A/N: This may read a bit prelude-ishly (ain't that a word?), but I spent much too much time on Helena and Myka to be able to cram all that I wanted to cram into the chapter. I thought you wouldn't mind some extra B&W . . . .
Myka watched Christina fall asleep. It seemed that watching was what she had been doing all day - watching Christina battle against her sling, watching her laptop screen in the vain hope that the resolution to the mess she had made of the fraud case would pop up on it, watching Steve as he doggedly reviewed their case files in the de facto field office they had made of the kitchen, dining room, and living room of Christina and Jemma's home, and, above all, watching Helena. Whereas a circle of dirty mugs and cups surrounded Steve at the dining room table (an herbal tea drinker normally, he had swiftly gone through Jemma's supply of Darjeeling and English Breakfast tea bags) and she had left a pile of peanut shells and cans of soda by her laptop, Helena had needed no stimulus other than tomorrow's looming disasters. The probable no-show of the Jeffries and Ben Winslow's renewed threats to take Christina from her seemed only to energize her, a perfect storm into which she was more than happy to fling herself. She said she was ready for the performance of a lifetime should the Jeffries turn up on the FBI's doorstep, and seeing how her eyes sparked and her smile became feral at the possibility, Myka didn't doubt that she was ready for the challenge.
Christina's bedroom was a backwater by comparison, despite the fretting and crying of its primary occupant, and since she hadn't complained in the past ten minutes that her "'lollar bone hurt" or that she wanted another story about the bald princess, Myka thought it might be the most peaceful place she would occupy for the foreseeable future. She would give Christina, and herself, another five minutes and then she would surrender to the tempest downstairs. Suddenly she jerked against the back of the rocking chair that Jemma had brought into the room hours ago; she didn't see anyone, but she knew she wasn't alone. Putting her hand to the back of her neck, she turned her head and saw Helena leaning against the doorframe. Helena held her finger against her lips then crooked it to signal to Myka to join her in the hallway. Taking the stork-like steps that every adult seemed to take when sneaking away from a sleeping child, Myka tiptoed into the hallway.
Helena had changed into . . . pajamas, or that's what Myka would have called the soft cotton hoodie and flowing pants if she were wearing them. She tried not to notice that the hoodie was only partially zipped up and that Helena, naturally, wasn't wearing a bra. Myka rubbed her eyes, hoping they might cross and, thus, provide a field of vision limited to her nose, but they didn't cross and, as they refocused, Helena's hoodie and the generous amount of breast swelling though its unzipped halves swam into view.
"It's past 11:00. I sent Steve home, and you need to get some sleep, too," Helena said quietly.
"You did what?" Keeping her voice at the same hushed level as Helena's robbed her words of much of their indignation, Myka realized.
"We've done all we can do. We put on our show for the Jeffries with what we have." Helena idly - or not so idly - tugged at the cord to her hood. Myka's glance involuntarily followed the action, dropping down - also involuntarily - to take in the slight, very slight movement of her breasts. Pressing her lips together in frustration, Myka lifted her eyes up, up only to meet Helena's sly smile. "We need to look confident, and we won't pull that off if we don't look rested." Her smile grew deeper. "I'm happy to offer my services if you need help getting to sleep."
"I'm not sleeping here, Helena." The whispering was making her sound petulant rather than firm or determined or unyielding, any one of which was better than petulant.
Helena's smile didn't diminish, but she said with the implacability that had eluded Myka, "I'm not leaving my daughter tonight. You may be able to catch Steve if you hurry and have him stay here with me, but I am not leaving." She tilted her head at the wall, on the other side of which Christina lay sleeping. "Besides, when she wakes up in another hour or two, crying and demanding to know where her mommy and her nonni and her My-ka are . . . ." She mock sighed. "I will not be at my best tomorrow if I have to console her for your absence." Helena paused, arching an eyebrow. "Welcome to motherhood, Myka. This is what being a parent is all about."
Myka didn't like the eyebrow's particularly knowing crook. "If these are the tryouts, then I'm obviously not going to make the cut."
"You think Christina's going to let go of you once your assignment has ended, assuming, of course, that Nate hasn't murdered the both of us?" Helena wagged her head. "You made her a promise today, and she won't forget it, no matter whether she's four or 40."
They had been easing Christina into Myka's car after her discharge from the hospital. Between biting back curses and trying to ensure that she didn't jostle Christina's arm as she settled her onto the seat, Myka wasn't actively paying attention to what Christina was saying. As long as it wasn't a shriek or sob, Myka figured she was safe in ignoring it. But as she gently bumped her head against Christina's, Myka heard her say in an awestruck tone, "Mommy said you saved us from a dragon last night." Christina grew pensive, asking, "Was it a big dragon, like the one that burned the princess's hair?"
Myka had no problem hearing Helena's derisive laugh as, from the other end of the seat, she was leaning over buckling Christina in. "A tiny little dragon that thinks it's a big dragon."
