REBUILDING
Chapter 8
This begins just after the events of the last chapter, but is set primarily during A Person of Interest
Thank you as always, Spook, for beta'ing this for me. And thank you Spook and Judy for input on this last chapter; there was one section I was insecure about and your encouragement helped immensely.A week after Bobby brought the puppy home she still didn’t have a name. There was a debate raging among the three children and Annie was staying out of it. She just smiled as Bobby looked at her over the heads of the arguing children.
“I like Buster,” declared Phillip.
“I want Skip like in the movie,” Andrew argued.
“Those are boy names and she’s a girl. She should have a girl’s name, like Jewels from 102 Dalmatians,” was Ally’s contribution.
Finally one night, Bobby sat them down to referee and try to come to a consensus as to what to call the puppy. He let them present their positions again and listened seriously to each one.
He told the boys, “Your sister has a point that she is a girl dog, so Buster or Skip might confuse people and make them think she’s a boy.”
“But Jewels is too girly,” protested Andrew.
“She is a girl,” said Ally primly.
“But she’s not
girly,” insisted Phillip.
Bobby held up his hand for silence. He thought for a moment and then suggested, “How about Sandy?”
“Like in ‘Annie’?” asked Ally, interested.
“But Sandy was a boy,” pointed out Phillip.
“Yes,” Bobby said, “in the movie Sandy was a boy. But it can be either a boy’s name or a girl’s name. And she is yellow like Sandy was in the movie.”
All three children were quiet for a moment. Then Andrew nodded his head.
“I like Sandy,” he said.
“Me too,” said Phillip.
Bobby looked at Ally and asked, “How about you, Sweetheart?”
She smiled and said, “I like Sandy, too.”
For the next two months Sandy gradually learned her name. Even more gradually she learned to potty outside. Spring approached and the snow melted, making it easier to convince Sandy to go outside.
As spring vacation for the children approached, Annie talked to Bobby about going to Grandpa’s. He was doing well since his heart surgery and she wanted to take the children to spend time with him. Bobby agreed, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to get time off. Annie was able to get a week off, but had to be back at work on Friday.
About a week before they were to leave, Bobby and Alex caught the case of a former Air Force nurse who had been murdered. As usual, he didn’t give her too many details, but once it became clear it was somehow related to missing anthrax she knew that there was no way Bobby would be going with them to Connecticut.
They left on Friday and would return the following Thursday. As Bobby kissed her before she got in the car, she teased him about eating out while they were gone. He enjoyed going to Sal’s, and tended to eat there most nights any time she and the children were out of town. While Annie was used to waitresses flirting with her handsome husband, there was one waitress at Sal’s who was particularly smitten with him. She never seemed to mind that he was accompanied by his wife and would flirt with him outrageously. To Annie’s amusement, Bobby would blatantly flirt back. He told her he only did it because it got them excellent service. She had to agree that the waitress, Rhoda, was very attentive to their table every time they ate there.
Annie kissed Bobby and told him, “Be sure to give Rhoda my regards.” He laughed and kissed her as she got into the car.
It was good to see Grandpa. He was doing well since the surgery, although he still tired easily. He and his housekeeper, Martha, had bonded and he treated her like one of his grandchildren. Martha kept his house clean, prepared his meals, and made sure he took his medications and followed doctor’s orders.
That evening, after the children were in bed, Annie and Grandpa watched the news and saw the press conference that ADA Ron Carver had held outside Haznostics. They were surprised to also see Bobby challenging Dr. Croyden to come in for a blood test to prove his innocence.
Annie and the children enjoyed the weekend. They had brought Sandy with them and she was excitedly exploring Grandpa’s big backyard. On Monday Bobby called her and somberly told her about Croyden committing suicide. They talked for a long time, Bobby seeming to need to hear her voice.
She saw for herself on the news that Croyden had been exonerated. She also heard the speculation that Detective Goren had hounded him until he drove him to kill himself. Bobby called her late Tuesday night and said that he suspected someone had used Croyden to set him up to look “ruthless and incompetent.” He didn’t know who could have done it or why.
Then he called again late Wednesday night. “It was Nicole Wallace,” he said simply. He told her about Nicole following him into Sal’s, taunting him about Croyden and ruining his career, then flaunting her rich husband. He knew she had orchestrated the whole thing, but didn’t know how to prove it.
