![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azombiewritesTitle: A Murder Hunt
- Sequel to ‘A Murder Mystery’
Author: Bernadette
Rating: PG Bad Language
Fandom: The Magnificent Seven
Category: Four Corners Detectives AU
Main Characters: Ezra and JD
Disclaimers: The guys are owned by CBS, MGM, Trilogy Entertainment Group, and The Mirisch Corp.
Notes: The April 2005 Challenge (the Mystery Challenge) - offered by Jesfrealo. Write a story where a mystery plays a key role in the story. Have one or any combination of the guys be the detective(s). It can be funny or serious and in any open universe. Extra points if you make an unusual pair of the guys work together to figure out the mystery (so not Chris and Vin or Buck and JD...). Have fun!!
Summary: Detectives Standish and Dunne hunt for a killer
Spoilers: None
Author's note: A BIG thank you and a bear hug to the person who nominated this story for a 2008 & 2009 MoM award!
Warning: Josiah Sanchez is the bad guy in this story!
Part Five
He could feel someone drawing what he thought was a cross on his forehead. The soft-spoken words, “Through this holy anointing, may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit,” broke through the thick cotton that someone had shoved, and then hammered down until it filled every nook and cranny in his skull.
Was he dying?
Something cold and wet touched his right then left hand causing them to shiver in response. The soft voice spoke again, “May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.”
Dunne opened his eyes, and just as suddenly closed them when the ceiling light sent a bolt of pain through his skull. Keeping his right eye closed and slowly opening the left, he stared up into the caring blue eyes of Father Jonathon Cotter. For a brief moment, he would have sworn he saw a circle of light behind Father Cotter’s head.
“Am I dying, Father?”
“I’m sorry, JD."
Both eyes were now open, his distress clearly showing.
Dunne’s voice cracked when he spoke, “I’m dying.”
Doctor Nathan Jackson ran into the hospital room and skidded to a stop just behind the priest, his arms spreading out like wings to keep his balance. His eyes widened in shock at the sight before him. “Father Cotter, you’ve got the wrong room . . . you should be with Mr. Henderson in room 101, not here with JD.” He quickly stepped forward, and taking the priest gently by the shoulders, he began to lead him back out of the room. On the way, Jackson glanced over his shoulder at Dunne, gave him a small smile and mouthed the word, sorry.
“I’m so sorry, Nathan . . . I thought that . . . I’m so sorry . . . I didn’t . . .” Father Cotter was begging for forgiveness. “I wasn’t . . .”
“No, no, no. It’s okay. I’m sure JD didn’t take any offence.” When they reached the open doorway, Jackson stopped and turned the priest until he was facing the bed. “Did you, JD . . . you didn’t take any offence at Father Cotter’s mistake? Did you?” There was a pleading expression on the Doctor’s face. “JD?”
“No, it’s okay, Father.” Dunne had known Father Cotter since he was old enough to go to church. He liked the old man who spent his life walking around in a cloud of serenity so much he couldn’t find it in his heart to be angry with him. “Don’t worry about it, Father. I’m fine.”
Jackson nodded his thanks and nudged Father Cotter – who looked as though he was about to collapse into a mountain of misery – toward room 101 and Mr. Henderson.
Although Dunne wasn’t angry with Father Cotter, he couldn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be angry with Dr. Jackson. He waited only long enough for the Doctor to reach his bedside before beginning his bombardment of angry words. “What the hell was that all about? Was he actually giving me my Last Rights? Because if he was . . . I’ve got to tell you, I’m not okay with it!”
“I’m sorry, JD.” Jackson held up his hands in an attempt to calm the young Detective down. ”It was a mistake.”
“A mistake! You’ve got to be kidding me!” Dunne used his arms to push himself up into a sitting position and instantly regretted it when the room began to spin in an anti-clockwise direction. It took at least half a minute for the room to stabilize but his body continued to feel like it was under the gentle influence of the ocean.
“He didn’t have his reading glasses on . . . must have got the room numbers mixed up.” Jackson grabbed the empty bowl sitting on the bedside table and held it under Dunne’s chin. “Are you going throw up?”
