A/N: A mid-week update. It feels like I'm cheating on real life. Not a great chapter, sorry. Lots of stilted dialogue. Completely fanciful - indulge me.
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For disclaimer see Chapter 1.
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CC can't remember how she gets home. She sits in her kitchen. Pours a drink with shaking hands. Then she stands and pours it down the sink instead. She picks up the phone, dials Maxwell's number. Stupid idea. She puts it down again.
She needs a shower. Shrugs off her jacket, unbuttons her dress. She stands in front of the mirror in the lingerie she'd expected Niles to be ripping off her. Somehow she looks different now; after the fact. And there's something missing. Oh shit. Her necklace is gone. It's probably still in the alley, tangled in innards. Oh, shit.
CC Babcock is a hellish talented woman. She's intelligent and confident and cool under pressure. An asset in any boardroom, invaluable behind any desk. She's decisive and forceful and everything a man should be, with all the bits no man can refuse. And she knows there's not one room she can't command. Yet here she is, losing her grip.
She doesn't even know where Niles is, it's not like she can call him. He said he'd be watching, but of course failed to explain what the hell that meant. She seriously considers hanging a white sheet from her window before she remembers he's no dashing hero, and she sure as hell isn't the damsel in distress. She can do this.
OK. So the police will have her necklace. It'll have her fingerprints all over it. It's a £300,000 one-of-a-kind Harry Winston, with more diamonds than are strictly necessary. It's registered in her name, along with the matching bracelet still on her wrist. She needs to get rid of it. There's nowhere she can stuff it the police can't search. There's no one she can give it to she can trust to keep quiet. She could flush it down the toilet. She'd rather go to jail.
She goes to her bedroom, packs a bag. Gets ready to leave. Stands up, realises what she's done, laughs out loud to the empty apartment. Unpacks the bag.
She doesn't sleep all night. She gets into her silk pyjamas and slips between 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. And then she stares at the ceiling for 8 hours. Waiting for tomorrow. In fact she lies there until her alarm bleeps. She reaches slowly to turn it off. She gets up, brews her coffee, scrambles her eggs. Showers and dresses and wears too much perfume. Sticks to her routine like glue.
Only it isn't that easy.
There's a phone call for her that afternoon. She's been expecting it, and somehow rises on steady legs. It's the FBI. They've found something that might belong to her, and they're wondering if it wouldn't be terribly inconvenient for them to pay her a visit within the next half hour. Of course not, she hears herself say. She'd be delighted to help in any way she can.
As she puts the phone down, Maxwell walks in.
'CC, have you seen Niles this afternoon?'
'He's not here?' She asks. Maxwell shakes his head.
'He's been gone all day. Weren't you two out together last night?'
'Yes,' she says, 'but don't worry, I had him home at a sensible time.' Maxwell drops that conversation like a hot poker.
'Who was on the phone?' He asks.
'The FBI.' Maxwell isn't amused.
'Well when he calls back can you tell him I'm not paying him to pull sick days?' And he starts to leave. As CC watches him go, she feels cold. She has no clue what she's doing. She's terrified. She's alone. She needs help.
'Maxwell,' she says. He turns around. 'It was the FBI on the phone. They have some questions for me.'
'Questions about what?'
'They didn't say. But I would imagine it has something to do with a necklace of mine being found next to a dead body a few blocks from the cinema Niles and I went to last night.' His jaw actually drops.
'CC –'
'Don't ask me.'
'CC –'
'Don't ask me, Max.' She says. 'Do you know any good lawyers?'
'Well I'm not half bad.'
And he looks at her, this man with whom for decades she was hopelessly in love, and he's offering to help her – to help them. The words don't come.
She'd assumed Special Agent Greg Simon would be wearing a raincoat. That he wouldn't have shaved in a while, or that his hair would be ruffled. That he'd be unthreatening, trying to lure her into a false sense of security. No such luck. He'd come alone, striding in wearing a power suit. All whitened teeth and golden badge and dazzling shoes. His features look almost delicate beneath cropped black hair. He is older that CC expected, but when he crushes her hand in his she realises she has been duped. Special Agent Greg Simon, it seems, is perfectly fine being completely fucking terrifying.
They go through to the office, Maxwell listening with a pad and pencil in the kitchen, finally understanding what had kept Niles glued to the intercom all those years.
'How can I help? I'm sorry; do I call you Agent or Special Agent?' She asks, trying for her most endearing smile. Remembering too late she's never really had one.
'Either's fine,' he says. 'I'll jump right in Miss Babcock; I need to ask you a couple of questions.'
'Of course. About what?' They sit down, CC in Maxwell's chair.
'Where were you at midnight last night?'
'I was on a date.'
'With whom?'
'Niles.'
'Niles?'
'The butler.'
'The butler have a last name?'
'I don't know.'
'You don't know?' He doesn't believe her. 'Ma'am, how long have you know this man?'
'About 20 years.'
'And you don't know his last name?' Oh, shit.
'That'd be correct.'
'Where'd you go?'
'The cinema in Times Square.'
'Which one?' He asks.
'The Empire.'
'What did you see?'
