A/N: Originally this chapter was going to include Christina and Helena's mother as well, but it got too long, so that will take up chapter three. I'm trying to introduce early on most of the other characters who will figure in this fic, so this chapter and the next will still be more set-up/introduction than plot. But there will be plot. . . and angst, plenty of that. So buckle your seat belts for a long ride.
A/N II: I think I said this in the notes to the first chapter, but I'll just state here (again) that this fic will have strong language and sexual content. I won't preface every chapter with this warning, but I did want to state it once more.
Steve was with her in the car this time, and she wasn't sweating. At least not so much that she had to worry about taking off her suit jacket. Sam had come over the night before, and though she had spent an extra 45 minutes at the gym reassuring herself that if she had any anxiety about the next day she was ridding herself of it now, she had practically stripped him at the door. He had eyed her uncertainly as she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants, but he hadn't asked her to slow down, taking her before they made it back to her bedroom. It had gone like that the rest of the night, not rushed, not rough, but quick and without apology for mistimed clinches and errant gropings. Eventually Sam, with a groan, had rolled away, muttering that he had to get some sleep, and Myka had lain, taut and tense, staring up at the ceiling.
But he hadn't gone to sleep, not right away, trying to relax her by saying that it was all right to be nervous, that it wasn't just working with Helena now but shouldering all that had happened eight years ago as well. And if she felt it was too much, she could quit. Damn the FBI, damn Justice. He could support her. His solicitousness had irritated her, and though she knew he meant it sincerely - what wasn't sincerely meant when it was said after sex and the both of you, or one of you, were on the verge of sleep - she recalled that he had made no such gesture when they had gone to the prison to meet with Helena. It was easy to be supportive, magnanimous even, when you had gotten what you wanted. They - the FBI, Justice - needed Helena to agree to an impossible deal, and what was the bone they had tossed her? Not Christina, she was Helena's hope, Helena's dream. Myka Bering was the bone, the one face among all those remorseless agency faces that Helena might still trust in. Because Myka was honest, and when it came to Helena, she had been a fool, maybe still was, and there was no better dupe for a con artist than an honest fool. If she said she would protect Christina then she would, no matter how foolish, how impossible that promise proved to be.
She was being paranoid. Neither Sam's bosses nor Pete's bosses had any idea that she would make a promise to Helena to ensure that she agreed to the deal. In fact, the last thing they would want would be for Helena to have a claim of any sort on one of their agents. Maybe such a clear and early indication that her objectivity wasn't to be trusted would be enough to get her reassigned - she should wake Sam up and tell him to tell his bosses that she had threatened to put an end to the deal if she thought that Christina was in danger.
But she hadn't woken him up. Instead she had continued to stare at the ceiling, asking herself if she was willing to do this each and every night, ceaselessly roll the doubt over and over, as if she were playing dice with herself and hoping they wouldn't come up snake eyes every time - whether she should quit, whether she could figure out Helena's game plan (because she had one), whether she could survive days, weeks, months of working with her without killing her. Because even when things had been good, Myka had always wanted to kill her at some point. Helena was just that aggravating.
She was late into work this morning, her dental appointment having run late, not because of any problems with her teeth because she never had problems with her teeth - she flossed every night before bed - but because the appointment before hers had run late. Probably because that patient had problems with his teeth. Her supervisor Bates and her partner were in Bates' office, she could hear their laughter. She was late for the 9:00 meeting that Bates had scheduled for her and Pete to meet their new outside consultant. Bates looked mild-mannered enough with his receding hairline and his equally recessive features, but he could be a dick. He had refused to tell them who the consultant was, saying smugly, "You'll find out on Monday." So she was going into the meeting cold and - she checked her watch - 20 minutes late. Wonderful.
Bates and Pete were on either side of a woman with long, dark hair; they were all looking at the impressive view of the city's skyline offered by a bank of windows, which wrapped around the walls to form an almost unbroken L, a surprisingly impressive view given that this was the office of a team supervisor, not an assistant director. Catching movement at the doorway from the corner of his eye, Bates waved Myka in, saying "And this is Lattimer's partner, Myka Bering. Although you'll be expected to work with all the members of the team, Myka will serve as your point person."
The woman held out her hand, smiling winningly but with the faintest hint of surprise, as though something about Myka wasn't quite what she expected. If Myka hadn't been coming in late, coming in without the least idea of who this woman was, she wouldn't have let the smile bother her, because rationally, she knew, the woman's surprise wasn't a negative reaction. But when she was off-balance, not on her game, she reacted instinctively, not rationally, and Myka had had it hard wired into her at a young age that surprising people was usually a code word for disappointing them. So her smile in response was tight, and she took the woman's hand a little too aggressively, a little too firmly. The woman registered the tension and squeezed Myka's hand just as firmly, but she said with a lightness that had Bates and Pete politely chuckling, "When your partner told me that I was going to look up to you, I had no idea he meant it literally."
