Chapter Text
Alone, surrounded by the flames, gunshots aimed toward her…closer and closer….she could smell the burning wood, the scorched walls, rising walls of crackling, snapping fire all around her….help, where was help? Where is my team? Ferocious heat eating up the floor…help….no one hears her cries…I can’t breathe….I can’t…..
“No!”
Lieutenant Elizabeth Scott woke up in total darkness, drenched in sweat, trembling, tears streaming down her cheeks, heart accelerating, wrinkled sheets tangled around her in disarray, as she’d struggled through the recurring nightmare.
“Damn it, damn it,” her voice was raw and raspy through the silence of the early winter morning. The same black dream she’d suffered for months since her injury. It never changed, never altered; always the same: She didn’t survive the flames that consumed her.
Crawling out of bed, she slithered to the floor, leaned against the mattress, sweat swamping her as she struggled to catch her breath.
In and out, slow it down, just like Dr. Orchard had taught her.
Knees pulled up to her chin, she closed her eyes, and took slow, easy breaths. Don’t fall apart now, she told herself. Just a dream.
“Breathe,” she ordered herself in a weak voice. “Just breathe,” she cried softly.
Long moments and dozens of calming breaths later, she slowly rose to her feet on unsteady legs, and took a dozen stumbling steps to the tiny kitchen to brew a small pot of coffee.
While the enticing scent of the strong brew filled the room, she lifted her damp ancient gray police academy t-shirt over her head on her way to the bathroom. She turned on the shower, then stepped under the tepid spray, gasping at the frigid pounding of water, lifting her face to the welcome waterfall. She allowed the water to drown her while she gathered her thoughts – and her composure. She was alive, that’s all that mattered. But the horror of the reality her night terrors were quite real.
It had been months since she’d faced the fire that had nearly killed her and members of her squad. She’d suffered mild smoke inhalation and minor burns to her hand and wrist during the melee while pursuing and apprehending a local arsonist who’d gone on a rampage and killed six.
The overwhelming evidence, plus the fact that his failed attempted to trap and kill five cops in an abandoned building didn’t do much for his defense.
His arrest and conviction may have been wrapped with a big red bow, but for Liz, the horrors had just begun. The burns she’d suffered had required several skin grafts over a period of weeks, but the outward visible scars equaling the inner wounds that remained were a constant reminder of the horrors of that day.
The outcome earned her team, Detectives Donald Ressler, Alina Park, and Meera Malik, a commendation. Liz was awarded a promotion to Lieutenant, at the tender age of thirty.
Standing under the water, she could still smell the smoke, feel the heat of the flames coming closer, licking at her skin, taking the oxygen from her lungs, and Liz realized it was the closest she’d come that close to death for the first time since she’d become a cop.
Every day she fought the PTSD that threatened her sanity, and at times like tonight, the nightmares were brutal, filled with paralyzing fear. It was always the same. Surrounded by heat, smoke and rising flames, she found her voice gone when she screamed for help, but no one came to her aid, no one to lead her from the fiery walls that threatened to turn her to ash.
Therapy had come in the person of Dr. Selma Orchard, the department’s psychiatrist, the woman who helped Liz get through difficult times. She’d become a welcome lifeline which allowed Liz to get back to the job sooner, rather than later. Instead of taking an extensive leave of absence from the job after the injury, however, Liz buried herself deeper and deeper into her work, and the more she worked, the less time she spent worrying about the nightmares. The physical scars on her wrist and palm, bold and visible, were proof that she’d survived. But she promised herself never to show the inner wounds to anyone, except Dr. Orchard.
Turning off the water, she stepped out of the shower stall, wrapped herself in a fluffy towel, grabbed a huge mug of black coffee, then returned to her bedroom to get dressed. While she drank, she looked at the bedside clock. Six a.m. She shrugged. Might as well get an early start, go into the office, catch up with her much-detested budget paperwork.
Peering out the bedroom window, she frowned, looking up at the dreary billows of grey clouds passing through the area on this mid-January day. “Looks like snow again,” she sighed, then decided on a gray turtleneck gray sweater along with comfortable black slacks. She pulled on knee-high lace up boots, tucked her slacks inside them, then shrugged into her weapon harness then slid her gun inside the worn leather casing. She combed her fingers through her long dark waves as an afterthought.
