http://owl.heggen.net

by Kim Heggen

This was originally posted to Senfic in serial form in April and May of 1999. Re-edited in November 1999, with typos fixed (I hope) and one character’s name changed to avoid confusion with a canonical character that I didn’t know about at the time I wrote the story (confused yet? If you read the original version of the story, go watch “Remembrance” and you’ll see why I was embarrassed).

Disclaimer: I currently seem to lack the wit to make one of those clever disclaimers. Let's keep it simple: The boys aren't mine, and where would I put them anyway? I'm making no profits off of writing this, other than the pleasure of cranking it out.

Content: Implied violence, mature themes, disturbing issues. Call it halfway between PG-13 and R...subject to change, with notice.

Spoilers: None to speak of. Chronologically, I’d put this in the fourth season due to Jim’s edginess.

Summary: An unusual murder case brings up unpleasant memories from Blair's childhood, and he becomes instrumental in finding the killer. This story is officially up for public discussion, and private comments are also appreciated.

Author's note: This is written in the first-person, Blair's point of view. I know that some of you aren't real big on first-person stories, but it's been such fun trying to get into Blair's head that I couldn't resist. Also, this has not been betaed, so all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Enjoy!

Thanks to all who helped with this story, and read it in installment form on Senfic or at the Library. The feedback was *awesome* and very helpful. Thanks to Kate for hooking me on this fandom, and for Shycat for offering me a home for my stories.

******************************************************************

"Br-aa-aa-p!"

As I hand the five-dollar bill to the convenience store cashier and adjust the two double lattes that I'm carefully balancing, I hear again the unmistakable jarring sound of the horn on Jim's truck.

"Br-aa-aa-p!"

As usual, it sounds like some kind of slowly dying mammal, or perhaps a dinosaur fart. "Just keep your shorts on, man," I mutter, knowing that he can hear me if he wants to. "I'm coming." The cashier looks at me a bit oddly, but hands me my change, which I pocket. As I wobble through the door, wedging it open with my foot, Jim hits the horn again, and I almost drop the lattes. I recover and head across the parking lot to the gas pumps. Even without enhanced Sentinel senses, I can almost hear Jim tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, can almost feel the waves of impatience coming off of him.

It's early, but late enough: we both overslept this morning, thanks to a brief power outage last night that left Jim's alarm clock blinking "12:00" uselessly at him all night. Being late when he can't blame it on me is something of a new experience for him. He's been majorly grumpy, and thus I attempt to soothe the savage beast with good coffee.

To his credit, when Jim sees me approach the truck, fully laden with scalding beverages, he does lean across and pop the passenger door open for me so that I can get in without giving myself a coffee shower. He spoils the effect, however, by putting the truck in gear and causing it to lurch forward while I'm still getting settled. I manage, somehow, to get the seatbelt on, and hand Jim's coffee across to him after popping open the little drinking hole.

"Here you go. One double latte, full caffeine. So what's the big hurry, man? Thought you were going to leave me and the coffee behind there for a minute." Bugging Jim when he's in a bad mood is a little bit like teasing a cat with sharp claws...usually inadvisable, but always just enough fun that I do it anyway in spite of the scratches. I look around, belatedly. "Ummm... Jim? This isn't the way to the station..."

"No, Sandburg, it isn't." His eyes glint dangerously. "We're not going there."

"We're not?" I glance sidelong at him, watching him slurp his latte noisily. My own coffee drink slops over my hand as we round a corner in Jim's usual style.

"Simon called while you were inside getting coffee. There's been a murder, and he wants us to meet him there at the crime scene."

I come fully awake. Jim, too, seems to be sharper, clearer, free of the grumpy fog that has surrounded him since he rolled cursing out of bed this morning. Maybe this won't be the dull day of paperwork and meetings that we had anticipated.

"What's the story?" I ask.

Jim's clenching his jaw already. "Guy in his early sixties, lives with his girlfriend, who works nights. The girlfriend came home this morning, found the guy dead, and her teenage son is missing."

I whistle to myself. "Abducted by the murderer, maybe?"

Jim shrugs. "We don't know. That's all Simon had time to tell me."

Silence for a few minutes, while Jim drives. I'm still a bit tired anyway, having been up late grading papers, and murder isn't exactly top on my list of things that make great conversational material. When you get right down to it, I thoroughly hate murder investigations...but there's no denying that Jim is good at them. Since someone has to do it, I'm glad Simon called us; it's been slow lately, too much paperwork and down time. Sentinels don't appear to handle boredom well; at least that seems to be the case with my limited "sample" of one.

We pull up in front of a small yellow cookie-cutter ranch-style home, of the kind that filled housing tracts in the post-war years. It's a tired-looking, rather ugly neighborhood, without sidewalks or even curbs. Simon strides toward the truck to meet us, clutching his raincoat. Of course, it's starting to drizzle. I unfasten my seatbelt and start to get out, but Jim's hand stops me.

"Wait up there, Chief," he says. "This could be pretty gory. I think you should wait in the truck until I know how bad it is." He's giving me That Look: appraising me, searching my face, waiting for the inevitable argument.

I sigh, and weigh the merits of pouting versus logic and reason, and decide in favor of being reasonable. "Look, Jim, you need me in there with you to be your most effective. If I promise to stay behind you, and leave if it looks really bad or if you ask me to, will that satisfy you?"

We've had this argument so many times. I guess I might feel differently about the whole thing if it were actually dangerous for me to see a dead body, but it's not. Jim just wants to protect me, keep me from seeing some of the bleaker aspects of the job. I appreciate the concern, but I really think I'm getting better at handling this aspect of working with the police.

My proposal seems to knock Jim back for an instant, then he nods. "Okay, Chief, you can come in. But stay back until I give you the word. And no fainting or ralphing at the crime scene." He smiles faintly at me, and we climb out.

Simon is pacing up and down the sidewalk by now, and I smile cheerily at him as we approach. Predictably, he ignores me. "This doesn't look good at all, Jim," he says by way of greeting. We all head up the front walk, with me trailing behind as usual. "The guy's clearly been dead for a few hours, and they found him in the boy's bedroom..."

We enter by the front door and go into the living room. The forensics team is already at work with their fingerprint powder, tweezers and evidence bags. I glance about the room, which is shabbily furnished in seventies colors of avocado green and harvest gold. Over the tiny fireplace, several framed photographs stand on the mantel. I drift over for a closer look while Simon continues to talk to Jim. The pictures are nearly all of a handsome but rather small dark-haired boy at various ages, some with an older woman who resembles him. His mother, presumably.

Jim and Simon head back to the bedrooms, and I hurry to catch up and get back into the range of their conversation. "The girlfriend's next door right now, with a neighbor," Simon is saying. "She's been hysterical, and we haven't been able to get much out of her. Maybe later, when she calms down...but for now, all we know is that she left her waitressing job on schedule at 7:00 a.m. and came straight home. She says she went into her son's bedroom, to make sure he was getting ready for school, and found the body." Simon pauses at the entrance to what I presume is the bedroom in question.

"What's the boy's name?" I ask. "Do we know anything about him?" A mistake, Simon turns around and gives me his version of That Look...the "shouldn't-you-wait-outside-Sandburg" look. He addresses his answer to Jim.

"The kid's name is Tim Brooks. Seventeen years old, and according to his mother he's a straight-A student and the best wrestler on his high school team. That's all I got out of her."

Jim nods, looking distracted, and turns to me. "Doesn't look too bad from here, Chief. Come on in and help if you want, but don't feel like you need to stay if it's too much for you." He slips into the bedroom, and I shadow him. He's right...it's bad, but not horrible. The bedroom seems smaller even than my little room; it holds a twin bed, a desk and a plain dark wood dresser. School and athletic awards decorate the walls. All very normal, everyday...except for the unmoving and bloodstained figure slumped against the bed, seated on the floor.

I hang back a bit as Jim kneels down by the victim, who certainly appears very dead to me. All in all, though, I feel like I'm handling things well this time, and I silently congratulate myself for keeping my reactions under control. Jim slips on some latex gloves, and raises the man's chin to lift his head. The motion brings the corpse's face into my clear view for the first time.

My involuntary gasp is anything but silent, and both Jim and Simon turn to stare at me. Jim looks annoyed, and I realize that he must have just been starting to extend his senses when I startled him. I look again at the dead man's face, hoping that I'm mistaken, that it isn't really Carl. The years haven't been kind to him, but this is not a face I can ever forget. My instincts take over, and I flee blindly from the room.

******************************************************

Leaning against the passenger door of Jim's truck, I close my eyes and try to regulate my breathing. In, out. Got to calm down, or Jim will get all freaked out about this. And with the mood he's been lately, he doesn't need to be hearing about my old insecurities. I firmly order my stomach to behave and then open my eyes.

To my dismay, Simon is heading my way with a mixture of annoyance and concern on his face. Oh, shit. Jim must have asked him to come out and check on me. I straighten up and manage to paste a weak grin on my face.

"Sorry about that, Simon," I offer up before he can start in with the inevitable questions. "I'm okay. The guy just looked so... dead." Great, that's original. "Is Jim doing okay?"

"For now." Simon looks closely at me. "I think he could use your help now, if you're up to going back in."

I take a deep, calming breath. "Just give me a few moments here, then I'll be right back in. Tell Jim not to try anything tricky until I get back."

Simon nods at me, and I can't tell from his expressionless face whether he believes me...but he turns and walks back inside the house.

Once again, I close my eyes, trying to finish calming myself somehow before I need to re-enter the house. Unbidden, unwanted, a memory rises up from whatever hidden mental trash can I've banished it to...

...an old, cheap pocketknife in one hand...one of my mother's emery boards in the other...I sharpen the largest blade of the pocketknife on the emery board's abrasive surface, with many short, quick strokes...I stick the sharpened, open pocketknife under the mattress, on top of the box springs, with the handle sticking out slightly...waiting for the next time he comes back...

I stumble out into the street and vomit up coffee until I'm empty, then go back to leaning against the truck with my face on my folded arms. I stay that way for a long time, until I hear voices: Jim and Simon, coming out the front door. I know I need to get myself under control before they get here, so I turn around and attempt to look merely nauseated instead of on the verge of a total breakdown.

"Go check out the restaurant where Fitzgerald's girlfriend works, and the boy's school," Simon is saying. "We'll take her," he jerks his thumb at a sobbing figure being led to a waiting police car, presumably the victim's girlfriend, "down to the station and see if we can get a coherent statement out of her." He stalks off to his own car and disappears inside.

Jim fishes out his keys and opens the driver's side door on the truck. Without a word, he climbs in and leans across to open my door with his long arms. Since disappearing into the ground in overwhelming humiliation isn't an option, I climb inside and shut the door. As we start up and pull away, I sneak a glance at him. To my relief, he doesn't really look angry, just frustrated.

He sighs. "Sandburg, I heard you throwing up out here, dammit. Next time, just stay outside, all right? You'll save us both a lot of grief."

The words sting. I look out my window for a few minutes before I answer. When I do, my voice comes out barely louder than a whisper. "I thought I could handle it, Jim, I really did... I just saw more than I expected." The rest of the words stick in my throat. I know that I should tell him that I knew the victim; after all, that knowledge could turn out to be very important to the investigations. Especially after seeing those pictures on the wall...Ruthlessly, I squelch the thought, and return to the question at hand. Jim's gotten really pissed at me before for withholding information, and I'd really rather not get him that angry at me again.

Before I can say anything else, I feel Jim's hand on my shoulder, giving it a brief squeeze before returning to the steering wheel. "Sorry, Chief," he says quietly. "You're still pretty shook up, aren't you? Your heart rate's still through the ceiling, and you're white as a sheet."

Somehow, Jim's kindness is more difficult to deal with than the bluster that I was expecting. I can't tell him, not yet; I'm just not ready for this conversation. Instead I ask him what he discovered inside the bedroom.

"Doesn't look good for the kid, Chief. We found a bloodied hunting knife under his bed with lots of good prints on it. Since he's missing, he's either a suspect or been kidnapped, and we'll put an APB out on him."

"I'm sorry I left you hanging in there, Jim," I say hesitantly. "Were you able to manage all right?"

He smiles briefly. "Don't worry about it too much. I didn't really need to do all that much, just check for unusual smells or objects. Nothing that Forensics can't do as well as me, actually."

We ride on in silence, which of course is not my usual state. I can tell that Jim isn't entirely through with me yet, but I get the feeling that he's tabling the subject of my overreaction at the crime scene. For now, that's just fine with me.

A vague, unformed idea comes to me, through the fog of my misery. "Jim? Did they find any papers belonging to the kid, in his bedroom? A journal or anything? Something... that would let us know what he's been thinking?"

"No, we didn't." Jim shakes his head. "Just a few school papers, old tests, things like that. Nothing very personal."

The truck pulls into the parking lot of an all-night diner, not actually very far from the house of the victim. "This is where she works," says Jim, by way of obscure explanation. I must be looking at him blankly, because he elaborates further. "Angela Brooks, the kid's mother. The victim's girlfriend. I wanted to talk with the manager, see what they can tell me about her. You can come with me, or you can wait here, Chief. It's up to you." He glances at me, and I'm starting to see the beginnings of That Other Look: the Jim-Ellison-Mother-Hen look.

"Oh, I'll come along," I respond with forced cheerfulness. "Maybe they'll even feed us."

Truthfully, food doesn't sound very appetizing, but Jim knows quite well that I lose my appetite when I'm upset. Acting as if I'm hungry might throw him off the trail until I'm in a better position to deal with this.

Jim looks at me quizzically. "If you're hungry, Sandburg, we've got time for a bite. But I don't think they'll have any algae shakes here."

***********************************************

I don't really participate in Jim's interview of the diner manager; I'm simultaneously mulling over the implications of what happened this morning and concentrating on acting as normally as possible. One of the waitresses brings us coffee and muffins; I'm actually able to eat a little, to my relief.

"That's about all I can tell you, Detective," finishes the manager. "The time-clock records show that Angela worked her entire regular shift, but she did punch out for a lunch break from 3:00 to 3:45. That's a little longer than usual, but she's worked here for eight years, so we cut her a little slack. I don't know whether she stayed here for that break or not. The night manager could tell you more."

Jim nods. "Thank you. We'll come back tonight if we need to talk to your night manager."

Out in the parking lot, I struggle to keep up with Jim. The sun has come back out again, blindingly so, and we splash through puddles from the earlier downpour. "Where to, now?" I ask the purposefully striding figure in front of me.

"To the kid's school," he answers. "I want us to talk to his teachers. Then, back to the station to see if we can make something of this." He stops briefly and directs a level stare at me. "And at some point, Sandburg, you're going to finish telling me what happened this morning. You're not fooling me, you know."

*****************************************************

The school interviews go about as I expected. Every teacher, counselor and classmate we talk with tells us the same story: Tim's a good kid, a straight-A student, a star wrestler, college bound, a National Merit finalist. He's certainly made an impression here. His wrestling coach even shows us the kid's trophies. No one seems guarded or evasive, merely genuinely puzzled as well as worried. The official tale we tell is that Tim is missing, which is certainly true, and that we're trying to locate him...which is true for Jim, at least. I'm not so sure I want us to find the kid.

After a while, even Jim gets weary of trying to dig up dirt on this squeaky-clean boy, and we head back to the truck. By now, it's early afternoon, and I'm starting to feel the effects of both my late night and my disturbing morning. As we pull away from the school I ask Jim if he could drop me off at home, since we seem to be finished with the active part of the investigation.

"Trying to get out of the paperwork, Chief?" Jim's resilient good humor seems to be returning. I grimace. No, I just want to get away from Ellison the Human Lie Detector. "No, Jim, but I'm getting kind of wiped out, and I need a little time to myself." There. If that doesn't make Jim start grilling me again, I'll...I'll eat a Wonderburger. I do need to tell him what I know, or some of it, anyway, and talking to him in the truck while he's distracted by driving is a lot safer than waiting until tonight when he can interrogate me at his leisure.

He takes the bait. "Are you going to tell me what's going on, Chief?" he asks, just a touch belligerently. "You acted almost like you recognized that murder victim this morning." "Yes," I answer slowly. "I do...did know him. William C. Fitzgerald, known as 'Carl'. Right?"

"That was his name, yes. How did you know him?" There's curiousity in Jim's voice, tinged with concern.

I stare straight ahead, at the windshield wipers, at the grey drizzle which has started up again. "My mom was...involved with him, back when I was a teenager. It actually lasted about two years, which was a pretty long time for Naomi to stick with anyone. Especially someone so much older than her." I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. "We lived with him in his house from when I was fourteen to when I was sixteen. They split up a few months after I left home." There. All very neutral, but I've still given Jim most of the information he needs for now.

When I look over at Jim, he's shaking his head ruefully. "Sorry I came down so hard on you, Chief. You must have known the guy pretty well, then."

"Yeah, I guess so. He...he wasn't one of Naomi's better picks, though. He had a drinking problem, and yelled a lot, and gambled away most of his disability income. I never could tell what she saw in him."

"Did you stay in touch with him at all?"

"No. Like I said, they split up after I left for college, and Naomi moved back out. I had no idea he was even in the area."

"Hmm." Jim seems to be out of questions, and satisfied with my answers. "Thanks for telling me, Sandburg," he says finally. "I wouldn't have liked being surprised by that bit of information later on, like in front of Simon. Let me know if you think of anything about the guy that could be pertinent, okay?"

"Sure, Jim." We're pulling up in front of the loft now. "Anything special you want for dinner?" I ask as I get out.

He waves one hand absently. "Something hot and filling. Whatever you want to make is fine."

