Title: Dole Author: Steph (stephs_star@angelfire.com) Authors Notes: I started this story but I have no idea hoe to finish it. Someone else can continue on to it if they like. Disclaimer: these characters belong to DEK at ABC --------------------------------------------------------------------- The still and quiet corridor was suddenly unsettled by Rebecca Washington's excited screams. "We did it!" She whooped as soon as the elevator doors opened on their office level. "Lindsay, it just hit me, we won!" "I know, Bec." Lindsay hugged her tightly before pushing open the office doors. "So?" Jimmy asked anxiously. One look at Rebecca's face made him smile broadly. "How much?" Eugene asked from the doorway to his office. "THREE POINT ONE MILLION DOLLARS!" Rebecca said slowly, her eyes bright and wide. "Can you imagine? I won the case!" "With my help, of course!" Lindsay laughed. "Yes." Flustered, Rebecca turned and hugged her again. "Thank you, Lindsay! We won!" Lindsay was still laughing at Rebecca's adorable excitement when her phone rang. "Lindsay Dole." "Lindsay, it's Marc. Can I see you?" "Sure. Why?" "Can you just come to my house, please?" "Marc, tell me what's going on, are you in some sort of trouble?" "No, it's not me, there's just something I want you to see." Lindsay hung up the phone and frowned. Marc was her little brother, and they weren't particularly close. In fact, she hadn't spoken to Marc or his wife Melanie since they had rung her in hospital. Still, he sounded upset and she was still his over protective older sister. "Okay, I'm going out. I'll be back soon, I hope." "What?" Rebecca exclaimed. "Aren't we going out celebrating?" "Sorry, Bec. But something's come up." As Lindsay stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor, Bobby was just stepping in. She wouldn't have even noticed him, but he grabbed her arm. "Hey!" She looked at him, then smiled in relief. "Oh, Bobby. I'm just going out for a second, okay?" "Okay." He kissed her lightly on the lips. "Have you had a verdict yet?" "Yeah. I'll let Bec tell you. She was fantastic, Bobby." Lindsay smiled, making Bobby grin wolfishly back. Lindsay tore her arm free and started to brush past him, but he grabbed her again. "So where are you going then, I thought that you weren't taking on any new clients for a while." "Yeah, well, this one's personal." She kissed him quickly, pulled her arm away and was gone before he could protest. Back in the office, everyone was still talking excitedly. When Bobby walked in, they all stopped and smiled at him. "We won?" He asked. "We won!" Six voices chorused back at him. "C'mere then!" He grabbed Bec in his arms and spun her round in a giddy circle until she was breathless. "3.1 million!" She shrieked. "Really!" A slow smile spread across his face. "Really." Her smile matched his in brightness. "I'm so proud of you, Bec! Wow, soon you'll be making more than Ellie, too!" "Funny." Eleanor said dryly. Reminded of Lindsay, he frowned. "Did Lindsay say where she was going?" "She was talking to some guy, Marc on the phone. Then she left in a hurry, she didn't say where." Jimmy offered. "Great." Bobby sighed, letting go of Rebecca and disappearing into his office. "Does anyone feel like celebrating?" Rebecca asked. --------------------------------------------------------------------- It always amazed Lindsay, visiting her brother. He was one year younger than her, but already had a fantastic home in Strawberry Hill in Northwest Cambridge, a pretty wife and two young children. He had followed in their father's footsteps, and was as killed surgeon at New England Medical Center. He had definitely grown out of his wild and carefree youth, he had straightened up, married a perfect wife, had perfect children he was so established, so like their father, honest to god, it scared her sometimes. "Oh, Lindsay, thank you for coming!" Marc practically pulled her into their lovely white column home. He was his usual carefully groomed, handsome self, the only sign of nervousness was the fact that he picked at his fingers anxiously. Lindsay did the same thing when she nervous or upset. "What's up, Marc?" "I want you to see for yourself." He led the way up an elegant staircase. "Where are the rugrats?" "Emmie and Johnny are at dad's." He pushed open a door at the end of the hall, and all Lindsay could see was a darkened room. She waited until her eyes refocused to the dark, and could faintly make out the outline of a bed, and a figure in it. "That person's not dead, are they?" She laughed nervously. Marc gave her a funny look, and flung open the curtains, bathing the room suddenly in light "It's Melanie. I think she's sleeping now." "Is she sick?" Lindsay asked, stepping closer, then gasping when she saw Marc's beautiful wife. Her face looked like it had been used as a punching bag. Her lips were torn her eyes red, puffy and swollen closed and her cheeks were scarred and bruised. "Oh my god, Melanie!" Lindsay crouched by the bed, and pulled back the covers. Her body was a myriad of bruises and cuts; there was not an inch of her that wasn't discolored. "Marc!" She