chapter 2


Click. Click. Clickity click. A sound all the occupants of the building knew well. The sound belonged to one person. The sound itself revealed much about the owner. Soft and slow when she was relaxed. Scratchy when she was tired and her feet shuffled over the hard floor. Light and upbeat when she was happy and well rested. Loud and quick when she was angry.

It was this pattern that those inside the building heard tonight. As the sound approached each of them they would withdrawn a little further into their own area, silently praying that she would pass them by. Hoping her anger was not directed at them, all of them except for the man in the large office towards the back of the building. He had heard the sound and he knew her anger was directed at him. He had called her back to the office an hour ago, sending someone else to finish processing her crime scene. Lucky for him this gave him time to prepare for her wrath.

The door to his office flew open, reverberating off the wall several times from the force she used. She marched over to his desk slamming her hand down hard.

“What the hell was so damn important that you had to pull me off my case?” The glare Catherine gave Gil would have destroyed any other person in the lab. He squirmed slightly in his chair.

“Sit down.” He pointed to the sofa against the wall as he rose from his chair.

“No.” She wasn’t budging until she had her answer.

“Sit down. Please.” This time he took her by the elbow leading her to the sofa. When she still refused he sat down himself and tugged her down with him. He looked at her not saying a word.

Catherine realized now that his reasons for calling her back might have to do with something other than her job. Her mind filled with dozens of scenarios, the majority involving her daughter. Gil saw the panic in her eyes and knew immediately where her thoughts had taken her.

“She’s fine.” It was almost the truth.

“How did you…?”

“Shhh…I need to tell you about my case tonight.” This was unusual. Gil had never called her in from a scene to talk about one of his cases in the nearly twenty years they had been working together.

“It was a 419 in Henderson, kid drowned in a pool at a party where the parents weren’t home. We were headed for the pool to begin processing when I was called into the house to talk with Vartan.” He paused not knowing exactly how to tell her about Lindsey.

“When he arrived on the scene he found Lindsey…”

“No, she’s at home with my mother.” Catherine was shaking her head.

“…he found Lindsey and she was…she had…” He was trying to choose his words carefully but Catherine was impatient.

“What? What happened to her? You told me she was fine.” Her mind once again filled with the images all mothers dread.

“She is. Now.” His voice was calm.

“Now?” Unfortunately, Catherine’s voice was not calm.

“When he found her she had been drinking.” Catherine stood up headed for the door to Gil’s office, determined to find her daughter.

“Where is she?” The anger in her voice felt by the bodies in the morgue.

“Sit down”

“Where is she?” She was going to kill her daughter once she was sure she was safe.

“I’ll tell you when you’ve calmed down.”

“Calm down? She’s thirteen, she snuck out of the house to go to a party and she was drinking and you are telling me to calm down?” Her face and neck were red with anger. She shoved Gil to the side and bolted for his door. He barely caught her arm, pulling her back into his office and shutting the door.

“Yes I am. If you go talk to her now you’ll say things you’ll regret later. Five minutes.” He let go of her arm, watching her pace back and forth like a caged animal. His office was silent except for the sound of her heels on his floor. Time was frozen. Gil hated doing this to her but knew the damage that could be done between mother and daughter if she went to Lindsey at this time.

Catherine continued her pacing for a good half hour, finally stopping to raid his stash of chocolate covered grasshoppers. She didn’t really want the grasshoppers but it was the only chocolate he had in his office. If she didn’t eat something she’d talk and if she talked right now she would tear Gil to pieces for keeping her away from her baby.

She’d calmed down just enough to realize her daughter had been found at a crime scene. She was still angry but the need to make sure Lindsey was safe was greater than her anger. She flopped down in Gil’s chair, container of grasshoppers in hand and propped her feet up on his desk. He was still firmly planted in front of his office door. She knew he didn’t feel she was calm enough to talk to her daughter yet. As frustrating as it was she admitted to herself that he was probably right.

He often was where Lindsey was concerned. He had been there since before Lindsey was born. He had helped her through morning sickness when they were at crime scenes. They wrapped Lindsey’s first birthday presents together in the break room. He was there when she got the call from Eddie that her daughter had spoken her first word (Daddy), taking her out for coffee in an effort to cheer her up because she felt like she was missing all the major events of her daughter’s life. When a little boy in preschool had chased Lindsey with spiders he was there to calm her down and show her how harmless a spider could be. When she turned five he bought her a small butterfly habitat and helped her set it up.

After Catherine had finally decided to leave Eddie, he was there to talk with Lindsey to make sure that she knew her parents were not the only ones to ever divorce. After Eddie passed away he would show up unannounced, taking Lindsey out to just spend the day together. It wasn’t a regular thing but it did make her daughter feel as if she had some sort of father figure in her life. More recently, he had been there for Catherine as Lindsey had begun to rebel giving her advice and supporting her decisions when everyone else around her found fault with them.

