Closer 1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes: This story is for the Halloween Fanfic Challenge on the Closer Forum.  
><strong>

**I throw flowers at the feet of my beloved editor, LadyFey. Thank you for everything.**

**Chapter 1**

Failure tasted bitter in Brenda Leigh Johnson's mouth. She liked to win, to get the job done, to be the golden girl, to save the day. Times like this were thankfully rare, but she felt like her soul was caving in on itself. She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose, hoping to stop the low thrumming in her temple from blossoming into a full-blown headache. She closed her gritty eyes from the persistent glare of the fluorescent light in her office, and it felt good to shut out the world, like closing velvet stage curtains to separate the actors from the crowd who just demanded more, more, more…

She jerked awake a moment later with a sharp knock at her office door followed by the entrance of someone too impatient to wait for her permission to come in. Her blurry eyes flew opened to find Lieutenant Provenza standing in front of her, holding a bag of Halloween-size candy bars. He held them out as an offering.

"Sorry for disturbing you, Chief, I just thought that maybe you could use a little pick-up after the last couple of days we've had."

Brenda rubbed her face. "Candy's not gonna make things better, Lieutenant. I think if I have one more bite of sugar my pancreas is goin' to explode." She couldn't remember the last time she had any food that didn't come out of a wrapper.

"There's only one way to test that theory." Provenza reached in the bag and held out two small Snickers toward Brenda. The exhaustion she felt was mirrored in the older man's face and was made more pronounced by his wrinkles. She could see the pain in his eyes and for a second forgot her own sadness. What must this be like for someone who has kids?

"Put the candy bar down slowly and no one gets hurt," came a deep voice from the doorway. Despite Brenda's mood, she couldn't suppress a slight smile at Fritz's unexpected arrival He was always instant comfort to her, an emotional salve, and he had a way of making even the worst situation feel a little more bearable. He came around the desk and knelt beside her, putting a warm arm around her thin shoulders and lightly squeezing. "How are you doing?" he asked softly.

"Well, I guess you heard our critical missings aren't missing anymore," Provenza said, his words heavy with a bitterness known only to cops that have been on the job too long. "I guess that's one thing we got going for us. We know where those two sisters are now. With Dr. Morales. And their parents."

Brenda's head suddenly felt too heavy on her neck, and she dropped it on Fritz's available shoulder. Fritz fluffed her hair gently. "I have no idea why twin six-year-old little girls, whose parents were probably murdered in front of them, were taken from their nice home in Hidden Hills and killed in a pay-by-the-hour hotel in Van Nuys along with some drifter, probably their kidnapper. No idea at all." She shook her head, knowing that in order to solve the children's murders, she had to move beyond the sickening feeling of disappointment she had about not finding them alive. _Looking back does nothing but give you a crick in your neck_, she told herself, as her headache turned up a notch.

"Well, I don't think you are going to get any answers tonight, honey, so I'm here to take you home." Brenda started to protest and Fritz talked right over her. "You've been up for 48 solid hours on this case, Brenda, looking for these kids, not to mention investigating the parents' deaths at the same time. If you don't get some sleep, you're going to start making mistakes. Rest up tonight and start fresh tomorrow, okay?" Fritz took her hand in his and put on his best "how-can-you-say-no-to-this-handsome-face" expression.

Provenza nodded his head vigorously. "That's what the candy's about, Chief. I was buttering you up so you would let the squad go home. There's nothing more to do tonight. Morales is working on the kids and the adult victim, and he won't have anything for us until tomorrow morning. We don't have anything but a name for the dead guy, Mr. McStabby—no financials, no property, not even a driver's license, so it's going to be a lot of work to tie him to the Bannon family. And everyone out there is wiped out. Critical missings that turn out this way—" his voice trailed off.

Brenda nodded and waved Provenza out, conveying her permission for him to dismiss everyone. She turned and buried her face further in Fritz's neck. Critical missings usually end with a rebellious teenager being dragged home or a non-custodial parent being spotted in a hotel room with a contented but confused child inside. It's rare that they lead to the type of drama that ends up splashed over the front page of the paper. But two mornings ago, as Brenda tried to block out the wailing of a hysterical housekeeper as she stepped over the bludgeoned bodies of Naomi Davis-Bannon and Roy Bannon, she had grave doubts that the Amber Alert for their twins would render two whole, healthy children.

What she didn't expect was for their bodies to be found two days later in a filthy hotel curled up peacefully on one of the stained beds as if they were sleeping, blood dotting the walls like finger paint and the stabbed body of a 49-year-old drifter who was last seen in Missouri on the floor next to them. It didn't make sense.

Fritz pulled her up gently and got her purse. "You're thinking too hard," he said, gently tapping her head. "Come home with me and let me give you a little TLC, Brenda. Give that brain of yours a rest." She nodded mutely and took his big hand, following him out of the office as she intentionally turned her face away from the murder board. She couldn't look at their pictures any more tonight.

* * *

><p>Brenda, who was sure she had no appetite, just finished off her third helping of chicken pot pie when the phone rang. "Ug, if it's Momma, I'm not in the mood to talk," she said to Fritz, as he reached for the phone. A long hot shower and a delicious meal, and just being with Fritz, had made great strides in returning her to her previously human state. She was warm and loose and just a little less awful, and she planned to head to bed in a few minutes for what she prayed would be several hours of dreamless sleep.<p>

Fritz squinted at the caller ID. "Charlie." He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, wanting to know how to proceed.

Talking to Charlie always cheered Brenda up. Brenda gave Fritz a nod and he handed her the phone.