She shrugged inside her long black leather winter coat, pulled on her knit cap, then dropped her badge, some cash, and keys in the deep pockets. She reached for her religious St. Michael medal, gripped it, broken chain and all, then slid it in another pocket. The medallion had been given to her in the hospital by her team after the fire. She wasn’t a religious person, per se, but she cherished the silver oval medallion that portrayed the mighty winged archangel defeating Satan. She carried the talisman with her every day.
After filling a thermos with the remaining coffee, Liz left the apartment, and briskly took the stairs from the second floor down to the lobby of her Soho apartment building. Stepping out into the bitter winter wind that nearly took her breath, she sprinted to her car, silently hoping the engine would start.
Climbing into her banged up, ancient Honda sedan, she shoved the key inside the ignition. Gripping the ice-cold steering wheel, she softly cursed, realizing once again she’d lost her gloves, and couldn’t, for the life of her, remember where she’d misplaced them.
“Yes!” she exclaimed as the engine turned over. She patted the dash tenderly, like a beloved pet who’d obeyed her command. “Atta girl,” she cooed, then turned on an oldies station. She pulled from the curb without warming up the vehicle and made her way through the downtown streets of Manhattan, and toward One Police Central.
She received a communications notification on her in-dash screen. It was her Commander, Harold Cooper.
“Commander.”
“Scott,” he addressed her in a gruff voice. “Incident at the Reddington Towers, 2460 Central Park East. You’re primary. Get there.”
Activating her siren, she contacted her partner, Detective Meera Malik, then proceeded to squeeze through the myriad of humanity and sped to her destination in minutes.
***
Double parking her vehicle, she stepped onto the sidewalk, scanned the high-rise building, then flashed her badge to the uniform who guarded the entrance.
“Lieutenant.”
She nodded.
“Twelfth floor,” he informed her as they stepped through the double glass doors, and onto the elevator.
“Talk to me, officer.”
“We have a homicide.”
“Who made the call?”
He shook his head. “Woman down the hall saw the door open, called out and when she saw the body, she panicked, screamed, woke up the neighbors. Forensic team is inside.”
Liz stepped from the elevator, left the officer to stand watch. She spotted security cameras as the door to the twelfth floor opened and spotted her expert electronic expert across the room. “Aram.”
“Lieutenant.”
Aram Mojtabai was a top-level security expert and all-around computer tech genius with a sweet disposition and a razor-sharp mind. “Too early for this kind of thing, don’t you think?”
“For murder?” she raised eyebrows. “Never. Take me through.”
She acknowledged a scattering of cops and forensics, then followed Aram through the pristine apartment, all chrome and glass. The only splashes of color filling the space were large vases of flowers in a myriad of hues and shapes. Mentally, Liz absorbed the scene, memorizing every detail of the room, then pulled her mini recorder from her coat pocket, turned it on to record the scene.
One of her detectives, Donald Ressler, stepped forward. “Hey Lieutenant,” he nodded in greeting.
“Ressler,” she returned the greeting. “Where’s the victim?”
“The bedroom right through there,” he pointed straight in the direction of several techs and other police personnel.
“Make sure the scene is secure, Detective.”
“Already done.”
She spotted another Detective, Alina Park, entering the scene. “Park. No one goes in or out of the building. Make it happen.”
Liz turned back to Ressler. “Give me what you have, Detective.”
He referred to a little notepad. “Victim is identified as Madelyn Pratt, Caucasian, age thirty-five, Broadway actress. She was shot in her own bed.”
Brows raised, Liz nodded for him to continue.
“Shot twice in the heart, dead on. Looks like a .38. But you’ll see for yourself.”
Forensics were busy as she entered the scene and was handed gloves as she spotted the body on the bed. “Let’s pull the security footage from the elevator and hallway.”
“Working on that,” he answered.
She smelled the blood as they stepped into the spacious bedroom, all white and pristine, except for the blood splatter that now dominated the area. After ten years on the job, Liz found herself repeatedly disgusted when she walked onto a murder scene. It seemed that people never ran out of ways to hurt and kill another human being. She focused on the body sprawled face up on the white bed linens, eyes blank as they stared up at the ceiling. Blood oozed from her wounds, saturating her white nightgown and dripping onto the thick white carpeting.
She turned to the sound of her partner at the doorway. “Hey Lieutenant,” Detective Meera Malik greeted Liz, then stared at the bloody scene. “What a mess,” she proclaimed.
“Murder is seldom neat and clean,” Liz commented, her eyes flat and focused. Together, they approached the bed.
“You know who that is, don’t you?” Malik joined Liz as both approached the victim in order to inspect the body.
“Yeah, some actress,” Liz answered, her interest concentrated on the woman.
