Fic: When the Earth Moved - Sanctuary/The Closer - Part One
Title: When the Earth Moved
Author(s): JoelTheCat
Artist: AzureMonkey
Crossover: Sanctuary/The Closer
Type: Het
Rating: R for gore
Word Count: 15551
Characters/Pairings: Sharon Raydor/John Druitt, plus assorted canon pairings from both shows
Warnings: Gore. Non-con. References to animal abuse. More gore. Crawling around in John Druitt's head. Child kidnapping in the backstory.
Spoilers: whole run of Sanctuary; all but the last six episodes of The Closer.
Summary: Serial killings of prostitutes attract the Sanctuary team to Los Angeles, much to the chagrin of the LAPD
Author’s Notes: Blessed be Creepylicious, who beta-read this monstrosity under less than optimal conditions.
Link to Story Master Post: The Story
Link to Art Master Post: The Art
"Airport police found her," Gabriel told Chief Johnson. "He called a friend at the local precinct who sent a black-and-white. The uniform got so freaked when he saw her that he shot a stray dog."
"Okay, don't tell Chief Pope that. He loves dogs."
"I don't think we're going to have any choice in the matter," Gabriel said.
They topped the hill and found the crime scene swathed in red tape.
"He discharged his weapon," Gabriel said.
"Noooo!" the chief wailed as she groped in her purse. "She does not get to take this crime scene away from me over a dead dog."
"You said you didn't want Chief Pope to know about the dead dog."
"I don't, but I damn sure want him to know about the live bitch! Where is she?"
Gabriel pointed at the bright patch of red hair among the dark suits, hair that seemed to be flying every which way in the wind. The passage of a jumbo jet drowned out Chief Johnson's opinion of the woman's appearance.
"All right," she said. "Let's see what she has to say for herself."
"That has nothing to do with our case," Sharon told her detective. "Mark it and leave it for Chief Johnson."
"Leave what for me?" the chief asked. She came up behind Sharon and peered down at the condom. "Doesn't appear used," she said.
"Doesn't appear weathered, either," Sharon pointed out.
"All right. Buzz?" she called. "Buzz, come document this, please. All right, captain, what else have you done to my crime scene?"
"Covered the body, and sent the poor man who saw it for counseling."
"He shot a dog?"
"Dogs had been at the body." Sharon told her.
"That badly?"
"It was pretty bad before," Sharon said. "She's over here." She led the chief to the white tarp lying on the ground, sank gracefully down and peeled back the cover. Chief Johnson's eyes widened.
"Did you find her face anywhere?"
"We haven't looked, Chief. The dead body is not my problem. The idiot who shot a starving poodle is my problem. But no, we have not seen her missing face." She pulled the tarp back further. "Nor have we noticed a spare uterus lying around. The protruding intestines are probably the dog's work, though."
"A little old poodle did that?"
"Again, not my problem, but the poodle in question is a standard, the size of a Dobie or a German Shepherd. She was well capable of that sort of damage. Officer Donovan said the dog ran from the scene as he approached, then circled around behind him and startled him while attempting to get back to her... lunch."
"All right, Captain, then would you kindly get your people off my crime scene?"
"With pleasure." Sharon covered the body again. "We have the dog. We have the shell casings from the rounds that killed the dog. We have Officer Donovan in my interview room if you want to speak to him. You are more than welcome to the rest of this unholy mess." Sharon stood up and started for her car.
"Captain!"
What now? Surely Brenda Leigh Johnson was not about to thank her?
"I'm going to need the dog."
"Excuse me?"
"The lab will need to see what's in her teeth and if there's blood on her muzzle and so forth. The dog is part of my case."
"The dog has two rounds in her from Officer Donovan's gun that are part of my investigation."
"If that's so, we'll be glad to turn them over once we've had a look, but the dog...."
Sharon took a deep breath. Then she took another one.
"Chief," she said finally, "you do realize that our two divisions use the same lab? Why does it matter...?"
"It matters, Captain, because this is a murder investigation, and murder still has priority over animal abuse as far as I know. I'm going to need the dog."
"Fine," Sharon spat. "It's on its way to the lab. Do you want it brought back, or may I simply inform the intake officer that it belongs to you now?"
"Whatever you think best, Captain," the Chief smiled.
Women. Someone had sent women to investigate this mess. Their world was coming apart under their feet, quite literally, and they sent women to investigate a dead whore. John Druitt leaned against a dark fence, shielded from view by the tall grass, and watched the fragile blond tangle with the elegant ginger. It was some sort of police-themed wet dream with women in the place of constables. The gingery one seemed cool and competent. The blond, however, was another story. She was a spitfire, that one. She fought with the other one as if they shared a man between them, but the ginger walked calmly away. Was she so very secure, so confident that her husband or whatever would never look at the little one? Or did she simply not care? Had she written off a marriage of convenience?
The blond one cared, though. She was tiny and beautiful in her way, a little older than John liked them, but still quite attractive. He imagined approaching her gently, careful not to frighten her, and thought she might even smile at him. He wondered about her eyes. Were they blue? Green? Hazel? No matter. He imagined how wide those eyes would get when he touched her, when he pulled her against him. He could almost taste her lips, feel them part against his probing tongue.
Would she realize the danger then and try to flee, or would she let him go further, let him bare those ample breasts and press his lips against them? John thought she might, thought she might even giggle a bit. Yes, and she would let him slide the dress over her hips, let it fall to the ground. She might protest a bit at his probing hand, but he would tease her into allowing that, too, tease her into letting him taste the wetness of her, letting him knead that magnificent backside while he tongued her.
She would think better of it then. John was sure of that. She would panic and run from him. She would flee across the sand wearing nothing but stockings and garters and a pair of high heels. It wouldn't matter. John's legs were long enough that he could catch her even if he were the one wearing heels. He would let her get a little ahead of him, let her have some hope, and then put on a burst of speed and tackle her. He'd land on top of her, grinding her bare skin into the rough sand, and this time the touch of his lips would be punishing.
He imagined her squeal as he mauled her breasts, as he forced her thighs apart and squirmed into position between them. She would do more than squeal when he entered her. She would purely scream and cry and flail against his chest, but his rhythm would never slacken. She would scream again as his climax approached and he showed her the knife, scream as his spasms overcame him and he rammed its sharp point through her throat and ripped it out until her blood spewed all over him and he collapsed against her dying body.
He would take that beautiful face from her then, the face she did not deserve, and the organ for which she had so little respect as well. He would leave her, this woman who thought she could save the world, leave her lying on the sand with her blood pooling around her, leave her beside the body of the woman on which someone was imitating his technique, so they could compare their work with their master's.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps he would let her live, let her realize how very much trouble she was in. The truth of the matter was that she and all her colleagues had problems very much bigger than Montague John Druitt. He took a last look at her, giving orders to the men around her, then laughed and vanished in a blaze of nebulous rose.
"Lieutenant Tau, who is that man?" Brenda asked. Just beyond the border of yellow tape a skinny man with red hair like a haystack was taking photographs with an expensive camera.
"He says he's a writer working on a spec piece," Tau told her, "about serial killers."
"He thinks this is a serial crime? What makes him think that?"
"He says it's just like the Jack the Ripper murders in the nineteenth century, the moon and the date and all, and the way the body was mutilated."
Brenda Leigh fought down a sudden feeling of unease.
"How does he know how the body was mutilated, Lieutenant?"
"I thought about that, Chief, but he has an alibi. He was taking pictures at the mayor's conference on the tremors. I saw the photographs."
"Do we have a time of death yet, Lieutenant?"
"Not exactly."
"Then how do we know the time for which the suspect needs an alibi?"
"We don't, Chief."
"So why don't we invite the gentleman downtown and find out how he knows he has an alibi, please."
"When can I have my camera back?" he asked.
"In just a very few minutes. We have only a few questions for you, Mr....."
"Greeley, Matt Greeley. Why do you have questions for me? I wasn't doing anything illegal!"
"You were taking photographs at a very unpleasant crime scene, sir."
"Outside the tape! I repeat, not illegal, so unless you have something you're not telling me about I would like my camera back and I would like to leave!"
"How did you know this crime scene even existed?"
He shrugged.
"Police scanner?"
"We haven't used radios in years, Mr. Greeley, not since this wonderful invention called a cell phone. So I ask you again, how did you know this body was lying out there in the middle of nowhere near the airport? You're not going to try to tell me you just happened to stumble up on it?"
"I was at the mayor's conference on the earthquake threat."
"Was there an announcement made, or something?"
"No. I overheard a call on one of those remarkable inventions you were talking about."
"A call between whom, Mr. Greeley?"
"I didn't know her."
"A woman?"
"Yes, a tall woman with red hair, what some people call a MILF."
"MILF?"
"Mom I'd like to... fool around with."
"All right. We'll get you with a sketch artist later. And what did this MILF say?"
"There are photographs of her in my camera, if that would be better. She asked whoever was on the other end if the officer had actually shot the prostitute, and then there was something about a dog. Then she said she'd be right there. The seismologists weren't making any sense, so I followed her out to where the body was and started taking pictures for this other project. Are you okay?"
"You cannot begin to imagine, Mr. Greeley." Brenda told him. "I believe you may have just made my day."
"Glad to be of service. My camera?"
"Not until you tell me what was so very interesting about this crime."
"I'm doing a series on spec about modern-day imitators of Jack the Ripper."
"And this requires you to be at the Mayor's...."
"Different article. There's a geophysicist in Alberta who believes the earthquakes may be engineered, but that's neither here nor there. The Ripper killed prostitutes in London...."
"In 1888," said Brenda. "I did a term paper on the murders. I can almost guarantee you that the same person did not kill those women and the one now in our morgue."
Greeley looked as if he wanted to argue that point, but he nodded instead.
"Whoever did," he said, "has the same syndrome, the same mental illness. At least that's what the head of the forensic psychology department at Yale thinks, and with enough gory pictures I can get a really good article out of that."
"The timing is right," said Brenda. "Weekend night near the end of a month."
"And the victim is a prostitute, right? Was she mutilated? And what does the redheaded woman have to do with anything?"
"I ask the questions in here, Mr. Greeley."
"Okay. Can I have my camera back?"
"Not just yet."
Druitt followed the blond woman back to police headquarters. He was not quite mad enough to pop into the building, since it would not have done him any good. He did, however, find a spot in the parking garage and waited for the blond to return. He was in luck. She came back to the parking garage with the ginger in tow. The taller woman held several sheets of paper as if they were covered in something quite nasty.
