Chances
Author: Dragon's Daughter 1980
Spoilers: Season 1
Pairing: Don/Terry
Disclaimer: CBS has ownership over Numb3rs. That being said, I'm just borrowing the cast for my own enjoyment and I promise to return all characters unharmed.
FBI Compound, Instructor Housing
Quantico, Virginia
(3:47 AM Local Time)
Terry woke suddenly, sitting up in bed, her heart pounding painfully in her chest, her breathing coming in unsteady gasps and her eyes watering. Her pillow was wet with tears. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, trying to take deep breaths to calm herself. 'It was just a nightmare. That didn't happen. It never happened. He's okay. Everyone's okay.'
She remembered that day. Charlie was the one who had nearly died. Don was the one who nearly had a heart attack. But no one died that sunny afternoon except the sniper Nathan Crane. Everyone she loved — 'No, who I care about,' she corrected herself even now — had gone home safe and sound. So why was the same nightmare plaguing her, even now? In her dreams, it was never Charlie who was hurt. It was Don. It was always Don. The trained psychologist in her mind informed her, 'That's because you love him and you're worried about him. Your suppressed anxieties are expressing themselves through your dreams.'
'Thanks,' she thought back sarcastically, 'like I couldn't figure that one out for myself.' She concentrated on her breathing, trying to relax her tense muscles.
"It's random, malicious. A bullet that can come from anywhere take anyone, you know?" When she had said them to David, riding in the safety of a car, she had never thought those words would apply to anyone she cared deeply about. Sure, the psychologist in her knew that the bullet from anywhere could take the life of anyone — including the people she trusted and loved. But when she heard that shot echo through the plaza — that's when her heart finally understood. The people she loved didn't have any special protection from harm; she could lose them at any moment. Ever since then, she had the same nightmare over and over: Don dying in her arms before she could tell him what she felt for him. It was worse than having murderers hunting her down in her sleep.
She groaned quietly to herself. This is getting out of hand. The trauma of losing him almost every night in her dreams had paled in her relief of seeing him alive and unscathed in reality every morning when she was in Los Angeles. Terry wished that she had the assurance of seeing him when she got to the office in a few hours' time. But in her current situation, her nightmares were becoming more than she could handle by herself. He was always there to anchor her, knowingly or not. She closed her eyes, willing her mind to block out any images of Don bleeding to death on the cold hard pavement, and instead, recalled faded memories of waking up in his arms over a decade ago. She remembered more recent comforting hugs after difficult cases, when he had taken her home, wiped her tears away, and given her silent understanding without meaningless platitudes.
Her breathing slowly steadying in the face of these positive memories, Terry looked at her alarm clock. It was four in the morning. 'I won't get anymore sleep tonight. I might as well get up.' Despite that thought, she stayed in bed a little while longer until she stopped shaking so badly.
(5:30 AM)
Terry sipped her morning coffee as she looked out across the FBI compound. There were a few people already out in the pre-dawn light, running their daily paths. 'Trainees most likely; they still have the ability to sleep through the night.' She sighed at that thought. While the change of scenery had been nice, coming to Quantico had raised her stress levels. She glanced at the kitchen table, which had two neat piles on it: one of graded papers and the other of multiple case folders. She understood now how Charlie must have felt at times, torn between his academic and consulting duties. Besides teaching four classes at the Academy, she was working on a case that required her to do multiple 'interviews' with multiple perps and after each interrogation, she had to update each one's profile. So in addition to a surge in nightmares, Terry had to deal with a flood of paperwork. It certainly didn't sweeten her mood.
'But I'll be going home soon,' she told herself. 'Then everything will be back to normal.' Of course, returning to L.A. meant that she going to be right back to where she started a month ago: a very confused and frustrated woman in love with Don Eppes. She had meant to take this month in Virginia as an unofficial stress leave when she could sort out everything she wanted to say to him when she returned to Los Angeles. It was clear that this distance between them was a brief reprieve from their blossoming relationship and she wanted to sort out her feelings. However, life and the Bureau had other plans. She hadn't had the time to really think about everything.
