The Lengths That I Would Go To

[abrightboy]

The killer was moving around the country. Malcolm Bright could see the pattern, but he wasn't working for the FBI these days and they weren't exactly taking his calls. Short sighted of them, but they did fire him on suspicion of being crazy. The NYPD's jurisdiction was New York. With the killer beyond its borders, they handed it upwards and left it at that.

Let it go, Bright, had been Gil's sage advice. You can't catch every killer in America single-handedly.

Challenge accepted, some part of him retorted, though he'd only nodded mutely and forced a smile. Gil knew he hadn't simply let it go, but he wasn't going to have him followed to stop him doing anything stupid, either. He didn't have the will or the resources to keep tabs on Malcolm Bright 24/7 and Malcolm Bright knew it.

His mother, on the other hand, had extensive resources, so he simply didn't tell her he was leaving town. He did arrange for Ainsley to feed his bird, so the truth would come out eventually, but he'd be several states away by then.

He rode the bus. There was something oddly comforting about the anonymity of being in a crowd of strangers who had no interest in him whatsoever. He stared out the window and watched the country go by. When he stepped off the Greyhound in Lexington, Kentucky, he walked to a nearby hotel and checked in, then headed straight to the US Marshals office. There was no point in trying to talk to the FBI. If he was going to stop a killer from killing again, he needed someone in law enforcement to listen to him. The pattern suggested the next murder would happen in one of the rural communities around Lexington and it would be precipitated by a young woman's disappearance. He needed law enforcement with local knowledge, specifically.

He wandered into the Marshals' offices in a tidy three piece suit, charcoal grey with a burgundy tie perfectly knotted at his collar. He got a few suspicious sidelong glances but nobody asked if they could help him. He cleared his throat.

"Um, hello? I'm wondering if there's anyone here I can talk to about murder." He held up his hands. "Stopping murder, specifically, not... like... smalltalk."

Comments

[tinstar]

Raylan fished his phone off his hip. "Call Rachel. Tell her. She'll know who to hand that question off to."

"You'll find her name under Rachel. R-A-C-H.."

[abrightboy]

"...I know how to spell Rachel," he said, already scrolling through Givens' contacts, pressing her name when he saw it.

"Hello, Rachel? This is Malcolm Bright. No, he's fine. He's right here." A pause. "He's driving. Can you find out if anyone matching the suspect's description has purchased a generator in the last couple of days that's large enough to power the equipment in a commercial saw mill?" A beat. "A commercial saw mill. Yes. Okay, thanks."

He looked at Raylan as he hung up. "She's going to call back."

[tinstar]

He had to break tension. Raylan listened, glancing as often as he could at Malcolm as he spoke.

"Let's hope he didn't buy it outta state," he grumbled as they took another sharp turn. "We'll be there in 5."

[abrightboy]

"He could have, but if he didn't, it's a paper trail. Even if we get the answer too late."

He watched out the window, looking for the sawmill to come into sight.

[tinstar]

It would take Rachel longer than 5 minutes to get the answer and with the way Raylan was driving, it would take them less.

The thing about the South was that the denseness of the trees that managed to survive, (thrive would be too strong a word), hid a lot. All it really took was a good line and the road they were on was heading down the single lane through it. Raylan had enough sense to not speed into the mill, knowing the sound of the sudden stop would make more noise than they could afford.

Malcolm would get his sawmill, looking properly abandoned, slowly being consumed by the plants and discarded stuff around it.

"Don't get yourself shot if you can help it," Raylan said as he turned off the car and slid out, popping his trunk with his keys before drawing his gun. A few seconds later, Tim and Rachel dusted up behind them.

"Y'all ready?" asked Tim, eyes squinting against the light of the day. Rachel, for her part, was subtly looking Raylan and Malcolm over, no doubt making sure that Raylan hadn't done something stupid already.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm gave Raylan a look at that instruction. Had he been talking to Gil again?

"I haven't managed to get shot yet," he deadpanned back.

Once they'd met up with Tim and Rachel, he glanced at Raylan and then at Tim. "Time's of the essence," he told them. "How long this victim has only depends on how long it takes him to set up his showpiece. And he may kill his final victim in the same location, once she's seen the show."

[tinstar]

"I feel like 'yet' is the operative word," Raylan muttered under his breath as he shut the door.

All three Marshal's nodded and started towards the barn, their usual gait traded for the slight hunker and quickstep taken by almost all Law Enforcement when they were coming into a place. Raylan pointed Tim and Rachel at the side door opening further away as he and Malcolm headed towards the closer one.

