hand up. "I'll be in an observation room talking to you through your earwig."
"You know, it's funny. Or not funny but weird. I spent the last few weeks thinking my biggest problems were a rich psycho and an ambitious woman. Didn't plan on a combination of the two showing up."
"If you're going to see Deavers, Hetty wants to see you first. Nell's found a lot about Deavers and a connection to Boothe and possibly Elizabeth Kelly."
"I'm assuming she's dead."
"Probably for over twenty years."
Deeks shook his head. "This just gets worse by the minute."
x-x-x
Deeks and Kensi walked into the Mission for the first time in nearly two-and-a-half weeks. Sam was already at his desk.
"How's Brittney?" Kensi asked.
"Parents arrived around eight last night. Brittney's going to need a lot of help but she's got a loving family. They were just unhappy she got a tattoo. I showed them one of mine and told them it's art, not a measure of the person she is. What she survived is a measure of the person she is. A strong, brave person." Sam eyed Kensi head to toe. "How are you?"
"I know I've slept on and off for over a day but I'm still tired. The doctor said I would be for a few days."
"CSU found a bottle of Poland Spring water under the lounge chair where Deeks found you. They tested it. There was a Rohypnol, ecstasy and vodka in bottle. It was half empty. The hospital will have a full work up on you later this week and if they match, Boothe's fingerprints are all over the bottle and there was DNA on the bottle top."
"God," Deeks said as he sank into his chair.
"This isn't your fault," Kensi told him as she leaned against her desk.
"Have you heard about Bernhart?" Sam asked.
"Holding his own, according to his sister." Deeks replied.
Sam leaned back in his chair. "I didn't know his father was Sen. Bernhart."
"Oh yeah. Mr. Law and Order in the state house flaunts Matthew's career. His mother hates it."
"The hospital staff was talking about her when Michelle and I went to see how Bernhart was doing."
"I'm sure everyone knows she's there." Deeks told him.
Kensi gave him a quizzical look. "Why?"
"Cedars has the Lillian Bernhart Child Wellness Clinic. UCLA has the Chester Bernhart Men's Health Program after Matthew's father was diagnosed young with prostate cancer. I'm sure if Los Robles saves Matthew, an upgraded emergency room named for Matthew is in their future."
Eric's whistle broke up the conversation about the Bernharts. "Callen, Nate and Hetty are waiting." Eric smiled. "Nice to see you two back. Wasn't the same without you."
"I missed three months last summer," Deeks whispered to Kensi as they made their way to the stairs, "obviously your absence is the problem." Deeks thought he saw Kensi smile when she hit the landing.
In the Ops Center, a grim-looking Nate was leaning on the desk while Hetty and Nell stood by the big screen. "Mr. Deeks, Miss Blye, welcome back."
"Good morning, Hetty," Deeks and Kensi said in unison. The two nodded greetings to Nate and Nell. "What do we have on Tina Deavers?" Deeks asked as he pointed to the screen.
Nell pulled out her tablet and put documents on the screen. "We've found a lot prior to 1992 and then she completely disappears. She was an honors student at Palisades High School, had a full scholarship to San Diego State. She accepted the scholarship, did all the paperwork and never showed up. At the same time, Elizabeth Kelly started at Stanford and she was Tina Deavers."
"Where is Elizabeth Kelly?" Kensi asked.
"After she completed high school at home, Elizabeth Kelly's father sent her out to a camp in Palo Alto. An old secretary who worked for Daniel Kelly said he was worried that she wasn't as socially advanced as she was academically gifted. She attended a camp for bright kids who were good with computers but that encouraged social interactions."
"Did Sebastian Boothe attend that camp?" Deeks asked. "His father would have died a few months earlier."
"He did," Nell put some photos of Boothe at Camp Digital. "There are no pictures of Elizabeth Kelly at the camp but she won two ribbons in coding and website design. Any guesses on who worked at the camp for half the summer?"
"Tina Deavers," Kensi said.
"She worked in the kitchen and was learning computer coding from some of the instructors. While camp records are sketchy, she was let go in the middle of July. She was arrested for trying to shoplift nearly four hundred dollars' worth of clothes from a Gap near the camp and a day later was picked up for public intoxication. Not sure if she was fired after the shoplifting arrest or the public intoxication charge but she was let go."
"So everyone met nearly twenty years ago." Callen said. "This is unbelievable."
