Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking

[Tasha]

I remember this fic. Havent read it in yonks. Yay, Drew is back Cant wait for an uptdate. And why is Dan being mean to VJ?

[xsamie]

This story is amazing, im still hung up that you killed Lucas though what is a story with Matilda without Lucas i ask you? anyway this is a great story.

[luckyrabbit]

And why is Dan being mean to VJ?

Dan's not being mean to VJ, he's just trying to get him to talk! The kid's almost, what, three or four and he still hasn't made a peep!

Since this chapter has just hit 3000 words and still isn't finished, here's another teaser:

Eve set her gun down on the table and picked up the envelope, turning it upside down and letting it's contents spill out onto the table. She let out a small laugh when she saw what they were. Photo's, that must've been taken the night before, of herself and Tracey in a rather compromising position. Better make that, a rather naked, compromising position. And typed on a plain white piece of paper was a note that read 'Any place, any time.' It was obviously meant to intimidate her and make her paranoid.

"Nice job." She appraised the photographs loudly, her voice echoing off the cavernous walls and carrying through the building. "I especially like the angle on this one, you really managed to capture the emotion of the moment. The lighting's a bit off, you can barely see anything, but I suppose that's more my fault than yours. If I had known you were going to be taking pictures I would've left more lights on." She said flippantly, waiting for a response but getting none. "Oh! I get what you're trying to do. I'm meant to feel all violated and vulnerable, right? Sorry, sorry. Let's try this again."

She let her bottom lip wobble and put on her most hurt and lost little girl sounding voice. "How could you invade my privacy like this! Oh my God, I feel so used and dirty. I'm never going to have sex again!" Rolling her eyes, she dropped the act and sighed. "That not hitting your kink either, huh?"

[-ParaisGal-]

Hehe, GO EVE! I love how she's always so funny!

[Tasha]

lol that was hilairous. 3000 words and still going. And thats only for the next chapter. KAh! i cant even write a 3000 word essay

[luckyrabbit]

Here it is! All 3633 words of it.

PART 13

"Admit it, danger turns you on." Eve teased Tracey who just laughed. "See, you can't deny it! I thought that you were going to break my nose last night with your c-" The door opened and Lara, closely followed by Jack, barged into the room without knocking. "-aaaaan't. We can't talk about this here, can we?"

Tracey ducked her head, a light blush spreading across her face. "No."

Lucky for them Lara was too caught up in her heated argument with Jack to pay any attention to what she had just walked in on.

When it looked like neither of the constables were going to apologize, Eve piped up. "Uh, you do remember the conversation we had about knocking right?"

"Sorry." Lara apologized in a huff. "But Jack here decided that he has something he desperately-" She rolled her eyes dramatically."-needs to talk to you about and I was trying to convincing him that it was a bad idea!"

Jack seemed to take offence to that. "It is not a bad idea!"

Eve held up a hand to try and avert another argument. "What do you want, Jack?"

"I want you to charge Stuart Wilkins with Macca's murder."

"Based on what, exactly? There is such a thing as insufficient evidence." Eve laughingly dismissed the suggestion.

"I don't care. Martha wants something done. Now."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Tracey said sarcastically. "I wasn't aware that your wife was running this investigation. We'll get right on it."

Eve smirked and leaned back in her chair. "Let me explain this very simply. I don't give a sh*t about Stuart Wilkins. He's a lackey. In the grand scheme of things he's expendable. And right now, he's the only lead we have. So, no, we are not going to completely blow things by bringing him up on murder charges that will never stick. And especially not just because your wife wants us to."

"But-"

"But nothing Jack." Eve cut him off. "We have no evidence. Nothing that connects Wilkins to the murder. You take this to a judge and it'll get laughed out of court."

Jack opened his mouth to try and argue his case again but caught Tracey's look that strongly suggested that it would not be a good idea. Gritting his teeth, he nodded and backed out of the room. He hated having to concede defeat, how ever temporary it might be, especially when he knew that he'd be letting Martha down by doing so.

