thank you to everyone who subscribed, favourited and reviewed this story!
----------x----------x----------x----------
Unexpected Diversions
----------x----------x----------x----------
Chapter Six
The Difference Between Cruise Ships and Boats
Mem paused, feeling as though some devilish four-year-old had whisked away the floor from beneath her feet. It was maddening, and darn it, she hated kids.
"You-you agree?" She hazarded, blinking headlights.
Near didn't bother to give her an affirmative, instead, he settled for twirling his hair idly around his forefinger, watching her all the while with his vacant stare. It was rather unsettling. (Not that she was unsettled, mind you, merely put out).
"You agree to my idea," she tried again, feeling the need to stress the 'my.' To her, it felt entirely possible he was under the impression they were talking of his genius, his brilliance, his plan. She wouldn't have put it past him to immediately assume these things when anything remotely intelligent was brought up.
Apparently it was only now Near found an answer was required. "Yes, that is what I said." It was said in the same cool, detached manner he always had, only laced with hints of strained amusement.
"Good?" She asked, a question more than anything else. Her feet were still dangling in mid-air, and she hated herself for it.
"Good," he echoed her, and Mem doubted even he knew why.
"Well then," she scrambled to make up for lost ground, straightening her back, hands linked precariously in front of her, "thank you."
He inclined his head only slightly toward her, the white mop assaulting his face, before he spoke again.
"Of course, there are several major flaws to your plan, all of which must be dealt with within the next few days," he sighed just a little, as though the world had crashed on his lungs at that moment, "I suppose I'll be leading that, too."
Mem found the sudden desire to hit him a hard one to repress. She resorted to linking her hands together in a death hold, her fingers wrestling each other painfully.
"What should we do in the meantime?" Sherry asked.
"I'll find something, rest assured," Near turned his attention back to his Lego as he said this, pale fingers cradling his prize.
"Like what?" Barked the Chief, the words managing to escape clearly despite the toothpick rammed between his lips.
"Hm," he breathed, holding the miniature brick in front of one dark eye, examining it closely. He appeared only to be half-listening. "Something."
"Great," muttered the Chief, folding his bulky arms across his chest. "Just great. Can I remind you we don't even know what's going on here? I sure am sick of all this vagueness."
Seconds ticked by, while all glanced down nervously at Near, who was absorbed in his construction work; utterly content. Just as the Chief began to feel the need to repeat himself, Near's voice rang out.
"Mem?" He asked.
She glanced up from her staring contest with her hands, who untangled themselves merrily at the small victory. "Yes?"
"Good," he nodded, turning back to his task.
Mem stared down his half-turned back, willing by sheer force of her eyes he would turn around and say something at least mildly cohearent. She failed though, as it seemed the young man had some supernatural immunity toward death glares. He continued fiddling with the plastic idly.
She sighed, ultimately willing to humor him, if only this one time. "What?" She conceded, internally making a note to knock ten years off his mental age.
"Would be so kind to explain my decision, Mem?" He responded airily, his back still teasing her.
His decision, was it now? Mem internally fumed, her hands seeking out violence on their own accord. The palms wrestled together with a vengeance.
"Of course," she spoke, the tension in her voice straining. "It's been decided that I will take up this position, after all-"
"No," Sherry spoke firmly, her face quite red, "send someone else to be the telemarketer or what have you – heck, send me. I will not have you sent off into some man's clutches-"
"The decision has been made, detective," Near interrupted, his monotone steady as always.
Mem couldn't help but feel a little compassion toward the woman who so earnestly wanted to protect her, so she let kindness color her words.
"Thank you, Sherry. But with the approach I've constructed, danger won't be such an issue, I believe. If there is any chance of that, like L said, he will be taking care of it shortly."
Then it came to business. She cleared her throat. "Our suspect's wife was pregnant roughly seventeen years ago. However, since they separated before the birth of the child, and the former wife would not allow contact of any kind, he is not aware that there was a miscarriage. As far as he knows, there is a seventeen-year-old child out there that is his own, whom he has never been able to meet."
"You," the Chief emphasized this by pointing one thick finger straight at Mem.
"Exactly," she agreed, then frowned slightly. "Though, as L has said, there are a few flaws to this plan that could be detrimental if not carefully avoided. For example, if our suspect should decide to contact his wife, he undoubtedly will learn that I am not his child, or if he shows no interest in having a child at all, and tells me to leave."