But her last night in L.A. was certainly a turning point. 'He kissed me back. And that look…' Terry remembered that look — a mixed one of longing and worry, of pure honesty when he said he wasn't sorry. It had frightened her, the tenderness and understanding she saw in his eyes. She had fled and he had let her go. 'He let it drop. Does it mean he's letting me take the first step? Is he testing the waters? Or does he know about my feelings already? If he does, why didn't he say anything? Or is he unsure about my feelings, like I am of his, and trying to figure out if I feel the same way as him? Why can't he be straightforward about this!' She stopped her train of thought. It usually ended up going in circles and did her no good at all. She knew that Don would never knowingly hurt her. Despite his tough exterior, he was too much of a gentleman for that. But that good-bye kiss was enough to confuse her to no end. It was like the old children's superstition with daisies that went: Pluck. "He loves me." Pluck. "He loves me not." Pluck. "He loves me." 'If love were only that simple…' Then she laughed softly, imaging herself sitting in a field of daisies before her thoughts drifted onto Charlie and his Fibonacci sequence to — where else? — Don, and from there, her nightmare.
'Enough.' She put down her coffee cup. 'A brief run, a shower and then I'll go set up for classes today,' she decided. Terry rinsed out her mug and set it on the dish rack to dry. Without consciously realizing it, she began to build up the walls that allowed her to stay detached from the horrors of her job. Every emotion was carefully packed away until her mind was clear of any personal debris that might interfere with her work. Soon, the memory of her nightmare was tucked away in the back of her mind and she pretended to forget it ever happened.
FBI Academy, Room 204
(7:58 AM, Local Time)
Terry watched silently as her students entered her classroom for her first class of the day. These were the newest trainees, bright and eager to learn — sometimes irritatingly so. She had been teaching them the basics of profiling for nearly a month now and by the end of her first class with them, she could roughly pick out those who would pass the class and those who would inch by. By the end of the first week, she had singled out those who would choose Behavioral Analysis as their major. By the end of the third, she knew who would and wouldn't survive as FBI profilers. It was a tough field and only a few agents in every graduating class had the right abilities to endure its merciless demands.
She had been a profiler for nearly ten years now. Detachment was always difficult for her. How could it not be? She got inside criminals' minds, analyzed their actions, predicted their next moves, found their weaknesses and cracked them open in interrogation. It was her job and Terry was good at it. That didn't mean it didn't come with a cost. Sometimes, she was surprised she didn't wake up more often in the middle of the night, gasping for breath, heart pounding, a strangled scream in her throat. The nightmares came from situations that went south, a wrong profile that cost lives, or her coworkers falling victim to violent deaths that she was helpless to prevent. If she was lucky, she would collapse back into an exhausted sleep. If she wasn't, she faced sleepless hours terrorized by the criminals she helped put away. And when the sun rose, she had to get up and go to work like nothing was wrong.
As for her social life, men either wanted to hear the gory details of her job or were irritated by how she always had her pager with her. One had even gone so far as accuse her of being married to her job. Needless to say, that date had ended quickly. Most of the time, however, it was her lack of emotions during dates that turned men off. They didn't understand it was how she always protected herself during emotionally-draining cases. She had taught her soul to retreat into herself until the case was over before going home and doing whatever she needed to exorcise her demons, from simply writing to crying for hours.
Her dates, on the other hand, wanted smiles, laughter, caresses, human contact and interaction — what they usually got when they dated the average civilian female. What they didn't understand was that Terry Lake was hardly average. She was a woman successfully working in a predominantly male-career, who regularly dealt with criminals that would frighten the wits out of any of her dates. As such, she couldn't give those things so easily. Her job warned her against it. Emotions were dangerous and put agents at risk. An agent wasn't supposed to think with his or her heart about solving cases; an agent dealt with cases using his or her mind. The Ballard case was one of the rare times Terry had thought with her heart instead of her logic, and it had gotten her in trouble. Both officially and personally. Because the crime had hit too close to home for her, because no one on her team had denied that she bore a shockingly similar countenance to the banker's wife, because she had walked away from the woman's mangled body in tears. She had carried the bitterness of justice unserved with her for years, until Don helped her make sure the man went away for his crime.
People complimented her on how normal a life she seemed to have, how her personality seemed unaffected by her work. She usually smiled in reply and said nothing. Yes, it was true that old college friends found it difficult to distinguish between the Terry they knew and the woman she was now. She was a little older, a little worldlier and a little more cynical, but beyond that, she hadn't changed much. The only reason she was able to appear unchanged were the emotional walls that she surrounded herself with. Complete detachment was the only surefire way to survive as a FBI profiler, but it involved sacrificing everything else. Including love. 'And I'm sick of it.' Terry glanced at her watch. 'Eight o'clock. And what a beautiful morning it is.'
