A/N: *HAPPY DANCE!* After, literally, months of trying to get this out, here it is. I do apologize immensely for the wait, and I really do hope to have updates coming out much more regularly from now on. I've been adjusting to the beginning of the semester (college is hard; who knew?) and then midterms happened, and now we're here. Thanks again for the patience, and I hope you all enjoy!
Xoxoxo
Railene
***
Carrie
The following morning, my four o'clock alarm was almost a welcome sound in my apartment. Finally, I thought, I had something to wake up for, and finally I could return to what I knew: to concrete routine, to the feeling of having a purpose, and to my lifelong friend, the work-related stress headache. For Kim, who had begun her apartment search but was in the meantime playing the role of my wife, the sound of my alarm wasn't quite as melodic as it had been for me.
"Okay, really, Carrie?" she'd whined. "Four o'clock is ridiculous, even for you."
"I want to get to the office early," I'd explained. "Make up for lost time."
"You've been gone less than a week."
"The Anglo-Zanzibar War lasted forty five minutes. Have you any idea how much can happen in a week?"
"Have you any idea how not cute your know-it-all bullshit is at four in the morning?"
"Aw," I said condescendingly, getting up to find an outfit. "You're just not used to waking up to a know-it-all."
"Don't--"
"You're used to waking up to a know-nothing-at-all."
"I'm going back to bed."
My humor didn't need approbations. "I'll see you at work."
What I didn't anticipate about the stunt I was pulling was that I'd arrive at least an hour before the DA himself did. That was no problem before, when I had open cases, but in the past couple days all of my time-sensitive work had been reassigned, and I felt almost useless, like a stranger in my own office. I took the time to catch up on some paperwork, and when the paperwork was done, I took the time to reevaluate my life. The term workaholic had been thrown at me once or twice in my life, but I'd never understood it quite like now. The restlessness was the worst part of it.
Luckily, with the DA tied up in the McVale trial, the work wasn't exactly in short supply. He stopped by my office promptly at seven to dump a pile of case files on my desk. Knowing full well that I wasn't one for discussion, he left with only two words: "Welcome back."
Several hours must have passed before I'd gotten halfway through the stack of forms that had been left for me. I hadn't checked my calls, having all but forgotten that I really didn't have an intern anymore. At ten, there was a knock at my office door, and I called out flatly for the guest to come in, assuming it was someone I knew - but it wasn't. It was just an attractive stranger with a bright smile and a nice suit.
"Can I help you?"
"Ms. Everett?"
I clicked shut the pen I was holding and stared forward, saying nothing.
"Kenneth MacNamara," he introduced. "Defense counsel for Lindsay McVale."
"You know I can't talk to you."
"There's no law forbidding defense counsel from speaking with a witness for the prosecution."
"Okay, you're right," I conceded. "I just don't want to."
Making light of an increasingly dark situation, he laughed. "Heavy caseload?"
"Don't patronize me."
"God, they said you were tough."
"Who's they?"
"Never mind."
"Look, Counselor--"
"Call me Mac."
"You're a lawyer called Mac?"
He shrugged. "That's what my friends call me."
"We're not friends."
"Fair enough," he said curtly. "Carry on."
"I don't know why you're here, but I hope you don't expect that it'll affect my testimony."
"Counselor," he began to plead. I didn't correct him or request that he call me by name. "I know you're not working the case, but you should know that with the abject lack of evidence against my client, the chances of making the jury making it out with a guilty verdict are slim to none."
"Your client worked for the company I've been prosecuting for years. She moves into my apartment building, on my floor, and less than a week later, an IED is set up in my home, it detonates, and she flees. Now, Counselor, I am going to introduce you to the legal term res ipsa loquitur."
"The thing speaks for itself? You think thirteen counts will stick because the thing speaks for itself?"
"Her prints are on the gun. Are we talking yet?"
"Really," he said, playing it cool but undoubtedly sweating it now. "That hadn't been brought to my attention."
"Don't go crying Brady on my office," I dismissed. "The reports were just finished. They'll be in discovery."
"How good was the match?" he just couldn't help asking. "How many points?"
"Enough," I said ambiguously.
"Care to give a numerical range?"
