She was in the office. It was the only place where she could be, because she didn't want to go home, and she knew that Tallulah was going to kill her on her own if she gave the other Feds the slip. And so she remained in the office, where she looked at all her paperwork and decided that since she had nothing better to do, she was going to organize it all…alphabetically.
"Anna," said Trevor's voice from the office doorway, "I'm headed home. If you decide you want to leave, you call me, and I will come and get you. I don't care what time it is."
She bit back the desire to roll her eyes. "Trevor," she said, "I will be fine. I am probably going to end up staying here for the night, so you do not have to worry about it. The Feds are keeping an eye on this place. They'll see whoever comes in and out."
This thought did not particularly serve as any comfort to Trevor, who frowned at her and leaned against the doorframe. "You wouldn't happen to be planning to take off on the Feds when they aren't looking, would you?" he asked, suspiciously.
"Trevor, for heaven's sake, I'm five months pregnant and my feet are killing me," said Anna dryly. "I'm not going anywhere. Just go home already, get some sleep. You worry too much as it is."
"I mean it, Anna, if you need to go home or you need anything else, you call me and I will come get you or I will bring it to you."
"I promise, all right? I will call you if and when I decide to go home or if and when I decide that I need something that I would otherwise have to leave this place to get. Are you happy now?"
"No, but I guess it'll have to do," said Trevor, still frowning slightly. "Keep your cell phone on, will you? I'm probably going to call at some point to make sure you're still alive."
The sarcasm of this wasn't at all lost on Anna, who knew that at the same time, he was being serious. She leaned back in her chair and shook her head at him.
"I will be fine. In fact, I'm going to organize all my paperwork in alphabetical order," she said. "Just go. I will be fine."
"All right," said Trevor, finally giving up on trying to get her to leave the offices as well. "I will see you in the morning. And at least think to leave a note if you leave and forget to call me."
"I will," said Anna, in such a way that told him that she'd probably forget this minor detail at some point. "I'll see you in the morning."
Trevor gave her one last, appraising look and then turned, closing the door behind him, as if he wanted to make sure that he was the last one in the office. Anna would have laughed at him for this, in earlier times, but now that things were so…complicated, she knew that laughing would only cause him to stay. And so she didn't. When she could no longer hear his footsteps, she turned to organizing her paperwork, flipping on the radio for some kind of background noise.
It was this that caused her to miss the second set of footsteps that came, and it was this that caused her to miss the sound of the office door opening, until the radio went off suddenly, and startled, she looked up.
"What are you doing here?" The words escaped her before she could really think about what she was saying, but it didn't change the fact that Jack was standing there right in front of her.
"You know, I've had a lot of excuses thrown at me over the years, Anna, but this…this just takes the cake," he replied, by way of greeting. "Were you ever going to tell me?"
Anna gave him a startled look. "What are you talking about?" she asked, slowly. "Tell you what?"
Jack scowled. "Oh, I don't know," he said, sarcastically. "Maybe the fact that your so-called sister is actually a Fed, and the fact that you're not who you say you are, and that for the past thirteen years, you've been lying to everyone you meet."
Silence. Anna could feel her blood running cold, suddenly, and wondered who had let slip. One name came to the front of her mind almost immediately.
"You talked to Danielle, didn't you?" she asked. "I can't…she promised me she wouldn't say a damn word…What did she say to you?"
"Danielle," said Jack, "Didn't say anything. Apparently, the rumor's been floating around for quite some time, and it's been in the District Attorney's office for longer than I'd care to think about. I heard it from two of my EADA's. You want to explain that?"
"I can't," said Anna. "I don't know what rumors you're talking about. No one's said anything to me besides Danielle, and you know how much stock she actually puts into what everyone's saying before she actually hears it from the source."
"She heard it from the source," Jack said, flatly. "Namely you, Anna. Or would you prefer Annalisa after all?"
"Don't you dare stand there and act like you know anything about what's going on," said Anna, knowing that she had been officially called out on everything and not wanting to deal with it. "There is a reason why I didn't say anything to you."
"Why? If you can tell everyone else to walk around and not say a word to me, then you can damn well tell it to me," Jack retorted, angrily. "I don't know what kind of game you're trying to play, Anna, but it's not going to work anymore."
"Game?" Anna demanded. "What game? You think I'm doing this just for the hell of it? Well, I have news for you, Mr. District Attorney, it's thirteen years running and I'm sure you've already looked up everything you need to know, so why are we having this conversation?"
"Because I want to hear it from you. I want the truth and not some ridiculous story about how you sued the city for the place on Staten Island and how you lost your husband in a home invasion, because it's all lies. I want to know who the hell you think you are, coming around here and thinking that you can act like you want this relationship and then change your mind at the last second, and I want to know exactly what you plan to do when it all falls apart!"
Jack's voice had, somewhere along the line, risen to a yell, but neither of them realized this until he fell silent, and the echoing silence that signified a louder than needed voice fell between them. The look on his face was annoyed; the look on Anna's was furious, and there was no way she was giving in to this, because if she did, then things really would fall apart.
"You have Anna Flynn as you know her, and what she told you is the truth," she said, finally, coldly. "I'm afraid Annalisa Lovell isn't completely ready to come out of hiding yet, because the minute she does, everyone is going to know, and the people who are after her are going to find her."
