Disclaimer: Not mine.
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'Inspecteur?'
'Inspecteur.'
'Marguerite.'
Meg dropped the pen she had been tapping absentmindedly and stood up, discomfited.
'Good morning, Sir.'
The older man standing before her desk gave her a pained smile. 'Jean, please. There's no need for such formalities day to day.'
Meg made a noncommittal sound and looked away. Deputy Commissioner Jean LaCriox, the head of the RCMP 'C' division and the man to whom she reported had been insisting the same thing for almost two years now. It made Meg's skin crawl, though she hid it well.
LaCriox is not the first person to call you by your given name. Cloutier—
—Is dead.
'Is there something you need, Sir?'
He moved until he was standing barely a foot away from her. 'Well, Marguerite, since you've come, things have been running much more smoothly and there were a couple of files I didn't have time to look over.' He lowered his voice intimately. 'There's no one else I'd trust to look through them. Would you mind?'
'No, not at all.' She stepped back.
He mirrored her action and leaned in to examine her face. 'Are you getting enough sleep, Marguerite? You look exhausted. This isn't too much for you, is it? I could always arrange for a transfer…'
She'd heard this before from Cloutier. An expression of concern carrying a thinly veiled threat: Don't forget who's in charge here. She cut in coldly,
'I'm fine, Sir. No cause for concern.'
'Good, good.' He clasped her shoulder and she just restrained herself from shaking off the hand.
He cleared his throat. 'Well, I'm off to lunch then. If you ever need to talk…' He left the sentence hanging.
She nodded and stood there until he'd left. Then, without saying a word, she threw the stack of files he'd given her at the closed door with a jerk of her arm and watched in silence as the white sheets of paper fluttered slowly to the ground.
The gesture did little to help and Meg wished she had something a little more breakable to throw. Instead, grabbing her coat from the back of her chair, she quickly left the office, almost running over Constable Pincent in her haste.
'Constable,' Her voice sounded flat and strained in her ears. 'I'm leaving early today. Please notify Deputy Commissioner LaCroix if you see him.'
She didn't wait for him to reply.
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It wasn't until she was sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of tea cradled in one hand that Meg's heartbeat finally began to slow.
Why had LaCriox's behaviour bothered her so much today? She'd put up with similar innuendos ever since becoming an inspector and trading in her serge for a skirt and heels. She'd learned how to deal with the unwanted attention by cultivating an icy reputation or occasionally, by taking an outside date to receptions and parties—to re-enforce the message that she was unavailable. Gradually, she'd also learned how to ignore the comments, observing that men usually stopped if they felt they weren't getting anywhere.
It's just…
A part of her had thought that all that would end with Cloutier. The truth was that it took more out of her than she cared to admit. Over the years, she'd made very few true friends. Only a handful of people knew who she was under the imposing facade. Or at least who she'd been as a student and a field officer.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember what had been so different.
You laughed more back then. Life was straightforward. Dangerous sometimes, but how long has it been since you've felt that rush of adrenaline, the thrill that comes from the chase? The pride that comes from fighting to 'maintain the right.'
She knew the answer.
Not since you were throwing eggs with—
With a dull thud, her cup hit the wood, splashing cold tea down her arm and onto the carpet. She jumped up to grab a cloth and turned her full attention to mopping up the spill.
What was wrong with her?
I need—
What? A vacation? A new job? She had absolutely no idea what she needed. Something was just missing and Meg was at a loss for what to do about it. She was successful, respected, second in charge of an important division of the RCMP. Maybe this was all just a reaction to her communication with LaCriox…
An image rose unexpectedly to the surface of her mind: dark fir trees, jagged slate mountains, and her as a child, sitting beside her father on the bank of a river. It only took a moment for the memory to come back; it had been one of the few times she had spent alone with her father. She remembered it had been late spring or early summer and he'd gotten a week's leave from his duties. They'd gone out camping, just the two of them. She'd been eight…maybe nine, and he'd taken her to Ross River, just north of his current post at Fort Liard. She remembered how the fresh Yukon air, mercifully free of black flies, had chilled her lungs and how her father had shown her the proper way to thread a line.
'Nothing clears your mind like the northern air, Maggie,' he'd whispered as he guided the wire through her clumsy hands.
I need to get away.
She knew instinctively that's what her mind was telling her. But there was no way LaCroix would let her take time off now. And who could she stay with? She hadn't had time to make friends in Quebec yet.
She mulled it over as she tidied up and sorted through the stack of mail on her table. Bills, correspondence from work. She tossed a couple pieces of junk mail into the trash.
Wait. What was that?
Something had slipped out from between two flyers and landed on the kitchen floor. She bent over and picked it up curiously. It was a postcard from Yellowknife. She turned it over slowly.
'Dear Meg,
I hope this reaches you. I sent it to the central office in Ottawa with instructions to forward it to your current address. (It's hard to keep up with the news in Paulatuk!)
How are you? It's been such a long time since our last visit. Do you remember after graduation when we promised not to lose touch? Well, I've got some exciting news. Robert and I finally got married. You remember Rob Mackenzie, right? I have to run, but don't forget, you're welcome in Paulatuk any time.
Fondest regards,
Sue Cabot-Mackenzie'
Meg set it down thoughtfully and went to put the kettle back on the heat.
Sue Cabot had been her roommate during basic training. Thrown into such close quarters, it was little surprise that the two women had formed a strong bond. Between the rigorous work and long hours, they had relied on each other for support, from debriefing after a draining simulation to going out for a drink on their rare nights off. Sue had been the life of the party; short, blond and gregarious, she came from a horse farm in Canmore, Alberta and had an easy, open manner that made her popular with the male students.
Meg, taller and darker and coming from an isolated childhood in the North, was quiet and quickly developed a reputation for being frosty, aloof and married to her work. At seventeen, a year before entering training, she'd spent a summer modelling in Paris, but her subsequent experiences with the opposite sex had made her wary of exposing herself in such a way again. Sue didn't pry, but tried to draw Meg out of her shell, occasionally succeeding, but more often meeting with a sharp refusal.
Nevertheless, when the two women graduated, Meg at the top of their class and Sue somewhere in the middle, they had vowed to keep in touch. At first they had been stationed together in Red Deer, but then Sue had received a transfer to Yellowknife and Meg had been promoted and since then their correspondence had dwindled. This was the first Meg had heard in five or six years.
Pouring herself another cup, Meg stared at the bull moose on the postcard's front without really seeing it.
So, Sue's stationed in Paulatuk now.
She'd never been to the remote Inuit village, although she knew it was at the northern edge of the territories near the Beaufort Sea.
Let's see, it's March now, almost April.
She remembered that time of year from her childhood. Days that stretched out forever, strung together by hazy mauve nights where the sun always hovered just above the horizon. Native inhabitants called spring in the Northwest Territories 'snow season' because days were long and snow was still plentiful—in other words, travel season.
Paulatuk is about as far north as you'll get.
But would Sue, newly wed, really want a visitor or was she just being polite? Meg considered the question for a moment. No, she decided, Sue had never been one to say something she didn't mean.
Meg looked long and hard at the stack of unfinished paperwork sitting on her coffee table. At length, she picked up a pen and pulled a sheet of paper from her briefcase. She paused for a moment, pen hovering just above the blank sheet, then, with a decisive motion, began to write.
'Dear Sue, in regards to your invitation…'
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A/N: Third part should be up by the end of the week, (but no promises).