I can't help but smile at that as he gives me a wave and pulls away. That little concession of "whatever you want" is as good as an apology when it's coming from Detective Control Freak. I let myself into the empty loft, and glance at the clock. About 2:30; plenty of time for a nap and shower before starting dinner, since I've got no University responsibilities today. Papers and textbooks litter my bed, but there's enough room for me to lie down if I move a few stacks and don't sprawl too much.

With the rest of the intrusive world shut out, including my well-meaning but persistent partner, I've finally got the time to think about my little shock this morning. I lie on my side, staring at the french doors to my room, the doors that Jim put up when it became apparent that I was going to stay longer than the week we'd originally agreed on. My eyes focus on the doorknob and the lock. A lock on one's door...what an amazing thing. What I wouldn't have given for a lock on my door, back then. The time of day, the door...the associations are just too strong, and my mind unwillingly dredges forth the memory of a spring afternoon so long ago...

...entering the house quietly, after school, relieved at finding it empty. Retreating to my little room, and hanging the childish "Private - Do Not Disturb!" sign on my door, knowing it to be futile. Hoping that today he would be too drunk to make it home, too drunk to try anything...hearing the front door open, the unsteady footsteps around the house, the soft knock at my door and the hoarse, slurred voice, "Blair? Are you in there, boy? I jus' wanna talk to you...Blair?" The knob turning, the door opening...

I spring off my cluttered bed, dumping several piles of paper in the process, and then turn the lock of the french doors. Then I slide, shaking, to the floor, my fist in my mouth, biting back the sobs.

"Go away," I whisper. "Please, just go away. Don't touch me, please."

************************************************************

My little breakdown sucks up at least an hour before I really feel rational again, and I doze briefly. By the time Jim comes home around six, though, I feel human again; I've had a shower and am in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on dinner. Sometimes I think he just drives around until he smells the food cooking, his timing is so good. The salad is ready, a bottle of good hearty red wine is opened, and I'm tossing hot linguini with gorgonzola sauce and sauteed mushrooms.

Jim steps in wearily and tossed his keys in the basket, then comes over to the counter and sniffs the food appreciatively. The action strikes me as funny, in my post-crying jag loopy state; why does a Sentinel need to get close to the food to smell it? I guess normal mannerisms die hard, even when they're unnecessary.

"Smells great, Chief. Thanks." He sits down in his usual chair.

I fetch wineglasses and water. "Any more news on the case?" I ask casually.

"Yeah." Jim leans back and runs his hands through his hair. He doesn't look particularly happy. "First, we have the preliminary autopsy findings. Fitzgerald was killed by several knife thrusts into his chest, one of which severed his aorta. The pathologist doesn't have much else yet. But," he sighs and sits up straight again, "the prints found on the knife are the same as those found all over Tim's personal belongings, including his toothbrush. So, as crazy as it sounds, this seventeen-year-old Golden Boy is our prime suspect."

"Jim, it just doesn't seem right. Does that kid sound like a murderer to you, man? I mean, what would be his motive, anyway? Gotta have a motive." The words haven't left my mouth before I regret them. Biting my lip, I pick up the pot of steaming pasta and head for the table.

"That's what I want to ask you, Sandburg. You knew this guy." Jim looks at me intently. This time, it's his you'd-better-not-be-giving-me-any-bullshit-Chief look. "Any reason for a kid like that to have a reason to kill him?"

I've already arrived at the table and I'm about to set the pot of linguini down on the hot pad, so it only falls about an inch when my hands suddenly lose their grip. That's enough to get Jim's attention, though; between my elevated heart rate and the look on my face I'm reasonably sure that Jim isn't going to brush this off as clumsiness. In a weird sort of way, I'm relieved. I drop the potholders and stalk over to the couch, flinging myself down upon it and burying my face in the cushions. Denial isn't getting me anywhere; I guess I'll try being overly dramatic...at least that's what my overworked subconscious is suggesting.

Wait for it.

"Sandburg, what the hell is going on here?" Not bellowed, thank God, but said tensely, with audible worry. With my ears I track hesitant footsteps across the room, then a weight settles on the edge of the couch next to my skinny self. I feel a hand on my back: warm, reassuring, solid.

"What did that bastard do to you, Blair? Did he beat you? Or beat your mother?" The words are barely audible; the hand stays on my back. Jim's speculations abruptly jump from the past to the present. "Could have Carl had been hitting Tim or his mother? Did the kid kill him in self-defense?" He sighs, a frustrated sound. "Blair, talk to me. Please. It's important...not just for you, but for that kid, if we ever find him."

Telling Jim is even more difficult than I thought it would be. I don't doubt his acceptance of me, or even his ability to handle the information; but lying about the subject in question has become second nature after so many years. Breaking those habits proves to be incredibly hard. Finally, I try some rather sickly levity.

"Try 'hitting on' instead of 'hitting' and you'll be closer," I mumble into the scratchy cushions. That's right, I'll joke about it...then maybe I can stop screaming inside. Jim, bless him, then says the words for me, so that I don't have to. "Blair...are you saying that he molested you? That Carl... sexually abused you?" I nod in answer, unable to get the answer past the lump in my throat. "Why didn't you ever tell me, Chief?" he ask softly. As much as I want to sit up and discuss this rationally with Jim, with the only human on earth I trust completely to help me find some final healing, I can't. To my utter disgust and humiliation, I start to cry again. Jim pats my back awkwardly a few times, then his hand comes up to stroke my hair gently.

"Hey, Chief, it's okay... you don't have to tell me anymore right now if you don't want to." But Jim was right the first time; this is important. Even through my misery and shame, I can understand this. Having a prior statement on file that Carl was a pedophile could corroborate Tim's story if the same thing was happening to him. It wouldn't justify murder...but it would at least make the boy's actions more understandable.

I struggle to a sitting position, gulping air, and angrily wipe tears off my face with the back of my hand. "I'm sorry, Jim. I... didn't mean to fall apart like that." My voice comes out thick and hoarse, and fresh tears well out to replace those that I scrub away. Damn my treacherous eyes...whose side are they on, anyway?

Jim scoots around next to me and slides an arm around my shoulders, pulling me to lean against him. He doesn't seem to have any words to say, and I'm not even sure the right words really exist. He simply supports me, holds me up, bowing his head protectively over mine. He means well with his gentleness, but his unexpected demonstration of caring breaks me down completely.

My face buried in his shoulder, I pour out my grief, my half-hidden and unresolved fears. I cry now for all of the nights that I choked back my tears and kept my silence, fearing discovery and shame, fearing my mother's reaction. I'm crying for that Blair of long ago, the boy with no lock on his bedroom door, no Blessed Protector. Dammit, Jim, why couldn't I have known you then? The anger isn't reasonable, I know; it's merely an irrational substitute for my resentment of my mother, who should have been able to protect me better that she did. If Jim had somehow known me then, and known what Carl was doing to me...he would have dropped the creep down a manhole.

The mental image of Jim stuffing the pudgy Carl down a hole in the street is unexpectedly funny in a weird sort of way, and this finally helps me to get myself under control. I pull away from Jim a bit and try to smile up at him through tear-blurry eyes. I'm sure I must be quite a sight. "Hey, I'm sorry, man. Thanks." The words seem a bit inadequate. Jim sighs. Putting his hand under my chin, he just looks at my face for a few seconds, then shakes his head.

"I'm the one who should be sorry, Chief. I never guessed...you always seemed like you had a pretty happy childhood, even if it was pretty unorthodox." He releases my chin.

"Yeah." My voice is still shaky. "Most of the time, Jim, I was pretty happy. It was just those last two years that were a little hard."

My partner snorts. "A little? Well, whatever." He gives me that searching look again. "Do you think you can eat a little? I hate to admit it, but I'm hungry. And I think you need a little break before you talk about this anymore."

Relieved for the chance to have a little bit of normal routine, I nod. "Yeah, I'll try to eat a bit." I've got that shaky, brittle, knife-edge feeling, where tears and laughter are two sides of the same coin. My emotions feel outlandishly oversized. I stagger to the bathroom and wash my face; I can hear Jim in the kitchen nuking the pasta in the microwave, puttering around with dishes. Comfortable, happy sounds.

To my surprise, I'm able to eat a fairly decent amount, albeit slowly. We don't really talk during dinner, but it's a comforting, companionable silence rather than an awkward one. Throughout the meal I try to drink in the sense of shelter and protection that comes from my partner and from his home that he's opened up to me. I'm fortifying my soul as well as my stomach, mentally steeling myself to sit down with Jim after dinner and tell him the entire story.

After dinner, we head over to the couch as if by mutual assent. I bring my wineglass and the bottle with us. I'm not much of a drinker, but I'm hoping the wine will loosen my tongue a little and blunt some of the sharp edges of my raw emotions. Besides, a wineglass is useful for staring into, sort of a meditative focus... all right, something to hide behind during those parts of the story when I can't look Jim in the eye.

He sits down first and motions to the floor in front of him. I grab a cushion off the couch for my bony butt and take him up on his suggestion. He rests both hands on my shoulders, not massaging, just steadying me. I lean back against his knees, feeling my throat tighten a little at Jim's instinctual protective stance. He may not be able to change what happened to me in the past, but he does a darn good job of keeping an eye out for me in the present.

"Well, Chief?" he says quietly. "Do you think you can talk about this now?"

"Yeah, Jim, I think so." I take a shaky deep breath, compelling my body to cooperate. The time for tears is past; now begins the task of piecing the shattered bits of my self back together. All the king's horses, and all the king's men... but Humpty Dumpty didn't have a Sentinel, after all.

"Truth is...I don't remember all that much anyway, at least not consciously, so there's not much to tell." I have to think for a moment, try to remember how it all started. "When Naomi and I first moved in with Carl, I don't think I minded too much. Sure, he was fat, and an alcoholic, and too old for her...but he did seem to make her laugh.

"Sometime in that first year, though, he started doing some strange things. Staring at me in a way that gave me the creeps. Popping into my bedroom without knocking...well, it was his house after all, but at awkward times, like when I was just out of the shower or just getting ready for bed. He kept managing to catch me when I was undressed. He would always apologize and leave, but I could still feel his eyes on me after he left." I take a gulp of the wine, feeling it warm me and loosen the knot in my throat. "So at some point, I started hating him, trying to avoid him whenever possible. I guess it was sort of instinctive."

Jim says nothing, just squeezes my shoulders. I search mentally for the right words; here come the difficult parts.

"This is where my memory breaks down. The strange thing is...I kept a journal, and I wrote some of this stuff down. But when I read it again a couple of years later, it was if I was reading something written by a complete stranger. All I really had left was a complete terror of Carl, and a few specific memories. Some of those have been, well, coming back again today. That's why I was so messed up this morning.

"The first memory...well, I guess they're not in any particular order, but this one's the weirdest. I remember hating Carl enough that I thought I wanted to kill him." I let out a nervous laugh, running my hands through my hair. "Can you imagine that? Me, Mr. Non-Violence? Anyway, I found an old pocketknife in the garage, and cleaned it up and sharpened it. I guess I thought I would keep it in my bedroom, and use it to defend my honor. I couldn't do it, though. I kept the knife...at one point, I came close to using it on myself." I add the last sentence with no small amount of bitterness.

"God, Blair, I'm sorry," Jim says quietly. "I had no idea it was that bad."

I shrug. "Yeah, well, I was a little messed up there for a while, just like a lot of teenagers." Time for a few more sips of wine. At the rate I'm going, I'll have to finish the bottle to get the story out. "The next memory is really several incidents sort of run together, hard to sort out. Afternoons, after school, were always one of the worst times. I would come home from school, and I'd have a couple of hours before Naomi got home from work. I was never exactly one for after-school sports or anything like that, so I usually came straight home.

"Carl wasn't working then, and he spent most of his time drinking at the tavern up the road with his buddies. But he almost always made it home not too long after I did. I used to have all of these elaborate schemes to avoid him. If the weather was nice, I tried to just stay outside, where the neighbors could see me, until my mom came home. Or I'd come in and take a long bath, reading a book in the tub. The bathroom had a lock, so I wouldn't be disturbed. Or sometimes, I'd just stay in my room and pretend to be asleep. Sometimes that worked."

I stare into the depths of the wineglass. "But I remember, one afternoon, just sitting in my room with the lights off, scared to death. I could hear him walking around, looking for me...I took my chair and jammed it under the doorknob, like they always do in the horror movies, only it never works. I guess I hoped he'd be too drunk to figure out why my door didn't open."

"What happened?"

"He couldn't get in, and stormed off back to the tavern. I fell asleep, and the next thing I knew, Naomi was home and was totally freaked 'cause she couldn't find me or get my door open. I had to make up some story about accidentally leaving the chair next to the door to reach something, and that it must have fallen. She actually swallowed it, though."

"Chief, I don't understand. Your mother...well, she's not exactly conventional, but she clearly loves you. Why weren't you able to tell her? Didn't you think she would believe you?"

"That...was the worst part." I draw up my knees and rest my elbows on them, dropping my chin to my arms. "I'm sorry, Jim. I'll get to that, I promise...but I need to tell this my own way."

"Sure, Blair," he answers me. "Take all the time you need." There's a hint of a tremble in his voice, now, that wasn't present at the start of the conversation; just a whiff of vulnerability. I crane my neck around to get a look at his face, and it occurs to me that the real reason he wanted me to sit in front of him was so I wouldn't be able to easily gauge his reactions to my confessions. In some ways, this must be harder on him than on me; I've had years to deal with this, after all.

"Jim," I say softly. "Remember. This happened a long time ago. You didn't even know me then; there's nothing you could have done." I reach up and squeeze one of his hands briefly, then go on with my bleak narrative.

"The last couple of memories...they're both things that happened at night. I remember him coming into my room one night, very late, probably after midnight. I was awake, but pretending to be asleep. He came into the room, pulled the blankets off of me..." I stop for a few seconds, and I know that Jim must be able to feel my heart rate rising. The rest of the words come out in a rush. "He touched me, then...fondled me. I had to just lie there, and pretend to be somewhere else." Despite the clinical attitude I'm trying to take about all of this, despite the years that separate me from that terrified boy, I feel the hot blood rise in my face. "Then he threw some money, a twenty-dollar bill, down on the bed, and left. The money was almost the worst part...made me feel like a prostitute, somehow." Now, I can't bear to turn around and look at Jim; I'm afraid to see what his face might show me. I plunge doggedly ahead with the last memory. "The other thing that happened at night wasn't as bad. Carl used to sit up, late at night, in front of the TV after both Naomi and I had gone to bed. I had to pass by the den to get to the kitchen if I wanted a late-night snack. If Carl was drunk enough, he'd make me stop by his chair while he felt me up."

Still nothing from Jim but the weight of his hands on my shoulders; but it doesn't take Sentinel-hearing to detect his increased respiratory rate. He's got to be disturbed by all of this. I don't know how this is going to affect our friendship, and I'm not sure I'm ready to know yet. "You asked me why I never told my mom. I had a few reasons. I guess mainly I was afraid that if I reported Carl, in any way; someone would take me away from Naomi. And that wasn't worth it, to me. And if I had just told Mom, not the police or anyone else, she might have confronted him, and he might have hurt her. I couldn't risk her, Jim." Now my voice is failing me again, and tears that I thought I was finished with are threatening to return. "You and her...I haven't got anyone else."

"I understand, Chief." Jim's voice is also husky with suppressed emotion. He leans further forward, wrapping those long arms around me from behind. "You did the best you could, under pretty tough conditions, and you still turned to be the person that you are. I'm proud of you... now, and that kid you used to be."

We stay that way for a long time.

************************************************************

"...bleep...bleep...bleep...bleep..."

No, it's not a delivery truck backing up over my head, just my alarm clock beeping. It sounds off after what feels like only a few hours of sleep. With great restraint I resist the urge to heave it across the room; instead I turn it off and stare at it blearily. My eyes feel like medium-grit sandpaper, my head seems stuffed full of old sweat socks, and my mouth... I'd rather not think about my mouth. Nothing can taste that bad.

As I sit up, the room whirls lazily about me, and I'm unable to suppress a groan. I suspect I'm going to be feeling sorry for myself this morning. Footsteps approach my door, sounding like small explosions through the fog of my wine-and-late-confession hangover. Now I understand a little bit of what it's like for Jim. If a Sentinel gets a hangover, he can probably hear two spiders tango across the ceiling.

Speaking of Jim... he knocks softly, then sticks his head in my room. He, of course, is showered, dressed and shaved, and hovering on the verge of cheerfulness. It's really not fair. He was up just as late as me, and had to listen to me retelling some pretty unpleasant experiences. But then again, Jim didn't drink almost a whole bottle of red wine. I'm not sure why I did that. Maybe I was mourning for my supposed lost innocence; maybe I was celebrating my new freedom. Carl is dead, and I've finally been able to dig those memories out and stare them down. He'll never hurt me again, and so in a way I do feel victorious.

Jim's face softens a little when he looks at me, which seems a pleasant change from the superior smirk I would usually expect under these circumstances. He comes in and sits down on the edge of the bed, also unusual behavior. I'm starting to wonder just how long this "be extra nice to Blair" phase is going to last; I could get used to this. Maybe he'll even fix breakfast...although maybe food isn't such a great idea, since my stomach starts muttering uneasily at the mere thought of eating.

"How are you feeling, Chief?" he asks neutrally. The face is serious, but there's just a hint of fond amusement in the blue eyes. "You were a little, ah, plastered last night. Feel any better?"

I nod carefully so as not to shatter my eyeballs. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is taking its revenge big time," I manage to quip, and am rewarded by a real smile from Jim. He reaches out and messes up my hair - - certainly a redundant action at the moment - - and stands up. "I figured that would be the case. I've got some breakfast for you. Invalid food: instant oatmeal and tea. Think you can handle that?"

