Chapter 1
"I've never known anyone who was stood up for her own divorce before," Cece Drake told her best friend. "What's it feel like?"
"Not good." Alison DiLaurentis tried to smooth her tight skirt with a damp hand.
"Can we go? I'm not enjoying this." She gave up on the skirt and clutched her bag to her as she glanced around the marble hallway of the Rosewood courthouse. "Scott signed the divorce papers already. So we don't even need to be here."
Cece shook her head. "Psychologically, we need to be here. You had a ceremony when you got married, you need one when you get divorced. you need to feel divorced. You need to feel free. Now sit over there on that bench while I find Brad to tell me why this is taking so long."
"Screw you. I'd feel a lot freer if you'd stop ordering me around", Alison snapped at her oldest friend but then sighed heavily. "Sorry C. I just can't believe he didn't show up." Cece smiled at her. "It's ok Ali. We both know he's a jerk. It's his loss anyway. Just sit tight while I find Brad" Cece gave her a short hug and went off, trying to find her hapless attorney in the flood of suits that washed around her. Poor Brad. He'd gone beyond the call of lawyerhood in ramming Alison's divorce through the courts in two weeks, but that wasn't enough for Cece. Cece wouldn't be satisfied until Brad brought her Scott's head on a platter. Alison had a momentary image of Cece, dark and scary and dressed in a white suit, standing in front of a flustered Brad who was offering her Scott's handsome head on a silver platter.
She liked it. Cece always did have the best ideas.
Cece suddenly appeared before her, parting the suits before her like the Red Sea . "There's some kind of delay. It'll be another hour, but then we'll go have lunch."
Another hour. "All right. At Harvey 's?"
Cece shrugged. "Whatever you want Ali."
"Thank you." Alison dug her physics textbook out of her bag.
"What are you doing?"
"I have to teach Planck's constant tomorrow." Alison paged through the book. "It's a tough one to get across. I'm reviewing."
"You know, the next thing I'm getting you is a new job," Cece said, and disappeared back into the suits.
A new job?
"I like my job," Alison said, but Cece was already gone.
"Okay, that's the last straw." Alison closed her book with a thump. Nobody's judging me anymore. From now on, I'm going to do what I want, damn the consequences. I'm going to be a whole new me.
That's it.
I'm changing.
"Okay, that's it. I'm quitting," Emily Fields said to her partner. Her long dark hair fell down her back and some rogue hairs fell across her forehead, almost into her eyes, but she was too mad to brush it back.
"Don't tell me, Em. Tell Jerry." Tall, cool, and controlled, Toby Cavanaugh nodded toward the man who had just pulled a gun on them.
Emily turned back to the gun, wavering now in the hands of the balding, middle-aged embezzler who stood quivering in his bad suit behind his empty desk. Jerry watched them warily, as warily as a cautious man might regard two tough cops he was holding a gun on.
"I'm quitting, Jerry," Emily said. "You can let me go because I'm not going to be a cop anymore. You can have the badge."
She started to reach into her black leather jacket, and Jerry squeaked, "No!"
Emily froze. "Okay. Fine. No problem." She gauged the possibilities of taking Jerry there in his office. They weren't good. Jerry was very nervous and the office was very small, leaving them no room to maneuver and nothing to take cover behind. It was furnished only with a metal desk, two plastic chairs, and Jerry. The furniture was marginally more interesting than Jerry, or had been until he'd reached into his desk drawer and pulled out the gun.
They deserved this. Just because the guy was pathetic, they'd gotten careless. Emily looked at the gun wobbling in Jerry's hand with respect. A .45. The office currently had no windows, but Emily knew it could have a couple at any minute, a .45 being the kind of gun that left large holes in walls.
And people.
"Why do we do this?" Emily asked Toby, scowling at the gun. "Life isn't depressing enough, we have to do this, too? I'm not kidding, I'm quitting."