"Charlie Johnson! What are you doin'? Surely a Georgetown freshman has better things to do than to be wastin' time talkin' with her borin' old aunt," she said, in a voice she hoped would cover up the exhaustion and sadness pulsing through her. Brenda took the phone into the living room and wrapped herself up in her favorite chenille blanket, tucking her feet underneath her. Within seconds, Joel jumped into her lap and curled up.

"You okay, Aunt Brenda?" Charlie said cautiously. "You usually only sound this chipper when something's wrong."

"Oh, pish," Brenda said, both annoyed and proud that her niece was so perceptive. "Tough case is all, nothin' new, you know how it goes. I got Fritzy fussin' over me so I don't need anyone else."

"What's the case?" Charlie asked.

"Oh no no no. I'm out of the office and I want to be entertained 'bout all the goin's on at my alma mater and with my favorite niece. Tell me everythin' that's happenin' with all your classes and all. Boyfriends, I bet you are beatin' them off with a stick. Oh, Halloween is comin' up! You gettin' dressed up and goin' to some wild party?"

"Actually, no, Aunt Brenda. I'm going to a Samhain ritual."

"A sow-hoo?"

Charlie giggled. "It's spelled 's-a-m-h-a-i-n' but it's pronounced 'sow-when.' It's a Celtic festival of the dead, on October 31. My roommate's friend Jackie is a Wiccan. Samhain is the most sacred festival for witches, so we were really lucky we got invited to a ritual at someone's house, being non-witches and all. I'm really excited!"

Fritz sat down next to Brenda and was listening in, an amused smile on his face.

"Y'all gonna fly around on broomsticks or somethin'?" Brenda could only imagine what her mother would think about Charlie hanging out with a bunch of witches on Halloween.

"That's a terrible stereotype, Aunt Brenda. Pagans—that's witches and a bunch of other people who are into ancient religions—believe that on Samhain, the veil between the worlds is the thinnest."

Brenda frowned. "What veil? What worlds?" Mythology was never much her thing.

"The veil between our world and the Otherworld, between the living and the dead," Charlie explained, "Samhain is all about honoring your ancestors and asking them for help and stuff. I've been reading up on it. The ritual and the meaning behind it is really cool."

Fritz whispered in Brenda's ear, "Tell Charlie if they start sacrificing virgins, it's time to leave."

Brenda covered the phone with her hand and suppressed an exhausted giggle. "Oh Fritzy, she's got nothin' to worry about."

* * *

><p>Brenda got into work at 7AM the next morning, and then waited…for a whole lot of nothing.<p>

The autopsy report was as expected. The children were smothered with a pillow found at the crime scene. The man was stabbed several times by a short right-hander who he couldn't fend off because his blood alcohol level was through the roof. There was too much DNA at the no-tell motel for any of it to be useful. Even the dead man didn't have his DNA on file. Only his prints were useful.

"Kenneth Gregory Kinsky. Age 49. Arrested for petty theft, public urination, drunk and disorderly…minor charges that were all dropped, in different areas in Iowa, Missouri, and North Dakota, and all took place over a decade ago," Tao said, referring to the file in his hand. "There were few employment records on him, and even fewer hits for past residences. The man appeared to be a drifter. And there was no record of him for ten years. His fingerprints, though, matched ones found in the Bannon home."

"Damn damn damn!" Brenda cursed. "No one heard this couple bein' murdered in the middle of the night, and no one saw or heard two 6-year-old girls bein' dragged out of the house, probably caterwauling at the top of their lungs. Not a soul at this sleazy hotel notices a couple of little kids hangin' around the place, where they should have stood out like a sore thumb. There is not one thing I can find in the Bannon's financials or from talkin' to anyone in their personal life that would make someone want to hurt them. And this Kinsky guy…what the hell connection does he have with this nice family?" She was letting her frustration get the best of her, and that was never good. But it was a matter of time before Pope started to breathe down her neck about his case, and she had nothing to show for it.

"We know Kinsky wasn't a patient of Dr. Bannon's," Flynn said. "The shrink's office had no problem with HIPAA telling me stuff, since Kinsky is dead. And as far as they can tell, he's not a relative of a patient either."

"Keep checkin'," Brenda snapped. "Kinsky's not a threat anymore, but someone killed him, and the Bannon family. Kinsky might be of a disturbed patient." Flynn nodded.

"Chief?" Sanchez asked, hesitation in his voice. He approached her slowly, as if she might bite. "I just rode up on the elevator with someone who said she had some information about the case," he said, extending a cup of coffee toward her. "She wants to speak to the person in charge of the investigation, and won't talk to anyone else. And she won't give me her name."

Brenda frowned. "I don't have time for the Halloween crazies, Sanchez." Big cases often drew in people who had "tips" of some sort of another, but mainly served the purpose of allowing the person to feel important for a few hours while cops wasted valuable time.

Sanchez shook his head. "She didn't strike me as wackadoo, Ma'am. Not at all, and seeing as how we have nothing else, I think you should talk to her." He gestured to the board. "It's not like we have a lot to go on anyways."

Brenda huffed. "Well all right then. I guess my time or input isn't so valuable that I can't go talk to any old person who just wanders in. " Brenda flounced past Sanchez and into the office, prepared to tell off whatever nutball dared to disturb her.

