04.12 - HonorRoll
An unexpected visit moves Gail's plan into an unexpected motion. Will they catch Louise Hoffman before she kills someone?
Most of a month had gone by and Gail only had one thing to say.
"What if I'm wrong?"
Her therapist cocked his head to the side. "It has been known to happen once or twice, Gail."
"Fuck off. I'm serious. What if she's just... in the wind." Gail waved a hand in the air. "What if she's cut her losses and given up."
"How long has she and her brother been after their art?"
"All their lives, I guess."
"It's possible, but extremely unlikely, that she will give up."
"I get two more months," muttered Gail, slouching in her seat.
"Well. Then you have two more months." Gail sighed and nodded. The silence crept up. "So besides work, how are you holding up?"
Gail screwed her face up. "Mom's doing okay, which is a major relief."
"No adverse complications from her drug regime?" Her therapist sounded impressed.
"None yet. A little hand tremors and Mom said it gives her a buzz if she has more than one coffee. But. You know, she's slowing down."
"And that scares you?"
"God, does it." Gail pressed a hand to her chest. "Cuts me. She's not supposed to slow down. She's Elaine Peck. She's a force of nature." It actually hurt. She could feel the stabbing agony in her stomach. It felt like heartburn.
Her therapist nodded. "Are you more afraid of losing her or of having to take her place."
Gail flinched. Damn, the man was good. She chewed on the question for a little while, and finally found an answer. "Losing her," said Gail firmly. "I'm already the Peck at work. I can be the damn Peck Matron too. That's easy, they're all fucking terrified of me."
The man smirked. "You exude a remarkable amount of menace without actually doing anything."
"Years of practice."
Gail was dismissive of her skill in that area since it wasn't actually her doing. Oh, the people at Fifteen didn't fear her, they were just prudent and knew she had a temper. Used to have a temper. Growing up had mellowed Gail out considerably. So had seeing a therapist forever. The point was that she had never actually done anything to deserve the terror she wrought in people's hearts. Except maybe Gerald.
No, the reason that Gail was feared was the name she wore and the position she held. The last Inspector Peck with as much authority and oversight had been her father, and he had been an actual menace to humanity. Bill Peck pushed. He used his name and his power for some pretty specious goals. He was petty and vain and cruel.
Before that, the Superintendent Elaine Peck was dangerous. She wielded her power like an avenging angel. Elaine was terrifying. She had people fired, or transferred, or demoted for not making the world the way she wanted.
For a very long time, Gail thought Elaine was abusing her power. It wasn't until Gail became an inspector that she'd learned how the vast majority of her mother's fiats were for the betterment of others. All that time, Elaine had pushed for more women and for minorities and for equality. Hell, her mother had nearly sued the department over equal pay. The fact that Elaine swung her rank in a take no prisoners manner was why, even today, Elaine was feared.
Add on a million years of Pecks abusing power, or not, and Gail was feared because of what she might do. The fact that she didn't seem to care about it, that she had no serious ambition, freaked people the fuck out. They couldn't tell where she might attack, or even if she might attack, and it scared them.
Yes, Gail played that up. Why wouldn't she? It was to her advantage to have the power, after all. It let her bully things through, like favors for friends who deserved them. Like Chloe's soon to be promotion. Not that Gail had told anyone about that, but in the coming year, Inspector Chloe Price would lead all the undercover ops.
Gail was a police officer much like her mother. And goddamn she was proud of that now.
"Is that a good thing?"
She eyed her therapist. "Aren't you supposed to tell me that?"
He smirked at her. "You're deflecting."
"Isn't caring about my parents a good thing?"
"Parents or mother?"
"Touché." Gail sighed. "Fine. I still don't care about my dad. I'm ... I don't think I'm mad at him anymore, though."
"Why's that?"
Gail plucked at the arm of the couch. "So Vivian said she still is mad at her dad. She still kind of hates him. I mean, it's twenty years, right, and she won't say his name. Ever. I did once, and she just glowered."
Her therapist nodded. "And you don't feel like that about your father?"
"Bill was an asshole, he was emotionally abusive. He manipulated me, and Mom, and he was a bigot who never got over me and Steve marrying people who aren't white." She sighed. "But he taught me to drive and to swim and shooting. I mean, Dad was way better than Mom at shooting. And it's his asshattery that makes me... Uh..."
"Powerful?"
"Perceived power, sure. People are scared of me because of him and Harold and all the Pecks."
"And that doesn't make you mad?"
"Not at him. No. I feel ... I feel bad for him."
Her therapist blinked. "You feel bad for your dad?"
"Can you describe that side of my family as anything but institutional hatred?"
"Ah. You think he's a product of his family. So why not you?"
Gail blushed. "I backfired."
They'd talked around it many times. Gail tried to avoid delving into why she thought she'd escaped, or broken free from, the Peck cycle of self-destruction and hate. The answer wasn't Holly, though many people thought it was. It wasn't Oliver either, and that would be a lot closer frankly.
It was that she'd been taught her whole life to sacrifice. She'd been told she wasn't worth being a Peck. They said that Elaine's outsider nature of a non-cop family was why Gail and Steve were degenerate Pecks. They, the Pecks, decided Gail would never be anything more than a patrol cop, the second worst of the name.
But what had really happened was having her own inadequacies hammered into her had made her aware. Gail couldn't not see how people were treated, how people flinched at a sound or a look, and she couldn't not see them hurt. Gail cared about people, and it hurt her too much, so she hid behind her sarcasm and antipathy.
In a way, that was also due to her mother not talking to her outside of teaching her useful skills. She didn't, as a child, understand the why, and she struggled to learn to read people by their actions. Slowly, slowly, she'd come to be aware of what a smile really meant. Gail finally comprehended the differences between laughs: the serious one and the funny one and the embarrassed one.
The ultimate reason that Gail was who she was, and was not a dirty Peck, was that they demanded so much of her in such an abusive way, that she was molded into what a Peck should be.
Ruth looked up the moment Holly stepped off the elevator. "Dr. Stewart, there's someone here to see you."
Never had Holly seen Ruth look quite that ... stuffed. Also she rarely called Holly by her professional title. More often, Ruth greeted her with a jovial 'hey boss' or something similarly entertaining.
Holly glanced at the chairs outside her office. No one was there. "Who... they're in my office?"
Ruth nodded. "I think it's a spy."
"Oh, Ruth." Holly laughed and walked into her office.
And saw a spy.
Of course, it was a spy she knew. "Roger!" Delighted, Holly closed her door. "My god, I haven't seen you since Gail got that stupid medal."
The completely average looking man smiled. "Only you and Gail would call a medal in service for the king a 'stupid' medal." He walked over to hug her. "You look wonderful, Holly."
"You look like a normal person."
He laughed. "Your secretary thinks I look like a spy."
"Ruth is my administrative assistant, and brilliant."
The fact was, Roger Bunting was a spy. He was a British spy no less, and had been the MI6 inside man with the anti-royalist ring that Chloe, Gail, and John had infiltrated. Holly had met him a few times over the years. First when Gail and John had gotten home and met the prince. Then again, the second time, four years later when they'd been presented with medals for the event.
The third time, though, was when Gail was awarded her second order of merit. It had been a surprise, the medal and Roger's appearance, and Gail had complained a great deal. Roger had shown up, congratulated Gail, and vanished.
In the years since, Holly had come across a few of his cases. Paperwork, heavily redacted, with an alias Holly knew, fell on her desk. She'd called the authorities to point out she'd met him, which had ended in her getting elevated clearance. Technically Holly still had the clearance.
