Tellings of the Time: Complete series

4. 3

“No,” I say to Miranda without thinking about it for a second. She just called in to tell me Beckett is here and he wants to talk to me. I’m not in the mood. I feel kind of stabby, and seeing him won’t improve that mood. I haven’t slept since everything went down and I don’t have the energy to deal with him. I thought I would be able to sleep for days on end, but instead, I just stared at the ceiling, going over and over in my head everything that happened yesterday.

“He doesn’t look like he’s going to leave,” Miranda says.

“Is Dylan there? I think he’d love to shoot him.”

“Why Dylan specifically?” Miranda asks with a hint of curiosity in her voice.

“Alex and Scott are both getting laid on a regular basis, Dylan has some pent-up energy he’d gladly use to shoot Special Agent Pain-in-my-ass.” I hear Miranda laugh both through the phone and through the office.

“Dylan is out. What do you want me to do?”

I sigh. “Send him up, I guess. But don’t you dare bring him any coffee. He’s not staying for a second longer than he has to.”

Miranda chuckles. “Sure thing, boss.”

I sit back in my desk chair, clicking away the files I was working on before Miranda called. We’re dealing with some last administrative issues from the kids we saved at the compound. We lucked out that Beckett was the one to shoot the guy at the train tracks, because now the death of that criminal is the FBI’s problem and not ours. I guess having him around isn’t always that bad after all.

Beckett walks in and the moment our eyes meet, the static in the air seems to change. For some reason, he smiles, and I notice a little dimple on his left cheek that I haven’t seen before. Have I never noticed it before, or have I simply never seen him smile? Both seem like a viable option.

He closes the door behind him and makes his way to one of the chairs in front of my desk. Before he sits down, the door opens again and Chester walks in, putting a smile on my face. I should’ve seen that coming.

“Hackerboy,” Beckett says as Chester makes his way to the windowsill and sits down.

“Hotshot,” Chester answers.

“Hotshot?” I ask, looking between the two men.

“He’s hot, he shoots, ergo hot shot,” Chester shrugs. Beckett winces when he hears Chester call him hot, but I can’t exactly fight him on that. The man is hot. “Almost as creative as calling me Hackerboy,” he continues. “After all, I’m a hacker and I’m a boy.”

“What’s wrong with calling people by their name?” I ask.

“Names hold power,” Chester whispers with a sense of mystery in his voice. “Have you never read a fantasy novel? Besides, he didn’t like me calling him Becky.”

“Not recently,” I admit. Curiosity gets the better of me. “So what do you call me?”

“Abs,” Chester says matter-of-factly.

“Boring, you need to come up with something better.” Then I focus on Beckett. “And what do you call me? Lawbreaking-annoyance-girl?”

“I just call you Wilder.”

“You should hear what she calls you when you’re not around,” Chester teases, making Beckett’s green eyes find mine. I roll my eyes at Chester, because he’s deliberately causing trouble and he thrives on it.

“So, Special Agent Pain-in-my-ass, what can we help you with today?” I ask in my sweetest voice. Beckett laughs out loud, which takes me so aback that I start laughing with him.

“I came here on a hail Mary,” Beckett says, combing a hand through his dark hair. “I want to ask for your help in finding this killer. Before you turn me down, hear me out,” he says as he turns around and looks at Chester. “Listen, I know I screwed up by arresting Remy and that I’ve put you in a difficult situation. I know you focus your time on finding missing kids. But we need your help. You are our link to this killer. I don’t know how yet, or why, but you seem to be the key to finding him.” Then he takes a real deep breath. “And I think we need Hackerboy’s brain and skill to outsmart this killer.”

He looks like he’s in pain by admitting that. He shouldn’t be. It’s actually the smartest thing I’ve ever heard him say. Admitting someone else”s strengths and using that for the good of the many instead of focusing on his ego is important. And Chester is someone who can make a huge difference in this world. For the better. When he’s not out to cause mayhem anyway.

I sigh. It’s a sigh of utter exhaustion. I’m running on adrenaline and cortisol. Throw in an overdose of worry and you’ve got yourself a nice cocktail of reasons to not sleep even one little bit. My eyes fall on Chester before I answer, because deep down, I know I have to help find this killer. I can’t sit back and do nothing. But I need the FIX Foundation to keep running as well.

“Can we?” I ask him.