“If I do, it won’t be in that bowl.” Dunne snatched the bowl from Jackson’s hands and held it in his lap – just in case.
“JD, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry! I thought I was dying for Christ--” Dunne snapped his mouth shut, opened it and then closed it again. His heart began to beat faster, his chest suddenly tight as the panic began to build. “Ezra? Is he okay?”
“I don’t know about Detective Standish,” Jackson said with a hint of sympathy. “They haven’t found him yet.”
“Found him? What do you mean . . . found him? I didn’t know he was lost.” Dunne ignored the vertigo and struggled to remove the bed covers from his body. “Phone, I need a phone.” The sheet and thin blanket tangled around his feet, causing him to swear, the curse strong enough to embarrass even Buck Wilmington.
“Since when did you learn to swear like a sailor?” Wilmington, who held a carry bag in his left hand, walked into the room.
Dunne stopped what he was doing and lifted his gaze so he could glare at Wilmington. If the situation weren’t so serious, he would laugh at the embarrassment flushing his friend’s cheeks. “Don’t you start with me, Buck. I’m having a bad enough day as it is. Fucking photos, escaped criminals, dead bodies, car accidents, and you wouldn’t believe it . . . I woke up to Father Cotter giving me my Last Rights. I thought I was dying, and now I find out that Ezra’s missing. Damn it! What the hell is going on around here?”
“What? And you think everyone else is having such a good day.” Wilmington stepped up to Dunne’s bedside and stood with his right hand unconsciously tracing the growing bruise beneath the thin white cotton shirt he was wearing. “If it wasn’t for a damn dog, I would be dead right now, so don’t give me any shit about you having a bad day, and while I’m at it, I’m sure Ezra isn’t having such a great time right now either.”
Dunne didn’t apologize. He couldn’t. The fear and worry in Wilmington’s eyes caused the words to catch in his throat.
Jackson tugged at the ends of his stethoscope, looked at Wilmington, and then Dunne. The fear both men wore in their expressions was enough to cause the sympathy he had felt for Standish to grow into a tidal wave of fear – which confused him, because if he were to tell the truth, he would admit that he didn’t like Standish very much. Obviously, his dislike for the man didn’t stop him from being worried about him.
“What about Ezra? Where is he?” Dunne had finally managed to speak.
“Nathan, could you give us a minute.”
“Sure. Uh . . . JD, you take it easy, okay. You took a nasty hit to the head and have twelve stitches in that thick skull of yours as a result,” Jackson paused before adding, “Do you need something for the pain?”
Dunne shook his head and said, “Not yet.” He reached up, the fingers of his right hand probing the length of his forehead until it touched the edge of the gauze covering the angry wound. The injury rested just above the hairline on the left side of his forehead. A part of him wanted to press the tip of his finger into the damaged area to feel the pain, to let him know that it was real and not just a dream. He grimaced when his stomach lurched, rolled, and then settled down again.
“No wonder it feels like I’ve got the Pacific Ocean swirling around in my stomach.” Dunne let his hand fall back down into his lap next to the empty bowl, the fingers began to play with a lose thread in the light green blanket.
“I’ll be with Mr. Henderson if you change your mind about the painkillers.” Jackson smiled at Dunne and then walked out of the room.
“Buck? What happened to Ezra?”
Wilmington’s words were short and direct. “Sanchez has him.”
“What? How did Sanchez . . . get him?”
“That doesn’t matter right now, JD.” Wilmington removed the bowl from Dunne’s lap and replaced it with the laptop he was carrying. “We need to find Ezra. Get onto that,” he pointed at the bag, “and see if you can trace the GPS on Ezra’s cell phone.”
Dunne frowned at the carry bag. He ignored the twinge of pain the facial movement caused and said, “That won’t do us any good, Buck. We won’t be able to find Ezra that way.”
“Why not,” Wilmington asked. “Last year, when Vin disappeared for almost a week, Chris made sure we all had the right gear in case something like that happened again.”
“Yeah I know, but Sanchez would have to--”
“He would have to hole up somewhere and then be stupid enough to make a call on Ezra’s phone.” Wilmington was nodding.
“Yeah and he isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have kept Ezra’s cell phone.”
