03.06 - All By Her Selfie

A few days in the life of Holly Stewart, alone.

While Vivian is still fighting with Jamie, and Gail is stuck in Regina, Holly is left to her own devices. It can't be too bad, right? She used to live in that townhouse by herself.

This is entire chapter is told from Holly's perspective.


"How long is Mom gone for?"

"Two more days, at least." Holly watched her daughter's expression turn sour. "Oh go on, it's three nights. She'll be home by Friday at the latest."

"Yeah, alone in that huge house. Are you sure you don't want me to stay over?"

Holly rolled her eyes. "I'm not the insomniac, Vivian. You can come over for dinner once." She held up a single finger for emphasis.

The young officer frowned even more, but finally nodded. "Well. Okay. Tomorrow then?"

"Oh see, you don't even want to come over tonight," said Holly, teasingly.

Now Vivian rolled her eyes. "No, I just think you'll be desperate for company tomorrow."

"You are aware I used to live by myself."

"Yeah, a million years ago!"

Holly slapped Vivian's arm. "Go away, kid. You're bothering me."

The half hearted smile on Vivian's face was troubling though. "Okay. Fine. Call me if you get bored. Or if the dark scares you." She tried so hard to be as casual and witty as Gail, but Vivian often missed the mark.

Right now, the pain of whatever the hell was going on with Jamie was messing with her daughter. Neither Holly nor Gail actually knew what was going on with all that. Vivian just shook her head and said they were fighting and it was their own fault. Gail's theory was that Vivian was being stupid, had lashed at Jamie about her aunt, and didn't want to admit that to her mothers. It was a good theory.

Holly watched Vivian as she went back down the hall. The officer had been at the lab to go over the evidence from a dog napping. The dog had bitten the perp, to be proven by the cast taken from the bite after Vivian had an exemplar from the dog. Currently the dog was playing in the lab. A fierce and terrifying beast who was happiest in a hoodie and being snuggled. According to the thief, the dog attacked. So far everyone felt the man had to have done something to deserve it. At least the stupid laws about how if a dog bit some one even once, it had to be put down, were no longer the case. Even Holly had gone to check on him and play with him, under the supervision of animal welfare. There were already arguments about adopting the dog if the owners had to give it up.

Sometimes she regretted not having a pet. True, having a job like she did made it difficult, but Andy and Sam had their dog for a while. In the end, Gail's antipathy towards pets had been the deciding factor. It wasn't for many years that she'd learned Gail and Steve had once had a kitten. Steve told her the tale, including the cat's untimely demise. It made sense, really. Much of Gail's life was built on her childhood fears.

Besides, having Gail was like having a cantankerous pet anyway.

Holly sighed. While she wasn't about to tell her daughter, she did miss having Gail around. Holly was accustomed to the blonde's presence in her life, the noises Gail made while stumbling through the kitchen to get breakfast before an early call. Arguing she was fine with coffee. Complaining about how she didn't need food.

Hopefully Gail was eating. She had a bad tendency to skip meals, which given Gail's metabolism was a terrible idea. Pulling out her phone, Holly texted some food emojis at Gail, but did not get a reply. That was expected. Gail was busy with digging through shipping manifests and cameras onsite, as well as interviewing people. Holly shook her head and pulled up her latest file on the Safary case. Gail was hunting down possible motives related to the train bomb from years ago. Her new lackey was Andrew Dodge, a superintendent who had left ETF just before that case.

Dodge was alright. Smart about bombs, he'd moved to white collar crime and Gail felt he was the best person to help her try to make sense of the motives. Why would someone blow up random companies. But that was Gail's bailiwick. Holly's was evidence. Science. Understanding the hows of crimes as opposed to the whys.

The evidence from the Safary cases was, in a word, peculiar. There was sand, straw, a little rubber, and then the normally expected detritus one might find at an explosion.

And pink stuff.

Clumpy, chemically broken, slightly stretchy pink stuff.

Holly scratched her nose. When she'd taken over the case, at the behest at the Chief of Police, the Mayor, and the Mounties (thank you Marcel Savard), Holly had elected to start from scratch. Not that she doubted her employees and staff, but Holly had learned long ago that when a puzzle of this nature came to her lap, she started best from the beginning.

The first Safary case, verified, was a bridge being worked on by a construction company that had folded shortly thereafter. The second was a mass produced painting company, the sort that made the horrible art one saw at CostCo and other bulk stores. They too had closed. Then there was the circus, aka the train, illegally shipping animals. They'd not allowed animals in circuses for years. Decades.

Holly had the computer sort through lists of the evidence collected at most, if not all locations. Sand was an absolute. Straw and rubber second. And that damned pink crap. Why was that at so many? What was it?

She stared at the results from the . confusedly. Oh she knew what everything meant without having to check. There was plastic and biological (fish oil, she was pretty sure), a small amount of trace from straw and rubber, and that was it. How very odd. The straw and rubber, of course, made sense.

The earlier theory had been that the straw and sand and rubber was all from where Safary put together the bombs. Now, Holly wasn't so sure that was the case. It was possible to use them as filler. The straw and rubber would burn dark and smoky, which would be fairly useful as a distraction. It certainly had worked for the bomb at the stables.

With a frown, Holly checked the evidence from the horse bomb. As the most hastily put together bomb, it was not a shock that it was the least matching to the type that Safary used. It was missing the circuit boards that the bomber normally used, for example. Those boards were used for location detection for the most part, and it wasn't needed in this one.

Of course, it made Holly wonder about the speed with which the bomb was thrown together. Well. Someone like Vivian would have fun figuring that end out. Holly had never been a fan of bombs and explosions as much as her wife or daughter seemed to be. The controlled and focused sort that were rockets, those she liked. Blowing things up for enjoyment was odd. Fireworks were about the only time she and her Pecks agreed on the matter.

Holly grimaced. She was getting distracted by her own twisting thoughts on the complex case.

"Okay, Stewart. Pink stuff. It's in all the planted bombs. Which means these are not." She flagged a handful of known-Safary bombs as 'unplanned.' Unplanned, spur of the moment bombs. What a mind that woman had.

It was wrong, it was terribly wrong, but Holly was gleeful their bomber was a woman. She'd loved every case that had a female perpetrator. Or a gay one. Gail had laughed at her about it, but damn it all, they were usually the more interesting cases. And it was totally, completely, wrong.

That was one of the things that had drawn her to Gail early on. Gail was the kind of person Holly could be terrible with. She could be a bad person and it didn't change the fact that Gail liked her for being smart and entertaining. Holly could use her dark humor with her out loud voice, and Gail would laugh with her. A trait Gail shared with Lisa, truth be told.

Holly took off her glasses and found the point in the room where she could still see with proper focus without them. Sometimes it helped her to concentrate on the one spot, a copy of Andrew Wyeth's painting Christina's World. Holly had once been told the girl was deaf, but it was Gail who told her that the inspiration, Anna Christina Olson, actually suffered from a muscular disorder. She couldn't walk. And yet, rather than use a wheelchair, Olson crawled and dragged herself about the farm. Wyeth had seen her from his window, apparently.

The artwork had been a present from Elaine on Holly's promotion to chief. Hanging it up on the wall, Elaine informed her that all proper chiefs of all stations and positions had art on their walls. It wasn't until years later that Holly realized it was an actual authenticated lithograph, and was probably worth at least a couple thousand dollars. Once in a while she thought about bringing it home, but common sense told her the picture was as safe here in her office as at her home.

Besides, it was calming to look at. The painting reminded Holly of hope. That there was a possibility of perseverance and success through suffering. When they'd taken a business trip to New York, Gail speaking at a convention the year before their daughter joined the academy, Vivian had insisted they go look at it for real.

The three of them had stood together, regarding the painting with interest. It was still so odd to look at famous art in person. Visually it was the same as the lithograph or a printing. Practically speaking, there was no difference, right? And yet it was totally, vastly, more impressive when seen with ones own eyes. The real deal was life changing. The scope was greater.

Looking at it now, Holly let her eyes linger on the pink dress. What was the fabric made of? Gingham? Did that come in other patterns? She'd only seen it in white checks, usually with some bright ass color. But ... Well it was the name of a fabric, so if stood reason that it could be any pattern.

How did gingham burn? Cotton burned in a specific way. Plastic melted. It was the reason she liked natural fibers for clothes. Anything that melted like that had no business on her skin. But when things melted, they were rarely entirely consumed. And that was the secret to bomb evidence. The leftover bits and bobs had to be reconstructed into something.

"Okay, so what melts like that."

Holly rubbed her forehead. Not natural fibers. Regenerated ones, fibers that were a mix of natural and man-made, tended to melt and burn. Like Rayon. This material was charred and melted into a lump, so that meant it had to be a regen. Except it didn't match anything on file. They had a database of all fibers commonly used by cops, scientists, firefighters, civil servants, and the like. Uniforms. Hunting vests. Rent a cops. Sports uniforms.

