Smoke and Mirrors

by K Ryn

  "Your partner?" Jankowski spat out the words like they were poison. "You're a cop?"

  "No... I'm an anthropologist... a civilian observer... Jim Ellison's my partner... he's a detective with..."

  He got no further with his stammered explanation. The old man's eyes widened in fear and he shoved Blair backward. The anthropologist hit the ground hard. As he lay gasping for breath, he heard the sound of running footsteps.

  He's getting away... gotta find Jim...

  Blair rolled over and pushed himself upright. Shaking his head as he struggled to fill his lungs, he took two staggering steps forward, frantically scanning the crowds on the street.

  Suddenly his eyesight blurred and a wall of flame sprang to life in front of him. Stunned, he lurched backward. The flames grew higher, blocking out everything in sight. He felt the blistering heat sear his skin and he clapped his hands over his ears as the destructive force screamed with a deafening roar.

  And then it was gone.

  He sank to his knees, dazed. Hesitantly, he touched his face, expecting to find it bleeding and raw, but only fresh stains of soot coated his fingertips when he examined them.

  He looked up and surveyed the street again. Everything was just as it had been before the nightmarish vision. Before Jankowski had fled...

  "Damn... I have to find Jim!"

  Lurching to his feet Blair headed back to the burned out building at a run. Jankowski had the answers that they needed. What the vision had meant -- if it had been anything more than just his tired mind fixating on his earlier memories -- would have to wait.

  I bid him look into the lives of men as though into a mirror...

  When he shoved the loft door open two hours later, all Blair wanted to do was stumble into his room and collapse on the bed. After he'd located Jim, they'd searched for Jankowski, but the old man had disappeared as abruptly as he had surfaced. Before they'd left the scene, the observer had given the beat cops the best description of the potential witness as he could and an APB had been issued from headquarters. Jim had called in his terse report to Simon and the captain had ordered the partners home for some well-deserved sleep.

  Blair slipped out of his coat and made a half-hearted effort to hang it on the rack. The attempt was short by several inches and the jacket fell to the floor in a jumbled pile.

  Much like my thoughts, Blair brooded tiredly. He reached down to pick it up and collided with his partner who was in the process of hanging up his own garment.

  Jim flashed him an angry glare, snatched Blair's coat off the floor and hung it on the rack next to his own before the younger man could make another attempt. With more force than was necessary, the detective slammed the front door shut and stalked into the kitchen.

  Blair's feet felt like they had grown roots, planting him only two steps inside the door. Physically tired, his mind was still whirling madly with unanswered questions and grim speculations. Topping it all off was the little shamanic vision that he wasn't even sure he'd experienced. Dealing with a pissed off, frustrated Sentinel was the last thing he wanted to do right now. He eyed the French doors to his room longingly, contemplating how much energy it would take to get himself to that safe, cozy haven.

  He opted for the bathroom instead, emerging a few moments later. He'd left the top layer of grime coating the sink, deciding that it wasn't worth cleaning up until both of them were finished.

  The refrigerator door closed with the same force that the front door had, drawing the younger man's attention back to his partner. Jim was savagely twisting the top off a bottle of seltzer water. Blair felt a strange flash of sympathy for the inanimate object, but was glad it was the plastic that the detective had his hands wrapped around and not someone's neck.

  Especially not mine!

  With a soft, resigned sigh, Blair shuffled over to the table and dropped gratefully onto one of the chairs. Resting his weight on his elbows he propped his chin on steepled fingers and took a deep breath, prepared to wait out the worst of the storm. He knew Jim wasn't really angry with him -- he was simply the closest, and most forgiving target. The Sentinel was exhausted, stressed and the lack of progress on the case was driving him nuts. In typical Ellison fashion, he'd made solving the murders a personal issue, and he was incensed that things were happening that he couldn't control.

  He watched as Jim finally wrestled the cap free of the bottle and started to raise it to his lips. Before he could voice a warning, the carbonated liquid fizzed and erupted with the force of a miniature volcano, drenching the older man's face and the front of his shirt.