Beanpole. Scarecrow. Andre the Giant. (It was too much to ask of nine-year-olds to find a way of rhyming Myka and Andre or to come up with a clever play on their names. It was too difficult for her some 17 years later.) It didn't matter that the third grade boys weren't clever because the labels still stung. Terrific - she was late, at a loss, and feeling like she was nine years old again in front of this woman, who managed to make a seemingly casual, seemingly thrown-together style - jacket, blouse, slacks all subtly mismatched - look elegant.
"Not used to being in someone's shadow?" It wasn't much of a comeback, not that the woman's mild joke deserved one. Myka recognized that her response, in fact, was less comeback than insult. She could have said something on the order of "I try not to block the sun," which would have been an equally mild joke about her height, equally as tossed off. Aimless remarks, nervous comments, it was what people did to cover the awkwardness of being introduced. What they didn't do was throw down the proverbial gauntlet, even if an aimless remark might have the tiniest of barbs.
The woman's eyes narrowed (her eyes would be good at that, Myka thought, the way they rode those cheekbones), but her tone remained light, "You'll never be tall enough for that, Agent Bering."
Steve was comfortable with silence. They hadn't spoken since they had left the city. If it had been Sam again in the car with her, he would have been patting her knee (she was driving this time) and repeating, over and over, how much confidence he had in her. If the car had been a DeLorean from Back to the Future and not some mid-price agency-owned sedan, Pete would have been her partner and filling the silence with groan-worthy wisecracks and highway games he had invented on the spot, such as Are The People in the Car Ahead of Us Giving Each Other Hand Jobs? and Have Long Have You Gone on a Car Ride Without Stopping to Pee?
Steve's eyes were closed, and Myka wondered if he was meditating or going through some relaxation routines. She wasn't always sure if she understood the difference in practice. Sensing that her attention was on him, he blinked a few times and turned his head, regarding her as he almost always did, with a calm expectancy that suggested he could handle whatever she planned to throw at him. Generally he did, game for anything from an all-night surveillance to spending hours comparing documents, searching for the error that would mark one as the fake. She smiled and shook her head, signaling that she had nothing, for now, to throw at him.
"If I were her," he said, "the first thing I'd want to do is see my kid."
"That's not the first thing she should be expecting," Myka countered, knowing what subject Steve was indirectly raising. It was an odd circumspection in a man who had a talent for calling out someone when she was lying. "She knows that there are going to be rules she'll have to follow -"
"And ankle monitors to wear," Steve interjected. "But, still, she's going to want to know when she can see her daughter, and. . . ."
"Her attorney should have informed her," Myka said swiftly, brusquely. "Our part of the deal is that we recommend reducing her sentence. We're not involved in the custody battle she's having with Christina's father. We're not taking sides in that." As part of his maneuvering to gain full custody of his daughter, Ben Winslow had worked to have Helena's access to Christina limited, and he had succeeded. Christina could remain primarily in the care of her grandmother (with time spent at the Winslow home as well), but Helena would be allowed to spend only a few hours with her on a weekly basis and those visits had to be supervised - by the FBI. It shouldn't have surprised Myka what an influential senator, such as Ben Winslow's father, could get away with arranging, but the fact that someone from the team would have to chaperone those visits dismayed her, especially as she would most likely be the chaperone.
"But it'll look to her like we knew and didn't tell her because, of course, we did know and didn't tell her. I would prefer working with someone who didn't already hold a grudge against us."
"I'll take a grudge-holding Helena Wells any day over someone who's pretending to be helpful. She's been picking this agreement apart in her mind from the day she signed it, trying to find a weakness in it." And trying to find the weaknesses in the agents she would be working with, Myka knew.
"Don't let your past history with her cloud your judgment," Steve counseled. "She's not going to risk losing her daughter -"
It wasn't just that Steve habitually weighed both the positives and negatives of any situation or that he always recommended, when he could, a balanced, even-handed approach, but that, for the past several months, he and his husband Paul had been interviewing women to find one to serve as a surrogate mother. Her emotionally steady partner of three years had developed a sentimental side that would have him become misty-eyed at any talk of babies or the adorable doings of small children.
"Don't make the mistake of thinking she's like you," Myka snapped. "She won't risk Christina's life, but she'll be willing to risk a lot if the prize is big enough. If she thinks she sees an out, one where she can scuttle the deal and take off with her daughter somewhere, she will. In a heartbeat. Don't expect her, even now, to play straight with us."
