The Price of Love

By Terri D. Thomas

Synopsis

"The Price of Love"

Takes place after Retribution and explores the real reason Paul Blaisdell left and what happens when an enemy takes the ultimate revenge. Violence, language. And yes, once again, it will be posted in parts. Sorry.

Characters: Peter, Kermit, Caine, Paul, Lo Si, the Gang at the 101^st and Bartlett Stiles.

The Price of Love

By Terri D. Thomas

Part 1

Bartlett Stiles smiled as he finished reading the short note from his former colleague, Paul Blaisdell. It had been only a month since Blaisdell had left the country. Only one month since Stiles had taken his revenge on the Falcon.

He thought back to the last confrontation he had with Blaisdell. After being taken into custody and booked for the murder of Senator Matheson, Stiles had requested a private meeting with the Captain. Paul had initially refused, too angry and hurt by the betrayal. Then Stiles relayed a message, very simple in its words, but the threat overwhelming: "I will win." Paul couldn’t disregard the implications. Stiles was too great a threat to be ignored.

By 8:00 a.m. the morning after Bartlett Stiles’ arrest, Blaisdell had visited Stiles’ cell. The man was confident, a cruel gleam in his eyes. Paul dismissed the guard, so that the two could converse in complete privacy.

Paul leaned against the cell door with an air of casualness. Inside, though, he dreaded this meeting. Stiles’ was a devious man, bent on taking revenge against his former leader.

"I thought you would come." Stiles smiled.

"I was intrigued." Paul replied simply.

"You are vulnerable." The murderer replied.

Paul did not respond. He did not like where the conversation was heading. Stiles smiled. "You think you have won. . .that you have beaten me."

"Well since I’m not the one who is going to be spending the rest of my natural life behind bars, making license plates and fighting off boyfriends, I guess I have." The sarcastic reply hid Paul’s inner fear.

"You are wrong." Stiles still smiled, an evil, knowing grin.

Paul shifted position against the cell doors, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "You don’t scare me Stiles. You had your chance for revenge, you failed. It’s over."

The ex-SWAT leader’s smile faded and a murderous look crossed his face. "It will never be over. Not until you admit defeat. . .that I have won."

Paul scoffed at the empty threat. "It’s not going to happen, Stiles."

"You are vulnerable. I can still take away the things you care about, unless I get what I want." Stiles expression returned to the cold smile.

"And what do you want?" Paul inquired flatly.

"To see you suffer," was the only response. Paul frowned. Stiles continued. "I want you to leave. . . to walk away from everything you have. . .everything that makes you who you are."

Paul laughed in spite of himself. "Why in the hell would I do that?"

"To save your son." The smile remained on the cruel face.

Bartlett Stiles had succeeded. Within 48 hours, Blaisdell had left. He had walked away from his wife and family, giving the excuse that he needed to clear the decks, deal with the demons that haunted his existence. No one, not even Annie, knew that the real reason was to save the life of his son. And now, one month later, Blaisdell was admitting defeat.

The letter from the Captain had been delivered to the prison by an unknown courier. No return address, no postmark. Blaisdell had disappeared, just as Stiles had demanded. The murderer smiled to himself, quite content with the results of his actions; but his revenge was not complete. Yes, he had hurt Paul Blaisdell. But now he wanted to break him. . .and there was only one thing that would do that.

The plan had been rolling around in his head for the past week. He had most of the details figured out. He had the connections to succeed. He had the weapon. It was now a matter of putting it all together and into action. If Paul Blaisdell admitted defeat before, he would pray for death now.

End Part 1

The Price of Love

Part 2

One month later:

The sound of chaos rang through the 101^st Precinct, quite different from the peace and quiet of the cyber-investigation seminar Kermit Griffin had attended in Des Moines for the past two weeks. He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with the murderers, rapists and gang members who filled the squad room. His goal was to make it to the sanctuary of his office without being noticed by his fellow workers, but he was unsuccessful. "Hey Griffin, welcome back," Broderick shouted out from the front desk.

Griffin gave a slight nod and smile to the Sargent, but said nothing, not wanting to engage in conversation. As he wound his way through the desks and people, he noticed that most of the detectives were absent, apparently out solving the multitude of crimes in the city. In the corner, Chief Strenlich was standing at the coffeepot talking to Captain Simms. Kermit took the opportunity to pull the sunglasses down his nose and stare at the attractive Captain. Her long hair was pulled back into a single, thick braid; her shapely legs were accented by a short, but conservative, skirt. She had a smile on her face, which softened her features. She and the Chief started to laugh, apparently at some inside joke. She turned away and caught Griffin staring at her. "Well Detective Griffin, glad to see you made it back. How was the seminar?"

Kermit pushed the sunglasses up and shrugged his shoulders, "Unenlightening. Anything happen while I was gone?"

"Not much. Things have been relatively quiet. I think everyone’s still a little shell shocked after the Erickson's poisoning of the city last month." The Captain escorted Kermit to his office. The ex-mercenary placed his lap top computer on his desk, took his black suit jacket off and draped it on the back of one of the chairs. "He was sentenced last week. Got five consecutive life terms. . .he won't be getting out any time in the near future."

"Prison's too good for him. I should've made sure he didn't leave that warehouse alive." Kermit grumbled.

Karen looked at the mysterious detective. "We're cops Detective Griffin. We don't operate that way." She made sure she emphasized the word 'detective'.

