A/N: Once again I'd like to thank my faithful readers - and, of course, shadowsamurai83 for the beta and the suggestions. This chapter is me attempting to move the plot forward and knowing me...still, I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.
Almost There - chapter 7
They all were walking on tiptoes the next morning as coffee was distributed and sandwiches handed out. Colin, Kazuko and Tim eyed the dark cloud over Boyd's head with something akin to fear, while everybody else just steered clear of him. There were occasional glances, most of them directed at Grace, because one thing was obvious: Boyd's exorbitantly bad mood had a lot to do with her.
They could also guess rather well where it came from.
Boyd wasn't unaware of how the rest of the team reacted to his mood, but didn't really plan to calm down any time soon. There had been a moment last night when he had thought that Grace and he understood each other, that they were closer to the point where it all became clear, but then her phone rang and destroyed the moment.
What was worse, though, was the way her face lit up as she recognised the caller and how her voice had softened for her replies. It couldn't have been any more obvious that the caller was a man and that there was some sort of romantic relationship between them. She had fled the table to continue the call, probably to whisper sweet nothings to that man, and Boyd's imagination had run wild.
If it had been a different situation, he would have mocked himself for the way his imagination worked, but he could hear the tone of her voice so clearly in his mind, what she would say, could almost feel how her breath would tickle his skin when she said those words to him....
When she returned to the table, she didn't volunteer any information and no amount of teasing, or later on grilling Tim, had produced any information on the caller. In fact, it seemed as if McKinsey was as surprised as they were. But there was this small smile on her face, an expression of serenity that they knew only too well, but had seen so rarely over the years. It replayed again and again before Boyd's inner eye as he desperately tried to find sleep that night.
She had left fairly quickly after dinner, giving her key card to Tim while she went to camp out at one her children's place. Boyd hadn't even caught which of the three.
Only much later, actually, at 2 in the morning when he still couldnt sleep, did it occur to him that Bartlett would be in for an unpleasant surprise should he try to come onto his star psychologist that night or in the morning. The hilarity that thought induced didn't last long, though, as his thoughts returned to the mysterious phone call.
Even when he finally drifted into a restless sleep, almost sensory images of her voice, soft and sensual filled his mind.
Waking up tired and frustrated, his...whatever it was...had turned into anger at her, at that mysterious man, the time that had passed and the distance between them.
She seemed to have expected his foul mood, for she didn't act surprised by his brash behaviour, but instead ignored him. The blatant disregard for his anger rattled him even more.
"Boyd!"
"What?" he bellowed and turned, coming face to face with the profiler.
Grace gave him a calm glance, devoid of emotion, and if nothing else, that upset him even more.
"Team talk," she continued almost sweetly. "Since we have a commissioner and a principal breathing down our necks, we should decide on a course of action, don't you agree?"
Eve, overly tired and basically existing on coffee, was starting to point out that the Commissioner might like to breathe down Grace's neck in a different type of setting, but one look at the almost tangible cloud over Boyd's head stopped her. Actually, she almost felt for him. If there was a new man in Grace's life, it would make repairing the relationship between Boyd and Grace all the more difficult. Or impossible.
"If I understood you correctly," Grace turned first to Colin, then to Eve, "there's not been any new information in the chats last night."
Both shook their heads. "I just said hello, like we planned, and hung around. I didn't start asking questions, so they wouldn't be suspicious," Colin replied between mouthfuls of coffee.
"Neither did I. Just joined into the conversation every now and then, nothing they'd pick up on."
"They stayed in that chatroom all the time?"
"Yeah."
"You sure they didn't start a new one?" Boyd pressed on.
Colin drew a deep breath for a quick reply, but a warning glare from Eve stopped him.
"Okay," Grace continued with a tired sigh, ignoring Boyd's annoyed stare behind her back. She could feel it, but then she doubted that anybody on this floor could miss Boyd's frustration at the moment. "This doesn't make your task any easier. We'll have to go two different roads with this, I guess. Kazuko," she glanced at the young woman who, from the looks of it, would have preferred to melt with the wall and become invisible. "Your job is clear, you'll track the IP-address of our two friends. And please pass on a list of web-addresses where one would normally acquire the materials for bomb construction from. Pass them on to Stella. That's your venue for the morning."