"We're searching records to see if there were any bodies found from Palo Alto to Malibu of unidentified teenage girls. Nobody would look at Elizabeth Kelly's dental records if a body was found."
"Do we know if Elizabeth Kelly's dental records are Elizabeth Kelly's?" Deeks asked. "The one thing that never made sense to me about Boothe..."
"Just one thing?"
"Okay, one thing that never added up was his total disinterest in computers and electronics but he had all those stolen laptops and iPods. It didn't make sense."
"It looks like the Boothe mansion was free of all the toys you would expect a wealthy man who went to computer camp to own. The Roman house, however, has world-class electronic gear," Eric added. "The house had its own computer servers, a VHS to digital set-up so old videos they made in the 1990's were digitized. LAPD's sex crimes sent us a report this morning stating there are video recordings going back to the mid 1990's."
"How organized are the files? One of Elizabeth Kelly's well-known keys to success was being meticulous in your work."
"When I got there yesterday," Callen told him, "CSU was stunned at how organized everything was. Binders, file folders. I checked, your old alias, Edward Martin, was a binder with photos, background info, your daily schedule. There were eleven files for men, twenty-seven for women."
Deeks was sickened. "Elizabeth Kelly?"
"Nothing," Callen answered. "But Deeks, they found a head in one of the freezers."
"Corey Moran," Deeks was sure of this.
"The Navy is checking his dental records but his was the only body found missing a head."
"Detective," Nate joined the conversation, "Are you still willing to speak to Deavers."
"I am," Deeks said. "There's nothing she can do to hurt me but maybe I can get some answers for the victims' families."
"She can hurt you, Detective. She's spent nearly two decades manipulating people. LAPD's SWAT officers had video when they entered Boothe's home. Her words, her tone, her attitude towards you - they're troubling."
"When is she being booked?"
"Now. Currently she and Boothe are being charged with abducting Miss Blye and assaulting Det. Bernhart. Boothe for the actual crimes, Deavers for being an accessory with more charges pending," Hetty answered.
"They're never getting out, Deeks. If what CSU and Sex Crimes says is true, they'll be lucky to get life sentences and not a needle," Callen told him. "You don't have to talk to her."
"I want to talk to her, I want to talk to Boothe."
"I don't think that's a good idea," Kensi said.
"I want to talk to the two of them, want to talk to the victims' families and then I never want to think about the two of them again. Set up the interview."
-30-
AUTHOR: tess_dicorsi
RATING: R
GENRE: Mystery
CHARACTERS: Ensemble
DISCLAIMER: Recognizable characters are not mine. Just playing with them and promise not to break them. There are a few original characters, they're mine. I'm also trying not to break them.
SUMMARY: An old collar from the LAPD and an angry colleague from the FBI are back and looking for Marty Deeks. Established Deeks-Kensi. Multi-chapter story.
9. "Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets." - Arthur Miller.
"Deeks, that woman you had brought in this morning - she's not Elizabeth Kelly."
Deeks turned to Callen. "Who the hell is she?"
"According to her fingerprints, she's Tina Ann Deavers. As far as Nell can tell, she had a shoplifting charge and a ticket for public intoxication charge in Palo Alto both in the summer of 1992. Other than that, a 1974 birth certificate, a 1978 Social Security number and a high school diploma with honors from Palisades High School are the only documents that say Tina Deavers exists."
"Where's Elizabeth Kelly?"
"Good question. Eric found a picture of Elizabeth Kelly at a social event with her parents when she was about ten that was in the Philadelphia Enquirer and after running it through software that would age her, facial recognition software said there's no way grade school Elizabeth Kelly grew up to be Boothe Financial' s CEO."
"Unbelievable," Deeks shook his head. "Is she, Tina, Deavers, whoever, talking?"
"She wants to talk to you. She hasn't invoked her right to an attorney..."
"She is an attorney. Or Elizabeth Kelly is an attorney."
"And she may have a fool for a client since she doesn't want a lawyer, just wants to talk to you."
"Not leaving."
"She's not seeing anyone until tomorrow at the earliest and that's only if you want to see her. I think that's the first thing your Lt. Bates and Hetty agreed on."
"My Lt. Bates? He'd love that. Once I know Kensi and Matthew are okay, I'm back in. I'll talk to her."
"I know Sam and I wanted you to wait but you did a good job back there."
"It was important to me that Boothe be as far away from Kensi as possible." And not touching her, he thought to himself. Definitely, not touching her. "Did Sam figure out where Kelly now Deavers walked up from?"
