Title: Unconditional 7/?
Author: sharonmjl47
Rating: NC-17
Category: Movieverse./AU
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and no one. Sad, isn’t it!
Feedback: Please, bad or good. If no one tells me it’s bad, I won’t know!
~ Indicates thoughts ~
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“Where the hell have you been? Grady and me have been trying to contact you for the past hour. Your phone’s been out of range.” Her tone changed from annoyed to concerned. “Logan, someone reported gunfire at your apartment building. Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I had Ethan Palmer’s ex-wife and kid with me. Creed and a couple of his guys tried to take me out. Listen, I was calling ‘cause I need some information on Captain Markham.”
“That’s another reason I’ve been trying to call you. IA has been investigating him. We know he’s involved with Palmer and your investigation. We sent officers into his apartment just over two hours ago, but the place was empty. We found child pornography on his computer, some bondage equipment, four boxes of indecent photographs of children, and a diary with details of bank deposits and meetings. It’s gone into a full-blown manhunt. The whole force is up in arms. Haven’t you been listening to your radio?”
“Jesus! I’m with Scott. His has been out of order ofr a couple of days, it’s apparently on maintenance’s list of things to do, they haven even got a spare, how dumb I that! Betsy, tell me what’s been going on with Markham. I need to know.”
“I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Thanks, darlin’.”
“Don’t ‘darlin’’ me. I’m still pissed at you for last summer!”
“Bets, not now.” He could hear her rustling some papers.
“Uh, whatever! We’ve had him under surveillance for a year now. It’s been running alongside the Palmer investigation that you and Scott have been running. We know he’s been taking trips abroad and depositing large amounts of cash in an offshore account. When the bodies of those girls turned up and your undercover cop was found dead, we moved up the investigation and were in the process of applying for warrants, but it takes longer when it’s an ‘upstanding member’ of the force! Sick bastard, more like.”
“Why didn’t Internal Affairs get us involved?” Logan turned around and looked at Marie who was talking to Scott. He couldn’t help but smile as he looked at her, she really was beautiful.
“It’s procedure, Logan. Who was to say that you weren’t in with him as well? Telling you and Scott would have tipped him off. IA investigations are kept secret and low key for a reason Logan, it’s to keep everybody safe.”
“Betsy, listen, I have a witness who saw him hand over a large amount of cash in exchange for an underage girl, one of the dead girls.”
“Please don’t tell me the witness is the ex-wife or the child?”
“Ex.”
“Shit! She’s in real danger, Logan. We know Markham tipped off Palmer at the airport yesterday, and my Cap is convinced that Creed is working for him rather than Palmer.”
“Shit, this just gets worse. Markham said that the investigation was being taken over by the Feds because Palmer’s servants got whacked. Is that true?”
“He never called them, Logan, or passed over any other information. The servants were on their way to FBI custody, but that’s only because someone higher than Markham requested they be put in FBI custody due to our Internal Affairs investigation. But unfortunately Markham had all the information necessary to make sure that those two people never made it to their destination, they were after all the only people who saw Palmer murder his parents. Have you and Scott got the wife and kid?”
“Yeah. We’ll keep them safe, but Creed just keeps coming.” He wasn’t going to tell her that they planned on finding Markham.
“OK, but don’t give me any locations. Just check in every 2 hours.”
“Ok, thanks, darlin’.”
“I still haven’t forgiven you.”
“Yeah, yeah, you know you can’t resist me,” he chuckled.
“Neanderthal!” The line went dead as she hung up.
Scott and Marie had been leaning against the hood of his BMW while Logan talked on the phone. “So, he’s had a lot of women?” She knew she shouldn’t be asking this, but she was more than curious: she was positively itching to know.
Scott fidgeted slightly and put his hands in his pockets. “Marie… I think that’s probably something you should discuss with him.”
“But I’m asking you. You’re his brother-in-law. You know him.”