"Well, she's wrong," said Roger. "I'm retired. From the spy game."
Holly blinked. "Oh, do tell Gail. She's starting to think about it."
He barked a laugh. "Gail Peck? Heir of Slytherin? Retiring? I'd love to see that!"
"And yet, here you stand, telling me you're not a spy."
Roger shrugged. "I work for the government still, but I'm not a James Bond anymore."
Holly raised her eyebrows. "Do I get to work on spy stuff?"
"I wish it was something interesting, but I'm afraid it's murder most mundane, but perplexing."
"Oh." She sighed and Roger laughed at her. "What? I was hoping for secrets and trench coats."
"How many intelligence cases have you worked on? They're mostly boring."
"No one poisoned by radium?" It was disappointing, after all.
"Well. Poison maybe. You still have your clearance, but this is going to be a take over your day event."
"Ah. Let me fix my schedule."
"Please. I didn't want to give your keen eyed lady out there more fat to chew on."
Holly rolled her eyes and went out to Ruth's desk. "You'll never guess."
"He's really a spy and you have to run off on a mysterious mission? And no, I'm not telling Gail."
"No, it's just a priority case, Ruth. Honestly, your imagination." Holly chuckled. "However..."
Ruth sighed a long suffering sigh. "I swear I should just refuse to schedule anything for you. Fine, I will fix your schedule Dr. Stewart. Do I need to call your wife? Send her apology flowers?"
"Unless flowers is code for bacon or donuts, no." Holly smiled. "Don't worry, it's not that kind of case. Just yet another one someone with clearance needs for oversight."
Her assistant nodded. "You know ... Holly, there are very few people with your level of clearance."
"Rodney's working on it," assured Holly. "But yes. We could use another few people. I'll talk to them about it."
As she walked back into her office, Holly had to admit that Ruth had a good point. Very few people in her staff were so much as permitted to talk about those things. Rodney was the closest, and even so Holly still had a higher national security clearance. It was probably related to the Peck influence. Hell, even Vivian had a notably high clearance level.
"She's right, you know," said Roger as she walked back in. "One day you will retire."
"Working on it," Holly admitted. "Your friends should consider cultivating more pathologists."
"They have a few." Sitting on the couch, Roger opened his briefcase. "The problem is finding the combination of brains and common sense. Honestly, Holly? You're a rare creature. And you married into the Pecks, which gives me added leverage when I want to talk to you."
So she was right. Holly sighed. "I'm sorry, but my kid is a cop."
Roger laughed. "In ETF no less! They've got eyes on her."
She couldn't help it. Holly flinched. "Look, I know that's probably happening, but I don't want to think about it, okay? Let's just ... talk about the case."
The idea that her daughter, like her wife, could become embroiled in the security woes of king and countries bothered her. Holly knew how much Gail's life had been at risk when she'd gone undercover. And she knew how much danger the work had put their family in afterward.
But Gail had grown up with the hard taught lesson of sacrifice burnt into her bones. It was something she was literally born to do. The same wasn't true of Vivian or Holly. It was a choice they'd both come to accept of themselves later in life. Holly hadn't decided until she was well and truly an adult. Vivian had been twelve.
She didn't like to think about it, which wasn't a great habit to get into, she knew. Just that watching her kid step into a terribly horrible and dangerous world never felt 'okay.' It was always terrifying. It would always be terrifying.
"I'm sorry," said Roger, softly, and he held up a thumb drive. "Dead baker, evidence was stashed in an oven."
Holly blinked. Her slightly unnerved mood faded away. "Dare I ask where the baker themselves were found?"
"Fridge. I know, not all that interesting. We're pretty sure it was an attempted arson, though. Oven had the murder weapon and was cranked to high."
"Oh, please tell me it was a rolling pin," laughed Holly. "And it was marble."
Roger eyed her. "Why do you care if it's marble?"
Taking the thumb drive, Holly stuck it in her laptop. "Well besides the obvious that it wouldn't burn, if the oven was hot enough it would actually preserve some of the evidence."
"This, Doctor Stewart, is why I asked for you," said Roger with a laugh.
"Dude, women always want a party."
"Christian, I love you like a brother. You're an idiot." Vivian rotated her skewers and then put the bread on the grill. She loved potatoes, that was no secret, but she loved a good grill bread as well. When she'd found out it was legal to have a charcoal grill on her deck, Vivian had been delighted. When she found out Jamie liked Gail's grill bread, Vivian knew what to do for Jamie's birthday dinner.
Of course, Christian was certain she was screwing it up.
"Girls want flowers and champagne and a hotel and to be treated out."
"Uh, Romeo. I'm a girl. I don't want that." The champagne, though, maybe. It did taste good with strawberries after all. And hotels. Okay, hotel sex was probably as awesome as cottage sex. Or camping sex. That had been nice. A surprise shared three days off ended up camping out by the lake.
"You're not a girl girl, Peck," insisted Christian.
"Neither is Jamie." She rotated another kebab. "Look. I asked if she wanted a dinner thing, she said yes, so her firefighter friends are here. Ruby's here, so you can bang, and tomorrow we go to her parents. Done."
Christian eyed her. "And you believe her?"
"C, contrary to the bullshit TV has taught you, people tell you what they want."
"You're the one who likes Degrassi."
"Christian, leave my girl alone," announced Jamie as she stepped onto the deck. "Mike wants to know if you're coming to the next charity fight."
Christian hesitated. "Yeah. Yeah I am." He nodded and went inside.
"Thank you," said Vivian, smiling. "He means well, but..."
"But he's really stuck on how mass media makes people think about relationships. Man, how the hell is Ruby dealing with that?"
"Pretty sure it's just the sex." Vivian smirked. "Besides. I trust you. You'll tell me if you want a party."
"Which I don't." Jamie hopped onto the railing to sit and looked at the grill. "This is great. We made the salad."
Rotating the kebabs again, and flipping the bread, Vivian leaned over to kiss Jamie softly. "Happy birthday."
Jamie smiled, her eyes half closed. "Thank you. And thanks for coming with me to my parents."
"Hah, don't thank me until we do it."
"I know you, Peck. You'll do it." Jamie wore a gentle smile. "You look at the face of danger and do the right thing."
Vivian snorted. "In my personal life? You know I shove my head in the sand and hope it goes away."
That was, currently, Vivian's approach to the message she'd gotten a week before that her aunt wasn't dead yet. Her cousin had left a message. Mostly because Vivian routed all her calls right to voice mail. There was nothing Vivian could do, except offer money, and legally she wasn't allowed to at this point. Not that Vivian cared about the Armstrong fortune in the slightest, but the principle of the thing remained.
Vivian and her aunt wanted nothing to do with each other.
But Jamie... "Your Uncle Eli went after Gail and you jumped right in," said Jamie, pointedly.
"Oh. That's Eli." She waved a hand.
"They are a weird side of your family."
Vivian narrowed her eyes briefly. Did Jamie understand that those were the Armstrong Diamond people? It didn't sound like it, and if not, this wasn't the time to explain. The fundraiser hadn't been an Armstrong Event anyway, not at its heart, so maybe that made sense.
"That's what the shallow do," said Vivian, carefully.
"Lizzie's nice, though. Did you grow up with her?"
"No. She's the closest to my age, but that's kind of because there's a big age gap between a lot of them. Us. Ten years on either side of me."
