Roswell Fanatics

Back at the Evans residence, a different sort of discussion was going on.

“Max – I don’t care what you claim happened. I’ve watched you watch her since the third grade. You love her. You've ALWAYS loved her. I would NEVER believe that you would ever hurt Liz.”

“Isabel – doesn’t that itself strike you as bizarre? Third graders don’t fall in love. It’s like somehow something deep inside me has been – I don’t know – STALKING Liz all these years…”

“You weren’t stalking her … you were …well, OK, you were always kind of ga-ga over her, but Max, Liz is a great girl and … I was wrong to break you up.”

“No…no you weren’t. You weren’t there, Izzy. It would have been better if Liz and I had never met..”

“No it wouldn’t, Max. You needed Liz – I don’t know why – or how – but without Liz, I don’t know what would have happened to you. I don’t think you could have stayed here with Mom and Dad. Somehow – somehow Liz – somehow Liz made you human, Max. She made you someone who could survive in a human society.”

“Yeah, so I could stalk her – rape her – let my progeny feed on her body.”

“Max – you say you can’t even remember going in to that room – you can’t remember what happened. I can’t believe you would rape her, Max. I’ll never believe that.”

“Yeah, well you didn’t see her face as she left the room, Izzy. I’d have rather died than see her look at me with that face – that pain and regret. And now – now if I can’t talk her into getting rid of it, it’ll kill her.”

Isabel looked at her brother, tears running down her face, watching the pain he was feeling destroy him. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t like that – she thought of her own dream – feeling Alex inside her – feeling their daughter moving inside her. Even the pain of childbirth was nothing compared to the glory of carrying the child of the man you love.

“Max, this idea of a parasite – My God, Max – you’ve been seeing too many Sigourney Weaver films. It isn’t like that. If you and Liz did have sex – if she’s carrying your child – you need to talk to her, Max. If she’s pregnant, she needs you – of all the people in the world, she needs you.”

“She needs to get rid of it, before it comes tearing through her body – before it KILLS her, Izzy.”

“Max, look at me. What do you see?”

“My sister – what’s your point, Izzy?”

“So what do you think other guys see when they look at me?”

“You mean a human being? That’s just because they don’t know you better Izzy – because they don’t know you are an alien.”

“No Max, not a human being. They see these, Max,” she said, squeezing her breasts together, “ they see a pair of BOOBS Max, all except you and Alex.” That wasn’t entirely true. She could tell from his dreams that Alex noticed her boobs quite a bit himself but – somehow, coming from him – she really didn’t mind it – kind of liked it actually.”

“So human guys are insensitive chauvinist pigs. I get it. But at least they don’t plant monsters in the people they claim to love.”

“You just don’t get it, do you Max? I AM your sister. I AM an alien. And I have BOOBS Max – mammary glands. Whatever else you and I may be, we are mammals. The female bears live young and nurses them, Max. If I were to get pregnant," she said, the warmth filling her as she remembered her dream with Alex, “… I am going to bear his child and feed it milk from these boobs, Max. It is NOT going to need to burrow it’s way through my belly. We aren’t built to be parasites, Max, we are mammals – just like Liz, and unless you think her baby is someone else’s …”

“What’s in her is mine, Isabel. My responsibility… my fault.”

“Well than you’d better talk to her – you’d better take responsibility. You’d better get ready to take care of her. You’d better grow up, Max, because you are going to be a father, and you’ll be no good to either Liz or the baby unless you can pull yourself together.”

It was, in fact, an excellent argument – especially for an Ice Princess who had once turned in a research paper with references consisting entirely of Cosmopolitan and People magazine articles. Had Max been better rested – Hell, had the boy been in his right mind at all, it might well have been convincing. Unfortunately, it just wasn't getting through the sleep-deprivation induced paranoia. But to Isabel, it seemed to work, as he put his head down and nodded.

“I’ll talk to her, Isabel. I’ll take responsibility…”

“Well good, that settles it then,” said Isabel, feeling the happiest she had since Spring. ‘I’m going to be an aunt…,’ she thought, fighting back tears of joy.


As his sister hugged him lovingly, Max closed his eyes, fighting back his own tears. ‘You can do it, Max,' he told himself, 'You can convince Liz somehow. She has to abort it … while there’s still time. If she won't, you can kill it yourself, Max. You can't let it destroy her.’

In the dream orb there was great joy.

She'd been asleep in her bed and the tapping at the glass had awakened her. She'd looked up and seen his face at the window. Liz had stumbled from the bed in indecision - part of her afraid to talk to him -part of him just needing to be near him - finally she had opened the window and let him in.

She had started to apologize to Max when his lips had covered hers.
"You can't seriously be wanting to APOLOGIZE," he chided her, "... for giving me my greatest dream."

