Work Text:
Trigger Point
By TLR
Plot: Hutch's new lady friend has an ex that won't let go.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Sunday morning.
Hutch, with his tousled blond hair and slightly creased brow, lay half-awake, one arm across his eyes, the other tracing lazy circles on the arm of his date for the past weekend, Susan, who was nestled comfortably against him.
She murmured, her voice thick with sleep, "I could get used to Sunday mornings like this. Who needs hard red wheat pancakes."
He smiled, pressing a soft kiss on her forehead. "Nobody right now."
Just as he was soaking in the morning and enjoying the first free minutes of the day, the ring of the telephone interrupted him. He stretched an arm out, fumbling around the nightstand to pick up the receiver.
"Hello?" he mumbled, trying to shake off his grogginess.
"Hutch, it's me."
Huggy's voice, but it sounded stressed.
"It's about Starsk. I heard somebody grabbed him."
Hutch rose up on his elbow.
"What?"
"Susan's ex-boyfriend. Saw the three of you together at my joint Friday night. Watched you guys leave in the Torino. Jumped to conclusions I guess, got Starsky when he meant to get you."
Susan had her ear to the receiver as she listened too.
"Oh my God," she said as she covered her mouth and looked at Hutch. "Bozz."
"Who?"
"Billy Bosworth. I broke up with him a week ago."
Hutch heard Huggy ask, "Is he who I think he is?"
"Billy Bosworth," Hutch repeated. He knew the name, even without running him through the computer. It was a case Detectives Simmons and Babcock had handled. A few years earlier, Bosworth murdered a former girlfriend and the guy she was seeing. His father was a powerful trial judge. Hence, the kid gloves, missing evidence, circumstantial, no witnesses, a slick defense attorney, a bought jury, and an acquittal.
Hutch said into the receiver, "Thanks, Hug," then jumped out of bed and began to dress.
"Home address," Hutch said to Susan as he strapped on his gun and pocketed his shield. "His vehicle. His place of work."
She got out of bed too.
"I'm sorry, Ken. I'm really sorry. He was obsessed with me, but I didn't know that much about him. I didn't know he would do something like this."
He was beginning to breathe hard, trying to stay calm and think clearly.
"Now you know," he said taking her shoulders and moving her a step aside. "I'm going after him. You stay here, and don't let anyone in, especially him."
"I won't."
She followed him as he walked quickly into the living room and to the coat closet for his jacket.
Just then the living room phone rang, and Hutch picked it up.
At first silence was on the line, then breathing, then a low male voice said, "My mistake, Hutchinson. I'm waiting for you. Come alone. No backup. No gun. Or I kill your partner."
"Bosworth, so help me, if you hurt him, I'll-"
Click.
She clutched his arm when he opened the door to leave.
"Be careful, Ken."
"I will. Lock the door."
Then he ran to his car.
::
Hutch's LTD.
He was en route to Bosworth Boarding House, a property that Judge Bosworth turned over to his son to own and operate upon his acquittal. But Billy abandoned it in favor of meeting, dating, stalking, and in some cases, killing women, when they dumped him and his sexually abusive ways.
"I just got off the phone with Huggy," Captain Dobey said over the police radio. "What's the address? I'll send backup."
"Sorry, Cap, I didn't hear you. Could you repeat that?"
"Damn it! I'm talking to you! Now tell me where you're going! You don't get to call the shots here!"
"I do where Starsky's life is concerned!"
"Hutch!"
Hutch turned off the police radio and kept driving toward Bosworth Boarding House.
It's me Bosworth wants, Cap. Don't you get it? Starsky is in the hands of a psychopath because of me.
::
The sun was high when his car reached the isolated, rustic property that was situated outside Bay City limits, the brightness a deceptively pretty facade.
Shrouded in the shade of weeping willow trees, the building was paint-peeled and in disrepair, the lawn overgrown and weedy at the edges, the windows opaque with grime.
Forgotten when the new and improved freeway systems bypassed it, the boarding house looked as sick and dark as its owner.
::
Parking the car a short distance away, Hutch quietly exited it and approached the grounds cautiously.
He knew that walking in without a plan was foolish, but his grasp of extrasensory perception, knowledge of Bosworth's patterns, and plain old common sense told him time was not on his side, or Starsky's.
The officer in him said Dobey was right, he should have involved backup, and strategized, but the voice on the phone had been clear about no interference. This was a personal challenge, a test just for him. He was at Bosworth's mercy.
Hutch didn't like the feeling of being a lamb led to the slaughter. His intention was for he and Starsky both to get out of this alive. But when it came right down to it, Hutch knew he had absolutely no reservations about taking Starsky's place if he had to.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the front gate of the place, which made not a sound.
::
Inside.