"Yikes— Wait, Lizzie's 16!?"
Vivian laughed. "Yep."
Jamie was flabbergasted. "I can't tell if I'm shocked at how young she looks, or if you look old."
"Oh fuck you," said Vivian with a laugh. "I could shove you off the railing."
Her girlfriend laughed. "You could. But who would rub your feet after a long shift?"
"Hmm. And do my laundry."
"And a third of the housework. Give up, Peck. I'm awesome."
Rolling her eyes, Vivian kissed Jamie again. "Okay, Officer Awesome. Take the kebabs in."
The birthday meal was pleasant. Having the firemen over, as well as a few mutual friends, made for a rowdy but comfortable celebration. It wasn't hugely crowded, which was good. Vivian still didn't like huge crowds. That was why her own birthdays were a rotating group of adult friends. Oh sure, she still had a party here and there at places like the Penny, but for the most part those were a couple drinks and done. Thankfully Jamie was much the same way. She didn't hate crowds, but she didn't seek them out. Probably for a related reason. They both tried to stay out of the spotlight.
Vivian wasn't sure how much longer she would be able to do that, though. The spotlight had a tendency to call for Pecks, and Vivian was in a position where she would be placed in the forefront. Soon.
Take for example the current power dynamic in ETF. Vivian was mentored by Sabrina. Sabrina would be their sergeant within a year. That would land her as the next sort of mentor, and place her firmly in line for some stripes. The question for her was if she wanted that or not. Mentoring someone was a path for a career, but there were others.
Only Jamie knew of Vivian's idea to be something else than a field officer. It was a dream she hadn't really voiced to anyone, certainly not her mothers. The logical person would be Elaine, but Vivian wasn't quite sure she could trust her grandmother's memory too much. Not that she doubted Elaine would fail to have useful advice, but Vivian worried Elaine would be able to keel a secret.
That really only left Oliver as someone to ask. Maybe? No. Oliver and Gail ... Gail didn't seek out power. Neither did Oliver. Both Traci and Andy were off the list. Traci would tell Steve, who would tell everyone. Andy would blab, and she didn't want more than what she had. Neither did Nick.
Of course. Both Dov and Chloe did. And she did it in a non-horrible way. Chloe had dreams and goals and ideas. Chloe wanted to be more than just a beat cop, which was why she'd taken undercover gigs. Then she was Sgt. Price, who was in charge of UC ops. And now. Well. Soon she would be Inspector Price.
The other option was the most logical though.
Which was why Vivian knocked on the brand new office of Inspector Tran a few days later.
"Peck, come on in." Sue grinned and gestured at her domain. "How shitty is my decoration?"
Vivian smiled. "Not as bad as Anderson's." She held up a box. "I brought you something to make it better."
"Is it a wall or a desk something?"
"Wall. And I apologize in advance, I'm not an artist."
Sue looked eager and opened her present. It was a slice of a Safary bomb. Not really, of course. Those were all in evidence. But Vivian had seen enough of them to free hand draw the schematics, which in turn the rest of the bomb nerds had modeled with her and made a three dimensional partial cut of what the bombs looked like on the inside.
And Sue knew what it was. "That's the bomb from when we arrested her." She sighed. "Wow."
It was her last field run with a real bomb, after all. The final job.
"We all signed it, too."
"Even Ivan," said Sue, smirking a little. "I love it. I'm going to put it where my diploma should be."
Vivian couldn't help the laugh. "Hey, Jamie went to Seneca." She knew that Sue was a little embarrassed about her collegiate experience. Vivian never understood why. After all, Andy never went to university.
"I don't see her hanging her degree up."
"Well she's a baby fireman, so..."
Sue laughed. "Alright, so why'd they send you? Huh? You the only one without fear of the big building."
That was a good opening, realized Vivian. "Rumor had it, this building is my god given right to rule."
"Your mother skipped that one."
"Gail's ambitions are different." And Vivian waited.
Sue caught it. "You have your grandmother's dreams?"
Vivian nodded. "I mean, not the part about being Mayor. Ew. But ... I'd like to help keep cops clean. Eventually."
Silently, Sue walked to her door and closed it. "You haven't told Gail about this. I'd have heard before now."
"She hasn't been the greatest fan of me being in ETF."
"Being shot at and being political are remarkably similar." Sue sighed. "You know. When I told you there were different paths for different cops, I kinda saw you here in a decade."
Here. Head of ETF. "I mean. I could." Vivian looked around. "I'd be good at it."
"Part of me wants to suggest that this would be a better route. But... you know we're grooming you for sergeant, right?"
Vivian nodded. Her mother had skipped that rank, more or less, and no one had minded. The path to Inspector didn't necessarily require it, and Gail had a wonderful sergeant, Griggs, who held down the spot for almost thirty years. Traci on the other hand, and Dov, had both aimed at the rank to step up to Inspector eventually.
But even Dov had moved sideways. Instead of becoming Inspector of Fifteen, like many of the Division sergeants before him, Dov had moved to the big building to work for Dodge. Now he was Inspector Epstein, but that was all he would be.
"Eventually, I'd like to work in IA."
There.
It was now spoken aloud to a police officer. Someone who understood the words. Someone who knew what it really meant.
"Vivian... you hate people."
Okay, that was funny. "I don't. I don't like talking about me, but I listen. A lot. And ... I pay attention. I can keep myself out of other people's drama."
Sue looked a little skeptical. "To be honest, if I had any fears about you as a leader, it's the empathy."
"Sympathy."
"The what?" Sue eyed her and sat on her desk.
"I empathize the fuck of a lot with people. But I don't show sympathy." Since Sue still looked confused, Vivian went on. "Empathy is putting yourself in someone else's shoes. Sympathy is the compassion one."
That seemed to work. "Oh. You understand and feel for them, but you don't show it... god you are your mother's daughter."
Vivian nodded. "It hurts, feeling the stupid people do. You have to keep it at arms length sometimes..."
"Huh." Sue looked at her for a long moment. "Do you want me to talk you out of it, or help you become police superintendent?"
"Maybe the staff super," demurred Vivian.
Sue exhaled loudly. "Jesus. You're not even a constable fourth..." She trailed off. "Did you know?"
"Uh... Know what?" Now Vivian felt a little lost.
"We're promoting your class to fours."
Vivian blinked a few times. "Oh! Well. We have been cops for three years and a bit. I guess it's normal."
"Yeah. They wanted to do it before your buddy becomes a full fledged D."
"Lara?" Vivian knew she brightened up. That was great! Lara had been annoyed at being stuck as a uniformed attaché to the detectives. Finally she'd get to wear a suit.
"You tell anyone and I kick your ass to third string."
Vivian held her hands up in quick defense. "Not me."
Her boss smiled. "No. Maybe Steve."
"Totally Steve," agreed Vivian.
Sue studied Vivian's face for a while. "It's funny. You don't share any blood with the Pecks, but you're so much like Elaine used to be." Jiggling her head, as if to shake an image free, Sue sighed. "I won't tell Gail, and I will do what I can to help you get there, kid. Because... I think you don't want this for power or even security. I think you actually just want to make things better."
The world didn't get lighter. In fact, Vivian felt a new weight settle on her the second the one of doubt lifted itself. Now she was setting herself up for more than a job or a career. Vivian was establishing a life. This would be her forever.
And she was excited. Nervous, of course, but excited.
The stars aligned. Just not the way Gail expected. "Hey, Holly," she announced, walking into her wife's office and closing the door. "We have a ... situation."
