Chapter 16: Loose Ends

Aunt Cass was furious.

At first, when Tadashi threw the phone at the wall, she thought someone was breaking in. Then Tadashi tried to play it off like he dropped it.

"Tadashi Hamada," Aunt Cass said with her arms folded, "do you expect me to believe that you broke this into that many pieces from dropping it on the floor?"

"Yes?" Tadashi said nervously. He was horrible at lying when someone could tell he was lying, and Cass could usually tell when it came to him accidently breaking stuff in the house, or taking food out of the café.

Tadashi heard the bell from the café door ring.

Aunt Cass exhaled in annoyance. "Look," she said, "I don't have time for this. You're paying for a new home phone and i'm going to attend to the customers."

As Cass walked out of the kitchen, she gave Tadashi the evil eye, then walked down the stairs to the café.

If Cass never had so much on her mind, Tadashi and Hiro would probably get into a lot more trouble. But Tadashi had to hand it to her, she ran that café like a well oiled machine.

Tadashi couldn't admire his aunt's hard-working attitude for long, however, because he had somewhere to be. As much as he didn't want to, Tadashi needed to face his friends and tell them what was really going on.

Hopefully Wasabi was stable enough to have called everyone together. When Tadashi was on the phone with him he seemed like he was having a nervous breakdown… a more severe nervous breakdown than the usual kind.

He kept reciting lines he could say over and over again in his head to say to his friends. He could just bluntly tell them what he had done to Mr.S, or try to ease his way into the topic. Either way, all he could see was his friends losing all faith in him, and they had every right to.

But he didn't care. He wasn't going to lie to them anymore. He was going to tell them about Mr.S, he was going to tell them about holding Christian hostage, and he was going to tell them that he planned to break into Krei Bank without Mr.S.

He was going to tell them everything.

Chemical-based weapons. That was interesting to Callaghan.

He'd seen some odd heist tactics in his career, but this was a first for him.

He was watching a traffic cam recording that had caught the thieves driving away before they disappeared on the highway. There was a man in the back of the van shooting colored balls out of a strange-looking black rifle. These balls were rusting the cop cars and blocking the windshields, but none of them looked like they were made to kill, making it easy for Callaghan to tell what kind of people these guys were: rookies who didn't wanna hurt anyone.

However, rookies wouldn't have access to weapons like these. If they were stolen from an armory or lab, the police would know about it, meaning these people either created them themselves or got help from someone on the inside.

"Callaghan," Gerson said as he walked into Callaghan's office uninvited.

"I'm busy Gerson," an annoyed Callaghan replied annoyed.

"Too busy to hear about Steven White?"

Callaghan looked up from his computer screen, finally blinking after looking at it for half an hour. "What do you mean?"

"We found a body down at the docks. Single gunshot to the head. My CSI guy told me gun must've been old and not made in the US."

"Like the gun stolen from the repository," Callaghan said as he got up from his chair.

"Exactly. Not only that, but the guy that got iced look like the picture of Steven White you showed me." Gerson sighed, not wanting to say what he was going to next. "There's something going on here. All that crap you told me about people not really being dead… I think this Steven White guy's one of 'em."

Callaghan didn't know what to think. If what Gerson said was true, then Steven White was dead.

"I need to see that body Gerson."

"They took it to the morgue uptown-"

Without replying, Callaghan grabbed the Steven White file off of his desk, walked past Gerson, and began to walk out the door.

"Hey," Gerson said as he grabbed Callaghan's shoulder. "What the hell's going on in this city?"

The old detective didn't turn his head all the way to answer. "Gerson, if this man is who we think he is, then somebody killed him to hide something about this robbery. The more time you waste realizing the world is more fucked up than you thought, the more time you're giving the bad guys to destroy any evidence that we can use to find them."

Callaghan shrugged Gerson's arm off of his shoulder and walked out of the precinct. Time was running out and he needed to know where these people were.

He needed to know what their next move was.

In situations like this, Tadashi usually walked to the beat of his heart.

It probably sounds weird, but it was true. If he was anxious or worried, his heart beated rapidly, and that would affect the way he walked. He'd walk fast regardless of where he was going or what it was for.

Today was different, however. As Tadashi walked through the halls of SFIT, his heartbeat sounded like a turret going off, while his legs were shaky and slow. He was procrastinating. He didn't want to face his friends, who were gathered in his lab now, waiting for him to come and deliver big news.

As slow as he walked though, he was still at the door to his lab in minutes, and he could hear his friends talking on the other side of the door.

"What do you know that we don't Wasabi?" Tadashi heard. It was Gogo's voice… of course. "You set all this up, and you're the calmest out of any of us for a change. What are you and Tadashi up to?"

