losttheright | (no subject)

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russell clank

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The first cop who comes in to get her statement is a stranger. There have been a lot of those tonight, between the other woman at Patrick's and the assorted medical personnel she's seen, but somehow, counterintuitive though she believes it to be, the thought of talking to one, just as the thought of being treated by one, makes her too uneasy. Much as Molly doesn't especially want to talk about it to someone she knows, either — she'd rather not talk about it at all, though there's no pretending like she's fine in the face of this when her physical state alone is proof that she's not — if there's anyone she wouldn't mind seeing her like this, it's Russell. Besides, there's comfort in the familiar, though God knows there shouldn't be. It's the part of this that still doesn't make sense to her. She'd known Patrick for ages, had spent plenty of time around him, and she'd never once had any idea that he was capable of something like this. Even now, she still doesn't know why he would have done any of this. She just knows that, in spite of it, it's the idea of speaking to someone she's never met that unnerves her, cop or not.

He doesn't seem all that inclined to listen to her at first, and she can't even hold that against him when he's clearly just here to do his job. Even when she tries to, though, figuring she ought to be helpful, that she has no reason not to, she can't bring herself to tell him anything. Just thinking about it is fucking difficult enough, and she can't get away from that, panic surging through her all over again if she lets herself think too hard on it, until she reminds herself again that she's safe now, that Patrick is dead. She'd seen his body. It should have been far more reassuring. It's when she starts to really withdraw, only half-aware of doing so herself, that the man's demeanor softens somewhat, and he says he'll see if Russell will come in, as she's asked him to. Once he's out of the room, she lets out a breath, resisting the urge to bite at her already-bitten lip, throbbing faintly where there are a few stitches in it. She catches herself wondering, not for the first time, if it will scar, and feels just as fucking stupid for it as she has before. When she's lucky to have walked away from all of that in the first place, the condition of her face shouldn't be one of her primary concerns. It's always been her way, though, to act as if she's fine even when she isn't, and like this, she couldn't even come close to passing for it. Besides, the last thing she wants is to have to look in the mirror and see reminders of all this for however long she has left.

Reaching carefully for her phone where it's resting on the table beside her bed, she pulls up her email. Work probably ought to be the last thing on her mind right now, but she needs something to focus on while she waits to see if Russell will get here. Being in her own head is too dangerous right now.

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This, Molly thinks, is what she really wanted Russell here for. If she weren't so hurt, she'd try to draw him up onto the bed beside her, curl against his chest, let him hold her while she tells the last of her story, recording be damned. As it is, she isn't sure she could handle that, and she hates it, how wounded she feels, how damaged, so far from her usual self that there's not a thing to be done about it. Rather than dwelling on that, she tries to stay focused on the movement of Russell's thumb against her hand as she continues, the one thing that might be keeping her at all steady.

"The floor," she replies. "It was just a few seconds. His hands were around her throat, and then... she'd put a screwdriver into his head." It's the part after that she remembers more vividly, his body crumpling to the floor like letting out a breath after having been holding one, the blood still on her hands as she called for an ambulance. She doesn't say any of that, though, instead glancing up at Russell with a worried look. "You aren't going to charge her with anything, are you? Lisbeth. She... I swear, I'd be dead if it weren't for her."

"No," he says, shaking his head. He hasn't heard otherwise, but he can't imagine they'd have anything to charge her with, not with two eye witnesses to what happened, not when the entire scene is so obvious to anyone who looks for longer than a few moments. "There's not gonna be any charges laid against anyone." The story would have been much different if Bateman had been left alive, but he's dead. There's no one to charge with him gone when he's the only one who's done anything wrong, as far as Russell's concerned.

"Anything you tell me isn't gonna be used against her," he continues. "You guys... you're all safe now. I don't want you to worry about that." And he knows why she is. He might be a small town cop, but he's had to go into the city for court before and he knows there are women who've been hurt and then turned on by law enforcement and he'll do everything he can to make sure that doesn't happen here.

It hits unexpectedly hard, hearing Russell tell her that she's safe now, that they all are, and for a moment, Molly can't say anything at all, too busy swallowing past the lump in her throat and fending off tears again. How she could have gone from feeling secure to not safe at all in so brief a time is almost beyond her, but he says it and it sounds like something out of reach, almost impossible to attain. There's no way she could be safe when someone she knew, someone she trusted, did this to her, but at the same time, she knows he wouldn't say it if it weren't true. It has to be. If there's anyone she can still count on to see to that, it's Russell.

"I really thought —" she starts, but she chokes on the words, thinking he'll know what she means. It's probably safer to imply than state outright anyway, no matter how skilled she might be at choosing her words carefully, with the recorder still running. She'd thought she was going to die, and it wouldn't have been the first fucking time. "God, if she hadn't come in when she did, I don't know what he would have done next."

