XXV) After Shock

It was dark outside now and neither of them had said a word since they got back to the office. There was no one else there. Anna and Wei-Ling already left for the day, which meant there was no need for explanations. For why their clothes were full of dust and grime.

Both of them sat at their desks, staring into space, an empty glass of brandy in front of each of them.

It was Gillian who broke the silence.

"We should call the police," she said softly.

He looked at her. She was as shell-shocked as he was. Probably more so.

"And say what exactly?"

Her eyes met his and he spotted anger in them this time. "I don't know? The truth maybe? That we were there to listen in on a meeting and instead we saw three men get gunned down?"

"We didn't see anything, Foster," he reminded her. How the hell could they explain this without incriminating themselves in the process? Without dooming their company just as it was starting to take off?

"So we just...say nothing? Pretend today didn't happen? What if...what if they somehow trace something back to us? The police has sophisticated equipment these days."

"What could they trace back to us?" Cal asked her. "They burned the building down."

"What about the car? Tire tracks?"

"I drive a cheap Ford," he reminded her. "It's probably the most common make of car in the entire US."

"So...we say nothing and cross our fingers?"

Cal swallowed, watching as she got up to pour herself some more brandy. Her hands were shaking too hard to hold up the carafe. He got up and helped her.

Foster, normally so cool and composed, looked like a mess. There was a dirt stain on the side of her face and her suit jacket had a tear in one of the arms.

"How's your head?" he asked, moving a hand towards the back of her head, shocked to see a sizeable bump forming underneath her dishevelled hair.

"Ouch..." she protested, shirking away from his touch. "It's fine if you don't touch it."

"That...doesn't look fine," he disagreed, chiding himself for not thinking to ask her sooner. "Let's go to a hospital, get it checked out," he told her. "You could have a concussion. You blacked out back at the warehouse." He'd almost forgotten that too.

"No, I didn't."

"Yeah, you did."

"Cal!" she glared at him. "A bump on the head is not my biggest worry right now!"

He watched her take another sip of the brandy. Shaking his head. If she did have a concussion, that was a lousy idea too. Then again, was there any part of today that wasn't a lousy idea? What was one more?

She sighed. "What in the world are we going to do?"

Cal poured himself some more brandy too. "I don't know." It was the truth. He really had no damn clue where to go from here.

Foster winced as she took off her suit jacket and he noticed that her elbow, where the jacket was torn, was a mess; a mix of dried blood and dirt. Probably from when he tackled her to the ground.

Cal walked over to the first aid kit and opened it. Grabbed some anti-septic cream and large band-aids. "Lemme clean that."

"Just leave it."

"Let me do something, would you?" he barked. Anything to still his racing thoughts. To set something right again in this mess of a day. "Foster?"

Gillian sat back down at her desk, closed her eyes for a moment and held out her arm. "Alright."

She was completely still while she watched him in action. It impressed him that she didn't even flinch while he cleaned the scrapes on her elbow. He hadn't expected his feminine, romance-novel reading partner to be quite so tough.

"Cal..." she said softly.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry about Riley. I know he was your friend."

"Yeah," he mumbled accepting her condolences. Friend was an exaggeration. "I didn't know, Gill."

"Didn't know what?"

"That he was doing what he did. Back in Belfast he was a small time crook. Poker schemes. Money laundering. Gambling cons. Not...this. Not gangs and murder."

Gillian said nothing, her blue eyes reading his.

"If I knew I would never have..."

"I know, " she cut him off before they retreated back into silence. Sitting across from each other without a word, until the adrenaline wore off and the exhaustion hit both of them like a tonne of bricks.

Cal's limbs felt heavy and immobile and he figured Foster had to be feeling it even more. He should take her home. She was in no shape to drive.

"Whatever you want to do about this, I'll go along," he announced finally.

"What?"

"If you want to go to police, we'll go. I don't think we should, but I won't make that decision for both of us." The truth was they hadn't seen anything. No faces, no license plate numbers. Nothing that would be of any use to the police, except for a man's voice that Foster would recognize if she heard it again. An unidentified voice, belonging to a man they didn't know.

They should call the police because it was the right thing to do. It was a matter of obeying the law. Helping them get these guys in any way they could. Never mind easing their conscience.

But it would taint the Lightman Group forever. Possibly even destroy it.

Gillian exhaled, debating it in silence for a long moment before finally meeting his gaze, her expression determined. She'd come to the same conclusion.

"No. No police."