Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 9:45 pm
Hello everyone! Sorry for the long wait on this one. I was revising it and then kind of just abandoned it. But here you go, I hope you enjoy! And please remember when reading this that if it seems like I'm overcomplicating anything, it's my intention to do it but it'll work out later, i promise!
Emz80m
begonia9508
LegalAlien
SmileeUK
Ner
Michell in Yonkers
Alien614
flyawayraven
alizaeleven
Chapter 10
Weapon drawn in front of her, Liz stared at the spot where her bullet sat embedded in the rocks. She was unable to look away from it, all the while wondering when anything would begin to make sense. “How did you do it?” she asked in a voice so quiet that it was almost carried away into the night. “How is this all so clean?” Unfortunately it didn’t matter how many times she asked the question, the fact was that she couldn’t come up with a single answer.
Then when the sound of heavy footsteps in the distance met her ears, Liz swung around with her gun still drawn. Quietly, she took a few steps back into the shadows and crouched down to avoid being seen by whoever was roaming the desert.
As he made his way around the cliff, Max looked in all direction for some clue as to where the shot had come from. “Max?” Liz called out when she saw his form carefully approaching. Quickly, she came out of hiding and lowered her gun as he turned and found her standing by the edge of the outcropping. Quickly hitting the safety, she looked up at him and asked, “What’s wrong? What…” and trailed off as he came forward and pulled her into his arms.
For a breathless moment Liz stood stiff in his embrace, wondering why he seemed so frazzled. Then a moment later instinct kicked in and she returned the hug with both arms. “You’re okay, right?” he quietly asked and then released her so he could check her body over for bullet holes or blood stains.
“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?” Liz queried, still thoroughly confused by his actions.
“I heard a gun shot and I’d already seen your SUV parked out there,” Max stated and took a step back when he realized his hands were still grasping onto Liz’s arms. “When I heard the sound, I thought… never mind, it was stupid I guess,” he said, berating. “What was it anyway?” he then asked, noticing the gun she still held in her hand. “What were you shooting at?”
“The ground,” Liz replied then hurried forward with an elaboration when Max looked down at her strangely. “We only have two of the bullets from the hospital because one of them went straight through,” she began to explain, all the while thinking about the body she had revisited in the morgue earlier that day. “That in itself is weird. It doesn’t at all follow the pattern of this killer but the part that really doesn’t make sense is that there were no indentations in the rocks,” she explained and watched as realization dawned on Max’s features.
“Okay, I see what you’re saying but it doesn’t make sense,” Max admitted as he followed her train of thought. “If by some freakish chance, the blood here doesn’t match hers, then how could he have killed her in one place, moved the body without a trail so she could bleed out and then return her home? More importantly, why go through all of that when we only had a small chance of ever finding this place anyway?” he questioned as the two easily slipped into detective mode.
“From the very first victim, nothing about this case has made sense to me,” Liz revealed and re-holstered her gun. “Why rape someone who is already been strangled to death? Or, why shoot someone who has already been raped and strangled to death?”
“Why strangle someone to death?” Max added and shook his head as it once again hit him what exactly they were dealing with.
“Right,” Liz agreed and reached into her kit for a pair of thin forceps. Carefully, she picked the bullet out of the rocks and deposited it, along with the instrument back into her CSI case. “All our psychological profilers have at least a couple different theories,” she added, straightening up again. “The popular theory though is that he was sexually abused as a child. It’s why he rapes the victims. Not because of the sexual thrill it provides but because of the power it gives him,” she attempted to explain though psychology was far from her area of expertise.
“Which brings back the question, why didn’t he do it to Pam?” Max questioned and knew by the expression on Liz’s face that she still didn’t have an answer to that one.
“The detective I work with back in New York still doesn’t have a lead or a link to this one,” she stated and pulled out her own flashlight. Despite the early hour, the sun had already begun to set, darkening the sky enough to make both strain to see details around them. “But he does know that the bullet in my stomach matches the ones in Pam’s chest. So I guess that kind of makes me the link between the two,” Liz quietly added, causing Max to feel more worried than he cared to admit to.
