Tellings of the Time: Complete series

15. 14

With Farid in custody, we let the police and the FBI take over. There’s a team coming in to take care of all the kids they can find in Farid’s papers and computer. Then they’re sending out teams to save those kids. It’s too big for us. We can’t go out and save them all - we’re just a small team and time is of the essence. If his contacts find out he’s been taken in, they will start moving the kids and we will lose them again.

So after making sure everything was handled directly, we went back to the office. Those who were in the field took a hot shower before we started our regular celebratory party. Once I was done everyone was already drinking. Chester had called in Remy, who brought a bottle of whiskey and got the longest kiss ever from me.

After that, we all kind of started doing our thing. Right now, I’m making sure Beckett is drinking his fifth beer. He got orders from the director to relax, and I just so happened to be there to hear him say it. I’m only obliging. I’m not even sure if the man has the ability to relax anyway. The first few beers he was his own unpleasant self, but right now, he’s being a delight and I’m having a wonderful time with him.

“Why don’t you profile everyone here, tell us something that I don’t know about the people who are here,” I say while I let myself glide to the floor and make myself comfortable.

Beckett watches what I’m doing, and to my surprise joins me on the floor, sitting with his back against the seating of the couch. “Doesn’t work that way, I study criminal behavior.”

“Well, you seem to think that we’re practically one step away from being criminals anyway,” I answer as I take a swig of my drink. Somehow whiskey tastes even better after a victory like this.

He mimics my move and downs his beer. “I don’t think your criminals. I’m just… trained to work within the boundaries of the law.”

“How come?”

“My whole family is law enforcement,” he says, staring up ahead while he starts peeling the label of his beer.

“Your whole family?”

“Yeah, mom, dad, two brothers. My uncles, nephews, cousins. All their spouses. It’s a thing.”

“So your family was pretty strict?” I try to hide the pang of jealousy I feel hearing just how much family he has. I know nothing about Beckett’s personal life, so it’s nice to hear some of it.

“In some ways. We’d better make sure we’d never get arrested or do drugs and stuff like that. But within the boundaries of the law almost everything was possible. If I wanted to bring three friends over for dinner last minute, I could. If we thought up some batshit crazy plan, we could. One time, we transformed the whole living room into a big fort and we spent a whole week shooting each other with nerf guns. The answer to everything we asked was always yes, as long as it was within reason.”

The picture he paints sounds amazing. It is a whole heaping lot different from boarding school. It’s kind of what it was like before my mom and dad died. I quickly look away when I feel my eyes starting to burn, trying to hide it by drinking some more.

Dylan saves the day by walking past at that exact moment, handing Beckett another beer. He’s showing signs of intoxication after the few drinks he’s had and he’s loosening up by the second.

“So humor me,” I remind him. “Profile us. Tell me something about us that I don’t know based on your observations.”

His eyes roam around the room, his look changing from relaxed to observant. His eyes have a certain sharpness to them that makes me want them to look at me. It’s like he can really see me when he uses that look on me. Makes me feel seen, accepted.

“Miranda,” he says, pointing towards her with a tilt of his head. “She has someone from the military near her.”

I nod. “Her husband and her two sons. All different branches. One’s a marine, one’s air force and one is navy.”

“Husband is the marine, right?” he answers immediately.

“How’d you know?”

“He probably raised those boys like marines, gave his wife the same morals, but also taught both boys that being a marine is a hard life and not to do that. If one of the boys was the marine, Miranda wouldn’t have been the way she is. And I mean that in the best possible way.”

I look at him from the corner of my eye, giving him a curt nod. “Do another one,” I urge him, emptying my glass before I set it on the couch.

He takes in the room again, his eyes falling on where Scott and Zoey are sitting together. He’s holding her close, his arm wrapped around her shoulder. She’s leaning into him. Both are whispering stuff to the other, and I hope it’s sweet nothings.

“She has a troubled past, probably got in trouble with the law when she was a teenager.”

