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numb3rsflashficTitle: Somewhere Between Perception and Reality
Pairing/Characters: Don/Charlie
Rating/Category: R/Pre-Slash
Word Count: 12,535 words (yeah, totally not a FLASHfic)
Spoilers: Through Numb3rs 3.13 Finders Keepers; through SPN 2.13 Houses of the Holy.
Summary: Dean and Sam’s next hunt takes them to LA.
Notes/Warning: Crossover with Supernatural with a Sam/Dean ER
Written: March 11, 2007
Prologue: Providence, RI
“Hey!” Dean grabbed the wadded up cheeseburger wrapper Sam had just bounced off his forehead and lobbed it back at him. Sam’s dark head had been bent over the laptop when Dean returned with dinner, and he hadn’t looked up when Dean set the food in front of him and told him to eat, so Dean was surprised to realize that at some point Sam had emerged from his computer-induced trance long enough to discover the food and eat it.
Sam batted the wrapper away with an easy swat of his hand, which just got Dean even more annoyed. “What the hell was that for?”
“I’ve been calling your name, Dean, but you’ve been too engrossed in . . . . What is it you’re watching, anyway?” Sam stared at the television screen for a moment, and then his eyes went big and round. “Is that Molly Ringwald?”
Dean fumbled around on the bed until he found the remote, thumbed the television off. “I wasn’t really paying attention, just got tired of flipping the channels.”
“Uh huh.”
In a blatant attempt at misdirection, Dean said, “So what did you want?”
Sam gave him a long, appraising look before he said, “I think I’ve found something.”
“It’s about time.” Dean was sick of staring at these same four walls. Though he was going to miss those magic fingers. And if Sam was honest, he would, too. “Where we going?”
“LA.”
“LA?” That was all the way on the other side of the country. “Geez, Sam, couldn’t you have found something any further away?”
Dean wasn’t really complaining; he loved to drive. And he’d go anywhere as long as it got Sam away from this place where his faith had been tested and found lacking, if not completely shattered.
“Quit your bitching. I thought you wanted to get out of here.”
“I do. So tell me what you found.”
Dean opened another of the Little Debbie snack cakes he’d gotten when he’d stopped at the gas station during his take-out run. He stuffed the entire thing into his mouth, and only then realized that Sam was staring at him instead of running off at the mouth about whatever spirit or zombie or vampire he’d come across out in LA. “What?” Pieces of snack cake flew everywhere.
Sam snorted and shook his head. “That’s disgusting, man.”
Dean grinned as he chewed, unrepentant. He licked his lips to get any cream or crumbs he might have missed, then said, “That’s not what you were saying last night, Sammy.” Dean could see the flush on Sam’s skin from all the way across the room. Score! He added a point for his side to the mental tally in his head.
Sam looked down at the computer screen Dean doubted he needed to reference, and cleared his throat. “Anyway, there have been three mysterious deaths in LA over the past six months.”
“Wow, three unsolved deaths in LA. That is a shocker.” Dean reached into the bag and debated, yellow sponge cake or chocolate?
“I didn’t say ‘unsolved’, wise ass. Though they are, or rather, they weren’t considered suspicious. No evidence of foul play.”
“But you disagree.” It wasn’t a question. Sam had that look he always got when he’d caught the scent of something out of the ordinary.
Sam licked the salt off his fingers from the last of his fries and took a drink of soda before he responded. “Like I said, I think they’re mysterious.” Sam tossed his trash into the small garbage can he’d moved near the table, then shifted on the chair so he was facing Dean while he laid out his findings. “Three healthy men suddenly dropped dead of heart attacks after exhibiting symptoms of exhaustion. No suspicious markings or bruises on their bodies except for a small red mark on their chest, sort of like a birthmark. However, each of the deceased men’s significant others - wife, girlfriend and, in one case, boyfriend - claim they didn’t have any type of marks on their chests before they got sick.”
Dean perked up. If Sam was right, this was something they hadn’t faced before. “So, let me get this straight.” Dean held up the hand not currently fondling a sponge cake and ticked off the items on his fingers. “Otherwise healthy men, exhaustion followed by death, unexplained red mark on the chest. Hmm. You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Depends. If you’re thinking succubus, yes, if you’re thinking anything that has to do with magic fingers or snack food, no.”
Dean grinned. Oh, yeah, no matter what he said to the contrary, Sam liked the magic fingers. And Dean knew from experience that Sam wasn’t averse to the things Dean could do with the snack cakes, either. It was going to be difficult to not think about it now that Sam had brought it up, but Dean figured the wait would be worth it. “You figure out how to kill it yet?”
Sam held their father’s journal up, then tossed it to Dean across the small space separating them. “Thought I’d leave something for you to do, bro.”
Dean sighed and reluctantly set the grocery bag aside. He’d forgo the cream-filled goodness if it got them out of here sooner. He flipped through the journal, looking for a reference to succubus, which he was certain he’d seen before when they’d been searching for something else. “What if it turns out to be nothing?” Sam wasn’t usually wrong about these things, but it was a long drive to LA.
“Then we can spend a couple of days relaxing at the beach,” Sam said. “Not like we couldn’t use the downtime.”
Especially Sam, Dean thought, but he couldn’t resist poking him a little bit. “You do realize that it’s not really warm there right now, right?”
“Better than shoveling out from under a couple feet of snow,” Sam retorted.
Sam had him there. “True. Okay, so where to do we start when we get there? These guys all had wives or, uh, significant others, you said?”
“Yeah, but we should start at CalSci.”
“Why CalSci?”
“Because all three victims had ties there. One was a professor, one worked in the admissions office, and the other was a student.”
“That’s a pretty big connection between the vics. No one else caught it?”
Sam shrugged. “Either they didn’t catch it, or they didn’t think it was important.”
“Hmm.” Dean nodded, then gave Sam his best evil eye. “And you were gonna tell me about this when?”
Looking overly pleased with himself, Sam grinned. “I’m telling you now.”
“Uh huh.” In retaliation, Dean shoved his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and jiggled the five bucks in quarters he’d gotten at the gas station.
Sam’s expression turned incredulous. “You didn’t.”
Dean grinned and raised his eyebrows at Sam, watched him pink up a little bit. Oh, yeah, he had plans for later, with Sam, the snack cakes, and the magic fingers. Dean frowned. Maybe he should have gotten a whole roll of quarters. Well, they’d make due. He dragged his attention back to his father’s journal.
“So this thing is loose on a college campus? Great. That sounds like a succubus’ wet dream. Heh, wet dreams all around.”
“Dean, it killed three people.”
Sometimes Sam got so serious, so focused, Dean wanted to shake his single-mindedness. “Good times right up til the end, though.”
Sam looked horrified. “You are seriously warped, you know that?”
Dean grinned. “Yep.”
“Are you seriously telling me it wouldn't creep you out to know that something had been inside your head, digging around until it found out what your deepest desire was, and then using it against you? I mean, even if it didn’t kill you, it’s a . . . a violation!”
Dean shuddered. No, he didn’t like the idea of anyone messing around inside his head, especially something that would use what it found to fuel dreams it fed off.
Sam looked vindicated, and a little bit relieved, at Dean’s reaction. “And the fact that these things can take on any human form means it could be anyone. Student, professor, janitor . . . .”
“Librarian.”
Sam glared at him. “Funny, Dean. All I’m saying is, it’s gonna make the search a little bit harder.”
“Easy would take all the fun out of it.”
Dean could hear Sam rolling his eyes. “Whatever, man.” After a moment Sam added, “You know, these things can alter perception, so it could even be someone everyone just *thinks* is the janitor.”
“Luckily we won’t be affected.”
“How do you know that?”
