• My hands were clutching my head as hard as possible, begging my mind to stop remembering. Shaun rushed over hugging me gently; I push him away staring at the blood on my hands, which had stained his shirt, “I’m a friend of Father Caleb Xavier, with Corpus Christi Catholic Church, over on 36th street and Knox.” “Come with me.” He tells me, grasping for my hand. “While the two of you are gone working over on that angle, I’ll figure out what the killer used to hide his identity. Also, if he was murdered or not.” Allen volunteered; winking at me knowing it was my idea.


    Once we got to his rented red unmarked impala, he opens the passenger seat, helping me into the car. “Thank you.” Driving to the church we had a somewhat casual conversation of the body up until Shaun states, “You look absolutely stunning.” It felt awkward hearing him say that. Afterwards we barely spoke to one another. I never wanted him to know my secret. What would he think of me if he found out? Arriving at the church with the sun almost completely set, leaving brilliant colors streaked across the sky, I stop him seizing his upper arm, “Wait! You should know…” I told him everything, when he hadn’t responded; I mumble mostly to myself, “I never wanted to tell you. I was embarrassed of my past, I thought that if you knew about my past you would’ve told Eric Saunders at the time…” I stopped, he interrupted me placing a finger upon my lips, “Alexis, you’ve always known I can keep a secret. I would never tell Saunders. He would have fired you in a heartbeat.” He tries a sense of humor. Rolling my eyes, I see Father Caleb come out of his office; Shaun showed him his badge, while I asked him “Daddy, we need to ask you some questions on the act of communion.” He laughs completely used to my cop mode, “Ask away, Alexis, ask away.” He replied. His tone of voice had made me laugh. It felt good to laugh. My world felt whole since taking on the intense pressure of being a Phoenix police officer. Taking us into his office where we could talk without the risk of being overheard, we asked him for information on the act of communion, “The bread is the symbol of Christ’s body, while the wine symbolizes the blood of Christ. It is the most sacred act in the entire religion. It is supposed to be rejuvenating, a release of sin, to secure a place for us at the golden gates of the kingdom of heaven.” Shaun hands him the Polaroids of the crime scene, glancing over to me. Daddy panders over the Polaroids, I watch him as Shaun frowns deep in thought. “It looks to me like your killer might be schizophrenic, that God is supposedly speaking through him to commit such an act of violence.” He states in a dark tone, which made me shudder. After saying good-bye, we head back to the scene as soon as we could. The sun had finally set letting the darkness engulf the city of Phoenix.


    “Bye, Daddy. I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I tell him, over the phone, when I got back to the scene. I felt like I needed his wisdom now more than ever. Jack had already left the scene earlier today. Only I remained at the scene. Time had also scared away the forensics crew, any curious onlookers and the reporters. I heard Shaun carefully creep up behind me, moving some of my blunt straight black hair from the back of my neck, he states in a smart-a** tone, “You know when your partner leaves, you’re supposed to go with him.” He makes me laugh. “I know, I should’ve left and gone home, something is missing.” I groan out in sheer frustration. After ten minutes of intense searching, I solemnly gave up. I start walking to the deserted parking garage where I parked my car; he stepped in rhythm beside me. “Let me take you home.” He offers. Glancing at him, I respond, “Thanks, but why the sudden acts of kindness?” He laughs a joyous tone ringing within my ears. “Mostly because you need them, and besides it feels good to see you again.”


    “The reason why I chose to give up on her, my own daughter was to save her life. If I had remained as her father, she would’ve died a long time ago, just like your mother.” His father murmurs to him over the table, his frown deepened showing deep wrinkles in his face. He feels bad for making his old man remember this; he feels it’s his responsibility to know why she left. “Dad, I got you help with AA and with the government after I went to the academy in Washington D.C. You could’ve looked her up! Found out where she was! Where she lived! Who had adopted her! So you could forgive yourself and her for leaving.” He explodes in his father’s face. His father makes no reply, which makes him upset. He storms off out of anger, at his father and the way his life had turned out, yelling behind him, “I found out who she really is. She’s now my partner. I’m working with her now. She’s my sister and my partner and you never told me!” He stomps out of the door, without looking back at the face his father had. The defiant look of loss, death and evil lay upon his face.