A very annoyed looked up from her laptop. "Gail, I have a meeting—"
"With Roger, yeah, I know. Did you know it was a cover up?"
Holly went a little whey faced. "Oh god, please don't tell me I just broke the law." It was so sincere, Gail wanted to laugh.
"No, baby. He was investigating us." Gail walked around and kissed Holly's forehead. "He works for the Royal Security Guard now. Apparently we're getting a royal visit."
The scared expression on Holly's face faded into shock. "Wait wait, he was using a case to make sure I was still ... what? On the up and up?"
"More or less." Gail held out a folder. "The case is cool though, and I bet it's related."
"Gail Peck, did you snoop?" Holly snatched the folder with a scowl.
Gail felt miffed. "No! I would never snoop on your files. Can you imagine the paperwork and the IA shit show? Ew!"
Her wife quirked a smile. "Alright, you have a point." She opened the folder and skimmed the contents with a speed Gail still found to be a bit of a turn on. Brains. Man, she loved that smart woman. "What the hell did a murder of a baker have to do with a royal? And which royal?"
"Poison and Charlotte."
Holly blinked. "The baby?"
"She's nearly Viv's age, sweetheart," Gail pointed out, and was delighted to see Holly's dawning expression of horror. "You see I was contacted and asked if I would be willing to have lunch with her, after she tours AGO. Because she wants to see the art I saved."
With a snort, Holly closed the folder. "You didn't save it, you used it for emotional blackmail. And it's fugly."
"So I said." Gail shrugged. "Anywho. I said yes, but I had to ask if you wanted to come." She stopped and gestured at her wife.
"Oh. Someone has to keep you out of trouble," replied Holly, flippantly. "Roger lied to me, huh?"
"He just left parts out. I bet he'll come apologize soon." Gail walked over to the window and checked the soil of the lily plant. "Did you solve the poisoning?"
"No." Holly made a noise Gail recognized as her wife at her most distracted. "They beat the baker to death with a marble rolling pin."
"They?" Gail looked over in surprise.
The doctor was reading the notes from Gail, holding the papers a little close to her face. Too close. "They. There are, ah, four different prints." Holly fell silent and flipped a page. "One of them is ... huh. Well that's weird."
Over their time together, Gail had heard Holly express her surprise in myriad ways. She'd called things weird more times than Gail could count. This particular pronunciation was important. That was the voice of Holly solving a case.
Gail walked over and leaned over Holly's shoulder. The page was on hair analysis. "I didn't know you could connect hairs to prints," said Gail dryly.
"Hush," admonished Holly. "There was DNA on the rolling pin."
"You memorized the DNA?"
Holly looked up and blushed. "No. I can't do that, but ... I'm pretty sure." She scooted around to open her laptop again and pulled up her own report. "See here?"
After all this time, Gail still couldn't read DNA as well as Holly. No one could. She could, however, tell if people were related. These were not. But one on the hair analysis had the same genetic deformation as one from Holly's rolling pin. "That's not normal."
"No, it's not. I thought it was just damage from the oven. But now..."
"I think you've got a killer," said Gail.
"I have a suspect," Holly corrected. "The hairs are from the poisoning location?"
As her wife flipped the page to check, Gail brought up the notes in her head. "The bag with the vials. They don't have the lab yet, but Sue has some ideas."
Holly stopped and looked up. "That means Viv."
Gail blinked. "Why? That doesn't sound like bombs to me."
"Sue's cherry picking her," Holly pointed out, flatly and rather annoyed. "She's going to get Viv to go in and make her sergeant eventually."
Ah. Things didn't move that quickly for police, but they might for the lab. "She has to make Third first, Holly."
That reminder put a smile on Holly's face, a soft smile, though, that told Gail that Holly liked her. "You hated that day."
Gail grinned. The day she'd made Third had been very amazing. "I loved that day," she corrected. "Hated the party. The after stuff though. That was something special."
It was the first time Holly had ever cooked for her. Really cooked. Like a fancy meal and shit. Made a celebration for her. And for the first time in her life, Gail didn't hate it. She loved it. She loved Holly for remembering the little things and the everything.
"Weren't you a fourth rank when I met you?" Holly put the folder down and stepped into Gail's personal space, taking a gentle hold of the jacket lapels.
"Mmm. Yes. I was." Smiling, Gail rested her hands on Holly's waist. "I was."
"Aren't they a little late on this?"
"Not really." She closed her eyes and leaned forward, resting her forehead against Holly's. "We were a little early. They got cut loose early. They'll probably make Third in half the time. Most of why we waited was budgets."
Holly snorted a laugh. "I do not miss the Territory budget."
"Yeah." Gail smiled. "I can't imagine you would."
"How's the new class working out?"
"Oh they're okay. They're kids, you know. Every year they make me feel a little older."
A pair of warm hands cupped her face and Gail felt soft lips brushing hers. "You're not as old as I am," said Holly sweetly.
"You don't get super hyper kids in the lab." She returned the kiss, though. "You want to call Roger and we can both yell at him?"
"Oh, that sounds fun," said Holly, suddenly giddy. "Can we pretend we didn't know it was the same case?"
Gail rolled her eyes. "Why does everyone think I'm the devious one?"
"Because they've met you."
"State your full name please."
"Constable Fourth Class, Vivian Stewart Peck."
Holly smothered a smirk as she watched her daughter on the stand. It was pure coincidence that they were both on the same judge's docket, one after another. Holly's case had been quick. She'd explained the situation, the judge had rolled her eyes, and dismissed Holly in moments. That was to be expected. There wasn't a criminal court judge who didn't know Holly at this point.
In between the cases, Holly had shared a drink with the judge (coffee, only Gail would make jokes about that) and they'd chatted about things. Retirement mostly. Everyone wanted to know how it was going, and how long Holly would stay. The second half was a question Holly couldn't yet answer. She didn't know.
At best, she knew she'd stay five years. After that ... Well there were a lot of options. Part time, on demand, not at all. And Holly just wasn't sure what she wanted yet. What she did know was that working herself to the bone was out. And in five years, she'd probably not want to be in charge of everyone.
The judge understood that. And then asked if Vivian was actually Holly's mini Peck. Which was part of why Holly stuck around. See Holly had yet to see Vivian, in her serious but not dress blues, talking to a judge. She looked insanely serious. Too serious. If she wasn't Holly's daughter, it would have been hilariously sad.
The lawyers went over the very simple part of the case. It was a preliminary hearing, just to see if they were going to bother with a full blown case. The defense was trying to prove some kind of police misconduct, and Vivian had told Holly that Rich had been shouted at the week before.
Sadly, the case was likely to be stickier for Vivian, because she'd been the one who had physically assaulted the clown. Literally.
"Constable Peck. You're not a regular patrol officer "
"I'm an ETF bomb expert. Seconded to Patrol like everyone else."
"So you don't go on patrol as often as your peers?"
Vivian wore a droll expression worthy of Gail. "No, I do not."
"One might say you're out of practice with handling situations in the field."
"No," replied Vivian more calmly.
"You're not out of practice?"
"No, I'm not, but no one would say it regardless."
"Oh? Why is that?"
Vivian took a pause and then explained. "In the event an officer has been away from patrol for a length of time, they're paired with an experienced patrol officer to actively demonstrate the proper procedure and to be the lead. Constable Hanford was the primary officer in our case."
"And yet you're the one who manhandled my client."
"I restrained an aggressive and dangerous suspect who assaulted a police office."