Dean didn’t know, so he did the next best thing and ignored Sam’s question. Before Sam could press him for an answer, Dean found the page he’d been looking for, skimmed it. Iron. “Found it. Looks like we’ll be hitting the hardware store on the way out of town.” He went back to the top of the page and read it through more carefully.
LA
Charlie was scowling at the whiteboard when Amita cleared her throat to get his attention. He turned around to find her perched on the corner of his desk. She waved and smiled at him.
“Hey, Charlie.”
“Amita! Sorry, I didn’t . . . .” He gestured toward the board. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I noticed.” She smiled when Charlie started to apologize again, waved it away. “That’s all right. What are you working on?” She studied the board. “Isn’t that the equation you were using to help Don on his last case?”
Charlie sighed as he turned back to the board. “Yeah, I just, I’m trying to figure out where I went wrong with it.” He used his thumb to rub out the portion of the equation he’d just added.
“What makes you think you went wrong with it?”
“Because it didn’t solve the case!” Charlie looked at the black stain on his thumb, resisted the urge to wipe it on his pants.
“No, pure chance solved that case.”
“Yeah.” Charlie punched one fisted hand into the palm of the other. “Dumb luck.”
“You heard Don, sometimes it just happens that way.”
“Yeah, I guess. I just . . .if I’d gotten the answer sooner, or if I could have, you know, reduced the search area more, maybe then . . . .”
Amita slid off the desk and curled her fingers over Charlie’s shoulder, squeezed. “You can’t always be the hero, Charlie, life doesn’t work that way.”
“Hero? I’m not . . . . I don’t . . . . I just like being able to help Don.” Truth be told, Charlie liked the way Don looked at him when he came up with something that helped them solve their cases, liked the feeling he got low in his gut when Don would pat his shoulder, say, “Nice job, buddy, thanks.”
“They caught him, and the woman he attacked is going to be fine, that’s what’s important, right?”
“Yes, of course! Of course.” And it was. He knew that. He did. But the fact that they caught him because he had a sweet tooth and not because of Charlie’s genius mathematics niggled.
Amita checked her watch. “Hey, listen, I’ve got to get going, but I was wondering if you were free tonight, since you don’t have to run any more numbers for Don.”
“Tonight? Uh, yeah, yeah, tonight’s good. What did you have in mind?”
He and Amita had finally taken their relationship to a new level - making out on the couch, holding hands - which is what he’d been wanting, a normal relationship, but for some reason he’d been dragging his feet about taking it any further than that. Sometimes he wondered if normal would forever be out of his grasp, and how much of the blame for that could be laid at his own feet.
“I thought dinner and a movie. Maybe coffee at my place later.”
“Coffee?” Was that a euphemism? Amita just smiled in response, and Charlie decided that it was. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but said, “Yeah, that . . . dinner and a movie sounds great.”
“Okay, then.” Amita slid her hand down Charlie’s arm. “I guess I’ll see you later.”
*~*~*
Dean tossed the FBI badge to Sam over the roof of the car. Sam caught it, flipped it open, and grimaced at it before shoving it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “You see the irony here, right?”
Dean just grinned. Sam rolled his eyes. Sammy should know him well enough to not have to ask that.
Sam followed Dean across the campus lawn and up the steps of the health clinic. Thirty minutes - and two pretty ladies expecting Dean’s phone call - later they returned to the Impala with the information they needed. In addition to the three deaths they’d already known about, there had been nearly forty cases of exhaustion reported last semester. A dozen was the norm, and the clinic had reported the higher than average numbers to the administration, suggesting that they implement stress-reducing measures immediately.
Sam had folded the list of names the receptionist had been happy to print out and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He’d managed to give her a polite smile goodbye while she made eyes at Dean, but as soon as they were in the car Sam reached into Dean’s jacket pocket and pulled out the two post-it notes with the phone numbers on them, ripped them up, and scattered the pieces out the window in a shower of pink confetti.
“Hey!” Dean lunged across Sam and made a half-hearted grab for them. His lips were right next to Sam’s ear when he said, “I might have wanted to call one of them while we were in town.”
Dean pulled away, smirking at how easy it was to get Sam all worked up, but before he’d settled back into his own seat, Sam reached between Dean’s legs and squeezed.
“Fuck you, Dean.” Sam’s voice was harder than his grip.
Dean’s laugh turned into a groan and he let his head fall back against the headrest, looking at Sam through half-lidded eyes as he pushed into Sam’s hand. “Later. But only if you’re a good boy, Sammy.” Dean knew that Sam could see the effort it took for him to push Sam’s hand away. “Right now we’ve got work to do.”
“I hate you.”
Dean willed his erection down and managed a grin as he turned the key. “No you don’t.”
*~*~*
Charlie yawned. His date with Amita two nights ago had gone fine. They’d had a good time at dinner - the food had been delicious, the service excellent, and most importantly, there had been no awkward silences - and the movie they’d chosen to see, Freedom Writers, had been interesting. Though Charlie hadn’t thought they’d stayed up that late talking after Amita had invited him up for coffee, he couldn’t seem to shake the fatigue that had been plaguing him ever since he’d fallen asleep on her couch.
Nor could he forget the dream that had brought him awake, shaking as he came in his pants, and caused him to sneak out in the night, agitated and embarrassed, without even leaving a note for Amita. Each time he’d run into her since that night, Charlie had felt discomfited by her presence and quickly found an excuse to be elsewhere. Not the best way to nurture a relationship, he thought, irritated with his own inability to commit to Amita. If Charlie had ever wondered whether his abnormal desires had lessened over the years, his dream was evidence that they hadn’t.
He was mid-yawn when the knock sounded on his door. Charlie completed the yawn with a snap of his jaw, then called out, “Come in!”
The door was pushed open and two young men in dark suits stepped into his office. The one standing on the right, who had lighter, shorter hair and wore a slight grimace as he tried to make his suit jacket fit more comfortably over his shoulders, took the lead.
“Excuse me, we’re looking for Professor Charles Eppes.”
“That’s me.”
He pointed to himself and then his partner. “Special Agent Carter, Special Agent Anderson; we’re with the FBI.” They both pulled out their badges, flashed them at Charlie, then tucked them back away inside their jackets.
“The FBI?” Charlie spared a brief moment to observe that the FBI agents were getting younger and younger - and wondered if that was a side effect of him getting older - before his stomach clenched in fear as he thought that these agents might have come here to tell him that Don had gotten hurt.
“Yes. We’d like to ask you some questions about Angelo McBride.”
“Angelo McBride?” Charlie steadied himself with a hand on his desk, let his initial reaction bleed away as he wrapped his mind around the direction this visit had taken. Charlie had been Angelo’s thesis advisor until Angelo’s untimely death last semester. “Is this about his death?”
“Yes, it is,” Agent Carter said. “We understand that you were one of Mr. McBride’s professors.”
“Yes, Angelo had taken several classes from me over the past couple of years. Before he died, though, I was acting as his thesis advisor.”
Agent Anderson produced a small notebook and a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket, flipped the notebook open to a fresh sheet of paper, and looked at Charlie. “Can you tell us anything about Mr. McBride’s behavior in the days immediately prior to his death?”
“Well, he, uh, he was extremely tired. He turned in an incomplete chapter, which was . . . very unlike him.” The two agents exchanged glances, and Charlie took the short break in their questions to ask one of his own. “I thought Angelo’s death had been ruled natural. A heart attack. Why is the FBI investigating it now?”
Agent Anderson said, “We have reason to believe that Mr. McBride’s death might not have been natural.”
Charlie got a little bit lightheaded at that disturbing news. “Not natural? But . . . what reasons?”