“Yeah, I do know him.” He was watching Logan walk the same line, up and down, while he talked on the phone. “One thing I will say is that he’s never, and I mean never, shown anyone affection like he does you.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Touch. He doesn’t touch people. Like holding your hand, touching your hair, your lips…” Scott blushed a little and smiled. “He’s different with you. He touches you.”
She smiled and looked back over at Logan. “Good to know.” She stood up and turned around. Warren was still sitting on the boxes playing on his game console. “That boy will turn into Super Mario if he’s not careful.”
Scott followed her gaze and chuckled. “Ellie’s the same. She’s got one of those virtual puppy games. It’s super-glued to her hand, I’m sure of it.”
She turned back to him frowning. “I know that this is your thing and you both said that Ethan is the one behind this, the one making this happen, but Ethan’s not smart enough. I’ve known him a long time, and he may be a bastard, but he’s just… dumb!”
“What are you saying?”
“My father told me that Ethan’s father didn’t want him to take over the business because he knew he couldn’t handle the responsibility. So he packed him off to work for *my* father as a trainee accountant. That’s how I met him. He lasted three weeks before my father had to fire him. He told me that Ethan was simply just too stupid and lazy. At the time my head was in the clouds, so I just didn’t believe him.”
“So you think someone else is in charge, and Ethan is just - what - doing the trafficking?”
“That makes more sense to me. I just can’t imagine him waking up one day and saying ‘Oh I know, I’ll traffic people for money today’!”
As she finished her sentence with a small laugh, Logan rejoined them. “Markham is on the run. Internal Affairs found a whole load of stuff at his place. Indecent photos of kids, downloaded child porn, bondage stuff, as well as evidence of money transfers and laundering.”
Scott looked at Marie. “So you could be right.”
Logan’s eyebrows drew together. “Right about what?”
“Marie was just telling me she thought Palmer was too dumb to be doing this by himself.”
She smiled at Logan shyly, and he smirked. “Basically what Betsy... um, I mean Officer Braddock, just told me. She said that Creed is working for him rather than Palmer. I can’t believe it.” ~Nice going asshole, tell her the names of all the women you’ve slept with, why don’t you?~
Scott shook his head and sighed heavily. “If they know all this stuff, why don’t they ever tell *us*, let *us* in on the information occasionally?”
“It’s procedure, Scott.” Logan crossed his arms in front of his chest, and Marie had to look at Scott, because the way the action made the muscles in his arms more pronounced threatened to turn her knees weak.
“Screw procedure!”
He wagged his finger at Scott. “Finally! You’re thinking like me, buddy.”
“Logan, the day I start thinking like you is the day I start to worry.” Both men laughed, and Marie smiled at their easy friendship.
“How the hell are we supposed to find him?”
“I have no idea.”
All three of them were now leaning on the hood of Scott’s BMW, Marie in between them, looking out into the docks, watching the water and the boats. “All properties and places associated with Markham will have been checked out already.”
“And all the ones associated with Palmer, apparently. They even contacted the cops in Vegas and checked out the casino there.”
“Why? He doesn’t even own that casino; his father just has shares in it.”
“Darlin’, they check out everything, even if it’s loosely related to him.”
“Oh.”
“Marie, do you know of any other property that the family owns? One where he would be able to retreat to easily?”
“They have a cabin at Lake Michigan, an apartment in Chicago…”
“We had those on file; they would have been checked.”
“What about the warehouses and storage places, where all the gambling tables and slot machines are stored and repaired?”
“Checked,” both Logan and Scott replied together. By this time, they were feeling really deflated.
“You can’t think of anything else?
“Well, no, there isn’t anything else.” She began to check places off with her fingers, talking to herself more than anyone else. “The cabin, apartment, Vegas casino, New York casino, Zero One night-club, Lizard Lounge Club, the boat….”
Logan and Scot looked at each other over the top of her head. “Whoa, whoa, darlin’… what boat?”
They stood up and moved in front of her. She looked from one to the other and made an embarrassed face. “His boat. I must have mentioned it before, or it must have been in your file.” The minute she’d said it, she knew that she hadn’t mentioned it. If she was honest even she had forgotten about it.