"Mommy," Christina said in rebuke, "let Myka tell the story."
Helena made an aggravated face but shushed. "Don't worry about the dragon," Myka said to Christina, amused at how easily she could boss her unbossable mother, "he won't hurt you."
"But what if he comes back?" Christina's features began to pucker in apprehension. She had woken up repeatedly during the night, complaining that her arm hurt, and Myka could understand how her fall, the strangeness of the hospital, and the difficulty in comprehending what her injuries were and why they should hurt so much would be compressed into the image of a dragon. It was a more satisfactory explanation than any of the adults, including the hospital staff, had offered.
"He won't," Myka said reassuringly, and when Christina failed to look reassured, she tucked a finger under Christina's chin and tipped it up. "You know why? Because he knows that I'll always protect you from dragons."
It was the kind of empty parental boast that Myka, only a few months ago, would have sworn that she would never tell a child. Parents often were the monsters they promised they would protect their children from, and Myka could thank her father for sparing her the illusion that he was her knight, her hero. He had never promised her that he would be a great father, or even a good one, so she couldn't blame him for not living up to a promise that he had never made. He had let her fight her battles alone, but such girl-powerish lessons, even if sanitized and decorated with rainbows and ponies for a very young girl like Christina, seemed . . . wrong. Maybe there was a time in their lives when children needed to be told flat-out lies like that and encouraged to believe in them. Maybe she would have turned out differently if Warren Bering had once said something like "I'll always protect you from dragons." Maybe it was enough that for now, for as long as Helena remained her assignment, she would be a slayer of dragons.
There hadn't been any dragons to slay on Sunday, except, possibly, her own anxieties. She certainly had been spending more time than an FBI agent charged with monitoring a felon and her daughter should spend running up and down the stairs, bringing Christina snacks and juice and giving her the occasional two-minute installment of the ongoing tale, "The Bald Princess" (it had earned a title). Granted, she had let Helena or Jemma attend to the whimpering and ill-tempered Christina, but every time that Christina had requested My-ka's presence, she had responded. Consequently she hadn't been in the "field office" part of the house long enough to claim discovery of the tiny clue uncovered in yet another review of the case files; it had been Steve's. And it had been Claudia operating offsite - thankfully - who, without being told what the information meant or why it was important, had scoured the farthest reaches of the Internet for anything tangentially related to it. Her scowling face on their Skype sessions had only confirmed her frequently repeated claim, "I'm doing this because I owe Helena, not because I owe the Fucking Bloody Idiots anything." Together Steve and Claudia had put together the "proof" with which she and Helena would threaten the Jeffries tomorrow, if the Jeffries showed up. It wasn't even proof - just a stray fact or two mortared together with supposition. Helen would be the one who would have to transform guesswork into what would amount to art if it convinced the Jeffries to give up DeWitt. Maybe her most valuable contribution, Myka decided, had been all that running up and down the stairs. If she hadn't done much to repair her fuck-up, she hadn't done much to make it worse.
"I can't stay here," she heard herself mutter, although begging to Steve to come back and relieve her seemed equally unviable.
"Why not?" Helena's annoying eyebrow was once again arching annoyingly. "We have the room here, and I bet you still have that overnight bag in your trunk with its change of panties and dress pants and blouse. If you go back to your apartment, you're not going to sleep. You'll pace, you'll try to do some work, you'll doze for a couple of hours, and then you'll go in to the office early, where you'll still not be able to concentrate. You'll drink too much coffee, you'll continue to berate yourself, and you'll be both jumpy and exhausted when the Jeffries arrive. You'll spoil my performance, and I can't have that." She waved an index finger chidingly.
Myka rolled her eyes. "What makes you think I'll sleep any better here?"
"As I've said, I'll give you my special turndown service." Helena's smile pulled more at one corner of her mouth than another, as if even she couldn't take her suggestiveness all that seriously, but then the line of her mouth leveled and her lips seemed almost to purse as Helena continued to regard her. "You'll sleep better because you are home, you just don't recognize it yet. Your home is with me and that imperious little girl in there." Another tip of her head toward the wall.
As Myka searched for a response, she was aware that her silence wasn't an effective denial; considering how she had reacted when she thought, little more than 24 hours ago, that Helena had been attempting to flee with Christina, she could search all she wanted, but she wouldn't find a convincing rebuttal. Not tonight, anyway. "If I do stay here, where are you going to put me up?"
"My bedroom, of course." At this, Myka's second theatrical eye roll, Helena answered with an exasperation equally theatrical. "Despite my dire threats about Christina crying out in the middle of the night for you, I promise I won't drag you upstairs to calm her, and my bedroom is far enough away that you shouldn't hear her - or me, in the event I snore." As Myka's expression remained skeptical, Helena added, "I'll be up here with Christina all night, so you can reassure your Neanderthal that your virtue was unassailed . . . unless I happen to sleepwalk into my bedroom."
