Chapter 5-4: Gunpowder and Lead

               “Don’t look so sullen,” Ian whispered in her ear. Camille rolled her eyes and dragged her gaze from Pearl and Joshua. Sure, she had introduced them. Sure, she had wanted Joshua to find someone else to lavish his attention on. Her partner though? That seemed to cross the line a little.

               “What are you doing here,” she snapped at Ian, trying to unleash her frustration elsewhere.

               “It’s a public bar. And they look cute together, be happy for them.” He sauntered off to order himself a drink, Camille scowling in his direction.

               Maybe he was right. Pearl did look pretty happy with Joshua. He had told her that he wanted five kids and Pearl was definitely the maternal type. She was always cooing over babies and puppies and making those silly baby noises at them. She’d mentioned once to Camille that she wanted a big family. Camille watched as the two leaned in and kissed. Yeah, I guess I can be happy for her.

                She wandered over to the bar, intent on ordering her own drink when a loud rumble was heard outside, just before the door banged open.

               “Who is that,” she speculated aloud.

                Ian rolled his eyes. “You sure have a type don’t you? Come dance with me Pearl,” he whirled her onto the floor.

               The new arrival walked past the group of people, ignoring all of them and settled himself into a corner seat. Camille tried making eye contact with him a couple of times and was annoyed that he didn’t so much as look in her direction.

               “Ian’s trying to make you jealous,” Joshua gave his wonderful insight.        

               “Yeah, well, it’s not going to work,” she snapped. “I need a round of drinks,” she signaled to the bartender. It was going to be a long night.

               The night was a disaster. Okay, not a disaster. Close though; Pearl and Joshua were all over each other all night, making Camille feel the need to gag. What was it about women who got all googly-eyed over a man and couldn’t think straight? Ian was his usual, cocky self. And the mysterious stranger stayed for one drink, paid his tab and left without as much as a hello. Camille did not like being ignored. He would have made a great distraction and possibly even deterrent for Ian.

               For the next couple of weeks, Camille attempted to avoid all group activities. She didn’t like being the third wheel to the non-couple - I mean, really, why can’t they just make it official already? They suck face all the time anyway. - so she focused her energies on work. She was still trying to find the connection between Esther Bingham, April Burns, and Agnes and Craig Burney. As of now, she had nothing. She hadn’t seen April around town again and she couldn’t run surveillance on the nursing home since this was her own, private project. Until she had solid evidence, she didn’t want to bring her theories to the desk of the chief.

               Walking home one night, Camille happened to catch a glimpse of the elusive, dark haired woman in the tattoo shop. Tired of being careful, she marched in, ready to confront this person. As she got closer, she realized just how like Becks this girl looked.

                “Becks, it’s been such a long time,” she smiled, forcing herself to take it slow.

               “I’m sorry ma’am, I’m afraid you have me mistaken for someone else,” the woman replied, looking away. Classic liar behavior.

               “Don’t lie to me! You and your brother abandoned me! You let me get arrested on the night of my prom!”

               The girl through her hands up in the air. “Camille, I don’t know…” she stopped, realizing her mistake a little too late.

                “You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…” Camille went through the motions of arresting April/Becks/Agnes/whoever to make sure that the arrest would hold up in court. She didn’t want this girl to slip away again due to a slip in procedure.

               “Donovan Matter with the Bradford Sun. What are the circumstances regarding this arrest Ms. Avendale?” The dark haired man from the bar was waiting in front of the police station when Camille arrived with her criminal in tow.

               “No comment. Now get the hell out of my way,” she pushed her way past him and marched down to the bullpen.

               “Pearl, I need you to have Angie prep an interrogation room while I get this one booked,” Camille barked out orders, ready to start her line of questioning.

               After getting April (that’s what Camille was calling her for now) checked in, she led her down the hall to the line of rooms specifically for questioning family members and suspects alike.

               “Are you going to tell me what the charges are,” April questioned.

               “You know damn well what the charges are. I told you; aiding and abetting a known cyber terrorist. Your brother.”

                “I’m an only child,” she countered.

               The bantering went back and forth, April denying and dodging every accusation and trap that Camille laid before her. It appeared that her first slip up would be the only one and knowing someone’s name really didn’t constitute grounds for holding a person in jail indefinitely.

               Finally, Camille got tired of getting nowhere and slipped out of the room and into the viewing room.