"He says this woman was talking about my case in the middle of a reception loudly enough for people to hear it in Whitechapel, and that she didn't notice when he followed her all the way to the airport and started taking pictures, including pictures of her. Skinny little weasel with hair redder than yours sticking out in all directions and a camera bigger than he is, knows all about the Ripper murders and he was loose on my crime scene. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Captain?"
"First of all, at that point in time it was not yet your crime scene...."
The building lurched a bit, and the two women stepped close together and briefly held hands, then jumped apart.
"It was my crime scene," the blond said. "A brutal murder does not become a matter for Internal Affairs rather than Major Crimes just because you got there first!"
"And secondly," said the ginger, "he was not 'loose on your crime scene.' He was circling the periphery, and he could not have taken any significant pictures because my people took the time to cover the body! And I don't know how he followed me! There was traffic, okay?"
"You've been a police officer for how long, Captain? And you don't know how to spot a tail?"
"I had no reason to believe...!"
"There's a mad rapist on the loose, and he had been in that area recently! What if he had followed you back?"
"To this building?"
"And you didn't stop anywhere on the way? No gas? No coffee?"
The ginger was suddenly quite quiet.
"I didn't see anyone around when I got out of the car."
"What if you had? What if he'd been waiting when you came back to the car?"
"Then I would have seventy-two hours to submit a report on why I discharged my weapon and whether it was justified!"
"Or I would be stringing tape around another crime scene and looking for the missing parts of your body, and as irritating as you are, Captain, I would rather not do that, thank you."
"What is your point, Chief?"
"You're too good not to have spotted a tail if you were paying attention, and until this is over, we all have to pay attention."
"Point taken. Do you need these?" She proffered the papers.
"Oh, keep them. I especially like the one where you got the red tape all tangled in your hair."
"It was windy."
"Right. You stay off my crime scene, Captain, and try to avoid becoming one yourself."
The blond slammed the door of a silvery car and drove out of the parking garage. John shadowed the remaining woman down the aisle. She shoved the papers into a rubbish bin and trudged toward her own vehicle, but then she stopped. Possibly John didn't stop quite soon enough, because she turned as if she had heard him. There was a strategically placed pillar between them, however, and after a moment's careful inspection of the garage interior she shook her head, went to her own vehicle and drove away.
John fished the papers from the bin and looked at the photographs. The woman was quite pretty, with eerily green eyes and skin like Limoges. He would not have taken her for vulnerable, at least not until he saw her with the blond, but she was certainly easy on the eyes. He ripped the most flattering of the pictures from the paper and slipped it into his pocket, then vanished in his usual burst of energy.
The phone rang as she was gathering the debris from the Chinese takeout. She was ten feet from the trash can, and Fritz had already wiped the stray grains of rice from the table. He grinned and took the trash from her, and she answered the phone.
"Deputy Chief Johnson," she said.
"It's me, Chief," said Lieutenant Flynn. "Look, this Greeley guy? As far as we can tell, he doesn't exist."
"That's interesting. Where is Mr. Greeley now?"
"We cut him loose."
"I beg your pardon?"
"We had nothing to hold him on, and Chief Pope said...."
"Have we not talked, Lieutenant, about you allowing anyone at all to interfere with our investigations without letting me know?"
"It was Chief Pope!"
"And I can handle Will Pope, if I know the situation exists!"
Fritz glared at her. She glared back.
"How long ago was the suspect released?" she asked.
"Right after you left."
"All right, then. Get his picture off our security cameras and put out a bulletin. I want him back until we find out who he is. And Lieutenant? Let Chief Pope know I'll be in his office first thing in the morning, please. Thank you."
She was here. She had come to his summons, to the specious claims of this not-newspaperman whom Druitt knew so well. Helen was here, with her werewolf tapping away at his silly plastic box and her psychiatrist tapping away at people's heads. She was here, and she thought she could stop him, but Druitt could handle Helen. All he had to do was rock her highly unstable boat just a little, and things would go quite wrong for Helen Magnus. John waited until the red-headed non-newsboy was at a distance from the others, and then he popped in, wrapped his arms around him before he could scream and popped back out. In again, another in, and he left the pseudo-reporter behind when he popped back out.
Let Helen deal with that, he thought with a satisfied grin. He found a hidden place outside the house to watch the fun.
"On the floor! Right now!" The man in Fritz Howard's kitchen did not look dangerous. In fact he looked more flabbergasted than anything else. The fact remained, he had somehow made his way into a locked house, and only Fritz's sudden craving for a scoop of Brenda's Moose Tracks ice cream had prevented him from escaping undetected. "I said on the floor!"
By this time Brenda had joined Fritz, weapon in hand, shouting her own orders. The television blared in the other room, some minister spouting on about the earthquakes being a judgment of God. The man put his hands behind his head, sank to his knees and settled on the floor, but he behaved as if the whole thing were some big joke as Fritz handcuffed him.
"Why, Mr. Greeley," said Brenda, "what a pleasure to see you again so soon. Tell me, though, did I miss your knock?"
"I don't know," the man said.
"I find that hard to believe," she told him as Fritz punched speed dial on her phone and asked Lieutenant Flynn to arrange for someone to pick up their trespasser. "You're in my kitchen, after all. How exactly did you get through my locked door?"
"I don't know," he said again.
"There seems to be a great deal that you don't know, Mr. Greeley."
"Madam, you cannot even begin to comprehend....."
"Now, I don't know about that. People say I'm a lady of average intelligence, and I like to think I can comprehend as much as the next girl. Exactly how did you get into my home?"
"I just... came to and I was here."
"You were unconscious?"
"Yes."
"In my kitchen?"
"Yes, and may I say you really should pay more attention to that cat box. Having something like that where food is prepared...."
"The state of my kitchen is none of your business, Mr. Greeley, but the state of your criminal record is of some concern to me, and it's about to get much worse."
Three black-and-whites screeched to a halt in front of their house, sirens screaming, followed by a silvery sedan. What seemed like a platoon of uniformed officers took custody of their trespasser and hustled him from the house after acknowledging Brenda's firm statement that the suspect belonged to Major Crimes. Fritz was willing to bet they would still take him to the local precinct. Finally they were gone, leaving Fritz alone with Brenda.
And Sharon Raydor.
"Flynn called me," she said. "He knew I was close by...."
"Doing what?" asked Brenda. His wife's nose was crinkling in a way that Fritz knew was a very bad sign.
"Investigating allegations that three uniformed.... never mind. I was doing my job on a case that has nothing to do with you. I hope."
"If it has nothing to do with me, why are you here?"
"Assisting in the arrest of a trespasser who might have been...."
Brenda snorted and turned away, then looked back at the woman.
"All right," she said. "But he's arrested and gone. Why are you still here?"
"To ask if you're all right?"
Brenda snorted again. It was going to piss his wife off, but Fritz had to speak.
"We're fine, Sharon," he said. "Thank you for coming."
"All right then," the captain said. "Is there anything else I can do?"
"Not," said Brenda in a voice that was not entirely snark-free, "unless you know who the man who calls himself Matt Greeley really is and what he was doing in my kitchen."
"That man was a suspect in a Major Crimes case?"
"Person of interest," said Brenda.
"What did he say?"
"That he was unconscious and then he came to in my kitchen."
"Did you order a medical examination?"
"Why? That's the most ridiculous...."
"Because it will buy you at least seventy-two hours."
"Oh." Brenda looked at Sharon as if the FID director had just handed her a writhing rattlesnake.
"Thank you," said Fritz. "That's a good idea. I'm sure Brenda will get on the phone to Lieutenant Flynn and do just that. We were just going to have some ice cream and watch a movie. Would you care to join us?"
"Thank you, but I can't. I have to go find out what a betting pool on earthquake tremors has to do with... oh, never mind. But I do have to go."
"That good a story?"
"I sincerely hope not, but I still have to go check it out." She nodded to Brenda and left.
"Honestly," Fritz said, "would it kill you to show a little good manners? For all she knew she was running into a firefight to save your ass."
"More likely to laugh at it."
"Don't pout. You're too sexy when you pout."
"You're a pervert."
"You're still too sexy."
"Okay. I will do something nice for Captain Raydor some time in the next... decade or so. Meanwhile, I need to go question Matt Greeley."
"Magnus?" said Henry, "What is he doing here?"
"By he do you mean...?"
"I mean your psycho ex-boyfriend who just kidnapped your... psycho new boyfriend."
"Nicola is not... he's not, no matter how much he might wish it so. And John Druitt does not answer to me."
"You think Druitt has anything to do with the earthquakes?"
"I don't expect so, but I could be wrong."
"Yeah. So what do you think he did with Tesla?"
"The mind boggles."
"Do you think he's the one who cut up those girls?"
"Nicola thinks so, but Will has his doubts."
"And Will's doubts...?"
"Are the professional opinion of a trained forensic psychologist and should be taken seriously."
The ginger again, this time come to rescue her little blond friend and what seemed like a perfectly competent man. John smiled all the way through their encounter, wondering if this was the fellow these two fought over right up until he asked the gingery one... Sharon, the man called her... until he asked Sharon to stay. No man invites his mistress into his wife's house, not even if the two are colleagues.
Perhaps John was wrong about Sharon. She was elegant, well-mannered and very competent in a field usually reserved for men. He had a teasing feeling that she reminded him of someone.
No, not a feeling. He knew quite well that the woman of whom Sharon reminded him was Helen Magnus. They were of a height and their figures were much alike, even if the one hair color Helen had so far resisted was that flaming ginger. They had the same good manners, the same courage and the same unwomanly skill in a fight, but Sharon, it seemed, would let the men in uniforms fight for her. John smiled. Sharon was better than Helen. She was what Helen might have been, a Helen untainted by vampire blood, Helen pure and clean and worthy of being loved.
John followed her, popping in and out on rooftops and in alleys, always keeping the silver car in sight. Yes, Sharon was something truly magnificent, and John Druitt meant to know more about her.
Sharon glanced at her watch. It was after five, but there was still time. She cut down Broadway to the mercado, parked and fished her shopping bag out of the glove box. She moved purposely between the stalls, buying chicken, asparagus, tiny plum tomatoes and dinner rolls, then hovered in front of one of the pastry stalls. She smiled at the enormous strawberries dipped in chocolate, thinking of Brenda Leigh Johnson, but instead chose a tart topped with glistening glazed fruit.
"Are those nice?" asked a tall gentleman with an English accent. "They're certainly lovely."
"I think it's as much the appearance that appeals to me as much as the flavor," Sharon told him, "but they're very tasty."
"They do something similar in Australia," he said, "but I haven't seen anything like them here." He ordered two of the tarts.
"Are you new in town?" asked Sharon.
"Less than twenty-four hours," laughed the man. "A colleague recommended this place. It's fascinating."
"It is," Sharon told him, "but it closes at six."