"You don't sleepwalk," Myka said with a sardonic look.
Helena twitched her shoulders dismissively. "My sleep was seriously disturbed last night by someone who insisted on cradling me close and kissing my hair. Who knows how I might react? Who knows what I might mistake my bedroom for? What I might mistake you for?" She leaned into Myka, her voice more breath than whisper. "I'm not going to write off last night as a reaction to stress . . . or a dream, no matter how much you might want me to. What would you do if I crawled into your bed?"
Myka didn't have a convincing response for that either, but she could always take refuge behind the front of the humorless federal agent. "This weekend was an exception, Helena. Tomorrow night you're back at Mrs. Frederic's. We've already given Ben Winslow plenty of ammunition."
Irritated at the mention of Winslow, Helena spun away from her. "He's going to do what he wants to do, Myka. Money's not an object for him. What does it matter if I start staying here? Why do you care? I'm at no greater risk for decamping for parts unknown by staying with my daughter at my home. She's not exactly traveling light right now." A wail started to build from Christina's bedroom, and Helena said dryly, "She calls."
The morning drive into the city would be horrendous, but Myka didn't relish the prospect of driving back to her apartment at midnight. Besides, she couldn't leave Helena alone, outside her permitted area, this late. It didn't matter that she had cleared their waging (temporary) war against Christina's custody arrangement with Pete (he had been too stunned by the adverse turn in the fraud case to object) and it didn't matter that Helena wasn't likely to abscond with a four-year-old who regularly threatened to take off her sling because she didn't need a 'lollarbone. It mattered that the last time Myka had trusted her, Helena had vanished after stealing millions of dollars' worth of art. That was it, right? Her anxious self-questioning continued as she ran down the stairs and out of the house and to the trunk of her car, in which there was an overnight bag with clean underpants, slacks, and an unfortunately billowy blouse - the kind pirates wore in old-fashioned Hollywood movies - just as Helena had known there would be because Myka believed in being prepared for any contingency. Except for the ones that she created, apparently. Yet her overreaction hadn't been misguided, not really, only mistimed, because it wouldn't be an overreaction when Helena slipped her bonds for real. Last night, now that had been misguided, she sternly told herself as she carried her overnight bag to Helena's bedroom. It was one thing to comfort a distraught mother, it was another to hold her until dawn. Her promise to slay dragons had been to Christina, not her mother, who, Myka sighed to herself, was likely only another dragon in the end. Her promise about protecting the Wellses from dragons was limited to Christina . . . . Helena was all too likely one more dragon she would need to battle.
Dropping her bag on the floor, she surveyed Helena's bedroom. A bed, a bureau. The starkness reminded her of the loft, although, as had been true about its few furnishings, the bed and bureau were expensive, their plainness a kind of ostentation, announcing in the simple lines of their construction that no ornate decoration, no novelty in their design were necessary to put them out of reach of the likes of Myka and her government salary. The excess missing in Helena's bedroom had been reserved for her walk-in closet and its contents. The clothes had been cleaned and pressed with the military precision of a professional laundry service, but in the deepness of an occasional wrinkle, the seemingly permanent folding over of a cuff, they had the air of being as worn infrequently as a full dress uniform. They were, or had been, tools, just like her brushes and paints, the black velvet spread of her hair on a pillow, the smile hiding a secret at its center. Need a CFO? There was a sober gray skirt suit at the end of one rack. Would a trophy wife seeking distraction be the ticket? Hanging in splendid isolation was an evening gown that probably cost as much as the down payment on a house. Myka created a suitably modest space for her poor-relation pants and blouse, feeling they lowered the resale value of the closet by several thousand dollars. She wondered how many of the clothes Helena had actually bought versus conning them or walking off with them from designers and retailers.
"You've found the costume department." Helena was letting her fingers trail down the sleeve of a blouse that shimmered in a focus-challenging aquamarine. Too loud to be professional in most workplaces, it might have been worn by the brassy Jersey (maybe Staten Island) CFO for Advance Financial.
"Impressive," Myka said dryly.
"I even bought some of them," Helena said, her voice full of self-mockery. "But my prized possession," she went over to the shelving that lined the lower half of two of the walls and opened a drawer, "is this." She tossed an item at Myka, who reflexively swept her arm in front of her to catch it. A once-black t-shirt with a flaking, interlocked UC in gold. "I had packed it in my suitcase by mistake."
Myka had frequently slept in it when they had lived together. Since she had left virtually everything of hers behind when she walked out of Helena's loft for the last time, she had assumed it was buried deep in a landfill somewhere. "I have what I wore last night if I need pajamas." She tossed it back to Helena. "Your old studio - the one I knew about - it's part of an apartment that occupies the entire floor. The loft didn't survive; the warehouse was torn down to make way for a parking ramp." Helena had already refolded the shirt and put it back in its drawer. "But you probably knew that."