"Probably not, but I may as well try." I wobble to my feet and head for the bathroom. When I emerge, I can smell food, and now the thought doesn't seem quite as revolting. After a quick consultation with my stomach, I brave the oatmeal and tea. It goes down surprisingly well, actually. The ibuprofen I swallowed in the bathroom start to work, and the guy running the jackhammer in my skull takes a lunch break. A disturbing thought occurs to me while I'm slurping oatmeal. "Uh, Jim?" He's sitting across the table, doing some serious damage to some toast and a few defenseless eggs.

"What, Chief?"

"I, uh, don't actually remember going to bed last night."

The smirk I'd looked for earlier now makes a brief appearance on Jim's face. "I told you, Sandburg, you were plastered. I had to put you to bed. Someone with your body mass and alcohol tolerance should not drink an entire bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon."

"Don't remind me," I groan. "Besides, you had a glass or two, so it wasn't a whole bottle."

"And you were tired, and emotionally exhausted, and you didn't eat much for dinner. It all caught up to you, Chief," he says, more gently this time.

I nod in answer, as I'm not up to any more verbal sparring. I'm obscurely glad that Jim is back to teasing me, though. I finish my breakfast and head into the shower to see if Jim left me any hot water. I actually manage to get a good long soak, and I'm starting to feel marginally more human. It helps that Jim seems to be handling all of this pretty well. I was worried that learning that his partner had been molested as a kid would either repel him or make him more overprotective, but he doesn't seem to be going to either extreme.

When I come out of the bathroom, toweling my hair, Jim's on the phone; it sounds like he's talking to Simon. I pop into my room to get dressed, then hurry back out to eavesdrop.

"All right. He's waived extradition, then?" A pause. "They should be able to get him down to us by this afternoon then. We'll see you soon." He blows out his breath forcefully, then looks at me.

"Simon got a call this morning from our police colleagues up in Vancouver. Tim Brooks turned himself in, and they'll transfer him back down to us. What's your schedule today?"

I think as rapidly as I can. "Today is Wednesday? I've got class at eleven. I was going to have office hours this afternoon, but I can reschedule if I have to."

"Can you? The kid should be down here by this afternoon. I think...I'd like to have you present while we talk to him, Chief. Maybe even have you do the talking. We're going to have to handle this boy very carefully."

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea, Jim." I run my hands through my wet hair. "I may not be very objective. What if I screw up, ask the wrong question or something?"

"We'll help you, don't worry. And I may just have you sit and listen, be a support person." He sighs, and suddenly won't meet my eyes. "There's something else, Blair. I think we need to tell Simon about what you told me last night."

I sit down on the couch. "All of it?" The words come out more plaintively than I mean them to. "Jim, I'm not sure I'm ready for that. Telling you...that was therapeutic, but still really hard. I don't think I can." I turn around to look at Jim.

His gaze has hardened. "You've got to, Chief. Not all the details, yet, but at least the bare facts of what Carl did to you, and why you never disclosed. Simon says the D.A. is breathing down his neck about this case. Brooks may be only seventeen, but that still may not save him from a charge of Murder One."

He walks over, sits down next to me. "I know you'd rather not, Blair, but you don't have much choice. You may even have to testify."

**********************************************

The drive to the station starts out miserably enough. I'm pissed off at Jim for insisting that we go talk to Simon immediately. It's not the idea of Simon knowing that I was molested that bothers me, just the way Jim decreed that it should happen. Sometimes he acts as if he thinks he's God handing down his decisions on stone tablets.

As much as I want to argue with him, though, I can't. The reasonable part of my brain knows that he's right; my story could be important (albeit old) evidence. What worries me now is a sickening realization: the idea of Tim being possibly a victim of abuse works both ways. Sure, it might explain things if the kid killed Carl in his own self-defense, perhaps; but it's also a perfect motive for a calculated murder. After all, even I thought about doing away with the creep. My statements could aid Tim's defense, or delight the prosecution. I'm not sure at what point I started identifying so much with this boy, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to think of him as anything but a victim... that I should be helping.

Anyway, since I know I can't really argue this point with Jim, at least not convincingly, I've been doing the next best thing: sulking. I haven't said a word since we got into the truck, and have been staring straight ahead at the nearly-horizontal rain. Lovely weather.

I finally glance over at him as we pull into the parking garage. His hands grip the steering wheel tightly, his vision hovers front and center, and his jaw clenches and unclenches a few times just in the few seconds that I'm watching. It's hard to believe that this rigidly controlled, high-sphincter-tone hard ass is the same friend who stayed up with me most of the night, who held me when I cried, who poured my drunken self into bed...

Aw, shit. My face reddens with one of those annoying blushes. Okay, so I'm being a twit. Jim's just acting according to his nature: protect the Tribe, and uphold the law. Last night I happened to be the beneficiary of his protective instincts... is it fair for me to be in a snit because now he's back in "Thou Shalt Follow All of the Rules" mode?

So, as Jim tugs on the parking brake, undoubtedly completely unaware of my inner debate, I turn to him with a sheepish smile on my face and an apology on my lips.

But I don't get the chance; Jim speaks first, in a flat and businesslike tone.

"Okay, Chief, cut the crap. Go ahead and be pissed off at me, if you want...but I'm still deadly serious about all of this. This is a murder investigation, after all, and you'll cooperate or be subpoena'd.

"Now, we'll go talk to Simon and let him know about Carl's history as a pedophile. He may let it go at that, or he may ask you to make a formal statement. Can you handle that?"

And what will you do if I say "no", Detective? Lead your best friend into the station in cuffs?

"Jim..." I begin, miserably. "I told you most of what I remember last night. I'm not sure there's enough of anything concrete in what I remember to make a helpful statement." I'm perilously close to whining.

He sighs. "I know. But think about it, see if you can recall anything else that he did to you." His expression grows gentler. "Sorry, Chief. I know this isn't easy for you. But we don't have much choice."

"I know." It comes out as a whisper, and not the strong response that I'd intended. "I'm sorry I'm being such a spoiled brat about this, Jim." Dammit, I refuse to start crying again...I blink rapidly a few times.

Jim squeezes my shoulder. "Sulk if it makes you feel better, Sandburg. I'm used to it." The teasing comment does make me smile, surely its intended effect, and I feel a little less like I'm on the way to my own hanging. Someone else's hanging, maybe, but not mine.

Simon's on the phone when we show up, talking about what sounds like an unrelated matter. Whoever's on the other end, though, has screwed up something very badly. It's kind of fun to hear Simon ream someone else out for a change. He sees us, though, and finishes up.

"Never mind! Just make it happen!" He hangs up and scowls at me. I grin back, some of my humor returning at the sight of Simon having a hissy fit. Pushing Simon's buttons, testing the limits of his patience, has been a hobby with me for the last couple of years. Most of the time he ignores me whenever possible, but every once in a while I can get under his skin. I think he's finally getting used to having me around, though. He sort of likes me, but wouldn't be caught dead admitting it. Jim gets right to the point. "Captain, Blair told me something last night that puts an interesting spin on the Fitzgerald case." Huh, he's even using my first name...maybe he wants to remind Simon that I have one.

Of course, now Simon looks expectantly at me. "Well, Sandburg?" he barks. "Out with it. Don't keep me in suspense."

I swallow and look at Jim. This was your idea, big guy...going to help me out here? I sit down, and Jim comes around behind me. "Simon, I, uh, knew the victim. Fairly well, although I hadn't seen him for years."

Simon's eyes narrow. "And just when were you going to tell me this, Sandburg?"

Then Jim speaks up. "He told me yesterday, sir, while we were out investigating Tim Brooks' background." He slips a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Go on, Chief."

Thus anchored, I'm able to get most of it out in one long run-on sentence. "Fitzgerald used to have a thing with my mom, when I was a kid, only we called him 'Carl', and we lived with him for a couple of years, and for about a year and a half of that time he was molesting me, and Naomi never knew about it." I look down at my fidgeting hands, though, while I say this, so I miss whatever expressions are crossing Simon's face.

There's a faint rustle in front of me, and I look up...to see Simon, down on one knee in front of my chair. There's an expression on his face that I've almost never seen: sincere concern, directed at me. His eyes lock with mine, and when he speaks, it's his "father" voice, the one he uses with Darryl and hardly ever with anyone else.

"Blair, I'm sorry. This must be extremely hard for you to talk about...but thank you for telling me. This is very important." He sighs, then straightens up again. Jim speaks again from over my head.

"He told me all about it last night, sir. We thought you should know before the Brooks kid got here."

Simon nods distractedly. "Yes, good thinking. This will definitely make a difference in how we interview him." He looks at me again with that concerned gaze. "Blair, how are you handling this? Is there anything that the department, or I can do? Counseling?" He's used my first name twice in one day, now.

His unexpected fatherly warmth thaws something inside of me, somehow. "I'm okay, Simon," I manage to say. "It all happened a long time ago. I don't need therapy, I've got a Sentinel." I feel Jim's hand tighten briefly on my shoulder. "If I don't shape up, he just kicks my ass. Best therapy in the world."

"If you're up to it, then, Sandburg, I think we'd like you here this afternoon when our suspect gets here. Your...perspective could be helpful."

I nod in response. "I've got a class at eleven, but I can be back by about twelve-thirty."

"Good. We'll see you then."

*********************************************************

After the conference with Simon, I've still got a good hour and a half before class, so I stick around and help Jim with his paperwork for a while. The work is just substantial enough to steady my nerves, but still comfortingly mind-numbing in its routine. I'm able to think a little with the unoccupied part of my mind, but I can't simply sit and obsess.

Abruptly, something I've been half-trying to remember finally comes to the surface. It's probably not very helpful, but...

"Jim?" I ask softly. Thankfully, he's just a few feet away, filling out reports. "I remember something else about Carl that I forgot to tell you last night."

At that point, Jim puts down his pen. He stands up and motions for me to follow. I trail after him as he leads the way to the conference room. It's blessedly empty, and Jim closes the door behind us. He guides me into a chair and sits down opposite to me.

I'm touched by his behavior. Clearly, he wants us to have privacy for this discussion, for my sake. Faintly ironic, considering all of the times he's kicked my ass out in the bullpen with all of Major Crimes for an appreciative audience.

"Okay, Chief, tell me. What else did you think of?"

"It's not as bad as the other stuff I told you," I point out first. Reassuring him, or reassuring myself? "The important part is: I did tell someone about Carl, when I was in college."

Jim waits expectantly for me to continue.

"It was during my junior year. I told my roommate. I hadn't wanted to. I was still afraid, somehow, that my mother would find out. By then, of course, she'd dumped him, but it would still have hurt her.

"But Carl... started stalking me, sort of. He found out my phone number in the dorm, and started calling. I'm still not sure how he got the number. I was never home much, so my roommate Sean kept taking the messages. Carl never left his name or anything; all Sean could ever tell me was that some older man was calling for me and that he would try again later. I had a suspicion that it might be Carl, but I wasn't sure. Then one day, he called while I was there, and I answered it."

I pause for a moment. This memory is so much more recent than the others, and retelling it feels almost even more uncomfortable. Jim reaches out and rests his hand on my wrist. "Go on," he encourages me.

"I hadn't heard his voice for over two years, but it scared me so much I almost puked. He kept telling me that he was sorry, and that he missed me. Kept apologizing. He wanted to know what my mailing address was, so he could send me presents and money, like he used to. I hung up on him at that point."

"Was that the only contact he made with you?"

I laugh bitterly. "Yeah, 'cause I didn't answer the phone for weeks after that. Made hell out of my dating life." I look up at Jim's face, away from the spot on the table I'd been staring at. "You have to understand, Jim, I was pretty confused by all of this. I wasn't really sure what had happened, before, or why I was so afraid of Carl. So...after that phone call, I fished out my old journal from high school, and did some reading. That's when it all started coming back to me, and I was pretty freaked out when Sean came home that day.

"I had to tell him something...he was pretty worried about me. So I told him most of it. Not as much as I told you, but more that I told Simon. He promised to answer the phone for a while after that. Carl did call back one more time...Sean told him to go to hell." I smile a little at that memory.

"Are you still in touch with Sean?" asks Jim, releasing his hold on my wrist.

"No, but I'm sure I could track him down, if it becomes necessary," I answer Jim glumly. "He went off to grad school, but I don't remember where; the alumni records might show it. English major. He probably has his doctorate by now, probably teaching somewhere."

Jim looks at his watch. "Speaking of degrees...time to get you back over to the university, Chief. Do you want me to drop you off at home to get your car, or just take you over? I don't mind playing chauffeur if you want. You still look kind of, well...hung over."

"Just run me over to campus. I'll call here when I'm done." As we ease through the doorway of the conference room, I place a hand on his arm. "Thanks, man."

****************************************************

By the time Jim comes back to the campus to get me, it's almost one o'clock and I'm dozing at my desk. His rap on the office door startles me momentarily, but I relax as he pokes his head in. "Sorry I took so long, Chief." Jim's face looks haggard and drawn, I realize. This case hasn't been easy on him.

I grab my coat and backpack. "That's okay, Jim. I've always got projects here to work on."

"Like checking your eyelids for light leaks?" He cuffs me lightly on the side of the head. "I heard snoring when I walked up the hall, Sandburg."

"We geniuses have to recharge our brains more often," I counter.

We banter for a while longer. Jim's smile lasts until we get about a mile from the university, then he scowls.

"He should be there by the time we get back."

No need to ask who Jim is referring to by that comment. I don't say anything in response, but watch Jim's face instead, as he sighs and rubs his forehead.

"I'm not looking forward to this interview either, Chief."

***************************************************

They've got Tim Brooks stashed in one of the interivew rooms, the kind that has a one-way mirror. Simon's standing there, outside the room, and staring at the kid as we walk up.

"Has he said anything yet?" Jim asks without further preamble.

"Not really. Oh, he hasn't given us a bit of trouble, but hasn't volunteered anything other than the name of the friend he was visiting. He's an extraordinarily self-possessed youngster, though; very mature."

While they chat, I study Tim through the window. He's not cuffed, to my relief, and is wearing ordinary rumpled clothes: faded jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. He sits without moving, yet still manages to convey a sense of restless energy; there's an intensity about him, somehow. Disheveled dark curling hair and shadowed blue eyes accent a face that would probably be sensitive and expressive under more friendly circumstances but that currently seems a guarded mask. He shifts to lean his elbows onto the table, and I see the hint of a wrestler's compact muscles under the loose shirt. His eyes flick to the mirror, studying his own reflection but seeming to meet my gaze. The effect is most disconcerting, and I look away.

I notice Simon and Jim have finished their conversation and are looking at me oddly. Jim, in particular, stares at me, then looks back at the one-way mirror.

"What?" I demand. "Is my fly open? Is there broccoli in my teeth?"

Simon shakes his head, in a gesture that is both a negation and reminiscent of a dog shaking water out of its coat. "Never mind, Sandburg. Jim, I want you two to talk to the boy. He's not actually under arrest, yet; we told him that he was simply wanted for questioning at this point." After a nod to Jim, he wanders away, leaving us to our fate. Jim's staring at the kid again; I have to tug on his arm to get his attention.

"Hey, Jim," I begin when he turns to look at me. "I'm not so sure about this, about having me in there to help you interview him. What if I screw something up?" The truth is, I'm scared of this whole situation on some gut level; much more rattled than I expected.

"You don't have to say anything, Chief, I'll do all the talking," comes the answer. "But I'd like you with me, in case I get distracted."

I snort. "Jim, you're not going to zone out just from questioning a suspect."

"You never know. C'mon, Chief, I need you in there, and so does that kid."

Ah, guilt, the surefire way to a Guide's heart!

The kid, Tim, hardly bats an eye as we walk in. Okay, so I'm not exactly very threatening, but Jim can be a startling sight for the uninitiated. I mentally give the boy extra points for steadiness. Jim introduces us, and starts asking some easy questions about school, wrestling, friends. Tim answers warily but without any significant hesitation. I sit and listen, and try to look empathetic and supportive. Hell, I feel empathetic and supportive; it's not really much of an act.

"All right, Tim. That's good. Now I need to ask you about Monday night."

I'm watching Tim closely when Jim asks that question, and I have to admit it's an educational experience. Not a muscle of his face actually moves, but somehow the eyes become more shuttered, the emotions even more hidden. Maybe I can learn something from this kid. When you have the Grand Inquisitor for a housemate and best friend, you need all of the help you can get. "What do you want to know?" counters the boy, coolly.

I swear, I half expect Jim to pound on the table and yell, "Cut the crap, Tim!" Instead he stays in quiet control.

"What happened Monday night, Tim?"

The kid locks eyes with Jim for a moment then lowers his gaze slightly. "I ran away." Not the answer I was expecting.

"Why?"

"Because...I was scared."

"Of what?"

This time, a very long, pregnant pause. Still no squirming from Tim, though. "I...heard a scuffle, in the middle of the night. I woke up and realized someone was in my room." I wake up, too, from my half-hypnotized listening state. Uh-oh, now we're going somewhere. "I turned on the light...and there was Carl, falling over, all bloody, with a knife in his chest."

So far, Jim's face shows no reaction to this tale. "And then what?"

"He looked at me, and tried to say something, and pulled the knife out of his chest, then dropped it. I picked it up, I'm not sure why." I feel a knot of sick dread forming in my belly, and glance over at Jim, whose jaw muscles are now performing a rhythmic dance.

Tim continues. "I looked at the knife. Then I looked at Carl. He looked dead. I threw the knife down, and took off. I was scared; whoever killed him might still be in the house. So I climbed out my window and ran."