She stopped short when she opened the door to find a nice-looking young woman around 30 pacing nervously around her office. She was as petite as Brenda but even shorter. Her dark-brown hair cut in a chin-length bob was the same color as her almond-shaped eyes that shown intelligently behind gold wire glasses. Her skin was almost unnaturally pale, like someone who didn't get out in the sun often, which was very unusual in SoCal. She wasn't particularly pretty and wore little makeup, but was neatly put together, with an expensive brown pinstripe suit and a fine leather briefcase near her feet. Brenda had to agree with Sanchez: this one didn't feel like a garden-variety attention-seeking weirdo.

The young woman turned around abruptly when Benda opened the door, her fingers twisted together in an obvious sign of nervousness. "Oh, uh, hello, are you…?"

"Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson. And who might you be?" She didn't want to offer the woman a seat yet. Once someone sits down, it becomes nearly impossible to extract them, and she didn't want the other woman to get too comfortable.

The visitor nodded and reached down for her briefcase, pulling out a business card and handing it to Brenda. "My name is Katie LeGuin. I live in Studio City." She gestured to the card she just handed Brenda. "I'm giving you my card because I imagine with big publicized cases, you get all kinds of people claiming they can help, especially this time of year. I guess I'm just trying to prove I'm not one of those people. Accountants are not known to be crazy."

Brenda looked down at the card. _"Katherine M. LeGuin, MBA, CPA. Powell, Keating & Partners Financial Group. Offices in London, Tokyo, Sydney, New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. "_

"Impressive," Brenda said. "But I don't remember callin' upon the services of an accountant."

Katie shifted from one leg to the other, clearly uncomfortable. "I have information about the case you are working on. The Bannon children." She looked at her shoes.

Brenda watched her closely. "Alright then. Let's you and I go down the hall to one of the interview rooms, shall we?"

To her surprise, Katie shook her head no and sat herself down at Brenda's conference table, crossing her arms and looking Brenda directly in the eye. "This is fine right here, Chief Johnson. I'm not making an official statement and I don't want our conversation recorded. We can talk right here." Her small chin jutted out in a show of defiance.

Brenda didn't know what to make of this woman. "This isn't how we usually…"

"Believe me, Chief Johnson, what I have to tell you is going to take you very far away from how you usually do things." Katie's voice was shockingly harsh when she said this, and it took Brenda by surprise.

Brenda walked over and sat across from the accountant, who seemed to have recovered from her "Xenia Warrior Princess" moment and had settled back into meekness. "Alright, Ms. LeGuin. Tell me what you have to tell me. I'm all ears."

Katie looked at her, defiance and anger in her eyes but her voice just a harsh whisper. "I don't want to be here. I want to make it perfectly clear from the start that I don't want to be here, I don't want any part of this, okay? Please understand that."

Brenda nodded slowly. "That's common for people to feel when they end up part of a criminal investigation, Katie, I understand," Brenda said soothingly.

Katie laughed to herself. "If only it were that," she whispered. To Brenda, she said, "I need you to listen to me, please. Let me finish without interrupting and without dismissing. You will make this so much easier for me if you can do that. This…is extremely difficult." Anguish bled from the girl's eyes.

Brenda simply didn't know what to make of Katie LeGuin. She had five dead humans she was responsible for, and more than enough things to do. Yet she felt drawn to the young woman, intrigued by her, and she didn't have it in her to be rude to the nervous, bird-like accountant who was biting her lip. "Tell me whatever you want, and I'll listen, I promise," Brenda said, trying to sound as nonjudgmental as possible.

"The last time I did this it almost cost me everything, and I can't let that happen again, I just can't." Katie looked off into the distance, eyes unfocused.

_The last time? _ Brenda thought. Now she really wanted to hear what the woman had to say.

"Go ahead, please. There are two dead children, Katie, and maybe you know somethin' that can help them. Please." Brenda smiled, trying to look reassuring.

Katie stood up and began to pace, and after several deep breaths, she said, in a low voice, "four years ago, when I lived in New York, I got into a serious car accident. I sustained a head injury and was in a coma for three months." She shuttered.

"I'm sorry," Brenda murmured.

Katie waived her off. "When I woke up, I had to relearn a lot of things. How to brush my teeth, get dressed, and the like. A lot of my language was affected. I was in rehab for a year, it was horrible. But I got everything back, my speech, my memory, my accounting knowledge." She shook her head slowly. But I wasn't the same."

Brenda remained silent. She knew intuitively that they were finally reaching the important part.

Katie wrapped her arms around herself. "This is the part where you start to think I'm some head-injured waste-case. That's why I showed you my business card, so you know where I work, what I do. That I'm intelligent and high-functioning." The defiant look was back in her eyes.

"Go ahead, I'm not judgin'," Brenda murmured.

With great reluctance, as if the words didn't want to leave the safe confines of her mouth, Katie said softly, "I started hearing voices. No, that's not the right way of putting it." She shook her head. "I started seeing people, talking to people, that I knew no one else could see."

_Oh. Here we go. I should have bet Sanchez $20 on the crazy thing._

"At first, I thought I was insane." She ventured a look at Brenda who was wearing her patented "impassive" face. "But then, things started to fall into place. A friend would be telling me that her grandmother just died, and one of these—people—would show up, and say things like, 'tell Miranda I love her, and the diamond and onyx ring is meant for her.' And I'd ask my friend about the ring, and she'd start crying, and say yea, it was the ring Grandma wore every day, how did you know?"

"You're tellin' me you see ghosts." Brenda knew she should stop the interview now, kick this girl out for wasting her time, but something stopped her. She had to hear the story through.

Katie looked out the window again and chewed on her thumb. "I don't like that word, but I guess that's what they are. People who aren't alive any more. All of a sudden, after my head injury, they decided I would make an excellent messenger."