"There's a lot of news on that. You sure you don't want to take this out in the hall?" When Deeks just stared at him, Callen started to talk. "There was a hidden path, from Boothe's house to the house next door."
"The soap star's house?"
"No, Bianca Roman's house."
"Another alias for not-Elizabeth Kelly?" Deeks wondered.
"No. She's an 82-year old retired private duty nurse in Pennsylvania who has never been to California."
"Okay." Deeks stopped looking at Kensi and gave his full attention to Callen.
"Roman spent a few years in the mid to late 1990's carrying for Caroline Kelly, Elizabeth's mother. The Kellys are old Philadelphia money. When Elizabeth Kelly was ten, her parents were returning from a wedding when their car was in wreck. The family's driver was killed, her parents were badly injured. Daniel Kelly was left in debilitating pain. Caroline Kelly has been in a persistent vegetative state. She's been in the family home for over twenty years in her bedroom with round the clock care. Elizabeth was home schooled by tutors after the accident and graduated high school at 15. Daniel Kelly killed himself a few weeks after his daughter finished high school."
"Yeah, that's in all her bios."
"Well, Elizabeth Kelly got into Stanford but all the ID photos from Stanford are of Tina Deavers."
"What happened between the time she was in Philadelphia and Tina Deavers showed up in Palo Alto?" Deeks asked.
"Good question. There's more."
"With this case, of course there is."
"Bianca Roman was hired in 1995 by Deavers as Elizabeth Kelly to care for Caroline Kelly. Around the time she was 70, Roman retired and Elizabeth Kelly gave her a nice suburban Philadelphia home as a retirement gift."
Deeks shook his head. "LAPD gives you a dinner and a watch."
"Hetty buys the staff a cake. Back to Kelly/Deavers, she was finishing up Wharton at that point. Bianca Roman signed a number of papers to take ownership of the Philly house..."
"And wound up starting a charity and buying a place in Malibu."
"You've got it. It is all a trust that covers the taxes so a personal audit of Bianca Roman would show nothing. Her death would not impact the charity or the house either. Does the name Brittney Russell ring a bell?"
"The missing USC student from New Mexico. Disappeared after some big blow out with her visiting parents. Her parents have been sniping at LAPD about not enough attention being paid to her as a missing person. They're looking for her but it's possible she's a twenty-year-old on a walkabout."
"She wasn't on a walkabout. She was chained to a towel bar in a bathroom inside the Roman house. Sam found her with some members of LAPD CSU."
"Oh my God, Boothe had her. Well, Kelly now Deavers had her."
"The Roman house next door to Boothe is going to be a career's worth of work for LAPD CSU. There are body parts in two freezers in the guest house. Remember the playroom your neighbors had when you can Kensi were playing house in Hollywood Hills?"
"We weren't playing house, we were capturing a Russian spy." Deeks was actually proud that was the truth.
"Of course you were. Anyway, the main house had a playroom that was anything but. There's video, years and years' worth of video. Back to 2000. Missing persons may clear up a number of cases with what CSU took out of the video room."
"This gets worse by the minute. How's Brittney Russell?"
"Malnourished, beaten, she's been badly abused since Boothe returned home. Sam actually found her. She's been holding his hand like he's a lifeline ever since. He promised her he won't let go until her parents arrive."
"That's Sam." Deeks shook his head. "How badly did we screw this up? We all thought that men were Boothe's thing."
"Nate has an idea about that."
"Nate's involved in this?"
"Everything that you're involved with, Nate is going to be involved with. Same with Sam. Hetty's still worried about you two.
"Based on the damage I've caused on this case, she's got a point."
"You blame Sidorov and not Sam for what happened to you. I have no doubt that Kensi and Bernhart will blame Boothe and not you."
"What does Nate think?" Deeks changed the subject.
"The women, even Brittney Russell, were similar in appearance to Deavers. Unlike Deavers, though, they were tattooed - that's what caused the blow-up with her Brittney Russell's parents. Some of the women had non-traditional piercings. For someone who grew up like Boothe, those would be unacceptable for a woman to date. But he liked them."
"So Boothe wanted what he thought was a trashy doppelganger for Elizabeth Kelly, who isn't Elizabeth Kelly."
"Doppelganger?"
"I went to college," Deeks said. "So these women were substitutes for Kelly, sorry Deavers."