"I operate that way. He killed a little girl." Kermit turned on his computer.

Karen didn't respond. She realized that her cop speech was just that, a speech. Down deep inside a part of her felt the same way. Why was it that scumbags like Erickson were allowed to live and innocent children died? It wasn't fair." She looked at the man in the green sunglasses and realized that he had the guts to the things that she pushed to the back of mind and pretended didn't exist. For that, she admired him.

Deciding a change of subject was in order, she perched herself on the corner of his desk, picked up a spiral bound notebook that he pulled out of the lap top bag and flipped through the pages, "So was the course worth the $2,000 of the city's money?"

Kermit shrugged his shoulders, "Most people were impressed with it." Then he paused and smiled, "Of course, I'm not 'most people'."

The Captain matched his smile, "So you keep telling me." She looked at the stack of paper work on the opposite corner. "Peter and Jody have a couple of investigations that they need some computer research on. . .I'd like you to work with them on that first thing."

"What kind of work?"

"They said they needed to access some credit bureau data and other financial information on a murder victim. Give them hand with that."

"Sure thing, Captain." He gave the Captain a mock salute and watched her walk out of his office, shutting the door behind her. He had only known her a few short weeks, but found her to be intriguing. After spending the past few years working with mercenaries like Rykker and Blaisdell, her demeanor was refreshing, although he still wasn't sure she could be trusted. . .of course, Kermit never trusted Rykker either. In fact, the only person he had ever trusted was Paul . . .and now Paul's son.

After a rocky start, the friendship between Kermit and Peter had grown to an almost brotherly relationship, especially during the past month. This growth was due entirely to Paul Blaisdell. The man had been like a father to Kermit, and was a father to Peter. When he left the month before, both Kermit and Peter were broken. Peter latched on to Kermit because, Kermit suspected, it was as close to Paul as he could get without Paul being there. At first, Kermit's mercenary instincts were to push Peter away, but then after a short time, he realized that Peter's presence reminded Kermit of being with Paul.

Kermit's mind drifted back to Blaisdell. He had not been in the country when the former Captain decided to leave. Kermit had joined Rykker on a brief 'tour' of Bosnia and then returned home to find that Bartlett Stiles had been arrested for the murder of a former colleague; Paul had been arrested and then cleared of the murder; and as a result, Paul had gone into seclusion. He hadn't heard from Paul since, and suspected that would not change. If he was right, Paul Blaisdell would never return, despite Peter's hopes to the contrary.

There was a light knock on the door, which jerked Griffin out of his memories. Peter peaked around the corner. "Captain said you were back in town," he smiled. "How was the trip?"

"Boring." Kermit said flatly. "I would've had more fun watching paint dry." He shook his head as he signed on the computer. "Most of the stuff they were trying to sell were programs that I acquired years ago."

Peter chuckled, "Yeah, but they do it legally; you, on the other hand. . ."

"Hey, I just call that 'creative acquisition'. Got to think on your feet and improvise in this line of work." Kermit retorted.

"Well, the trip must not have been a total waste. I tried calling you a couple of nights, but the hotel desk clerk said you weren't in. Must've had some interesting rendezvous somewhere in the city of Des Moines."

Kermit frowned and shook his head. "Nope. We must've just missed each other. Clerk probably lost the messages."

"Yeah, right." Peter agreed. He thumbed through the pile on the corner of Kermit's desk, found the file he was looking for and handed it to him. "Hey, I need some of your improvisational skills to do some 'creative acquisition' of bank records. But there can't be any trace you tapped into the bank's system. Think you can do it?" Peter tilted his head, challenging the computer expert.

Kermit lowered his head, slid the sunglasses down his nose and responded with his best, "Oh yeah," then he paused, a suspicious look crossing his face. "Wait a second, that doesn't sound like the investigative work that the Captain authorized."

Peter shrugged innocently, "Hey, you were the one who said that you had to improvise in this line of work. I'm improvising." He chuckled and rushed out of the office before Kermit could respond.

Within thirty minutes, Kermit had broken into the bank's computer. He motioned for Peter to return to the office. Peter looked around, making sure the Captain was otherwise occupied, and joined Kermit. Kermit caught the attempt at secrecy and shook his head at his young friend. "You know, Kid, don't ever decide to become a spy. You'd be made in the first hour."

"What?" Peter asked innocently.

Kermit chuckled at the look he received and shook his head. "Never mind." He punched a couple of buttons on his keyboard. "So, what kind of bank information are you looking for?

"I need to see the deposit records. I'm looking for cash deposits just under $10,000." Kermit looked at the file. The suspects name was Anderson Fielding, a well-known attorney.

"So what is Mr. Fielding suspected of?" Kermit asked while punching in the information that would lead to the desired information.

"Jody and I suspect that Mr. Fielding has been doing some laundry for the mob. We found his business card on a mob informant who had his throat cut a couple of days ago. Rumor has it that the informant was scheduled to meet with Fielding."

"So you think Fielding murdered the informant?"

"The informant's female companion says that he was going to blackmail Fielding. So. . ."

"So Fielding had a reason to want him dead." Kermit completed.

Peter nodded. "I only need the bank records to prove my theory. If I know that Fielding is on the take, I can find other evidence to nail him."

"Mercenary rules, huh."

Peter nodded again. Kermit smiled at the young man, "You're picking up some very bad habits."

Peter laughed, "Hey, what can I say. . .I learned from the best."

End Part 2

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