She had reveled in his closeness as he hugged her to him, and then looked up again. "I'm sorry for the mess I got us into. Sorry for the pregnancy."

His hand had gone to her abdomen, the swelling barely noticeable, but his face smiled like he could feel its small heartbeat. "I know that this is hard for you - the sign on the water tower - I'm sure your parents freaked out - but I can't bring myself to regret this Liz. It's too wonderful - making a new life with you. I never imagined anything could make me feel so - honored."

They lay on the bed together holding one another. Not sexually - not really. Just caresses and reassurances and a few gentle kisses. Eventually Liz actually became convinced that it would work out alright somehow.

Then she was awakened from the dream-orb by the knock on the window.

For just a few precious moments the dream lingered – as if her mind refused to give up anything so beautiful – but eventually the dream had to yield to reality. She awoke to find that she was NOT in her bedroom – in fact, she didn’t HAVE that bedroom anymore. Instead, she was in the spare downstair’s bedroom, and it was Kyle, not Max that was knocking on the window. She went to the window and opened it.

“I heard you were staying down here after the big explosion, but I didn’t mean to wake you. I hadn’t really thought you’d be asleep in the afternoon.”

“I’m sorry, Kyle. The pregnancy book said that you get sleepy in the first trimester but – well, you’d have to experience it to believe it.”

“That sounds a little unlikely,” Kyle replied.

“Yeah, I guess it does at that. Sorry – I really was fast asleep. I need to get the cobwebs out. What did you want to speak to me about?”

“Well, Liz,… “ Kyle replied, looking somewhat embarrassed. “We really haven’t spoken much since – since I found out.”

“It has been a pretty busy week, that’s for sure,” Liz responded, not really knowing what else to say. “…and not a very pleasant one, either.”

“Well it isn’t going to get any better anytime soon. I’ve got some information for you that is probably going to make it worse. They had my preliminary hearing today…”

“Tell me that you aren’t in trouble, Kyle. I really didn’t want you to get in trouble, fighting over me.”

“It’s not that. It’s not about me at all. I did hear some of what the lawyer for Bubba was saying though. Liz, he’s going to say that Bubba found out from you – that you …. did it … with a lot of guys, and that you bragged about getting pregnant.”

Liz’s lips tightened and she did her best to show no emotion, but Kyle saw that her eyes were shining with unshed tears.


“Look – Liz – God, Liz, I am so sorry. So sorry I got you in to this. Liz, I’d do anything – anything at all – to make this right.”

Liz looked at Kyle and smiled. “I know that, Kyle. But it isn’t your fault. It’s mine.”

“I don’t believe that, Liz. I know you were raped. There was no one at the party that you would have voluntarily – I mean – I’ve known you too long. If Max wasn’t there – and he wasn’t – I know you were forced. Tell me who did it, Liz, just tell me who did it, and what you want to happen to him.”

“Kyle – we all make decisions. I made mine at the party. I could tell there was alcohol in the punch – I didn’t have to drink it. I made that choice. I was angry at Max about the break-up.
Hmmph! Break-up … How do you break up something that never really was – something that was only a dream?
So I did something stupid, OK? I did something stupid that probably cost me any chance of ever having that dream that I wanted. But it wasn’t your doing, Kyle. It was my decision, and I’m going to have to live with that decision.”

“I don’t believe that, Liz. I don’t believe that you were sober enough to make that choice. I don’t believe that you would have ever voluntarily slept with someone else because you were mad at Max.”

“I guess we never really know what stupid things we are capable of doing until we do them, Kyle. But it’s my responsibility – not yours.”

“Liz – are you OK? I mean – are you going to be OK? I don’t want to leave you if you are going to do something …. Stupid.”

“I’m not going to hurt myself, Kyle, and I’m certainly not going to hurt my baby.” ‘Chances are, it will be the only part of Max I ever have,’ she thought. “. ‘Thanks for the warning though”

OK, Liz. I’ll go then, but I meant what I said. Anything … anything at all.”

“Thanks, Kyle.”

As Liz closed the window, she heard the knock on the door.

"Yes?" asked Liz.

"Honey, Maria's here. Are you up to seeing her?"

"Of course, Mom. I'm not broken ... just a little tired."

Her mother looked at her sympathetically. "Well, I remember those first few months carrying you. It didn't seem like there were enough hours in the night - or day - to get the sleep my body needed. Your Grandma Claudia hovered over me - not very differently than I'm hovering over you I suppose. But if you are feeling up to it - I'll go get her."

"That'd be great, Mom."

Three minutes later Maria came through the door and looked around the sparsely furnished room. " So these are your new digs, huh?"

