Keeping Secrets, Chapter 14 – "The truth of the matter"

Once again this chapter has not been Beta'd. Please let me know if there are any errors.

After a half hour caught in unexpected traffic, a three word text to Janet and an hour or so watching twilight surfers catching waves, Bianca felt calm enough to head home.

Unusually, there was a park adjacent to the front door, and Bianca gratefully pulled into it.

Darkness had fallen about half an hour ago, and she waited silently in the car, chewing the side of her cheek, collecting thoughts. She was tired, had a mild sinus headache and wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a few paracetamol to prevent her mild headache from becoming a blinding migraine.

Sighing loudly and rolling her shoulders, Bianca opened the door and groaned as she stood out of the car, her body feeling untenably weary, and pushed the door shut. Without collecting any of her other things, she made her way to the front door and quietly let herself in.

As expected, the house sat in semi darkness, with a single light from the kitchen illuminating the hallway and casting long shadows into the atrium and living room. She could hear faint sounds of the twins in their room, and see signs that Janet was still up and about.

Bianca went to the pantry to look for some painkillers. Her breathing was now slightly restricted; I'll have to remember to use a nasal spray before bed she thought to herself as she rummaged. She bent at the waist to inspect a lower shelf when a pair of hands slid over her hips. She gave an involuntary gasp, startling slightly.

"Janet. Hey." She exhaled loudly, before straightening up and relaxing into Janet's body. "Sorry I'm so late. I didn't wake you, did I?" She retrieved the box of Nurofen and quickly popped two out of the foil blister pack, before tossing the box back in the general direction that it came from.

"Rough day?" Janet enquired, before placing a delicate kiss on Bianca's vertebrae.

Bianca hummed in agreement, before moving towards the sink, popping the tablets in her mouth and reaching for a glass to chase the pills down with.

"Have you eaten?" Janet asked as she moved towards the table, preparing to pack up her laptop and the paperwork that she had been looking at. "I saved you some dinner. The kids had fish fingers, but I have some chicken if you would prefer?" Janet looked up at Bianca, stilling her hands, waiting for her response.

Bianca turned to look at Janet, remnants of a frown evidenced from the crease between her eyebrows. "I'm not really hungry." She finally answered.

Janet smiled tentatively, wondering just how rough her lover's day was, wondering if she could eke out an encore from last night. She closed the distance between the two of them, nuzzling into Bianca's shoulder and neck, her hands on Bianca's waist.

Letting the stress of Danica's encounter to melt away from her body, Bianca finally relaxed into her lover's body, allowing herself to respond and be comforted by Janet's unusual tactility. Bianca turned her head and kissed Janet on the side of her face, on the cheek side of her ear, eliciting a pleased murmur.

She squared the two of them up, running her palms over Janet's back and back down, allowing her hands to slide over her hips and settle on her ass, leaning her whole body in towards the other woman, nuzzling under Janet's ear, drawing in her scent, allowing it to wash over her, feeling herself to calm and melt in Janet's arms.

Feeling a little dizzy, she readjusted her stance, loosely crossed her hands in the small of Janet's back and inhaled deeply again, stroking her lips down Janet's neck and closing her eyes, enjoying the warmth of her skin. Bianca asked if she had disturbed Janet with her late arrival.

"No, I was going through that Smith case – the double homicide? Closing statements tomorrow." Janet responded. "How come so late?" she probed gently.

"Ah, usual. Shit day." Bianca paused, thinking about her actual day. The last hour of the day had cast a pall on the overall success the team had with when they had the Latif case reopened. She closed her eyes and sighed, nuzzling further into her lovers neck.

Bianca wondered if she should tell Janet about Danica bailing her up at the carpark. She frowned and stiffened up. Danica had really ruined what had been a wonderful breakthrough at work.

She opened her mouth, trying to work out the best way to tell Janet about the day, to describe what happened, when Janet straightened abruptly, pulling away from Bianca, breaking loose from her grip, forcing Bianca to lazily lift her head and open her eyes, slowly coming out of her haze. "What's wrong?" She asked.

