Post by Mimi on Aug 18, 2006 10:49:49 GMT -5
“Denver PD say that the gun was used to commit three murders back in 1970…all unsolved.” Roman stepped a few feet back in shock at this admission and felt that his world was about to drop out from beneath him. What the hell was his ex-wife doing with a gun used to commit three murders that she’d obviously stolen from her father?
John felt sick to his stomach. He looked down at Marlena, stunned. He felt her start to shake as she started to sob. She was gasping for air, desperate to catch her breath.
“Call it in,” Roman said as he turned to face Marlena. He was a cop first.
“We need to talk Marlena,” Roman said as he knelt down in front of her. He cared for her deeply and hated the fact that he was going to be the one that would have to bring up horrible memories for her. At least John was by her side. “Let’s go to the car where it’s dry.”
Marlena was still gasping for air as she shook her head, knowing that it was inevitable. She knew the rules.
Roman helped Marlena stand up and was amazed at how she looked. She looked like shit. The last time he saw her look this bad was when he found her after her suicide attempt. As John got up off the ground and stretched out his body, Marlena immediately grabbed onto his arm. John supported her soaking wet frail frame as they slowly walked to the police car.
“What happened?” Roman asked Marlena once they were safely in the police car, John sitting next to her. Roman knew that he was about to compromise the whole police investigation and could lose his job over what he was about to do, but didn’t care. John and Marlena mattered more to him than his job. He needed to understand what had happened and that they were both okay. So many confusing thoughts and questions ran through his head. The gun and the murders were nagging him, but he first needed to find out what happened on the pier tonight.
“Nothing happened…I fired the gun,” John lied, as he put his arm around Marlena. He watched as Roman adjusted the temperature dials in the standard issue Crown Victoria. The windows of the car quickly fogged up, affording them privacy no one intended.
“Bullshit John…I can see it all over Marlena’s face…I want her to look me in the eyes and tell me that you fired it.” He waited several minutes for her to admit that John fired the gun. “You can’t can you…because you fired the gun Marlena…The fact that the gun is stolen and used in three unsolved murders is a whole other matter that I won’t touch because of conflict of interest, but I need to know that you’re okay Marlena.”
Marlena sat in the police car, head hung down, unable to look at Roman. She reached for John’s hand next to her and grasped it for support. John slowly rubbed circles on her thumb. She was numb, so many confusing thoughts and emotions swirling around in circles in her head. Where did the lies end and the truth begin? Where did the truth end and the lies begin?
“I did it Roman…I did it,” she said softly. Roman had to strain to hear her. She couldn’t let John take the blame for something that she did. She loved him too much.
“Why Marlena?”
She looked up at him, knowing that she couldn’t lie. After everything that they had been through together as a couple, as lovers, as friends, he deserved to know the truth. “I thought I saw HIM and I wanted HIM to go away and leave me alone.” She said looking up at Roman. The dome light of the car cast an eerie shadow over her hazel eyes, her eyes bloodshot from crying, cheeks sunken in. She looked haunted.
Roman immediately knew who she was talking about. Did this mean that she finally told John the truth about her past? He was confused as to what her admission meant, but needed to know what and why she fired at the building. A rational person didn’t do that. “So you fired at a building?”
“I don’t know Roman…I just fired at where he was…I’m sorry, I know that I shouldn’t have done it.” The desperation in her eyes and voice was evident; she no longer had the energy or strength to mask her fragility.
“Mar, are you okay?” Roman asked with concern.
“No,” she admitted as she grabbed onto John’s hand and leaned into him for support. “No, I’m not okay Roman, but you already know that…you’re going to do a hold on me aren’t you?”
Roman closed his eyes. He didn’t want to be having this conversation with her right now. “I don’t know Mar…I don’t know.” He honestly had no idea what he was going to do. As a police officer he knew what he should do, but as her friend his heart was telling him something else.
“Roman, I can get her the help she needs…Don’t send her to an institution…you’re going to make her worse.” John would do what ever it took to keep Marlena out of an institution, even if it meant taking the law into his own hands.
“Did either of you fire that gun at each other?” Roman asked, not really wanting to know, but needing to know. Was he dealing with a domestic violence situation? Were they a danger to each other?