"Until the fire marshal gets done, the insurance company gets done, the architect gets done, we get the permits, and the builder gets done - well, you are looking at it, Maria. It's not a complete loss though, Dad said we could take the opportunity to add on a room - maybe a third the size of the roof that I used as a deck - as a nursery."

"Oh - on a related note, I got a call from Alex about- of all people - the Ice Princess."

"Isabel Evans?"

"Yeah - you know I'm going to have to seriously modify my opinion of that girl -first taking on Pam Troy and Bill Magruder - now she's sort of invited him out on a date.'

"OUR Alex?"

"Yeah - not only that, she apparently had good words to say about you and told Alex that she hoped you and her brother could get together soon - put all your troubles behind you."

"You think she knows that the baby is Max's?"

"That's hard to say, since I'm getting this second hand from Alex, and he doesn't know. But it sounds like Max is going to be getting in touch with you soon."

Liz tried not to get her hopes up, but it was clear she was fighting a losing battle. "It's hard to believe he would want anything to do with me considering how I treated him," said Liz.

Maria couldn't help but smile. It was the first time she'd seen her friend really look hopeful since this whole mess started. Here she was, in the spare bedroom with most of everything she had lying in ashes upstairs, and just the mention of Max seemed to make it all start to get better.

"Well, whatever this 'difference' was he thought was between you, you certainly have something in common now."

"You don't think that's all there is to it, do you? I mean, do you think he just wants to see me because of the baby? Because I don't want him to feel pressured just because of that - it wouldn't be fair."

Max certainly wasn't real close to Maria, but she'd known him since the third grade. Liz had to know that Max would feel 'pressured over this,' he was, after all, Mr. Responsibility. But that wasn't what her friend needed to hear - not now.

"He has two parents that are lawyers. If he just wanted to kick in for the kid's college fund, I imagine he could have gotten one of them to do the paperwork for that, and if he wanted to just give you hell about what you did, he could do that over the phone. I can't believe he intends to do this in person if he really doesn't want to see you."

Liz seemed to brighten visibly. Maria herself was starting to feel a little hope. Max had always been shy, but even in the third grade he'd sometimes just stop and look at Liz in wonder when he didn't think anyone was watching. What Liz had done to him certainly hadn't been right, but however upset he was with her, it'd never last. Besides, Max really was Mr. Responsibility. No way was he going to leave Liz - or his baby - in the lurch.
'It'll work out somehow,' Maria told herself. She'd never wanted to believe anything so much in her entire life.



Six blocks away in the Sheriff's Office, Jim Valenti was working late - as usual. He looked up at the knock on the doorframe and saw the Fire Chief and the senior fire inspector for the county at the door.

"Jim, we appear to have a problem in that fire at the Crashdown."

"Don't tell me it was arson?" said Jim.

"That AND attempted murder it would appear...," said the fire inspector.

Jim Valenti got up and went to the small conference table, motioning them into chairs. "Sounds like we better sit down. Show me what you have..."

The nap had helped - well, maybe it was just the dream that had helped. Perhaps the talk with Kyle had too. Whatever had done it, she felt better as she changed into her uniform, determined to help the evening shift with the dinner crowd. The restaurant itself had sustained surprisingly little damage and even the second floor living area was almost untouched -a few areas of scuffing and one broken cupboard handle where racing firemen had dragged big hoses - but that was about all. The devastation in her room was almost complete though. Fortunately, the uniforms were washed by a commercial service and hers had been downstairs in the changing room. They had survived the inferno above safely - more than could be said of her own wardrobe. She changed quickly, and went out to the serving area to help out.

"Liz ! What are you doing out here?" asked a harried Maria.

"Helping you I guess. It's not like I can go back to my room and listen to CDs or something. I might as well be doing something useful."

"You need to rest."

"I have been resting," Liz said. But resting wasn't really what she needed - she knew that. She needed for things to be right between her and Max, and she wasn't sure that would ever happen. But her plan worked - at least for this evening. She lost herself in the simple mechanics of waitress work - taking orders and delivering food. It let her forget the burned out bedroom above - even for awhile, her breaking heart. The give and take with Maria always did that for her.


In the meeting in the Chaves County Sheriff's office, the mood was less sanguine.

"So what you are telling me," said the Chaves County prosecuting attorney to the Fire Chief and lead Fire Inspector, ".. is that this isn't just arson, it's attempted murder."

"I don't see how we can call it any other way," responded Sheriff Valenti.

"One of the four old gas lamp pipes was still capped, just as it showed in the revision filed in the city records twenty years ago. That one was the one buried behind the tiles in the upstairs bath," said the fire inspector. "The other three were not just uncapped, but the caps themselves were found in the debris. Toolmarks on them showed they had been recently tampered with. Someone had to have gotten in to the bedroom, removed the cover plates, uncapped the pipes, then replaced the cover plates to hide what they'd done. There really isn't any other possibility. The fourth pipe wasn't touched because it was behind the tile - there would have been no way to hide tampering with that one."

