Shattered Ties

Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson rubbed her temples as she sat at her desk in her office at Parker Center, home of the Los Angeles Police Department, and took a deep breath. She took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes: she was tired, she had spent yet another night in the office to get to the bottom of the Stroh case, and the blinding light that filtered through the Venetian blinds, even though they were half-open, didn't do anything other than making her headache worse.

She threw her head back and rubbed her neck: she would have loved to be at home, curled up in bed with her husband and their ginger cat, Joel. A part of her couldn't wait to go back to her small family, knowing that Fitz was right and it was probably time for her to take a break and put some distance between her and the murderous rapist if she didn't want to end up like Detective Olin, and look back at her life one day and see only crime scene tape.

She brushed her fingertips over the folder with all the information on Stroh's victims and his known last movements. If she had stopped investigating, if she hadn't put an end to his reign of terror, how many other women would have been raped and killed?

How many other men would have helped him, only to become corpses in the morgue themselves, or be thrown in jail, the only guilty?

No - she knew she was that close to getting him once and for all, she could almost taste it on the tip of ehr tongue. She just couldn't give up now, not when she knew the LAPD was one step away from incriminating Stroh - or at worst, killing him. Maybe she was obsessed, maybe she was losing her mind, but she couldn't allow him to remain at large. Stroh had to be neutralized, no matter what it cost her: she owed it to those five young women, raped in the safety of their homes, and barbarously murdered, and to all those victims who had not been discovered yet. Because Brenda was certain: the serial killer's list of victims must have been frighteningly long, and God only knew when he had actually started striking.

Every time she closed her eyes, every moment she didn't have to concentrate and work on getting a confession and closing a case, her thoughts returned to him. Phillip Stroh was always in her thoughts – and in her nightmares, and she wondered how much longer she could keep from Fritz and her team- her comrades and her friends -that she was starting to suffer from lack of sleep.

How could she sleep, if in her dreams Stroh entered her house, while she was alone, and raped and killed her?

How to stop, knowing that those nightmares had been reality for at least five young women, the last experience of their young lives?

She jumped, taken aback, when she heard a sharp knock on the door of her office, and Brenda placed a hand over her heart, which was pounding like thunder.

"Come in!" She managed to say, swallowing, and taking a deep breath: whoever it was, she didn't want them to see how upset she had gotten.

"Where the Hell is Detective Carter?!" Will - Chief Pope, her ex-lover, her friend, her boss - entered without too many pleasantries; he was dark-faced and seemed regretful. Or maybe... just worried.

"Good morning to you too, Will." Brenda snorted, slightly annoyed by Will's lack of tact, and raised her eyebrows. She opened the top drawer of her desk, and took out a sweet treat, which she ate in one bite. She offered one to Will, too, hoping to improve his already bad mood, but he merely nodded his head. "Considering we don't have any open cases, the city doesn't pay even ten minutes of overtime, and it's not even eight o'clock yet, I'd say she'll be on her way by now and should be here any minute. Why?"

Pope sighed; he lifted the cuff of the blue Police uniform he was wearing and checked the time.

Ten to eight: Carter was due to arrive shortly anyway, if she wasn't late - and from what little he knew, she was an extremely serious officer - so there would have been no point in calling her to tell the woman to hurry up. And anyway, Lieutenant Tao had been instructed to tell her to go confer in Deputy Chief Johnson's office as soon as she crossed the threshold of the murder room.