She stopped listing things in her head. That was a fools errand and a rabbit hole she couldn't stay in if she expected to be productive. Throwing it all out, she rubbed her eyes to reset them and asked herself, aloud, a simple question.

"Okay, Holly, what's pink?"

Holly stared at Christina, the girl in the painting. What was pink? She knew this. It was a memory of something... Something she and Gail had done, a long time ago. Once. No. No, twice. Once before they'd become married and parents and turned into boring people. Once when Vivian was a teenager. Both times it had been under duress. Gail had hated it and complained she'd rather sit under a tree and drink cheap wine coolers. In response, Nick had teased her about not wearing camouflage.

Paintball!

"They're filled with fish oil. Nonflammable." No wait, Steve had shown Vivian how to make them catch fire using the weird lube that he called marmalade. And antifreeze... And Gail had yelled at him. A lot.

Holly picked up her phone. People were faster than Google. They understood half-baked ideas and weird memories. It was still impossible to ask the Internet 'what was that thing I looked at four years ago?'

"My favorite sister!" Steve answered on the first ring.

"Steve, how did you make the paintballs catch on fire?"

Her brother-in-law was silent for a moment. "Which ones? The impromptu ones or the flame thrower thing Gail flipped her shit about?"

"Both."

Steve laughed like Gail did. Or she laughed like he did... Or they both laughed like Elaine when you asked her an interesting question. "Okay. The flamethrower is done by filling a ball with potassium permanganate. When you shoot, antifreeze is injected and they react, making a ... Well. A burn. We— they use them for firefighting in the woods. I bet Viv's girlfriend could explain it better."

Holly winced. "That's a minefield best avoided right now."

"Aw hell, did she Peck up?"

While Vivian had, now was not the time to get into it. And not with Steve, who hadn't even met Jamie yet. And who gossiped. "Steve, I actually have a case."

"That would be a yes." Steve sighed. "Lemme know if Trace or I can help. Okay?"

She sighed as well. "Okay."

"Okay. Good. So. You get how those were combustion though. They're not the on fire ones."

Thank god, Steve was still a Peck. Retired or not, he'd always drift back to topic. "You had flaming balls though, that time at the park."

Like a damn child, Steve giggled. "That was using a propane powered gun and an igniter for the fake muzzle flash."

Holly swallowed and realized she should have asked about that back in the day. Steve had a propane powered paintball gun? No wonder Gail had gone apoplectic on his ass. "When I invent time travel, Steven, I'm going back to beat the living shit out of you for showing my daughter that."

"She was seventeen, Holly."

"Daughter! I will get Traci to kick your ass now, you dickhead!"

"Jesus, I didn't let her use it!"

Closing her eyes, Holly counted to ten. There was no sense in being pissed at him for that. "The balls are filled with fish oil, Steven. How do they stay on fire?"

"Oh. It's the lube. You grease the guns so the balls come out smooth. Use the right stuff, it coats the balls right and lights 'em up. Of course, it burns off the paint, so you can't use 'em in a game."

Holly sighed. "Okay. Thank you."

"Sure," said Steve slowly. "Hey. Holly?"

"Hm?"

"Sorry."

It was a simple word. Something Steve nor Gail had ever really been good at saying when she'd first met them. But now... Now after two decades with wives, they were smarter and wiser and kinder and human. De-Peck'd as Chloe put it. Or at least somewhat tamed Pecks.

"It's fine. She was interested in blowing shit up before then," said Holly, half-heartedly.

"Was?"

"Fine, is."

Her brother-in-law chuckled. "She really got into ETF?"

"She did. Can't get assigned yet because the budget's cocked up."

"That's a Gail quote."

Holly smiled. "Doesn't make it not true."

"Wish I could help." Steve sounded sincere.

Holly felt the same way, but what could she do? Her lab's budget was painful enough, and they didn't even pay for vests or guns. Plus the police were paying for armament and new weapons and a whole raft of things that had ended with Andy and Dov at her house, going over accounting with Gail's cousin who owned the other Peck cottage on the lake.

"Care to make a large donation?" Holly tried to sound as flippant as possible.

Now her brother-in-law laughed. "My thrilling explanation of lighting up paintballs not enough?" When Holly laughed Steve went on. "Anything else I can help you with? Want to come over for dinner? I make a mean lamb stew."

"No thank you. I'm enjoying a quiet house for a few days, actually."

"I can only imagine. Alright, then I'm back to work. Call me, or Trace, if you need anything, sis."

Holly rolled her eyes. "I'm fine, Stupid. Go be lazy and corporate."

Steve made a kissing sound, just like he did to Gail, and Holly hung up on him. She did love how he treated her like a sister. Sometimes she just wished he was less of an asshole to his sister. And by extension, her.

Both siblings carried their scars from their upbringing. Steve's anger issues had been far worse than Gail's, frankly. Her's was born of a rush of emotions she'd not been prepared to deal with. And where most people would have cried or broken down, Gail had shut down, lashed out, and burned herself. Metaphorically. Watching their daughter do much the same thing was rather depressing.

Burning. Flaming.

"Flaming paintballs. Fire starting." Holly tapped her lips with her pen. "Horses. Sand. Straw. Plastic... Well." She sighed. A theory was a theory.

Holly almost put in the order for a flat of empty paintballs with pink shells when she remembered the police used paintballs. With a grin, she picked up the phone and rang Dov.

"Sarge— Inspector Epstein."

"Hello, Dov."

"Holly— Dr. Stewart... Holly. Ugh. Can I start over?"

"I don't know," said Holly with a laugh. "It's been a few months, Dov. Not used to it still?"

"It's weird. How did Gail get used to it?"

Holly smiled. "It was her God given destiny to outrank you."

"God. True. Staff Inspector Peck." He laughed. "It'll be weird when I make it to Superintendent."

"She'll still outrank you."

Dov snorted. "Morally if not technically. So true. What can a do ya for?"

"Does the Force have incendiary or contact combustion paintballs?"

"I don't know why I get surprised by the offbeat questions from you or Gail." He sighed. "Patrol doesn't. No. We lean to more non-lethal alternatives these days. ETF might? I know I've seen the requisition orders."

"Can you check or should I call Sue?"

"I can look into it for you... What case?"

"Safary."

"Oh hell, you just jumped my queue. You may want to use your Peck powers, though." When Holly made an inquisitive noise, Dov explained. "Captain Peck. Sounds like the kind of thing her lot might be into."

"Firefighters start fires? Well... Okay, that's a fair point." Firefighters tended to do controlled burns, which Holly supposed they could do with flaming paintballs. That was an interesting idea.

"Just saying." Dov sighed. "We have some empty paintball shells. If you want to fill some up and make your own."

"Got any pink ones?"

Dov was quiet for a moment. "No. No we do not. Pink? Seriously?"

"There's some odd evidence." She scratched her ear. "I'm worrying a bone. Probably totally wrong, but it doesn't fix anything."

"Need a sounding board?"

Holly hesitated. She knew Dov was cleared on the case. She knew also that Chloe and Traci had, last year, dug into the case only to have it handed to Swarek, who turned around and muffed it up. It was a level of political fuckery that made Gail swear she'd never get promoted if it meant having to deal with personnel issues like that. And frankly Holly wasn't sure why Chloe and Traci rolled off the case.

"No," said Holly at length. Not before she could talk to Gail at least. "I'm testing theories. You know, the fun part of science."

Her friend laughed. "Alright. How about I get a box of blanks sent to you?"

"Not unless they're pink, or incendiary. Otherwise I'll just order a box and some potassium permanganate."

"Of course you know how to make them... Why did I ask?"

"No idea." Holly grinned. "Thank you."

"Any time. I'll let you know what I get."

They hung up and Holly hesitated. She was going to need to order the parts anyway, but best to make sure she had the right set. The schematics for a flaming paintball gun were not super complicated and, after some research, Holly had a good idea how to make the weapon and where it was used. Wildfires were often back burnt to prevent the fires from getting out of hand. And a gun that shot contact combustible pellets would be safer than, say, a flaming arrow.

Holly momentarily amused herself with the mental image of Shay shooting arrows. The woman had orange-red hair that she kept long and braided. It would be like Merida from that move, Brave. Well. Not that zaftig. Shay, like Gail, had a disgustingly efficient metabolism.

Which reminded her. Holly texted Gail for the second time that morning, reminding her to eat.

This time she got a reply.

Jesus you are such a nag, lunchbox.

And yet.

For duck's sake, I ate! I had granola for breakfast and a pulled pork sandwich for lunch.

Salad?

Gail's first reply was a middle finger emoji. Before Holly could reply, she sent a follow up.

FUCK you, yes salad. Did you eat?

Turkey wrap with quinoa made of the leftovers from this dinner a hot chick made me.

Tell me more about this hot chick.