“No,” they both answered in unison as they looked at each other. Roman saw the look that passed between them, a look of two lovers hiding a secret that the rest of the world wasn’t privy to.
“John, there’s going to be an investigation, you know that…Did you both fire the gun or handle the gun?” John knew that they would test the gun for fingerprints, especially in light of the fact that it was stolen. They would also most likely test the skin on both of their hands to see if there was any trace of gunshot residue on it.
“I did it Roman…It was me…I fired the gun…John didn’t, he just took it away from me,” Marlena said in desperation, not wanting John to be caught up in her web of deceit and nightmares. She was born into and tried to end the nightmare, John was innocent.
Roman looked at her, not entirely convinced that she was telling the truth. “Why did you stop firing?” Roman didn’t know that the gun was empty.
“I didn’t,” Marlena admitted as a lone tear ran down her cheek. She wanted Roman to understand, needed for him to understand. Although John was her lover and soulmate, Roman also had a place on this strange journey. “I didn’t…the gun did.” Roman saw the look in her eyes and he knew.
“Oh god Doc,” Roman said as he reached over the seat and grabbed one of her hands for support. John slowly rubbed her back, proud of her for admitting what she had tried to do. It was one step on the way to healing.
“I just wanted it to end,” she said, her head hung low. She was emotionally spent, unable to cry.
“How do you feel now?” he asked as he looked back and forth between John and Marlena, trying to get a gauge on what was really happening.
“Better, I have John by my side…I feel better,” Marlena whispered.
“Mar, I need to ask you about the gun.” Why did it always come back to the gun? If she’d have known that she wouldn’t have been successful in her attempt she wouldn’t have used that gun.
“Don’t,” Marlena said as she put her hands up, as if in an attempt to stop the line of questioning.
“Mar, I need to know…the call has been placed to Denver…”
Marlena’s face turned ashen. She knew by his look what he was inferring. He knew too much about her past, knowing that all it would take would be a couple of phone calls to the ISA, the FBI and a judge in the middle of the night to have all her juvenile court records unsealed. She felt the bile rise in her throat and started to panic. Death would have been a welcome reprieve.
“I’ve got to get out of here.” Marlena started to panic and reached for the door handle. She needed to get out of the car, away from Roman and John, away from Salem. Forgetting that the car was primarily used to transport criminals and suspects, door protection locks had been installed, and the door couldn’t open from the inside. “Let me out,” Marlena said, her voice demanding and full of fear, as she struggled with the door handle.
“Marlena,” John said as he pulled her body physically back and tried to hold her in his arms.
“No,” she cried out as she struggled against him. “Noooooo… I need to get out of here.”
“Doc,” John said as he continued his hold on her, tightening his grip. Roman watched helplessly from the front seat, wanting to help his friends, but knowing that he couldn’t. Marlena was in a mess that even John and the ISA couldn’t get her out of.
“Marlena STOP,” Roman finally yelled. “Stop.” The sound of his voice was deafening in the small confines of the sedan. Marlena stopped struggling and looked up at him. Except for the hum of the heater, the car was eerily silent as the three occupants looked back and forth at each other.
“This isn’t going to help…running will not help…In a couple hours, if we even have that much time, I assume there will be a warrant issued for your arrest.” Couldn’t they see that this was a serious situation and that they’d be running forever?
“Marlena, don’t say anything,” John warned her. “Remember, Roman is a cop, anything you tell him can be used against you.” John looked at Roman suspiciously, wondering where he was going to finally draw the line between cop and friend.
“John, that’s bullshit…I haven’t read her her Miranda rights and I sure as hell…” Roman started to say as he tried to gather his thoughts. “Look…I’m just trying to understand as her friend.”
“I’ll wire 5 million dollars into your account within 20 minutes if you let us both go and forget about this whole conversation,” John offered as he calculated the amount of time it would take to have his pilot fuel the jet and take them to an unknown destination.
“I’m a police officer,” Roman said incredulously, amazed that John would even contemplate bribing him.
“And Marlena is the love of my life who is not going to jail, not ever again…Look at her Roman, remember what happened last time she was arrested when everyone thought she was the Salem serial killer? Remember that?” John asked as memories of Marlena in jail came to the forefront of his mind: the desperation, the terror, and the fight in prison when she was injured, her being shot on the roof. “She can’t go through that again. I can’t go through that again…you’re either with us in protecting her or against us.”
