12. 11
“Twelve,” Chester says when he walks into my office and closes the door behind him. He walks past the windowsill, instead making his way to my desk and sitting down on the edge. The mention of the word twelve makes me think of a clock and the hair on the back of my arms stands up.
I turn my chair so that I’m facing him. He looks tired, his hair is disheveled, and his shirt is wrinkled. It’s the same shirt he wore yesterday. He didn’t come home last night, so I think he pulled an all-nighter.
“Twelve what?” I ask, not ready for the answer. Is he referring to one of the girls? Which one is he referring to? God, there’s multiple twelves now. I take a deep breath, letting my body shudder as I let it go.
“Twelve names,” he answers as he rubs his eyes.
“Help me out here.”
“On the list of possible suspects.”
“What? Twelve is amazing! How did you narrow them down?” I ask with wide eyes. That’s an amount of names we can work with.
“I started going over alibis of the whole list, eliminating them based on the date and time the last three women went missing.”
The last three women… Nathalie Zimmst, Felicia Lanster, Elaine Borgouis. Fuck, the pang of hurt I feel every time I think of Elaine is unreal. Scientists might be able to cut grief up into neat little pieces and stages, but living it is messy. It doesn’t follow rules or doesn’t wait for appointed dates and times to appear. Sometimes, it just is. The grief I feel for Elaine sometimes feels exaggerated, but it’s there, and I can’t deny it. Won’t.
I breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four and hold for four again.
“That’s awesome, Ches. Maybe give the names to Winny and Beckett, see if they can do anything to narrow it down some more?”
“Just mailed it to them.”
Getting up out of my chair, I stand between his legs and push into him with my shoulder.
“Look at you, acting like a grown up.”
He winces.
“What?”
“I send the list of names using Beckett’s own email address. Just for shits and giggles.”
“You are the definition of a man child,” I say while I start walking out of my office. I need coffee. Or well, caffeine. Chester follows me, grinning from ear to ear.
“It’s not a compliment,” I tell him.
“I beg to differ,” he counters.
When we reach the kitchen, it’s occupied. Zoey sits on the counter, Scott between her legs, her hands cupping his face. Both are laughing, and looking very much in love. It would be sickening if it didn’t make me so fucking happy. They deserve a little happiness in their life.
“Sorry boss,” Scott says when I get into their personal space to grab a mug.
“Keep doing what you were doing, I just need coffee.”
Zoey cocks her head. She runs a finger over the endless earrings that cover the edge of her ear. It seems like it’s the equivalent of Chester spinning his thumb ring.
“Spill it, Zoey,” I tell her in my authoritative voice while I place my mug in the machine and press the button that starts grinding the beans.
“Well,” she starts tentatively, none of her usual spunk to be found in her attitude right now, “we looked at the office by-laws, but we couldn’t find anything about your policy on dating co-workers. And well, maybe we need to know your stance on the subject.”
I observe them while the smell of fresh coffee reaches me. Scott’s face is pinker than Zoey’s hair is and I realize that this is something important to them. My life may consist of dead girls showing up in Polaroids at my doorstep in beige envelopes, but that’s not everyone’s reality. Some people are worried about mundane things, like what your boss thinks about you dating a coworker. Perhaps being scared of being fired.
I’d never fire Scott. Or Zoey. At least not for something so menial as dating each other.
So I give them my most reassuring smile and make sure I meet both their eyes before I answer.
“Love is love, guys. Keep it professional, even if things don’t work out, and I’m all for it. I like seeing both of you this happy. It reminds me that there’s a little good in this world as well.”
Chester hands me my coffee, our fingers touching for longer than is necessary.
“Besides,” I add, “it would be hypocritical if I say you can’t date a coworker while I’m doing the same damn thing.”
This time, both Scott and Zoey observe us. Yeah, Chester and I have been more affectionate at work, opening up about our feelings and shit, but this is the first time I’m confirming it out loud. Suddenly, I feel uncomfortable. I try to hide it by taking a sip of coffee, but it’s too hot and I burn my mouth.
“Motherfucker,” I swear, earning me a round of chuckles. Everyone lets the dating-a-coworker subject go though. Scott steps back in between Zoey’s legs, more at ease now that he knows he isn’t going to lose his job.
“What was the plan if we were opposed to it?” Chester asks with a hint of curiosity in his voice while he starts making himself an espresso.
“Hostile takeover of the servers,” Zoey says matter-of-factly. “We’d hold FIX Foundation hostage until you would agree to let us be together.”
