Part 4

Gail yawned and glanced around, she was still in a cell. So far it must have been about twelve hours, at least, and she'd been detained for resisting arrest. Which was a totally bullshit charge but she didn't much care. If Nick wanted to keep playing these games with her that was fine.

Plus they got her into 15 division.

She smiled to herself and got up, she went over to the small window in her cell door and gave it a bang. "When the fuck are you going to let me out of here?!" She shouted then went back over to the platform that doubled as the only piece of furniture she had, it was her seat, her couch, and until she was released, her bed.

Stretching she glanced at her space, she'd got as much sleep as she was going to get, might as well spend the rest of her time getting her exercise in.

She took off her top knowing she'd easily work up a sweat even without the use of gym equipment. Normally she had a yoga routine she did first but the last thing she wanted anyone looking into her cell seeing was her in a passive position.

She'd start off with some bodyweight exercises then go into her martial arts.

And if she got all of that done and was still in here she was going to be very pissed.

xxxxxxx

"Okay, how much longer are we going to hold her for?" Andy asked as she stood with Sam just outside the holding cells.

Sam shrugged. "I'm waiting on forensics."

"You don't really think you're going to find anything to tie her to the docks are you?" Andy asked sceptically, Gail Peck was training from birth to look for the clues the bad guys leave behind, and now that she was on that side of the law she wasn't going to make it that easy for them.

Sam sighed. He didn't think they have anything to hold Gail on, he was just bidding his time.

"Nick seems pretty convinced that she was there." He told his girlfriend.

Andy raised an eyebrow. "Did anyone else agree with him?"

Sam put his hand out. "Traci got hit, then Steve, and then Nick. Carl got closer but…" But he was dead. "I don't know."

"Did you see their vests?" Andy asked.

Sam nodded. Traci and Steve had got two bullets to the centre of the chest, the only thing more professional than that was a hit to the head. Nick went down with one to the chest and two to the abdomen.

"That's the only reason Frank's letting us keep her." He explained. While the shot could have come from Gail Peck, a former police officer with the right kind of training to make those shots, they could also have come from an ex-soldier, or just someone with a long history of shooting at people.

Andy leaned in a little closer to Sam. "What do you think?"

Sam considered that as he leant back against the wall. He remembered the look on Gail's face as she was escorted from the division after she'd been told to hand back her service weapon and her badge in Frank's office. Everyone had been watching through the open blinds as she was spoken to by the top brass. Normally that would have happened at headquarters but Elaine Peck had wanted the meeting to take place here, in front of the rest of the division.

That was cold.

And Gail had walked out with her head held high and a smile on her face as she walked by everyone who had gathered to watch. If he hadn't have known better he would have thought she'd just been heading home after a shift.

It had only been a week after Jerry's funeral and he had been too emotional to meet her eyes, half afraid he would have taken his friends death out on her.

Gross negligence of duty resulting in the death of a fellow officer.

She'd never given an account as to her whereabouts that day, but Jerry was dead and Oliver was in the hospital on life support. And she'd turned up after the fact and called it in. He'd wanted to do more than hit her, he'd wanted her arrested for his friend's death.

Cold as ice, that's how she'd been when he'd confronted her days earlier at the Penny, when he'd found her sat alone drinking while the investigation was being carried out into her conduct that day.

But no matter how much he had screamed at her, or shouted at her, she gave him nothing. Even when he'd dragged her out under the watch of everyone else from 15, she'd still given him nothing.

He tapped the folder he was holding to his thigh, wondering if she'd give him anything today.

"Go to Forensics and see if they have anything yet, we have her exemplars on file so we should find a match if it's there." He told Andy and watched her scurry off.

He sighed and wondered if Nick was wasting their time with this, lately he'd been like a dog with a bone when it came to Gail Peck and the people she worked with.

"You ready?" The officer working holding asked.

Sam glanced at the clock and shrugged. "What's another hour?" He asked with a chuckle before wandering off for a cup of coffee.

It wasn't like Gail was going anywhere anyway.

xxxxx

Gail had gone through all of the lunge and push-up exercises she could think of, she'd even done some handstand work. Right now she was attempting to do dragonfly's but her grip on the flat surface of the platform wasn't that great, but it kept her muscles very tense so it served its purpose even if she did keep dropping out of the move.

Then she heard her cell door being opened.

"Finally!" She said easing out of the position and sitting down while pulling her top over her head. "I was about to do planks next, and I hate those." She muttered as she stood.

The officer that opened her door was unfamiliar but Gail wasn't too surprised it had been over a year since she was last working here.

The guy, rookie by the clean cut fresh faced look, kicked her boots into her cell and she moved to pull them on. Why they had been taken from her in the first place was beyond her, it wasn't like they laced up or that she was actually going to attempt to hang herself.

She snorted and stepped towards the door.

The officer shook his head and pulled out his cuffs. "Turn around." He instructed her.

Gail frowned, she'd been expecting to be let go.

Apparently not.

Gail turned and she felt the cuffs being placed around her wrists. She was beginning to dislike the feeling.