"With water from a flower."
"Acid," corrected Vivian.
"A fact you didn't know until afterward."
"I knew," said Vivian with a shocking amount of certainty.
Of course Holly knew why. She smiled and listened to Vivian explain she had hyperosmia. A heightened sense of smell. Something Vivian called a blessing and a curse. And Vivian was able to smell the ammonia in the liquid before it sprayed. She saw the discoloration on the flower and the shirt. She knew that it was dangerous. So she restrained the suspect.
Had it been a normal trial, they might have shown the video or gotten cross testimony, but instead the judge just dismissed Vivian and pointed out the defense could have her tested, but since the liquid had been acid and Vivian's field report was confirmed by the lab, it sounded like that was a road they didn't want to follow.
The defense was told to come back with proof of misconduct. Officer Peck had acted reasonably.
Done.
"Well that was fun," muttered Vivian, tugging her tie loose.
"First time at one of those?" Holly smiled and shouldered her bag.
"Yeah. None of mine have gotten far yet. I keep expecting it and then they settle."
Laughing, Holly shook her head. "They usually plea out on me in the face of science."
Her daughter smirked. "Bit late for me to change careers."
"It's never too late. How about we do lunch?"
"I love that idea." Vivian beamed.
It was hours and hours later before Holly got a chance to relate the story to Gail. Poor Gail's workload had jumped all because of a royal visitor. Not that Gail seemed to mind, she just had a hell of a time making things secure without telling anyone why. Andy in particular was grumpy and angry about it, which made sense. It was her patrol crew who got shafted, more often than not.
"I wish she'd be more careful," said Gail, after listening to the recap.
"Gail."
"Holly. I'm the reason a guy was shot in lockup. I know how fucked up these things get. She was lucky. She's been lucky three times now. I don't want to see her when her luck fails."
That was true enough, Holly had to agree. "You going to talk to her about it?"
"I may ask Mom or Ollie," confessed Gail. "She's at that point where she won't really listen to me."
Holly frowned. "You mean career point?"
Her wife nodded. "Yeah. I remember being there. My parents had ideas about my career."
The snort jumped out of Holly's nose. "Gail, honey. Your parents always had ideas."
"I was hitting the end of our deal," muttered Gail.
More than once, Gail and Elaine had mentioned a 'deal.' "What was this mysterious deal?"
Gail looked surprised. "I never said? God. It was just if I took the exam and went to the Academy, Mom would keep the Pecks off my back for five years."
"Didn't you flunk the entrance exam?"
That dangerous smile flashed across Gail's face. "I threw it. Uncle Al had to give a squeeze to get me in."
Holly rolled her eyes. "Why did you do that, Gail?"
"Last ditch effort at not being a cop? I dunno. I'm glad it did work out, though."
"Oh?"
"I wouldn't have you otherwise."
Damn it. Gail still loved to say things like that and melt Holly's heart. She sighed and leaned across the couch, kissing Gail. "Brat."
There was a clink as Gail put her wine glass down. "You love me."
Holly was smiling as they kissed again. Because she did, very much, love Gail.
One thing led to another, as it often did with them. They kissed, slowly, like they had all the time in the world, gently touching faces and tracing shirt collars. There was no rush for anything. They knew what the other liked, what drove them wild, what made them laugh. Sometimes Gail was okay with having her neck kissed, sometimes she wasn't. Reading each other, they were good at that.
But as they kissed, Holly felt the delicious burn that told her what she really wanted. Her arms tingled. So did her legs. She felt warm, and where Gail touched her, she was on fire. All she had to do was steer Gail where she wanted. Gail's hands eased up under Holly's shirt, and the blonde muttered how much she loved Holly in court wear. As Holly undid her hair, letting it cascade down, she confessed that sometimes she picked her court wear just for Gail.
That had the desired effect.
Gail paused a brief moment, drinking in the statement, and then she laughed. It was that beautiful, brilliant laugh that Holly loved. So few people saw that laugh. Holly knew how special it was, how lucky she was to hear it. And she loved it so much.
"You're terrible," said Gail, still delivering on the smile, and she stood up. "I'm too old to fuck around on the couch, Holly."
But Holly leaned back into the arm of the couch, absently unbuttoning her shirt. "Too old to fool around?"
Gail sighed deeply and looked down at Holly, her eyes narrowed and her lips curved into a smile. "Just one thing... Before we were dating, did you unbutton your shirt like that to seduce me?"
Holly glanced down at her shirt, the top two buttons undone. "Flirt with. I thought you were a lost cause."
It remained, thought Holly as Gail joined her again on the couch, pushing a thigh between Holly's legs, the happiest she'd even been to have been proven wrong.
"Peck, how up are you on car bombs?" Sue's voice startled the fuck out of her.
Vivian blinked and looked up from her paperwork. "I studied them. Done a couple in practice."
Her boss nodded. "You read up on the stolen car ring with the Raspberry Pis?"
"The... oh. Yes." While the methodology was now incredibly old school, it had been a fun read. Especially since it had been Gail's car they blew up. Well. Fun for Pecks. It was fun because Vivian knew everyone survived and while Holly had been terrified and hurt, it was okay in the end.
"And you know how to transmit signals in parking garages?"
The subject change felt like a leading question. "You mean how to subvert low signal zones without requiring focused line of site?"
Sue nodded again. "Good. Come on."
Vivian hesitated. She wasn't on ETF this week. She'd been on court. "I'm supposed to finish my patrol report."
"McNally gave you an extension. This is an order."
Across the desks, Rich muttered 'giiiiiiirl' and Vivian flipped him off. "Yes, ma'am." She saved her work and logged out, trotting after Sue who was clearly waiting for no one.
Silent, Sue led her up to the top floor, past the offices where Gail worked, and into the biggest and most private conference room. Only when they were inside, did Sue speak. "She's a Peck and she knows bombs," and Sue turned, presenting Vivian to men and women in suits with ear pieces and a Mountie.
Spies. Or secret service. Whatever the hell they were called in the U.K. Royal Protection Service.
Holy fuck.
The Mountie she knew. Marcel gave her the barest widening of his eyes, telling her to be calm. That might have worked if he wasn't in his damned dress uniforms. Because spies, a Mountie in his dress reds, Sue being creepy sneaky, and announcing her as 'a Peck' all meant one thing.
This was about the Royal visit from Princess Charlotte.
"Do you know why we're here?" The oldest man looked at her sternly.
Vivian hesitated. Then she nodded. "Yes, sir."
"A Peck? That hardly means what it once did," said a woman, scowling.
"Elaine Peck's granddaughter." Sue sounded tired. "And Gail's daughter. She knows about the original case."
The Royal Protection agent shared a look with the oldest man who was even more creepy. Oh god, he was a spy! MI6 was here! "She would have been a child," complained one.
"That does speak for Pecks," said the woman who had been rather derisive before. She sounded a little thoughtful now.
"Does it speak well for them, though?"
The oldest man held up a hand. Everyone fell silent. "Officer Peck, how much do you know about the case regarding the anti-royalists that your mother worked?"
"I was ten," said Vivian first, and one of the spies laughed. "When they lost track of the inside agents, they told me..." She stopped. Actually it was unclear how much she was allowed to tell anyone about that. How much the Pecks knew. "I knew they were missing, that they were infiltrating anti-royals, and that they'd planned a terrorist attack to kill the Prince and his wife."
In her hesitation, the agents shared another look. "Savard?"
"She won't go on," he remarked, dryly.