Roman looked back and forth between Marlena and John, hoping for some guidance. His heart was telling him to let them both go and deal with the consequences later, but his mind was telling him that this had to stop here and now; Marlena could not continue to run. His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone.
“Brady,” he said into it. John and Marlena listened intently from the backseat.
“Commissioner, what can I do for you?” Roman asked. John and Marlena watched as his face quickly changed from neutral to concerned. “Are you sure?… Okay… Okay… Okay…I see….I’ll meet you at the station.” Roman shut the small phone and threw it down on the seat next to him in anger. “Goddammit,” he yelled as he rested his head on the steering wheel, breathing in deeply.
“Roman, what is it?” John finally asked after several minutes of silence.
“Judge Beck just signed an arrest warrant for Marlena…the paperwork from Denver just came in.”
No,” Marlena said quietly. “I can’t go to jail…I can’t do it again…please Roman.” Roman looked at her helplessly. She was devastated.
“Then I do a 72 hour hold on you in the hospital to buy you time,” Roman offered. “Letting you escape is not an option.”
“What happens after 72 hours?” John asked, trying to calculate his strategy.
“The psychiatrist on staff will examine me and determine my sanity, safety and ability to make decisions for myself. If I am declared competent, I go to jail and await my hearing. If there’s reason to question my sanity I’ll be transported to Bayview for treatment,” Marlena said matter of factly. She unfortunately knew the system to well.
“No, I won’t allow you to go there,” John said.
“We don’t have any other options John,” Marlena said as she contemplated her options. She didn’t want to go to either place, but accepted the fact that it was one or the other. She would kill herself before she went to jail.
“No,” John said shaking his head. It wasn’t going to happen, there had to be another way that they hadn’t thought of.
“John, there’s no other choice…we need to do this for Marlena,” Roman tried to reason with him. “I don’t have a choice… Bo and Officer Simons have probably been informed as has the rest of the Salem PD.” “Take me to the hospital…please, don’t take me to jail…please…I’m begging you.”
“You’re not crazy Marlena…How is Roman going to pull that one off?”
“I file as report as to Marlena firing a gun in a public place and her suicide attempt.”
“No,” John yelled. “No…you find some other excuse…my wife had been through enough…she does not need to go through the ordeal of the rest of the town finding out.”
Marlena sat quietly in the back seat, eyes closed. How was she going to get out of this one? Her whole life she’d been running. Running from her past, running from her present and running from her future. Maybe it was time to stop running and take responsibility for what she’d done.
“John,” she said as she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Yes.” He was alarmed by the change in her demeanor. She was too calm about all this.
She took his face in her hands and rubbed her thumbs slowly along his jaw line. He patiently waited for her to say something, do something. “Will you stand beside me, no matter what happens?”
“Of course,” John cried out as he grabbed her face is his hands and did the same. How could she still have doubts about his commitment to her after all they’d been through? “Always.”
“Promise?”
“On my heart.” “I need to go to the hospital now…I need the 72 hours to figure out how I’m going to get out of this mess.”
“Marlena, no… Think about your professional reputation…This will end your career. No one wants a crazy shrink.”
“John…this is my life we’re talking about here, our life…screw my professional reputation.”
“Doc, just let him take you to the station. You can explain why you have the stolen gun and they’ll let you go…Everyone knows that you weren’t involved in those murders.” John looked at her with hope, disbelief that the truth would be anything but.
“John, Roman,” Marlena said as she looked back and forth between the men. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to gather the strength to talk about something she thought she’d never have to deal with, at least with John and Roman.
“I need your help, I can’t do this alone…I can’t,” she said with her eyes clenched shut.
“Whatever you need Doc,” Roman said.
“I’d do anything for you…you know that sweetheart,” John said tenderly as he brushed her drying hair out of her eyes. He desperately wished that she’d open her eyes so that he could really gauge what was going on inside of her. Her secrecy and silence was frightening him.
