"A Shift of Axis"
Copyright 2006 Penn O'Hara
M
Usual disclaimers apply.
Chapter Nine
"Lunch," Logan said, as he and Barek left Alex' apartment building and hit the pavement. "And you can tell me why I'm putting my neck in a noose that's not of my own making."
"But–"
"We eat while you check on Alicia's holdings." Logan punctuated the air with a finger, cementing his decision. "If Bobby and Alex are out of town, and you think Alicia is involved, why not check if Alicia owns anything out of town?"
"Okay," Barek nodded, "there's a café close by that Alex took me to once. They serve a great Thai Chicken Salad."
"Thai…chicken…salad?" Logan grimaced in disgust.
Barek laughed. "They also sell a mean hotdog."
"I'm in."
oOo
Barek closed her cell, and watched Logan wolf down his hotdog. He looked too big on the delicately iron-wrought café seat, his elbows barely fitting across the matching round table top.
"No property in Alicia's name," she said, "either as Mateus or Haynes. Even the house she's in at the moment is still owned by her father. Gavin's holdings are all in Manhattan or interstate. And after the way Nicole honored her marriage vows to him, I can't see him allowing her to hide away in one of his."
"No flags on Hitchens or Wallace either," Logan acceded with disappointment, washing down his food with a swig of coffee.
"It was a long shot," Carolyn nodded. "From what I hear, the woman's a ghost until she wants to be seen." She flicked her fork through her salad, pushing aside the lettuce as she searched for another piece of spiced chicken. "Alicia is still our best lead. And you…"
She looked up and spied some ketchup on the side of Mike's mouth. Leaning across the small table, Carolyn handed him a paper napkin, resisting the urge to clean him up herself. Despite his being such a big, self-assured man, she had an uncommon urge to mother him. "… are our best bet at getting information from her."
"Just bring her in for questioning–" He took the napkin and swiped his mouth.
"–and she'll either act dumb like she did before, or lawyer up. Either way, we're no closer to finding out where Goren and Eames are. And before we go any further with this case, I want to know."
The hotdog finished, Mike peered at Carolyn's plate, checking for anything of interest. "I don't know what you think I can do…"
"Come off it, Mike, stop playing the innocent. Alicia was all over you today."
"And she's gonna give up Nicole because I… what? Ask her to?"
"You underestimate your powers of persuasion–" She looked him over, her chest tightening at the memory of what they had shared last night. Instead of trying to persuade him to pursue an old flame, she wanted to take him home and re-ignite the fire that had burned between them in the squad locker room.
"No." Losing interest in her green salad, Logan looked up and caught her staring, his eyes darkening at the message he must have seen in them. A bolt of sexual energy charged the air between them, and Logan returned the message, then straightened, breaking the contact and clasping his hands together to fidget with his ring.
Carolyn knew she should appreciate his professionalism, but she resented it had to be that way.
"I'm merely being wary," he said. "I'm being sent in to sweet talk an old girlfriend by a…" He waved a hand toward her. "…new girlfriend. I just know I'm gonna regret this."
oOo
Alex watched Bobby's back while she dressed in her borrowed sweats. Since Nicole left, he had been trying to avoid looking at her until Alex finally gave up and let him turn his back to her.
Scooting off the edge of the bed, Alex swayed a little, still feeling the effects of the spider venom. She was glad Bobby missed it. She didn't want him to act concerned about her physical health when he didn't seem concerned about her emotional stability.
Walking aimlessly away from the bed, she noted how tastefully the basement had been converted to an extra bedroom, complete with carpeting, paintings, drapes pulled over the two small exterior windows, and small bookshelves and an entertainment system. She pulled out a novel and looked at it without interest. A J.A.Konrath paperback.
"I'm guessing you're going to do the male-thing instead of the adult-thing and not talk about how this…" She tossed a hand toward the bed. "…development will affect us, which…" She swung round on him to see if he was watching her. He wasn't. "…surprises me, because I wouldn't have thought it of you, and so I'm gonna follow your lead and not talk about it either."
Alex stopped her wandering and leaned on the edge of the dining table. "Instead, to save any awkward silences, we'll talk about what went down in the bathroom when you were alone with Nicole."