“Yeah, Madelyn Pratt,” Malik told her. “She’s won four Tonys and is a legend of the Broadway stage.”
“Okay, well, right now she’s a dead legend, and we need to take care of her. Where’s the wit who found her?”
“She’s across the hall, in her apartment, crying, in shock.”
Liz nodded. “Okay, try to get her to give a brief statement. The more she remembers now, the more information we’ll have to work with. After her, let’s get a canvas going for the rest of the floor.”
Before she left the area, Malik looked sympathetically at the victim, sighing in resignation. “She was so talented and beautiful, who could have done this?”
“That’s where we come in,” Liz stated as forensics spread out inside the room to gather possible evidence. “Do we have a weapon?” she asked as Ressler entered the area.
“None on scene, Lieutenant. The shooter must have taken it.”
She nodded. “Okay, keep looking. If the shooter left shell casings, they must be here.”
Liz approached the bed while a tech took photos of the body. When his nod told her he was done, she leaned over the body, and with gloved hands, gently, respectfully, closed the sightless eyes of the former beauty.
Once a lovely woman, Liz examined the lifeless body, torn apart by the insult of bullets that left ugly holes in her chest. The flesh exhibited a sickly gray pallor against the stark white of the nightgown and bed linens. With a careful hand, Liz carefully lifted one cold manicured hand, then the other. “No tissue under the fingernails,” she told Ressler, who approached. “She didn’t defend herself, which means she knew her killer, probably let him or her in.”
“A crime of passion?” Ressler helped Liz turn the body over.
Liz gave him a thoughtful glance. “Maybe. I’ll find out more after the autopsy.”
“Horrible way to die.”
“Yeah.” She found no exit wounds, then carefully turned her once more, onto her back. “We’ll take care of her.”
As Ressler stepped away to take a call, Aram stepped up to Liz. “I’m going to take in the security cameras and check her electronics right away. I found a tablet, a cell. Hopefully we’ll get some answers.”
“Maybe she had a date book,” Liz began as she walked to the large armoire in the corner of the room and systematically began to rummage through the contents. Nothing out of the ordinary; linens, underwear, nightgowns, as well as exercise tanks, shorts and the like.
She found dozens of bottles of designer perfumes and creams atop a long triple dresser, along with lotions, creams, hair care products, loads of make-up.
Stepping over to a large walk -in closet, she opened the door to a plethora of fashion. Liz wasn’t surprised to see that the actress owned a wealth of clothes, shoes, bags, given her successful profession.
She hit pay dirt in the small office located in a small alcove outside the bedroom. Opening the neatly kept draw, she rifled through papers and two leather bound journals. One held names, addresses and phone numbers, and the other one was thick and saw that it was a date book.
Liz grabbed both, then lowered herself to the hard wood floor, and began to leaf through the mostly filled in pages.
“What did you find?”
“Her contacts, and appointments,” she told Ressler without looking up. “Seems she was very organized.” Liz turned pages with gloved hands, glancing through the entries in both books, then automatically, turned to the last page. “What was your last entry, Miss Pratt?” she murmured, hoping to catch a break.
“Ah….” she nodded in satisfaction. “This may be something," she stated as Ressler looked over her shoulder. “Look at this here, dated yesterday.”
“What is it?” he inquired.
“It says, ‘dinner with R.R., nine p.m’.”
“Raymond Reddington.” Ressler stated.
Liz was non-plussed. “How do you know that?”
He shook his head. “Liz, do you ever pick up a newspaper? Check the internet?” At Liz’s shrug, he continued.
“The man owns not only owns this building, but most of the city, and he’s been a friend of Madelyn Pratt for years.”
Liz perked up. “Pick him up.”
“Lieutenant, you just don’t ‘pick up’ Raymond Reddington.”
“Why the hell not?”
“You’ve never heard of him? He’s an import/export billionaire. Turns everything he touches into gold. His lawyers will block us like a brick wall.”
Liz stood, placed the journals in an evidence bag, then shook her head. “I don’t care who he is, Ressler. Let’s locate Mr. Reddington and find out if he was the last person to see the victim alive.”
They left the small office and returned to the bedroom to find the medical examiner’s team removing the body, leaving behind a clean-up crew, and a blood splatter expert.
Staring at the scene once more at the remnants of blood marring the startling white, she sighed, and with Ressler on her heels, she left the apartment.
Now her work could begin.
And it started with the owner of the building, and the name of the man that had been the last entry in Madelyn Pratt’s journal.
Raymond Reddington.