Fred glanced over his shoulder when he heard the front door closing. Gillian's light footsteps crossed the vacant apartment and entered the master bedroom. A paper cup materialized before Fred's face and he took it, smiling.
"What the hell are you doing here, Reg?" he asked, smooth and placid as usual.
Gillian pulled up a chair and sat with him before the board table. Kurt had set three screens plugged to the same computer, and they showed the back of the workshop across the street, its front and one of its sides.
"Went out for dinner, so I thought I could drop by on my way home."
Fred gifted her with an ironic glance, raising only one eyebrow. It was almost one a.m., and only a drunk seagull would include the workshop in Southie in Gillian's route, from Taylor's place in Jamaica Plain to her home in Brighton. She arched her eyebrows—what. He just scoffed, shaking his head.
"How are we here?" she asked, leaning toward the screens.
"Well, some say God created the world out of the void, but I'm not really into that." Before she could do any more than chuckling, he pointed at one of the screens. "There, look at that."
He zoomed in and the image went over the back brick wall, to focus on a small shed built against the side wall, past two washing basins and a tree.
"What's that?" She fetched a blueprint from the end of the table and studied it. "It's not here."
"Nope. Now look at that thing on the roof, and the pipes and wires going into the shed."
Gillian frowned. "It looks like a cold storage," she muttered.
"Yep. And I can only think of one reason for it to be there, Reg. Storing things till they can get rid of them."
"Things... as in decaying things?" she asked, cautious.
"As in decaying bodies of dead illegal aliens held captive."
She leaned back in her chair, frowning deeper as a chill ran down her back. "We need eyes on that shed."
"I was thinking that maybe we can place some small cameras on that tree. One looking to the shed, one looking to the back storage where they're keeping the people."
"We could do it tomorrow night, while we bug the trucks."
"Yep. By the way, can you keep an eye on the screens? I wanna move the camera on the roof, to get a better view of that side of the yard."
"Sure, go," she muttered, studying the images.
Fred stood up with a smile. "Watch that fed frown, Reg. You already look like Brockner."
Gillian shot a death glare up at him, but he just winked and walked out. She waited to hear the front door closing to let out a sigh. Why the hell did Fred have to mention him? She sipped her coffee lost in thought.
Over the last month, she'd bitten her tongue every time she'd felt tempted to ask Russell about him. She wasn't even sure her friend knew how Brock was doing in DC, or what post had Cassidy given him, because Russell wouldn't say anything either. Which could only mean the stupid bitter man was fine, because bad news always spread like fire.
Like every time she thought of him, she couldn't help recalling that stupid kiss. Gosh! She still couldn't believe she'd done something like that! Well, hand to heart, it was a miracle she was able to restrain herself and leave, instead of cornering him against the breakfast bar to kiss him again and pull his ironed shirt out from his ironed jeans. For starters.
It was something that still had her wondering, that sudden need to getting physical with him. With Declan Brockner, of all people!
After going over what had happened a thousand times, to try to understand her own actions, she wasn't sure it wouldn't be better to just let it be and move on. After all, it had been only a silly peck.
On one hand, it had been giving in for once—well, not exactly, but sort of—to that recurrent urge to hug him that Brock always caused her. And a way to try to express all the upsetting emotions overwhelming her at his leaving, at losing someone that was so important to her at such a critical moment of her life.
But she could've done all of that without kissing him.
That was crossing the last line left to make him loathe her. A way to push him away for real and for good. She was sure she'd done it to erase that moment at Orlando's restroom. She'd forced the situation to make it the last time they saw each other. Because she just couldn't handle the 'last memory' label on the way he'd held her when she'd broken down in his arms.
After what she'd done, she could only strike him out of her mind and carry on with this new stage of her life.
As if.
This new stage of her life was full of Brock. But mostly of his absence. She'd come to live in his world, to learn to play by his rules in his precious Bureau, at the same place where he'd come back to the field after six years of being but a ghostly shadow of himself. Only he wasn't there anymore. Cooper had even offered her his small office, still vacant. She had only needed one step into it to smell the faint remains of his cologne and decline Cooper's kind offer—she'd never needed a private office.
Sometimes she just wished she wanted him. Things would be so easy then. All it would take to get him out of her system would be a wild weekend with Taylor, the two of them locked up in his apartment till they couldn't feel their legs and every of their bones ached and they couldn't utter a single sound. Knowing Taylor's skills, that would be more than enough to wash away any stupid fantasy about Brock she might harbor. But it hadn't worked. Because it had never been about sex.
Gillian let out a bitter scoff, alone in the vacant apartment.
She wasn't afraid of facing facts and she certainly wasn't afraid of words. But Reg Daredevil Gillian was having some issues, acknowledging this thing inside of her. This feeling that didn't seem to care about Brock being out of her life forever. The stupid bitter man. The bold caring man. The man who had shown her that despite everything she believed—and everything she feared—she still had a heart.
Her phone buzzed to startle her back to reality. Fred. He'd pushed her into all that useless musing, so it was only fair that he'd be the one to rescue her. Yeah, the camera showed a better view of the workshop's backyard, including that hideous cold storage.