Chapter 3. Broken

The feeling of being important, of being the complete center of a person's world can only be achieved when you hold a weapon to their head.

|~| The Mailman.

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Kory sat in her department issue Car and sighed. She had briefed her team and assigned them jobs but she had to leave Mike to do his geek work in the conference room while she went into the field with Agent Douchebag. Her reluctance to be with him in a confined space however, was not the cause of her mounting frustration.

"Get in!" She bit out to him. He stared at her pointedly with his amber orbs.

"I have my own car. I can drive myself" he said stubbornly.

"Like it or not, we're partners and we do this together until we absolutely have to split up. That's how we work around here" he glared fiercely at her.

"What's the big deal? It's just a damn car. And I don't look that bad" she said, rolling her eyes.

"Fine. I'll ride with you if I get to drive" he said.

She threw up her hands in exasperation.

"Fine then" she said and got out of the car. She turned around the car and sat in the passenger side. Agent Douchebag got in, fastened his seatbelt and pulled out of the parking space.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Kory asked. He raised a brow but didn't turn to look at her.

"We're going to Brandon Queens' residence" he said simply.

"And you know the way?" She asked.

"GPS" he said, still not looking at her. She sighed and gave up trying to talk to him. Instead, she focused on the case.

It was pure undiluted luck that the Commander had chosen her, of all the detectives and lieutenants in CPD headquarters to assign to this case. She was determined to make this count. To make it right for Marlena.

They arrived at Brandon Queens' apartment building and after badging the receptionist, went up to his door. Before they could knock though, the door opened. A male version of Marlena came out. The resemblance was striking, just as much as the beauty. He had the same bright blue eyes, the same rich dark hair. He was just more muscular and his eyes didn't smile like Marlena's did in her pictures. No. His eyes were weary and filled with sorrow and determination.

"Hi. You must be Lieutenant Kory Hannagan" he said and extended his hand for a shake. She accepted it.

"And you must be Brandon Queens. This is my partner, Special Agent Carter Cross" she said and pointed to the brooding male beside her.

"Nice to meet you" Queens said with considerably less warmth and shook Carter's hand.

"Please, come in. Make yourselves at home. Can I offer you anything?" He paced around the apartment, adjusting things that were perfect and dusting surfaces that were shiny.

"No thanks. We won't take up much of your time. I've read the files, I know you were interviewed that day we broke the news to you and subsequently after. But for the sake of refreshing all of our memories and trying to see what they may have missed, we'd like to question you again" Kory said. Queens nodded.

"Yeah I figured" he said and continued pacing.

"Um could you please sit?" She said, becoming dizzy watching him move around. He laughed nervously and sat on a couch opposite her. Agent Douchebag melted into the shadows and leaned against a wall, quietly observing.

"Thank you. Remember, these questions are routine. Where were you on January 23rd, 2020 at precisely 11pm?" Kory asked.

"I was at home with my fiancee, Cindy. I could tell her to come over to confirm" he said, fiddling with a ring, his engagement ring, she assumed, on his finger. Not many men wore them but it seemed he chose to do so.

"That won't be necessary. We'll be going over to her apartment after this" she signalled to Agent Douchebag who nodded and stepped forward, notepad in hand. He'd call Cindy, whose contact info was in the files, and ask her to confirm Queens' alibi.

"I'm sorry could you write down her number?" He asked. Kory frowned. They had all the information in the files. Then in that same second she realized what he was doing. He was trying to get his handwriting so they could try to match it to the killer's. They did that last time but they now had a more legible handwriting to work with.

"Sure" he wrote it down and Agent Douchebag thanked him and slipped out.

"Did you know that Marlena was joining a dating site called Cupid's arrow?" She asked.

"Yeah. She..she told me about it on Monday that week and I was pissed. I mean I've heard stories of how...how things like these could go wrong so I forbade her from joining. She got pissed off cause we're twins and she hates..hated it when I tried to tell her what to do. We argued and she hung up. I didn't talk to her again until..." He paused and abruptly turned away from her. But not before she saw the tears that dropped from his eyes. She pretended she didn't though, even as her heart broke for him.