"That must have been quite a shock to you." Brenda fought to keep her voice bland and open.

Katie shrugged. "I appreciate your attempts to hang on to neutrality. Please strengthen your grip for what's coming up."

Brenda nodded at Katie and she continued.

"A couple of years ago in New York three Latino boys were murdered in Brooklyn. I didn't really follow the case, but you could say the case followed me. One of the kids, Dante, showed up with information about who killed him, and he wouldn't leave me alone. He wanted me to go to the police to get justice for him and his friends. He stalked me for weeks. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep…Dante was everywhere. It was hell."

"What did you do?"

"What could I do? I gave in. I went to a detective at the police department. Told him what Dante told me, about the gang initiation he and his friends had witnessed, what the shooter looked like, and of course without realizing it I let out some detail that hadn't been released to the press." Katie's voice waivered in the face of a bad memory. "And then all hell broke loose."

"Hell?"

"The detective I talked to, Chuck Reardon, didn't believe a word I said about Dante and instantly assumed I had something to do with the murders. He turned my life upside down." She turned sharply to look at Brenda. "Do you know how unpopular it makes you at an accounting firm when the cops show up because you are under investigation for murder? They asked all my family members how long I'd been 'hearing voices' and 'seeing figures' and if I've ever been locked up before."

"Oh my."

"All this going on and I had this 13 year old dead kid nagging at me to make sure the cops investigated this and that. Like the cops were really listening to me. It wasn't until I lost it one night on Dante, until I told him I was about ready to kill myself and cross over to his world because thanks to him, mine had become unbearable, that he brought me some new information. Something one of the other victims knew about his uncle. I brought it to Det. Reardon and begged him to check it out, pleaded, and he actually listened to me. That afternoon the uncle's illegal dogfighting ring was broken up, and they found all this evidence that tied them with the gang that killed the boys, including details I told Detective Reardon about but he hadn't believed before. After that, Dante went away. For good." Katie sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. " Detective Reardon, well, he got a promotion and all kinds of kudus for solving the case."

Brenda was surprised to find herself feeling sorry for the young woman. "You must be angry about that." Brenda knew all too well, thanks to her ex-husband, what it's like to have your life turned upside down with ugly accusations.

Katie shook her head. "I should be. I had to leave New York and move to LA, start new again where no one knew me, thanks to him. But when Detective Reardon realized I wasn't guilty, and I wasn't lying, he felt really terrible. Of course, he then wanted to turn me into his own personal police psychic, and I had to tell him a billion times it didn't work that way."

"How does it work, then?" Brenda wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

Katie looked at her impatiently. "Haven't you been listening? They come to me, Chief Johnson. I don't ask them, they just come, and they won't leave me alone until I deliver their little messages about lost jewelry or wills or goodbyes or…or…" she trailed off, wrapping her arms around herself again and hanging her head.

"Or murders," Brenda finished. Katie slowly nodded.

"I listened to your story, Katie, without judgment and with a great deal of patience, I might add, something I am not known for," Brenda said. "Now you need to be honest with me. Why exactly are you here?"

Katie straightened up and slowly walked back over to the table and sat across from Brenda. She stared down at her hands.

"Andrea and Kerry came to me."

"The Bannon twins," Brenda said. She knew this was where this was leading, but to have Katie say it out loud…She was so tired it was all she could do to not burst out in hysterical laughter.

Katie nodded. "There's something they want you to see."

* * *

><p>Later, as Brenda sipped lukewarm coffee and ate a Ho Ho, she thought about how grateful she was that Fritz had forced her to come home the night before. There was no way she would have been able to sit though that dramatic performance with an extreme case of sleep deprivation.<p>

And it was so…anticlimactic. If dead people are going to come and whisper in your ear, the least they can do is give you all the information. Brenda was expecting a name, address, serial number…for heaven's sake, with a source like that, you should get a lot of information!

But that's not what she got. After more impassioned pleas not to wreck her life like the Brooklyn PD did, she told Brenda her message, and she nearly groaned with disappointment.

_Look in the parent's closet. Hidden high in the parent's closet is important information about who the twins are, and that will lead to the killer_.

The closet? Really? A psychic could tell Brenda she had important information in her closet too, and she'd probably be right: a lost credit card statement under a pile a shoes, her birth certificate stuck between two books she'll never get around to reading. Who doesn't have private crap in their closets? That's what closets are for.

She thanked Katie and said they would be in touch, but Katie wasn't fooled. "Chief Johnson, whether you believe me or not, please look." She reached into her briefcase a second time and came up with a rumpled business card. It read, "Detective Lieutenant Charles H.J. Reardon, Brooklyn Police Department."

"Call Detective Reardon if you don't believe me. Because the twins won't let me get back to my life until you do."

Brenda picked up the phone in her office after Katie left, then hung it up. She couldn't bring herself to call this detective. What would she say? "Did you work with a psychic accountant who sees dead people and is she legit?" She shook her head. She'd sound like an idiot.

Two phone calls from Pope demanding updates she didn't have followed soon after. There was nothing on Ken Kinsky and no evidence to show who killed the kidnapper. The autopsies showed nothing interesting. She was stuck.

Brenda was taught in the CIA to investigate every available avenue when in a tough situation. She refused to tell the squad who the young woman was, so they would have no idea where she was headed when she told them she would be back in a couple of hours. Gabriel, who long ago decided he was her human GPS/personal assistant/overbearing mother, asked several times where she was going, and it wasn't until she bit his head off did he take the hint andleave her alone.

