Buffy sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest. The bed was empty, Spike’s side cold. “Spike?” She waited for a moment and got no answer. “Spike?”
“William!”
She knew he could’ve just gone out for coffee or a breath of fresh air, but something inside of her was saying differently. Buffy knew, somehow, that things were bad, worse than they’d been the night before even.
She got out of the bed, calling out William’s name as she rushed out into the living room. The apartment was empty, no trace of Spike save for a note on the bar. Buffy picked it up, but had to read over it several times before the words finally made sense.
When they did, she dropped the note to the ground and ran into the bathroom, where she retched up the meager contents of her stomach. Finally, when there was nothing left in her, Buffy sunk to the bathroom floor and sobbed.
“Are you sure you don’t want to speak to a lawyer?”
Spike looked up at the blonde female cop sitting across from him. “Yes, I’ve said that like a hundred times already. Just start the tape or whatever, and let me confess.”
Detective Kate Lockley pushed record on the tape player and slid it towards Spike. “Please state your name.”
“William Angelus.”
“What can you tell me about the murder of Liam Angelus?”
“I did it.”
“Is this confession being made truthfully and of your own free will?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me what occurred between you and Liam Angelus on the night of February 13th?”
“Yeah. Liam, my father, he called me over. Said he wanted to talk to me. I’ve, um… I’ve been having an affair with his wife. Apparently he’d found out, had some surveillance photos taken. I don’t know how he got them, but he showed them to me, and things got heated. We were fighting, and I knew he kept a gun in his desk drawer, so I pulled it out. He came after me, and I fired the gun three times.”
“And when did this take place?”
“Around ten o’clock.”
“Where was Mrs. Angelus?”
Spike looked up, met Detective Lockley in the eye. “Buffy wasn’t there. She was at my place. We’d been planning to run off together, and she was waiting at my apartment for me to get home.”
“Is she still there now?”
“As far as I know. I didn’t wake her up, and I didn’t tell her what happened last night.” Spike looked down again, at his hands. “Liam beat her. She’s been a bloody wreck, and all I wanted was to keep her safe.”
“Where were you yesterday before you went to your father’s?”
Again, Spike looked up. “Look, I told you I did it. I sodding shot my father, all right? What more do you need from me?”
“Just answer the question.”
“I went to Mexico. Buffy and I were going to head out there today, and I was setting things up.”
“And Liam called after you got back?”
“Yes.”
“If you were planning on running away with Mrs. Angelus, then why did you go to your father’s when he called?”
Spike hadn’t been expecting this. He’d confessed, wasn’t that enough? Why did the woman want so many bloody details? He’d pled guilty and they could throw the sodding book at him if they wanted to. “Look, the man was a fucking bastard, all right? He called, and I don’t know, I guess I wanted a chance to confront him.”
“And did you plan on killing him?”
“No.” He met her eyes again. “But I’m not mourning the man either.” Spike sighed and leaned back in the chair. “I told you what happened. I shot my father. Are we done here?”
“Yeah, we’re done,” Kate replied before shutting off the tape. She walked out of the interrogation room, meeting a tall, bald black man in a suit behind the two-way mirror. “So what do you think, Charles? An open and shut case for the DA’s office?”
Assistant District Attorney Charles Gunn frowned as he looked through the mirror at Spike. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t seem right in all of this.”
“Oh, come on. We’ve got the weapon, we’ve got a confession, we’ve got motive.”
“He’s covering for the wife.”
Kate blinked and looked Gunn over. “How do you figure?”
“Because he is. His story’s good, but if he talked to her, she could fill him in on the details. But he’s too jumpy, too defensive on certain parts of it. He can’t deny he was in Mexico yesterday, if that’s where he was, because we could very well have proof of him crossing the border, so he’s got to fit that in somewhere. But it doesn’t really fit. And he got extra defensive when you asked about the wife. She’s got motive and she had access to the weapon.”
Gunn paused for a moment and crossed his arms over his chest. “He’s nineteen, Detective. If he’s fallen for this woman…”
“Then sacrificing himself for her is going to look damn romantic.”
“Exactly.”
“The gun is with the crime scene investigation team now. They should have some answers for us soon – at the very least tell us something about prints.”
Gunn nodded. “We’ll have more to go on then. In the meantime, I need to see to it he doesn’t make bail. Maybe if the little rich boy sits in jail for a while, he’ll find throwing his life away for a woman less romantic.”
“Look, if you really think he’s not our guy, I can go in there and grill him some more,” Kate replied, jerking her thumb towards the interrogation room.
“No, not now. Let him stew for a bit. We’ll get the evidence, and I’ll build my case on that.”
“Then I’ll send him back to his cell.”
“And I’m going to go talk to the scientists, see what they’ve managed to dig up so far.”
Game plan in place, Gunn and Kate went their separate ways.
Buffy didn’t know how much time had passed since she’d woken up. She’d left the bathroom only to wander the apartment in a daze before collapsing again in the corner of the bedroom.
She was still there. She’d long since run out of tears, though the aching emptiness inside her hadn’t subsided. William was all she’d had left, all that had any meaning to her. She’d killed Liam, but the life she’d really ended was William’s.
The thought of him in prison was too much for her to bear. He didn’t deserve to suffer for any reason, but especially not for her. She’d done nothing to earn this from him, nothing to merit such a sacrifice.
