A Note From Lara: Sorry about the slow updates. I've been super-busy, even during vacation (what is that about, anyway?) One week until the eclipse! Are you guys excited? But first- a homicide and an ominous painting... And then things will actually pick up and get interesting!
Again, I have to thank all of you who are faithfully following my wannabe masterpiece! It's been slow, I know, and you all deserve huge virtual cookies for sticking with me. But I faithfully promise that I have big things planned for this story, and once I REALLY get started, it's going to be a helluva ride (I hope).
--
For the next few days, life settled back into the usual routine. Tanya asked probing questions practically every few minutes- such things as what was it like to fly, and did Bruce Wayne use designer mousse- but other than that, she seemed to have recovered quite well from her initial shock.
I couldn't have been happier. My friends knew the truth about me and weren't running screaming for the hills. I had a (temporary) job that paid decently; I even had a savings account now. I'd already saved up three hundred dollars that I'd siphoned off the top of the portion of my weekly paycheck that didn't go toward rent. Yeah, life was sweet, and as far as I could see, it was smooth sailing from here on out.
Shows you how much I know.
Thursday rolled around, and as I sat behind my desk that afternoon, I began to fret. It wasn't like me to get stressed out over something as trivial as my meeting with Sam, but seriously what do you even say to someone you haven't seen in years and who thought you were dead? I mean, do you open with a joke, or bring up something from your childhood? And was I supposed to tell her the truth about where I'd been all these years? Sure, Tanya and Peter had believed me, but for some reason I had a sneaking suspicion that they were the exception, not the rule. There was no guarantee that Sam wouldn't just call the nearest psyche ward.
So if I wasn't telling her I'd spent the last nine years as a Gotham City crimefighter, what was my cover story? That I'd been taken hostage by a crazed kidnapper who'd used me as a sex slave? Nah. I had issues, sure, but not that many issues. I fell and hit my head and had amnesia and just now regained my memory? That might tie in with the video footage. But somebody would have found me wandering around, if that was the case. So that didn't hold water...
I was so busy chewing through a succession of pencils in my anxiety that I didn't notice Peter walking in just as the office was beginning to close down. "Hey," he said, grinning, "Something bothering you?" I tossed aside the third pencil I'd ruined for futher use in disgust, both at myself and at the pencil manufacturers for making such a cheap, easily damaged product. They really should do something about the quality of pencils.
"Nothing, really," I sighed. "Just, I'm reconnecting with one of my childhood friends today and I'm freaking out a little bit. I mean, I don't even know why I'm so worried. She was my best friend before that whole alternate-universe thing happened, it's not like I'm going to meet the President or something. But I just keep thinking that she'll get weirded out by the whole thing if I tell her the truth. And if I don't, will she actually believe whatever crapass lie I come up with to cover the past nine years? If she doesn't, what--"
My panicked flow of words was stopped by Peter putting his finger over my mouth, effectively shutting me up. "Sorry," I said when he removed his hand. "I should just come with a mute button, shouldn't I?"
Peter laughed. "I think anybody would be a little unnerved in your situation. I mean, nine years of her thinking you were... dead or whatever... isn't really something you can just pretend never happened. Look, if it'll make it easier, do you want me to come with you?"
I shrugged. "It's okay. I'll be fine. You've probably got plans already, with your brother or something."
"No, let me come. For... emotional support," Peter insisted, giving me that I'm-here-for-you expression he pulled off so well.
I caved, of course. What else could I do? Just tell him (though not in so many words) that I didn't want his help and he could just go get lost? And that was how, twenty minutes later, we found ourselves in a taxi driving through the Tunnel on our way to New Jersey.
--
I could tell immediately when we reached Sam's condo that there was something wrong. A posse of six NYPD squad cars scattered along the immediate vicinity, lights flashing, tends to be a tipoff.
As I stepped out of the taxi, Peter right behind me, I felt a stirring of apprehension in my gut. No, something was definitely wrong here. I ran up to the police barricade and peered into Sam's driveway.
What I saw there was enough to set my stomach churning and I closed my eyes, breathing hard. I clutched the barricade, white-knuckled, trying to erase the image from my mind. Maybe if I pretend it's not real, when I open my eyes it will be gone. I opened my eyes. Nope, definitely still there. I'd been to plenty of crime scenes, seen more than my share of dead bodies, but this... this was just sick.