  With a snarl, Jim slammed the bottle down on the counter, fountaining more of the sparkling water over the countertops and onto the floor. The detective took a step back and halted, his whole body quivering with suppressed rage.

  Blair counted to five before breaking the silence. "If I'd known how desperate you were for a shower, I would have given you first dibs on the bathroom, Jim."

  The gaze Jim shot him was chilling, but Blair innocently quirked an eyebrow at his partner. The frozen fire in the Sentinel's eyes flared and then died back to the softer hues of an early morning sky. A bemused grin slowly formed on the detective's face.

  "And have you contaminate the entire loft? I don't think so, Sandburg. You're shedding a layer of dirt every time you take a breath," Jim teased.

  "I'm not about to apologize for breathing, Ellison. And my current state of disrepair is not something you should comment on until you've looked in a mirror."

  Jim glanced down at his equally filthy clothes and grimaced. Blair pushed himself to his feet and headed into the kitchen, grabbing a handful of towels. With a quick swipe he grabbed the water bottle and dried it off. Handing it to the Sentinel he made a dabbing motion at the older man's shirt and shook his head in mock irritation.

  "I bet you were one of those kids that got their good clothes dirty within five minutes of putting them on," he grumbled. "You're doing your own laundry this week, man."

  "Goes both ways, Chief," Jim shot back, still grinning.

  A smile spread across the anthropologist's face and he gave Jim a gentle shove to move him out of the kitchen. "Go. Shower. I'll clean up in here."

  Jim gave him a skeptical glance. "You're volunteering to do housework?"

  "I may be shedding dirt, big guy, but you're dripping mud and you smell like a foundry," Blair muttered, bending to wipe up the floor. "Go, before I change my mind. And leave me some hot water, or you'll find those clothes stuffed under the seat of your truck. They'll be pretty ripe by morning." "It is morning, Sandburg."

  "My point exactly, Jim."

  "All right, all right, I'm going." The detective padded off to the bathroom. Moments later Blair heard the hiss of the shower. He smiled smugly, pleased that his efforts to distract his Sentinel had worked. Grabbing another towel he returned to the task of wiping up the spill.

  Ten minutes later it was his turn to wash away the filth of the night. He shirked out of his clothes and nudged them into the corner by the hamper with his foot, unwilling to handle them again until he had to. Stepping into the shower he flinched at the first stinging spray, shivering slightly until the cool water that was still in the pipes changed to warm and then hot.

  He scrubbed away the accumulated dirt and washed his hair twice before relaxing under the soothing cascade. As the water pounded against the back of his skull he took deep, cleansing breaths, savoring the moist steam as it flushed the taint of smoke from his lungs and sinuses.

  Closing his eyes he formed a picture in his mind of a peaceful mountain lake, imagining the shower as a thundering waterfall at his back. The meditative exercise started to take hold, clearing his head and letting his confused thoughts regain some kind of order.

  Without warning, the wall of flame filled his inner vision. He gasped and clutched at the wall for support. Fire shot down his back and he fumbled for the faucet handle, wrenching it desperately until he had turned the water off.

  He stood
there trembling, both hands pressed to the wall. The flames were gone, but in his mind's eye he could see the street and the crowds from the last fire. Jankowski's words rang in his ears --"Stay away from them!"

  Who's them? he wondered frantically. Someone in the crowd?

  He tried to concentrate on the faces that he'd seen. Was one of them the murderer? No... Jankowski had said them as if there was more than one person he was pointing out. Straining to recall how the people on the sidewalk had been grouped together, he suddenly drew a sharp breath.

  "Them..." he whispered, horrified. "Shit! That's it."

  He scrambled out of the shower and hurriedly dried off. Wrapping a towel around his waist he scurried to his bedroom and grabbed a set of sweats from the pile of laundry that was stacked on his dresser.

  He whirled around, ready to charge out into the living room and suddenly froze. If he was right, Jim was not going to be happy.

  Hell, that's an understatement. He'll be furious!