“You’ve created a monster,” I chastise Chester. This is all his doing. I’m one hundred percent certain Zoey didn’t think like this before she started working here.
He fucking smirks at me.
“It’s cute she thinks she can take over the servers though,” he baits her.
“You’re on,” she answers defiantly.
“I had an idea,” Scott cuts in while he massages Zoey’s legs. He doesn’t look at me, which isn’t his style. Not at all. Scott is bold. He’s good at what he does and he shows it.
“What kind of idea?”
“It’s about the case with the serial killer. I know we’re not supposed to focus on that, I know that we need to focus on the kids. But I had this thought…”
“Just spit it out, man,” Chester says, grabbing his coffee. He turns his body, presses his front against my back and looks at Scott over my shoulder. Guess we’re showing some PDA now that I’ve said it out loud.
“Well, it seems unlikely he had this exact methodology when he first started killing. It’s unusual for serial killers to stick to their methodology from the start. Sure, there could be elements that stick from the first kill, but this, the clock, it’s too organized for someone just starting out. There’s usually a little disorganized killing before a perpetrator becomes an organized killer. There’s something that set him off, finally pushed him over the edge to go for his first kill, making him go from crazy yet somewhat harmless psychopath to full-blown killer.”
The longer he’s talking, the more sure he sounds. “So I was thinking he probably made a mistake with his first kill or one of his first kills. I don’t think that particular kill is buried in one of the clocks. But I do think the killer had personal ties with his first kill before he got smart and started murdering women who can’t be traced to him.”
I squint my eyes at him.
“How’d you get this knowledge?”
“Forensic psychology is a hobby of mine. I considered trying to become a profiler for a while, but I didn’t have the brains for it. I can’t get into the dark places those minds go to.”
“Which is a good thing,” Zoey says as she gives him a nose boop.
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“So what you’re saying is to work backwards…” Chester says, throwing his espresso back in one big swallow. “Look at possible suspects who have a person in their life that got murdered. A murder that isn’t in one of the clocks, but at this moment unrelated.”
We all fall silent for a moment.
“That could definitely fit,” Chester ponders. When I feel him starting to spin his thumb ring I know I’ve lost him and he’s in a different place mentally.
“Go,” I tell him, pointing my chin to his desk. He goes without wasting another second.
“What if they never found the body of his first victim?” Zoey asks.
“Then there’ll probably be a missing person instead of a murder,” Scott shrugs.
And it makes sense. I think. I don’t know criminal psychology or forensic psychology. But the story fits, and it’s another straw to hold onto. Another lead. I just pray to a God I don’t believe in that it’ll actually lead us somewhere this time.
“You’d have made a great profiler,” I say. “But I’m glad you didn’t, because I’m glad to have you on my team.”
Pride beams off his face when I leave the two love birds right where I found them and join Chester at his desk to see if he can find anything.
My phone keeps ringing. Which is annoying, because I was finally sleeping. All those nights of crappy sleeping because I was fighting with Remy caught up with me, and now that things are good again I can finally sleep. I reach to where the thing is making noises in the dark, trying to make it shut up. Once I finally find it, I see it’s three o’clock. Fuck. That’s either too early to wake up or too late to stay awake. It’s only after that glorious thought that I care to look why the damn thing is being so loud anyway.
Beckett is calling me.
Suddenly sitting upright, I answer the screen, combing a hand through my hair in order to get it out of my eyes. It has to have something to do with the killer, right? He wouldn’t be calling in the middle of the night for fucking nothing? My heart starts racing and I force myself to release a long breath before I answer.
“Yeah?” I say, my voice croaky from just waking up.
“Can you open your front door, it’s urgent.” Beckett doesn’t sound sleepy at all. If anything, he sounds tense.
“The front door?” My brain is trying to catch up with the fact that it’s being woken up rudely.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
Throwing back the covers, I get up out of bed. The cold floor beneath my naked feet finally makes my body seem to catch up that, yes, we’re awake, and yes, we’re up.
“Wait,” I tell Beckett, which seems kind of redundant because there’s not much else for him to do so long as I don’t open the door. Quickly walking through the house on my tiptoes so I don’t wake Chester and Remy, who’s spending the night in Ches’s room, again, I’m like a ghost creeping towards the door. With the keys that hang next to the door, I unlock it and come face to face with Beckett, who hangs up his phone and steps inside without waiting for an invitation.