Helena's looked at her for a long moment, her eyes particularly black and unreadable. "I'm surprised you bothered to find out what became of them."
"I still drive past what used to be Bering & Sons when I visit Colorado Springs. It's an upscale bakery now. Pretty good scones and amazing cupcakes." Myka had never given much thought to why she did it, slowing down as she passed the storefront, which had been spruced up by a new paint job and a snappy blue and white striped awning overhanging the windows instead of the tatty one she had grown up with. She had less occasion to be in the part of the city where Helena had once lived and painted, but when she was, she would at least drive by the old studio and try to guess who might be living in the apartment. It had to be one of the few unanalyzed impulses she had. "Maybe it's to remind myself that life goes on."
Helena's eyes wrinkled up in a squint and her smile, if it was a smile, was pained. "This is when you scare me, when you talk about your father and me - you are, you know - as if we were just two shitty things that happened to you a long time ago. I think I'll never get you back because you're realizing that we're really not worth all that heartache, and yet a part of me is, strangely, happy for you." She drew in a shuddering breath. "Because you deserve so much more, Myka. You deserve to put us all behind you, to find some good person who loves you to death, to have a houseful of kids." As Myka snorted, Helena said defiantly, "You don't see how good you are with Christina, do you? You're her My-ka. You don't have to be so afraid, you're not your father."
"I think you're seeing things that aren't there."
"I'm believing what I see. That's different." Helena laughed, although like her smile, it was pained. "My father used to say that when a con started believing in what he saw, he needed to get out of the game. Only fools believed that any of it, families, love, friendship, were real. I see that she loves you, and you love her, and I believe it."
It's easy to love her. She's so much like you, the best parts of you. But Myka didn't say it. She looked toward the bed, on which her bag rested along with its mate, the bag holding the "pajamas" she had brought to the hospital last night. "Somewhere in that mess is a toothbrush and toothpaste, and someone told me I needed to look rested tomorrow, so I better get ready for bed." She leaned meaningfully toward the doorway, as if she were waiting only for the giant hook to yank her offstage.
"There's floss in the top left drawer. I know you, and toothpaste won't be enough." The smile's sadness had disappeared, and Helena's gesturing at the racks of clothes was as awkward as Myka's off-balance leaning. "'Someone' needs to pick out an outfit for tomorrow."
Helena had left by the time Myka came out of the ensuite bathroom. If she were being honest with herself, she was disappointed. As she settled into the bed, she expected that she would toss and turn most of the night or, worse, dream of Helena slipping into bed next to her and providing that slyly promised turndown service. She didn't sleep well, period, hadn't for years, and she never slept well in a strange bed. But when she woke, sunlight was stippling the room, and Helena was saying her name, low and insistent.
…..
When Myka charged toward her cube, already off-center by having overslept and then being commanded by a four-year-old to eat breakfast "'cause, if you don't, you'll get sick and your hair will fall out like the princess's," she saw both Pete and Sam waiting for her. Slowing, she remembered that she was supposed to have met Sam last night to talk about what the hell was going on with her, or so he would call it. She would call it . . . she wasn't sure, remembering Christina's worried scowl as she plucked a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter and Helena's dramatic eye movements indicating the empty chair next to Christina at the breakfast bar. She had sat down, and Jemma (in her bathrobe and not completely awake at a quarter to seven in the morning) pushed a bowl of raisin bran at her. She had sliced the banana and dropped the slices into the cereal, ignoring the milk splashing her arm as Christina, left-handed for the time being, dug into her cereal bowl with determination, if only haphazard accuracy. She hadn't fretted about arriving at the office even later than she wanted, and much later than was usual for her, eating her cereal and listening to Christina reassure her mother that she would get lots of rest and not fight her sling and be good for her nonni. Then there had been milky kisses and pleas for Mommy and My-ka to come back for lunch before Jemma took her upstairs. She wasn't sure what to call it, no. Maybe she could call it "Breakfast" and leave it at that.
Both Pete and Sam were scowling at her, but their scowls weren't as endearing as Christina's. Edging between them, she opened her narrow coat closet and pulled out the blazer she kept on a hanger precisely for this emergency. Feeling a little less vulnerable with the pirate sleeves of her blouse tamed somewhat by the jacket, she said, her voice low and controlled, "If you're going to take me off my cases or fire me, let me at least try to save the DeWitt investigation." Glancing grimly at Sam, she added, "I'm sorry about last night. I just . . . " she helplessly shrugged, "forgot."
Pete looked from Sam to Myka but decided not to ask. "After you're done talking with Sam, stop by my office."