"Hey, Wasabi didn't do anything," Fred intervened. "Lay off Gogo-"

"Zip it Fred!" Gogo yelled. "I'm sick and tired of all this shit!"

"Gogo calm down," Honey Lemon said. She hated when her friends fought, and so did Tadashi for that matter.

He opened the door about to stop Gogo's rant from escalating, but not before she got her final words out.

"I am not going to calm down!" Gogo screamed. She grew silent when she saw everyone staring at Tadashi entering the room.

Her eyes stared into Tadashi's, her's full of surprise and anger, and his blank and not giving off much expression other than guilt.

"Hey guys," he said quietly as if he had heard nothing. "Glad you came."

"Tadashi," Honey Lemon said, "did you hear about-"

"Yes, I heard about Mr.S." Tadashi sighed. "That's why we're here."

"Do you know what happened to him?" Fred asked.

"Look, do you guys wanna sit down?"

Nobody answered, but they all pulled up something to sit on, whether it was a stool or a large box.

Tadashi sat back in his computer chair, preparing himself for any more questions that would come his way.

"So," Gogo said staring at Tadashi as she sat in a stool, "you gonna tell us why we're here now?"

Tadashi hesitated at first, but then said, "You all know it's about Mr.S-"

"He's dead," Fred said, putting it bluntly.

"Yeah," Tadashi sighed. "Mr.S is dead. He was killed last night."

"We know that," Honey Lemon said. "But who did it? And why?"

Tadashi noticed that Wasabi was being rather quiet. He wasn't questioning Tadashi about Mr.S's death. He must've known Tadashi had something to do with it. Maybe it was because Tadashi had talked to Wasabi before he visited the warehouse. He couldn't imagine what Wasabi had thought of him now.

"You guys know Mr.S wasn't the nicest guy in the world," Tadashi said. "It's not that hard to believe someone killed him because he screwed them over."

"But what about us?" Gogo asked. "What if whoever did this comes for us next? It could be the people we stole the money from."

"I'd be more worried about the police," Fred blurted. "What if they find out about us from investigating Mr.S? I can't go to jail. You know what they do to guys like me in jail? I'm actually asking, because I have no idea and I don't want to find out the hard way."

"You're not going to jail Fred," Tadashi said. Then he turned to Gogo with a more serious look on his face. "And nobody is coming for us. If anyone was out to get us, it was Mr.S and that's over with now..."

Tadashi paused for a moment. He knew what he needed to say: he was the reason it was over. He sat there for a bit, trying to get to words to form and come out of his mouth, but instead he choked on them. He couldn't bring himself to say anything.

"Tadashi?" Honey Lemon said. "Are you okay?"

She gave him the perfect opportunity to just tell everyone that he wasn't okay, and that he had killed a man.

But he chose not to say anything.

"Yeah i'm fine," he quickly blurted. "What we need to focus on right now is just pretending like none of this ever happened. Alright? For now, we just go about our lives as if we had not committed a R-O-B-B-E-R-Y."

"I don't think it helps to spell the word out in a building full of geniuses," Fred pointed out.

"Yeah, and what do you mean 'for now'?" Gogo asked. Then she paused for a bit, her face turning from frustration to surprise. "Tadashi Hamada. After everything that's happened-"

"I didn't get enough money after Silent Sparrow. Mr.S said we were going after Krei Bank next, so I thought… well you guys don't need to at all but-"

"Are you serious Tadashi?" Gogo said quietly. Tadashi had expected her to yell, or at least throw something at him, but she just sat in her chair giving Tadashi a look of disappointment. "We barely got away with robbing Silent Sparrow, Mr.S is dead, hell we blew a guy up, and you still think you can take on one of the most secure buildings in the city?"

"Wait," Honey Lemon said, "what about blowing up-"

"No, I don't think that," Tadashi said. "Not alone anyway."

"Tadashi, wake up," Gogo said standing up. "We're college students with bright futures ahead of us, and you want to throw that all away just to make some easy money-

"This is not just easy money for me, and you know that," Tadashi said sternly. "I'm trying to leave my family some money after all my brother's hospital bills are paid."

"We know Tadashi. And as noble a cause that is… we're criminals."

Tadashi winced at that word. "Criminals." He felt disgusted just thinking about it.

"I never usually see eye to eye with Gogo," Fred said, "but she's right, man. We barely got away with one tiny repository, and now you wanna go after Krei Bank?"

Honey Lemon joined in. "We understand what you're doing this for Tadashi, but in the end, will this really all be worth it if you get caught and sent to jail? What would Hiro think-"

"Don't talk to me about Hiro!" Tadashi snapped. The room grew silent as everyone stared wide-eyed at Tadashi. He then grew quiet himself, and said, "Everyone get out. If you won't help me, then leave."