"Morning everyone," she raised her voice, her tone warning against disobedience. The agents-in-training quickly took their seats. "Today, we're going to cover the basics of interviews and interrogations. Who can tell me the difference?"
FBI Field Office
Quantico, Virginia
(5:30 PM, Local Time)
Terry walked out of the interrogation room, her lower back aching slightly from an afternoon of extensive interrogations. FBI Special Agent William Kirsch walked past her, escorting their scowling prisoner back down to the holding cells. The interrogation had gone smoothly and she was fairly sure that after a night of pondering his options, the prisoner would willingly turn State's witness. Of course, it had taken some persuasion on her part (nearly two hours worth) to get the man to see her point of view and the benefits of testifying against his former 'friends.'
It was nearing the end of a long day and an exhausting week. The nightmare had effectively robbed her of two hours of sleep, furthering her sleep debt. Terry had arrived at her classroom at seven, started teaching her three hour-long classes at eight. After a brief break for lunch and a short nap, she had hurried to the office to conduct interrogations for a major investigation. She had spent the majority of the afternoon in the same room with some of the most chauvinistic macho criminals she had ever met and, on a deep level, she knew it unnerved her. A part of her wished that she could feel the reassuring presence of her friends watching her back from the other side of the mirror.
As she navigated through the unfamiliar office layout, she felt a pang of longing for Los Angeles and her coworkers. The first week here in Quantico, Terry had constantly found herself thinking that if she just turned her head slightly from her paperwork, she would see Don sitting at his desk, making phone calls or thinking about their latest case, frowning ever so slightly as he turned over the details in his mind. Or if she turned around, she would observe Charlie perched on his brother's desk, frantically scribbling an equation on a notepad or running a program on the computer. And that if she just looked up, she would find David hovering over the top edge of her cubicle, eager to share information that he had just found. Of course, her team and friends were all the way across the country each time she did look up, thinking she had heard their voices. The second and third weeks were no better, despite all she did to ignore her feelings. They just wouldn't leave her alone. And by this week, she was about ready to chuck her psychology textbook at the wall in pure frustration at her behavior.
She was not the type to suffer homesickness nor was she the type to cling. If she was, she wouldn't have become a FBI agent. But the fact was she was suffering homesickness, and she had a very good idea why. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to solve that problem, now or anywhere in the near future. The beginnings of a throbbing headache were starting to plague her. This was really neither the place nor time to deal with her personal emotions. 'All I want to do right now is go back to my room, collapse into bed and get some sleep and deal with all of this tomorrow… or Monday.' Instead, she glanced at her watch as she dropped off her notepad at her temporary desk. There was probably enough time for her to conduct one more interrogation before going back to the FBI compound and calling Don.
Don Eppes. She restrained the sigh that threatened to escape from her, half longing, half exasperation as she made her way toward the break room. Oh, she had crossed the boundary between partner-friend to romantic love a long time ago with that man. Now it was love unrequited or was it? And that question was driving her crazy. It was bad enough that she had to work with him day in and day out and being unable to make any move on him because of fraternization rules. It was worse that she had to lose control and kiss him just before she left Los Angeles. 'But he returned that kiss and he also said he wasn't sorry,' a little voice reminded her. 'And then I had to go and run away,' she snapped back at herself.
'Well, you have to admit he kind of sprung it on you.'
'Does it matter? If I am in love with him, then why did I try to apologize?'
'Terry, you don't know if he feels the same way as you do and you needed to go home and pack.'
'Since when does packing my bags, which were already packed by the way, qualify as a good excuse?' When she started having mental snipping contests, Terry knew she was much too short on sleep and that her emotional walls were crumbling. 'Which is not good because Alverez is going to be difficult to crack and he'll try every trick in the book to unnerve me. And I can't let him know it if he does.'
She poured herself a cup of coffee. 'One more 'conversation' and I am going home!' she decided. The complex case was running everyone ragged, including the woman in charge of it all. Terry stepped out onto the third-story office balcony to get a breath of fresh air. But she wasn't alone. FBI Special Agent Jasmine Lewis, the agent who had invited Terry onto this case, was already outside. She smiled at Terry, her own hands wrapped around her own coffee mug, "Hi Terry."