In all their musings, it never occurred to either to mention the previous night they spent together. It seemed that for a short time, they would have to call a truce and put their past on the back burner.
Max was still harboring a lot of anger but none of it was as important to him as ensuring Liz came out of their investigation unscathed.
<center>~&~&~&~&~&</center>
The shrill sound of Liz’s ringing phone caused her and Max to take a break from their search. Almost two hours had gone by and in that space of time, the sun had already completely set while the moon took its place above them. Flashlights had become a necessity rather than a helpful option and as the minutes ticked on it became more obvious that they were no closer to finding an answer than they had been when they first started.
“Hello?” she answered and winced when Ava’s angry voice greeted her ears. Belatedly, Liz realized she should have checked the ID screen before answering. “I know that I haven’t been by since that night and…” Liz trailed off when Ava interrupted, moving on to her next grievance. “Yes, I’m sorry about the chocolate on the door. I just couldn’t find any tape lying around inside Kyle’s cruiser,” she explained weakly.
Nearby, Max didn’t bother hiding his smirk as he imagined the scold Liz was receiving from Ava. By all accounts she was a serene, polite person. Yet when she got upset about something, she had a temper that no one wanted to mess with. Combined with her latest mood swings, if Kyle’s stories were at least half true, she had become an even more formidable force to reckon with.
“No, I’m feeling fine. Really,” Liz said in an attempt to convince Ava that her fainting spell that night had been nothing more than a fluke. “Yes, Ava I realize it’s been a long time and I will go visit again soon. I just have some things to take care of while I’m here,” she explained and hoped that just once more, Ava would accept it without asking too many questions.
As he watched her face, Max felt his smirk fall away. Even if it wasn’t audible in her voice, he could see on her face how she was scrambling to keep Ava out of her work. She didn’t want to put that extra strain of worry on her friend and Max found himself wondering how many times she had evaded the truth in order to protect Ava. He also couldn’t help but wonder if she had ever done that to him.
Suddenly Max began searching his mind for a time during their relationship when she seemed evasive about something. He tried to remember if there had ever been a sign that she was hiding her feelings or anything else he may have missed that eventually led to her leaving so suddenly. His quick search, however, led to a dead end. Max couldn’t find a single thing. As far as he knew, the two of them had been completely open and honest with one another. The only incident he could remember where she acted differently was just after her parents were killed. Then again, anyone would feel out of sorts in the same situation.
“Okay, bye.” He tuned back in as she snapped her cell phone shut. “Did you find anything?” she asked, instantly changing the subject so that Max wouldn’t have the opportunity to comment.
“Why’d you leave?” he asked suddenly.
Surprise was written all over her face. Even with the moon casting shadows over her features, Max could see it. “What?” she asked back after a terse, silent moment. Perhaps she hoped he would tell her to just forget it. That he’d say they could talk about it another time when they weren’t working. He knew that it was what she wanted but he refused to give it to her. Not after all the years he spent wondering if there had been anything he could have done to prevent her from leaving.
“I asked why you left,” Max repeated, meeting her gaze straight on. “Why did you just pack up without a word to anyone?” he questioned but Liz heard in his voice what he refused to ask. ‘Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you say a word to me?’
“Max, we have work to do,” Liz stated in an attempt to dissuade him from the topic at hand. “There’s so much ground to cover and we should just….”
“Stop trying to run circles around everyone,” Max demanded as bits of anger began to seep into his voice. “I listened to you on the phone with Ava and I get it. I know that you’re only trying to protect her by telling stories instead of the truth. But not with me. You’re not trying to protect me, you’re trying to protect yourself,” he stated and shook his head sadly. “You don’t get to be a victim here. Not with me and not with this. I want the truth, Liz. Why did you leave?”
“Max, this really isn’t…”
“Why?” he asked again when she would have just evaded his question.
“Max…”
“Why?”
“Because I was seventeen,” Liz finally exploded, briefly startling Max as she raised her voice. “I was young and angry and stupid. I hated them for dying and I hated you for not being there when I needed you the most,” she yelled because it felt like the only way she could speak. Emotions were rising to the surface, most of which she hadn’t dealt with in a lot of years. Then standing in front of Max, seeing the hurt on his face wreaked that much more havoc on her senses.