stared at her brother, but his eyes had glazed over. "Who did this to her, Marc?" "Her brother, Richard Somboli. I could have killed the fucking bastard!" "What the hell stopped you? Marc, look at her, you need to call the police!" Marc sank wearily onto the bed. "I can't, Lindsay, she won't let me." "Has this happened before?" "No, not since I've known her, and certainly not when we've been married. I know my wife, Lindsay, every inch of her, and I've never seen an unaccounted for bruise or scrape in my life." "Why would he do this to her now?" "I'm not sure Oh god!" He sank his head in his hands. "What is it?" "She told me that she didn't want to be here alone with him, I should have listened to her He probably beat her when they were kids!" "Lovely." "He seems so normal I mean, I know that Mel was a little intimidated by him, but he was the first child, the golden boy - he was doted on and Mel was just an after thought. God, he probably got away with hell when they were growing up, and their parents just pretended like nothing was happening." "Okay, Marc, tell me what happened." "Yesterday he rang and said he had news and wanted to see us. That's all he said. Mel had an appointment with one of her students, but I made her cancel it because I had just been called into work, and besides, he's Mel's brother, and she could deal with him. I got home around two in the morning, tired as all hell, and I heard Emma crying. I went into the nursery, but Mel wasn't there, I checked our room, then Jonathon's room, then the kitchen, but she wasn't anywhere. Then I saw the blood; it led to her studio, where she had collapsed trying to protect her music. Her piano Her piano and her violin had been destroyed, and all her compositions ripped to shreds." Marc closed his eyes tightly, the image of the wreck dancing before his eyes. "I carried her to the couch, called an ambulance, bandaged her cuts and iced her bruises. She regained consciousness as the ambulance was arriving. She made me send them back, and I agreed because I knew that she would be okay, and the trip to the hospital would probably agitate her more. She wouldn't let me call the police, and told me Richie did it. I had to do what she said, Lindsay, she was so adamant." "So why did you ring me?" "To tell me what to do, Linds! You always knew the right thing to do." "Call the police." "No, I can't, can I get a restraining order?" "Certainly you can, Marc. For you, and for the kids and the house, but not for Melanie. That's up to her." "Marc?" Melanie croaked, finding him with her hand. "Right here, sweetheart." Marc brushed her cheeks with his lips, then turned to Lindsay helplessly. "Who else is here, Marc?" Her eyes were too sore to open fully. "Lindsay." "Why is she here, Marc? I told you that I didn't want to see anyone." "Melanie, you can't see anything, full stop. Your brother beat you too badly." Lindsay said bluntly. "Richie didn't mean to, he just wanted me to stop Emmie crying. I was being a useless mother, I couldn't even stop my baby crying." "That's crap!" Lindsay said firmly "Mel, you don't believe that, do you?" But it was the classic battered "spouse" syndrome. The victim is made to believe that it is their fault somehow. "Lindsay, don't yell at her!" Marc grabbed her arm. "You're not helping." "I will yell, because you're not helping, either. Marc, for Christ sake, some guy put his big, filthy hands on your wife and hurt her!" "You think that I don't know that?" Marc asked quietly. " You think that I don't fell sick and sore inside?" Lindsay was silent, she was glad that Marc was not as composed and unaffected as he looked. "I'm sorry, but Mel, you have to believe that it's not your fault! You're brother is violent and dangerous and needs to be punished for what he did to you." "I can't, Lindsay, he's my brother, I can't betray him. You have a brother, you know what it's like!" "Yeah. One difference, Mel, Marc doesn't beat me within an inch of my life!" Lindsay felt herself getting mad again, "And what about next time?" "There won't be a next time." "Bull shit. What time did you leave home to get away from his beatings?" "Fourteen." Melanie whispered. "He beat you until you were fourteen?" Marc was horrified, and felt bile rising in his throat. "Sometimes, sometimes he'd come visit me in New York." "Oh, Melanie " Marc cradled her head in her arms. When Melanie was fourteen she had escaped the beatings by getting a scholarship to an exclusive school for the musically gifted in New York. She had lived there for seven years before returning home to Boston to open her own music school. She had gotten the money from her brother. "He gave you the money to start your school?" "After living in New York for seven years, I was getting cocky, brave. I felt that Richie couldn't hurt me anymore. I rang him when I turned twenty-one, and had finished school at the academy and my musical teaching and business course. I threatened to tell my story unless he gave me the money to start the school. I owe him forgiving me my dream." Marc and Lindsay both remembered when they had first