Hiding Behind an Eminence Front
Fandom: Line of Fire
Pairing: Amiel/OFC
Rating: PG
Word Count: 9,433
Spoilers: Eminence Front 1 & 2 and everything up to that
Notes: For the LiveJournal occhallenge “replacements” challenge.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
The voice makes Lily look up from the papers she’s poring through, straight into the eyes of one very angry FBI Special Agent Amiel McArthur. Not that Amiel being angry with her is anything new; on the contrary, since she’s been back in Richmond, been reassigned to cases with this particular office, it’s something she’s grown very used to. It’s just that today, on this day of days, she’d really hoped for a suspension in hostilities.
She should have known better, she realises now, and not just because it takes more than two miracles and a Papal decree to get out of Amiel’s bad graces. Meeting him in an office that’s crawling with agents investigating the shooting of one of their own – and not even one of their own, but the child of one of their own – is not going to be a day when hell suddenly freezes over, especially not when the child, Joanie Sampson, is near and dear to Amiel’s heart.
Lily knows all that, which is why she bites her tongue before her original, decidedly tart reply, can pass her lips. That gives her an extra second to take in Amiel’s appearance; the rumpled t-shirt, open and untucked shirt over it, jeans and an outdoors jacket, rather than the smart three-piece suits he usually wears to the office. His usual sangfroid expression is likewise absent; his face worried, eyes red. He hasn’t stopped giving orders since he walked in the door, hasn’t stopped planning, working tirelessly to try to find the animals who dared intrude into his life, his world, hurt his family like this, and she knows he won’t rest until he’s found this enemy, hunted them down and made them pay.
But she’s not the enemy, and she’s getting tired of being treated like she is.
“I was in the office when Van Doren got the call,” she tells him simply, keeping her voice level with the kind of ease that comes with years of courtroom practice. She’d been walking through the bullpen when she’d seen a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, heard Paige’s panicked voice asking which hospital someone had been taken to. She’d been chalk white, scribbling frantically on a pad, and Lily had been across the room before she’d even realised she was moving. “I offered to help-”
She’d manned a second desk, had made phone calls, informing people of what had happened, not even having to tell most of them to cancel their Saturday plans and get their asses in here. Between herself, Paige and the other “Saturday Suckers” they’d had a complement of agents mobilised in less than half an hour, and Paige had told her, in a ten second lull, that she was grateful for her help.
Which Amiel doesn’t seem to be, because he’s turning an even more withering look than usual on her. “You’re a US Attorney,” he says, interrupting her, voice fairly dripping with scorn. “What are you doing to do… cut a deal with the shooter?”
Lily literally can’t speak for a moment, because even for them, that’s a low blow. “I may not be an agent… but there’s plenty I can do around here,” she tells him after a second, and it’s more of a struggle than it usually is to keep her voice level. She does it though, because she will not make a scene in a roomful of people who, even if they’re working hard, are still more than likely keeping one eye out to see what’s going on between them. Besides, if she does lose her temper, while shouting would undoubtedly follow, right now, she’s equally liable to haul off and punch his lights out, and she’s sure he knows that.
Just like she can see in his eyes when he looks down, right before he rubs a hand over his face, that he knows he’s gone too far. “I know that,” he mutters begrudgingly, and she wonders how much effort that must have cost him.
“And for the record?” Lily takes a step towards him, then another, invading his personal space, looking up into his eyes. “When we find whoever did this? I’ll be recommending the death penalty.”
She means it, and she sees the surprise flicker in his eyes; they’d long ago learned that their opposing views on capital punishment could only ever lead to an argument. His eyes for a moment lose some of their anger; a slight smile softens the edges of his lips. “You don’t believe in the death penalty,” he reminds her.
She doesn’t blink, because he’s right, but as of an hour ago, she thinks she might be changing her mind. “That wouldn’t stop me,” she says simply, and he does smile at that. Belatedly, she realises that he hasn’t stepped away from her, that they’re standing so close together that she can smell his cologne. It’s the same one that she remembers, and the scent brings back a thousand memories of a hundred times that she’s stood this close to him, other times and other places that leave her throat aching. Dropping her voice, she doesn’t drop his gaze, whispers, “You’re not the only one who loves her, Amiel.”
He holds her gaze for a second longer, then his jaw hardens, sets like stone, and he’s Special Agent McArthur again, resident hardass. “Van Doren’s searching the records, people who’d have a motive…”
Lily nods crisply, waves a hand over the papers on her desk. “I’m searching our records too… you’ll have our full co-operation.”
“Good.” Executing an abrupt about face, Amiel stalks away from her, and Lily watches him go. Over his shoulder, through the glass wall of the office, she catches the wide eyes of Paige Van Doren on her, and the rookie tilts her head curiously, narrowing her eyes to ask her if she’s ok. Lily pastes a smile to her face and nods once before she goes back to checking her records.
She holds onto a pen tightly the entire time, but she doesn’t write anything down. No-one would be able to read it, not with her hand shaking like it is.
>*<*>*<
When Paige sends her the name Randall Counts, Lily doesn’t have to search far to find the name in her records. What she sees there makes her stomach turn, makes a bad day even worse, and she wonders if she has time to make it to the ladies’ room before her stomach turns itself inside out. She swallows hard, refusing stubbornly to give in, forcing herself to read through the notes and records that her mind has already called up, horror making her memory very clear.
