Blood on the Stairs

[tillace]

Ah, I'm loving this story. So sad, everyone's reactions to what's happened so right. Keep writing!

[TVFan]

Things are getting very interesting with the Who Killed Joseph question.

I love how you described all of the little things that Lilly is going to miss. It's those sort of things that we miss the most when someone leaves us. Awesome job once again!

[jambled]

“Patrick Smith?” Kat flashed her badge at the guy who opened the door to them. He was dressed in jeans and a singlet, and Kat was beginning to pick up Lilly’s type of man; tall, muscle bound and damn fine looking. The inference that Lindsay had made erased some of his charm, though.
“Yeah. What’s up?” He leant on the door jamb, threw her a lazy smile.
“Detectives Miller, Valens. Where were you yesterday morning between seven twenty and eight twenty?” He chewed on his bottom lip as he considered.
“Yesterday I was at work. Worked an extra shift. Money’s always better on the double.”
“We’re going to need a number for your workplace.” He scratched his hair, motioned them in. Surprisingly, the apartment was neat despite the fact that he look was too masculine to assume that a female lived there.
“I work at the museum downtown Thursday through Monday. Security guard. Usually nights, but I didn’t get home till yesterday at ten. What am I a suspect in?” He grinned as he copied a number out of his cell for them and handed it over. He was remarkably cool about it, but he had been in the force; he knew protocol, and procedure, and probably knew he was innocent as well.
“You remember someone called Lilly Rush?” He paused, frozen, as the name sank in.
“Lil. Course I remember Lil.”
“Used to slap her around, didn’t you. Back when you two were engaged.” Scotty picked up an antique silver ashtray that was perched on the mantel place, put it back down. Patrick leant against the wall and crossed his arms.
“I was in anger management. Lil knew that when we got together.”
“What, so that made it her fault?” Scotty stepped forward, balling his fists.
“I don’t know how well you know Lil, but she’s changed a lot, from what I’ve heard. I mean, she probably still bruises as easily, but she never asked me to stop, y’know.”
“She wanted you to hit her?” Another step closer, and Scotty was in swinging range. He couldn’t believe this man; Lil had gone from Kensington, to the back of a Harley to a relationship with a man who should have been her superior and kept her safe but who had instead abused that trust- and her. And then who insisted that she wanted to be hit.
“She was @#@#ed up. Gorgeous, but @#@#ed up.” In a single hit, the guy was down and Scotty was shaking the stiffness from his fist. It still hadn’t fully repaired from the last time he’d given it a workout.
“Scotty!” Kat was too late in her shout, and he turned to her, gave her a look. Patrick was still on the ground, blood coming out of his nose, eyes venomous.
“This won’t be the @#@#ing end of this.” As Patrick spoke, blood bubbled down to shake and drip off his chin. Scotty shook his head and made sure he had Patrick’s work number before he left the apartment.
“What the hell was that for?” Kat asked when they were outside.
“No one talks about Lilly like that. And no one deserves to treat her like that.” Scotty got in the car, still shaking with fury. Of all the nightmares he’d entertained about Lilly’s life, this hadn’t even been dreamt about. She’d let out some details; her loveless mother, her father not coming home one day. Chris had told him some more, but nothing had prepared him for this.
“Check his alibi.” Scotty handed over the number and pulled away as Kat dialled. Five minutes later she hung up, shrugged to him.
“Checks out. Not much of a human, but he didn’t stab Joseph.” Scotty sighed, almost wished Patrick was the perp. What he wouldn’t give to get that guy in an interview room alone for a few hours…
“So, guess Mark is it.” Kat looked out the window, and Scotty nodded.