Agent Carter frowned at him, as if he wasn’t sure how much he ought to reveal about their case, which pricked at Charlie’s pride. “You know that my security clearance is probably higher than yours, right?” It was petty to remind them of that, but he was tired, and besides, Don should have called him to let him know he was sending agents over to interrogate him. He’d have to give Don a piece of his mind about that later.
Agent Anderson gave Agent Carter an undecipherable look, then said to Charlie, “There have been three deaths under similar circumstances, all three men either worked at or attended CalSci. Because of the similarities in their deaths and their connection to CalSci, we’ve decided to take another look.”
Charlie dropped into his chair, fatigue evaporating at the sudden rush of adrenaline. Three . . . . He struggled to remember the other deaths. “Who else . . . ?”
Agent Anderson flipped back two pages in his notebook. “In addition to Angelo McBride, a Paul Schaeffer in Admin, and a Professor Carl Lebowski in the . . . .”
“Physics Department.” Charlie remembered hearing about Professor Lebowski’s death, because Larry had known him, but he hadn’t connected Angelo’s death with Lebowski’s, and he didn’t remember hearing about Paul Schaeffer. Didn’t know if he’d have thought anything untoward if he had, especially since Angelo’s and Lebowski’s deaths had been attributed to natural causes and had occurred several weeks apart. “Why are you just looking at this *now*?”
Agent Carter said, “It just came to our attention.”
“Can you tell us the names of any students that Mr. McBride was friends with?” Agent Anderson asked.
“I don’t . . . know. I didn’t know Angelo outside of class. He spoke of a, uh . . . .” Charlie broke off, unsure how the agents would take the information. Not that it was a secret, and the police probably already knew, anyway.
“Boyfriend?” Agent Anderson prompted.
“Yes. Angelo spoke of him once in a while, I think his name was Sean, but I don’t know his last name. Other than me, and of course Amita and Larry, I don’t know who else Angelo hung out with. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Agent Carter said. “Can you give us the last names of Amita and Larry?”
“Amita Ramanujan and Larry Fleinhardt. They, uh, they’re both professors here. Well, actually, Larry’s not here right now. He’s on sabbatical, on the, uh, space station. Amita was a student at CalSci. I was her thesis advisor a couple years ago.” Charlie knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself, the words just kept pouring out of him.
“Can you tell us where we can find Professor Ramanujan’s office?” Agent Carter smoothly interrupted, while Agent Anderson dutifully wrote the names down in his notebook, and then took down the office number when Charlie told him that Amita’s small, windowless office was located on the third floor of this building.
“So you never met this Sean?” Agent Carter continued the questioning.
“No.”
“Do you know if he was a student here?”
Charlie frowned. “I . . . no, I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Agent Anderson said. “Were you familiar with Professor Lebowski, at all?”
“I knew of him, because he worked in the same department as Larry, Professor Fleinhardt, but we weren’t close, or anything. Although, now that I think about it, Amita might also have known Professor Lebowski; she got her second PhD in Astrophysics.”
“All right, well, I guess that it’s for now.” Agent Anderson recapped his pen.
“Do you have any idea who might have done it, who might have killed Angelo and the others?”
Agent Anderson snapped his notebook closed, tucked it back into the pocket inside his jacket. “Not yet, Professor Eppes, we’ve only just started our investigation. Right now we just need to talk to people who knew Mr. McBride, as well as the other victims, and see what leads we can turn up.”
“Thanks for your help, Professor,” Agent Carter said, bringing the interview to a formal close, and the two men departed.
“Yes, of course.”
Charlie sat quietly after they’d left, staring at his cluttered desk, thinking about Angelo McBride and how little Charlie actually knew about his former student, about the bright future that might have been Angelo’s if his life hadn’t been cut short by what Charlie had thought was a heart attack. He should have questioned a heart attack in someone so young, but had thought nothing of it, other than the feeling of sadness one experiences when loss hits that close to you. And now three men were dead due to this . . . whatever it was.
Charlie wondered if that meant the FBI was looking for a serial killer that was targeting the CalSci campus. He tried to remember when Paul Schaeffer had been killed, to see if he could discern a pattern, then remembered that Don hadn’t warned him the FBI was looking into this case, even though Don was aware that Charlie had known one of the victims. Hadn’t warned him that there might very well be a serial killer loose on the campus, which was unlike Don. Charlie pulled out his cell phone and thumbed the speed-dial for Don’s cell. It went to voice mail, so Charlie left a message.
*~*~*
“Try Professor Ramanujan next?” Dean asked when they stood in the hallway outside Professor Eppes’ office.
“Yeah, she’s closest,” Sam said. “We passed a staircase back this way.”
Moments later they stood outside Professor Ramanujan’s office, her name on one of those cheap interchangeable plaques attached to the wall outside the door. When there was no answer to their knock, Dean tried the doorknob. It was locked. Sam read the schedule taped above the plaque.
“She has a class right now,” Sam said. He copied the schedule into his notebook. When he was done, he checked his watch. “Looks like she has a break between classes. If she comes back to her office, we’ve got about half an hour to kill.”
“Okay.” There was no way Dean could just stand here and wait for her, so it was a good thing they had other stops to make. “Registrar or Admissions?”
Dean watched Sam think, his head moving side to side as he weighed their options.
“Registrar. If we can get Angelo’s class schedule, we might be able to get a list of students who were in the same classes, maybe find out if any of them knew Sean.”
“Registrar it is,” Dean agreed, following Sam back to the stairs they’d just climbed.
Sam turned his head, checking each alcove as they passed the offices. “We just need to find the Administration Building. There’s probably someone in one of these offices we could ask for directions.”
“I’ve got a better idea.”
“Oh, yeah? What?”
Dean laughed as he waved the campus directory he’d snagged off Professor Eppes’ desk in front of Sam’s face.
Sam brushed it away and glared at him. “Knock that off, man, you sound demented.”
“You’re still just jealous,” Dean said as he flipped through the directory to the campus map.
Sam rolled his eyes, but Dean just grinned at him. “Find it yet?”
When they got to the Registrar’s Office, Dean smiled his ‘I’m harmless’ smile, ready to turn on the charm as he explained what they needed. However, most of the office staff were in a meeting, so unless they wanted to wait until the meeting ended, the only person they had to talk to was a student who worked in the office on a work-study program. His name was Brad. Dean knew this because Brad had given Sam the once-over when they’d stepped up to the counter, then smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Brad. How can I help you?”
Dean had wanted to tell him that Sam was already spoken for, thank you very much - and a glance at Sam had told him that Sam knew exactly what he was thinking - but a nearly imperceptible shake of Sam’s head and a heel to the instep denied Dean the satisfaction. Dean stepped back and let Sam lead the conversation, doing his best not to glower at the kid, since they needed him willing to share information. Within twenty minutes Sam had gotten Angelo McBride’s class schedule from last semester, as well as the rosters for each of those classes.
This time when they walked away with a list of student names, Sam was the one with the phone number in his pocket. As they made their way back across campus to Professor Ramanujan’s office, Sam whistled a jaunty tune that made Dean grit his teeth.
“He wasn’t even cute,” Dean said, which just made Sam grin.
“You don’t think so?”
If Sam’s grin got any wider he’d put out an eye. “You’re such a bitch.”
“Jerk.”
“Whatever. You think she’ll be there yet?”
*~*~*
Charlie was talking to Amita when the two FBI agents returned to his office. He’d left the calculations he’d been using for Don’s last case on the whiteboard, even after his discussion with Amita a couple days ago, and Amita had been eyeing them speculatively. She hadn’t mentioned Don, or their date, or the way Charlie had left her house like a thief in the middle of the night, but Charlie was anxiously waiting for the next shoe to drop, so when the two agents, Carter and Anderson were their names, he thought he remembered, showed up in his doorway, Charlie was unduly happy to see them.