From the corner of her eye she saw Agent Douchebag slip back in, quiet as a mouse and melt back into the shadows. Creepy much.

"I'm sorry I just..." Queens paused and cleared his throat.

"It's ok. So you weren't aware that she was going on a date on Friday evening?" She asked, saving him the trouble of an explanation.

"No I wasn't. I wanted to call her but I was being stubborn. I wanted her to call first. God I wish I called" he sighed with so much regret that tugged at her heart strings.

"Did she, to your knowledge, tell anyone about this mysterious date?" She asked.

"Well her friends, Heather, Heather and Heather, weird I know. The three Heathers. She tells them everything. Oh and her Agent, Jake Malroy" he said, a small smile teasing his lips.

"Well that'll be all. Thank you for your time. We'll get back to you soon" she said and stood up.

"Lieutenant," Queens called. She paused in front of the door and turned to him. "I remember you from the first time the investigation started" she sighed and prepared to apologize for incompetence that caused him to loose his second half. "I know you're the one who called in the cops. You followed a hunch that most people would have ignored and you found her quickly. Thank you. I'm glad you're on this case instead of the FBI. I know you'll get justice for Marla" he said. She was stunned speechless for a while.

"I'll do my best by her" she said when she located her tongue. She nodded at him and stepped out. Agent Douchebag was already outside.

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Queens was hiding something, Carter knew. Just as he knew that Hannagan didn't see it. She was too emotionally vested. She had formed some kind of sympathetic guilty bond with Queens.

"What did you think?" She asked him. She walked ahead of him and her long wavy dark hair flowed behind her in the late February wind. She glanced back at him and he looked into her chocolate brown eyes. In there, he saw that he was right. She saw nothing wrong with Queens's statement.

"Honest or yours?" He asked simply. She frowned. He almost laughed at how cute it made her, despite the black eye.

"What?" She asked.

"Do you want the honest truth or what you think is true?" He asked, brow raised. She stopped and he almost walked into her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked, eyes narrowed.

"What do you want to hear?" He asked, staring at her through his hair which was over his left eye as usual.

"Your opinion" she said, glaring at him through her one open eye.

"Well, I think Queens was hiding something. When he said his whereabouts on the night of Marlena's murder and when he said Monday was the last time he spoke to her, he couldn't meet your eyes"

"Because he had to remember traumatic events" she replied heatedly.

"No. He was obviously nervous and couldn't stay still" he replied.

"Oh so he killed his sister and has been killing a bunch of other people but he pressured us to reopen the case?!" She whisper-shouted.

"That's not what I'm saying" he started calmly. "All I'm saying is he was lying. You were a profiler before you became a cop. You'd see it if you weren't already so emotionally attached" he said, then left her there to contemplate his words and walked toward the car.

He knew she was a profiler before because he accessed her employee file immediately he heard he would be working with her. He didn't work well with partners. Since Josy, his first partner, he swore off partners. She screwed him over and he learned not to trust partners, especially women after that. So when he was told he had to have a partner for this case, he immediately tried to find out everything about her. If the case didn't mean so much to him, he'd have forfitted it completely.

"Hey! You don't just say stuff like that and scram" she said as she caught up to him. He rolled his eyes and tucked his hands into his coat.

"We have places to be, interviews to conduct" he said and slid into her admittedly cozy car. It wasn't fancy like he was used to but it had a cozy, homey feel that he liked. She slid into the passenger seat, almost looking like she was pouting. He smiled to himself and kicked the car into drive.

"I know" she said after a few minutes of blissful silence. He sighed and glanced at her. She looked sad, resigned. He waited for her to elaborate.

"I know he was lying about something. It was this nagging little gut feeling. But I know he didn't kill her, Agent Cross. The pain I witnessed that day when we told him his sister was gone was tangible. I could almost taste it" he said nothing. He just nodded.

He wasn't so quick to discount Queens as a suspect though. There was just something off about him.

The interview at Cindy's yielded nothing they didn't already know. In fact, it only served to strengthen Carter's belief that there was something there worth a second glance.