"Straight, given her sexual history, no," Steve said, making a joke that Myka's scowl recognized but didn't welcome. "But you need to allow for the possibility, Mykes, that she's changed. Not just because it's the right thing to do but because the success of this arrangement depends on it. If you're not open to trusting her, none of this will work."
It was rare that anyone on the team called her Mykes. It was Pete's nickname for her, and most left its use reserved for him. But she and Steve had grown close since they had been partnered, and Steve would use it when he wanted to press home a message. Exactly as he was doing now. Being suspicious of Helena's every motive would be as damaging as being blind to them had been eight years ago. Myka had frequently been appreciative of the qualities that Steve brought to an assignment, his coolness and objectivity complementing her intensity and determination, but she might never be as grateful that he was her partner as she was now.
As they drew nearer to the prison, Myka thought she spotted the place on the road where Sam had pulled off at her urging, and they had argued about the real arrangement that Helena was striking with the agencies, which was the luring of her father's old protegé, Nate Burdette, into a trap of her making. That part of the deal Pete hadn't yet shared with the rest of the team, and Myka was uncomfortable that she wasn't able to talk about it with Steve. She must have been disguising her feelings better than she thought because he hadn't yet accused her of hiding something from him. But that was probably because her unease with having to work with Helena again was so obvious that her unease about having to ensnare Burdette simply bled into it.
It had been less than two weeks since the meeting with Helena, but the promise of spring that Myka had seen in the buds on the trees and the tentative greening of the hills was, if not fulfilled, far enough along that real spring couldn't be far behind. Overlaying branches like a mist were the spear-tips of new leaves and the grass beneath was no longer springing up unevenly, a patchy, almost scabrous growth surrounded by expanses of brown, but a rolling carpet of a green so brilliant that Myka felt her eyes beginning to water. Even the prison and its wire barricades were looking softer; the bushes on the grounds were in bloom, and wildflowers, white, yellow, and pale blue, were clustering at the fence posts. The guards weren't any softer, however, and though she and Steve did not have to go through the multiple security checks since they weren't entering the prison proper, they were limited to a public area containing a few rows of chairs as they waited for Helena to be processed out. Only one other person was in the room, a woman, not much older than a girl, who was typing on a laptop, occasionally flicking a strand of hair away from her face. Myka didn't have a clear view of her features, enough to note a pointed chin, made all the sharper by the frown of concentration, and a slightly-too-long nose; what she saw was enough to hint at an irregularity that would make her memorable rather than conventionally, and forgettably, pretty. It was also enough to make Myka think she had seen the girl before, or someone like her.
The scuffling of several feet behind them, voices, some male, some female, a door clicking open, and Myka turned around to see Helena emerging, escorted by a guard. She was dressed in faded jeans and a cotton, button-down shirt; had the jeans been dotted with smears of old paint and the shirt unbuttoned and hanging open, the outfit could have been what she wore when she painted, if she wasn't wearing anything underneath the shirt. The memory of Helena turned away from her easel, the jeans, beltless, hanging off her hips, the shirt revealing the pale crescents of her breasts, and the smile, teasing and secretive and indulgent, as if Myka bumbling into her studio uninvited was exactly what she had expected, interposed itself onto the scene, and Myka had to close her eyes to stop seeing it. When she opened her eyes, she realized there really hadn't been a need to force the memory away, this older Helena wasn't smiling, and she looked swallowed by the clothing. She was holding a small bag, its plastic handles wrapped around her wrist. She murmured to the guard, who gave her a pat on the shoulder as he left her to return to the secured area, and Helena's dark eyes swept the waiting room, lingering on the girl before settling on Myka. Steve's presence she seemed not to register at all.
The girl was bounding out of her chair, laptop forgotten, and as she rushed past Myka to enfold Helena in a bruising hug, Myka didn't need to hear Helena say fondly, reprovingly, "Claudia," to remember where she had seen the girl's features before. They had been thicker, more masculine, and the brown hair hadn't had the red overtones. She had seen that chin and that nose on Joshua Donovan, Helena's "business partner" and her accomplice - although they hadn't been able to prove it, no more than they had been able to prove Helena's role in the art theft in Houston. Claudia released Helena after one more rib-cracking squeeze but didn't move away from her; the frown had returned and was trained on Myka and Steve.
"Your fed babysitters?" The tone was contemptuous.
"Agents Bering and Jinks, Federal Bureau of Investigation," Steve said lightly, flashing his credentials.