"Don't you dare start the split personality thing with me, Anna, you know it isn't going to fly," Jack shot back, "I don't give a damn what you have to say about it, I am not going anywhere until I find out why you lied to me."
Michael and Amanda, however, found themselves in a meeting with Tori Harlan across Manhattan, one that had lasted for the past few hours and was due to go on for a bit longer than that.
"What we need to do is find out how we're going to nail Delgado here and then hit him with charges of not only violating his parole but crossing state lines in a conspiracy to commit the murder of a federal prosecutor," Tori was saying. "Once we find him, we can haul him in whether he's doing anything or not, solely for the fact that he's not supposed to be out of North Carolina."
"The detectives and agents have so far only seen hints of Ace Alvarez. Like we told you, he was spotted coming out of the offices of Flynn and Langan, which means he probably recruited someone from there to be his attorney." said Michael.
"And we've already discussed the fact that there are legal ways around privilege," said Amanda. "We catch Alvarez and follow him, we might just be able to find Delgado himself."
"Meanwhile, your lot from Narcotics is looking to break up Delgado's ring from the bottom up," said Tori, and leaned back in her seat, sighing. "Either of you want any more coffee?"
"That might help," said Michael, who had nearly drifted off earlier, only to down the entire cup of coffee that Amanda had set before him about two hours ago. Tori rose to her feet and took her mug, as well as those of the other two prosecutors and went over to where her office coffee pot was.
"Everything we need to nail the two of them on Agent Fielding's murder, we have," she said, over her shoulder. "Any alibi they might give us, it's likely that we can break it without breaking a sweat. We just need to find them. The problem with this is that they're better at hiding than most guys I've ever seen."
"It's likely that the Feds would have caught them by now if they were staking out her offices or her home," said Amanda, "Which means they're going to try and catch us somewhere the Feds aren't watching."
"Which should be a task, because right now, Agent Dowling is masquerading as Ms. Lovell's sister," said Tori, "I'm sure the twenty-seventh precinct has already made you aware of this."
"They have," said Michael, "Our problem right now is keeping all of this and the fact that our District Attorney now knows his girlfriend's not who she says she is away from Delgado and Alvarez, because they'll definitely try to strike there if they get wind of it."
There was no need for him to say this, Tori thought, almost grimly. She and other US Attorneys across the country were already well aware of what would happen if Lucas Delgado got more information than he needed. As it was, he probably already had more than enough already.
"We need to figure out jurisdiction," she said. "Technically, you should be handing this case over to us, but given the fact that we think you're more capable of being able to nail him on local charges, we'll leave it to you, but we would like to sit in on the decisions that are made."
"We can set that up," said Amanda, "McCoy might not like it, but he already knows we're going to have to deal with it. I take it your offices will want someone to sit second chair."
"As a matter of fact," said Tori. "I would have told you at the last meeting, but I wasn't sure. We're lucky no one else has ended up dead, because if someone else goes, we're going to have our hands more full than they already are."
Michael and Amanda exchanged glances. Both of them had dealt with the Feds on many an occasion, but neither of them had ever known the Feds to be the ones to say that something was amiss. They were used to being told that everything was fine, and the government was going to take over, and did they really want to fight on it, because they'd get buried if they did.
"We're going to need it writing that this office is looking for a joint type of jurisdiction, otherwise it's not going to fly in our office," said Michael, "It's not that we don't want to cooperate with you, it's just that the Feds have a history of bending us over and making us take it."
Tori made a face at this remark but nodded. "I'll get it down, and send it over as soon as it's finished," she said. "Anything else that we need right now, or are we good for now?"
"We're good." Amanda rose to her feet and looked at her watch. "I gotta get back home, so if you all will call me when you decide on something…."
Tori nodded and got to her feet again as well, downing what was still left in her coffee mug. "This meeting's gone on long enough. We should be able to pick this up whenever we meet up again, but right now, we should all get some sleep, if we can."
It went without saying that it was more than just a little bit likely that they wouldn't be getting any sleep. Michael had already gone towards Tori's office door and was now holding open for both women, waiting as they got their coats and slid them on before walking out. He followed, and closed the door behind them, and went off with Amanda, while Tori went in a different direction.
"You look worried," he said, quietly, reaching for her hand, "Is everything all right?"
"I don't know," said Amanda, "I really don't. I mean, we weren't supposed to say anything to Jack at all, and then suddenly we had to, and now it's this whole big mess, and I just…I don't know what we're going to do about it."
"We're going to wait for the police to find these guys so we can nail them in court, and you know we will," said Michael. "As for the personal side of things, I don't know about everyone else, but you and me…"
Amanda offered up a faint, tired smile as they left the federal building. "You and me?" she said. "You and I are fine. There isn't anything to worry about there. At least, not right now."
"Why does this worry me?"
"I'm not all too sure of that." Amanda trailed off for a moment and then went on after a low sigh escaped her. "I really don't feel like being alone tonight."
"You have your kids at home," Michael pointed out, but she squeezed his hand, a bit harder than she usually did.
"That's not what I meant," she said. He looked at her for a moment, and then nodded.
"Come on," he said. "Let's go home."