“There’s no mention of your ex owning a boat.”
“Well, it’s not really his, though I guess it is now.”
Both men looked more than a little impatient. “Whose is it?”
“His mother’s. She was originally from Coney Island and had a shitload of her own money. Her parents apparently had a lot to do with the development of Coney Island Beach. She had a boat near there.”
Scott and Logan looked at each other again. “If it’s in her name, her maiden name, Scott, then it wouldn’t show up on any of Palmer’s files or his father’s.”
“Markham has had access to all the same information that we have, so he would know that it’s not on file, not listed with all the other properties. He’d know that no one would be looking for it, because no one knows about it.”
“They could be there, Scott, trying to get out of the country on that boat.”
They turned back to Marie who was now biting her thumbnail. “Where?”
“Um, East of Coney Island, ur… Barren something. There’s a sports fishing marina called Deep Creek. We went there once. There was a boatyard, driving range, tennis courts, and it had mini golf. I played with Warren and kept out of his way.”
Logan laughed. “Hang on, you can’t mean directly opposite the Floyd Bennett Field?”
Scott was now softly chuckling.
“I don’t get it. What’s so funny? What’s the Floyd Bennett Field?”
“Barren Island is the Floyd Bennett Field. It’s an abandoned air field that the NYPD now uses as their Air Operations Unit. If you see a police helicopter flying around New York, that’s were it came from. If they are on that boat, he’s sitting directly across from a mountain of police officers.”
Logan knocked Scott on the arm. “What better place for Markham to hide? Right under everyone’s noses.”
The two men were now facing each other, quickly working out a plan of action. “It only takes about 40 minutes to get to the other side of Coney Island from here. We get there, find the boat and …”
“No, we’ll need some backup, Logan. We should call Braddock and get her to send it…”
“We won’t need backup. Markham wants to get away with as little fuss as possible; I bet money he’s only got Palmer and Creed with him, according to Betsy they know that Markham tipped Palmer off at the airport yesterday, so chances are he knows they know and that’s why he’s on the run. Palmer’s running because of his parents and the airport yeterday. We can call Betsy when we’re there. Then we have plenty of time to get Markham before the cavalry arrive.”
“Ok. It will be quicker if we take Ocean Parkway right down to Coney Island …”
“No, we need to take Flatbush Avenue. It goes right through to Barren Island.”
“Just because you want to avoid Coney Island.” Marie had noticed one flaw in their plan and decided that she should point it out.
“So? I don’t like Coney Island.”
“I had noticed.”
“Um, guys?” Marie tried to interrupt, but Logan’s barking voice cut her off.
“Bite me, Scooter!” They were really close to each other; there wasn’t that much of a height difference, but Logan still managed to tower dominantly over Scott.
“God, you have avoidance issues.”
“Avoidance?”
“Uh-hum?” She tried coughing to get their attention, but it didn’t work.
Scott put his hands on his hips. “Yeah, it means…”
“I had a college education asshole. I know what it means!”
“Thanks to me! Come on, admit it, Mr. Football-Scholarship!”
“A lot of people who go to college because of a sports scholarship get through.” Logan poked Scott in the chest to drive his point home.
“Come on, Logan, just once admit that if I hadn’t helped, you would have failed nearly all your classes except football.”
“OK, I admit it, but you would never have gotten your hands on my sister if it weren’t for me, so we’re even!”
Scott shouted in Logan’s face. “AND that’s why you hate Coney Island!”
“Yes, ok, I hate Coney Island because every time I think of it, I have an image of you boning MY LITTLE SISTER!” Logan shouted back.
Marie put each of her little fingers in the corners of her moth and whistled as loudly as she could, instantly stopping Logan and Scott in their tracks. Both of them made pained faces and tried to protect their ears. She waved at them, gestured to Warren, who was looking at her, also painfully holding his ears, and then gestured to herself. “Remember us?”
**********************END OF PART SEVEN
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Summary: “How the hell are we supposed to find him?” “I have no idea.”