"Stop complaining." Toby carefully picked a speck of nonexistent lint off his tailored tweed sleeve, keeping his eyes steadily on Jerry the whole time. "You're the probable cause of this anyway. You walked in here in that black leather jacket, looking like you hadn't showered in a week, and Jerry probably thought you were some lowlife." He smiled at Jerry, an oasis of perfect calm in a very sweaty situation. "I'd have pulled a gun on her, too, Jerry. I understand. Why don't we talk about this?"
Jerry shook his head, but he kept his eyes on Toby, listening to his even, relaxed voice. Emily moved very slowly a few inches to his right, taking care to seem as if she were only shifting on her feet.
Jerry suddenly shifted his eyes to Emily, so Emily picked up the conversation. "Oh, and if we'd both been dressed in pimp suits like you, he wouldn't have pulled the gun. I ask you, Jerry, was it the jacket that made you pull the gun? Or the badge?"
Jerry narrowed his eyes at Emily, and Toby moved slightly to the left.
"Just don't move," Jerry said as he swayed back and forth. "Keep your hands up."
"We're not moving, Jerry," Toby said soothingly. "You are. Relax. You'll feel better."
"Don't get too smart," Jerry said, and the gun wavered between them again. "I'll shoot."
"You don't want to shoot us, Jerry." Emily spread her hands apart. "The hassle from shooting a cop is enormous. You wouldn't believe it."
"Oh, yeah." Jerry looked at Emily as she talked, distracted by the movement, and Toby eased another couple of inches to the left. "And the hassle from stealing thirty thousand from your boss is nothin'."
"Well, it's not like shooting a cop," Toby said, and Jerry's eyes darted over to him. Emily moved a little more to the right. "Shooting a cop?" Toby shook his head slowly. "They throw the key away. We don't want that. Put the gun down, Jerry."
"I don't think so." Jerry breathed a little faster and shifted his eyes to Emily. "I don't think so. And you guys are moving." He closed his eyes as he aimed the gun at Emily and squeezed the trigger.
Emily dove for the floor as he fired, and Toby yelled, "Jerry!" and Jerry swung the gun toward where he'd been. Emily threw herself over the desk as Toby flattened himself on the floor, and Jerry put a bullet neatly through the center of the door.
Then Emily slammed Jerry down on the floor.
Toby rolled to his feet to help. "You all right?"
"Me? Oh, I'm as good as I get," Emily said, breathing a little heavily as she reached for her handcuffs. "Which is a hell of a lot better than Jerry is right now. How about you?"
"There were people in that hall." Toby went out the door to see what Jerry had hit on the other side while Emily cuffed him.
"You have the right to remain silent, you jerk," Emily said and finished reciting Miranda sitting on top of him. Toby came back and lounged in the doorway.
"Congratulations," Toby said to Jerry when Emily was finished. "You shot a water fountain."
"Up yours," Jerry said, but it came out more embarrassed than defiant.
Emily stood and glared down at him. "We've got to start hanging out with a better class of criminals."
"Actually, this is the cream," Toby said, checking his jacket for damage. It was, as always, spotless. "You want to work Vice or Homicide?"
"No," Emily said. "I want to arrest polite people who don't point guns at me. In fact, I don't want to arrest anybody anymore. I want to hang out with good people. Is that possible? Are there any good people anymore?"
"Well, there's you and me," Toby said patiently. "We're supposed to be the good guys. Are you sure you're all right? You've been acting strangely lately."
"Could you guys hurry this up?" Jerry whined from the floor. "I'm not real comfortable down here."
"You know, Jerry—" Emily was suddenly soft-spoken as she looked down at him "—I could kick your brains out very easily right now." She gently nudged Jerry's head with her foot. "Resisting arrest. Don't push your luck."
Jerry shut up.
"Here's some advice, Jerry." Toby reached down and hauled him to his feet with one hand. "Don't get smart with cops you just pointed a gun at. They're likely to be feeling hostile. And frankly, Jerry, we didn't like you much before you pulled the gun."
Jerry closed his eyes.
"I was kind of hoping he'd resist arrest," Emily said.