Myka led Sam out of her cube, feeling his eyes boring into her back. "Let's find a free conference room." They ended up in one of the smallest, tucked away from the noise and traffic of the floor. Though she had been given little choice but to agree to a late night meeting, she regretted letting it slip her mind, not only because Sam would take it as more proof that she wasn't the agent to lead the efforts to arrest Burdette but also because she remembered the last time she had left Sam to wait fruitlessly for her.
Sam remembered too. "Your memory's perfect except when it comes to her." He rested a haunch on the table and clasped his hands loosely in front of him, less the stern enforcer of the law and more like a baffled parent confronting his stubbornly transgressive teen. "Why did you marry me, Myka?"
She leaned against the door, crossing her arms, the perfect posture for the wayward child he took her to be. "Because I thought I loved you and hoped it would continue to grow."
"But it didn't."
She didn't answer him. She had already said enough on that score.
"Do you love her?" He had been studying his hands, but he looked at her after he asked the question. The look was calm and questioning, whatever hurt and betrayal he felt well hidden.
"Are you asking me as my ex-husband or as my liaison in Justice on Burdette?"
"I can't disentangle them, Myka. We'll always have a personal relationship, no matter what happens."
She suspected that no matter what she said, he would act on the opinions he had already formed and what he had already decided were the best chances for success against Burdette. Supposedly she had been selected because, despite the obvious risks in having her work with Helena, she knew her best and any tendency on her part toward forgiveness or turning a blind eye to Helena's machinations would be countered by her determination not to be fooled again. Now it was unclear whether she hadn't, in fact, forgiven her and whether she was a willing dupe in Helena's efforts to circumvent the agreement. What was their Plan B if they decided they couldn't trust her, after all?
"I don't know what I feel about her," she said slowly, "except that my feelings about her have always been stronger than my feelings about anything else. That hasn't changed." She tried to offer him a gaze as steady as his own. "Except now there are as many bad feelings as good ones. I don't trust her, but I do trust that she won't jeopardize her daughter's safety. I was wrong when I said she would be willing to risk Christina. Not even the tiniest bit. The side she ends up on will be the side that she believes will best look out for her and her daughter."
"Okay." Sam stood up and smoothed his suit jacket, ready to end the conversation and huddle with Pete and their bosses to make a final determination.
"I'm not finished," Myka said, just as quietly but her tone had grown harder, accusatory. "Don't assume that means she's going to choose us, Sam. I talked with Ben Winslow at the hospital the other night. He told me he'd been informed that he was Christina's father by a 'suit.'" She stopped leaning against the door, but she didn't move away from it. "Helena and Jemma assume that Ben's father went the extra mile to protect his son from what he feared would be an ugly paternity suit, but that's not what happened, is it? One of us, we ran the test and we informed the Winslows of the results. Senator Winslow might not like the idea of his son's association with Helena Wells, but he likes even less the idea that a Winslow grandchild would be in the care of a family of felons. Not good publicity for a senator who's big on law and order. You knew the Winslows would squeeze her."
"It wasn't me, Myka." Sam gave her a resigned half-smile, meant to underscore, she supposed, that it hadn't been his decision. "Burdette has to be stopped, and, honestly, is it really that horrible for Christina that the Winslows are trying to get full custody? What the hell is Helena going to do for her that the Winslows can't?"
Not treat her as a possession or a pawn, but Myka left it unsaid. "You knew, you knew long before we met with Helena at the prison, and you never told me. Just like you never told me that Burdette was the main reason we were springing her. How can I trust Helena, you ask. How the hell can I trust you?"
His expression had grown wintry, the smile vanishing, the brows lowering, and the pure blue of his eyes, one of his most attractive features she had always thought, achieving an arctic lightness. "You don't have a choice. For as long as you remain assigned to her, you do as we say when we say, and if she makes a move, hears anything from Burdette, you don't hesitate to tell us."
She had never consciously made a decision to keep silent about Burdette's communication to Helena. Since there was no time, no place, not even a clear confirmation of interest, the message had been something she pushed down the list of calamities that had to be addressed. She felt no greater compunction to disclose it now. "I've never come first with you either, that's clear, too."
He was standing inches from her, waiting for her to step aside so he could open the door. "Pete will let you know whether you're still on the case."
She watched him stride toward the floor's entrance, double doors with a modest agency decal on the glass. Anyone leaving had to go through the same security screening that anyone entering the suite had to endure, but she turned away in the direction of Pete's office before she saw him start divesting himself of his phone and the other items in his pockets. It seemed that this was the part of their relationship that had always come the easiest to them, one of them simply walking away.