met Melanie. Their first impression was that she was dedicated and extraordinarily talented. Her world revolved around music and her students. Marc could see how she thought that she owed the bastard something. "Mel, all this time, I can't believe you never told me." "No, what I can't believe is that you think you owe the guy anything!" Lindsay exclaimed. "You're twenty seven years old, you have a great family, a successful business. You're young and sweet and pretty, and you're still letting him win!" "He's my brother!" "Is that what you'd have Emma say when Jonathon beats her?" "Jonathon wouldn't, he adores Emmie!" "But what if, Mel? Would you repeat the cycle, let your daughter get hurt by the person who is supposed to protect her?" "No! I don't know, leave me alone, Lindsay!" "And what happens when Richard comes over next time? What if he thinks Emmie or Johnny are better punching bags? Could you live with yourself then, Melanie?" Lindsay pushed on relentlessly, as fat tears escaped from swollen eyes. "Marc, I don't want to listen to this anymore. I want her to go home." "Fine." Lindsay said quickly, knowing that she had said all she could say. When Marc opened the front door for her, she turned and met his eyes. "Well?" "I'll call you, okay?" "Don't let him win, okay Marc?" "Okay." He kissed her cheek. "I'll see you round, okay?" "Sure." Lindsay left with a heavy heart. She knew that Marc wouldn't ring, and Melanie wouldn't do anything. Her scars and bruises would fade, and they would leave it in the past. Lindsay knew that she had to, too, because just thinking about it now made her feel drained and sad. Lindsay went straight home because she felt tired and sick to the stomach. She let herself into the apartment and collapsed wearily onto the couch. She was surprised when Bobby came in from his bedroom, as it was only just past four. "Hey." He leaned in the door jam, and appraised her. She looked tired and upset. "Hi." She looked at him, and was overcome by emotions, angry and sad, good and bad. She felt tears well in her eyes, and her chin wavered. She held out her arms for a hug, her eyes pleading with his. So rare was her request for affection, he didn't hesitate before joining her on the couch. The intensity of her hug surprised him. "What's this?" He asked huskily. "What would you do if you came home and found me all beat up?" "I guess the same thing I did when I found you stabbed, why?" Lindsay pulled away and stared at him straight in the eye. "If you had the chance, what would you do to Vogelman?" Bobby saw the tears hovering in her eyes, and sensed her need for the raw and brutal truth. "Honestly? I'd like to rip the bastard's head off, and carry it around in my briefcase." Lindsay looked a little shocked, and then she let out a startled burst of laughter and held him close. "I love you." She whispered fiercely. More than a little confused, Bobby pulled her closer and buried his head in her hand. "I love you too." --------------------------------------------------------------------- Two weeks later, and Lindsay had almost forgotten Marc and Melanie, until she heard Melanie's voice in her office. "This is where your auntie Lindsay works. Look! There she is!" She looked up from her desk, and saw Melanie holding Emma in her arms, and Jonathon standing at her feet. "Melanie." Lindsay stood and appraised her. She looked beautiful. All traces of the bruises and scars had been cleared up or were hidden by make up, but her arm was broken, and was in a cast. "You look good." "Thank you." Melanie looked her up and down. "God, Lindsay, you look beautiful, too." "What did you do?" Lindsay asked, taking Emma from her arms. "I want to file charges. Will you help me?" Lindsay breathed out in relief and nodded. At that moment, Bobby bellowed out "Lindsay!" from his office. Annoyed, Lindsay pulled Melanie with her to his office and angrily stamped her foot. "Don't just call out to me and expect me to come running!" Bobby barely looked at her, just motioned to the television. "Isn't your brother Marc Dole?" She just nodded mutely and sank onto the couch. "What's going on?" Melanie asked, but was shushed by Lindsay. Everyone's attention was directed to the television, and the news presenter's voice. "And we bet acclaimed and skilled doctor, Marcus Dole is going to be needing his sister's help now. And criminal defense attorney Lindsay Dole is going to have a hard time clearing her brother on this one! Mr. Dole has just been arrested on the charges of murder in the first degree, for the alleged stabbing murder of brother in law, Richard Somboli. No motive has been established as yet, and insiders say that they don't know of one. Mr. Somboli was killed in Mr. Dole and his wife, Somboli's sisters' home at approx. 10:15 this morning. Police say that evidence against Mr. Dole is very heavily stacked, so I guess we can say that Miss. Dole has her work cut out for her " The End. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, does anyone want to finish it? Feedback is welcome ---------------------------------------------------------------------