“Hey.” Georgia had obviously come back from the gym and just stepped out of the shower, judging by the still dripping hair. She was in a yellow sundress, feet bare.
“We’ve got a few more questions about Mark, if that’s okay.” She shrugged, let the door fall open further so they could enter.
“Sure. I’m just packing anyway. Turns out I have to do a triple shift leaving tonight instead of tomorrow; Singapore, Australia and a stopover in Japan. You want a drink? Tea, coffee?” She turned and let them follow her into the kitchen. It looked over Mark’s small square of backyard.
“Coffee would be good, if you’ve got it.” Will said, and Vera nodded as they sat at the breakfast nook. She pulled a plunger out of a cupboard and busied herself with coffee cups.
“I haven’t seen him at all. Just got back yesterday, though.”
“Does he talk to you a lot?” Vera asked. Georgia rolled her eyes, nodded.
“I sunbake out the back sometimes, and he talks to me over the fence. Guess he doesn’t really have anyone else other than his drinking buddies, and you’ve gotta get a girl perspective occasionally.”
“Girl perspective?” Vera asked, eyebrows raised. Georgia smiled without looking up as she slowly depressed the plunger.
“You know, like a sounding board. Whether females prefer orchards or roses.” She pauses, looked between Vera and Will.
“Orchids, all the way. Those flowers cost some money.” She set two steaming cups in front of them and picked up a third.
“Talk to you about Eve?”
“All the time.” Georgia rolled her eyes and took a sip of her coffee.
“He’s definitely hung up on her. Everything was about her. He told me she just got better looking the older she got. One afternoon we had a fifteen minute conversation on how much better she looked with her hair down.” Georgia shook her head, missing the look that was exchanged between Vera and Jeffries; Lil had only been wearing her hair down a few months, so Mark must have seen her recently.
“I mean, I don’t know how this woman never realised she was being stalked.”
“You think he was stalking her.”
“Well, duh. Seriously, some guy knows that much about a woman who isn’t his girlfriend, and can talk for that long about her… Definitely a stalker. I had a stalker a few years ago; crazy guy that flew with our airline a lot. The company blocked him eventually after I complained enough, but it was easy to tell he was watching me all the time. Then again, less places to hide on a plane to play a peeping tom I guess.”
“What was the last thing you remember Mark saying about Eve?”
“Like I said, it was last week. He told me he was finally ready to take out the opposition. I figured he was going to have it out with some guy in another bar fight, or whatever. He’s got a temper sometimes. Seems like the calmest guy, but I caught him killing his rosebush because he’d snagged his hand and bled on his shirt.”
“Take out the opposition?” Vera pulled her back to the first point she made, and she shrugged.
“That’s what he said. I thought it was just some weird sports reference.”

“Fax here, from Jason Kite.” Kat took the paper out of the fax tray, checked the time.
“It checks out.” Scotty flexed his hand before he took it from her to put in the unofficial file they had. She gave him a look.
“You do know that guy’s going to make trouble. He knows how far complaints can go if you make them right.” Scotty shrugged, shook his hand out before he put it in his pocket.
“If I gets too far, I’ll tell Stillman what he said about Lil and he’ll work something out. I’ll take suspended probation.” Scotty shrugged again. At this point, he was ambivalent about his own career. He was stuck in the right now, held horribly motionless by a case that hit far too close to home. And he barely knew Joseph; he couldn’t imagine what Lil was feeling. He was coming around to realising why she made herself so scarce. No one wants to be around to have their lives pulled apart, to be the reason their lover was murdered.