The mill was dark, opening room lit only by the door they were going into that clearly didn't connect to whatever door Tim and Rachel were heading towards. Somewhere, deeper in the building (and likely connected to the other open entrance on the far side of the impressively long mill), the sound of a saw buzzed to life.

Raylan's short quick steps turned into a run.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm stayed in the middle of the group, like he'd been trained to do by his own team. When they split up, he stayed just behind Raylan the way he would stay behind Gil, running when he ran at the sound of the saw.

A woman was tied to a large log. The saw was running. The log was about to be fed into the machine.

Another woman was bound nearby.

They were both screaming.

A man was at the controls.

The only piece of luck was that all the screaming was covering up the footsteps of law enforcement and a wayward profiler advancing on them from two sides.

[tinstar]

"US MARSHALS, FREEZE," Tim called, sending the scene into a flurry of action. The suspect abandoned the controls, fleeing away from the lot of them into the darkness and over another roller.

There was no time for instructions; Rachel headed towards the women to stop the saw and free them, while Raylan headed with Tim to follow the suspect. Raylan naturally assumed the Malcolm would follow Rachel's lead and help with the women while the gunslinger and Marine Sniper deal with the running crazy.

[abrightboy]

That would have made sense with what they knew about Malcolm - an unarmed, assumed non-combatant - but that was not what Malcolm did. He ran after Raylan and Tim, staying behind them for the time being. However, when the suspect ran out of ground, he pulled a gun out of his pocket and spun on the officers.

"DON'T SHOOT!" Malcolm shouted from the back at literally everyone, holding out a hand, then holding up both hands. "Don't shoot!" he said again, more firmly, stepping in between the marshalls and the suspect.

He stepped towards the suspect, keeping his hands non-threateningly in the air.

"You've been busy," he noted, his tone deliberate, keeping his eyes on the man. "Trying to purge your pain." He studied the man's face. "And you've had a LOT of pain."

[tinstar]

"Malcolm," Raylan hissed as they were passed by him. "Malcolm!"

Tim glanced sidelong at Raylan, a whole opinion shared in a single look and Raylan shook his head as they spread out for a better view. This is not what he'd signed up for but now that Malcolm was there, the only thing Raylan and Tim could do was support him.

What the hell was Malcolm doing?

He was going to get his ass shot.

[abrightboy]

The suspect looked at him just as oddly as the marshalls were looking at him.

"My name is Malcolm," he said, putting one hand on his chest. "What's your name?"

"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" the man shouted.

Malcolm stopped walking, keeping his hands visible. "Whatever you say. What's your name?"

The man looked around, from the marshalls to Malcolm and back and back again.

"Nick," he said uncertainly. "What do you want?!"

"I want to understand," Malcolm told him. "I want to understand why you did what you did. This is your chance to tell your side of the story, because if you shoot me, then they're going to shoot you and you won't get to tell your story or finish your work and nobody will understand what this has all been for."

[tinstar]

So long as the man didn't move, Raylan and Tim held their spots, far enough away to not be any more intrusive and close enough to be effective if needed. They'd both been trained; they both knew that yelling or 'helping' would only make 'Nick' more nervous and amped up.

They were well powered muscle and perfectly fine with that. Had Malcolm not been there, Nick would have already been down.

[abrightboy]

Nick looked from Malcolm to the cops and back again.

"Who are you?" he gasped.

"I told you. My name's Malcolm." He showed both sides of his empty hands. "I'm not a cop." He tilted his head towards the room Nick had run from. "She hurt you, didn't she? You wanted everyone to know what she did." A beat as he assessed what Nick's face told him about his guesses. "You wanted her to know what she did."

"It wasn't ANYTHING to her!" Nick screamed. "She dropped me like I was NOTHING!"

[tinstar]

Oh, they didn't like screaming. "Hey, hey," Raylan said gently. "Easy does it."

All Nick had to do was make one wrong move and if Raylan didn't tag him, Tim would.

Just drop the gun.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm turned one raised hand towards Raylan and Tim. The yelling was okay. The yelling was just fine. He kept his eyes on Nick.

"She hurt you," Malcolm said. "I understand. It's hard, when you feel like everybody judges you without taking the time or effort to see you. But, Nick. I see you. And you've hurt people too."

"She made me to that!" he shouted, gesturing towards Malcolm with the gun, but not really aiming it at him.

"I know she made you feel like you needed to do that, but those people... you made them hurt, not her. Is that what you wanted? Is that who you are?"

Nick looked around, like he was searching the air, desperately, for an answer.

"Nick, all she sees of you right now is a monster who hurts people."

"NO!" he screamed.

