Brothers
by elfin
He was in full command mode, Terry observed as Don paced up and down
between the case boards and his assembled team. She noticed that
his eyes kept flicking across to his brother, sitting at the front,
waiting patiently to speak his piece, and wondered if the same thoughts
she'd been having were buzzing around in his head.
"Two shootings, four stabbings, three pairs of brothers," his gaze rose
again and she knew for certain he was thinking about them - he and
Charlie. How could he not at a time like this? "First two -
Malcolm and David Lee - were shot a mile apart at the same time,
11.35am four days ago, Malcolm outside a Mid City shopping mall, David
in front of a cinema in Westlake - that definitely gives us two killers
working together. Second two - Stephen and Jason Coleman -
Stephen was stabbed at 10.20am two days ago while he was waiting for a
cab Downtown, Jason half an hour later coming out of his office half a
mile away. Third two - Dave and Adrian Dekker - Dave was stabbed
at 4.50 yesterday afternoon in his home in Silver Lake, Adrian was
stabbed an hour later walking home in West Hollywood. We have a
pair of serial killers working together, and I know how rare that is
but so is the timeframe they're working in."
"They're brothers themselves," Charlie piped up, and Don nodded,
"That's a pretty good assumption. Serial killers rarely trust
another person enough to work with them, the psychology of a serial is
usually a loner with complete faith in his or her own abilities but
absolutely no faith in anyone else's. To trust someone else
enough to share the killings implies a close relationship and the
targeting of brothers points to that particular relationship."
Now Don's focus settled entirely on Charlie. "What else do you
have?"
Charlie was up from his seat like a jack-in-the-box, suddenly all
released energy and single-minded passion. He grabbed a blue
marker pen from the desk and started to write in his quick, fairly neat
scrawl on one of the clear boards. But unlike most of his
scribbles, what he wrote this time was simple and made perfect sense.
MON WED THURS
He looked directly at Don. "What's missing?"
"Tuesday."
"This pattern's obvious. I can start to use the algorithm I wrote
to predict where the next two murders are going to take place.
But you don't need me to tell you when and you don't need me to tell
you the first problem you're facing."
"We're missing a pair of murders."
Terry could again see the same thoughts in her head mirrored in Don's
eyes; how the hell had they missed something so simple, something that
was staring them in the face? She was about to open her mouth, to
ask if maybe it was just that the killers had skipped Tuesday, to put
forward at least the possibility, but a tentative knock on the glass
doors distracted her.
"Agent Eppes?" She looked from the suited newcomer to Don and
back again. "Professor Simon Frost, University of South
California." Confused, she watched Don nod and wave him in, she
glanced at Charlie and saw him cross to offer his hand.
"Simon, it's good to see you again." But his warm welcome was
tempered by the clear confusion in his voice. "What… what are you
doing here?"
"I asked him to come," Don stated, and Terry couldn't help but wonder
if this was one of those conversations that should have occurred
earlier, between the two of them, and without the whole team watching.
"Why?"
Frost too looked baffled. "If you've already got Professor Eppes
in on this, I don't see what I can possibly add to what he can tell
you…."
Don closed in on Charlie, slung an arm around his shoulders and led him
towards the door. Terry got out of the way, gave them some room
and herself a chance to duck if blows were about to be thrown.
Charlie abhorred violence but she reckoned he had to have a limit,
everyone did, didn't they? Being replaced on an investigation by
his own brother had to be up there in the high possibilities.
Still, she stayed within earshot of Don's lowered voice.
"I don't want you in on this one," he murmured softly, and Charlie's response was beautifully predictable, head turning.
"What? Why? What did I do?" How the hell did anyone
resist the pull of those big brown eyes? "Is this… because of the
bus?" She glanced away, unable to watch in case there were
tears. If he started to cry, she'd be right there with him and
whenever someone had mentioned the bus she'd seen his wiping his eyes
surreptitiously when he thought no one was watching.
"No… God, no. I've told you, that wasn't your fault. You
didn't do anything. It's just with this case I'm putting you
directly in the line of fire…."
"Because we're brothers?!"
"Yes, because we're brothers. I don't want these people thinking we're targets, Charlie."
"You said being a target came with the territory."
"For me, not for you. You're a Math Professor. So… go spend
some time at your day job, just until this is over, okay?"
Looking up she caught the war of hurt and anger in the younger Eppes'
eyes before he simply walked away, across the office and out of the
door, not stalking, not rushing, not even defeated. He left, like
he'd leave on any day.
