Scene setting – Detective Frank Malone’s apartment.
co-written with VunG
Razorbackwriter: Frank held back slightly as Tommy and Elissa were looking over his study and the wall. Being that Frank was himself a detective as part of the NYPD, to see this sort of mania in the way that Frank had set up his crime wall you would start to think that he himself had now become a fanatic almost. The sheer scale of recorded documents and the piles of files on his desk that he had brought home from work was mind boggling. It was little wonder that Frank would go to Big Joe’s after work to drown himself in booze, rather than come back to the quiet of his apartment and have to face this…day after day. To Frank, his life was on hold. Captive to solving what could best be described as an impossible case. It was easy to see why the department viewed him so suspiciously, as none of the findings made real sense. Rory’s body was taken by whatever it was that killed him. All that was left was a pool of blood. After the incident, Frank was committed since what he had seen had left him in such a state that he was unable to cope with what he saw. Post traumatic stress on a crazy level. Most soldiers don’t suffer this bad so quickly. It was why his wife left him and took his son away. The nightmares – broken nights….screams and haunting visions. At one point he woke up and found himself standing over his wife with a gun pointed at her. It was the last straw. He’d not told his closest friends this….the only one who knew was his therapist – Doctor Lindsay Buchanan. It was after six months of treatment, that he was released and assigned back to the force – but he was never the same.
Tommy, who watched both Elissa and the return of his good friend was very good at reading body language after years of dealing with people and informants. He could see that trace of emotion from Elissa’s face as much as she tried to hide it. You would have to be pretty impassioned not to feel something seeing all this. After Elissa had explained that she didn’t need to be signed to all the time, since she was a mute and not deaf, Tommy spoke out loud.
“That we are, Elissa.” He shook his head as he let out another sigh. “Leads take us nowhere, or….the reports are so bizarre that most people high up dismiss it. All the top brass care about is meeting quotas and keeping the Mayor’s office happy.” Speaking of the mayor’s office reminded him of the fact his lady friend, Tamika worked there and she heard first hand that the Mayor’s office are trying to down play the “incidents” as being just crazy claims made by whack jobs or attentions seekers. It made Tommy angry just thinking about it. In his own office at the New York Times, some of his fellow reporters had gone to putting alien figurines with crude messages on them. If he heard the Ghost busters theme one more time when he went to open an email, he was going to strangle someone.
Frank, suddenly remembered his manners. “Would either of you like coffee? I think I got some twinkies in my cupboard….maybe.”
Tommy was about to take him up on that offer, when he noticed something just peeking out from under Elissa’s scarf. A scar of some description. The Reporter was too nosy for his own good. “Uhm….Elissa. What’s on your neck?” He asked, as Frank shuffled out to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.
~RB~
VunG: Truth be told, Elissa was in over her head with this case. As she’d said, she wasn’t a great detective, and while she had some degree of competence, she was more someone you’d put in as support or an extra set of eyes. She was just a sad, depressed, lonely woman without anything left to do in her life except continue on with the closest thing she had left to her old job. And with the exception of nearly getting her throat ripped out by that damn dog, she wasn’t really aware of the things that had ruined her life until after they happened. There was no attempt at therapists for her, she had zero trust in them after they tried to convince her that dogs had no intent of harming her and that her fear was unfounded. No, she was going it alone.
But… then again… as she looked at the two guys here, she realized that at the very least she’d be able to help someone else with some help. It wasn’t much of a boon, as it was likely only going to wind up as an alliance of circumstance, but it was one that she was thankful for. Eventually Tommy would speak up, and when he brought up the commentary on the mayor she immediately winced and nodded, rubbing her temples to keep herself from even thinking about that piece of shit. Hell, Elissa had been lucky in that she had no colleagues to torment her about this case, and even she was ready to tear someone’s throat out just from the stonewalling she’d been getting. It was SO galling that the officials and certain higher-ranking police officials cared so little about the actual results of their jobs. The corrupt policemen disgusted her, and all politicians deserved to be thrown in jail from her experience, it was the sort of thing that made her want to go vigilante on some people’s asses.
She’d be broken out of that destructive train of thought by Frank’s offer of refreshments, and would give him a thin smile and make a gesture showing that she wanted coffee–or rather she wanted something to drink. However, before she could even lower her hand, Tommy took notice of something he really shouldn’t have. Slowly she turned to look at him, her blue eyes hard as ice as she debated whether or not to indulge him. Thing was, he was a reporter, and she knew that even the good people in that profession had an insatiable curiosity.
It would probably just make her life harder if she hid it from him. Sighing, she reached up and pulled the scarf down to reveal the scar. It was a terrifying-looking thing, the entire area on either side of her windpipe was a nasty striated mess, and it wasn’t a small scar set either but rather the full width of… say… a dog’s jaw. It was actually just luck that she’d survived it, the dog’s teeth missed both her trachea and arteries, and when it hit her she fell forward and it released her when its back hit the ground. Still, she was told that the doctor had given her a forty percent chance at survival. She held the reporter’s gaze for several seconds, letting him get his fill of the sight while he could. Then, she’d simply raise her scarf back up and make sure that it properly covered her this time, and after that she would very simply state, ~I hate dogs,~ almost as if it were an unrelated comment.
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