“Mrs Lenton?” After Mark, she’d changed back to her maiden name but stayed in the same house. The expensive toys scattered around the foyer behind her made it look like she’d come out on top of the divorce.
“Wendy, please. What’s wrong? Elizabeth, I said stop teasing your sister! You two should be in bed.” She turned to yell into the house as Vera pulled out his badge.
“We’re detectives from Philly PD. Vera, Jeffries. We just need to ask you a few questions about your ex-husband.” She sighed, nodded, leant on the door jamb.
“I’d invite you in, but I haven’t seen him much since we separated. Even before then, I barely saw him after his childhood sweetheart’s case got solved. So I haven’t got a lot to say.”
“Do you remember him saying anything about a woman called Lilly?” She frowned a little, started shaking her head before she paused.
“Actually, that might be the woman… The one who worked the case. She came to talk to Mark at the house one morning. That was all. He never really mentioned her again, it was all about Eve after that. He ran the family business to the ground, was out all hours doing god knows what. Finally, we ended things. Would’ve ended it sooner, except for the girls. He always loved Eve more than me anyway.” She shrugged.
“What kind of things would he say about Eve?”
“Just that he’d broken his promise that he’d never leave her… Weird, though, he used to talk about her in the past tense then, after her murder was solved- with the right man in jail this time, he talked as if she was alive now. I tried to get him to see a counsellor but after a while I just couldn’t be bothered.”
“He ever say he saw her?”
“I don’t remember. Everything from then is kind of a blur; I was working my job as well as trying to stop him losing the business and keeping the girls out of our problems.”
“Anything lately?”
“He hasn’t had the girls for a few months, but last time he came to pick them up he was really angry. Said something about Eve lowering herself to a man on a Harley. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I nearly tried to stop the girls going with him that weekend. When Mark gets mad, you don’t want to get in his way. Elizabeth! I’ve got to go.” They heard a scream from inside the house before the door was firmly closed.

“Patrick checked out, so Mark is looking more likely. You talk to the wife?” Scotty looked up as Vera and Jeffries walked in.
“Ex-wife.”
“So what’d you find out?” Stillman came out; he’d seen them heading over to the desks.
“Gotta be him. Neighbour said he talked about taking out the opposition last week. Ex-wife said last time she saw him he was steamed about Eve taking up with some guy on a Harley.”
“That would be Ray.” Scotty nodded.
“When’s he seen Ray?” Kat asked.
“Remember, months back. Showed up looking for her. He found her that night when we left the office. She got on the back of his bike and they left.”
“So Mark’s been watching her for a few months?”
“At least. Ex-wife said he’d let the family business slide after Eve’s case got solved, was out most of the time. He coulda been watching Lil the whole time.” Kat shivered.
“And she didn’t know. Or she didn’t say anything.”
“We need to find Mark. At least Lil is probably somewhere he can’t find her.” Jeffries leaned forward, elbows on knees.
“She’s somewhere no one can find her.” Scotty said darkly.
“Reminds me; Devereux had to pull the APB on the DA’s orders.” Scotty allowed himself a small smile; Kite had come through.
“We’ll be working through tonight.” There was no question about it; everyone was in it until Joseph’s killer was behind bars. Stillman continued.
“Will, you and Nick take Mark’s house. Scotty, I want you and Kat to try out the bars nearby again, see if you can find him. I’m going to try and get a warrant for his house in the meantime, which means going through Lainey. But if the DA got them to pull the APB, he’ll probably be able to get a warrant signed for us or them based on what we’ve got. Keep me informed.”
“Will, you coming?” Vera was heading towards the elevators, keys and jacket in hand. Usually Vera b*tched about stakeouts, but this time he was first out the door.

Lil sat up with a gasp, clawing at the air until reality took over the dream, made her lower her arms and try and remember what she’d been fighting. Immediately, the dream remnants that were slipping away was replaced by a single, flashing bulb; the news report hadn’t mentioned names. But Mark had. And he’d shown up, almost like he’d been watching her, waiting for the right time to knock on the door. Whomever it was that had killed Joseph had to have been watching the house, otherwise they’d never have been able to get there in that time frame. Jesus, and he had been right here in front of her. The guy that had been almost convinced she was the reincarnation of his dead girlfriend. The guy that had shown up at her door at midnight to unload his problems, despite the fact that he had a wife he could talk to. Scrambling up from the bed, pushing her hair back, Lil found his card on the floor. Under his phone number, there was an address a few blocks from her apartment.

Thanks for the reviews so far! Glad you're enjoying. This fic started off as a two pager and turned into something waaaaay more. So thanks for sticking with it!

[longislanditalian2]

Jambled I love it, I really enjoy reading this story a lot

[TVFan]

Another great chapter! It seems that Lilly may be in danger. There was a creepy vibe to Mark in "Lovers lane." I like how you've used that to form your story.