Claudia Donovan directed a look, distinctly unimpressed, at Myka. "So this is the famous Myka."
Who didn't know their history? The surprise faded, and she looked harder at Helena. What would have been her purpose in telling Claudia? The girl was a smartass, maybe that had been reason enough. A gibe coming from an unexpected direction to unsettle her. . . so that was the going price of their relationship, their former relationship. If she colored and stammered and gave the impression that she wanted to sink through the floor, she would have already given up the game; the only way through the embarrassment was. . . through it. Not allowing Claudia's gaze to drift away from hers, Myka said coolly, "The one who got away."
Helena shrugged, her expression unreadable, and Claudia filled in scornfully, "Can't say that I think it's a huge loss, Helena. If you want hot and uptight, they're a dime a dozen in the city. In fact, I know an investment banker, on the market after breaking up with her girlfriend -"
"Enough, Claudia. The only female I have any interest in is four years old with strawberry jam in the corners of her mouth." Helena's lips twisted up in the first sign of animation she had shown since coming through the door. "When can I see my daughter?"
"This afternoon," Myka said briefly. "But we have a lot we need to do before then."
"At least may I call my mother and let her know -"
Myka sliced the air sideways, cutting her off. "She already knows you're coming, Helena." With a quick glance at Steve, which she hoped told him not to volunteer more, she said, "We need to get going."
Claudia had known better than to try to argue that Helena could ride in her car. As Myka and Steve veered toward the agency sedan, Helena compliantly walking between them, Claudia shouted to Helena as she backpedaled toward an ancient Honda Civic, "I'll meet you at Mrs. F's. They're going to act like they found you the place, but it was me. You'll like it, trust me."
Myka stopped and watched as Claudia smirked at her and bowed mockingly. Finding appropriate lodgings for Helena was a chore she had dreaded, especially since living with Jemma wasn't an option. They had needed to find an apartment or rooms that the owner was willing to let to a felon and that were within a reasonable distance of the agency's offices, basic necessities, and at least a few of the agents' homes. But they hadn't needed to start a search, Helena's attorney had called Pete, claiming a remarkable stroke of luck. A widow of his acquaintance, living in one of the city's northern neighborhoods, was willing to rent the third floor of her townhome to Helena. She had been informed of Helena's history, the attorney assured Pete, and was willing not only to welcome a convict into her home but to offer a discounted rate as well. The townhome was located in an area that had, after decades of neglect, undergone rapid gentrification, and rents were astronomical, beyond what the agency was able to subsidize. But for Helena, Mrs. Frederic was happy to make an exception.
After an initial vetting of Irene Frederic, which uncovered no known ties to Helena Wells, her father, or her brother, and no significant red flags, only a few arrests for student demonstrations and protests that dated back to the late 1960s, Myka and Steve went to her home to interview her. The file on her was correspondingly thin. After graduating from Columbia University, she had served in the Peace Corps and returned to work for various community organizations. Marrying an attorney who represented one of the organizations, she had stayed at home to raise their three sons, and, after they were grown, she had resumed her work, eventually becoming director of a nonprofit that provided health services to low-income families. Her husband had died several years ago, and she had never remarried, continuing to live, alone, in the brownstone she and her husband had purchased in the mid-1970s at a price that would barely cover the down payment on the same property now.
Myka had expected a kindly-looking grandmother, but the woman who opened the door at their knock had the slightly impatient air of authority that Myka was more accustomed to seeing in the corporate executives she interviewed (or interrogated, as it sometimes turned out). Mrs. Frederic was wearing a business suit, an olive-colored jacket and skirt with an intricately patterned black and olive scarf billowing up from the neckline of her jacket to frame a face with a strong jaw and alert dark eyes. Her hair, tightly braided, had been gathered up into a bun that more strongly resembled a turban, and she looked like a woman prepared to lead a budget meeting, not the retiree who had indicated - through Helena's attorney - that her mornings were generally free. The interview hadn't revealed any red flags either, Mrs. Frederic explaining in a quiet voice that discouraged interruption her desire to support Helena in her efforts at rehabilitation. When asked how Helena's situation had come to her attention, she responded, with a smile strangely reminiscent of Helena's in that it seemed to hint at a secret she might be willing, with the proper enticement, to disclose, that Helena's attorney had served on the board of her former employer. He had reached out to her, and she had answered. She had concluded the interview by showing them the rooms, which actually formed a small apartment on the third floor - living room, kitchen/dining space, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. The rooms were furnished, and the living room, which was the most generously sized of the rooms, opened onto a balcony that was large enough to hold a table and two chairs. She volunteered that she and her husband had converted the third floor into an apartment for the youngest of their sons, who lived at home while he attended medical school. But that had been many years ago. She sighed, gesturing at the furniture, acknowledging that everything was a little out of date. Myka couldn't shake the sense that Mrs. Frederic had been putting on a performance since they had first entered her home, but she couldn't put a finger on any one thing that had struck her as false. Steve had felt the same, but nothing had seemed an outright lie.
