The Truth Shall Steele Set You Free Chapter 11
Date: Tuesday, 04 May, 2004
"john_delenn" <brightelf@juno.com>
 
Sorry it's taken so long, but RL has been hectic. The story will be
complete before May 29, but another chapter may not be posted this
week...almost over.
 
Lisa
 
DISCLAIMER: RS is currently owned by Warner Brothers, yadda yadda
yadda...and they're PUTTING THEM ON DVD SOON! (I know this has
nothing to do with the disclaimer, but I thought I'd mention it).
Anyway, not making a profit, so don't sue! Also, don't plagiarize.
It's not nice and God don't like ugly!
 
THE TRUTH SHALL STEELE SET YOU FREE (really post-SWAK)
 
Chapter 11
 
"Well, what happened to her?" Kelly shifted slightly, listening as
Melissa Brannigan gave her the information about Desi, the other
intern.
"Oh, okay. Well what about Roselli? What kind of schedule
did he have? Right, talk to Mike. Well, I went through the phone
records and got copies of the calls. Apparently he did call
Laura...at Remington Steele Investigations."
Melissa Brannigan mumbled something about that not being a
new find. Kelly rolled her eyes. "Look, just put me through to
Mike. Yeah, I'll hold."
Two minutes of Muzak later, Kelly rolled her eyes as Mike
babbled on about his and "Big Tony's" tomcat days going to the
Pussycat Strip Club every Wednesday at eleven thirty for buffalo
wings and a lap dance. Great!
"Gee thanks Mike! It's nice to know our tax dollars were
well spent! Gotta go!"
Mike again mumbled something about hating kids. Whatever.
*click*
 
*****

/Okay. All I gotta do is get out of the car and knock on
the door. He's an old man. He won't remember me anyway. Sure.../
Kelly glanced at the clock. 11:32 a..m. /I've been sitting
in the car for ten minutes. Eventually I'm going to be arrested
for stalking if I don't get out of the car. All I have to do is get
out of the car and show him what I found./
She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. /Just get
to the door./
*****
Kelly took several gulps of air, trying to calm her frazzled
nerves. Would he listen? Did he want to? Did he believe what was
obvious? Jarvis' words echoed in her brain. /He believed it because
there was nothing else to believe./ She pushed back the fedora on
her head and started toward Remington Steele's home, pushing up
courage from somewhere in her gut. Kelly gazed at Steele's
magnificent Italian villa-perfect lawn, perfect flowers, perfect
columns of polished stone, perfectly lifeless. A cold hand squeezed
her heart. It just occurred to her how much his house looked like a
magnificent tomb. /I can't do this./
She whirled around, intending to high-tail it back to her
little Mustang, almost tripping over two women so polished and
manicured as to appear varnished.
The older one snapped at her disdainfully, "Young woman,
what are you doing walking our streets. You're /definitely/ not a
member of this community! Isn't that right Lillian?"
Kelly shifted her smoky eyes nervously toward an exquisitely
clad, coldly elegant middle-aged woman. "Uh-I-"
The second woman stared at her, her unwavering gaze taking
in the mismatched clothing and bright splotched of color in soft
brown hair. Kelly swallowed. /No. She's staring through me./
Lillian Chatsworth took a step in Kelly's direction, her
voice flat, icy. "You're not supposed to be here. What are you
doing here.?" Those diamond-hard brown eyes never quit staring at
her. Kelly backed up, practically running to reach Steele's front
step.
Elaine Davenport Hingle nudged her companion. "Someone
should call the police. Why is that girl going to visit Mr. Leave-
Me-Alone? Maybe the old coot developed a predilection for cradle-
robbing."
Lillian Chatsworth moved toward her own home, watching the
girl knock on the door. "She's not supposed to be here."
"Of course she's not! Why don't we just call the police?"

*****
The old man wandered the street, looking for her...or was it
a he? He couldn't remember anymore. He wondered if she
remembered. Was his daughter angry at him for leaving again?
He watched as a young woman got out of her car and stood looking at
that house. The house that was supposed to be left alone? Or was
it someone who died in it? She was an ugly girl. /She's looking at
me./
Sam Henshaw stopped, a memory piercing through from the back
of his memory-torn mind. She shouldn't be here! He knew her! And
she wasn't supposed to be here!
*****
Kelly took a gulp of air into her lungs and gazed up at the
azure sky, her brow crinkling in nervousness. Her wide brown eyes
lifted heavenward in prayer, her pretty, slightly crooked mouth
pursed in determination. She pressed the bell.