The air wasn’t cold but Liz felt chilled to the bone. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked down at the rocks, unsure of how to fix what she’d just said.
Despite any anger she felt, she had never set out to hurt Max. It had just been a casualty of her adolescence and her desire to find a place in the world that belonged solely to her. All the apologies in the world would never be able to make up for what she did but Liz started believing a long time ago that maybe it was for the best. “Everything changed for me that night, Max. Carefree was no longer an option because suddenly there were wills and property deeds and funeral arrangements. Then there was… guilt,” Liz admitted. “I should have been with them that night. Maybe if I had been, I could have somehow prevented what happened. Seen something they didn’t or… I don’t know,” she tiredly shrugged, suddenly deflating now that she’d gotten the hardest part out of her system.
“I know I wasn’t a kid anymore but I was still just terrified. I was lost and…”
“And instead of talking to someone so you could deal with all the things you were feeling, you decided it would be easier to just punish everyone,” Max declared in a low voice devoid of all emotion.
“No, that’s not what happened,” Liz immediately denied though she would have been lying if she said it hadn’t occurred to her a time or twice. “At least not intentionally,” she amended because she couldn’t stand lying to him. Even after all the time that had passed, Liz cared too much about him to lie.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Max said dismissively before she had the chance to further explain herself. “I have Savannah and… we’re happy. What happened last night was a mistake and it won’t happen again,” he stated in a way that made Liz feel like she’d just been slapped in the face. Now he was the one lying, she thought. And he was doing it to push her away, back into the deepest recesses of his heart and mind. What hurt even more was that she realized she deserved it.
So just that one time, Liz let him have his lie. At the very least, she owed him that.
<center>~&~&~&~&~&</center>
“Please tell me you have something, Pace because I’m stumped,” Liz admitted on the drive back to her motel. As she talked to the detective she tried to put her conversation with Max out of her mind. “I can’t seem to make sense of anything.”
“That’s because you’re not the detective,” Pace stated though not meanly. If anything, he sounded distracted and the steady hum of noise behind him alerted Liz to the fact that he was still at the station house. “Not that my job is all that much better than yours. We hit a roadblock here too,” he admitted, frustrated. “How’s your stomach?” he added as an after thought while Liz pulled her SUV into the motel parking lot.
There were only two other vehicles in the lot and the neon genie lap sign continuously flicked on and off. Strangely enough, the outside of the building actually appeared to be cleaner than inside the rooms, Liz couldn’t help but notice. “Its fine,” she dismissed and began the short walk to her door. “But, Pace… he killed her because of me, right? It was to send me a message, wasn’t it?” she queried because it was time someone finally said the words out loud. How they all managed to dance around the truth for so long under the guise of detective work was beyond Liz.
She may have hit a roadblock with Max too but one thing their conversation made clear was that it was time she began owning up to the things she was responsible for.
“Where’s this coming from, Parker?” he questioned as the meaning of her words crept into his thought process. Liz could imagine him, pencil poised over whatever he was writing, waiting for her response so that he could answer or explain why she was wrong. The problem was that Liz knew she wasn’t wrong. Not this time and not about this.
It was strange that in a span of a few days, so many things had suddenly become clearer. Maybe it was being back in Roswell or maybe even a delayed reaction to everything that had happened with Jesse. Anger had been first and then came the sadness. Perhaps Liz was moving on to the next phase of acceptance. And the truth of the matter was that two people were now dead because of her. Three, she then thought and unconsciously put a hand to her stomach. Three were gone.
“The shooter was aiming for me and got Jesse instead. Now he’s moved on to a victim in my home town… in my mother’s old house,” Liz stated and turned the single lock once she’d closed the room door behind her. “Whatever was going on before has changed since that night. Now I’m a part of it and even you can’t deny that.”