"Colin, you and Spencer go and check whether any materials have been traded in town within the last few days. Colin, you'll get additional lists of joints from CO19 and SO2. I've called the Commissioner to make sure you'll get all the support you need for your enquiries."
Turning towards Tim, she gave him a small smile. They'd had a bit of a memorable encounter earlier in the day, which might cause a bit of trouble in the future, but for the moment they were only amused by it. "Tim, I need you to devise a scheme for the questionings in St. Anthony's later today. You and Boyd need to have it ready, so we can go efficiently through as many interviews as possible today."
The officers quickly dispersed to start with their tasks, but all of them threw cautious glances at Boyd, who had stiffened as the tasks were distributed. They could all see that he wasn't at all pleased that Grace didn't even look at him while putting him to work, and given his general opinion of psychologists and his initial reaction to McKinsey....
"What about me?" Eve asked, slowly moving between Grace and Boyd before an eruption of temper could occur.
Grace smiled as she turned and looked at Eve. "We will go down to your lab with these protocols and look for references to particular students. We'll start the interviews with them."
"Grace." Boyd's voice was flat.
She gave him a long look, communicating more with it than she could have probably said with words, and gradually, Boyd relaxed. She closed the distance between them then, stood so close that their bodies were touching. "We are going to deal with teenagers, boys and girls. Keep that in mind, will you?" she murmured quietly, a crooked smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Without even wanting to, Boyd felt himself respond in the same way. "Too bloody long ago to remember," he ground out between his teeth.
She gave him a raised eyebrow and an amused smile. Anticipating her comment, he grinned and whispered, "This was a very grown up sulk."
Both Eve and Grace snorted as they turned and left the room while shaking their heads.
The other occupants quickly decided that the last seconds had not made any sense at all and therefore should quickly be forgotten.
*
The lab hadn't changed since her last visit a few months ago, and amidst all the chaos of the last days and the emotional upheaval, it felt like a welcome relief.
"Your daughter didn't mind that you suddenly showed up at her doorstep in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on your back?" Eve asked as she moved to the evaporator and lit up a cigarette.
For a moment, Grace looked as if she would ask for a cigarette for herself, but then shook her head and smiled. "No, Maddie took it in stride. She is very calm with such things. I think she was glad I wanted to camp out on her couch instead of staying in some dubious place in town."
Eve smirked, but before she could prod further, Grace chuckled humourlessly. "I'm not sure to which place she referred to as dubious: any place with Boyd near or the hotel with Bartlett."
"Your daughter has fairly strong opinions on the men who surround you."
Grace only shrugged.
"Does she also have a strong opinion about the man you talked to on the phone last night?"
The spot on the table before her seemed to be the most interesting spot in the universe, the way Grace was staring at it to avoid her gaze. "We should get started on the protocols," she finally said and effectively ended the conversation.
*
It was shortly before lunch when the team members reunited in the meeting room they had been assigned.
"I think we should lodge an official complaint about the tightness of space in here. You can barely move without running into somebody," Spence grumbled.
"You don't mind such tight spots in the clubs, Spence. In fact, there it can't be tight enough," Stella teased. "Should we be offended that you don't want to get touchy with us?"
Spence rolled his eyes and made a dismissive gesture with his head. Grace and Eve, catching the last words upon entering, chuckled wryly.
"It will please you to hear, Spence, that this room is going to become even more homey when lunch arrives."
The DI looked hopefully at them.
"No, Spence, you'll have to pay for your own pizza." Grace dashed his hope with a smirk.
"You can really smash a guy's optimism." He pouted.
The other three men deliberately avoided joining the conversation at this point, but deeply indrawn breaths could barely be concealed amidst female chuckles.
*
Lunch came and went and afterwards, they piled into different cars to go to St. Anthony's and start their questionings.
Parking on the other side of the road, Grace held them all back before they marched onto the grounds. "Listen," she instructed quietly, "I announced our visit beforehand and we've been given permission to question the pupils. But...." Holding up her hand, it hovered near Boyd's arm. "Mr. Healy was very reluctant to give it."