Marlena slowly opened her eyes and looked into John’s. She wanted to see the love, the life and hope in him. She wanted to see the promise that they held for the future. She knew after she told him the truth that they would forever change, he would change. Marlena wanted to believe that he didn’t lie when he said that he would stand by her. Now was the time to trust him. “I did it… I killed them.”
John felt sick to his stomach. He looked down at Marlena, stunned. He felt her start to shake as she started to sob. She was gasping for air, desperate to catch her breath.
“Call it in,” Roman said as he turned to face Marlena. He was a cop first.
“We need to talk Marlena,” Roman said as he knelt down in front of her. He cared for her deeply and hated the fact that he was going to be the one that would have to bring up horrible memories for her. At least John was by her side. “Let’s go to the car where it’s dry.”
Marlena was still gasping for air as she shook her head, knowing that it was inevitable. She knew the rules.
Roman helped Marlena stand up and was amazed at how she looked. She looked like shit. The last time he saw her look this bad was when he found her after her suicide attempt. As John got up off the ground and stretched out his body, Marlena immediately grabbed onto his arm. John supported her soaking wet frail frame as they slowly walked to the police car.
“What happened?” Roman asked Marlena once they were safely in the police car, John sitting next to her. Roman knew that he was about to compromise the whole police investigation and could lose his job over what he was about to do, but didn’t care. John and Marlena mattered more to him than his job. He needed to understand what had happened and that they were both okay. So many confusing thoughts and questions ran through his head. The gun and the murders were nagging him, but he first needed to find out what happened on the pier tonight.
“Nothing happened…I fired the gun,” John lied, as he put his arm around Marlena. He watched as Roman adjusted the temperature dials in the standard issue Crown Victoria. The windows of the car quickly fogged up, affording them privacy no one intended.
“Bullshit John…I can see it all over Marlena’s face…I want her to look me in the eyes and tell me that you fired it.” He waited several minutes for her to admit that John fired the gun. “You can’t can you…because you fired the gun Marlena…The fact that the gun is stolen and used in three unsolved murders is a whole other matter that I won’t touch because of conflict of interest, but I need to know that you’re okay Marlena.”
Marlena sat in the police car, head hung down, unable to look at Roman. She reached for John’s hand next to her and grasped it for support. John slowly rubbed circles on her thumb. She was numb, so many confusing thoughts and emotions swirling around in circles in her head. Where did the lies end and the truth begin? Where did the truth end and the lies begin?
“I did it Roman…I did it,” she said softly. Roman had to strain to hear her. She couldn’t let John take the blame for something that she did. She loved him too much.
“Why Marlena?”
She looked up at him, knowing that she couldn’t lie. After everything that they had been through together as a couple, as lovers, as friends, he deserved to know the truth. “I thought I saw HIM and I wanted HIM to go away and leave me alone.” She said looking up at Roman. The dome light of the car cast an eerie shadow over her hazel eyes, her eyes bloodshot from crying, cheeks sunken in. She looked haunted.
Roman immediately knew who she was talking about. Did this mean that she finally told John the truth about her past? He was confused as to what her admission meant, but needed to know what and why she fired at the building. A rational person didn’t do that. “So you fired at a building?”
“I don’t know Roman…I just fired at where he was…I’m sorry, I know that I shouldn’t have done it.” The desperation in her eyes and voice was evident; she no longer had the energy or strength to mask her fragility.
“Mar, are you okay?” Roman asked with concern.
“No,” she admitted as she grabbed onto John’s hand and leaned into him for support. “No, I’m not okay Roman, but you already know that…you’re going to do a hold on me aren’t you?”
Roman closed his eyes. He didn’t want to be having this conversation with her right now. “I don’t know Mar…I don’t know.” He honestly had no idea what he was going to do. As a police officer he knew what he should do, but as her friend his heart was telling him something else.
“Roman, I can get her the help she needs…Don’t send her to an institution…you’re going to make her worse.” John would do what ever it took to keep Marlena out of an institution, even if it meant taking the law into his own hands.
“Did either of you fire that gun at each other?” Roman asked, not really wanting to know, but needing to know. Was he dealing with a domestic violence situation? Were they a danger to each other?
“No,” they both answered in unison as they looked at each other. Roman saw the look that passed between them, a look of two lovers hiding a secret that the rest of the world wasn’t privy to.