Detective Pacer was quiet at first, seeming uncertain about what he should say. Liz didn’t blame him though. He was in the tough position of having to hold everything together. The investigation was still on his shoulders with added weight from the local officials. Kathleen was scared and still grieving the loss of a friend and Liz… well she was on the other end of the country trying to help the local fuzz solve a murder case. All the while, the overprotective cop was trying his damndest to take care of his team and prevent another one of them from losing their life.
It was no wonder, Liz thought, that the captain had ordered him to take off on a couple of personal days after Jesse’s murder. Naturally, the department wanted Pace around to gather as much evidence as possible but even the grouchy, hard ass captain could see how all the chaos was affecting his detective.
From what Kathleen said, Pace hadn’t even taken the time to gather his bearings. Instead, he had gone to Massachusetts to talk with Mrs. Ramirez and help with funeral preparations.
“What happened with Ramirez out there wasn’t your fault,” he eventually said. “It could have easily been the other way around. I’m just…well-glad that it wasn’t both of you,” Pace stated and cleared his throat as though he was embarrassed by the admission. “Why it’s all happening doesn’t change much of anything. We still have a job to do and evidence to dig up so just keep on your search down there and we’ll let you know if we come across something up here,” he advised and waited to hear Liz’s quiet answer before hanging up his end.
Tired and still plenty confused, Liz stripped off her clothes and walked into the bathroom. The square mirror hanging on one wall was dingy like everything else in the room but as Liz stood naked in front of it, she looked passed the grime and studied her reflection with a critical eye.
It hadn’t been so long ago that she did the same thing in warmly decorated B&B bathroom. Funny how it seemed a lifetime ago, Liz couldn’t help but think.
The scar still stood out pink and visible against her skin, a permanent reminder of everything that had happened. Not just the shooting but the child she lost. An unplanned pregnancy that was the result of a drunken one night stand. But it sounded so cheap when put that way, Liz thought. Especially since it had been more than that. Maybe it wasn’t love but there had been feelings involved.
Two friends who were trying to comfort one another sounded much better to Liz’s ears.
After that night they went on with their lives and pretended that none of it had happened. Oddly enough, their friendship never once suffered because of it. If anything, their friendship grew because of how much they now understood about one another.
In one night, a single person with a sick and twisted mind not only murdered an innocent woman, but he also killed a man and his unborn child.
Emz80m
begonia9508
LegalAlien
SmileeUK
Ner
Michell in Yonkers
Alien614
flyawayraven
alizaeleven
Chapter 10
Weapon drawn in front of her, Liz stared at the spot where her bullet sat embedded in the rocks. She was unable to look away from it, all the while wondering when anything would begin to make sense. “How did you do it?” she asked in a voice so quiet that it was almost carried away into the night. “How is this all so clean?” Unfortunately it didn’t matter how many times she asked the question, the fact was that she couldn’t come up with a single answer.
Then when the sound of heavy footsteps in the distance met her ears, Liz swung around with her gun still drawn. Quietly, she took a few steps back into the shadows and crouched down to avoid being seen by whoever was roaming the desert.
As he made his way around the cliff, Max looked in all direction for some clue as to where the shot had come from. “Max?” Liz called out when she saw his form carefully approaching. Quickly, she came out of hiding and lowered her gun as he turned and found her standing by the edge of the outcropping. Quickly hitting the safety, she looked up at him and asked, “What’s wrong? What…” and trailed off as he came forward and pulled her into his arms.
For a breathless moment Liz stood stiff in his embrace, wondering why he seemed so frazzled. Then a moment later instinct kicked in and she returned the hug with both arms. “You’re okay, right?” he quietly asked and then released her so he could check her body over for bullet holes or blood stains.
“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?” Liz queried, still thoroughly confused by his actions.
“I heard a gun shot and I’d already seen your SUV parked out there,” Max stated and took a step back when he realized his hands were still grasping onto Liz’s arms. “When I heard the sound, I thought… never mind, it was stupid I guess,” he said, berating. “What was it anyway?” he then asked, noticing the gun she still held in her hand. “What were you shooting at?”
