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Part Nine: A Place Called Home

Jordan later described it as "Raid on Entebbe" on steroids. The basement door flew off its hinges - it turned out Matt Seely had one of a hell of a good kick when Lily's safety was concerned. Heavy feet began to pound down the stairs and Woody yelled out for everyone to freeze. Lily also found herself obeying his command to "Put down your weapons!" Unfortunately, Neill Cassidy was not nearly so compliant. He lunged for the gun, knocking it from Lily's hand, sending it skittering backwards. As he dove toward the women, Jordan's instincts propelled her knee into his groin with every ounce of force her frame possessed.

He dropped, shrieking in pain.

It was music to everyone's ears.

After Cassidy was cuffed and dragged upstairs by a uniformed officer who didn't appear too sympathetic to the killer's difficulties in walking, silence descended on the room. No one seemed able to look at Jordan, yet they all wanted to stare. Mouths were stapled shut by anger and confusion, even as vocal cords were loosened by happiness and relief. In the silence, Lily sniffed. "Are you sure it's him?"

Bug nodded. "You should see the upstairs." He looked around. "Or maybe not."

"He's got an entire wall with clippings and pictures from the papers," Nigel added. "And a photo display that if I never have to think about again I'll be a happy, happy man."

"What does that mean?" Lily asked, in spite of herself.

Jordan's voice was low, tentative. "He took pictures of the victims."

Nigel's eyes met hers for a moment. He saw the pleading in them and, for a moment, his anger burned brightly enough to blind him, but then he thought of how many times in the past months they'd all wished her back amongst them. He nodded. If there was a trial, it would come out that he'd been in the photos, grinning like a tourist in front of the giant, fake pineapple in some vacation trap. Neither Lily nor Jordan needed to know that this morning though.

Finally Garret raised his eyes to his not-so-late employee. "You know, Jordan, it seems like the rumors of your death have been greatly exaggerated. I'd love to know why, but, if it's all right with everyone else, I'd like to hear it somewhere other than this creep show."

"We'll - uh - we'll need statements," Woody interjected. "From Lily and - and..." He swallowed. "Jordan."

XXXXX

Darkness had fallen on the most difficult day of Jordan's life. After giving her statement, she had spent a long time at the temporary morgue explaining everything to her colleagues. And the people she hoped were still - or could find it in themselves to be - her friends. She knew she'd have a lot of work to do to regain their trust and, for some of them, it might never come back. She didn't know the last time she'd cried so much, silent tears coursing unheeded down her cheeks, until her eyes burned and swelled. In light of everything, her reasons sounded like such paltry things, excuses that reduced the importance of everything meaningful to her to ashes.

After the others had left, Jordan sat in Macy's office. He shut the door, opened his desk and poured her a scotch. "It's going to take a lot, Jordan."

"I know." She took a long sip of the drink, letting it scald her throat. Oddly, in the months away, tending bar, she'd been completely sober. Maybe, after all the years of running, of hiding from her feelings, when the emotions came for her, she'd finally let them. And she'd lived through it. Something in her - some sliver of base metal - had been melted in the crucible of her self-created exile and poured away. She knew that, at last, her life was not determined by unequivocal answers to certain questions - who killed my mother? will Woody break my heart if I let him in? what else is my father hiding? -but by accepting that the answers to some questions change. She set down the glass. "Thanks."

Garret eyes her curiously. "Don't want it?"

She smiled tiredly. "Don't need it."

Garret sipped his drink in silence. They let the time tick by. "Were you happy, Jordan?"

She snorted. "Miserable. I can honestly say that, except for the time right after my mother died, I don't think I've ever been unhappier." She gave him a sly look, one that was almost the old Jordan. "You can tell everyone that, if you think it'll help."

Garret shook his head, but a slight grin played on his lips. "I should be furious with you. We all should be."

"You should!"

"And I am, Jordan. I really am. But at the same time, I - I - nothing has been right without you." Fresh tears - God, she was really starting to run the risk of dehydration here - trickled down her face. Garret handed over a handkerchief and perched himself on the corner of his desk. "Are you going to be all right? Coming back to work here, I mean."

She shrugged. "I'll have to be, won't I?" She looked up at him. "I'm not the same person, Garret. I don't know if I can explain it, but having to live with the choice I made - a stupid, stupid choice in an instant - I - I..." She shook her head, smiling ruefully. "I don't know."

"You grew up?" His voice was lightly teasing, but his face, serious.

She gave a small laugh. "Is that it?"

"Just might be."

There was another silence, the sort they'd been used to in each other's company. Again it was Garret who broke it. "What about Woody?"

"What about him?"

"Jordan-"

"No, Garret, I know." She lifted one shoulder uneasily. "I'm over him."

"Are you trying to say you don't love him anymore?"

She shook her head. "No. I'll always love him." She had to take a deep breath or two as a new storm of tears loomed on the horizon. "But I pushed him away for a long time and, in the end, it cost me. It cost me him. It cost me - probably a lifetime of happiness."

"Jordan, it doesn't have to-"

"Yeah, Garret, yeah, it does." She shook her head. "I think there's too much - history there. And I've learned to live with that. I don't like it, but I'll be okay."

"You can't just - Jordan, you can't give up."

"Who said I'm giving up?" She feigned indignance. "I'll be happy, Garret. I will. I'll find someone and make it work. Some day. I'm not going to become some hermit, the poster girl for lost love." She stood up. "Thanks. I - uh - I'd better head - God, I don't know. Dad's, I guess."

"The view's not the same, but it's not bad," Garret said as she reached the door. Over her shoulder, she smiled at him.

"Stairs are at the end of this hall."

She nodded.

XXXXX

Mac found her there nearly two hours later. The evenings were getting cooler and she was shivering a bit. He took off his light jacket and draped it over her shoulders. "I got worried."

"Sorry," she told him softly. "I never thought I'd see the city like this again."

"I don't want to tell you what to do-"

"Yes, you do." She grinned at him.

He smiled back. "All right, you got me there. I want you to stay with me a while. Until you find a new place, get back into things here."

"Yeah, apparently being declared dead creates a lot of paperwork when you want to come back to work."

Max put his arm around her. "Macy'll take the paperwork, Jordan. They'd all pitch in if it would help."

Her smile faded. "Not all of them, Dad. Not yet. We'll see." She looked over at him. "I'm only staying til my life is back to normal."

"Dear God, as long as that?" She gave him a tap on the shoulder. Wordlessly now, he reached into one pocket and drew out the evidence Jordan had left behind to mark her "death." He pondered it for a moment. "How'd you get it anyway?"

She smiled. "I snuck into the funeral home and stole it. I needed something of hers."

"Jordan, I'm sorry-"

"It's okay, Dad. There's no - no playbook in situations like that. We all do the best we can."

"My Lord, when did you get so philosophical?"

A light, genuine laugh. "Probably about the time I lost count of how many roaches I'd beaten to death."

"Charming." He hugged her more tightly. "Take the locket, Jordan."

"No, Dad. Keep it. I have - I have other things to remember her by."

Max took one of her hands and opened it, laying the pendant and chain in her palm. Then he curled her fingers over it. "Keep it, Jordan. And look inside it every once in a while." For a long moment she gazed at him, her dark eyes empty of the bitterness and recrimination that had so long simmered in them. Then she nodded. "I'll be at a home," Max said. "Whenever you get tired of the view."

When he'd gone, she went back to staring at the city twinkling beneath and around her. He'd left his jacket, so she was no longer cold. It smelled of his aftershave and shampoo. She breathed in deeply, remembering the comfort of those scents from her childhood. She opened the locket.

Max had changed the picture.

END Part Nine

TBC...