Heads Will Roll – Chapter Sixteen

NOT EDITED

Bonnie tilted her head back against the cold metal pole as a door closed above her. She had come to assume that particular door was one that led outside. Likely a front door, but maybe a back door made more sense, given that she’d heard it shortly before the man had come to the basement door and tossed Miss Jameson’s head down the stairs.

Her gaze drifted down to the blood on the concrete where Miss Jameson’s head had landed. He’d taken her head back, and she hadn’t seen him since, despite how many times she had heard him come and go.

Two more doors opened and closed, and she heard him talking to himself. His voice was quiet and soft, and she couldn’t really make out any words, but it was definitely there. When the basement door finally opened, Bonnie flinched. She closed her eyes, forcing her head to hang at her chest rather than allowing herself to look at him. If he thought she were sleeping, maybe he’d simply… turn around and leave. Maybe he’d go without throwing anyone else down here with her. Anyone else’s head, anyway. At this point, she wasn’t sure she could hope for much more than that.

His feet seemed lighter on the steps than usual. Something hit the floor. Metallic? Ceramic? “I brought you something to eat.”

Bonnie’s brow furrowed. His voice was different? She lifted her head, eyes locking on a masked face that was undeniably different than the one she’d gotten used to seeing. “You’re… you’re not him,” she whispered.

The man cleared his throat and pushed a plate closer to her. “I’m going to uncuff one of your hands. Just one. Which do you prefer to eat with?”

“M-my right.”

He nodded, looking down as he pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “Right, it is,” he whispered.

Oh, my God, there’s TWO of them?

***

If it was possible for Tina to look worse than the last time Rick had seen her, she certainly did now. In the less than forty-eight hours since Bonnie’s reported disappearance, she seemed to have aged a decade or two — the bags under her dull eyes more pronounced than before, the skin on her face a bit taut, her overall face sunken and drawn.

“Rick,” she said after a moment, her voice a bit hoarse. “You, uh… you’ve got a whole crew back there, it looks like. I don’t need to sit down, do I?”

Rick shook his head. “No. Jeff and Bridget — she’s an officer from LA, came down with our borrowed forensics guy — wanted to grab some things from Bonnie’s room, but Jeff was a bit worried about how that’d go over with you. He’s not… proud of the way he handled things when you first came to the station to report her missing.”

“It still got reported that day. I’m past it,” Tina said with a half-hearted shrug. “There are too many other things to think about and dwell on, don’t you think?”

“Unfortunately.” Rick nodded toward the house. “Can we come in? They just need to grab a couple fingerprints from Bonnie’s room and a couple hairs from her hairbrush.”

“Yeah, you know where it is,” Tina said, taking a step back.

After Rick gave Jeff and Bridget a brief rundown on where they’d find Bonnie’s room and bathroom, he stepped into the house, closing the door behind him. “I checked out your ex, just to be safe. I even followed up with his parole officer. There’s absolutely no sign of Bonnie down that way.”

“I don’t know if that’s… a relief or a disappointment,” Tina whispered.

“I’ve kind of been feeling that way with just about every corner we’ve turned in this investigation.”

Tina sniffled as she crossed her arms over her chest. Somehow, that motion made her look smaller and even more tired. “Do you think she’s alive, Rick? I-I’m not asking for bullshit or false hope. You were a cop in California. You’ve seen kidnappings and murder and absolutely sick, sick humans more than any of us ever will. I need the truth. Do you think she’s alive?”

“I’ve been out of LA for so long, Tina. None of that feels like a person I used to be anymore,” Rick said. “So I don’t know what I think. I want to believe she’s alive, and I want to believe that we’ll find her. But our forensics guy? He came from Los Angeles with that detective. He’s damn good at what he does. And right now, he believes Bonnie’s alive. He says that with the way this guy seems to be operating, he’d want us to know if she weren’t okay. If she were dead… we’d know. He would’ve shown us already.”

“I hope he’s right,” Tina said. “I need him to be right, Rick.”

“I know, Tina. I know.”

***

The sight of Kathy Baker seated at Rick’s desk, in his seat rather than one of the chairs in front of it, set off some sort of primal, momma bear rage in Bridget’s brain. She stalked across the station, several feet in front of Rick and Jeff, and marched right up to Kathy. A hand on the back of the chair, she shoved it backward, away from the desk.

Kathy, hands folded over her chest, only raised a brow.

“What in the ever loving fuck are you doing here?” Bridget asked.

“I just wanted to see the super cool archeological dig you and Austen were working on. Jamal made it sound so interesting.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. You bring your little boy toy with you too?”

