9th of June

While it is a joyous occasion to have finished with 11,22,33, the task of 1,8,11 still remains, and so the work goes on. The question also remains why Stein didn't go peaceably. That question they decide to put to Sarah Winslow, who, of course, is more than willing to answer any and all questions put to her - but too often with the answer "Words. Words. Words."

"Tell her: 'If your leisure served, I would speak with you.'" I instruct Agent Johnson when he comes by to relay the message. He passes it on to Agent Freeman who passes Sarah's reply on: "'The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.'" So she doesn't think it is actually me talking.

Come, come, you wasp; i'faith, you are too angry.

I write on a note so Sarah can see my handwriting. I give it to Agent Johnson, and it becomes a pass the note scenario. 

You could never do him so ill well, unless you were the very man.

She accepts that it really is me speaking.

I pray you, what is he?

I write down. "Give her a picture of Robert Stein along with it."

Thou should rather ask, if it were possible any villainy should be so rich; for when rich villains have need for poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.

She answers. So he was paid. To what? To be the 11,22,33 killer, or to pretend to be. I look to John before replying. He seems unsure if he should be happy or not.

Will you not eat your word?

If she really means what she's saying, and will testify to it, it might be possible to get a court order to look into his financial records.

Not till a hot January.

Last time she used that line she was bullshitting me, wasting my time.

Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice.

Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.

And rich villains with good ears that can penetrate the FBI might also have power enough to walk through prison walls.

Keep thy word: fare thee well.

I change the play and hopefully the tone with it. I don't want her to suddenly change her mind about helping us out of fear. Agent Johnson leaves for the courthouse.

"Did that mean what I think it meant?" John demands.

"A hired gun," I confirm.

"So my theory about her meeting a likeminded was wrong." But his phone rings for the 100th time today and cuts the conversation short. They now have an expanded list of possible victims identified by witnesses who recognized the flyer. With all that has to be done, the phone calls and now the bank statements, there hasn't been much time to sit down and enjoy the win. Robert and Catherine have barely had time to celebrate their engagement, at least not publicly. Despite the impracticality of it I decide to bake them a cake. It is hardly proper to celebrate Stein's death, but an engagement is almost always a fitting cause for cake.

Karl's kitchen shows clear signs of divorce - he doesn't own a single backing tin. I do my best with what I have at my disposal. Once it's in the oven I attempt to fit Stein in my mindmap of connections. Lindsay didn't find a connection between him and the fake homeless shelter, but Catherine did say he was homeless. The website was paid for by Hank Bennet who said a blond prostitute paid him for that service, given Michelle Evans' description of a blond woman I'd guess they're the same.

"What's that?" John asks.

"The muggle version of a pensive," I reply and hand him my phone. He surfs around the map. I get up and take the cake out of the oven. I have no icing sugar, no sprinkles, no fruit, and no idea how to decorate it. I end up simply putting it on the table as it is.

"She bakes too!" Catherine exclaims. How surprising, since you usually fry buns rather than bake them. 

"Do you do weddings?" she demands enthusiastically. I smile - until I notice she's not joking.

"Don't you think you want someone more professional for that."

"No," she states quite simply. "I think I prefer something personal." I look to Robert, but he's halfway through a bite and can only nod vigorously which makes Catherine laugh and both Karl and John reach for a piece.

"I guess I'd better get hold of my backing tins," I say. Catherine jumps out of her seat to give me a hug. Anything for family, right? 

Robert and Catherine are the first ones to call it a day and go home - at Lindsay's suggestion and Karl's insistence. Both of them are showing signs of having carried a heavy load, and I think it's quite expectable. Robert stops in the doorway and looks back at me. 

"Remember our deal?" he asks. Don't let them win. My turn to not let fear overcome me.

"Of course," I say and he closes the door with a smile.

"Robert, hold on a sec," John calls them back. "I don't like this - we might have our guy, but that doesn't mean she won't come after you."

"John..." he starts, but the sentence lacks the fuel to launch properly and simply drifts off.

"He's right, you're not just anybody to her, she might not simply let you go."

"Stay with Catherine," Karl's order ends the discussion. "One of us will be posted outside your flat when you aren't here, and the security detail will stay on until 1,8,11 is caught."

"My flat," Catherine corrects. Nice little extra precaution.

"John, you take the first two hours," Karl orders. They leave and I go to empty the dishwasher.