“The ground,” Liz replied then hurried forward with an elaboration when Max looked down at her strangely. “We only have two of the bullets from the hospital because one of them went straight through,” she began to explain, all the while thinking about the body she had revisited in the morgue earlier that day. “That in itself is weird. It doesn’t at all follow the pattern of this killer but the part that really doesn’t make sense is that there were no indentations in the rocks,” she explained and watched as realization dawned on Max’s features.
“Okay, I see what you’re saying but it doesn’t make sense,” Max admitted as he followed her train of thought. “If by some freakish chance, the blood here doesn’t match hers, then how could he have killed her in one place, moved the body without a trail so she could bleed out and then return her home? More importantly, why go through all of that when we only had a small chance of ever finding this place anyway?” he questioned as the two easily slipped into detective mode.
“From the very first victim, nothing about this case has made sense to me,” Liz revealed and re-holstered her gun. “Why rape someone who is already been strangled to death? Or, why shoot someone who has already been raped and strangled to death?”
“Why strangle someone to death?” Max added and shook his head as it once again hit him what exactly they were dealing with.
“Right,” Liz agreed and reached into her kit for a pair of thin forceps. Carefully, she picked the bullet out of the rocks and deposited it, along with the instrument back into her CSI case. “All our psychological profilers have at least a couple different theories,” she added, straightening up again. “The popular theory though is that he was sexually abused as a child. It’s why he rapes the victims. Not because of the sexual thrill it provides but because of the power it gives him,” she attempted to explain though psychology was far from her area of expertise.
“Which brings back the question, why didn’t he do it to Pam?” Max questioned and knew by the expression on Liz’s face that she still didn’t have an answer to that one.
“The detective I work with back in New York still doesn’t have a lead or a link to this one,” she stated and pulled out her own flashlight. Despite the early hour, the sun had already begun to set, darkening the sky enough to make both strain to see details around them. “But he does know that the bullet in my stomach matches the ones in Pam’s chest. So I guess that kind of makes me the link between the two,” Liz quietly added, causing Max to feel more worried than he cared to admit to.
In all their musings, it never occurred to either to mention the previous night they spent together. It seemed that for a short time, they would have to call a truce and put their past on the back burner.
Max was still harboring a lot of anger but none of it was as important to him as ensuring Liz came out of their investigation unscathed.
<center>~&~&~&~&~&</center>
The shrill sound of Liz’s ringing phone caused her and Max to take a break from their search. Almost two hours had gone by and in that space of time, the sun had already completely set while the moon took its place above them. Flashlights had become a necessity rather than a helpful option and as the minutes ticked on it became more obvious that they were no closer to finding an answer than they had been when they first started.
“Hello?” she answered and winced when Ava’s angry voice greeted her ears. Belatedly, Liz realized she should have checked the ID screen before answering. “I know that I haven’t been by since that night and…” Liz trailed off when Ava interrupted, moving on to her next grievance. “Yes, I’m sorry about the chocolate on the door. I just couldn’t find any tape lying around inside Kyle’s cruiser,” she explained weakly.
Nearby, Max didn’t bother hiding his smirk as he imagined the scold Liz was receiving from Ava. By all accounts she was a serene, polite person. Yet when she got upset about something, she had a temper that no one wanted to mess with. Combined with her latest mood swings, if Kyle’s stories were at least half true, she had become an even more formidable force to reckon with.
“No, I’m feeling fine. Really,” Liz said in an attempt to convince Ava that her fainting spell that night had been nothing more than a fluke. “Yes, Ava I realize it’s been a long time and I will go visit again soon. I just have some things to take care of while I’m here,” she explained and hoped that just once more, Ava would accept it without asking too many questions.
As he watched her face, Max felt his smirk fall away. Even if it wasn’t audible in her voice, he could see on her face how she was scrambling to keep Ava out of her work. She didn’t want to put that extra strain of worry on her friend and Max found himself wondering how many times she had evaded the truth in order to protect Ava. He also couldn’t help but wonder if she had ever done that to him.
Suddenly Max began searching his mind for a time during their relationship when she seemed evasive about something. He tried to remember if there had ever been a sign that she was hiding her feelings or anything else he may have missed that eventually led to her leaving so suddenly. His quick search, however, led to a dead end. Max couldn’t find a single thing. As far as he knew, the two of them had been completely open and honest with one another. The only incident he could remember where she acted differently was just after her parents were killed. Then again, anyone would feel out of sorts in the same situation.