He rubs the palms of his hands over his eyes, looking just as tired as I feel. “I just found a case of two brothers who’ve gone missing. Parents say they got abducted, but authorities haven’t found any sign in that direction. Official conclusion is the boys have run away from home, based on statements of the neighbors that there used to be a lot of fighting going on behind closed doors.”

He starts spinning his thumb ring.

“I don’t know why this stuck out to me. I think it was the parent’s statement of the abduction. What they said didn’t make sense, so I did some digging and found out that they were in enormous debt. So I’m thinking either one of two things.” He holds up one finger before he speaks again. “One, they were taken by the people who want to collect the debt.” A second finger joins the first. “Two, the parents sold the kids to pay off the debts. Whichever it is, it’s too coincidental for them to have run off at this precise moment.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” both Beckett and I say at the exact same time. Our eyes meet, but we don’t elaborate.

“Exactly,” Chester continues. “I think we’ll probably be able to find some evidence of them online or with good old detective work by hacking into every camera we can find. I think I can leave it up to Zoey and a few of the others. That’ll leave me with some time to focus on this serial killer.”

Beckett’s whole demeanor seems to relax. He probably was thinking he was going to get shut down completely.

“But,” Chester says as he holds his whole hand up, “the moment my help is needed in saving these two boys, I’m dropping everything and I’ll help. It’s non-negotiable. And if you want Abby’s help in finding the serial killer too, you’re going to have to provide us with extra backup from the FBI when we find these boys.”

Beckett nods, and I’m stunned at how easy Chester is getting him to go along with his demands. Maybe Beckett is feeling guilty for taking Remy in and this is his way to make up for it.

“That means no bitching about us not following FBI-protocol.”

I snort when I see the look on Beckett’s face turn sour. He really is a sucker for rules. In the end, he gives in with a nod. Now that we’ve got the practicalities out of the way, I face Chester. “What are the little boys named?”

“Damian and Jacob Winters, they’re five and seven,” he answers, making my insides clench. I wish they were an exception, but I’ve heard so many of these stories over the years. Beckett squints his eyes as he observes me.

“Do you always know all the names of the people you help?”

I nod. “Always. Saying their names makes them human, instead of nameless faces that haunt my nightmares. The moment I start to forget they’re human is the moment I need to stop doing this work.”

There’s a loaded silence between us until he pushes his chair back and gets up. “I’ll make sure you get a list of names of all the victims from the other burial sites we found,” he says, and I can feel his earnestness. Then he puts a hand on Chester’s shoulder. “I promise I’ll email them myself this time.”

When he walks out of my office, I’m pretty sure hell has just frozen over.I’m sulking. I’m sulking and I know it. And no matter how aware of it I am, I can’t seem to shake it. I nervously tap against the side of my desk with the pen I loosely hold in my hand. Maybe I should call Aunt Viv? I shoot down the idea immediately, calling her will lead to questions I don’t want to answer right now. Last time I spoke to her, I gushed all about Remy and I don’t want to tell her how badly I screwed that up.

I make my way down from the Ivory Tower to where Chester is tapping on his keyboard behind his desk. I have to give it to the fucker; his persistence in calling my office the Ivory Tower seems to have paid off. He holds up one finger, acknowledging me when I reach his desk, but making me wait until he clicks on something, taps something again and then looks up.

He pushes away from his desk, making his chair roll in my direction. Before I understand what’s going on, he pulls me down on his lap and rolls his desk chair back to his work spot. The fuck is going on? In what world do I need to expect Chester pulling me in his lap? Fuck, maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the only one who refuses to see the attraction between us for what it is. He’s been way more affectionate since we talked about his feelings for me. This whole thing with Chester is making me feel ignorant, and I don’t exactly know how to handle that. Give me a high risk, high adrenaline kind of situation and I’m your girl. This? This delicate balance of feelings and not crushing them? I suck at it. Me Hulk. Me smash.

“Is this like the hacker way of driving by in a cool convertible to pick up girls?”

Chester grins. “Rolling in on my desk chair and swiping you off your feet? Yeah, totally the hacker-thug life. Method approved by hacker-thugs around the country to be effective. Will threaten you with the blue screen of death if you cross me.”

I can’t help but smile when I hear that.

“What were you doing just now?” I say, pointing my chin to his screens, as I try not to focus on the fact that I’m sitting on Chester. I don’t even mind it. Nor do I fight it.