"Yes," Malcolm said calmly. "But you can change that. You have the control. It's your choice. You can show her that you're better than she thinks you are." He tipped his fingertips towards the ground. "Put the gun down."

Nick stared at him, his grip on the gun flexing.

"Put it down, Nick. This all just... got out of hand, right?"

"It got out of hand," Nick murmured uncertainly.

"We can help you. Let us help you," Malcolm urged him.

Nick stared at him another moment then slowly, slowly bent and set the gun on the ground.

[tinstar]

The Marshals watched the conversation continue, only twitching slightly at the lift and fall of the gun but neither of them were trigger happy, so the profiler got the space he needed. Now without hostages and with a wall to his back, Nick only had a couple of choices under such freely focused attention.

"Kick it away," Raylan instructed. They weren't out of the woods yet.

Raylan felt twenty times better after Nick did just that, kicking the gun towards Malcolm with a scuff of his foot against the floor. As soon as it was clear, Raylan was moving in, holstering his gun in favor of his handcuffs that hid far too well under the suit jacket he wore. "Hands behind your back," he continued, cuffing the suspect swiftly as Tim came in, hand out to Malcolm for the piece as his other took Nick under the arm.

"Not too shabby, New York," Tim praised in his short, to the point way before starting off towards the exit, leaving one slightly irritated Raylan to eye Malcolm in all his subtle smug victory.

"You ever get between me and a suspect again, I swear to God I'll shoot you myself," he said, the words growling a little with his frustration, both at Malcolm and Tim's unhelpful praise, before following suit. "Civilians with civilians. Would you have pulled that shit if we didn't have backup?"

[abrightboy]

"No you won't," Malcolm said with absolute certainty at Raylan's promise to shoot him.

He fell into step alongside the taller man as they headed out. At Raylan's question he canted his head slightly. "I don't carry a gun anymore," he reminded the marshal. "That 'shit' is all I have to pull."

[tinstar]

Malcolm's certainty was only confirmed by the sharp look Raylan gave him; the only acknowledgement he'd give the correct rebuff.

As they stepped towards the light, the two women they'd saved were standing with Rachel by the towncar, no doubt waiting for EMT's and closest PD to arrive.

"And what about them?" Raylan asked, finger gesturing in their direction. "If Rachel hadn't been here, would you have let her die for chasing someone like him?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked up at Raylan.

"No, of course not," he said earnestly. ”It's all about them. But when they're going to live, we have some responsibility for what we make them live with."

[tinstar]

"I think they mighta been just as fine, had it gone the other way," he returned, following it with a sift suck of his teeth before adjusting his hat and moving forward. They should probably go make sure the women were okay.

The ambulance arrived shortly and once the ladies were loaded onto it, Tim slid into the seat of his impressive looking SUV.

Rachel sidled up to them with a reluctantly approving look. "That could have gone much worse." A beat passed. "Good job, you two."

Raylan gave her a wry smirk, the kind that softened and wrinkled his features, as his head tipped down in the slightest acknowledgement.

Rachel turned her attention to Malcolm. "Art will want to get a statement from you before you leave. We can give you a ride back to Lexington, if you like?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled at the praise, then frowned faintly at the question and looked at Raylan.

"Are you not going back there?"

Malcolm tended to stick to what he was comfortable with when he could.

[tinstar]

"I am, but I thought I'd stop by the house, set it right before heading back up. Make the trip down here a little more useful, not that saving two lives ain't enough. You're welcome to hang around with me til I go, if you want."

Raylan just figured Malcolm would be happily eager to get his stuff together and go back home to brief poor Lt. Arroyo on why he had gone down South to begin with.

[abrightboy]

"I'll come give you a hand!" he said enthusiastically, heading for Raylan's car, which still had his bag where he'd tossed it in the back seat. He looked over his shoulder at the marshal. "And we saved three lives," he corrected, emphasizing the point by pointing a finger in Raylan's direction.

[tinstar]

There was the slightest release of tension and Raylan found himself smirking with a wholly amused look at the sudden injection of raw enthusiasm. He looked at Rachel, finding her to have the same kind of expression before she nodded at him and turned away.

"You betta bring him back, Raylan," she warned, earning a sheepishly amused look at her as he adjusted his hat and headed towards the car. Malcolm was looked at from under the wrinkles of his forehead as he opened the door to the car.

"I think that third one is all yours to claim," he said before sliding into his seat and closing the door, starting the car and waiting for Malcolm to finish getting in before he started turning and driving them out, leaving the crime scene for the local PD to take care of.

It was the good part about his job; all he had was paperwork once the bad guy was caught.