Fic: Last Chance, Chapter 3 (Numb3rs, Charlie Eppes / Colby Granger)
Title: Last Chance, Chapter 3
Pair: Charlie Eppes / Colby Granger,
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Feedback: Always Welcome
NUMB3RS Main List
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
“One of you.” Megan used her most intimidating tone. “Explanation. Right now.”
“Long or short explanation?” Colby sighed.
“Start with the short one and I’ll tell you if it’s not enough.”
“When you went away for your…. sabbatical, this guy was send to fill in for you.”
“He worked for the bureau?”
“Yeah. He had a crush on Ian and he ended up abduction David.”
“And…” Megan took a deep breath. “This is the same guy? You’re sure about it?”
“Of course I’m sure. He was locked into an asylum.”
“This is not possible.” She sat down. “Did he have an accomplice?”
“No.”
“He has to have someone outside to help him. I talked to the warden and he’s still in isolation.”
“You want to go and see him?”
“We have to. One way or another, his prints ended up in that parcel.”
“I’ll come with you.” Charlie stated.
Both Megan and Colby turned to look at him.
“This is not officially our case, and you’re not consulting for this.” Megan explained. “We can handle this. Go home and get some rest.”
“No, I wanna come. I just…. I want see with my own eyes that he’s there, behind bars.” He still looked nauseous, but colour was returning to his face.
“Are you sure you can handle it? You’ve had one bad shock today, you don’t need another one.”
“Megan….” Charlie forced a small grin to his face. “Saying no to me is never a very good tactical choice. Just ask Colby.”
----------------------------------------------------
“Okay, let’s go over the rules one more time.” Megan eyed the grim interviewing room through the one-way window. “I’ll go in and talk to him. You’ll stay here.”
“I know.”
“They’re bringing him in and Colby’s chatting up the warden. Are you sure you’ll be alright here?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I gave four lectures in a row and then I found three bloody fingers from my driveway. I think I’m allowed to look ragged right now.”
“I don’t mean that. Seeing that stuff is awful even for those who are used to it.”
“Thanks.” Charlie kept fiddling with his visitors pass. “I’ll feel a lot better when I see he’s not out there somewhere.” He paused. “He was at my house. He brought those damn things to my home.”
“And you feel like he violated your space.” Megan added. “That’s a very normal reaction.”
“I don’t think you really get it. He worked with us, he knows all of us. He knows where we live. He left that packet for David and Ian, but they’re not here. He could come after any of us.” His breathing had become heavy and he leaned against the wall.
“Charlie, calm down. Just take deep breaths.” Megan was about to pull a chair for him when the door on the side of the interviewing room was opened. A man in gray jumpsuit was escorted in by a burly guard. She could hear the hitch in Charlie’s gasps.
“That’s not him.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s not Carson.”
“Are you sure?”
“That guy looks like him but…. I don’t know who that is, but he’s not Carson.”
----------------------------------------------------
“I can’t believe this.” Megan groaned. She slumped down to her chair and dumped her bag to the floor.
“Where’s Granger?” Don asked. He sat down on her desk.
“He drove Charlie home. He was pretty upset.”
“That’s just Charlie being Charlie.”
“Don.”
“What?”
“You can’t say it’s “just Charlie”. I read the case files. If someone who has done things like that is suddenly on the loose, there is more than valid cause to be upset. It has nothing to do with mental strength.”
“I know, I didn’t mean it like that-” Don paused and gave her a suspicious look. “Wait a minute. On the loose? That guy was supposed to be in isolation.”
“When we got there Charlie claimed the guy wasn’t Carson. We checked the fingerprints from the records.”
“And?”
“And he was right.” She pulled a printed page from her bag and gave it to Don. “The guy they have is called Jones, he was send there two months ago for a thirty day treatment and evaluation. He was Carson`s roommate. When he was due to be released, they swap places. Carson was released as Jones.”
“How the hell is that possible?”
“Cutbacks on personnel, doctors, nurses and others are recycled from one ward to the next and they don’t really know the patients. Carson and Jones looked alike and that was enough.”
“He’s been out for a month and nobody noticed? He has had a month to make plans.”
“Exactly, and according to the treating therapists evaluation before the swap, his mental state has gone even worse. He doesn’t t have much contact to reality, he is paranoid and he can lost control of himself if he thinks he’s being threatened.”
“So he’s dangerous.” Don ran his fingers through his hair. “We already knew that. But if he’s hanging by a thread, shouldn’t it be pretty easy to find him?”
“Just the opposite. He has nothing to loose and he has no inhibitions to limit his actions. He was dangerous before, but back then he had a reason to be careful: He didn’t want to get caught. He only went to Ian`s place because he was sure he wouldn`t arrest him.”
“And now he’s on the run and he has nothing to loose.”
“Yeah. I don’t think he’s going to run. He’s going to stay in L.A. to finish this. Whatever this is. The fingers and the package show that he has some kind of a plan. He could escape and hide on the other side of the country, but he stays and leaves that to Charlie’s house. He’s creating contact, he must have some sort of purpose behind it.” She was interrupted by her cell phone. She snapped it open.
“Reeves.”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Charlie? I thought Colby was taking you straight home.”
“I’m home. I had this…. idea. Or a hunch. Did they compare the fingers to the DNA database?”
“Yeah, no matches. But that only proves that the victim hasn’t committed a crime in the last few years. We haven’t even collected the DNA samples for a very long time, just few years.”
“No, no, I didn’t mean that. Can you compare it against the FBI personnel database?”
“You think it’s someone from the bureau?”
“No. But if I’m right you’ll get a partial match.”
TBC