"It was as if she knew," Steve said, when they had returned to the car. "She knew enough not to lie, but I felt that most of the truth she was keeping to herself." He rubbed blond hair so closely cut that it looked like bristles. "Unfortunately, I don't think we have enough to decline her offer."
That had been Myka's assessment as well, though seeing Claudia's smirk and hearing her claim that "Mrs. F." had been her idea had Myka regretting that she hadn't expressed her doubts about Helena's living situation to Pete. It was part of Helena's arrangement that she couldn't associate with anyone who had criminal ties, and if Claudia Donovan was anything like her brother . . . . Walking away from the sedan as Steve opened a rear door for Helena, Myka called the office, asking that someone from the team run a background check on Claudia. When she slipped into the front passenger seat, Steve having taken the wheel, she looked over the seat back at Helena, who sat in the middle, her hands held limply in her lap, plastic bag at her side, her face expressionless.
"What's your relationship with Claudia Donovan?"
"I've taken her under my wing," Helena said. "She's nothing like Joshua, if that's what you're worried about."
"I'm worried about anyone you would take under your wing," Myka said grimly.
"She's had a few scrapes with the law, but those were when she was still a minor, and her record's effectively been expunged. You can run all the checks you want, but you won't find anything." Helena had been studying her hands, but she looked up, meeting Myka's eyes. "She's a good kid, as smart and talented as Joshua but. . . less damaged. Wild but not criminal."
Myka turned around and buckled herself in, asking Steve, "What's in the bag?"
"Drawings and cards that her daughter sent her." Steve pulled out of the parking lot, Claudia's battered Civic following them.
"You could have just asked me," Helena said. After a silence, she asked, "Exactly when do I get to see Christina?"
"Exactly later," Myka growled in irritation. "Look, I know you're anxious to see her, but she's not my first priority. Running through the rules and, most importantly, getting a monitor on you and getting it programmed are."
"How long will that take? Christina gets out of preschool at 1:00, and I was hoping to have lunch with her. Will that be possible?"
Before she could stop herself, Myka raised a hand to her hair and lifted it from the back of her neck. "I don't know, Helena, we'll see." Helena had permission to visit Christina from 2:00 to 4:00, not a minute earlier, not a minute later.
"That's not a good sign, you playing with your hair," Helena said it evenly enough, but Myka could hear the tension threading through the words. "There's something you're not telling me. Please be honest with me, Myka, about Christina."
Steve spoke up, "Ben Winslow doesn't want his daughter around a convict -"
"I know that, Agent Jinks," Helena said, her voice rising. She was leaning forward anxiously. "That's why I've agreed to this absolutely hellacious deal in the first place -"
"Winslow petitioned a judge to have your access to Christina restricted. The judge agreed. You can see her once a week, Sunday afternoons from 1:00 to 5:00, and your visits have to be supervised by an agent. As a goodwill gesture, Winslow agreed that you could see your daughter this afternoon. We're due at Jemma's at 2:00. The visit ends at 4:00." Myka said rapidly, harshly, hoping to end any further talk on the subject.
"God, what a bloody cock-up this is," Helena said, the upholstery of the seat wheezing as she slumped against it. "I had hoped. . . I knew it would be too much to be allowed to live with her again, at least at first, but I had thought. . . ." Her voice trailed off, and Myka thought that the conversation might have ended, when Helena said icily, "How long have you known about this? Did you know when you and that Neanderthal of an ex-husband of yours met with me?"
"It's not our job, Helena, to referee between you and Ben Winslow. I would have thought your mother or your attorney would have told you." Myka wished she had remembered to bring some ibuprofen with her, her head was beginning to pound.
"It's not your job, but it would have been a kindness. I would have appreciated the gesture. If I had known that both Justice and the FBI were going to gang bang me, I'd have dropped my pants at that meeting and bent over the table for the both of you. We could have gotten it over with then." Myka could hear her moving restlessly against the seat. "I haven't seen my daughter in months. Ben managed to interfere with that as well. But today was going to be different. I was going to sit and pretend to listen to your asinine rules and suffer you to put that electronic cuff on me, and then I was going to spend whatever time I could with Christina. She's the only reason I'm doing any of this, and you've. . . ." The plaintiveness disappeared, and she asked quietly, "Did you and the Neanderthal have children, Myka?"
