Let the Floods Cross

“Okay, as much as I love and care for the wellbeing of Breck Kovacs, why am I tagging along?” Alex asked his band mate as they got out of the car.

Rian closed the car door behind him and gestured for Alex to follow him to the front door of the apartment building. He had promised Ace to check up on her grieving baby sister since she was too busy trying to solve the murder case. Usually, Rian would look out for Breck and take up a fatherly role when it comes to the girl. Ace missed too many parent-teacher conferences to count, always getting Rian to fill in for her. This time, the matter is more delicate than it had been.

“Well, first of all, I alone cannot make Breck feel better. I considered asking Jack or Zack, but well, it is a bad idea. Jack cannot deal with grieving women and I think he would be in a bad position to comfort her considering the fact that he was a murder suspect. And we don’t even need to talk about Zack.”

Alex shot his friend a look of understanding as they entered the apartment building. Rian pulled his pair of keys out, dangling it casually in one hand. In his other hand, he held a bag of takeout Japanese food since he knows it is her favorite.

When they got to the apartment building, Rian decided to ring the doorbell instead of barging into the house. Usually, Rian would feel obligated to do so, but this time around, he didn’t want to scare or upset the poor girl. He did not know what mood he should expect Breck in but he won’t doubt that she will be somber.

“I love how us men are here doing the whole sensitivity stuff while the ladies are doing all the hardcore field work.” Alex murmured dryly as they waited for the door to be answered.

Rian chuckled.

“I think it’s more suitable, don’t ya think? The chicas know what they are doing.”

The door opened, revealing a short skinny girl with blonde, pixie-like hair. She blinked at the two men outside her door and wiped at her eyes as if it would hide the fact that she had been crying. She stepped aside to let the two in.

“Hey B!” Rian pulled her in a hug as Alex closed the front door behind.

The girl allowed herself to smile because she has been cooped up in this apartment alone when she should have people comforting her. Since her sister is basically her legal guardian, she should have been the one being here for her instead of being out there solving a murder case. Even though she does not have her sister to lean on, she can always depend on Rian to be by her side.

“Thanks for coming, I thought it was the cops again. They’ve spoken with me too many times.”

Alex is a bit baffled that she didn’t even acknowledge his presence. To her, Rian is the only person that mattered in this room. Alex is just this invisible figure standing behind his band mate. He shook the thought off, keeping in mind that this girl has been through a lot.

“I’ve brought you food and you know I got the usual.” Rian held the bag up in the air for emphasis.

The small blonde girl managed to smile a bit, even though it seemed a bit forced. At this moment, Alex noticed how small and delicate she looked in comparison to Kaya Lockheart. Kaya is the younger sister of Lockheart Empire CEO, Loki, and is a good acquaintance of his. Shaking the comparisons off, he followed the two into the living room.

“Thank you, I swear you care about me more than my own sister does.” She muttered, sitting down on the couch.

Alex noticed the messy pile of college applications on the coffee table while Rian shoved them aside to make room for the food. The drummer leaned toward one of the applications and grinned proudly as he picked it up.

“University of Pennsylvania, huh? You know your sister applied there.” Rian said.

“Oh, and Liezel did too!” Alex added, trying to get the girl to acknowledge his presence.

For the first time, Breck’s eyes flickered over in his direction. The dark brown eyes studied him for several seconds before she even made the effort to speak with him.

“Ace was accepted to their Wharton school for business but she decided to be a homicide detective instead.” She told Alex as if he didn’t know.

In fact, Alex did know very well. During their senior year of high school, Ace and Liezel had been very desperate to get into UPenn together. Both applied and bonded briefly over that fact. Liezel wanted to go there in case her tennis career didn’t kick off immediately and was counting on her tennis credentials to get in; she was rejected during Ivy League weekend but ended up not having to go to college. Ace, on the other hand, had ambitions to get into business. After being accepted into Wharton, the most prestigious business school in the nation, she was set to attend.

By the end of May, her parents were murdered in an armed robbery, which inspired her to solve crimes instead of pursuing her deepest desire. She ended up going to the law school at UPenn instead.

It was a sad story, really.