"And whatever violence Boothe wanted to unleash on Deavers, he'd take it out on the kidnapped women. Based on the injuries Brittney Russell suffered, based on the women you thought were victims, Boothe would keep them, use and abuse them to death and dump them."
"Then how did the men get involved?"
"Nate has a theory."
"Why do I think this is going to make me sick?"
"Because it is. Nate thinks Boothe collecting women gave Deavers the thought of finding her non-Boothe to use and abuse. Boothe wanted someone who looked like Deavers, Deavers wanted long-hair, tattooed, muscular men. The anti-Boothe."
"But the men were gay or bi-sexual."
"And Nate thinks Boothe picked them up with the idea that they wouldn't be a rival for Deavers's affection."
"God. These two are the sadistic Bonnie and Clyde."
Kensi's right arm started twitching, startling both Deeks and Callen. "I'll get a doctor and then I'm going back to the Roman house. Nate's there."
"I thought he was in...well, I don't know where I thought he was but I thought he was out of the country."
"Hetty recalled him when you moved into the cover house."
"I screwed this up today but I'm not an invalid," Deeks said as he pulled his chair closer to the bed.
"Nobody said you were Deeks. And only you think you screwed up today. Hetty takes care of us all. What happened to you last spring still eats at Sam, still worries Kensi and is my fault. And you can play things like you're back to your old self but even trying to get you out of here to eat, you weren't going. You would have last year. Not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing; just a different thing and we're all getting use to that."
Kensi moaned and Callen left for the doctor. "Hey Kens, you there?" he asked as she started to move. He stood over the bed, watching her slowly come to the surface. "Hey, Kensi."
Kensi opened an eye and the other. "My head hurts. I'm in the hospital?" she wondered as she looked around. "Why am I in the hospital? Did we have an earthquake? Did I get hit on the head?"
"No. Does anything else hurt but your head?"
"Why am I in the hospital? We went to..."
"Miss Blye, I see you're up," a nurse said walking into the room. "How are you feeling?"
"Confused," Kensi answered honestly. "What happened?"
Kensi started to pull at the nasal cannula but the nurse, Jennifer Simmons, stopped her. "Ms. Blye, I'm going to have to insist you keep that in. One of the side effects of Rohypnol is respiratory depression. It is for your own good."
"I was roofied?" Kensi's confusion moved to outrage. Deeks found comfort in that.
"I'm going to find the doctor. I think Officer Deeks can fill you in," she said as she started to leave. "And sir, your friend is out of surgery," Nurse Simmons told Deeks as she opened the door.
"What the hell happened? What happened to Matt?"
"What do you remember?
"We went to bed. You were complaining about how I fold my clothes."
Deeks smiled. "No, I was complaining you don't fold your clothes. Stuffing things into a drawer is not folding. So you remember last night."
"What time is it?"
"It is nearly three Ms. Blye, I'm Doctor Mason," a fifty-ish doctor walked into Kensi's room. "If your friend will excuse us, when the nurse returns, we're going to do a quick check-up," Almost on cue, Nurse Simmons walked in.
"You OK with this?" Deeks asked Kensi.
"You're coming back?"
"Of course." Deeks backed out of the room and took a deep breath. He walked down the hall to the nurse's station and asked for Brittney Russell's room.
Without his badge, Deeks was lucky the officer guarding the room knew him. After being allowed in the room, Deeks found a badly beaten Brittney Russell sound asleep in her hospital bed. Callen wasn't kidding, she was holding onto Sam's right hand as if it was a teddy bear. He was leaning on the bed rail, humming "Yellow Submarine" to the sleeping girl.
"Looks like you made a new friend," Deeks whispered as he stood next to Sam.
"The poor kid. I saw some things with the SEALs that I thought were the worst things I was ever going to see. The marks on this poor girl, where she was kept, what she told the Sex Crimes Detective," Sam shook his head. "They need to put Boothe and Kelly away for a very long time. How's Kensi?"
"Just woke up. Doctor is checking her out. Wanted to see the rescued girl before I go to talk to Matthew's family."
"None of this is your fault."
"She's not. Matthew's on me. He told me to wait and I didn't." Deeks patted Sam on the back. "Brittney's luck turned around the minute you found her."
"Michelle's coming down after the kids get out of school and her Mom can watch them. Give this poor little girl another person on her side until her parents get here."
"You're a good man Sam Hanna. Brittney is lucky to have you," Deeks told him as he left the room.
