ONE OF A KIND
Hope you enjoy
x
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I love Jack and Phryne together and I wish, so dearly, that they would do so in the show.
. . .
When Phryne awoke the next morning, she woke with a solution. She would do what she had never done previously: she would simply end any sexual tension between her and Jack. It couldn't be too difficult, she mused, to turn off her charm, could it?
"Morning Miss."
"Morning Dot!" Phryne smiled, proud of herself and her plan, if not still slightly shaken by her last night's argument with Jack.
"Good dreams?" Dot asked, folding the flung clothes.
Phryne's smile turned wicked as she remembered her dream. She wondered if Jack's body really looked as she had imagined it, not that she would ever get to see it if her plan worked. A slight downside, she supposed, but all in the line of duty. "Marvelous dreams Dot, though I won't corrupt you with the details."
Dot recognized the look on Phryne's face and blushed accordingly. Phryne laughed and patted her shoulder. "Never change," she told her companion.
Dot was sure she never would.
"What are your plans for today Miss?"
"Well I've got to find that man," Phryne said as if locating a shooter whom she didn't even know the name of was the simplest, most mundane task that had ever existed.
"And how will you find him?" Dot asked, trying very hard not to show her worry. Sometimes she wished Miss Fisher would take up a less dangerous occupation.
"I'll start with a visit to Miss Brown."
.
"Ah, Phryne dear," Mac smiled, recognizing immediately the woman donned in a colorful coat, and matching hat, that was making her way towards her. Phryne was never a woman that could be missed.
"Mac!" Phryne smiled and gave her old friend a big hug.
"Your visit, I suppose, is purely business?"
"Purely," Phryne said, taking her friends arm and steering them towards the ward that she knew housed Miss Brown.
"Your detective-inspector in there already," Mac informed her.
"My detective-inspector?"
Mac simply gave her a knowing raise of an eyebrow and left her to do her investigating. She had another surgery in less than half an hour and that didn't leave much time for food, let alone following Phryne around as she did what she did best.
Phryne found Jack seated beside Miss Brown's bed and Hugh standing and taking notes, not that there were many notes to me taken. Miss Brown, in seemed, was keeping her mouth securely zipped. What, Phryne wondered, kept a woman silent about the man who would try to kill her? There was the age old reason, there was fear, and there was love. Which was the case here?
"Delilah," Phryne sighed, taking up the chair on the opposite side of the bed to Jake and Miss Brown's soft hand.
"Miss Fisher," the girl managed.
"Phryne, really."
"Phryne," the girl said quietly. "I am so very sorry for putting you in harms way."
"Nonsense," Phryne smiled, patting Delilah's hand.
Phryne gave Jack a look that suggested he leave them alone to talk and he returned it with a look that told her that was not going to happen. Jack watched a furrow form in Phryne's very soft forehead. But she said nothing to him.
"Who was that man who shot you Delilah?"
"I… I don't know…" she managed. Phryne was now surer than ever that Miss Brown knew exactly who her attacker was. She may have left it at if the attacker hadn't also taken a shot at her.
"I don't believe that for a minute," Phryne told the woman matter-of-factly. Delilah seemed to be taken aback by Phryne's frank speak. "I will find him, you know. I don't appreciate being shot at."
"He wasn't thinking straight," Delilah tried to explain.
Phryne tried to hide her disgust.
"Who was he?"
Delilah didn't reply, but dropped her eyes. Phryne doubted she would get any more out of the girl. At least she knew one thing, it was definitely love that had her mouth firmly shut. Love and stupidity.
Jack saw the anger in Phryne and decided it was time to step in. "Thank you, Miss Brown."
"For what?" Phryne asked him once they were out of earshot. "She was completely unhelpful."
"Not all women can be like you, Miss Fisher."
"What, you think she's hiding his identity because she's scared?"
"It is," Jack said carefully, "a definite possibility."
"I disagree," Phryne said simply.
With that she was walking off in the opposite direction. Her next stop was the scene of the crime. She decided if Jack was going to be so stupid then not being attracted was going to be easy.
"You think she's not talking because she's afraid, sir?" Hugh Collins asked, his face full of question. He had been certain the girl hadn't appeared scared.
"Not for one moment Constable."
"But then… why…" Hugh decided not to bother asking. He was sure he would not understand.
.
Phryne found the door to the apartment covered with police tape and found a way around the tape just as easily. It looked very much as it had when she had last been there, only slightly more dusty. She went through the attack.
She had reached the door and heard the gun shot. The door had been locked and she'd… found a way in. Delilah brown had been on the floor, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Phryne kneeled and ran a fingered glove over the near black stain on the rug. The attacker, a man in his thirties, Phryne had guessed, had shot at her when she'd entered the apartment, missing narrowly, and Phryne had returned the fire. He'd escaped out the window before the police had arrived.
Phryne stood and walked to the window that had been shut to ensure no pests, or noisy detectives, could get in through it. Opening it, Phryne saw the dust that told her a policeman had taken prints.
She looked around and hoped for a piece of evidence that would jump out at her, tell her exactly whom her shooter was, and save her a lot of time. But where, she thought with a brief smile, would be the fun in that?
In the hinge of the window Phryne located a small piece of grey fabric. Not exactly a case-breaking piece of evidence, Phryne already knew the man had been wearing grey. But it did confirm her suspicions that the man had been at least mildly wealthy, the fabric was not a cheap one.
An hour later, Phryne emerged from the apartment building with little more knowledge than she had had when she'd entered. The most interest factoid she'd learnt was that Miss Delilah Brown, despite her young age, had an interest in family planning. Not exactly a crime. In fact, Phryne would have been quite proud of the girl for being smart if she weren't protecting the man who had nearly killed her. The only other constructive piece of evidence she had located were some letters. Perhaps she would find the lover hiding within them.
Phryne's thought was cut off by a gunshot. It took her only a brief moment to realize it was aimed at her. Most people would have dropped to the ground. Phryne pulled out her small pistol and shot at source of the gunfire: a man wearing a grey suit.
When he ran off, she ran after him, gun in hand incase he felt the need to turn back on her and shoot. Phryne wished she'd worn her walking shoes but knew there was little point in worrying about it now. She cursed when the man jumped into a car and was off. She shot after it put to no avail. It was gone. But, on the positive side, she had gotten the registration number.
. . .
I hope you're liking my story and remember,
Reviews are the best views! ;)
xoxo