"I don't have children. But don't think you can wave the "You're not a mother" card at me, Helena, it won't work." Hampered by the seat belt, Myka awkwardly twisted around to look at her.
Helena's forehead was wrinkling, as if she were having to translate what Myka had said. The wrinkling eased, but when she spoke, there was an odd, halting quality to it, as though she wasn't entirely certain that she had translated Myka's words correctly. "Christina's not a scam I'm running. I wasn't looking to have a child, but she was a marvelously lovely accident. You think I'm such a schemer, Myka, but the best things in my life have been the things I've never intended," she finished softly.
There was no message, not about them, in the flat fixity of her gaze. Which was just as well, she wouldn't have believed it, Myka told herself. There had been four of them at the time when Helena had started working with the team. Pete had been newly married, Ray Williams had been two months from retirement, and Linda Bosworth, she might have been a potential target except for the fact that there were only two interests she had besides forensic accounting, long-distance running and younger men. Helena wasn't up for the former and couldn't pass for the latter. Myka had been the only valid option, and Helena had needed to have one team member who would unquestioningly support her. Have her back, both literally and figuratively. How soon had Helena decided on her? Not that first day, it couldn't have been.
Helena had turned her head and was listlessly looking out the window. Myka slid back against the seat. Maybe she should go through a few relaxation routines herself; they had more than an hour before they would reach the city.
Parking was tight near Mrs. Frederic's brownstone, and Steve had had to squeeze them into a space too close to a fire hydrant. City police might or might not recognize that it was an agency car. Claudia's ancient Civic was nowhere to be seen, but she was already there, eating what looked like a homemade cinnamon roll in the dining room. Parker, their tech expert, pudgy and cherub-cheeked, was sitting around the corner of the table from her, eating an even larger roll and loudly arguing about the merits, or demerits, of a video game. He stood up when he saw them, banging arms and knees against the table in his haste. Cramming the last of the roll in his mouth, he rubbed a napkin against his fingers, trying to scrub off the frosting.
"Hey," he said, in a spray of crumbs. "These are too good to pass up." He was blushing, and his polo shirt - there was no dress code that Parker had to observe other than being dressed, although the way he came in to the office sometimes suggested that was still too high a bar - was half-pulled out of khakis that might have last been used to change the oil in his car.
Claudia waggled her thumb at him. "This is the best you guys can do? No wonder you're written up in the Times or the Journal every week for some dipshit thing."
"Claudia." This time the reproof came from Mrs. Frederic, who entered the dining room carrying two glasses of milk. No business suit this time, but her attire was hardly casual, skirt, dressy blouse, heels. She set the milk on the table and, after quick glances at Myka and Steve that could be interpreted as welcoming, if the way a hawk zeroes in on a mouse could be called welcoming, leisurely assessed Helena. There was no sign of recognition, but Myka suspected Mrs. Frederic had little difficulty controlling her reactions. The assessment over, she held out her hand to Helena, "It's good to meet you, Ms. Wells. I hope you'll find the rooms to your liking."
"Helena." Her eyes flickered to the roll Claudia was polishing off. "I'm sure I will, especially if you serve breakfast."
"I'm afraid meals will be your own responsibility, but I do like to bake, and I'm always looking for taste-testers." She smiled at Parker. "Are you ready, Mr. Parker?"
He reached for the milk, and Myka had visions of him knocking over the glass and spilling its contents onto the expensive rug below. But he picked it up without incident and gulped down the milk. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said to Myka and Steve, "Everything's already upstairs." Hitching up his pants, which occasioned a dramatic eyeroll from Claudia, he led them out of the dining room to the staircase in the foyer.
As they climbed the stairs, the center carpet runner failing to mute the thunder of their feet, Myka could hear Helena asking Mrs. Frederic, "The FBI will be going over their house rules for me. What are yours?"
"The same we asked of Robert, our son, no loud music past 11:00, no illicit drugs, and if he wanted to have overnight guests, no nudity outside the apartment door."
"Sounds fair," Helena responded. "The second was never going to be a possibility, the first is eminently doable, and as for the third. . . ." The tone changed, and Myka heard an archness that she hadn't heard in years. "Am I allowed to bring sexual partners back to my rooms? Believe it or not, women's prisons are not the hotbeds of licentiousness you might think, and I have been so very lonely for companionship."
"Anyone whom you would want to socially associate with we'd have to vet first," Steve said.
"I guess we don't have to worry about the third either, Mrs. Frederic," Helena said.