“You should run a search on it anyway, you never know, maybe he is stupid.” Wilmington pulled up a chair and sat down. The painkillers Dr. Jackson had forced him to take earlier were now giving him more trouble than they were worth. They may have eased the throbbing pain in his chest but he was now having trouble standing up on his own two feet. His eyesight was slightly blurred and his body kept asking him to lie down and sleep for at least forty-eight hours. If it wasn’t for a missing Ezra Standish and the lack of female company, he might have considered it. “Anyway, Vin said Ezra was going to want it back . . . said there was something important on it.”
“Important my ass,” Dunne said, his cheeks growing red when he realized what he had said.
Wilmington raised an eyebrow at his friend. “Is there something that I should know about, JD?”
Dunne ignored the question, unzipped the carry bag and removed the laptop before asking a question of his own. “How long has it been since . . . “
“Just over an hour. Everyone’s out looking for Ezra, even Chris.”
“It was Hollman, wasn’t it?”
“What was Hollman?” Wilmington tried to rub out the blurry image in front of him with the fingers of his right hand.
“It was Hollman’s fault that Sanchez has Ezra.”
“JD,” Wilmington began.
“Hollman caused the accident.”
“It was procedure, JD . . . he did the right thing.”
“It may have been procedure, Buck, but you don’t do something like that at the speed we were driving!” Dunne snapped. “He caused Sanchez to spin out right in front of us. I didn’t have anywhere to go except straight into the jeep. Fuck! You know how bad Ezra is when it comes to being in a car, how’s he going to be now.”
“He saved your life, JD.”
“Who, Ezra?”
“No,” Wilmington said, “Hollman.”
“How . . . “
“Sanchez had a gun against the back of your head, JD.” Wilmington didn’t need to say anymore.
“Yeah, well . . . I’ll hit him first, then thank him for saving my life.” Dunne powered up the laptop. After a few seconds, the desktop appeared and his eyes narrowed at the picture of a half-naked blonde-haired woman. His gaze shifted to Wilmington who just smiled and shrugged in return.
Dunne suddenly felt tired beyond his years, his vision blurred, and the images before him blended then separated, causing the contents in his stomach to turn once again.
“You okay, JD.” Wilmington stood up too quickly, his body swayed to the left and he had to grab onto the chair so he wouldn’t fall flat on his face.
“I’m going to be sick.” Dunne was grateful when the bowl appeared back in front of him.
Two minutes passed before he realized his rebelling stomach had changed its mind. Pushing the bowl away, he returned his concentration to the laptop and the search for Ezra’s cell phone. He didn’t notice Wilmington sit down and place the empty bowl in his own lap.
“JD . . . we’ve got just under four hours to find Ezra.”
“Why?”
Wilmington let out a deep breath, the air escaping through his teeth created a sigh so loud it made Dunne cringe in annoyance. It took him five minutes to go over what had happened
“Shit!”
“Yeah,” Wilmington agreed with him.
“What makes us think he hasn’t killed Ezra already?”
“We don’t.”
Dunne nodded, causing the pain in his skull to grow stronger.
“JD, you sure you’re okay to do this?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Buck,” Dunne said.
“Painkillers aren’t really agreeing with me at the moment.”
“I can see that, you’re looking a bit green.”
Wilmington could only nod.
Dunne smiled. If things worked out okay and Ezra survived the dire situation he was in, Dunne was going to use this moment against Wilmington after it was all over. His eyes flashed to the screen when the laptop beeped at him.
“Got it! Sheften Street.”
Wilmington shook his head. “No good. That’s two blocks from where Sanchez hijacked the Camry. He threw the cell phone away. ”
“Sorry, Buck.”
“Not your fault, JD.”
“Maybe there’s something else we can try?”
“You think about it while I call Chris.” Wilmington pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket. Narrowing his eyes at the number pad in front of him, he managed to get the correct speed dial on his third attempt and while he waited for his boss to answer the phone he said, “So, Father Cotter was giving you your Last Rights.”
“Yeah, saw a halo and everything,” Dunne said.
The words wiped the smile off Buck Wilmington’s face. “Really?”
“Yeah . . . really.”