“You want me to talk shop?” he asks me with a hint in his voice giving me the feeling he doesn’t believe it.

“I want to be distracted, so please go full nerd on me.”

“That was something like the equivalent of putting a tracker on someone’s car to figure out what its usual behavior is.”

“Where’s he going to lead you?”

“Not some physical place. Someone’s using some program to change the location of his IP address. It seems random, but if you follow it long enough, a pattern will emerge. Once you know how the pattern is created, information about the real IP address will be easier to find.”

He wraps his arms around me so he can reach his mouse and keyboard again. A map pops on his screen, and there’s a little red dot that moves all over the world.

“It’s like playing hide and seek, but everywhere you find them is where not to look,” Chester tells me. I think I kind of grasp what he’s telling me, but I’m not usually involved in this part of the investigation. For some reason, I’m very aware that I’m sitting on his lap and he has his hands around me. Suddenly it’s hard to breathe.

“Can we go outside?” I ask, because that seems to be a perfect answer to everything that’s going wrong in my life. Surely fresh air will fix it. “Maybe go work out or something?”

“I’ll go out with you, but only if we get some donuts from the coffee shop around the corner. I’ve had enough death in my life this week. I don’t feel like dying after another workout.”

Funnily enough, that sounds like it’s exactly what I need. I let my head fall back on his shoulder for a second, and I can’t fathom how right that feels.

“Okay, no working out,” I concur.

He clears his throat and then pushes me from his lap before he stands up, casually rearranging his dick. I force myself to look away, because that’s… well, that’s just one thing I don’t want on my list of things to freak out about. But at the same time, I’m intrigued, in a good way.

We make our way to the elevators, where I abuse the poor button because I feel like it’s not getting there quickly enough. Then I grunt all the way down because once again I think it’s not going fast enough. I whine about people walking in front of me at the wrong speed and I think I even make an offhand comment about that annoying sun shining in my eyes.

“You’re a delight to be around today,” Chester says sarcastically as we make our way to the coffee shop.

“Everything annoys me,” I state.

“I’ve noticed. Why? Usually, you don’t let stuff like this get to you.”

I almost roll my eyes at him, but then I remember he’s just being a good friend and he’s looking out for me, not trying to annoy me. “Everything feels wrong.”

“Well, good thing we’re going to get a donut then. Donuts can never feel wrong.”

“Sure they can, what about savory donuts? They’re wrong on so many levels.”

“We’ll make sure you get a sugary donut,” he says as we walk into the coffee shop.

“Sugary crap won’t make me feel better,” I tell Chester, who wraps his arm around me and pulls me to his side. My body seems to heat up because of it, but my head isn’t in any place to act on this.

“Shhh, don’t let the sugary goods hear you call them crap. If the sugar thinks it hates you, it’ll start a coupe and work its way up to a heart attack,” Chester whispers conspiratorially. An unwilling laugh leaves my mouth. I like this playful side of him where he tries to cheer me up. We stand at the end of a small line to place an order, when I see a familiar back at the front of the line.

The long, lean, dark-haired man grabs a coffee the barista is holding out to him, and it feels like my heart skips a beat in my chest when he thanks her and turns around.

When Remy’s eyes find Chester and me, the whole look on his face changes. The playful smile disappears and a crease forms between his eyes.

“No,” is all he says before he storms out and takes off running.

“Wait!” I yell.

Chester’s hand is still in mine as we follow him outside.

“Don’t follow me. Go away!”

Fuck, that man is quick when he wants to be. His legs are like that of a Victoria’s Secret model, long and endless, while mine are small. He almost gets away, walking through the crowded areas on purpose.

“Would you stop running away!”

“Never!” he yells, and if he didn’t sound so pissed, I’d laugh at the situation. “Stop following me!”

He reaches the side of the curb, but there’s too much traffic for him to cross the road right away, giving us the chance to catch up to him.

“What are you doing here?” I blurt out before I can say what I really want to say, namely, ‘Are you okay? How are you doing? Please don’t hate me.’

“Not you too! I’ve told you! There’s a dancing company around the block, and they let me dance with them! Not that you care You obviously think the only reason I’m here is to stalk you. Never mind that you,” he says pointing at me. “And you,” he says, pointing at Chester, “and your fucking asshole of a friend in the FBI have ruined all the fun I had left in dancing. Do you think mothers want to leave their kids with me for a dancing lesson now that I’ve been arrested for multiple murders?!”

