Thanks for the nice comments from the reviewers, both about this story and about Purity, which I think really should have been named Fearless, but it's too late to change it now. And to answer a question I was asked about Colin Farrell: One of his first big-budget movie roles was playing Det. Danny Whitwer, Tom's character's nemesis in the movie Minority Report, not one of Tom's best flicks, but very good to Colin. I love Colin Farrell (as an actor and a looker) so my comment wasn't supposed to be negative toward him in any way, just amused.
P.S. This chapter is slightly shorter than the previous ones, but it's packed with angst so I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter Six: I Dare You To Move(A half-hour ago)
Ray was having a difficult night. It wasn't so much that it was a bad night, but it was definitely not one of his best. That was the way of being a cop, though. You were only really busy when things were going very, very wrong.
Ramón was supposed to have shown up at their meeting place, and an hour passed with no Ramón in sight. So Ray rolled to his apartment, and found him shot dead in the middle of his living room floor, Chinese food flung all over the place, staining the cheap tile with the thick, dark sauce that had dried into the color of blood.
One in the head, two in the chest. This was a professional hit, the corner said. Ray went to the hospital, to the morgue, for the official report. Danny was there, on shift as usual. The two of them knew each other on and off, and Danny fancied himself to be a bit of a detective. He was actually pretty good at it, too.
Then, things had gone from bad to worse. Sylvester Clark had come in, not twenty minutes later, just as Ray was about to leave, about to go shake up some people that he knew were part of Ramón's regular routine, see who had talked to him last, who could have hit him so professionally. Street punks didn't shoot in such tight groups, Danny pointed out. The shots were mere millimeters apart in the chest.
Sylvester Clark had the exact same wound pattern.
Ray called Richard. Richard wasn't a bad cop, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a bit lazy, as most cops were. Ray looked street, but he was by the book. Richard looked by the book, but he was street. It was a fitting complimentary relationship, in spite of the fact that the two of them had a tendency to bash heads like the best of headbangers.
Richard was sleeping. "Yeah?" he said, his voice fuzzy.
"Yeah, I'm down here in the morgue, Sisters of Charity, and you'll never guess who they just rolled into the meat locker."
More awake now. "Who?"
"Sylvester Clark, criminal attorney turned lawyer criminal. And he has the same wound pattern as Ramón, whom he represented. There's something going on."
"Both done by the same shooter?"
"I think we're looking at a highly paid assassin. Only question is, why?"
"Felix Reyes-Torena," Richard said. "Do the Feds know about this?"
"I don't think so."
"Well, we can go tell them, but you know they're just going to take our stuff and use it to build their own case."
"What, so we shouldn't tell them?"
"I just know how excited you get, Ray."
"Fuck you."
"I love you too. Listen, stay on your cell, I'll make the calls and hook up with you in a half-hour."
"Good." He hung up. If his C.I. flew out a window with Felix's handprints on it, fuck the Feds—that made it HIS. And if that meant Sylvester Clark, too, so be it. L.A.P.D. didn't work for the Feebs, as they were not-so-affectionately called.
He left the hospital, picked up his cell-phone, pressed the number 3 where Callie's phone was sure to go off. He'd made damn sure that they all had the best cellular network money could buy. "Hey, Ray," she said, seeing his ID pop up in the window. There was something…off about her voice. But with the night he was having, he could just be getting paranoid.
"Callie, what's going on? You really busy?"
"Yeah, it's been a crazy night," she said, her mouth straying from the phone for a moment, causing it to fade slightly. "What is it?"
He drew a breath. God, he needed her not to give him any sass, he wasn't sure how he'd react at the moment, and he hated yelling at her. "Well, I know we already had this discussion "
"That's never stopped you before."
"I really want you to go over and visit dad," Ray said.
"Not this again," she sighed, wearily. Ray winced.
"Callie, he's having a rough night. His insomnia is really bad; he needs some company. I would go over in a heartbeat, but I stumbled into a crime scene about an hour ago and now I'm getting dragged all over town."
"Crime scene?" There was a sudden interest in her voice, not something uncommon. She had cop tendencies, she was studying criminology, but hell he wished she would find another line of work. "What's going on?"
"Same old bullshit in L.A., really," Ray said, "but one of my leaks got shot, and supposedly one of his higher-ups is dead, too. I'm bogged down, I'll be lucky to get off shift three hours late. Come on, Cal, drop off your fare and head on over, five minutes. I'll really owe you."
