+18 eps. 17-21 - After a hard case that takes the team to DC in order to catch a blackhat and prevent a bombing, all hell breaks loose on their return to Boston , when the ghost of the Libra killer comes back to torture Brock seven years after the m...
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It would've been hard for him to tell whether opening Russell's email was a wise thing to do. Yes, it kept him awake way past midnight, but not really working on the case. There was hardly anything on the victim yet, and nothing on the killer. But he found himself learning a good deal of information about the original Libra.
He'd only read some of those files after Georgia's death, to try to figure at least some rough profile on her killer, through the heavy haze of alcohol filling his head day and night ever since the funeral. Back then, he hadn't found anything to help identify the subject, so the booze in his blood had the bright idea of going back to his house, to see if they'd missed something. The worst mistake of his whole life, because the techs hadn't cleaned it yet. But it'd paid off, because that sick son of a bitch lurked around, revisiting, and Brock was able to follow him. And kill him. The man's face but a blur before his eyes, mixed with the gross red splatters all over his own bedroom and the hideous underlined omega, dripping Georgia's blood on his own pillow.
After that, he'd never even thought of taking a look at those files again. And he'd never even touched any of the books published about the Libra. He knew Jackson had been consulting for one of the authors, but never bothered asking about it.
Looked like Gillian had done her homework with her usual efficiency. The file Russell sent him included her notes about her meeting with this author Jackson had helped. And all of a sudden, he was reading a synthetic, yet very precise account about the killer's life and profile. He could clearly tell Jackson's conclusions from hers. Together, they painted a unique, sharply accurate portrait of the killer.
And gave a very dark meaning to the messages and the murder. Now they were he was dealing with somebody who'd been close to the Libra, long enough to learn his deepest secrets. But if Jackson and Gillian were was right, and the Libra was an introverted sociopath, who would he have opened to, and to such extents?
When he realized he'd just read three times the same line, and the rest of the screen was blurry even with his readers on, he decided it was time to try his odds and go to bed.
Saying he was lucky to fall asleep soon would be a major understatement.
Memories and imagination cooked a surreal mix in his upset dreams. So he would come home to his old house, and to his apartment in DC, and this apartment in Boston, again and again. It was always at night and the place was always pitch-black dark. Sometimes it would rain, mostly in Boston. Sometimes the front door was ajar. Sometimes it was crossed by a yellow tape. Sometimes the place was deserted, clean, quiet. Sometimes there were traces of blood. Most of the times there was a body lying across his bed, entangled in a blood-drenched sheet, under the Libra sign painted on the wall. And it would be Georgia, Andrea, Gillian. All of them furiously stabbed to death. All of them waiting for him with empty eyes. All of them dead because there was somewhere else he'd needed to be.
At three a.m. Brock was in the shower. The hot water usually helped him to relax. And if it didn't work, and he couldn't go back to sleep, he wasn't about to complain either. But he fell asleep again.
The nightmares changed then, to introduce the last element they lacked to drive him over the edge of desperation. When he came into whatever house it was, there was somebody else in there. It would be the shadow of a man jumping out the window—never mind at which floor they were. And he even got a glimpse of that shadow holding Georgia in his arms, already dead, as he kept stabbing her. A couple of times, Gillian would try to stop him from coming in. She would stand in his way to the bedroom, or she would show up from behind and grab his arm. But he always pushed her away and went on. The worst was when the shadow jumped out the window while she stretched out her arms before him at his bedroom doorway, keeping him from chasing the killer. This oneiric insanity reached a whole new level the one time he was able to catch the shadow while it stabbed Andrea. And when he pulled back the hood hiding the face, it was Gillian.
That woke him up for good.
He stayed very still, eyes up on the ceiling, while his chest pumped up and down. He waited for his heart to slow down a little, enough to allow him to fill his lungs, and glanced at his nightstand. Five a.m. For no understandable reason, he recalled one time last year, when he and Russell worked a case out of town. They'd been going for two days straight, and when he gave up and decided to take at least a nap, Russell stayed up. What was it he said, when Brock asked him if he didn't need to sleep? Something about a singer and a song. He'd said it in that way which always reminded Brock how close Russell was to Gillian. Something like, "I'll Bon-Jovi it, man." And when Brock didn't understand, Russell laughed and added, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."
Well. Looked like that was about to become Brock's motto. At least until this was over. Because he didn't want to sleep ever again after tonight.