I furrow my brows. “How’d you know that?”

“She still doesn’t believe she has a steady job, never expected herself to be in this position. Her clothes are all cheap, because she’s used to not having much to spend. So she buys her clothes at the same places she went to when she didn’t have anything. But her personal items are expensive. That’s where she splurges on herself. The nerdy earrings?” he says, referring to her Pokémon studs. “They’re something she treats herself with. The necklace, the wacky headset she usually wears, the bag and the pins? Most of them are probably collector”s items or expensive stuff she just wanted to have. It’s the way she makes herself believe it’s real.”

“Sounds about right,” I say. Chester walks past, handing me a half empty bottle of whiskey while he gives me a smile I return all too gladly. He looks a little inebriated. We all are to some degree, I figure. Not bothering to grab my glass again, I drink straight from the bottle, before I mindlessly hand it to Beckett, who does the same.

“When Zoey was a teenager she got into hacking. And she hacked everything. Changed her school records, stole from people adding to her bank account every and then so she could at least buy some food for her and her sister. Eventually she hacked the CIA, because she was curious about a case. They caught her and wanted to send her to juvie. FBI snatched her up, sent her to a program where her skills could be developed. Then Chester found out about her and convinced her to come work with us.”

I expect Beckett to have a fit, but he stays as calm as a toad in the sun. Turns out you only have to get him drunk to get that stick out of his ass. If I’m being honest, he hasn’t been that much of a pain in my ass lately. He’s mainly just been a fine piece of ass.

“You,” he says, “are secretly freaking out about all the commitment you’re faced with lately. It’s more than it just being something new, it’s that you don’t believe that you deserve someone who chooses you in their life, willingly. You can’t believe that someone who loves as fiercely as Remy picks you to love.”

His arm touches mine when he leans into me. The fact that his arm is warm is the first thing that registers with me. And then I proceed to get warm as well. For some reason I can’t really figure out, he starts taking off his shoes. I don’t respond to what he’s saying though, because he’s getting freakishly close to the truth and he sounds very sober for someone who’s supposed to be drunk.

“You can’t believe that your best friend wants to be in your life as more than just friends. That he picked you to switch sides for. Kind of, anyway.”

I want to look away, but it’s like he put a spell on me and now all I can see is him. His emerald green eyes connect with mine and suddenly I find it hard to remember how to breathe. Unconsciously I start my breathing exercise, while he continues to talk as if he’s stabbing a dagger into my heart.

“And you can’t believe that the stranger who’s making your life harder wants to be more than a hookup with you. In fact, you can’t believe that the FBI agent who’s here only temporarily wants to be with you for just a millisecond even if you’re already with not just one, but two other men.”

I physically back away. I’m not ready for this much truth. Especially not after the day we’ve had and the amount of alcohol I had. Fuck, I should’ve eaten more. Maybe the only reason Beckett is saying this is because of those same reasons.

His eyes never leave me.

“I don’t know how to respond to that,” I tell him.

“I know,” he says with a sad smile.

I release a long breath, trying to think of what to say. “Fuck, you’ve thought about that?” I finally just yap, letting myself sag against the couch.

“Extensively,” he says when he slouches down as well, finally breaking our eye contact. We both settle on staring at the floor.

It’s like we’re talking about last night’s football match instead of feelings. Which is kind of amazing, because my usual response is to freak out. I’ve proven that much.

“Extensively?” I ask, repeating his answer, because I don’t know what the fuck else I’ve got to say.

“Hm,” is his only response. He is suddenly nervously biting on his lip.

“Do another one.”

He starts looking around with a half smirk again. “Alex,” he says after a while. “He’s an artist.”

I start laughing. “Oh, now you’re just shitting me.”

“No,” he says while he looks me in the eye again.

“Alex?”

“Yes.”

“We’re talking about the same guy right? Big dude, black skin, scary motherfucker, freakishly white teeth?”

“Yeah, he’s an artist.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s always some kind of arts and crafts substance somewhere on his body.”