"The tampering down in the alley was even less subtle," said the Fire Chief. "Someone used bolt cutters to cut the padlock for the branch line running up to the top floor. The cut padlock was found in the adjacent dumpster... a dumpster that had been emptied the day previously. The paint on it matches that on the pipe itself, the thing had probably been on there the whole twenty years."

The Prosecuting Attorney shook his head. "Poor girl, she's been through enough without this too. Do you think this has anything to do with the - uh - the incident with the water tank, Sheriff? Perhaps either someone involved with that - or maybe even the father of the baby not really wanting this pregnancy to go to term."

"It has to be looked at but..."

"But?"

"Well, from what I understand, the young lady hasn't told anyone who the father is. She wouldn't seem much of a threat to him- that being the case."

"Yeah, but she changes her mind ... or he could be married himself ... or not wanting to face a paternity suit...," said the Prosecuting Attorney

"I know, I know, the possibilities are endless. But I know Liz - it's hard to believe that she'd be involved with anyone that would do something like this. I mean, kid's make mistakes, God knows, but I can't believe Liz would get involved with someone who was -- just evil."

"Maybe it wasn't voluntary."

"You mean - rape?" asked the Sheriff.

"Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened to a nice young girl. She doesn't say anything because she's ashamed of what happened. Then she's pregnant and the guy worries that she will spill the beans. Pretty easy to do paternity testing these days and at least establish who the father is. Then it's her word against his."

"Well, I don't see any alternative but to talk with her. I'll do that in the morning, when there is a female deputy available. Maybe she'll open up to us then. You know, I still have somewhat of a conflict of interest here. Whatever did happen to her, it most likely happened on the night she saved my son's life."

"That doesn't sound like much of a conflict of interest, Sheriff. In fact, it just sort of reinforces your regular job," said the Prosecuting Attorney.

"The other thing I wonder," said Jim Valenti, "... is just how much risk Liz Parker is in right now. You know, she was almost killed not too long ago by those two idiots wrestling with a gun in the Crashdown ... at least we thought they were idiots and that Lis was just an innocent bystander who was in the wrong lace at the wrong time. Now I have to wonder if she wasn't the target of the whole thing. I think I'd better have the deputies on patrol swing by the Crashdown fairly frequently. I also need to interview the officers on that beat - see if they saw anyone suspicious who might have been involved in either removing the plugs from the gaspipes, or in cutting the padlock and opening that valve."

"Well you three," said the Prosecuting Attorney, " ... you know the drill. Get me the evidence I need for an indictment."

"Yeah," said the Fire Chief. "Hopefully while it's still for ATTEMPTED murder."

It was three hours after nightfall – almost an hour after she had gone to bed – that Liz heard another knock on the window of the room she was now calling home – at least until her third story room was rebuilt from the fire. Suddenly, her heart started to race as she identified the person outside.
“Max..,” she said softly, under her breath as she raced out of bed to open the window.

Max looked in the window and saw her – then knocked gently on the door. There wasn't much light in the room – just the reflected glow of the moonlight entering the two windows – but it was enough to see her clearly. Liz was a slight girl, and with the moonlight reflecting on her nightgown, she had an ethereal beauty that was nothing short of breathtaking. Had he been born a human, nothing in the world would have kept him from being at her side – as long as she would have him – of that Max had no doubt. But he wasn't human and – much as he wished it could be different – all he could do was to try to protect her from the consequences of the terrible thing he'd done to her. That much he owed her. But it wasn't going to be pleasant and it wasn't going to be easy. If he had to, he would reveal what he was to her to protect her from the monster he'd planted inside her. If need be, he'd kill it himself. But he hoped – not for his own sake, because he deserved anything that might happen to him for the evil he'd done to her – but for Isabel's sake he hoped it would be possible to get her to agree to end the pregnancy – the infection – quickly, without truly revealing to her what he was.

He'd practiced his spiel time and time again – to say the right words – to get them out before her righteous anger and his own recriminations would render him speechless with guilt.

Liz opened the window – knowing that she had hurt him – betrayed him – knowing she had no right to even ask for his forgiveness, but the dream of him – the dream of them being the couple she had wanted them to be – it clung to her mind like it was her destiny giving her a hope that her rational mind would have denied her. The hope, however, died quickly as she heard his words.

“Liz we need to talk. Rape – rape is an ugly word and an ugly deed and I'm sure neither of us expects that there can be any kind of relationship between us after what happened. Nothing can undo that – no apologies can be enough – but even that horrific act – as terrible as it was – well there are even worse things, and I can't bring myself to let this one happen.