Don met her gaze and she tried to put all the accusation she felt into
her expression, but it was impossible. Everyone saw the pleasure
and satisfaction Charlie got out of working with his brother, everyone
apparently apart from Don. Or maybe he just ignored it - had to
ignore it to do his job. She let her face soften and he smiled
his thanks. Then he took up his place at the head of the room and
introduced Professor Frost to the team, took them through the plan of
action, and tried not to notice the wave of sympathy that had followed
Charlie out of the door.
#
Alan let the front door close behind him and carefully put the small
bag containing his new bowling ball down where no one would trip over
it, with any luck in the world. The dark red custom-made 14lb
ball had been a present from his sons on Father's Day - partly a joke,
the ball had brought him a lot of luck and had improved his game no end.
He was headed for the kitchen and a cold beer when he heard a sound he
didn't like. Looking across the darkened room - no one had pulled
the curtains this morning apparently - he caught sight of his youngest
son sitting at the dining table, arms crossed on the dark top, head
down, shoulder's shaking, sobbing so quietly it was as if he was
ashamed of the emotion.
"Charlie…."
Hurrying to his side, Alan bent to wrap one arm around his boy's
shoulders and the other around his head, leaning his face into the
curly hair, muttering soft phrases of reassurance. For a few
minutes Charlie just continued to cry, letting out whatever this was -
and Alan had a fairly good idea - then as his sobs eased Alan released
him, reached back to grab a chair and sat down close by, one hand still
rubbing between his son's shoulder blades, the other finding a
tear-damp hand and holding it tight. When the dark head lifted
and wet, reddened eyes looked at him despairingly, he had a sudden,
very primal need to hurt whoever had hurt his son.
His voice was deliberately level as he gently instructed, "Tell me
what's wrong," and the same story came pouring out as he'd heard a
couple of times over the last couple of months. Only this time,
there was a bitter twist at the end of it for which his eldest and
while no less intelligent in his own way, definitely less sensitive and
less tactful son was going to pay.
Four months ago Don had pulled Charlie in on a series of bombings in
the city, a series that was quickly escalating. First a device
had been left in a trash bin on the edge of a suburban park in
Northridge on a rainy Sunday. One elderly man had been
injured. Two days later, early in the morning, another device had
exploded in a market while traders had been setting up. One woman
killed, fifteen people injured. It had been a serious escalation
and Don had asked for his brother's help even though on so little data
- just the two explosions - there had been little for him to go on to
pinpoint anything.
The next day though two bombs had been set, again in Northridge.
One - again in a trash bin in a park close to a children's play area -
had been found and defused. The second had gone off in a small
shopping mall killing three, including a child, and injuring over
forty. More evidence, more data, Charlie had set to work in
earnest, aiming for a behavioural prediction on possible locations of
potential bombs while at the same time trying to pinpoint the residence
of the perpetrator. One more explosion, in an underground car
park the same night as the other two, and Charlie had been able to give
the FBI four possible locations; another shopping mall, a bus station,
a park and a school playground, all in Northridge.
They'd evacuated all four places, turning the school bus around as soon
as it had arrived, sending the kids home. Only they'd never made
it. A bomb had gone off under the bus half a mile from the
school. The driver and seven of the children had been killed, not
one of the others had escaped injury. Charlie had gone straight
to the scene, despite Larry begging him not to and Don trying to
forcibly remove him the moment he'd arrived. After standing
staring at the bloody wreckage for a few, long minutes he'd broken down
and Don had made the unprecedented call to their father to come get him.
Alan had done all he could, but Charlie had been inconsolable, refusing
to talk to any of them, not even retreating back to his famously
unsolvable math problem but instead simply sitting out in the garden,
often in the pouring rain, and staring at the koi in the pond.
Don had been so busy trying to catch the bomber, who'd eventually been
cornered planting a device in the bus station Charlie had identified as
a potential target. Larry had been the one to re-arrange his own
lectures and tutorials, to get cover where he could, in order to sit
out with Charlie, sometimes talking, sometimes just listening to the
rain pounding his jacket. It had been Larry who'd finally got him
to talk, Larry who'd listened to the outpouring of guilt that was
eating away at him, Larry who'd held him when he'd finally allowed it.
He'd developed a bad cold, from all that sitting out in the rain.