"No, you were not," Toby said. "You have plans for lunch. You're arresting a master embezzler at Harvey's. What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing." Emily pushed Jerry into the hall. "The weather. I hate February. And I hate office buildings." She looked around at the smooth gray walls. "Maybe I will quit. Get a nice job out in the open someplace. No guns. You think I'd make a good forest ranger?"
"You know, you worry me," Toby said.
"That's your problem." Emily moved down the hall, prodding Jerry in front of her. "So, Jerry, what'd you do with the money?"
Alison sat slumped across from Cece in a battered turquoise booth in Harvey 's shabby diner and tortured her salad. Cece scowled down at her own salad. "Are you sure it's safe to eat here? I think turquoise Formica is bad for you, and I'm positive this lettuce is. It's white." She tapped a cigarette from the pack on the table and lit it smoothly, like a sixties' movie star. Alison leaned forward to put her chin in her hand so she could pretend to listen to Cece, and her golden hair fell into her face again. Cece smoothed a blonde, silky strand of her own precisely cut hair, and Alison looked at her with a smirk. Maybe they were sisters. Maybe their parents separated them when they were young coz they'd be too much to handle.
"You are going to get rid of his name, aren't you?" Cece asked. "Alison DiLaurentis Porter always sounded like you'd married a rabid bellboy." Cece's voice bought Alison out of her musings.
"Shut it, C." Alison snapped. "Could we talk about something else?" She ran her fingers through her hair back and glanced around the dim restaurant, looking at the other patrons. The place was not only dim but small, but it was also almost empty. There was only a bored waitress leaning on a chipped plastic counter beside a fly-specked case of doughnuts, and two people in a booth identical to theirs on the opposite side of the room. The guy was hot with brown hair and blue eyes. He was tall, slender, and elegant, leaning calmly back in the booth, not a crease in his suit. But the girl was breath taking. Muscular yet feminine. Tense as a coiled spring in a creased black leather jacket, she leaned across the table and stabbed her index finger into the Formica. Her face looked as if it was hand made by god, her hair was dark and long and messy, but looked soft and her smile was beautiful but came and went like a broken neon sign. She was so intense, she was practically bending the table with the force of her personality. Alison had been reluctantly aware of her ever since they'd entered the diner, kicking herself for stealing glances at her but stealing them just the same.
This was the kind of girl who could leave her scarred for life. She wasn't so dumb after all. She could have ended up married to somebody like him instead of Scott.
But think how much excitement she would have had before the end.
"No, that would have been dumb," she said aloud.
"What would be?" Cece asked.
"Nothing." Alison turned back to her. "That's a beautiful suit you're wearing."
"It should be. It cost a fortune. You couldn't afford it with your crappy teacher's salary. If you had to make a bad marriage, and I suppose you did since it runs in your family, couldn't you at least have chosen somebody with money?"
"No. and don't be a bitch. I can afford anything I want. I just choose not to" Alison picked up her fork and jabbed at her salad, spearing a cucumber slice because it was there. "Money isn't important. And I look hotter in my off the rack clothes than you do in your dumb suit"
"Oh? And what is important? And, whatever it is, why did you think that loser Scott Porter had it? In fact, why did you marry him at all?" Alison thought of several cutting things to say about her friend's second and third husbands and then blinked instead. "I married him because of the second law of thermonuclear dynamics."
"You married him because of a physics theory?" Cece put her cigarette out in one of her salad tomatoes, pushed the bowl away, and lit up another. "Well, at least you didn't say 'for lo-o-ove.'" She blew her smoke away from Alison. "So what's the second law of thermodynamics?"
"It says that isolated systems move toward disorder until they reach their most probable form, and then they remain constant."
"I don't get it. And what does that have to do with Scott?"
"Nothing. But it has everything to do with me." Alison pushed her bowl away with one hand and shoved her hair out of her eyes with the other. "I was an isolated system. I mean, there I was, living alone in that little apartment with Pepe for company, and Pepe is great company, but he's also a dog."
"I wondered if you'd noticed that."
"Shut it, of course, I noticed. But after college I just wasn't interested in dating random hot guys. And I'd been teaching science for five years. Lecturing to kids all day and then going home alone to grade papers at night the only real social contacts I had been at your weddings."