“John, there’s going to be an investigation, you know that…Did you both fire the gun or handle the gun?” John knew that they would test the gun for fingerprints, especially in light of the fact that it was stolen. They would also most likely test the skin on both of their hands to see if there was any trace of gunshot residue on it.
“I did it Roman…It was me…I fired the gun…John didn’t, he just took it away from me,” Marlena said in desperation, not wanting John to be caught up in her web of deceit and nightmares. She was born into and tried to end the nightmare, John was innocent.
Roman looked at her, not entirely convinced that she was telling the truth. “Why did you stop firing?” Roman didn’t know that the gun was empty.
“I didn’t,” Marlena admitted as a lone tear ran down her cheek. She wanted Roman to understand, needed for him to understand. Although John was her lover and soulmate, Roman also had a place on this strange journey. “I didn’t…the gun did.” Roman saw the look in her eyes and he knew.
“Oh god Doc,” Roman said as he reached over the seat and grabbed one of her hands for support. John slowly rubbed her back, proud of her for admitting what she had tried to do. It was one step on the way to healing.
“I just wanted it to end,” she said, her head hung low. She was emotionally spent, unable to cry.
“How do you feel now?” he asked as he looked back and forth between John and Marlena, trying to get a gauge on what was really happening.
“Better, I have John by my side…I feel better,” Marlena whispered.
“Mar, I need to ask you about the gun.” Why did it always come back to the gun? If she’d have known that she wouldn’t have been successful in her attempt she wouldn’t have used that gun.
“Don’t,” Marlena said as she put her hands up, as if in an attempt to stop the line of questioning.
“Mar, I need to know…the call has been placed to Denver…”
Marlena’s face turned ashen. She knew by his look what he was inferring. He knew too much about her past, knowing that all it would take would be a couple of phone calls to the ISA, the FBI and a judge in the middle of the night to have all her juvenile court records unsealed. She felt the bile rise in her throat and started to panic. Death would have been a welcome reprieve.
“I’ve got to get out of here.” Marlena started to panic and reached for the door handle. She needed to get out of the car, away from Roman and John, away from Salem. Forgetting that the car was primarily used to transport criminals and suspects, door protection locks had been installed, and the door couldn’t open from the inside. “Let me out,” Marlena said, her voice demanding and full of fear, as she struggled with the door handle.
“Marlena,” John said as he pulled her body physically back and tried to hold her in his arms.
“No,” she cried out as she struggled against him. “Noooooo… I need to get out of here.”
“Doc,” John said as he continued his hold on her, tightening his grip. Roman watched helplessly from the front seat, wanting to help his friends, but knowing that he couldn’t. Marlena was in a mess that even John and the ISA couldn’t get her out of.
“Marlena STOP,” Roman finally yelled. “Stop.” The sound of his voice was deafening in the small confines of the sedan. Marlena stopped struggling and looked up at him. Except for the hum of the heater, the car was eerily silent as the three occupants looked back and forth at each other.
“This isn’t going to help…running will not help…In a couple hours, if we even have that much time, I assume there will be a warrant issued for your arrest.” Couldn’t they see that this was a serious situation and that they’d be running forever?
“Marlena, don’t say anything,” John warned her. “Remember, Roman is a cop, anything you tell him can be used against you.” John looked at Roman suspiciously, wondering where he was going to finally draw the line between cop and friend.
“John, that’s bullshit…I haven’t read her her Miranda rights and I sure as hell…” Roman started to say as he tried to gather his thoughts. “Look…I’m just trying to understand as her friend.”
“I’ll wire 5 million dollars into your account within 20 minutes if you let us both go and forget about this whole conversation,” John offered as he calculated the amount of time it would take to have his pilot fuel the jet and take them to an unknown destination.
“I’m a police officer,” Roman said incredulously, amazed that John would even contemplate bribing him.
“And Marlena is the love of my life who is not going to jail, not ever again…Look at her Roman, remember what happened last time she was arrested when everyone thought she was the Salem serial killer? Remember that?” John asked as memories of Marlena in jail came to the forefront of his mind: the desperation, the terror, and the fight in prison when she was injured, her being shot on the roof. “She can’t go through that again. I can’t go through that again…you’re either with us in protecting her or against us.”