"So early?"
"It's not that great a neighborhood," Sharon told him. "I wouldn't wander around by myself, and people don't usually bother me." This was true. Most Angelinos recognized the silvery sedans that the LAPD considered to be unmarked and unremarkable, but those that did not could be inconveniently insistent. "You're not walking, are you?" she asked the Englishman.
"People don't usually bother me, either," he said. Sharon imagined they didn't. The fellow was well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and square, hard hands. He had a glistening bald head and twinkling blue eyes that reminded Sharon a bit of Will Pope, but behind those eyes Sharon thought she glimpsed a spine of steel. "But perhaps," he said, "I could do with the guidance of a local."
Sharon looked up at him. He smiled, and she almost caved. As she opened her mouth to agree, however, the loudspeakers blared with the announcement that the market was closing.
"I'd better not, tonight," she said, "but if you're still in town at the weekend...."
"That would be very nice," he said. "My name is Druitt, John Druitt."
"Sharon Raydor," she said. They exchanged telephone numbers, and Sharon got her parking check validated.
"Let me walk you to your car, at least," said John.
"That's really not necessary."
"I know," he said. "I was angling for a few more moments of your company."
They walked out into the garage in easy companionship. Sharon found herself giggling just a bit, particularly when John smiled at her. She unlocked her car, set the groceries inside and...
...and noticed that the back end of the car was sitting somewhat low. She stepped back and looked, and saw that both tires had been slashed.
"What kind of an idiot...?"
"That's rather excessive damage, isn't it?" said John.
"You don't know the half of it," said Sharon. "I'm a police officer, John, and these gray cars... people know them. Somebody intentionally vandalized a cop car." She flashed her badge at the pair of concerned security guards, who went to check the video feed as she called for help.
"Oh, great," she said. "They want to keep my car for evidence. They're going to get fingerprint powder in everything."
The security guards were back.
"You'd better see this, Captain," they said. John tagged along as Sharon followed them to their booth. The tape showed her tires collapsing of themselves. She looked carefully at the replay.
Someone lying underneath her car had sliced through both tires. There was no evidence of the vandal approaching the vehicle, nor of his departure. Sharon watched the video from the time she parked the car until she went back to it. No one went anywhere near it, but still someone was in that impossibly narrow space to cut both her tires.
The tow truck arrived, followed by two more silver sedans that disgorged not only Chief Pope but Chief Johnson and her husband.
"I thought you were gone for the day," Sharon told the blond.
"I came back to question the trespasser," Chief Johnson said. "Fritz wanted to be sure you...." She looked over at Sharon's car, where Pope and Howard were hunkered down looking at the tires and shaking their heads, masculine interest in a non-operating vehicle temporarily overcoming their usual testosterone-laced conflict. A uniformed officer methodically photographed the vehicle.
"Thank you," said Sharon, "but you really didn't have to come."
"You'll need a ride home," said the Chief, "unless...." She looked up at John.
"John Druitt," he said, and held out his hand. Brenda shook it.
"Brenda Leigh Johnson," the Chief said. "Are you a friend of... of Sharon's?"
"I would certainly like to be," John said, and Sharon found herself smiling up at him.
Her poor car rolled out of the garage on the back of a tow truck and Pope and Howard came to the booth, miming theories of how the tires might have been damaged. Underhand. Overhand. One tire at a time, or both together.
"Sharon," said Howard, "what did you do to that poor car?"
"Left it locked safely in a supervised parking structure," Sharon said.
"Are you all right?" Pope asked.
"Fine, thank you," Sharon assured him. Chief Johnson looked disappointed.
"John," she said, "this is my husband, Fritz Howard, and Will Pope, the Chief of Police, mine and Sharon's boss. This is John Druitt, Sharon's... friend."
Howard and Pope looked up at John, an unusual experience for both men, and then shook hands with some degree of aggression.
"Can you get her home, then?" Pope asked.
"No motor, I'm afraid," John said. "I've only just arrived."
"We'll take you both home, then," Howard said, then apparently realized that that might imply an unwarranted assumption. "Or, you know" he said, blushing, "wherever...."
"Why," said John, "don't you let me buy you all dinner?"
"That's not necessary," said Sharon.
"It is in your case," said John. "Your groceries were just towed to parts unknown." Sharon glared out the garage door, suppressing an oath. The chicken would be inedible, and her lovely pastry.... "So we'd best make other arrangements," John said. He shot Howard a conspiratory grin. "Is there a place she particularly likes?"
"Shirley's," said Pope, "if you like soul food. It's a ways west, but the neighborhood is a lot safer. I, however, have to collect my children before their mother truly convinces them that I am an ogre."
Chief Johnson blinked at Chief Pope, visibly suppressing the question. Sharon thought about admitting that she had never been to this Shirley's in her life, but decided that a bit of jealousy might do Chief Johnson good. Howard got directions to the restaurant, and the four of them piled into Johnson's car.
"Gavin Q. Baker," the tall blond told Nicola. "I'm your lawyer."
"I haven't called a lawyer," said Nicola.
"Your wife did."
"My wife?"
"Did you not expect her to post bail for you?"
"I didn't realize...."
"Like that, is it? Well, apparently she still loves you."
"I knew it."
"Which is unusual, for Doctor Magnus."
"I... beg your pardon?"
"I was educated in the Old City Sanctuary, Dr. Tesla. Yes, I know who you are, and I know how you got where you were, although we're going to have to come up with something much more believable than the truth for Brenda Leigh Johnson."
"You're... one of us?"
"That's right."
"But you work as...?"
"An attorney."
"Why?"
"Because hiding isn't the answer. Protective legislation is the answer, and one day I'll be in a position to initiate it. In the meantime, I'm in a position to get you out of here. Unless you're just committed to spending the night in jail?"
Will Pope sat in his dark study in Stamford sweats, munching cucumbers and punching up case after case on his computer. Miller had been videotaped slugging a suspect who had slugged him first, but Sharon had actually saved his job, so he had no complaint. Jellico had put twelve shots into an old-model Camaro, but he was now detoxing in a secure rehab facility. None of Sharon's recent cases had the potential to incite malicious mischief.
Pope rubbed his temples. He took danger to his officers quite seriously, and he was determined to find the moron who had slashed Raydor's tires. In the meantime, however, she was surely safe in Brenda Leigh's care.
Unless Brenda killed Sharon herself. The anger that boiled off her when she was around Sharon could have killed the other woman outright, but Raydor seemed impervious to it. He smiled. He was always amazed when someone managed to handle Brenda as well as Raydor did.
For that matter, this Druitt guy looked like he could take care of himself. Will wondered where Sharon had found him. Perhaps he had a jealous wife, or something. Will frowned. Best to make sure, even though Sharon's piercing fury might kill him if she ever found out what he was about to do. Fury, however, was better than the guilt he would have to deal with if she suffered bodily harm.
Maybe.
"Daddy," Connie said from the door, "Leo locked himself in the closet again."
"Okay, sweetheart," he said. "I'll be right there."
"He's banging on the door really hard." The little girl was moments away from tears. "He says his imaginary friends are talking to him again."
"I'm coming," Will reassured her. He typed Druitt's name into a search box and pressed "enter," then followed his daughter upstairs.
Helen regretted sending Gavin after Nicola as soon as she saw them together. They sparred like prizefighters in a verbal boxing ring, grinning the whole time.
"I had her eating out of my hand," Nicola said.
"Is that what happened to the skin on your palm?" Gavin asked.
"No, seriously, she thinks I'm one of the good guys."
"You cannot fool Brenda Leigh Johnson," Gavin told him.
"Why?" asked Helen. "What is she?"
"Retired CIA," said Gavin, "but too young to have put in twenty. That means probably some sort of medical issue. I thought for a while she was one of us...."
"An abnormal cop?" snorted the werewolf.
"Define a normal cop," said Gavin. "No, if she were a telepath she would have picked up on me by now, but she's good. She's damn good. You watch yourself," he told Nicola.
"I've handled worse than that woman," Nicola said.
"She's not bad," said Gavin. "She's good. She's the real deal. Her boss is a real alpha male, but not really bright. Brenda is the LAPD's brainpower. Well, most of it. She has a husband who is utter eye candy, but he's also a decent FBI agent, and then there's Sharon, Sharon Raydor, who can do the logic thing better than anyone on earth with no emotion at all. The LAPD can do you and the whole Sanctuary movement a great deal of damage unless you take them seriously."
"This woman feels no emotion?" said Helen.
"Not about work. Her love life just fell apart on her, again, but she doesn't mix the two. Anyway, what we have to do is come up with some innocuous reason for you to have been in Brenda's kitchen."
"We have to do more than that," Helen told him.
"No, if we convince Brenda...."
"There's more to it," said Nicola.
"We aren't in Los Angeles because of dead prostitutes," said Helen.
"I beg your pardon?"
"We are here," she told him, "because some party unknown has discovered a way to trigger earthquakes, and he plans on using this city as his demonstration."
Gavin didn't say anything. He stared, then swallowed.
"We're going to have to tell them," he said. "They need to evacuate...."
"That would kill more people than the earthquake," Helen said. "There would be panic, the roads would be choked, people would strike out from frustration...."
Gavin closed his eyes.
"And someone is doing this intentionally?"
"It looks that way," said Henry. "And Magnus? We have another problem."
"Oh, dear God."
"Not exactly. Somebody's searching Druitt. Somebody with a police ID."
John never paid for hotels. He simply popped into an empty room, slept, showered and left. Now, however, he needed a residence. He needed a place for Sharon to meet him.
Sharon had been quite delightful, with mischief in her eyes as she teased at her tiny blond nemesis, and open humor when she smiled about it with the woman's husband--with Fritz, who knew cricket as well as baseball and could discourse at length on the differences. The blond was no longer just a blond but Brenda Leigh, who had grinned when John asked her if she hyphenated her last names and then explained that American southerners often had two first names. John was a bit ashamed of his earlier fantasy, and worried that he treated anonymous women so differently than those with whom he had even a casual acquaintance.
So all he had to do to keep from killing, ever again, was get to know every woman on earth. Well, it was a goal, anyway. In the meantime, though, he would make it his business to get to know Sharon Raydor as well as she would allow. He checked into the Biltmore and paid for a week with cash recently liberated from a nearby bank vault, stole a laptop from a closed electronics store and began to research the date venues Los Angeles had to offer.
"We got another one," said Gabriel.
"Another what, David?" Brenda asked.
"Another dead street girl with no face. Found this one behind a laundromat in East LA."
A huge orange garbage truck was idling in the driveway when David and Brenda arrived. Its driver sat on the curb beside a young freckle-faced police officer. Both looked decidedly green around the gills. Brenda identified herself, assigned the young officer the task of keeping the log and went back to look at the body.