There was a pause. A sigh. And then, he swore he could just pick up the faintest traces of sound. If she was driving then she probably had a fare in the back seat, but the sound of the weather, the cold evening wind, was too clear, she might be outside. Someone was talking to her, he couldn't make out a single word. Then, she said, guardedly, "I'll see. But I can't promise."
He decided to let it go, relieved that she was being that cooperative, at least. "That's enough," Ray said, "Love you. Thanks."
"Love you too." She hung up the phone, more abruptly than usual. Ray knew she was mad at him but he'd make it up to her. After all, she was the closest thing to Mom he had, and he'd die before he let anything happen to her.
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(Now)
"Callie," Vincent said, outside of her father's house, "wait."
She stopped at the trunk of her car. She looked stiffly over her shoulder, not quite sure what to think. In a way, she was relieved to be out of her father's house, to have her father out of danger. It had not escaped her for a single moment what Vincent was capable of, and how he was watching her. She played as if nothing was wrong, determined to protect her father; now it was over, and she was glad.
Then again, she was also furious. Because now, standing out there with him, in the cold night California air, outside of her house, her shield, her protection, she was at his mercy, and she loathed him for it.
He closed some of the distance between him. His eyes were distant, gazing off down the driveway, toward the sparkling view that could be seen just above the treeline.
"What?" she asked, keeping the snip out of her voice. She folded her arms, realized that she was still in that silly thin tank that Vincent had made her strip down to before going into that club. She decided to use her nervous energy to button up her coat, making sure all the snaps were tightly in place.
He stepped around her, and went and leaned against the car. "You come visit your father every night?"
"We have a routine," she said, her discomfort shifting, but not decreasing.
"Why don't you live with him anymore?"
She started. It wasn't any of his business, but now her psychological skills were starting to kick back in. The shock and fear was slowly starting to pass and her brain could unclench and think for a change. "Well, I guess like any red-blooded American young adult, I wanted some independence."
Vincent cast her a sideglance before his eyes went back to the dark horizon. "But you don't really have it, do you?"
She folded her arms, more to protect herself from the steadily increasing chill than in defiance. "Well, I guess nobody really does. But living on my own is nice. I like it. I can do what I want, go where I was…most of the time," she added, with a bit of an edge. "I don't have to worry about bothering him."
"But you do," Vincent said, now fully turning his face to her. "Because you care about him."
She frowned slightly. There was something there, something she couldn't quite pinpoint. There was a kind of disconnectedness in his expression, as if neurons were firing and trying to meet, but kept missing. There was something that was baffling him.
"Of course I do," she said slowly. "He's my dad. I love him."
Vincent nodded, looked down. "What about your mother?"
"Well, Mom's been gone for a while. I always was mostly a daddy's girl, anyway."
Vincent chuckled lightly. "I've always been curious about that expression."
"You've never known a daddy's girl before?"
"What does it mean?"
This puzzled her. His question was so simple, like a child asking what clouds were made of, that she was thrown. "Well, basically, it means that my father spoiled me, he was the good parent for me. Not that he played favorites, but I sort of favored him over Mom."
"So you put him before your mom." A sudden tightness there. "Your Mom, who carried you in her womb for nine months."
"Oh, don't get me wrong," she said quickly. "I loved my Mom, too. But, well, there's something about losing a parent during adolescence. It has certain repercussions. I sort of got pushed closer to my dad, him being my only surviving parent, and it made us a lot closer. But yeah, it was mostly like that when I was a little kid, too. Mom was constantly on him for being too soft with me."
"You remember your mother?" Softer now, more innocent. She could hardly believe this was the same man she'd watched gun down two punks in an alley, all within a few seconds. "What was she like?"
"What's anybody's mother like?" Callie said absently, not quite thinking about her words. "She was more laid back than my dad, my dad's a fusser. But when it came to raising children, my mother had systems, psychology, she knew exactly how to put us in our places when we got mouthy. Mom wasn't somebody you wanted to mess with, that was for sure."
"Did she ever…hit you?"
"No, Dad was the one with the belt. Mom wouldn't do it. She did so many other things that when it came to the rare occasions of corporeal punishment, she made my dad step up. But hitting wasn't something that happened too often after we got out of our elementary years. Except for the occasional tap on the cheek when I was disrespectful."