Jim clears his throat. "That's enough for now, Tim. Excuse us for a moment." He gets up so quickly that he almost knocks his chair over. I follow in hot pursuit, and we get jammed in the door Three Stooges-style before he slips past me. I flash what I hope is an encouraging smile at Tim, and set off after Jim.

I catch up to him a few seconds later, in the hallway. "Hey, Jim, where are you going, man? Aren't we going to question him anymore?"

Jim slows his long stride a tiny bit, but I still have to scurry to keep up. "I'm going to arrange to have him arrested and booked on the murder charge, Chief." Now he stops, and looks down at me. "That kid's lying."

"Of course he's lying! He's scared to death! Jim, come on man, you know that kid's not a murderer!" I try to keep my voice down, as we're attracting a few stares.

"Then show me who else I should be arresting, Sandburg! We've got a suspect with opportunity, who left prints all over the murder weapon, who's not telling us the truth - -" Jim doesn't seem to care who hears him at this point.

"You haven't given him a chance to tell the truth, Jim!" I counter hotly. "We just met the poor kid, and he has no idea who he can trust yet!" Now we're both shouting.

"- - and who's got a motive, a damn good one! And thanks to you, I know what that motive is! So tell me, Sandburg, why shouldn't I arrest him?"

I stare at Jim as the impact of his words finally hits. "You're going to use what I told you about Bud to pin a murder charge on this poor boy! I can't believe you would do you that! Jim, you know he didn't do it."

"That's about enough out of you, Sandburg," he growls, somewhat more quietly. "It's my job to investigate the murder and make the arrest. It's the D.A.'s job to prosecute the case." He places a tentative hand on my shoulder. "Chief, this doesn't mean he'll go to trial, or that we'll stop looking for another suspect."

I pull away, and face away from him with my arms folded. Jim waits. Finally I say, "No one has asked me to make a formal statement yet, about Carl. Without my testimony, there's no motive. Maybe no case."

He grabs my shoulders and spins me around so fast my teeth rattle; for a brief second, he looks like he's going to slam me up against the wall. When he speaks, his voice is cold, controlled. "If you change your story, Chief, I'll have you arrested for obstruction of justice. Just let me catch you lying about this, and I'll have your ass in jail before you can blink."

He releases me, and I stagger away, rubbing my shoulders. But Jim isn't through humiliating me. "You've lost your objectivity, Sandburg. You're off the case. Go home. We'll talk about this tonight."

**************************************************

Okay, now I'm really pissed.

I told Jim from the beginning that I didn't feel very objective about this case. He's the one that insisted that I hang around and be a support person for our teenage suspect. Apparently, what he really meant is that we'd be playing "good cop/bad cop". I should have known. And that crack about tossing me in jail for obstruction of justice...would Jim really do that?

I'm afraid to find out. I slip back into the bullpen and gather up my stuff. Jim's nowhere in sight; probably a good thing right now considering how I feel. I attract a few covert glances from the other detectives. Some of them probably heard our little shouting match in the hall. Joel's looking openly concerned, and makes a tentative little "c'mere" motion with his hand...but I pretend not to notice, and get out of there fast.

Halfway down on the elevator, I realize I don't have my car with me today. After digging around in my backpack for my wallet, I stare glumly at its empty folds. Okay, no cash either. So much for taking the bus home or to the University.

Standing out on the sidewalk, I consider the options. I could go back inside, and get someone to drive me home. Oh yeah, and then answer the inevitable questions. Or call one of my fellow students to run me over to campus, where I've always got work to do anyway. Or I can walk home. It'll take forever, and the sky looks like rain, (when doesn't it?) but...

I feel like one of those guys in the cartoons with a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other. The little angel tells me that if I just creep back inside and work quietly on Jim's paperwork, he'll be along in no time to apologize for being so hard on me. His counterpart, however, is singing a more persuasive tune: "Be grudging and unforgiving. Walk home, and make Jim feel guilty. After all, he told you to go home, didn't he?"

The little angel tugs on my shirt collar and whispers something more about the quality of mercy, but I give his symbolic body a good flick with my index finger. Splat!

Definitely too many cartoons lately.

**************************************************

The rain hits after I've walked for barely twenty minutes. I duck into shops a couple of times, hoping to wait it out, but it's no good. The shopkeepers all seem to be some kind of mutated Sentinel: they can smell the fact that I haven't got any money. After a half-dozen very pointed "May I help you, sir?" remarks, I give up and brave the downpour. It rains, then hails, then the wind picks up. Monsoon season in Cascade.

Whether consciously or not, I notice that I've chosen a way home that doesn't coincide very much with Jim's driving route. I tell myself that I'm trying to take the maximum advantage of shelter from awnings and marquees, but I've got an uncomfortable feeling that I'm being even pettier than I thought. No matter how annoyed Jim is, if he sees me trudging along in the rain he'll stop and pick me up, and I don't want that. I'm going for maximum guilt-generating potential here, and that calls for a soaked, exhausted, shivering Blair.

By the time I finally arrive on our street, eons later, I'm stiff and stumbling with fatigue and cold. I'm no longer really thinking about the argument, just about basic needs like shelter and warmth. Maybe that explains my interest in primitive societies: if you're preoccupied with simply staying alive, who's got time to play mind games with those you love? An afternoon of hypothermia has just dumped me down several levels on Mazlow's self-actualization pyramid. If Jim appeared in front of me right now, I'd probably mistake him for a tree and attempt to set fire to him.

Slowly, I drag myself up to the loft, leaving behind an impressive water trail. I can just see Forensics analyzing this scene... "We think that the murder was committed by some sort of large, freshwater fish..." With numb, chilled fingers I fumble the key into the door and open it.

Ahhh...blessed warmth. I stagger inside and manage to get the door shut behind me. I pause briefly at the couch, then shake my head and head for my room. I strip off most of the wet clothes, and fall into the welcoming bed.

******************************************************

When I slowly wake up, the room has gotten a lot darker, and I become aware of two things. First, my body is warm again. That blessed realization alone occupies my attention for a few minutes, and it takes me a while to get around to the second thing. I smell pizza. I try to sit up in bed, and notice that things are not quite the way I left them. Granted, I wasn't exactly in a terribly observant state of mind when I crawled in here. But someone has picked my sodden jeans and shirt up off the floor, someone has dressed me in warm, dry clothes, and someone has piled extra blankets on top of me. That's why I'm having trouble sitting up; I'm buried.

Someone, hell. Jim, obviously. This comforter on top is his, taken from off of his bed.

I can feel my face flushing in the darkness. Jim must have come home and found me in my chilled state. I don't remember anything, but he can move pretty quietly when he needs to. It would be so typical of him...apologize by actions, rather than words. And when I try to summon up the righteous anger that I felt earlier...I can't. It's gone; burned out, or frozen out, on my long tortured walk home. I still don't agree with Jim's actions, necessarily, but I no longer feel personally betrayed.

Time to face the music, not to mention look for the pizza. I get up, flick on the light and wander out to the living area. Jim's parked out there, with a beer in his hand and the pizza in front of him. Delicious smells waft from the box.

The nonchalant approach seems safest. I detour to the kitchen and grab a beer, then wander over to sit next to Jim. "Hey, smells good."

"Help yourself." He doesn't look at me yet, and I notice that there are three empty beer bottles on the coffee next to the pizza. Jim, drinking by himself? He doesn't even have the television on for company, and the pizza appears untouched. I start to get a little concerned.

"Uh, Jim...thanks for taking care of me, man. I mean, the extra blankets and everything. That was really nice of you."

Now he looks at me. No smile yet, just a mixture of sadness and relief. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay, I guess. A little sore. I guess I'm out of shape, if walking a few miles makes me ache like this. Used to be, I could hike all day and not feel it."

Jim sighs. "Sandburg, you were hypothermic when I got home. Your heart rate was low, and your core temperature was only 94 degrees. I almost took you to the hospital, but you improved pretty quickly. You were practically shivering yourself out of bed, and you were making absolutely no sense. That's why you're so sore."

"Really? Hypothermia?" I digest this for a moment. "Did I say anything interesting?"

"You kept talking about a little angel, and how you didn't mean to kill it...and something about a murdering fish, and setting me on fire. Very weird, Chief."

"Oh." Okay, maybe I had been a little out of it.

Jim puts down his nearly-empty beer. He turns, and puts both hands on my shoulders. "Chief... Blair, whatever possessed you to walk all the way home, during a thunderstorm? That was stupid. Any of us would've given you a ride home, you know that." He doesn't yell at me...I almost wish he would. The smart-ass response I had prepared dies on my lips at the sight of his face: bone-weary, with lines of pain and grief around the eyes.

"You're right." I whisper. "It was stupid. I... was mad at you, and I wanted you to feel guilty, I guess. I'm sorry, Jim."

He rests one hand on the side of my face for a moment, then lets it drop. "I'm glad you're warm again, Chief. You looked terrible." He turns his troubled gaze away from me for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is uncharacteristically quiet. "You were right, you know."

"I was?"

"Arresting that kid for murder...that was one of the hardest things I've ever done. You should have seen his face, Chief. Just blank, completely closed down. But what else could I do?" Another swig of beer. Damn... so this is why Jim's putting away the suds tonight; he feels guilty. "He reminds so much of you, and that didn't help either. Looks a lot like you."

"He does?" I think back to earlier today, to the way Jim and Simon were staring at me. All right, maybe there was a faint resemblance. I don't like the way Jim sounds, though. He's not that drunk, yet, not with his size, but I don't think he needs any more liquid central-nervous-system depressant.

"Jim, cut it out, man. You're just doing your job, like you said." Now it's my turn to feel guilty. "I can see that, now. I'm sorry I gave you so much crap about it." I think about Tim, about where he is now, in a jail cell. "At least...he's safe, where he is." I finish lamely.

"Yeah," Jim answers, morosely.

"Am I still off the case?" I ask, after a few minutes of quiet pizza munching. Now, I finally get a smile from Jim.

"No, Chief...I think I need you to keep me honest."

********************************************

As we get ready to leave the next morning, Jim stops me as I put my hand on the door. "Hang on a second, Chief."

"Hmmmph?" I've got a piece of toast stuffed in my mouth; we're running a little late.

Jim puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me gently...a marked contrast to the way he touched me yesterday, at the station. "I owe you an apology, Blair."

I choke a little on the toast, and cough, spraying crumbs on Jim's coat. "You do? I thought we took care of all that last night. It's okay, man." I think back, foggily, to last night's conversation. Maybe Jim hadn't actually said the words, but I'd gone to bed feeling that all was right between us again.

"I need to say the words, Chief," he answers, as if he's reading my mind. "I'm sorry... sorry that I yelled at you like that, sorry that I didn't listen to you about something that you obviously felt so strongly about. But mainly, I'm sorry that I... betrayed your trust in me, and then made it worse by trying to browbeat you into submission with phony threats."

"Jim, it's okay. You were upset, too." I glance down, away from the pain in his eyes.

"Blair, I meant what I said last night. You keep me honest...make me human, keep me sane."

"That's the way it works, man. I'm your partner, remember?" I can't stand it any longer. I lean forward and pull him close to me. "You're not going to get rid of me that easily, so don't worry."

There's an expression I remember hearing when I was an undergraduate, "Don't let your mouth write checks that your body can't cash." The friend who originally said that to me was cautioning me against over-commitment and burnout, the perennial hazards of the student. All right, I admit I have a certain tendency to overdo it, to keep too many projects on the burner at once. For me, though, those words have come to possess a second meaning since I've been working with Jim.

Talk is easy for me, always has been; I'm rarely if ever at a loss for words. Actions are more difficult, especially when they require silence and patience.

Expressing physical affection towards anyone used to be incredibly threatening for me, maybe as a result of the whole Carl thing. I used to avoid situations where I might have to touch someone. Gradually, over the years, that's gotten easier for me. Jim, and all of the other guys at Major crimes, have helped a lot; they're always slapping my back, tugging on my hair, and biffing me on the shoulder. A guy could get serious bruises hanging out there. "Just say it with contusions" should be the motto of the Cascade P.D.

I only hug Jim for a few seconds before I squirm away, but he's smiling when I look at his face. "Let's get going, Sandburg," he says, sounding more like himself. "How are we supposed to get any work done if you talk all morning?"

***********************************************************

Simon confronts us practically as soon as we walk through the door. And I do mean "us", as his opening comments actually include me for a change.

"Lock-up's been calling for you two. Your suspect's been asking to talk to you again." Simon gives me a funny look. This one I haven't categorized yet. "How are you feeling?"

Oh... that's concern. Careful, Simon; that's twice in one week, your face might crack. "Uh... fine. Shouldn't I be?" Jim must have told him about my impersonation of the Abominable Snowman yesterday. The big guy must have been worried about me after all if he called Simon.

He sighs. "Sandburg, next time... never mind." He leaves, presumably overwhelmed by the grace and wit of my answer. I give him a cheery wave. Jim's already on the phone with the lock-up, but he's keeping his voice down. I catch some muffled curses and then, "All right. We'll be right there." He hangs up and looks at me. "It sounds like the kid wants to confess."

"What?" This comes out as a squawk. I clear my throat and try again. "Confess what? Jim, you've got to be kidding."

"Apparently, he had a bad night. He did okay after we left, seemed to hold up pretty well. His mother visited him around seven last night, and I guess it was a pretty emotional encounter. The guards say he cried on and off all night."

"Geez... the poor kid." I'm puzzled. Why would Tim feel worse after a visit from his mom? But Jim's pulling on my elbow.

"C'mon, Chief. We need to go talk to him."

This time, we talk with Tim Brooks in his cell. They've taken away his street clothes and given him drab prison clothes, and he's decidedly more unkempt. The biggest difference, though, is in his face.

The unreadable mask is gone, battered down by weariness and despair. There's determination in the set of his jaw, and fear in his eyes. He doesn't waste any time, and takes charge of the conversation almost before we sit down.

"Are you ready to write this down?" he asks, almost aggressively.

Jim keeps his face neutral. "Let's just say that we're here to listen to whatever you have to say. If necessary, we can record a statement from you later."

The kid nods assent. "Okay. Well, I lied to you yesterday."

"It didn't exactly ring true." Jim agrees.

"You see, I never liked the way Carl treated my mom. He used to yell at her a lot, hit her sometimes. Plus we used to argue a lot. You know, about spending money and things like that. He came into my room Monday night and started yelling at me, and I just snapped. So I, uh, ran out to the kitchen and got the knife, and stabbed him. I didn't really mean to kill him, but he sure looked dead. So I left."

This time, I watch Jim's face instead of the kid's. He's pretty controlled, but I still see his eyebrows rise. "That's your confession?"

Tim nods.

Jim laughs. "Son, that's the biggest piece of horse shit I've heard in weeks... even counting the stories he tells me." He points his thumb at me.

Tim stares incredulously at my partner. "What do you mean?" His voice is a lot steadier than mine would be under the circumstances.

Jim ignore his question and stands up, tapping me on the shoulder. "C'mon, Chief, we need to talk. We'll let Tim think about this for a moment."

Out in the hallway, Jim leans up against the wall with his arms folded. "He's still lying."

"Uh...so I gathered. But why?" Why, indeed?

"I don't know, Sandburg. That sort of thing is more your department."

I think for a bit. "Either it was way worse than he said...a deliberate, premeditated murder, and he wants us to think it was more accidental; or he's lying to protect someone else." An uncomfortable thought begins to grow at the back of my mind. Who could this desperate, lonely, probably abused boy be protecting? For whom would he cover up a murder, even risk going to jail for a crime he didn't commit? "His mother." I breathe softly, answering my own question.

"I think you might be on the right track there, Chief, but we haven't got a speck of evidence against her. I can't just arrest her on a suspicion." Jim cautions me.

"No...but we never did go back and talk to that night manager at her restaurant. She might have had enough time to do it, on her lunch break." I bite my lip, realizing how ridiculous that sounded...and also remembering guiltily why Jim didn't go back to the restaurant that evening. He'd had his hands full comforting a grieving, tormented partner. "I interviewed Angela Brooks yesterday while you were at class, Blair. She was still extremely upset, but seemed to be telling the truth."

"Yes, but... your ability to gauge truthfulness is based mainly on detecting increases in heart rate, right? Especially a sudden increase? But if she stayed upset the whole time, you might not have really registered anything." The pace of my speech picks up.

Jim considers this. "Damn! I never thought of that. She did seem a little weird in her affect, and that can even screw up a polygraph."

"But...why would she do it?" I think, oddly enough, of my own mother... and then I know. I never told Naomi about what Carl had done to me, partly because I was afraid of what she might do. A confrontation, that could result in her getting hurt. But what if Angela Brooks had discovered or been told that her boyfriend was molesting her son, and she had attacked him with more than the scathing words that my mother would have used to defend me?

"But how did she find out?" I mutter to myself. I put my hands on either side of my head, trying to physically squeeze away my developing headache. I close my eyes, remembering what it was like to be Tim's age, alone with a terrible knowledge, with no one to confide in... no person, that is.

I blink my eyes open and whirl around to find Jim. "We need to go back to the crime scene. Now. There's something we haven't found."

*************************************************************

Simon's dubious, to say the least.

"Let me get this straight. You've got a confession out of your suspect, and now you want to go back and search the house again. Whatever for, Sandburg?"

I dodge the question for the moment. "It's still a crime scene, right? We don't need a warrant again, do we?"

Simon eyes me warily. "The house is vacant, anyway. Ms. Brooks is staying with a friend, and I think I can take care of the legal red tape. But you need to tell me what you're looking for."