There it is, just like she remembered it, the details of the case. Randall Counts, gun smuggler, doing ten years in New Kent Correctional Facility, turns State’s Evidence on his cell mate, Dwight Baylow, who he says confessed to him that he killed his wife and cut her up into little pieces to dispose of the body. Investigation had found that Baylow’s wife had indeed disappeared, the local PD had worked to find the body, whereupon forensics had worked their magic to find evidence linking Baylow to the crime. An open and shut case, all thanks to Randall Counts, and there, on a piece of paper promising him early release from jail, is Lily’s own signature, Lillian Clarke, AUSA.
She’d signed that paper without even thinking twice. And probably as a direct result, Joanie Sampson, all of nine years old, is now lying in a hospital bed with a bullet in her skull.
Lily’s stomach rolls once more, and she sucks in a deep breath, lets it out slowly, covering her face with her hands and rubbing her eyes, hoping that will make her feel better, or even better, magically reverse time, so she can go back and tell Randall Counts exactly what he can do with his State’s Evidence. It doesn’t work though, no matter how hard she tries, but her wishing is interrupted when she hears the door fly open. There was no knock, she knows, because she would have heard it, and before she opens her eyes, even before she smells the familiar scent of his cologne, she knows it’s Amiel.
He’s the only one who wouldn’t have knocked.
Dropping her hands, she sees that, if anything, he’s even more pissed off than he was when he first saw her here today, and she mentally steels herself for another round of battle. “Randall Counts,” is all he says, snapping the words out, and she nods wearily, looking at the files in front of her.
“Yes,” she says, bringing the pertinent papers to the fore. “I have the file right here…”
“But Van Doren is right? He turns State’s Evidence, gets out of jail free?” She expected him to sit down; instead Amiel is pacing back and forth, hands waving, impatience almost crackling from him like electricity, a physical force in the room.
“He gave evidence against his cellmate,” Lily says, rubbing her forehead again, because reading this by herself was bad enough. Seeing it through Amiel’s eyes was a thousand times worse. “Who murdered his wife and disposed of the body…we make deals like this every day, Amiel, you know that.”
“This wasn’t just any case,” Amiel snaps.
“Hindsight’s twenty-twenty,” she reminds him, snapping right back. “We didn’t know that at the time.”
“You people are supposed to be smart over there,” Amiel mutters, shaking his head. “Who signed the deal?”
Lily closes her eyes, takes another deep breath, because this is going to hurt. “I did.” She opens her eyes again, sees him staring at her with his jaw hanging open. “See for yourself.” She pushes the offending piece of paper across the table to him, sees his eyes flicker over it, sees him stare at her like he doesn’t know what to say.
“You set free the guy who shot Jennifer’s kid?”
She has a pen in her hand; her hand convulses on it now, gripping it so tightly that when she catches the rim of the lid, it goes shooting across the room. “There was nothing in the files that suggested Randall Counts was capable of doing anything like this,” she objects. “We had no way of knowing what was going to happen...” Her voice trails off and she shakes her head. “Amiel, I’m sick over this…”
“Not as sick as Jen,” he tells her, and her mind reels, feeling as if he’s just slapped her.
“That’s not fair,” she manages, and anything else she might have said is cut off by a harsh laugh from him.
“Nothing about this is fair,” he grinds out,
sinking down on the desk across the room from her, running a hand over his
hair. She doesn’t say anything, can’t say anything, can only look down at the
papers covering the desk, sees her own signature, familiar and mocking, and she
pushes it away, not wanting to see it anymore. She can’t look at Amiel, and she
hears him sigh, and when he speaks again, he doesn’t sound angry, just tired.
“Lil, I don’t understand,” he says, and she can’t help but notice that it’s the
first time since she came back to
Closing her eyes, she counts to ten, because those questions were already asked and answered. “Yeah, Justice consulted with me before they made the deal. What’s the problem?” Except she knows what the problem is, they all do, and she know he’s just gearing up to blame her again.
“Seems it wasn’t such a good idea,” is all he says, and this time, she counts to twenty before she speaks.
“It was at the time,” she says. “We swapped a smuggler for a-” She’s interrupted by a knock at the door, and both of them look, seeing Paige Van Doren standing there, her eyes flitting between the two of them, looking like she’d rather be thrown headfirst into a vat of snakes than disturb them. Which, no doubt she would, because it might actually be safer than coming between herself and Amiel; after all, their encounters are fast becoming legendary around the office. Paige’s gaze finally lands on Amiel, and she points to him, indicating that she wants to see him, and he nods, beckons her in. Instead of listening to whatever it is she has to say though, he turns to Lily, obviously intending to hear her out first, and it takes her a second to recover her train of thought. “We swapped a smuggler for a guy who murdered his family in cold blood. According to us, that’s a pretty good day.”
But not, it appears, according to Amiel. “Sampson killed his brother,” he reminds her, voice growing louder, angrier, with every word. “He wasn’t very happy about it. You didn’t think to look at the transcripts?”
Staring up at him, Lily wants to ask him if he knows how many criminals Jennifer has killed on the job, how many he has. She wants to ask him if he knows how many threats are received to FBI agents every day, threats that are never acted upon. She wants to scream at him, throw something at him, she wants to make him understand that this isn’t her fault and that she wishes things were different too. Instead, she keeps a tight rein on her temper, though her voice is more than a little strident when she tells him, “If you have an issue with how I’m doing my job, you can lodge a formal complaint.”
