Stockholm Syndrome is a Bitch Part 2
Hello and welcome to the second part of this wonderful story. I've almost finished it, but it's wrapping up pretty quick.
In this we have Steve showing he's not stupid and Eddie eating it up.
Oh and cliffhanger warning.
Part 1 |
~
Eddie was not having a good day. He had to stop Oliver, the rich business man twice from trying to tackle Steve to the ground. Lily, Oliver’s daughter was egging him on so he could be the hero and they could all go home. And the manager, Karen was on the verge of tears and hysterics was only going to make things worse.
The three of them, Karen, Riley, and himself was joined by the only teller on duty at the moment, Judy, according to her name tag. The other teller, Sandra had gone on her lunch. Lucky bitch.
Steve had been pacing back and forth, muttering to himself about evidence and that it had to be here. Whatever the hell that meant.
But the way his heart nearly escaped through his throat when the phone rang, he was sure had taken at least ten years off his life span.
Thankfully Steve picked up the phone immediately and what followed was clearly enough to stress the poor guy further, it ending with him slamming the phone down on the receiver.
Then he pointed the gun at Karen and Eddie honestly feared the worst, but it seemed more like he was just waving it around as he bit out, “Open the doors and let everyone out but you and smart mouth over here. Now.”
Karen scrambled to her feet and did as she was told. She pressed a button that opened the metal cages that had dropped in front of the entrance.
“Go on!” Steve growled. “Everyone out but Karen and Smart Mouth, now!”
To Dean and Riley’s credit, they did so a tad unwillingly, not wanting to leave Eddie and Karen alone with Steve, but with Steve waving the gun about, they did as he was told.
Almost immediately the alarms stopped their shrieking and Steve seemed to relax a little more.
Eddie raised his hand. “Is there a reason I wasn’t let go?”
Steve looked at him for a moment and then cocked his head like fucking golden retriever. “I like your voice, it’s soothing.”
Eddie blinked at him for a moment. “I–” He closed his mouth again. He really didn’t have an argument for that. Not really. If his presence kept Steve from doing stupid, then he would do it. Because even if the only life he took was his own, that was one life too many.
“Yeah, okay, sweetheart,” he said instead. “And what’s the reason for keeping Karen with us, then?”
“Because I need her keys?” Steve asked more than he said, like he wasn’t sure about that.
“My keys?” Karen asked, frowning down at the keys in her hand. “Why my keys?”
Steve turned to her like she was stupid. “Because I need the manager’s keys to get my locked box? You know the whole fucking reason I’m here?!”
She looked down at the keys in her hand and then back up at Steve. “If I gave you my keys, you’d let me go?”
Eddie stared at her in shock. She was just going to walk out that door and leave him with a crazed lunatic like that? What the hell?
Steve looked at her for a moment as if he was thinking the same thing. “Provided the key to the locked boxes actually is on that key ring.”
Oh. Eddie thought. So he wasn’t so crazy that he would just take her word for it. That meant that at the very least he could be reasoned with.
Eddie reached out for the keys. “Which one is the key to the vault?”
Karen frowned that wasn’t the key Steve was asking for, but she pointed to a small brass key. “It can only be used exactly at 8am every morning.”
Eddie took the keys from her and worked that key off the ring and handed her the key back. “Now which one is to the security boxes?”
She pointed to the middle silver key. He nodded and went over the room that had the rows and rows of locked boxes. He went to put the key in the door when she called out.
“Wait!” Karen cried. “The middle one opens the boxes not to the box vault. You’ll want the round silver key. If you tried any other key, it would have sounded the alarms and I don’t think Steve would have liked that much.”
Just then the phone rang again and all three of them turned to it, staring at it in shock.
~
Hopper was ready to call Callahan to take the shot when a bunch of people came piling out of the bank.
According to one former hostage, a young man named Riley Jones, that the only people left was the manager, Karen Wheeler, the local drug dealer, turned straight, Eddie Munson and the bank robber, Steve Harrington.
“Holy shit,” Hopper growled once Riley was led away. The other witnesses all said the same thing, Steve Harrington was standing in the middle of that bank with a loaded revolver and looking like he was fresh out of the asylum.
He spoke into his walkie talkie on his shoulder. “Get me Harrington’s doctor at Pennhurst, I need to know how unstable he actually is!”
“He’s not in the slightest,” a warm voice said from his elbow and when Hopper turned he saw a well dressed man with a round face and calming demeanor.
“And you are?” Hopper asked, eyeing him up.
“Dr. Sam Owens, psychiatrist and licensed therapist at Pennhurst Hospital and Asylum,” he replied handing Hopper his business card. “And for the last five years, Steve Harrington’s doctor.”
Hopper frowned. “How did you know to come here?” Something just wasn’t adding up.
“Oliver Granger made a statement to the media about his ‘ordeal’ and named Steve directly,” Dr. Owens said dryly.