I take a deep breath. "A journal, a diary of some sort. This kid...he's so much like me. He must have kept a journal. When I was his age, that was the only was I could stay sane; writing it all down. I took my journal away with me to college, but when I still lived with my mom I hid it very carefully."

"We didn't find anything like that when we searched the kid's room, Sandburg." Simon reminds me, almost gently.

"I'm not talking about just looking in his room, Simon. If his... just let me look through the rest of the house. Please."

********************************************************

So Simon comes with us to the house. To keep me reined in? I suppose I do seem a bit obsessed, a bit maniacal right now. The schemes and speculations are almost falling over each other in my mind.

If, if, if, if.

If Carl was molesting Tim.

If Tim kept a journal.

If he hid it, but his mother found it anyway.

If she read it, what would she do?

I've built up a fragile theory, of half-baked ideas and half-remembered demons from my own past... a delicate, crystalline structure, with each conclusion dependent on its precedent.

And a young man's life and future weave through this hypothesis of my creation, waiting to be destroyed when it collapses like a house of cards.

Jim shakes me out of my daze with a hand on my shoulder. We've pulled up in front of Carl's house, with Simon right behind us. Jim's looking at me quizzically. "You know, Chief, I agree with you, now, that Tim doesn't come across as a murderer...but neither does his mother. Remember, I met her, you didn't."

"I know. This would be even harder if I had." I lay my throbbing head against the cool window for a moment. "The instinct of a mother to protect her young, though... it's one of the strongest drives we have, buried in the primitive parts of the brain. That's all I can think of, Jim."

He claps me on the back. "Let's go take a look."

*********************************************************

We prowl through the quiet house. I get this weird sensation that I'm some kind of specialized drug dog, sniffing for traces of teenage angst instead of cocaine. First we go to Tim's room. I know that everyone else has already looked there, but I know I won't be satisfied until I've seen for myself.

I try all of the places that I might have thought of at Tim's age: under the mattress, between the folded clothes in the dresses, under the bookshelves. I even crawl under the desk and look up at the underside. I had once kept my journal in exactly that spot under my own desk, held there with duct tape; it was quite possibly the best hiding place I ever found.

I also search through the school papers and notebooks, thinking he might have gone for the "leave it in plain sight" approach. Everything I find, though, seems to be straightforward schoolwork: math problems and classroom notes. No mirror writing or secret codes. I smile slightly, thinking of the year that I'd written my journal and private correspondence using Tolkien's runic alphabet from the appendix of "Lord of the Rings". Finally, I'm forced to agree that we're not going to find anything in the kid's room. I walk down the hall to the main bedroom, formerly occupied by Bud and Tim's mother. I stand at the foot of the bed for a moment, and close my eyes to think better. If Angela Brooks had found and removed her son's journal, where would she have hidden it?

Behind me, I can hear Simon approach. "Don't tell me you're going to go into a psychic act now, son."

"Very funny, Simon." I glance speculatively around the room. Where did women hide things, anyway?

"I think that maybe I can help you out here, Chief," says Jim, who slips in behind Simon.

Of course! Here I have my very own Human Bloodhound, and I'm not even using him. I stand behind Jim, ready to help him concentrate. He walks up to a feminine-looking dresser and pulls open one of the top drawers. Lacy unidentified underthings scatter at random as Jim yanks them out and tosses them unceremoniously on the bed; he pulls on a pair of gloves and lifts a blue spiral notebook out of the drawer. Simon, who has also pulled on gloves, pounces on it.

"You could tell that was in there? Jim, that is so cool! Could you smell it? I didn't even have to help you get all of the background odors sorted out."

Jim rubs his upper lip with his finger, and I realize that he's trying very hard not to laugh.

"Well, actually, Chief...no, I wasn't using my senses. But if a woman wants to keep something hidden away, she'll almost always keep it in her lingerie drawer." He gives me a sheepish grin.

"Oh." I sit down on the edge of the bed, feeling more than a little deflated. Simon, meanwhile, has been leafing carefully through the notebook. He lets out a low whistle.

"Got something, sir?" asks Jim.

Simon nods. "Sandburg was definitely on the right track...your molester was being true to form, son. There's some pretty detailed accounts in here." He closes the notebook, almost reverently, then slips it into an evidence bag. "The cover is fairly glossy, too, and I'll be surprised if we don't get some pretty good prints from it." I'm immensely relieved. At least the first parts of my theory are holding up. I had this fear, never voiced, that Angela had read the journal and then destroyed it. But now...now we need to somehow, use this information to get Tim to retract that horrible false confession, and to tell us who really killed Bud.

"Simon," I begin, in a soft but steady voice, "I think I'm going to have to read that. I'd like... no, that's not it. I think I should be the one to confront Tim with his journal, to try to shock the truth from him." No, I don't exactly want to read this, don't exactly want to be the one to tear up this poor kid. But there's a strange sort of kinship there, and an obligation of sorts. "It might be easier for him to talk to someone who's been through the same sort of garbage."

And if I had disclosed Carl's activities long ago, then maybe Tim wouldn't have had his innocence ripped from him. I owe this kid, no matter how I look at it.

Jim puts a hand on my shoulder. "Blair, are you sure? You were pretty reluctant to get directly involved with the questioning, before."

"I know." How do I explain this? "I know, but I wasn't really sure that I knew the score, that I understood Tim. Now, I feel like I can't possibly mess things up any worse than they already are for him. I think... that showing him the journal, and telling him that I've read it, and telling him what I've been through... I think that will be enough to get us the truth."

I get unexpected support from Simon. "Jim, he's right. He's got a legitimacy, here, that you and I can't match. I think that boy just might respond to those shared experiences."

Jim looks at me, concern evident on his face. "Are you up to this, Chief? This won't be easy for you."

"I can do it." Say it, and it will become true. "But stick with me."

He smiles. "Every step of the way, Chief."

****************************************************

After delivering the journal to the fingerprint geniuses, Jim and I go off and have a quiet lunch of Chinese food. True to form, Jim eats all of his lunch and half of mine, as I sit there lost in thought.

"Hey, Chief, this is pretty good," he comments, munching away at my sweet-and-sour tofu. "What did you say this was again?"

This brings a faint smile to my face. I swear, if you coat it with batter and deep-fry it, Jim will eat it...even the dreaded tofu. Especially drowned in gooey orange sweet-and-sour sauce. Since I'm not really all that hungry and he's enjoying the act of pilfering from my plate, I evade the question. Instead, I reluctantly turn my attention back to the case. "Jim, can't we just arrest Angela Brooks if they find her prints on Tim's journal?"

"We need something more than that, Blair. All we can prove now is that Angela touched the journal, assuming we get some good prints. There's still too many different scenarios that are possible after that. No, we need the truth, from one of them. And we stand a lot better chance of getting the truth out of a scared seventeen-year-old boy who's already in custody, than from an adult."

I nod glumly. Jim's logic is inescapable. "Well, then, if you're finished scarfing down my tofu, let's get back and see if they've got those copies ready for me to read."

As I stand up, Jim takes a closer look at the half-eaten batter-encrusted bite on his fork. "Tofu?"

*********************************************************

When we return to the station, we're greeted by a large manila envelope on Jim's desk, marked "Confidential". Presumably the copy of the journal; the original is to remain in the evidence room. Jim has already explained to me that I am to turn this copy back in after I've read it. I almost wish I could burn it instead, as some sort of offering. I decide to read the document right there at Jim's desk rather than retreat off to some deserted corner, like I'd originally intended to. Maybe the sound of familiar voices buzzing in casual conversation and the solid physical presence of these guys, who've become my friends, will help me to regain some of that objectivity that Jim says I've lost. I pull up a spare chair and remove the xeroxed pages from the envelope. They make a pretty hefty pile.

Jim strides in and plants himself in front of his ever-growing paperwork stack. He doesn't say anything to me at first, just sighs and starts to write. I turn my attention back to the journal, obscurely comforted and encouraged by his silent support.

The journal spans about nine months, with entries on most days of varying length. He plunges right in on the first entry, without the prefacing so typical of introspective adolescents ("I'm starting this journal because..."); this makes me wonder how many other notebooks he's filled with his memories. Probably we'll never know.

I don't read every word, but skim through the text looking for references to Carl. I'm not here to pry into Tim's dating life, or his sports successes and failures, or his career aspirations. I feel guilty enough reading this poor kid's private thoughts, so I intend to confine my search to the passages related to his relationship with the deceased - - I refuse to refer to Carl as "the victim".

I've read journals before, but only those of dead explorers, scientists and other great thinkers. Those types all seemed to write self-consciously and a little pompously, as if they knew that others would be reading their immortal words someday. This is different: a lonely young soul, writing own his triumphs and troubles to the only listener he felt he could trust. Sort of the verbal equivalent of crying into your own pillow... something else I feel sure that this kid must have done more than a few times.

When I encounter the first account of Carl and his treatment of Tim, it hits me almost physically, like a kick in the stomach. "January 22: Well, he did it again last night. I had almost begun to hope that he wasn't going to touch me anymore, it's been so long. But he came to my room just after midnight and made up for lost time." He then went on in great detail, far more graphically than anything I ever recorded in my own journal. For that matter, Tim's account is more devastating than anything I've been able to dredge up out of my fragmented memories. How did this boy stay sane?

I almost expect the rest of the pages to be filled with unrelenting pain and hopelessness. Yet Tim's resilience shows clearly; by January 24 he's writing excitedly about an upcoming wrestling meet. The tone of that entry is buoyant, optimistic. It's several more weeks, in February, before the darkness returns. This time he closes with some chilling thoughts: "After he left, I couldn't sleep. I wanted so much to take a bath, but I didn't want to take the chance that he would wake up and come back for seconds. But I went into the bathroom and sponged off. While I was in there, I opened the medicine cabinet."

According to the rest of the entry, Tim stared at the assorted medications for a long time, thinking about how many pills to take to kill himself. In the end, he went back to bed instead, saying that he didn't want his mother to come home in the morning and find his body. "It would hurt her too much," he writes.

With shaking hands, I put the papers aside. Time for a short break, and a cup of tea or something. Before I can get up, though, I feel Jim's hand on my shoulder.

"How are you doing with that, Chief?" he asks neutrally.

I try to smile at him, which probably looks ghastly in contrast to my current state of mind. "I'm doing okay, Jim. It's, ah, slow going, though. You know how teenage boys always have such sloppy handwriting."

"Find anything significant, yet?"

I drop the smile. "Yeah...it's as bad as I thought, Jim. Worse, actually. Poor kid." I try again to get up, but I don't get very far since Jim's hand presses me back down.

"But you've found clear statements about abuse?" he asks softly.

I nod. Oh yes, very clear. No spin-doctoring in Tim's journal, no dancing around the truth. In that respect, he doesn't have that much in common with my teenage self...or my adult self, for that matter.

Jim looks faintly exasperated. "Blair, you can quit now, if you've found some good clear statements. You don't have to punish yourself by reading the whole thing. I've been sitting here, trying to work, and I keep hearing your heart rate jump up. It's very obvious that reading this journal is upsetting you."

"I can go somewhere else, Jim, if I'm being that much of a distraction." A truly obnoxious, passive-aggressive comment, which I regret as soon as it leaves my mouth.

"That's not the point, and you know it." Jim retorts, quietly but heatedly. "Look, is there some reason you feel like you have to keep reading?"

"Yes...but it's hard to explain." I'm not sure that I understand this myself; how can I explain it to Jim?

"Try me."

Oh, great. Jim's in overprotective and obstinate mode. When he gets like this, nothing short of a small explosion stops him from digging until he gets the answer he wants. The Grand Inquisitor with a backhoe.

"I guess," I begin hesitantly, "I guess I am punishing myself, in a way."

Predictably, Jim can't let that comment go without interrupting me. "For what? Sandburg, you were an innocent kid."

"Maybe punishment isn't the right word, then." I fold my arms onto the desk and lean down to rest my chin on them. "Penance, maybe, for a sin of omission. Expiation."

Jim's giving me a blank look, so I try to explain more clearly. "I should have turned Carl in, once I was out of his house and Naomi had split up with him. But I never did. I was just so relieved to get out of there." I sit up straight again and look at Jim.

"What Tim went through, I had the power to prevent. And who knows how many other kids were Carl's victims, Jim? I need to do this. I need to know everything that happened to him, so that I can go to him when this is all done, and apologize to him." I finish in a whisper, and my voice breaks. "Excuse me." I get up quickly, and this time I am able to dodge Jim's restraining hand successfully and make my way blindly to the restroom.

********************************************************

I spend a few minutes in the restroom, trying to calm down and get myself back under control. I half-expect Jim to come looking for me or be waiting in the hall when I emerge, but there's no suspicious Sentinel breathing down my neck when I step out. As I walk back to Jim's desk, I can see he's on the phone. I send a silent message of gratitude to whoever decided to call him just then. I slide back into my chair, and Jim finishes his conversation.

"All right," he says to me, "we've got twenty-four hour surveillance set up on Angela Brooks. If we do get the truth out of her son, I want to be able to move in a hurry." He hesitates for a moment. "You okay, Chief?" he says finally.

"Yeah," I answer, too tired to come up with any witty rejoinders. "I just need to get through this and be finished." Let me do what I need to do to be whole...

Jim's silent again for a moment, and I pick up the journal again and try to find out where I left off. I've almost found my place when he turns to face me.

"Hey, Chief. There's one thing I don't understand," he asks.

"Only one thing?" I can't resist responding. Jim grins and swats me on the head with some of his paperwork.

"Laugh it up, fuzzball. But explain to me: if Angela Brooks loves her son so much that she killed the man who was molesting him, then why is she apparently willing to let him take the rap for it? Doesn't make sense." "I don't know," I admit reluctantly. "That's been bothering me too. Although... we don't know what they talked about when she visited him in jail last night. Maybe that's what they were arguing about... who gets to take the blame. If she were threatening to confess, that could explain why he changed his story so fast."

Jim shakes his head. "A strange family."

He returns to his forms, and I turn my attention back to the journal. This time, I'm not struck as hard by the graphic descriptions; I guess I'm getting immune. I read carefully through to the end, trying to maintain some degree of emotional distance, and am reviewing some of the key entries when Jim taps me on the arm.

"Hey, Chief. Wake up in there. Time to knock off."

I look at the clock. Six p.m. already; the afternoon has vanished. "What about questioning Tim?" I ask, taking off my glasses and rubbing the bridge of my nose.

"We'll do it in the morning. Early, before he's had any breakfast. He'll have his guard down then; most people are pretty jumpy first thing in the morning."

I'm secretly relieved at being able to put this off. "All right. I'm done with this then." I hand the xeroxed journal pages back to Jim, who shrugs and stuffs them into a desk drawer. "So, Jim...is that why, when you're reaming me out about something, you always catch me in the morning? I'm on to you now, man."

"Let's go home, Junior," he says, ignoring the question. "I'm not going to give away all of the trade secrets, so don't even try."

************************************************************

It's my turn to cook dinner (when isn't it?) and all the way home I think furiously about what to fix, glad for the mundane distraction. Let's see: pizza last night, my linguini with gorgonzola the night before that...was that really only two nights ago? It seems like a month. Hmmm...I've got some homemade black bean chili in the freezer; I can thaw that out and cook up some rice to go with it, maybe a salad. Cold beer, and maybe some ice cream. As I mentally putter around the kitchen, indulging in the pleasurable process of menu planning, I can feel the day's frustrations and tensions evaporate. Maybe Jim wouldn't be so uptight if he spent more time cooking and less time eating anonymous fried animal parts from the drive-through.

After dinner I closet myself in my room, determined to get caught up on my academic life. I've got a ton of essays to read and grade, not to mention some studying for one of my own classes. It's a profound relief to sink back into my other life for a few hours, although reading thirty-five different essays on "Tool-Making in Modern-Day Neolithic Cultures" wears a bit thin after a while. I need to be more careful in what I assign as essay topics, unless I really want to read about arrowheads and hand-axes all night. After I finish marking up the last one with red ink, I pull out an article I'm supposed to read for class, something called "Sacrifice and the Tradition of the Scapegoat". I give it a sketchy read-through, enough to not be a total moron in my seminar class tomorrow afternoon.

Eventually, I look at the clock and am shocked by what I see: 1:06 a.m. Time to get to bed, if we're going to question Tim first thing in the morning. Grilled teenager for breakfast, medium rare. The gruesome mental image of a bound and trussed Tim being held over the coals makes me shudder involuntarily, as I slip out to the kitchen for a bedtime snack. I glance over at the living area. Jim's asleep in front of the TV, which is showing some tired horse opera, occasionally punctuated by gunshots and shouts. He's got his head thrown back, snoring lightly.

It's dark in the kitchen, but there's enough faint illumination from the windows that I can see what I'm doing. I put the kettle on for tea and dig around in the fridge looking for something edible, and settle on a only-slightly-stale blueberry bagel.

While I wait, yawning, for the water to heat, I think about the article I've just read. In the traditions of the ancient Hebrews, a scapegoat was a sacrificial animal, always a healthy young male sheep or goat, who was released into the wild periodically to bear the sins of the community. Since we're talking nomadic desert peoples here, presumably the poor critter didn't survive very long on its own. By taking upon itself the burdens of the people, it was able to carry them away symbolically, and the tribe was cleansed.

I wonder to myself...is that what's going on here? Is Tim the scapegoat, trying to carry away his perceived sins and those of his mother? And if he is the scapegoat, the perfect sacrifice, was it his idea or his mother's?

The water comes to a boil. I shake off the dark train of thought and prepare my mug of tea, breathing in the clean pungent herbal scent, perfectly suited to this pleasant late-night weariness. Chamomile, peppermint and catnip, sharp and soothing. With my eyes closed momentarily and half of my mind still pondering the twin enigmas of Tim and his mother, I'm totally unprepared for the hand on my shoulder and the sudden soft voice above my left ear.