"Bone cancer?" I hear Karl ask. I go back out to find out what's happening. "Get hold of them," Karl orders Lindsay who picks up her phone.

"How far advanced?" she asks him.

"Any answers?" he asks her.

"I can't get through." She dials another number.

"Lindsay, if she heard police sirens, what would she do?"

"Finish the job quickly and run."

"She'd kill Robert," he summarizes. "No sirens, no noise, nothing that can be seen from the windows," he orders his phone and hangs up.

"Anything?"

"Straight to voicemail."

"Let's go," he barks. "Both you keep trying them." He thrusts the door open and rushes down the stairs. I grab my phone and follow. Lindsay slams the door after us.

Karl is in the car by the time we get down.

"Still, no answer?"  he shouts.

"Nothing." We get in and I call John.

"What happened Karl?" Lindsay demands.

"ME found advanced bone cancer, Stein didn't have the physical strength to crush someone's bones, he could barely lift the hammer."

"Step on it," she begs him. We are closer to Catherine's apartment than Agent Johnson's team, even with their small head start.

"Come on, pick up," Lindsay pleads. "Pick up." But it seems as if none of them have service.

Karl slows down as we get nearer Catherine's street. He pulls over behind her building, gets out, pulls down the fire escaped and knocks on the first window.

"FBI," he tells the elderly woman in the dressing gown who opens the window. "I need you to let me in ma'am." He shows her his badge.

"How do I know this is real?" she asks. "It could be..."

"Oh for God's sakes." He pushes past her and climbs in and out of sight.

"Go," I tell Lindsay. They might need her.

"I can't," she says in a definitive tone.

"They might..."

"For all we know, everything's fine in there, they've got it under control," she cuts me off. I don't dare push it, but I do wish she'd go in. I feel uneasy about the phone calls.

A gunshot rings through the air and she instinctively reaches to her side. I don't care if Satan himself is on my tail, she's not staying for my sake. I give her a push in the back and she stumbles forward a few steps, turns around and looks me in the eye for a split second before rushing up the fire escape. 

I stand alone next to the car, fighting the urge to run after her. I find myself sinking down on the ground next to the car to avoid their stares. I fold my hands and let my heart scream at the heavens without any words to express my fears. I feel the tears streaming down my face. Who shot who? Could Karl have made it up there so fast? And if he did, what met him? Was Catherine just an obstacle, already eliminated? How was Robert looking? How long have 1,8,11 and 11,22,33 been up there? How come we hadn't noticed? How did they get past John?

It feels like an eternity I'm sitting there, curled up in the unknown, completely helpless.

A second gunshot penetrates the air and makes me look up. I see nothing in Catherine's window, but a movement on the rooftop catches my eyes. She's looking down at me. New York is never dark, and I can see her perfectly. Black and red spandex suit complete with ruffles and gloves, and a mask, just like Michelle described. I can't see her eyes from here, but I'd bet they are all black too. She spots me looking up at her, turns around, and runs to the other side of the roof.

"Lindsay!" I shout ad loud as I can. "Rooftop!" I see no reaction so I try again. "Karl! She's on the roof! Rooftop." A faint "got it" makes its way down to me. My phone rings. We have cell service again.

"Which way did she go?" John asks on the other end.

"I... I'm not sure," I hesitate. "I think right maybe right - my right that is." He hangs up again. People everywhere are sticking their heads out to see, some are even going out on the streets.

John comes around the corner from the front.

"Did you get a good look," he calls out, rushing over.

"She's dressed like Harley Quinn," I call back.

"Harley... Fuck," he scouts the rooftops and passes by me, ruining down the street, his gun in his hands. A minute later both streets are crawling with cops and a helicopter is flying overhead. She had an escape plan from the get go, in case we showed up too soon. Seems the assumption that she was supervising the kills was accurate. Lindsay comes around the corner ushers me into the car.

"Robert?" I ask. She doesn't answer. She starts the car, and I see no option but to get it. She doesn't make a sound the entire trip back. She doesn't make a sound when John calls 30 minutes later, she just picks up and hangs up again two seconds later. He calls back and I answer for her.

"I think we had a bad connection," he starts out.

"No, I don't think so."

"Nicca?" he asks, puzzled that it's me.

"What do you need?" He takes a deep breath.

"She's losing it, isn't she?" I can't bring myself to answer that when she's still within earshot.

"I need help with Catherine," he says. "She's at the hospital. Can you sit with her?"

"You're going back out?"