The drive over to the Bannon's large house in Hidden Hills took 30 minutes, and each minute Brenda felt more and more foolish. At least there was no one around to see her folly. There was an officer on duty guarding the property, but SID was long gone. She smiled at the officer and ignored his lingering gaze at her legs as she wandered through the large house to the master bedroom. The closet had been gone through, for the most part, but no one knew how to take apart a room like ex-CIA.

It took three hours, 12 Reese's mini-peanut butter cups, a hammer, and a stepladder dragged in from the utility room, and even then, Brenda felt rather than saw the panel cut into the side of the wall of the very top of the closet shelf. She removed the panel by feel and reached in to find a plain metal lock box. She pulled it out and carefully climbed down the ladder one-handed.

Finally, on terra firma, she picked the simple lock. She wasn't thinking about whether or not this proved Katie's story was true. She wasn't in the mood to grapple with big questions like that. She just hoped she was holding a clue that would move this case out of its "neutral" position to the right direction.

There were just a handful of items in the box. A receipt for $25,000 to a man named Simon Cleo. A withdrawal slip from the bank for $30,000. A few pictures of two sick-looking, underfed babies. And an envelope that read:

_"Adoption" Papers_

_April 28, 2006_

Inside the envelope was a single typewritten paper. It read:

_I, being of sound mind, relinquish my twin daughters, born on August 13, 2005, to the permanent custody of Roy and Naomi Davis-Bannon. I have entered this agreement freely and have not been coerced. I will not, at a future date, seek to regain custody of my children, nor will I contact them in any way, and I am aware that if I try, my drug use will be reported to the police, along with other criminal behavior. I was paid $30,000 for my time and effort._

_Signed... Date..._

Brenda looked at the signature. She squinted, twisted the paper, turned it upside down. And for the life of her, she couldn't read the name of the person who signed the document. Mestef Yoodel? Nurbll Tibruz? Brenda hoped there was a "bad handwriting" specialist at the LAPD.

Brenda put her glasses back on and reread the makeshift adoption papers and the mystery signature, stopping to stare at those two sickly babies who could only be the Bannon twins, and her temple began to throb in an uneven, painful beat.

**End Chapter 1**

**More to come...**

**Reviews are welcome. Thanks! **

18


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes: Hmmm, it would seem that people only seem to like to read my smut... :(**

**Thanks,LadyFey, for editing this story. If only we could get a few people to come along and read it.**

**Hey, you should be reading The Brides of Frankenstein by ManateeMama. Another awesome story from the Procedural Queen.**

****The Veil, Chapter 2****

Later on that afternoon, Brenda stood in front of her squad and shared the contents of the hidden safe in the Bannon's bedroom. They looked back at her, brows furrowed, and like she taught them, dissected each bit of information she presented and turned it around, examined it, compared it to what they already knew, and questioned her. Normally she would be proud of their critical thinking skills, but today she just wanted to yell at them to shut up.

"So you knew to drive back to the Bannon's house and dig through their closet how?" Gabriel said, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head at her. Brenda suspected he was just busting her chops because she dared to go somewhere without taking him along.

"And how do we even know these kids are Kerry and Andrea Bannon? The date on the envelope was a year before they were born," added Flynn, around a toothpick.

"Everyone I've talked to said the Bannon's were good people," contributed Tao. "No criminal history either. Not the type to illegally buy themselves a couple of kids and pass them off as their own."

"Excellent questions, gentlemen," Brenda said wearily. "And if you'd stop grillin' me and start followin' up like I ask, I'm sure your amazin' police skills will give us the answers we need." She impatiently shifted from one foot to the other.

"You have a source, don't you, Chief?" said Sanchez. "That librarian-looking chick I met in the elevator yesterday. She said she had things to tell you about this case." He leaned back in her chair and looked pleased with himself.

"You know what the benefit of bein' the boss is?" Brenda said, losing her patience. "I don't have to answer your questions, but you have to answer mine." She picked up her purse. "Y'all got your assignments. I want a report in three hours." She stormed off to her office and shut the door, throwing herself into her office chair like she used to flounce onto her bed when she was a teenager. She opened her candy drawer and pulled out a Twix, a spasm of excitement passing through her at the thought of losing herself in chocolate and caramel for five minutes.

When the empty wrapper was balled up in her hand and the last bit of sweet escape faded away on her tongue, she was forced to come back to earth and face the situation. The mysterious papers raised all sorts of questions relevant to the investigation. In the grand scheme of things, she was, of course, glad to find out the additional information. Her conundrum was Katie LeGuin. What exactly was she supposed to tell her squad? The whole thing was a lucky guess, she told herself. Closets are always full of secrets. Still, part of her felt uncomfortable and angry at Katie—and of the ghost girls who supposedly passed on the information. For heaven's sake, if you are going to be an informant, provide information that's useful!

An idea dropped in her head and she sat up straight in her chair. There was another person who knew what it was like to deal with Katie LeGuin and her vague messages while trying to solve a case. Calling the detective in New York would also give her the chance to check on the veracity of Katie's story.