  Chewing his lip nervously, Blair pondered his choices. He didn't have any proof, just a gut feeling. Was it enough? Would Jim even believe him? He was about to trample on sacred ground, and if he was wrong, the results would be disastrous.

  He shifted from one foot to the other, weighing out the options. The image of the burned corpse that they'd found at the scene flashed through his mind. Resolutely, he squared his shoulders and stepped through the doors.

  His partner was camped out on the couch staring at some preppily dressed twenty-something who was droning on about the joys of owning your own phone-card business. Blair perched himself on the arm of the couch and studied his friend intently. The shower had done the Sentinel a world of good, but a trace of the anger that had sparked so violently earlier remained. Jim's jaw was still clenching and his blue eyes were narrowed in concentration. Blair knew it wasn't the infomercial on TV that had captured his partner's attention.

  He looks like hell. Maybe I 'should' wait with this.

  "Sometimes you have to take a step back before you can go forward, Jim," Blair murmured. "Maybe some sleep..."

  "I'd be a step closer if Jankowski hadn't slipped out of our hands," the Sentinel muttered.

  "I'm sorry about that, Jim," Blair said quietly, accepting the blame without blinking an eye. After all, if he hadn't blanked out for a few seconds, the Sentinel would have had the lead that he needed. "If I'd been thinking clearer I wouldn't have let him out of my sight."

  "I just don't get it," Jim growled, pushing himself off the couch abruptly. He stalked over to the sliding glass doors of the balcony and stared out at the city for a few moments before turning back to face the younger man. "From what you said, Jankowski knows who the killer is. Why didn't he come forward? Why doesn't anyone down there want to talk to us?"

  "They're afraid, Jim," Blair said in gentle rebuke. "There are a lot of families in that neighborhood just trying to make a future for themselves and their children. Given the places that they've come from, it's not difficult to understand why they don't trust authority."

  Jim nodded, acknowledging the truth of the younger man's words, but his frustration was still obvious in the deep frown lines that creased his forehead. "I know that, Chief, but it makes it damn hard to help. Someone's preying on these people and I can't get past the feeling that they know precisely who it is."

  Blair grimaced. He understood his Sentinel's exasperation all too well. Cascade was his city and the residents of it his tribe. But without their cooperation, he couldn't do his job -- couldn't protect them. He took a deep breath, knowing that his next words would only worsen his friend's outlook.

  "Jim... what if they're not talking because they're afraid of the cops?"

  "Practically everyone down there's afraid of the police, Chief. Either us or immigration."

  "That's not what I meant, Jim," Blair said quietly. "What if they're really afraid of the cops?"

  The anthropologist shivered at the angry ice-blue glare the detective turned his way.

  Where there's smoke, there must be fire...

  Joel Taggert paused on the sixth floor landing to catch his breath. He was puffing as the result of climbing the seven sets of stairs from the precinct parking garage to the floor that held the offices of Major Crimes. However, he was far less winded than he had been the first time he'd attempted the exercise several weeks earlier.

  Once he'd dropped the first 40 pounds that his physician had strongly suggested that he lose, he'd hit a plateau in his diet. Adding in some exercise had helped put the weight-loss program back on track. Not particularly inclined to spend the time in the gym, he'd taken to using the stairs instead of the elevator whenever he could.

  Even if things at the station got chaotic, he tried to make the first trip of the morning the staircase route. Scaling the one hundred and sixty-eight steps gave him time to clear his head and focus on the needs of the day. The reminder of just how much weight he'd just lugged up the stairs also made it easier to bypass the confections on the donut cart.

  He glanced at his watch. 7:50 a.m., running ahead of schedule. He grinned, gratified to see that he'd taken a few seconds off his personal best time, and that his respiration and heartbeat had leveled off to normal quickly, as well.

  With a satisfied smile, he pushed the stairwell door open and stepped out into the corridor. He heard the ding of the elevator as it announced its arrival on the same floor. Before he could turn to see who might be inside, Blair Sandburg exploded out of the half-open doors. The anthropologist blew by him without a glance and slammed through the doors of Major Crimes.