They had agreed that she would be the one to move out, although, as she stood in the foyer surrounded by cardboard boxes waiting to be filled, she couldn't remember why it had made more sense for her to leave. Like their marriage, their finding a new place to live had had little thought put into it, spurred mainly by a more or less mutual belief that they needed some place that was equally their own. She hadn't come to dislike the condo. Its location made for a relatively painless commute, and it had certain amenities she had enjoyed, but while she had referred to it as "home," she had never felt that it was. To be fair, she had felt the same about every place she lived, even Helena's . . . . She didn't let herself finish the thought and instead let it lapse by bringing the boxes into the living room. Her clothes and other necessities she had already transported to her new apartment, an even more unmemorable space than the condo, which she could still see, if only partially, from one of the apartment's windows. She might not think of the places in which she lived as homes, but she was a creature of habit all the same, and she was used to the neighborhood.
It didn't pain her to be so close to Sam. The divorce itself hadn't been painful. No kids, nothing of value that they shared jointly except the condo, and Sam would probably sell it anyway. He had gotten a loan from his father to buy her out, but he had said more than once in her hearing that he was going to stay in it only long enough to put it up for sale. It wouldn't have made any difference to her if he decided to continue living in it. She wasn't numb so much as exhausted, as if their marriage had been one long, three-year effort on her part to try find something that mattered to her after Helena's betrayal, and no matter how many meals they shared, TV shows they watched together at night, times they sought each other out in the king-sized bed that Sam had insisted upon buying, her affection and gratitude hadn't changed into something stronger, deeper, better.
They had agreed that she would have Saturday morning alone in the condo to pack and move the rest of her things, although it wouldn't have been an intrusion to have Sam there. But she acknowledged that it might be painful for him, he had wanted things from this marriage - children, a sense of family, an enduring commitment - that, in the end, it was unable to provide. She had been unable to provide. She opened the flaps of one of the boxes and began dumping books into it. The vast majority of them in the condo were hers; Sam read, but he preferred news articles, sports profiles. She more often read books on her devices now, but she liked the heft and feel of books, the slick covers of the paperbacks, the spurious stiffness of the hard covers; she even liked the vague "musty attic" smell of the paper in her older books. It was one of the few positive things she recognized in herself that she was willing to attribute to her father's influence.
She hadn't been in the condo long, less than an hour, when she heard the door open and then Sam's embarrassed, "I'm sorry. I thought you were coming by later."
She wasn't sure how true that was, he had seemed pretty clear about the fact that she was coming over at nine, but she wasn't going to challenge him on it. She didn't care whether he had honestly forgotten or if he had hoped to see her, just as she didn't care whether he stayed or turned around and left. "I'm almost done. I'll be out of here in a few minutes."
He had been at the gym. He was wearing sweats, and his hair was plastered in places to his head. Sometimes he had come back from the gym, and she had dragged him back to the bedroom, liking the slickness of his skin, the faint bite of his sweat on her tongue. She wasn't the least interested in taking him back to the bedroom this morning, although Sam had an oddly expectant expression on his face, as if he were hoping she would do just that. She had no occasion to go back to their, his bedroom anyway, all that had been in it of hers were her clothes, and they were gone.
"It shouldn't be ending like this between us," he said softly.
She struggled with what to say in response. She wasn't sure what he meant, whether he meant that their marriage shouldn't have ended in the first place (even though he had asked for the divorce) or if he meant it should have ended in screams and tears, not undramatically, coolly, like they were two roommates separating because one of them had gotten a job in another city. "I'm sorry," she said, more because she felt he was expecting it of her than because she was sorry. "Guess I'm not cut out for it or kids or anything remotely resembling a family."
It sounded self-pitying, but if she wasn't feeling sorry for him, she wasn't feeling any sorrier for herself. It was a fact, she had simply stated a fact. "No," he was shaking his head, "don't do that to yourself. We just . . . rushed. You weren't ready. Maybe someday you will be."
Saying nothing seemed the best response. He waited a second or two before he disappeared down the hallway. She collected the few pieces of her grandmother's china that her mother had given her, wrapped them in the bubble wrap that had been in one of the boxes, and placed them in another box with more bubble wrap. She taped the box and carried it to the door. Sam was standing in the doorway of their, his bedroom.
"You're going to be ready again," she said, shifting the box so she could open the door. "Pick more wisely next time, okay?"
He had taken off his sweat jacket and draped a towel around his neck. "You . . . we were worth the shot. I don't regret it."
Worth the shot. He probably didn't feel that way about her now. With the words an echo she couldn't escape, she hesitated before opening the door to Pete's office. Inside Helena was talking, vehemently, based on the finger-jabbing she was directing at someone out of Myka's range of vision, presumably Pete, although the flagrant display of Leena's curls was visible at the far edge of the narrow window framing the door. For a moment, Myka enjoyed the view of Helena in tempest, the jabbing accompanied by what she could describe only as stomps around the end of the conference table, and she realized, seeing the flush of anger warming the pale face, that she also hadn't regretted the morning's delay because of this - the lustrous black sweep of Helena's hair along and over her shoulders, the provocatively cut black skirt, and the breast-hugging silk blouse, business professional only in a CEO's cocktail-inspired daydream as he was shuttled between New York and London. Helena was long odds - even at her most lovesick Myka hadn't been able to deny it - but as "worth the shot" continued to sound in her mind, she wasn't sure if she hadn't already traveled the distance from refusing the risk to affirming it.