He'd coughed and sneezed his way through forty-eight hours of a high
temperature and very little sleep. Then eventually the fever had
broken and he'd slept for thirty-six hours straight. When he'd
woken, Don had been at his bedside, waiting to tell him they'd caught
the man who'd killed and wounded so many, that it was thanks to Charlie
he had been captured, that no one blamed him for the school bus and he
shouldn't blame himself. It had been a crime of opportunity, a
snap decision made when it had become obvious that the playground was
no longer a viable target. Even with so many police and FBI
agents around, he'd been able to plant a bomb under an idling school
bus in the scant few minutes it was standing still.
But although he'd started to function again, the blame had festered,
and despite knowing it was happening, not Don or Alan or Larry had been
able to do anything about it.
"He's replaced me," Charlie finished his ramblings almost randomly, and it took a moment for Alan to work out what it meant.
"Your brother couldn't replace you," he reassured. "You're the best in your field, who's he going to replace you with?"
"Simon Frost from the university."
He realised then that Charlie was stating a fact. Sometimes, he
thought, Al Qaeda could give his eldest son a lesson in tact. "I
don’t understand. Why would he do that?"
"He doesn't want me on this case. He says… he says it's because
we're brothers and it makes us targets but it isn't… he's worried I'll
screw up again."
He wasn't sure which part of that statement to challenge first.
"He isn't worried you'll screw up, Charlie, because you didn't screw
up. What happened to the school bus wasn't your fault. As
for the other thing… have you considered that he might be right?
If someone's targeting brothers, you two might make for good sport, you
know?" It went against his nature to be so brutal with his
youngest boy but sometimes harsh honesty was what it took to penetrate
that over-developed brain of his.
Still, the hurt in the brown eyes he'd inherited from mother's side was
painful to see, and Alan leaned forward to plant a rare kiss on his
son's forehead. "I love you, Charlie. Donnie loves
you. He's just trying to protect you and you know what, I'm
grateful that he is."
"I don't want his protection, I don't need it. I just want to work with him, show him I can do this."
"He knows you can. You think he'd keep asking you for help if he
didn't? But he has always put family first, you know that.
He's given up so much in the past for us, don't think for one minute
he'd put you in danger if he can help it. How do you think he'd
feel, um, if something happened to you while you were helping
him? Think he'd ever forgive himself?"
Charlie's head moved slowly, left to right and back again. "I know he wouldn't." It was little more than a whisper.
"Then let him do this for you. If he needs to know you're safe in
order to do his job, allow him that." He watched Charlie's
hurried nod, watched him wipe his eyes with a sweep of his hand.
"Now how about I make us a drink? I have some of that hot
chocolate around somewhere…."
"Dad…" Alan rose to Charlie's old protest, "…I'm not five years old any more."
It wouldn't stop him drinking it when it was put in front of him.
And the single shot of whiskey in the adult version would do him good,
might even knock him out for a couple of hours. That would give
Alan plenty of time to call Donnie and tear him a new one for upsetting
his brother.
#
It was going exactly as Alan had predicted it would. Charlie
wasn't the only one who could work statistics and an argument with Don
on this particular subject always played into Don's hands, whatever
moral high ground Alan presumed he had.
"You were the one who came down to my office while that sniper was out
on the streets to have a go at me for allowing him to work crime
scenes! And you were right too, I mean, that was a very, very
near-miss."
Alan stared at his eldest son as he paced the lounge. "What are
you talking about? What was a near-miss?" He would
have sworn to the word, 'shit' passing Don's lips.
"Nothing."
"Don't you dare lie to me."
"Okay, okay… the sniper took a pot shot."
"At your brother?"
"He wasn't hurt, Dad."
"How close was it?"
"It… he wasn't hurt, okay? Let's leave it at that? Anyway,
like I said, he could be in danger with this one so I got in another
guy."
"Without telling Charlie first?"
"I know, okay? I know that was wrong, believe me. Terry's
already yelled at me for it, you don't have to." He watched Don
take in the quiet emptiness of the house finally. "Where is he,
anyway?"
"He did what you told him to do; went back to his day job."
"Right. Good." His cell phone rang and answering it was as
automatic a response as breathing. He listened for a few seconds
and then told whoever it was that he'd 'be right in'. Alan was
used to being walked and run out on. Occupational hazard of being
the father of a senior FBI agent. "Listen, Dad, I gotta go.
I'll drop by CalSci later and apologise, I promise."
"See that you do."
But Don was already out of the door.