“Gentlemen, please, come in.” Charlie moved out from behind his desk and waved them into the room with an extravagant gesture. If anyone thought it odd, they didn’t remark upon it. “Have you met . . . ?”
Both agents and Amita shook their head. “Oh, well, Amita, these are Special Agents Carter, and Anderson.” Charlie paused both times to make sure he had the names correct. “Agents, this is Professor Ramanujan.”
“Ah,” Agent Carter said, smiling at Amita as he held out his hand, “we were just at your office looking for you. We were hoping Professor Eppes would be able to tell us how to find you.”
Amita slid off her perch on the corner of Charlie’s desk and smiled back as she shook Agent Carter’s hand. “Well, it looks like you’ve found me. What can I do for you?”
“The FBI is looking into Angelo’s death,” Charlie said.
Amita’s gaze was sharp when she looked at Charlie. “I didn’t know that.”
“No, I, sorry, I got caught up in . . . .” He gestured toward the pile of papers on his desk rather than toward the whiteboard, which he’d been staring at as if the answer to his problem was right at the tip of his fingers.
“We’d just like to ask you a few questions, if we could,” Agent Anderson said.
“Of course,” Amita said, “but I thought that Angelo died of natural causes.”
“That’s how it appeared, but we have reason to believe that might not be the case.” Agent Carter looked at Charlie. “Is it all right if we . . . ?”
“Yes, of course, please,” Charlie said. Agent Carter pulled out a chair for Amita, then the two agents sat down across from her. Charlie moved back behind his desk, sat down, and watched as they questioned Amita about Angelo. She was able to tell them Sean’s last name, Cipperly, and confirmed that he was a student at CalSci, but other than that, she was unable to tell them anything more than Charlie had. Charlie was both happy and sad about that; happy that he hadn’t been the only one to know so little about Angelo, and sad because, between the two of them, they had very little information to offer in the search for whoever had killed Angelo and the others.
Everyone glanced over at him when Charlie’s cell phone rang. He mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ and indicated that they should continue as he pulled the phone out of his pocket. He checked the screen and felt a frisson of excitement when he saw that Don was returning his call. He rose to his feet and moved away from the others as he raised the phone to his ear. “Hey, Don.”
“Hey, Charlie, listen, I don’t have much time, what’s up?”
“Oh, okay. I, uh, I just wondered why you didn’t tell me that the FBI was looking into Angelo’s death?”
Charlie heard Megan’s voice in the background, heard Don’s muffled voice respond before Don replied to him with a distracted, “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Charlie. Who’s Angelo?”
Charlie frowned at that. “Angelo is my . . .was my grad student, I was his thesis advisor, he died last semester.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember that now. Sorry.”
Charlie glanced over his shoulder at the others, but they weren’t paying him any attention. “That’s okay, I just, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what, Charlie?” Don sounded annoyed, but Charlie was used to that, so he refused to drop it.
“Tell me that the FBI had opened an investigation into Angelo’s death.”
Don’s tone was sharp, but this time it wasn’t directed at Charlie. “What are you talking about, Charlie? What investigation?”
“There are two FBI agents here, right now, asking questions about Angelo’s death. They said that there’s reason to believe that his death, and the other two similar deaths, weren’t natural, as was originally thought.”
“FBI Agents? What are their names?”
Charlie told Don the names, speaking as softly as he could, then listened as Don instructed someone to run them through the FBI employee data bank. “There’s no Anderson,” Don said a moment later, “but there is a Carter. Tall Hispanic woman?”
Charlie swallowed hard. “No.”
“Okay, Charlie?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re not ours.”
“Uh huh.”
Charlie heard the sounds of Don moving, pulling his jacket on, background noises changing as he went from the bullpen to the hallway. “I’m coming, just, don’t hang up, okay?”
“Okay.”
Charlie’s fingers felt numb, but he managed to lower his hand so the phone was hidden beside his leg without dropping it. He walked back over to his desk, motions a little jerky and uncoordinated, and sat, the phone hidden in his lap beneath the desk. He was relieved that no one had paid him any attention, but then Amita glanced over at him and she frowned.
“Are you all right, Charlie?”
Charlie managed to crack a smile, though he wasn’t certain how sincere it looked. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I-I just . . . .”
“Was that Don?”
Charlie felt the blood rush out of his head. “What makes you . . . ?”
“Did you have a fight?”
The relief made him feel faint. “A fight, no. We . . . .”
Amita glanced over her shoulder at the whiteboard. “You didn’t bring up the last case again, did you, Charlie?”
“What? No.” Charlie glanced up to see the two agents, impersonators, staring between him and Amita with varying degrees of interest and confusion.
“You know, we should probably get going . . . .” the one who called himself Carter said. There was a little frown line in the center of his forehead, as if he was trying to read between the lines of Charlie’s and Amita’s conversation.
Charlie knew that he couldn’t let them leave.
“No!” Everyone looked a little surprised at his outburst, which made Charlie give a huff of nervous laughter. “I mean, please, not on my account. I’m fine, just a little, uh, little disagreement with my, uh, my brother. Besides,” Charlie added, doing his best to keep the men there, “this case, this . . . finding out who killed Angelo, it’s important to me, so, please, if you have any other questions, or if there’s anything that we, uh, that we can do to help . . . .”
The one who called himself Anderson folded his notebook and said, “Thank you, but I think we have all the information we need right now. If we have any further questions, we’ll be back, if that’s all right.”
Amita shrugged. “Certainly. Angelo’s death was a horrible thing, but it would be even worse if he was murdered. If you discover that he was, I’m happy to do anything to help bring his killer to justice.”
“Of course,” Charlie said, wondering what else he could do to keep them there. He pressed his fingers against his lips as the two agents - men - rose from the chairs, watched Anderson slip the notebook into an inside jacket pocket. “You know, I, um, I don’t recall if you said, are you with the LA branch of the Bureau?”
There was a moment of hesitation before Carter said, “Yeah.” He gave a little nod and turned to leave.
“Oh,” Amita said, “then you probably know Charlie’s brother, Don.”
The two men barely reacted, but Charlie could feel the tension building between them.
“Oh, I’m sure if they knew Don they would have mentioned it already,” Charlie said, tried to smile. “LA’s a big, uh, big . . . .”
“Field office?” Amita supplied, giving Charlie a curious look before turning her attention back to the two men. “Don’s an FBI agent, too.”
Carter’s eyes met Charlie’s and Charlie could tell that they knew, they knew that he knew. “Well,” Carter said, “the professor was right, LA is a big office. We’ll be going now.”
Silent communication passed between them in the split second they caught each other’s eyes, and then Anderson was following Carter towards the door, their movements sure and swift, but not rushed. “Thanks for your help,” Anderson said before he slipped out the door after the other agent . . . man.
Seeing them leave, Charlie was torn between relief and frustration.
Amita gave him a wide-eyed look and said, “What was that all about?”
Charlie held his hand up, silently asking her to wait, then lifted the cell phone to his ear. “Don?”
“Yeah, Charlie, I’m still here.”
“Did you hear that? They just left.”
“Okay, listen, Charlie, don’t follow them, okay?” Charlie snorted. “Can you tell me, did they touch anything?”
Charlie’s eye fell on the chairs the two men had been sitting in. “Yeah, they did.”
“Okay, I’m going to get someone over there to dust for prints and take down a description, okay?”
“Yeah, I, okay.” Charlie started to shake. “Don, are you, uh, are you still coming?”
“Yeah, buddy, I’ll be there in five minutes. Hold it together for me, okay?”