The urge to turn herself in and undo what Spike had done was strong, but she didn’t go. One line from his letter stayed in her mind, keeping her in place.
The only thing worse than losing my freedom would be living on the outside and knowing you’d lost yours.
Buffy needed to see the note again, to have Spike’s own words tell her she was doing what he wanted her to do. She stood on shaky legs, stumbled into the kitchen where she collapsed on the floor, scrambling until she had the note in her hands again. His words hadn’t changed. He pleaded with her to let him do this, to let him take the fall to protect her. He told her she didn’t deserve to lose everything over a man like Liam.
But he did? And this wasn’t losing everything? He said he couldn’t stand the thought of her in prison, but would she be able to survive with him in there, paying the price of her crime?
A hard, heavy knock sounded at the door, and Buffy struggled to get up, shoving the note into the pocket of her robe as she did.
“Open up. It’s the police.”
Buffy moved towards the door, trying to hurry, tripping until she was there, her shaking hand on the knob.
As soon as the door was open, someone thrust a piece of paper at Buffy, announcing she had a warrant. The sun was glaring, blinding her, and Buffy stumbled backwards as people barged into the apartment.
Detective Lockley turned and got her first look at the Angelus widow. Immediately, she realized her assumptions had been wrong on this one. While she still wasn’t sure if the ADA’s theory about the son covering for his illicit girlfriend was correct, she could see now that there was more than met the eye. She’d thought it was another case of the privileged thinking they could get away with anything. Her first notion had been that the son had been eliminating the competition, desire for his father’s young, attractive wife driving him to kill. But whatever had happened, in her mind Kate had pictured someone much more sinister, a black widow who would either manipulate a young man into killing his father or do it herself and have him take the fall.
But not this. Not this broken, bruised girl in front of her. Her robe was askew, her nightgown torn. Beneath tear stains were bruises, and on her neck were marks Kate knew well enough to recognize anywhere.
Someone had choked her. Someone with larger, thicker hands than the man they currently had in lock up.
And she was so young… No more than a child, really.
Kate had planned to barge in and grill her, to make the woman spill whatever she knew. If she wasn’t the one who really pulled the trigger, then she was at least an accomplice. Even now, after seeing what she looked like, Kate was confident of that much.
But she couldn’t. The girl was already too shattered, and she knew pushing her hard now would most likely lead to a breakdown more than anything else. Kate had never considered herself a soft-hearted cop – and she knew her fellow officers wouldn’t either – but she couldn’t do this. Even on a practical level, she wasn’t sure she could get anything that would be admissible in court with the girl’s mental state.
They searched the house, looking for evidence and coming up mostly empty. Kate had been hoping to find something with blood on it, clothes stained with Liam’s blood that would tell her whether it was the son or the widow truly on the other end of that gun.
They found none. Not a drop of blood in the house, and she would wager that the clothes the girl had on now were the same she’d worn the night before.
With no confession and no new evidence, Detective Lockley left the apartment.
Buffy collapsed again.
A large, stern-faced guard watched Spike as he picked up the phone and dialed the number. He wished it was Buffy he was calling now, wished he could just hear her voice, tell her he was all right and not to worry, but he knew he couldn’t call her. These calls could very well be monitored, and he didn’t want to run the risk of Buffy saying something that would blow this all.
Instead, he called the one person he knew he could trust now. He hadn’t known her long, and had met her through Drusilla of all people, but he knew she was one of the few truly good people in the world.
It was a lot to dump on her now, but he knew Buffy would need someone, a friend.
“Hello?”
“Hey, luv.”
“William? Did they just say you’re calling from jail? What happened? Are you okay? Do I need to bail you out?”
Despite everything, Spike found himself smirking. “No, Tara. I’m being denied bail anyway. Something about being a flight risk.”
“What?!”
“Yeah, apparently you should never mention to the cops you were recently planning an escape to Mexico if you want bail. Look, here’s the deal: I killed my father. It’s a whole long story. But I need you to do something for me.”
“WHAT?!”
“Tara, I don’t have long on this phone, pet, so you need to listen to me. I’ve got a girl, over at my new apartment, and she’s in bad, bad shape. I need you to go see to her for me, all right? I’m worried about her, worried she could hurt herself, and I can’t let that happen.”
For a moment, the other end of the line was silent, then Tara spoke softly, her tone more upset than Spike’s. “William, I’m worried about you. I need to know what’s going on.”
“I can’t really get into it. But I’ll be fine as long as she is. I hate to even ask you to do this, but you’re the only one I know who’s capable of it. Can you do it?”
“Of course I can. I’ll head over there now. God…you…you killed your father? Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Really. I mean sure, I’m wearing the most hideous jumpsuit ever and the food here sucks, but it could be worse.”
“William, it’s me. You don’t have to…”
“I know, Glinda. Just see to Buffy for me. Please.”
“Buffy? That Buffy?”
“Yeah, that Buffy.” The phone beeped, letting William know his time was running out. “I need to go. Can you do this for me?”
“I… Okay. Call me back when you can, all right? I’m going to be worried.”
“I know. And I will. Bye, Tara.”
Not able to hear anything else from her, not when she sounded so concerned for him, Spike hung up the phone.
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