She knocked and then, without waiting for Pete to call her to come in, opened the door. Helena cast her a quick, unsurprised look while her harangue continued unabated. "When we practically have to win the case in court before we can ask for a warrant to obtain the information we need, what do you expect?"
"What he expects," Myka said, sliding into a chair next to Leena's, "is that his agents will exercise judgment and discretion, especially in stressful situations, and not jeopardize an investigation. Both of which I failed to do." She nodded penitently at Pete, who moodily picked at a half-eaten muffin.
"Yeah, exactly what I was going to say, except longer. The Cliff's Notes version is 'Don't fuck it up,' and Myka, Jesus, I haven't gotten my appetite back since you called. You ruined my breakfast. Amanda was practically hurling as she did it, but she was making me and the boys pancakes. Pancakes with tons of butter and real maple syrup." Glaring at the remains of the muffin, he impulsively crammed the rest of it into his mouth. What he said next was virtually unintelligible, but Myka had learned through long practice to translate his food-speak. You owe me, like, a thousand breakfasts if both our heads don't roll after this.
"She didn't act unreasonably given the circumstances and my history." Helena had switched hands, placing the one that she had been using to underscore her vituperation on her hip and resuming her jabbing with the other. "I'm the one at fault because I should have had the presence of mind to call her or Steve or you first."
"You should've," Pete agreed, "but since every damn day I expect you to knife us in the back, it was par for the course." His voice softening marginally, he said, "Myka, I need to know how you think you're going to save this."
As she ordered the few additional facts that they had gleaned from their frenzied repillaging of the case files and scouring of the Internet, she heard Helena cut in once more. "You might consider that it could have been for the best. We were running out of time. The longer we tried to crash DeWitt's circle, the more likely we were to make mistakes and to raise questions. Cons have expiration dates, and we were probably nearing ours. God knows any of them suspicious enough to have checked us out would have only had to go to page 4 of a Google search." She mock-sighed. "Thank God for Claudia and her magic. She managed to move down the results for my criminal history from page 1 to 4."
"You're not exactly selling your case," Pete said, brushing muffin crumbs onto the floor and focusing bloodshot eyes on Myka.
"And you're not listening to me," Helena said. "The case was bad from the beginning. Overlooked clues, poor interviews. Unfortunately my scheme to worm our way into their confidence was taking too long. They're too tightly knit to easily admit new members into their group, and the more we scratched for entrance, the harder they were going to look at us. On the other hand, the fact that we were investigating them, that we got as close as we did, it might be enough to turn one of them against the rest. Tightly knit, yes, but you don't enjoy the life they live by throwing yourself on the pyre for others." She pulled out a chair and despondently flung herself into it. "It was a cock-up all around, so don't put the blame on Myka."
"Hey, it's great that you're willing to accept some responsibility, but it's coming about eight years too late," Pete said sarcastically, shunting her a disgusted look before turning his eyes with their liverish whites toward Myka once more. "Christ on a cross here thinks you might have said the magic words to DeWitt's girlfriend. So what exactly did you tell her besides 'Hey, I'm with the FBI, and I'm going to arrest your asses if you don't cooperate?'"
Conscious of how keenly Helena was observing her, Myka wished she had a paper napkin or coffee cup to tear to shreds. Instead she had to make do with running her thumb over the race track loop of a stray paper clip. "I tried to convince her that DeWitt was using her, that when he left, he was going to leave her and Chris and their friends to answer for everything he had done. I told her that if we couldn't get DeWitt, we'd go after the rest of them."
"Considering the high-priced attorneys they'll hire, I doubt that had her shaking in her boots." Pete balled up the muffin wrapper and tried to make a free throw into the wastebasket. "So I guess that leaves us with what this, uh, Cadet Scholarship Fund you found mentioned in the files that you think DeWitt, Chris Jeffries, and this Alex McWhatever are using to con their friends and neighbors?"
"It will sound better when I explain it," Helena said with a cheeky smile.
Pete exchanged glances with Leena. "She's full of bullshit, but sometimes I think that's all the higher-ups pay attention to. Do you think we could get a few of them to listen to her spiel if the Jeffries don't show?"
Leena lifted a shoulder to suggest that she had no special insight into the minds of their bosses. "It's possible, but they're more appreciative of a magic show when it happens on Friday afternoons. I'll see what I can do to get them to give us some time today." Seeing the skepticism, and disappointment, of Leena's gaze as it touched on Helena and then on her, Myka was visited by a burst of misery sharper than what she had felt as the object of Pete's blustery scorn. When Leena's almost unworldly acceptance of missteps and blunders failed her, it was a better barometer of just how badly you had screwed up than slamming doors and threats of having to answer to an assistant director.