Charlie ignored Amita’s thoughtful frown, said, “Yeah, o-okay.”
part two
Pairing/Characters: Don/Charlie
Rating/Category: R/Pre-Slash
Word Count: 12,535 words (yeah, totally not a FLASHfic)
Spoilers: Through Numb3rs 3.13 Finders Keepers; through SPN 2.13 Houses of the Holy.
Summary: Dean and Sam’s next hunt takes them to LA.
Notes/Warning: Crossover with Supernatural with a Sam/Dean ER
Written: March 11, 2007
Prologue: Providence, RI
“Hey!” Dean grabbed the wadded up cheeseburger wrapper Sam had just bounced off his forehead and lobbed it back at him. Sam’s dark head had been bent over the laptop when Dean returned with dinner, and he hadn’t looked up when Dean set the food in front of him and told him to eat, so Dean was surprised to realize that at some point Sam had emerged from his computer-induced trance long enough to discover the food and eat it.
Sam batted the wrapper away with an easy swat of his hand, which just got Dean even more annoyed. “What the hell was that for?”
“I’ve been calling your name, Dean, but you’ve been too engrossed in . . . . What is it you’re watching, anyway?” Sam stared at the television screen for a moment, and then his eyes went big and round. “Is that Molly Ringwald?”
Dean fumbled around on the bed until he found the remote, thumbed the television off. “I wasn’t really paying attention, just got tired of flipping the channels.”
“Uh huh.”
In a blatant attempt at misdirection, Dean said, “So what did you want?”
Sam gave him a long, appraising look before he said, “I think I’ve found something.”
“It’s about time.” Dean was sick of staring at these same four walls. Though he was going to miss those magic fingers. And if Sam was honest, he would, too. “Where we going?”
“LA.”
“LA?” That was all the way on the other side of the country. “Geez, Sam, couldn’t you have found something any further away?”
Dean wasn’t really complaining; he loved to drive. And he’d go anywhere as long as it got Sam away from this place where his faith had been tested and found lacking, if not completely shattered.
“Quit your bitching. I thought you wanted to get out of here.”
“I do. So tell me what you found.”
Dean opened another of the Little Debbie snack cakes he’d gotten when he’d stopped at the gas station during his take-out run. He stuffed the entire thing into his mouth, and only then realized that Sam was staring at him instead of running off at the mouth about whatever spirit or zombie or vampire he’d come across out in LA. “What?” Pieces of snack cake flew everywhere.
Sam snorted and shook his head. “That’s disgusting, man.”
Dean grinned as he chewed, unrepentant. He licked his lips to get any cream or crumbs he might have missed, then said, “That’s not what you were saying last night, Sammy.” Dean could see the flush on Sam’s skin from all the way across the room. Score! He added a point for his side to the mental tally in his head.
Sam looked down at the computer screen Dean doubted he needed to reference, and cleared his throat. “Anyway, there have been three mysterious deaths in LA over the past six months.”
“Wow, three unsolved deaths in LA. That is a shocker.” Dean reached into the bag and debated, yellow sponge cake or chocolate?
“I didn’t say ‘unsolved’, wise ass. Though they are, or rather, they weren’t considered suspicious. No evidence of foul play.”
“But you disagree.” It wasn’t a question. Sam had that look he always got when he’d caught the scent of something out of the ordinary.
Sam licked the salt off his fingers from the last of his fries and took a drink of soda before he responded. “Like I said, I think they’re mysterious.” Sam tossed his trash into the small garbage can he’d moved near the table, then shifted on the chair so he was facing Dean while he laid out his findings. “Three healthy men suddenly dropped dead of heart attacks after exhibiting symptoms of exhaustion. No suspicious markings or bruises on their bodies except for a small red mark on their chest, sort of like a birthmark. However, each of the deceased men’s significant others - wife, girlfriend and, in one case, boyfriend - claim they didn’t have any type of marks on their chests before they got sick.”
Dean perked up. If Sam was right, this was something they hadn’t faced before. “So, let me get this straight.” Dean held up the hand not currently fondling a sponge cake and ticked off the items on his fingers. “Otherwise healthy men, exhaustion followed by death, unexplained red mark on the chest. Hmm. You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Depends. If you’re thinking succubus, yes, if you’re thinking anything that has to do with magic fingers or snack food, no.”
Dean grinned. Oh, yeah, no matter what he said to the contrary, Sam liked the magic fingers. And Dean knew from experience that Sam wasn’t averse to the things Dean could do with the snack cakes, either. It was going to be difficult to not think about it now that Sam had brought it up, but Dean figured the wait would be worth it. “You figure out how to kill it yet?”
Sam held their father’s journal up, then tossed it to Dean across the small space separating them. “Thought I’d leave something for you to do, bro.”
Dean sighed and reluctantly set the grocery bag aside. He’d forgo the cream-filled goodness if it got them out of here sooner. He flipped through the journal, looking for a reference to succubus, which he was certain he’d seen before when they’d been searching for something else. “What if it turns out to be nothing?” Sam wasn’t usually wrong about these things, but it was a long drive to LA.
“Then we can spend a couple of days relaxing at the beach,” Sam said. “Not like we couldn’t use the downtime.”
Especially Sam, Dean thought, but he couldn’t resist poking him a little bit. “You do realize that it’s not really warm there right now, right?”
“Better than shoveling out from under a couple feet of snow,” Sam retorted.
Sam had him there. “True. Okay, so where to do we start when we get there? These guys all had wives or, uh, significant others, you said?”
“Yeah, but we should start at CalSci.”
“Why CalSci?”
“Because all three victims had ties there. One was a professor, one worked in the admissions office, and the other was a student.”
“That’s a pretty big connection between the vics. No one else caught it?”
Sam shrugged. “Either they didn’t catch it, or they didn’t think it was important.”
“Hmm.” Dean nodded, then gave Sam his best evil eye. “And you were gonna tell me about this when?”
Looking overly pleased with himself, Sam grinned. “I’m telling you now.”
“Uh huh.” In retaliation, Dean shoved his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and jiggled the five bucks in quarters he’d gotten at the gas station.
Sam’s expression turned incredulous. “You didn’t.”
Dean grinned and raised his eyebrows at Sam, watched him pink up a little bit. Oh, yeah, he had plans for later, with Sam, the snack cakes, and the magic fingers. Dean frowned. Maybe he should have gotten a whole roll of quarters. Well, they’d make due. He dragged his attention back to his father’s journal.
“So this thing is loose on a college campus? Great. That sounds like a succubus’ wet dream. Heh, wet dreams all around.”
“Dean, it killed three people.”
Sometimes Sam got so serious, so focused, Dean wanted to shake his single-mindedness. “Good times right up til the end, though.”
Sam looked horrified. “You are seriously warped, you know that?”
Dean grinned. “Yep.”
“Are you seriously telling me it wouldn't creep you out to know that something had been inside your head, digging around until it found out what your deepest desire was, and then using it against you? I mean, even if it didn’t kill you, it’s a . . . a violation!”
Dean shuddered. No, he didn’t like the idea of anyone messing around inside his head, especially something that would use what it found to fuel dreams it fed off.
Sam looked vindicated, and a little bit relieved, at Dean’s reaction. “And the fact that these things can take on any human form means it could be anyone. Student, professor, janitor . . . .”
“Librarian.”
Sam glared at him. “Funny, Dean. All I’m saying is, it’s gonna make the search a little bit harder.”
“Easy would take all the fun out of it.”
Dean could hear Sam rolling his eyes. “Whatever, man.” After a moment Sam added, “You know, these things can alter perception, so it could even be someone everyone just *thinks* is the janitor.”
“Luckily we won’t be affected.”
“How do you know that?”