"Likely higher than your LSAT."
"Just for kicks, would you like to compare LSAT scores?"
"177. What do you want, exactly?" I asked, trying to give off the impression of being bored and ambivalent, though simultaneously wondering exactly what he'd scored on the LSAT - and what my intern, who was handling the grunt work of the state's case, had scored on hers.
"I want you to review the evidence," he reiterated. "Or the lack thereof."
"You're trying to coerce me not to testify," I filled in the blanks.
"No one used those words. But the DA is too invested in this case not to take it to trial, and he won't listen to me when I ask him to cop a deal. He thinks your testimony can seal it. Now say, hypothetically, the testimony he's counting on were to somehow become unavailable. He would have no choice but to offer a deal, and we all win. The state gets its conviction, McVale gets her name cleared on the homicide charges, you get the justice you're pining for, and moreover, I won't be forced to move for a recusal."
"Firstly, you're delusional if you think the DA will offer to let your client off the hook on her homicide charges, and if you think any judge will listen for your recusal request, you're--"
"Non compos mentis?"
"Not exactly what I was going for, but okay. That works."
"Would it change your mind if, hypothetically of course..."
"Of course."
"If, hypothetically, I could somehow ascertain that the judge who'll be sitting the case would grant my request."
"Then, hypothetically, you wouldn't be the only one moving for a recusal."
"A witness can't move for a recusal."
"No, but her boss the prosecutor can. If you want to divulge your entire trial strategy right here and now, Counselor, I'm not going to stop you, but if all your plans include breaching legal ethics, I have to advise you against it on moral as well as pragmatic grounds."
"We're speaking in hypotheses," he reminded me.
"Well hypothetically, if the state had such an 'abject lack of evidence' against your client, why would you be so interested in a deal? You'd think a defense attorney worth his shit would know to go for an acquittal, unless the trial also had a chance of resulting in his ignominious defeat. Hypothetically."
"Let's just say I don't want to see the inside of a courtroom if I don't have to."
I laughed slightly. "I get it. You're sick of her too."
"Too?"
"She loses her charm rather quickly. If you haven't noticed, you will soon."
"From her testimony it sounds like the two of you were cozy."
"An attempted murder tends to put some distance between two people."
"An alleged attempted murder."
"I won't bother trying to change your mind."
"Fair."
"And, not that I don't know better than to engage in your petty gossip, because I do, but...cozy?"
"My clients tell me everything, Counselor."
I refused to emote that I was, in fact, perturbed.
"Everything?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Well, at the risk of incriminating myself, I'm sure your legal team will have a Roman holiday with that material, but if you're going to put my sex life on the stand, I guarantee you the prosecution can think of just as many ways to spin the story."
"Sex life?"
"I use the term loosely, we didn't--" I sighed before I let myself continue. "I am not going to sit here and write your closing argument for you."
He gave a strange laugh, one that would have been unsettling coming from anyone, but took on a newly unnerving quality when coming from a defense attorney. "I don't think you'll need to."
I looked at him discerningly, trying to figure out his meaning.
"Let's just say, Ms. Everett, that it's in both of our best interests if we don't have to take this to trial."
"My interest is in upholding the law, Counselor, and my interest is justice in the form of due process, so my best interest lies in the prosecution of your client to the fullest extent of the law. Am I clear?"
"You've engaged in sexual relationships with not one, but two of the arresting officers involved in your case. You're in the DA's pocket, who also happens to be the lead prosecutor, and his second chair is currently completing an externship under you. You've had a close family relationship with one of the victims' fathers, who at this point is also a suspect, and another suspect, in the same homicide, is also your father, who was just taken away on felony charges. Now, none of this would have to come out if we never had to go to a courthouse, but you seem very hell-bent on this trial, so let me ask you, Counselor, how many ways do you estimate I can spin that? Kind of smacks of conspiracy, doesn't it? Collusion, deliberation, a cover-up job? A big, messy, conflict of interest web that you've spun for yourself? A case, maybe, for internal affairs to investigate and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, if that's so your goal. Am I clear?"
"Your fear tactics aren't impressing anyone," I promised him. "I've done nothing illicit, and I don't appreciate being spoken to as though I have."