"We didn't get her Nicaa. The other one is dead." 'The other one', not 11,22,33. Does he doubt it was the right one? Again?

"And Robert?"

"It wasn't pretty," he evades with a hollow voice.

"He's..." I start out. I bite my lip. I can't say it.

"Gunshot," John confirms. "It would have been worse if we hadn't gotten there." There's little consolation in that.

"And..." I almost don't dare ask. "The police?"

"They shot him as soon as they realized we were there. The police would only have made it worse." I try to breathe, but my chest is a rock, unyielding. 

"There were two gunshots," I remember.

"The other one was from Karl. We have the right 11,22,33 in the morgue now." I feel relieved, then ashamed, and then I break down. Everything lets loose; the tears, the fear, the air.

"Nicaa," he says. I heave in air. Twice. I have to get it under control. Now.

"I'm okay. I'm fine, I'll be there as soon as I can." I don't know how many words were intelligible.

"Bring Lindsay, okay." He must have understood something I said. I look over at her. She hasn't moved one inch.

"Okay." He pauses, as if wanting to say something, wish me good luck maybe, but everything sounds hollow, so he just hangs up.

"Lindsay," I say softly. She doesn't react, she's frozen in place. "They need us at the hospital," I tell her. She doesn't budge. I don't think she notices me at all. In the end, I have to basically pull her out of the chair by the arm, but at least she can walk to the car on her own. It takes me all of 20 minutes to get there, and then I can't even get past the nurse at the desk until John comes out.

"She's in there," he tells me. "Let me know if there's any change."

"What happened to her?" I ask. An image of her with a near-fatal wound, something with a lot of blood, floats through my mind.

"Curare," he says. "She was paralyzed, watched the entire thing." He pushes me towards the room where she's lying in a bed. She looks like she's in a coma. There's a tube down her throat to help her breath, and there's an IV in her arm, but other than that she could be sleeping, there's no blood, no bandages, no wounds. I take a seat by her, unsure of what I can do.

"Stay here," I hear him tell Lindsay.

"No." Her voice is off, like her mouth is completely dry, but at least she spoke.

"Lindsay, we need someone here," he orders.

"Then you stay," I hear steps leaving, and they are to light to be John's. He turns back and pops his head in the room.

"It's populated here," I point out to him.

"Let me know if there are any changes," he orders and leaves. I have never seen him so hard before, like his features are now permanently frozen in a mask of anger. I think back on the picture of Elena; I always thought they had the same eyes. From what I just saw I doubt that will never be the case again. Apart from the dark brown color, there's no resemblance between the light joyfulness that always seemed to accompany that particular shade and the stone-cold anger that now occupies his. Was he like this when he lost Elena too or was this brought on by the repetition of his loses? Loses. I realize that I have simply accepted that we lost, but without really connecting it to... Robert. He's... I try to wrap my mind around the notion of never seeing him again, of... He's been quiet lately, hardly speaking, hardly making himself noticeable, but he was still there. I try to imagine the room without him. No. It can't be. John must have meant something else. Robert can't be... dead? No. No.

I force it from my mind and look down at Catherine instead. Her eyes are closed to make sure they don't dry out.

"You are aware of what's going on, aren't you?" Of course, she can't answer. "I don't know what to tell you, you know them better than me, you know they won't stand for this." I see the tears flow out beneath her eyelids. I take her hand in mine and just sit there. It's not right. None of it. It's not true.

"I'm sorry," I say after 10 minutes. "I know you can't answer, but do you mind if I look up curare?" She just lies there, the same way she has been doing since I sat down. I pull out my phone and find a promising page. "The effect only lasts for a few hours, after that everything's fine." As long as her breathing is supported, which it is for now. "It causes paralysis of voluntary muscles by blocking impulse transmission between the nerves and skeletal muscle." I read out loud. "It doesn't paralyze smooth muscle at all (the type of muscle found in the heart, or intestinal tract)." I put the phone away again and just sit there, wanting to say something comforting but not knowing what to say that wouldn't sound empty.

I sit there for hours with no news. John checks in over the phone once, but goes back to the chase as soon as he's sure everything is good on our end. Karl stops by for a minute to let Catherine know she's not alone. For the most part, it's just the two of us though. For four hours I sit there, waiting. Then she opens her eyes and blinks a few times. 

"They were waiting for us,"she tells me. Her speech is blurred, and she's clearly not completely regainedthe use of her muscles. "They were there when we got in. They were waiting inmy apartment."