“Look, he made threatening comments at the trial…” Amiel continues, and Lily throws her hands up in sheer frustration.
“What is this?” she shouts, because she feels as if they’re going around in circles, wasting time and getting nowhere. And she knows, for sure and for certain, that this isn’t about how she’s doing her job, the professional choices she made. This is about Amiel wanting to punish someone for what’s happened to Jennifer’s family, taking his own pain and lashing out at someone else. Any other day, Lily might have made allowances for that, but today, she’s got enough pain of her own to deal with; she’ll be damned if she’s dealing with his as well.
Amiel stares at her, brown eyes locking on her face, for a long moment, neither one able to look away from the other. Then Amiel seems to realise that Paige is still there, taking every nuance and inflection on board, and he turns to her, offering her a distracted, “Yeah.”
Paige looks from Lily to Amiel, her face uncertain, but her back ramrod straight, hands behind her back, looking as if she’s going to snap off a salute at any moment. Her perfect posture looks like it adds an inch or two onto her height, and even though it’s only an illusion, she’s still at eye level with Amiel, something that Lily, all of five feet, zero inches on a good day, could never achieve. Despite the pressures of the day, despite the fact that she’s been running around flat out, Paige still manages to look completely put together, even though she’s hardly in regulation FBI wardrobe, is wearing trousers, a t-shirt and a jersey cardigan. Not a hair on her head is out of place, her eyes are bright and alert, and looking at her, Lily can’t help but compare herself unfavourably, knowing that her own long blonde hair, already in need of a wash, bears the marks of troubled hands running through it, sure that the jeans and t-shirt she’s wearing have seen better days. Dimly, she realises that it’s the height of absurdity to be worried about comparing herself to Paige, on today of all days, but she can’t help herself sometimes.
Then Paige speaks, and what she says puts
any thoughts of comparsions, unfavourable or others, out of Lily’s mind. “I
tracked down Counts’s
There is a long, terrible silence while Amiel takes that in, a silence where Lily closes her eyes, grips very hard to the arm of her chair as the room spins around her. Because until now, there had been a very thin, very slight glimmer of a chance that Counts wasn’t their man, that someone else had done this.
But now it looks like he has.
And her signature is on the deal that set him free to do it.
As if from very far away, she hears Amiel firing orders to Paige, and he sounds as shaken up as she feels. “OK… so… we need to start canvassing his relatives.” Paige nods, and Lily shakes herself, pushing all other files aside, zeroing in on Counts’s. Still talking to Paige, Amiel continues, “I need you to know to New Kent, you gotta get his visitation records and his prison logs, gotta know who he’s talking to on the outside. His cellmate, talk to his cellmate.” His voice trails off then, his eyes finding Lily’s, holding her gaze, as if he wants to say something, but he’s not sure of what to say.
“Done,” says Paige.
Distracted, Amiel nods, but he doesn’t look around at her. “It’s gonna be tough…it’s Saturday you might have to…”
Again, Paige nods, talking to Amiel, directing a quick glance at Lily out of the corner of her eyes. “I got it,” she says.
Amiel stands there, looking at Lily for a moment longer, and then he is out the door, probably to call Lisa, let her know what they’ve found. Lily manages to hold her head up long enough to see that Paige is moving for the door as well, then she drops her head into her hands, willing herself not to break down. She’s done very well on that score so far today, and she doesn’t have the time to collapse now.
“Lily?” It’s Paige’s voice, and when she looks up, she sees her standing at the door, looking at her curiously. Or maybe Lily just thinks she’s looking at her curiously; high emotions and confrontations with Amiel could very easily be making her paranoid. “You’re around if we need you, right?”
It’s either the question it appears to be, or Paige’s effort to make her feel better, feel needed. Either way, Lily nods, wills her voice not to shake when she speaks. “Yeah. I’ll be here.” Because she’s not going anywhere, wants to find this bastard, wants to know right away when it happens.
She owes Jennifer that.
She owes Joanie that.
“We’re gonna get him,” Paige tells her before she disappears, and Lily follows her progress through the bullpen, sees her go over to Todd Stevens, start issuing orders to him.
Then she sees Amiel, cell phone to his ear, talking animatedly, running a hand over his hair. His eyes are on her office, on her, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “I hope so,” she whispers. “I really do.”
>*<*>*<
Hours later – and she knows exactly how many hours, could convert it into hours and minutes if she was asked – Lily can hardly keep her mind on the pages in front of her. Fatigue, worry and stress have all caught up with her, and co-ordinating their operation with the marshal’s operation is a bigger headache than she’d ever guessed. All of this combines to make the type dance in front of her, and she soldiers on until she reads the same sentence five times without it making the slightest bit of sense to her. Standing up, her bones creaking from hours spent sitting tense at her desk, she makes her way to the break room, sure that there has to be coffee there somewhere. Sure enough, there is a full pot ready and waiting, and as proof that everyone is in the same state that she is, she can smell the aroma from clear across the room.
On an ordinary day, that would turn her stomach, but this is no ordinary day, and she makes a beeline for the coffee pot, fills her mug, and is more than relieved to see that some kind soul has left the sugar bowl on the bench beside it. Her usual two teaspoons are put in; after a second glance at the liquid in her mug, she adds in a spoonful more, trying to keep from singing aloud about how it makes the medicine go down. She might be hanging on by a thread, but there’s no reason anyone has to know that, and singing a song like that might be a clue too many for these trained investigators.