Bobby's head snapped round in shock, his face pinched with pain. Alex almost took pity on him. It killed her to do this but she wasn't going to let him retreat into some sort of protective shell and leave her out in the cold. Steeling herself, she banked how much it cost her to torment him like this, and lifted her chin waiting for his answer.
He met and held her gaze and the moment stretched for long, onerous seconds. "You're playing psychologist now," he muttered.
Alex swept out both arms. "Do you see Olivet anywhere? So, in her absence–"
"No."
Alex heaved a sigh and died a little inside. He'd asked her to put so much trust in him and she had, willingly, and this is how he repaid her. She couldn't blame him, she knew how independent and complex he was, but she had hoped…
"Well, then, you'd best play shrink with me, Bobby, 'cos I'm not going to be able to spend an indefinite time with you and not over-think this and drive myself crazy." Alex launched herself from the table and joined him on the edge of the bed.
"What we did… I've never thought of myself as an exhibitionist and the notion that I could have made love in front of an audience would have had me laughing at the improbability of it." He didn't move or acknowledge her, but she waited before pressing on.
"When presented with the absolute necessity of it, the improbability didn't lessen. I still couldn't have done it." She put a hand on his thigh and his muscle rippled beneath her fingers. "Except… I was able to do it because of you. The faith I put in you, following your lead, taking strength from your empathy of how difficult it had to be for me, blew away the improbability because I, pure and simple, forgot they were there. Everything was shut out except for the presence, substance and strength of you." She gazed at his profile, willing him to look at her. She wasn't going to force his gaze this time. She would wait for him to voluntarily show her what he was feeling.
It seemed eons, but he finally turned his head, slowly, and his gaze was direct and clearing, dawning with a trust of his own.
"Don't tell me," she said, her voice catching with the genuine fear of his dismissal, "you could have done what you did, responded like you did, because it was an act."
His eyes clouded again. The hope she saw there had been so fleeting. "Alex," he said, his voice hoarse and alien to her. "I'm better at… shutting out reality than anyone alive. I started young and I… I got damned good at it. Everything I do is an act. And the only one who can… pull me off my stage is Nicole. She makes me… address who I really am and it's not pretty. Alex… you… you don't want to know who I really am."
"That's bullshit!" Alex cried, unable to believe it.
Bobby propelled himself from the bed but Alex managed to grab his wrist. His impetus took her with him, but she dug in her heels and wrenched him around to face her. "You got it wrong, Bobby. You got it all backward. Nicole brings out the stuff you've worked through and past and left behind you. She reminds you of what you were, and had to put up with. Who you are today isn't an act, it's what you've become, what you've fought to achieve."
Alex felt tears prick her eyes as she willed him to believe her. "I couldn't have gone through what I did with the scarred person you think you are, but rather with a deeply sensitive man who cared for me." She placed a hand over his heart, the heat of him scorching her hand through the thin cotton of his shirt. "I've been with men who have pretended to care for me and believe me, Bobby, I know the difference. You genuinely care for me and I'm not going to let that go. You hear me?" She balled her hand, grabbing his shirt within her closed palm and hung on. "I'm not going to let that go."
He didn't move, but stood gazing down at her, his eyes banked so that she couldn't read them. Not giving up, Alex put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. It was like hugging a living, breathing pillar of warm rock, but she didn't care. She was going to show him how it was done, how sometimes you had to swallow your pride and hope like hell you weren't exposing yourself to rejection.
Lifting his hands, Bobby clasped Alex' shoulders and gently pushed her away. He looked deeply and long into her eyes, then smoothed his palms down her back and with a groan, pulled her to him.
The pillar of rock that was Bobby, bent, molded her against him and with a violent tremor, searched for her mouth with his own.
oOo
Logan knocked on the front door of Alicia's home for the second time that day, hoping like hell she'd changed her mind and didn't want to see him. Barek was crazy thinking he could pull this off and he was crazy for allowing her to talk him into it.
The door swung open and Logan's hope died. Alicia stood there, smiling widely as she beckoned him in.
"You alone?" he asked, walking over the threshold.
"Not any more."
Logan looked back at the door and the absence of any security measures. "You should get better security, Alicia. You never know who you're gonna let in."
"I saw you coming, Mike. Just like I did that first time all those years ago."
Logan remembered: how he had noted she hadn't secured the safety chain before opening it to him and his partner at the time, Max Greevey. "You didn't know I was a cop then."