So even though she felt as if she could rip him apart right now she trusted him enough to just sit and wait till he felt she was calm. Of course she would still look at him with daggers in her eyes---no sense in letting him know his instincts were correct. This was mostly a wasted effort on her part because Gil had pulled Harry out of his case and had been playing with him for the past ten minutes (another good reason to stay put). He was completely oblivious to her glare.

She reached for another grasshopper only to find she’d emptied the container. Pulling open his bottom right drawer she dug around until she found his secret stash of fortune cookies and pulled the bag out, only to find there was just one cookie left. Gil looked up when heard her pull the bag out.

“Toss me a cookie.” He held up his free hand waiting for the cookie wrapper to make contact.

“Sorry, last one.” She ripped open the plastic and took the cookie out.

“Fine, we’ll split it.” He put Harry back in his case and walked over to his desk. Catherine broke the cookie in half and pulled out two fortunes that were twisted tightly together. She tossed them on the desk and handed him his half of the cookie.

“Aren’t you going to read the fortune?” He couldn’t believe how easily she had tossed them aside.

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I really don’t see how some mass produced “ancient Chinese secret” can predict the future or give me some profound insight into my past.”

“C’mon Cath. It’s just for fun.”

“No.”

“Why? Did you have a traumatic experience with a fortune as a child?” He smiled as he said this.

“I don’t believe in fortunes.”

“Please.” He gave her his special Catherine grin, winking at her. “For me.”

“Just give me the damned fortune” she said as she snatched them from his hand, untwisting them and throwing one back at him. One of these days she was going to wipe that smile off his face.

Unrolling her fortune she read it out loud.

“Your past is not as it seems.” She lifted her eyebrow, half smirking. “There’s a surprise.” Tossing her fortune aside she grabbed Gil’s from his hand.

“Hey, that’s mine.” He cocked his head to the side in protest.

“You took half my cookie. Only fair.”

“I believe you mean you took half of my cookie” and Gil snatched his fortune back, reading it silently to himself.

“Well?”

“It says ‘the road not taken will cross your path once more’.” Catherine laughed.

“At least yours is better than mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think finding out that Sam was my father was enough of my past not seeming what is was.” Fortunes could only bring bad news in her mind and she didn’t want to imagine what could be worse than Sam.

“But you already know about that so it has to be something different.”

“Great. Like I need another life altering secret in my past. So what about yours?”

“Easy. A second chance.”

“For?”

“It’s a fortune cookie, Catherine, not Miss Cleo.”

“Right. Just proves my point---they’re meaningless.”

“But fun.”

“Whatever.” She smiled, looking more relaxed than when she had stormed into his office. “Can I see my baby now?” Gil stood, taking her by the elbow and leading her out of his office.

“You know I didn’t want to do that.”

“I know.” She squeezed his hand to show she wasn’t angry with him.

“So. Any questions before we go in there?”

“No, I just want to make sure she’s ok. We’ll deal with the rest later.”

They walked into the room and saw Lindsey curled up asleep on the couch.

“You’d think all the coffee I gave her would have kept her awake.”

“You gave her coffee?” She said a little more loudly than necessary. The noise woke Lindsey. She sat up slowly. Her head was still swimming from the alcohol.

“Mom.” There was fear in her voice. Lindsey knew she had screwed up when she got caught.

“Lindsey.” Catherine looked at her daughter and felt her heart breaking.

“I…uh…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“No. You shouldn’t.” Her daughter was safe. Catherine felt her blood pressure rising as her anger returned. She turned and left the room without saying another word to Lindsey. Gil’s eyes followed her down the corridor until she disappeared around the corner.

“Gil.” Lindsey’s voice was small. He turned back to see the quiet tears streaming down her face.

“What did you expect?”

“She hates me.” Her sobs were coming harder now. The sight of her crying was tearing Gil apart but he stood his ground.

“That’s not fair Lindsey and you know it.” His voice was low and calm.

“You always take her side” she screamed.

“She’s upset Lindsey. She just found you you’d snuck out of the house, had been drinking and found at a crime scene. I think you’ve gotten off easy so far.”

“I’m not your daughter so I don’t care what you think. It’s none of your business anyway!” She stood up ready to run out of the room.

“Sit down.” The words were soft and unwavering.

“You’re not my boss.”

“I said sit down.” This time his anger came through loud and clear surprising Lindsey enough that she obeyed immediately.

“You are not to move from this spot unless your mother or I am with you. You will not go back to sleep. You will not play any games or look at any magazines. What you will do is sit there and think about your actions until I come back from my office. Then you are going to read through the case files your mother has worked where someone lost their daughter because she thought she was old enough to do what you did tonight.”

“But…” Her protest fell on deaf ears. Gil left the room in the same manner as her mother had. She laid her head back on the table, tears falling uncontrollably.