"Let's go."

Gail clenched her jaw as she was escorted through the holding area and out into the open space of the division, she spotted Traci and Steve stood up behind the glass where the D's worked and Chris and Dov where at desks along with the new face from last night.

It was a dog and pony show as she was lead into an interview room. It didn't really bother her, she'd had plenty of experience of that being her mother's daughter.

She grunted as one cuff was released and she found herself cuffed to the table instead.

The officer then walked out and left her alone.

"Now's probably the wrong time to ask to go to the bathroom huh?" She asked the two-way mirror.

She gave the steel bar a tug then out of sheer curiosity she glanced under the table to see if there was any recording devices attached. The camera in the corner of the room may have been blinking red but you couldn't tell if it was actually recording. Microphone recording can be manipulated and Gail already needed eyes in the back of her head as it was.

The door opened again and Sam Swarek entered, dropping a folder down in front of Gail as he took the seat across from her.

"Sammy!" She said in greeting as she smiled at him. "I hear it's Detective Swarek now, congrats!"

Sam cleared his throat and opened the folder, finding the photos he wanted he arranged them in front of her so she could have a good look. He pointed to her face. "This is you."

Gail chuckled then decided to play along. "It is."

Sam pointed to the next picture of Gail standing between two men. "This is you with Damien Wolf."

Gail smiled at the expectant look he gave her. "My boss, yes."

"Your boss." Sam chuckled himself playing with the photo. No one had been able to I.D. the second figure in the picture but he had been seen with Gail and Wolf on several occasions on the run up to last night's operation.

Sam looked out another picture, one with Wolf coming out of his main bar and moving towards a couple of vehicles. "Your 'boss' Damien Wolf is wanted on numerous counts of murder and drug dealing as well as extortion."

"So arrest him." Gail told her old training officer.

"Who is this man?" Sam asked pointing to the figure with Gail and Wolf. He watched the blonde shrug. "You must know who this is," He pulled out another series of shots all of them of her and the bearded man that had been with her and Wolf. "He got into your car here," He slide the shot on top of the others. "Here, here and here." He said as he continued to put down photos that were clearly different times of the day and different days given the change in lighting and clothes.

Gail studied the pictures of Dieter and made a few noises before shaking her head at Sam.

"You know what? I'm not sure if I ever got a name, but the sex Sam, the sex was amazing!" She told him with a smirk and a roll of her eyes as she slid back in her seat as much as the cuffs would allow.

She let out a low groan just to see if it would get Sam to blush.

It did.

She grinned as she sat up straight and gave the detective facing her a no nonsense look.

"Now enough with the fucking pictures, why am I really here?" She demanded. They both knew her charge was bullshit and they had held her longer than was legal.

Sam smiled and gathered the photos up and put them away only to pull out another set. Again he arranged them in front of Gail, only this time every face was of a dead person, several had police uniforms on.

"This is why you are here Gail." He pointed to the dead officers. "These officers, my colleagues and friends, died trying to arrest these men." Now he pointed to several dead figures including a picture of Mikka Kutzkov. "And an officer who was there identified you as a shooter."

Gail simply smiled back at him. If they had any proof that she had been there or that she'd shot at anyone she'd already have been arrested and her mother would have her in cuffs in front of a camera declaring for all to see that justice comes above all in her city, even family.

"When was this?" She asked, playing curious though she knew he had deliberately left out a time frame for these events.

"Night before last." He told her.

"Ah." She nodded. "Okay, then we can clear this right up because I was working." She told him confidently.

"Yeah, I think you were." He told her tapping his finger to one of the pictures. "Were you aware that your brother was also shot?" He asked and watched her closely to see her reaction.

"We aren't on speaking terms, although you should know that." She replied then gave him a puzzled look. "I'm sure you were sitting with Rosati last night when I came to the Penny to see my brother." She chuckled. "And here I thought you had a thing going on with Andy."

Sam rubbed at his forehead, a sign that his patience was getting thinner.

"Who said I was there?" She asked him. "It wasn't Nicky by any chance was it?" She gave him a knowing look. "I bet it was."

"So, answer the question, where were you the night before last?" Sam asked her again.

Just then the door opened and an older gentleman dress in a very expensive suit entered the room followed by Frank Best.

"Don't say another word Ms Peck." The man said to Gail as he placed his briefcase onto the table Gail was cuffed to. He scowled at Sam as he noticed them keeping Gail in place.

Sam rubbed his neck and glanced at Frank who subtly shrugged at him letting Sam know there was nothing he could do about the lawyer's entrance.

"This is security evidence of my client at her place of employment on the night in question as well as her previous shift." He placed a DVD in a sleeve down onto the table he then took out a couple of sheets of paper stabled together. "Here is a list of her shifts between her security work and running her own bar."

Gail smiled at her lawyer then looked at Sam with a raised eyebrow as she tugged on her cuffed arm.

"We done?"

Sam scratched his ear. "Security footage can be doctored."

"So can pictures." Gail answered back.