"Hi Jasmine," replied Terry, standing next to her friend, watching the summer sun slowly sink toward the horizon. It was a different view from Los Angeles and Terry took the moment to relax as much as she dared to do while at work.
"How are they going?" asked Jasmine wearily. Her normally-bound hair was free of any restraints and the wind played with the ends of her brown hair. Terry knew that Jasmine was under heavy pressure from the brass to wrap the high-stakes case up quickly before anyone got hurt. Raids and arrests were happening almost every night as the FBI worked to bring down the heavily-armed drug cartel.
"Good. Ricardo and Garcia seem willing to make plea bargains in exchange for their testimonies, but Alverez is the one who knows the most."
"You've questioned him already?"
Terry took a sip of her coffee. "No, Kirsch is bringing him up right now. After I finish this" — she raised her cup slightly— "I'll go talk with him. But if those two indicate anything, it's going to be tough to flip him."
Jasmine sighed wearily. Terry smiled slightly, "Just because it's tough doesn't mean it's impossible."
"I know. You're one of the best. That's why I asked you to come aboard. Still…" Jasmine looked out across the view. "I'll be happy when this case is over and done with."
"So will I," Terry said softly, not realizing she had spoken aloud.
Jasmine glanced over at her colleague's soft remark. When she had first met Terry Lake, her first impression was a self-assured agent who was confident in her abilities. As the weeks had passed, Jasmine knew her initial read was right on target. But while she was an excellent forensic psychologist and colleague, whenever Terry relaxed slightly — like now — a small frown would settle on her lips and a quick glance at her expression would tell anyone that her thoughts were miles away from Quantico. Where her thoughts truly were was anybody's guess, but Jasmine suspected that Terry was homesick for L.A. and for whomever she had left behind there. Silently, she worried about her colleague's behavior. If Terry relaxed around a suspect at the wrong moment — 'Not that she would,' Jasmine knew her coworker was too experienced an agent to commit such a dangerous mistake — 'But if she relaxes…' Jasmine shoved the persistent thought away. 'I'm being paranoid,' she chided. 'Terry's more experienced than I am. She knows what she's doing. There's no need to worry.' Then her eyes drifted down to Terry's belt.
Terry was thinking about David's email. It had been brief and vague, only telling her that a major case was going on right now that demanded all of their time. He wrote that the office missed her presence and that Don seemed rather stressed out by the nature of the case. A US Marshal had been killed by a federal prisoner and that had galvanized all the local law enforcement agencies into action. The problem was, the fugitive seemed to have carbon copies walking around L.A. There were too many sightings for the majority of them to be believable. Charlie was trying his best to help pinpoint the man's movements, but public hysteria was hindering their progress. Otherwise than that, everyone was all right, just tired and looking forward to putting the escapee back behind bars. 'The lot of an agent is the same everywhere,' she thought wryly. 'A time-consuming case that's hindered by a well-meaning, but panicked public that has to be closed on a tight schedule or else heads will roll — literally and figuratively.'
She worried a little about Don. Terry knew he would be careful, but she also knew that whenever there was someone else in danger, he didn't hesitate for a second to help them. The Charm School Boys had shaken her to the core when they opened fire at the bank. McKnight had gone down in front of her. It took all of her training to ignore his body, sprawled out on the pavement. Bile rose in her throat when she had realized he wasn't moving at all. Then Don arrived at the scene. She had covered for him; fervently praying that he wouldn't put himself in greater danger than they all were already in and knowing he wouldn't for their colleague's sake. When Don looked at her and shook his head after checking the other man's pulse, she knew that the case would close. None of them would rest until his murderers were behind bars for the rest of their lives or buried six feet under. But Don would feel responsible and she knew, come hell or high water, the Charm School Boys wouldn't escape justice.
She still remembered the stab of fear that had pierced her heart when she heard the gunshot echo through the basement. She had run toward the sound, hoping that Don was the one who had fired. Her heart had skipped a painful beat when she saw him on the ground and the silhouette of a weapon in the perp's hand. But she had immediately calmed her breathing and opened fire. The man had fled and Don, thank God, had pulled himself out of the debris.
"Are you hit?" she asked, touching his shoulder gently. 'Please tell me you're all right.'