The same deranged gleam he had in his eyes the moment he turned the car to pay a visit to Chester’s old nanny and murder her is there. I didn’t think it was possible, but I feel even more shitty about myself than I was before. “I’m sorry. I forgot about the dancing company.”

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t forget about you after meeting you. And I’m sorry I didn’t forget your phone number,” he says to Chester, who’s nervously spinning his thumb ring.

“You would’ve done the same,” my friend tries to reason with him. “If there would’ve been a chance I was the killer, you’d have done the same for Abby.”

“Don’t you fucking dare reason with me!” He’s now talking so loud that people who pass by are noticing him. “I have every right to be angry because both of you betrayed me! Don’t you dare deny my feelings and think you have to talk some sense into me. The last people who tried to do that were my parents, and I spent the last fifteen years out of their lives. Go reason with the FBI, see if you can make the evidence fit their theory.”

I look down in shame, my shoulders slumped. I don’t think I’ve ever hurt anyone as bad as I hurt Remy. He has every reason to be yelling at me and hating me. If I’m being completely honest, I hate myself right now.

“I’m not trying to reason with you. I’m just saying we went where the evidence went,” Chester tries to explain. The look on his face is pained.

“They believed I killed my own friend! All for the sake of looking less suspicious. I would never! And if you thought that would ever be a possibility, you are the deranged ones.”

He’s fuming, and he’s everything he’s always claimed to be. The man who feels everything, unable to keep those feelings in, even if it meant losing his parents. In hindsight, I don’t see why I ever believed he’d be the killer. I got sucked into Beckett’s tunnel vision. I’m breathing hard through my nose. This is the worst I’ve ever fucked up in my whole life, and I’m on the verge of breaking down. Chester notices and grabs my hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. Remy looks down.

“Now, if you’ll please stop following me, I’m going to see if there’s anyone left who’s willing to dance with me. Might as well hang myself if I lose that too.” He spits the words out, then points his head to where Chester is holding my hand. “You two deserve each other. Please forget I ever existed.”

And with those parting words, he takes off, leaving us in the middle of the street. Devastated.

We’ve gone back to the office, but I can’t get myself to start working again. The scene on the street with Remy keeps playing over and over in my head. As much as I wished to see him again, that was not the way I hoped that would turn out. Suddenly, the walls seem to come at me, and I feel like I can’t breathe. I try my breathing exercises, but it doesn’t help. I need to get outside, maybe get in a kitchen and cook something. But the thought of both of those things don’t feel like they’d be enough.

I stomp my way out of my office and head for Chester’s desk. He’s got his headphones on and doesn’t hear me coming. He seems to be lost in the FBI files. I remember seeing an email coming in from Beckett an hour back, but I didn’t have the energy to open it and see what it was about. I’m guessing it’s the list of names he promised me.

From Chester’s screen, new faces stare at me. Women in the prime of their life, pictures taken when they were still happy and thriving. I’m having a hard time dealing with the idea of the lives these dead women would’ve had if they had not encountered that sick fuck that killed them.

I sit down on Chester’s desk, legs crossed, and he finally notices me. Taking one of the ears of his headphones off, he raises his chin to me to ask what’s going on.

“Find anything?”

“Not much to go on yet,” he says. “Results are still coming in. Based on the pattern he keeps and the physical description of all the other victims, I’ve got a whole list of possibilities. But there are way too many women going missing. Approximately six hundred thousand people go missing in the US every year. We’ve found seventy-two of them. That’s huge, but it’s nothing at the same time.” His eyes dart over the various pictures of all the missing women, and I experience grief. For them. For their families. For myself and not being able to do enough.

It makes me realize that going outside or cooking my heart out won’t be enough today.

“Wanna come with me to my parents’ grave?”

His baby blues snap up to mine while he pushes a strand of blond locks out of his face. He knows I don’t visit them often, and I don’t like going there alone. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever been there alone.

“Sure,” he says while closing off his computer and standing up. When he’s ready to go he grabs my hand and guides me to the elevators. I’m perfectly capable of going there myself, but I bask in the comfort he gives me. We say goodbye to the people who stay at the office, working on the case of the Winters brothers.