“What does Alex say?” Annie asked.
Bobby sighed. “She says we’re going to get her back.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Annie said softly.
Again Bobby talked to her for a long time. When they finally said their goodnights, Annie reminded him they would be home the next day and they would talk some more.
They got home the next afternoon. After unpacking and settling in, Annie ordered pizza for dinner. Bobby came home late, but made sure to go in and kiss all the kids.
As they lay in bed that night, Bobby talked about the case, about Nicole, and about going to see her husband that day. He and Alex weren’t able to convince him that his wife was actually a murderer named Nicole Wallace. With her new citizenship and her husband’s money, Nicole seemed insulated. Bobby and Alex were working on a plan that would allow them to arrest her and bring her in for questioning.
When Annie fell asleep, Bobby didn’t get up as he usually did. He stayed in bed with her, holding her as she slept.
Annie was having lunch in the hospital cafeteria the next day, her nose buried in a book, when her attention was pulled from her book by a woman’s English accent.
“May I sit here? There don’t seem to be any empty tables.”
She smiled and indicated the chair across from her. “By all means, you’re more than welcome to join me.” The woman smiled at her and sat down. Annie asked, “Are you visiting a patient?”
“I’m here to see the wife of a friend. And you…are you a doctor or a nurse? Hospital attire is so confusing to me, I can’t tell the difference between a surgeon and a lab technician,” she laughed.
Annie laughed with her. “That would be our American passion for a classless society. I’m a nurse; I work in the Emergency Room.”
The woman leaned forward with interest. “That sounds very exciting. You must see plenty of life and death situations.”
Annie chuckled. “Sure, we see more of those than we would like. But we also see plenty of broken arms, scrapes and bruises, and vomiting children.”
“Well, I think you are probably being modest. I have always admired nurses. You do all the dirty work that the doctors don’t want to do and for much less money.”
“Hmm….are you our new union representative?”
Annie and the woman both laughed. Officers Johna Jones and Harlana Simmons waved hello to Annie from across the room. The woman nodded in their direction and said, “I think that uniformed police officers face the same plight as nurses: All the dirty work for less money than the detectives.”
Annie nodded. “You’re correct; the uniformed officers do work hard. But I know a lot of detectives and I can assure you that they do their share of the dirty work.”
The woman leaned forward and said, “Really? You probably meet a lot of police in your work.”
“Sure, they come into the ER to interview witnesses or they bring in suspects who have been wounded.”
“Wounded suspects? That must be frightening to be so close to violent criminals.”
“Frightening? Sometimes, I suppose,” Annie said. “But all of the cops who come in here are very good at securing someone who might be violent. And if they have been in a fight with the police, then by they time they get here the fight has usually gone out of them.”
“Of course the television makes it look like the police routinely brutalize suspects. Or that they are…what do they call it? Dirty? You know, framing innocent people and all that. Have you ever seen anything like that?”
Annie laughed. “That may make for interesting TV, but no, I don’t know any ‘dirty’ cops.”
“Well then, I’m certainly glad you don’t know this one. If he’s not dirty, his methods seem to be….questionable…at best.”
She opened her paper and laid it on the table, facing Annie. Annie froze as she saw the headline “Scientist Innocent!” The woman read out loud, “Innocent man driven to suicide by ruthless and incompetent detective.” She smiled at Annie. “You have to feel sorry for the detective’s poor family. It must be so humiliating to have your husband’s…inadequacies…advertised on the front page for all to see.”
Annie stared at the paper for a moment and then looked at the woman. She realized now that this was no chance meeting. The blond hair and the English accent should have been clues. But, she reasoned, she wasn’t a detective so why would she have been looking for clues? Just like watching the end of a murder mystery first, the clues were easy to spot once you knew what to look for. The woman’s age, appearance, and voice were all just as Bobby had described. Annie leaned her folded arms on the table.
“Well I guess introductions aren’t necessary, are they? You seem to know who I am. And you are obviously Nicole Wallace.”
“Ah, I see your husband has been talking about me; how flattering. But, poor Bobby seems to be having a terrible run of luck these days. He hounds poor, innocent, Dr. Croyden until he kills himself. And he has once again botched his identification of me.” She held her hand across the table. “Actually my name is Elizabeth Haynes. But please call me Elizabeth…Annie.”