She's about my height, looks like a 1950s model in a dress. Has these amazing eyebrows. Meow.

Eyebrows? Seriously?

Also ass.

Bite me.

Holly laughed. But Gail sent her a selfie of herself arching one eyebrow.

How's the case, grumpy cat?

Sucks. I'll call you tonight. Phone sex?

While Holly blushed, she replied demurely.

I just want to hear your voice, honey.

And it's Stewart for the win today, folks. Love you, nerd.

Ditto.

Conversations with Gail were always amusing when she was in a mood. And Holly couldn't blame her. Gail hated airplanes and travel, and here she was on her own in Regina. Thus far, Gail had little nice to say about Regina. Holly had never been, but given that she couldn't think of a single thing it was famous for (besides rhyming with vagina), she accepted Gail's annoyance as fact rather than petulance.

Holly tossed her phone down and forced her mind back to the case at hand. Talking things out with Dov or any of the cops or lab techs she worked with regularly, was one thing. Talking things out with Shay was an invitation to being Pecked to death. Neither Gail nor Steve would. Anymore. Shay was still competing with Gail at some odd Peck type contest.

The cousins competed over professional success, romantic success, family success, cars, accolades, minions, and everything else. Shay was a decent shot, Gail was better. Gail could play softball, Shay was better. They'd ridden horses together, in the same competitions, for years. They were both polyglots. And queer. Shay was, however, braver. At least according to Gail. She was more self aware and brave enough to both be out and a firefighter.

No. Calling Shay would just start them off again. While it was all in good fun, it was irritating to live through. Instead of calling Shay, she typed up her theory and sent an email, asking if they hand the makings of that sort of thing. That made it an official request, which was unlikely to start Peck Wars. Besides, even though Shay was a captain, and basically the same age as Gail, the firefighter still kept odd hours and ran into buildings on fire. Unlike Dov or most of the people Holly worked with, Shay's schedule was a mystery.

Well. Vivian probably could make sense of it. If Vivian's head was out of her ass and she was talking to her girlfriend. This really would be a great mommy/daughter case for them. Crime and science.

The concept of working with her family had been entirely foreign to Holly. Her family went into disparate subjects. They never worked together, not even her parents. The closest was her parents when Lily introduced Brian to some people for his research. And then Holly met Gail, and fell into a new circle of friends and family. Suddenly her world included people who would ask her, as a friend, for help with cases.

Over the decades, it was a logical extension to do favors to friends. Not anything illegal or even questionable of course (including Andy's DNA test, which was done above board if quietly), but still, the line between work and home blurred. The world was different when friends and family were work and home.

Logically too, Vivian would be the perfect rookie for the grunt work. And Jamie would have been a just nifty rookie firefighter to tap and help push her along in her career.

Elaine would probably meddle anyway and call Jamie.

Holly just sighed and shook her head. There was nothing she could do about it today, and nothing Vivian would listen too. And crossing work and personal life was still weird, even though she did it, so there.

Bending her mind back to work, Holly lost herself in the intricacies of another case, one unrelated to any Pecks or family, until lunchtime, when she finally heard back from Shay.

The reply from her cousin by marriage was interesting. They didn't use those devices, but they knew all about them. Firefighters who worked on wildfires, as Holly had expected, used them. So no one in the city did. Interesting. Thankfully Shay had the contact information for the wildfire crews, as well as a name Holly knew.

Alexander Daughtry was the fire chief in a tiny town about two hours outside of Toronto, along a lake where Holly owned a damned cottage.

She laughed at that one.

But his was the name she called. She was unsurprised when he answered the firehouse number.

"Firehouse, this is Daughtry."

"Hello, Chief. This is Dr. Holly Stewart. We met a few years ago?"

The man laughed. "Oh hell, Doc. You're the one who married that ornery Peck. Sure, I remember you." He paused. "Don't remember the number... You calling from the city?"

"I am. And everything's fine up at the cottage."

"Sure is, sure is. Jones and I checked it out yesterday. Y'all are coming up next week?"

Holly frowned. Jones was the sheriff. "Did Gail ask you to do that?"

"She did. She did. Always does when you folks are coming up. Thought you knew ... May've put my mouth in it..."

"Oh, I know she does that." And she did know. Gail told her she always called the sheriff to check their place out, and to warn him about the cleaning service. Which was silly, since the cleaning company was owned by the sheriff's daughter. Still, Holly was a bit surprised Gail had remembered. "She's working on a big case."

Daughtry laughed. "You callin' me for her?"

"No!" And Holly laughed too. "I'm calling you officially on behalf of the Toronto Forensics Lab."

That brought a pause. "You got a body we need identify?" Daughtry was grim.

"Oh, my god, no. Alex, I need your expertise."

A different pause lingered. "Mine?"

"Yep."

"If you don't mind me asking... When you say Dr. Stewart and Toronto Forensics, you mean all officially science-wise?"

Holly grinned and bit back a laugh. "I'm the chief medical examiner for Ontario, Alex. Didn't Jones tell you?"

Once, and thus far only once, Holly had been tasked to act in an official capacity up at the lake. Jones and his deputy had shown up, hats in hand, to ask Dr. Stewart to possibly examine a body that might be a homicide. Gail had been somewhat grumpy she wasn't invited, and college graduate (soon to be academy student) Vivian had laughed. Vivian had also totally missed the deputy, Kate Jones (niece, not daughter), flirting with her, which Gail only mentioned days later on the drive home.

The case had not been a homicide, thankfully. Holly flagged it as death by misadventure. AKA 'death by dumbass' as Gail called it. Somehow the idiot had managed to run over himself with a jet ski. It involved enough beer and tequilas to raise his blood alcohol level to something quite alarming.

"Oh, right. I knew that. Sorry, my forte is fire."

"And fire is why I called. Do you guys use remote fire starters to back burn?"

"What? Like flaming bullets? Well not bullets. We fill these pods with potassium permanganate."

Holly fist pumped. She was rather glad no one could see her. "Paint balls? And you inject them with glycol?"

"If that's the fancy for antifreeze, then yeah." Daughtry paused. "You got a firebug?"

"No. I think I have someone using them in a bomb."

"Huh." The man sounded impressed. "This shit's why I stay my ass up here."

Smiling, Holly pointed out something. "Actually, the majority of serial killers tend to be recluses who live off the grid in semi-remote locations."

There was a slight pause. "Y'all know your place is off the grid."

"I have a nice cover going on, don't I?" Holly teased and was pleased that Daughtry laughed. "Would you be willing to send me the specs on how you make your little pods and inject them?"

"Sure thing, Doc. I can email you that right 'way." They exchanged contact information, checking to make sure they understood all the letters clearly, and Alexander sighed. "I wish I could be more helpful. Like tell you we had a pissed off fella who gave me a bad feeling."

"Woman."

"What?"

"Our bomber. We believe her to be a woman, approximately five foot four. Fond of horses."

Daughtry was quiet for a moment. "With fire knowledge? Shit. We haven't had a female firefighter since old Bill Peck, your wife's father, was here to tell his cousin off. Emily Ogden. I guess she'd be 'round forty now."

Oh dear. "She died?" Also what on earth would Bill be telling off his cousin. Holly knew the one Peck who lived up by the cottage, a retired police officer who stopped a moose hoof with his face.

"Oh, no, no. Moved to the coast. She's a librarian now. Sends us books now and then. Want her details?"

Holly hesitated. Forty was still within the range of Vivian's guesstimate. "She short?"

"Nah, taller than your little girl."

"She's practically six feet now."

Alexander paused. "Shit, how'd you get a tall one? Weren't she tiny as a kid?"

"She ate her vegetables," quipped Holly. "I'll write her name down, though. Emily Ogden."

"All righty. Anything else I can do for you, Doc, let me know. And while you're up here next week, come on by our tent at the barbecue festival."

Holly's mouth watered. "I swear, those ribs are the best birthday present."

"We aim to please."

Saying their farewells, Holly hung up and read the email. The ingredients were simple, but she'd have to order them. Holly made up a list of what she needed and then hesitated. Faster than Amazon was humans. She pinged Ananda and asked for a minion to gather the items.

Sadly even with someone driving around town, Holly didn't get everything until late in the afternoon. Six. She could stay and work through the night, but it was bad form for a non-critical case. Especially since she'd yelled at Wayne the year before. With reluctance, Holly loaded her tablet with the documents for building her pellet gun fire starter and went home.

Rather quickly she realized that Vivian had been right. The first night home alone had been fine. Restful even to be in a bed without her wife, who was not known for sleeping well or quietly. For once, no tossing and turning and shifting filled her night. She could make her dinner and wander through the house eating out of a bowl instead of at a table. She played her music with blatant disregard for volume or type.

But the second night was lonely. She walked into her house and called out to Gail to tell her about the science. Habit. There was no Gail, no sounds of cooking or working or watching TV or any of the myriad things Gail loved to do. She sighed and opened the fridge. Damn it, Holly had eaten the leftovers and neglected to take out meat to thaw.