Roman looked back and forth between Marlena and John, hoping for some guidance. His heart was telling him to let them both go and deal with the consequences later, but his mind was telling him that this had to stop here and now; Marlena could not continue to run. His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone.
“Brady,” he said into it. John and Marlena listened intently from the backseat.
“Commissioner, what can I do for you?” Roman asked. John and Marlena watched as his face quickly changed from neutral to concerned. “Are you sure?… Okay… Okay… Okay…I see….I’ll meet you at the station.” Roman shut the small phone and threw it down on the seat next to him in anger. “Goddammit,” he yelled as he rested his head on the steering wheel, breathing in deeply.
“Roman, what is it?” John finally asked after several minutes of silence.
“Judge Beck just signed an arrest warrant for Marlena…the paperwork from Denver just came in.”
No,” Marlena said quietly. “I can’t go to jail…I can’t do it again…please Roman.” Roman looked at her helplessly. She was devastated.
“Then I do a 72 hour hold on you in the hospital to buy you time,” Roman offered. “Letting you escape is not an option.”
“What happens after 72 hours?” John asked, trying to calculate his strategy.
“The psychiatrist on staff will examine me and determine my sanity, safety and ability to make decisions for myself. If I am declared competent, I go to jail and await my hearing. If there’s reason to question my sanity I’ll be transported to Bayview for treatment,” Marlena said matter of factly. She unfortunately knew the system to well.
“No, I won’t allow you to go there,” John said.
“We don’t have any other options John,” Marlena said as she contemplated her options. She didn’t want to go to either place, but accepted the fact that it was one or the other. She would kill herself before she went to jail.
“No,” John said shaking his head. It wasn’t going to happen, there had to be another way that they hadn’t thought of.
“John, there’s no other choice…we need to do this for Marlena,” Roman tried to reason with him. “I don’t have a choice… Bo and Officer Simons have probably been informed as has the rest of the Salem PD.” “Take me to the hospital…please, don’t take me to jail…please…I’m begging you.”
“You’re not crazy Marlena…How is Roman going to pull that one off?”
“I file as report as to Marlena firing a gun in a public place and her suicide attempt.”
“No,” John yelled. “No…you find some other excuse…my wife had been through enough…she does not need to go through the ordeal of the rest of the town finding out.”
Marlena sat quietly in the back seat, eyes closed. How was she going to get out of this one? Her whole life she’d been running. Running from her past, running from her present and running from her future. Maybe it was time to stop running and take responsibility for what she’d done.
“John,” she said as she opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Yes.” He was alarmed by the change in her demeanor. She was too calm about all this.
She took his face in her hands and rubbed her thumbs slowly along his jaw line. He patiently waited for her to say something, do something. “Will you stand beside me, no matter what happens?”
“Of course,” John cried out as he grabbed her face is his hands and did the same. How could she still have doubts about his commitment to her after all they’d been through? “Always.”
“Promise?”
“On my heart.” “I need to go to the hospital now…I need the 72 hours to figure out how I’m going to get out of this mess.”
“Marlena, no… Think about your professional reputation…This will end your career. No one wants a crazy shrink.”
“John…this is my life we’re talking about here, our life…screw my professional reputation.”
“Doc, just let him take you to the station. You can explain why you have the stolen gun and they’ll let you go…Everyone knows that you weren’t involved in those murders.” John looked at her with hope, disbelief that the truth would be anything but.
“John, Roman,” Marlena said as she looked back and forth between the men. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to gather the strength to talk about something she thought she’d never have to deal with, at least with John and Roman.
“I need your help, I can’t do this alone…I can’t,” she said with her eyes clenched shut.
“Whatever you need Doc,” Roman said.
“I’d do anything for you…you know that sweetheart,” John said tenderly as he brushed her drying hair out of her eyes. He desperately wished that she’d open her eyes so that he could really gauge what was going on inside of her. Her secrecy and silence was frightening him.
Marlena slowly opened her eyes and looked into John’s. She wanted to see the love, the life and hope in him. She wanted to see the promise that they held for the future. She knew after she told him the truth that they would forever change, he would change. Marlena wanted to believe that he didn’t lie when he said that he would stand by her. Now was the time to trust him. “I did it… I killed them.”