“Okay, bye.” He tuned back in as she snapped her cell phone shut. “Did you find anything?” she asked, instantly changing the subject so that Max wouldn’t have the opportunity to comment.
“Why’d you leave?” he asked suddenly.
Surprise was written all over her face. Even with the moon casting shadows over her features, Max could see it. “What?” she asked back after a terse, silent moment. Perhaps she hoped he would tell her to just forget it. That he’d say they could talk about it another time when they weren’t working. He knew that it was what she wanted but he refused to give it to her. Not after all the years he spent wondering if there had been anything he could have done to prevent her from leaving.
“I asked why you left,” Max repeated, meeting her gaze straight on. “Why did you just pack up without a word to anyone?” he questioned but Liz heard in his voice what he refused to ask. ‘Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you say a word to me?’
“Max, we have work to do,” Liz stated in an attempt to dissuade him from the topic at hand. “There’s so much ground to cover and we should just….”
“Stop trying to run circles around everyone,” Max demanded as bits of anger began to seep into his voice. “I listened to you on the phone with Ava and I get it. I know that you’re only trying to protect her by telling stories instead of the truth. But not with me. You’re not trying to protect me, you’re trying to protect yourself,” he stated and shook his head sadly. “You don’t get to be a victim here. Not with me and not with this. I want the truth, Liz. Why did you leave?”
“Max, this really isn’t…”
“Why?” he asked again when she would have just evaded his question.
“Max…”
“Why?”
“Because I was seventeen,” Liz finally exploded, briefly startling Max as she raised her voice. “I was young and angry and stupid. I hated them for dying and I hated you for not being there when I needed you the most,” she yelled because it felt like the only way she could speak. Emotions were rising to the surface, most of which she hadn’t dealt with in a lot of years. Then standing in front of Max, seeing the hurt on his face wreaked that much more havoc on her senses.
The air wasn’t cold but Liz felt chilled to the bone. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked down at the rocks, unsure of how to fix what she’d just said.
Despite any anger she felt, she had never set out to hurt Max. It had just been a casualty of her adolescence and her desire to find a place in the world that belonged solely to her. All the apologies in the world would never be able to make up for what she did but Liz started believing a long time ago that maybe it was for the best. “Everything changed for me that night, Max. Carefree was no longer an option because suddenly there were wills and property deeds and funeral arrangements. Then there was… guilt,” Liz admitted. “I should have been with them that night. Maybe if I had been, I could have somehow prevented what happened. Seen something they didn’t or… I don’t know,” she tiredly shrugged, suddenly deflating now that she’d gotten the hardest part out of her system.
“I know I wasn’t a kid anymore but I was still just terrified. I was lost and…”
“And instead of talking to someone so you could deal with all the things you were feeling, you decided it would be easier to just punish everyone,” Max declared in a low voice devoid of all emotion.
“No, that’s not what happened,” Liz immediately denied though she would have been lying if she said it hadn’t occurred to her a time or twice. “At least not intentionally,” she amended because she couldn’t stand lying to him. Even after all the time that had passed, Liz cared too much about him to lie.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Max said dismissively before she had the chance to further explain herself. “I have Savannah and… we’re happy. What happened last night was a mistake and it won’t happen again,” he stated in a way that made Liz feel like she’d just been slapped in the face. Now he was the one lying, she thought. And he was doing it to push her away, back into the deepest recesses of his heart and mind. What hurt even more was that she realized she deserved it.
So just that one time, Liz let him have his lie. At the very least, she owed him that.
<center>~&~&~&~&~&</center>
“Please tell me you have something, Pace because I’m stumped,” Liz admitted on the drive back to her motel. As she talked to the detective she tried to put her conversation with Max out of her mind. “I can’t seem to make sense of anything.”
