Chapter 7

Surreptitiously looking down the right side of the hallway, then the left, Laura slipped her lock pick set from her purse and selected the pick she'd need for the task at hand. She would have preferred the cover of night in which to conduct her illegal forays into the office of Russell Conrad, accountant, but she was determined to make up for her oversight. Had she been thinking clearly, she would have realized long before now that Conrad likely kept a duplicate set of books hidden in the bowels of his office somewhere. Books that would prove he'd been creating falsified medical bills, presenting them to his elderly clients as monies owed then siphoning those 'payments' into his own accounts. If not, proof of who he was into money for, and she could take it from there.

She was off her game, preoccupied, and it had made her miss the obvious. The case had been floundering for days because of it. Yes, she'd thought to have Mildred conduct a deep background on Conrad's personal finances: bank accounts, holdings, investments, properties… anywhere he might hide his ill-gotten gains. Her trusted secretary and investigator had come up with nothing irregular, which led her to suspect Conrad might be in trouble himself – owing the wrong people a significant amount of money, stealing to get it. But without Remington' street contacts, that information was hard to come by. She didn't have the ins he'd had, and the people he'd introduced her to across the years, those in the know, still distrusted 'Mary Magdalene,' as Weasel was prone to calling her.

She snorted softly, though a smile never reached her lips. This was the type of case that touched Remington's soft side, righting injustice done against the most vulnerable. He'd always had a particular loathing for anyone who would take advantage, put at risk, children, the elderly. Veronica, Maxine, little Caruso.

The latch of the door released and with a final look down each side of the hallway, she slipped inside. The office reflected the seediness of the building that housed it: grey-green concrete floors; nicotine tinged orange-yellow walls that were once likely white; a metal desk, with two metal and cloth chairs in front of it; a nicked-up bookshelf; a few non-descript paintings on the wall. Clearly not a successful accountant which is how people like her clients could afford to hire him to allegedly look after their interests.

The bookshelf yielded nothing of interest, and none of the paintings disguised a safe. Turning her attention to the desk, she skimmed through the paperwork found in each drawer, as well as the ledger she'd unearthed. While she'd have felt a bit better having Mildred go through it, she didn't personally see anything amiss and thereby could only assume these were the cooked books. Returning it to the drawer, she continued to the next below. She shook her head in frustration: a few blank envelopes, a petty cash box with twenty-six dollars and eighty-four cents in it. It was only as she closed the drawer that she saw the slight scraping at the backside of its interior. Removing the contents again, she examined the faux bottom then searched for a letter opener, anything that would allow her to pry it up. Coming up empty, she retrieved her lock picks from her case. Two minutes later, a rare smile lit her face.

Lifting the leather-bound book from the drawer, she perched it on the lap formed by her legs in the squat she was currently in. The finding was just another reminder of how Remington's presence in the business, in her life, had made her all the more effective as a detective. The skills, the knowledge, he'd picked up on the shady side of the street had not only made them an invincible team, but had only enhanced her natural instincts. Four years before, she wouldn't have even connected those minute scratches with a false drawer.

"Bingo…" she whispered, when she flipped through the ledger. Mildred would have a field day with the information contained within. Placing it on the top of the desk, she focused on reseating the false bottom. Once all was placed back in the drawer she stood…

And the lights went out.


Laura woke coughing, the room hazy. It took several seconds for her dazed mind to unravel what was happening around her. The heat, the acrid air burning her lungs with each breath, the soft crackling coming from the opposite side of the desk. On all fours, she scrambled across the floor towards the door, her hand scorching when she tried the knob. She yanked her hand back searching through the darkening, smoke filled room for another exit. Window, her mind shouted at her. Crawling back across the room, pantyhose snagging, knees protesting, she dragged herself up to her feet, coughing, eyes watering and worked the latch until it gave. Boosting herself up, she kicked loose the screen while taking huge, gulping breaths of air.

Her memory flashed back to another fire. She and Remington trapped. Him using an old flimsy mattress as though it were a magic carpet, she clinging to his back. She gave her head a quick shake, then peered down towards the concrete below. She did quick calculations: four stories up, ceiling height in the office roughly ten feet, window three feet off the ground. Thirty-three, thirty-five feet max. She'd fallen five stories from Remington's terrace and had sustained barely a scratch. With the bushes cushioning your fall, a voice niggled in the back of her head.

She listened and with nary a siren yet to be heard, accepted there was no other choice to be had. Turning, she lowered herself over the edge, fingers clinging to the window ledge. The vision of her hanging once before, her fingertips the only thing between her and the ground below filled her head. Only then a hand had been desperately reaching for hers, and when that hand had grasped hers in the span of a heartbeat she'd felt safe.

Closing her eyes, her last thought as she let go was the single word spoken when they'd flown that mattress.

Geronimo.