His green eyes roam over my body, only making me realize that the sleep shorts and the tank top I’m wearing aren’t much of an outfit. But hey, I didn’t wake him up in the middle of the night, that’s all on him.
His eyes are wide and his cheeks are flushed, making me feel oddly proud. I’m cracking through the hard and impenetrable Special Agent Beckett Sanders, which I was starting to think wasn’t possible. But there’s a personality beneath his work persona, and I’m slowly chiseling my way to it. Turns out all I need is to show a little skin to speed up the process.
He scrapes his throat, closing the door behind him.
“Okay, well, hear me out,” he says.
“That was what I planned on doing when you called me out of my bed in the middle of the night.” I wrap my arms around me, balancing with one foot on the other because the floor is fucking cold.
“Last night, around six, a local cop got an anonymous call about something suspicious going on in a house downtown. He and his partner went to check it out, finding a man who was watching three kids who were reported missing a few days ago. They arrested the man, got the kids to safety,” he adds quickly before I can even ask a question about it.
“After interrogating him, he seems to be involved with some kind of illegal organization. The same organization that took those four kids we saved in the train wagon. The one you’ve been chasing for two years.”
My heart rate picks up, but I let him talk, keep quiet. I’m still not hearing any reasons as to why he’s barging in here in the middle of the night.
“He’s willing to tell us all he knows about them, implies it’s a lot. He seems to think he’s some big shot, and to be honest, I don’t think he’s lying. But he’s only willing to talk to us if we make sure we’ll cut a deal when push comes to shove.”
With squinted eyes, I observe Beckett. He’s nervously wringing his hands and I try to figure out his angle.
“Do you want me to arrange a deal so he’ll talk?”
My breath stocks.
No.
No, I do not want him to cut the guy a deal. I want him to get punished for the role he had in kidnapping, buying and trafficking motherfucking kids.
But does punishing this guy outweigh not getting to the rest of this organization? Fuck. No. Getting the whole organization is more important. We need to cut this evil off at the root.
Instead of answering his question, I focus on something else. “Why are you involved?”
“FBI can get involved with all missing kids. Director asked me to butt in when he heard I was already present.”
Beckett just looks at me while I try to figure out how to go about this guy. The fucking audacity to ask for a deal when you’ve kidnapped kids. I really don’t want him to have his way. Can we still find this organization if I don’t make Beckett cut the deal, if he doesn’t talk? Crap, I need backup.
Opening my phone, I call Chester.
“Squirrel better be hiding. When I find that asshole, I’m stealing his nuts,” he says by way of answering his phone. Despite the situation, I snort. He has very vivid dreams and trouble waking up.
“Front door, now, please,” I say before hanging up.
Beckett keeps glancing at me, his jaw tense for some reason, his arms crossed in front of his chest. While we wait for Chester to come downstairs, we stay silent and lock eyes.
With a lot of stumbling, Chester practically sprints down the stairs with a baseball bat in his hands. I can see the change in his demeanor when he sees Beckett at the front door. He still hurries, but he isn’t acting like he’s being chased in the woods by an axe murderer anymore. He’s only wearing his boxer briefs, his hair almost standing upward. There’s no trace of sleep to be found on his face though.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“What’s with the baseball bat?” I ask.
“I thought there might be an intruder…”
“And you thought I’d call you instead of shooting an intruder? And say please while we’re at it?”
He gives me the stink eye. “I don’t know, Abs, it’s not like you’re being personally targeted by a serial killer or anything. Maybe one of us should be a little cautious.”
Beckett snorts and Chester turns his attention to him.
“What’s going on, is it the killer? It’s not the right time of the month. Did he send something again?” The tension returns to Chester’s face.
I quickly tell him everything Beckett has just told me, ending with: “But I don’t want him to walk or get a deal. I want him behind bars and I want to get the organization. What are the odds of that happening?”
Chester combs his hand through his hair, more out of habit than to actually tidy his hair. He starts spinning his thumb ring, looking right through me instead of at me. After biting off a little loose skin on one of his lips, he focuses on Beckett.
“Can we torture this guy?”
Beckett explodes. “Of course not! We don’t torture people! Sure, there might be some bad feds out there who torture people, but I most certainly do not.” He’s a little red in the face once he’s done talking. All the effect it has on Chester is that it furrows his brows.
“Calm your titties, Becky, I was just asking.”
Saying that certainly does not calm Beckett’s so-called titties. The face he makes is so funny I have to try to hide my smile - which I fail to do miserably.