"He's got my gun! Go that way!" he answered. A part of her shook her head in exasperation at his typical reply. 'Like hell, and leave you unarmed?' another part of her answered back.
"Are you hit?" She still hoped that he hadn't heard the nearly hysterical undertone of her question. She doubted it, most people only heard the firmness of her voice, but Don wasn't 'most people.' He had an uncanny knack of reading her emotions just by listening to her. If he had, he had never said a word to her about it, then or afterwards. 'Damn it, answer me Don! I need to know if the blood is yours or his!' she demanded silently.
"Go that way!" he insisted, getting to his feet. She gave up, thinking 'If the patient can run away from the treatment, he's not sick enough to need it.' But that didn't mean she didn't feel nauseous the first few times she saw the white bandaging on his arm. She saw for herself how close the man was to Don. 'He didn't hesitate to kill McKnight. He could have easily gone for a head shot…' Terry shoved those thoughts away. She couldn't worry about what had already happened. Don had survived with a graze to the arm. 'Just a graze, nothing serious,' she had repeated to herself over and over like a mantra. And, in the end, they had caught the Charm School Boys with only one shot fired and one fatality.
After Skidmore and his crew were booked into the holding cells, Terry had gone home and cried, curled up on her living room couch. Her mail, unchecked for several days, had included an invitation to attend Ned McKnight's memorial service. She went, as did everyone at the office. After the service, she did her best to comfort her colleagues before Don found her and took her to a quiet local café that both of them frequented after hard cases. There, they had drank tea and coffee and talked about nothing really until she started to cry. Then he drove her home, settled her in bed and reluctantly left her apartment after she told him she was going to be okay. Throughout the whole time, he had acted like a gentleman and friend to her.
At that time, she had put it down to his caring nature and perhaps his need to return favors that caused him to look after her like that. She had done the same for him when his mother died, letting him into her home in the middle of the night to talk or simply to be there. Terry recalled more nights spent with him sleeping on her couch while she curled up in her bed without a word being exchanged between them than nights of conversation. But with that kiss…maybe it had been something more on his part, something more than just friendship.
"Terry, why aren't you carrying?" asked Jasmine nervously. Terry, startled out of her thoughts by the sudden remark, blinked before she understood what her colleague was asking. She took a sip of her coffee before answering, "I just don't think it's a good idea, especially since I'm doing these interrogations solo."
"I'd be more than happy—"
"No, it's okay," she shook her head at the offer. As the agent-in-charge, Jasmine had more pressing things to do than hold her hand while she conducted interrogations. "Besides, they're more likely to open up to me if they don't perceive me as a threat."
"Alverez is tough," warned Jasmine. "It took several S.W.A.T. guys to bring him in." She glanced at her friend, "Just be careful."
"I will," answered Terry. The two female agents drank in silence.
"Do you want to call him?" Jasmine asked her, putting down her coffee cup as she did so.
"Who?" asked Terry blankly, even though she knew full well who her colleague was referring to.
"Him," her friend replied simply.
"It's okay." Terry looked away. "I don't want to worry him by calling early." She was fairly sure that Jasmine didn't know the identity of the person she called every other night at 8:30 and she intended to keep it that way. There was no telling how Jasmine would react. She knew that Don was Terry's supervisor and partner. And…well, what good non-romantic explanation was there to explain why she called him every other night, if only for a few minutes?
If she was going to be honest with herself, she missed Don. While she prided herself for being independent, she like the way he treated her: trusting her to take care of herself, yet capable of expressing the right amount of concern for her well-being without being smoothing. He respected her and didn't mind when it took a while for her walls to come down. 'Come to think of it… I think he's the only one who hasn't had too much trouble with all my barriers…' She wondered how he was doing. Their last phone call had been brief. He was in the middle of a manhunt and had neither the time nor the attention span needed to talk.
"Hi Don," she said, curled up on the couch, worn-out by two classes followed by several rounds of interrogations on six hours of sleep. She was barely thinking clearly.
"Hi Terry," he said, sounding distracted. In the background she heard the L.A. field office in organized chaos, with phones ringing over the hum of urgent conversations. It was clear that the hunt was still in full swing, and from the frustration in his voice (she knew it wasn't directed at her, but rather the investigation), going nowhere.
"How's everything going?" she asked, even though she knew the answer would be grim.
"Um, busy," he replied. He covered the phone with his hand for a hurried conversation with David. "Uh, Terry, I don't have a lot of time to talk right now, but maybe you can help."
