Jen waited in the back of the briefing room, staying quiet and watching and listening to everything that was going on. Jarvis gave everyone assignments, and Jen paid close attention to each and every one. Rhys and Allie were assigned to finding that getaway car and hopefully the driver with it. Karin was assigned to looking up all of Rankin's known associates. And Matt and Oliver were sent to investigate and ask questions at Rankin's address on file. Jarvis and Waverley, meanwhile, were going to get in touch with the feds; they'd worked with the tobacco control in the case before and had to share witnesses and information, so it stood to reason that they'd be able to help now.
"You know what I'm going to tell you," Bernice said quietly, pausing by the door to speak to Jen after all the detectives went about their assignments.
She sighed in resignation. "Yeah, I know. I've gotta go home."
Bernice nodded and have her friend a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. "Good girl. I'll call you later as things progress, alright?"
Jen gave a look to Jarvis, since they'd just discussed the same thing in Nick's office twenty minutes earlier. He gave her a subtle nod, keeping his promise that he'd keep her updated.
And with that, Jen fulfilled her role as the good girl everyone always expected her to be. Funny how that happened. She'd always been rebellious when she was young. Piercings and cutting school and hanging around dirty surfers twice her age. She'd nearly gotten arrested herself a few times before she figured out she had to make something of herself. Study hard, get in shape, dress properly, keep herself presentable but not too drab. Jennifer Mapplethorpe had turned herself into the very picture of a good cop. And she was good. She knew she was. For the most part, she followed procedure and stuck to the rules and did the job well from the time she was in uniform through making detective on Fraud to all her years on Homicide before having her family had caused her to once again be the good girl and take a desk job in the public relations department. Oh she still had a bit of rebellion in her at times. After all, she'd spent years shagging a member of her squad and even married him in secret to protect their jobs. And not only that, she'd more than once gotten herself into deadly situations that were saved only by her quick thinking and valiant reflexes. She'd killed and she'd saved lives, and all of that was down to Jennifer being a good cop. A good girl.
So yes, she did go home to see her children just as she was told. Only first, she waited till Terry and Bernice had gone up to his office to make their calls and she'd taken the elevator to her own office and smuggled her police-issue laptop from her desk. She took that laptop with access to all of the police files with her.
Because as much as she knew to follow the rules and do as she was told, Jennifer could not just sit by and do nothing. Now that her husband was alive, now that her children were safe, now that her family was rescued, Jen had work to do.
She used her spare key to enter Eloise Buchanan's house as quietly as she could. There wasn't a sound to be heard in the whole house. There were wedding things strewn about the normally tidy living room and kitchen. Jen got a small pang in her heart at that. Poor Hope. For all her theatrics, she was an extremely sweet and clever girl. Nick had a very special place in his heart for her, which rubbed off on Jen as well. Of all his sisters, Hope was the one who needed him most; she'd been only nine months old when their father died, leaving Nick as essentially the only father she'd ever known. Hope craved his approval and attention and revered her big brother above all others in the world. And, in Jen's opinion, she could not have chosen a better man to try to make proud. And Hope did make him proud. She worked in a marketing firm in the city and had been promoted very quickly, thanks to her winning charisma and brilliant ideas.
And now having Duncan as a part of their family was a dream come true for everyone. He'd come a long way from when Jen first met him, and he had become one of her closest friends in the world. The whole Buchanan family adored Duncan, and Hope made him happier than Jen had ever seen him. The fact that their wedding had been ruined in the cruelest possible way was unthinkable.
The reminder of the tragic events spurred her back to what she was doing. Jen grabbed a chocolate peanut butter cookie from the jar on the kitchen counter—they were Ella's favorite so Eloise always made sure to have them in the house—and head upstairs with her laptop. She was so distracted by enjoying the cookie that she nearly stepped on the fifth step on the crack where it squeaked so loud it would surely wake up the whole house. She narrowly avoided it by dodging and hitting her shoulder on the wall. There wasn't any sound, thankfully, just Jen hissing when her arm was stabbed by the corner of a picture frame upon impact. Ah well.
Eloise's bedroom door was closed, so Jen did not disturb her when she got to the top of the landing. Instead, she went down the hall to the other closed door and opened it gently.
Inside Nick's childhood bedroom, sleeping snuggled up together in the bed, were Ella and Cody. Jen closed the door behind her and just stood for a few minutes, watching them. She was probably biased as their mother, but she could not imagine that there were two more beautiful children in all the world. The both of them had her golden skin and golden hair. Cody's eyes were shaped just like Nick's, slightly turned down on the outer corners. Ella had Jen's nose. The both of them were the perfect blend of Nick and herself, and if she thought about it too much, if she really let herself think of the struggle and miscarriages and lost hope and fear and heartache that they'd suffered to bring these children into the world, Jen would start weeping again.
Instead of letting herself fall to tears again, Jen gave her babies a little kiss on their heads as she tucked them back in and sat down with her laptop. She logged in with her police credentials and got to work.
The children slept on as Jen lightly typed away, scrolling through prison records for anything of note about Rankin. She looked at his priors, at his history, at the reports she herself had written up all those years ago. She dug in deep to his business from before the feds shut it down. She turned over every rock she could think of in learning every little detail she could find about Colin Rankin.
By the time Ella rolled over and onto Cody's cast, waking them both up with pained grumbles, Jen had about a dozen leads to send over to her friends at Homicide. But she saved her notes to her hard drive and shut the laptop for the time being.
"Hello," she greeted softly.
The twins were both a little out of sorts, not quite remembering where they'd fallen asleep or what was going on. But they knew their mother's voice. She woke them up with that soft 'Hello' almost every day for their whole lives.
Ella sat up first. She rubbed her bright blue eyes and smiled. "Hi, Mummy."
After worrying whether trauma had rendered Ella entirely mute, hearing her sweet voice was enough to get Jen emotional again.
But leave it to Cody to bring them back to the issues at hand. "Mum, Ella hurt my arm," he whined.
"Cody, I didn't mean to!" she sniped back.
"Hush," Jen snapped. She didn't mean any harm, but she'd trained the whole family quite well on responding to that tone of her voice. She then spoke much softer, saying, "Ella rolled over in her sleep and your arm was right there. It's nobody's fault. Is anyone hurt?"
They both shook their heads.
"Good. Now, would it be okay if I come snuggle with you for a little while?" she asked.
"Why didn't you snuggle before?" Cody asked.
Jen smiled, taking off her shoes and suit jacket. "I didn't want to wake you guys up."
She crossed over to the closet and found one of Nick's old tshirts and some pyjama bottoms that he kept at the house on the few occasions they slept over. She changed into them before coming back from the closet and climbing into the bed. Ella and Cody made space for her between them, and she wrapped her arms around each of them, as was their usual way of things. It was slightly strange to cuddle them like this when Nick wasn't there, but there had been occasions when he was working long hours and she spent a day or two alone with the twins. She could pretend this was just like that. And in a strange way, it was. They were just waiting for Nick to come home to them. And he would. Jen knew he always would.