“Does he have anything I can hack?” Chester asks, just ignoring what just went on.
“We found him with his laptop, regular phone and burner phone.”
That’s the information that makes Cheser turn back to me. “Don’t cut the deal, I’ll find them through his devices.”
I just nod.
“You heard the man,” I tell Beckett, “no deal. Make him pay.”
Chester is rubbing his eyes again, turns back to go back upstairs and pulls me into his body with one arm when he walks past me to give me a kiss on my cheek. I want to tell him to go back to his squirrel, but I get interrupted by a loud “You!” coming from the top of the stairs.
Faster than I thought humanly possible, Remy walks down the stairs, rushes to Beckett, pulls his arm back and punches the agent on his jaw.
“Fuck!” Beckett yells, visibly restraining himself from punching Remy back. If anything, his training should kick in, so him not fighting back is very counterintuitive.
“Fuck!” Remy yells at the same time, rubbing the knuckles of his hand.
“What the hell?” Beckett yells.
“You had that coming!” my dancer answers, almost fuming. Silence fills the hallway, while we all stand there staring at each other.
“I probably had that coming,” Beckett admits, making us all look up in surprise.
“What happened to you being a lover, not a fighter?” I ask, making Chester chuckle.
“Punching Chester made me feel better, thought I’d try it again. Didn’t have the effect I wanted, still hate his guts.” He’s looking a little petulant, but I can’t blame him. He did get falsely accused of murdering multiple women because Beckett made a mistake, that’d probably piss me off too.
“Just so you know, I’ve got an alibi for the whole day the last victim was taken. Made sure someone even went with me to the bathroom, before you try and convince yourself that I could abduct and kill a woman in the timespan of a bowel movement.”
I’d be laughing if he wasn’t so goddamn serious.
“I don’t suspect you anymore,” Beckett adds.
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” he sulks.
Suddenly Beckett looks extremely tired. It’s like I sometimes forget he’s just a regular person too. Has he slept at all? He gets a kidnapping case thrown on his plate while he’s actively trying to catch a serial killer, yet he still takes out the time to drive over here in the middle of the night to ask me about my wishes. I don’t think any of us give him enough credit.
Doesn’t mean Remy has to be his friend though, I’d hold a grudge too if I was him.
“I’ll make sure you get access to everything you need,” Beckett says when he makes his way to the door and looks Chester in the eye.
“I need the physical burner phone,” he replies.
Beckett just nods, and silently leaves the house as he closes the door behind him. That just leaves me standing in my nightwear with two men in their underwear. I’m not sure where my thoughts are right now. Did I make the right choice? Chester seems to be certain he’ll get the organization. God, how I’d love for that to be happening.
Suddenly it feels like I’m carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. Saving kids, making sure the serial killer gets caught so no innocent women get murdered anymore. It’s a lot. And I’m just one person. A little fact I usually tend to ignore, but right there and then, in the middle of the night in my hallway, I know all too well.
Chester looks at me, but I can’t find it in me to pretend. I must look every bit as tired and lost as I feel in that moment, because he walks back from halfway up the stairs and hugs me tight.
He nuzzles my hair, and I bask in his embrace. “It’ll be fine. We’re getting somewhere. Now we just need to sleep, because tomorrow will be a busy day. We’ve got a criminal organization to get to and make this world a little safer again.”
I nod, not fully believing him. Once I start overthinking there isn’t a lot I can do to stop it. Perhaps it is best if we all go back to bed.
Remy is staring at his knuckles, opening and closing his hand. There’s no longer any fight left in him.
“Need ice?” I ask him. Problem solving I can do, sitting back and waiting is the thing I suck at.
He thinks about it for a while. “No,” he finally answers. “I think I’ll just try to get some sleep.”
Then he turns around and follows Chester upstairs, both heading to Chester’s bedroom. The idea of going back to my own room alone is sickening, so I head to the living room, pour myself a drink and turn on the TV.
Waking up tomorrow with a sore neck because of an uncomfortable sleeping position on the couch is preferable over spending the rest of the night tossing and turning in a bed that feels too big right now.
“Time,” Alex yells and I drop the kettlebell I’m swinging to the floor. He’s been on a roll today and is killing all of us with a workout from hell. We’re in the office gym, working with some weights and Alex decided to have an extra cup of evil this morning.