"Up pretty late, aren't you, kid?"

I levitate about a foot, and the mug of scalding liquid crashes to the floor. The tea splashes on my bare feet, but I hardly notice. I turn and flatten myself against the kitchen counter, trying to see in the darkness, and instead managing only to spiral down into terror.

******************************************************

A faintly lit kitchen. The pounding of my heart, beating as if it must surely burst out of my chest any moment now. The sound of screaming, repetitive and incoherent.

"NoNoNoNoGetyourhandsoffofmeNoNoNo!!!"

Dimly, I realize that the voice is my own, the words garbled with fright. With an effort, I clamp it off in mid-yell, and it's replaced instead by a stream of subvocalized hysteria. "Oh God, please leave me alone...please don't touch me, I'll be good, I'll be quiet..." In my mind's eye, I'm assailed with a vision of Carl, terribly real and terribly alive, cornering me in the kitchen. His hands rove over me, his beer-scented breath is hot in my ear, his voice chuckles hoarsely as he tells me what my "toll" will be for venturing out of my room at night. I can't seem to move or respond in any way except to start screaming again.

A cascade of cold water lands on my head, and I sit up, gasping and blinking at the sudden bright light.

I'm huddled on the floor against the cabinets, and soaked to the skin with the cold water that was dumped on my head. Pieces of the ill-fated tea mug lie scattered on the floor around me, along with puddles of herb tea.

Jim crouches in front of me, holding a icy cold dishtowel on my burned feet. As soon as my eyes meet his, he hurriedly leaves my feet and moves closer.

"Chief... Blair, what's going on? Are you okay?" His voice is filled with concern, but there's anguish on his face. "I thought I'd just startled you, but then you looked right through me and started screaming." He swallows, hard. "You didn't seem to recognize me; you acted like I was someone else. Someone you were afraid of."

I'm unable to answer, still half-paralyzed by the horror of the waking dream. I close my eyes, helpless to halt the hot tears that slide down my cheeks, and I make no sound.

"Chief, I'm going to get this mess cleaned up before you step on any of these pieces and get cut. Just stay right there."

I couldn't go anywhere if I wanted to. I open my eyes and stare dully as Jim sweeps up the debris from the broken mug and mops up most of the water.

Finished, he kneels in front of me once again. This time, I'm able to find my voice. "I'm sorry, Jim."

He looks at me, long and carefully. "Blair, what happened? What were you seeing?"

"Carl," I whisper. "I thought...I thought you were Carl." I try to force an ironic laugh, and it comes out a sob.

"Dammit, Blair!" Jim swear, then lowers his voice immediately when I flinch away from him. "I'm sorry, kid. I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at myself. I shouldn't have agreed to let you read that journal." My teeth are starting to chatter, both with the cold and from after-reaction. "I'm n-not sure th-that's what caused it, Jim. I h-had something like this happen the other d-day...just n-not quite this bad."

Jim sighs. "You're freezing. Go get out of those wet clothes before you get any colder." He stands up, starts to reach out a hand to pull me up...then hesitates.

My throat tightens at this abortive action. He's afraid to touch me at all, now; afraid that he'll set off another flashback. And he's right: if I can't tell the difference between my best friend and an old creep, an old creep who's dead, I must be really screwed up. I struggle to my feet, with the aid of the counter behind me, and wobble to my room. I can feel Jim watching me as I walk, and I don't need to turn around to know the pain in his eyes. I take a deep breath before I close the door, and say, "Thanks, man, I'll be out in a moment."

As I strip off the wet clothes and dig around for something warm and dry, I will myself to stop shaking. The pressure in my throat and the burning in my eyes aren't so easily banished, however. Once dressed, I sit down on the bed for a moment, my head in my hands. I feel lower even than I did two nights ago, when I first told Jim about Carl. I'd been grieving that night, and hurting, but we'd been able to deal with it. To have Jim the SuperCop see me like this, groveling in terror, is beyond embarrassing. I'm not sure of what to do or say.

Eventually, I come out. Jim's sitting at the table, waiting for me. As I sit hesitantly down next to him, he wordlessly hands me a steaming mug. It smells almost like the same tea I made earlier, but richer, sweeter.

"I put a shot of rum in it," he says in answer to my unasked question. "I think you need it. Drink it slowly, and let me have a look at those feet."

He carefully inspects the burns on my bare feet. They've turned an angry red and blistered, and they're beginning to hurt now. Jim curses under his breath, and goes into the bathroom to rummage around in the cabinet. He returns with a tube of ointment and some gauze. He squeezes the antibiotic ointment onto each burn, then wraps each foot with the gauze.

"Keep the blisters intact as long as possible, and keep the dressings clean," he says finally, straightening up. "We'll need to change those once or twice a day. If it starts to hurt more, or you start running a fever, you need to tell me."

"Will I be able to wear shoes?" I manage to ask.

"Sure, if you can get them on over the dressings." He returns to his seat, and looks at me for a moment without speaking. I'm not sure whether I should be steeling myself for a patented Jim Ellison lecture or worrying that he's going to have me locked up with the men in white coats. Right now, I don't really even care; I'm not sure I could feel any worse. I stare at the table, lost in misery until Jim's voice prods me.

"Chief, look at me, please. I'm not angry with you, for God's sake."

Reluctantly, I look up. More gently, he asks, "Did you ever have any counseling about this thing with Carl?"

The question catches me by surprise. "I tried, Jim. In college. I went to a counselor for a couple of sessions."

"What happened?"

"I, ah, quit. She and I didn't have the same ideas about how to approach the whole thing."

A slow smile spreads across Jim's face. "And you call me the control freak."

Unaccountably, I blush. "It had nothing to do with giving up control, Jim. She wanted me to confront Carl, tell my mother, things like that. I didn't think that was such a good idea. Maybe I just wasn't ready for therapy."

"Are you ready now?"

"What do you mean?" I ask, eyeing Jim warily.

He sighs, and looks at his watch. "I think we both need to get to bed, and finish this up tomorrow. But I want you to think about this, Chief. I think you've got some unfinished business here, and I'd like you to talk about it with a trained professional. Someone who can be more objective about you than I can. Will you think about that?"

I nod in answer, not quite trusting my voice.

"This...flashback, or hallucination, or whatever you want to call it...if we'd been somewhere else other than here, it could have been more than just embarrassing for you, Blair. It could have been dangerous, for both of us."

"I know." I whisper. Now Jim's put his finger on the worst of it: my eternal fear of somehow failing my Sentinel, of letting him down.

"If Simon knew about this... episode, I think he'd order you to see the department psychologist. That might actually be the best person for you to talk to."

The next question comes out with difficulty. "Is Simon going to find out?"

Jim shakes his head. "Not unless it happens again, Chief... and not if you make some progress towards getting some counseling. Deal?" He puts out his hand.

"Okay, I guess I can live with that." Ignoring the hand, I stand up. Jim looks momentarily hurt, then puzzled. I limp over to him, and as he stands up I hug him fiercely. "I'm sorry," I mumble into his chest. There's a million other things that I want to say, but for once I can't get the words to my lips.

His arms come around me. "You'll be okay, Chief. I promise. We'll get you through this."

************************************************

Pleading fatigue and stinging feet, I wait in the interrogation room while Jim goes to fetch Tim Brooks for what I fervently hope will be our final session with him. I lean wearily on one elbow, wishing I'd had the presence of mind to snag a cup of coffee in the bullpen before coming down here.

For the most part, sleep eluded me last night. The combination of painfully burned feet and fear of somehow meeting Carl in my dreams contrived to keep me tossing and turning for what remained of the night. Having that flashback in front of Jim also disturbed me profoundly, and I'm still not ready to think about the implications of Jim's request/order that I seek counseling. All told, I'm feeling a bit blue this morning. Most un-Sandburgish.

I sit up with a start as Jim leads our young friend into the room and directs him to a chair. Jim leaves him cuffed, so the kid has to sit awkwardly. He looks sleepy and bewildered, less guarded, so maybe Jim was on the right track with this early morning confrontation thing.

Jim doesn't waste any time. "Okay, Brooks...got anything new you want to tell us? The truth, maybe?" That's my roommate, Mr. Subtlety himself.

"What more do you want, man?" Tim answers boldly, but I can sense the false bravado. "I told you yesterday that I did it."

Jim's eyes flick toward me. My turn. I reach into the manila folder on my lap, and pull out Tim's journal, safely encased in the evidence bag. With what I hope is the proper dramatic timing, I slap it onto the table in front of the kid.

I'm not sure what sort of reaction I was expecting. Astonishment, denial, maybe tears. But the utter intensity of Tim's response catches us both by surprise. He struggles to his feet, face absolutely white and mouth working to get out the words.

"Oh, my God. Where did you find..." Then his eyes roll back, and his legs collapse as he passes out and slides half under the table.

Jim gets there first; not surprising, as he probably had a few second's warning from listening to the kid's heart rate. He manages to keep Tim from banging his head on anything and gets him lowered to the floor. While Jim hurriedly gets the cuffs off and rubs the poor kid's wrists, I prop up his feet and scan Tim's face anxiously.

"Way to go, Sandburg. Make the kid faint," Jim chuckles.

"Oh, jeez, Jim, I didn't mean to do that." Now I feel like a total ogre. Blair Sandburg, professional torturer. Maybe I should just buy a black hood for my head and be done with it.

"Relax, Chief. He'll be okay; teenagers faint easily. He'll come around in a moment. In fact, this might make our job a little easier," he says thoughtfully.

True to Jim's prediction, the kid's color starts to improve almost immediately, and after a few minutes he's blinking his eyes open. He looks at me and at Jim, clearly confused and disoriented. I start to help him up, but Jim shakes his head.

"Better leave him on the floor for a little longer, otherwise he'll just faint again," he warns me.

"I fainted?" asks Tim hoarsely. He raises one hand and rubs at his eyes.

"Yes," I answer him, trying to choose my words carefully. "You were asking us where we found your journal."

"My journal..." he trails off, almost dreamily. "I usually keep it at school, but I brought it home last Friday so I could write in it over the weekend. But Monday morning...I couldn't find it before I left for school." He struggles to sit up, and a mixture of anger and humiliation crosses his face. "You stole it! Oh my God, did you read it? Why?" he wails.

Jim pushes him back down. "Easy, son. Stay there, you're still a little green. Tim, we found your journal in your mother's room. Hidden. With her prints on all over it." We'd gotten confirmation of that this morning from the lab.

My stomach churns as I silently watch the emotions play across the boy's face. Desperation, betrayal, grief...and sudden comprehension. "Oh, no...that's it, that's why she..." he mutters almost inaudibly.

Now. "That's why she what, Tim? Killed him? Your mother read your journal, and now she knows all about it." I press forward doggedly, hating myself for having to do this. "Did you see it happen?"

"Yes, she had the knife..." His eyes widen as he realizes what he's said. He tries again to sit up, and this time we let him.

Jim picks up the thread of questioning, to my relief. "Tim, what really happened that night? You need to tell us the truth." I recognize that quiet but granite-hard tone of voice, having been on the receiving end of it enough times myself.

It's painful to watch the kid's defenses crumble. "My mother... she didn't mean to..." he asks, gulping a little. "What will they do to her?" His voice wavers.

"That depends on what really happened that night, Tim, and whether she decides to cooperate," I say as gently as I can. "We need the truth, Tim."

He draws his knees up, still sitting on the floor, and stares straight ahead with unseeing eyes.

"You read the journal," he says finally. This time it's not a question, but a flat statement.

"I did," I admit. "We...I needed to know for sure whether you'd been one of Carl's victims, and whether you'd made statements about that before the murder."

Tim picks up on the nuances of what I've said, just as I thought he would. "One of... there've been others?"

At this point, Jim stands up and returns to his original seat at the table, leaving me alone on the floor with Tim; giving us at least the illusion of privacy. I take a deep breath before answering Tim.

"At least one other, Tim." I look him steadily in the eyes. "Myself."

*************************************************************

"You?" Tim whispers, without looking away. "But..." He stops, looking uncertain.

"It was a long time ago, and I was a little younger than you, but yes," I affirm. "Maybe there were others in between. I don't suppose we'll ever know, now."

Tim continues to look at me. There's an intensity to his gaze, and I find myself unable to look away. And I notice, now, that instead of the bleak despair that I saw in his eyes a few minutes ago, that I now see something else. Or rather, several somethings.

Loneliness. Hope, just the tiniest fraction. And the overwhelming desire to believe, and to be believed in return.

In that moment, the rest of my world: the interview room, the police station, the people walking in the hallway outside...all of this seems to diminish, to drift away as mere unnecessary backdrop. I know that Jim's still up at the table, quiet guardian of the tape recorder that we'll use when Tim finally tells us the whole story. I know him well enough to know that he must be feeling impatient by now, even if he's been able to keep it contained. But I've lost any sense of urgency I may have had towards this case. I know that I'm going to let this boy tell his story in his own time, in his own way.

But first, it will be his turn to listen.

"Tim, I did read your journal," I begin. "I needed to, so that we could save you. But it's only fair that I give you something in return. I want to tell you my story."

And I do. Hesitantly at first, a little unsure of myself and my listener, I begin. For the second time in a week, or the third time if you count the Reader's Digest Condensed Tale of Abuse that I spouted off to Simon, I find myself putting my personal nightmare into words. If the first telling was for my own catharsis, this time I repeat the words so that my fellow victim might hear them and find some measure of healing.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it goes easier this time, and I find myself relaxing and growing calmer. I tell him everything I can remember, every foul incident, without editing my memories for his tender young ears. After all, this may be a horror story, but he already knows the endings, all of them. He's lived them.

Even more than the graphic details of what happened to me, I want him to look at me and see a future. I want him to see the faded scars of someone who's gone up against the same monsters and survived. I want him to know that he need not be crippled by the unwanted, unasked-for "attentions" he received. I want to tell him not to underestimate himself, or his capacity to heal.

Most of all, I want him to know that he did nothing wrong; that his soul is still as blamelessly pure as Carl's soul must surely be writhing in hell. Somebody's hell, anyway.

When I finish, I can see tears in the boy's eyes, and I know by the moisture splashing onto my hands that they are mirrored on my own face. Yet my voice remains steady to the end, and rather that the disturbing jangle of grief I feel strangely light-headed with relief.

I sense motion behind me, and then feel a familiar hand on my shoulder. Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I twist my neck up to smile at Jim, then look back at my new friend...in a sense, my new brother.

"Can we ask you the rest of those questions, now?" I ask softly.

The kid nods. "Okay...I'll try. But please...tell me you'll do whatever you can for my mom."

"Whatever we can," agrees Jim. He snags the tape recorder off the table, and then joins us on the floor, arranging his long legs with difficulty. He turns on the tape player, and begins.

"Okay, Tim, just tell us what happened Monday night, as best as you remember."

The boy closes his eyes. For a moment I'm afraid that he's getting ready to faint again, then I realize that he's just trying to remember accurately.

"Mom went off to work at her usual time, I guess. I was tired, so I did some homework and went to bed early. She usually leaves at about 10:30, and I think I remember her leaving. She seemed a little distracted, a little weird, but didn't say anything much.

"I was asleep for at least a couple of hours. All of a sudden, I heard noises, and some yelling. I'm a pretty sound sleeper, and I really couldn't tell what was going on. I think I was still half asleep when I hit the light switch...but I'll never forget what I saw.

"My mom, and Carl... they were in my room, like they'd just run in there. He... had the knife in his chest, just like I told you the first time I talked to you... but Mom's hand was on the handle. Then he fell over, and she pulled it back out. He was bleeding all over, but she just walked out of the room.

"I was speechless, I guess, so I didn't scream or anything. Maybe I just thought it was a nightmare. Then I ran out into the hall, and yelled at mom to call an ambulance. I couldn't believe she'd done this on purpose. But when I got back into my room, he was already dead. And that's when it got really weird."

I raise an eyebrow at that but say nothing. The kid continues.

"I went back out to look for Mom, and I found her in the bathroom...washing blood off her hands. Totally spaced out, wouldn't look at me. Wouldn't answer any of my questions. Then she picked up her purse and keys, and started smiling and acting really cheerful. She told me... she told me to go back to bed, so I wouldn't be tired in the morning. As if there wasn't really a dead guy bleeding all over my floor." Tim's voice rises, in remembered hysteria.

"What time did all this happen, Tim?" I ask, trying to get him calmed again.

"I didn't look at the clock until Mom left, I guess to go back to work. That was about 3:30, 3:40, something like that."

My God...she really did come home and kill him on her lunch break, then return to work. I can't believe this.

Tim goes on. "After she left, I started to panic. What if they caught her? I wasn't thinking very clearly. I picked up the knife and wiped the handle, to get her prints off. Then I thought...they'll just think that one of us did it anyway...so maybe it would be better if they went after me, since I'm just a kid. I put my fingers all over the handle, then tossed it under my bed.

"Then I panicked. I didn't want my mom to get caught, but I didn't want to go to jail either. So I just packed a couple of things and ran. I had enough cash for a bus ticket to Vancouver, and I got over the border before anyone was looking for me. Said that I was visiting an uncle."

Jim punches the "off" button on the tape player. "You won't be going to jail, Tim. I'm pretty sure of that."

"And my mom?" he asks, his voice begging for reassurance.

Before Jim can answer with the blunt truth, I break in with a question. "Tim, did your mother have any history of mental illness? Or any medications that she took for a long period of time?"

Tim's quiet for a moment, then shakes his head. "I don't know. There's a lot we didn't talk about."