"My career is to make the guilty appear innocent," he reminded me. "I have no problem trying yours on for size."
"And by that you mean--"
"Making the innocent appear guilty."
"I present facts as a prosecutor," I upheld. "Not convoluted conspiracy theories designed to ruin another lawyer's life."
"My goal isn't to ruin your life. My goal is an acquittal. But I've been more than generous in negotiating. It's you that's been rather stubborn."
"Stubborn, because I won't put my own reputation before justice for five victims? Out of the two of us, one should really maintain some compunction."
"I don't want to go spreading the news about what you like to do with the detectives working your cases, and I do believe your extracurricular activities should remain your business. But if you force me to come to that end, rest assured, I will. And when Internal Affairs catches wind, it won't just be your reputation on the line."
"What you're doing here is extortion, it's deplorable, and to be honest, Counselor, it's a little bit pathetic. If your trial skills are really so dismal that you need to rely on blackmail to suppress my testimony, I'm about as worried for your career as I am for my own."
"I appreciate the concern, but my career is doing just fine. I suppose I'll see you at trial," he said in a complacent voice that easily could have been my own. "Unless between now and then you decide you want to put yourself first."
He dismissed himself on that note, and I, who was never big into ceremonious goodbyes, let him show himself out. I knew that his words, like most things defense attorneys said, were just rhetorical bargaining chips selected to intimidate me and force me to suit his needs. Regardless of that knowledge, I knew I'd be giving them far more consideration than they warranted, and that they'd probably kill me sometime this week if my pneumothorax didn't get to it first. I hated what was becoming of this job, especially as of late, where the constant drama had at some indistinguishable point ceased to thrill me and begun instead to wear on me and destroy me from the inside out. I let out a deep, defeated breath, and just for a moment threw my heels up on my desk and reclined against the wall, deciding that in ten minutes, once I'd sufficiently thought this through, I'd put the thought away and go back to work.
That plan didn't quite play out, though, as naturally, there was another knock at my door two and a half minutes later. I placed my feet on the ground, willing myself to appear in control of my own life, and called my visitor in. Not unexpectedly, it was Margaret.
She looked very put together, I noticed, and even had her hair up today, which was a formality not even I always went through. All I was thinking of in that moment was how much she looked like a real attorney, and how much it both excited and scared me. I was proud, in some respect, to see her future form so tangibly before my eyes. But as it became more real, I began to conceptualize the notion that she had a real live trial ahead of her - a trial which I in many ways had considered my own - and that was almost too much to handle.
She looked like a grown-up, but spoke with the same twenty-something eagerness.
"Oh my God, Carrie," she beamed as though she hadn't expected to see me in my own office, as though she didn't know that I came back to work today. "I missed you."
I nodded. "I appreciate that."
"It's so good to see you back at work," she decided to continue with the pleasantries. "It was weird when your office was empty. How are you feeling?"
"My painkillers wore off an hour ago and your kindness is nauseating," I said with the best of intentions. "But other than that, I've had worse days."
"I just came by because--"
"Because you're still my intern and I expect you to report for work?"
She looked both embarrassed and frightened as she searched for words, but I couldn't help freaking her out with the sternness that she wasn't yet quite accustomed to. "Oh," she said. "I just thought--"
"I know the case is taking up your time," I finally admitted because I felt bad toying with her emotions. "I'm not sore about it. I do miss having someone to do my paperwork, though."
Her expression changed from fear to nostalgia, and that same appearance of admiration that had been overly present in her face over the first few days. "I'll do your paperwork any time, Carrie."
"Okay, stop groveling. What do you really want?"
"It's just, Mr. Carter's been working on finalizing the witness roster before trial begins and I was wondering if you'd written your affidavit for us to look over."
"Right," I said, suddenly feeling the familiar chill from the conversation I'd had not five minutes prior. "My affidavit."
"I mean, you're sure about your testimony, right?"
"Yeah," I said quietly, tersely, not wanting to say much at all in that moment. "I just...haven't gotten around to it."
"Oh. Okay," she said approvingly, certainly jarred by having heard those seven words in succession which usually didn't seem to be part of my vernacular. "Well, take your time. I know how busy you are."