    Something didn’t feel quite right. I felt it in my gut, digging within my bones. As a cop, I’d been trained at an early stage to listen to signals such as these. “Alexis, do you feel like your being watched?” I could only hope she didn’t feel what I felt. She looks at me, concerned. “No. Why do you ask?” I felt someone’s eyes bear into my back. The hairs upon the back of my neck stood. My heart pounded loudly within my chest. My throat felt as dry as a desert. My instincts sharpened to the core. My right hand lingered toward the gun I had, a nine-millimeter handgun. My left hand wavered near Alexis’s. Getting her safely to her car, in the poorly lit depths of the parking garage, which had been deserted since rush hour had passed, the feeling had grown stronger when she climbs into the driver’s seat, staring at the parking space, starting the car. Two men grab her by her arms, throwing her into the back seat. She screams, I open the back door, carefully using it to my advantage shielding my chest; I jump out aiming the gun at them, she tries to break her kidnapper’s grip on her. Squirming, she screeched, “Tom! Dave! Let me go!” When I heard her call her kidnappers by name, I dropped the gun and my guard towards them. “Sorry Lexi. We didn’t mean to frighten you.” One of them had apologized, as they let go of her, I help her down beside the car. “Tom, it’s a bit late for that…” She squeals, placing a hand to her chest, as if to stop her heart from falling out of her chest. “Tell me what’s going on.” Her hands clenched into tight fists upon her hips, staring hard at the both of them, a sure sign of irritation, frustration and impatience. “Now.” She stares with a daring look in her eyes at the twins, they glanced at each other debating which one of them should tell. One of them decided to speak up; “Dirk Arthurs escaped from prison while you were at the Tempe Town Lake scene.” Tom winced when she had punched him hard in the arm. She collapses against the car; I sat down next to her, trying to give her some comfort. After forty minutes of collaborating ideas as to where Dirk would be hiding, if he had an accomplice to aid and abet him into hiding, the twins had left promising, they wouldn’t quit searching until they found him either dead or alive. While I drove her home she barely spoke; she just sat there in her seat with her arms crossed. “You know they’ll find him alive, Lexi-bee,” I stated, trying to cheer her up by using her old nickname. She nods afterwards with a small grin, but she still won’t speak. Arriving at her house, she whispers, “Thank you for the ride.” I walk her inside not ready to leave her alone; she sneaks a peek at the answering machine. I notice a red “1” flash on and off on the machine. I watch her as she listens with one ear possibly out of habit, while she pours herself a cup of green tea. The twins report in one at a time, “Still no sign of Dirk Arthurs, Montana, we’ll keep on looking until we find him.” She gasps, pounding the counter with her fists. The cup wobbles from the force of her fist, I watch her as she places it back into her hands and back onto the counter she speaks for the first time, “s**t, I thought he would been found by now.” I stare at her with awe, wondering what she meant when she stated that single thought about Dirk. “Lexi-bee, he’s a smart-a** criminal. They usually aren’t found within just two hours.” Hugging her, I breathe in the cool cucumber scent of her hair, before she pulls away. With her arms crossed, something clearly bothering her. She had remained unwilling to tell me, she needed a friend, someone to count on. I wanted to be that someone, if she ever would let me. After a minute or so of watching her, she asked me to drive her back to the crime scene.