*****
The past stared back in blinding technicolor. A face from
thirty years ago lifted liquid eyes heavenward.
/Why is she here? She's not supposed to be here! I killed
her! I broke Remington Steele! I destroyed him by destroying her!
No...that's not her! I finished it!/
Eyes blinked, trying to clear a brain wracked with
vengeance. /I left her to rot! I made sure she and Roselli were
dead. I've broken Steele! Why is she coming back?/
The door to the tomb which enshrined Remington Steele opened.
*****
"I must be going, Lilly. I'll see myself out."
Lillian Chatsworth nodded and let the curtain fall back into
place. "Good-bye Elaine. I'll see you later tonight. Just watch
for old Henshaw. He's been pacing the sidewalk for a bit. In one
of his moods probably."
Elaine Davenport Hingle left the house. Lillian stepped
onto her balcony for morning tea, watching as Remington Steele
glowered down on a small, brown-eyed young woman.
*****
/Good. He's still angry with her! That's right! He hates
you, you spiteful bitch. I made him hate you! I made him despise
you! I've destroyed both of you! How dare you come back here!/
*****
Sam Henshaw watched as two faces from the past locked in
battle. /He hates her./
*****
"M-Mr. Steele, I've gotta talk-"
"What the hell are you doing back here?" His glacial eyes
and enraged voice rammed the words back down into her throat.
"Uhh-" Kelly swallowed, trying to form a coherent thought
from the speech she had rehearsed on the way over. "Your wife-" It
was the wrong thing to say. She was suddenly very, very frightened.
Steele eyes blazed in raw rage and pain. This
insignificant, hateful girl stood there, as the scab was ripped and
began to bleed anew. /Damn you Laura! I can't do this! I tried! I
hate you for this pain!/ "Go away."
"Mr. Steele, let me ex-"
"Get off my property before I call the police."
"Listen to me. Please, Mr. Steele!" Kelly didn't care if
she was begging. He had a right to know.
/Mr. Steele. Mr. Steele./ For a second, another voice
called his name, a voice long buried where it could not hurt,
started kicking and raging against the cage of his tortured soul,
demanding to be heard.
"Mr. Steele-" A heart-shaped face with beautiful eyes like
dying embers vanished. All that was left was a grotesque girl whose
very visage mocked his pain. His heart hardened. "I told you once
to leave me be! Get the hell out of here!" He went to slam the
door, to hide from her haunting face and seductive eyes.
Kelly yanked on the door, her young strength thwarting his
attempt to shut her out. She pleaded. "Listen to me! Your wife-
Roselli! You-"
"SHUT UP!" A deadly rage was overtaking the embittered old
man.
"NO! Listen to me! You were wrong!" A rage, self-
righteous and truthful was building up in Kelly. Present and past
collided as a dead woman's memory was laid on the line.
"Leave me alone! Get off my property!" Remington Steele
screamed, ignoring the attention this was bringing.
"No! It had to have been a set-up! Your wife and Roselli
were murdered! It was a frame! Laura was NOT murdered by Roselli!
She was murdered WITH Roselli! Listen!" Desperately, she held up
the file she had collected.
In a show of brutality those who had once known him would
have denied him capable of, Remington Steele savagely wrenched her
hand off the door. "Leave me alone Laura!"
"What?!" The door slammed in her face.
*****
Remington Steele collapsed on the sofa. What had he called
that girl? He buried his face in his hands. Oh God, what a
wretched waste to be left alone! And then to see the wanton image
of the one woman whom he had never thought would betray him like so
many others had done...his heart broke again and again. He pushed
away the last image of Laura he had...that of a cheating wife
murdered with her lover. God, even though he had never wanted to
believe it, any and every piece of evidence he had searched for had
provided him with nothing but the burning reality of what he had
seen, and a hateful truth that had been mocking him for thirty
years, twisting an unfathomable love into an abyss hate. /The great
detective Remington Steele indeed. I couldn't even find the reason
Laura was murdered...or why she was there./
*****
"Leave me alone Laura!"
"What?!" The door slammed in her face. Kelly stood there,
her mind stunned into overload, unable to process the last few
minutes of her existence. /I'm not-he called me Laura. Huh?/
Jarvis had told her each day of the investigation had
devastated Steele, taken a piece of him with each blind alley and
dead end he turned on. But never had Jarvis said anything about
Steele losing his mind...she turned her head and gasped. Her bright
eyes caught a glimpse of her reflection in the Italian crystal glass
of the door. The fedora was pushed back on her head and the only
color visible in her hair was the shock of white down one side.