“My husband is—”

“You know damn well I’m not talking about your husband, Baker.” Bridget pointed back toward the basement stairs. “If I go down there and find that bastard in the evidence room with Bo, I’ll kill him first, and then I’ll march my ass right back up here and kill you second.”

One corner of Kathy’s mouth lifted. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Oh, you do not want to test me, Baker.”

Kathy gestured behind Bridget. “Well, why don’t you go on down and see how many people you need to kill?”

Bridget turned around and headed toward the stairs, grabbing Jeff’s arm along the way. “You, with me. You do not want to give that bitch a chance to play around in your head.”

“What about Rick?”

“He grew up with her. He knows her games better than anyone.”

After a moment of silence, Rick cleared his throat. “Please remove youself from my chair, Kathy.”

“Of course, Rick. All you gotta do is ask.” Kathy rose to her feet, grabbing the folder from Rick’s keyboard as she walked around his desk. She dropped into one of the chairs in front of it. “Looking at these cases of yours, it’s a damn good thing I decided to check in, make sure things were going okay.”

“Oh?” Rick asked as he lowered himself into his chair.

“There’s not a chance in hell Bo Austen is going to find this girl alive.”

“From what I recall, he has a pretty good… live release rate.”

“The detectives have a good ‘live release’ rate. Austen works in the fucking basement, Rick.”

“Not the Austen I remember,” Rick said, forcing a chuckle. “The Austen I remember has been working out in the field and putting himself in the line of fire practically since the day he got hired. And unlike those of us with a badge, he’s not even armed. Takes balls to do something like that, Kathy.”

“Being chronically co-dependant on every cop he’s ever worked with, needing to follow them absolutely everywhere, isn’t having balls. It’s weak-minded idiocy.”

“Well, Jamal always talks quite highly of him. That’s enough for me,” Rick said.

Kathy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, what a shocker that he likes the little brown-noser.”

“Kinda seems like you’d like him too if he’d kiss your ass every now and then. But he’s a little too smart for that, isn’t he?”

Kathy snorted. “You’ve changed since California.”

“Yeah, it’s almost like that was kinda the point of leaving.” Rick pulled off his ball cap and tossed it onto his keyboard. “Anything I can help you with here, Kathy? Since Bridget hasn’t come back up yet, I can only imagine this Travis guy isn’t down there with Bo, but I also imagine you’ve already been down there to insult him to his face. So aside from helping you further torment the kid, what can I do for you?”

She held up the folders she’d swiped from his desk. One for Bonnie. One for Carol Jameson. “Request my help.”

“I had the opportunity to do that when I called Jamal and personally asked for Bo.”

“Are you fucking serious? He sent Bo because you asked for him?”

“I sure did.”

“Why in the fuck would you do that?”

Rick chuckled, shaking his head. “You haven’t changed a damn bit, Kathy. I remember what it was like working with you in California. You were a manipulative little shit when we were kids, you were a manipulative bitch when we were cops together, and you’re a manipulative bitch now. You go on a warpath to destroy anyone you’re worried is smarter than you or better than you. You tear down anyone who might someday replace you. Last I knew, you were single-handedly trying to destroy any female cop in the West Department, and since Bridget also clearly doesn’t like you, I can only imagine you now try to destroy any woman at any of the LAPD departments. Right?”

“If a sarcastic remark here and a questioning of their theories there is enough to destroy them, that sounds like a failure of their character, not mine.”

Rick actually had to bite back a laugh on that one. “Yeah, just a little friendly competition. I’m sure.”

Kathy simply watched him for a moment before shaking her head. “I can’t believe you did that. Demand he send Bo instead of me. He’s nothing but an overhyped little shit. Any damn idiot can pull a latent print and put it in the computer, Rick. A monkey could do it.”

“Maybe. But a monkey sure as hell couldn’t invent that little blood tester Bo did. A monkey couldn’t invent the fingerprint scanner he’s got built into his phone. It couldn’t substantially reduce the wait times for for that evidence coming back to the station. Bo is at the very forefront of forensics right now, whether or not he puts those inventions out to the rest of the world. Do you even begin to understand how vital it is to a department this size to have someone like Bo? Someone who can take nothing more than a table in the back of the file room and turn it into an entire lab? That kid is absolutely brilliant, Kathy, and the fact that you’re still unwilling to admit is a failure of your character. Not his.”

Kathy rolled her eyes, pushing herself to her feet. “Your kidnapper-killer duo? They’re after you, Rick. This is nothing more than revenge against you. Love to see your holy grail decipher that one.”

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