#
"Charlie was right," Terry was telling him before he was even through
security. He was so used to hearing those words they utterly
failed to surprise him anymore. "We did miss one. LAPD's
crime lab discovered that two men killed last Tuesday were brothers."
"Why didn't the LAPD know that?"
"Their crime lab's backed up."
"I mean, why didn't family members, records, photographs…."
Terry waved him quiet as she led him into the office and pointed to the
new photographs tacked to the board. "Jarrod and Samuel
Deane. LAPD had tagged it as a sexually motivated killing - the
two men were found in bed together on Wednesday morning, both with
shots to the head and chest, killed sometime Tuesday evening between
six and seven."
The photo of the crime scene wasn't pleasant. "In bed together, as in…."
"As in they were engaging in sexual activity when they were killed."
"And they're sure they were brothers?" He didn't really need to ask, he just felt he had to.
"No question."
He pressed his thumb and index finger into his eyes, hoping the aching
behind them didn't get any worse. He didn't want to think too
hard about the circumstances of the Deanes' deaths. "We need
Frost to tell us where the next killings will be because if they're
following this pattern two men are going to die in the next…" he
checked his watch, "ten hours."
But if Frost's expression as they approached his desk was anything to go by, they weren't going to be that lucky.
"I'm not your brother," he protested weakly, apologetically.
He inwardly sighed. "I'm well aware of that."
"He's the best there is in this field; this is his algorithm, he understands it, he can manipulate it."
"He's constantly telling me it's all science, that there's no room for interpretation in Math."
"But this isn't just Math. This is human behaviour. His
work documented here takes into account so many different variables, so
much data…. It's not something just any Mathematician can
do." Dammit, why did Charlie have to be so… so fucking
brainy? Next to him he could feel Terry's eyes boring holes into
his head.
"I'm not bringing him back in on this."
"Why? Because you're worried about him or because he isn't speaking to you at the moment?"
"Either. Both." He held his hands out to Frost, palms up in
a gesture of compromise. "Do what you can. Use his
algorithms, give us some choices."
"Agent Eppes?"
He turned. "Yes?"
"LAPD's just called. They've arrested a man who broke into a
house in North Hollywood owned by a John Sherman. John's brother,
Matt, was killed this morning in a car crash."
Finally! A breakthrough! "Let's go."
#
"Are they sure Matt Sherman's car crash was an accident?" Don
drove, air con blasting cold air into the car to battle the furnace
heat burning through the windscreen.
"They were an hour ago, they're looking closer at it now, crime lab's
at the scene. You know, I've been thinking… I've got a sister and
we're really close but the thought of doing stuff like that…." He
glanced over at her, wide-eyes hidden behind black sunglasses, watched
her shudder. "What about you?"
"With your sister?"
She slapped his arm hard enough to leave it stinging. "With Charlie."
His brain stuttered just for a moment. "God, no…. Are you
kidding?" But even as he denied it with the strength of utter
conviction, a little voice of his head was spitting the word, 'liar'.
Terry was still talking, hadn't bothered to wait for a more intelligent
response. "I mean, kids experiment, don't they? And they
experiment with their siblings because who else is there at that
age? But it's just innocent fumbling; discovering what everything
does, what it feels like." Don concentrated on driving in a
straight line. "As we get older, as we realise, we just…
don't. I mean, for starters it's illegal, it's immortal and it's
just… ew."
Yeah. What she said. So why the flush of heat at the mention of it?
When they found the guys doing this he was gonna beat the crap out of
them for bringing all this up, for making him take Charlie off the case
and upsetting him, for making him think about things he hadn't thought
of in a very, very long time. God… did Charlie even remember?
The traffic through Hollywood was hell, and by the time they reached
the house, LAPD had carted their suspect away for questioning.
Don sent Terry after them with a squad car that was headed in the right
general direction, told her he'd meet her back at the office.
John Sherman had just returned home from the hospital where he'd
watched his brother die. He was in no state to be questioned
about anything but Don sat with him for a time anyway, thoughts tuned
to the gut instinct that this wasn't connected with their current case,
that this was simply coincidence. But as he listened to Sherman's
sounds of grief as they broke free now and again from whatever control
he was able to exert over it, he couldn't help thinking about Charlie,
about how he would feel if anything were to happen to him.