There was no power, so the interior's only light was through the dirty windows in the lobby and those in the wall above the landing.
The unnerving silence was something he could almost taste, touch. He was sure his heart was beating loud enough for Bosworth to hear.
Starsk? he wanted to ask. But didn't. He had to listen for the slightest sound or faintest footstep. He had to be ready to act.
His partner was here somewhere. He could feel it.
Then a gunshot blasted from the midway landing of the staircase across the room in front of him, and Hutch dove behind the lobby's front desk. Wood chipped over his head from the splintering counter, stinging his left ear.
"Welcome, Hutchinson! Glad we can clear up the confusion about who's dating my girlfriend!"
Panting, Hutch reached for the gun under his jacket and pulled it out, ready to battle it out, but when he checked it, found to his shock and dismay that it was empty. In his rush to leave the cottage, he hadn't made sure his gun was loaded.
Maybe he could talk his way out of trouble, or at least stall the inevitable.
"Billy!" Hutch called from his crouch in the small confines between the front desk and the wall behind it. He had little protection; a fish in a barrel waiting to get shot. "Let Starsky go! I want to see he's all right! Then we'll talk!"
"He's all right! He's taking a beauty nap!"
Another gunshot, and Hutch winced as the bullet chopped into the wall three feet behind him. Billy was a good shot according to the case file and his military record, and could hit him any time he wanted to. Right now he was a cat playing with a mouse before killing it.
"I'll help you!" Hutch shouted. "Let's negotiate!"
"Big talk coming from an unarmed dead man!"
Hutch's eyes closed against his will. Please, Starsk. I love you. If I die now, and you get out alive, keep going. Live life to the fullest. Remember the good times. That's my wish for you.
Hutch heard the sound of Billy's boots hitting the wooden floor as he came closer to the front desk. Desperate, Hutch rose to his feet to perhaps fight him, take his gun, do whatever he had to do, but another gunshot, this one deeper and louder, boomed in the air.
Then the sound of Billy's body hitting the floor.
A few long seconds passed, then slowly, Hutch turned in the silence, saw Bosworth's near-headless corpse, and Starsky standing behind it with a dazed, drugged look on his face and bloodied wrists where he'd worked free of ropes, swaying as if he himself were about to drop.
"Starsk?"
Somehow he'd made it outside, maybe through a window or down some back steps, to the LTD, grabbed the keys from the ignition, and got the shotgun from the trunk.
"Gave me a shot," he murmured woozily as his legs threatened to give way. "Think it wore off..?"
Hutch ran the few steps toward him and caught him under the arms to steady him, taking the shotgun from him and laying it aside.
"Hey, buddy," Hutch said with a trembling laugh of surprise and relief he couldn't quite contain. "Sure am glad to see you. You okay?"
Starsky nodded as Hutch took his left arm, hooked it around his neck, and helped him walk out the door and toward the car.
"Knew you were in trouble," Starsky murmured drunkenly, "when you didn't return fire."
"I came to rescue you," Hutch said as he opened the passenger door. "But you rescued me."
Starsky smiled groggily as Hutch sat him in the seat. "See how that works? Two happies."
"Know what he gave you?"
"Nope."
Hutch reached for the mike to notify Dobey and call for assistance and an ambulance.
"I'm all right," Starsky slurred as he rested his head against the seat.
"Sure you are. You're high as a kite and your wrists look like they've been chewed by a Rottweiler."
Starsky offered a half-giggle.
When Hutch replaced the mike, he squeezed his partner's shoulder. "We made it, friend. Thanks again."
Starsky closed his eyes, content to let Hutch take care of things, and him.
::
Starsky was treated at Memorial Hospital and held overnight for observation, then discharged the next day. When he and Hutch took the elevator down to the lobby and stepped off, they were met by Susan, who wore a hesitant smile.
"I don't know what to say, guys," she said quietly. "I'm sorry. I didn't know he..."
"It's okay," Hutch said putting his arm around her. "You didn't know who he was. It wasn't your fault."
"Besides," Starsky smiled, "we have a way of attracting trouble."
Her smile softened a little. "Well, I hope you have a way of attracting fun too, because there is something we can do together that may help take our minds off of things."
"What's that?" Hutch asked.
"It's a charity event my best friend Greta and I created. A doggie beauty pageant. We need judges."
"That doesn't seem fair," Hutch said with a look at Starsky. "Aren't all dogs beautiful?"
"Yeah," Starsky agreed. "I mean, who could judge?"
"Come on, guys, it's just for fun. And it's to raise money for the children's ward of the hospital."
Hutch sighed. "Well, okay."
"You talked us into it," Starsky added. "Now tell me more about Greta. Is she single? Can I have her number? Do you like double dates?"
the end