The group exchanged glances without uttering a word, and in unison, they all got up from where they were sitting and left Tadashi's lab space. Except for Wasabi.

He stood over Tadashi and they locked eyes for a few moments.

"I know what you did," Wasabi said in a low voice. "Whether or not it was the right thing to do, i'm gonna leave up to you."

Without another word, Wasabi left the room, leaving Tadashi alone.

For a while he just sat there, trying to calm down. He wasn't trying to be rude to his friends, but as soon as Gogo mentioned Hiro…

He just needed to get his thoughts together and try and figure out his next move. His friends would forgive him in time… but Wasabi knew what Tadashi did.

Tadashi hated having to make Wasabi keep secrets. He was the most open person alive, and he had to keep secrets like the fact that he robbed a repository, and that he helped blow up a crime boss, and even that he kidnapped a man…

"Christian…" Tadashi said out loud. He had almost completely forgotten about the man he had been keeping prisoner. Kind of a hard thing to forget about.

Tadashi stood up from his seat and decided to pay him a visit. The guy was probably hungry, and Tadashi could clear his head by just getting out of his lab.

He went into the city on his moped and picked up some cheeseburgers and a soda for Christian. Tadashi wasn't sure how to feel about that whole situation. He was keeping a man prisoner, and he seemed like the nicest person alive. Hell, he was going to confess about Mr.S to the police. Maybe now that he was gone, Tadashi could let him go, if he could somehow make him promise not the turn him or his friends in.

He arrived at Wasabi's storage locker with the food. Hopefully Christian hadn't been making any noise in the event that people showed up to open their own lockers. Tadashi hadn't really thought of that, but no one's come to his doorstep asking about a kidnapped man yet, so he was probably good.

He walked down the long hall of storage lockers until he found the one that belonged to Wasabi.

It was open.

Tadashi stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the open door, and then a million possibilities began rushing through his head.

Had Wasabi's dad come to open the locker early and found Christian? Did Christian escape on his own? Maybe Wasabi was in there and was feeding Christian like Tadashi was doing.

Tadashi quickly walked into the locker, and to his horror, nobody was there.

"No no no no no," Tadashi mumbled as he walked over to where Christian should have been. The pipe he was handcuffed to was broke off from the wall, and there was water leaking everywhere.

Christian was gone. He was gone and the only place he would've gone would be to the police. He probably wouldn't have mentioned Tadashi and his friends if Tadashi had gotten a chance to talk to him, and reason with him. Now Christian probably just saw them as kidnapping murderers.

"Son of a bitch!" Tadashi yelled as his screams echoed through the locker

Callaghan had narrowed the source of the chemical weapons down to a few places. These weapons were custom-made, so they were created in some sort of lab. One place he was looking at in particular was the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. That place definitely had the resources and the people smart enough to make weapons like these. But that place was either full of old egg-heads or young nerds, neither of which seemed like they were capable of pulling off a heist like this, but Callaghan had been in this business long enough to know never to underestimate anyone.

The detective had been so caught up in the information on his computer, he had forgotten the Gerson had been standing beside him waiting for him to answer him.

"Oh," Callaghan said, pulling his gaze away from his computer screen. "What was it Gerson?"

Gerson sighed in annoyance. "There's a guy who came in here a few minutes ago. Says he has information on the Silent Sparrow heist."

Callaghan's ears perked up like a puppy's, and he stood up from his chair. "Well what did he say?" he quickly said.

"Nothin' yet," Gerson replied. "He said he'll only talk to you. He's waiting in the lobby-"

Callaghan wasted no time as he race walked into the lobby, leaving Gerson mid sentence in his office.

When he arrived at the lobby of the police station, he saw a man sitting in a seat, and he looked like hell.

Immediately, he noticed the man's wrist was was red and bruised, as if he was tied up. There was a scar under his right eye, and he looked like hadn't shaved in a few days. He also had his shoes off, rubbing his feet. Must've walked a long way to get to the station.

As Callaghan approached the man, he quickly put his shoes back on and met him halfway.

"I'm so glad i got to you," the man said excitedly. He then extended his arm for a handshake. "Christian Denunzio."

"Detective Robert Callaghan," Callaghan said slowly as he hesitantly shook Christian's hand. He pulled out of the handshake after a few moments. "Now, I understand you have information regarding the robbery of the Silent Sparrow Repository."

"Yeah," Christian said. "I do. Is… is there somewhere we should…"

"Yes," Callaghan answered as he began walking deeper into the station. "Follow me."