"Darling," she chuckled, "you looked like police and delectable then, and you look even more like police and delectable now."
Absently twirling the ring on his finger, Logan stood just inside the doorway, wondering where to start.
"Mike, I'd show you to the den for a drink," Alicia said, stepping in to kiss him, "but I'd really rather just bypass all of that and take you straight to the bedroom."
Logan jerked, floored by her candor. "Alicia, I'm not here to–"
"Then why are you here, Mike? You said on the phone, you wanted to talk to me again, and you weren't bringing your partner this time. What else am I going to think?" She stroked her hand down the sleeve of his coat.
"I was hoping you could help me," he said, avoiding her eye, uncomfortable with the position in which he found himself. Instead, he fixed his gaze over her head on the painting suspended on the opposite wall. Even his uncouth eye recognized the sensual lines and unrealistic vibrant colors of a Matisse nude when he saw one. They had been the only paintings in which he'd taken any interest during Art classes at school.
"With some information," he added.
"I'm disappointed, but…" she inclined her head, "if you insist. Let's go into the den after all." She led the way and Logan could still appreciate the fair long-limbed beauty of her, but he had to accede he was too far into dark-haired and petite with snapping brown eyes at the moment.
Settling onto the sofa, Alicia patted the cushion beside her. "Did you forget me, Mike? All those years ago?"
"Uh, not really," he murmured, joining her.
"Yes, you did," she smiled sadly. "Don't lie. A woman never forgets her first, Mike. I was ridiculously sheltered then. My father was such a disciplinarian at home as well as on the Bench." Her hands fluttered in her lap, then she let one hand stray to tentatively touch his knee. "Then you walked up our steps and I was besotted before I even opened the door. It was my stroke of luck that my parents were out of the country at the time and I learned how to live, really live."
Tucking her hair behind her ear, Alicia glanced sideways at him, a faint smile on her lips. "I had no idea how exciting life could be 'til you showed me. How much fun could be had with a man who wasn't after your money or your father's favor." She took his hand and played with the ring on his finger, watching it turn against his skin. "This isn't the same ring."
"No," he said, thinking he should take his hand back but unable to do so without appearing awkward.
Alicia looked up, her smile sad and wistful. "But, that's not why you're here. How can I help you?"
Logan cleared his throat. "Are you still in contact with Elizabeth Hitchens?"
'Oh, I see." Her mouth pinched. "I've already told you–"
"I know what you said earlier, but we… I think you know more than you're telling me."
Alicia bristled, dropping his hand to sit back in the sofa, withdrawing from him, both physically and emotionally. "Your partner has put you up to this, hasn't she? Or was it your idea? Prey upon my affection for you – I loved you once, Mike – and extract information about a woman who tried to kill my own brother. How low can you go?"
"I know how it sounds," he said hastily, "but… we believe two of our detectives are M.I.A. We're playing a hunch here. It's a reach, I know, but we considered Nic… Elizabeth was involved somehow."
"Based on what?"
"Cop gut, if nothing else."
"Yours or your girlfriend's?"
He didn't answer.
"Well, I can't help you." Alicia stood and turned and Logan jumped up, detaining her with a hand on her arm.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't want to–"
Alicia's eyes closed, her chin high as she took a shuddering breath. "Don't touch me, Mike. Please…"
Logan dropped his hand and turned for the door. He was leaving empty-handed but Barek was going to have to lump it. He couldn't bring himself to grill Alicia and the damnedest part of it was he couldn't put the job first because of what they had once been. What sort of a cop did that make him?
Conscious of Alicia following him to the door, Logan turned to say goodbye, catching a look of sheer calculation on her face that he hadn't expected. Gone was the gently coaxing woman of before, replaced by someone shrewd and manipulative. His eyes narrowing, Logan planted his feet, refusing to go any further.
"You never answered my question," he said, his blood turning cold, sensitivity hardening.
"What question was that, Mike?" Her voice was soft, but at variance with what he had surprised in her eyes.
"Are you still in contact with your ex-sister-in-law?"
She ignored the question but continued to watch him, unmoving.
Logan stepped forward and kept coming until he was a hair breadth away from her. Her chin went up but she didn't back away. He was conscious of her breathing quickening and saw her mouth part to let out the small gasps. He didn't know how or why, but his proximity affected her deeply, and probably against her will.