I nodded, wishing to leave the topic. The truth was, I couldn't discuss this, not when I'd yet to discuss it with myself. "Anything else?"
She shrugged, and I'm sure she knew something was off, but her simultaneous fear and hero-worship of me inhibited her from prodding further. "No, just, that written testimony whenever you're ready. And, you know. No rush. Or anything. But, like, by trial would be good. Maybe like, the end of the week. Or tomorrow, but again, no rush--"
"Margaret," I said in my best nice voice, which was not at all convincing. "I'll get to it."
***
Kim
"This is ridiculous," I exclaimed in a room full of silence, warranting some confused stares from the detectives around me.
"What is?" my partner bit, everyone else going back to ignoring my outburst.
"How sure are you that we've arrested the right suspect for these homicides?"
"Well, if I'm supposed to believe your testimony," he considered. "I'd go with a hundred and ten percent sure."
"And all the time when we have a case like this, where we're absolutely positive that the guy who did it did it, we have the evidence to nail him to the wall. So why don't I have anything on McVale?"
"Hey," Bagley threw out. "We've got the prints, the motive, your testimony..."
"She's looking at an acquittal."
"Have some faith."
"I don't need faith. I need hard evidence."
Oliver laughed out of nowhere. "Okay, Carrie."
"Seriously, who commits a string of murders and leaves absolutely no trail? Where is the gratification in that?"
"I believe it's in her wallet."
"Who searched the apartment?"
"We did," Bagley upheld. "We bagged everything we could, but it's all so routine. There was nothing suspicious about the apartment. All that was left behind was some books."
"I don't suppose The Anarchist Cookbook was on her shelves."
"No, I read all the titles. Seemed like she read a lot, like, more than you would think looking at her. She had some classics, and weird books on Greek mythology, now that you mention it, but none of that was exactly in the warrant."
"I need to go back."
"You're off the case."
"I'll go off the books."
"You really think that's a good idea, Hayden?"
"Do you have a better one?"
The blank expressions around me suggested that no, nobody did.
"I'll be back in an hour."
Everyone dispersed then, all except my partner, who still intended to stop me.
"You can't go alone," Clapp protested. "That's dangerous."
"She's been apprehended," I said dismissively.
"She's out on bail."
"There's a TRO."
"She's already violated it."
"We don't know that."
"It's still not safe."
"Fine," I retorted, frustrated and increasingly so. "Then are you coming?"
"Am I condoning you illicitly working the case in which you're also a witness? No, I'm not."
"That's what I thought."
"Hayden," he tried reasoning.
"I'm calling Carrie."
"That's an even worse idea. Carrie's off the case too, and she has twice as many qualms about legal protocol as I do. And she's about a hundred times as stubborn. You can't make her do anything."
"I can--"
"While keeping your clothes on," he amended.
"I promise," I said, with a hand already on the doorknob but hell-bent on having the last word. "All of my clothes will stay on."
"What exactly do you guys think you're getting into, anyway?"
I looked down awkwardly, not having planned to have this conversation at this time. I dropped my hand from the door, knowing I couldn't plausibly get myself out of the situation, physically or otherwise. Instead I tried playing dumb because I had no better option.
"You guys? Who guys?"
"You and Carrie," Clapp said plainly, though we both knew that I knew full well. "Is this really starting up again, or what?"
"Is what starting up?"
"You know you caught feelings the first time, Hayden," he reminded me. "You won't admit it, but we both know. And the first time you walked away, I mean, I know it was different because you had Grace to fall back on--"
"I didn't fall back on Grace," I argued, much more defensively than I'd planned to.
"Whatever," he dismissed. "I just...do you really want to go through this again?"
"There's nothing to go through," I assured him.
"You caught feelings for Carrie, she broke your heart. Carver dated Carrie, she broke her heart. We find a random dead victim and we follow the chain of evidence to discover that, a decade ago, Carrie broke her heart. I'm not saying I don't get it, that she doesn't have redeeming qualities, because she does, but this is what she does, Kim. She breaks hearts, and when she's done, she breaks some more, and she feels no pain. She's not even sorry."
"It's all so much more complicated than you're making it out to be, and you don't know her the way I do."