"So what – you plan to waltz up to him tomorrow morning with a 'hey dad,'" he paused at this point, one hand buried in his pocket, the other in mid-air for a short, awkward wave to prove his point, "and you'll win his trust? Will you stay with him? How can you even convince him you're the kid?" The officer questioned incredulously, his hand still hanging in mid-air.
"Of course not," Near spoke from behind the plastic towers, making his voice sound strangely synthetic, "we must perform this infiltration carefully. We need to watch him as closely as we can, so we may be able to predict his reaction to Mem. He may surprise us all with an affectionate, maternal side."
The Chief tried to disguise his disbelieving laughter as a coughing fit. His toothpick flew from his lips in the process to land by Sherry's shoe, who flinched in disgust.
"And how can we be sure he won't contact his ex-wife during all this? It seems like the first thing he'll do," the Chief recovered, smiling apologetically at Sherry, though it delivered itself something closer to a grimace.
"In the chance that he does try to contact her, regarding Mem or otherwise, we can be certain he will find nothing suspicious," Near told them idly.
"Why's that?" Sherry asked the inevitable question.
"Because," Near didn't so much as miss a beat, as if glad for the queue, "as we speak, the former Mrs. Haddaway is reading her mail, in which one of the letters informs her of her luck in winning a month-long cruise around the Islands of Hawaii."
"You bought a boat?" Mem cried in disbelief.
"Don't be absurd," he sniffed affectively, "I hired a cruise ship. Boats are the rounded wooden structures tribes often employ to catch fish. Quite the difference, you see."
"Well, a cruise ship just makes it all the more better," she sighed.
"In any case, she'll be enjoying a little break where Mr. Haddaway cannot reach her."
"Won't it seem a little odd that Mem suddenly pops up into his life after seventeen years, and his wife is sent on a cruise to an undisclosed location – at least to him - at the same time?" Sherry asked, ticking off each detail on her fingers.
"Not at all, because this is where you come in, Sherry," Near eyed her.
"Me?" She asked, surprised.
"It's safe to say that even under every day circumstances, the former Mrs. Haddaway would have never agreed to see her husband again face-to-face."
Near halted here to inspect a singular white strand of hair he had accidentally pulled out with all his finger-twirling before continuing.
"With this in mind, we can safely use Sherry to be Mrs. Haddaway's "voice" over the phone without causing too much suspicion if she declines any offers to meet. That way he will have all the assurances he needs of Mem's authenticity – just not face-to-face."
The Chief, by some small miracle, had found another toothpick, which was immediately forced between his lips. "Does Sherry even sound like the woman?" He murmured around it.
Near bowed his head, his untidy hair shielding his face entirely as he responded quietly. "I can assure you, Chief, that after seventeen or so years, the easiest thing to do is forget the sound of someone's voice."
----------x----------x----------x----------
Mem was tired.
No, tired was the wrong word.
The state of being tired implied willingness to sleep. It implied a significant deficiency in brain activity and physical endurance. You were tired after you climbed Mount Everest, while learning Italian all the way up at the same time.
Mem wasn't sure she'd even seen photographs of Mount Everest, let alone step foot near it.
No, Mem was exhausted.
Exhaustion was what took over when you had spent an entire day in the company of Near and his small band of recruits. Exhaustion was what happened after hours of planning and debating and wondering and plotting. You could be exhausted, and still feel as though it would take a miracle to fall asleep.
She was exhausted.
They had been booked into a hotel, all of them but Near, who of course preferred the comfort of his mattress which no doubt somehow survived the age of dinosaurs.
On the way to her booked room she had seen no one, which made her wonder if he had hired the place just as he had with his boat. It didn't look impossible, in fact, it seemed the most likely option now. From lying on the covers of her bed she huffed; the convenience of money.
She had never known wealth. She doubted she ever would, and this foresight never bothered her. Besides, wealth was only for those who wanted to hire cruise ships and book out entire hotels at a time.
Her parents had been liberal with their money. In fact, it wasn't until their deaths that she discovered how liberal. It wasn't as if they had saved a small fortune, no – far from it. But it was enough. Enough to live; enough to eat, enough to pay board each week in the small house for Disadvantaged Teenagers.
'Disadvantaged.' of course, meaning orphaned.
Orphaned.