Four days later, Mildred walked into Remington's office without a knock or invitation and found the younger woman sitting on the window sill, looking out over the city. The case had been wrapped up two days prior, with both Conrad and a high-level drug dealer behind bars. It had not been Conrad, after all, who'd knocked her out and left her to die in the fire that had been set… but her death was meant to be a message to him: what happened to your secretary will happen to you next. It had occurred to her she should be annoyed that her would be murderer had assumed she was the secretary, by the mere basis of her gender, but she couldn't rally the effort. With a good bluff and a healthy dose of his Howdy Doody routine, Jarvis had convinced Conrad to confess the embezzlement of clients' funds when faced with the alternative of being charged with attempted murder. So, the case was closed and she'd refused any new client interviews since her release from the hospital over the weekend.

Mildred watched over her boss for several minutes before she closed the office door behind her, and crossing the room, sat in one of the chairs in front of Remington's desk.

"Don't you think it's about time you talked about it, honey?" she finally asked, breaking the silence. She'd have thought Laura hadn't heard her, if not for her long, deep inhale, the shuddering release of that breath and the hand that lifted to press against her chest.

A hundred and thirty-three days,the thought repeated itself. For five days, the number of days since last she'd seen him, heard his voice, touched him, had been on a continual loop in her head. A hundred and thirty-three days and it hadn't gotten any easier than it had been the night he'd walked away. If anything, it had grown all the more difficult over the last week. Somewhere along the line, she didn't even know when, the thought had taken hold that if there was any hope, any whatsoever, of him reaching out to her, it would be now. Accordingly, she'd become… distracted… missing out on the most obvious of steps in the case she was working. Preoccupied enough with thoughts of him, that she'd never heard the door in that office open, had never realized someone was behind her, that she was in jeopardy.

She'd escaped relatively unscathed. A concussion and smoke inhalation, for which she'd been kept in the hospital overnight. A mild sprain of her left ankle. Two cracked ribs, some decent lacerations on the palms of her hands, on her knees, an impressive bruise on her right cheekbone, from when she'd face-planted against parking stop and ground after her ankle had turned. Wounds, she couldn't help but believe, she wouldn't have had at all if she'd not been so preoccupied with thoughts of him… or if he'd been there.

"He's not coming back, is he, Mildred?" It was really a rhetorical question, she hadn't expected an answer.

"I don't know, hon," Mildred answered, lifting her hands and dropping them. "Is there a reason the Boss might think he can't come home?" Laura's only answer to that was another long sigh, and to lean the side of her face against the cool window, affirming the answer Mildred already knew. "Miss Holt, I gotta ask, what do you want?"

"What do you think I want, Mildred?" she questioned instead.

"Then what are you gonna do about it?" Mildred challenged. Laura turned and looked at the older woman.

"What am I …?" The question took her to her feet to pace. "What can I do, Mildred?" she defended. "I don't know where he is, what name he's using. I have absolutely nothing to go on!"

"Don't you?" Mildred argued back. "Who helped him clear out his place last year when he pulled his disappearing act? Maybe you should start there." Laura froze in place at the suggestion. She was so still, so long, Mildred grew nervous, tapping her foot, waiting for some sign from the younger woman on what she was going to do. Then suddenly she was a flurry of activity, stumble-hopping on her injured ankle across Remington's office and into her own. She returned carrying her purse, with a purposeful glint in her eyes that Mildred hadn't seen for months now.

"I'll be back," she informed Mildred, then left Remington's office and the Agency.

Only when Mildred was sure the coast was clear did she stand to pick up the phone on Remington's desk. Punching in a number, she waited for an answer, then for Monroe to pick up when the call was transferred to his office.

"She's heading in your direction," Mildred forewarned.

Three and a half months earlier, when Mildred had dropped off Remington's ledgers along with the keys to the Auburn and his flat, she and Monroe had commiserated over current events. 'Mick" hadn't told Monroe what had made him sever his ties with LA and, more specifically Laura, but they'd been friends for a decade and a half and Monroe had understood, without asking, whatever it was had cut his old mate to the core. Mildred couldn't help but agree with that assessment and had filled him in on Laura's behavior since the morning she'd gotten into the car at Ashford Castle. After Laura's nearly catastrophic accident the Friday prior, Mildred had sought the man out again. Given Mick still hadn't found his peace and Laura's self-destructive bent of late, they'd conspired together: It was time to bring the two together so that they could either work things out or put an end to things once and for all before one, or both, self-destructed. It was a risky venture, Monroe violating Remington's trust, Mildred Laura's, not to mention possibly orchestrating an explosion between Laura and Remington neither were prepared for.

"Excellent. I shall endeavor to put on a show worthy of Mick himself," Monroe grinned, leaning back in his chair. "I will call when she departs so you may be prepared."

Mildred might have had an opportunity to prepare herself for Laura's return, but Monroe had been… shaken… when Laura appeared in his doorway. Mick, Laura, he and his lady of choice had often made dinner a foursome over the last year. He'd found himself a bit besotted with Laura at one point, even relaying to Mick a time or three that he was fortunate to have found her first. The woman he'd come to know was an intelligent, quick witted, mischievous, spitfire of a woman, with glowing skin, bright eyes and a quick smile whereas the woman who walked through that door was a ghost of her former self. At least in her action she showed some of her old bravado, walking in, dropping her purse on his desk, then leaning against hands pressed on the edge of the desk, looked him in the eye.