The first girl, the one found at the airport, had been bad enough, but the full impact of her injuries had been muted by the shroud and by Sharon's warnings. This one was still in the raw state, a teenager with her black leather skirt up around her waist and a glittery tank pulled away from her bosom. A long braid of dark hair coiled away through the pooled blood, and high heels lay beside the body where they had fallen. She was on her back in a pool of dried blood from which pawprints led--rat and cat, from the looks of them. There was a bloody mess where her face should have been, and her eyeballs stared from their sockets uncovered by missing lids. Lower down there was more blood, and a jagged incision across her lower abdomen like a sick smile.
"Has the medical examiner been?" Brenda called.
"No, ma'am," replied the young officer.
"We got here first?" said Gabriel. "How'd we do that?"
"Had to happen some time, Detective," Brenda said. "All right, would you call the rest of the team, please? Thank you. I have to let Chief Pope know about this."
By evening Sharon had another car, which was good because John did not want the record of a rental hanging around his neck. By the time she collected him he had arranged symphony tickets, reservations at L'Orangerie and a fairly well-fitting designer suit. Sharon wore a cream-colored cocktail dress netted with floral embroidery the color of her gingery hair, and John spent the entire evening basking in the glory of her and the envy of the men around him. Photographers exploded flashbulbs in their faces, and John smiled. What would they say, when they discovered that the couple of the hour were a police officer and a man who did not exist?
Sharon was indeed a career police officer, it seemed, but from a good family, a rebellious daughter who had married for love and lost her husband "in the line," which was all she would say about it. She told him about her children, and he told her a bit about Ashley, that she had cut off contact with her family and that he was worried that she had his bad temper and might get into trouble because of it. This was true, as far as it went. Sometimes a partial truth was the best lie. Sharon certainly seemed to believe him. She smiled indulgently.
"I can't imagine you in a temper," she said.
"And I," he said, "cannot imagine being anything in your presence except... content." He kissed her hand. "But I do have a temper, Sharon, and you must promise me never to let me make you uncomfortable."
"You couldn't."
"I will try not to do."
And he would do. He could learn nothing about the LAPD's earthquake investigations from Sharon unless she trusted him.
She stopped the car in front of his hotel and smiled at him. He supposed it wasn't all that forward of her. After all, this was the end of their second date. Still, he didn't want to do it. What if it roused... feelings... urges? What if he couldn't control himself? What if he ruined... Sharon?
"John?"
"Yes?"
"You looked a million miles away."
"Might be better."
"Oh. I...."
Her eyes were on the steering wheel, her fingers clutching it. John had hurt her, not physically, but still, he had hurt her.
"You're wonderful, Sharon," he said, "and I very much want to see you again. It was... something else, something that reminded me of... something. Nothing to do with you at all. I'm sorry I let it distract me."
She smiled at him, the green eyes bright again.
"Then," she said, "do you think you'd like to kiss me?"
He turned her face toward him and took it between his hands, but as he leaned in for the kiss a horn blared from behind them. John jumped, and their noses bumped painfully. They moved apart, laughing at themselves.
"Perhaps another time," John said, and got out of the car. He stood on the pavement and waved as the gray sedan rolled away, then texted her to arrange lunch the next day.
Yes, it had been a very fortunate day when John Druitt met Sharon Raydor.
Will Pope wandered into Major Crimes the next day trying to look casual.
"Oh, God," said Brenda. "What now?"
"He is pitiful, isn't he?" asked Fritz.
"You be nice," Brenda told him. "Good morning, Will," she said as he entered her office.
"Good morning," he said. "Any news on your murder?"
"He hasn't struck again, if that's what you mean, not that we know of."
"It could still be two isolated killings," Will told her. "There's nothing to indicate a serial killer."
"Except two prostitutes with no faces and no uteruses! Uteri? Uter... whatever."
"Wombs," Pope said. "Two mutilated bodies, but there's not a clear connection between them, and they could both be imitations. Every now and then crazy people do idolize historical criminals."
"So you think we have two separate and unconnected imitators...?"
"Of one of the most famous serial killers in history? Yeah, because the Ripper struck at the end of the month. His killings didn't happen within days of each other. This is two separate people both killing at the right time."
"Which could mean there will be two series of killings, or maybe more if this is a group. Fritzi, can we get an FBI profiler working on this?"
"That's not really necessary," said Pope. "We have our own...."
"Yes, but the FBI has the crack team, and we need them before this gets out of hand and people panic. Don't you agree, Fritz?"
There was a long silence.
"I agree," he said, "with Will."
"You do?" said Pope.
"Don't get excited. Even a broken clock is right twice a day."
"Gee, thanks."
"Also, to my mind two murders of this nature already qualifies as something that's got out of hand. I can't sell it to my superiors, though. One murder took place in an isolated area of wasteland. The other was in a populated district. One happened, we think, in daylight, and one at night. Also, the FBI doesn't consider such cases as serial killings until there are three bodies."
"Would you like to choose the girl to become the third victim?" asked Brenda.
"We have to go to the media," said Fritz. "We have to warn these women about this."
"Will they listen?" asked Brenda. "They take risks every day to make a living, and putting extra police on the street to protect prostitutes is not going to be a popular move."
"No," said Will, "but cracking down on prostitution is. The guy with the knife can't do much if the street hookers are all in jail. I'll get on vice and get them pulled in, and see if we can't find some way to slow down the process and keep them safe for a while."
"And I," said Fritz, "will make unofficial inquiries of a friend in Behavioral Sciences. If it is the same killer, they may be able to help us off the books."
"Meanwhile," Brenda said, "I will have another talk with Matt Greeley."
"Has he been back in your kitchen?" asked Will. "This is getting on my nerves. You've got a burglar, and then Sharon's tires get slashed. If any other female officer reports anything like this, I'm going to consider that a series."
"At least we know for sure who did one of those," said Brenda. "And Matt Greeley was the first person to mention Jack the Ripper in connection with this case. I think I want to hear a little more about that." She started to stride out of her office, but the effect was somewhat spoiled when the floor trembled under her. Fritz grabbed her from one side and Will from the other. All three clung together for nearly three seconds of tremor, then for a moment after, until they were sure it was over.
"And I do dearly wish those would stop happening!" she declared.
"Just California reminding us that we have problems besides butchered prostitutes," Will said. "Oh, I forgot. Do either of you know where Sharon found this Englishman she's dating?"
"John?" Fritz asked. "No, but he's nice. We're going to a ball game on Saturday. I have an extra ticket...."
"Middle of the bleacher seats," Brenda said, "sunny side." She suppressed the image of Will and Fritz doing anything together that did not involve bloodshed for one or the other. Pope thought for a moment, so intensely that Brenda could almost hear the wheels turning.
"If you're serious," he told Fritz, "that might actually be a good idea."
"Yeah," said Fritz. It sounded more like a gulp than a reply. "Okay, sure. Lunch first?"
"Be great. See you then."
"Slow night for the society editor," said Nicola. He tossed the newspaper to Helen, who immediately saw John's smiling face. He was leaning over speaking to a woman who looked like a slightly older version of Helen.
Well, a version who looked slightly older than Helen looked. A good deal older, actually. The fingers that caressed John's arm were knotted with what might be early-stage arthritis, and those adoring green eyes badly needed corrective lenses. She was unhealthily thin, as some women were late in life. Really, she was not John's type at all.
Sharon Raydor, Helen read, only daughter of a fabulously wealthy banker with connections in the real estate trade. Well, that would go over well. That sort of family would not approve of Montague John Druitt. Helen read on, and things got interesting. The heiress was apparently a police captain, the widow of a fallen hero, a woman who appeared rarely enough in social settings that her picture made the society page when she did.
"What," Helen muttered, "could John possibly be doing with her?"
Sharon took the afternoon off, so that she and John could go from lunch to an interesting new gallery. Unwilling for the encounter to end, they walked the streets of the arts district afterward.
"It was a bit more intense than I expected," Sharon told him, "a bit raw. I don't know how it will go over with the critics."
"Like Art Deco," John said. "We said it was an eyesore when it first came out, but now, look around you. It's history, and it has a grace of line that makes it quite attractive."
"We said?"
"Well, people did. You know what I mean."
She chuckled, and he smiled down at her. Then his arm slid around her waist and he bent and kissed her. Sharon tasted the smoky whiskey on his breath, felt the fingers of his free hand comb through her hair, felt her arms snake up around his neck until they stood in the middle of the sidewalk making out like teenagers while the foot traffic surged around them.
"Oh, my," she said when they came up for air. He was looking up at the sky, gasping, seeming to fight for self-control. Sharon almost wanted him to ravish her right there on the sidewalk.
"Indeed," he said. "Oh, my indeed."
"What do you want to do now?" she asked. He jumped, almost frightened.
"You decide," he said.
David Gabriel stuck his head in Brenda's office door.
"Chief?" he said. "Greeley's in Interview Two."
"Thank you, Detective."
"His wife's outside, and Baker."
"That was quick."
"Chief? While we were there...."
"Yes, David?"
"They were working on a computer when we invited Mr. Greeley downtown, he and Mrs. Greeley and two other men."
"What about it?"
"The pictures on it were in plain view."
"Porn?"
"No, ma'am. Captain Raydor and her new boyfriend, mostly from last night. These people were looking them up, finding out all about them."
"Interesting. Thank you, David."
"I wish we had more time," Sharon said to John. She leaned back against her car and pulled him tight against her.
"We have all the time in the world," he told her, and planted a kiss on her forehead.
"I meant today. I'd like to take you up into the hills, to a park I know with a rock where you can stand and see the whole of the city."
"Lead on, my love."
"There's not time. It's all the way out in the Hills."
His hand rested between her shoulder blades, but Sharon could tell that John's mind was miles away.
"Sharon," he asked, "do you believe that there are things in this world that are not as they appear?"
"I'm a police officer," she said. "That's one of the first things we learn."
"What do you do," he asked, "if you see something that you know to be impossible?"
"Rethink the situation. There would have to be something that I didn't understand."
He smiled.
"What?" she asked.
"You remind me of someone," he said. "Sharon, there's something I'd like you to know about me, something I'd like to show you before we become any closer."
"What's that?"
"Come here," he said. He pulled his arms tighter around her, so tight that she was almost squashed against his chest. "Now close your eyes, and visualize this rock of yours. Can you see it clearly?"
She laughed, and said "yes."
"All right."
Something popped, and Sharon felt her skin crawl. She opened her eyes, and almost screamed. There was no sidewalk beneath their feet, but only bare rock, and far below the city stretched away, visible for miles and miles and miles.