Walking over to ICU, Deeks saw Frannie Bernhart sitting alone outside of her brother's room. "How's Matthew?" he asked as he sat next to her.
"Alive. Doctor is amazed how he managed to survive all that blood loss but he's alive. My parents are in the room with him. Only two visitors at a time according to the doctor."
"Matthew isn't going to let the bad guys win," Deeks smiled at his friend's sister. "And he'll be thrilled to wake up and see his family with him."
"He's a good cop, isn't he? I know Dad had to bail him out of trouble a while back. He never talks about work. Says he does what he does so Mom and I never have to deal with bad people."
"He's not a good cop, he's a great cop. He's gotten into trouble when the system lets him down. The time your father had to really step in a child molester got off on a technicality and moved right back into his old neighborhood near a daycare center and a Catholic grammar school."
"What did he do?" Frannie asked, half worried-half proud.
"Well, since he was never charged with anything, he did nothing."
"But..."
"Well, someone stole some orange reflective paint the DoT uses to paint dividing lines on streets. The child molester heard something outside his house and found "Kid Toucher" was painted in orange reflective paint on his garage door. Matthew was found four blocks away with a paint brush, the can of stolen paint and paint on his hands and clothes. He claims he found paint and was looking to return it to the DoT."
Frannie was laughing. "That's Matt."
"Well, not really since nobody could prove he did it but yeah, that's Matthew." Deeks turned serious. "I can't give you the specifics of the case but Matthew tried to stop the abduction of a federal agent today. While he was bleeding and waiting for the ambulance, he helped lead LAPD and the feds to the place where the agent was being held. From there, LAPD and a different federal agent found a kidnapped girl who was being beaten and abused. Matthew is responsible for the arrest of two sexual predators who could have gone on abusing victims for years. Matthew's a hero. Make sure your family knows that. LAPD certainly does."
"Thank you, Marty."
"Do you have my number?" She opened her bag and pulled out her phone. After Deeks gave her the number he told her, "You call me if you want someone to talk to. If there's any change in Matthew, the hospital is going to call me but if you need someone to talk to about Matthew, about how much he's helped people, about what you can do, you call."
"What can I do?"
"Matthew adores you. Adores all of you. Be his really smart little sister and when he's feeling better, sneak in some In 'n' Out and eat it with him. Having a meal with people he cares about means everything to him. We had dinner together almost every night during this assignment."
"He had to love that. Mom and Dad were always doing charity and political dinners when we were kids. We never ate with them."
"He only left the case to have dinner with your Mom Sunday night," Deeks told her as he stood. "Double-double with no cheese. Side of fries. Strawberry shake."
"You remember that?"
"I lived with him for nine months on a different case. That's what he ate for nine months. Call me if you need to talk."
Deeks found his way back to Kensi's room just as Nurse Simmons was walking out with a clipboard. "How is she?"
"Persistent," Simmons answered. "The doctor wanted to keep her overnight but she said she was fine..."
"She's always fine," Deeks told her.
"That's what he thought but since she was leaving anyway, he's releasing her under the condition that you or a close friend stay with her."
"Won't let her out of my sight. Thank you for everything."
Deeks walked into Kensi's room and recapped everything she missed.
x-x-x
Deeks took one of the uncomfortable dinner table chairs from Kensi's apartment and the foot stool from the kitchen and sat outside her front door. Some fresh air was needed after a day inside the hospital. It took nearly two hours to get Kensi checked out of the hospital - shift change and all. Deeks hit the Subway drive thru before returning to Kensi's place. Kensi tore through her cold cut combo; Deeks nearly inhaled his turkey sub.
Kensi was nodding off during "Sports Center" - Deeks had no interesting in the evening news - so she decided to shower and rest. Deeks left his cellphone next to her bed and was watching her sleep on the iPad he set up on the foot stool.
After checking on her for the third time in person, Deeks was sitting out in cool night air when a surprise guest appeared - Nate. And Nate had a friend. "Monty," Deeks greeted his dog. Looking at Nate, he said, "Thanks man, sit for a second." Deeks opened the door and returned with the other table chair.
"Hetty had Pete, who has three beagles, take Monty to the groomer. He had some blood in his fur."
"He helped me find Matt. Stayed with him until we could help. Did the same with me last summer. No matter how bad I felt, he'd stay right next to me. Didn't you boy?"
"Well, picking him up from the groomer and bringing him here was the best part of my day."
"Callen told me you were in the Roman house."