Boyd rolled his eyes.
"All I'm saying is, stick to the scripts, do not pressure the children too much, especially the younger ones. And...." A pointed look, "keep your disdain for the upper crust at a minimum. We are only guests here and I don't doubt Mr. Healy will have us removed from the premises immediately and produce a headline about police harassment in his school, if there's even the remotest hint of us misbehaving."
Everybody drew a deep breath to relieve the knots of annoyance that were forming in their stomachs.
"We only come to help," Stella muttered.
"But we may hit a little too close for comfort for Mr. Healy's position," Tim replied equally quietly. "People entering and working the school from outside usually makes the administration antsy. They feel like they are examined." Taking a deep breath, he gave Grace a look and a shrug. "From their point of view, we put their ability to run the school properly into doubt by coming in and asking questions. Just the suggestion that a pupil might turn against its school with a murder scheme gives the impression that the school couldn't provide properly for his or her need. It questions Mr. Healy's ability to run the school."
"Which makes him pissy and uncooperative. And a bloody pain in the arse!"
"Boyd!" Despite the warning in her voice, there was a twitch in the corners of Grace's mouth. "Behave!"
"Always...."
*
The first interviews went relatively well, most of them not gathering any new information, but at least removing those kids from their lists. It was a quick process, and with the progress made, the team's mood improved considerably.
It was shortly after 3 when Tim and Stella sat down with a girl of about 15. Despite the proper uniform, Tim found the air about her a little off the mark. While watching Dr. Foley over the last months, he had learned to trust the first instinct, the 'something in the air.' Looking at Stella, she nodded in agreement.
"Hello, can you give us your name and age, please?" Stella started with a polite smile.
"Libby Baynes." The reply wasn't impolite, just a little reluctant. "15."
"Okay," Tim smiled encouragingly, "is it alright if we call you Libby?"
The girl shrugged.
"Libby, can you tell us a bit about your form group?"
She eyed them with some adversity. "What do you wanna know?"
Stella shrugged. "Are there any computer geniuses in it? Or some really good sports people?"
"Yeah. The usual. A few nerds and a few sporties. Just the usual."
"Are you one of them? Sports type, I mean."
She shook her head, a small embarrassed grin flickering in the corner of her mouth.
"You're good with computers then?" Another shake of the head.
"We don't mean to embarrass you." Tim smiled again, seeing that this line of questioning wouldn't get them anywhere. "What's your best thing then?" he asked.
"Dancing!" she announced, suddenly sitting straighter.
"Oh good, can you teach one of my friends how to do it? The guy thinks he's a regular Ricky Martin, but he can't move to save his life," Stella exclaimed.
This time the girl really smiled, though it didn't last long. "What do you really wanna know?" she asked after a moment, the earlier detached boredom returning to her expression.
"Okay...gloves off then," Tim started, still smiling. "Tell us something about the kids in your class. Who hates whom, who likes whom. Who's an idiot. And which of the boys would you neither snog nor shag in a million years?"
Next to him, Stella frowned, a little annoyed, while Libby first snorted and then leaned back in her chair.
As she left the room ten minutes later, Tim thoughtfully rubbed over the stubble on his chin. "Didn't we have a script for these interviews, Mr. McKinsey?" Stella asked carefully.
"We do. And young Ms. Baynes didn't tell us everything."
"It's more than we've got from the others so far."
"True." Getting up, Tim made for the door, hoping to have a quick word with Grace about the situation. "But the main point is that she knows that she didn't tell us everything and she knows that we know it."
As they stepped outside into the hallway, they saw Spence and Colin in quiet conversation.
"Where's Grace?" Tim asked.
A quick hand gesture pointed towards the staff lounge where Grace and Boyd conducted interviews with the staff.
"That girl just now," Colin asked, "something the matter with her?"
Stella nodded, but signalled that it would have to wait until later.
It took only a few minutes, and didn't surprise either of the four when an incensed Mr. Healy marched up to them and demanded to speak to their superior about their misconduct.
Thank you for reading. Comments would be greatly appreciated.