Part Two | Master Post
Author(s): JoelTheCat
Artist: AzureMonkey
Crossover: Sanctuary/The Closer
Type: Het
Rating: R for gore
Word Count: 15551
Characters/Pairings: Sharon Raydor/John Druitt, plus assorted canon pairings from both shows
Warnings: Gore. Non-con. References to animal abuse. More gore. Crawling around in John Druitt's head. Child kidnapping in the backstory.
Spoilers: whole run of Sanctuary; all but the last six episodes of The Closer.
Summary: Serial killings of prostitutes attract the Sanctuary team to Los Angeles, much to the chagrin of the LAPD
Author’s Notes: Blessed be Creepylicious, who beta-read this monstrosity under less than optimal conditions.
Link to Story Master Post: The Story
Link to Art Master Post: The Art
"Airport police found her," Gabriel told Chief Johnson. "He called a friend at the local precinct who sent a black-and-white. The uniform got so freaked when he saw her that he shot a stray dog."
"Okay, don't tell Chief Pope that. He loves dogs."
"I don't think we're going to have any choice in the matter," Gabriel said.
They topped the hill and found the crime scene swathed in red tape.
"He discharged his weapon," Gabriel said.
"Noooo!" the chief wailed as she groped in her purse. "She does not get to take this crime scene away from me over a dead dog."
"You said you didn't want Chief Pope to know about the dead dog."
"I don't, but I damn sure want him to know about the live bitch! Where is she?"
Gabriel pointed at the bright patch of red hair among the dark suits, hair that seemed to be flying every which way in the wind. The passage of a jumbo jet drowned out Chief Johnson's opinion of the woman's appearance.
"All right," she said. "Let's see what she has to say for herself."
"That has nothing to do with our case," Sharon told her detective. "Mark it and leave it for Chief Johnson."
"Leave what for me?" the chief asked. She came up behind Sharon and peered down at the condom. "Doesn't appear used," she said.
"Doesn't appear weathered, either," Sharon pointed out.
"All right. Buzz?" she called. "Buzz, come document this, please. All right, captain, what else have you done to my crime scene?"
"Covered the body, and sent the poor man who saw it for counseling."
"He shot a dog?"
"Dogs had been at the body." Sharon told her.
"That badly?"
"It was pretty bad before," Sharon said. "She's over here." She led the chief to the white tarp lying on the ground, sank gracefully down and peeled back the cover. Chief Johnson's eyes widened.
"Did you find her face anywhere?"
"We haven't looked, Chief. The dead body is not my problem. The idiot who shot a starving poodle is my problem. But no, we have not seen her missing face." She pulled the tarp back further. "Nor have we noticed a spare uterus lying around. The protruding intestines are probably the dog's work, though."
"A little old poodle did that?"
"Again, not my problem, but the poodle in question is a standard, the size of a Dobie or a German Shepherd. She was well capable of that sort of damage. Officer Donovan said the dog ran from the scene as he approached, then circled around behind him and startled him while attempting to get back to her... lunch."
"All right, Captain, then would you kindly get your people off my crime scene?"
"With pleasure." Sharon covered the body again. "We have the dog. We have the shell casings from the rounds that killed the dog. We have Officer Donovan in my interview room if you want to speak to him. You are more than welcome to the rest of this unholy mess." Sharon stood up and started for her car.
"Captain!"
What now? Surely Brenda Leigh Johnson was not about to thank her?
"I'm going to need the dog."
"Excuse me?"
"The lab will need to see what's in her teeth and if there's blood on her muzzle and so forth. The dog is part of my case."
"The dog has two rounds in her from Officer Donovan's gun that are part of my investigation."
"If that's so, we'll be glad to turn them over once we've had a look, but the dog...."
Sharon took a deep breath. Then she took another one.
"Chief," she said finally, "you do realize that our two divisions use the same lab? Why does it matter...?"
"It matters, Captain, because this is a murder investigation, and murder still has priority over animal abuse as far as I know. I'm going to need the dog."
"Fine," Sharon spat. "It's on its way to the lab. Do you want it brought back, or may I simply inform the intake officer that it belongs to you now?"
"Whatever you think best, Captain," the Chief smiled.
Women. Someone had sent women to investigate this mess. Their world was coming apart under their feet, quite literally, and they sent women to investigate a dead whore. John Druitt leaned against a dark fence, shielded from view by the tall grass, and watched the fragile blond tangle with the elegant ginger. It was some sort of police-themed wet dream with women in the place of constables. The gingery one seemed cool and competent. The blond, however, was another story. She was a spitfire, that one. She fought with the other one as if they shared a man between them, but the ginger walked calmly away. Was she so very secure, so confident that her husband or whatever would never look at the little one? Or did she simply not care? Had she written off a marriage of convenience?
The blond one cared, though. She was tiny and beautiful in her way, a little older than John liked them, but still quite attractive. He imagined approaching her gently, careful not to frighten her, and thought she might even smile at him. He wondered about her eyes. Were they blue? Green? Hazel? No matter. He imagined how wide those eyes would get when he touched her, when he pulled her against him. He could almost taste her lips, feel them part against his probing tongue.
Would she realize the danger then and try to flee, or would she let him go further, let him bare those ample breasts and press his lips against them? John thought she might, thought she might even giggle a bit. Yes, and she would let him slide the dress over her hips, let it fall to the ground. She might protest a bit at his probing hand, but he would tease her into allowing that, too, tease her into letting him taste the wetness of her, letting him knead that magnificent backside while he tongued her.
She would think better of it then. John was sure of that. She would panic and run from him. She would flee across the sand wearing nothing but stockings and garters and a pair of high heels. It wouldn't matter. John's legs were long enough that he could catch her even if he were the one wearing heels. He would let her get a little ahead of him, let her have some hope, and then put on a burst of speed and tackle her. He'd land on top of her, grinding her bare skin into the rough sand, and this time the touch of his lips would be punishing.
He imagined her squeal as he mauled her breasts, as he forced her thighs apart and squirmed into position between them. She would do more than squeal when he entered her. She would purely scream and cry and flail against his chest, but his rhythm would never slacken. She would scream again as his climax approached and he showed her the knife, scream as his spasms overcame him and he rammed its sharp point through her throat and ripped it out until her blood spewed all over him and he collapsed against her dying body.
He would take that beautiful face from her then, the face she did not deserve, and the organ for which she had so little respect as well. He would leave her, this woman who thought she could save the world, leave her lying on the sand with her blood pooling around her, leave her beside the body of the woman on which someone was imitating his technique, so they could compare their work with their master's.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps he would let her live, let her realize how very much trouble she was in. The truth of the matter was that she and all her colleagues had problems very much bigger than Montague John Druitt. He took a last look at her, giving orders to the men around her, then laughed and vanished in a blaze of nebulous rose.
"Lieutenant Tau, who is that man?" Brenda asked. Just beyond the border of yellow tape a skinny man with red hair like a haystack was taking photographs with an expensive camera.
"He says he's a writer working on a spec piece," Tau told her, "about serial killers."
"He thinks this is a serial crime? What makes him think that?"
"He says it's just like the Jack the Ripper murders in the nineteenth century, the moon and the date and all, and the way the body was mutilated."
Brenda Leigh fought down a sudden feeling of unease.
"How does he know how the body was mutilated, Lieutenant?"
"I thought about that, Chief, but he has an alibi. He was taking pictures at the mayor's conference on the tremors. I saw the photographs."
"Do we have a time of death yet, Lieutenant?"
"Not exactly."
"Then how do we know the time for which the suspect needs an alibi?"
"We don't, Chief."
"So why don't we invite the gentleman downtown and find out how he knows he has an alibi, please."
"When can I have my camera back?" he asked.
"In just a very few minutes. We have only a few questions for you, Mr....."
"Greeley, Matt Greeley. Why do you have questions for me? I wasn't doing anything illegal!"
"You were taking photographs at a very unpleasant crime scene, sir."
"Outside the tape! I repeat, not illegal, so unless you have something you're not telling me about I would like my camera back and I would like to leave!"
"How did you know this crime scene even existed?"
He shrugged.
"Police scanner?"
"We haven't used radios in years, Mr. Greeley, not since this wonderful invention called a cell phone. So I ask you again, how did you know this body was lying out there in the middle of nowhere near the airport? You're not going to try to tell me you just happened to stumble up on it?"
"I was at the mayor's conference on the earthquake threat."
"Was there an announcement made, or something?"
"No. I overheard a call on one of those remarkable inventions you were talking about."
"A call between whom, Mr. Greeley?"
"I didn't know her."
"A woman?"
"Yes, a tall woman with red hair, what some people call a MILF."
"MILF?"
"Mom I'd like to... fool around with."
"All right. We'll get you with a sketch artist later. And what did this MILF say?"
"There are photographs of her in my camera, if that would be better. She asked whoever was on the other end if the officer had actually shot the prostitute, and then there was something about a dog. Then she said she'd be right there. The seismologists weren't making any sense, so I followed her out to where the body was and started taking pictures for this other project. Are you okay?"
"You cannot begin to imagine, Mr. Greeley." Brenda told him. "I believe you may have just made my day."
"Glad to be of service. My camera?"
"Not until you tell me what was so very interesting about this crime."
"I'm doing a series on spec about modern-day imitators of Jack the Ripper."
"And this requires you to be at the Mayor's...."
"Different article. There's a geophysicist in Alberta who believes the earthquakes may be engineered, but that's neither here nor there. The Ripper killed prostitutes in London...."
"In 1888," said Brenda. "I did a term paper on the murders. I can almost guarantee you that the same person did not kill those women and the one now in our morgue."
Greeley looked as if he wanted to argue that point, but he nodded instead.
"Whoever did," he said, "has the same syndrome, the same mental illness. At least that's what the head of the forensic psychology department at Yale thinks, and with enough gory pictures I can get a really good article out of that."
"The timing is right," said Brenda. "Weekend night near the end of a month."
"And the victim is a prostitute, right? Was she mutilated? And what does the redheaded woman have to do with anything?"
"I ask the questions in here, Mr. Greeley."
"Okay. Can I have my camera back?"
"Not just yet."
Druitt followed the blond woman back to police headquarters. He was not quite mad enough to pop into the building, since it would not have done him any good. He did, however, find a spot in the parking garage and waited for the blond to return. He was in luck. She came back to the parking garage with the ginger in tow. The taller woman held several sheets of paper as if they were covered in something quite nasty.
"He says this woman was talking about my case in the middle of a reception loudly enough for people to hear it in Whitechapel, and that she didn't notice when he followed her all the way to the airport and started taking pictures, including pictures of her. Skinny little weasel with hair redder than yours sticking out in all directions and a camera bigger than he is, knows all about the Ripper murders and he was loose on my crime scene. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Captain?"