The lawyer grunted then pulled out a second DVD and placed it down. "This is footage I have just obtained from The Black Penny." He eyed the figure of Frank Best behind him before glaring at the detective in front of his client. "It clearly shows Ms Peck entering the bar and speaking with, not just her brother but also Staff Sergeant Best here before a plain clothed officer manhandled a compliant Ms Peck and arrested her without cause."

Gail smirked. He shoots, he scores.

Frank clenched his jaw. He wondered how it was possible for the lawyer to be here with this amount of evidence when Gail had never been allowed her phone call.

"The officer in question," The lawyer made a show of pulling out his own file and fingering through it. "Ah, yes, a Nick Collins. Who not only had a previous relationship with my client but has also stopped her for 'routine' traffic stops a total of 8 times in the last six weeks." He glared at Best. "Does that not strike you as excessive?" He then looked back down to his file. "No charges were ever brought on any of those occasions." He looked back at Best pointedly. "Curious, isn't it, frankly Sergeant, I find it bordering on harassment of my client."

Gail kept her mouth shut as she watched the resigned expression fall across Sam's face at her lawyer's words.

"In fact after I'm done here I'll be filing a restraining order against the officer in question, although I do have to wonder about the running of this division as you were seen at the arrest of my client Sergeant Best and you personally allowed an off-duty officer barely out of his probation period to arrest my client. That shows very poor judgment on your part which I will be discussing with the DA because if this is how your officers make their arrests questions will need to be asked about your position."

Frank squared his shoulders and glared at the lawyer. He'd known Nick was playing a hunch that they'd be able to pin something on Gail but he was sure he'd seen her. Unfortunately so far they had no evidence of that and Gail Peck was far from cracking under the pressure of Sam's interview.

Sam coughed. "Ms Peck, was merely helping us with our enquires." He said as he stood and started to gather his things. When he placed his hands on the DVD's Gail's lawyer had provided they were pulled out of his grasp.

"In that case you have no need of these." The lawyer said and placed them back into his briefcase and closed it.

Annoyed Sam gave him a tight smile and walked past him and Best and out of the room.

"Well?"

The officer that had brought Gail into the room scurried back and released Gail from the cuffs before taking them with him as he left.

Gail smile and stood up ignoring the need to rub at her wrist. "My things?" She asked Frank as she stood with her lawyer.

Frank left it a minute before pointing and holding the door open for the pair. "This way."

Gail walked back through the station beside her lawyer who was grumbling about complaints and ill treatment and the poor running of the division as they were shown back into holding.

She stood at the desk and waited for the officer to get her belongings just as Frank ordered beside her. She watched the sealed bag get pulled out of a locked drawer and placed in front of her.

There was a list in front of the bag that listed its contents.

Ring x 2

Watch x 1

Necklace + 2 rings x 1

Phone x 1

Cash $28

She smirked as she ripped the bag open and returned everything back to their rightful place, even the phone she hadn't brought with her.

She saw the glance Frank gave to her necklace and the rings hanging from it as she pulled it on over her head. She then took hold of her jacket, which had also been confiscated, and eased it on. She left it unzipped as she turned to Frank, aware that his eyes were still on the rings she let dangle over her clothes.

"It's been fun, nice seeing you again Frankie." She said and then walked with her lawyer back through the station and out onto the street. The daylight caused her to wince and then she rolled her shoulders.

"Well glad that's over."

He lawyer hummed as they paused by the curb and the town car that he was about to get into.

"Was that really from last night?" She had to ask, getting the security tape from a cop bar in the space of a few hours was pretty impossible for most people.

"Our boss knows how to get things done but you can thank him." He said then pointed across the street to where Gail could see Romi leaning against her car.

Gail gave the boy a wave which was returned eagerly.

The lawyer got into the back seat of the car and rolled down the window. "I'm sure it was worthwhile?"

Gail turned away from Romi and gave the older man a shrug. "Have to wait and see." She told him.

"I'll let him know." The man nodded at her then rolled the window back up, ending the conversation.

Gail waited until the car drove off before she hurried across the road to Romi who pulled her into a hug.

"How did it go?" Romi asked as he released her then took her in checking to see if she was okay.

Gail rolled her eyes. "They've got nothing."

Romi nodded and got into the car on the driver's side as Gail eased into the seat beside him and rested her head back. "Where too?" He asked his friend.

"Did Anan mention anything?" Gail asked, while what she really meant was had his brother told him to get her to Wolf first thing.

Romi started the Mustang purring and shook his head. "He said he'd come over this evening."

Which meant she was going to get some chill out time before tonight. Dieter had already confirmed that the packages were as advertised which meant Wolf was now in a rush to get his missing one returned, and that was on Gail.

"You got class?" She asked Romi as he pulled her car out and started for her apartment.

Romi shook his head. "Not until tomorrow."

Gail wondered if she only imagined the hopeful tone of his voice. But the final decision wasn't hers anyway. "I guess you can stick around for a while then."

Romi grinned. "Awesome." He muttered to himself.

Gail tried not to smile but she couldn't help it, she really liked the kid.

Even if he was trying to get her into trouble with his brother.