"You sound like Carver a month ago, and I've known her longer than you have, if you recall."
"I understand Carrie, and I always have. It's different with me. It just works."
"It works for now."
"That's all I can ask for."
"You know you're not going to feel the same in two months, when it ends and you have no control over it."
"You don't know what you're talking about," I said more harshly than I should have. "You don't get it."
"You're right," he agreed. "I don't. I don't get why you had a chance at a future with someone who would have done anything to make you happy, and you're going to let Carrie shit all over it. You will pass up anything for a night of good sex. You know what? Maybe you are made for each other."
Last word be damned, I couldn't stand there and listen to him any longer. I was out the door sooner than I could think about what I was doing.
***
"I still think you're being an idiot."
"I love the way you drive."
Carrie looked over at me in confusion as she signaled a right turn. "You mean recklessly?"
"No, I mean one-handed, your left hand at eleven o'clock, arm bent sixty degrees at the elbow, with your back perfectly straight--"
"Stop describing me."
"Did you know that you always drive the exact same way?"
"I always do everything the exact same way."
"But, exactly the same. It's your driving position."
"Okay," she said, unimpressed. "It's my driving position."
"It's very erotic."
"Everything is very erotic to you. It's not me, it's your prurient interest in everything I do."
"So, maybe it is you."
"You're not making sense."
"Maybe you're just not following my logic."
"If I followed your logic, I'd be more equipped to comprehend why we're going to my apartment to serve another search warrant."
"Here's the fault in your logic," I asserted. "It's not your apartment, it's the defendant's. And it's not another search warrant, it's actually the same one."
"The place has already been tossed," she argued. "And if you ever correct me like that again, you'll have seen me naked for the last time."
"Using sex as a weapon," I noted. "Hi, Grace."
"As if she needs more weapons. If the DHS knew Grace personally, idiocy could be classified as a WMD."
"You are so callous."
"Whatever."
"Are you alright?"
"Yes," she totally lied. "Why?"
"You're being flippant."
She gave a short sardonic laugh. "Hi, my name is Caroline, but you can call me Carrie--"
"Okay, more flippant than your usual dose of flippant."
"I'm fine."
"What's on your mind, Carbear?"
"Currently? I'm wondering just when it became acceptable for you to refer to me as Carbear without me protesting."
"Don't deflect the question," I willed her. "And you love it."
"Whatever you say."
I didn't know how to answer that. The truth was, there was only one topic to which my mind kept returning, and it was the argument I'd had with my partner thirty minutes prior. Some silence fell for a moment, then after a while, I asked:
"Carrie, what are we?"
"Allow me to answer your question with a question," she said. "What are the four most nauseating words in the English language?"
I nodded, acknowledging her point. "Kim, what are we?"
"Close."
"I just...I was talking to Clapp today and he really freaked me out."
Carrie mechanically adjusted her windshield wipers, unperturbed. "Don't worry, it's normal. I talk to Clapp every day, and he still freaks me out."
"Can you be serious?"
"Am I being anything short of serious?"
"I just want to know that I'm not wasting my time."
"Well, Kim," she said in response. "You're serving the second warrant this week on the same apartment that was already completely tossed by the rest of your bureau. If time is so precious to you, you may want to reevaluate your methodology."
"Okay, you know what? Never mind. I take my question back."
"That was my goal."
"Why are you so afraid of it?"
"You didn't tell me there would be a follow-up question."
"Carrie!"
"Kiiiim--"
"Don't Grace-voice me."
"I'm sorry," she deadpanned. "It's all this inane discussion of labels and commitment. It's like Grace's spirit is running through this car."
"You talk like she's dead."
"A woman can dream, can't she, Kim?"
"You drive me insane."
"Likewise. I'd like to answer your question now, if I may."
"Now you want to answer me?"
"I do. But I also want to know why you're so concerned. I am capable of a relationship, you know. You of all people should know that I'm not as much of an asshole as I appear to be."
"You're pretty close to it, though."
"Fair. My point is, I think I've already elucidated my feelings on the topic of our relationship, and you, in turn, have been made quite aware, through our years of friendship, of what I am and am not capable of providing. I don't want to be with anyone else, and I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon, if that's what you're after."