Cece stuck her tongue out at her and pulled a pepper strip from Alison's salad bowl.
"And then one day in class, we got to the second law, and I thought, 'That's me. I'm an isolated system, and I'm just going to get more isolated until I reach my most probable form which is probably where I am now, living in an apartment with Pepe.' So I decided to get unisolated. And that's when Scott picked me up in the library and I thought, 'This must be it Physics has brought us together.' I mean, his timing was so perfect It was so logical."
Cece shook her head. "No wonder you're so screwed up. life is not logical, and marriage certainly isn't. Stop analyzing things so much. Try impulse for a change."
"I was impulsive once. Besides I married Scott after I'd only known him two months." Alison felt a twinge of shame even as she said the words. She'd been stupid. Really stupid. "But I'm grown now and I'm not a fan of impulse anymore. And, no offense, but I don't see impulse doing much for you."
Cece smiled. "I've got twelve and a half million dollars, darling. And what have you got? You even cut yourself off from your family. Impulse has done more for me than logic has for you. Just look at you. Do you ever have any fun anymore?"
"Fun?" Alison's eyes went to the dark-haired girl across the room. "Fun." She shifted her gaze back to Cece and picked up her fork to attack her salad again. "I don't think I can be bothered with that anymore."
"Well, I think you're taking me too seriously. It's time you cut loose again. Be the Alison I knew when we met. Do something wild. Something spontaneous."
Alison frowned at her. "I told you. I'm not that person anymore. Besides I was spontaneous when I married Scott, look where it got me."
Cece shook her head. "Marrying Scott was not spontaneous. You just gave me a very sensible reason why you married him. I'm sure you haven't forgotten what spontaneous means. Spontaneous is when it's not sensible but you do it anyway because you want to."
"That's not spontaneous, that's irresponsible."
"Fine, then do something irresponsible. In fact, do something spontaneous and irresponsible. Do something just because you have the urge to do it, because it feels good. Do something selfish, just for you. Be the old Ali again. Just for a little"
Alison's eyes went back to the dark-haired girl across the room. "I don't think so." She stabbed her salad again.
"C'mon Ali. You need to get out of this funk Be selfish again. Let's have some fun"
"Well, you know, I was selfish when I married Scott" Alison said slowly, her fork frozen in her hand. "In fact, I think that's the real reason why I married Scott. I dated Scott because of the second law, but I think I married Scott to get my house."
Cece looked interested. "Really? That's so unlike you."
Alison nodded. "I think I just convinced myself I loved him because he offered me the house." She poked at her salad again, averting her eyes from Cece. "I love the house more than I ever loved Scott. I think he knew it finally, and that's why he cheated on me."
"Well, I'll be damned." Cece put her cigarette out and leaned back in the booth. "This explains a lot. Is this what that fight you had last October was about?"
"How did you know...?"
"That's when you moved upstairs to the attic bedroom. I never bought that story about Scott snoring. I knew there had been a fight."
"No." Alison frowned. "There wasn't. We never fought. We just had a...disagreement. Over Pepe."
Cece winced. "For anyone else that would be a minor disagreement. For you...if Scott did something to Pepe, he couldn't have known you very well. And this explains why you're not brokenhearted over the divorce. You're upset, but it's not because you miss Scott. You're glad he's gone, aren't you?"
"Yes," Alison whispered. "That's awful, but I am."
"No, it's not. That's healthy. What I don't understand is what you're so upset about. You're free. You can do anything you want. What's wrong with you?"
"I feel stupid," Alison said.
"What?" Cece leaned forward. "You? You've got more brains than..."
"Not real-life brains. I have science brains. And I have wicked, mean girl brains. But real life?" Alison shook her head. "I don't even know what happened in my marriage. I know it was awful for me, but I would have sworn to you that Scott was happy and he loved me, and then out of the blue, I come home and find him with a tramp. In my house. And she says they've been having an affair in my bedroom, and he flusters around, obviously guilty, and when I get upset, he leaves." She sat back. "He just leaves."