The door to the interview room opens, startling all three of us. Simon pokes his head in.

"Ellison, I need to speak with you. Urgently."

Jim frowns faintly at Simon, and unfolds himself from his cramped position. He looks a little sheepish as well as annoyed. Maybe he's embarrassed at being caught sitting on the floor with a couple of limber "kids".

I stand up as well, and hurry to the door. "Can't it wait, Simon? We're finally getting somewhere here," I ask quietly. "I'm sure - "

"Sandburg, shut up, and stay with the kid. Ellison, get out here now." Simon's eyebrows lower dangerously.

Okay, when Simon barks like that even I won't argue with him. Not very much anyway. I slink back into the interview room, mentally rubbing my bruised ego. Jim stalks out and slams the door, unnecessarily, and so of course I can't hear a word they're saying. Whatever's going on, I hope I'm not going to be left out of the loop indefinitely.

Tim's returned to his original seat at the conference table, and I join him somewhat reluctantly. He seems nervous but composed.

"So what happens to me now?" he asks me.

"Well," I begin. "A lot will depend on your mother, Tim. You know, that with what you told us, we'll have enough to arrest her." I try to say it gently.

He nods, but doesn't answer.

"She may decide to tell us what she knows at that point. That'll certainly make things easier for you. Otherwise...it may take a couple of days for the charges against you to be dropped. We'll have to convince the D.A. that your mother is a stronger suspect than you. Jim can tell you better, but in my opinion the evidence against her is certainly going to be more convincing that the evidence against you."

"What...what will they charge her with? Will it be murder?" He's unable to look at me as he asks this.

I bite my lip. "I don't know, Tim. There's a lot of factors to take into account." I hate giving him a flaky answer like this, but what else can I do? It's a truthful answer, anyway; this could be the most morally confusing murder case we've ever had in Cascade.

The door opens again, and this time it's Jim, with one of the uniformed officers with him. "Let's go, Sandburg. We've got work to do." He addresses the other officer, jerking his thumb at Tim. "Can you get him back where he belongs, till we can finish sorting this out?" Jim grabs me by the elbow and practically drags me out of the room, before I have the chance to say anything more encouraging to Tim.

Once out in the hall, Jim goes into Ellison Hyper-drive and I have to practically run to keep up, which of course messes up the bandages on my feet. From the direction we're going, it looks like we're headed for the parking garage. Now what?

"Watch out!" I shout, as Jim almost plows into a clerk, who ducks out of his way at the last minute. "Jeez, man, you're gonna hurt someone. Slow down!"

He slows a little bit, but we're almost there anyway. I wait until I'm safely buckled into the truck before trying to pump any information out of him. "All right, Speedy Gonzalez, what the hell is going on? Where are we going?"

"To the Pacific Bank Building, Sandburg. We've got a little situation." Jim's jaw muscle is doing its little tap-dance routine again, and he's got that adrenaline-rush look to him: equal parts apprehension and grim anticipation.

"Situation?" That's one bit of cop-talk I've come to dread. It covers a lot of different circumstances, none of them anything that I really want to get within a hundred yards of.

"The undercover team keeping an eye on Angela Brooks called in about an hour ago. She --" Jim pauses to give his attention to a tight turn, while I hang on and wish that this beast of a truck had better shocks. "She left the house with another woman, apparently the friend she's been staying with. They headed downtown." The truck hits a particularly obnoxious pothole, and I get bonked on the left side of my head by this ugly metal clipboard that Jim was storing behind the seat. I see stars for a moment, and miss a couple of words. " -- tailed her to the Pacific Bank Building, then lost her once she went inside."

We're coming in sight of that very building. It's one of Cascade's downtown landmarks, a massive and stately five-story marble edifice built back in the days when banks looked like banks instead of Wonder Burger Drive-Throughs. I see, with a sinking heart, that the S.W.A.T. van is here, along with what seems like half the police force.

"I don't understand, Jim. What's happening?" I wince as he screeches the truck to a halt. He's half out before I can get the seat belt off. I wriggle out and run around to catch up with him. Damn, but he's fast for such a big guy.

Instead of answering my question, Jim silently points at one of the top-floor windows. There, standing on the wide window ledge, are two women. It's hard to tell from here, but I think one of the women might be holding a handgun to the head of the other. She's shouting something, but probably Jim's the only one who can understand her.

"Is that her?" I ask, still rubbing my dented head. "That's Tim's mother up there? The one with --"

"The one holding a gun on her friend, yes. Apparently she's threatening to shoot her and then throw herself out the window if we get too close or don't meet her demands." He stares up at the building for a few more seconds, listening. "She's repeating her demands now. She wants...she wants her son to be released... and then the usual garbage: a car, travel money and safe passage out of the city." Jim snorts. "This woman's seen too many movies."

I whistle. "Well, I guess clearing Tim just got easier," I say under my breath, which of course Jim hears.

"Yeah, she's shouting about Carl now, calling him every name in the book. Be glad you can't hear her, Chief; she swears like a sailor."

I don't get a chance to answer because Simon strides up to us at this point, having driven at a more sensible speed. I think I'll start riding to crime scenes with him instead; Jim's driving is taking years off my life span.

"Have you been listening in, Jim?" he asks. "You know more about this woman than the rest of us. How serious do you think she is?" Simon looks extremely agitated.

"Hard to say, sir. We did finally get the straight story from the kid; he admits to seeing his mother kill Fitzgerald. So I guess she's capable." Jim rubs his chin thoughtfully. "On the other hand, if that's her friend up there with her, it could be a scam with both of them in on it."

"I'm not so sure," I say slowly. "She's got nothing left to lose, really."

Simon looks at me skeptically. "Go on, Sandburg."

"She's... like a cornered, mortally wounded mother bear, and we've got her cub." Okay, so it sounds cheesy even to me, but it's the analogy that popped into my head. "I think she'll fight to the end, and I don't think she cares anymore about who gets in the way." I stare up at the two figures framed in the window, straining to see better.

******************************************************

Jim's looking at me as if I'm totally deranged, but Simon's nodding slightly.

"That's a very interesting insight, Sandburg." He stares off into space for a moment, his eyes unfocused.

"Branching out into animal behavior, now, Chief?" asks Jim, raising his eyebrows. The sarcastic comment barely registers with me, as I'm trying to catch an idea that hovers just out of reach. To my surprise, Simon's on the same wavelength and gets there first.

"Sandburg, if your analogy is valid...How do we soothe the enraged mother bear?"

I frown. "Get her cub back to her, of course. But we can't do that, Simon...can we?" The kid's still under arrest, of course, but that's a formality at this point. Bringing him out here, though...

"We can't let her take him away, of course not," Simon explains. "I just wonder if he might be able to reach his mother somehow, calm her down."

"Sir, I must object," insists Jim. "The kid's safety --"

"Will be our primary concern," finishes Simon. "Have him brought out here. I think it's a good idea, Jim. If we can get her feeling a little less paranoid about her son's well-being, then she might just let that hostage go."

Jim sighs. "You're the boss. I guess it's worth a try."

While Jim calls the station to make arrangements to have Tim brought over, I continue to stare up at the window. I can barely make out the figures on the windowsill from here. By logical extension, they can barely see us.

I basically agree with Simon's idea... or was it my idea? I suppose that will depend on whether it works or not. If it goes sour, we'll be hearing, "Sandburg, you bonehead! What were you thinking?" At least from Jim. But...I'm not entirely sure that it will be enough to just show Angela Brooks' son to her, down on the sidewalk surrounded by cops. I'm betting she'll insist on a closer look, and the chance to actually talk to him. I hope I'm wrong; it's a rather uncomfortable thought. Worse yet, it's followed by a whole cascade of uncomfortable thoughts in a related vein...leading to a single conclusion, one that I think Jim is most certainly not going to like.

********************************************************

They get Tim hustled over here in record time. Of course, no one's told the poor guy anything about the situation... there's that euphemistic word again. He looks completely bewildered, so I make a point of going over to meet him as he's herded out of the patrol car.

"Tim, do you know what's happening?" I ask as soon as I get close enough that I don't have to shout.

"They told me it was something to do with my mother," he answers tentatively. "Is she okay?"

This isn't going to be easy. "For now, she is. But, she's in danger, and she's putting someone else in danger." I stick my head back in the patrol car, manned by an officer I vaguely recognize. "Can we borrow those binoculars?" I ask, pointing at the set he's got sitting on the center console. "I won't take them out of your sight, I promise," I add, giving the officer a winning smile. I hand them to Tim, and point silently up at the windowsill with the two tiny figures on it.

It takes the kid a moment to get the binocs trained on exactly the right spot...then he gasps, a harsh, painful sound. "Oh, God...that's my mom... and Aunt Debby! What's she doing to her?" He almost drops the binoculars, but I take them from his shaky grasp and hand them back to their owner.

"She's your aunt?" I ask, surprised. Tim hadn't mentioned any relatives other than his mother.

He shakes his head. "Not really. She's my mom's best friend from years ago." His voice drops to a whisper. "I can't believe that Mom would do this to her. Debby's one of the few friends she still has."

"Do you think your mother would actually hurt her?" asks Jim, who must have just walked over; I hadn't heard him approach.

"I don't know," answers Tim miserably. "I wouldn't have thought she'd kill Carl either."

Good point, I think to myself. Remember, Sandburg, all bets are off with this woman. Aloud, I ask Jim, "Okay, so Tim's here now, and I've filled him in. What does Simon want us to do with him?"

"We've been discussing that, Chief," Jim says slowly. " I don't think you're going to like it." He motions for Tim to stay by the patrol car, and beckons for me to follow as he returns to where Simon is standing about fifteen feet away.

"Sandburg, do you think that boy's nerves are pretty steady?" Simon asks me quietly.

I look back to where Tim is leaning against the patrol car. "He's a pretty cool customer, Simon. I don't think he's going to get hysterical on you, if that's what you mean."

"Good." Simon clenches his teeth around the cigar. "And do you think his mother would hurt him?"

"The way I see it, he's the only person on earth I can guarantee she won't hurt. He's her entire world." I shrug. "But remember, I've never met her."

"I know...I'm asking you to make conclusions without much data." Simon sighs. "Here's the deal. We've been talking to Angela Brooks finally; they let us send in a clerk with a speakerphone into the room. She has said that she will consider releasing her hostage, if she can talk to her son face to face." He's obviously reached the same conclusions I have.

"Jim, I want you to take the boy up there, and let her talk to him."

"No!" I find myself shouting heatedly. "She'll kill him, Simon. Jim's the one who arrested her son, remember? She knows he was in charge of the investigation. What if she recognizes him?" Okay, so maybe I was wrong...Simon and I aren't thinking the same thing at all here.

"Sandburg, she specified her son and one unarmed escort. Jim's got the best chance of any of my men under those conditions, given his advantages." He adds, not ungently, "I'm sorry."

"I've got a better idea, Simon," I respond hurriedly, catching at his elbow as he starts to turn away.

"What?"

I lock my eyes onto his. "Let me go up there with the kid instead of Jim."

****************************************************

For a moment, I worry that Jim is going to pop a blood vessel or something in response to my suggestion. His face reddens and he frowns so hard his eyebrows bang into each other.

"Chief, are you nuts? Did that clipboard knock what little common sense you have out of your head?" he finally manages to say. "There is absolutely no way I'm letting you do that."

Simon agrees. "Sandburg, it's out of the question. I can't allow that kind of risk to a --"

Interrupting Simon probably isn't such a hot idea, but I'm afraid of the finality of that statement if I let him finish his thought. "Simon, you were going to send Jim up there unarmed anyway. So what's the difference between sending me and sending him?"

"Police training, military training, heightened Sentinel senses, and about forty pounds of muscle, Sandburg. Any other questions? Oh, and he follows orders without half as much back talk as I get from you." Simon cuts me neatly back down to size. Okay. so much for logic; let's try sidestepping a little.

"If I go up there, none of that will be an issue." I try to talk fast, before one of them can cut me off. Sometimes it's better just to keep the flow of words going, and worry later about whether or not my arguments are making any sense. "Jim, you just radiate 'cop' from every pore; you'll scare her. Angela won't feel threatened by me; I look harmless."

"Chief, you are harmless," retorts Jim.

That pisses me off. I know it's just Jim's overprotective instincts coming into play, but that hurt.

"Maybe I can't do a Rambo act like you, Ellison, but that doesn't make me 'harmless'. Or helpless, for that matter. Especially in a battle of wits." I'm breathing hard now.

I've got to keep my temper. If I get Jim mad enough, he might just cuff me and stuff me in the truck... crude, but quite effective. And he'd come up with some quasi-legal reason to do it, too. I get back to the point. "Look, a mother knows instinctively when someone means well, or doesn't mean well, toward her child." Except when it comes to guys like Carl, I think to myself... so much for maternal instincts on that front. Hopefully, Jim and Simon won't spot the holes in my logic. "I've believed in Tim since I first heard about him. I tried to keep him from being arrested. I sat down on the floor with him this morning and told him my life story, all of the crap that happened to me because of Carl. He and I have a... connection because of what we've both been through. I think that Angela will respond to that instinctively. I even look a little bit like her son. You guys are the ones who noticed that."

I pause only to catch my breath, but plunge back in when I see Jim opening his mouth with fresh objections. "If I escort Tim upstairs to talk with his mother, he can stand there and introduce me truthfully as his friend, not as a cop. As you're fond of pointing out, Simon, I'm not a cop." I turn back to my fuming partner. "Jim, if you come along and hang back in the hallway or the stairwell, you'll still be able to monitor everything that's happening, but she won't know you're there. You'd still be able to... to intervene if it should become necessary, and you could go in armed."

Jim, as I can tell from his body language, is still rigidly opposed to this; but something in Simon's face makes me think that he's starting to waver just a little. So: keep on slugging 'em with arguments. "I think that what you guys think of as my disadvantages: being small, not carrying a gun... I think to me those are advantages. I know that I can't get my way out of problems using physical means, so I have to be able to talk myself out of trouble instead. I'm not about to take any stupid chances."

Simon cuts Jim off as he starts to respond. "Jim...he's got some valid points there."

I do?

"But..." Jim rubs a hand over his face. "I don't like it, Simon. There's too many things that can go wrong."

"That's always the case, Jim. You can't control all of the variables. But as much as it pains me to admit it, I think Sandburg is right this time."

Now I keep my mouth shut, and let Simon do the talking... as Jim is far from convinced.

"Let me get this straight. You're going to send a police observer into a hostage situation? To negotiate with a woman that we know is capable of killing?" I can almost imagine that I see the hairs on the back of Jim's neck bristling as he says this.

"Come off it, Jim." Simon says sharply. "You yourself have taken him into situations that were just as dangerous, if not more so. I think he can handle this, with you as a backup. And he's not really going in as a member of the department, or a negotiator; he's going in as a friend of the family, who's volunteered to help." Jim turns slightly away, and Simon puts a hand on his shoulder. "Look at it this way, Jim. If Sandburg is persuasive enough to talk me into this, Angela Brooks doesn't stand a chance against him. He can talk anyone into, or out of, anything if he tries long enough."

Jim smiles briefly, half-heartedly. "With our luck, I'll have to stop her from throwing herself out the window to get away from him." He turns to me, face tautly controlled again. "All right, Chief, you win. Let's go get the kid and tell him the plan, then we need to get Kevlar vests on both of you." He spins on his heel, and I start to follow him. Man, is he ticked off at me. Even if this goes well, I may need to avoid him for a few days.

Simon calls out to us.

"This is assuming that Tim Brooks is willing to do this," he cautions. "I won't send him into this kind of danger either if he's not one hundred percent willing. If he's too frightened, we'll just have to come up with something else."

"He'll want to do it, Simon." I assure him. "I think you'd have to tie him up to keep him away. We've got that in common as well." I smile tentatively at Jim, who ignores me. Simon smile wryly. "God save me from two of you, Sandburg. One is bad enough."

***************************************************

After Simon dismisses us, I make a beeline for the patrol car where I left Tim...ostensibly to brief the kid right away, but more to get away from Jim, who's just been collared by one of the S.W.A.T guys with an update. He's got a funny look on his face, and I still half expect him to find a way to derail this plan before we can carry it out. One that probably involves leaving me tied up and gagged in a corner somewhere, while he says to Simon, "Honest, Captain, I don't know where Sandburg went. Guess we'll have to do this without him."

As suspected, Tim is eager to help in any way. "Mom's always been a little paranoid," he observes wryly. "If she's asking for me, and you guys don't produce me, she'll assume the worst. I've always been able to get her settled down, even when I was a little kid."

I nod. "Good. I'll be with you the whole time, and Jim will be in the hall backing us up." Speaking of Jim...I feel his impatient presence looming behind me. "Ah, Jim, there you are. Tim says he'll be glad to go with me to talk with his mother. Should we go get ready? Do you need any special gear or anything?" I babble, trying to get Jim's attention focused away from me and back on the case.

"In a moment, Chief. We've got a few minutes to set up. The team says that since Ms. Brooks was informed that she'll get to speak to her son soon, she's calmed down quite a bit. So we don't have to rush. We've given her a time frame of about thirty minutes." He looks down at me intently. "Come over to the truck for a moment, Sandburg. I want to talk to you."

Trapped again, dammit. "Uh, Tim, would you excuse us a moment?" I follow Jim dutifully enough to the truck, but balk at getting inside.

"Jim, can't we just talk out here? I mean, we're not talking a top secret operation here or anything." I swallow. "Call me paranoid, but I just have this feeling that if I get in there you won't be letting me back out somehow."

Jim just looks at me, and his face suddenly looks older and more tired. "Just get in, Chief," he says tonelessly. I get in, and so does Jim. As he shuts his door, I brace myself for a serious reaming-out.

