Nick stared at Faith as she stared back, waiting for his response, her fingertips tapping lightly against the table.
"Nick, I know this is a lot to ask of you, but--"
"I don't get what you're asking," Nick almost sounded upset. "I'm just me! What am I supposed to do??"
"Are you busy today, Nick?"
"Faith, I--"
"Are you busy??" she interrupted, incessantly.
"No," he responded tentatively.
"Will you come down to the station with me? I'd like to show you something."
Nick sighed, running his fingers through his hair as he thought of what he knew he was about to get himself into. Did he have time for any of this? He was a very busy guy and getting involved with this could be awfully time consuming. But this was his aunt--he could, maybe in some small way, help to catch the man that had murdered his aunt, "Sure..."
~ * ~
Faith switched the light on in her office and led Nick inside. She watched as he looked around, his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his baggy khakis, his eyebrows rising at the duffel bag, stuffed with clothes, that sat on her desk. She smiled inwardly... he was young, seemed young--yet also older than his age. Did she really want to ask him to get involved with this? Yes.
He was a handsome, young man and looked awfully familiar to Faith, but she didn't know why. She watched as Nick sighed and his shoulders sagged, his back to her.
"Nick?"
"What did you want to show me?" Nick turned around quickly, his eyes appearing wet.
Faith sighed and walked closer to him, squeezing his hand gently in hers, "I know this is hard, Nick."
He urged for her, with his eyes, to tell him why he was standing there. Faith nodded and walked to a filing cabinet across the room, unlocking it and pulling out a thick manila folder. She tossed it onto her desk and motioned for him to come over and open it. With a sigh, Nick walked slowly to her desk and with slightly trembling hands, opened the folder and emptied its contents onto her desk. What fell from the bounds of the folder was hundreds of photos. Nick started with the first, looking at them all slowly, his eyes misted.
The first photograph was of a young man, a bright smile on his face; the next of his dead corpse, brutally beaten, horribly bloody. The pictures continued in this same manner, but of little children and women too. As Nick got to the middle of the stack he found a picture of three little girls smiling broadly, and a handsome young man, with one of the girls on his shoulders, the other two hugging his waist. Nick looked from the picture to Faith, seeing the resemblance clearly.
"Was this-?"
Faith nodded, not needing him to ask further, "Yes... that was my husband, and my daughters."
Nick gulped, knowing he really didn't want to turn the picture. How could he bear to look at a picture of these 4 people rigorously slaughtered. He tossed the pictures down onto the desk, tears freely finding their way down his face. "Alright, Faith... I'll help you in whatever way that I can."
Faith smiled at him in admiration. She suddenly nodded, "Alright... you can start by bringing me a picture of your aunt, when she was... alive. And then another of... well, the crime scene, with her body in it, if you have any."
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded.
"Alright," Faith said softly, while grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair that she'd tossed it onto. "Well, we'll just start with that... C'mmon, I'll drove you home," she offered since she'd driven him to the station, and he'd gotten a ride to the restaurant earlier that day.
Nick nodded and followed her out of her office.
~ * ~
"Nice house," Faith commented as she pulled her car up to the gated mansion.
Gee, what does this kid do for a living, Faith couldn't help but wonder.
"Thanks," Nick sounded sheepish. "Thanks for the ride too. So um... how exactly does this work?"
"I'll call you tomorrow, Nick."
He nodded and stepped from her car, "Then I'll talk to you then, I guess," he said quietly while leaning through her window.
"Thanks again, Nick. You don't know how much this means to me... that somebody else wants to save the world," she spoke lightly, in a joking manner... but yet in a way, she was serious.
Nick smiled at her, reached through the window and squeezed her hand in reassurance, before he began to walk towards his house, "Talk to you tomorrow..."
"Bye, Nick."
Nick waved, before disappearing inside. With a sigh, Faith restarted her car and slowly backed from his driveway, wondering who this guy really was. Inside, Nick was wondering the same thing--there was something about her that was so mysterious to him...