She stepped closer to him as she talked, amazed at how intently he was drinking all of this information in. As if she were giving him the answers to life, the universe, and everything. "Why do you want to know all of this, Vincent?" she asked, whispering so that the words couldn't possibly sound abrasive.
He looked away, and she noticed that his face had turned to a strange sort of pale, with bright patches of red here and there. The lines in his features were much deeper in the distorted, shadowy light, and she couldn't quite see his eyes anymore. Except that they looked very sad.
"I envy you," he whispered.
For several moments, she found she couldn't breathe. That he would say such a thing, such a vulnerable thing in such a situation, was enough to completely throw her. So she stayed silent.
"You have so much," he went on. "At least you knew your mother."
She drew a deep breath before asking the inevitable question. "What about your father?"
The question was like a sudden jolt of electricity, the way it ran through his body. He seemed to try to shake it out at the other end, but it wouldn't go. "No, my dad…didn't have much to do with me. Well, when he wasn't drunk or beating me up, anyway. I spent a lot of time in foster homes."
She made a silent "O" with her lips, unsure if she should apologize, as was the polite reaction, or if she should press on, if maybe he wanted to talk about it more, but needed to be drawn out. Looking at the Teflon steel man in front of her, she wondered how she could imagine such a thing. Yet here it was, plain as the sun in the middle of the night.
He lifted the arm closest to her, and she stayed still long enough to let him touch her, his fingers gently wrapping around her upper arm. He pulled her closer, applying only the slightest pressure. She could have been knocked over with a literal feather at that moment, most likely.
"But you," he whispered, as her face drew closer to hers, "you have something so beautiful."
"Everybody else's grass always looks greener," she attempted, but it was a pathetic one at that.
"Only in your case, the grass is actually green." Vincent paused, thoughtful. "What if it was true?" he said.
"What if what was true?"
"That we were dating, and that you brought me home tonight to meet your father. Did he like me? Would he think I was suitable?" At the look she gave him, he amended, "I mean, taking out the…obvious."
Swallowing, knowing this was impossible, she carefully picked her answer. "He seemed to like you well enough, Vincent. You were very polite."
"Yeah, but would we get along?" Vincent pressed. "Like family?"
Shaking her head, she attempted to put a few more inches of air between them. "I don't know, Vincent. It's been a very difficult—"
He reached out with the other hand and firmly drew her to him, so that she stood between his legs, which were parted slightly to get her closer. Their faces were inches apart. "You know, I'd almost hoped you'd be an unappreciative brat," he murmured. "Complain about your parents even though they're saints. But you don't. I'll be every night when you pray, you pray to your mother to watch over your father. I'll bet you're keenly aware of how much he misses her, and yet love him all the more for staying with you."
"You talk about me like I'm special," she said. "I'm just someone who's mature enough to appreciate her parents."
"Which makes you probably the most well-adjusted person I've ever known," Vincent said. And then, after a beat, he kissed her. Again.
8888888888
The motion of Vincent's lips on hers was so quick that it took her by surprise for a moment. It wasn't really a full kiss, she realized, when she pushed him away. His mouth had been open, and had gently rested on the corner of hers, fully expecting her to kiss him back. The surprise and – was it? – hurt on his face threw her, and she wasn't quite sure what to do for another second.
Surely he couldn't be serious.
His face, which had been so cold for most of the night, shifted slightly. The way he stared at her, as if he were sizing her up, had now become a careful scrutiny of her expression, trying to read her. For a moment, she felt an embarrassing flush of shame – the only other time in her life she had ever been looked at like that was when she had upset her father, which was rare, and he was more hurt than angry at her behavior, that she would treat him, him, that way of all people.
Then, he stepped close to her again, his face gentling a bit, but a glint of malice in those strange green eyes. "Your father might be watching us," he said, so softly that it was more of a breath than a whisper. "You wouldn't want him to think anything was wrong, would you? You wouldn't want him to come out here, thinking you might be in danger, and then wind up getting hurt himself, would you?"
Her teeth clenched together behind her closed lips. Vincent did not miss the tightening her jaw and instantly regretted his words, and then hated himself for regretting them. He did not regret. He was indifferent.
But this, a small, barely audible voice inside his head said to him, is a new low.
Ignoring it, he pulled her back to him, gently, wanting to do something to get her to unclench. His hands found her hips and slipped under the waist of her coat, feeling her warmth underneath radiating from the thin silkiness of her coat.