"First of all, at that point in time it was not yet your crime scene...."
The building lurched a bit, and the two women stepped close together and briefly held hands, then jumped apart.
"It was my crime scene," the blond said. "A brutal murder does not become a matter for Internal Affairs rather than Major Crimes just because you got there first!"
"And secondly," said the ginger, "he was not 'loose on your crime scene.' He was circling the periphery, and he could not have taken any significant pictures because my people took the time to cover the body! And I don't know how he followed me! There was traffic, okay?"
"You've been a police officer for how long, Captain? And you don't know how to spot a tail?"
"I had no reason to believe...!"
"There's a mad rapist on the loose, and he had been in that area recently! What if he had followed you back?"
"To this building?"
"And you didn't stop anywhere on the way? No gas? No coffee?"
The ginger was suddenly quite quiet.
"I didn't see anyone around when I got out of the car."
"What if you had? What if he'd been waiting when you came back to the car?"
"Then I would have seventy-two hours to submit a report on why I discharged my weapon and whether it was justified!"
"Or I would be stringing tape around another crime scene and looking for the missing parts of your body, and as irritating as you are, Captain, I would rather not do that, thank you."
"What is your point, Chief?"
"You're too good not to have spotted a tail if you were paying attention, and until this is over, we all have to pay attention."
"Point taken. Do you need these?" She proffered the papers.
"Oh, keep them. I especially like the one where you got the red tape all tangled in your hair."
"It was windy."
"Right. You stay off my crime scene, Captain, and try to avoid becoming one yourself."
The blond slammed the door of a silvery car and drove out of the parking garage. John shadowed the remaining woman down the aisle. She shoved the papers into a rubbish bin and trudged toward her own vehicle, but then she stopped. Possibly John didn't stop quite soon enough, because she turned as if she had heard him. There was a strategically placed pillar between them, however, and after a moment's careful inspection of the garage interior she shook her head, went to her own vehicle and drove away.
John fished the papers from the bin and looked at the photographs. The woman was quite pretty, with eerily green eyes and skin like Limoges. He would not have taken her for vulnerable, at least not until he saw her with the blond, but she was certainly easy on the eyes. He ripped the most flattering of the pictures from the paper and slipped it into his pocket, then vanished in his usual burst of energy.
The phone rang as she was gathering the debris from the Chinese takeout. She was ten feet from the trash can, and Fritz had already wiped the stray grains of rice from the table. He grinned and took the trash from her, and she answered the phone.
"Deputy Chief Johnson," she said.
"It's me, Chief," said Lieutenant Flynn. "Look, this Greeley guy? As far as we can tell, he doesn't exist."
"That's interesting. Where is Mr. Greeley now?"
"We cut him loose."
"I beg your pardon?"
"We had nothing to hold him on, and Chief Pope said...."
"Have we not talked, Lieutenant, about you allowing anyone at all to interfere with our investigations without letting me know?"
"It was Chief Pope!"
"And I can handle Will Pope, if I know the situation exists!"
Fritz glared at her. She glared back.
"How long ago was the suspect released?" she asked.
"Right after you left."
"All right, then. Get his picture off our security cameras and put out a bulletin. I want him back until we find out who he is. And Lieutenant? Let Chief Pope know I'll be in his office first thing in the morning, please. Thank you."
She was here. She had come to his summons, to the specious claims of this not-newspaperman whom Druitt knew so well. Helen was here, with her werewolf tapping away at his silly plastic box and her psychiatrist tapping away at people's heads. She was here, and she thought she could stop him, but Druitt could handle Helen. All he had to do was rock her highly unstable boat just a little, and things would go quite wrong for Helen Magnus. John waited until the red-headed non-newsboy was at a distance from the others, and then he popped in, wrapped his arms around him before he could scream and popped back out. In again, another in, and he left the pseudo-reporter behind when he popped back out.
Let Helen deal with that, he thought with a satisfied grin. He found a hidden place outside the house to watch the fun.
"On the floor! Right now!" The man in Fritz Howard's kitchen did not look dangerous. In fact he looked more flabbergasted than anything else. The fact remained, he had somehow made his way into a locked house, and only Fritz's sudden craving for a scoop of Brenda's Moose Tracks ice cream had prevented him from escaping undetected. "I said on the floor!"
By this time Brenda had joined Fritz, weapon in hand, shouting her own orders. The television blared in the other room, some minister spouting on about the earthquakes being a judgment of God. The man put his hands behind his head, sank to his knees and settled on the floor, but he behaved as if the whole thing were some big joke as Fritz handcuffed him.
"Why, Mr. Greeley," said Brenda, "what a pleasure to see you again so soon. Tell me, though, did I miss your knock?"
"I don't know," the man said.
"I find that hard to believe," she told him as Fritz punched speed dial on her phone and asked Lieutenant Flynn to arrange for someone to pick up their trespasser. "You're in my kitchen, after all. How exactly did you get through my locked door?"
"I don't know," he said again.
"There seems to be a great deal that you don't know, Mr. Greeley."
"Madam, you cannot even begin to comprehend....."
"Now, I don't know about that. People say I'm a lady of average intelligence, and I like to think I can comprehend as much as the next girl. Exactly how did you get into my home?"
"I just... came to and I was here."
"You were unconscious?"
"Yes."
"In my kitchen?"
"Yes, and may I say you really should pay more attention to that cat box. Having something like that where food is prepared...."
"The state of my kitchen is none of your business, Mr. Greeley, but the state of your criminal record is of some concern to me, and it's about to get much worse."
Three black-and-whites screeched to a halt in front of their house, sirens screaming, followed by a silvery sedan. What seemed like a platoon of uniformed officers took custody of their trespasser and hustled him from the house after acknowledging Brenda's firm statement that the suspect belonged to Major Crimes. Fritz was willing to bet they would still take him to the local precinct. Finally they were gone, leaving Fritz alone with Brenda.
And Sharon Raydor.
"Flynn called me," she said. "He knew I was close by...."
"Doing what?" asked Brenda. His wife's nose was crinkling in a way that Fritz knew was a very bad sign.
"Investigating allegations that three uniformed.... never mind. I was doing my job on a case that has nothing to do with you. I hope."
"If it has nothing to do with me, why are you here?"
"Assisting in the arrest of a trespasser who might have been...."
Brenda snorted and turned away, then looked back at the woman.
"All right," she said. "But he's arrested and gone. Why are you still here?"
"To ask if you're all right?"
Brenda snorted again. It was going to piss his wife off, but Fritz had to speak.
"We're fine, Sharon," he said. "Thank you for coming."
"All right then," the captain said. "Is there anything else I can do?"
"Not," said Brenda in a voice that was not entirely snark-free, "unless you know who the man who calls himself Matt Greeley really is and what he was doing in my kitchen."
"That man was a suspect in a Major Crimes case?"
"Person of interest," said Brenda.
"What did he say?"
"That he was unconscious and then he came to in my kitchen."
"Did you order a medical examination?"
"Why? That's the most ridiculous...."
"Because it will buy you at least seventy-two hours."
"Oh." Brenda looked at Sharon as if the FID director had just handed her a writhing rattlesnake.
"Thank you," said Fritz. "That's a good idea. I'm sure Brenda will get on the phone to Lieutenant Flynn and do just that. We were just going to have some ice cream and watch a movie. Would you care to join us?"
"Thank you, but I can't. I have to go find out what a betting pool on earthquake tremors has to do with... oh, never mind. But I do have to go."
"That good a story?"
"I sincerely hope not, but I still have to go check it out." She nodded to Brenda and left.
"Honestly," Fritz said, "would it kill you to show a little good manners? For all she knew she was running into a firefight to save your ass."
"More likely to laugh at it."
"Don't pout. You're too sexy when you pout."
"You're a pervert."
"You're still too sexy."
"Okay. I will do something nice for Captain Raydor some time in the next... decade or so. Meanwhile, I need to go question Matt Greeley."
"Magnus?" said Henry, "What is he doing here?"
"By he do you mean...?"
"I mean your psycho ex-boyfriend who just kidnapped your... psycho new boyfriend."
"Nicola is not... he's not, no matter how much he might wish it so. And John Druitt does not answer to me."
"You think Druitt has anything to do with the earthquakes?"
"I don't expect so, but I could be wrong."
"Yeah. So what do you think he did with Tesla?"
"The mind boggles."
"Do you think he's the one who cut up those girls?"
"Nicola thinks so, but Will has his doubts."
"And Will's doubts...?"
"Are the professional opinion of a trained forensic psychologist and should be taken seriously."
The ginger again, this time come to rescue her little blond friend and what seemed like a perfectly competent man. John smiled all the way through their encounter, wondering if this was the fellow these two fought over right up until he asked the gingery one... Sharon, the man called her... until he asked Sharon to stay. No man invites his mistress into his wife's house, not even if the two are colleagues.
Perhaps John was wrong about Sharon. She was elegant, well-mannered and very competent in a field usually reserved for men. He had a teasing feeling that she reminded him of someone.
No, not a feeling. He knew quite well that the woman of whom Sharon reminded him was Helen Magnus. They were of a height and their figures were much alike, even if the one hair color Helen had so far resisted was that flaming ginger. They had the same good manners, the same courage and the same unwomanly skill in a fight, but Sharon, it seemed, would let the men in uniforms fight for her. John smiled. Sharon was better than Helen. She was what Helen might have been, a Helen untainted by vampire blood, Helen pure and clean and worthy of being loved.
John followed her, popping in and out on rooftops and in alleys, always keeping the silver car in sight. Yes, Sharon was something truly magnificent, and John Druitt meant to know more about her.
Sharon glanced at her watch. It was after five, but there was still time. She cut down Broadway to the mercado, parked and fished her shopping bag out of the glove box. She moved purposely between the stalls, buying chicken, asparagus, tiny plum tomatoes and dinner rolls, then hovered in front of one of the pastry stalls. She smiled at the enormous strawberries dipped in chocolate, thinking of Brenda Leigh Johnson, but instead chose a tart topped with glistening glazed fruit.
"Are those nice?" asked a tall gentleman with an English accent. "They're certainly lovely."
"I think it's as much the appearance that appeals to me as much as the flavor," Sharon told him, "but they're very tasty."
"They do something similar in Australia," he said, "but I haven't seen anything like them here." He ordered two of the tarts.
"Are you new in town?" asked Sharon.
"Less than twenty-four hours," laughed the man. "A colleague recommended this place. It's fascinating."
"It is," Sharon told him, "but it closes at six."
"So early?"