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six
Master Fan Fiction List
- Sequel to ‘A Murder Mystery’
Author: Bernadette
Rating: PG Bad Language
Fandom: The Magnificent Seven
Category: Four Corners Detectives AU
Main Characters: Ezra and JD
Disclaimers: The guys are owned by CBS, MGM, Trilogy Entertainment Group, and The Mirisch Corp.
Notes: The April 2005 Challenge (the Mystery Challenge) - offered by Jesfrealo. Write a story where a mystery plays a key role in the story. Have one or any combination of the guys be the detective(s). It can be funny or serious and in any open universe. Extra points if you make an unusual pair of the guys work together to figure out the mystery (so not Chris and Vin or Buck and JD...). Have fun!!
Summary: Detectives Standish and Dunne hunt for a killer
Spoilers: None
Author's note: A BIG thank you and a bear hug to the person who nominated this story for a 2008 & 2009 MoM award!
Warning: Josiah Sanchez is the bad guy in this story!
Part Five
He could feel someone drawing what he thought was a cross on his forehead. The soft-spoken words, “Through this holy anointing, may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit,” broke through the thick cotton that someone had shoved, and then hammered down until it filled every nook and cranny in his skull.
Was he dying?
Something cold and wet touched his right then left hand causing them to shiver in response. The soft voice spoke again, “May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.”
Dunne opened his eyes, and just as suddenly closed them when the ceiling light sent a bolt of pain through his skull. Keeping his right eye closed and slowly opening the left, he stared up into the caring blue eyes of Father Jonathon Cotter. For a brief moment, he would have sworn he saw a circle of light behind Father Cotter’s head.
“Am I dying, Father?”
“I’m sorry, JD."
Both eyes were now open, his distress clearly showing.
Dunne’s voice cracked when he spoke, “I’m dying.”
Doctor Nathan Jackson ran into the hospital room and skidded to a stop just behind the priest, his arms spreading out like wings to keep his balance. His eyes widened in shock at the sight before him. “Father Cotter, you’ve got the wrong room . . . you should be with Mr. Henderson in room 101, not here with JD.” He quickly stepped forward, and taking the priest gently by the shoulders, he began to lead him back out of the room. On the way, Jackson glanced over his shoulder at Dunne, gave him a small smile and mouthed the word, sorry.
“I’m so sorry, Nathan . . . I thought that . . . I’m so sorry . . . I didn’t . . .” Father Cotter was begging for forgiveness. “I wasn’t . . .”
“No, no, no. It’s okay. I’m sure JD didn’t take any offence.” When they reached the open doorway, Jackson stopped and turned the priest until he was facing the bed. “Did you, JD . . . you didn’t take any offence at Father Cotter’s mistake? Did you?” There was a pleading expression on the Doctor’s face. “JD?”
“No, it’s okay, Father.” Dunne had known Father Cotter since he was old enough to go to church. He liked the old man who spent his life walking around in a cloud of serenity so much he couldn’t find it in his heart to be angry with him. “Don’t worry about it, Father. I’m fine.”
Jackson nodded his thanks and nudged Father Cotter – who looked as though he was about to collapse into a mountain of misery – toward room 101 and Mr. Henderson.
Although Dunne wasn’t angry with Father Cotter, he couldn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be angry with Dr. Jackson. He waited only long enough for the Doctor to reach his bedside before beginning his bombardment of angry words. “What the hell was that all about? Was he actually giving me my Last Rights? Because if he was . . . I’ve got to tell you, I’m not okay with it!”
“I’m sorry, JD.” Jackson held up his hands in an attempt to calm the young Detective down. ”It was a mistake.”
“A mistake! You’ve got to be kidding me!” Dunne used his arms to push himself up into a sitting position and instantly regretted it when the room began to spin in an anti-clockwise direction. It took at least half a minute for the room to stabilize but his body continued to feel like it was under the gentle influence of the ocean.
“He didn’t have his reading glasses on . . . must have got the room numbers mixed up.” Jackson grabbed the empty bowl sitting on the bedside table and held it under Dunne’s chin. “Are you going throw up?”
“If I do, it won’t be in that bowl.” Dunne snatched the bowl from Jackson’s hands and held it in his lap – just in case.