"Ric? Sally?" Cassie called, stretching her aching muscles as she made her way down the stairs. She'd had a shocking night, she tossed and turned trying to get to sleep and when she did finally manage to drift off she was plagued by nightmares. She'd finally fallen into a solid sleep at around five that morning. "Sal?"

Receiving no reply, Cassie gave up trying. She didn't really expect one, it was after ten. A piece of paper sitting on the table caught her eye. It was a note from Sally explaining that they thought that she deserved a sleep-in after everything that had happened. Cassie smiled, they were right.

A second piece of paper caught her eye. Another note? Opening the envelope a smile spread across her face. It was a gift voucher for the Day Spa at the Sands resort. "Oh Ric." She sighed, holding the voucher to her heart. This was exactly what she needed and it mustn't have come cheap. Even though there was no name or card to go with it, she knew it must've come from him, his way of apologizing for the day before.

Grinning to herself, she turned around and sprinted back up the stairs. She wasn't going to waste any time taking advantage of her boyfriend's generous gift.

Sitting around in her office, Eve was filling a curious and enthusiastic Lara in on how she had managed to maintain her Zoe McCallister identity for such a long time.

"Should we just be sitting around talking like this?" A disgruntled and fed up Rice asked Eve.

"What else do you suggest we do? Until something else happens, there's not much to do."

"Well…couldn't you do a profile of the Stalker or something?"

Lara shook her head at his silly idea while Eve just rolled her eyes. "No. There would be no point, there's more than one person behind these attacks. Any profile I did would be wildly inaccurate and, simply put, a waste of time. And I don't like wasting my time."

"So anyway," Lara said, trying to get back to the topic at hand. "who was the real Zoe McCallister?"

"There was no real Zoe McCallister, everything about her was completely fabricated." Eve explained. "That body in the bush was the corpse of a Jane Doe that had been sitting unclaimed in the morgue for months."

"And the girl in the photograph?"

"One of my friends from our tech department who came down for the ride."

"How did you get into this line of work anyway, did they pull you out of the police academy or…"

Eve chuckled and shook her head. "No, people like me do not make the career choice to be a cop. I was in the middle of my second degree at Uni when I was asked to join into a special training program."

"How old were you?"

Eve bit her lip and thought back, it all seemed so long ago now, almost like it was somebody else's life. "Nineteen. Almost twenty."

Lara's eyes widened. "And did you say you were doing your second degree?"

"Uh-huh. Medicine."

"Very impressive." Lara said.

"Does that mean you're ready to accept that I am the Unquestioned and All-Knowing Master Of The Universe?" Eve asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Shouldn't that be mistress?" Rice corrected, his disdain for her shining through.

Eve titled her head thoughtfully. "No. Mistress makes it sound like I'm a whore for the whole universe…and that's just gross."

Rice, getting sick of their unprofessional banter, grunted and collected his papers.

"What up his bum?" Lara asked, as he stormed out of the room.

"Who cares."

"She's sucked Fitzy right in." Rice commented to Jack, gesturing to the two women who were now debating whether or not Batman could beat Superman in a fight - Eve's position? He totally could.- and rolling his eyes. Rice shook his head. "I can't believe Fitz can't see what a bitch she is."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't go that far-"

"I would. You had a good idea and she shut you down. She treats us like we're complete idiots!" Rice vented. "Like she's so much better than us. Trust me mate, that makes her a bitch with a capital B."

Jack considered his colleges argument. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right she is a bitch."

Of course, the two policeman probably would've thought twice about having such a conversation if they knew that there was one, very pissed off, Tracey Thompson standing right behind them overhearing their every word.

"She acts like she's so superior but just look at them. We're in the middle of a huge investigation and they're arguing about comic book characters."

Jack's eyebrows raised so far they almost disappeared into his hair. "Comic book characters?"

"Yeah, can you believe that?" Rice exclaimed. "We have people getting murdered left and right and she's not doing a thing about it? I reckon we should do something about her."

"Like what?"

"I'd like to hear that too." Tracey finally spoke up, making the two men jump.