A detached part of Annie’s brain thought how surreal it was to sit here sharing tea and conversation with a serial killer, and wondered why she wasn’t feeling panicky and rushing to call Bobby. But as she looked at Nicole’s smiling face she realized that she wasn’t afraid. Annie wasn’t sure what it was supposed to feel like to be stalked by a killer, but this felt more like…..a game. Nicole was playing a game with her, with Bobby, and she seemed to be enjoying herself enormously. She ignored Nicole’s outstretched hand and steadily held her gaze.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Annie asked.
Nicole’s smile grew brighter and she folded her hands on the table in front of her.
“Oh no, I don’t need anything at all. But you do like to help, don’t you Annie? That’s why you became a nurse. Do you help Bobby with his poor, sick mother? It must be a terrible strain on a marriage to have a mentally ill mother-in-law foisted upon you. Tell me…” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “How hard was it to convince Bobby to lock her away in Carmel Ridge? It must have made things so much easier to have her up there where you can control just how often you’re forced to see her.”
“Is there a point to all this, Nicole? What is it you want?”
“The name’s Elizabeth. Bobby paid my husband a little visit yesterday and I just wanted to return the favor. And I admit to being a tiny bit curious about ‘the woman behind the man’. The brilliant detective and his devoted wife. Although the brilliant part seems to be in question these days.” She lowered her voice and assumed a concerned look. “I do hope that’s not because of any problems at home. It was surprising to see that Bobby ate out, alone, five nights in a row. He isn’t feeling…unwelcome…at home, is he? You know, they have some excellent books on rekindling romance.”
“Your concern is touching.”
“I should think you would be concerned, too. Has it occurred to you that your husband’s anger towards Dr. Croyden wasn’t just because he reminded Bobby of his father, but that he sees those same traits in himself?”
“My husband is nothing like his father and nothing like Croyden.” Annie knew it was a mistake to engage in this verbal sparring match with Nicole, but she found herself drawn in.
Nicole smiled smugly. “Really? His father left his sick wife and his children. Dr. Croyden left his sick wife and his child. But you’re nice and healthy, aren’t you? No mental illness, no cancer, and I hope no lingering effects from that vicious attack on you…what was it? Almost two years ago now? Except perhaps a few scars. Do you ever worry that Bobby is repulsed by them? That they remind him of another man’s hands on his precious wife?”
Annie felt as though she had been slapped. Bobby had told her that Nicole was talented at finding a person’s weakness and exploiting it. But she was shocked that she had so easily honed in on one of the few insecurities that Annie had. The scars on her abdomen and back left by the knife that Martin Ramsey had stabbed her with. When she looked at those scars, she felt the pain of losing the baby girl she had been pregnant with at the time.
But it was the suggestion that Bobby was repulsed by her scars that caused her to feel as though Nicole had just thrust a knife into her heart. Annie had never been vain about her looks, but Bobby had always made her feel beautiful. Although he still looked at her the same way he always had, she did indeed wonder if he was repulsed by those scars. Because the truth was that Annie found them repulsive.
As Nicole’s jab hit its mark, Annie felt a flash of anger. She leaned forward and said softly, “The only worry I have about my husband is how frequently he encounters psychotic killers.”
Nicole laughed with delight. “Very good, Annie, very good. But then, not everyone he encounters is a psychotic killer, are they? Some are just poor innocent men who incur his wrath because they remind him of his dear, departed father.”
Annie realized she was out of her league and needed to end this.
“As….ah…interesting as this has been….Nicole….I need to get back to work.”
“Oh, of course, of course. Must get back to saving lives.” Nicole stood up. She carefully folded her newspaper and placed it under her arm. “Do give my regards to Bobby. Tell him that I look forward to more….stimulating….conversations.” She smiled again, then turned and walked away.
Annie sat and watched Nicole until she left the cafeteria. Then she got up and went back to the ER. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Bobby’s cell.
“Hi Babe,” he answered. She could tell he was distracted by whatever he was working on at the moment.
“Um...Bobby, I, uh…had a visitor at lunch.”
“Uh huh…” he mumbled to someone, probably Alex. Then his attention came back to Annie and he asked, “Who was it?”