"I need to know where he is, Monroe," Laura informed him, getting straight to the point.

"You assume I myself know," Monroe rejoined.

"Don't," she told him, pushing away from his desk, her fingers lifting to worry a brow. "Just… don't… lie to me. If there's anyone Mick would keep abreast of his travels, it's you. You share a business interest. He's put you in charge of his belongings, again, evidently, given his apartment has been emptied out, and the Auburn…" she inhaled sharply, "… is missing. You're one of the few people he's ever trusted, so please don't insult me by pretending you don't know where he is!"

"If this were true, what incentive would I have to divulge that information to you, betraying my friend's confidence in the process?" he challenged. "If Mick wished you to know where he was, he would have contacted you, would he not?" He'd found he didn't need to feign his displeasure, his reluctance. The memory of Mick's voice, the resignation, the… despondent tone it would often take… fueling his fire. Laura lifted both hands in the air and dropped them, and then, as though having second thoughts, raised them again to press fingertips to forehead.

"I won't pretend to know what Mick may…" she dropped her hands again on a heavy exhale "…or may not have told you about those… days… before he left. We… hurt… one another," she turned to face the wall, tipping her head back to gaze at the ceiling, her voice lowering to a near whisper, "Terribly. But neither of us is fully to blame nor completely blameless." She considered the ceiling at length, found her resolve and turned to face him. "I need to see him. We both need to know we've tried everything we possibly can to fix the harm we've done to each other and, if that fails, then at least we have closure. Neither Mick nor I have that right now. And if that's not reason enough for you to divulge where he is then consider this: We're married." She laughed, a bit hysterically. "Forged license, fake blood tests or not, it doesn't seem to matter when the acting captain of the vessel presides over the ceremony in international waters." She took some enjoyment in the stupefied look on Monroe's face. "Mick and I need to either work things out so that we can move forward together, or, if that fails, I need him to sign the divorce papers so we can move on." Monroe picked up a pen from his desk and tapped it on the blotter several times as he stared at it. Married? Ah, to be a fly on the wall when Mick is informed of such!

"And what, might I inquire," he waved the pen in in the air, then pointed it in her direction, "are your hopes for this little… reunion?" Her shoulders slumped and she tilted her head back to regard the ceiling again. With a shake of her head, she looked at him, every bit of the sadness that had followed her these last months reflected in her eyes.

"What do you think I want? You've spent a lot of time with Mick and I this last year, do you even really have to ask?" He tapped is fingers together as he pretended to ponder his decision, then reached for the memo pad next to him and scribbled on it.

"Mick is in Aruba on holiday." He handed her the slip of paper. "The resort he's staying at." Her hand was shaking as she took the note from him, her relief so profound.

"Thank you," she told him sincerely, then grabbed her purse and strode purposefully towards the door.

"Laura," he called. She stopped in the doorway and turned to look at him, a questioning look on her face. "If you're so fortunate for him to give you both the opportunity to resolve this… matter, he won't do it again. Use this chance wisely, for I can promise you, knowing Mick as I do, it will be your last." She gave a sharp nod of her head, and departed.

I know, she answered him silently.


Laura stopped outside of the entrance to the pool bar and took a deep breath, smoothing her hands over her hips while doing so. Looking down, she gave her outfit one last, critical assessment. A snug fitting, off the shoulder, white cotton tunic which left her shoulders bared, coupled with a long, flowing, lightweight, wrap around skirt, also white, with thin strands of silver woven in a vertical throughout it. The length of the skirt was a necessity, camouflaging the healing wounds on her knees as well as the fact she was wearing flats, not heals – an impossibility with her wrapped ankle. Her makeup concealed the bruising on her cheek, thanks to a practiced hand, but there was little she could do to hide the wounds on her palms, save keeping them out of sight as much as possible. She'd pulled her hair back in a French braid, tying the end with a white bow, threaded with silver to complement her skirt. Releasing a short puff of air, she acknowledged it would have to do. Closing her eyes, she took one last, deep, settling breath, then with a sharp nod, stepped into the bar.

The bar had proved devoid of her missing partner, so she'd meandered out into the vast pool area, where evening festivities were going full force, drinks flowing, people mingling and a live reggae band playing where they'd been tucked off to the side near the beach. She wandered through the throngs of people, alert eyes scanning for the familiar. At last, she found him, leaning against a railing while conversing with a stunning brunette. Her heart raced at her first sight of Remington in nearly four and a half months, and she found her knees a bit wobbly beneath her as the need to be near him pummeled her, stealing her breath. Since she'd acquired his location from Monroe, she'd been battling the nearly paralyzing fear he'd take one look at her and walk away, never giving her… them… a chance. Fifteen feet away from him, she stopped to gather herself, closing her eyes and patting her stomach several times.

Please, she prayed silently.

Then opened her eyes.

(TBC)