"D-Detective Thompson! I-I-I didn't see you there." Rice stuttered, as Jack ducked his head and tried to will himself to be invisible.

Tracey gave him a disgusted look. "Obviously." She sniffed. "Don't you have work to do?"

"Ah- yeah." Rice said, pointing in the general direction of his desk. "I do! Very important paperwork. I should get right on it." He muttered and made a hasty retreat.

Tracey turned her attention to Jack who cringed and tried to justify himself. "Look, I didn't mean-"

"You. Interview room. Now."

Jack bowed his head and reluctantly followed Tracey to the interview room, trying to keep up with her angry stride, after all there wasn't much use trying to run.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Jack apologized impatiently once Tracey had closed the door behind them. "But you have to have noticed the way that she speaks down to us. She treats us like we're idiots."

"That's because, compared to her, you are!" Tracey sighed and leaned against the wall. "Look, I'm not bragging on her behalf or trying to make her out to be…" Tracey shook her head. "I'm simply stating a fact. Eve is smarter than you, she's smarter than me. To call her a genius would be an insult to her, that's how smart she is. Her brain doesn't work like ours do, she's constantly ten steps ahead and is always waiting for everyone else to catch up. Do you understand?"

Well when she put it like that. Jack nodded slowly. "But that still doesn't excuse the fact that she never takes anything seriously."

"How long have you been a cop, Jack?"

"Almost four years now."

"You ever worked undercover?"

"No."

"So you don't know what it's like to try and maintain your cover while conducting your own investigation?"

"No."

"And so you wouldn't have a clue what it's like to have everyone hate you for something you never did?"

"No."

"Let me give you a piece of advice Holden. In this job, you have to learn not to take things too seriously. You're going to see things, do things, that no person should have to and if you don't find a way to deal with that, it's going to eat you alive." Tracey explained. "Pretending to not take things seriously is just Eve's way of dealing with it. But she does care." She assured him. "Probably more than she should."

Jack nodded, he'd never thought about it like that before. He still didn't completely understand but he was beginning to.

"Just don't let her know that I was the one who told you that." Tracey added.

"Your secret's safe with me."

"What's this, VJ?" Dan teased, running a yellow dump truck past the toddler. "What's this?"

"Knock knock! Anyone home?" A familiar voice interrupted Dan and VJ's impromptu play session.

"Drew?"

"Unca Dwoo!" VJ cried gleefully, heaving himself up off the floor and toddling out to the kitchen and into the arms of his loving uncle.

"Veej!" Drew scooped the toddler up and carried him into the lounge.

"Drew, what are you doing back?" Dan asked in shock.

"Nice to see you too."

"Yeah, no. That's not what I meant. It's just we weren't expecting you back till later in the week. What are you doing back so soon?"

"I know. Matt broke his leg and wasn't really in the mood for guests after that. Not that I blame him. Besides, I couldn't stay away from this little fella." Drew said, ruffling VJ's hair making the child squeal in delight.

Dan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He wasn't expecting Drew to be back so soon, he thought that he'd have time to figure out what to say to him. How was he supposed to tell Drew that the two women he thought were responsible for his fathers death were still alive and they weren't the villains that everyone had made them out to be.

Drew looked up from playing trucks with his young nephew. "So what have I missed?" He asked his uncharacteristically quiet uncle.

Well there was his opening. "Ah, look mate, we have to have a bit a chat about your Dad."

Drew's hands stilled. "I don't want to hear it."

"You need to."

"Is it about my inheritance?"

"No."

"Then I don't want to hear it." He said dismissively. "Hey, Veej. I got something for you." He pulled a small Matchbox car from his pocket and handed it to VJ.

"Twuck!"

"Yeah." Drew chuckled.

Dan frowned and decided to try again. "Drew, we really do have to talk about your Dad. There's something you really need to know."

Drew let out a frustrated growl. "How many times do I have to say it? I don't want to know."

"Drew." Dan repeated quietly, the effort of trying to get through to the teenager draining him. This time there was something in his tone that made Drew sit up and pay attention.

"What happened?"