Dean didn’t know, so he did the next best thing and ignored Sam’s question. Before Sam could press him for an answer, Dean found the page he’d been looking for, skimmed it. Iron. “Found it. Looks like we’ll be hitting the hardware store on the way out of town.” He went back to the top of the page and read it through more carefully.
LA
Charlie was scowling at the whiteboard when Amita cleared her throat to get his attention. He turned around to find her perched on the corner of his desk. She waved and smiled at him.
“Hey, Charlie.”
“Amita! Sorry, I didn’t . . . .” He gestured toward the board. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I noticed.” She smiled when Charlie started to apologize again, waved it away. “That’s all right. What are you working on?” She studied the board. “Isn’t that the equation you were using to help Don on his last case?”
Charlie sighed as he turned back to the board. “Yeah, I just, I’m trying to figure out where I went wrong with it.” He used his thumb to rub out the portion of the equation he’d just added.
“What makes you think you went wrong with it?”
“Because it didn’t solve the case!” Charlie looked at the black stain on his thumb, resisted the urge to wipe it on his pants.
“No, pure chance solved that case.”
“Yeah.” Charlie punched one fisted hand into the palm of the other. “Dumb luck.”
“You heard Don, sometimes it just happens that way.”
“Yeah, I guess. I just . . .if I’d gotten the answer sooner, or if I could have, you know, reduced the search area more, maybe then . . . .”
Amita slid off the desk and curled her fingers over Charlie’s shoulder, squeezed. “You can’t always be the hero, Charlie, life doesn’t work that way.”
“Hero? I’m not . . . . I don’t . . . . I just like being able to help Don.” Truth be told, Charlie liked the way Don looked at him when he came up with something that helped them solve their cases, liked the feeling he got low in his gut when Don would pat his shoulder, say, “Nice job, buddy, thanks.”
“They caught him, and the woman he attacked is going to be fine, that’s what’s important, right?”
“Yes, of course! Of course.” And it was. He knew that. He did. But the fact that they caught him because he had a sweet tooth and not because of Charlie’s genius mathematics niggled.
Amita checked her watch. “Hey, listen, I’ve got to get going, but I was wondering if you were free tonight, since you don’t have to run any more numbers for Don.”
“Tonight? Uh, yeah, yeah, tonight’s good. What did you have in mind?”
He and Amita had finally taken their relationship to a new level - making out on the couch, holding hands - which is what he’d been wanting, a normal relationship, but for some reason he’d been dragging his feet about taking it any further than that. Sometimes he wondered if normal would forever be out of his grasp, and how much of the blame for that could be laid at his own feet.
“I thought dinner and a movie. Maybe coffee at my place later.”
“Coffee?” Was that a euphemism? Amita just smiled in response, and Charlie decided that it was. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but said, “Yeah, that . . . dinner and a movie sounds great.”
“Okay, then.” Amita slid her hand down Charlie’s arm. “I guess I’ll see you later.”
Dean tossed the FBI badge to Sam over the roof of the car. Sam caught it, flipped it open, and grimaced at it before shoving it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “You see the irony here, right?”
Dean just grinned. Sam rolled his eyes. Sammy should know him well enough to not have to ask that.
Sam followed Dean across the campus lawn and up the steps of the health clinic. Thirty minutes - and two pretty ladies expecting Dean’s phone call - later they returned to the Impala with the information they needed. In addition to the three deaths they’d already known about, there had been nearly forty cases of exhaustion reported last semester. A dozen was the norm, and the clinic had reported the higher than average numbers to the administration, suggesting that they implement stress-reducing measures immediately.
Sam had folded the list of names the receptionist had been happy to print out and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He’d managed to give her a polite smile goodbye while she made eyes at Dean, but as soon as they were in the car Sam reached into Dean’s jacket pocket and pulled out the two post-it notes with the phone numbers on them, ripped them up, and scattered the pieces out the window in a shower of pink confetti.
“Hey!” Dean lunged across Sam and made a half-hearted grab for them. His lips were right next to Sam’s ear when he said, “I might have wanted to call one of them while we were in town.”
Dean pulled away, smirking at how easy it was to get Sam all worked up, but before he’d settled back into his own seat, Sam reached between Dean’s legs and squeezed.
“Fuck you, Dean.” Sam’s voice was harder than his grip.
Dean’s laugh turned into a groan and he let his head fall back against the headrest, looking at Sam through half-lidded eyes as he pushed into Sam’s hand. “Later. But only if you’re a good boy, Sammy.” Dean knew that Sam could see the effort it took for him to push Sam’s hand away. “Right now we’ve got work to do.”
“I hate you.”
Dean willed his erection down and managed a grin as he turned the key. “No you don’t.”
Charlie yawned. His date with Amita two nights ago had gone fine. They’d had a good time at dinner - the food had been delicious, the service excellent, and most importantly, there had been no awkward silences - and the movie they’d chosen to see, Freedom Writers, had been interesting. Though Charlie hadn’t thought they’d stayed up that late talking after Amita had invited him up for coffee, he couldn’t seem to shake the fatigue that had been plaguing him ever since he’d fallen asleep on her couch.
Nor could he forget the dream that had brought him awake, shaking as he came in his pants, and caused him to sneak out in the night, agitated and embarrassed, without even leaving a note for Amita. Each time he’d run into her since that night, Charlie had felt discomfited by her presence and quickly found an excuse to be elsewhere. Not the best way to nurture a relationship, he thought, irritated with his own inability to commit to Amita. If Charlie had ever wondered whether his abnormal desires had lessened over the years, his dream was evidence that they hadn’t.
He was mid-yawn when the knock sounded on his door. Charlie completed the yawn with a snap of his jaw, then called out, “Come in!”
The door was pushed open and two young men in dark suits stepped into his office. The one standing on the right, who had lighter, shorter hair and wore a slight grimace as he tried to make his suit jacket fit more comfortably over his shoulders, took the lead.
“Excuse me, we’re looking for Professor Charles Eppes.”
“That’s me.”
He pointed to himself and then his partner. “Special Agent Carter, Special Agent Anderson; we’re with the FBI.” They both pulled out their badges, flashed them at Charlie, then tucked them back away inside their jackets.
“The FBI?” Charlie spared a brief moment to observe that the FBI agents were getting younger and younger - and wondered if that was a side effect of him getting older - before his stomach clenched in fear as he thought that these agents might have come here to tell him that Don had gotten hurt.
“Yes. We’d like to ask you some questions about Angelo McBride.”
“Angelo McBride?” Charlie steadied himself with a hand on his desk, let his initial reaction bleed away as he wrapped his mind around the direction this visit had taken. Charlie had been Angelo’s thesis advisor until Angelo’s untimely death last semester. “Is this about his death?”
“Yes, it is,” Agent Carter said. “We understand that you were one of Mr. McBride’s professors.”
“Yes, Angelo had taken several classes from me over the past couple of years. Before he died, though, I was acting as his thesis advisor.”
Agent Anderson produced a small notebook and a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket, flipped the notebook open to a fresh sheet of paper, and looked at Charlie. “Can you tell us anything about Mr. McBride’s behavior in the days immediately prior to his death?”
“Well, he, uh, he was extremely tired. He turned in an incomplete chapter, which was . . . very unlike him.” The two agents exchanged glances, and Charlie took the short break in their questions to ask one of his own. “I thought Angelo’s death had been ruled natural. A heart attack. Why is the FBI investigating it now?”
Agent Anderson said, “We have reason to believe that Mr. McBride’s death might not have been natural.”
Charlie got a little bit lightheaded at that disturbing news. “Not natural? But . . . what reasons?”
