Facade
Aiden's POV
The tension in the whole precinct is so strong , so palpable we can barely draw full breaths. Everything about the usual chaotic Major Crimes—the incessant ringing phones, the clacking of its officers’ hooves, the nonstop babble jock-radio—sounds as if it’s been compressed, subdued by this oppressive terror. I don’t knock. I don’t announce myself; I just make my way through the door of Captain Fallen’s corner office, Dana right on my heels, the stack of Bartholomew Sanchez’s shattered life evidence wrapped around my hand like a paper coconut.
Captain Fallen glanced up from his morning report, already looking irritated at the interruption. He was still coping with the aftermath of the Paige Lang case — the Deputy Commissioner breathing down his neck, demanding answers for the latest lawyer found dead. “West! What the hell? I’m getting calls from the Deputy Commissioner about the Lang case and you look like you just ran a marathon. I told you, go through your chain of command.”
“It’s finished, Captain. We got him,” I say, squeezing the words out, low and steady. "And we need SWAT to run a welfare check right now," he said. My best friend is with him.”
Fallen’s eyes narrow, his expression hardening instantly. “Hold on. You just tied a ghost to a name. Now you’re telling me your friend’s husband, some polished vet, is the guy carving initials behind women’s ears? You’re losing it, Aiden. You need to have something more than paranoia to support this.”
I disregard the dismissal and gather the papers off his desk, requiring his focus, his power, and I need it immediately. When to be polite has passed.
"He’s not Eliot Reins. It’s Bartholomew Peter Sanchez. Reins is a fictional identity, three years old, invented out of thin air to conceal his past,” I say, my voice strained but controlled. “He’s been living a split life with two separate identities. One is the charming, successful vet, the perfect husband. And the other is a calculating, rage-fueled killer who is focused on the one professional group he blames for his trauma: lawyers.”
I drop the pictures the grainy Mercer Hotel profile stalker on the left, and on the right a fully-developed, beaming wedding photo. Fallen picks them up, his skepticism warring with the cold, visual proof. The same jawline, the same restive eyes, the way his dark hair falls—it is unmistakable.
“This is circumstantial, West. We can’t just raid a private home because some lousy profile match smells like a gangster to you,” Fallen protests, but that firm note of authority in his voice isn’t there anymore. He’s hunting for a way out, an excuse to brush aside the horror I have been pouring over his desk.
“It’s not the situation. It’s a pain map,” I say, throwing the juvenile court file summary on top. “Bartholomew Sanchez suffered extreme child abuse. His main abusers were his aunt, Maggie Sanchez, and her husband, George.
“They had him and his little brother, Ronnie,” under their care.”
Leans in, her own hour of frantic research confirming the horrors I had uncovered. “They lived in a house on Spanish Harlem.” Maggie and George were financially stable, so the system saw only a perfect face. But the juvenile records reveal systematic, severe neglect — broken bones,psychological torture, malnourishment. We’re talking about a level of cruelty that breaks children, Captain. The paperwork is monstrous.”
I press forward, my tone tight with the horror of what else is to come.
“Ronnie, his younger brother, passed away. The official version is a ‘tragic accident.’ But inside the file are notes from a social worker indicating the injuries didn’t fit the narrative. Ronnie Sanchez died in the custody of his abusers, and nothing was done. The case was thrown out, sealed and forgotten.”
Fallen and Dana exchanges glances and I drop photos of Eliot and teenage Bartholomew Peter Sanchez and the resemblance waa so striking that Fallen blinks rapidly.
Fallen’s eye tracks to the name Ronnie Sanchez on the page, and the dead child’s weight settles heavily in the room. He rubs his face as the foundation of the killer dawns on him.
“The connection to the victims ?” he asks, his voice now flat, businesslike.
“The connection is the legal system itself,” I say, tapping the file summary. “Bartholomew’s biological father was an exceptionally high-profile family solicitor. He abandoned the boys with the aunt, then he leveraged his contacts and his power to shield the police and the courts from seeing the abuse when it surfaced. He facilitated the abuse, Captain.
He protected the abusers. He twisted the system until it was un punishable.”
I walk back and forth in the cramped office, adrenaline surging with knowing the intent. “To Bartholomew, every lawyer, every prosecutor, every defense attorney who debates technicality over truth, is a stand in for his father, and for the system that took his brother’s life. He dates them, he gets close, he evaluates them, and then he kills them with precision, surgically branding them.”
Dana speaks, her voice frighteningly quiet. “We looked at the dating histories of all the victims—Paige Lang, Tessa Monroe, Chacha Remirez, Veronica Cheng, Amira Klein. All of them had dated 'Eliot Raines,' one or more, in the months prior to their death. He applied the allure of the ‘Eliot’ personality to enter, to study their schedules, to identify the security flaws in their homes.” She slides forward the laptop pin evidence.
“A man trying to rack, aka “man stalking Veronica Cheng’s office,” was wearing the veterinarian caduceus pin. It’s his signature, his bragging right.”
The revelation hits Fallen like a solid punch. He leans back slightly in his chair.
“Multiple personalities,” says Fallen as he contemplates the phrase. “The charming husband and the traumatized killer. He’s completely compartmentalized this rage.”
The 'Eliot' persona is the cover that makes his professional life and his stability possible The 'Bartholomew' persona is the unadulterated, unmitigated anger of a 15-year-old boy who saw his brother die, without revenge. That rage is what’s driving the murders, Captain.
That rage is why he just moved my friend, Ruthie into the townhouse on East 89th Street. That home was that of his terrorizing aunt and uncle, Maggie and George Sanchez.”
“She told you they just moved?”
“Yes, Ruthie told me.”
The urgency in the room could drown us out. We have the who and the why and the where.
“We should take him in on the identity theft alone, but it has to be with great care. We’re talking to a man who is brilliant, deeply frightened, and who’s demonstrated that he can kill with no known way to find out who he is. He is an emotionally compromised surgical instrument,” Fallen says, as he finally grabs his phone. “I’m dialing the Commander right now. This is a priority one, silent mobilization. I’ll clear the air on the welfare check. Let’s go heavy.”
I have a dizzying mixture of vindication and terror inside of me. The monster is named, his past is exposed, but the biggest question is unanswered, looming over the whiteboard like a dark cloud. “But we don’t know what the carvings mean, Captain,” I say, tapping the marker on the initials. “ but why those initials? Why behind the ear?”##
“We bring him in, West, find out what it means,” Fallen interrupts, his tone sharpening now with authority.
“But for now, the only thing that matters is now. You were right. Your friend is at immediate risk. He knows we're close. Bartholomew Sanchez is fleeing to the house where he was traumatized. We’ve got to beat him there. Now go.”
I nod once, the word Ronnie reverberating inside my head — another innocent life extinguished by this relentless cycle of professional evil and icy cruelty. I’m running out the door before Fallen even finishes the sentence, my
thoughts focused solely on the clock and East 89th Street.