Standing in the doorway to Eve's office, Tracey smiled as she watched girlfriend engaged in a rather animated discussion with Constable Fitzgerald.

Lara looked up and noticed Tracey standing by the door. "I should probably go and do some work. Those files won't sort themselves." She said, getting up reluctantly. Paperwork was definitely not her favourite part of the job. She wanted to be out there, catching crims and following lines of enquiry like Eve, not stuck on desk duty half the time.

"Have fun." Eve laughed, waving at her departing back.

"You two seem to be getting along well." Tracey observed, shutting the door behind the departing constable.

"I figured it would be a good idea to have at least one person onside around here." Eve shrugged.

"You've got me."

Eve smiled lethargically. "I know. That's why I've been waiting to get you alone."

Tracey gasped but didn't look too displeased with the idea. "Here? I don't think that's such a good idea, I mean with so many people around."

"While I'm immensely pleased that that's the first place your mind went, it's not what I meant." Eve smirked, making Tracey blush. "I found this on the windshield of the CI car about half an hour ago." She said, pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handing it to Tracey.

Tracey carefully unfolded the note, taking care not to damage the evidence and wondering why Eve hadn't said something earlier. "Abattoir. Noon. Come alone." She read, her eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall. "It's almost twenty to twelve now. Why didn't you mention this earlier, there's no way that we can get a team together in time-"

"I know. That's why I didn't say anything." Eve got up and rounded the desk to stand in front of her partner. "We're handling this one ourselves. It's easier for one person to hide than it is for a whole herd of morons. You know that if we take any of these idiots along they're just going to mess everything up."

"You know that this is a trap, right?" Tracey pointed out. She had a bad feeling about this. "You need back up."

Eve reached out and pushed a few strands of Tracey's hair back off her face. "I have you."

Admiring her newly massaged and tanned skin, Cassie picked up her Ipod, considering whether or not it would be a good idea to take it into the sauna with her. It had been an awesome day, from the hour she spent in the solarium to the full body massage she'd received at the hands of a very talented blond haired, blue eyed, young man who chose to go by the name of Sven -it couldn't have been his real name, surely.- She couldn't think of a time in her life when she'd felt so relaxed. She would have a lot of work to do showing Ric how grateful she was for his thoughtful gift.

Finally deciding that a little steam wouldn't hurt the mp3 player, Cassie shrugged, pulling a fresh white towel from her locker and wrapping it around herself, -the contrast between her skin and the towel couldn't have been more stark- she closed the door to the locker. Not noticing that the bracelet that she had been wearing that day, an horribly large and ugly turquoise and sterling silver thing that Ric had brought her for her birthday, was missing.

Checking the sauna and pleased to find it completely unoccupied, Cassie turned the thermostat up to a pleasant seventy degrees, entering the sauna and letting the door click shut behind her. Scrolling through the songs she had archived until she found one she liked, Cassie took a seat on the slatted wooden bench and let the hot steam wash over her body and the highly underrated music of Snow Patrol flow through her earphones. Within moments she was completely oblivious to the outside world.

It was just the opening that they had been waiting for. That they had spent all day following her, watching her from the shadows, for. Checking that the coast was clear, they slinked up to the porthole widow in the door to the sauna, they looked through, making certain that Cassie was dead to the world, so to speak. They let the bracelet they had procured from Cassie's locker when she was under going a completely unnecessary tanning session, dangle from their gloved fingertips.

Cautiously they opened the door a fraction, just enough to position the bracelet right, and then pulled it back shut on it. The metal links of the bracelet caught in the lock, making it impossible for the door to open again without a tremendous amount of force behind it, a force there was no conceivable way that Cassie could muster.

They smiled and fiddled with the thermostat, setting it to the highest temperature, then twisted their wrist and snapped the knob off, making it impossible for the heat to be turned down. They looked at the broken knob in their hand and smiled, Cassie was going to pay for what she'd done.

"I don't suppose it would be much use trying to convince you not to do this?" Tracey sighed as the car pulled to a stop outside the abandoned abattoir.