Brenda rummaged around her messy desk, looking for Detective Reardon's business card. It was an utter mess, covered with files about the current case strewn about on top of papers from earlier cases, last week's newspaper, a Halloween party invitation, candy wrappers and a couple of empty coke cans, and her hunt felt similar to an archaeological dig. Brenda spotted what she was looking for next to several photos of the Bannon family, Her eyes, and attention, were drawn to a picture of the Bannon twins and the phone call was momentarily forgotten. She picked up a photo of Kerry and Andrea in soccer uniforms, the green of a well-kept field the backdrop, their hair mussed and eyes bright. The girls looked quite a bit like each other but clearly weren't identical. Kerry had a round face and shoulderlength curly, unruly dark brown hair that instantly Brenda related to. She imagined all the mornings in the Bannon house that involved a comb, hair balm, a patient mother and a reluctant little girl who was tired of getting her hair pulled. In the picture Kerry was missing her front teeth, but that didn't stop her from smiling with abandon. Andrea seemed to have won the "hair gene" toss-up, and Brenda saw only a slight wave in her bobbed tresses. Identical blue eyes pegged them as sisters, and looking into their little faces,Brenda felt rage twist her insides at the futility their murders. _No no no_, she admonished herself, and she peeled off the emotions evoked by the little girls' image like one sheds a wetsuit. _There is no room for distractions like feelings in a murder investigation. _

After a few steadying breaths, she picked up the rumpled business card she had unearthed from teh cacophony on her desk and dialed.

"Detective Chuck Reardon, Homicide." The voice on the other end of the phone was loud and upbeat with a New York accent as thick as a Hollywood mobster's.

Brenda introduced herself, all the while debating how she should play this. According to Katie LeGuin, the man was a convert, and Brenda wanted a lot more proof before she sacrificed her devotion to rational thought. She didn't want to insult him.

"Ho ho, a call from LA!" boomed Detective Reardon. "You got some big celebrity coming to Brooklyn that you need special protection for? If so, sure hope it's a hot lady movie star who needs someone to show her the town." He chuckled.

As she spent her days with the profoundly cynical Flynn and Provenza, Brenda found his friendliness and warmth refreshing. She couldn't help but smile.

"No, sorry sir, Angelina Jolie and her gaggle of kids aren't comin' to Brooklyn, as far as I know," she said. "I'm callin' with a slightly stranger inquiry." Here goes nothing. "You know a woman named Katie LeGuin? She used to live in New York a few years back."

"Ahh, yes." The groans and creeks of an old office chair could be heard through the phone, and Brenda pictured the man moving from a casual reclined position to one hunched over the phone. "I know Katie. Did she come to you with information on a case? One that she got from a -different source?"

_Well, he made that easy_, she thought. "Yes, that's right. Tell me Detective, is she what she claims to be?" Brenda felt embarrassed. She couldn't believe she asked such an uncharacteristic question.

"If you are asking about her being an accountant, I can assure you she is. She did my taxes for me a couple of years ago and got me a huge refund." He had adopted a teasing tone, but Brenda wasn't in the mood.

"Sir, that isn't what I was talking about. The…other stuff. The coma and the, um, unique abilities she claims to have. She told me that you believed her."

"Don't you? Look, I get it, Chief Johnson. I definitely had her pegged as some kinda kook when she first started coming around with information about a triple homicide I was working on. It wasn't until the day I actually listened to her and solved the case that I finally accepted what she was. We're cops, so we are trained to look for proof. Mediums are people with names like 'Madame Zelda' who read cards in New Ages shops. I had to wrap around the fact that she really is able to communicate with the deceased. When faced with the truth, I had no choice. I had to believe." He paused, and Brenda heard more chair springs groan. "I'd like to save you from the same doubt, Ms. Johnson, for Katie's sake."

"I'm not goin' to be showin' up at her job or callin' her friends," Brenda said. "At worst, she's harmless. I did take her, um, _suggestion_, and found things in a location she named. But honestly, it could have been a lucky guess. But that doesn't make it any easier when my squad wants to know where I got my information from. I thought since you dealt with Ms. LeGuin, you might have some ideas…"

"Oh, I have some ideas, Chief Johnson," the detective interrupted. "Ones that will save you a lot of grief. First of all, stop trying to talk yourself out of the obvious. I wasted a lot of time during a critical investigation assuming she knew what she knew because she was involved. I put that poor girl through a lot of grief at first, and I feel real crappy about that." Brenda could hear the regret in his voice

"So how did you explain…"

"I told the truth," Detective Reardon said. "I knew I was gonna get crap about it, and I had to make sure and get a confession or else obtain evidence from sources besides Katie in case it was brought up in trial, but for the most part, I was honest."

"How did people react?"

"By that point, with deep gratitude. They didn't understand it—hell, I don't understand it, how victims come back and whisper in her ear, freaks the hell outta me to be honest—but just stuck with the truth and people accepted it. You know, Chief Johnson, you just might find that people are a lot more open-minded than you think they are."

"Ha. You haven't met my squad," Brenda said.

"Listen to Katie," he said again. "She hates her gift she has and would only risk you doing to her new life what I did o the old one if she really was getting information. The girl would rather be behind a computer figuring out someone's taxes than getting involved in a murder case. She never signed up for this in the first place, so go easy on her."

Brenda rolled her eyes and murmured comforting sounds. Truth was, her general policy was never too easy on anyone,

* * *

><p>When she stepped out of her office a few hours later, there was a palpable energy coursing through the murder room, a low hum that electrified the air. It was synergy; when one person found out an answer to someone else's question, more questions were borne, and then answers found, and so on, as a successful investigation builds and feeds on itself to an eventual climax. <em>This is why I became a police officer<em>, Brenda thought, pausing to watch her people buzz from the phone to the white board to each other. The straining and stretching toward the truth was the most exhilarating thing she had ever experienced.

"Chief!" Provenza cried when he saw her. "We got good stuff here. Things were a hell of a lot simpler before you found that other crap, but we have some answers for you."