I’m sweaty and tired. Didn’t sleep well after Beckett’s late night visit. Did manage to watch a documentary about a prison in Russia though, so at least it wasn’t a totally useless night.
Dylan is panting on the floor. He ended his circuit with walkouts and he just let himself fall flat on his belly when Alex said the exercise was done. Scott is somewhere on the other side of the room, stretching his legs after ending on a round of weighted squats.
“Hate you,” Dylan pants.
“Love you too, boo,” Alex replies with the widest grin humanly possible.
“Fuck, I’m going to be so sore tomorrow,” I grunt.
“Maybe Von Liechsenfield can help you release some of that?” Scott asks.
Alex and Dylan look up in surprise.
“I hate you,” I tell Scott, mimicking Dylan’s words. “And I’m totally going to tell Zoey all the bad stories about you.”
He mimics Alex’s grin. “There are no bad stories about me.”
“Yes there are. I bet you don’t remember that one time you got so drunk you got the runs and then went on binge drinking in the toilet. And ordering onion rings while on the toilet. And then proceeding to eat them on the toilet.”
“Gross,” Scott says, making a long face. “Definitely do not remember that night.”
“That’s what we said,” Dylan replies as he finally manages to get up from the floor. “But seriously Abs, you and Von Liechsenfield?”
Crap. I’m too tired to have this conversation.
“Yeah,” I answer, not looking any of them in the eye, but mentally wishing Scott spontaneously gets the runs again.
“What happened to Ashburn?” Alex asks.
“He got arrested for murder and walked away,” Scott says.
“Well…” I start. In for a penny, in for a pound? “He did kind of walk away, but then he sorta came back.”
“Meaning?” Dylan asks.
“Meaning I’m kind of seeing both of them.”
“Casually?” Scott asks, not catching my drift.
“No, like in some sort of relationship.”
“Jesus,” Dylan says, “I can’t even find one girl who’ll stick it out with me, let alone two.”
“Maybe you should start looking for someone who’s already in a relationship and see if you can join,” Alex suggests.
“Maybe get rid of those four dogs and find four women,” Scott says.
“You want me to get rid of my dogs?” Dylan asks aghast before he turns and looks at me. “Are we sure Scott is sane? Do we need him on the team?”
I chuckle.
The guys keep bickering while I grab a towel and walk out the door. When I’m in the hallway I can hear Alex ask the other guys if they think his wife wants a second husband as well, so he could help take care of the kids.
I walk past the showers and make my way to Chester’s desk while I rub myself dry with my towel as best I can. I’ll shower in a bit, for now I want to talk to Chester about something.
“Hey, got a minute?” I ask him while he sits bent over a mobile phone.
“Sure,” he says and keeps tapping on the phone. “I’m only trying to find an organization that’s been avoiding getting caught by us for the past two years in addition to finding a serial killer with a body count that’s about to go into triple digits. I’ve got all the time in the world.”
I give him the look. That one look that doesn’t need any words, but makes him look up.
“That’s the tone you wanna take?” I ask him in a stern voice. “To the person you live with, who makes your food, keeps up with your shit and on occasion warms your bed?”
“Guess not,” he mutters so softly it’s barely audible. “I just haven’t slept very well. Midnight phone calls and shit. Perving bastards to catch.”
“Well, what a coincidence, I had the same night.”
I finally manage to coax a smile from him, and he puts the phone down.
“What are we talking about?”
“I had an idea,” I say and sit down on the edge of his desk. “How about we try to get Remy’s little dance clients back?”
He thinks about it for a while and releases a sigh. “I think it’s a perfect plan, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to find the time for it.”
“I thought maybe it was something I could do if you help me to get going,” I shrug.
“How am I supposed to get you going?”
“Get me a list of who he was teaching, and I’ll hunt them down and convince them to get back.”
More thinking. Finally, he nods his head.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeat beaming.
He turns back to the phone and starts tapping on it again.
“How’s that coming along?”
“I’m getting there,” he says. “There’s a lot of information on this, I just need to figure out which thread to pull to make everything unravel.”
“How’d you get in?” I ask curiously. He’s just tapping on the phone like it wasn’t passcode protected or something.
“Because he’s an idiot,” Chester huffs.
“How come?”
“He used face ID. Beckett held the phone to his face to unlock and then took the passcode off.”
I snort. “Idiot indeed.”
Chester bends over the phone again, his face all serious. I get up, press a kiss against the cheek of his head and turn to walk away.
“Go catch ‘em, Ches.”
He just hums and keeps on working.