"I was in hell on earth. When this is all done, I can't care if that house is worth millions. Get a bull dozer; knock the damn thing down, burn what's left and salt the earth."
"Going biblical there."
"As a psychologist, I understand that there are severely damaged and mentally ill people in this world. As a man and a human being, I'd like to see Boothe and Deavers put down like dogs."
Deeks feigned a gasp. "Not in front of Monty." When he got no reaction from Nate, Deeks asked, "You okay?"
"I was happy to have Monty and the ride over to end my day. How are you?"
"I thought your day was over."
"As a friend, how are you?"
"Furious at myself for letting Andrea Miller bate me. Sorry I didn't kick the speaker into the pool and fry that evil bastard and that evil bitch. Sick that I let them near Kensi and Matthew. Terrified for Matthew."
"I know a doctor at Los Robles. Det. Bernhart is holding his own."
"He needs to do more than hold his own. He needs to be able to work when this is over."
"He doesn't need to work, you know."
"Matthew's a cop. He does crazy, stupid things that gets him in trouble but he does it because he wants to save the world and prove he's worthy of the life he has."
"The anti-Boothe. Trust fund kid on the right side of the law."
"Yeah, well, barely on the right side of the law but yeah. How do you know about Matthew's money?"
"Hetty looked at you and Det. Bernhart as possible team members while I was working with her fulltime. I was given both of your backgrounds to study."
"And?"
"You're both proof that there is no model background for a good law enforcement officer."
"I wasn't all that good today." Deeks pointed to his iPad. "Look at her. She got into a car with a psycho because she thought he had me. Why the hell did she do that? And if you tell me it has to do with last spring, I'm going to scream."
"She'd have gone to rescue you long before last spring. She's always going to look out for you just as you always look out for her."
"He could have killed her. He could have taken her to that house of horrors, he could have..."
"None of those things happened. Don't live in a world of hypotheticals. Both Boothe and Deavers are in jail. Speaking of that, Callen said you're willing to see Deavers tomorrow."
"If Kensi's OK, yeah. I want to hear her story."
"I'd like to come with you." Before Deeks could react, Nate put his hand up. "I'll be in an observation room talking to you through your earwig."
"You know, it's funny. Or not funny but weird. I spent the last few weeks thinking my biggest problems were a rich psycho and an ambitious woman. Didn't plan on a combination of the two showing up."
"If you're going to see Deavers, Hetty wants to see you first. Nell's found a lot about Deavers and a connection to Boothe and possibly Elizabeth Kelly."
"I'm assuming she's dead."
"Probably for over twenty years."
Deeks shook his head. "This just gets worse by the minute."
x-x-x
Deeks and Kensi walked into the Mission for the first time in nearly two-and-a-half weeks. Sam was already at his desk.
"How's Brittney?" Kensi asked.
"Parents arrived around eight last night. Brittney's going to need a lot of help but she's got a loving family. They were just unhappy she got a tattoo. I showed them one of mine and told them it's art, not a measure of the person she is. What she survived is a measure of the person she is. A strong, brave person." Sam eyed Kensi head to toe. "How are you?"
"I know I've slept on and off for over a day but I'm still tired. The doctor said I would be for a few days."
"CSU found a bottle of Poland Spring water under the lounge chair where Deeks found you. They tested it. There was a Rohypnol, ecstasy and vodka in bottle. It was half empty. The hospital will have a full work up on you later this week and if they match, Boothe's fingerprints are all over the bottle and there was DNA on the bottle top."
"God," Deeks said as he sank into his chair.
"This isn't your fault," Kensi told him as she leaned against her desk.
"Have you heard about Bernhart?" Sam asked.
"Holding his own, according to his sister." Deeks replied.
Sam leaned back in his chair. "I didn't know his father was Sen. Bernhart."
"Oh yeah. Mr. Law and Order in the state house flaunts Matthew's career. His mother hates it."
"The hospital staff was talking about her when Michelle and I went to see how Bernhart was doing."
"I'm sure everyone knows she's there." Deeks told him.
Kensi gave him a quizzical look. "Why?"
"Cedars has the Lillian Bernhart Child Wellness Clinic. UCLA has the Chester Bernhart Men's Health Program after Matthew's father was diagnosed young with prostate cancer. I'm sure if Los Robles saves Matthew, an upgraded emergency room named for Matthew is in their future."
Eric's whistle broke up the conversation about the Bernharts. "Callen, Nate and Hetty are waiting." Eric smiled. "Nice to see you two back. Wasn't the same without you."