Then she remembers another time and place where she sang that song, remembers a little red-haired girl grinning up at her, clapping her hands and trying to sing along, and tears sear the back of her throat.
“You might want to use the instant.” Amiel’s voice behind her makes her jump, and she hisses as coffee sloshes over the rim of her mug, splashing her hand. Turning, she shakes out her hand, sending little splashes of coffee everywhere, and he tilts his head, his eyes raking her from head to toe. “Sorry,” he says, and she waves her hand again, both to rid herself of any residual coffee drop and to indicate that it doesn’t matter.
“I was miles away,” she tells him. “What were you saying?”
“You might want to use the instant,” Amiel tells her, pointing over her shoulder to the coffee pot. “We’re making that pretty strong today…”
Lily shakes her head. “It’s fine.”
“You don’t like strong coffee,” Amiel reminds her, his eyes narrowing in question, and she’s sure he’s remembering several conversations along these lines – when it comes to coffee and tea, she likes hers light, whereas his tastes lean to the stronger the better.
“But I need it,” she counters, lifting her mug in salute. “So, down the hatch.” She takes a sip after she speaks, and feels it down to her toes; strong is too pale a word for this particular brew. It makes every hair on the back of her neck – hell, her entire body – stand to attention, and she screws up her face as she forces it down. With her eyes closed, she hears Amiel chuckle, and she wants to snap at him, but she feels the benefit of the caffeine hit straight away, and it gives her the wherewithal to look at him, see that he’s looking just as ragged as she feels. He’s also got a mug in his hand, the same mug that’s been in his hand for most of the day, and she reaches behind her for the coffee pot. “Here,” she says. “You look like you need some too.”
He holds the mug out as she fills it for him, saying nothing, just smiling gratefully. Only when he has his own first mouthful taken – and she can’t help but notice that he took a rather large gulp, wonders if it was for his benefit or hers – does she ask him softly, “Where are we?”
He sighs. “Van Doren’s at New Kent, looking for Counts’s records… and his cellmate is out on leave; we’re trying to get him back. Counts’s cousin is in with Stevens right now… we’re hoping he’ll know something.”
Lily’s eyes narrow. “You didn’t want to take the interview?”
When Amiel chuckles, it’s anything but humorous. “I’m the last person who needs to be in an interview room right now,” he says quietly, and she’s surprised, not at the admission itself, the content of it, but the fact that he made it in the first place.
She can understand it though, and she looks down into her cup of coffee, asking him just as quietly, “Is there any word… from the hospital?”
Amiel sighs, places his coffee mug down on the counter beside him. “She’s still in surgery to remove the bullet,” he says, and a shiver runs the length of Lily’s spine. “Chances are fifty-fifty… and they’re not ruling out the possibility of brain damage.”
Lily closes her eyes, blindly putting down her own coffee cup, because her shakes of earlier in the day are back, so pronounced that she’s either going to drop the cup or grip it so tightly that it will shatter in her hands. “How’s Jen?” she asks, wrapping her arms around herself, and when she opens her eyes, glances over at him, the look in his eyes nearly does her in completely.
“I haven’t talked to her,” he says, “But Lisa says she’s holding up… whatever that means.” A pause then, and he raises his hand, lets it hover in the air between them as he seems to vacillate between touching her and not. “Lil… are you ok?” Lily looks up at the ceiling, shaking her head, realising that this is the first time in months that she and Amiel have had anything remotely approaching a civilised conversation, no sniping, no backbiting, no snapping at one another. She’d often wondered what it would take to get them to that point; now she wishes she’d never found out. She starts, her gaze snapping back to him when his hand lands on her shoulder, resting there. “Lil?” he asks again, and she takes in a deep breath, ordering herself to pull herself together.
“I keep seeing her,” she tells him, but he doesn’t understand what he means, tilts his head, narrows his eyes.
“Who?”
“Joanie… I keep thinking about… you remember Jennifer and Carl’s anniversary, when they had those reservations…”
He’s nodding, a smile coming to his face. “And their sitter cancelled…”
“And you volunteered us to mind them.” The first she’d known of it had been Amiel arriving home on the Friday evening, telling her that Jennifer and Carl would be dropping the kids off in an hour, and he hadn’t been able to fathom why she’d been fit to kill him. “They’re kids Lil… how hard can it be?” she says, quoting from memory the very words he’d said to her, and she has a distinct memory of throwing up her hands and laughing, because he’d really meant it, hadn’t had a clue what he’d let them in for.
Amiel shakes his head, still smiling, lost in memory too. “Famous last words,” he murmurs, more to himself than to her, and she nods.
“I keep seeing her in the park that Saturday,” she tells him, not even having to close her eyes to conjure up the picture. “You, pushing her on the swings… her, screaming ‘More, more’…” The memory is crystal clear, as if it were yesterday; Hunter disdaining the swings, had preferred the jungle gym at the other side of the playground, and she’d gone over there with him. While she had watched him, did keep a careful eye on him, nonetheless her eyes had kept wandering over to Amiel and Joanie. Joanie’s red curls had bounced in the breeze, her joyful shrieks echoing into the clear blue sky, accompanied by Amiel’s laughter, and she remembers so clearly looking at the two of them, at Amiel’s smile, and knowing, knowing deep down in her soul, that this was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
“You can laugh,” Amiel tells her now, “But my arms were killing me for a week.”