[tillace]

more, more, more!

Ditto what TVFan said re Mark. Knew there was something off about him in Lover's Lane, and now look. He's killed Joseph, lol.

[jambled]

finally, right? Sorry for the wait.

“Second surveillance watch, ready to go.” Scotty slid into the backseat of Vera’s car and handed two cups of coffee through as Kat let herself into the other side. The car was away from the streetlights, tucked between someone’s Rambo mobile; a high slung 4WD that looked like it had been in a mud fight, and a slinky Porsche that looked out of place on the street.
“No luck at the bars?” Scotty shook his head.
“No one’s seen him down there for a few days. No movement here?”
“Nothing.”
“Boss rang; Lainey’s taken our information. Turns out they were still working off info with the last case, hadn’t come up with anything. They hadn’t considered the angle we took yet.”
“Only that Lil might have done it herself.”
“Anyway, they’re mulling it over now but he thinks they’re going to get a warrant through tonight. Meanwhile, when we see him we’ve gotta keep him covered but we can’t intercept.”
“Hey,” Scotty said softly as a figure walked along the footpath. It came closer and was finally illuminated under a street light.
“That’s him.” Vera said. Subconsciously, everyone sank a little lower in their seats as Mark gave a quick glance across the street before climbing his stairs. It took him a minute to unlock the door in the dark and then he was inside, flipping a light on so they could see his shadow moving.

Lilly stopped a few houses from Mark’s and dropped to a crouch. She’d been walking along the opposite side of the street when she’d noticed the car, tucked between two others. She’d walked to the right spot to see the four silhouettes inside and had recognised every single one. Obviously, they’d come to the same conclusion as she had; she wondered how many ghosts of her past they’d revisited to get here.
Back at the motel, she’d slipped out a window into the parking lot, then recircled. It had taken her ten uncomfortable, crouched minutes to spot him, tucked into an alley across the street. Finally, he’d turned and started the journey to his house, probably deciding she wasn’t going anywhere for the night. A bus and a train later she had, so far, managed to follow him undetected. Holding her breath, realising no one in the car looked as if they’d spotted her, it seemed her luck was holding. Of course, it made it more difficult to get to him. She had planned on walking up to the front door and knocking, confident he’d let her in. He thought she was his dead girlfriend, and she was prepared to play that card if it got a confession. Now she’d have to find a back way in.
Carefully moving backwards Lilly waited until a car drove past her and sprinted across the street, hoping the movement of the car would mask her. She paused at the side of a house towards the end of the street and sighed. Now the fun part; a backyard dash.
A near miss with a small dog and an attack by a rose bush saw her in the yard of the house next door. It was dark; looked as if no one was home. By contrast, Mark seemed to have settled in for the night; flickering blue light suggested he was watching television. Probably seeing his own handiwork on the news.
Peering out over the fence as far as she dared, Lil saw the Ford. They’d managed to park it in the best surveillance spot; not only did they have the front covered, but they could see down the side as well. Lil leant against the fence. She was so close. All she needed was another car to go past so she could get over undetected. Fifteen agonising minutes passed before there was the sound of rubber swishing over asphalt. She stood, waited with breath held and threw herself over as it went past, skittling towards the back of the house. She waited again, caught her breath as she strained her ears for running footsteps coming from the car. After a minute of nothing but her own blood roaring in her ears, Lilly made her way to the back door. A few minutes at the lock and she was letting herself into the house.

“Is that… Anyone seeing two silhouettes?” Vera wound his window down, letting in the chill of the night as everyone looking intently at the house. Scotty and Kat had let Vera and Jeffries know they could handle the surveillance, but no one was leaving.
“Yeah, where’d they come from?” Kat asked.
“What’s the back like?” Scotty said.
“Unless you’re backyard hopping, there’s no way in. Only on the left side, too. Right side is a high wall from the next house. We’ve got visual on that and I haven’t seen anyone go over; you guys?” There was general dissent in their response.
“I’ll call the boss, let him know.” Jeffries picked up his phone as everyone concentrated on the figures inside.