She looked away. Her revulsion came off her in waves, her anger making her eyes terribly dark.
He opened his mouth. "I'm…" I'm what, I'm sorry? Yes, that's the only way to reach her now, apologize, suck it up and apologize. It'll be even better if you let her see how hard it is. "I'm sorry, Callie," he said. "Really."
Her eyes darted back up to his, guarded, lips still pursed in anger. The muscles in his face were twitching now, just barely underneath the surface. He tried to cover it up by turning his head, wiggling his jaw, but she saw it. Her eyebrows twitched a little, smoothing over her expression just the tiniest bit.
He moved his hands down to the jean-clad hips, out of the warmth of her jacket. He was careful not to make his touch too intimate now, he had her on the ropes and one slip would lose her again. "I'm just not," he went on, "I'm just not used to…I don't know. Seeing normal people. I don't even think I know what normal is."
What the hell are you talking about?
More softening. There was no warmth in her eyes, but she didn't seem as angry to him anymore. "You're so used to manipulating people," she said, her voice thin and fragile, "you don't have any idea how to carry a normal conversation, do you?"
"I don't know if I'd go that far," he said with a mild grin. "You and I weren't doing so bad at the beginning of the night." He paused, considering her. Carefully, carefully. "You know, when you picked me up, you said something about a guy named Max. Was that the driver in front of us?"
Puzzled, she frowned. "Yeah?"
"So technically, since he was first in line, I was supposed to get into his cab, right?"
Ah ha. Hit home. She almost seemed to wilt, as if he'd struck her. "Well, you're the customer, you do whatever the damn hell you want," she managed.
"Yeah, but courtesy and all of that, the unspoken bond between cab drivers not stealing each other's fares. Yet you took me anyway." He raised one eyebrow slightly. "Why?"
Her cheeks were starting to turn red. Almost imperceptibly, he moved his hands up, just at the edge of the warmth. "I…I don't know. Max owes me a few favors anyway; I didn't think he'd care. Besides, I was bored, just sitting there."
He made a slight clicking sound with his tongue. "Surely your father taught you that it's bad to lie."
Full on scarlet stained her cheeks now. Her eyes had gone hazy, distant, a desperate attempt to escape the stress of the situation. Using the opportunity, he lifted one hand to the snaps on her jacket. His knuckles pressed ever so gently against her breast through the denim.
"You were attracted to me?" he whispered, ruffling the thin hairs around her ear. She shivered as one snap came undone.
"Never trust your first impression," she muttered. Humor was the last defense. He slipped two fingers into her jacket as he undid the next snap. She wasn't pulling away.
"Oh, always trust your first impression," Vincent smiled. "Maybe I went with you because I thought the same thing."
Confusion fluttered all across her face. He had her on the ropes and he just kept yanking her around. In a few more minutes she was going to be helpless. He made himself stay focused and slow as he undid the snaps, one by one, and watched as she struggled to think. When his hands finally slipped inside, caressing her curves, reaching up and finding her breasts, her eyes shut and she was almost scowling with the effort that took. He shifted his weight, his fingers enjoying the softness of her body and the slinky sensation of the shirt, as he pulled her farther and farther into his grip. Soon, her face was resting against his, the bridge of his nose pressed against her forehead, so he had a front row view to her face and how she was fighting back against her attraction.
It was so amusing, how the human body could rebel so completely against the mind and the heart. As a finishing touch, he rolled his thumbs slowly around her nipples, feeling them harden through her clothing.
She sucked in a breath, opened her eyes. She seemed to remember where she was, and her face flushed so dark, in the shadows it was nearly black. As if the effort took every ounce of strength she had, she lifted her hands and placed them on his elbows, and pushed his hands away, getting a single inch of air between them. She pulled her chin back and met his eyes, her own still glazed, but just starting to clear.
"No," she said. "No, stop."
Simple words, put in a simple, civilized tone. How could he deny that request? How could he honor it?
That was when he realized that he didn't have as much control over himself as he thought. It took tremendous effort for him to put the next inch between them. Shaking himself, he withdrew completely, looked away, back toward the sparkling horizon.
She was breathing heavily. Her mouth was dry and she was swallowing, trying to remoisten it. She pulled her coat closed but didn't snap it shut this time.
"We need to go," Vincent said. "Stop number four awaits."