“JD, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry! I thought I was dying for Christ--” Dunne snapped his mouth shut, opened it and then closed it again. His heart began to beat faster, his chest suddenly tight as the panic began to build. “Ezra? Is he okay?”
“I don’t know about Detective Standish,” Jackson said with a hint of sympathy. “They haven’t found him yet.”
“Found him? What do you mean . . . found him? I didn’t know he was lost.” Dunne ignored the vertigo and struggled to remove the bed covers from his body. “Phone, I need a phone.” The sheet and thin blanket tangled around his feet, causing him to swear, the curse strong enough to embarrass even Buck Wilmington.
“Since when did you learn to swear like a sailor?” Wilmington, who held a carry bag in his left hand, walked into the room.
Dunne stopped what he was doing and lifted his gaze so he could glare at Wilmington. If the situation weren’t so serious, he would laugh at the embarrassment flushing his friend’s cheeks. “Don’t you start with me, Buck. I’m having a bad enough day as it is. Fucking photos, escaped criminals, dead bodies, car accidents, and you wouldn’t believe it . . . I woke up to Father Cotter giving me my Last Rights. I thought I was dying, and now I find out that Ezra’s missing. Damn it! What the hell is going on around here?”
“What? And you think everyone else is having such a good day.” Wilmington stepped up to Dunne’s bedside and stood with his right hand unconsciously tracing the growing bruise beneath the thin white cotton shirt he was wearing. “If it wasn’t for a damn dog, I would be dead right now, so don’t give me any shit about you having a bad day, and while I’m at it, I’m sure Ezra isn’t having such a great time right now either.”
Dunne didn’t apologize. He couldn’t. The fear and worry in Wilmington’s eyes caused the words to catch in his throat.
Jackson tugged at the ends of his stethoscope, looked at Wilmington, and then Dunne. The fear both men wore in their expressions was enough to cause the sympathy he had felt for Standish to grow into a tidal wave of fear – which confused him, because if he were to tell the truth, he would admit that he didn’t like Standish very much. Obviously, his dislike for the man didn’t stop him from being worried about him.
“What about Ezra? Where is he?” Dunne had finally managed to speak.
“Nathan, could you give us a minute.”
“Sure. Uh . . . JD, you take it easy, okay. You took a nasty hit to the head and have twelve stitches in that thick skull of yours as a result,” Jackson paused before adding, “Do you need something for the pain?”
Dunne shook his head and said, “Not yet.” He reached up, the fingers of his right hand probing the length of his forehead until it touched the edge of the gauze covering the angry wound. The injury rested just above the hairline on the left side of his forehead. A part of him wanted to press the tip of his finger into the damaged area to feel the pain, to let him know that it was real and not just a dream. He grimaced when his stomach lurched, rolled, and then settled down again.
“No wonder it feels like I’ve got the Pacific Ocean swirling around in my stomach.” Dunne let his hand fall back down into his lap next to the empty bowl, the fingers began to play with a lose thread in the light green blanket.
“I’ll be with Mr. Henderson if you change your mind about the painkillers.” Jackson smiled at Dunne and then walked out of the room.
“Buck? What happened to Ezra?”
Wilmington’s words were short and direct. “Sanchez has him.”
“What? How did Sanchez . . . get him?”
“That doesn’t matter right now, JD.” Wilmington removed the bowl from Dunne’s lap and replaced it with the laptop he was carrying. “We need to find Ezra. Get onto that,” he pointed at the bag, “and see if you can trace the GPS on Ezra’s cell phone.”
Dunne frowned at the carry bag. He ignored the twinge of pain the facial movement caused and said, “That won’t do us any good, Buck. We won’t be able to find Ezra that way.”
“Why not,” Wilmington asked. “Last year, when Vin disappeared for almost a week, Chris made sure we all had the right gear in case something like that happened again.”
“Yeah I know, but Sanchez would have to--”
“He would have to hole up somewhere and then be stupid enough to make a call on Ezra’s phone.” Wilmington was nodding.
“Yeah and he isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have kept Ezra’s cell phone.”