He seems so certain of what he’s saying, but I really am having a hard time believing him. “That’s probably just from when he does arts and crafts with his kids.”

“That would be logical. Was what I thought at first. But it’s not. He had oil paint on his hands. And charcoal on the mouse of his hand. You don’t give kids that age oil paint or charcoal, that’s just asking for trouble and he’s smarter than that.”

I bring the bottle back to my mouth and throw back another swig. “Well, I guess you learn something new every day.”

When I hold the bottle out to him, he shakes his head. “The room is spinning.”

“Really? You’re stringing together coherent sentences. Could’ve fooled me.”

“Well, talking is something I can do without thinking too hard about it. Beer I can do, the whiskey is making me wooshy.” He flies his hand over his head while he says it.

For some reason I giggle. Am I more drunk than I think I am, or does this man turn me into a giggling girl? Odds are about even, I’d say.

“I haven’t drunk this much in a year I think. Last time I was home for a few weeks was the last time I got drunk. My brothers made me drink a whole bottle of tequila. They both drank their own bottle, but weren’t on the floor in mom”s bathroom at four in the morning somehow.”

“And you fell for that?”

He gives me an incredulous look. “You wouldn’t?”

“I’m smarter than trying to outdrink law enforcement. Except profilers, apparently, because you’re a lightweight.”

“I’m not a lightweight. I’m overworked.”

I cock my head. “Probably,” I admit.

“God,” he says as he lets his head fall back in his neck and rubs his eyes. “I’m going to fucking regret this tomorrow when I wake up at six because that’s the time my body is used to waking up at and have a huge hangover.”

I giggle. A-fucking-gain.

“Work hard, play harder?” I try.

“I’m all played out,” he says a little too seriously. I don’t want to look into what it is he means by that, but it’s doing something to my stomach that feels a lot like freefalling.

Suddenly he gets up off the ground. Or well, he tries to get up, but when he tries to get his hands on the couch to help himself get up, he misses and stumbles back down again.

“Fuck, I see two couches and the motherfuckers won’t hold still.” I hear a slight slur in his words and he’s fucking adorable like this.

“Where are you going anyway?”

“Motel,” he grunts while he tries to get up again and succeeds this time.

In a fit of madness my mouth speaks before my head can catch up. “How about I drive to your motel with you in the cab? Make sure you get there?”

He scoffs. “I’m not that drunk.”

My stomach sinks. Does he not want me to come with him? Did I interpret him wrong? He looks at me with a funny face for a moment before he reaches for his shoes and almost fumbles over.

“Fuck,” he says. “Maybe it is a good plan for you to drive along with me.”

I just stare at him for a moment, unsure whether he’s really so drunk he needs me to babysit him or he just changed his mind when he saw how disappointed I was that he didn’t jump on the chance to spend more time with me.

I decide that I just don’t care.

“Get your shoes on, I’ll go tell the guys that I’ll be right back.”

“The guys?”

I absentmindedly wave my hand. “You know what I mean.”

Before he can answer I turn around and find Chester somewhere on the other side of the room, drawing things on a whiteboard while Remy stares at him. It looks like he doesn’t have a clue what Chester is talking about, but he’s paying attention anyway. I quickly walk over to them, awkwardly invading their conversation. When I come close enough to the whiteboard, I see something that resembles a bald eagle, a bomb and a house and I decide right away I don’t want to know what the hell it is they’re talking about.

“I’m going to drive Beckett to his motel,” I say.

“But you’ve drunk too much to drive,” Chester says, spinning on his heels and turning to me.

“I’m driving him over in a cab,” I say, looking at the floor.

“Just let him get his sorry ass over there himself,” Chester grumbles.

My emotions are all over the place. I want to go with Beckett, but I don’t want to disappoint Chester. Or Remy for that matter. Am I being the most selfish person in existence for wanting to go with yet another man for reasons I’m not willing to admit to myself? I don’t know what to do, and that’s something I’m a little unfamiliar with. I usually have a game plan, but right now I don’t.