Didn't Gail have a trick? Run hot water in a bowl and soak the meat... It usually only took an hour or so. She popped open the freezer to get something protein-ish and found a surprise. The meat wasn't there. That wasn't too odd, Gail often kept it in the garage freezer. But what was in there were boxes labeled in Gail's 'inventory' hand. Boxes of prepped food.

Her wife had left her multiple meals, enough for two for the week, all sorted, labeled, and organized. There was even a note 'Don't eat this with the chicken' on one of them. When had she even had the time to do that? Holly felt her heart fill, realizing how much time her busy wife put in, just to make sure Holly was cared for.

"Gail Peck, you are insane." Holly laughed and took the top box out. Chicken and potatoes with peas. She was on her own for a salad, but that was normal. Freezing salads was stupid.

The main dish went in the oven per Gail's directions, which included a snarky comment about setting a timer. The salad was quickly made and Holly texted Gail to thank her and remind her to eat, sending a selfie of her and her dinner.

Gail did not reply for almost two hours. When she did, it was a photo of pasta with what looked like arugula and some meat.

Holly smiled.

Looks nice

Sent it back four times.

Tomatoes?

Gail replied with an angry face. Holly sent a potato emoji back.

I'm out with a Mountie.

Cute?

Male.

Holly laughed and replied using an eye roll emoji and wedding rings.

Of course Gail used the middle finger.

Call me after dinner?

Thumbs up came back and Holly put her phone to charge on her nightstand. Gail was two hours behind her, because Saskatchewan was idiotic and didn't like daylight saving time. She sighed and showered and curled up in the bed to read over the schematics.

The idea was simple. The glycol and potassium permanganate would slowly create a chemical reaction. Delayed combustion. The gun had a sprayer that would inject glycol as it was fired (that was the tricky part). According to online videos, though, it was not going to burn the way Holly wanted. Well. If it melted enough, and properly, it would at least be a starting point.

Another hour whizzed by and finally Gail called.

"Hey, go to bed," said Gail by way of greeting.

Holly laughed. "I'm in bed."

"Reading about something, no doubt."

"Pink stuff. It's been nagging me all day."

"Pink stuff?" Gail sounded interested. "What pink stuff?"

"It's part of the evidence with the bombs."

"Oh that goop was trackable?"

"Kind of. I have a working theory that the explosions were so flashy because of design."

"Made to be sound and fury, injuring nothing?" Gail made a noise. "What's the stuff made of?"

"Plastic, more or less."

Gail listened as Holly detailed her plan and theory and agreed that kidnapping Vivian might be a good idea. "Tell me you've made some headway with her?"

"Some. She's coming for dinner tomorrow. I'll try to pick her brain. This is usually your forte though."

"Relationship talk? Uh, I'm fuck up central there."

"Getting our girl out of a tree. She's more like you." Holly turned off her tablet and snuggled in the bed.

"Holly." Gail sounded guilty.

"What? You are. If you two had normal, caring, kind parents as children, you'd be more like me. But you didn't and you don't trust people for good reasons."

Gail was quiet for a moment. "I trust you. We trust you."

Smiling, Holly took off her glasses. "It's not about trusting me, honey. It's you guys trusting yourselves."

Her wife snorted. "Why do you have to be so smart?"

"I love you too."

"I still think you'll be better to talk to about this. You're a safe place."

"So are you."

Gail sighed. "That's the sweetest thing you've said to me in weeks."

Holly laughed. "Okay, Slytherin. I love you and it's bed time for doctors who have to try to make pink things explode tomorrow."

"Ask Sue for a warm body."

"You are aware that costs me money, right?"

And Gail made a noise of agreement. "Yes, and we need it. Our budget is so screwed up, it's not funny," she complained.

"Robbing Peter to pay Paul." Holly laughed.

"I'm recommending Paul slip Peter a couple thou, that's all." But Gail laughed, indicating her lack of seriousness. "I love you. Sleep well. Dream up kick ass science."

"Love you too. Try to get some sleep, Gail."

"Oh god, I'm tired. I hope I drop off."

They swapped endearments again and hung up. Sometimes Holly felt like a teenaged girl, not wanting to hang up with her beau. Not that she'd had anyone like that as a teen. True, she'd sorted out she wasn't into boys at an early enough age, but in the 90s and early 2000s, it had been difficult to find a girl and have any sort of a relationship. They were always clandestine.

With good reason, too. People did not like the gay. It bewildered Holly even into her adulthood. Why would anyone hate enough to kill. When she'd mentioned that to Gail, her then girlfriend had just shrugged and said it was fear.

They sure made Holly afraid, growing up.

They made her doubly afraid when her own daughter inched out of her shell to admit she had a crush on her best friend, Olivia. Not that Vivian being gay (or bi or pan) had been a shock. Oh no, they'd seen her blush around Sue and Frankie enough to know that the girl leaned towards queer.

That was how she identified, too. Queer. She'd often say gay or lesbian, but she preferred queer and used it around friends and family. Recently, Holly heard it said at Fifteen. Gail was mentioned as the lesbian inspector and Vivian the queer Peck. Harboring the private suspicion that Vivian liked the word because it also implied weird, Holly was happy now to call her whatever she wanted.

But in that moment when the shy, nervous seventeen year old had mumbled about having an inappropriate crush on her BFF, Holly suddenly understood her mother. Lily's reaction, which had been so painful and gut wrenching to fifteen year old Holly made perfect sense. It was, as Elaine so wisely stated, guilt and fear.

Lily had been absorbed with the fear of what the world out there would do to her baby girl. Lily saw the gangly youth she'd taught to ride a bike and drive a car, and she saw a world that hated her and would try to kill her if given half a chance. Or worse.

And so did Holly. She saw her fragile daughter as the subject of the pain Holly had endured, growing up gay. It was something Gail didn't understand. Couldn't understand. Gail's coming out had been remarkably, inexplicably, painless. She simply decided that she was a lesbian (her identification of choice at the time) and off she went. True, she'd admit to anyone but Elaine she was probably more bisexual than gay, but damn it all, she was sure as hell Holly-sexual.

Holly did love that part.

She didn't love knowing how shitty the world was to teenagers who were gay.

She didn't love that her daughter had already faced raging, bullying, homophobes.

She didn't love the world that wouldn't always love the girl she'd raised.

She loved her daughter, though, and she would be there for her, no matter what. Even when Vivian was being an absolute Peck and screwing up things with her girlfriend. There was nothing she could do to protect her daughter from herself, either.

Well. That was parenthood. Constant fear and guilt. Putting her phone to charge, Holly switched the light off and went to sleep.

And slept for shit.

By five, she gave up, went for a run, and was at the office before seven. Arming herself with coffee and a plan, she started by formally requesting 'someone' for assistance, who was familiar with the Safary case and unlikely to be grumpy over repeated experiments. Then she asked Ananda to loan her the errand boy from the day prior. A reward for his efforts was to assist the chief medical examiner perform her trial and error fire play.

The reward was, as she had expected, well received. He even was thrilled to help with the setup in the fire safe section of the building.

When nine AM rolled around, Holly had everything ready and a vaguely grumpy rookie named Peck helping with the final setup.

"Aren't you a little excited?" The excitable Aaron Haversham put the last ball into place.

Vivian shot Holly a look of suffering. "I've had a long week."

"It's Wednesday..."

"I know." Vivian ran a hand through her hair and stepped back. "Okay, ready to fire, Dr. Stewart." There wasn't even the normal twinkle in her eye when Vivian called her mother by her title. Oh dear.

Time to be in doctor mode. Holly checked everything and nodded. "Alright. So we are looking first to see if we can make paintballs that catch on fire when they hit the ground."

Her daughter made a noise. "There should be a delay," said Vivian. "Maybe five seconds. And the fire will only work if we hit the kindling."

"Which is why you, Constable, are shooting, and not me."

While Haversham looked impressed, Vivian wore the decidedly nonplussed expression Holly had grown to expect from a Peck when tasked with something they excelled at. Vivian had gone shooting with Gail nearly every week for half her life now. Even when the batting cages had waned, even if they had to be skipped, shooting was a Peck constant.

Fondly, Holly remembered Vivian begging to go when she'd had a fever. Gail had flat out refused. There was no trace of the begging child now. Today, Vivian was calm and collected and expectant. She knew what she had to do, she knew how to do it, and she was prepared.

The cop put on her protective glasses and took position behind the little gun. "I'm ready," said Vivian, settling in.

"At your own time then, please." Holly smiled.

Haversham eyed Vivian. "Is she okay?" His voice was a hushed whisper.

"She's fine," said Holly.

The only time Holly ever saw her wife or daughter shoot was on the range for Gail's birthday. The other 364 (or 365) days of the year, she blissfully was ignorant of their hobby. Of course she knew when they went to practice, but that was different. And the birthday shoot was different.