Janet leaned back slightly, crossing her arms and simultaneously lifted her chin, carefully eyeing Bianca's neckline where she had been caressing with her lips mere seconds ago. "You've got lipstick on your neck."

"What?" Bianca reached up, vigorously rubbing at the side of her neck where Danica had mauled her earlier with her palm before looking at her hand, and violently repeating the gesture. There was the faintest shimmer of lipstick on the edge of her palm. She looked desperately at Janet and her heart fell as she watched the walls go up. Bianca looked back down at the offending discoloration on her hand as she rubbed the offending marks off her neck with her other hand.

"I think you heard me." Janet's voice was as cold as Bianca had ever heard – two tones away from Janet's crown prosecutor voice, the one reserved for barristers on opposing council and hardened criminals that had sorely tried her patience.

Bianca looked up in time to see the emotions flit over Janet's face; fear, anger, jealousy, and for a microsecond, so quick that Bianca could have just as easily sworn that she hadn't seen it, right before Janet managed to clamp down on all of it, neutralising her face into a controlled anger, hate.

"You're such a cliché, Bianca." Her nostrils flared delicately and her mouth had drawn into a thin line.

"Wait, no." Bianca felt her guts twist into a cold knot, heavy and painful, rising panic cutting through her. She could throttle Danica right now, squeeze her neck until the life drained from her body and not feel one iota of guilt about it. She lifted both hands to waist level, and palms down, gestured downwards, the universal symbol of 'calm down'.

"No? I'd love to hear your explanations for all these late nights you've been having lately; all those phone calls you've received and had to leave the room for. That's where you were tonight, wasn't it?" Janet took a step backwards, no longer looking controlled, but disgusted.

She crossed her arms the other way. "It all makes sense." Janet gestured broadly at Bianca, who was frozen in front of the refrigerator. "You even smell like her. For fuck's sake, Bianca, Why? Why would you to something like this?" Janet radiated fury, her icy glare piercing through Bianca.

"Janet, no!" Bianca finally managed to regain control of her frozen body and stepped forwards, reaching for Janet's hand. Janet made a quick, flicking evasive move, and said, "Don't you dare. Don't - you - fucking - dare - touch me."

Bianca grabbed for Janet's wrist again, successfully capturing it this time. Janet lifted her other fist, meaning to bring it down on Bianca's shoulder, but she saw it coming and caught Janet's other wrist on the way down, before it could make contact. Bianca pushed both hands down, trapping Janet, while Janet struggled in Bianca's arms, fighting the other woman's embrace, trying to punch and slap in a jerky, spastic fashion, before the fire drained out of her and she sagged, falling into Bianca, allowing Bianca to guide her into a chair.

Bianca squatted down in front of the chair and looked up into Janet's anguished, red rimmed, tear filled eyes and spoke slowly, carefully enunciating her words. "Janet, listen. I'm not cheating on you. Danica tried to kiss me in the carpark after work. We had some after work drinks because we came across some evidence which resulted in us re opening the Latif case. Danica and I walked to our cars together. As I was saying goodbye, she pushed me up against it, trying to convince me to have sex with her. That's why…" She gestured at her front and neck, indicating the lipstick stain and perfume.

"If that's true" Janet's voice started to shake, her control breaking, tears leaking down her cheeks and dropping into her lap, "Which it is," Bianca interjected, "How can you explain all the other stuff?" Janet finished, wrestling her emotions back under control. "What other stuff?" Bianca enquired, thoroughly confused.

"The late night calls? The late nights in general? The other stuff?"

"Its all work related, Janet. You know that." Bianca sighed heavily. "I still don't know what other stuff you're talking about" She rested her forehead on Janet's knee.

"The sex" Janet hissed. "Last night. You didn't want to. You didn't want me. I…" She trailed off, breaking eye contact, tears welling again, threatening to fall.