“Nicole Wallace.” There was silence for several beats and she wondered briefly if he had heard her. “Bobby?”
“Is she there now?” he asked quietly.
“No, she left.”
“Where are you?” His voice was still soft, but there was a strange quality to it that Annie couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“I’m in the ER, of course. I’m at work.”
“Hold on,” he said. He moved the phone away from his mouth and she could hear him speaking to someone, but couldn’t make out the words. When he came back on the phone he told her, “Annie, I want you to stay where you are. I’m on my way over there. Don’t leave the ER; don’t go anywhere alone, just stay where there are other people.”
“What?”
“I’m on my way. Don’t move.”
He ended the call abruptly. She looked at the phone for a moment, confused. She had expected him to have questions, but she hadn’t expected him to drop everything and rush over. Annie went to the reception area and let them know that her husband would be coming to see her. Then she picked up a chart and went to an exam room. She had taken vital signs on the patient and was in the process of asking questions about the woman’s abdominal pain when the curtain around the woman’s bed was abruptly drawn back by Bobby. Annie and the woman both looked up in surprise to see him towering over them. Annie didn’t see how he could have gotten there so quickly.
Bobby told her, “We need to talk.”
“OK…I…I just need to finish…”
“Now,” he cut her off as his hand closed around her wrist and he pulled her after him. Annie handed the chart to another nurse as Bobby pulled her past, and quickly asked her to finish up with the woman. He pulled her down the hallway, then turned to her and asked, “Empty room?”
Annie nodded and pointed to a room. Bobby went into the room, still holding her wrist firmly. He closed the door behind them and only then did he let go of her.
“What did she say?” he asked abruptly.
Annie stared at him for a moment and then said, “Well…she didn’t introduce herself at first; she just asked if she could sit with me in the cafeteria. We struck up a conversation. She said she was here to visit the wife of a friend; I suppose you are the ‘friend’ she was talking about. She asked about my job and then she was talking about nurses in general and then the police and then she laid the newspaper on the table with the story about Croyden’s suicide. She made a comment about the detective in the story….and I realized she brought it up deliberately because she knew I was your wife.”
“And what did you say when you knew who she was?”
“I told her I knew that she was Nicole Wallace. She said her name was Elizabeth.”
Bobby was pacing back and forth in the room. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck as he asked, “Did she say why she came?”
“She said that you ‘visited’ her husband yesterday and she wanted to return the favor, and she said she was curious about me. Then she started talking about your mother and your father and about…well, you know, just the same stuff she has said to you.”
Bobby stopped pacing and looked at her closely. It had always made her feel…cherished…that he could read her emotions and her thoughts so well. But sometimes, like now, there were things she didn’t want to talk about and that same trait of his made her uncomfortable. But she could see it in his eyes; he knew that there was something she wasn’t telling him. And he was not going to let her avoid his questions.
“What else did she say, Annie?”
“Nothing,” she looked down at the floor.
Bobby tilted his head and leaned down to look her in the eye, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He repeated, “What else did she say, Annie?”
She sighed and backed up a few steps. Her hands felt sweaty and she wiped them on her shirt. “She….asked about….the…um…the attack, and my…scars, and…and…how you feel…about….” She trailed off as Bobby reached out and pulled her to him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. She felt tears sting her eyes, but blinked them back. He kissed the top of her head and then pulled away, all business again.
“OK, I sent Eames and Jefferies to pick the kids up from school. They’ll meet us here and then Jefferies is going to drive the four of you to your grandfather’s. We’re investigating the details of Nicole’s citizenship hearing. As soon as we have something we can arrest her on, you can come home.”
Annie stared at him. She wasn’t sure what to respond to first, so she started with his first statement. “You…Eames is picking the kids up?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, as though he were explaining some difficult concept to one of the children. “She’s bringing them here so that Jefferies can drive you all up to Connecticut.”
“We aren’t going to Connecticut, Bobby. I have to work; the kids have school.”
“You
are going,” he said firmly. “I want you away from here, away from Nicole. I doubt that she will leave town right now, so it should be safe to go to your grandfather’s. But Captain Deakins is contacting the police up there and arranging for a squad car to sit outside his house.”