“I remember.” He had been smiling, but at her words, he looks at her, really looks at her, and looks to be appalled at whatever look is on her face. At least, she’s pretty sure that he’s looking appalled; her eyes are too blurred with tears for one hundred per cent certainty. “And I remember looking at you… the two of you… and thinking that one day, you’d push our kids like that…”
Her voice trails off and she looks down, trying to pull herself back together. It’s not made any easier by his voice saying, “Lil,” soft and low, a lover’s voice, a voice she knows well. Nor is it made easier when his hand moves to her cheek, tilting her head up so that he can look at her, his palm warm against her skin, her thumb moving to wipe away the one tear that escapes down her cheek. She stands there, saying nothing, just stares up at him, and fights with every fibre of her being the urge to just throw herself into his arms, bury her head in his chest and forget about the office, the case, this horrible day, everything.
She wants to do that more than anything, and she hates herself for it, hates him for choosing this precise moment – her most needy and vulnerable moment – to be anything other than the hardnosed bastard she’s been dealing with for the past couple of months.
She wants to pull him closer, knows she should push him away, and torn between the two impulses, she can’t move, can only whisper, “Amiel… please… don’t…”
His eyes, so tender and kind, harden instantly, his jaw setting, and he drops his hand, stepping away from her. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have-”
“No.” She speaks without even being aware of it, reaches up to rub the bridge of her nose, taking a series of deep breaths. “It’s not you… it’s just…” She stares up at him, sure her confusion is written all over her face, but she can’t do anything about that, can only concentrate on not falling apart. “I can’t…” A long pause, another deep breath. “I need to get back to work.”
She grabs her coffee mug, beats a hasty retreat back to her office.
He doesn’t stop her, nor does he follow her, and she’s not sure how she feels about that.
>*<*>*<
It’s past midnight when Lily’s cell phone rings, with Paige on the other end. She’s in her car, on the way back from New Kent, and she’s outlining what she's found, records of five other prisoners who Jennifer put in jail, all of whom were in jail at the same time as Randall Counts. “I can get records on three of them,” she says, “But there’s two whose records are sealed under the Privacy Act…”
Lily’s already reaching for a pen and notepad. “Give me their names,” she says. “I’ll draft an emergency subpoena; they’ll be here by the time you get back.”
“Thanks Lily,” Paige says. “Jonathan Dawson, and Kyle Bowen.”
“That’s B-O-W-E-N, right?” Because it doesn’t look right when Lily writes it down, but then again, that could be just because she’s tired.
“Yeah… that’s it.” There’s a pause, but the other woman doesn’t hang up. “Lily… is there any word? From the hospital?”
Lily’s eyes fly to the clock, automatically totting up the hours that Joanie’s been in surgery, and she pushes back the wave of fear that washes over her, because surely they should have heard something by now? “She’s still in surgery,” is all she says, and she hears the other woman swear softly.
“OK… I’ll see you soon.”
Then there’s only silence in Lily’s ear, and she stares at the phone for a second before shaking herself and getting back to work. She drafts the subpoena with practiced ease, covering all the bases and then some, then gets to work on finding a judge to sign off on it. It’s easier than she might have expected; apparently waking a judge isn’t such a big deal when it’s a high-profile case such as this one. The files are already delivered when she sees Paige walking hurriedly through the bullpen, asking after Amiel and heading straight for one of the offices. She’s not in there for long, and Lily is waiting for her when she emerges.
“You’ve got them?” Paige demands without preamble, and Lily almost has to bite back a smile; Amiel is certainly training her well.
“Ready and waiting,” she replies, holding up the folders of records. “They’re all yours.”
Paige nods, turning on her heels, calling out to another of the agents. “Jimmy,” she says when he comes over to her. “Amiel wants you to look through these… see if you can work up any links between these prisoners and Agent Sampson…” Jimmy takes the folders without a word, heading off and collecting some other agents on his way, and Paige turns back to Lily, then past her. “Todd,” she calls out. “We need you.”
Todd comes straight over, dark eyes curious, and he falls into step beside Paige as she leads them into one of the interrogation rooms. It’s small and dark and pokey, and all Lily can do is stand back and watch as Paige and Todd sit down on opposite sides of the table and get straight to work. They talk among themselves, trading theories back and forth like she’s not even there, while she leans against the wall and watches them, sipping her second strong mug of coffee. In some ways, it’s a lot like the old days, when she used to watch Amiel and Jennifer talking between themselves, and she wonders if these two would take that as compliment or insult.
Her mug isn’t even halfway empty when Todd sighs, shakes his head. “Well, we got one answer,” he says, but he doesn’t sound happy about it.
“What’s up?” Lily asks, crossing the room to stand beside him, and Todd looks up at her, hands her the file. He barely makes eye contact with her, hands her the folder without any fuss whatsoever, and it occurs to her that it might just be the first time that he’s ever had this much interaction with her and not flirted with her. Which shows her the level of seriousness with which he’s taking this.
“
”Witness protection?”
Lily nods, thinking out loud. “
“Where’s he located?” Paige asks, not keen to give up so easily, and Todd effectively destroys any hope she might have.
“Doesn’t say… probably in a galaxy far, far away. This guy obviously can’t lead us to Counts.” He scans the file for another moment, then glances over at Paige, whose brow is knit in a frown, all her concentration now focused on the page in front of her.