"Men," Cece said.
"It's not just that he cheated on me. It's that he won't talk to me now. In the lawyer's office, all he said was, 'Is this what you want?' And I said yes, because it was, but..." Alison bit her lip. "He hasn't even come by to pick up the rest of his papers and things. It's like a chunk of my life just dropped out of sight."
"Oh." Cece shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I may have had something to do with that."
Alison froze. "What did you do?"
"Well. You know how upset you were when you called me that day and told me that Scott and the tramp had just been there?"
"What did you do?"
"Well, I had the new locks put on..."
Alison nodded. "What else did you do?"
"Well, when he came to the door to talk to you..."
"He came to the door to talk to me?"
"You were upstairs in your bedroom crying." Cece paused. "I was...angry."
"Oh, no."
"I know, I know. I lose it when I get angry." Cece lit another cigarette, inhaled, and blew out another stream of smoke before she went on, faster now to get it over with. "Anyway, I told him that if he ever tried to talk to you again, I would have private detectives digging up every slimy thing he'd ever done, and that I would personally see that they all made the front page of the Inquirer, and that I would also find every asset he possessed and take it from him."
Alison looked at her, stunned.
"I think I might also have mentioned bodily harm. I was really upset You never cry."
"So that's why he hasn't called? You are something else, Cece."
"I'm sorry," Cece said. "But I could just see him talking you back into that damn marriage. I couldn't stand seeing you unhappy anymore."
"I wouldn't have gone back. But I would have liked to have talked to him." Alison took a deep breath. "I love you, C, and I appreciate everything you've done for me, but you've got to get out of my life. It's my life."
"I know, honey." Cece fiddled with her cigarette. "But you need help. I mean, I let you pick the restaurant and look where we ended up." She glanced around at the plastic walls and the chipped Formica. "This place is a dump."
"I had a reason for wanting to come here," Alison said. "Scott wrote to me. He said if I'd have lunch here with him, he could explain everything." Alison looked around the cheap diner again, perplexed. "It doesn't seem like his kind of place."
"Do you want him back?" Cece asked. "I'll get him back if that's what you want."
"No." Alison pressed her lips together and stabbed her salad again. "That's not what I want."
"Well, what do you want? Just tell me what you want I'll make it happen."
Alison smacked her fork down. "You can't Or you won't I want to live my own life. I want to make my own mistakes. I want you to be my friend, not my keeper. You don't have to take care of me."
"I know I don't have to." Cece frowned. "But I want to. I want you to be happy. You never have any fun anymore."
"I don't want to have fun." Alison took a deep breath. "Do you know what I want?"
Cece shook her head, her eyes on Alison.
"I want to be independent. I want to take care of myself, without you racing to the rescue with money and lawyers. You always tell me when I'm wrong and you're always right, and most of the time I don't mind it, but then I married Scott, and he was worse than you are. And now look at my life. It's a mess." Alison stuck her chin out. "So, I'm changing. I want to make my own mistakes and mop up after them myself. I want to talk to my ex-husband without you threatening him with death. And if I want to dye my hair purple or adopt another ten dogs or...or..." Her eyes twitched to the girl across the room. "Or go out with a hot girl. I want you to stay the fuck out. It's my life. I want it back."
"Oh."
"I appreciate everything you've done for me. Just stop doing it."
"All right." Cece picked a cucumber slice out of Alison's salad. "Hot girl, huh?"
Alison slid down a little in her seat. "Probably not. Not again. That was just big talk."
"What about that hottie across the room you keep looking at?"
"Oh, no." Alison closed her eyes. "I'm that transparent?"
"Well, she doesn't seem to have noticed." Cece glanced across the room. "She really is attractive, though. Your tastes aren't so bad."
Alison looked at the two people across the room again out of the corner of her eye. The girl was talking, her fingers slashing the air while he spoke.
"She's gorgeous," Alison said.
"That she is. I'd be all up on that, if I swung that way. So if that's what you want, let me see what I can do." Cece started to get up.