“That’s because you’re not the detective,” Pace stated though not meanly. If anything, he sounded distracted and the steady hum of noise behind him alerted Liz to the fact that he was still at the station house. “Not that my job is all that much better than yours. We hit a roadblock here too,” he admitted, frustrated. “How’s your stomach?” he added as an after thought while Liz pulled her SUV into the motel parking lot.
There were only two other vehicles in the lot and the neon genie lap sign continuously flicked on and off. Strangely enough, the outside of the building actually appeared to be cleaner than inside the rooms, Liz couldn’t help but notice. “Its fine,” she dismissed and began the short walk to her door. “But, Pace… he killed her because of me, right? It was to send me a message, wasn’t it?” she queried because it was time someone finally said the words out loud. How they all managed to dance around the truth for so long under the guise of detective work was beyond Liz.
She may have hit a roadblock with Max too but one thing their conversation made clear was that it was time she began owning up to the things she was responsible for.
“Where’s this coming from, Parker?” he questioned as the meaning of her words crept into his thought process. Liz could imagine him, pencil poised over whatever he was writing, waiting for her response so that he could answer or explain why she was wrong. The problem was that Liz knew she wasn’t wrong. Not this time and not about this.
It was strange that in a span of a few days, so many things had suddenly become clearer. Maybe it was being back in Roswell or maybe even a delayed reaction to everything that had happened with Jesse. Anger had been first and then came the sadness. Perhaps Liz was moving on to the next phase of acceptance. And the truth of the matter was that two people were now dead because of her. Three, she then thought and unconsciously put a hand to her stomach. Three were gone.
“The shooter was aiming for me and got Jesse instead. Now he’s moved on to a victim in my home town… in my mother’s old house,” Liz stated and turned the single lock once she’d closed the room door behind her. “Whatever was going on before has changed since that night. Now I’m a part of it and even you can’t deny that.”
Detective Pacer was quiet at first, seeming uncertain about what he should say. Liz didn’t blame him though. He was in the tough position of having to hold everything together. The investigation was still on his shoulders with added weight from the local officials. Kathleen was scared and still grieving the loss of a friend and Liz… well she was on the other end of the country trying to help the local fuzz solve a murder case. All the while, the overprotective cop was trying his damndest to take care of his team and prevent another one of them from losing their life.
It was no wonder, Liz thought, that the captain had ordered him to take off on a couple of personal days after Jesse’s murder. Naturally, the department wanted Pace around to gather as much evidence as possible but even the grouchy, hard ass captain could see how all the chaos was affecting his detective.
From what Kathleen said, Pace hadn’t even taken the time to gather his bearings. Instead, he had gone to Massachusetts to talk with Mrs. Ramirez and help with funeral preparations.
“What happened with Ramirez out there wasn’t your fault,” he eventually said. “It could have easily been the other way around. I’m just…well-glad that it wasn’t both of you,” Pace stated and cleared his throat as though he was embarrassed by the admission. “Why it’s all happening doesn’t change much of anything. We still have a job to do and evidence to dig up so just keep on your search down there and we’ll let you know if we come across something up here,” he advised and waited to hear Liz’s quiet answer before hanging up his end.
Tired and still plenty confused, Liz stripped off her clothes and walked into the bathroom. The square mirror hanging on one wall was dingy like everything else in the room but as Liz stood naked in front of it, she looked passed the grime and studied her reflection with a critical eye.
It hadn’t been so long ago that she did the same thing in warmly decorated B&B bathroom. Funny how it seemed a lifetime ago, Liz couldn’t help but think.
The scar still stood out pink and visible against her skin, a permanent reminder of everything that had happened. Not just the shooting but the child she lost. An unplanned pregnancy that was the result of a drunken one night stand. But it sounded so cheap when put that way, Liz thought. Especially since it had been more than that. Maybe it wasn’t love but there had been feelings involved.
Two friends who were trying to comfort one another sounded much better to Liz’s ears.
After that night they went on with their lives and pretended that none of it had happened. Oddly enough, their friendship never once suffered because of it. If anything, their friendship grew because of how much they now understood about one another.
In one night, a single person with a sick and twisted mind not only murdered an innocent woman, but he also killed a man and his unborn child.
But I hope you enjoy this next part.