'I...' Oh, shit '...I don't remember what it was called.'
'Well what was it about?'
'I don't remember.'
'You don't remember?' He's threatening to smile.
'I wasn't paying much attention.'
'What time did it finish?'
'About 11:15.'
'And how did you get home?'
'Cab.'
'You have the receipt?'
'No.'
'Where is it?'
'Niles paid.'
'And where is the mysterious Niles?'
Maxwell strides in, years in the theatre having honed his sense of timing.
'Alright, I think Miss Babcock has answered enough questions.'
'And who are you? Asks Simon. There's something in his eyes CC doesn't like.
'Maxwell Sheffield, Miss Babcock's lawyer.'
'Miss Babcock needs a lawyer?' He's playing with them, enjoying himself.
'Special Agent Simon,' Maxwell asks, 'why are you here?'
'There was a murder last night.'
'There were a lot of murders last night.'
'We have reason to suspect that your client may have been involved.'
'What reason?'
'I just wanted to ask her a few simple questions.' Simon smiles.
'Why are the FBI involved?' Maxwell asks, and CC wonders why he ever bothered with the theatre.
'The man killed was a foreign national.'
'And that proved too much for New York's Finest?'
'He was a spy, working for British Intelligence.' He looks Maxwell up and down. 'What little British Intelligence there is.'
'I'll need time to talk to my client.'
'She'll need to come with me down to the local precinct.'
'She's not going anywhere with you.' CC thinks they may be about to come to blows. She likes it.
In the end Maxwell drives them down to the station. He says nothing. He's so used to being driven that now he can barely drive in the city. It's entirely possible the brooding silence is just concentration.
'CC, you need to tell me what's going on.'
'What if I can't?'
'You don't have a choice; do you see what's happening here? They're going to accuse you of murder, and the only defence we have right now is "I wasn't paying much attention." It's me CC, Maxwell, the more I know the more I can help you.'
There is silence in the car.
'CC, where is Niles?'
'I have no idea.' He throws his hand up violently. As it lands it honks the horn, and his exasperation turns to embarrassment. 'Maxwell, he didn't tell me where he was going.'
'What happened?'
'I don't know. We were walking home and there was a man. He had a gun and I thought he was robbing us, but Niles pulled out a knife. They were on the floor, and Niles told me to turn around. Then he had blood on his shirt and the man's intestines were on the floor.'
'Then what?'
'We got into a cab, went to some building in the Village. Niles had a key. There was a bag. Niles changed his clothes and said I couldn't help him and then he just left.'
'You went straight home after that?'
'I think so.'
'And you left your necklace behind?'
'Yes.'
'They can tie you to it?'
'Yes. It's a custom-made Harry Winston.'
'You wore Harry Winston to the cinema?' He sounds more surprised than when she told him his butler was a killer.
'What did Niles say afterwards?' He continues.
'That they'd worked together a long time ago. That there were others.'
'How many others?'
'Three.'
'What did he tell you about them?'
'Nothing.'
'CC –'
'Nothing at all.'
Silence in the car. When CC looks over at Maxwell, she almost mistakes his expression for fear.
When they get to the precinct it's exactly how CC had feared. There are doughnuts and coffee machines and people using the word 'perp.' They give her coffee when she asks for tea, they take her fingerprints and give her forms to sign. Maxwell appears from nowhere, grabbing her arm and dragging her into an out-of-use interview room. He looks terrified.
'Max, what is it?' He says nothing. 'What do you know?'
'Nothing.'
She can't believe what she's hearing.
'You have got to be kidding me,' she screeches. 'Do you know what intestines look like when they're spread out on the sidewalk?' He pales.
'Alright.'
'Would you like me to go into very graphic detail?'
'I said alright! He pauses for a moment.
'Niles and I went to school together. We'd been close before, but at Oxford we drifted apart, started moving in different circles. He got in with a particular crowd. There were 5 of them. They were more popular and more intelligent than the rest of us. They were certainly louder.' He smiles fondly. 'They would stay up till dawn drinking and smoking and talking the big talk. We all wanted to be them. But when we graduated it all went silent.'
'What do you mean?'
'They just vanished. We didn't hear anything from any of them for years. Until one day Niles turned up at my door with a bullet in his side.'
'What?'
'He'd been recruited at Oxford by MI6. They'd shipped him out to some godforsaken country the day after we graduated.'
'What happened to him?'
'He quit. Or got kicked out. He never quite made it clear,' they share a smile. 'Either way, he said there were people after him now and he needed to disappear. So I married Sarah and we came to New York; started a new life with Niles as our butler.'
'That's ludicrous,' she says, 'how could Niles be a spy? He's the least discreet man in the country.'
'He wasn't always like that. In New York he became a man who could never be found.'
'I don't believe it.' Says CC.
'Then don't. Someone's dead and you're as good as in jail for it. It doesn't matter what you believe.'
There is a knock at the door. Maxwell stands, opens it. There's some mumbling.
'I'll be back in two minutes,' he tells her. And leaves.
There's another knock at the door. She goes to open it, but the person on the other side just walks straight in. Her stomach drops. Niles.