Samantha lay sprawled in the driveway in a pool of blood. Her spine was twisted at an unnatural angle and several bones in her arms had snapped clear through the skin. But that wasn't the gross part. The top of her head was lying several feet away from the rest of her, and her brain was missing.
I spun away in shock, turning directly into Peter. He wrapped one arm around me and I pressed my face into his chest, desperate for human comfort. I had seen crime scenes before, but it had never been anyone I knew. I heard Peter gasp as he saw the grisly scene over my shoulder, and he clapped his free hand over his mouth in horror. "Oh my god..." he whispered.
"Hey! Move along folks, nothing to see here," said a voice from behind me. I turned around to see a woman with an FBI badge. Her short blonde hair and freckled face gave me the impression of a small, fierce terrier.
"What happened to her?" I whispered.
"That information is classified," the woman said. "Just get out of here, okay? The last thing we need around here is more ogglers."
That was not a problem, I thought. The only thing I wanted in the whole world at that moment was to get far far away from there. "Come on," I whispered to Peter.
Numbly, I walked back to the taxi and got in. Peter slid in beside me and shut the door. I sat silently as the driver pulled away, but my brain was screaming. Sam was my best friend the whole time I was growing up. And now, she was just... gone. I hadn't seen her in years, but to lose her like this was still... Oh my god.
Tears pricked at my eyes. Not wanting Peter to see, I turned away to stare out the window at the quaint suburban neighborhood as it passed by. So serene, so unaware of what had happened just around the corner... I wiped away the traitorous tear that had somehow crept down my cheek. I didn't cry. Ever.
"Dianne?" Peter said softly. "That was... that was Sam?" I nodded, not able to trust my burning throat and still facing the window. "Are you okay?"
I whipped around, channeling all the pent-up emotion into anger. Anger was something I could deal with; grief wasn't. Shooting Peter a glare that would have melted granite, I snarled, "No, of course I'm not okay! I just saw my childhood friend lying on the ground with her head ripped off. Why would I be okay?"
Peter just sighed. We lapsed into silence for a few moments, and I returned to staring out the window. But suddenly I felt really bad. Peter had just been trying to help; it wasn't his fault Sam was lying there... No. I cut off that train of thought. If I pictured Sam's broken body, I knew I wouldn't be able to hold back the tears. But that still didn't give me the right to yell at him like that. "I'm sorry," I muttered, turning, shame-faced, back to him.
"It's okay to cry," he said, understanding. And that did it. I burst into hysterical tears, and Peter just put his arms around me and let me sob. It wasn't just Sam, although her death took the lion's share of my grief. It was everything- this world that didn't seem to need me the way that other world had; the fact that in just over two weeks I'd be out of a job... again. But it always circled back to Sam, and just when I thought I'd gotten control of myself, my traitorous mind conjured up an image of her lying there, shattered into a million pieces, and I would break down once again.
And through it all, Peter just let me cry, holding me gently in his arms and not saying a word. He's the best friend a girl could have, I thought to myself at one point.
Finally, I managed to stop the flow of tears. Pulling away from Peter's embrace, I wiped at my eyes and said, "Sorry. I don't normally lose control like that." It was true. The last time I had cried had been my sixth birthday. The night my parents died.
Peter nodded, like he knew what I was thinking, a sad half-smile curling across his face. "It'll be okay," he said. "I know it's hard when people die."
"Yeah," I said, beginning to recover my composure very quickly, "I guess we both know something about that. I mean, you've dedicated your life to taking care of dying people. And as for me... well, you run across a lot of pretty horrible things as a vigilante." Peter grimaced, no doubt picturing a parade of crime scenes every bit as disturbing as the one we'd just come from."
Suddenly, I realized that the taxi had just pulled up in front of our apartment. I dug through my purse and pulled out a fifty and handed it to the driver. "Keep the change," I muttered. Not that I could afford it, but after what had happened, I didn't have the patience to wait as he counted out bills.
Peter and I parted ways at my apartment. I waited outside the door until I heard his snap shut on the floor above, and then raced up the stairs to the roof.