  The livid rage on the younger man's face propelled Joel into action, carrying him into the bullpen in time to hear the observer's angry shout.

  "ELLISON!"

  Joel froze just inside the doors, taking in the scene. All activity in the room had halted. Brown and Rafe were at their desks, staring in open-mouthed surprise. Simon was poised in the doorway to his office, obviously just as shocked by the observer's entrance. The only one who seemed oblivious to the unfolding drama was Ellison, who sat calmly reviewing a file on his computer screen.

  Sandburg stalked across the bullpen toward Jim's desk, his fists clenched at his sides. He was wearing the same clothes Joel had seen him in the day before, but they were more rumpled than usual, as if he'd slept in them. His hair was pulled back into the ponytail that he normally wore to the station, but long curling tendrils escaped to frame his blazing eyes.

  Joel sucked in a sharp breath. The relationship between the partners had been strained for the past two weeks. At first Joel had blamed it on the arson/murder investigation the two had been working on. The toll on that one had risen to eight deaths and the lack of progress had everyone on edge. The heat was coming down from the top to solve the case -- Simon Banks had spent hours dancing for the commissioner and the mayor, and, just the day before, they'd grilled the detective and his observer. Ellison had come out of the interrogation snapping and snarling and Sandburg had been a pale shadow of his usually energetic self.

  But it had become clear that there was more going on than just the stress of the case. In the last fourteen days, Ellison had reverted back to the cold, unreadable ex-military loner that he'd been before Sandburg had teamed up with him. In a stark departure from the man who'd always accorded his colleagues at least at modicum of respect, he'd begun treating everyone like dirt. He'd become argumentative, making snide comments about the way the department was run, complaining about the lack of professionalism out of forensics.

  The change in the man was shocking, and all of them had looked to the young observer for an explanation. But the anthropologist was fighting his own losing battle. In the past week, Ellison's attitude had shifted to a new target and Sandburg was at the center of the bulls-eye. Half of the time the detective treated the observer like he wasn't even there -- for the other half, he flung derogatory comments and derision in the younger man's face.

  Sandburg had suffered through it all in silen
ce, still shadowing the older man, still filling his obligation to the partnership, but with less and less of his normal zest and bounce.

  Given the kid's propensity to talk, that silence should have clued us all in, Taggert thought grimly.

  If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Joel would have laughed at anyone who even hinted that Ellison would ever intentionally hurt the younger man. They were too close -- roommates, friends, partners. They could be hard on each other, but up until now, there was always something that kept them together -- a line that they wouldn't cross, no matter how bad things were.

  Now it appeared that the bomb that he'd heard ticking for the past two weeks was about to explode and there wasn't anything he could do to stop it.

  "Damn it, Jim, I'm talking to you!" Blair snarled, planting himself at the side of his partner's desk.

  Ellison finally looked up, his face set in a sneer of contempt.

  "Finally decided to show up, huh Sandburg?"

  "You know damn well why I'm late!" Blair spat back.

  "Oh, yeah? Let me see... that's right, you had a hot date last night, didn't you? She take you home for some fun? Or did she dump you and you were too embarrassed or drunk to find your way to your own bed?"

  "I was in my office all night, Ellison," Blair answered angrily. "Trying to catch up on the other side of my life -- work that I've put off in order to be here. You'd have known that if you'd bothered to pick up the phone or play back the half-dozen messages that I left on the machine."

  Jim shrugged. "Hey, I'm not your keeper kid. If the schedule's too much for you, you know where the door is."

  "Yeah, you pointed that out to me this morning, didn't you?" Blair hissed. "What I do and where I spend my days or nights is none of your business. Not any more. I got the message. You boxed up all my stuff and left it sitting on the curb. What's the matter, couldn't manage a note? Eviction too big a word for your limited vocabulary?"

  Joel felt the tension in the room increase exponentially, mirrored in the icy glare and the dangerous narrowing of Ellison's eyes. Any sane person would have backed off immediately, but Sandburg stood his ground.