They're almost done, but he wishes they were done now, that he could turn the recorder off and let her speak freely about anything she wants. He nods, because he understands, then squeezes her hand again. He just wants to let her talk, but instead, he asks, "Once she used the screwdriver on him, what happened?" If he's following the timeline correctly, he's pretty sure she called the police next, though he isn't sure where the phone came from, if it was Molly's or Lisbeth's or even Bateman's and it seems like a meaningless detail, but he doesn't want to leave anything out, just in case. He doesn't want to have to make her go through this again, even though he knows statements are often taken multiple times.

He really wants to avoid that.

"We're almost finished," he tells her, looking at the recorder. "Just this last bit." And then he can turn it off and it'll be over and she can tell him anything she wants to.

Nodding, Molly shoots him a grateful look, drawing in a shaky breath as she does. As much as she hates how fucking difficult this is, wishes she could just shrug it off and act like everything's fine, the fact remains that it is and she can't, and even such a quiet acknowledgment of that goes a long way. She's always shouldered things by herself, as much because she's had to as because she wouldn't have wanted to admit to needing anything else. This, though, isn't like that. It won't go away, there's no quick fix, and it's more than she can bear on her own. To Russell, she would probably even admit as much. As it is, though, with the recorder still running, she just wants to get to the end, all the more so for how little there is left to tell.

"He fell," she says, soft. "I mean, it — it killed him instantly. And then... Lisbeth gave me her phone, told me to call for help. So I did."

"Okay, good," he says, then reaches for the recorder to turn it off. He takes it, tucking it back into the front pocket of his uniform, then turns back to look at Molly again. "You did a real good job with that. I know how much it sucks." He's had to give countless statements just as a police officer and although he's used to them, they're never fun. He can't imagine how bad it must be as the victim and he's never given it much thought until now.

Now that he knows the person giving the statement so well.

"But that's it. We're done."

He says they're done, and Molly lets out a breath like she's been holding it, her whole body trembling as she does. It does suck, she thinks, he's right about that, but that isn't the only reason why she's so relieved. Mostly, the recorder being off means she doesn't have to try to hold herself together so much anymore. To an extent, she still intends to, too unwilling and too worn out to let herself fall apart completely again, but if there's anyone she doesn't have to pretend around, it's Russell, and at least now, they can drop any need for professionalism.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Russell," she says, the words coming out somewhere between an exhale and a sob, as she looks up at him with wide eyes. "I don't..."

She's let him touch her so far, which he figures it a good sign, so he lifts his hands to her shoulders, holding onto her, but not moving more than that. The last thing he wants is to hurt her or make her feel like she's not safe again and he'll let her tell him what's okay and what's not before he does anything else.

"Hey, it's okay," he says softly. "He's gone. And if he wasn't already, he would be." As a cop, it's probably not a good idea for him to utter threats out loud and so he doesn't say exactly what he wants to, but he thinks Molly will understand what he means anyway.

It isn't really okay at all, Molly thinks, but she can't bring herself to say so. At least where the latter is concerned, Russell's right, even if she has to keep reminding herself of that, in spite of having seen the body herself, watched Lisbeth finish him off. It's with that in mind that she nods, trying hard to hold his gaze, like she can prove something to herself by doing so. Still, it's largely unnecessary. With just about anyone else, she would already have pulled away. As it is, after just a moment, regardless of the angle, she lifts her arms to wrap around his neck, drawing him close. It hurts a little in her shoulder, where there's a bandaged wound from where a nail went into it, but she doesn't care. Having him near means more.

"I don't know how this happened," she says after a few seconds. "I never would've thought, you know?" And yet, somehow, it had made sense, like something that had been there all along that she just hadn't been able to see. It makes her wonder distantly what else they might find at Patrick's apartment, but she can't bring herself to ask.

Russell sits on the edge of the bed when she pulls him closer and wraps both his arms around her in return. He's still careful, but he strokes her back, his fingertips light. "It's not the kinda thing anyone expects," he says and although he wants to ask if there's anything that might have given her a hint, he also knows how that might come out sounding and the last thing he wants is for her to think she should of seen it coming. It would have been more important if they needed to build a case against him, getting any evidence at all, but it doesn't matter now.

"People like that... they're good liars," he says. "Real good. They make a whole life outta lyin' to people and it's not somethin' you ever could've known." If it had been, he thinks they all would have been on to Bateman a lot sooner. Russell's never met the guy personally, but he knows more than a few who have and he doesn't think any of them would've expected this.

Though there's not an inch of her that doesn't still hurt, it's as comforting as anything could be, having Russell close to her, and Molly holds on for that reason alone. When there's nothing that's going to make her feel better physically, she figures she ought to take what else she can, and this is entirely worth it. She still doesn't feel safe, not quite — she doesn't think anything could accomplish that right now — but Russell being here is about as close to it as she can get. After a night like this, that goes a long fucking way, even if it takes a good deal of effort to keep a sob from rising up in her throat. She's too worn out to let herself fall apart again, though he's one of the few people she would let herself do so in front of.