“Mark.” Lil walked to the lounge room doorway, crossed her arms. He looked up, surprised, before a smile spread across his face and he got up out of his chair.
“Hey. I’m glad you’re here. Knew it was a good idea to go see you.”
“You… you been watching the news?” Lil motioned to the television, which he’d muted.
“It’s been on.”
“Seen my house. The steps we sat on?” He was quiet for a moment, thinking, eyes downcast at his feet.
“I told you I’d never leave you.” His voice was soft and Lilly moved closer to him, but remained out of arms reach. She didn’t have a weapon with her, and she’d seen what he was capable of.
“What are you talking about?”
“When we were in the parking lot. When we were younger.”
“Right before Eve was killed.” She tried introducing the dualism; that there was her, and then there was Eve.
“If you died, how would you be standing in front of me?”
“Mark, I’m not Eve. I’ve told you that before.” Lilly said it as gently as she could manage, with the last bit of self control that wasn’t involved in stopping her springing across the room to put her hands around his throat. He took a few steps back.
“No. You’re her. You look so alike, and you’re so… You’re as alive as she was.” She could see the panic flaring in his eyes; the realisation beginning to take shape. He’d been deluding himself for too long, though, for it to vanish that easily.
“No, Mark. I’m Lilly. And the man you killed… He was… He was…” She couldn’t finish the sentence so she left it open, leaving it up to Mark to make the conclusion.
“He wasn’t right for you. He doesn’t love you as much as I do.” She remembered him then, when he’d come to see her at the office. She almost wished she could have told him that she was Eve, just so she could grasp all that love for herself. She could see it in his eyes, the way it could be easily transferred, until he got to know her and found out how different she had been at fifteen to the girl he loved. That she hadn’t been innocent eyed, dreaming of a recording contract and fame. That she was doing her best to just survive, to hold together a fraying family, keep herself away from whichever deadbeat her mother was hooked up with for that week and scrape through school, despite her ever-present hunger and declining dreams that she might ever get out of there. Then again, at that point, she’d still been, though tenuously, with Kite. She’d never supposed it would come to this; that what he’d tried to express would burgeon and grow and end up leading him to kill her soul mate. It had come full circle; he’d told her Eve was his soul mate, and asked her if she’d ever loved someone that completely. She had, too briefly, until he’d taken that away from her.
“But I loved him.” Her voice was almost a whisper, and Lilly felt herself faltering. She thought she’d be able to hold it together, have anger as her strength. But she’d realised that, whatever she did, whatever revenge she took, it wouldn’t bring Joseph back to her.
It seemed to take him only a second as he crossed the space between them, arms outstretched. Lilly dodged, not quick enough. A blow to her cheekbone as she’d dropped put her off course but she turned quickly, put in a blow to his solar plexus. Gasping, he was still and she slammed her palm into his nose, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone breaking as he dropped to the floor. His hands went to his face, but they didn’t cover his eyes, looking up at hers.
“I did it for you.” His voice was stilted, interwoven with the breaths he had to take through his mouth now his nose was out of action. Lilly leant towards him
“And I’ll never forgive you.” That blow had landed more firmly than anything she’d done to him physically. He hadn’t wanted to attack her, he’d just wanted her to be Eve and stop giving him her own thoughts. He was still seeing his dead girlfriend in her, and it was as if she’d spoken those words across the valley of death. Lilly pulled out the spare pair of cuffs she’d found at her house and turned him over. Standing up once his wrists were tightly bound by the metal, Lil wiped a hand across her eyes, wincing when she hit the cheekbone he’d managed to get. She wanted to give herself a minute of satisfaction, but she couldn’t feel it. She had no one to share it with, no one to kiss her and smile at her and tell her the world was safer because she was out there.
Straightening her back and readying herself for the questions she’d have to answer, Lilly walked to the front door and opened it.