Callahan approached a back door with Christian following. He looked around to see who was at the station. It was late, so there weren't many people there. There were only two officers, both of which Callaghan nodded to as he led Christian outside through the door.

They stepped into an alleyway that would have been pitch black had it not been for the rather bright light that hung above the door.

"Don't you have like a room we could do this in?" Christian asked confused.

"No, we're...getting work done on them now," Callaghan said trying to move on. "Now what information do you have for me?"

"Right, right," Christian said, collecting his thoughts. "The heist was conductedn by a man named Steven White."

The gears in Callaghan's mind started moving.

Of course. Steven White was responsible for this. The only thing was, Steven was dead, so Callaghan had to find the people in charge of actually robbing the repository. But how did Christian know all of this? Was he one of the robbers?

"That's a huge help," Callaghan said plainly. "Is there anything else you can tell me? What about the people who were in the repository?"

Christian hesitated. "Well… I didn't know them by name. They were just a bunch of unknows, probably split town by now-"

"Well Steven White didn't."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, you didn''t know?" Callaghan said like a smart ass. "Steven White was found dead yesterday at the port. Bullet right through his skull."

Chirstian was growing pale, and he began breathing heavily. "I… I didn't know-"

"I'm sure you didn't. Obviously, Mr. White made someone mad. Most likely when he had people rob the repository. I would assume he was just on top of a long list of people. His affiliates would probably be next." Callaghan was gonna get this guy to talk one way or another. He was clearly withholdong information.

"Really?" Chirstian was freaking out. "I mean… I'll be honest, I worked for Steven White, but I wasn't part of that job I swear. I just wanted ot turn him in for all the shit he's done."

"Well if you're willing to give more information about the heist, you can be put into a witness protection progtam. I just need the names of the people who robbed the repository."

I don't know who it was, just a bunch of rookies-" He stopped that sentence quickly. "I didn't know them, alright?"

Clearly he was lying. He was protecting them.

Callaghan grabbed Christian by the throat and slammed him into the brick wall of the station.

"Listen to me you little shit," he said quietly but angrily, "I've been doing this job probably longer than you've been alive, so I know when someone is lying right to my face." Callaghan gripped his throat harder. "You tell me who robbed that repository, or I'm gonna let you leave and see how well you do against whoever's murdering and his men."

"I swear to god," Christian said shakily, struggling to breathe, I don't… I don't know who they are. All I know is that they… they're going for Krei Bank next."

Callaghan dropped Christian, who was gasping for air.

"Krei Bank?" Callaghan said in confusion. "Don't insult my intelligence-"

"I swear," Christian said, still on the ground, afraid to get up. "They're desperate for money, and you know what kinda tools they have to work with. They could get it done."

Callaghan thought to himself for a moment. "Yeah," he said almost to himself. "They could. Who else have you told this to? And don't you dare lie to me."

"No one, just you. I swear to God."

"Good."

Callaghan knocked three times on the metal door. A few moments later, the two officers that were in the station stepped outside to join the detective and Christian.

"What… what's this?" Christan asked, standing up.

"Sorry , but your usefullness has run out, and I can't have this information getting out.

"But wait-" Christian was unable to finish his sentence, because before he could, Callaghan pulled a knife out if his jacket pocket, wrapped his arm around Christian's neck, and slit his throat.

Blood gushed from the knife wound as Christian coughed some up as well. He tried speaking, but it was useless. He fell to the ground, still coughing, but he wasn't getting back up anytime soon. Or ever.

He was dead.

Callaghan simply stared at the body, breathing heavily. He then looked at the thwo officers who had watched.

"Now what did you two see?"

"This man gave you irrelivant information, so you sent him home," the officer on the left answered.

"Good, now why weren't you here as late as you should be?"

"We decided to clock out early due to there being very little for us to do," replied the officer on the right. "We promise it won't hapen again."

"Fantastic," Callaghan smiled. "Dump him somewhere nobody will find him."

"Yes sir," both officers said in unision.

As the two men put Christian's body in the back of a police cruiser, Callaghan stayed outside and lit up a cigarettte.

"Krei Bank," he said with a wicked grin. "I might've just found the answers to all of my problems."

(A/N) Okay, soooooooooooo explaination time. I was gone for a while. Definitely a lot longer than I said. I don't really have an excuse for being gone. It was summer, I was with my family and friends, and I Was just taking an intentional break. I'm sorry for being gone for so long, but i'm back now. Anyway, so how about Callaghan? That rascal. I like this version of Callaghan. SUPER creepy and mysterious. Anyhow, thanks for reading even after I was gone for so long, and that's DaydreamDepartment out of your hair ;)