When we stepped into the elevator, I let myself fall back against the back panel. Chester stands in front of me, pushing a lock of my hair behind my ear. “That bad today?”

I close my eyes and hum, not ready to admit how bad it is today. I’m spiraling and the worst thing is I can feel it happen, but I’m unable to snap out of it. There’s no pretending with Chester though. He knows all my signs. Visiting my parents’ grave is a big one. I hate going there, but sometimes it’s the only way to feel close to them.

The elevator reaches the parking lot and we walk to where my car is parked in silence. I throw my keys in Chester’s direction and he grabs them midair before he opening the car. He starts the car without asking any questions while I plug in my phone and start Otherside by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I let the words sink into me while Chester drives us over to the cemetery.

When we reach the cemetery, I’m still lost in thought. What the hell am I doing here? I wiggle with my fingers in the pockets of my suit pants, staring at my shoes as I draw circles with their nose in the little pebbles that lie on the ground. Chester buys a bouquet of flowers at the little stall at the cemetery entrance and then starts leading me in the direction of where my parents are.

I keep repeating my breathing exercise, but it isn’t working. Deep down, I know what I really need is some sleep, but it just won’t fucking happen. Guilt is eating me up alive and I feel like Atlas, carrying the burden of the whole world on my shoulders.

We walk through rows of headstones and the peace and quiet of the cemetery calms me down a little. The trees create a nice shade, and there are birds singing their little hearts out. It’s not enough to get me out of my depression though. When we finally reach the place where my parents are buried, I slow my pace down.

Everything seems the same as the last time I was here. The gray granite headstone with their names, their dates of birth and the day they died in stark white letters on them. All decisions were made by my Aunt Viv. Nobody wanted to burden the grieving orphaned twelve year old with choices like that. I never really cared anyway. I think my mother would’ve rolled her eyes if she could’ve seen what a mundane headstone she got. If it’d been up to her she would’ve had something sparkly and stand out.

Chester steps forward and places the flowers in the little vase built into the grave. There are no old flowers to remove. We don’t visit enough. I reluctantly get closer, chewing the inside of my cheek as I sit down on the ground. It never felt right looking down on them. Chester sits down beside me and starts picking grass, tearing the strands he picks out in little pieces. He’s always been okay with just letting me be here.

Some people talk to the graves, or to the spirits that are supposed to linger there. Not me. I mostly just sit and be quiet.

“I’m starting to forget their faces,” I whisper just loud enough for him to hear me. “I can remember the fun things we did. Baking in the kitchen, going to the library with Dad to pick out books. But I mostly remember the occasions. I’m starting to forget their faces. There’s tons of pictures, but it’s different from remembering.”

Chester patiently lets me talk, not even responding to what I’m telling him. I don’t expect him to, if I’m honest.

“They’re just statistics in the end. Two people who got murdered. Their lives reduced to the brutal end they met. Photos in some crime scene file, somewhere in a stuffy corner of the court archives. Is that what’ll happen to the women we found? They were people to somebody out there too. Daughters, friends, sisters, lovers. Maybe even mothers themselves.”

I bite the inside of my cheek as I breathe through my nose in an attempt to keep my tears from falling out of my eyes. This was a bad plan. Coming here isn’t helping. Nothing is helping. All of these deaths feel like they’re on me, even while I know better than to believe that. I’m a mess, and I haven’t got a clue how to pull myself back together. I breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four and hold for four. It doesn’t give the release I’m looking for.

Chester looks at me, no reassuring smile, just being there, seeing and acknowledging me. He stands up and extends his hand to help me get up.

“Let’s get out of here,” is all he says.

“To do what?”

He shrugs. “Get drunk, play some bad first-person shooter game.”

Smiling at his suggestion, I follow him while he walks away, letting my hand glide over the headstone, silently saying goodbye to my parents. When I walk beside the headstone, my eye falls on something lying in the grass behind it. I stop dead in my tracks, trying to figure out what it is. With three steps, I’m right in front of it and I crouch down.

It’s a necklace. A necklace in the shape of a Celtic knot. It’s the necklace the serial killer uses to show who’s family, the same one the victims all wore and the same one he emailed to me. I feel all blood drain from my face, and all thoughts of drinking whiskey and playing video games leave my mind.

“What is it?” Chester asks, worry coating his voice.

“Trouble,” I answer with a trembling voice. “Call Beckett. The killer has been here.”