Title: You've Got to Give for What You Take (6/?)
Rating: R
Summary: After Cindy got shot, things change.
Disclaimer: Don't own the character or anything, just having fun.
Pairing: Cindy/Lindsay
Fandom: Women's Murder Club
A/N: Thanks to sportysmurf for the betaing. Hope you all like it.
Part 6
The next few days proved to be just as frustrating. They got no where with their cases. The bartender, grudgingly following their ‘invitation’, could not help with a good sketch; they still had little idea of what their suspect looked like, even less who he was. Officers had canvassed the area at night, but no one found any reasonable link. Nothing they had, brought them any step further to solving it.
They settled into a routine of spending half the day of going over records and reports and the other half of talking to various people and following vague leads that turned out to be nothing. They questioned Jessica and Alexa’s friends again, but no one could remember anything new. Neither girl had anyone in their past who would have wanted to hurt them, they didn’t know each other and Lindsay could find no connection between them, no matter how hard she tried. It left them with the theory of simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time. It also left them with nothing to go on while they were still waiting for the DNA test results and the following check with the database.
She had already resigned herself to another evening at her desk. Unmotivated, she shuffled through various papers, going over useless information once again. Maybe she’d get lucky and find something they had missed so far. She gave herself another half an hour before leaving for home; or rather, Cindy’s place. She had spent more time at Cindy’s place lately than at her own.
The ringing of Jacobi’s phone interrupted the silence and when she looked at him, she could tell the news weren’t good. So much for her evening.
“Grab your stuff,” Jacobi said when he hung up. “They found a new body.”
Lindsay sighed, holstered her gun and was up to follow him before she even had her jacket on. A new body wasn’t what she had hoped for, but maybe this time they would have more to go on. It certainly couldn’t be much less in any case.
They arrived at the crime scene forty minutes later. As far as Lindsay could tell, it wasn’t far away from their previous ones. But other than the first two who where quite public, this one was in a more deserted, closed of alley. There was already a lot of police waiting and Lindsay could see Claire standing close to the third body.
She walked closer and looked for Jill. “Jill’s not here?” she asked when she stopped in front of Claire.
She shook her head. “Still on her way.”
“What do we have?” Lindsay glanced over to the victim but she was covered by a white sheet so it was impossible to make out any details. “Is it the same guy?”
Claire shot her a look that was supposed to tell her that she should know better than to ask. “From what I’ve seen yes, but we have some changes.”
“What do you mean?”
“His type is the same,” Claire said. She turned around and gestured for Lindsay to follow her. She pulled back the sheet and pointed to the victims wrists. “He got smarter this time. He bound her hands behind her back so she couldn’t fight back.”
“You think you’ll find any DNA?”
“Doubtful.” Claire shrugged. “But I’ll look anyway. The rope though could be the same one he just to strangle our first two victims.”
“If he didn’t strangle her with it, what did he use?” She stepped even closer to get a better look at the victim’s neck.
“I’d say his hands.” Claire raised the victim’s chin and Lindsay saw the bruises in the clear shape of fingers. “She’s been dead for at least 20 hours. That would leave the time of dead around midnight.”
“So, he dumps her in a deserted alley, ties her up with a rope and kills in a more personal way now,” Lindsay summed up. She didn’t like it and if they weren’t able to find some helpful clue soon, the next victim would only be a matter of time.
She knew it was the same killer. She might not have the evidence yet, but she just knew. The pattern was more than apparent; all were raped and strangled, all had similar physical features: pale skin, red hair, same slender build. Striking similarities to the one person she didn’t want associated with it. When it came to the way he killed, he was getting more efficient with every murder. He bound their wrists and eliminated any resistance they could offer. With not only the bruises on her neck, but on her shoulders, arms and thighs, she could only imagine what he had done to her.
“Are you doing the autopsy tonight?”
“Yes,” Claire replied. “As soon as the crime scene unit is finished, I’ll take her to the morgue.”
“I’ll come with you,” Lindsay stated. “Just give me a moment to wrap things up with Jacobi.”
Claire shook her head. “You’ll be more useful elsewhere, Lindsay. The autopsy is going to take a while.”
She opened her mouth to argue but the look Claire shot her a look that clearly told her to not even try. Sometimes, Lindsay felt like she was just one of Claire’s children. The same tactics she used for them, definitely seemed to work on her as well. A fact, Lindsay was disgruntled over every time she lost to her.
“I’ll stop by in a few hours then,” she said to regain at least some authority. She looked around and finally spotted Jill walking into their direction.
“Please tell me it’s not true,” Jill said as she came to a halt in front of them.
“Unfortunately, it is.” Lindsay sighed. She summed up her conversation with Claire and the frown on Jill’s forehead deepened with every word.
“Damn it,” Jill cursed. “Any witnesses? Anything we have to finally find this guy to lock him up and throw away the key?”
Lindsay shook her head, which only caused another exasperated sigh from Jill. “I’ll go talk to Jacobi. Maybe he has at least a name.”
“We don’t?”
“So far, no one has found a purse or any ID.” She took another look around and spotted Jacobi on the other side of the scene, talking to some officer. She turned back to Claire and Jill. “I’ll see you in the morgue later.”
“Give me a few hours!” Claire called after her.
Lindsay didn’t bother turning around again, simply waved her hand at her dismissively and kept walking.