As they shuffled into the apartment, Myka noticed how Helena scanned the living room and then sauntered into the kitchen, completing a circuit before disappearing down the short corridor to the bedrooms and bathroom, acting as if she were no more than an interested renter. She came back to the living room and went onto the balcony, looking over the railing at what Myka knew was a neck-breaking drop to the tiny first-floor patio. As if their thoughts had been on the same track, Helena smiled slyly at her and said, as she returned to the living room, "Ah, you've cut off all the escape routes." Sidling a look at Mrs. Frederic, who was sitting primly at the dining table just off the kitchen, she added, "And I suppose she knows jujitsu or something as lethal."
"I know enough to call the agents if you're not observing the rules," Mrs. Frederic said smoothly. "I have no desire to be charged with conspiracy or aiding and abetting."
"This is going to take care of a lot of the uncertainty," Parker said, holding the monitor up. He was kneeling on the rug next to a case that had held the monitor and a laptop. "Now I need your phones." He pointed to Myka and Steve. "It's already been coded in, I just want to test them and see if everything works as it should." He moved his thumbs rapidly over, first, Myka's phone and then Steve's and handed them back. "We're good to go."
With his mop of brown, shaggy hair, the stained khakis and the crumbs of cinnamon roll still dotting his polo shirt, Parker looked like a college sophomore, but he said with a firmness that Helena immediately obeyed, "Ms. Wells, I need you to take a seat on the sofa, right there, yes."
The monitor was unlatched, and as he walked on his knees to where Helena was sitting and pushed up the leg of her jeans, she glanced anxiously at Myka. She was like a child apprehensive about receiving a shot, and though Myka knew that Helena was no child and that the moment would pass, she heard herself saying, "It's light and waterproof, and it's not going to burn a hole through your leg."
"But you're going to know every minute of every day exactly where I am." Helena watched as Parker clicked the monitor shut.
Parker nodded. "It has GPS tracking. We'll track the signals centrally, but if you're outside the range, the system will also notify Myka and Steve." He pushed himself up and walked toward a large grocery bag with handles. "If something happens and you know you're not going to be where you're supposed to be at the time you're supposed to be there, I strongly suggest you call Myka and Steve. It'll go a lot easier on everyone, especially you." He pulled out another laptop and another phone and gave them to Helena. "These are agency-issued, they're what you'll use while you're working for us. You can also use the phone for personal calls, but -"
"They'll be tracked," Helena cut in. She summoned a thin smile for Parker. "My own phone and computer are out of the question, I assume?"
He nodded, and at Claudia's scoff from the doorway where she had been standing, a picture of surliness from her grimace to her crossed arms, he warned, "Don't try to be funny. Don't be sneaking stuff in for her to use, and don't try to hack into the ankle monitor or anything else. I know who you are, and you're not as good as you think. Remember when your systems got hacked a few weeks back?" As the sneer on her face wilted, he said, "Yeah, that was us, the dipshits."
"Who is she, Parker? Helena's given us the impression she's some waif off the streets she's taken in." Myka glared at Helena, who was gently feeling the band around her leg.
"She does security systems, home, Internet, that sort of thing. Mainly consumers but she's taken on a few small businesses as well. We've kept an eye on her because of her brother, but when we knew Ms. Wells had reached a deal with us, let's just say we became more interested in Claudia's activities. A few of us decided to test her a little, see what kind of threat she posed." With a quick jerk of his head, he indicated his opinion of her threat level. "Her biggest weapon is that mouth of hers."
"Screw you, Dudley Do-Right," Claudia muttered. "If you think I can't hand your ass to you -"
"Claudia," Helena said sharply. "She won't be trying anything," she said, her eyes touching on Parker, Myka, and Steve in turn. "She's been my friend for years, and she's exceedingly loyal. But she knows what's at stake."
With a push of a military-issue boot against the doorframe, Claudia was out of the apartment, yelling, "I'll get back with you later, Helena, once the air clears."
The sounds of Claudia's angry stomping down the stairs filled the living room. Mrs. Frederic smoothed her skirt, saying to Helena, "You saw the boxes in the extra bedroom?" At her nod, Mrs. Frederic said, "Claudia said your mother had your other things." Over the rims of her half-glasses, she gave Myka and Steve a quick, searching look. "I imagine you'll want to look at them. Claudia's already taken a few items out."
"Parker," Myka began, but Helena interrupted her.
"You. If someone's going to go through my private things, I want it to be you." She leaned against the back of the sofa. "I can stand your grubby paws, Myka, no one else's. What little privacy I can cling to, I will."