Kelly opened the file folder, which had grown in thickness over the
past few weeks. Flipping through the file, she took out one
newspaper snapshot, an early one. Laura and Remington Steele were
looking off to the side, apparently trying to rush into a court
house. He looked as dashing as James Bond, and she...Kelly took a
shaky breath and looked up from the photo of the young woman.
Swallowing, she gazed at the reflection staring back at her. /Oh my
God. What did I do?/
*****
"Leave me alone Laura!"
"What?!" The door slammed in her face.
The young woman gazed up. /I murdered you. I made sure he
would never know a moment's peace. Always wonder about you. Why
are you back? You're supposed to be dead!/
The words echoed in a maniac's brain.
/I wasn't murdered by Roselli. I was murdered with Roselli!/
/No. You insignificant bitch! He hates you and you're
dead! I want him to hate you! I want him to hate you and suffer!/
Laura Steele looked up, hauntingly and willfully refusing to
die. /I won't let him have relief! You can fight me! But he will
know suffering eternally, just as I have! I won't let him know the
truth./
The ghost slid something through the door's mail slot and
backed up, like a frightened sylph fleeing the rise of the sun.
*****
Old man Henshaw watched as she moved, a ghost of his mind.
His steps quickened. He had to reach her. /She shouldn't be here.
You're supposed to be dead!/ Wasn't she?
*****
Kelly practically ran back to her car, fighting back tears,
unsure of what had upset her so. Withered old hands grabbed her, an
ancient face and empty eyes locking with her. Kelly opened her
mouth to protest. The old man stared at her. "I know you. You're
her. I know those eyes! Why are you here? Why are you here?
You're not supposed to be here! You're not supposed to be alive!
You're not supposed to be alive!"
Letting out a strangled sob, Kelly pulled away, leaving an
old man lost in his own memories of despair. She wanted to leave
and never see Steele's house again. /Just let me get back to my
car. Please!/
*****
"You are not supposed to be here." A flat monotonous voice
broke through her fear. One of the elegant women she had nearly
toppled over earlier stood on the doorstep of the house next door to
Steele's, staring at Kelly with...dislike?
/Why? I didn't do-oh God, I gotta get outta here./
Throwing one last glance at Remington Steele's house, Kelly
shivered. More than ever, it was less a house and more a tomb to
house a lost soul. Kelly jumped in her Mustang and burned rubber to
get back to her home.
*****
Hazel eyes locked on the license plate. Louisiana GHJ
567. /I'm sending you and him back to hell./
*****
"Go home Mr. Henshaw."
"Eh? Where did she go?"
"You crazy old man, you need to get home. Now go back to
your daughter!"
Old eyes widened. He took a step at Lillian Chatsworth, so
close she could feel his stale old breath. "She's coming, you
know. She's not going to stop until she does. She's got angel
eyes. She's going to be back."
Lillian backed up, moving towards her house to call the
police.
*****
A broken man who used to be someone called Remington Steele
stood up. He looked through the window, watching as a ghost of the
past fled. He didn't know who she was, but for a moment....damn it
all anyway. Moments of the past were all he had left. He went
through the foyer to go upstairs. His blue eyes spied a manilla
folder and papers scattered under his mail slot.
He walked slowly over. The girl must have sent it through.
He tried to build up his anger, anything to fight off the sense of
failure and despair he lived with every damn day. He bent down to
pick up the papers. A picture stared at him-the murder photo he had
tried so vainly to prove and disprove. Only...he picked up the
photo. There were circles and arrows, obviously measurements, as
well as a neat scrawl of words, obviously the girl's handwriting.
He laughed bitterly. Trajectories, theories of domestic abuse,
nothing he hadn't attempted to disprove thirty years ago...tried and
failed.
Remington Steele's eyes swept the rest of the photo. The
girl had done her homework, not unlike the woman she so bitterly
resembled. He read the notes. Nothing he hadn't thought of.
Except...a one-line note, the girl's handwriting..."Slight splash of
blood smeared on the carved lily pattern of the headboard."
*****
A phone conversation....
"I screwed up royally, Jimmy."
"It's okay kiddo. He's just waiting to die at this point."
*****
Another phone conversation...
"Where? 2317 States? Apartment 602? Thank you." *click*
/I'm going to find you...and send you back into oblivion./
*****
Another phone conversation...
"2317 States St. Apartment 602. Alright. Thank you."
/I've got to find you. Oh dear God, how could I have missed
it?/
 
TBC...
 
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