The afternoon sunlight hurt my bloodshot eyes as I emerged onto the roof. I crossed to the back edge of the roof, the one that didn't look over the street, and watched as the sun sank below the skyline. Hours, I sat there, thinking about Sam, about the way something about her death didn't seem to make sense. I couldn't put my finger on just what, but there was... something. And honestly? I didn't really trust the FBI to figure it out. Bunch of lunkheads, compared to the crimefighters I was used to, truth be told. And as I watched the sun grow fat and red as it neared the horizon, a resolution began to form in my heart. I'd solve Sam's murder, on my own. I'd get to the bottom of this. That was what I did best, after all- I investigated.
The setting sun cast a dim orange light across the city, turning the sky brilliant shades of red and purple as the smog caught the glow. I turned my face toward the last rays of light shining back across the horizon and closed my eyes, watching the patterns the red light made across the inside of my eyelids.
It felt good to have a purpose again. A meaningful one. Because let's face it: filing reports for some big-wig government guy is not my idea of a fulfilling job. It didn't help that my opinion of the elder Petrelli wasn't exactly the highest. I don't think you can like your job if your boss is an asshole.
After the sun had set, I returned inside, down to the apartment. When Tanya saw my tearstreaked face, she immediately became concerned, and wouldn't leave me alone until I'd explained in full what had happened. At my description of Sam's injuries, she clapped her hands over her mouth. "Omigod, that is so gross," she gasped. "What kind of sicko would do that?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, but I'm sure as hell going to find out."
--
The next few days passed relatively peacefully. I read the police reports on Samantha's death, and scanned the paper for news on her murder. But nothing sparked any particular curiosity, and I seemed to have hit a dead end for awhile. It happened, sometimes. I'd eventually be inspired and find a way around the hypothetical roadblock.
In the meanwhile, Peter made several painfully obvious attempts to keep my mind off such morbid topics as murder. As I was getting off work, three days after Sam's murder, he came up to me and said, "Hey Dianne, there's a gallery opening just a couple blocks uptown. I know the woman who owns the gallery, and she tipped me off that there're some really spectacular pieces in this show. You want to go have a look?"
I shrugged. I had nothing better to do, and nothing new had turned up in my investigation. "Why not?"
Despite the faint chill of winter in the air, we walked the few short blocks to the gallery in question. Peter, always the gentleman, opened the door for me.
The main room of the gallery was fairly unremarkable, just like any other art gallery around the world. Off-white walls, pale hardwood floors. Pedestals of varying heights rose sparsely throughout the room with sculptures and pottery on them, and hundreds of unframed canvases were scattered across the walls. Halogen bulbs ensconced in small artsy lights, hung from the ceiling, brilliantly illuminating the whole room. Soft piano music filtered from hidden speakers somewhere in the ceiling.
Peter and I wandered around the room, idly surveying the artwork. I quickly discovered that he had as little knowledge of fine art as I did. The only thing I knew about painting was that the Mona Lisa stared at you, and that was pretty much it. But despite this handicap, I found several paintings that took my interest, mostly the kind of art that makes you think. Peter, on the other hand, seemed to have a taste for really abstract stuff, with plenty of color and not a whole lot of form.
"Peter?" asked a voice incredulously. I turned around to see who had spoken, and as I did so, I noticed that Peter had suddenly frozen in place. I surveyed the woman before me. She was African-American, with unusual green-hazel eyes, and unlike almost every other woman I met, she was on eye level with me. She was tastefully dressed, and had a friendly, open face. She was also incredibly beautiful.
"Simone!" Peter said in surprise. "Uh... Dianne, this is Simone Deveaux. She's my patient's daughter, and she owns this gallery. Simone, this is Dianne Morten." He seemed suddenly quite awkward, although he hid it well.
A knowing smile curled across Simone's beautiful face. "I take it she's your girlfriend?" she asked.
Noticing that Peter seemed slightly speech-deprived, I answered for him. "Not a chance," I said, laughing. "Peter's more like my best friend." I glanced at Peter, and noticed him nodding vigorously to confirm this fact.
"Yeah. She lives in my building, and she's working on Nathan's campaign, and so we see a lot of each other," he explained. A faint tightness around his eyes hinted that perhaps he regretted his wording.
Simone smiled, and seemed about to say something else when someone called her name from across the room. "Excuse me," she said, turning away. "It was good to run into you, Peter." He nodded, watching her go.
After a few moments of silence, once Simone was out of earshot, I turned squarely to face him. "So that's why you're still single!" I said, unable to stop a smirk from unfolding across my face.
--
Next time: Dianne attempts to give Peter love advice, and they discover an impossible work of art.
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