"Is that your way of getting at a commitment?"
"Don't flatter yourself."
"I love you," I told her.
"Mhm," she said. "You too. No kids."
"Not even one?"
"Don't make me pull over, Kim."
I hated myself for smiling, because even though she'd in a very basic way committed herself to me, she'd done so so begrudgingly that it should have been frustrating. But I was too happy with her to care.
"Can I hold your hand?"
"Do you usually ask for permission?"
"No."
"Then why start with me?"
"Because you're scary."
"I am not scary."
"I hate to be the one to tell you this, Carrie, but yeah. You are. Extremely scary, and probably the most unapproachable woman in existence."
"That is completely fallacious. I'm very easy to approach."
"Mhm. Let me ask you this," I posed. "Consider everyone I've ever hooked up with."
"You didn't tell me I'd need an abacus for this assignment."
"Who came onto who?"
"Whom."
"Carrie."
"You did. What's your--"
"First time you and I hooked up, who kissed whom first?"
"I did. That doesn't--"
"Second time."
"That was a mutual--"
"Carrie."
"I suppose I did, but that doesn't--"
"Okay? When have I ever waited to make a move on someone I wanted to sleep with?"
"All your little Socratic seminar shows is that I'm dominant, and I am not going to apologize for being dominant."
"I didn't ask you to."
"Good. What was the point of this exercise again?"
"Never mind," I said defeatedly. "We're here."
"That we are," she said, not needing to be reminded of where she lived. "I'll be outside."
"No way, you're coming in."
"I don't see the point."
"Lindsay McVale is a serial killer," I recounted unnecessarily, undoing her seat belt for her because she showed no signs of moving on her own. "Serial killers aren't your average rank-and-file murder two convicts. There's no motive except the glory."
"The munificent paychecks probably didn't hurt either."
"Okay, but the money is just a bonus. We all want money, but we don't all become assassins. There are a thousand ways to get rich."
"Care to share some?"
"Can you stay with me?"
"I'm not sure I ever was."
"If McVale is like any serial killer I've ever pursued, she's going to want to remember her own work. She's going to keep some kind of souvenir."
"Souvenir," she repeated, not without an idiosyncratic roll of the eyes. "Felony murder post cards. Assault-with-a-deadly-weapon snow globes."
"Carrie, can you just have some faith in me without being a sarcastic shit for ten minutes?"
"Kim," Carrie pressed, growing frustrated but walking blindly onto the elevator regardless. "I don't know how many times I have to tell you that the police have already cleaned the apartment out. She didn't leave a trail. She's meticulous. She refuses to make a mistake, and she will always clean up her mess both literally and figuratively. You know how I know that? Because she is just like me."
"Okay, I can think of at least two ways in which she's not like you."
"You're on a fishing expedition."
"I'm at my wit's end, Carrie, and I know I can close this case if I just explore all my possible options. Just go out on a limb with me for once."
"For once?!" she sputtered incredulously, so loudly that if she didn't already have a reputation as the crazy person in her building, she was certainly gunning for one by nightfall. "What the fuck have I been doing for the past two years?"
"Oh please, you never take a risk when I want to."
"We had an affair!" she nearly screamed, unable to process how apparently obtuse I was being.
"Will you shut the fuck up? For Christ's sake, Carrie, I don't think Grace heard you on the other side of town."
"It's old fucking news, Kim, I'm a cheater, you're a cheater, there's no turning back so you might as well embrace it."
"Listen, I am about two seconds away from giving you what you wanted in the first place and letting you wait outside because to be honest you're completely ruining my afternoon with your negativity."
"You couldn't be so lucky," she said, pulling a pair of gloves. "I'm already too far invested. Let's go."
I stood completely dumbfounded at the end of the hallway as she pushed past and proceeded without me, as though she'd never once objected to the search. As though it had been her idea to begin with. She strode decidedly in those goddamn heels, and turned around only once.
"Are you coming, or aren't you?"
I sighed, then as always, came crawling.
***
Carrie
"Wow," Kim commented once we'd walked in. "It's really empty in here."
The frustrated noise with which I reacted was response enough, but I spoke anyway. "I told--"
"You wouldn't be here if you didn't have a little bit of hope."