He recalled with crystal clarity the moment he'd looked up and realised
how exposed his brother was in an area they'd just cleared for fear the
sniper was in one of the towers. Everything had happened so damn
fast. To this day he didn't have a clue which had occurred first
- David tackling Charlie to the ground or the shot fired so close to
his chest. His hammering heart had been in his throat, making
breathing so difficult it had hurt to do it, shouting Charlie's name
with every thing he had in him, that single moment of uncertainty, not
knowing whether his brother had been hit or not, whether a second shot
would kill him - kill any of them. And then knowing he was okay,
and the surge of blinding anger he'd had to take control of before he'd
screamed at Charlie for being so damn stupid, for not thinking….
Who had he really been angry at? It wasn't the cliché it
sounded like. There had been a time when he'd always been angry
at Charlie, it had once been a natural reaction to his brother's
presence. Putting distance between them had worked when nothing
else had, and for a time he'd managed to think about Charlie with a
smile on his face. Then their mother had gotten ill, and he'd
come home to find Charlie holed up in the garage on that fucking Math
problem. And for another three months he'd felt nothing but rage
at his brother. Right up until the day of her funeral, when he'd
stood silent at her graveside through the whole service, when he'd been
talking to some of her friends at the house afterwards and Alan had
asked him where Charlie was, when he'd checked the garage, the garden,
the whole house, before driving back to the cemetery to find him
sitting cross-legged next to her still-open grave, curled forward,
rocking gently back and forth, shaking with the strength of his grief,
red roses crushed in his hands, blood dripping steadily onto his
trousers.
Since that moment he hadn't been angry. He'd felt frustration
close to it, but not the harsh feelings he'd experienced for most of
his life.
He rubbed his eyes. This wasn't helping anyone. He'd drop
by CalSci, like he'd promised Dad, see Charlie, apologise, try to
explain better than he had in the office. Leaving John Sherman to
his tears, he stepped out of the house and walked towards the car, not
really looking where he was going. He collided with man carrying
two Starbucks coffees - thankfully only lukewarm - and having stopped
two LAPD officers from shooting the poor guy, he'd apologised and taken
the blame, handed over ten bucks to pay for the spilt drinks, and
changed his destination to be his apartment in order to change.
#
"Charles?" Larry pushed open the door to the empty classroom and
stepped inside, unsurprised to see Charlie's hand moving rapidly across
the blackboard, leaving what to most would be unintelligible chalk
scrawls in his wake. "Amita said you were here and that you
weren't very… communicative." The scribbling didn't stop, didn't
even slow down. "And Alan rang to ask me to keep an eye on
you." It was difficult to stop it sounding like they were jointly
babysitting him. Stepping around the desks, he tried to read the
Math on the blackboard. Sometimes the answers to Charlie's
actions lay in the equations in his head. "What are you working
on?"
At first he thought he wasn't going to get a response, then quiet words
told him, "I'm trying to work out where two serial killers will strike
next. We only have five hours and twelve minutes maximum time
before two more people die - two more brothers - if they're not dead
already. And even then we've only got another day until two more
are killed."
"Alan said… you weren't on the case any longer."
Charlie didn't look up. "Don's brought someone else in to work
from the inside. It doesn't mean I can't work it from the
outside."
Larry eased himself up onto one of the desks at the front of the
room. "Listen, Charles, I know you enjoy working with your
brother and I know you well enough to understand you won't pass up a
challenge when one's presented." He hesitated. "But you put
so much of yourself into everything you do and I'm worried about you."
"You don't have to worry." There was frustration in his
voice. "If everyone would stop worrying about me and let me get
on with my job…."
"Don's job isn't your job."
"You sound like Dad. I am a consultant in my own right. I
was working with the NSA long before I was working with Don. I
earned my security clearance, Larry."
Hands up, palms up, he metaphorically backed off. "I know you did, I know, I'm sorry."
"And you're right, I do enjoy the work, I enjoy being with Don…."
He paused, twisted his head to look at Larry. "Is that wrong of
me?"
"Is it wrong for you to want to get to know your brother again?
No. Because… I don't think you have done up till now, am I right?"
Charlie looked away, but he nodded.
He had to be careful. He had Charlie's implicit, unconditional
trust. Don had the power to hurt his brother with very few words,
Larry understood that he could do it with one. He at least had a
few protective barriers when it came to Don - built of living an all
but separate childhood from his brother and the enforced separation of
Don moving to New Mexico. But Larry had been his mentor, his best
friend, even a surrogate father to him from time to time for more years
than Larry cared to count. Charlie had no defences when it came
to him, he'd never needed them and Larry was absolutely determined that
he never would. Charlie was a joy to him, a constant source of
friendship, of bright light in his life, a pleasure even when he was at
his most irritating.