The thought brought her back to the original cause of her internal ranting; Near.
It was still a struggle to grasp the concept of the small, docile, ghost-like boy being the world-renowned L. Of course his intellect and genius recommended him, but when no words left his mouth, and he was doing nothing but admiring his servile robot, he looked like nothing but a crippled boy.
But what she hated most, was the pity she felt for him when she saw him like that.
----------x----------x----------x----------
"You're up early."
Mem had woken early the following morning, as she usually did. Her eyes opened to the surreal feel of a plump blanket beneath her and several soft pillows beneath her head. Slightly disconcerted by such comfort, she flung herself off the bed, as if it was a pile of hot coals rather than a billowing peak of duck feather.
From a fleeting glimpse out the window to the streets below, she had spied the same black, classy car waiting, parked on the curb, as if it had been waiting there all night. Without wasting time, she had got ready and flung herself in without much more than a "Morning" to the usual driver.
So here she was, waiting awkwardly at the entrance of the warehouse, the barely-risen sun peeking through the gaps by her elbows, as she was greeted with the somewhat obvious statement from Near. He himself looked as though his body had never touched the sorry excuse for a mattress, his own odd mix of alert and tranquil as always.
"Yes," she responded, peeking out at the pale gold sun as if for clarification, "I am."
"You sleep in rarely?" He asked boorishly, poking at his airplanes with his back to her, sitting cross-legged on the cold, concrete floor.
"Never," she confirmed, still eyeing off the early sun.
"Never? That's quite a hefty statement."
"Ever give up those planes?" She countered. She could almost hear his small, half-moon smile curl up lazily on his face.
"Never."
She tried to bate down the smile that threatened to take over her face. Even with his back turned to her, she was sure he wasn't fooled.
"I've been thinking," Near began, in which the irony of such a statement was not lost on Mem. Again, she managed to fight down an amused smile. "Of this man who managed to break into your sister's house."
"Oh?"
"Yes," he nodded vaguely, more to himself than anything, "I was considering the connections between him, our suspect; Mr. Haddaway, and your sister."
"Really?"
He nodded again, and sent a plane flying over his head, a small 'whoosh' barely audible passing through his lips as he did so.
"And what have you found?" Mem prompted, recalling his need to be asked questions.
He shrugged, disrupting the plane's flight course detrimentally by doing so, his thin shoulders heaving at the effort.
"I never said I found anything. I merely said I was considering it."
Mem sighed heavily and glared at the offending back below her.
"You haven't faced me once this morning, you know," she told him, irritated.
"And? What is that meant to mean?" His voice was the same idle monotone, yet his plane had halted in mid-air.
Mem shrugged, not denying herself the small smile that was now finally allowed to break free. "I never said it meant anything. I was merely making an observation."
He twisted now to face her, perhaps from guilt, or perhaps just to spite her and prove her wrong. He had to tilt his face upwards to make eye contact with her from all the way down on the floor, and found the head movement bizarrely unnatural for his neck.
"Were quite the pair, wouldn't you say?" He informed her quietly.
Well if that wasn't cryptic, she didn't know what was. "Are we?" She asked, eyebrow raised, trying her utmost to appear off-hand.
"Mm," he confirmed vaguely, before twisting back to face his airport and relevant craft. His back to her once again, he spoke. "Of course, any brilliance that may arise from our working together in cooperation comes 84% from my end."
"Isn't it just fascinating that whatever I do, I always manage to find myself in the lowest banks of inferiority?"
"Not fascinating, but true."
She smirked. "What's true is the fact you can only insult me when your back is turned toward me. A little cowardly, wouldn't you say?"
Near almost visibly sighed, though the gush of air was more than audible. "And for a small moment there I thought we were capable of carrying out a polite conversation."
"How utterly boring," Mem concluded.
He twisted to face her again to say something, but a loud bang stopped him short.
"Morning!" Sherry cried jovially from the doorway. "Really need to get that thing fixed; it makes one hell of a ruckus!"
----------x----------x----------x----------
Really glad Sherry came in then – even I didn't know what the hell I was going to make Near say :/
suggestions/critique/flattery welcome
traditional review bribery/prostitution: I got nothing.
Wait! I know – I'd love to hear some reviewers sharing what they like to read most in a romance/ Near/OC/ death note fanfiction
tell me, my pretties, tell me