    The forensics team had already taken the body to the morgue for the autopsy, which was scheduled for sometime tomorrow afternoon. Storm clouds covered the sky, sending rain down in sheets. Surprisingly to my point of view, Jack had been there at the scene as well. When had he gotten here? How long has he been here? While Alexis was reenacting the murder the way she saw it, I see the shadow of a woman jogging through the darkened alley, not too far from the scene, the odd thing I found, she was not alone. A man had been jogging next to her; there had been a strong difference in stride between the two joggers, I watched with dread growing within the pit of my stomach as they stop jogging two yards from the scene continuing to walk towards us. Jack badges them asking them to leave, when the man suddenly pulls a gun from the back of his pants. “Welcome to the end of the line, Sergeant White.” He sneers gently pulling back the hammer. Alexis’s eyes grow wide in fear, the man had seen. He points the gun at Alexis, “Your life won’t go before Sergeant Montana’s life.” He whispers, stroking the gun gently with his forefinger as a threat. The woman standing next to him reached for her gun and pointed it at us. I reach out for Alexis’s arm, pulling her behind me for her safety, her protection. “Special Agent Hammermill, you just made the biggest mistake of you life. The one you shall most regret.” The woman warns she is the first to fire her weapon. “No! Shaun!” Alexis screams, I felt myself being pushed away from the path of the bullet. I watch unfortunately like a statue, my body refusing to move as the shot launched itself into her rib cage. “No!” I run out to her, catching her head in my lap, she winces in pain; I wrap one of her arms around her bullet wound. “Shaun…” I place a finger upon her lips, forbidding her to talk. “Please…please don’t talk.” I whisper, there was another shot this time coming from the man’s gun. Throwing myself onto Alexis as a human shield, careful of her injury, she stares unmoving watching Jack fall to the ground from the bullet’s impact in his stomach. The couple disappeared after Jack was hit into the alley and into the night never to be seen again. Jack crawls his way over, holding his wound with his right arm, “You need to get her out of here, to a hospital… to safety. She trusts you. Go!” I drove her to the hospital in tears; it hurt so badly seeing her this way. My mind continued to flash back of what happened earlier. Thirty-six hours pass slowly, as I continue to pace the entire floor of the waiting room before collapsing into a chair out of pure exhaustion, placing my hands into my face, a man came over sitting down on one of the chairs next to me whispering so only I could hear him, “Special Agent Hammermill, that is my little girl in there, I need to know what happened to her.” I felt rather secretive, not wanting to tell him but thank god one of the nurses came out of hiding from the hanging curtain to report, “Mr. Hammermill, Miss Montana is conscious now. You will be able to see her now.” Walking towards her room, I felt my heart melted from the stone cold lead as it was during the very beginning of the case this morning, to an actual beating heart. When I arrive at her door, I inhale deeply, intently focusing on the heart machine beep every second. She smiles as I walk inside it was a lazy, yet relaxed smile, while the diamond-like tears fell down over her beautiful hazel eyes onto her cheeks. “Alexis.” I say her name with such a pain in my heart that it hurt. She placed her hands above the blanket upon the bed within my reach a tempting temptation; I saw them as they were, pale and fragile. I entwined my fingers within hers, softly, gently, careful as to not cause her anymore pain. I hear her beeper go off on the nightstand by the bed. I grab it off the table handing it to her, staring at the screen. “It’s McHeartly.” I watch her dial the phone with her frail, pale, shaking hands. I heard the phone connect after three rings; Chief’s voice came onto the line, it was filled with concern. Whether the concern had been real or not, I didn’t know for sure. “Alexis? I already heard about your accident through Jack and Special Agent Hammermill. Don’t worry, you are still on the case whenever you get dismissed.” I overheard the chief say, “Thanks, Chief.” Her voice cracked with appreciation after releasing a sigh of relief. When the conversation ended, she began to think. “I think that woman knew who died at the scene last night.” As she said this, I felt my blood rush through my body. “Geez, Lexi, you think? She shot you for Christ’s sake!” I felt absolutely terrible after yelling at her, but I wanted her to know. When I saw the freshly, cried tears; I felt ashamed of myself. “Alexis, I almost lost you yesterday, I almost lost you the day you resigned from the C.I.A.” I state as I gently stroke her fingers. I felt the warmth of my hands seep through to her cold fingers. “I can’t lose you again.” I take a breath after seeing her face, I turn my back to her heading towards the door, and I respond when the silence was too much to bear, “I can’t, never again.” She smiles; it almost feels good to see her smile. A nurse came in explain to me that she needed to take her medications, I decided to head down to the cafeteria for a late night snack and a cup of coffee knowing full well I would need it.