“That son of a bitch!” Hopper snarled. “Is he trying to get the remaining hostages killed! I’m going to kill him. Fucking hell! I told him! I fucking told him that any and all press needed to come through me!”
Dr. Owens nodded. “And get Steve killed,” he added pointedly. “Which is the last thing I want.”
Hopper rubbed his face in frustration. “All right, Dr. Owens give me everything you’ve got. I came to town the year after this mess, so just know it wasn’t my fuck up.” Then he spoke into his walkie talkie. “Belay that, I’ve got the doc, I need the entire case file for Harrington murders ASAP!”
“First off,” Dr. Owens said sternly, “the thing you must absolutely be clear on, Steve is not insane. Not even a little.”
Hopper raised an eyebrow. “Uh...Doc, I don’t mean to show my ass on this, but doesn’t five years in Pennhurst show evidence contrary to that statement?”
“No it just means that whatever was locked inside Steve’s mind was considered dangerous enough that he needed to be deemed crazy enough that the truth would never come out,” Dr. Owens said coolly.
“I don’t believe in conspiracies, Doc,” Hopper growled. “And you shouldn’t either.”
“Oh?” Dr. Owens said innocently. “Where did he get a gun in the time it took for him to drive from Pennhurst to Hawkins and the bank? Because the timeline doesn’t add up.”
Hopper opened his mouth to refute that, but then he frowned. He been informed enough times when a criminal was being released to know that the release time was at 10am. It was barely noon now. Steve Harrington would have had to have the gun on him or in his car and that didn’t make sense either.
“Did Steve have a gun in his possession when he was admitted to the hospital?” Hopper asked rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Because I was sure that sort of thing was frowned upon.”
Dr. Owens shook his head. “Absolutely not! And even if he had it would have been taken away for evidence!”
Just then an officer came up to them with a small file. “What the fuck is that?”
“The Harrington Murders file?” the officer asked, cocking his head to the side. “It’s what you asked for.”
Hopper looked down at the folder and then back up at the officer. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“That’s all of it,” the officer insisted. “Plus the blood samples, there wasn’t much to the case. It was pretty cut and dried that Steve Harrington did. It was just whether or not he’d go to jail or the nut house.”
Dr. Owens glared at the man and he sputtered, “I mean the mental hospital.” He glanced nervously at the doctor before turning back to Hopper. “Is that all?”
Hopper waved him off and opened the file. There were plenty of pictures of the scene and testimony from Jack Hagan, the male victim’s father, and photos of Steve in the aftermath. But nothing else. He looked up at Dr. Owens. “Have you seen this shit?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Dr. Owens said gravely. “Your predecessor was eager to put someone, anyone away for the murder of those two adolescences and there he was the perfect scapegoat, blood all over him, no memory of what happened. Steve suffered. Unfathomably so.”
Hopper closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please tell me the clothes Steve is wearing isn’t the clothes that he was arrested in.”
“I honestly have no idea,” Dr. Owens sneered. “I wasn’t allowed to be at his release.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“They told me that because it was my recommendation against the will of the hospital board that I wasn’t allowed to be there at his release.”
Hopper sighed. He picked up the phone and called the bank again. The only way he was going to get the answers he needed was talking to the source.
“Hey, Hop!” Eddie answered gleefully. “Sorry, Stevie can’t come to the phone right now.”
“Munson,” Hopper replied dryly. “Nice to know you’re still alive to annoy the hell out of me. Can you tell me what the situation is right now?”
“Sure thing, Chief,” Eddie continued brightly. “There was a slight misunderstanding and Karen is very, very sorry. Aren’t you, Karen? She says she sorry.”
Hopper pinched his nose. Munson was being deliberately obtuse. Probably to stall for time. Time for what he didn’t know, but he was just going to have to play along.
“Can you tell me what kind of gun Harrington has?” he asked, exasperated.
“Oh goody!” Eddie said. “You do know who you’re dealing with! That’s so good! It’s a hand gun. And no, I’m not blowing smoke up your ass when I tell you I don’t know what kind.”
Hopper shook his head. “That’s fine, son,” he said. “Is it an old fashion gun with a barrel in middle like you see in westerns or is it a modern gun with a clip at the bottom?”
There was silence for a moment before Eddie said, “Uh... it appears to be one of those new fangled things.”
Dr. Owens snorted and Hopper rolled his eyes.
“Right,” Hopper huffed. “Is there any chance of you knowing what Harrington is doing holding up a bank and how we can end this nice and peaceful like?”
“I’m not one hundred percent on that, Chief,” Eddie admitted. “But um... Karen Wheeler is on her way out to you and hopefully she can clear things up for you.”
And then the line hung up again.
But sure enough, a very frazzled Karen Wheeler came rushing out of the bank, hurrying across the street to line of police cars.
“Chief Hopper, Chief Hopper!” she cried. “Oh it’s just dreadful!”
~
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