“Nicole is not trying to kill me, Bobby; she’s just trying to upset me and plant doubts about our marriage. I’m not leaving,” she repeated.
Bobby ran his hand through his hair, agitated again. “You are going,” he said. “You may be right about Nicole, but I need for you and the kids to be safe. You’re going,” he repeated.
“No I’m not.” She said each word slowly, emphasizing each one.
His raised his voice now. “You don’t know what she is capable of, so just stop this, Annie! You and the kids are leaving.”
“You are the one who told me a few months ago that she only kills when her victim has something she wants or could harm her in some way, and that there is no advantage to her if she harms me or the kids. I’m not going to be run out of my own home by her little games!”
He suddenly grabbed her upper arms and lifted her until her feet were barely touching the floor. He brought her face close to his. She cringed as he almost yelled, “Listen to me! I can’t concentrate on catching her unless I know that you and the kids are safe. You. Are. Leaving.”
His grip on her arms was painful and tears slipped down her cheeks as she whispered, “Bobby, you’re hurting me.”
He released her immediately and stepped back. He raised his hands with his palms facing outward and backed up.
“I’m sorry, Annie. I…I’m…sorry.”
He turned his back to her and leaned his hands on the wall as he closed his eyes and lowered his head. Annie watched him in shock. She had seen Bobby angry before, but never like this. He didn’t seem angry so much as he seemed….scared. The revelation hit her like a fist in her stomach. Bobby was scared.
She went over to him and slipped in between his body and the wall. His eyes were closed and his breathing was ragged. Annie reached up and held his face gently between her hands. She pulled him down and kissed him gently on the lips. He didn’t respond, but didn’t pull away.
“Babe,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. We’ll leave; we’ll go to Grandpa’s.”
His warm, brown eyes opened and looked deeply into her blue ones. He pulled her into his arms and held her for several minutes.
“I’m sorry, Annie, I’m so sorry.”
“I know, Babe, I know.” She pulled back and looked at him. “I just need to go talk to my supervisor, OK?”
He nodded and kissed her before letting her go. Annie left him in the room and went to find her supervisor. She explained that a family emergency had come up and she needed a few days off. When she got back to the exam room where Bobby was waiting, Alex was there too. And they were arguing about something.
“….and Deakins will pull you off this case,” Alex was saying as Annie opened the door. They both fell silent and looked at her as she walked in and closed the door behind her. She looked at her husband and the frightened look from a few minutes ago was gone. Now he definitely looked angry.
“Why would the captain pull you off this case?” Annie asked.
“He won’t,” Bobby said as Alex answered at the same time, “Because Bobby wants to go threaten Nicole Wallace and tell her to stay away from you and the kids.”
“And that’s why we are leaving town. So there’s no reason for you confront her about this, Bobby.” Annie had never seen Bobby this angry and this afraid. She feared what he might do to Nicole.
“I’m not going to sit back while she stalks my family and threatens my wife.”
Annie walked over to him and put her hand on his chest. “Bobby, please don’t do anything that you’ll regret.”
He backed away from her and said, “I wouldn’t regret strangling the life out of her. But I’ll settle for making sure she knows what will happen the next time she approaches my wife.”
Alex moved to stand in front of Bobby. “You aren’t thinking clearly, Goren. If you do this, it could compromise any case we might build against her. We have a plan in motion to see if she will try to bribe that judge who granted her citizenship. If she does that, we’ll have a reason to bring her in and question her. But if you go rushing over there like an enraged husband, you could blow the whole thing and Nicole Wallace will live happily ever after with her rich husband. Is that what you want Bobby? Is the satisfaction of confronting her over this really worth losing the one chance we might have to put her in prison where she belongs?”
Bobby didn’t answer, but stood staring down at his partner. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Annie had to suppress an urge to laugh at the sight of tiny Alex Eames standing there with a very angry, very large, man towering over her. But Alex stood her ground and held Bobby’s gaze without wavering. Suddenly the anger just seemed to evaporate from Bobby. He looked down and took a step back from Alex. He raised his hands in surrender.
“OK,” Alex said as she turned to Annie. “I left Jefferies in the waiting room with the kids. Let’s get you guys on the road so we can get on with this case.”