Agent Carter frowned at him, as if he wasn’t sure how much he ought to reveal about their case, which pricked at Charlie’s pride. “You know that my security clearance is probably higher than yours, right?” It was petty to remind them of that, but he was tired, and besides, Don should have called him to let him know he was sending agents over to interrogate him. He’d have to give Don a piece of his mind about that later.
Agent Anderson gave Agent Carter an undecipherable look, then said to Charlie, “There have been three deaths under similar circumstances, all three men either worked at or attended CalSci. Because of the similarities in their deaths and their connection to CalSci, we’ve decided to take another look.”
Charlie dropped into his chair, fatigue evaporating at the sudden rush of adrenaline. Three . . . . He struggled to remember the other deaths. “Who else . . . ?”
Agent Anderson flipped back two pages in his notebook. “In addition to Angelo McBride, a Paul Schaeffer in Admin, and a Professor Carl Lebowski in the . . . .”
“Physics Department.” Charlie remembered hearing about Professor Lebowski’s death, because Larry had known him, but he hadn’t connected Angelo’s death with Lebowski’s, and he didn’t remember hearing about Paul Schaeffer. Didn’t know if he’d have thought anything untoward if he had, especially since Angelo’s and Lebowski’s deaths had been attributed to natural causes and had occurred several weeks apart. “Why are you just looking at this *now*?”
Agent Carter said, “It just came to our attention.”
“Can you tell us the names of any students that Mr. McBride was friends with?” Agent Anderson asked.
“I don’t . . . know. I didn’t know Angelo outside of class. He spoke of a, uh . . . .” Charlie broke off, unsure how the agents would take the information. Not that it was a secret, and the police probably already knew, anyway.
“Boyfriend?” Agent Anderson prompted.
“Yes. Angelo spoke of him once in a while, I think his name was Sean, but I don’t know his last name. Other than me, and of course Amita and Larry, I don’t know who else Angelo hung out with. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Agent Carter said. “Can you give us the last names of Amita and Larry?”
“Amita Ramanujan and Larry Fleinhardt. They, uh, they’re both professors here. Well, actually, Larry’s not here right now. He’s on sabbatical, on the, uh, space station. Amita was a student at CalSci. I was her thesis advisor a couple years ago.” Charlie knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself, the words just kept pouring out of him.
“Can you tell us where we can find Professor Ramanujan’s office?” Agent Carter smoothly interrupted, while Agent Anderson dutifully wrote the names down in his notebook, and then took down the office number when Charlie told him that Amita’s small, windowless office was located on the third floor of this building.
“So you never met this Sean?” Agent Carter continued the questioning.
“No.”
“Do you know if he was a student here?”
Charlie frowned. “I . . . no, I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Agent Anderson said. “Were you familiar with Professor Lebowski, at all?”
“I knew of him, because he worked in the same department as Larry, Professor Fleinhardt, but we weren’t close, or anything. Although, now that I think about it, Amita might also have known Professor Lebowski; she got her second PhD in Astrophysics.”
“All right, well, I guess that it’s for now.” Agent Anderson recapped his pen.
“Do you have any idea who might have done it, who might have killed Angelo and the others?”
Agent Anderson snapped his notebook closed, tucked it back into the pocket inside his jacket. “Not yet, Professor Eppes, we’ve only just started our investigation. Right now we just need to talk to people who knew Mr. McBride, as well as the other victims, and see what leads we can turn up.”
“Thanks for your help, Professor,” Agent Carter said, bringing the interview to a formal close, and the two men departed.
“Yes, of course.”
Charlie sat quietly after they’d left, staring at his cluttered desk, thinking about Angelo McBride and how little Charlie actually knew about his former student, about the bright future that might have been Angelo’s if his life hadn’t been cut short by what Charlie had thought was a heart attack. He should have questioned a heart attack in someone so young, but had thought nothing of it, other than the feeling of sadness one experiences when loss hits that close to you. And now three men were dead due to this . . . whatever it was.
Charlie wondered if that meant the FBI was looking for a serial killer that was targeting the CalSci campus. He tried to remember when Paul Schaeffer had been killed, to see if he could discern a pattern, then remembered that Don hadn’t warned him the FBI was looking into this case, even though Don was aware that Charlie had known one of the victims. Hadn’t warned him that there might very well be a serial killer loose on the campus, which was unlike Don. Charlie pulled out his cell phone and thumbed the speed-dial for Don’s cell. It went to voice mail, so Charlie left a message.
“Try Professor Ramanujan next?” Dean asked when they stood in the hallway outside Professor Eppes’ office.
“Yeah, she’s closest,” Sam said. “We passed a staircase back this way.”
Moments later they stood outside Professor Ramanujan’s office, her name on one of those cheap interchangeable plaques attached to the wall outside the door. When there was no answer to their knock, Dean tried the doorknob. It was locked. Sam read the schedule taped above the plaque.
“She has a class right now,” Sam said. He copied the schedule into his notebook. When he was done, he checked his watch. “Looks like she has a break between classes. If she comes back to her office, we’ve got about half an hour to kill.”
“Okay.” There was no way Dean could just stand here and wait for her, so it was a good thing they had other stops to make. “Registrar or Admissions?”
Dean watched Sam think, his head moving side to side as he weighed their options.
“Registrar. If we can get Angelo’s class schedule, we might be able to get a list of students who were in the same classes, maybe find out if any of them knew Sean.”
“Registrar it is,” Dean agreed, following Sam back to the stairs they’d just climbed.
Sam turned his head, checking each alcove as they passed the offices. “We just need to find the Administration Building. There’s probably someone in one of these offices we could ask for directions.”
“I’ve got a better idea.”
“Oh, yeah? What?”
Dean laughed as he waved the campus directory he’d snagged off Professor Eppes’ desk in front of Sam’s face.
Sam brushed it away and glared at him. “Knock that off, man, you sound demented.”
“You’re still just jealous,” Dean said as he flipped through the directory to the campus map.
Sam rolled his eyes, but Dean just grinned at him. “Find it yet?”
When they got to the Registrar’s Office, Dean smiled his ‘I’m harmless’ smile, ready to turn on the charm as he explained what they needed. However, most of the office staff were in a meeting, so unless they wanted to wait until the meeting ended, the only person they had to talk to was a student who worked in the office on a work-study program. His name was Brad. Dean knew this because Brad had given Sam the once-over when they’d stepped up to the counter, then smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Brad. How can I help you?”
Dean had wanted to tell him that Sam was already spoken for, thank you very much - and a glance at Sam had told him that Sam knew exactly what he was thinking - but a nearly imperceptible shake of Sam’s head and a heel to the instep denied Dean the satisfaction. Dean stepped back and let Sam lead the conversation, doing his best not to glower at the kid, since they needed him willing to share information. Within twenty minutes Sam had gotten Angelo McBride’s class schedule from last semester, as well as the rosters for each of those classes.
This time when they walked away with a list of student names, Sam was the one with the phone number in his pocket. As they made their way back across campus to Professor Ramanujan’s office, Sam whistled a jaunty tune that made Dean grit his teeth.
“He wasn’t even cute,” Dean said, which just made Sam grin.
“You don’t think so?”
If Sam’s grin got any wider he’d put out an eye. “You’re such a bitch.”
“Jerk.”
“Whatever. You think she’ll be there yet?”
Charlie was talking to Amita when the two FBI agents returned to his office. He’d left the calculations he’d been using for Don’s last case on the whiteboard, even after his discussion with Amita a couple days ago, and Amita had been eyeing them speculatively. She hadn’t mentioned Don, or their date, or the way Charlie had left her house like a thief in the middle of the night, but Charlie was anxiously waiting for the next shoe to drop, so when the two agents, Carter and Anderson were their names, he thought he remembered, showed up in his doorway, Charlie was unduly happy to see them.