After catching that glimpse of hardness in her, the cop in him was back and it felt right. He was again in his comfort zone, a dog on a scent, a scout on a trail.
Lowering his head, Logan breathed softly against Alicia's cheek and she whimpered as she closed her eyes and tipped her head back further. He teethed her exposed throat, following her pulse down to the hollow at her shoulder, tonguing the skin there and waited, awed by the low moans reverberating up her neck.
"Elizabeth Hitchens," he murmured.
Alicia pressed herself into him further, grinding her hips against his. Logan backed off before he did something he'd regret but she grabbed his waist and hung on.
"Make love to me," Alicia gasped.
Logan froze with his lips on her shoulder. "It doesn't work that way."
Stealing her arms up over his shoulders, Alicia's fingers entwined themselves in his hair. "Then you don't get what you want either."
"And what do I want?" He pulled back his head, his neck straining against her grip to keep him close.
"You think Nicole's got something to do with your other detectives," she said, her voice hard. "You'll only be able to prove your theory if I tell you where she is. I'm not going to do that without my price, else you'll have to take me downtown for questioning and then I'll wait for my lawyer and time will be a-wasting."
Logan frowned, not liking her assumption that there was an urgency to the situation, nor that Alicia called Nicole by a her real name. "Why? Is time running out?"
She merely raised a brow and smiled slightly.
Gripping her wrists, Logan dragged her arms from him and held her away, his eyes boring into hers. She winced at the strength he was exerting but right now he didn't care. "Alicia, what do you know? Are you involved with Nicole Wallace still?"
Head down and looking up through her lashes, Alicia's lips curved. "Give me what I want and I'll tell you."
Swearing, Logan pushed her away and swung round for the door. He wouldn't be ransomed and now he didn't trust her. The whole episode nauseated him and he wanted to get back to Carolyn. If they couldn't nut out an alternative to finding Goren and Eames then they weren't worth their salt as detectives. But at least he now knew the situation was a dire one and there was a good chance Goren and Eames were in trouble.
He had the door opened but Alicia was beside him, both hands on his arm, preventing him from leaving.
"Stop!" she said, urgency lacing the command. "I'll take you there. I promise! But just you and me. Not your partner. We go now without alerting anyone else or the deal's off."
Logan pulled back in disbelief. "You think I'm a raw recruit? I don't go without backup."
Alicia's mouth parted in amusement. "Mike... Nicole and I? Two mere women? And you need backup?"
"You, I know." Logan leaned in close. "Nicole Wallace? Her, I know by reputation. They tell me she's intelligent, scheming and a complete whacko. I'm taking backup."
"Okay. Okay." Alicia sounded desperate enough to give him what he wanted. "I'll get a coat. Give me five. Then we go and get your partner."
Alicia disappeared into the coat closet down the main hall of the house and Logan flipped open his cell phone, punched in Barek's speed dial and waited for her to answer. From where Carolyn was waiting on foot around the corner, it wouldn't take her long to meet them outside.
Feeling a sharp jab in the back of his neck, Logan whirled round to see Alicia, syringe in hand, step out of the way as his knees buckled slowly, his limbs losing all cohesion and his muscles cramping haphazardly as his blood turned to treacle in his veins.
The lights went out for Logan on the thought that that was a damned fast-acting drug.
oOo
TBC…
A/N: If you're jacking up at Mike's interrogation technique, let me tell you I've merely gone one step further (considering he already knows her very well) than the director of a L&O Season Two episode where a young Mike Logan played twenty questions with a reluctant witness at her workplace. The scene fairly sizzled with Mike exuding sexual pheromones by the bucket and a very attractive witness lapping it up. They were standing toe to toe, he bearing down on her with the questions and she looking up at him, volleying each neatly, while his then partner, Phil Cerreta, stood in the background with a 'cat got the cream' grin on his face watching and enjoying the proceedings immensely. If it had been reality, that witness could have gone screaming straight to the precinct and filed and won a police harassment complaint. As it was under a director's control, Mike got what he wanted and the witness got a hot flush and damp panties.
This might be the last chapter for a while. I leave this weekend for a two week camping trip which will keep me off the internet and unless I can whip up another chapter this week, amidst wrapping up the final week of a school term and packing, I don't like my chances of posting a Chapter 10 before I go.