"I just think you should be aware of the pressures Don's job puts on
you. He's trained for what he does and you're trained for what
you do. You carry pens, he carries a gun. You hate
guns." Charlie's right hand fell away, taking the chalk from the
blackboard, falling to his side and the moment he took his right wrist
in his left Larry knew he was pushing too hard. "Hey, I know you
can look after yourself."
"He doesn't have to worry about me."
Something in his reserved tone, something in the way it was missing his
usual conviction. "Charles… do you really believe that?"
Charlie frowned, forehead wrinkling. And he looked up. "That sniper… scared the shit out of me."
Sitting forward, reaching to bridge the gap between them, Larry
squeezed Charlie's shoulder. "Would have scared anyone,
Charles. But you know the Math, you know how close he came to
hitting you - trajectory, velocity, wind speed, atmospheric pressure…."
"I have nightmares."
"We all have nightmares."
"They're very vivid."
Larry sat up. "You need to relax, and I'm talking about your mind
more than your body. I have… no idea what it must be like in your
head - in fact, that's my nightmare, to be trapped in there - I don't
know what must be in your subconscious and I wouldn't like to take a
guess at what your nightmares must be like. But at the risk of
being corny and cliché, I know what your dreams are. I
would hate to see your work with Don knocking your confidence in
yourself and preventing you from realising those dreams."
Charlie looked at him for a few long seconds but finally a smile was
starting to break out on his face. "That was incredibly corny and
cliché."
"I know, I know." He held up in his hands in surrender.
"Look, I've got a class now but afterwards, would you like to maybe get
something to eat?"
The smile broadened, the sun came out. "Sure. That would be good."
"Great. Excellent." He dropped to the floor from the desk
and started towards the door. "Of course I wouldn't expect you
keep track of time so I'll drop by and pull you from your equations…."
Charlie was already back to scrawling on the board. "It's an algorithm."
Rolling his eyes, Larry opened the door and stepped through, glancing
back once at his protégé, the man he considered to be his
best friend. Not so different from one another, he was in a world
of his own as he walked back along the corridor, not noticing the man
in the black coat heading towards Charlie's classroom.
#
Weird how he knew Charlie's home better than he knew his own.
Okay, so Charlie's home was the old family home and they'd grown up
there, not so much together, more apart. Still… he should spend
more time here, he thought, should maybe decorate it away from the
green/grey that permeated the whole apartment.
He looked at his bed, tried to remember the last time he slept in
it. He only came here when he wanted to be alone, otherwise he
went to Charlie's, and when he had those nights he usually ended up
falling asleep on the couch in front of a game. He was fooling
himself really, telling himself he had his independence, saying he was
living alone. He was still living with his father and his
brother. And now he was working with his younger sibling
too. Was all that at all healthy?
Changing his shirt, Don switched his holster and checked his
weapon. His stomach rumbling reminded him he hadn't eaten since
grabbing a bacon sandwich from the canteen at breakfast, but he didn't
have the time to grab anything now. Maybe he could get to CalSci
in time to take Charlie for something to eat, find a good steakhouse,
sink a quick beer. He sighed to himself - why did everything have
to be done quickly? He needed to spend some quality time with
Charlie, get to know one another like other brothers did. Maybe a
fishing trip….
Grabbing his keys from the kitchen table, he slammed the front door
behind him and turned to stare straight into the dark green eyes of a
man in black holding a bright, steel blade up between them.
"Jeez…."
His hand went instinctively to his gun but before he could lift it the
edge of the knife was cutting into the tender skin of his throat.
His eyes went wide, the sudden, terrifying pain so utterly unexpected
he didn't have a chance to make a single sound.
Which was okay because it would have been swallowed anyway, by the
gunfire that seemed to come from everywhere all at once. The
blade fell away as the hand holding it dropped and his assailant
crumpled on the steps in front of him. In a second Terry was
standing in front of him, her hand hovering close to his throat.
"Don…."
He raised his own hand to his throat and felt the blood start to seep
from the shallow wound. "I'm okay. Who the hell…." He
looked at the assembled armed agents and marksman and in a moment had
put together the evidence in his mind, coming to the correct
assumption, and its obvious, evitable conclusion. "Oh, God…
Charlie."