I'm not disappointed.

"All right, Chief, what the hell did you think you were doing, volunteering for this? I should kick your butt all the way home for even suggesting it. You've got no business putting yourself in that kind of danger, and you know it!"

"Simon seems to think --" I try to argue, but Jim cuts me off.

"Simon is desperate to end this without innocent bystanders getting hurt, and the fact that he listened to you is only a measure of just how desperate he is!" Jim shouts. In the confined space of the truck cab; he's pretty loud. Makes me wish that I could dial down my hearing at will the way he can.

"Jim, it's not going to be that dangerous. Besides, Simon was right. I've been in worse tight spots with you, when you wanted me to help." My voice gets bitter. "Is it just that this time, it wasn't your idea?"

Jim recoils as if he'd been kicked, but stupid me, I just keep going. "Jim, you just want me to be your obedient little shadow, is that it? Follow you around like an obedient puppy? Entertain you on stakeouts, call for backup, crank out your paperwork, and be handy in case you need help with your senses? Jim, sometimes you act like I haven't learned anything in all my time with the department. But I have! I may not be a cop, but I've learned a hell of a lot about police work!"

"Sandburg, stop it!" growls Jim, pounding the dashboard with his fist.

I shut my mouth and look away, trying to regain my emotional footing. In what I hope is a more reasonable tone of voice, I continue.

"Jim, all I'm asking for is a little credit, man. That crack about being harmless...that really hurt. You know, I took care of myself for years before you came along. Sometimes I think you forget that." I search for a way to express this thought with words that get my point across without wounding either of us any further. "Remember... I started college when I was sixteen, and I've been on my own ever since. I earned my degrees, found my teaching position, supported myself, all before I met you. And I happen to think I've been pretty useful to you and the department for the last couple of years."

Jim is quiet for a long time, while I mentally kick myself for some of the things I've said. "All true, Chief," he says at last. "I'm sorry. The last thing I want to do is take you...and your help, for granted." Now he turns and looks at me again. "I think you should have warned me, though...told me about your idea."

Now I'm able to smile. "Jim, wouldn't you have just tied me up, or hit me over the head, or something?"

"No, I think I would have been better off to put you in the trunk of Simon's car. He would have been pretty surprised to get home and find you there." Jim rubs his fist, and looks ruefully at the now-cracked dashboard. "Hmmph. Oh well, better the truck than your head."

"My head is harder, Jim." I take a deep breath. "Are we okay, now?"

"Yeah," Jim says slowly. "We're okay. I'm... sorry if I overreacted, Chief. I guess I've gotten tired of seeing you get banged up, knocked out, poisoned and shot. It gets a little old after a while."

"I promise I'll be careful," I say softly.

In answer, Jim throws his right arm around me, almost roughly, and pulls me close for a moment, resting his sharp chin on my head. "You'd better be, Chief, or I'll kick your ass," he murmurs. I cling to him for a moment, glad that my heated and hasty words haven't ruined our friendship, glad now that Jim insisted on this conversation, glad even for Jim's bullheaded over-protectiveness. For a few seconds, I take refuge, gathering my resolve for the task that I've set for myself.

***********************************************************

At the S.W.A.T. van, Jim personally supervises Tim and I as we don our vests and get our briefing. He puts on a vest, too, as well as other protective gear and assorted items of lethal hardware. You'd think we were assaulting the Death Star instead of going to talk with one confused and desperate woman with a handgun. Come to think of it, a good set of Imperial Stormtrooper body armor would be a handy thing right now.

Simon stands next to me, going over last-minute details. "Okay, the room in question is on the fifth floor, room 5805. It's an accounting firm's office, and the window that the perp and her hostage are at opens onto the reception area. Obviously, everyone's been cleared from that entire part of the building. We've got a couple of guys at the stairwell entrance, and she's let us put that speakerphone in the room, but she can turn it on and off.

"You stick together until you get close to the office, then you wait in the hall, Jim. Sandburg, you call out a warning to Ms. Brooks, telling her you're bringing her son to talk with her. You will enter the room slowly, and you let Tim go in first so that she sees him. You let him do most of the talking, Blair. Despite what I said earlier, you are not there to argue her out of anything. We'll be monitoring through Jim, but I want you to wear an earbug, in case we need to prompt you." Jim proceeds to stuff in the earpiece in my right ear. It's a little bit uncomfortable, but not too bad.

He picks up a microphone and talks softly into it. "I always suspected you were hearing voices in your head, Chief," I can hear him say, amplified by the earbug.

"Very funny, Jim. Most people just say, 'testing, testing'. I get insults."

Jim picks up where Simon left off. "Once you're in the room, Chief, stay away from direct line-of-sight of the window. If the marksmen need to fire, we don't want you in the way. Don't let Tim get too close to her, either. We don't want to trade one hostage for another."

Simon speaks up again. "Your primary goal is to get her to release her hostage. Once she gets to safety, you are to withdraw, and we'll do whatever we need to further defuse the situation. If at any point you sense that things are deteriorating, get out of there immediately. No heroics, Sandburg."

I nod, my mouth dry, and fleetingly wish that I hadn't been quite so eager to volunteer for this. "I understand, Simon."

"Good." His hand rests on my shoulder a moment. "Be careful, son."

**************************************************************

We're all grimly silent as we jog up the stairs to the fifth floor. Jim leads the way while we shorter and less violent mortals trail behind. He's all business now, having apparently recovered from his earlier snit about my waving volunteered for this. He stops at the fifth-floor landing, where two of the S.W.A.T. officers are waiting, and motions me close.

"Okay, Chief, you're on," he breathes in my ear. "Remember...no stupid chances, right? And don't let Tim's mother get her hands on him." He studies my face for a moment. "Don't let her snowball you, either, Blair. Remember, she's already killed one man...even if he was a creep."

"We'll be fine, Jim," I assure him. "Now...got your hearing locked on to me?"

"Yeah...I can hear your stomach churning with fear, Chief."

"That's hunger, Ellison, hunger." I motion to Tim. "C'mon, kid."

I push open the stairwell door, and Tim and I slip through together. "Get behind me," I hiss, feeling oddly like Jim. Tim, unlike me, obeys.

We're all the way at one end of the hall, so there's no chance of going the wrong direction. As it turns out, 5805 is almost all the way down at the other end. The door stands wide open, and we pause outside it. My heart pounds, and I will it to slow down, knowing that Jim will be listening.

"Angela?" I call out, trying to use what Jim calls my "guide" voice. "Angela, my name is Blair Sandburg. I've brought your son to talk with you. Can we come in?"

Silence for a moment. Then, a hoarse reply: "Are you a cop?"

Blessing the instincts that led me to substitute myself for Jim, I answer her. "No, I'm not. I do some... volunteer work with them, for my thesis, but I'm really a grad student over at the University. I'm not a cop, and I'm not armed." As an afterthought, I add, "Neither is Tim."

"Okay...you can come in. Slowly."

Now I gently direct Tim to precede me into the room. That feels wrong; I'm older, and ostensibly in charge here; I should be going in first. But I can appreciate the logic of doing it this way. She's expecting her son, and anyone else stepping through that doorway first might set her off.

We're in a large reception area, tastefully decorated in soft colors and with various expensive-looking potted plants scattered around the room. Directly ahead of us, I can see a large open window. In front of the window...

They're no longer standing on the windowsill, which I guess is a good sign. Instead, they stand in the room, just in front of the window. Two women: one, the tired-looking dark-haired woman whom I recognize from the pictures hanging on Tim's wall. She looks a lot like her son, especially around the eyes... but the eyes themselves are haunted, tense, not quite sane. The other woman: taller, thinner, tawny-haired, looks appropriately terrified considering that Angela Brooks is still holding the gun to her head. No, I don't think this is a scam.

Tim apparently doesn't think so either. "Mom," he says in a quavering voice, "what are you doing to Aunt Debby? You're scaring her!"

Angela's face goes white at the sight of her son. "Timmy," she breathes. "My God, Tim, are you okay?"

"Mom, I'm fine. Please calm down."

"I thought you were still in jail. Did they hurt you?"

"No, Mom, nobody's hurt me. It was all a big misunderstanding. I'm okay."

Angela seems to relax a little, but her grip on the gun remains unchanged. Tim takes a step closer. "Mom, you have to stop this and let her go. Before someone gets hurt." Now I see Angela's hands shaking. "She's your best friend, Mom. You love her. You don't want to hurt her. Please, let her go."

Angela turns her head slightly and looks at her friend. "Debby, are you scared of me?" Her voice is flat, unfocused.

To her credit, Debby answers her firmly. "Yes, Angela. I'm very scared of you. I'd like it very much if you'd let me go."

Is it really going to be this easy? Apparently, yes, because to my amazement Angela removes the gun from her friend's head and lowers her arm. "Go on," she says softly.

I find my voice, finally. "Debby, walk this way slowly. When you get out of the room, go down the hallway to the stairwell door. Wait there, and you'll be escorted down." I don't want the S.W.A.T. guys getting nervous if she blunders into them; I trust that Jim is still listening and will tip them off.

Apparently he is, because I hear Simon's voice in my right ear. "Good work, Sandburg. As soon as she's clear, I want both of you out of there, even if you have to drag the boy with you."

A bit hesitantly at first, Debby follows the instructions. She pauses at the doorway for a minute, and turns back. "Angela," she says softly. "You need help. Let them help you."

"Debby..." She swallows, and I see tears running down her face now. "Take care of my son."

The impact of that phrase, the finality of it, hits me a few instants before Angela's arm actually moves to point the gun at her own head.

"NO!" I scream. As if in slow motion, I see her fingers twitch on the trigger. There's a loud report, and she falls violently to the floor, the gun flying out of her hands as she collapses. ******************************************************

Tim and I basically race each other across the room to reach his mother. She lies sprawled in a heap under the window. As we reach her, I can hear the sounds of others bursting into the room. I look up to see Jim and the two officers in S.W.A.T. gear, coming at us at full tilt with weapons drawn. They skid into the room, and one of the officers talks into his radio mouthpiece.

"Suspect is down, suspect is down."

I look back down at this woman, who had seemed so dangerous a few seconds before. The first thing I notice is that I don't see any blood. The second thing I notice is that her chest is moving as she breathes raggedly. And the third thing I notice is the little red nylon bag on the floor next to her. While Tim kneels down, sobbing, and tries to rouse his mother, I pick it up. One side is split, and a trickle of little round white bits spills out.

A beanbag round, I think they're called. Less lethal, and often able to knock a person down without doing too much damage. I didn't know they had this kind of range, though. That's all the thinking I really have time to do before Jim and the others are kneeling next to Angela. He places his hand on her chest a moment, then nods slowly.

"I think she'll be okay. Let's get the paramedics up here." He looks up at me. "You okay, Chief? What happened?"

"I'm fine." I straighten up, and put my hands on Tim's shoulders. "C'mon, Tim. The medics will be here in a moment, and they'll take care of her. Let's go out into the hall. You've had quite a scare."

To my surprise, we encounter Angela's friend Debby just outside the door. I'd momentarily forgotten about her; I guess I just assumed she'd run at the sound of the gunshot. Instead, she's waiting for us, silently weeping.

"What happened?" she asks softly. "Is Angela..."

I shake my head. "She's going to be okay. They managed to knock her down with a special type of shotgun round. I think she's just had the wind knocked out of her. You're safe now."

Tim leans up against his "aunt", and she puts her arms around him. I decide, then, that her touch is probably better than mine right now.

"Stay here, both of you," I murmur, and return to the room.

****************************************************

It takes an interminable time to get everything tidied up, and a few hours later we're still at the station doing reports. Or, at least, Jim's still doing reports. I did the best I could to help, but all I really manage to do is give my statement of what occurred in those few minutes that Tim and I faced down his mother. After that, my near-sleepless night and gut-wrenching week catches up to me, and I find myself half-asleep with my head on a pile of papers.

After getting Tim formally released, all charges dropped, he'd chosen to go home with Debby for now. We spoke for a while back here at the station, and I'd offered him the chance to stay at the loft for a few days, but he declined. He also mentioned that his wrestling coach might give him a more permanent place to stay.

"But I want to see you again, sometime," he'd said. "I've still got a lot of questions that I think you might be able to help me answer."

I'd smiled at him. "That makes two of us."

Angela Brooks was taken to the hospital with contusions; they were going to keep here overnight for observation and to begin the psychiatric evaluation process. Tomorrow, they plan to transfer her to a psychiatric facility. She's going to be charged with the killing of Carl, but so far no one's decided exactly what the charges will be. For Tim's sake, I'm hoping that she'll remain in the hospital for a while before doing jail time.

A hand shakes my shoulder, gently, and I blink my eyes open expecting to see Jim. But it's Simon, leaning over me solicitously.

"Sandburg, you look totally wiped out," he chuckles. "Do you want to lie down on the couch in my office?"

I straighten up, knuckling my eyes in an attempt to wake up. "No...I think I'll stick it out, Simon. Jim must be almost done by now." I grin at him. "If I fall asleep in your office, Jim just might forget and leave me there."

"And the cleaning staff might mistake you for a rug and try to beat the dust out of you," says Jim, looking over at us. "I'll be done in a few more minutes, Chief, then we can go home."

"By the way, Sandburg...good work," says Simon quietly. "You did very well today, son, and I'm proud of you."

I can't resist teasing him a little. "Gee, Simon...can I get that on tape for the next time I do something really stupid?"

He smiles back at me. "I'm sure it wouldn't be long before you got a chance to use it against me."

*******************************************************

Home at last. We stop for some take-out Chinese on the way home...food, not people. As Jim comes back to the truck with the ubiquitous little white take-out bags, I’m sitting there laughing at my own pathetic joke, imagining a menu of take-out Chinese people. When I try to explain, he just shakes his head. "Chief, I don't think I want to know. You're strange enough when you're normal, let alone when you're this tired."

Now, I just sit at the table, eating slowly, savoring the hot tasty food, the pleasant weariness, the memory of Simon praising me. I realize that I love this feeling...closure, the end of a case, the absence of stress, however momentary it may turn out to be. Maybe the cops are rubbing off on me after all of this time.

After I almost fall asleep on my General Tso's Chicken, though, Jim shoos me away. "I'll clean up here, Chief. If you won't go to bed, at least go crash out on the couch."

I curl up in one corner of the couch, half thinking about today, half drifting, listening to sounds of dishes clanking and water running. Eventually, the room grows quiet, and I feel the couch cushions dip as Jim joins me.

"You asleep?" he asks.

I crack an eye open. "That, Jim, has to be the world's dumbest question. What would you do if I said 'yes'?"

He ignores my answer. "What are you thinking about, Chief?"

Ah...we've had the official debriefing, so here comes the unofficial Ellison debriefing of Sandburg.

Or is it going to be the other way around? I can't listen to people's heart rates the way Jim can, but something tells me that today's events are bugging him a little. I'm too tired to be evasive. "Today, I guess. What about you?"

He gives me one of those unreadable looks. "I just wanted to see how you were holding up. That was a fairly tense situation."

"Tense, yes...but pretty much out of my control," I say slowly. "Other than standing my ground, I didn't really have any decisions to make, any choices." I glance sidelong at him as I get a foggy flash of insight. "I don't envy whoever had to give the order to fire, though."

Bingo. Jim seems to deflate just slightly. "That... was tough, Chief. I couldn't see you; all I heard was your heart rate jumping up and your shout. I had to assume that you and Tim were in danger, and I knew I couldn't get there in time. I had to tell them to fire."

I sit up straight and place my hand on his arm. "You made the right decision, Jim. We're all okay."

"I was lucky," he sighs. "Even those beanbag rounds can kill. I would have had to face Tim and tell him I was responsible for having his mother killed."

"No," I say firmly. "She was trying to kill herself. You, and that the guy who made that fantastic shot, saved her life."

He nods. I know that his brain understands this, accepts it; his heart will take a little longer. So I decide to distract him by bringing up something that's been bothering me.

"You know, Jim... the whole thing with Carl, and Angela killing him..." I struggle to get the thought out coherently. "I feel like I should be more, well, outraged at her. She killed him, after all. But instead... I pity her almost as much as Tim. Why? Just because I hated Carl?"

"He stole your innocence, Chief. You've got every reason to feel ambiguous about his death. That doesn't make you a killer, too."

"You acted today, or ordered someone else to act, because you thought I was in danger," I say slowly. "You weren't sure what the outcome of that action would be. Essentially, you used potentially deadly force, to defend me. Angela did... what she did, because she thought she was defending her son. Does the end really justify the means? I know that the two cases are still different, ethically... but I can't make it work out in my head." I rub my hand over my eyes. "It bothers me."

Jim thinks for a minute. "The difference, Chief...well, Angela had other choices. Once she'd read the diary, she should have taken her son away with her and called the police. Not taken matters into her own hands. That was revenge, Blair. That's the difference."

I nod, glad for the explanation, and slump back into the cushions. "Revenge," I murmur, knowing that Jim can still hear me. "Taking revenge over someone you love... is that ever justified?"

Whisper-soft, the answer drifts back to me as my eyelids grow heavier. "I hope I'll never have to answer that one for myself, Chief."

The End. Comments, questions, discussion, etc. all welcome.

Email Kim

© 1999-2001 by Kimberly Heggen. All rights reserved.
The characters of Jim Ellison, Blair Sandburg, Simon Banks, and the remaining recurring characters that were blatantly lifted from the scenes of the television show The Sentinel are the property of Pet Fly Productions. No ownership of these characters is expressed or implied.
Tax and tires not included. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Not valid in all areas. Check your local dealer for details. Not responsible for lost or stolen items.