"I want to speak with her and Inspector Peck," said the oldest man, clearly the boss. "Stay here, Officer."
No one argued. Everyone left (Marcel squeezed her shoulder as he walked by) and Vivian stood there, nervously, until her mother walked in. "Roger, stop making my kid piss herself."
"I'm not that nervous," grumbled Vivian.
"How much does she know?" Roger gestured at Vivian but asked Gail.
"Most of it. Not the part about the nuclear threat, but frankly I thought that was all malarkey." When Vivian snapped her head around to stare at Gail, her mother waved a hand. Relax. "She knows about the poison. Not the resurgence." Gail paused. "You know, Holly didn't pick up on that either. I think she's slipping."
Vivian bit her tongue and didn't tell Gail to stop being such a dick.
"Why doesn't she know about the new case?"
"She moved out, and she's ETF. Oh, I know why Holly and I didn't talk about it. Heh." Gail grinned. Jesus, she was making a sex comment in front of a royal spy!
Vivian gave up, slapping her mother's arm. "Seriously? MI6 is right there!"
"What? That's my contact when I was under." Gail scowled and rubbed her arm. "He's the one who found us. And he's retired."
"They do that?"
The ex-spy, Roger, sighed. "I could have used you on the terrorists the year after." He eyed Vivian. "She takes after Holly, though."
"Ass, you know she's adopted." Gail was amused. "They were white supremacists," she added for Vivian. "And I said no because—"
"I know that one," muttered Vivian. "Are we airing our entire family history out for—" She cut herself off. She'd been about to call him 'this guy' and that felt incredibly rude and inappropriate.
"He probably knows all of it," said Gail, flippantly.
"God help me, Gail, you know I'm not that kind of spy." Roger looked tolerantly amused. "I'm in charge of Royal Protection in Canada, young Peck." Then he looked at Gail. "You know if we bring her in on this, she's in for keeps."
"She's a Peck, Roger. She's been in this for keeps since she was ten." There was a subtle change to Gail's voice as she spoke. She was slightly more serious and reserved about the matter.
Roger sighed. "You're like a fish, Gail. You don't even know you're in the water."
Her mother was grim for a change. "Oh I know, Roger. I know. And so does Viv. But I didn't pick her, Sue did. And Sue did for a reason. The kid's the best bomb tech they've grabbed in years."
The spy looked at Vivian for a long minute. "I always wondered what would happen if you two had a kid." He sighed. "Alright. Princess Charlotte is coming to Canada."
"Yeah, that's kinda all over the news," Vivian said, pointedly.
Roger smirked. "There's a group of anti-royalists trying to kill her. One of their plans is — was poison. They killed a baker who was hired for a luncheon."
Vivian made a face. "A baker? Seriously? They didn't think that would be suspicious?"
"Presumably he fought back," said Roger.
"No self defense wounds," remarked Gail, looking at her own fingernails. Vivian knew that pose. That was Gail's negligent genius pose. "It's more likely he just said no and someone lost their temper."
That made the situation dangerous in a different way, realized Vivian. "Slightly unhinged anti-royals. And bombs?"
"Well that was this morning's revelation," her mother said with a deep sigh. "You'll never guess whose DNA was found at the lab?"
Vivian frowned. Bombs. Her mother looking annoyed. Sue. The lab raid had been done by a different team the day before. There was no sign of a bomb, and Vivian had skimmed the report that morning. Simple poison lab. If those could be called 'simple.' But. Now her mother and spies were implying there was a bomb. And DNA that was a shock.
There was only one possible answer.
"Are you fucking kidding me? Louise Hoffman?"
With a wry, but delighted, smile, Gail gestured at Vivian and looked at Roger. "I present to you, the latest in generations of Pecks."
Getting her daughter up to speed on the case took the rest of the day. At Sue's insistence, and following a background check, they'd brought in Sabrina Suan, Vivian's mentor and a soon-to-be sergeant (maybe in a year). Gail liked Sabrina. The woman was smart, she thought before she acted, and she seemed tolerantly amused by Vivian.
Anyone who spent a lot of time with Vivian seemed to fall into a world of amusement. Not because she was funny, but because she was different. Vivian didn't smalltalk any more than Gail or Holly did, and she didn't obsess over tv shows or movies (or books, for that matter). She obsessed over her work, which Gail wasn't a super fan of, but she understood the need.
Clinging to the part of life that always made sense ... made sense. Gail did the same thing. But Vivian, she hung on to the job like Elaine had. Like her life was forever intertwined with her role as a police officer. And Elaine had a rough time after leaving the force. The odds were low that Vivian would be forced out like Elaine and other Pecks were, but it struck the same way.
Gail would have to talk to her mother about it later. The immediate issue was the Princess Charlotte.
Propping her feet up on her desk, Gail stared at her wall. It still was up and showing the case as Gail had demonstrated the evidence to ETF. History. A case, her final undercover case, had come back to haunt her.
Sixteen years ago, Gail had spent months undercover with John and Chloe, infiltrating an anti-royalist enclave. She'd dyed her hair black and punched a cop (who had not been in on the case) and been held at gun point, all while trying to figure out if the threat was serious.
They had known it was a real threat, but a lot of people made real and impossible threats. That one had all the signs of being feasible and possible. When Chloe had contacted them with absolute proof of the trial run, which had ended in the death of a driver, they had to get involved. Chloe needed backup.
Gail had been the new wheel man. She had a cover identity of a freelance luxury car driver who didn't work for any particular company at the time. John had been her ex-boyfriend who was a thug. Chloe, who had been undercover for two months by then, was their contract, a trustworthy dealer. As much as anyone could be.
Still, it took them a long time to build the trust needed and get at the heart of the case. The plan was to poison the prince and his wife at a luncheon with the new Mayor of Toronto. Gail remembered making a flippant comment that foisting the blame to the mayor would be great, he was a moron.
That had not gone over well with the criminals. They wanted the world to know that Canada needed no queen and no king after. Canada should be free.
In the end, they'd been able to prevent any further deaths (except the idiot who took off on a high speed car chase and smashed into a tree on his own). Gail had gone home and Holly had finally been honest about her feelings of Gail's job. No more undercover. Holly meant too much.
"Hey," said John, opening the door. "Go home."
"Knock first." She tapped her watch, wiping and locking her magic wall.
But John had seen enough. "That was a long time ago, Gail."
"It's funny how it never really goes away."
"Are the groups related?"
"No, thankfully." Gail swung her feet down and got up. "Poison is pretty common."
Her sergeant laughed. "God, ain't it? What was it, seven different possible groups trying to kill Wills the same way? And only that one was serious. I liked the blow darts guys."
Gail chuckled. "That was a great idea. No one would notice a blow dart," she drawled sarcastically.
John tried not to laugh and failed. "Remember when Chloe walked out of their cell, holding a fucking blow tube?"
The look on Chloe's face had been hilarious. Priceless even. "I wish we'd let them take it on the subway," said Gail wistfully. "But then I'd just be depressed that no one noticed."
"Yeah, people suck." John shook his head. "You worried?"
Gail stared at her blank wall. "No. Not about the kid. And not about the Royal kid either."
"I don't think you're supposed to call a princess a kid."
"She's younger than my kid," pointed out Gail.
She had a photo of Vivian talking to George and Charlotte. Vivian was older than both the royals, but at the time the teenager had been pre-growth spurt so they all looked roughly of a height. Gail had asked what the conversation was about, and Vivian admitted that it was how they all dealt with their parents being in danger.