Liz – you know that Isabel and I are adopted but you don't know why. Our biological parents – Liz, they weren't normal. What's growing inside you, Liz, is a monster. You need to have an abortion – as soon as possible.”

His very first words had struck her like the impact of a boot kick in the stomach. Perhaps it had been unrealistic – wishful thinking – to think that he could have really forgiven her for what she did. After all, her mind asked herself rhetorically – had she made herself clear to Max that she wanted nothing to do with him romantically – physically – and had he then gotten HER drunk and forced himself on her, could she have forgiven him that? Her mind thought the thought and hurried by it – perhaps afraid of what her heart would have replied if given half a chance – no, she had to admit, she didn’t DESERVE to be forgiven for what she’d done to him – but still, even so, she had cherished the thought that there might have been a chance. After all, even when he’d made his lack of romantic interest clear – when she’d rebuffed him with all the proverbial fury of a woman scorned, he had at least tried to still be her friend. That single fact had made her dare to hope – but those hopes were shattered. He hated her, and she found it impossible to blame him for that hatred.

But as the impact of the later words broke through the shock and pain of the first few sentences, Liz felt a sick nauseaous feeling, and her hand went involuntarily to her lower abdomen and the small swelling of new life within her. Could Max really hate her so much – so desire not to be a part of her life – that he would try to get her to kill their child?

“Max – I haven’t told anyone that the baby is yours. I wouldn’t ask you to acknowledge it – or for any financial support. I’ll raise it by myself, somehow.”

Her words cut into him like knives.

‘You raped her, Max, and even so, she can’t bring herself to hate you,’ he thought. For only about the millionth time in his life, Max Evans wished that he were human – wished that he were not different. He wished that that were a real baby in there, and that he could take her in his arms and beg her forgiveness for what he’d done – promise to spend his lifetime making amends for the pain he’d caused her, if only she’d let him be near her. If that really were a human child within her, he’d more than acknowledge it – he’d spend his life protecting and defending and nurturing it – and if she could somehow find a way to forgive even him, they’d be a family.

But Max put the dreams of what – in some alternate reality – might have been aside. Liz’s life was on the line – and her life was more important even than a happiness he knew he would never know.

“It isn’t like that, Liz. I’m not telling this to hurt you – I’m telling this because I think you have been hurt enough. The pregnancy – the genes of what’s inside you aren’t – normal. You can’t – you musn’t go through with it.”

She watched as he turned and walked off, her hand shaking as she closed the window. She stumbled to the bed and collapsed face down into it, shaking and sobbing. She had dreamed that if nothing else she would at least have this small part of him.

Did Max hate her enough that he’d lie about something like this? That idea was too painful to bear.

But the alternative – that Max and Isabel and – perhaps Max’s child – would somehow harbor some secret genetic defect? That was perhaps even worse. She’d read of things like Huntington’s Chorea – where the affected offspring looked normal enough, but were doomed to an adulthood of mental disorder and physical deterioration. Was this what Max meant by ‘different’? Liz had always wondered why anyone would desert two perfectly healthy children like Max and Isabel in the desert, but what if their birth mother had been overtaken by some genetic illness – what if she’d had no choice?

Liz rolled over on her back, and her hand went to her lower abdomen. What if their baby did have a defect? Molecular biology had made great strides since Max and Isabel were born – maybe there was a cure. Even if the gene was an autosomal dominant, there was only a fifty percent chance their baby would carry it.

“No,” said Liz to the small bulge in her lower abdomen. “I’m not giving you up. Not unless I know for sure, and even then – maybe you can be fixed.”

Liz rocked back and forth slowly – like she was rocking the new life inside of her, comforting herself as she bonded with it. She’d check with the clinic in the morning. Surely there was some genetic testing they could do that could tell them if her baby was alright – or what they needed to do to fix it. Molecular biology was getting more advanced everyday.

“Don’t worry, baby,” she said, fighting back tears as she touched the swelling of her lower abdomen. “We’ll get through this – somehow.”

The streetlights of Roswell were old and not particularly generous with their light. Even at that, few of them penetrated to the alley behind the Crashdown. But dark as it was - walking there with the smell of the recently burned building still fresh in his nostrils - the darkness in the alley was nothing compared to the darkness in Max Evans' soul.

'She thinks it's a baby - my baby,' he thought as he trudged away. '... and badly as she should hate me -she wants to keep it anyway.'

It had been easier - much easier - to believe that she hated him - that because of the evil he had done she never wanted to - have anything to do with him - but when he'd seen how she reacted he knew that wasn't the case. Despite the evil in him, the goodness in her was reaching out trying to salvage their friendship - trying to reach his own humanity. If only he had any.

