I abandoned this story four years ago for lack of time and energy. Since then a lot of good changes have happened in my life and, funny enough, this story has stayed with me and refused to go away. Every year my faithful beta jbird has prodded me to get this finished.
So, dear readers, if you're still out there, I give you here the next chapter. I hope you'll enjoy it and, be assured, I'm working on the next!
Thank you, jbird!
Tomorrow
by Serataja
-Chapter 7-
Severed Dreams, Part 1
January/Now
The waiting room has been crowded all night long. A couple is sitting in one corner, talking in hushed voices. An old woman sits near the door, waiting alone, her eyes overflowing. Other people have been in and out, doctors have come and gone but no one has any news for the waiting FBI agents.
Danny has been sitting in the same position since they arrived. His arms are crossed on his chest, his legs are stretched out. He's unmoving, staring gloomily at the floor. Martin, on the other hand, is moving around, standing up, pacing, sitting down and checking his watch every five minutes. He's holding up passing doctors and nurses to ask them for news but so far there is none.
Vivian sits beside Danny, face composed and pale under her dark skin. She remembers her own collapse because of her heart condition several years back,and the fear and shock on Jack's face as he was sitting beside her in the ambulance, holding her hand. She wishes she could return the favor, but the paramedics whisked him off in such a hurry, there was no chance for that. From time to time she looks up at Jessica who is leaning against the wall, frowning and looking as if she is studying the candy bars and sodas in the vending machine. She is not, of course. Nobody can look at candy bars for hours on end. Actually she is looking right past the display at the chair beside the machine and the person who occupies it. She has done so for a long time and her frown is deepening.
Sam is oblivious of being watched. She is oblivious to anything but the occasional doctor entering the room. Every time it happens she feels as if her heart is about to stop, only to resume its beat when she realizes they don't bring news about Jack. She has tried very hard not to cry. The tears are building up inside but she can't let them out, not while Jessica is standing there, her eyes dry.
What Sam really wants to do is scream, because she does not know how to deal with the despair expanding inside of her. It was the way Jack looked when they took him away - she can't believe he'll live.
January 2002
"Hey, Viv," Danny said. Letting himself fall into his chair, he put coffee and a bagel on the desk in front of him. Vivian acknowledged his presence with a smile, barely raising her head from the file in front of her.
"What's up with you?" she asked. "You're not late."
He looked at her in his best puppy dog fashion. "I was lonely. I needed to see you, you're my best friend."
Vivian turned her head and looked at him, amused. "What about your girlfriend?"
"What girlfriend?"
"The one you met at that Chinese place?"
"Oh, that girlfriend. No – no, that's been over for a long time."
Vivian shook her head. "You know, Danny, you have to learn to commit."
"It's not me," he said with a shrug, taking a big bite from his fresh bagel. He continued to speak while chewing: "It's them. Once a girl gets to know me - I mean really know me - it's over."
"Don't spray me with crumbs, please."
"See what I mean? What are you working on?"
"The judge finally decided to give us the search warrant."
"I thought that would never happen. What made him change his mind?"
Vivian shrugged. "We had a little talk."
"I'm impressed. Judge Adderley is hard to handle."
"I was having a good day."
"Next time I have to deal with him I hope he's having a good day, too."
Vivian laughed. "You can always hope."
"So, what are we waiting for?" Danny asked, craning his neck to check out if the office on the opposite side of the corridor was occupied.
"Since you're here, I'm not going to wait for Jack. He's working on the Slightman case, anyway. What do you think, can the two of us handle this?"
A grin spread across Danny's face.
Getting up, Vivian put a hand on his shoulder in passing. "Grab that coffee and follow me. And just that you know it, I think your girlfriends are out of their minds."
000
Sam was stacking files on a trolley to take them back to the bullpen. She had pulled everything they had on the Slightman case.
Bernard Slightman, twenty years old and son of a New York millionaire had been kidnapped in February last year. A ransom had been paid and he had been returned, unharmed, two weeks later. The kidnappers had never been found. In June, Bernard had gone missing again. It had been four days of frantic searching before he had been found at a roadside motel outside of Poughkeepsie with a prostitute.
Sam remembered that Jack had been furious. A waste of time and money he'd called it.
Then, after 9/11, Bernard had been reported missing again. No one knew for sure if he had been near the World Trade Center that day, but his parents believed him to be one of the victims. They had leaned heavily on an unwilling Jack to investigate, but with so many missing people reported, Bernard Slightman had been fairly low on their list of priorities. That proved wise, because in November he had turned up again, claiming that he had taken a trip through Europe.
Now he was gone again. Jack had only agreed to take the case because the parents had talked to the Mayor. The Mayor had talked to Assistant Director Victor Fitzgerald. In turn, Fitzgerald had leaned on Paula Van Doren -and she had given Jack a direct order.