Here, Vivian wasn't smiling or laughing or even being super serious. She was calm. Dare say she was relaxed. And she launched three soft pops in a row, without even a fuss. Vivian straightened and tilted her head, waiting.

Just as Holly started to wonder if it had worked, there was a whooshing noise and the kindling burst into flames.

Holly hooted.

She didn't care that she was almost sixty. Science was fucking awesome and she knew it.

Four hours later, they had only determined that too much fire melted the plastic shells entirely. They'd lost Vivian back to patrol and Haversham's interest was waning. Holly scowled at the various melted plastics. She'd managed to clear her schedule for the day to do this, but as the chief medical examiner, it was hard for her to give up more than an entire day for work like this.

That was the downside of her job. She didn't get as much experiment time as she wanted. She barely got to do autopsies anymore. In fact, most of her work was people and paperwork.

"Is it always this frustrating?" Haversham took a sample of the last test.

"Oh, well. Science." She shrugged. "Experiments and theories are always a little frustrating."

"What if it's the wrong ball pods, and that's why it's melting?"

"They're all made out of the same material, more or less," said Holly, thoughtfully. "Let's try some indirect heat, see if we can replicate the melt."

They did not. Which meant as the day ended, Holly grabbed a senior tech, caught them up on her work, and handed it and Haversham off. So annoying. And her day wasn't over. Holly had to spend another few hours making sure the paperwork for the day was done, and she wasn't too far behind. It wasn't until her watch pinged that she even remembered Vivian was coming by for dinner.

Holly got home after her daughter. The taller woman was in the kitchen, quietly chopping ingredients. "Sorry."

"I figured you were caught up in science," said Vivian smiling tiredly. "Did you guys sort out the melt?"

"No!" Holly groaned and sat at the island. "Too much heat and it burns up. Indirect heat melts it, but it doesn't match properly. Too lumpy or too runny. It's infuriating and I won't get to play tomorrow."

Vivian laughed. "I'm pretty sure it's work, not play, Mom."

"I'm pretty sure it's both."

"Alright, maybe." Vivian tossed the vegetables onto the pan. "Make the salad, please?"

"Can do." Holly put her bag away and made a simple salad, snagging a beer to drink as she helped. "Do you ever eat tomatoes?"

"Since I moved out? No." She shrugged. "You know, Jamie asked..." Vivian trailed off and frowned.

As Vivian quietly cooked, Holly cleared her throat. "Are you two talking?"

Vivian sighed. "Does texting count?"

"Not if you're apologizing via text, no."

"I'm ... Why do you think I'm the one who's supposed to apologize?" Vivian looked a little indignant.

Holly smiled. "Because I married Gail?"

Her daughter scowled. "I'm not Mom. Or you."

"Thankfully. That would be weird." Holly sipped her beer. "I have learned, honey, that any time two people have an argument, it's best that they both apologize. Love is, as they say, a two way street."

"That was stupid and trite. Are you trying to do some dad platitude?" Vivian actually managed a Gail-level sneer. It was adorable.

"No." Holly smiled a little. "And I love you."

With a grunt, Vivian put the meat on a hot pan. "God knows why."

"You are your own, unique, person, Vivian Stewart Peck. And I, and your mother, are very fond of the grownup you've become."

Vivian sighed. "Even when I'm fighting with my girlfriend?"

"Did either of you cheat on the other?"

"What!? No!"

"Then yes, still fond. Not even disappointed. Just..." Holly trailed off. Gail was so much better at drawing this type of thing out of their daughter. "Honey... Are you okay?"

There was no answer for quite a while. Vivian was just quiet until she took the meat off the burner and put it in the oven. Then she shook her head. "No," she said softly. "I'm angry. A lot. And ... Everything hurts."

Ah. Holly walked up and rested a hand on Vivian's back. "Yeah, it does that sometimes. Sometimes, something gets us. It gets under our skin and cuts us open and... Everything's going to hurt a lot for a while, honey."

Vivian snuffled and scrubbed her face with her sleeve. She wasn't quite crying, but it was near. "Isn't that supposed to be about something I care about?"

"That's the problem. It is."

The girl opened her mouth and then closed it. The tears of frustration she was fighting off were leaking, turning into ones of anger. "I don't care!"

And Holly sighed. This really was Gail's wheelhouse. Gail understood the pain and agony of family. Holly came from the world where parents picked up the child when they fell. Her world was safe and protected and helped. The universe where people shoved children off the high dive, intentionally like the Pecks or unintentionally like the Greens, was still a foreign concept to her.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but you do. If you didn't, you're right. You wouldn't be so pissed off."

"I don't!" Vivian moved away and all but stomped to the refrigerator. "I don't give a shit about them or their bullshit drama or any of it! They're assholes and I hate them!" As she shouted, her voice cracked. "I hate them! I hate them for doing this! For leaving me, for letting me think I was alone, for .. For." Vivian hiccoughed. "For throwing it all back in my face." She drew a deep, shaky, breath. The burst of rage seemed to fade as fast as it had sprouted. "I hate them so much, Mom," she said, nearly whimpering. "Why do they keep hurting me? Why can't they go away and die and ... And never make me think about all this stupid maybes and might have beens." The tears started to flow. "Why, Mom?"

There wasn't much Holly could do there. She couldn't answer any of it. She didn't know why Vivian's aunt was the way she was. She didn't know why they had to come into the girl's life and upend things. But she could do one small thing.

Maybe Gail was right. Maybe this was her wheelhouse after all. What Vivian needed wasn't the comfort of a parent who'd been there and survived. She just needed her mom.

Holly reached over and closed the fridge, wrapping an arm around Vivian's shoulders. "Come here, honey," she said gently.

Just like when Vivian had been angry and lashing out as a child, Holly pulled her daughter into her arms and held her close. Like when she was seven, or ten, or sixteen, or twenty-four. Vivian was her daughter. Someone she'd never expected or planned on was one of the most important people to her heart.

This time, though, the crying wasn't wracking sobs of agony. This time it was tears of anger, pent up for her whole life maybe, leaking out the cracks. This time Vivian wasn't overwrought or anguished. This time she just hurt and she knew and didn't know why.

A pithy comment about how they were Schrödinger's tears was best kept private, decided Holly. At least for now. While it certainly was a constant state of pain, both caused by her living family and caused by the dead, it wasn't the time for a philosophical discussion. Instead she gently rubbed Vivian's shoulder and let her get it out.

Because Vivian was angry and frustrated and unable to fully process feelings she wasn't prepared for. The universe hadn't been kind to her, in that way. And all the love from her adopted parents aside, Vivian never understood how to properly deal with pain from family. Maybe they'd done her a disservice, being unconditional in their love. Maybe ... Maybe.

No. They'd done the right things. They'd raised her the best they could. They'd done the best and tried to give Vivian the tools to navigate a painful world. They never shielded her from the truths of hate and violence, but they'd never subjected her to it either.

It was just that now all those things Vivian had locked away at six were coming out to play hell on her heart.

Of course she was mad. And she couldn't lash out at the people who needed or deserved it. And she was trying so hard not to break in front of anyone.

Sometimes a person just needed to bite. To fight. To hit. To get it out and scream and cry and cut their hair off when feelings they weren't prepared for came home to roost. And sometimes they just needed their mom to hug them and promise it would all be okay for a little while, even if there really was no promise of any of that.

Holly sighed and held Vivian close.

There was no way Holly could fix anything, but at least she could be there in the now and remind the girl she was loved.

"She's not going to want to be with me like this, Mom," whispered Vivian.

"If she's the right one, she'll be able to see you in there, honey."

"I don't know how to say I'm sorry for this."

"Are you?"

Vivian sighed and let go to wipe her face again. "Yes? Maybe... I'm sorry I said it out loud. But... But now she knows I was thinking it."

Studying her daughter's face, Holly recalled the days back when Gail and she had said some rather hurtful things to each other. "Did you say it to make her hurt too?"

The expression on Vivian's face shifted to startled. "What? No!"

Well. That was an improvement. "Did you say it because you don't like her parents?"

Now she hesitated. "Kind of? I don't... I mean, her dad creeps me out, but that's just because I'm not used to men being ... Being parents I guess. Her mom though..."

"Her mom?" Holly was surprised.

"There's something weird about her mom." Vivian made a face and scrubbed her nose with her sleeve.

"That was descriptive."

Vivian rolled her eyes. "If I knew..." She paused. "I do know. She's ... She runs hot and cold. Not like Mom. Hell, not even when Mom used to get mad." Vivian waved one hand by her face, just like Gail did when working through a problem. "Like she has two sides or something."

Holly exhaled. "Ah. Weird. I would have expected it the other way..."

"Me too," said Vivian, glumly.

"You don't hate them, do you?" When Vivian shook her head, Holly nodded. "You're allowed to think those kinds of things, honey. That's normal."