In the end he had been afraid of her - afraid of the hold she had over him and that somehow her presence was causing him to lose focus. 'You should have just done it,' he told himself, '... reached out your hand and touched her - sent your power inside her to manipulate the molecules of that creature to kill it.'

But he hadn't been able to do that. He hadn't connected with her, but he'd looked into her eyes and it was like he'd seen the baby she believed herself to be carrying - a human baby - and his mind had filled with thoughts - not of doing what clearly needed to be done - but of that human baby -their baby - bringing the two of them back together.

For somehow Max knew that - had it been a human baby - somehow it would have all worked out. Somehow - despite the rape - despite the pain he'd seen in her eyes when she'd left him in the gym that day - despite all of that - a baby, THEIR baby, would have somehow brought them back together. Somehow they'd have started with him being around his child to support it - care for it - and somehow this would have come out all better. Somehow they would have wound up a human family, the three of them.

'If only you WERE human,' he told himself, '...and if the 'baby' only weren't really a monster - a monster that will kill Liz.'

But he'd given her warning and he'd watch - break in to the clinic if he had to and get the records - make sure that she had it done. Make sure that Liz was safe.

Max stumbled down the alley, too tired to be coordinated, too tired to even think straight. Eventually he would stumble home where he would get in bed. But even there, his guilt-ridden conscious would give him no rest.

The patrol car had been parked in the alley across the street, shielded from view by the darkness and - largely - by the rather large dumpster required by the hardware store. But the deputy parked there had gotten a pretty good look. The night vision scope had a two and a half power magnification, and it really wasn't all THAT far.

When the girl had become visibly alarmed, the deputy had almost left the car to protect her, but the boy hadn't been armed, had made no obvious effort to threaten her, and had quickly left.

No, the deputy could have easily written this down to some high school couple having an argument, except for the hour, except for the fact that two recent attempts had been made upon the life of the girl and except for two other things. The deputy had seen the boy leaving that alley twice before. Once a few days before the fire, the second time on the night of the fire - before they knew arson was involved.

The deputy looked at the camera - hoping the high-speed film had really had enough light to capture the boys likeness. Even if it didn't, he was pretty sure he could identify him. He was about the same age as the girl - likely they were classmates. There were, he knew, not THAT many kids in West Roswell High. He'd maintain his stakeout through the night, then report in to the Sheriff in the morning.

Linda Huntington looked at the sobbing girl with a lot of sympathy. In fact, Linda looked at most of her clients with a lot of sympathy - even the stupid irresponsible ones like Pamela Troy, who never seemed to learn about protection -- either from unwanted pregnancy or from STDs. But Liz she looked at with particular sympathy. Linda actually believed Liz was telling the truth - that she had indeed had just the one episode of sexual intercourse - and that while clinically depressed and intoxicated. Nonetheless, the girl had taken responsibility for her actions in a way that was far more mature than the overwhelming majority of Linda's clients. If this were a just world, the young man involved would be falling all over himself to help her - not telling her stories that were scaring her to death - trying to force her to abort a child that she wasn't even asking him to take responsibility for.

'The bastard,' she thought. 'Men can be SUCH bastards....' And most likely the kid just was being a bastard, but it had shaken Liz Parker to the core.

"Well Liz, it's up to you. Abortion is always an option, but if you wait much longer it becomes a fairly unpleasant one with a higher complication rate."

"Is there any way - you know - to tell for sure? I mean M... -that is, the father seems so ...normal. Could he be wrong about this?"

'Wrong? Most likely lying through his teeth,' she thought. But it was apparent that whatever kind of a monster this boy was, the girl still retained some affection for him, and the last thing Liz needed was to be made to feel worse.

"Anything's possible, Liz. It is possible that he could be completely normal and still have a recessive gene for something like Huntington's chorea. Children of people with that disease look fine at birth, but half of them will develop a truly horrible disease sometime in adulthood. There are a variety of genetic diseases like that - most of them autosomal dominants. Sometimes there is reduced penetrance and serious genetic illnesses will even appear to skip a generation altogether, so yes, he could have something even if he looks normal, although even if he were carrying something like that the chance that your baby would have it would only be 50%."

"Is there anyway we could tell -- I mean -- before I ab....ab...,"

Liz struggled, but she just couldn't get the word out. and Linda's heart went out to her.

"Liz, we have new techniques for detecting such things. They aren't 100%, but they are really pretty good. What we do is something called chorionic villus sampling. We take a small piece of the placenta - just a few cells really - usually vaginally but in difficult cases through the abdominal wall and uterus. The placental cells have the same chromosomes as the baby, and we can test them in culture. It won't detect every possible abnormality, but it will detect the common ones -- probably 98% or so."

"Can we do that? And is it really expensive?"