“Poor son of a bitch,” she murmurs suddenly, and Todd is suddenly very attentive, as is Lily.
“What?” Todd asks, and Paige passes him the page she was reading as Lily comes over to stand beside him.
“Kyle Bowen,” Paige says, and Todd reads, his dark skin growing paler as he does so.
“This happened to him in prison?” he asks, and he passes the page to Lily as if it’s burning him and he’s only too pleased to be rid of it.
“That’s what the file says,” Paige says as Lily begins to read, her own stomach turning as she reads about repeated rapes and HIV infection. She can’t blame Todd for feeling so disgusted, and she forces herself to remain objective, not let her disgust show.
“That’s why the records are sealed.”
Neither agent reply, Todd seemingly lost in thought, Paige already rifling through her rerecords, because if this isn’t motive, then what is? “Where’s his address?” Paige mutters, adding venomously, “The system… I hate it.”
“What about his
“No,” she says, throwing one hand up. “No parole officer because he served his full term.”
That was Lily’s only idea, but something’s evidently occurred to Todd as well, because, with eyes narrowed, he’s looking through the papers in front of him. “What was his name? Bowen?”
“Bowen, yeah.” Paige looks interested. “What have you got?”
“You know what? There was a name that I saw on this visitation log for him… yeah… Alex Meyer.”
Paige and Todd share a look, the same look that Lily’s seen Paige and Amiel exchange a hundred times. “Do you have an address for her?” Paige asks, eyes sparkling at the scent of a new lead.
Todd’s eyes are brighter too, lips turned up in a crooked smile. “I can get one.”
He stands up to do just that, and Lily and Paige get moving too, gathering the files together as best they can – which is not very well at all, and Lily’s sure that whoever next looks for these records is likely to pitch a fit – and head right for Amiel to let him know what they’ve found.
For once today though, he’s not in a mood to listen to them, not even when they try to explain what they’d found, when Paige asks for permission to go see Alex Meyer. “Go,” he tells her, leading them a merry dance through the bullpen, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair, pulling it on. “And keep us informed.”
He’s ready to walk away without another word, but neither Lily and Paige are about to let him get away with that, Lily having already noticed the tangible air of excitement around the place, knowing that Paige has seen it too. They both shout, “Wait!” and when Amiel turns, Paige is suddenly very interested in the tips of her shoes, reminding Lily that she’s still a rookie agent, and Amiel is still her superior. He’s not Lily’s superior though, so she squares her shoulders, keeps her head up high and comes right out with it. “What’s going on?”
“We got Counts,” Amiel says, and Lily’s heart stops beating, then starts up triple time.
“How?” Paige asks the question, and Amiel barely glances at her.
“One of our UCs worked up a lead,” he says, his eyes lingering on Lily. “I can’t tell you more than that. SWAT’s getting ready to go there now.”
His haste makes sense to Lily then, and her stomach, not for the first time today, lurches violently. “You’re going in with them?” Paige is carrying the conversation, for which Lily is grateful, because she literally can’t speak, feels cold all over, old habits being the hardest to break.
Amiel nods, but once again, he’s looking at Lily. “I’m lead agent,” he says, and Lily bites her lip, has to swallow hard against the sudden lump in her throat.
Todd picks that moment to come up, scrap of paper in hand, says, “Paige… that’s Alex Meyer’s address.”
Paige, who had been looking between Lily and Amiel, eyes wide, seizes the paper with one hand, Todd’s arm with the other. “Great,” she says. “Let’s find the map…”
Todd’s protesting as she fairly drags him away, and Amiel’s lips turn up in the vaguest ghost of a smile. If Lily wasn’t paralysed by fear, she might be smiling too, but all she can do is look at Amiel, and when he meets her eyes again, his smile fades, and it’s just like earlier on, as if they’re back in the break room again, neither of them sure of what to say. “I have to go, Lil,” he says, and she’s not sure if he means that he needs to leave now, or if he needs to do this, can’t pass it off to someone else, but either way, she knows it to be true.
So she nods, wishing that she knew the right thing to say, but it’s something she never learned, not in all the time that they were together. “Amiel…” is all she gets out, and one thing she does know, one thing she did learn, is when he wants to reach out and touch her, take her in his arms.
He does neither, just sighs. “I will,” he says, staying where he is for just a moment longer, allowing it to sink in that she didn’t have to say a word, that he still knew just what she was thinking, even if she didn’t quite know herself. Then he is turned, heading for the door without looking back, and she stands and watches him, arms wrapped around herself, willing herself to not cry.
She’s just about composed herself when she senses someone standing beside her, looks up and up and up, into Todd’s eyes, which are dark with concern. “You ok?” he asks, and she smiles, breathing in and out slowly.
“One of those days,” is all she says, and he chuckles without humour, rubbing his jaw.
“I hear you,” he murmurs, but he’s not looking at her, is looking towards the door, the path Amiel just took. She follows his gaze, only to turn her head sharply back towards him when he continues, “He’s going to be ok, you know.” She opens her mouth, closes it again, and he raises one shoulder in a shrug. “He’s the best at what he does. You don’t need to worry about him.”
At that, Lily can only shake her head, because Bert Sommers, Amiel’s former partner, had been the best at what he’d done as well, and everyone had always told Estelle that she’d never had to worry about him. She’d still ended up standing beside an open grave on a cold winter’s day, snow swirling around her feet, watching as they lowered Bert into the ground. Amiel had been one of the pallbearers at that funeral, had been too lost in his own grief to notice Lily at the edge of the crowd, making herself as unobtrusive as possible, not wanting to cause a scene.