They went out and collected the children and Jefferies. The children were excited as they talked and laughed on the way to the car. None of them seemed the least bit curious about being pulled out of school by their Aunt Alex and going on an unexpected trip to Grandpa’s in the middle of a school day. It was just a big adventure for them. At the car Annie realized that Alex had also stopped by their house and packed some clothing for them and collected Sandy, who was curled up in her dog crate in the back of the SUV. Bobby knelt and hugged and kissed each one of the children and made sure they were buckled into the back seat. Before Annie got in the front seat of the department SUV that Jefferies would chauffeur them in, Bobby pulled her close.
“Babe…” he whispered.
She put her finger on his lips to stop him. She put her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear, “Just go get her, Detective.”
He kissed her and helped her into the SUV. She and Jefferies made small talk on the drive to Connecticut. The children were excited at first and alternately argued and played games, before each of them fell asleep. When they reached Grandpa’s, Annie noted there was a patrol car parked outside. The children woke up and after thanking Detective Jefferies (with some prompting from their mother), they all ran up to the house to see Grandpa. Annie thanked Jefferies as well and he helped her carry their things into the house. After he had driven away, she called Bobby and told him they had arrived (although she suspected Jefferies was already talking to Alex) and that there was a patrol car outside the house. They talked for a few minutes and then said “I love you” and hung up.
Except for the patrol car sitting on the street in front of the house, and following them whenever they left the house, it felt like they had simply extended their spring vacation. Two days after they arrived at Grandpa’s, Annie took the kids and Sandy to the beach, followed by their police escort. It was still too cold to go swimming, but the children had fun running up and down the beach with Sandy and digging in the sand. Phillip was holding onto Sandy’s leash when the puppy suddenly began barking. Phillip lost the leash when she took off running at top speed toward a man walking from the road on the other side of the sand dunes.
Annie called Sandy but she ignored her and kept running. She looked at the tall figure walking towards them. The children all recognized him at the same time she did. They all yelled, “Daddy!” and ran after Sandy. He knelt down to pet Sandy and then all three children launched themselves at him. After hugging and kissing them and listening to their excited stories for a few minutes he stood up and walked towards Annie, with the dog and the children dancing around him. She smiled as she watched him. He was wearing her favorite black tee shirt, jeans, and running shoes. When he reached her, he smiled as he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her up. His lips touched hers gently and then pushed hers open for a deep, passionate kiss. He held her like that kissing her for several long moments as Ally giggled and clapped her hands, the twins groaned and hid their eyes, and Sandy barked furiously and jumped up and down. He finally ended the kiss and set her down.
Neither of them mentioned Nicole Wallace as they spent the next two hours playing on the beach with their kids. When they left, Annie noticed that the patrol car was no longer in attendance. Annie had driven Grandpa’s car to the beach and Bobby had arrived in their SUV. The children all wanted to ride back to the house with Daddy. Back at the house, Annie made lunch. Afterwards, she left Bobby talking to Grandpa while she and the children packed their clothes to go home. Bobby loaded the car and put Sandy in her crate for the ride home as Annie and the children hugged Grandpa goodbye.
They didn’t talk about Nicole until the children were in bed and asleep that night. Annie locked the bathroom door as she showered and dressed for bed. She sighed as she looked in the mirror at the bruises on her upper arms, where Bobby had grabbed her the day Nicole came to the hospital. They were beginning to fade, but were still visible. She could see his fingerprints clearly delineated on her skin. She knew that he already felt incredible guilt for having handled her so roughly and wasn’t sure how he would react if he saw the bruises he had left. It was too warm to wear long sleeves so she pulled on a pair of cotton sleep pants decorated with grape vines and wine glasses and the white three-quarter sleeve shirt embroidered with a matching design. The sleeves covered the bruises without being too warm.
Lying in bed, Bobby told her all that had happened with Nicole; how she had taken their bait and tried to bribe a judge, which allowed them to arrest her and bring her in for questioning. During the interview, Bobby and Alex tricked her into thinking she had been exposed to the anthrax virus and she revealed that she had been vaccinated for it. Since there was no record that Elizabeth Hitchens had ever been vaccinated for anthrax, but Nicole Wallace had, Ron Carver was able to get a court order for a blood test. Once they were able to prove that she was Nicole Wallace, she would be charged with murder. For now she was in jail. Bobby expected her husband to bail her out, but he no longer felt there was any danger for Annie and the children. She noticed that he didn’t say very much about the interview itself, but she knew that Nicole would not have given in easily.