               “Ang, is she hiding something,” Camille asked.

               “She is, but I couldn’t tell you what. It’s like she completely believes what she is telling you most of the time. Then she wavers, just the slightest, mostly at the mention of this Chad person.”

               “Her brother. Or, well, he was her brother when I knew them. Who knows what role they are playing now? Wait…I need to talk to Pearl.”

               She left the room and went and found her partner, explaining as emotionless as possible, her history with April and Chad and telling Pearl what her idea was. She didn’t know if it would work. It seemed to on TV shows but Camille always assumed those people were just stupid. Who would actually fall for something like that? But it was all she had or else she was going to have to release April and let her get away, yet again.

               She went back into the interrogation room, calmer this time than before.

               “You know, it’s fine. You don’t have to confess. We got your prints when we brought you in and, with time, I’m sure we can match it up to some of your other aliases. As it is, my partner is getting a judge to sign a search warrant for your house. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before we find out who you really are.”

               At that moment, Pearl walked in and pulled Camille aside to whisper in her ear. April watched, glower intensifying with each moment that passed, unable to understand the conversation. Camille could hear her trying not to fidget behind her and winked at Pearl, giving her the go ahead.

               “We got the search warrant and called to a nearby patrol officer to drive by the place. They saw a young man enter the premises. We’re sending a team in now to check it out and bring him in for questioning.” Pearl’s voice was raised, just the slightest to still be a whisper but loud enough that April could make out the conversation this time.

               “Well April. It looks like we won’t have to wait much longer to finally found out if you’re telling the truth or not. It appears your brother has been spotted entering your apartment and my colleagues are just about to drop in for a little visit,” Camille informed her.

               “Liars! Chris never leaves that abandoned factory; he’s too paranoid after almost getting caught because of your incompetence in Storybrook!” April shouted, pointing at Camille, looking every bit the deranged accomplice.

               Camille smiled smugly at Pearl who just gazed down at their suspect, feeling no pity for this woman. 

               “You heard her. Abandoned warehouse, start checking in to all the ones locally and see if we can find any reports of vagrants.”

               April threw her hands over her mouth, just now fully aware of what she had done. It was too late though and Camille and Pearl had everything they needed to start looking for the elusive cyber terrorist last known as Chris Burns.

               That weekend, they had still developed no new leads in the case. There were plenty of abandoned buildings in the city and surrounding suburbs and they didn’t have the manpower to go through them easily. Luckily, the slip-up had given them enough evidence to keep April behind bars so she couldn’t alert her brother to the ever tightening noose the police were slowly encircling him with. If only they knew where to focus it.

               With officers sifting through tons of data, Camille decided to take the weekend to relax. She had been invited to a party at Ian’s house and, although she had made it clear that she didn’t want a relationship with him, she felt that a brief, no strings attached fling might help take her mind off the case.

               As they were chatting, the man from the newspaper came in.

               “What is he doing here,” she blurted out.

               “I invited him,” Ian replied and went to make more drinks.

               “Ms. Avendale, I think you have some explaining to do to the public.” The man wasted no time with words.

               “I owe nothing. I’m a police officer in the middle of an investigation.”

               “An investigation regarding the manhunt for alleged cyber terrorist Craig Burney who has remained elusive for the last decade? Have you found the abandoned building he’s staying in yet?”

               “What? How? Who is your source,” Camille was furious that he knew the some of the details that the police had not made public record yet. “Look…”

               “Donovan.”

               “Donovan, this is a sensitive investigation. You print that story and our chances of catching this guy pretty much disappear.”

               “Don’t you think the public has the right to know?”

               “Not if it hinders the search. How about this? You keep this confidential until we find the guy and I’ll give you an exclusive interview personally.”

               “Now, now Camille, are you being rude to my guest,” Ian chose that moment to interrupt them.

               “Actually, Ms. Avendale just promised me an exclusive interview for the near future.” Donovan agreed without giving away any information and Camille felt that she could breathe a tiny sigh of relief. Now she would just have to hold up her end of the bargain and meet with this ass when everything was over.

                “Esther, I need to know about April. And Chris,” Camille finally confronted the older woman about the secret she had hinted at.

               “Funny thing, when you have kids you always picture them being doctors or lawyers and saving the world from the bad guys. You never imagine that they will end up being the bad guys.”

               “Are you saying that they are your children? Why haven’t you been to see the police about this?”