“You should run a search on it anyway, you never know, maybe he is stupid.” Wilmington pulled up a chair and sat down. The painkillers Dr. Jackson had forced him to take earlier were now giving him more trouble than they were worth. They may have eased the throbbing pain in his chest but he was now having trouble standing up on his own two feet. His eyesight was slightly blurred and his body kept asking him to lie down and sleep for at least forty-eight hours. If it wasn’t for a missing Ezra Standish and the lack of female company, he might have considered it. “Anyway, Vin said Ezra was going to want it back . . . said there was something important on it.”
“Important my ass,” Dunne said, his cheeks growing red when he realized what he had said.
Wilmington raised an eyebrow at his friend. “Is there something that I should know about, JD?”
Dunne ignored the question, unzipped the carry bag and removed the laptop before asking a question of his own. “How long has it been since . . . “
“Just over an hour. Everyone’s out looking for Ezra, even Chris.”
“It was Hollman, wasn’t it?”
“What was Hollman?” Wilmington tried to rub out the blurry image in front of him with the fingers of his right hand.
“It was Hollman’s fault that Sanchez has Ezra.”
“JD,” Wilmington began.
“Hollman caused the accident.”
“It was procedure, JD . . . he did the right thing.”
“It may have been procedure, Buck, but you don’t do something like that at the speed we were driving!” Dunne snapped. “He caused Sanchez to spin out right in front of us. I didn’t have anywhere to go except straight into the jeep. Fuck! You know how bad Ezra is when it comes to being in a car, how’s he going to be now.”
“He saved your life, JD.”
“Who, Ezra?”
“No,” Wilmington said, “Hollman.”
“How . . . “
“Sanchez had a gun against the back of your head, JD.” Wilmington didn’t need to say anymore.
“Yeah, well . . . I’ll hit him first, then thank him for saving my life.” Dunne powered up the laptop. After a few seconds, the desktop appeared and his eyes narrowed at the picture of a half-naked blonde-haired woman. His gaze shifted to Wilmington who just smiled and shrugged in return.
Dunne suddenly felt tired beyond his years, his vision blurred, and the images before him blended then separated, causing the contents in his stomach to turn once again.
“You okay, JD.” Wilmington stood up too quickly, his body swayed to the left and he had to grab onto the chair so he wouldn’t fall flat on his face.
“I’m going to be sick.” Dunne was grateful when the bowl appeared back in front of him.
Two minutes passed before he realized his rebelling stomach had changed its mind. Pushing the bowl away, he returned his concentration to the laptop and the search for Ezra’s cell phone. He didn’t notice Wilmington sit down and place the empty bowl in his own lap.
“JD . . . we’ve got just under four hours to find Ezra.”
“Why?”
Wilmington let out a deep breath, the air escaping through his teeth created a sigh so loud it made Dunne cringe in annoyance. It took him five minutes to go over what had happened
“Shit!”
“Yeah,” Wilmington agreed with him.
“What makes us think he hasn’t killed Ezra already?”
“We don’t.”
Dunne nodded, causing the pain in his skull to grow stronger.
“JD, you sure you’re okay to do this?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Buck,” Dunne said.
“Painkillers aren’t really agreeing with me at the moment.”
“I can see that, you’re looking a bit green.”
Wilmington could only nod.
Dunne smiled. If things worked out okay and Ezra survived the dire situation he was in, Dunne was going to use this moment against Wilmington after it was all over. His eyes flashed to the screen when the laptop beeped at him.
“Got it! Sheften Street.”
Wilmington shook his head. “No good. That’s two blocks from where Sanchez hijacked the Camry. He threw the cell phone away. ”
“Sorry, Buck.”
“Not your fault, JD.”
“Maybe there’s something else we can try?”
“You think about it while I call Chris.” Wilmington pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket. Narrowing his eyes at the number pad in front of him, he managed to get the correct speed dial on his third attempt and while he waited for his boss to answer the phone he said, “So, Father Cotter was giving you your Last Rights.”
“Yeah, saw a halo and everything,” Dunne said.
The words wiped the smile off Buck Wilmington’s face. “Really?”
“Yeah . . . really.”
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six
Master Fan Fiction List