"Let's wait until Fritz gets here," Brenda said. "I called him about a few things." As if on cue, the elevator opened and Fritz stepped out, looking rumpled and tired. Brenda glanced at the clock. Was it really 10PM?

She walked to the white board and found an open, pristine space in which to jot down a few notes. "Let me start," she said. "I wanted to find out who, if anyone, knew that those kids didn't belong to the Bannon's, because I just have this feeling that the whole illegal adoption thing is at the center of this.  
>"To review, Dr. Bannon was a well-respected psychiatrist, and Naomi Davis-Bannon co-owned two art galleries, one in San Francisco and one in LA. She and her husband lived in San Francisco up until six years ago. They appeared to have moved right after the illegal adoption." She squinted at her handwriting on a legal pad and wondered where she had put her glasses. "Both were well liked by colleagues, had friends, no criminal history. Mr. Bannon was estranged from his parents but did have contact with his sisters, who live in the Seattle area. Ms. Davis-Bannon's parents are dead, and she had a brother in Santa Fe she saw once a year. As we already know, Naomi had pretty severe clinical depression, and was hospitalized twice in her twenties and two more times about seven years ago. Seems she was desperate to get pregnant, and she kept havin' miscarriages. It was sendin' her around the bend."<p>

"Who told you that?" asked Gabriel. "You and I interviewed her best friend Maggie Lu the other day, and she didn't say anything about babies. She just said the little girls were the center of Naomi's life."

Brenda nodded. "I talked to Maggie Lu again tonight and confronted her with what we found. I was sure she had to know, but she was shocked to hear about the adoption, and in fact said she wasn't going to believe me until I could produce evidence."

"Wait, she didn't tell her best friend that those kids weren't hers? I don't believe it. Women tell each other everything," said Tao.

"Let me finish. In 2006, when they were still in San Francisco, she said Naomi just had her fourth miscarriage, and she found out that, because of her psychiatric problems, she couldn't adopt from China. She was in a real dark place, and then she just left. She told Maggie she was going to a special clinic in Switzerland to rest up, which Maggie thought was strange. She turned over the running of her art galleries solely to her partners. While she was gone the family moved to LA when Roy agreed to come and join the practice of two medical school colleagues, something these guys had been trying to get him to do for years, and all of a sudden, he just called and said, 'count me in.' All this movin' and supposedly goin' to recuperate in a clinic far away meant no one saw Naomi for about a year and a half. And when they did, they were holdin' twin baby girls Naomi had supposedly given birth to."

"That's bullshit," said Provenza. "First of all, the birthdate written on the envelope shows the babies in this picture are a year older than Kerry and Andrea. How in the world did people not notice that she had particularly large kids? Not to mention that a woman dying to get pregnant would tell everyone she was carrying twins, and since she didn't, that had to raise a few red flags," Provenza shook his head. "Something isn't right here."

"I thought the same thing," Brenda said. "But Maggie Lu told me that Naomi said she was superstitious about the supposed pregnancy because of all the other losses, and that the twins had been born early and were sickly. Given her fragile mental health history, Maggie said people bought that." Provenza considered this for a second, then nodded. "Also, I noticed something on Dr. Morales' autopsy report, something he probably didn't think was all that important. X-rays of the twins show two things: question of nutritional deprivation in infancy, and bone age shows that they are 7 years old, not six. Look at the pictures of those two I found today. Those kids were 9 months old and don't look older than four months or so."

"They were so small, and most likely so behind developmentally, that it was easy to pass them off as younger," Tao said. "Foreign orphanages do that all the time in order to get older kids adopted by Western parents who want pre-verbal children."

"My thoughts exactly," Brenda nodded. "And Roy was a doctor, I bet dollars to donuts that he took the kids to a pediatrician friend off the books."

"Speaking of radar…" Fritz said. "I got the information you wanted." He put his briefcase down on a nearby desk and pulled out a manila folder. "Well, part of it. Chief Johnson gave me a copy of the kids' birth certificates, and asked how they could be forged. The answer lies in the receipt for $25,000 to Simon Cleo. Mr. Cleo is part of a large crime syndicate that specializes in giving people new identities. If you have the money, his group can get you new papers for any country you want to go to. The Bureau has been after them for years, but they are slippery SOB's. The question is, how do fine, upstanding citizens contact criminals who contract for the Mob?"

Flynn half-raised his hand. "I think I might have the answer to that. Chief, you wanted me to find criminals in the Bannon's life. I talked to like ten family members before I got to this one. Let me see: Roy Bannon's sister Carol's ex-husband's brother-in-law's brother spent ten years in a federal prison in the 90's for racketeering. With a little cajoling Carol remembered a hypothetical conversation about the people her ex-brother-whatever might know if someone needed a new identity. She didn't think anything of it, except it was a strange thing for Roy to ask her. I'm trying to get ahold of this guy, but no one seems to be able to find him nowadays."

"Good work, Lieutenant Flynn."

"Speaking of faked records," Gabriel said. "I spoke with the IT department at Good Samaritan Hospital, where the twins were supposedly born, according to their birth certificates. Medical records were opened for both girls on their fake birth date, so at first glance it does look like they were born there, but the records are empty."

Brenda suddenly felt tired and sat down on top of a nearby desk. Her head was spinning, shards of data flying around like pieces of a puzzle, connecting and breaking apart. A sick realization was dawning over her, one that she wanted to turn her face away from and not look at, but she couldn't. Her job was all about the truth.