Sam grinned at the memory of Jack's reaction. The Slightman kid was probably halfway to Honolulu by now. Likely with the rest of the ransom money from his kidnapping, which they suspected had been staged. Maybe he would meet up with the suitcase she had lost on her way to Anchorage; like Bernard it had never been found. Then again, maybe Bernard was in real trouble this time and had just cried wolf one too many times. Sam leaned toward giving him the benefit of the doubt. Also, there was something about the whole story with the prostitute that was still bothering her. She didn't mind having another look at the case.
Sam heard the door to the file room close behind her and a pleasant shiver went down her spine. Only an hour ago she had last seen Jack on the sidewalk outside of her apartment. He had been on his way home to change clothes. With Maria out of town on a business trip for the past two days and his daughters staying with friends, he had spent the night at her place.
He stepped up to her - close.
"Good morning, Sam," he said.
"Good morning to you, too, Jack. Did you sleep well?"
"I'm afraid no."
"So - how's that?"
He smiled, "There was a blonde woman in the same bed - and she was snoring…"
"You have to be more careful with whom you sleep with."
"Well, otherwise, she was very nice…"
"I bet she was." Sam snorted. "I was definitely not snoring. I never snore."
She turned back to the files, double-checking the ones on top.
"That doesn't belong here," she said.
"What is it?"
"The Parson case from last August. Danny and I were working it. That was a nasty one. Do you remember?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't. Must have gotten lost in the pile on my desk after September 11. What was it about?"
"A schoolteacher who murdered her lover." She hesitated. "He didn't want to leave his wife for her."
She put the rest of the files on the trolley. For the first four months of what Sam refused to think about as their 'affair', Jack had been relaxed and happy. Only lately he had started to be distracted, looking sad when he thought she was not looking at him.
"Are you trying to tell me something?" he asked, puzzled.
She looked back at him. For the first time she wondered if this 'affair' would end up hurting them as much as it had made them happy.
"No, I'm not. It just hit a little close at home, that's all."
He put his arm around her, leaned closer and whispered in her ear.
"Before you murder me, let me know. Maybe we can work something out."
She laughed softly.
ooo
They took the files back to the bullpen.
"Vivian and Danny are on their way upstate," she told him "Vivian finally got the search warrant out of Adderley."
"What - with that kind of evidence? What did she do, torture him?"
"No one knows. She wouldn't say."
"So now I'm stuck with you?" he asked, grinning.
"You, me and the Slightman case. It doesn't get any better."
Before they could begin unloading the files on to the conference table, Paula Van Doren appeared. She stopped and raised her plucked eyebrows at the sight. "Don't tell me that's all from the Slightman case," she said.
Neither Jack nor Sam cared to answer. Van Doren knew as well as anyone in the office how much time they had spent on the case and how much paperwork it had generated.
She came closer and put her hand on one of the files, studying it for a moment. "That doesn't belong here."
"Oh?" Sam said.
"No, it's the Parson case from last September. Better get that one back to the archive."
"August,' Sam said.
"Whatever."
Van Doren shifted her weight to the other foot and leaned on the Parson case. She looked as if she was trying to frown but her forehead remained smooth.
"Botox," Sam thought. "What does an FBI Agent need Botox for?" Then remembered how she herself was toying with the idea of getting something done to her lips and maybe hips. Jack had been horrified when she mentioned it.
"Bernard Slightman," Van Doren said, amiably. "So, Jack, you think this is a wild goose chase?"
"Doesn't matter," Jack muttered, "if the mayor insists we have to find this kid in another motel with another hooker, so be it."
"I've had a call from the parents," Van Doren said. "They told me Bernard might be with his sister."
Sam and Jack stared at her blankly.
"Bernard doesn't have a sister," Sam said, feeling a weight settle in the pit of her stomach. "We overlooked something," she thought. "We haven't been doing our job. Damn – I usually can tell when people are lying to me, can't I?"
She cast a glance at Jack.
He was frowning. "You mean they lied to us?"
Van Doren lifted her eyebrows. "That's nothing new, is it? People lie to us all the time."
Jack shook his head. He'd had a special rapport with Edmund Slightman, Bernard's father, despite their belief that Bernard was neither really missing nor really kidnapped. The thought that the man had been lying to him about essential information rattled him.
"I cannot belief they could have hidden a daughter from us. We've dealt with this family for the whole last year. Apart from 9/11 there's nothing else we've spent that much time on," he said.
"Well," Van Doren replied, "apparently she's not exactly their daughter. Slightman tried to explain the details on the phone but he sounded a little confused. I told him I would send someone over to talk to him. Sorry, Jack."
"No problem," Jack said, looking like he had one hell of a problem with the whole thing. "We're on our way."
As they were walking down the corridor, Sam heard him mutter something about how he wanted to hear that story for himself.
"Look at the bright side, Jack," she said, trying to console him, "The Slightman case has just gotten way more interesting."
But he wasn't listening to her.
TBC