“I always worry,” she hears herself saying, and when Todd speaks again, his voice is curious.
“Always?”
She looks up at him, muscles in her neck that have been accustomed to looking down all day shrieking at the height differential, which has to be at least a full twelve inches. “Every time,” she tells him softly. “It’s part of being an agent’s wife.” She catches the slip too late, Todd’s eyes widening in unmistakable shock, and she holds up one hand to ward off any questions. “Fiancée, actually…” Which doesn’t mute the shock at all, and she closes her eyes, squeezing the bridge of her nose, hoping it will do something to restore the blood flow to her brain. “Forget I said that.”
Todd is shaking his head, looks towards Amiel’s desk, then back at her, and she knows that a million questions are ready to fall from his lips. So she’s surprised when all that comes out is, “I didn’t know… you guys never talk about…”
She can smile at that, because that’s part of the problem; that so few people know the real back story, whole or part, between herself and Amiel, seeing only the fractious relationship they have now. Once upon a time though, things had been very different, and today, for the first time, it’s easy to remember the way things were, instead of the way they ended, instead of the reason they ended.
Which is a whole other set of problems for her, and one she knows she’s going to have to deal with.
“Like I said,” she says softly, laying a hand on his arm as she walks past him. “It’s been one of those days.”
>*<*>*<
Thankfully, from that moment on, things begin to move at breakneck speed, so fast that Lily finds it hard to keep up, grabs another mug of that strong, strong coffee to help her out.
First, the SWAT team finding the body of Randall Counts in a shack on his property, evidently killed by a jealous, jilted girlfriend. Lily’s so relieved that there are no fatalities, that not a shot was even fired, that it takes her a moment to realise that if Randall Counts is dead, by all appearances has been dead for more than three weeks, and that’s the reason why he hasn’t been checking in with his PO, then he couldn’t have shot Joanie this morning.
Which means he’s not their man, and the piece of paper with her signature on it becomes just a piece of paper once more, instead of a millstone of guilt around her neck.
Then the call comes in from Paige, albeit a
Paige who can barely speak, but who nonetheless gets the pertinent information
across. That Alex Meyer, girlfriend of Kyle Bowen, was high when she got to her
house, that when Paige went into her kitchen on the pretext of getting a drink
of water, she’d seen a post-it on the refrigerator with Jennifer’s home address
on it. That when Meyer had seen her reading it, she’d attacked her and tried to
kill her. Paige hadn’t gone through both Army and
Which was when Alex Meyer had told them what she knew about Bowen’s plan, that he hadn’t been targeting the agents who had worked his case, but rather, their children.
Amiel had been the one who called in that bombshell, had mobilised the team to track down those twelve agents, put them into safe houses. Lily had thought that Paige was still at the hospital with him, didn’t realise that Lisa, who had been Special Agent in Charge on the Bowen case, had sent her to her ex-husband’s house to personally see to the safe keeping of Lisa’s son, Teddy.
She didn’t realise that until Amiel’s voice came through a speakerphone, shocked and shaken, informing them that Kyle Bowen was dead, that when she’d seen him in his car, aiming a gun at Teddy and the boy’s father, she’d floored the accelerator and driven straight into them. She’d given herself a pretty good concussion, multiple lacerations and probably whiplash, but she’d still managed to stumble to Kyle Bowen, and when he’d gone for his gun, she’d shot him twice.
It was over.
Lily’s never seen a bullpen empty so quickly, but she’s not sure she can blame anyone. Most people have worked through the night, gone without sleep, are eager to get home and snatch a few hours before Monday morning comes rolling around. Those with families, she’s sure, are on their way home to hold their children in their arms, tell them a bedtime story and thank God that they’re not Jennifer Sampson – although that story too has a happy ending, with Joanie out of surgery and, hopefully, and more than likely, on the road to a full recovery.
By all rights, Lily should have left with everyone else, but all that waits for her in her apartment is Sunday night television and a frozen dinner, neither of which are that appealing. She could just go straight to bed, she could certainly do with the rest, but she’s still too wired to sleep, adrenaline coursing through her veins instead of the normal red blood cells.
Luckily for her, there is still filing to do, and plenty of it, records having to be replaced from all over, and she makes a start on that, hoping it will burn off some of her excess energy. She moves as many as she can into the file room, filling the table, and she hasn’t made much of a dent when a voice from the door stops her in her tracks, makes her turn around and push the drawer shut behind her.
“I thought you’d have gone home,” Amiel says, and she shrugs, her cheeks warming.
“You were right,” she tells him. “I should have had the instant.” His eyes narrow in question, and she tilts her head, looking somewhere above and to the right of him. “I’m not used to strong coffee.”
He nods slowly, the penny dropping. “Caffeine jitters,” he murmurs, then he looks at the table, the messy piles there, one or two in imminent danger of toppling over. “So you’re filing?”
Another shrug from her. “I figure it’s a sure fire sedative.”
She expects him to come back with some other bit of inane small talk, then turn around and walk out the door, and have everything be back to normal tomorrow morning, the two of them sniping at one another as if the last couple of days haven’t happened.