***
It was past two when she quietly stepped into the bedroom, careful not to make any noise. The moon shone bright enough so at least she didn’t have to turn on the light to find everything. She watched Cindy sleeping for a moment before walking towards the bed, grabbing her neatly folded sleeping shirt and pants from her side of it.
They had created this routine. She would come over every night, either while Cindy was still up or when she was already asleep. Her clothes would be ready for her no matter how much of a mess she had left in the morning. The right side was hers, the left Cindy’s. After the first night, Lindsay had taken to sleeping next to Cindy. They didn’t talk about it, they just did it. Lindsay knew it wouldn’t be like this forever, that they needed to address it at some point, but for now, she was content with how things were.
She quickly changed and when she sat down on the bed, Cindy roused. She shifted slightly and looked at Lindsay, blinking a few times before she seemed to be able to focus.
“You’re late,” she stated, yawning. She rubbed her eyes and then pushed herself up a bit.
“Yeah,” Lindsay said, working on removing her socks. “We caught a new case.”
“New victim?” Cindy yawned again and Lindsay couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly. It didn’t matter how tired Cindy was, apparently, she was never too tired to ask for updates. Sometimes, she wondered if there was anything that could distract her from it.
“Yes.” Lindsay nodded, even though she didn’t know if Cindy could see her. “But it’s late, you need to sleep.”
She pulled back the sheets and moved, settling into a comfortable position and covered herself. When Cindy didn’t follow her lead, she turned on her side and reached over to tug on her shirt, indicating for her to lie back down as well. Satisfied when Cindy did so, Lindsay closed her eyes, willing herself to a few hours of sleep before she had to be at work again.
“So, any new leads?” Cindy broke the silence and Lindsay could hear the quiet wince at her failed attempt to prop on her elbow to look at her.
Lindsay sighed and turned to face her. “You need to lie down,” she chastised.
“The case,” Cindy reminded her impatiently, completely ignoring Lindsay’s words.
“We have no leads, nothing to go on. We don’t even have a name of the third victim yet.” Lindsay paused, hoping it would be enough to make Cindy happy for the time being. When Cindy showed no sign or intention of going back to sleep, Lindsay sighed again. So much for her sleep. “Claire didn’t find any new evidence on the body, not even DNA, but it’s safe to assume it’s the same guy.”
“How?”
“The victims are all the same type and the MO is almost identical to the other cases,” Lindsay answered.
Cindy shifted again and Lindsay could feel her brush against her. “What are you gonna do now?”
“Wait for someone to report her missing, I guess, and run her prints.”
“And the rest?”
“I don’t know; we have nothing but a sketch of a guy who could be just about anyone.” She rubbed her forehead, trying to knead away the tension that was threatening to evolve into a full blown headache.
“You’ll catch him,” Cindy said with so much conviction that Lindsay was close to actually believing her.
“Yeah,” Lindsay murmured. “Okay, time to sleep now.” She moved a bit closer to Cindy and tugged up the sheets, making sure she was settled to her satisfaction. “You comfortable? Any pain?”
She gave her a small smile and shook her head. “No, I have a nurse that takes very good care of me.” She grinned and Lindsay couldn’t help but return it.
“That’s how it should be,” Lindsay said. “But… that nurse needs some sleep now.”
Cindy mumbled a quiet good night and Lindsay closed her eyes, hoping for sleep soon; preferably dreamless. She could definitely use it. Unfortunately, her thoughts didn’t have that kind of mercy on her. The silence now engulfing the room gave them the perfect opportunity to go wander. She wondered if they’d be able to catch that guy before he killed again and she wasn’t able to shake off the images. They reminded her too much of the one person they had come very close to losing too. It had taught her a lesson of not waiting and finally taking some steps into the right direction. Now, she only needed to walk a bit faster.
“Cindy?” she asked quietly. She couldn’t tell if she was still being awake, being faced by Cindy’s back made that quite impossible. “You still awake?” She got an almost unintelligible ‘mmh’ as reply and decided to take that as confirmation. “Can you turn around?”
Nothing happened for a few seconds and Lindsay was just about to repeat her question when Cindy moved. “What is it?” She looked at her questioning.
There were times when she wished she had Cindy’s ability to put her thoughts into well-formed sentences; now was another one of these. “I…” There was no good way to say it so she simply leaned forward and surprised them both by pressing her lips against Cindy’s; and just like that she’d done it.
She could feel Cindy tense up; not the best sign that this had been a good idea. The moment Cindy finally responded, immense relief washed over her. She shifted, hovering over Cindy while fully aware of not putting any weight on the woman beneath her. Causing pain certainly would be the mood killer. Cindy’s slowly wandering hands gave her all the permission she needed to deepen the kiss. Cindy was pressing up against her for more contact, an action followed by a gasp that was more the result of pain than anything else.
Lindsay pulled away, careful to avoid any more contact. “Sorry,” she said quietly.
“No.” Cindy shook her head and smiled at her, a bright smile that seemed more than encouraging to Lindsay. “So…” she trailed off and waited for Lindsay to fill in.
“Uh… get some sleep?” Lindsay offered somewhat evasively. She leaned over and softly kissed her again, hoping to distract her enough to stop her asking. At least for the night.
“We do need to talk.” Even in the dark, she was sure Cindy was rolling her eyes at her.
“Tomorrow,” Lindsay promised and when Cindy didn’t protest, she thanked heaven for that little favor. She reached over and pulled gently at Cindy’s shirt, gesturing her to come closer.
Part 7