Bianca had no answer for that. How could she explain the jealousy she felt against Ash? She rested her head Janet's knee, trying to iron out her thoughts. Bianca thought about the case; about her work; Janet's work; their children. With Janet's behaviour over the past few months, her libido had taken a hit, and the stress of not getting anywhere with work hadn't helped things along. "That's not really fair." She finally muttered.

She had tried to be respectful of Janet's space, especially considering how tired Janet always seemed after work; she had thought that Janet's increased load at the DPP was knocking her about. Surely Janet knew this. She couldn't be expecting them to be at it like teenagers all the time.

"Its because you're out fucking her."

Bianca looked up sharply, eyes narrowing. "Janet, don't to this."

"It's true, isn't it? That's the real reason you're constantly late, that you're always sneaking off, making calls; we hardly even talk anymore!"

"Janet, think about what you are saying! Just listen to yourself! Where is this even coming from? I would never-"

"The facts are, Bianca, that you have been coming home later and later, you've been avoiding me, you've been sneaking off to have secret phone calls, and the ones that you do let me hear are all bullshit and guarded, and now, the nail in the coffin, that" She flicked carelessly at Bianca's shirt with her hand, missing her face by millimetres, causing Bianca to rock back onto her heels and stand up rapidly and put a hand down on the table to stabilise herself.

"Do you really want to do this? Neither of us will win, Janet! Please, don't. Don't make me do this." She sagged heavily, feeling broken, but standing her ground, not giving way.

"I'm sorry if you're upset, Bianca" Janet spat this out with pure and utter righteous venom. "I want the truth!"

Janet's tone hit Bianca like none of her previous words had. She was tired, and her encounter with Danica was no longer as clear in her mind, but the violation that she felt in the carpark now bubbled up unexpectedly, spewing out with force; the prior months of stress and fatigue, a semi absent lover, parenting of her twins, and now this, this fight that she didn't want to go into caused a verbal eruption that she couldn't contain if she had tried; it was a reaction, violent and disruptive, a result of frayed nerves that snapped at the most inappropriate moment.

"OK Janet. If you want the truth, I can give it to you in spades. You think I'm having an affair; I'm not. I'm fucking hurt that you would even think that." The weeks and weeks of late nights and avoidance all made sense to Bianca now. "That you would withdraw from me and not talk to me." She drew a large breath. "That you would judge me and think that I could sleep with you and betray you at the same time. Do you even know me?" Bianca shook her head vehemently, and as Janet opened her mouth to respond, she continued. "No, sleep with you. Not fuck you; not make love with you. Sleep with you. Venerable and naked, trusting each other." Janet may have been one of the best prosecutors in the state, but Bianca held her own with more than state prosecutors, and the gloves were off now.

"Do I know you? I would never. EVER. Think that you could do such a thing to me. I could imagine that we could fall out of love. That you could stop loving me for some reason, but to think that you could betray be? And in turn I could betray you like that? You think that of me? That I could do that?"

Bianca leaned forwards, punctuating each statement with a jab of her finger.

"Don't you think I would have talked to you first?"

She looked at her hand, and stopped the jabbing motion. It was too aggressive. She let her hand drop to her side.

"I knew. I've known all this time that you haven't trusted me. Not fully. You haven't dropped your walls and defences all the way. I've known; its hard, but I've lived with that fact. I love you, Janet. Yeah, it hurts. Knowing that you hold me at arm's length. It's not enough and I want more and I want you to love me back but I'm not going to push you for it."

They held eye contact, Bianca's blazing, Janet threatening to look away, unable due to Bianca's intensity.

"The truth of the matter is that you want me to be having an affair, don't you? You want a reason to lock me out. I've never been good enough for you. I'll never live up to Ash. You wont let her go. You can't let her go. Can you?"

She stopped, took a deep breath and rubbed her palm across her mouth unable to believe she's revealed her secret, but unable to stop herself, so she plowed on through.