They stopped at Headquarters to drop off the writing for analysis then went off to the movie set where the three Heathers were shooting a movie together. It was a hassle of badge showing and pat downs before they finally got to the trailers for the stars. The Heathers were thankfully all in the same trailer.

"Omg, cops! Heather, the cops are here to see us. If this is about the cocaine.." one of the Heathers with bright blonde hair and baby blue eyes squealed. She wore a dressing gown that left little to the imagination and heels that defied so many laws of gravity that Carter's head spun.

"Relax, we're not Illegals division. We're here to talk to you about Marlena Queens" as Kory spoke, they instantly sobered up. The Heather with fiery red hair and blue eyes and equally towering heels stood up suddenly. The last Heather with rich brown hair and blue eyes gasped and her eyes filled with tears.

"They reopened the case huh?" Red haired Heather asked.

"Yes. And we would like to ask you some questions if you don't mind" Hannagan said in a tone that implied that they didn't have the option of not minding.

"We killed her! It's all our fault!" Brown haired Heather exclaimed suddenly. Hannagan rested her hand on her weapon just as he did, but still managed to look non-threatening.

"What do you mean?"

"We told her to go on that stupid site and if it wasn't for us she never would have met the asshole who killed her!" She collapsed into a chair and her friends gathered around her, fussing.

After a while, she was calm enough.

"Please come in, have a seat" blonde Heather said as she rubbed brown haired Heather's back.

"You all were aware that Marlena was joining the dating site, Cupid's arrow right?" Hannagan asked.

"We, well we suggested it. She was having a little trouble with dating and we just wanted her to meet someone that didn't want her money or her fame" Brown haired Heather said, sniffing all the way.

"You say she was having trouble with relationships. Any ex that was particularly violent?" She asked. Smart, but they both knew this wasn't as easy as some jilted ex looking for retribution.

"Um there was Big T. Tony Spark.." blonde Heather said. "And Loony Tray. Tray Rogers" red haired Heather said, looking at her friends for confirmation. "Yeah. But the craziest had to be Charley. Charles Mingus. He didn't wanna take no for an answer. Kept believing they never broke up. Breaking into her apartment when she wasn't there to cook dinner" all three Heathers shivered in disgust at the memory.

"Ok. Each of you should please write down the names and contact info of the ones you remember individually and hand it to my partner" Hannagan said. Red haired Heather got up and picked up a piece of paper and a pen and began scribbling. Hannagan handed her notepad to brown haired Heather and he handed his to blonde Heather. "Thanks. So you all knew that she would be going out that night?" She asked.

"Yeah. She couldn't stop talking about Prince Charming" Brown haired Heather said with a fund eye roll and a small smile that soon disappeared.

"Did she ever mention a name for this Prince Charming? number? Description? Address? Anything could be useful" Hannagan said, looking at each of them in turn.

"No. All she said about him was that he was her Prince Charming and that he was so romantic and it just felt like they had a deep connection. Like he knew her" blonde Heather said.

'He definitely knew her, just not the way she thought' Carter thought, but kept it to himself.

"Yeah. He was taking her to an Italian restaurant. But you already knew that. Everyone knows. They broadcasted it everywhere. Her whole life! They didn't even let us morn in peace" red haired Heather exploded suddenly. The two remaining Heathers gathered around her and sat her down.

"Shh it's ok. Have you taken your anxiety pills?" Blonde Heather asked.

"No! I hate them. They make me so drowsy" red haired Heather said.

"Fine. We won't make you take them. Just have some water" Brown haired Heather said and brought a glass of sparkling water to her friend's lips.

Carter almost felt like they were intruding on a private moment.

"Um we'll leave you to it. Thank you for your time. We'll get back to you if there's anything else" Hannagan said, apparently feeling the awkwardness in the air.

She picked up the lists of numbers and names and signalled for him to follow. He went out after her.

"Kinda felt like I was intruding on a moment there. Thoughts?" She asked as they walked toward the car.

"They're actresses. Really good ones. They loved their friend but they're milking this for all it's worth. They're going to get publicity and pity for this. And somehow, they feel as though they're doing nothing wrong because it's what Queens would have wanted" he said simply. She looked at him from the side of her eye.

"My thoughts exactly"

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xoxo,

Mimi.