"It's not that great a neighborhood," Sharon told him. "I wouldn't wander around by myself, and people don't usually bother me." This was true. Most Angelinos recognized the silvery sedans that the LAPD considered to be unmarked and unremarkable, but those that did not could be inconveniently insistent. "You're not walking, are you?" she asked the Englishman.
"People don't usually bother me, either," he said. Sharon imagined they didn't. The fellow was well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and square, hard hands. He had a glistening bald head and twinkling blue eyes that reminded Sharon a bit of Will Pope, but behind those eyes Sharon thought she glimpsed a spine of steel. "But perhaps," he said, "I could do with the guidance of a local."
Sharon looked up at him. He smiled, and she almost caved. As she opened her mouth to agree, however, the loudspeakers blared with the announcement that the market was closing.
"I'd better not, tonight," she said, "but if you're still in town at the weekend...."
"That would be very nice," he said. "My name is Druitt, John Druitt."
"Sharon Raydor," she said. They exchanged telephone numbers, and Sharon got her parking check validated.
"Let me walk you to your car, at least," said John.
"That's really not necessary."
"I know," he said. "I was angling for a few more moments of your company."
They walked out into the garage in easy companionship. Sharon found herself giggling just a bit, particularly when John smiled at her. She unlocked her car, set the groceries inside and...
...and noticed that the back end of the car was sitting somewhat low. She stepped back and looked, and saw that both tires had been slashed.
"What kind of an idiot...?"
"That's rather excessive damage, isn't it?" said John.
"You don't know the half of it," said Sharon. "I'm a police officer, John, and these gray cars... people know them. Somebody intentionally vandalized a cop car." She flashed her badge at the pair of concerned security guards, who went to check the video feed as she called for help.
"Oh, great," she said. "They want to keep my car for evidence. They're going to get fingerprint powder in everything."
The security guards were back.
"You'd better see this, Captain," they said. John tagged along as Sharon followed them to their booth. The tape showed her tires collapsing of themselves. She looked carefully at the replay.
Someone lying underneath her car had sliced through both tires. There was no evidence of the vandal approaching the vehicle, nor of his departure. Sharon watched the video from the time she parked the car until she went back to it. No one went anywhere near it, but still someone was in that impossibly narrow space to cut both her tires.
The tow truck arrived, followed by two more silver sedans that disgorged not only Chief Pope but Chief Johnson and her husband.
"I thought you were gone for the day," Sharon told the blond.
"I came back to question the trespasser," Chief Johnson said. "Fritz wanted to be sure you...." She looked over at Sharon's car, where Pope and Howard were hunkered down looking at the tires and shaking their heads, masculine interest in a non-operating vehicle temporarily overcoming their usual testosterone-laced conflict. A uniformed officer methodically photographed the vehicle.
"Thank you," said Sharon, "but you really didn't have to come."
"You'll need a ride home," said the Chief, "unless...." She looked up at John.
"John Druitt," he said, and held out his hand. Brenda shook it.
"Brenda Leigh Johnson," the Chief said. "Are you a friend of... of Sharon's?"
"I would certainly like to be," John said, and Sharon found herself smiling up at him.
Her poor car rolled out of the garage on the back of a tow truck and Pope and Howard came to the booth, miming theories of how the tires might have been damaged. Underhand. Overhand. One tire at a time, or both together.
"Sharon," said Howard, "what did you do to that poor car?"
"Left it locked safely in a supervised parking structure," Sharon said.
"Are you all right?" Pope asked.
"Fine, thank you," Sharon assured him. Chief Johnson looked disappointed.
"John," she said, "this is my husband, Fritz Howard, and Will Pope, the Chief of Police, mine and Sharon's boss. This is John Druitt, Sharon's... friend."
Howard and Pope looked up at John, an unusual experience for both men, and then shook hands with some degree of aggression.
"Can you get her home, then?" Pope asked.
"No motor, I'm afraid," John said. "I've only just arrived."
"We'll take you both home, then," Howard said, then apparently realized that that might imply an unwarranted assumption. "Or, you know" he said, blushing, "wherever...."
"Why," said John, "don't you let me buy you all dinner?"
"That's not necessary," said Sharon.
"It is in your case," said John. "Your groceries were just towed to parts unknown." Sharon glared out the garage door, suppressing an oath. The chicken would be inedible, and her lovely pastry.... "So we'd best make other arrangements," John said. He shot Howard a conspiratory grin. "Is there a place she particularly likes?"
"Shirley's," said Pope, "if you like soul food. It's a ways west, but the neighborhood is a lot safer. I, however, have to collect my children before their mother truly convinces them that I am an ogre."
Chief Johnson blinked at Chief Pope, visibly suppressing the question. Sharon thought about admitting that she had never been to this Shirley's in her life, but decided that a bit of jealousy might do Chief Johnson good. Howard got directions to the restaurant, and the four of them piled into Johnson's car.
"Gavin Q. Baker," the tall blond told Nicola. "I'm your lawyer."
"I haven't called a lawyer," said Nicola.
"Your wife did."
"My wife?"
"Did you not expect her to post bail for you?"
"I didn't realize...."
"Like that, is it? Well, apparently she still loves you."
"I knew it."
"Which is unusual, for Doctor Magnus."
"I... beg your pardon?"
"I was educated in the Old City Sanctuary, Dr. Tesla. Yes, I know who you are, and I know how you got where you were, although we're going to have to come up with something much more believable than the truth for Brenda Leigh Johnson."
"You're... one of us?"
"That's right."
"But you work as...?"
"An attorney."
"Why?"
"Because hiding isn't the answer. Protective legislation is the answer, and one day I'll be in a position to initiate it. In the meantime, I'm in a position to get you out of here. Unless you're just committed to spending the night in jail?"
Will Pope sat in his dark study in Stamford sweats, munching cucumbers and punching up case after case on his computer. Miller had been videotaped slugging a suspect who had slugged him first, but Sharon had actually saved his job, so he had no complaint. Jellico had put twelve shots into an old-model Camaro, but he was now detoxing in a secure rehab facility. None of Sharon's recent cases had the potential to incite malicious mischief.
Pope rubbed his temples. He took danger to his officers quite seriously, and he was determined to find the moron who had slashed Raydor's tires. In the meantime, however, she was surely safe in Brenda Leigh's care.
Unless Brenda killed Sharon herself. The anger that boiled off her when she was around Sharon could have killed the other woman outright, but Raydor seemed impervious to it. He smiled. He was always amazed when someone managed to handle Brenda as well as Raydor did.
For that matter, this Druitt guy looked like he could take care of himself. Will wondered where Sharon had found him. Perhaps he had a jealous wife, or something. Will frowned. Best to make sure, even though Sharon's piercing fury might kill him if she ever found out what he was about to do. Fury, however, was better than the guilt he would have to deal with if she suffered bodily harm.
Maybe.
"Daddy," Connie said from the door, "Leo locked himself in the closet again."
"Okay, sweetheart," he said. "I'll be right there."
"He's banging on the door really hard." The little girl was moments away from tears. "He says his imaginary friends are talking to him again."
"I'm coming," Will reassured her. He typed Druitt's name into a search box and pressed "enter," then followed his daughter upstairs.
Helen regretted sending Gavin after Nicola as soon as she saw them together. They sparred like prizefighters in a verbal boxing ring, grinning the whole time.
"I had her eating out of my hand," Nicola said.
"Is that what happened to the skin on your palm?" Gavin asked.
"No, seriously, she thinks I'm one of the good guys."
"You cannot fool Brenda Leigh Johnson," Gavin told him.
"Why?" asked Helen. "What is she?"
"Retired CIA," said Gavin, "but too young to have put in twenty. That means probably some sort of medical issue. I thought for a while she was one of us...."
"An abnormal cop?" snorted the werewolf.
"Define a normal cop," said Gavin. "No, if she were a telepath she would have picked up on me by now, but she's good. She's damn good. You watch yourself," he told Nicola.
"I've handled worse than that woman," Nicola said.
"She's not bad," said Gavin. "She's good. She's the real deal. Her boss is a real alpha male, but not really bright. Brenda is the LAPD's brainpower. Well, most of it. She has a husband who is utter eye candy, but he's also a decent FBI agent, and then there's Sharon, Sharon Raydor, who can do the logic thing better than anyone on earth with no emotion at all. The LAPD can do you and the whole Sanctuary movement a great deal of damage unless you take them seriously."
"This woman feels no emotion?" said Helen.
"Not about work. Her love life just fell apart on her, again, but she doesn't mix the two. Anyway, what we have to do is come up with some innocuous reason for you to have been in Brenda's kitchen."
"We have to do more than that," Helen told him.
"No, if we convince Brenda...."
"There's more to it," said Nicola.
"We aren't in Los Angeles because of dead prostitutes," said Helen.
"I beg your pardon?"
"We are here," she told him, "because some party unknown has discovered a way to trigger earthquakes, and he plans on using this city as his demonstration."
Gavin didn't say anything. He stared, then swallowed.
"We're going to have to tell them," he said. "They need to evacuate...."
"That would kill more people than the earthquake," Helen said. "There would be panic, the roads would be choked, people would strike out from frustration...."
Gavin closed his eyes.
"And someone is doing this intentionally?"
"It looks that way," said Henry. "And Magnus? We have another problem."
"Oh, dear God."
"Not exactly. Somebody's searching Druitt. Somebody with a police ID."
John never paid for hotels. He simply popped into an empty room, slept, showered and left. Now, however, he needed a residence. He needed a place for Sharon to meet him.
Sharon had been quite delightful, with mischief in her eyes as she teased at her tiny blond nemesis, and open humor when she smiled about it with the woman's husband--with Fritz, who knew cricket as well as baseball and could discourse at length on the differences. The blond was no longer just a blond but Brenda Leigh, who had grinned when John asked her if she hyphenated her last names and then explained that American southerners often had two first names. John was a bit ashamed of his earlier fantasy, and worried that he treated anonymous women so differently than those with whom he had even a casual acquaintance.
So all he had to do to keep from killing, ever again, was get to know every woman on earth. Well, it was a goal, anyway. In the meantime, though, he would make it his business to get to know Sharon Raydor as well as she would allow. He checked into the Biltmore and paid for a week with cash recently liberated from a nearby bank vault, stole a laptop from a closed electronics store and began to research the date venues Los Angeles had to offer.
"We got another one," said Gabriel.
"Another what, David?" Brenda asked.
"Another dead street girl with no face. Found this one behind a laundromat in East LA."
A huge orange garbage truck was idling in the driveway when David and Brenda arrived. Its driver sat on the curb beside a young freckle-faced police officer. Both looked decidedly green around the gills. Brenda identified herself, assigned the young officer the task of keeping the log and went back to look at the body.