"That's what makes you so fucking good at work, isn't it? That you just have to control everything you do, everything you see. Well let me tell you something; a bit of free advice. You only think you're good at what you do because you can't see the bigger picture. Well you're wrong! The bigger picture is what counts! It's how we mere mortals make sense of things Janet."

Bianca was on a self righteous roll now, voice raised, borderline shouting.

"Take your fucking blinkers off, and have a good fucking look! You're so warped that you can't see what's clearly happening around you! You locked your emotions away because you can't control them, and they won't fit inside your rules. Well listen now. I'm not fucking anyone else. I'm in love with you. Get that through your fucking head."

Bianca took a deep breath to calm herself, before softening her tone. "I love you. Let me in."

Janet, speechless for once, gaped at her.

"Trust me," One last push. "Like you trusted Ash."

Janet reeled back, as if dealt a physical blow, her right hand unconsciously going to her left, touching her wedding band. "Don't you dare…"

Bianca's eyes widened, as she realised that she'd miscalculated, she'd pushed too hard in the wrong direction. "Janet, I"

"Get out." Janet stood, tears streaming down her face, devastated, "Get out. Now!" She shoved ineffectually at Bianca, trying to push her towards the door. Bianca turned and grabbed her keys, fleeing the house.

Janet sat down at the table again, put her head in her hands and the dam broke. She heard Bianca's V8 rumble in the street, and tyres squeal off into the night. She didn't know how long she sat, head on her arms, emotions cascading over her, images replaying of Ash, images of Bianca's caution, her care and unadulterated adoration when of her when they were together. As these vignettes played over and over in her head, she could now see that Bianca almost worshipped the ground that she walked on. Janet realised that she had just fucked up royally, and she burrowed her face harder into her elbow.

"Mummy?" A quiet voice enquired.

Janet looked up and quickly wiped her eyes, composing herself. "Sorry darling, did I wake you?" It was Emma. "Are you ok, mummy?" Janet reached for a hug folding the girl into her lap. "Yes, mummy's ok." She began to rock the girl, and kissed her head. "Did I wake you?" Emma ducked her head into Janet's bosom, evading the question. "Is Bianca coming back?" Janet squeezed Emma closer to her, tears again rolling down her cheeks. She took a shuddering breath, and breathed out "Yes darling. Bianca will be back. She just had to go out for a bit." A little white lie. "Lets get you back to bed." Janet took the girl back upstairs and put her into bed. Liam was fast asleep. She had a shower and went to bed, knowing full well that she wouldn't be sleeping that night.

Bianca dropped the clutch and squealed off into the night, furious at herself for letting Janet bait her and get under her skin. She contemplated where to go. She could go to Danica's place.

Shoot her and bury her halfway between here and Orange and be back before sunrise. What a tempting thought. She couldn't believe the gall of the woman, attempting to kiss her, grope her, and when she hadn't responded, trying harder to force the issue.

Where did she get off doing that? Had she led the other woman on? Bianca had driven around aimlessly for half an hour before parking her car at a seven-eleven somewhere in Parramatta and going to buy a packet of cigarettes; she wasn't sure if she was more outraged at what she was doing or the price of the pack of smokes.

She wandered back towards the pub she and Danica left several hours ago in a funk, sidestepping a few drunken louts that were leaving. She unwrapped the smokes, crumpling the cellophane wrapper into her pants pocket and seating a cigarette between her lips before realising she didn't have a lighter.

"For fuck's sake," she cursed.

"Hey! Hey! Bianca!" a voice called out from behind her, from the drunkards she had just passed.

A steady staccato of footsteps came towards her. She turned, a nasty response on the tip of her tongue, hand trailing towards her pistol, ready to verbally rip a new asshole to whoever was brave enough to try and talk to her, ready to draw her pistol, ready for carnage. Her nerves on edge, electricity coursing through her, she turned, ready to brawl.

"Bianca! What are you doing here? Where's Janet?" It was Andy. She deflated, took the cigarette out from between her lips and placed it back into the packet before pocketing the whole thing.