That was really when Gail pulled herself back from the most dangerous work. She knew it would limit any career path she took, but that was okay. Gail didn't like the Peck she became when she was in charge of too much. She didn't want to fall back into old patterns and she didn't want to lose the Gail that Holly loved. So for her, that was the only right choice.
Be there for her wife, her kid, and her family.
Family before policing.
Well. Somewhat. Gail didn't know how to unravel her psyche from the police force just yet. She was tangled up in it, in the work and the meaning of her own self in it. It would be nice if she could separate them. Maybe then she could truly see a life for herself outside.
Because the fact was that as Staff Inspector and head of OC, this was her peak. Her pinnacle. And when she stopped being able to achieve success at that spot, there was no other place to go. There was no other home on the force for her. This and only this was where Gail belonged as a cop.
Holly would probably retire at 70. Gail would be 63 then. What if... What if she too retired with her wife? That was at least nine years away. Probably twelve. Gail would probably be asked to help with SIU for another five. Make it another seventeen years with this work?
It used to feel awesome, knowing what she was and that the work she did had a purpose. Now it just felt a little depressing.
"I feel old, John," she said to her friend.
"I'm older than you are."
"Yeah? You feel old?"
He hesitated. "Yeah. Yeah I do. I think about Griggs, dying with his boots on, still a day player. How old was he?"
"Seventy six."
"I don't want to do that. I'm going to be sixty soon, Gail."
She smiled at John. "What do you want to do?"
The man looked at her and then his eyes flicked to the wall. A relatively clean picture of Elaine hung beside an empty frame. Gail had removed her father's picture, a design choice that had not been her own, and left it empty. To her, it represented the deaths she'd been unable to prevent.
"I'm almost a twice twenty man," said John slowly. "I'm a sergeant who gets an inspectors' pay rate. I'm the staff sergeant of organized crime, helping oversee three divisions. I'm decorated." He exhaled. "And I think I'm probably going to die in my boots. I can't see anything other than what I am, Gail."
Gail sighed. "Me neither," she admitted. "But I want to."
"I guess that's the problem of being us," mused John. "We're cops because if we weren't, we'd be criminals, or worse."
Gail barked a laugh. "What's worse than a criminal, Simmons?"
Deadpan, John replied, "A politician."
An odd rhyme was stuck in Holly's head.
"The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true."
She stared at her computer screen. The poison was weirdly similar to the one Gail had stumbled across in her undercover op. Not the same, not at all, and it didn't seem to be related. And yet. It was bugging the hell out of her.
Too much was similar. It was the protein structure. Maybe. It wasn't a derivative, and it wasn't a degradation. It was damned familiar to something Holly had seen before. But that was the problem with being fucking old. She was sixty and had held her job for decades. More than half her life had been the work she loved.
Naturally after than long, she'd seen a lot of things, and patterns built up. Somewhere, somehow she had found a pattern, but her aging neurons couldn't properly place it or name it. What was it?
Thermal degradation. No. There were types of poisons that aged poorly on their own. But that wasn't it. Holly took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Things aged in planned and set ways. Elements had a half life.
None of that was right, none of it was the answer she wanted.
This poison was like the distant cousin of the original. That poison was common. This poison was common. But they weren't the same in the ways that Holly would attribute to a derivative.
Holly hated not remembering. Getting old sucked. And it wasn't a case of forgetting like Elaine was suffering, it was just too much information. Holly had read thousands of books and stored so much data up in her head, it was possible she'd overloaded herself.
What was the thing Gail said? Sometimes the best way to remember was to distract.
Okay. Fine. She had Danny Kaye stuck in her head.
"The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true! But there's been a change. They broke the chalice from the palace and replaced it with a flagon with the figure of a dragon."
That wasn't actually the quote. It was a dialogue. She knew that. But Holly didn't have Gail to play off, so she went on thinking about the movie. "The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon. The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true. Just remember that."
Holly stopped.
Flagon. Dragon. Pestle. Poison.
What if it was the same poison made in a different location? A different holder? Could it be bleeding from a container? Cross-contamination? From what?
"Fuck me sideways with a chainsaw," said Holly under her breath, co-opting one of Gail's more horrific sayings. Holly pulled up the chemical analysis. It would work. She tapped her phone and called her wife. "Gail, I need you to get me a sample of the cutlery."
"From what now?"
"Where was the Princess supposed to eat?"
"Oh, the poison guys? Uh... private residence. You want the forks and knives?"
Holly nodded. "I do. The poison has some trace elements that are causing it to differ from the expected baseline. Metallic elements."
Bless her heart, Gail caught on. "You think they were going to poison the cutlery to kill her. So ... they dip tested it? Accidentally got some trace on the dead baker?" Gail stopped and made a noise Holly knew. The detective was frowning. "Why the fork if they had access to the food?"
"Minimize damage?"
"Yeah, people don't actually do that. What's a few innocent bystanders if you're killing a queen?"
Holly huffed. Damn it. Gail had a point. "I hate you."
"I know," said Gail blithely. "I'll get you the demitasse if you want."
"A sample. I have some from the kitchen. Do a compare. See if I'm smoking some choice weed."
Gail laughed. A brilliant, cheery, happy laugh. "How many metals fit your bill?"
"Depends what happen when I dip them."
"Wait, you don't know? So it could be trace from the kitchen."
"Yeah, I know." Holly exhaled loudly. "It was only on the one batch."
"So far," said Gail, and her tone caught Holly's attention. "You don't always test every sample."
"Well. No." Holly frowned. "You think we need to. What if the trace was from the brew location."
"Badda boom."
"I truly dislike when you're more clever than I am at my own job. I hope you know that."
"It's payback for all the times you talked science in your sleep at me." Her wife laughed. "And you and I know I'd never solve a case without you."
"As long as you know that," grumbled Holly.
"Listen, you sound stuck. Why don't we kick out and go to the 6pm Yoga class?"
She was stuck. "I've been reciting bits of The Court Jester all day," she confessed.
"Wow." Gail chuckled. "Tell you what, let's meet at home and carpool? John's been trying to kick me out for hours."
Holly glanced at her watch. It was four PM. "How mean were you to him?"
"I was catching ETF up on the cases."
"Go home," said Holly, firmly. "I'll be there in an hour."
"If not, I'm having Gerald kidnap you. Love you."
"Love you, too, Gail."
Holly smiled as she hung up. Talking to Gail nearly always calmed her down. There was something about Gail that made her happy. Neurons. Brain chemicals. So even if her idea was shot down (and damn Gail for being right), Holly was more at ease. Her mind wasn't racing quite so much.
Gail had a point. The fork would have been painted with poison, which shouldn't have contaminated the sample. It might have been dipped, but this was more prevalent. This was the kind of fuck up she would expect to see if someone had mixed the poison in a chop shop or something.
Based on the report from the raid, that wasn't the case. Holly pulled up the results on all the samples. The ones from the raid were contaminated. Mostly. The samples from the poison being actively mixed wasn't too bad, but the sealed vials were different. A small set had been examined, all having higher levels of the metal and other trace elements that just did not exist in the lab.
Okay. Step back further. Holly found the oldest sample, the one that via chemical analysis was the oldest, and found it had no trace of the metals. Okay. That was... She cut her own thoughts off and compared it to the poison Gail and Chloe had collected all those years ago.
Not the same. But so close. So fucking close. It was the same formula, mixed by different people.