The first girl, the one found at the airport, had been bad enough, but the full impact of her injuries had been muted by the shroud and by Sharon's warnings. This one was still in the raw state, a teenager with her black leather skirt up around her waist and a glittery tank pulled away from her bosom. A long braid of dark hair coiled away through the pooled blood, and high heels lay beside the body where they had fallen. She was on her back in a pool of dried blood from which pawprints led--rat and cat, from the looks of them. There was a bloody mess where her face should have been, and her eyeballs stared from their sockets uncovered by missing lids. Lower down there was more blood, and a jagged incision across her lower abdomen like a sick smile.
"Has the medical examiner been?" Brenda called.
"No, ma'am," replied the young officer.
"We got here first?" said Gabriel. "How'd we do that?"
"Had to happen some time, Detective," Brenda said. "All right, would you call the rest of the team, please? Thank you. I have to let Chief Pope know about this."
By evening Sharon had another car, which was good because John did not want the record of a rental hanging around his neck. By the time she collected him he had arranged symphony tickets, reservations at L'Orangerie and a fairly well-fitting designer suit. Sharon wore a cream-colored cocktail dress netted with floral embroidery the color of her gingery hair, and John spent the entire evening basking in the glory of her and the envy of the men around him. Photographers exploded flashbulbs in their faces, and John smiled. What would they say, when they discovered that the couple of the hour were a police officer and a man who did not exist?
Sharon was indeed a career police officer, it seemed, but from a good family, a rebellious daughter who had married for love and lost her husband "in the line," which was all she would say about it. She told him about her children, and he told her a bit about Ashley, that she had cut off contact with her family and that he was worried that she had his bad temper and might get into trouble because of it. This was true, as far as it went. Sometimes a partial truth was the best lie. Sharon certainly seemed to believe him. She smiled indulgently.
"I can't imagine you in a temper," she said.
"And I," he said, "cannot imagine being anything in your presence except... content." He kissed her hand. "But I do have a temper, Sharon, and you must promise me never to let me make you uncomfortable."
"You couldn't."
"I will try not to do."
And he would do. He could learn nothing about the LAPD's earthquake investigations from Sharon unless she trusted him.
She stopped the car in front of his hotel and smiled at him. He supposed it wasn't all that forward of her. After all, this was the end of their second date. Still, he didn't want to do it. What if it roused... feelings... urges? What if he couldn't control himself? What if he ruined... Sharon?
"John?"
"Yes?"
"You looked a million miles away."
"Might be better."
"Oh. I...."
Her eyes were on the steering wheel, her fingers clutching it. John had hurt her, not physically, but still, he had hurt her.
"You're wonderful, Sharon," he said, "and I very much want to see you again. It was... something else, something that reminded me of... something. Nothing to do with you at all. I'm sorry I let it distract me."
She smiled at him, the green eyes bright again.
"Then," she said, "do you think you'd like to kiss me?"
He turned her face toward him and took it between his hands, but as he leaned in for the kiss a horn blared from behind them. John jumped, and their noses bumped painfully. They moved apart, laughing at themselves.
"Perhaps another time," John said, and got out of the car. He stood on the pavement and waved as the gray sedan rolled away, then texted her to arrange lunch the next day.
Yes, it had been a very fortunate day when John Druitt met Sharon Raydor.
Will Pope wandered into Major Crimes the next day trying to look casual.
"Oh, God," said Brenda. "What now?"
"He is pitiful, isn't he?" asked Fritz.
"You be nice," Brenda told him. "Good morning, Will," she said as he entered her office.
"Good morning," he said. "Any news on your murder?"
"He hasn't struck again, if that's what you mean, not that we know of."
"It could still be two isolated killings," Will told her. "There's nothing to indicate a serial killer."
"Except two prostitutes with no faces and no uteruses! Uteri? Uter... whatever."
"Wombs," Pope said. "Two mutilated bodies, but there's not a clear connection between them, and they could both be imitations. Every now and then crazy people do idolize historical criminals."
"So you think we have two separate and unconnected imitators...?"
"Of one of the most famous serial killers in history? Yeah, because the Ripper struck at the end of the month. His killings didn't happen within days of each other. This is two separate people both killing at the right time."
"Which could mean there will be two series of killings, or maybe more if this is a group. Fritzi, can we get an FBI profiler working on this?"
"That's not really necessary," said Pope. "We have our own...."
"Yes, but the FBI has the crack team, and we need them before this gets out of hand and people panic. Don't you agree, Fritz?"
There was a long silence.
"I agree," he said, "with Will."
"You do?" said Pope.
"Don't get excited. Even a broken clock is right twice a day."
"Gee, thanks."
"Also, to my mind two murders of this nature already qualifies as something that's got out of hand. I can't sell it to my superiors, though. One murder took place in an isolated area of wasteland. The other was in a populated district. One happened, we think, in daylight, and one at night. Also, the FBI doesn't consider such cases as serial killings until there are three bodies."
"Would you like to choose the girl to become the third victim?" asked Brenda.
"We have to go to the media," said Fritz. "We have to warn these women about this."
"Will they listen?" asked Brenda. "They take risks every day to make a living, and putting extra police on the street to protect prostitutes is not going to be a popular move."
"No," said Will, "but cracking down on prostitution is. The guy with the knife can't do much if the street hookers are all in jail. I'll get on vice and get them pulled in, and see if we can't find some way to slow down the process and keep them safe for a while."
"And I," said Fritz, "will make unofficial inquiries of a friend in Behavioral Sciences. If it is the same killer, they may be able to help us off the books."
"Meanwhile," Brenda said, "I will have another talk with Matt Greeley."
"Has he been back in your kitchen?" asked Will. "This is getting on my nerves. You've got a burglar, and then Sharon's tires get slashed. If any other female officer reports anything like this, I'm going to consider that a series."
"At least we know for sure who did one of those," said Brenda. "And Matt Greeley was the first person to mention Jack the Ripper in connection with this case. I think I want to hear a little more about that." She started to stride out of her office, but the effect was somewhat spoiled when the floor trembled under her. Fritz grabbed her from one side and Will from the other. All three clung together for nearly three seconds of tremor, then for a moment after, until they were sure it was over.
"And I do dearly wish those would stop happening!" she declared.
"Just California reminding us that we have problems besides butchered prostitutes," Will said. "Oh, I forgot. Do either of you know where Sharon found this Englishman she's dating?"
"John?" Fritz asked. "No, but he's nice. We're going to a ball game on Saturday. I have an extra ticket...."
"Middle of the bleacher seats," Brenda said, "sunny side." She suppressed the image of Will and Fritz doing anything together that did not involve bloodshed for one or the other. Pope thought for a moment, so intensely that Brenda could almost hear the wheels turning.
"If you're serious," he told Fritz, "that might actually be a good idea."
"Yeah," said Fritz. It sounded more like a gulp than a reply. "Okay, sure. Lunch first?"
"Be great. See you then."
"Slow night for the society editor," said Nicola. He tossed the newspaper to Helen, who immediately saw John's smiling face. He was leaning over speaking to a woman who looked like a slightly older version of Helen.
Well, a version who looked slightly older than Helen looked. A good deal older, actually. The fingers that caressed John's arm were knotted with what might be early-stage arthritis, and those adoring green eyes badly needed corrective lenses. She was unhealthily thin, as some women were late in life. Really, she was not John's type at all.
Sharon Raydor, Helen read, only daughter of a fabulously wealthy banker with connections in the real estate trade. Well, that would go over well. That sort of family would not approve of Montague John Druitt. Helen read on, and things got interesting. The heiress was apparently a police captain, the widow of a fallen hero, a woman who appeared rarely enough in social settings that her picture made the society page when she did.
"What," Helen muttered, "could John possibly be doing with her?"
Sharon took the afternoon off, so that she and John could go from lunch to an interesting new gallery. Unwilling for the encounter to end, they walked the streets of the arts district afterward.
"It was a bit more intense than I expected," Sharon told him, "a bit raw. I don't know how it will go over with the critics."
"Like Art Deco," John said. "We said it was an eyesore when it first came out, but now, look around you. It's history, and it has a grace of line that makes it quite attractive."
"We said?"
"Well, people did. You know what I mean."
She chuckled, and he smiled down at her. Then his arm slid around her waist and he bent and kissed her. Sharon tasted the smoky whiskey on his breath, felt the fingers of his free hand comb through her hair, felt her arms snake up around his neck until they stood in the middle of the sidewalk making out like teenagers while the foot traffic surged around them.
"Oh, my," she said when they came up for air. He was looking up at the sky, gasping, seeming to fight for self-control. Sharon almost wanted him to ravish her right there on the sidewalk.
"Indeed," he said. "Oh, my indeed."
"What do you want to do now?" she asked. He jumped, almost frightened.
"You decide," he said.
David Gabriel stuck his head in Brenda's office door.
"Chief?" he said. "Greeley's in Interview Two."
"Thank you, Detective."
"His wife's outside, and Baker."
"That was quick."
"Chief? While we were there...."
"Yes, David?"
"They were working on a computer when we invited Mr. Greeley downtown, he and Mrs. Greeley and two other men."
"What about it?"
"The pictures on it were in plain view."
"Porn?"
"No, ma'am. Captain Raydor and her new boyfriend, mostly from last night. These people were looking them up, finding out all about them."
"Interesting. Thank you, David."
"I wish we had more time," Sharon said to John. She leaned back against her car and pulled him tight against her.
"We have all the time in the world," he told her, and planted a kiss on her forehead.
"I meant today. I'd like to take you up into the hills, to a park I know with a rock where you can stand and see the whole of the city."
"Lead on, my love."
"There's not time. It's all the way out in the Hills."
His hand rested between her shoulder blades, but Sharon could tell that John's mind was miles away.
"Sharon," he asked, "do you believe that there are things in this world that are not as they appear?"
"I'm a police officer," she said. "That's one of the first things we learn."
"What do you do," he asked, "if you see something that you know to be impossible?"
"Rethink the situation. There would have to be something that I didn't understand."
He smiled.
"What?" she asked.
"You remind me of someone," he said. "Sharon, there's something I'd like you to know about me, something I'd like to show you before we become any closer."
"What's that?"
"Come here," he said. He pulled his arms tighter around her, so tight that she was almost squashed against his chest. "Now close your eyes, and visualize this rock of yours. Can you see it clearly?"
She laughed, and said "yes."
"All right."
Something popped, and Sharon felt her skin crawl. She opened her eyes, and almost screamed. There was no sidewalk beneath their feet, but only bare rock, and far below the city stretched away, visible for miles and miles and miles.
Part Two | Master Post