"It's not nice. Jamie won't want to be with a jerk, Mom."

"That's when you call parlay, honey."

Vivian sighed. "Shoulda." She sighed again. "Why do I have to care?"

"That's our fault. We raised you to care about people."

With a snort, Vivian dabbed her eyes. "How the hell did Gail do that?"

Ah. Even Vivian couldn't see it sometimes. Holly shook her head. Why did everyone else miss this? "Your mother has the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met, honey. She cares so much, about people who don't give a damn, people who hate her, that she'll take a bullet for then."

"Even Andy?"

"Yeah, even Andy." Holly smiled. "I'm sorry we made you care about people, even the ones you hate, but I'm not sorry either. You're an amazing person and you make us so very proud of the adult you are."

"Even though I'm Pecking my life up?"

"You're our kid," said Holly, sadly.

"Yaaaay." Vivian leaned against the counter. "It would be so much easier to hate them."

"I know." Holly cupped Vivian's face to look at her. "What do you want right now?"

"To be me from last month?"

"Besides that."

But Vivian shook her head. "Can we not... Can we not right now?"

Knowing there was no way to force it out of her just yet, Holly smiled and kissed her daughter's forehead. It required standing on her tip toes, but it made Vivian smile a little.

"Sure, honey. Let's eat."

An hour after Vivian left, despondent and still depressed, Gail called. "I hate people."

The absolute normalcy of the remark made Holly laugh. "I hate men."

"Lesbian." There was the sound of a door closing. "I also hate this hotel."

"Are you at an efficiency?"

"Yes." Gail grunted. "God I'm tired. Why is talking about shit and watching stupid, useless videos, so goddamn tiring?"

"Couldn't tell you." Holly smiled and turned off the lights downstairs. "Besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Gail laughed. "We're making headway. The evidence seems to be in our favor."

"You mean the Roses have some useful footage?"

"Quite a bit. It's shocking how much illegal crap they catch on film. I'm kinda pissed that they won't let anyone else look at the footage."

"Well," Holly spoke as she walked up to the bedroom. "You're trustworthy." Her wife laughed. "You won't turn them in for anything."

"You mean I'm accepting the deal." Gail groaned. "I'm as bad as my family."

"No you're not. You're also putting the fear of Peck in them, keeping them on blackmail retainer, right?"

Gail sighed. "See, you make me sound ... I don't know. Corrupt?"

"You're the least corrupt police officer I know, and that includes your daughter," said Holly firmly. "Didn't you tell me part of being a police officer was knowing what crimes to prosecute and what to let go?"

"Yeah." Gail did not sound convinced. "How come I'm less corrupt than Viv?"

"You're more experienced. She might fall to being a Peck."

"Ugh. That is the most horrible suggestion ever."

"Can I ask something else?"

"Please."

"How's Donnie?"

The silence hung for a moment. "Really? You're asking about my fratricidal ex?"

"He's up for parole soon, Gail." At twenty years, Donal was eligible after all.

Gail groaned and apparently figured out how Holly knew that. "Did you open my mail?" She was smart that way. "That's illegal."

Holly smiled. "Legally I'm allowed to, you dumb ass. We're married. And yes. The letter came this morning, asking if you'd consider speaking to him not being a danger to anyone else."

The noise was Gail rolling her eyes. "He's not going to kill anyone else, true. I just don't know, Holly. He's ... He's a killer."

"What if it was Steve?"

Gail groaned again. "Stop making me think! I just want to find Safary's motive and bury myself in your breasts."

She burst out laughing. "Gail! You're supposed to be figuring out how or what or why Safary was following the trains."

"Aw hell, I got that one. Check me out on this. He— she blew the circus where the animals would be safest."

Holly blinked. "Say what?"

"All the bombs, I went and checked all the way back, have minimal loss of innocent human life. Ask the kid about it, she'll back me up. Four people died, and all were like the train in Toronto. Probably accidents, always circumstance driven."

"The fact that you want me to talk to our daughter about bombs is not heartening, Gail."

"She knows more about them than any of us. Besides, maybe it'll get her head out of her ass."

Holly grimaced. "There is that."

"How's she doing?"

"Eh. She said she's texting."

"Jesus, were our friends this annoyed with us when we broke up?"

"Lisa was." Holly stretched out on the couch. "I got a lot of grief about it, especially since this shitbird blonde didn't call me back. Though I was kinda cyber-stalking her."

Gail laughed in a self-deprecating way. "Yeah. Think our kid is the shitbird or the texting stalker?"

"I've heard it both ways," said Holly. "You going to pull her into your crime? Seeing as she is the rook with the most interest."

"Maybe. I want Volk, to be honest. She's got the mind of a D already. Zettle's positively orgasmic over getting her."

Getting her. So that was happening. "Oh wow, already?"

"Probationary, as of next week. Start her in homicide, see if that's her keen or if it's guns and gangs or whatever."

"We do the same thing with our newbies," said Holly. "If you don't take her, I think I'll nepotism her some more."

Gail laughed. "Only took you a couple decades."

"Hey, I am a Peck. And I need a cop who gets science that my lab won't want to kill after multiple experiments that are going to fail."

Her wife huffed. "Tell me it's a good one."

"Incendiary paintballs?"

"The what now?"

Grinning, Holly explained. "So that weird pink shit that was in the trace evidence looks like it's homemade paintball pellets filled with some sort of fire-starter. Or accelerant. Sue loaned me Vivian to figure out how they work. So far it's been sketchy."

"Kinky." Gail's voice was muffled and Holly heard something thwap.

"Did you just take your shirt off?"

"I gotta shower, Holly," said Gail, pointedly.

"Yeah, but I can't think about science and your boobs at the same time, Gail." Holly whinged.

And that brat laughed. "I was taking off my shoulder holster, moron. Still wearing a shirt."

"Nope, too late." With an exaggerated sigh, Holly went on. "Train of thought derailed. No survivors. Boobs."

"That is the sound of a woman begging me to distract her so her back brain can process deep and meaningful things. And who will get up out of bed after sex and happily stay up all night working."

Holly made a face. "You know, maybe you know me a little too well, Peck."

"I know you intimately." Gail's quip made them both laugh. "Phone sex possibilities aside, can I help?"

With a huff, Holly sat up. "No. But how come Traci and Chloe got pulled off Safary?"

Gail made a surprised noise. "Traci moved to Guns & Gangs, which Safary is not, and Chloe picked up a drug cartel using hookers, so she's swamped with four UC ops." The cop paused. "Were you thinking I really did snipe all the good cases?"

"No."

"Yes."

"No!" Holly laughed. "I was wondering, that's all. Dov offered to be a sounding board yesterday and I didn't want to step in shit."

"Nah, you're all clear. Okay. I should eat dinner, huh?"

"If you don't want a migraine in the morning, yes."

Gail sighed loudly. "Well fine. Be reasonable. I'm going to find something and get some sleep. If I'm lucky, I'll be home day after tomorrow or after."

"Thursday or Friday." Holly sighed dramatically. "Eat. I'm going to bed, honey."

"Will do, sweetheart." Gail paused. "Hey. I've been watching a lot of videos about the bombs, right? Funny thing about 'em. They spark up a lot more after the fire's been going for a while."

Holly blinked. "Secondary explosions. That's interesting. Maybe..."

"Sleep on it," suggested Gail, sounding very amused. "Love you, Ms. Crazy Science Nerd."

"Dr. Crazy Science Nerd."

"Mrs. Doctor Crazy Science Nerd."

"I love you too, idiot."

The next day, Holly was excited and grumpy all in one. Excited because she had an idea about the secondary explosions. Grumpy because she wasn't going to get to play with it hands on. That was the price of being in charge, though. As much as Holly hated being out of the lab so much, the world of research and management had its own fun.

Well. Not so much management. No one really liked that. The prestige, though, she'd be a liar to day she didn't love it. People teased Gail about having the ego trip and power thrill of being in charge, but of how Holly loved it too.

To her surprise, most of her paperwork was done. Someone had taken all the mundane and dull personnel work and filed it. Someone else had sorted out assignments and orders. Everyone had their reports and reviews in... And Holly had a free day and that afternoon a lab, all to herself.

As she marveled at the work she didn't have to do, Holly saw the card on her desk.

Boss. You work too hard. You should play hard. Happy (early) birthday from all of your lab nerds.

And it was signed by all her section heads.

She kind of loved them just then.

Poking her head out, Holly cleared her throat. "Ruth?"

Her secretary looked up with a sheepish smile. "Hey, boss. It wasn't my idea."

"I know. But thank you for helping them."

"Oh that's going to be a regular thing now, them doing their damn work on time." The woman gave a near-Gail level smirk of expectations. Holly could feel the change coming. Now that Ruth knew the staff could do it properly, she was going to be sure they would.

"And thank you for that." Holly laughed.