“So what did Nicole say this time?” she asked as she lay with her head on his chest and his arm around her shoulders.
“Oh, you know, she tried to get to me, to distract me from asking questions she didn’t want to answer.”
“Like what?”
Bobby sighed and ran his fingers through her long blond hair. “Well, last time she tried to get to me by talking about Mom’s illness. This time it was Dad and how he abandoned us. That was the whole point of using Croyden. She knew he was like my father and I wouldn’t be able to remain objective. She counted on me going after him like I did. She asked if I was worried that I would follow in my father’s footsteps and abandon my family.”
“She asked me if I worry about that, too,” Annie said.
“What did you tell her?”
“I said that all I worry about are the psychotic killers you have to deal with.”
He laughed and tilted her head back to kiss her. Then he said thoughtfully, “Nicole is so…intelligent, and she reads people so well. She had the strength and determination to survive her childhood. Intelligence, insight, strength…with those character traits she could have been anything. She played a literature professor so well; she could have actually been one. But instead she let the anger and hatred for her parents turn inward towards herself and outward towards everyone else. She could have been anything, but she chose to use people, just about everyone she met, to act out all the anger of her childhood.”
Annie was silent as she thought about what he had said. Finally it made sense why this killer, more than any of the others he had arrested, held a bizarre fascination and revulsion for him. Nicole had told Annie that Bobby saw his father’s traits in himself and it angered him. But she realized that Bobby saw himself in Nicole, and it both frightened him and attracted him. It repulsed him to see how she used people and murdered without conscience, yet he couldn’t resist wondering if the “sparkling little girl” was still in there and if she could be saved, in spite of all she had done. He had survived his childhood too, but had made different choices in his life. Maybe he was afraid that he could just as easily have become what Nicole had become.
Her musings were interrupted when Bobby shifted positions so that he was facing her. He looked at her face and ran his thumb across her cheek.
“About those things she said to you. About your scars…” Annie opened her mouth to stop him, but he put his finger across her lips. “Shh…let me say this. I know that even after two years, it’s hard for you to look at them. Those scars are a part of who you are, the experiences that have made you who you are, and there is nothing ugly or repulsive about them to me.”
Bobby pulled her so that she was lying on her stomach next to him and lifted the hem of her shirt to expose the scar on her lower back. She tried to pull the shirt down, but he pushed her hand away. He leaned down and gently placed a kiss on the scar. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart rate accelerated at the feel of his lips on her skin. He lowered her shirt and rolled her onto her back. He smiled at her as he again lifted the hem of her shirt and leaned down to kiss these scars also; one on the right side of her abdomen and the other just under her left breast. She was definitely having difficulty breathing now. Bobby raised himself up and rested on his elbow as he looked down at her.
“The scars don’t bother me at all, Babe. But this does,” he said as he reached for one of her sleeves and pulled it up to reveal the bruises she had been hiding. He gently ran a finger along the bruise. His face reflected his guilt and his revulsion over what he had done.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered.
“I know you didn’t.”
“But there’s no excuse for this,” he said.
“No there isn’t,” she agreed.
He looked up from the bruise and met her gaze.
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked.
She kept her eyes on his as she answered. “No, I don’t. But this can’t happen again. Ever.”
He nodded and ran his thumb over her cheek. Annie put her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her. He kissed her as his hands again slipped under her shirt.
As they lay together later, Annie’s head on his chest, she listened to the comforting thud of his heart. She thought about Nicole and the turmoil she had brought into their home. She was glad she was in jail, and she hoped that once she was convicted she would be in prison for the rest of her life. She shifted her weight to snuggle closer to Bobby and his arm tightened around her. She felt him kiss the top of her head.
“I love you Annie,” he whispered.
“I love you, too, Bobby,” she whispered back.
End Season 2This is the last chapter of this story. I will be working on a story for season 3, but I don't know how long that will take. So far I have a few ideas but no BIG story. Thank you all for reading and for your comments.
I have been spending the day reading - and NOT reading what I had planned. 
for Bobby and Alex to have to deal with. Can't you just see Ally getting upset over the boys suggesting Buster or Spot? 