Instead, he steps inside the room, closing the door behind him, and there’s a shake in her hands that wasn’t there a second ago, one that can’t be explained on caffeine jitters. “About earlier…” he says, moving so that he’s standing beside the table, one hand on his hip, the other resting on top of a pile of folders, one finger tapping, “I said some things… things I shouldn’t have said.”
“Just today?” The words escape her lips before she can stop them, and she winces, lets her head fall back against the filing cabinet. She knows Amiel, knows he’s not going to take kindly to that, is sure that she’s just blown whatever fragile détente they had to hell.
Amiel raises his eyebrows, finger still tapping against the files. “I deserve that,” he says simply, quietly, so unlike him that Lily can only stare.
When she can speak again, she meets his honesty with her own. “I gave as good as I got,” she tells him. “And today… you were upset, about Joanie, about Jen…”
“I didn’t need to take it out on you,” he says, and for that, she has no comeback. “You did a hell of a job today… and I’m glad you were here.”
The part of her that wants to believe that wants to smile, and her cheeks flush. The part of her that knows where this conversation is heading is screaming at her to get the hell out of this room, put some distance between them, and she balls her fists at her side, digs her fingernails into her palms. The bite brings her back to reality, makes it easy to remember the things he said, the things he’s said ever since the first day she walked in here. “Right,” she says, and he has the grace to look chastened, taking one step towards her.
“I know I haven’t treated you fairly, Lily,” he tells her. “But you’re a great lawyer… and you deserve that promotion. AUSA… it’s everything you ever wanted.”
This is Amiel at his most sincere, and Lily’s hands relax as she leans against the filing cabinet. “Who are you, and what have you done with the real Amiel McArthur?” she wonders with a smile, and he chuckles.
“I’m still me,” he says, which makes her smile fade just a little, because that had always been their problem. Then he proceeds to wipe the smile entirely from her face with a few simple words. “You look like hell, you know.”
Which is undeniably true, because she had occasion to see herself in a mirror in the ladies’ room, and the sight of her limp blonde hair, pale skin, the dark circles under her eyes, had been nothing short of frightening. “Thanks,” she mutters, hands rising to push back her hair, her eyes dropping down to the tiled floor, and he moves quietly, so quietly that she doesn’t realise he’s moving until he’s standing right in front of her.
“You should go home,” he tells her, and she looks up into his eyes, all moisture dying in her throat at the look she sees there.
“In a little while…” she whispers, one hand gesturing ineffectually in the direction of the table. “The files…”
“They’ll wait.” He’s whispering too, but he’s also reaching out towards her, cupping her face in his hands. His palms are warm against her skin, and she knows what the look on his face means, knows that he’s about to kiss her, and she knows that she should stop him. She opens her mouth to do so, but she hesitates just a moment too long, and then his lips are on hers.
There is nothing rushed about it; that never was Amiel’s style. Instead, it’s a slow, almost leisurely seduction, such a contrast to the pace of the last thirty-six hours, but no less welcome for that. His lips move against hers, hands sliding from her cheeks, one threading through her hair, the other pressing against the small of her back, bringing her body into closer contact with his. And while her mind knows this is a bad idea, her traitorous body reacts predictably, knees buckling, arms sliding around his neck, a breathless little moan escaping her lips, allowing his tongue to tangle with hers as he pulls her closer still against him, lifting her up off the ground, using his body to press her against the filing cabinet.
She has no idea how much time elapses between his lips finding hers and her feet once more finding the ground, knows only the sensation of his body against hers, his hands once more finding her face. “Let me take you home,” he whispers, brushing a kiss across her forehead, and she wants that, wants that with a hunger so forceful that it frightens her. She wants him to take her home, take her to bed, drive every thought of this hellacious weekend, as well as every other thought, from her mind. Nor has she any doubt that that’s just what would happen; even at the end, as messed up as things were between them, the sex had always been sensational.
It would be so easy to say yes. So easy.
Instead, she shakes her head, whispers, “Amiel…”
“Lily…” He responds in kind, bringing his lips to her again for another one of those kisses that turn her blood to liquid mercury. Nor do his lips stop there, begin trailing a path to her neck, chasing thrills down her spine, making her dig her nails into his arms in an attempt to stay standing.
Somehow, she finds the words, “We can’t…”, and even though she whispers them, the sound is loud in the otherwise silent room, and the effect it has on Amiel is instant. He lifts his head, but his hands stay on her face, his eyes finding hers. He doesn’t look angry, merely sad, and her heart, only newly mended, breaks a little at that look. “I left for a reason,” she reminds him. “That hasn’t changed…”
“I want you, Lily,” he tells her, rolling his hips against her to demonstrate his veracity. “That hasn’t changed either.”
She nods, because she knows that, just like she knows that she wants him too. Desire has never been their problem. “But I’m not all you want,” she counters, words that do what her whispered protest couldn’t, make him drop his hands, take a step back from her.
“You’re wrong,” he says, his tender voice of moments earlier a fast-fading memory, replaced by the firm not-quite-growl, not-quite-snarl she’s come to know so well lately.
She doesn’t blink, doesn’t look away from him. “Am I?”
For a long time, there is only silence between them.
Then Amiel turns on his heel, wrenches the door open and walks out, slamming it behind him.
The walls of the room shake with the impact; one of the piles of folders loses its war with gravity, toppling over and spreading papers all over the floor.
And Lily, very slowly, slides down against the filing cabinet, ends up sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chin. There, very quietly, she begins to cry.
It’s a long time before she stops.