"No. wait. Don't you dare go there. It's my fantasy," Alison said. "And sit down. You're not going over there and embarrass me."
Cece sat down. "But in all seriousness, She looks hot Ali but at the moment black leather would not be good for you."
"I can't tell you how tired I am of things that are supposedly good for me," Alison said.
"I know." Cece nodded sympathetically. "But that doesn't mean you should commit emotional hari-kari. That girl looks unstable."
Alison's eyes went back to the black leather. "Actually, you know, she's just what you ordered. What I'm feeling for her is definitely spontaneous and irresponsible."
Cece looked at her and frowned. "Maybe if you just used her for the cheap thrill and then discarded her."
"I couldn't do that." Alison tore her eyes away from her. "I could never do that. I'd better just concentrate on being independent without the hot girl part."
But she looked back at the girl in black leather one more time and sighed.
"I can feel it." In the booth across the room, Emily tapped her fingers on the scarred table. "Scott's here. Or he's been here. Or somebody he knows is here. Or..."
Toby leaned back. "All right. He's here. So are we. But it's been an hour and I'm getting bored, so just point him out to me, and we'll arrest him and go. He's disguised as one of those two women, right?"
"Fine." Emily glared at him. "Don't help. I'll do this without you. Fine." She drummed her fingers on the table.
"Emily, I want to get him as much as you do," Toby said patiently. "He's thumbed his nose at every cop who's tried to nail him in the last nine months. And the million and a half he's traveling on is not chicken feed. But I need more than just one of your instincts to keep me in this dive any longer."
Emily slapped the table and then drummed her fingers again. "Look, we got an honest-to-God phone tip that he'd be here, and it's the best thing we've got so far. It's not like we have anything else on this thing. It's not like—"
"Emily," Toby interrupted her. "You're driving me crazy."
"What? Oh. The fingers?" Emily stopped drumming on the table. "Sorry."
"No, not the fingers. Although that's got to stop, too. No, it's the way you've been acting lately." Toby shook his head slowly. "That was a bad moment today with Jerry. I thought you were really going to kick him."
"Me? Naw." Emily paused. "Probably not."
"Exactly." Toby nailed him with a frown. "That's what I'm talking about. The 'probably' part. And all this rambling about quitting. I don't like it You've always been nuts. That's fine. I can deal with nuts. But lately, you've been depressed nuts. I can't deal with that."
"I'm not depressed." Emily picked up a package of sugar, tore it across the middle, and dumped it in his coffee. "I'm not elated right now, but I'm not depressed."
"You just decapitated a sugar packet. That should tell you something."
Emily stared at the mutilated packet and then tossed it on the table. "I'll tell you something. I was really disappointed in old Jerry today. I mean, I felt sorry for the poor sap, and then he pulled a gun on us, and I thought damn, nobody's decent anymore. And then he shot at us, and I was really mad." Emily shook her head. "Sometimes I think there aren't any decent people in the world anymore." She tasted her coffee and frowned. "So maybe the job's getting me down a little, but I'm not depressed."
"You are depressed." Toby spoke clearly and calmly, as if he were speaking to the mentally ill. "And your depression is affecting our work. I know what's wrong."
Emily glared at him. "Have I ever mentioned how much I hate it that you were a psych minor? A minor, for cripes' sake. With a minor, you're not even allowed to psychoanalyze dogs."
"It's because you're worried about getting older. It started when you turned thirty."
"I don't want to talk about it." Emily turned her attention back to the restaurant. "Do those two girl look guilty to you? There's something strange about blondes. I think it's their hair. That hair is not real."
"Ever since your birthday, you've been snarling at the new guys on the force. And I have shoes older than the women you've been dating." Toby shook his head. "You are really transparent on this one."
Emily scowled at him. "It's not age. Hell, you're the same age I am."
"Yes, but I'm not depressed about it."
"Well, you should be." Emily fiddled with her spoon, spattering the scarred tabletop with flecks of coffee. "Remember Falk, the old guy I started out on patrol with? There's a kid on patrol with him right now... I was in middle school when he was born. He lived down the block from me."