"I missed three months last summer," Deeks whispered to Kensi as they made their way to the stairs, "obviously your absence is the problem." Deeks thought he saw Kensi smile when she hit the landing.
In the Ops Center, a grim-looking Nate was leaning on the desk while Hetty and Nell stood by the big screen. "Mr. Deeks, Miss Blye, welcome back."
"Good morning, Hetty," Deeks and Kensi said in unison. The two nodded greetings to Nate and Nell. "What do we have on Tina Deavers?" Deeks asked as he pointed to the screen.
Nell pulled out her tablet and put documents on the screen. "We've found a lot prior to 1992 and then she completely disappears. She was an honors student at Palisades High School, had a full scholarship to San Diego State. She accepted the scholarship, did all the paperwork and never showed up. At the same time, Elizabeth Kelly started at Stanford and she was Tina Deavers."
"Where is Elizabeth Kelly?" Kensi asked.
"After she completed high school at home, Elizabeth Kelly's father sent her out to a camp in Palo Alto. An old secretary who worked for Daniel Kelly said he was worried that she wasn't as socially advanced as she was academically gifted. She attended a camp for bright kids who were good with computers but that encouraged social interactions."
"Did Sebastian Boothe attend that camp?" Deeks asked. "His father would have died a few months earlier."
"He did," Nell put some photos of Boothe at Camp Digital. "There are no pictures of Elizabeth Kelly at the camp but she won two ribbons in coding and website design. Any guesses on who worked at the camp for half the summer?"
"Tina Deavers," Kensi said.
"She worked in the kitchen and was learning computer coding from some of the instructors. While camp records are sketchy, she was let go in the middle of July. She was arrested for trying to shoplift nearly four hundred dollars' worth of clothes from a Gap near the camp and a day later was picked up for public intoxication. Not sure if she was fired after the shoplifting arrest or the public intoxication charge but she was let go."
"So everyone met nearly twenty years ago." Callen said. "This is unbelievable."
"We're searching records to see if there were any bodies found from Palo Alto to Malibu of unidentified teenage girls. Nobody would look at Elizabeth Kelly's dental records if a body was found."
"Do we know if Elizabeth Kelly's dental records are Elizabeth Kelly's?" Deeks asked. "The one thing that never made sense to me about Boothe..."
"Just one thing?"
"Okay, one thing that never added up was his total disinterest in computers and electronics but he had all those stolen laptops and iPods. It didn't make sense."
"It looks like the Boothe mansion was free of all the toys you would expect a wealthy man who went to computer camp to own. The Roman house, however, has world-class electronic gear," Eric added. "The house had its own computer servers, a VHS to digital set-up so old videos they made in the 1990's were digitized. LAPD's sex crimes sent us a report this morning stating there are video recordings going back to the mid 1990's."
"How organized are the files? One of Elizabeth Kelly's well-known keys to success was being meticulous in your work."
"When I got there yesterday," Callen told him, "CSU was stunned at how organized everything was. Binders, file folders. I checked, your old alias, Edward Martin, was a binder with photos, background info, your daily schedule. There were eleven files for men, twenty-seven for women."
Deeks was sickened. "Elizabeth Kelly?"
"Nothing," Callen answered. "But Deeks, they found a head in one of the freezers."
"Corey Moran," Deeks was sure of this.
"The Navy is checking his dental records but his was the only body found missing a head."
"Detective," Nate joined the conversation, "Are you still willing to speak to Deavers."
"I am," Deeks said. "There's nothing she can do to hurt me but maybe I can get some answers for the victims' families."
"She can hurt you, Detective. She's spent nearly two decades manipulating people. LAPD's SWAT officers had video when they entered Boothe's home. Her words, her tone, her attitude towards you - they're troubling."
"When is she being booked?"
"Now. Currently she and Boothe are being charged with abducting Miss Blye and assaulting Det. Bernhart. Boothe for the actual crimes, Deavers for being an accessory with more charges pending," Hetty answered.
"They're never getting out, Deeks. If what CSU and Sex Crimes says is true, they'll be lucky to get life sentences and not a needle," Callen told him. "You don't have to talk to her."
"I want to talk to her, I want to talk to Boothe."
"I don't think that's a good idea," Kensi said.
"I want to talk to the two of them, want to talk to the victims' families and then I never want to think about the two of them again. Set up the interview."
-30-