"The Jeffries haven't missed their deadline," Helena said. "Don't count them out."
Pete twisted his wrist with an excess of motion that signaled what he thought of Helena's caution. Pretending to peer at his watch, he announced, "It's after ten. When did you talk to Laura Jeffries, Myka?"
"Around noon," she said, straightening the paper clip and wondering if it would be less painful to swallow it than wait out the remaining two hours.
"If they were afraid of what we were going to do to them, they'd have been here bright and early." He blew out a long breath. "Leena, why don't we -"
"Not necessarily," Helena interrupted. "The Jeffries - this is their broadside back. They know we need the evidence they can provide, and they're going to make us wait for it."
"Thanks for the insight into the criminal mind," Pete said, his upper lip too tired to hold the sneer, "but your helpfulness on this case ended when you decided to take a flyer." Wearily he dry-washed his face, saying to Myka, "We're done for now. Take her with you, and let me and Leena try to figure out a way to salvage this mess."
Helena followed her silently back to her cube. It wasn't like Helena to do anything silently except paint, so Myka accepted it, along with Leena's disappointment in her, as a sign that her day was only going to get worse - as if the Jeffries' almost certain no-show and Sam's threat to remove her from the Burdette investigation weren't dismal enough. Someone, probably Steve, had left her an extra-large coffee on her desk, and while Helena wrinkled her nose at it in distaste, Myka blissfully cradled the cup between her hands before taking a sip. Even lukewarm, it was probably the nicest thing that anyone in the office was going to do for her today, and she would savor its caustic bite (on a morning less disastrous, she might be inclined to compare its taste to wet cigarette ash, but not this morning.)
"What did you really tell Laura Jeffries?" Helena was sitting on the part of the desk that would usually be covered with the files of active investigations. Although she had made a half-hearted attempt to tug her skirt down, an unprofessional length of leg was exposed, and Myka didn't bother to shut out the image of her hand sliding up one of those legs. The monitor seemed more a chunky ankle bracelet, an accessory, than an electronic shackle and wasn't an impediment to the fantasy. No, she wasn't going to shut it out this morning, and the longer Helena was in her cube, the higher Myka would imagine her hand going.
"What I told Pete."
Helena shook her head, a small, knowing smile briefly appearing. "There was more. The circus bear who's in that office might be satisfied with what you told him, but I'm not. I know you."
Even if she had been willing to tell Helena what she said, Myka knew she wouldn't be able to explain what had been behind the impulse, and she had been acting on impulse. To be honest, she had been panicking, but fear hadn't driven her to make confessions since she had been a child. Confessions in the Bering household didn't lessen the punishment, and making a confession to a suspect was always received as an admission of weakness. Unless the weakness was staged, a trap set for the suspect to betray something she wouldn't otherwise, a confession was the last thing you offered a suspect. A suspect was supposed to confess to you.
Steve popped his head around the cube's partition. "How did it go with Pete?"
Helena made a disgusted noise and slipped off the desk. She brushed past Steve, who collapsed into the visitor's chair. He hooked his thumb in her direction. "That's not because of me, is it?"
"No, it's her comment on how things went with Pete. Chances are good I'll be reamed out by someone with director in his title before the end of the day."
Steve grimaced in sympathy. "Sorry I asked." He hesitated before saying softly, "I saw Sam in the office."
Myka opened her mouth to respond but closed it as Helena reentered the cubicle and resumed her perch on the desk, phone in hand. "What did the Neanderthal have to say? I know he wasn't happy about this weekend." She began typing, her thumb skating over the screen. "If he's planning to rearrange our little arrangement . . . ."
"Helena," Myka said warningly.
Helena stopped typing, sending her a sideways look. Steve angled his head, appraising Helena in her Sex Kitten Felon Visits FBI outfit, noting the tight blouse, the abbreviated skirt, the monitor. "So, you're prepared to vamp us a win on this fraud case?"
"Whatever's necessary, Agent Sunshine." She crossed and uncrossed her ankles. Her phone vibrated, and she looked down at the screen. Grinning, she held out the phone to Myka. On the screen was a text from Jemma: The wee one is grouchy. When are the two of you coming home? "This," Helena leaned over to tap a freshly polished fingernail on the screen, "is what's outside these doors, Myka."
A cranky four-year-old with a broken collarbone who was already driving her grandmother crazy. Her unpredictable, untrustworthy, sexy-as-hell mother. That was what she had outside these doors? Despite herself, Myka couldn't resist matching Helena's grin. Then Steve was sitting up, clearing his throat, and Myka wondered when the principal had come out to the playground. Pete had put on his suit coat and reknotted his tie. Standing outside the cubicle, he was nervously snapping and popping his fingers.
"We're on," he said. "The Jeffries, they're here."