"Neither of us would be here if you weren't such an exhibitionist."
"How on Earth am I an exhibitionist?"
"Because you want to close the case. Just like you wanted to rescue Grace from captivity and you wanted to save my life."
"You're welcome, by the way."
"Is this what I have to look forward to for all of eternity? Being constantly reminded that I owe my life to you?"
"I just appreciate you saying that you want to be with me for all of eternity," she threw out there instead of an answer.
"You know I can never make it up to you," was what I said. "There's just no way."
"I can think of one way."
I scoffed at that, and at her one-track mind. "When someone rescues you from certain death, you can't just make up for it in orgasms. If you could, I'd say we're about even."
"Not even close."
"You're right," I said. "You still owe me."
"Okay, can we focus?" she implored. "Let's start with the bookshelf."
"I don't suppose she's got a copy of The Anarchist--"
"I already made that joke."
"Of course," I said, somewhat defeated, and walking away. "I'm turning over the picture frames."
"Carrie, wait," she called, grabbing at my arm. "Bagley said something about her having weird mythology books on her shelves. Look at this one."
"What's your point?"
"Why do you think she has it?"
"Because she's weird. You're grasping at straws. Move on."
"Look what she highlighted."
"Oh my God, it all makes sense now," I said, with the intention of being as snarky as possible. "You're Zeus and I'm Hera."
Kim made a face at me like she wasn't putting up with my sarcasm today, but made haste in coming up with a repartee.
"Well, Zeus is the God of all gods, and Hera was a stone cold bitch, so maybe you're right."
"Well, while we're playing this game, Zeus cheated on Hera all the time, so maybe Grace--"
"Fuck you."
"Right here?"
She shook her head, flipping through the book's highlighted pages, which I was now beginning to attribute to a pass-fail college course in Humanities that she'd taken years ago, from which she'd never sold the book.
"This part's about killing Hercules's kids," she threw out. "See a connection yet?"
"No. Lindsay killed adults."
"But each victim was someone's daughter."
"Every victim is someone's daughter," I said in Kim's own preachy voice, though I knew full well what she meant.
"You know what I--"
"I know. But that's a very loose interpretation of the text, and does nothing to nail the conviction."
"Hera killed Hercules's kids because he got in her way."
"That's an interesting thought," I admitted. "But you're actually wrong. Hera herself didn't kill Hercules's children. She drove him to a point of insanity from which he actually did it himself."
"Stop doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Knowing things," she muttered, shutting the book and reshelfing it. "I thought were learning something important."
"Well," I said absently, opening a desk drawer. "All I've learned today is that coming here was a complete waste of time in this Pandora's box of a case."
"Good one," she said flatly, before getting that excited look in her eyes again. "Think the evidence is stashed in a box?"
"Let it go," I implored. "And for your information, box is a misnomer. Pandora's box was not actually a box, but more of a jar."
"Carrie, I'm not going to lie, I want to hit you so hard sometimes."
"Why lie?" I questioned in a voice meant half to be lighthearted, and half to be seductive. "You know how I like it."
"Carrie, don't."
"Don't what?" I asked innocently, leaning against a wall.
"Don't turn me on while I'm at work."
"We're both at work, and I can't help it that I turn you on," I said flippantly. "Sounds like a personal problem."
I knew that when it came to me, or maybe to women in general, Kim could easily take on the persona of a teenage boy; all she could think about was the next time she was getting laid, and the more you brushed her off, the more ardently she wanted you. I resented being told that I abused the hold I had on people, but sometimes I just couldn't help playing games.
"You're testing me," she identified, beginning to walk toward me, arms crossed across her chest like a barrier.
"Am I?"
"Yes, you are."
"How so?"
"You're purposely being attractive so I'll do something I regret in the most inappropriate of settings."
"Purposely being attractive?"
"And now you're turning everything I say into a question."
"Is that a turn-on?"
"Like that."
I smiled, because she made it too easy. I couldn't help it. "Just like that, Kim?"
She made a face. "I'm not letting you seduce me. I refuse to let you win this round."
"I'm not keeping score."
"Bulllshit."