Remy pulls me into his side and kisses the side of my head. “Be safe.”

I frown at him. Did I just hear that correctly?

“Why the fuck would you let her go with that asshole?” Chester asks while he eyes Beckett who’s trying to tie his shoes but gives up somewhere along the process.

“Because she wants to go, and we don’t have anything to say about that.”

“But he arrested you.”

“Yes, because all three of you thought that was a viable reality. I’ve forgiven Abby, I’ve forgiven you. I haven’t forgiven Beckett yet, but I haven’t had any reason as of so far to forgive him anyway. If Abby wants to go bring him to his motel, she gets to. Hell, if she wants to invite him into this relationship thing we have going, she gets to. You don’t decide who she loves, that’s up to her and only her.”

I stand back while I watch Chester getting lectured, and it’s everything. He opens his mouth to start talking, but no words leave his mouth. Then he leans into me, gives me a kiss, and fake-whispers ‘since when are relationships so complicated?’

“Beats me,” I answer with a shrug, “I’ve never been in one.”

“Ches, let her go, come tell me again about bombs and drones and I’ll pretend I listen and understand everything you’re saying.”

“The bald eagle is a drone?” I ask with disbelief when I look at the whiteboard again.

Chester rolls his eyes. “He doesn’t know what a drone is.”

I chuckle and make my way to Beckett, who’s waiting by the exit leaning against the doorframe. He’s closed his eyes and seems to be humming something I can’t hear yet. Once I reach him and hear what it is, I start laughing.

“Twilight Zone, really?”

“Seems appropriate. Seeing double makes everything look wonky.”

I grab his elbow and lead him to the elevators. Thankfully, he’s still steady on his feet. I catch him observing me once I’ve pressed the button to go down, that sharpness returning to his eyes again. Looks like once his training takes over and he starts acting like a profiler again, he isn’t too bothered by the alcohol. It’s kind of interesting to watch.

“What?” I ask him when he keeps watching me.

“You’re nervous,” he states. And while I am nervous for some reason, I don’t need him to point it out to me.

“No way,” I respond, “you’re just drunk and seeing stuff you want to see.”

He snorts.

We walk out of the building. He seems to be walking a pretty straight line, and I don’t see any reason why I should hold on to him. Still I catch myself reaching for his elbow and he lets me.

I flag down a cab in front of the building, making Beckett get in first and letting him scoot over. He tells the cabdriver the address of his motel and before I know it we’re off. The silence between us is loaded. Like the air after a hot summer”s day right before a thunderstorm starts.

He sits back with his knees wide, taking up most of the back of the car. Our legs touch, and instead of claiming my own space, I press my leg back against his.

“Have you figured it out yet?” he asks, his voice nothing more than a low rumble.

“What?” I ask, not understanding what he means and where this conversation is going.

“Why I’d be interested in you?.”

Alcohol is making him very straight to the point. But no, I have not figured that out yet, because I don’t understand it. Sure, I understand the physical attraction we have, but that doesn’t erase the fact that he’s skipping town as soon as we catch this serial killer and I’ve got two men in my life already. The silence returns for a moment, that stretches into a longer one.

“No,” I finally tell him.

“Shame,” is all he says.

The cab pulls over in front of a row of tiny motel rooms. It’s a decent motel, but a motel nonetheless. Only then does it register that Beckett lives out of motels most of the time. Makes me wonder if he even has a home to call his own. We both get out of the car and he pays the cab driver before the cab takes off again.

He turns to me, scrunching his face.

“I didn’t stop to think if you wanted to take that cab back to the office immediately.”

“I’ll call for an Uber in a bit. I’m bringing you home safely first. Tons of stuff that can happen to you between here and…” I whirl my hand in the general direction of where rooms are, “there.”

“What the hell would happen to a trained FBI agent in a whole whopping thirty feet?” he asks with a crooked grin.