It was expensive, but Linda knew damn well the clinic was lucky that Liz Parker hadn't sued them over the breach of medical information. They owed the girl - that was for sure.

"Sure we can do it, Liz, and I'm sure the clinic will pay for it."

"Thanks. I just hope he's wrong, that's all."

'Yeah, well I just hope he isn't messing with your mind,' thought Linda. It was clear the poor girl cared an awful lot about the guy - and his child. She found herself hoping the bastard was really worthy of her love, unlikely as that seemed.

"I'll get you on the schedule for tomorrow," said Linda, calling up the scheduling screen on her computer and tying in the appointment in the special procedure room scheduling module. "Looks like --- 2PM."

The argument had gotten heated – that happened sometimes when people of action, in this case, a junior deputy, a fire inspector, and the fire chief, were confronted with the reality of the justice system which altogether seemed to be far more concerned with form than with substance. Still, Jim Valenti had to smile at their perserverance in the face of the Prosecuting Attorney. A decade ago he’d have been arguing the same way – at least if he hadn’t known the principles involved. Of course Jim did know Max – did know that his own son and Max were both facing potential assault charges, and even if those charges weren’t in defense of the young girl, he still wouldn’t have believed the scenario the three were trying to defend. Evans was a somewhat strange kid but you get a sixth sense after awhile in law enforcement. There was just too damn much pain – too little anger in those pictures the deputy had snapped – on the part of both of the teenagers. Both of them were hurting and he wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t for a moment believe the theory of the young deputy that Max Evans was involved – although it apparently was convincing enough to the fire department. Fortunately, the Prosecuting Attorney wasn’t buying it either, sparing Jim the unpleasant necessity of being the voice of the legal establishment here.

"So let's assume it IS a picture of Maxwell Evans, Deputy. It's an infrared camera - not a normal lens, but let's say I could convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that it WAS him, where do you think THAT gets us?"

"Well, look at them. It's obvious that whatever he said just devastated her. And when I showed his picture to Deputy Martinez, he said he's 90% sure he saw the boy coming out of the alley a few days before the fire, and again when he was blocking the street to keep people out while the fire department fought the fire. Doesn't that suggest something to you," asked the young deputy. Jim Valenti actually appreciated the young man's earnestness -- he'd been that way too when he was a rookie, before he'd really understood how much such things as 'probable cause' and not documenting Mirandaing someone could complicate a case. Worse yet, the Fire Chief and fire inspector were nodding in apparent agreement. Jim shook his head slowly in sympathy, realizing what was coming.

The Prosecuting Attorney eyes seemed to roll back in his head, as if invoking some unseen diety, before looking again at the young deputy. Finally he just smiled, "Deputy - I know your heart's in the right place, but I also know that you had legal procedures at the police academy - and you've had six months of practical experience since then. I can't believe that you've forgotten about such thing as probable cause."

In fact the prosecuting attorney was sympathetic. He had coffee at the Crashdown himself sometimes, and he liked the young girl. She was - in fact - about as agreeable young girl as anyone would ever want to meet, despite the recent unpleasantness involving the water tank above the high school. She was just the kind of victim that most readily stirred the protective instinct of naive young deputies - made them willing to stretch the rules to the breaking point to protect the victim. He liked the young deputy but the young man nonetheless should know better and if - in the unlikely event the young man was actually involved in the murder attempt - the young deputy weren't reined in hard, he might spoil the case even if Max Evans did do it.

"What you HAVE is a 90% chance - certainly not anyone's legal definition of beyond a reasonable doubt - that the boy MAY have been a repeat curfew violator - although if he can make the case that he actually was going to or coming from a school sponsored event or traveling by the most direct route to or from somewhere his parents had authorized him to be, even THAT goes out the window since he's sixteen."

"But what about THIS video?" retorted the young officer.

"Oh, you have him dead to rights there - doing what? Having an argument with his girlfriend perhaps? Did she happen to call 911 after this? Did SHE make a complaint about the boy knocking on her window in the wee small hours of the morning? I'll concede the point that you have a better case on him there for curfew violation - which we haven't prosecuted any teenager for in over six years - but the fact that a couple of teenagers had an argument and one left in tears...," said the Prosecuting Attorney, running the video forward and backwards in high speed until he reached the point where Max Evans was leaving, "...make that, BOTH were in tears when he left, that is SO far from probable cause...," the Prosecuting Attorney shook his head again looking at the young deputy. "Are you married, son?"

The deputy looked confused by the non sequitur. "Yes," he answered cautiously.

"Any kids?"

"One. A daughter six months old."