Ruth gave her a thumbs up. "Go make science, Holly. Make kick ass science so I can hang another magazine with your face on the cover."

Because that was what Ruth loved doing. Every magazine where her face or article graced the cover was framed and hung in the hallway. Ruth called it the intimidation factor. Scare the hell out of people into realizing how awesome the lab was.

Which it totally was.

What she needed now was a plan. Taking Gail's throw away idea of secondary explosions, she watched the security videos of the bombs. Her wife was right. There was a delay, often significant, between the initial explosion and the second flash. In fact, it was devilishly well timed. Right when people would think it was time to maybe get closer, it would flash and call more attention to the danger.

Except. There wasn't a whole lot of danger.

Even when Holly studied the bomb that had gone off at the antiques store, the one that had gone off with Vivian and Rich present, hadn't caused any serious damage. Except to the dummy. Which still didn't make a fucking bit of sense.

She scratched her head. The dummy. What was the point of the dummy? There was no trace from the bomber, which had left only the word Safary on a bit of the bracing wood. Which ... Oh.

"Holly Stewart, you're a fucking idiot."

She could have smacked her forehead. Instead, she pulled up shipping manifests from the files and looked for the weight. A shitty chair, one that ... Heh. A chair that Officer Peck said cost a few hundred. Finding the weight of the chair and the shipping crate, she added in that of the dummy and then the bomb.

Subtract the bomb. Give it plus or minus thirty.

And right there, one had a recipe for human smuggling.

Safary exposed a human smuggler?

Safary wanted people to stop being hurt?

Did that mean the deaths at the train station were an accident all those years ago?

The concept made her head hurt.

Holly quickly typed up that report and sent it to Gail and Chloe. The former would need it for her work on tracking Safary's nebulous motives. The latter was the person whom Holly knew had spent the most amount of time working on the detestable crimes of human trafficking. Both replied to her memo before she broke for an early lunch, thanking her (though Gail's appreciation was descriptive, inappropriate for work, and via text).

Then she sent Haversham on one more errand. After that early lunch, she met Haversham and sat him down in the lab. "We are going to conduct experiments, young man. We are going to make a sound and flash and fury, signifying nothing."

"What?" He stared at her.

Holly sighed. "You just keep working on trying to find the heat required to melt our paint balls properly, Aaron."

He was not, alas, the most brilliant of new employees that had come to her lab. Not everyone could be. But Haversham did his work and he did it well, which was more than Holly could say for a lot of the fresh out of school idiots she got. Sadly, a lot of students thought working in the lab would be like TV. There would be sexy detectives and high risk situations and science would save the day.

All of those were true, Holly told them on their first day. It would just be spread across 10 or 20 years of work, if they were lucky. Most of their life would be spent trying to understand minutiae and details that came without context. They'd spend hours and days hunched over lab equipment, struggling to picture how evidence came together. And they'd see those police officers and detectives in danger. Regularly.

Invariably, someone asked if the rumor she was married to a detective was true, and someone else would ask if she was really the medical examiner they'd based a tv series on. To the first question, Holly would nod. Yes. She'd married a detective, who was currently heading up Organized Crime. And no, it was not all it was cracked it up to be. Oh and of course someone would ask about the TV show again, which she would neither confirm nor deny.

While Haversham melted paintballs, Holly mixed up a few, small, batches of pyrotechnics. It was the sort of fun, quirky work she'd loved to do as a teenager. Her parents had worried a little bit when she'd done it the first time, creating her own rocket to launch for the school science club. But as long as she did it under adult supervision, they were okay.

When Vivian had expressed an interest in rockets, Holly had been delighted to help her launch a few into the stratosphere. The balloon with a camera had been a thrill. Capturing the curve of the earth with nothing more than a few items from the store (and a computerized camera built by Leo) had even impressed Gail. But of course, they'd also made their own fireworks (technically legal), which had resulted in Holly's short haircut.

That was so long ago, she realized. Vivian wasn't even driving back then. The girl had still been short and relatively quiet when that had happened, but she'd laughed at Holly's appalled expression while Gail trimmed her hair by the lake. Holly fingered her hair. It had taken far too long for it to grow back out, and the shoulder-length do had not been her favorite. While Gail could rock any haircut known to exist, Holly felt most comfortable and happy with long, flowing locks.

Yes, fine, she was vain. Shut up, inner Gail.

"Um. Dr. Stewart? I think I have it." Haversham held his hand up.

"It's not a class," said Holly, amused. "Let's see." She got up and walked over to his bench. "Start me at the start, please."

The young man had laid out carefully burnt and melted exemplars of the pods. "You were right, the too much heat melted it. And I tried waiting to let it reform but..." He gestured at the first few tests. "It combines back into a solid. More or less."

Amused, Holly picked up the limp plastic circle. It bent like limp bacon. "Even if they didn't merge into one, the shape is distinctive. I concur."

"To get them clumpy takes a weird indirect heat, but then it didn't turn into the stringy thing when I pulled it apart." Haversham mimed pulling the plastic.

Holly mimicked the motion, pulling her sample apart. It bent more like silly putty. "Again, the fibroids shape was also distinctive." The sample just stretched and sagged. They wanted something that stretched, separated into fibers, and then snapped cleanly. A peculiar action, to be sure.

"And too much melt made it fail the burn test. But it actually charred!" He picked up a ball with char. "So obviously, right, ma'am? I needed melt with separation. The right heat to split the components."

"You've done your due diligence," said Holly, smiling. Of course, she picked up his tablet and went over the notes and the math. Haversham was young and clever, she'd give him that, but humans were inherently fallible. They were prone to error. The more simple the equations, the more daft the errors, Holly had found. Not this time, though. The young man was meticulous. That was probably why Ananda had recommended him for this job, even though his skills didn't tend to lean towards innovation and brilliance. He was methodical and patient. A true lab tester. "Well. This looks right. So let's see the real deal."

"It's a semi-solid."

She arched an eyebrow. A semi-solid? That meant the additive that caused the controllable burn was hand-meltable. "Not a gel? What'd you use?"

Aaron grinned. "Old Spice."

Holly blinked. "What?"

"They use propylene glycol in deodorants and, if applied as ... Well if you put it in as kind of an inner lube, before you seal it, you can get a neat burn."

"You learn something new every day," said Holly. She was rethinking her concept of Haversham not being innovative.

"I know, right? Totally changing my mind about deodorants now."

So was she. "How brightly does it burn?"

"It's more about the length. Here." He reached over and tapped a video on his tablet. They both watched the burn for a while.

Holly nodded. "Interesting... And if that was used to separate...oh." She stared over Aaron's shoulder. "Well now. I think I see the whole picture."

"You do?"

"I do. Try this..." And Holly detailed out a theory.

Take the antiperspirant and embed the granules that make the sparks. Roll it into balls and insert them in the pods used for paintballs. In turn, load those into a pipe bomb, wrapped in hay and rubber and, yes, sand. When they exploded, some pods would be destroyed, but many more would spread out. The heat would melt the gel of the antiperspirant and the reaction of warm gel and the granules would cause them to catch fire.

And it worked.

The fire was low at first but then sparked and set of small, secondary explosions. And best of all, it collapsed into separated components, like the time Gail's roux had broken. Clumpy, unappealing, and unappetizing. Culinarily speaking, of course. Scientifically it was damned beautiful.

"Pink stuff," said Haversham, astounded.

"Pink stuff," said Holly, beaming.

"That is so cool."

Holly had to agree. After they reproduced the experiment, documented it, and cleaned up the lab, it was dinner time. For a moment, she toyed with the idea that she could order in and they could eat in the lab. There was always a problem with bonding with her newer employees. The things she'd been able to do as a regular pathologist and now, as the chief, were very different. In that moment of hesitation, Haversham thanked her for letting him help and ran off to meet someone for drinks.

Oh, to be young again. It was midweek, which was not a good day for drinking. Not unless she'd solved a major case and planned to take the day off. It had been long since time to face the facts. She was old. Holly sighed and packed up her things.

That was the long and short of it. She was old. She was nearing sixty and couldn't stay out all night drinking unless she wanted to pay for it the next day. Her idea of a good time with friends was a couple drinks, some nice talk, and home by eleven.

Of course, there she was home at seven and she didn't want to be home.

Home was boring. Home was lonely and empty and damn it, Gail was right. The house was a little too big for two people. For three, when one had a friend over most of junior and senior year, it had been right. Around the time Vivian started college, it had felt a bit roomy. Now, with no kid in the house and no wife, it was too big and Gail was right.

"I hate when she's right," Holly muttered and went upstairs. "She's going to gloat when I tell her."

Instead of making dinner, or going out for drinks, Holly put her laptop in the office and changed into jeans and Gail's softball shirt. If she was going to be alone, she could at least get something fun in. Like the batting cages. She used to love it, and it had been a while.

Naturally it wasn't as fun as she thought it would be.