“Gentlemen, please, come in.” Charlie moved out from behind his desk and waved them into the room with an extravagant gesture. If anyone thought it odd, they didn’t remark upon it. “Have you met . . . ?”
Both agents and Amita shook their head. “Oh, well, Amita, these are Special Agents Carter, and Anderson.” Charlie paused both times to make sure he had the names correct. “Agents, this is Professor Ramanujan.”
“Ah,” Agent Carter said, smiling at Amita as he held out his hand, “we were just at your office looking for you. We were hoping Professor Eppes would be able to tell us how to find you.”
Amita slid off her perch on the corner of Charlie’s desk and smiled back as she shook Agent Carter’s hand. “Well, it looks like you’ve found me. What can I do for you?”
“The FBI is looking into Angelo’s death,” Charlie said.
Amita’s gaze was sharp when she looked at Charlie. “I didn’t know that.”
“No, I, sorry, I got caught up in . . . .” He gestured toward the pile of papers on his desk rather than toward the whiteboard, which he’d been staring at as if the answer to his problem was right at the tip of his fingers.
“We’d just like to ask you a few questions, if we could,” Agent Anderson said.
“Of course,” Amita said, “but I thought that Angelo died of natural causes.”
“That’s how it appeared, but we have reason to believe that might not be the case.” Agent Carter looked at Charlie. “Is it all right if we . . . ?”
“Yes, of course, please,” Charlie said. Agent Carter pulled out a chair for Amita, then the two agents sat down across from her. Charlie moved back behind his desk, sat down, and watched as they questioned Amita about Angelo. She was able to tell them Sean’s last name, Cipperly, and confirmed that he was a student at CalSci, but other than that, she was unable to tell them anything more than Charlie had. Charlie was both happy and sad about that; happy that he hadn’t been the only one to know so little about Angelo, and sad because, between the two of them, they had very little information to offer in the search for whoever had killed Angelo and the others.
Everyone glanced over at him when Charlie’s cell phone rang. He mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ and indicated that they should continue as he pulled the phone out of his pocket. He checked the screen and felt a frisson of excitement when he saw that Don was returning his call. He rose to his feet and moved away from the others as he raised the phone to his ear. “Hey, Don.”
“Hey, Charlie, listen, I don’t have much time, what’s up?”
“Oh, okay. I, uh, I just wondered why you didn’t tell me that the FBI was looking into Angelo’s death?”
Charlie heard Megan’s voice in the background, heard Don’s muffled voice respond before Don replied to him with a distracted, “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Charlie. Who’s Angelo?”
Charlie frowned at that. “Angelo is my . . .was my grad student, I was his thesis advisor, he died last semester.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember that now. Sorry.”
Charlie glanced over his shoulder at the others, but they weren’t paying him any attention. “That’s okay, I just, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what, Charlie?” Don sounded annoyed, but Charlie was used to that, so he refused to drop it.
“Tell me that the FBI had opened an investigation into Angelo’s death.”
Don’s tone was sharp, but this time it wasn’t directed at Charlie. “What are you talking about, Charlie? What investigation?”
“There are two FBI agents here, right now, asking questions about Angelo’s death. They said that there’s reason to believe that his death, and the other two similar deaths, weren’t natural, as was originally thought.”
“FBI Agents? What are their names?”
Charlie told Don the names, speaking as softly as he could, then listened as Don instructed someone to run them through the FBI employee data bank. “There’s no Anderson,” Don said a moment later, “but there is a Carter. Tall Hispanic woman?”
Charlie swallowed hard. “No.”
“Okay, Charlie?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re not ours.”
“Uh huh.”
Charlie heard the sounds of Don moving, pulling his jacket on, background noises changing as he went from the bullpen to the hallway. “I’m coming, just, don’t hang up, okay?”
“Okay.”
Charlie’s fingers felt numb, but he managed to lower his hand so the phone was hidden beside his leg without dropping it. He walked back over to his desk, motions a little jerky and uncoordinated, and sat, the phone hidden in his lap beneath the desk. He was relieved that no one had paid him any attention, but then Amita glanced over at him and she frowned.
“Are you all right, Charlie?”
Charlie managed to crack a smile, though he wasn’t certain how sincere it looked. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I-I just . . . .”
“Was that Don?”
Charlie felt the blood rush out of his head. “What makes you . . . ?”
“Did you have a fight?”
The relief made him feel faint. “A fight, no. We . . . .”
Amita glanced over her shoulder at the whiteboard. “You didn’t bring up the last case again, did you, Charlie?”
“What? No.” Charlie glanced up to see the two agents, impersonators, staring between him and Amita with varying degrees of interest and confusion.
“You know, we should probably get going . . . .” the one who called himself Carter said. There was a little frown line in the center of his forehead, as if he was trying to read between the lines of Charlie’s and Amita’s conversation.
Charlie knew that he couldn’t let them leave.
“No!” Everyone looked a little surprised at his outburst, which made Charlie give a huff of nervous laughter. “I mean, please, not on my account. I’m fine, just a little, uh, little disagreement with my, uh, my brother. Besides,” Charlie added, doing his best to keep the men there, “this case, this . . . finding out who killed Angelo, it’s important to me, so, please, if you have any other questions, or if there’s anything that we, uh, that we can do to help . . . .”
The one who called himself Anderson folded his notebook and said, “Thank you, but I think we have all the information we need right now. If we have any further questions, we’ll be back, if that’s all right.”
Amita shrugged. “Certainly. Angelo’s death was a horrible thing, but it would be even worse if he was murdered. If you discover that he was, I’m happy to do anything to help bring his killer to justice.”
“Of course,” Charlie said, wondering what else he could do to keep them there. He pressed his fingers against his lips as the two agents - men - rose from the chairs, watched Anderson slip the notebook into an inside jacket pocket. “You know, I, um, I don’t recall if you said, are you with the LA branch of the Bureau?”
There was a moment of hesitation before Carter said, “Yeah.” He gave a little nod and turned to leave.
“Oh,” Amita said, “then you probably know Charlie’s brother, Don.”
The two men barely reacted, but Charlie could feel the tension building between them.
“Oh, I’m sure if they knew Don they would have mentioned it already,” Charlie said, tried to smile. “LA’s a big, uh, big . . . .”
“Field office?” Amita supplied, giving Charlie a curious look before turning her attention back to the two men. “Don’s an FBI agent, too.”
Carter’s eyes met Charlie’s and Charlie could tell that they knew, they knew that he knew. “Well,” Carter said, “the professor was right, LA is a big office. We’ll be going now.”
Silent communication passed between them in the split second they caught each other’s eyes, and then Anderson was following Carter towards the door, their movements sure and swift, but not rushed. “Thanks for your help,” Anderson said before he slipped out the door after the other agent . . . man.
Seeing them leave, Charlie was torn between relief and frustration.
Amita gave him a wide-eyed look and said, “What was that all about?”
Charlie held his hand up, silently asking her to wait, then lifted the cell phone to his ear. “Don?”
“Yeah, Charlie, I’m still here.”
“Did you hear that? They just left.”
“Okay, listen, Charlie, don’t follow them, okay?” Charlie snorted. “Can you tell me, did they touch anything?”
Charlie’s eye fell on the chairs the two men had been sitting in. “Yeah, they did.”
“Okay, I’m going to get someone over there to dust for prints and take down a description, okay?”
“Yeah, I, okay.” Charlie started to shake. “Don, are you, uh, are you still coming?”
“Yeah, buddy, I’ll be there in five minutes. Hold it together for me, okay?”
Charlie ignored Amita’s thoughtful frown, said, “Yeah, o-okay.”
part two