“You want to study biology at that university?” Rian asked as he pushed the plate of sushi roll towards the girl.

Breck blinked at the food several times before picking the plate up. She turned to her sister’s best friend and tilted her head at him.

“I know what you are trying to do. You are trying to distract me from my grief.”

Rian bit his lips and gave Alex a helpless look. The brunette shrugged at his friend, unable to help him get out of this one. It is hard to deal with people who are grieving over the loss of a loved one. They had no idea how Jack did it with Dale, but Alex had an idea that it had something to do with Jack being a complete idiot. Besides, Alex, himself, dealt with the same problem, but he could barely remember what other people did to help him get through it.

“Breck--” Rian started.

“No, I want you to tell me who would do such a thing? Why would anyone want to kill her?” Breck’s eyes started tearing up and Rian immediately wrapped an arm around her in comfort.

Rian kissed her on the top of her head and reassured her that Ace will get to the bottom of this case, but they did nothing to help brighten the mood. A grieving person will not stop grieving because of justice. They needed retribution.

Alex walked over to the kitchen to collect his thoughts. It is hard for him to see Rian act fatherly to Breck. Everything about that image made him think about what he could possibly want for the future. He thought about a future with Liezel and having kids with her, it is something he would never admit out loud, but he thought it and he secretly wanted that future.

If there was anyone he could spend the rest of his life with, it had to be Liezel. There is no one else he could see himself build a life with except for her. However, it brought him to think about all the wrong decisions he is making in his life right now. He is acting like an idiot and possibly throwing all the good in his life away because he is starting to lose his emotional stability.

There is no one he can talk to about this issue and the fact that he can’t is driving him insane.



Liezel watched as Ace placed a picture on top of the murder board. She took out an erasable marker and highlighted a portion of the timeline she had up on the whiteboard.

“Okay, so that leaves the kill zone to be from 7:30 to 9:00 A.M.” Ace said to her partner, pointing at the picture of a young man she just put up.

Before they returned to the precinct, Liezel accompanied Ace to the tennis club and helped convince the security team to hand over the footages right on the spot. Ace could usually do it by force but she seems to be too stressed out to act in aggression. Her partner, Iverson, have a problem getting security details to hand over footage. It has always been his flaw, which explained why it took a while for the team to prove Jack’s innocence during Lockheart’s murder case.

She also spoke to some people who admired her, thus, more willing to be as helpful as they could be in sharing information regarding Breck’s late girlfriend.

“So far we have Dan Watson, the boyfriend of her tennis rival, Jessica Lawson. He was in the club at the time of death.”

Iverson nodded as he glanced at Liezel.

“What do you think, Ms. Beckett?” He asked.

Liezel opened her mouth, unable to bring herself to come up with an observation. She feared that her observations would be silly. All she knew came from what she heard from the witnesses as well as various members of the club. She is not good with this stuff.

“I think that you guys should handle this.” Liezel said feebly.

Ace nodded slightly and wrote something on the timeline.

“So Watson was playing a friendly tennis match with his friend at 7 and he finished the game at around 7:35, which is in the window of death. And not only that, but he entered the girl’s locker room after the match. So it means that he killed her, washed himself and the evidence up in the locker room bathroom and then left the bathroom for the lobby.”

Iverson nodded in agreement as he gestured for another detective to come over.

“I want you to get ahold of Mr. Dan Walker. Kovacs wants him in for questioning.”

The detective nodded before walking off.

“Alright, is my job done for the day?” Liezel asked hopefully.

Ace laughed, nodding quickly as a response.

“You have done more than enough for me today. I want you to return to the club with me again tomorrow, though. I feel like the people there are more cooperative and more informative when you are the one questioning them.”

“Yeah, I think so too. From tennis player to tennis player, of course that’s how it is.” Liezel winked.

“Thank you for your help, Beckett.”

“No problem, Ace. Anything for a friend! Now I need to get home in preparation for a date with Alex.” The tennis player beamed at the thought.

“Yeah, of course! Tell Alex I give him my sincerest greeting!”

The black haired woman rolled her eyes but nodded anyways as she made her departure from the station.

“Yeah, yeah!”

Notes

Shit will go down next chapter! Sorry for the filler!