"Emily, you're thirty. These things happen. So there are people who are younger than you are. Deal with it. But you're still young too"
"I'm not as fast as I used to be, either." Emily dropped her voice. "When we play one on one? I'm slowing down. A lot."
"This is all in your mind. I haven't noticed you getting any slower."
"That's because you're getting slower, too."
Toby narrowed his eyes. "Do you mind if we keep this your depression? Personally, I am getting better, not older."
"You're getting older. But you don't care because you've always been the brains. Brains don't age."
"Oh, fine. And that makes you what? The brawn?" Toby leaned back and folded his arms. "I can take you anytime, turkey."
"No, I'm the instinct. Lightning-fast instinct." Emily sent her eyes around the diner again before she turned back to Toby. "But lately, I'm losing it. When we were chasing that guy on the fortieth floor yesterday? The one on the roof? For a minute, just for a minute, I thought, 'This is nuts. I'm going to fall off a roof because somebody just boosted somebody else's camcorder. It's not worth it.' And then today with Jerry? I kept looking at that damn desk, thinking, 'That's going to hurt when I have to go over it' I kept hoping he'd surrender so I wouldn't have to go over that damn desk. I tell you, I'm losing it."
"Look, lightning, you are not getting slower, you are not losing your instincts, and you are not going to die. You are just growing up. And, may I add, not a moment too soon."
"I'm serious—"
"So am I." Toby pointed his finger at Emily, and Emily shut up. "You have been going ninety miles an hour ever since I met you eighteen years ago. I used to watch you and think, 'How does she do that?' and marvel. Then I grew up, and now I watch you and think, 'Why does she do that?' You have nothing to prove to anybody, and you're still acting like some hotshot TV cop." Toby leaned forward. "Not chasing the camcorder off the roof was good. It was a sign of maturity."
"Don't say that word," Emily said. "Maturity means death."
"It does not. What's wrong with you?"
Emily started drumming her fingers again. "I don't know. Sometimes... You know, my friends are all married. They've got husbands, they've got kids, they've got big houses, they've got responsibilities." She scowled at Toby. "It's like they're living death."
"I've met your friends. They're happy. What are you talking about?"
"Responsibility," Emily said. "Maturity. The minute I stopped chasing that camcorder, death said hello."
Toby started to laugh. "I don't believe this. You've always been a flake, but this, this is new. You know what you need?"
"Nothing. I need nothing. I'll be fine."
"You need to settle down. Look, you used to live for this job, but it's not enough anymore. That's good. But you look at your friends, and you want what they've got, and it scares you, so you become depressed instead. That's bad. Face it. Maturity is not death. It's just the next step in life. Most people encounter it sooner than you did, but you'll do fine." Toby sipped his coffee. "You will have to change the kind of women you date, though."
"What's wrong with the kind of women I date?"
"They're younger than your car, they carry knives, and they ride motorcycles naked on I-75."
"Well, they beat those plastic Yuppies you hang out with. What's the latest one's name? Cheryl? Please." Emily rolled her eyes.
"Cheryl has many fine qualities," Toby said without much enthusiasm.
"Name one."
"She can read. Have you ever dated anyone literate?"
"Look, I don't want to date anybody right now."
"You're not dating?" Toby frowned at her. "There are no women in your life?"
"I'm resting." Emily leaned back in the booth and tapped her fingers on the cracked upholstery. "I'm concentrating on my career."
"Oh, good for you. So how long has it been since you... dated?"
"New Year's Eve."
Toby shook his head. "That's two months. That alone could make you depressed."
"I'm not that depressed." Emily's tapping picked up speed. "Could we get off this please?"
"All right, you're not ready for a wife. Start small. Get a dog."
"A dog? A dog?" Emily slapped the table. "A dog. That's all I need is some dopey dog with big sad eyes telepathically telling me he never sees me and where have I been?"
"Emily..."
"Besides, I had a dog once. I got him when I was three."
"Emily..."
