THE CRIMINAL FILES ~ Happily Never After

E I G H T

/Get out your guns, battle's begun. Are you a saint or a sinner? If love's a fight, then I shall die, with my heart on the trigger. They say, "Before you start a war, you better know what you're fighting for." Well, baby, you are all that I adore. If love is what you need, a soldier I will be. I'm an angel with a shotgun, fighting 'til the war's won, I don't care if Heaven won't take me back. I'll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe. Don't you know you're everything I have? And I wanna live, not just survive tonight/ ~ The Cab {Angel With A Shotgun}

Joan's Perspective

"They figured it out." I said, throwing the door open into Charity's office. She looked up from her file, put her pen down, and sat up, ushering me to sit down in my seat.

"So...how'd they do it? Agent Cruz, you know, my boss?" I nodded, she sighed, looking out her window. "Well, Agent Cruz wants me to finish my monthly report on the team. You know, how you guys work, what you do, following protocol - you know, all the stupid stuff. Anyways, because of the circumstances of this case, he wanted me to include the details of this one in my report. So...how'd they figure it out?"

I sighed. "This is a lot of explaining to do."

She looked down at her watch, then back up to me. "Well I don't have to meet Lawrence until three. It's only quarter to two." She leaned back, taking a sip of her coffee. "Start from when they called you."

I nodded, took a breath and began.

***

"Okay, so because the artist of the tattoo would obviously have to be super-duper talented to bang out that sucker, I cross referenced the hand styles, pen manufacturer; all that jazz with local art Colleges and Universities. Now, I know this may seem - I don't know - sexist or something, so Jack, Landon don't take offence to this..." I said over the speaker. "The art style, hand movements in the coloring and drawing I guessed - like I said I went off a limb here - I guessed it was done by a women. Statistically speaking women have more patience than men but anyway, moving on -" I took another breath, scrolling the pages and pages I saved from all of my Tom Cruise/Ethan Hunt super-spy-ness.

"Now, let me tell you, this is the part that I got really scared with -"

"You're getting side-tracked, Ryder." Kris told me.

"Okay! Okay! Okay!" I said, refocusing. "Anyways, I then cross-referenced art pieces with the same images as this one with previous ones of the female student's - and, though my list of possible names shortened, it only decreased by a couple hundred. Now, because I am super awesome, I decided to go along with your whole, 'Alice in Wonderland' curve, which using that, I ended up getting into the plays taking place at these Colleges and Universities. But, after further cross-references, I narrowed it down to two colleges and one university that ended up using actual art-work made by the students as their props. Because one of them was recent; I added the diameters of years, you know, how old they'd be now, how old the art piece is, and how long Allie Corals worked, and didn't work at Inky Hearts - which then, my lovelies, led me into the deep world of scandal. I got one name, Elizabeth Holters. And turns out she died a few years ago, and she met her husband in Vegas, nine years prior to her death, where they got married and had a daughter which they named, Ella Flanagan - who was born in '82. Super sweet right? Not so much. And here is why..."

I cleared my throat, took a sip of my water; re-hydrating my mouth and preparing myself to shoot off another long list of clues. "David Flanagan was reported to be abusive. He would hit Elizabeth, forcing their daughter to watch. He was charged, went to jail for a bit, then came back to find out that Ella had been living with Elizabeth. Now, this obviously upset him, so, after Elizabeth went missing, Ella went into the foster-care system. After four years of living with her foster-family and by the time Ella was thirteen, she ran away, going to the police saying that her foster-dad had repeatedly sexually assaulted her while her foster-mom let him do it, said nothing to the police, and sometimes would encourage him to do it."

"Her foster-dad was a doctor that worked in San Diego who - get this - used both Atracurium and Doxacurium in his practice. Ella, told the police, that her foster-dad drugged her with both at the same time after she became a little older and almost told the police about her abuse."

"Now, obviously this sort of fried her brain. Ella was admitted to a hospital where she grew hostile with a nurse after the nurse turned off her favorite Disney movie. And guess what that was?"

"Alice in Wonderland."

"Yep. Ella said that her biological mother loved Alice in Wonderland and would read her the stories every night. She went into the foster system with this knowledge, and, after learning, in order to shut her up about her sexual abuse, her foster-parents bought her a 'Mad Tea Party' set. I should call it. It did in fact come with dolls. One of Alice. One of the Mad Hatter. Of the March Hare. A little cute dormouse and a cat."

"And if you think that this can't get more sad, and disturbing, it does..." I gulped. "Her foster-dad ran a practice while Ella was in their care and he as well, repeatedly molested his younger, female patients. And, after arresting him, he told the police that he'd give his patients toys to help them keep quiet about what he'd do. When Ella ran away, she forgot her Tea-Party set. So, obviously, James - her foster-dad - gave it away her set to another little girl. And when Ella was old enough she went back to retrieve it, but, after learning that it now belonged to someone else she got super upset and claimed that she needed to find the set. When she found the owner of her set, they told her that it had broke and she threw it out."

"When was this?" Jack asked.

I sighed. "Last month."

"So that must've been her trigger," Kris added. "Anything else, Ryder?"

"Uh -" A flashing thing popped up from the corner of my screen. After opening it up, words escaped my mouth, "Oh no, oh no, no, no, no."

"Joan? Joan, what's wrong?"

"A-a little girl just went missing."

"What does she look like?" Landon asked. I gulped.

"Our previous victim."

"We have to find her now." Kris added. My jaw dropped even more after learning of more information.

"Her little brother was also kidnapped. They were returning home from school. And...the little girl, Chelsea, she's a diabetic. She won't survive without -"

"We're on it, Joan."

"Hurry." I croaked.

***

"Wow." Charity said, thinking. Staring.

"Yeah. Wow." I echoed. Looking up, she sighed, and stood up.

"Do they have Ella in custody?" I nodded. "And, the kids?"

"They're fine." She closed her eyes, and a small smile was let on her face.

"Good." She looked over to the elevator doors, and smiled again. "You guys - the team - you're pretty good at what you do."

I nodded. "Yes. Yes we are."

***

Kristen's Perspective

"Hey." Owen turned to me. He was admitting his dad out of the hospital, the pen still in his hand.

"Hey." He replied.

"Kristen?!" I giggled, his father wheeling his wheelchair over to me. I knelt down and hugged him. "I haven't seen you in ages!" He said. "Or maybe, that's just me." I shook my head.

"No. It has been a long time." I turned to look back to Owen, digging my hands into my butt pockets. "So, the team and I were gonna go get a drink. Wanna come?"

Owen opened his mouth, but was cut off by his father. "Oh, Owen! I'm fine. Your mother can handle me. Go have fun." Placing the pen back down onto the counter, he smiled, zipped up his jacket, said thanks to his dad as the two of us walked out of the hospital.