Mrs. Frederic was rising, digging deep into the pocket of her skirt. She brought out two small key rings, walking to the sofa and leaning over its arm to place one in Helena's palm. She gave the other to Myka, who was standing next to Steve. They had taken positions just inside the living room, although Helena was hardly a candidate to bolt. "The larger is the key to the outer door." She patted Steve's arm. "I'm out of extra sets, but I'm assuming you can share with Agent Bering." Pausing on the threshold of the apartment door, she smiled at the both of them, while her eyes remained alert and unsmiling. "I imagine you don't want me around for the rest of this. But I'll be downstairs if you need me, with some extra cinnamon rolls." Of the four of them, Parker was the most visibly appreciative, unconsciously rubbing his stomach.
Myka wasn't sure how much attention Helena paid to Parker's ad hoc but painstaking tutorial on the laptop and phone. How she needed to sign in and use a password, how certain sites, certain numbers were automatically blocked, how, periodically, Myka or Steve would ask for the laptop and phone for data dumps. Dark eyes were barely visible under heavy lids by the time Parker wound down. He took out a few power cords and a wireless mouse from the grocery sack and laid them on the coffee table.
Steve went over the agency's expectations, those that had been written into the agreement and those that were unwritten but just as binding. Unless otherwise scheduled, she was expected to show up at the agency's offices by 8:00 a.m. How she got there was up to her, although transportation costs came out of her stipend. There wouldn't be a separate allowance. Although her monitor wouldn't transmit alarms so long as she remained with the circumscribed area - "How large is this area?" Helena asked and frowned when she received the answer - she was expected to be back in her apartment by 8:00 p.m. every night, unless the team directed her otherwise. And just as her phone and laptop were subject to periodic, unscheduled data dumps, she would be subject to periodic, unscheduled inspections. Visits, really, because the agency was confident that Helena would follow the rules - since there would be no benefit to her in not following them. No need to make the visits any more intrusive than they had to be.
"Unless, of course, I invite someone 'unvetted' here for carnal relations since," Helena gestured to the old-fashioned boxy TV on a stand and to a built-in bookcase holding an assortment of aging paperbacks, "you have to admit, the distractions are not optimal." Her smile was wicked. "Or, conversely, I invite someone 'unvetted' for conversations about the power of forgiveness and finding my purpose in Christ. Mrs. Frederic may be a devout believer, a proper churchgoing lady. Perhaps I'll attend services with her and find my soul uplifted. Maybe I'll be so moved as to want a spiritual advisor. Would you send me back to prison because I broke a rule in trying to become a better person?"
"You're so sure that the church won't collapse on top of you?" Myka said sardonically.
Helena's laughter was harsh and abrupt, more bark than laugh. "Am I really such a sinner in your eyes?"
Myka didn't answer her, checking the time on her phone. "We should get going now to make it to Jemma's by 2:00. Parker, are you done?" At his nod, she glanced at Helena. "Will a sandwich on the way do for lunch?"
"Is it coming out of my stipend?" The sarcasm was blunted by Helena's nervous examination of her jeans and shirt. "Can't do much about these," she fretted. Speaking more loudly but no less sarcastically, "Do I have your permission to freshen up before we leave?" As Steve shook his head in exasperation, she said, "Does one of you have to accompany me to the bathroom? Should I leave the door open?"
"Just hurry up, Helena." Myka shooed Parker out of the apartment. After pointing in the direction of the bathroom to confirm that Myka would bring Helena downstairs, Steve followed Parker.
When Helena returned to the living room, her face was pale and damp. Hair that had gotten wet when she had washed her face was glued to her ears and cheeks. Eyes that had seemed on the verge of rolling back into her head during Parker's mini-lecture and had glinted contemptuously during Steve's summary of the conditions of her release were wide and staring. Myka realized that Helena's desire to freshen up had been more of an excuse to steady herself, maintain her composure. Helena said it had been months since she had seen Christina. Christina was only four, and much had changed for her, a father she had never known had entered her life and a stepmother as well. Christina wouldn't have forgotten her mother, but Helena and Jemma were no longer the only adults in her life or the only ones with a claim to her affection. She had competing interests to manage, and that was a lot to ask of a little girl, no matter how bright and mature for her age she was. Small wonder that Helena might feel some trepidation on seeing her daughter again.
The unwelcome flash of sympathy that she felt for Helena must have shown on her face, because something eased in Helena's eyes; she looked less startled, less likely to fly to the ceiling if someone touched her. She started to hold out her hand, as if she meant for Myka to take it. But as Myka hardened her expression, swearing silently at how the control she had learned at such cost deserted her when Helena looked the least bit vulnerable, the hand dropped back to Helena's side.
"Let's go then," Helena said tonelessly.