“Is that Lil?” Jeffries asked. Scotty was already halfway out the car door. Her back was straight and her eyes were directed straight at them as she walked in their direction. Stillman had told them not to move in unless they sensed a struggle; they’d never entertained thoughts that it might have been Lilly in there with him, otherwise they’d have been inside in a second, orders be damned.
Scotty slowed his jog as he crossed the street and reached her, stood as near to her as he dared. She wasn’t the kind of person you could offer comfort to easily.
“He’s cuffed, inside. He did it; admitted it.” She folded her arms, further warding off human contact. She was wearing what the homeless man had told them. Long black coat, big black boots. In all the black, she looked too thin, too fragile to have just confronted her lover’s killer and come out seemingly unruffled. But that was Lil; an enigma to the end.
“How… Are you…?” Scotty tried to ask the question, but couldn’t find a way to phrase it that wouldn’t seem condescending. She shook her head slightly, looked away from him across the street. Vera was just hanging up his phone and he and Will were making their way over.
“Cuffed, inside.” Scotty said when they drew closer, so Lilly wouldn’t have to repeat herself. They stood in a small circle, Kat going inside to check on Mark, silence reigning amongst them.
“Stillman coming down?” Lilly finally broke the silence. Vera nodded.
“Devereux got the warrant for him. They’ll be upset they didn’t cuff him, that they can’t get the glory.” As if by request, Stillman’s car came roaring down the street, pulled up in front of the house. He stepped out, came over to them.
“Kat’s inside with Mark.” Vera said. Stillman nodded, his attention on Lil. She looked up at him and Jeffries took a step back, motioned to the others. They heard her first words to him as they walked slowly up the stairs.
“Sorry, Sir.”

“Textbook take down for a guy resisting arrest.” Kat had kept Mark on the floor, where his nose had bloodied the floorboards. Scotty exchanged a glance with Jeffries; he’d been expecting to find Mark with more injuries than a broken nose.
“Bring him out, take him down to the station.” Lainey’s voice came in from outside and the detectives all winced. If she was still on the war path, she’d probably request them all to fill out reports by hand in duplicate and to have them on her desk by the morning. Never mind that they’d just solved her case.
Two officers in blue came in, offered nods to the team as they got Mark to his feet and marched him out. Lainey stood aside at the door while they passed, looked in.
“I’ll need reports by the end of the week.” She nodded herself, looking pained to say the next sentence. “Good work, I guess.” Mark was taken outside as the search team came in, gloves on. She followed them inside, cold case team ignored as they left and she began barking orders. Stillman was still outside with Lil, both of them in the same positions, her arms still folded. They all gathered around, waiting for next instructions. The killer had been caught, but there wasn’t the shared feeling of justice done, like there usually was. Joseph was still dead, and Lilly was still too quiet, too motionless.
“Tomorrow we can write up the reports. Good work today, everyone.” Scotty snuck a glance at his watch. They’d all been at work for sixteen hours straight. He remembered Lilly’s phone in his pocket, pulled it out. She took it wordlessly, almost reluctantly, dropped it into a side pocket in her coat, meeting his eyes with a brief look of thanks. There was an awkward silence between everyone before Lil took a step back, nodded at the Lieutenant. He nodded back and she turned and started walking away. Within moments, she’d melted into the dark.

and now just an epilogue I think... That I kind of have planned in my head but just have to get down on paper. Or the screen. You know what I mean. It's just going to be hard to write... And this took so long because it was hard. Lil and Mark say about twenty words between them, but it took hours of thinking what would someone say in that situation. I mean really, what would you say? Hopefully I picked the right words! Thanks for sticking with it!

[TVFan]

I think you found the perfect words to say, jambled. It's something that I can't even imagine, but I know that Lilly is strong enough to do exactly what you had her do (and say). I really liked your ending moments with the team and Lil, especially between her and Stillman. Great story!! I'm looking forward to your epilogue.

[tillace]

loved it. Don't worry, the words were perfect, jambled!