"It was under his fucking bed," she says, voice soft, chest tight. She's pretty sure she specified that in her statement, too, but it's about more than just conveying facts now. "It could've been there for months, and I would never have known." That's what she keeps coming back to, and one of the things that most differentiates this from the time Russell was sick. With that so easily accessible, there's no way it could have been entirely random. He knew too well what he was doing for that. Drawing back only enough to catch Russell's gaze, she frowns, finally giving voice to something that's been weighing on her. "Do you think... Were there others?"

He could lie to her, he knows, but he doesn't know if that would make it any easier or any better. Besides, he doesn't want to say things just to make Molly feel better, he wants her to know the truth and maybe one day she'll know it wasn't anything she could've seen coming. His hand rubs her arm gently, almost absently, though he's careful not to put much pressure on her.

"Yeah, we think so," he says with a nod. "Jane... uh, Detective Timoney, she's been doin' some work with a couple of murders over the past several months. Workin' out connections, things like that. It's beginning to look like at least some of them were him." And he knows Jane would've got the asshole sooner or later, he just wishes this hadn't had to happen before that.

Chin trembling, Molly nods. It's about what she'd expected, the one piece she's managed to put together through the haze this entire night has become, but she isn't sure if it's what she would have wanted to hear or not. On one hand, it feels less personal, less like something that could have been avoided, knowing there were others before her. It makes her fucking lucky, too, to have walked away from it, even more so than she already was. Still, it just makes her feel all the more fucking blind. She couldn't have known, but she still thinks she should have.

"Jesus," she says on an exhale, barely aware of the tears in her eyes. "Months. And all that time, I was..."

"No one knew, Molly," Russell says, his voice firm. "Not the cops, not the people he worked with. Way I've been hearin' it, the other woman in the apartment was a friend of his. Known him ever since he got here. No one knew."

He pauses and he doesn't know if he should say what he's about to, but maybe it'll help. "Some of the guys have been talkin'. I heard one of the detectives at his apartment talkin' about how he's probably been doin' this for a lot longer than we know. They don't talk about people bein' from somewhere other than Darrow, not like we do, but that's what he meant even if he didn't say it. He'd been doin' this before he got here and no one knew."

Molly isn't sure if that makes it better or worse, knowing that it wasn't just here, that there could have been countless others even before Patrick got to Darrow who didn't get as lucky as she did. Either way, though, she's glad she knows. With as long as she was kept in the dark, she wouldn't want to stay there now. She saw him for who he really was in that apartment, something she'd apparently been blind to for months. Now that she has, she wants to know as much as she can, no matter how much it shakes her. It's not as if it could really make that much difference now, anyway.

She opens her mouth, meaning to say as much, but what comes out instead is entirely different. "It's not like we were ever really all that close," she says, her voice still wavering. "Or like it meant anything. I mean, I... I didn't have, you know, feelings for him, or anything like that." She thinks she might have hinted at as much when she gave her statement, but it's too difficult to keep track of now, though whether that's because of the concussion or stress or pain, she doesn't know. Her eyes widen slightly. "Do you think that's something I should be saying... I don't know, more officially?"

Russell shakes his head, not only because he doesn't want to have her to go through any more of that again. At this point, with Bateman gone, it won't make a difference whether they were casual or near to getting married. Whatever she says officially, anyway, the media is going to say whatever they want, which Russell hates, but doesn't want to think about or bring up right now.

"No, your statement's good," he says. "You got everything we're gonna need to know, it's okay." But he's also glad to hear it a little, not because of any jealousy or possessiveness, but he'd hate to think of how much harder this would be if she'd been deeply involved emotionally. If she'd been in love with him.

Molly nods, though knowing that has to be the case — if there's anyone she can trust to be honest with her about this, she thinks, it's Russell — doesn't slow the racing of her heart, almost painful in her chest. It's as if there's still something hanging overhead, and she finds herself thinking back through what she's said, awful as it is, wanting to make sure she hasn't missed any details. It took practically no time at all for her life, not to mention her physical state, to get so fucked up, but it feels as if so much as happened, and all of it is at once both entirely too present and not there at all, distant, like things she's remembering through a fog. When the only thing she can control right now is how this part of it goes, she can't help needing to get it right.

"Okay," she says, still holding on to him, his presence just about the only thing that's keeping her anchored. "But if you need anything else, you'll let me know?" She opens her mouth again after speaking, meaning to bite her lip, but catches herself just in time. "I just want to help."

"Yeah, of course," Russell says, his hand rubbing her back slowly. He mostly doesn't want to hurt her by accident, but he's at least partly lost in thought, too. There's so much information to collect, so many things to put together, but he's going to make damn sure no one else bugs her for another statement. The reporters are going to be bad enough, he thinks, and there's nothing he can do about that, but he can insist this statement be enough.