“Somebody could send a drone towards you to bomb your ass,” I say, because it’s the first thing I can think of. “Besides, you might be trained, but you’re inebriated.”

“And you being here would change that situation how exactly?”

“I’d hear the drone coming before you do and make you run for shelter.”

There’s a toothy grin on both of our faces while we walk towards the rooms, both knowing it’s utter bullshit. He stops in front of room thirty-seven, searches for his key while patting himself down. I blatantly ogle him when his hands cup his ass in search of the key. All too soon he finds it and opens the door.

I glance inside, finding a tidy room. Everything in its place and the bed neatly made. There’s nothing in there that shows his personal tastes.

“Done checking out my room?” Beckett asks, taking his stuff out of his pockets and putting it on his dresser. He kicks his shoes off again, not bothered by his laces that were still untied.

“Yeah,” I murmur, awkwardly standing in the doorway. Do I let myself in? Do I go back now? I don’t know. Usually when I find myself in a situation like this I know exactly how the night is going to end. Right now? I have no clue.

Those emerald eyes that look at me way too sharply make me stay put. It’s like he has locked me down. He doesn’t give anything away either. I bet he’s an awesome poker player. He’d be able to bluff the shit out of the best.

My mind keeps going over what he said earlier, about me not knowing why the hell he’d be interested in something serious with me. He told me he’s ready for something serious, done with hookups, but how can he expect me to give him that? He’ll be gone soon, and I’m taken twice over. It fucking frustrates me that I can’t figure it out. So when the silence continues and starts to have a slight uncomfortable edge, I opt for the easy way out.

“Why is it that you are interested in me? Why is it you don’t care that you’re only here temporarily and that I’m already seeing other men?”

His face splits in two, finally giving away something of what’s going on inside him. He takes a step towards me, grabs my hand and pulls me towards him. I don’t know if he actually manages to pull me to him or if I just step towards him, but the result is all the same: I’m standing very close to him. I have to look up at him when I’m this close, my heart fluttering like a hummingbird when I do so.

“Because you’re worth it,” he finally says.

There’s no longer any hint of his drunkenness, no sign of him holding back, his professionalism is long forgotten.

I’m not sure I believe what he’s saying, but I can see that he believes it. Making me feel worthy. Standing on my tiptoes I hover my face in front of his, breathing in his scent, finding the small scar on his upper lip - I press my lips against his.

He doesn’t hold back and kisses me back with all he has. His arms quickly embrace me, pulling me fully against him. His kiss is firm and full of confidence. When one of his hands twists in my hair I’m a goner. I grab his shirt with both my hands and hold on to him like there’s no tomorrow.

Parting my lips, I wordlessly ask him to deepen the kiss and as soon as I do I feel the light stroke of his tongue against mine. He tastes of beer, and whiskey, and something that’s distinguishably him - something I can’t quite place but I’d love to taste every day.

He grunts and I want to wrap myself around him.

But he breaks the kiss.

I look up at him through my eye lashes, not understanding why he stops. He drops his forehead against mine, closes his eyes and sighs.

“We need to do this another time, because I don’t want there to be any excuse to blame this on the alcohol.”

My shoulders sag when I see the wisdom in his words. He tucks a strand of loose hair behind my ear, making the corners of my mouth curl up.

“I’ll call an Uber,” I give in, but before I can grab my phone he bends down and kisses the side of my mouth. And just as fast as it happened he’s gone again. This time he takes a whole step back.

“Quit trying to make this harder,” he mumbles.

A chuckle leaves my mouth. “You’re the one who’s making this harder.”

“Yeah, and I very strongly dislike myself at the moment.”

The fight he seems to have with himself is sweet and makes me like him just a little bit more. Kind of have to give it to him in terms of restraint though. I was about five seconds away from damning the consequences if he wouldn’t have pulled back.

I quickly call an Uber and walk to the exit.

“Sleep it off,” I tell him, making the distance between us as big as possible. I don’t trust myself at the moment. He snorts, sits down on the bed, and seems to have his restraints in place. We have the world’s most sexually loaded staring match until the cab arrives and I leave with a small wave and an aching body that would rather go back into that motel room.