               “I feel like I am the one to blame for their actions. I should have been stricter, should have been better at teaching them to be good people.” She looked down at the floor, clearly ashamed of her decisions.

               “Esther, it’s not your fault. Sometimes people just aren’t nice. Tell me though, why haven’t you helped the police?”

               “There’s nothing to help. I don’t know where my children are. Agnes has come by a few times to assuage her guilt but she never tells me any information. Not what city they are staying in, not what their names are. She’s been April since I came to this nursing home five years ago. I can’t help anyone.”

               “They’re here. In St. Claire.”

               “Here? This is where they grew up. We lived over in the old city district. There were some fires years ago that pretty much destroyed the property value so I’ve never been able to sell our old house.”

               “Esther, I think you just gave me exactly what I needed. Thank you!”

               “Please, get them off the street. I don’t want any more people to get hurt. I wish they had turned out to be more like you.” Camille pulled the old woman into a hug, promising to do everything she could to stop Craig and Agnes.

               She put in an emergency meeting for early Monday morning with Chief Randall, Pearl, and Angie to work out the details of finally apprehending Craig Burney.

               “I want this,” Camille stated up front. Angie scowled over her shoulder, not sure that a rookie was up to task of taking on a cyber-terrorist and stated as much.

               “You said it yourself, it’s cyber terrorism. Unless he’s holed up with a bunch of muscle, what would be the big deal? This has been my case from the beginning; I’ve been lead on it, while doing everything else I’ve been tasked with. It should be mine.”

               “I’ve got her back,” Pearl stated, matter-of-factly. “She’s right. He has no idea we’re this close. It’ll be a complete surprise. We can have Ang monitor us for backup, just in case.”

               Chief Randall wasn’t too happy about it but begrudgingly agreed to let Camille and Pearl handle their first official take down.

               They waited until the cover of night to proceed on the address Esther had given Camille. It was the only place that made sense, knowing that this had once been his home and knowing that the property was not in danger of being renovated because his mother still had the deed.

               Not taking any chances, they kept their guns out, mics in their ears, and were quiet. Camille signaled that she was ready to start clearing the buildings and Pearl signaled back that she would watch Camille’s six. They started moving through the derelict buildings one by one until they noticed a faint, flickering glow coming from the back of the homestead. Camille motioned to Pearl to go around the side while she went in the front.

               “Craig Burney, you’re under arrest,” she notified the criminal sitting before the fire.

               “Why, if it isn’t little Camille Avendale. You were weak and pathetic back then and you’re no match for me now.”

               “You’re surrounded Craig, give it up,” Pearl shouted, stepping into the room from the cracked side doors.

               “Complacency is a bitch, isn’t it Craig,” Camille kept her gun trained on him as he stood, raising his hands above his head as Pearl holstered her weapon and stepped up to cuff him.

               “It sure is,” he shouted, moving so fast that Camille barely had time to register what was happening. She watched as he spun, grabbing her partner’s gun, and wrapping Pearl tight in his grasp, weapon held threateningly close. “When are you going to figure it out Camille? I’m too good at this. Now, put down your weapon and let us go. I’ll release your partner as soon as I get outside the city limits.”

               “Okay, okay,” Camille raised her hands above her head, ignoring the buzzing sounds in her ear. They had Angie listening in but no one had anticipated trouble so the backup wasn’t really all that close. Camille had been so sure of herself. “Craig, let her go and I’ll just watch as you walk out of here.”

               Camille could tell that Pearl was frightened. She could also tell that her partner didn’t want to let this bastard go. She looked at Camille and gave just the slightest nod, indicating that she trusted her partner and wanted him taken out.

               “I need a hostage and I’m not going to prison Camille,” he began slowly stepping backward, inching for the door.

               “No, you’re not,” she pulled her weapon down and aimed at him, simultaneously squeezing off a shot. She wasn’t fast enough though and she heard a crack that was twin to her own. Craig launched backward, propelled by the 9mm bullet Camille had just fired on him as Pearl fell to the ground, clutching her hand to an ever widening stain of red.

               “Oh my watcher! Officer down, I repeat, officer down,” Camille shouted into her headset as she rushed to her partner. “Please Pearl, hang on. Help is on the way. You can’t die on me!” She clutched her partner and best friend close to her, tears streaming down her face, waiting for the sound of sirens.

Chapter 5.3                                                                                                                                      Chapter 5.5