A/N: Many thanks to all who are reading and/or reviewing. Your words about the story and my writing mean a great deal to me. SJ

Pale Moon Burning Sun

Where do they belong?

Chapter 2

Face sagging in tiredness, lips thinning in tension, but eyes relentlessly scrutinizing; always seeking answers.

"How did she do in the field today?"

"Good Mac, she did good."

"I'm counting on you to keep tabs on the situation; I let her go back in early partly on your recommendation."

Damn, Mac didn't suspect ... did he?

"I'm on top of it, Mac."

"Okay, keep me posted on the case." Eyebrows cocked. "Given any more thought to what we discussed?"

"Definitely considering it."

"Unless you can give a reason otherwise, I strongly urge you to take it. This would put you back on the promotion grid." Reassuring nod, "You're ready."

But what about the reason I shouldn't take it?

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Movements sure, efficient and graceful; focus zoned across her face. Images flickered in his mind of other moments when her focus was similarly intense, although more intimately expressed. In both instances she was poetry in motion.

A glance and a beckoning smile.

"Got anything yet?"

"Prints on the cuff links match the vic."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing. We need to put a name to the initials on the cuff links."

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The interior, no less dank and stale deeper within the bowels; the smell of smoke and sex sharper.

He loathed her being here again. But she had insisted ... again.

But they double-teamed effortlessly, he verbally, she visually. He cajoled for the previous night's receipts while she observed—angelically—which was not completely an act of deception.

Meticulous attention to detail: Bambi; Twyla; Pixie; Mocha; Delia— enshrined on the wall. Women of exaggerated features and poses intended only to arouse never to satisfy. A perpetual wheel of sin.

Did they have choices? What had made them choose this kind of life? Did they feel empty?

Choices had been made and she felt the emptiness.

"Ready to get outta here?" His voice filled her emptiness; his hand at her back told her there were choices.

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It was a dead end on the first attempt; a long-haired musician with little means or motive to own cuff links.

For the descent of three flights the view of broad shoulders steadied her.

Doors slamming; feet pounding; shouts echoing.

The vise of anxiety halted her at the final flight, her steadiness receding with the view of his shoulders.

He reacted, turning, taking stairs two at a time, upwards to her.

She, back against the wall, trembling, hands clutched low across her stomach.

His fingers at her elbow; a whoosh of sweaty air and the crack of juvenile teasing sailed by.

"Last one there's a rotten egg!"

A jumble of city sounds crested on the wave of squalid heat that swelled through the door.

"Just kids."

"I know" Her trembling breath failed to suppress the sensation of plummeting.

The heavy metal door sealed in the heat; the clanging echo battered the reverberations of the city sounds into dissipation, but not the swell of bitterness in her throat.

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Hushed tones further muted by lush carpeting.

"Take another look, Congressman Manes."

She nudged the photo of the pallid, young woman towards him.

He had bowed to her on this one, detecting that she sensed something, keenly aware of her abilities to get to a man.

"Maybe someone in passing; a campaign worker, an angry constituent, perhaps a rejected proposition?"

"Sorry," An abrupt rise from the luxuriously leathered chair. "Now, as fellow public servants, I'm sure you can relate to the busy schedule-"

"One more question?"

Feigning expansiveness, "Certainly, Detective."

"These cuff links with the initials T.W.B.M." Glib presentation of evidence. "Are they yours, Congressman? Congressman Thomas. William. Bedford. Manes."

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The specks of humanity eddied fathoms below him, oblivious to his blistering scorn.

The trip to power had been heady; entered by the closing of a lesser door, bought by strategic amalgamation and insured by unswerving loyalty.

He was a speck no longer.