Terry blocked his path to his car. "He's okay, he's fine.
He called us. Well, Larry did. Charlie was attacked in his
classroom at CalSci but he fought the guy off and Larry heard the
commotion, ran in and hit the attacker on the back of the head with a
chalk eraser."
"Are they hurt?"
"The blade caught Charlie in the fight, he was stabbed in the shoulder
but it's nothing serious. David and Larry have gone with him and
the attacker to the hospital, he'll be patched up and David will make
sure he gets home."
Don took a deep breath, squatting down next to the dead guy on his front step. "Do we know who they are yet?"
"David called to tell us Charlie's attacker was a thirty-nine year old
Nicholas Ballard, presumably this is his brother Charles."
"Do we have a motive?"
"Not yet, but we will when Nicholas regains consciousness."
"He hit him that hard?"
"Larry was really quite angry."
#
"Charlie?" Alan had directed him into the back garden as soon as
he'd arrived home, Larry had gone into the house the moment he'd
stepped out of the back door. His brother had his back to him,
crouched down next to his beloved koi pond. Don got within a
couple of steps of him and repeated his name. "Charlie?"
He rose, and Don saw the sling his left arm was supported in,
immediately thankful that it was his left not his right. He
watched his brother's dark eyes fall on the cut across his throat and a
second later he was gathering Charlie in his arms. He felt one
good arm wrap tight around him and finally breathed out into the dark
curls, releasing the tension that had been building inside him from the
moment Terry had told him Charlie had been attacked.
"I'm sorry."
Charlie shook his head against Don's shoulder. "Nothing to apologise for."
"I thought I was keeping you safe."
"I know."
"After Terry shot the guy who attacked me, you were all I could think
about. I knew if they'd come after me they'd be going after
you. I'm armed, you're not…."
"Larry was," Charlie murmured on a slightly hysterical laugh into his
third shirt of the day, and Don nodded against his head. "He
saved my life."
"From what David said you put up one hell of a fight, little
brother. I'm constantly proud of you, you know, twenty-four hours
a day, seven days a week…." Charlie's arm tightened
impossibly. "I love you, Charlie." He felt a shudder drive
through the man in his arms but felt no tears. They just stood
together in the garden until the lights went out in the kitchen.
#
"What's the most people who have slept in this house in any one night?"
Don posed the question as the two brothers dropped into the sofa side
by side. The lamp in the corner was the only light on in the
house. Larry was sleeping upstairs somewhere, in one of the guest
rooms. Dad had never minded people sleeping over - their friends
when they were younger, as well as colleagues and co-workers now they
were older. It was Charlie's place now yet still it was as open a
house as it always had been. A base of operations as often as it
hosted dinner parties and poker games.
"Sixteen, although someone did have to sleep in the bath."
His brother shifted next to him, resting his head on Don's shoulder,
closing his eyes as Don looked down at him, morphine having taken the
edge off the pain from his shoulder. He'd hurt like hell in the
morning but for now he was okay. Don was aware of the cut across
his throat, but it was more what it might have been than what it
was. He let his head fall to settle atop of Charlie's.
"You were right," he murmured, voice barely more than a whisper.
"We did miss a pair of murders on the Tuesday. LAPD found two men
killed in bed, thought it was sexually motivated attack until DNA
results proved they were brothers."
Charlie didn't move. "They were in bed together?"
"Yeah."
"We're talking men, not boys."
"Twenty-nine and thirty-two." He took a deep breath. "Charlie, listen…. It got me thinking…."
The curly head moved one, left to right. "Sorry, Don, you're really not my type."
He smiled to himself. "I was thinking about…"
"…my twelfth birthday."
"I shouldn't have done that."
"You jerked me off, Don, taught me something new. I've never forgotten it."
"It was wrong."
"It was eighteen years ago, I think we're okay. Siblings experiment with each other."
"That's exactly what Terry said. How would you know?"
"I am a sibling."
Closing his eyes, Don let it go. He felt Charlie's breathing
evening out. "Don't fall asleep like that, you'll get a crick in
your neck."
"Yes, Dad."
Don relented. They'd both regret it in the morning, but it felt
good being close to his brother for now. Just before he fell
asleep, his heart fed words to his mouth that his exhausted brain had
no say over, "Did you mean it, that I'm not your type?"
And he imagined he heard Charlie answer, "Of course not," but he was
too tired to be sure and thirty seconds later he was dead to the world.
fin
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