"Well, gentlemen, everyone did a great job verifyin' what was found in the lock box. DNA results will be back tomorrow for confirmation. But the bottom line is…" she sighed. "We still don't know who killed those little girls and Ken Kinsky. We can guess as to motive…perhaps the mother returned after all these years wantin' her babies back. We had a case similar to that a few years ago, and Lieutenants Flynn and Provenza may remember. Maybe even Kinsky's the father. All this information and, at the end of the day, all we have is…diddley." Exhaustion and frustration pressed against her with meaty hands, and she looked at the various pictures of the Bannon family taped to the white board. _I have failed you_, she thought miserably.

The squad made noises of disagreement, pointing out how well they know the Bannon's compared to three days prior, it was just a matter of time…but Brenda didn't want to hear it. She gestured to Fritz to follow her and she turned toward her office, saying to the men behind her, "Go home, everybody. See y'all tomorrow." Fritz's hand was soon on her lower back and she indulged herself in a moment of warmth from him, sucking it up greedily. It was amazing how the smallest touch, or a smile or simply watching him do something banal like the morning dishes, was able to rejuvenate her.

Her small respite of calm was rudely ended as she approached her office door. Due to the darkness of the late hour and extinguished hall lights, she almost overlooked the large mass at her feet. Katie LeGuin was sitting on the floor, out of sight of the murder room, her arms wrapped around her knees as if trying to tighten herself into a ball. Gone was the suit-clad accountant with every hair in place; rather she wore faded jeans and an old paint-splattered gray sweatshirt. Her rumpled clothes matched the look of confusion and exhaustion she wore on her face, and her hair looked like she had combed her hands through it repeatedly. Katie stood as soon as she saw Brenda and Fritz, anxiety palpable around her like a swarm of bees.

"Whoa," Brenda said, startling at Katie's sudden rise from the floor. "How in the world did you get in here? It's after hours!"

Katie shrugged. "No one noticed me." Brenda frowned at her, then gestured for Katie to enter her office. Fritz followed, with an eyebrow raised at Brenda.

"What are you doin' here so late at night, Katie?" Brenda asked, sitting in her office chair and leaning her elbows on the desk. "It better be good, cuz I'm frustrated and in a real bad mood."

Katie was eying Fritz suspiciously. "It's okay, that's my husband," said Brenda. "You got any more messages from beyond the grave, you can say them in front of Fritz." At this, Fritz's eyebrows almost reached his hairline, but Brenda ignored him. She would think of something to tell him later.

"You're tired and frustrated?" Katie said, a hint of anger in her soft voice. "I was trying to sleep and I kept getting woken up by the twins. I gave up and came down here, figuring you would be working."

She sighed. "They're driving me crazy. I have a huge project due at work and I have these two buzzing around me like flies. Please solve this case, Chief Johnson, before I go crazy."

"The twins?" Fritz asked, looking back and forth from Katie to Brenda. The women ignored him.

"Did the little girls give you somethin' useful, like, say, a name?" Brenda asked. "Cuz without that, I don't know what you can tell me that's gonna be more helpful than what I found in their house."

Katie pulled a piece of paper folded into quarters from her pocket. "I'm not much of an artist, and taking instructions from a couple of 6-year-olds isn't easy." She handed the picture to Brenda, who unfolded it and smoothed it out. "Kerry said it was the last thing she saw before she died."

On the paper was a drawing of a design of sorts, interlocking symbols circumscribed by a dark band. Brenda recognized an Ichthys at the center, the simple fish used to symbolize Christianity, and within the fish's body was the Eye of Horus. The tail formed the top part of a Star of David. Sitting on the slope of the fish's back was a crescent moon, the symbol for Islam, and nestled below was a yin and yang. All this was encircled by a thick black circle.

"What the hell is this?" Brenda asked testily. "Besides the cover of a World Religions textbook."

"The last thing they saw," Katie repeated. "The papers said they were smothered, right? Both girls told me that a lady had this picture on her arm."

"A tattoo," Brenda said. Katie nodded. "It looks like something that would be tattooed on someone's arm, maybe their forearm. And a lady…okay, so we know the killer is a woman."

"I have one more thing for you, Chief Johnson, but it's not helpful." She took a ragged breath. "I'm so sorry things aren't clearer. You have to understand, they are still six years old, so getting details out of them is like pulling teeth."

"The twins?" Fritz repeated. "You've been talking to the twins?" He wore a look of utter confusion.

"Later, Fritz," Brenda said sharply. She looked at Katie. "Okay, what other cryptic tidbit do you have for me?

"The girls were emphatic that I say this to you: this is bigger than just the two of them."

Brenda just stared at her. Katie cast her eyes down and turned toward the door. Brenda extended her finger and pointed at her. "Stop right there. I need answers. What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Katie shrugged and opened the door, glancing quickly at Fritz before turning back to Brenda. "I asked you earlier today, please don't shoot the messenger. I can ask questions but it doesn't mean they will be answered. I'm giving you everything I have." And with that, slipped out the door and was gone.

"Brenda, who in the world—" Fritz started, and she quickly interrupted him.

"Not now, Fritz, my head is spinnin'." She glared at him, and she knew he knew her well enough to back off when necessary.

She felt the strong urge to cry but fought it back. She didn't want to believe the young woman, but something in her gut told her Katie was right. And if this case was bigger than she knew it to be…

Was it too big for her?

**END Chapter 2**

**I would really if to know if anyone is reading this…please review if you are. I am trick-or-treating for feedback...  
><strong>

10


End file.

Closer, Drama, Mystery