There was some shouting from Andy's friends, and he waved them off. "Yeah, you go on ahead. I'll get a cab or something. You guys go." he shouted down the street, allowing the men to begin again on their meandering course.

He looked at her silently, up and down. "Drop me home?" he asked. She regarded him carefully before nodding, sighing and trudging back the way she had came. Andy fell into step beside her.

"Come in for a coffee or a drink."

She had pulled up out the front of Andy and Lina's place, and on his insistence, had driven the car into their driveway.

It didn't actually take too much convincing to get Bianca inside. Andy assured her that Lina wouldn't mind, and as long as they were quiet and didn't wake Henry, everything would be fine. They had ditched the idea of coffee nearly immediately, and they had both switched their phones to silent and put them on the table.

Lina had got up to check on Henry and found them talking quietly and downing shots at a fierce pace, and wisely gone back to bed, leaving them both to their self-destructive behaviour.

They finished the whole bottle of Tequila and half a bottle of vodka between the two of them, and, not long before the sun came up, Andy had let Bianca use the guest bedroom and crawled into bed next to his wife and passed out.

By the time they were back into action the next morning, Lina had taken Henry to her parents house and left them a note telling them to clean up the mess they had made the night before.

Bianca and Andy shuffled about silently, cleaning up as they went. They were both quiet, but, after a hot shower, with the house airing out, sitting at the breakfast nook with coffee and croissants that Lina had kindly left on the kitchen table, Andy asked "Now what?"

"Now I wish I hadn't drunk that whole bottle of tequila."

"You and me both," Andy responded. He checked his phone. 10am. "I've called in already," Bianca stated. "Said we were chasing some leads, might not be in until later."

"We should have chased those shots with something." Andy sagely commented.

Bianca sighed. "How long have you known Janet?" She looked across the table at Andy. She had already checked her phone, and there were no missed calls from anyone that she had wanted to respond to.

"At least five or six years…." He counted them out on his fingers. It hurt his head to think.

"Did you know Ash at all?"

Andy scratched his scalp, wishing the pounding behind his eyes would go away. "Bianca, don't do it to yourself." He got up, and rummaged through the medicine cabinet until he found some dissolvable aspirin and some Berocca.

"Janet's… Neurotic."

He filled two glasses with cold water and dropped two aspirin and a berocca into each glass, sliding one in front of Bianca and leaving one for himself. She nodded her thanks.

"They never really socialised much with us – we socialise a lot more." he gave a tight smile to Bianca, "But whenever we did catch up it seemed that Janet was in charge… don't get me wrong, they were fine together, and adored each other…" He looked at Bianca, checking that she was still fine with the conversation. "I dunno, Ash didn't seem independent, like…" Andy stopped, unsure of how to continue.

"And as a person?" Bianca wasn't sure why she was putting herself through this. "Nice enough… couldn't say much more than that. I thought maybe she was a bit whiny…." Andy looked down at his coffee, very uncomfortable. He wanted desperately to change the subject.

"Janet fell apart for a long time after Ash was shot. I think she lost herself; allowed herself to be consumed by her grief and anger for such a long time. Without the kids…" he trailed off again.

"I didn't get it then, and I don't fully get it now, but if something happened to Lina or Henry, I don't know what I'd do." Andy rotated his mug 360 degrees, cleared his throat and frowned. He opened his mouth, only to shut it again. He tried again.

"Bianca, I don't know what you fought about last night. I'm gonna guess and chuck some ideas out there. You can let me know how right or wrong I am. Janet's still struggling with trust issues. I can see that. She thinks you and Danica are on together, right? I can see that there's nothing happening. All of us can. I don't think Janet can. Ash… I think she was a school teacher. Nine to five work, consistently. No variations. Grading papers and intimidating teens. That's it. I'm not going to say she was a pushover… but…"

He lifted his eyebrows and Bianca acknowledged the statement with a tilt of her head, "Anyway, You two…" Andy made weird swirly motions with his hands, "You and Ash, I mean, are polar opposites. When was that last time that you backed down to Janet? You challenge her in a way Ash never did. You intimidate her."