"Well I have three daughters, fourteen, nineteen, and twenty, and let me tell you, crying teenagers are NOT a reportable event in this country, and they damn sure aren't probable cause. My understanding is that these two were pretty good friends - apparently had some sort of a falling out - then the young lady - well, let's just say that she apparently handled the breakup badly. As you may or may not know, the young man is currently facing some charges in a juvenile court over allegations that he beat the snot out of someone probably twice his size because that person and others had gone out of his way to hurt this young girl's feelings. Now clearly they have personal issues themselves, and I'm sure we are all aware of what was painted on the water tank not all that long ago. Not only did the young man defend her then, he demonstrated that he was certainly capable of a significant level of violence if provoked - violence he did NOT demonstrate in the videotape you took."

"But it appeared like - well almost like he was threatening her," said the Fire Chief.

"Chief, we don't know what he said - or what she said. They are teenagers - that could have been a lover's spat, that could have been an ex-boyfriend upset that he is the ex, a current boyfriend, it could be about the young lady's condition, it might have nothing to do with that condition."

"Well what if it was about the pregnancy?" asked the Fire Inspector. "What if she's carrying someone else's child and he is upset because he still has feelings for her?"

"Well, if she's carrying someone else's child and he still has feelings for her, I'd damn well expect him to be upset. So what?" replied the Prosecuting Attorney.

"I mean, couldn't that be a reason he would try to kill her?" continued the Fire Chief.

"Look at the video. You have two or three minutes of him OBVIOUSLY NOT trying to kill her. I'm telling you, the fact that two teenagers talked through a bedroom window for two minutes and one or both of them departed in tears - that's hardly evidence of anything. I happen to know the parents of this young man..."

"That shouldn't be allowed to interfere with a police investigation..." started the young deputy.

"I'm not interfering with anything, son, I'm just giving you facts. The young man's father is a lawyer and even if you did convince a judge that the boy should be brought in for questioning based upon this video, his father is going to make that judge look like such a fool in court that you might as well never go to that judge again on anything that you don't have actual pictures of a crime being committed. Judges lean toward granting police discretion because they trust us to use it well. They don't like being embarrassed, however, and Philip Evans would make the judge look like an absolute fool over something like this. You just can't bring some minor in and lean on him hoping he'll confess. The Justice system just doesn't work that way."

"Well what about the girl?" the Fire Inspector asked. "If we could get her to talk, we could find out what that conversation was really about."

"If the young lady had wanted us to know what that conversation was about, she could have undoubtedly told us. The boy clearly wasn't stopping her from getting to a phone."

“If we could get a court order to look in her medical records maybe we could find out whose child it is,” said the young deputy. “Then we could see who the father is - maybe figure out just what's going on and who has been trying to kill her."

The Prosecuting Attorney seemed to be fighting to avoid laughing. "Listen, son," he said. "I happen to know that the clinic is running scared of a lawsuit for allowing information in that girl's file to become public knowledge already. The young lady has a lawyer who - well let's just say that I doubt that any information from her medical record is going to get out again without the young lady's consent. Trust me, the girl's lawyer got the better of the clinic lawyer, got the better of the attorney for the school district, and she'll damn sure get the better of you if you even make such a request. In my opinion the best thing you could do is simply ASK the young lady if she knows what's going on."

"But we have ... the detective asked that specifically, and she denies any knowledge of who is trying to kill her and she refused to explain anything about her relationship to the Evans kid other than that they are ex-lab partners."

"Well then your only real option is to keep her under surveillance. Where is she now, anyway?"

"Apparently at an appointment in the clinic. We are following her, but there must be some easier way to do this."

"Nobody ever said that law enforcement was easy, son," said the Prosecuting Attorney, looking up at Jim Valenti. "In fact, it's hard work, and detective work is some of the hardest. But the law doesn't let us take shortcuts, much as it may seem like it would be nice to do that sometimes."

Jim Valenti got up and left with the Prosecuting Attorney, leaving the others in the conference room."

"Think you convinced them?" asked the Sheriff.

"I hope so. I admire that young deputy's enthusiasm, but I'd hate to have him get himself in trouble trying to take shortcuts - or even worse - have some perps get away because evidence had to be thrown out."

"I'll watch him, but he's a good man - just a little inexperienced. We all start that way," said Jim Valenti.

Behind them, neither noticed the tall man in the business suit slip in to the room.

As the young deputy, the fire chief, and the fire inspector looked up, the man greeted them. "Well, good morning gentlemen, am I interrupting something?"

"No sir Mr. Commissioner," the fire chief said. "We sort of borrowed your conference for an impromptu meeting. It was breaking up anyway."

"Well from the look on your faces, you aren't entirely happy about how it went. Care to talk about it?"

The fire chef turned to the young deputy. "Have you met Commissioner Williams, Deputy?"

"I certainly know of him by reputation," the deputy replied. "Pleased to meet you, sir."