"Nope."

"Didn't think so." Tracey smiled sadly. "Just…be careful, okay?" She didn't want to let Eve go in there without backup but she knew that she couldn't let her personal feelings interfere with their work.

"I will, don't worry." Sure, it was easy for her to say. "Just wait in the car."

The really should knock this place down. Eve thought to herself, climbing the metal staircase to enter the building from the second floor. It really was ridiculous, the number of abandoned factories surrounding the town. You'd think that they would be all be vandalized to kingdom come by now or at least home to dozens of squatters, but no. They were just left in almost pristine condition for anyone to come along and set up their own personal death traps.

Her gun drawn, Eve cautiously made her way into the darkened halls of the abattoir, keeping her back close to the wall and checking around corners before stepping out; she was cocky, not stupid.

Passing by a staircase, she noticed the large yellow envelope sitting on a table in the middle of an otherwise empty room, the words 'read me' scribbled across it in red ink. Keeping her senses open, scanning the area for any sign of movement, she slowly walked to the table. She didn't like it, it was way too open and pretty much screamed trap, but if that was the way the little freak wanted to play it.

Eve set her gun down on the table and picked up the envelope, turning it upside down and letting it's contents spill out onto the table. She let out a small laugh when she saw what they were. Photo's, that must've been taken the night before, of herself and Tracey in a rather compromising position. Better make that, a rather naked, compromising position. And typed on a plain white piece of paper was a note that read 'Any place, any time.' It was obviously meant to intimidate her and make her paranoid.

"Nice job." She appraised the photographs loudly, her voice echoing off the cavernous walls and carrying through the building. "I especially like the angle on this one, you really managed to capture the emotion of the moment. The lighting's a bit off, you can barely see anything, but I suppose that's more my fault than yours. If I had known you were going to be taking pictures I would've left more lights on." She said flippantly, waiting for a response but getting none. "Oh! I get what you're trying to do. I'm meant to feel all violated and vulnerable, right? Sorry, sorry. Let's try this again."

She let her bottom lip wobble and put on her most hurt and lost little girl sounding voice. "How could you invade my privacy like this! Oh my God, I feel so used and dirty. I'm never going to have sex again!" Rolling her eyes, she dropped the act and sighed. "That not hitting your kink either, huh?"

There was no response, nothing but silence, until the blast of a single gunshot disturbed the peace.

Sweating profusely, her hair plastered to her skin, Cassie pawed weakly at the door. The energy to call out for help had long since left her. Swiping her tongue out against her dry, chapped lips in a futile attempt to moisten them, she felt her eyelids getting heavy and little black dots started to dance in front of her eyes. Her head pounding, she took a long, shuddering breath and made one last desperate attempt to call for rescue. "Help!" But all that came out was a rasp that was barely audible, even to her.

She would've cried if she could, but she'd already sweated away the moisture she needed for tears. As Cassie's vision blurred and started to dim, she started to do the only thing she could. Her body sliding down the wall, her legs unable to hold her up anyway longer, she prayed. She prayed that she would be found before it was too late.

Next time on Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking: Eve's been shot, Cassie's locked in a sauna. You know what that means? A trip to the hospital and Rachel gets her time to shine.

[swfc]

Woooooooooooooot!

Go Rabs! Yet another awesome update! Been waiting for ages for this!!! It's great!

I love Tracey in here! Especially where she tells Jack to go in to the interview room. I can just imagine her.

It was worth the waiT,Rabs!

[Traceve]

Awesome update! Deffiently worth the wait

Update NOW soon!!

[Oxidizer]

This update is long - I love it! Especially now Drew's in it Zoe gets shot? Nooooooooo! Oh, and this part made me laugh!:

"See, you can't deny it! I thought that you were going to break my nose last night with your c-"

[luckyrabbit]

I thought you'd like that part Andy

Since the next chapter is going to be a long time coming (just the outline is over a thousand words) let's get some discussion going.

Will Eve and Cassie survive? Who's trying to kill Cassie and why?

If you get an answer right you'll get a cookie!