"I don't" Bianca snorted and shook her head, an ironic smile creeping in. She intimidated Janet King? It couldn't be possible, could it?

"You do. By your independence, your sheer competence. She's scared to trust you because she's scared she'll lose you. I don't think she wants to let you in because she's afraid that if she does, you'll trample on her heart. We work closely with our colleagues, so does she. Ash didn't have that; and seeing those close work relationships, it scares her."

Andy pushed his coffee cup away, and dragged the fizzing glass of fluorescent red fluid closer. "I've also seen Danica flirting with you. She's a pain in the ass. She was the reason one of my mates got divorced. Reasonable investigator, but a fucking pain in the ass."

"She tried to bail me up last night."

"Yeah. Wouldn't have put it past her." He shook his head in disgust. "You can file a complaint if you like." Bianca shook her head, before shrugging noncommittally. "Fine. But I reserve the right to transfer her out to the boondocks anyway."

They sat in silence for a long time, deep in their own thoughts, the ticking of clock regularly punctuating silence, an occasional warbling of magpies and the fizzing of the pick-me-up's the only other sounds in the house.

"Yes Your Honour. We find the defendant Guilty."

Janet flexed her hands into fist under the table before relaxing them and taking a deep breath, holding for a count of five before slowly exhaling over another count of five. She had given closing address earlier that day after a sleepless night and torturously slow morning; she had changed her the address slightly; she went in much, much more aggressively than originally intended, borderline too hard; hard enough for Lina to look sideways at her during the speech, although, arguably, there was no punishment harsh enough for a man who murdered a woman and her four year old daughter in a crime of passion.

They stood for the Judge, and packed up their papers to leave. Janet had her things packed before Lina. "I'll see you back there." With that she breezed out of the courtroom, leaving Lina in her wake.

"Yes. What is it?"

Janet had her head down reviewing the arson and drug trafficking case that would occupy the rest of her week. It was late, and Janet was avoiding thinking about the incidents of the night before. She looked up to see whose timid knocking was disturbing her ill-tempered solitude.

"Can I help you, Lina?" She asked coldy, leaning back in her chair, arching at the same time, giving it a good stretch. Too bad she'd shouted at Bianca the night before, she thought ruefully. Bianca did give very good back rubs. She cleared her throat and raised her eyebrows to hurry Lina along.

A competent solicitor, Janet didn't usually work with Lina and was frustrated at the change of plan she encountered upon arriving at the office earlier that morning.

"Well, I'm leaving now." Lina shifted and leaned against the doorframe so she was half inside the office. "We got a good win today." She quirked the side of her mouth up, and Janet gave a generic sound of agreement.

"Ahhh… I just wanted to let you know that Bianca stayed over at our place last night." Lina rushed this out quickly, not sure if she had overstepped a boundary by sharing this information. "They… they were drinking. I'm not sure what time until but they weren't up when I left this morning." Janet blanched, looking down quickly before composing herself and looking up at Lina. "Thank you for letting me know." She flashed a tight smile. "Anything else?"

"Umm… no, that's all. Ahh… goodnight. See you tomorrow."

"Goodnight"

Lina pushed off the doorframe and briskly left the office, keen to get out of there quickly – the ice queen was back with gale force winds, and she didn't want to be caught in the draught.

Janet leaned forward in her desk chair, placing her forehead into the heel of her palms, and took a shuddering breath. "What have I done?" she muttered to herself. She picked up her phone and activated the screen, her thumb hovering over the dial button, trying to decide if she should call Bianca. The screen went black and she put the phone back down again. She looked over the stack of papers on her desk, no longer interested in pretending to look over them, but still not wanting to go home. Janet's iphone chimed with an incoming message, and Janet snatched it up, flicking her thumb over the phone to unlock it. She frowned, and tapped out a response to Amanda. Disappointment marred her features as she picked up her handbag, dropped her phone in it and left the office.