I shrugged. "You're right. It's five-zero, me, but I promise not to bring it up unsolicited."
"No."
"That wasn't a question."
At that, Kim caught me by surprise in taking both my wrists in just one of her hands and pinning them against the wall behind me, and if I'd ever forgotten that she'd at one point been a street cop, I certainly remembered now. I realized in that moment that no matter how strong I thought I was, at least in will and obstinacy, that I was now with someone stronger, who was well-versed in the same power and dominance that I usually enjoyed uncontested.
In a momentary state of shock, I, of all people, was unable to find words, as my own quick and shallow breaths became the only sound in the room, so empty that each sound reverberated more loudly than it should have. The obedient expression that I was now undoubtedly wearing, and involuntarily so, challenged Kim to speak first, but, sadistically, she took her time letting her azure stare trace my entire body before returning to my eyes. She didn't release her grip on my forearms, but brought her free hand to my waist, before closing the space that separated us and finally speaking softly against my collar.
"What do you want me to do?" she questioned.
"This is highly inappropriate," I protested.
"Tell me to stop," she challenged. "And I will."
I contemplated it for a moment.
"I can't," I finally decided, and with that acquiescence she kissed me, forthright, still forcing my body against the wall in such a way that restricted my range of motion and my control on the situation. For the first time, maybe in forever, I felt subordinated, and the notion of not being in command was such an alien concept to me that I almost felt blindsided.
Kim removed her grip on my wrists in favor of pushing the blazer off of my shoulders, and I used the newfound freedom to tug at her shirt. She smiled, her forehead not leaving mine, as she questioned, "You can't stand not being in charge, can you?"
Catching her off guard, I slipped out of her hold long enough to reverse our positions and win, however ephemerally, this competition for dominance that she'd initiated.
"You should really know that about me by now," was what I said, positioning myself against her neck and going, once again, to remove as many articles of clothing as possible as my patience wore thin. Again, though, her police strength won out against my own, and as though I were one of her suspects, she soon had me by both hands, behind my back like I was being apprehended. It was the mixture of surprise and sexual thrill that kept me from retaliating at all, and instead, I resolved to submit, because I'd reached a point where I'd have done anything she told me to.
"Don't play this game," she whispered. "You'll lose."
She turned me back around and we backed recklessly into the same wall, but amid the blinding lust hit upon a closet door. The sound of shattering glass was almost indistinguishable, given that I now had better things on my mind, but the curious detective in Kim stopped what she was doing to wonder out loud, "What was that?"
"Who cares," I dismissed. "Let's do it."
"Carrie," she admonished, playing the grown up and pushing me aside. "It sounded like breaking glass."
"Something probably fell in this closet," I said, not so insightfully, toying with the padlock on its door before flatly adding, "This locked closet."
"A possible serial killer has a padlock on her closet door and the PD fails to investigate it?"
"Maybe they did."
"And re-locked it?"
"Okay," I sighed. "Maybe they didn't."
Without another word, Kim grabbed my head and pulled a pin from my hair.
"I can't believe you know how to pick a lock," I muttered, disinterestedly looking on.
"To find a criminal," Kim said, pulling easily on the padlock as it gave way. "You have to think like one."
She pushed open the closet door and pulled on the cord hooked up to a cheap overhead light. There on the ground, as we'd anticipated, was what looked like it had once been a jar of sorts. On the ground around it were scattered pieces of metal that were difficult to make out in the relative darkness, but given the context, we had no trouble concluding as to what they were.
"Holy shit," I said unnecessarily.
Kim exhaled slowly, before acknowledging, "We found the trail."
"Three victims shot, no bullets recovered," I noted. "Of course she would have kept them. It's like--"
"Like she wants to keep a memento of the crimes, for the glory, like I said--"
"You gloating won't nail the trial."
"Well, let's start thinking of what will," she suggested.
"Yes, let's," I agreed. "Because I don't think it will cut it to say that the closet door just opened by itself."
"Don't be ridiculous," she dismissed. "It's not like the defense will ever guess that we were making out and that's how we came upon the evidence."
"Actually," I began, only able to think about the offer I'd received that morning, the one that was looking better and better by the second. "You'd be surprised what the defense can come up with."