"Sure."
"The fugitive's a convicted killer-for-hire. Now he's threatened the witness who put him away at trial, but Charlie says that it's possible that he's hunting someone else. There're too many sightings to be sure."
"I think he'd go after the witness. Who is it?"
"Dr. Karen Fisher." Terry dredged up the old case from her memory, "Is she in Witness Protection?"
"She's being stubborn right now. She refuses to go unless it's absolutely necessary. I've got two LAPD police officers and an agent on her at all times, but any advice you could give me about persuading her…"
"I doubt she's going to go easily," she replied, remembering the strong-willed woman who hadn't quailed from the death threat issued by McDowd despite having watched him kill someone else right in front of her. "Have you told her it's only temporarily?"
"Yeah, she says she doesn't want to lose six months of her life again and that she won't abandon her patients unless she absolutely has to."
"Family?"
"She doesn't have any family in the area either, so I can't use that card."
"Sorry."
"It's okay," Don sighed, "How are things for you?"
"Good," she lied, not wanting him to worry about her. "I'll probably be busy for the next few days, so don't worry if my call is a little late."
"Okay." She heard his chair creak and knew that someone had caught his attention. "I gotta go, bye."
"Bye," she managed before he hung up. Terry sighed. He was okay for another day, but she doubted her sleep would be restful tonight.
"Worried about them?" asked Jasmine, looking back to the settling sun.
"Huh?"
"Your team in LA," Jasmine sipped her cooling coffee. "A friend of mine called earlier, said the McDowd case is closed. Brief shoot-out, no fatalities, and McDowd in custody; turns out a dirty Narco was involved; nearly got the witness killed, but the lead agent got lucky."
'And may he always be lucky.' Terry prayed silently, saying aloud, "That's good." Silence descended again as the two women enjoyed their respite from the unrelenting pressures of their work. Terry looked down at her coffee cup, surprised that it was already empty. She glanced at Jasmine. The other woman was reabsorbed in her thoughts, so Terry quietly slipped away from the balcony.
"Thanks, Terry," said Jasmine suddenly, "For everything."
"You're welcome," was the reply before Terry opened the glass door and returned to her work.
After washing out her coffee cup and putting it in the break room's dish rack to dry, Terry discovered that Kirsch was detained downstairs. Apparently, Garcia hadn't been as cooperative as they all thought he would be. There was a minor altercation, but everything was under control, just slightly delayed for a few minutes. She took the time to sit down at her desk and organize the papers that were scattered all over it as well as finish making notes for the three interrogations she had already done that day.
"Excuse me, Agent Lake?" A woman's quiet voice caught Terry's attention and she looked up. FBI Special Agent Lisa Henderson stood next to Terry's desk, a folder in hand. Henderson handed the information to Terry who silently accepted it, waiting for the accompanying explanation.
"It's Alverez's file," said Henderson, "including his rap sheet. I thought you might find it helpful before Kirsch brings him up."
"Thanks," Terry smiled politely as she did when she was at work. The younger woman nodded and returned to her desk. Terry followed her movements out of interest. Lisa was a quiet, but self-assured agent who had the ability to exude innocence, while concealing a veteran's biting sarcasm. She had first caught Terry's attention as a profiler and then as a person. Lisa was young and, according to Jasmine, fairly new to the office, but she was able to assert herself respectfully into conversations without offending any of the older agents. Most of the time she reminded Terry of David, willing to contribute and learn at the same time, knowing when to assert her knowledge and when to just shut up and observe. 'Of course, Don will be teaching David a lot of things about fugitive recovery…'
'There I go again.' She reminded herself to focus on what she had to do as she began to read through Alverez's information. By the time Lisa came around to inform her that Kirsch was on his way up with the prisoner, Terry was back in a professional mindset. As she rose from her desk, remembering to grab her notepad and pen, Terry didn't spare a second thought to leaving her weapon behind. Alverez had several priors for domestic assaults. Everything in his file pointed toward sexism. She would not aggravate him with any hints of superiority, including carrying a gun. 'If I do this right, it'll be over soon,' Terry thought as she pushed her chair in. 'And then it's dinner, bed and a phone call to Don. I hope he's all right.' Then she took a deep breath and walked toward the interrogation room, ready for one last game of cat-and-mouse.