Holly rested the bat on her shoulder and sighed. They hadn't been going to the batting cages much since Vivian had moved out, and that had felt alright. While the routine was calming, the new status quo of an empty nest was growing on her. But she'd been so bored and frustrated at home being totally empty, it seemed like the right idea. Go, hit some balls, get tired, sleep.

She watched a ball shoot by and realized that, more than anything else, the stupid batting cages made her miss her wife. What she wanted wasn't to hit the balls but to sit on the couch and feel Gail's arm around her.

Instead it was mid week and she was sans her wife. And her daughter, for that matter, who was grumpy and ignoring everyone.

Muttering a curse, she let another ball go by before getting into batting position. The ball came and she swung, connecting firmly and sending it just shy of the home run sign.

"Man, another five inches," said Gail.

Holly yelped and the bat went flying.

By the time they both stopped laughing (and crying from laughter) at what had happened, the owner rather politely asked them to leave. They were still laughing when they got to the Vietnamese restaurant nearby.

Twice in their life, Gail had surprised Holly at the batting cages. The first time had been after her horrible undercover op. How Holly had hated that one. Hated being a single parent, dealing with a depressed child, and most of all the lack of communication. This time had been filled with communication, to the point that at dinner, they just sat and grinned at each other, commenting on the food.

"Okay," said Holly at length. "When did you get home?"

"About two hours ago. I made Collins drop me off and threw my stuff in the wash."

"Honey... Nick is not your personal plaything."

"Potato, tomato."

Holly rolled her eyes. "Seriously. I know Nick and Andy are at a Coldplay reunion concert."

"Oh fine. Chloe and I had a bit of catch up."

"Isn't that better?" Holly smiled. "Okay, how was Regina and how did you get home a day early?"

"The usual. Bribery, chicanery, lying, theft—"

Holly laughed. "Gail!"

"Dead ends, mostly." Gail smiled. "Wasted my time trying to find a motive. All I know for sure is you know who really does care about hurting people."

"For sure?" Holly arched. "That's pretty big."

"Certain as I can be. An anonymous donation went to the families who were injured by the bomb in Regina." Gail reached over and picked up a pot sticker thingy. "And when we checked the video from one of the Rose trains that was nearby, we found someone who matches our sub's description. Helping the victims. So. Yeah. Sure."

Holly shook her head. "So she doesn't mean to kill or hurt. Cheerful."

"I know, right?"

Taking the last bit of food, Holly sighed. "Well, all I have is firm proof that the bombs are loaded with a special effects type charge that makes a flash and doesn't burn."

"The what now? I thought it was fireballs!"

Laughing at her wife's disappointment, Holly shook her head. "No. The real fires were too destructive."

Gail made a face. "Tell me you recorded it."

"Of course. And your daughter laughing at fires." She had, yesterday at least, laughed at the delay of the fires.

"That's my girl." Gail saluted with her glass. "Did she like your final solution?"

"She hasn't seen it yet. We only figured it out today around six." Holly shrugged.

"Bummer."

"So eloquently said." Holly smirked and reached across the table to run her fingers over the back of Gail's hand. It was nice to just touch her. No. It was wonderful.

Her wife beamed. "Okay. Let's settle up and get home. I want to shower and give you presents."

"What on earth did you buy in Regina?" She laughed and flagged the waiter.

"Well the circus was in town." Gail smiled.

They drove home together, Gail explaining that Chloe had picked her up so they could go over the human trafficking case. Indeed, the shipping company the antique shop used did use the boxes to transport humans, and were testing the run. Since that was four cases related to shipping or transportation of a sort, Gail used the Rose connections to determine some of Safary's targets.

The transportation of animals, by rail, in less than humane ways. The shipment of humans as if they were cattle. And so on and so forth. In short, Safary found companies who needed exposure, in the bad way, and revealed for all to see.

"The damned thing is, I have no idea how she finds these things! They're fucking well hidden. John said the forensic accountant was crying."

"Gail!" Holly laughed. "Stop making techs cry!"

"It's not like I try!" Gail stuck her lower lip out, petulant.

Laughing, Holly reached over the console and squeezed Gail's arm. "I love you, you insane woman."

"Did I make your lab cry?"

"No, but when you do, they cry to Rodney who just laughs."

Gail smirked. "I like Rodney, even if he went and got you that one time…"

"It worked out." Holly glanced over, smiling fondly.

"It did." Gail yawned and stretched her arms up over and behind her head, pushing them into the rooftop. "God. I wish I could figure out how the hell Safary finds these morons. I'd hire her as a civilian consultant."

Holly blinked. "Can you do that with a criminal?"

"Sure. Part of their parole deal. We did it with that girl gang and the cars. Their lead tech worked off her sentence helping us beef up our systems."

"Huh. That's kind of cool."

"We try to white hat 'em when we can. I'd rather they join the side of justice and dress uniforms, but they tend to be kind of anti-the-man."

And Holly laughed. "I married the man."

"You did. So did I." Gail smirked. "Speaking of being the man, how's being the mom going?"

"Ugh." Holly pressed the remote to open the garage. "She's angry and hurt and I gather she took it out on Jamie, so she's avoiding. I felt like I was in a time warp."

Gail had the grace to look embarrassed. "Of all the quirks to pick up from me…" She shook her head and clambered out of the car. "I'll try to talk to her, but I don't know she'll want to listen to me any more than you."

"Want and will are different things, Gail." Holly locked the car and went inside. "She's really taking the whole aunt thing badly."

With a snort, Gail asked, "Can you blame her?"

"God, no. But still. She's mad for the right reasons."

"Oh, you mean mad at them and not us?" Gail sounded relieved.

Holly hmmed. That had been one of Gail's fears, that Vivian would hold it against them. "She appears not to be mad at us, no."

"I'll take it." Gail followed Holly up the stairs, neither bothering with the lights.

She saw the present as soon as she got into the bedroom and laughed. "What the hell? A flannel shirt?"

"Hey! That's the Saskatchewan tartan!"

"Seriously, Gail. You're insane."

Her wife snorted. "Turns out Saskatchewan isn't known for fuck all." Gail kissed Holly's cheek. "I think it'll look better on you than me, though."

"Honestly, I'm not sure it'll look better on anyone." Holly picked up the shirt. It was an odd melange of gold, brown, green, red, yellow, white and black. And not in a very attractive pattern. "Well. It's very 1970s."

Gail laughed. "It's from 1961."

"Oh, even better."

Somewhere along the line, Brian had told Gail that they were, in truth, related to the Stewart Clan. Vivian had been more interested at the time (as Holly recalled, she'd been ten or so and very obsessed in her mothers' lineages). That was when Gail found out what the Stewart Clan motto was. Virescit vulnere virtus. Courage grows strong at a wound.

It was better than the Peck family slogans, she'd said. They were descendants of the English lords, or so her father had claimed once. Elaine had rolled her eyes and countered that it was really unverifiable. The Pecks had neither a tartan nor motto, but they did have a crest that touted generosity and protection (also something to do with the crusades or religion). A copy of both their (theoretical) family crests hung in the hallway.

Still. Born of that discovery, Gail started to collect new flannels for Holly. Because Holly was a lesbian and had a damned tartan.

This one, though. It was a compost yellow. Maybe a baby poop green? It was unappealing in every way except in the texture. It was very soft. And Gail was right, with her pale skin it would make her look positively sallow. Holly held it up to her arm. It wasn't doing much for her either. "How can Saskatchewan not be known for anything good?" Holly tossed the shirt at Gail.

"There's some pretty awesome mustard in the fridge." The blonde grinned and hung the shirt up. "I'm going to make a mustard rub pork butt this weekend I think."

"Ooh, I married a good woman." Laughing, Holly tossed her clothes into the hamper.

"I married a damn sexy one," countered Gail.

"We're both winning at life, then."

After showers, and after Gail cheerfully brushed and braided Holly's hair, they curled up in bed and, finally, it felt right. As Gail snuggled up along Holly's side, she exhaled. "I don't like sleeping without you," said the police inspector.

"Mm. I share that sentiment." Holly slipped her arm around Gail's shoulders and pulled her closer.

Gail laughed softly and ran her hand across Holly's stomach. "I have tomorrow off." Her suggestion was quite clear.

Holly yawned. "Good. I'll wake you up in a few hours." She snuggled more into the bed and exhaled.

The weight of her wife against her, the cool thrum of the air conditioner, and the swish of the ceiling fan, all were soothing. The house finally felt right again. Maybe it was a little too large, just for two people, but right now everything was perfect. She fell asleep, thinking of nothing more than how nice it was to have Gail home.


It was a bit of a challenge to show a whole chapter from Holly's PoV. But there you go. A few days in the life of Holly Stewart, some science and experiments and playing around. Some missing her wife. Some dealing with her idiot daughter.

Interesting reveal about Safary not actually trying to hurt anyone. The bombs are for show. Now, why would that be?