They'll probably even listen to him.

"I really don't think it's gonna be an issue," he adds, pulling back a little to look at her. "He's gone. There's not gonna be any trial, we won't need to go over everything again and again just so some asshole defense attorney can't get in somewhere. We got everything."

Though it isn't something she could easily admit to, even to Russell, whom she's sure she trusts more than anyone else here, Molly can't help being relieved at that. It isn't even just that Patrick is already dead, though that plays a huge part. His face isn't one she wants to see again fucking ever. It's that she knows she isn't someone who would look good if this were an ongoing thing. Maybe the same isn't true of the other woman and maybe that would have wound up being her saving grace, but as it is, she knows too well the sorts of things some people say in situations like these. It's not a far cry from what she took some pretty desperate measures to avoid being faced with back home, though at least almost getting killed is a far cry from the situation she'd been in then (it's a lot fucking worse).

"Good," she says, voice a low, rough exhale. She doesn't bother trying to sound like she means it any less fervently than is really the case. It's funny in the sense that it's fucking awful, how much something like this can change a person's perspective, but she wouldn't have wanted any less for him than what he got from Lisbeth. "Fuck. I don't think I could've handled some drawn out thing."

"Can't exactly say this on the record, but even if he'd somehow survived what happened to him, I don't think you'd have anything to worry about," Russell says, his voice pitched low so it doesn't carry. Even though his recorder is turned off, he doesn't know who else is in the hospital and who might take what he says and run with it, a way to get him fired or even just knocked back down to beat cop.

Russell likes his job, he likes being a deputy, and he doesn't want to lose that.

"Don't think a guy like him would've made it to a trial," he continues, casual, like he's just talking about the weather. He might not even be talking about himself. He's sure there are other people who'd find a way to make that true.

Though it takes just a moment for the implicit meaning to sink in, Molly realizes when it registers that it's pretty fucking chilling. Not because of what something like that would involve — she already watched Patrick die once, and in a rather gruesome fashion, and if anything, takes comfort in that — but because he'd be doing it, at least in part, for her sake. There can't be many other people here, if anyone, who would do the same. Even back home, it would be different. She'd be a major news story, even more so than is bound to be the case already, and her father would have seen to it that he was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, gotten her all the protection she needed, but no one would have taken action like he's suggesting. Hell, she isn't sure anyone's ever cared about her that much. She can't say she minds that — she keeps most people at arm's length for a reason — but that doesn't make this any less meaningful.

"It's for the best that way," she says, though the look she fixes him with doesn't say anything but thank you. She knows better than to give voice to it, though, even without saying anything specific. "Just saves everyone a lot of trouble."

Russell knows he should agree with her, that it's better for everyone that Bateman is already gone, but there's still a part of him that wishes it hadn't happened like that. He wants nothing more than to see the man die, to cause him as much pain as possible as he can before Bateman goes. But that's not an option available to him anymore.

"You're probably right," he says. He'd lost his job over something like that. It's not an easy thing to cover up no matter what precautions he takes and Russell knows he doesn't have a stomach for real violence anyway. He'd make an exception in this case, but it's better he doesn't have to.

"I mean," Molly says, the words catching in her throat before she can continue, though she tries not to let any worry through. There's no reason for that, not even when entertaining hypotheticals. It's over now. She keeps thinking that it shouldn't be so difficult to remember that when it was barely more than a matter of minutes anyway. Even so, when she's this fucking worn down, even sparing that much energy is more than she really has in her. Besides, she has to conserve what she can, when they probably won't let her sleep quite yet, when she isn't sure she'd be able to even if they did. "Who knows what would have happened otherwise?"

Russell thinks he knows what would have happened. That if he hadn't gotten his hands on Bateman, someone else would have. That if someone who cared for Molly or the other woman hadn't gotten there first, the citizens of Darrow would have ripped him limb from limb just for killing their pop princess.

There's only one end here for Patrick Bateman.

"We don't have to talk about it, y'know," he says, still rubbing her back gently. "We can just... sit here." For awhile, anyway, he has two more statements to collect.

Molly lets out a breath of a laugh, though the way it catches in her throat means it doesn't sound much like one at all. Talking about it is far from pleasant, but it's all-encompassing, impossible to get away from. Even if she couldn't feel it all physically, the pain in her face and head and radiating through the rest of her where shots from nails are bandaged up, it floods through her head like an annoyingly catchy song on the radio, one she tries her damndest to keep at bay but that inevitably winds up looping over and over again.

"What else is there to talk about?" she asks, a tired sort of amusement in her voice, even as she curls against him. No matter how much she hurts, it's the closest she's felt to safe all night. "I don't... Everything else feels so far away now."