"I went away to college and he died. Dogs are a responsibility. You can't leave them."
"You went away to college." Toby cast an imploring look at the ceiling. "I don't believe this. Emily, if you got him when you were three, he was fifteen by the time you went to college. That's 105 in dog years. He died because he was old, not because you went to college."
Emily wasn't listening. "You start taking responsibility for things, they worry you. I don't need that. Worry slows you down. You start to second-guess everything. And then, pretty soon, the instincts go. That's why I hang out with you. Nothing ever happens to you."
"Thank you," Toby said. "I think. All right, a dog is not a good idea, but maybe—"
"Look, could we get back to work here? This conversation is really depressing me."
"Fine. But think about what I said." Emily scowled at him and Toby held up his hand. "All right, Back to work. Now, which one of those two women over there does your sixth sense tell you is John Scott, embezzler?" He studied them. "The tall hot blonde has a mean look to her, but I suppose the other blonde's a possible, too."
"You don't think the other blonde's hot?" Emily shook her head. "You have no taste in women. The hair's a little long, but the face is good, and the body is excellent."
"How do you know? They're sitting down."
"She went to the counter to get another fork. I may be getting older, but I'm not dead yet. The blonde would definitely be worth some time." Emily squinted over at her. "You know, I think she's been looking at me."
"Right."
"Hey. Women look at me. It happens."
"Well, at least you're not depressed anymore." Toby checked his watch. "We've wasted an hour here for nothing. Would you like to arrest the blonde so you can pat her down, or shall we just leave?"
"Fine. Make fun." Emily shoved her coffee away and tossed some coins on the table as a tip. "But I'm telling you right now, there's something here that would have helped us break this Scott case. And now we'll never know."
"I can live with that," Toby said.
"That's because you have no instincts," Emily said.
"Okay," Cece said as Alison finished her salad. "Let's concentrate on the basics—getting your new life started."
"Let's not," Alison said.
"First of all, you've got to get rid of anything of Scott's that's left. Then we've got to change your hair. And then I'll fix you up with some presentable men I know. Everyone I know has money, so at least you'll be eating in decent restaurants. Not like this dump."
"Cece," Alison said. "No dating. I will fix my hair because it looks awful, but no dating."
"What about Scott's papers? I think you should throw whatever he left out on the lawn. Or better yet, burn it and dance around the flames."
"Cece, that's ridiculous. You're blowing this out of proportion."
"No, I'm not. Psychologically, this is a very big deal. Get rid of his things and you'll get rid of him."
"I am rid of him," Alison protested. "I just want to talk to him so I know what happened. I don't want him back."
"Good Remember that." Cece stood and took her black silk trench coat from the rack at the end of the booth. Then she handed Alison her bright blue jacket and bag. "What have you got in that bag? It weighs a ton."
"My physics book, remember? I brought it so if the divorce got boring, I could review. And sure enough..." Cece closed her eyes. "I have to save you. This is too painful." She jabbed her finger at Alison. "You go home and start throwing Scott out. I'll make an appointment for your hair tomorrow."
"Cece. No. If I want my hair done, I will do it."
"I know this wonderful woman on Court Street..."
"No."
Cece stopped. "All right. But at least get rid of Scott."
"Maybe." Alison took a deep breath, full of independence. "Maybe."
"Damn it. I was sure there'd be something about Scott here." Emily stood.
"Your blonde's leaving," Toby said and they both turned to watch.
They were splitting up, the taller blonde heading for the back door to the parking lot, the other blonde to the street door. Just before she got to the door, Cece turned.
"Alison," she called, and it sounded like an order. "I mean it. As soon as you get home."
"All right, all right," the blonde said. "As soon as I get home, I will get rid of Scott." Then she turned and walked out the door.
"HA! Instinct," Emily said and took off after her hot blonde.
"I hate it when you do this," Toby said, and moved toward the parking-lot door to stop the other blonde.
A/N
Hi guys. this my first story for the Emison fandom. I love Alison. So this story is based on a book i've read as a teenager. I will be putting my own spin on it. I hope you guys like it. enjoy