When I step out of the elevator at the office, there’s a stack of pizza boxes waiting in front of the office. Which seems odd, because why would the delivery man stack them in front of the door instead of delivering them? Drunk people want warm pizza, it’s the law.

I pick them up and open the door with my back, wondering why the hell pizza boxes are so freaking light. When I step inside, I open the top pizza box, only to see twelve locks of hair in the shape of a clock.

My heart stops.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

On the inside of the top box ‘here’s a token of my appreciation for saving the kids’ is written with what I hope is a red marker.

“Heeeey Abby! You brought pizza? I love you!” a very drunk Dylan says when he sees me coming in with the stack of boxes.

“No,” I answer, barely audible.

“What is it?”

Before I answer, I put the stack of boxes down on Miranda’s desk. There are eight boxes. One for each clock he’s made, I presume. Fuck this. I take out the bottom box, open it up, and see only three locks of hair. My vision goes red when I see it. This must be his current clock.

Elaine. Felicia. Nathalie.

Chester seems to notice something is going on and makes his way over, Remy high on his tail.

“What’s wrong?”

I turn the box with the writing around, showing him what I just got. He pales, and he seems to sober up with every beat of his heart.

“Call Beckett,” he tells nobody in particular. I see several people reach for their phones, and for just a second I wonder how the hell they got his number. It’s as if that’s the most important thing there is to think about right now.

“I’ll do it,” I say, because I need something to focus on. I need to do something, because if I don’t I might start screaming from pure frustration. My phone almost falls out of my hands when I fumble with it, yet I manage to unlock it and call Beckett.

“Changed your mind?” he says picking up,

“My mind never needed to be changed,” I reply automatically. At the same time I feel a little more like myself. “Got a stack of boxes with strands of hair from our favorite serial killer.”

“Fuck,” he says, repeating the way I feel about the whole situation. “I’ll be there soon.”

I nod, which I realize he can’t see, but I end the phone call anyway without saying anything back. Chester is inspecting the boxes and Remy is fucking mothering me, rubbing circles over my lower back. It’s not unwelcome, it’s just not what I expect when my body tensed because of the adrenaline that’s rushing through my body. I’m ready to head out and fight someone, not be calmed down by someone rubbing my back.

“They’re all cut off,” Chester says. “There wasn’t anything in the reports about hair being cut off.”

“Wasn’t much to be said about the state of the hair of most women,” I respond in a voice that sounds robotic. “Most of them had been buried so long they couldn’t say anything about the state of the hair.”

“I’m sure if we send this in for DNA testing it’ll be a match for the same victims we found in those graves,” Chester mutters, looking at all the other boxes.

“I thought you couldn’t get DNA from hair that doesn’t have a root,” Remy says, looking inside of the boxes with distaste on his face. I’m sure that seeing boxes upon boxes filled with the hair of murder victims wasn’t on his itinerary.

“Used to be like that,” Chester murmurs, finally setting the boxes down and focusing on both me and Remy again. “With the use of nuclear DNA testing, DNA can be extracted from a single hair without a root. Science is pretty fucking awesome sometimes.”

“Science can be pretty fucking awesome, but can we talk about the fact that the serial killer made this and had this delivered right to our office? Did he do it himself? Is he cocky enough to bring those boxes here while we’re all in the office? And how the FUCK does he know we saved those kids? Is he watching us?”

Words keep falling from my mouth and suddenly I’m dead tired. I just want this asshole apprehended, all the girls with raven hair and darkly colored eyes to be safe again and not get any more gifts.

“I’ll go check the security tapes,” Chester says, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him from going.

“Let’s just box it until tomorrow. Wait until Beckett is here, let him take those things with him and go home.” Looking into his baby blues, I repeat: “I really need to be fucking home right now.”

Remy wraps his arms around my waist from behind. “Let’s do that then.”