"That makes sense," said Holly firmly. "It's got to be in the same cookbook." She tapped an email to Chloe, who had spent more time undercover, asking her if the anti-royalists had any sort of handbook.
It wouldn't be too uncommon. Back in the day, Holly had picked up a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook. Often impossible to find unedited, the book was most people's first foray into the world of protests and rebellion. It wasn't a kind book, but it was how people learned how to fight back.
When Vivian had been in college, Holly had dug the book out and shared it. The young woman had been interested in the depiction of how to make drugs and bombs and napalm at home. But while Vivian was quick to point out that the Internet had made the book obsolete as a how-to manual, she thought it was remarkably insightful into the mind of the angry.
The Internet had changed a lot of things. People could organize better, faster, far more effectively than when Holly was an angry youth. She'd been reliant on word of mouth when protesting animal cruelty and wars. By the time she'd met Gail, Twitter and Facebook made planing protests easier. Once Vivian was a teen, there were dedicated protest apps.
All that made Holly suspect there was a resource used by the underground movements. The dark web, as they said. She scoffed at the notion, privately. It wasn't a dark web, it was a series of perfectly innocuous websites that spewed so much content only people in the know could find things. And they too had gotten better at organizing. The state of politics had been forever impacted by places like 4chan, for example.
As she ruminated on the odds, Chloe replied to the email with, of all things, an attached PDF of the cookbook. She'd kept a copy and said it was probably included in the evidence, but this was the updated version.
And damned if it didn't have the recipe Holly was after.
"Okay," Holly muttered to herself. "Two groups, same idea. Nothing new." She skimmed through and her eyes landed on a set of directions on how to make a pipe bomb. It was inanely familiar. She kicked her brain and then the memory clicked. "Oh my god," muttered Holly.
Pulling up a report by Constable Vivian Peck, about a bomb she'd dismantled in Holly's lab, one she'd taken out of a bank, Holly found her answer.
There was the same goddamn metal.
She double checked the samples from a fake vault setup. Same fucking metal.
The poison was made at the same location as someone who was crafting a bomb.
"Are you sure?"
Vivian counted to ten. Slowly. Silently. "I went over every inch of the room," she told the head of security. "We all did. There's no trace of bombs anywhere in here."
"But—"
"We scanned every single path, every route, even the back stairs. The Cyranose didn't pick up a single particle."
"Okay, but it could be wrong," insisted the head of security at AGO. Beside him, some upper management doofus nodded.
It was really shitty when people asked an expert to come in and then tried to act like they knew more than the expert. Vivian wasn't the greatest expert at everything ETF did. She was great at scaling buildings, she was very good at navigating a raid while using her HUD to access cameras. She could pilot Robby the Bomb Bot better than anyone else. Even the designers had been impressed by that knack.
But above all things, she was fucking awesome at bombs. Bombs and bots. Finally Vivian had found her particular talents. Aspects of policing that she just understood. The computers and the plans and the schematics. They all made perfect sense to her. And better than just that, she saw how they fit into crime.
Basically she was Gail and Holly's kid. And right now, she was feeling very much Gail as she considered how she could tell the meathead rent-a-cops to shove it up their asses, without getting in trouble.
That was probably why she had Sabrina around.
"Sir, not to put too fine a point to it, but it's more likely that we'd have a false positive than a false negative," said Sabrina, soothingly. "The Cyranose can detect the faintest traces of explosives. It already has too many false hits on the fresh paint in your restoration lab. Remember? Constable Peck spent her whole week in there, checking everything."
The men grumbled. Vivian wanted to grumble. Not that she minded being in the art restoration lab, it had been pretty cool, and Harold had been there. But god, it was dull work. She had to do it in case there actually was a bomb, but she had to do it with supervision from the lab. Thankfully Wayne, the co-head of Holly's evidence lab, was pretty chill. He knew he could trust Vivian to respect the chain of evidence.
Following up seven straight days of that with four middle of the night scans of the rest of the building, though (something she could only do after hours, unless they wanted to raise suspicion), had been draining. Vivian hadn't actually seen Jamie awake in 14 days.
The only reason she'd see Christian was he had the bad luck to be assigned to her case as Patrol. Lara was their babysitting detective. It was nice to work with her friends again. She missed them when she did ETF shit. She was even missing Rich. A little. Maybe.
"Well... " The manager looked at Vivian. "How old is she?"
Yes, she officially missed Rich.
"Constable Peck's age isn't an issue here. She has more experience with bombs..." Sabrina paused. "She has a degree in, what was it?"
"Engineering," replied Vivian. When the manager stared at her, she decided not to mention she only had a bachelors. Grab the bonus points where she could. That had the benefit of shutting them up and letting Vivian pack up her gear.
"You should have mentioned that before," said Sabrina under her breath.
Vivian snorted and carefully tucked the Cyranose in its padded case. "I only have a BSE."
"Ever gonna go for seconds?"
"No, I don't think so." Vivian looked up. "This is what I want to be."
Sabrina smiled. "You're weird, Peck."
"Heard that before." She sealed the case and stood up, slinging it onto her shoulder. "Okay so we've checked downstairs and Trish and Billy are upstairs doing another sweep. Can we go home now?"
With a wince, Sabrina shook her head. "Remember this is what you wanna be, cause Tran wants us to review videos."
Vivian sighed. "I hate you. You know that, right?"
"Hate Tran, I argued we'd pulled too many hours."
"Can we at least get breakfast?"
Alas, breakfast was a delivery from the idiot Goff. Thankfully he was aided by Gagnon, who was decidedly not stupid. Naturally Gail called them Goofus and Galant. Goofus brought breakfast burritos with salsa. Galant somehow remembered how Vivian liked her coffee.
It was a stupid thing. Vivian knew she could eat tomatoes outside the house. She used to. But it just was a thing she didn't do consciously anymore. The burrito having salsa with raw tomatoes didn't bother her, but Vivian wouldn't have ordered it on her own. The pair also delivered video units so they could watch the security tapes.
At least it wasn't in the basement.
Joining them, Christian and Lara pulled up chairs. "So I thought the AV squad did this," said Lara as she sat down.
"They do." Sabrina started the video. "And they are. But they are looking for tampering and shit. We are looking for weird shit."
"Find the wrong," said Christian. "God, I hated this as a rook."
"High priority cases require highly skilled operatives." Vivian tossed her coffee into the trash. "You look for suspicious people, I'll look for bombs and tech."
Lara made a surprised noise. "You can do that?"
"Course she can," said Christian. "She can tell you what kind of gun that guard is carrying." He pointed at the suited man in the corner. One of Roger's agents.
"9mm, GLOCK 17."
The man glanced at her and smirked, but said nothing.
Lara just stared at Vivian. "What? No. No way." She turned to the agent. "Is she right?"
He hesitated and the nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
"Oh my god..l can you do his ankle gun?"
"He's not wearing one. Can we get to work?" Vivian pulled on her headset.
It was pretty much the most boring job one could have in ETF. And as much as Vivian wanted to dump it off on the AV squad, the practical reason she was there was her ability to spot the armed maniacs and know what they were carrying. Her other job was because Gail and Roger had drilled her and Sabrina with the faces of every suspect on their watch lists until their eyes bled.
That was the other reason she hadn't seen Jamie much. Vivian had spent a lot of time memorizing faces. It was an easier task for Vivian than Sabrina, but she and Sabrina had holed up in the station until they had them all committed to memory. On top of that, Vivian had the extra work of studying historical ways people blew up art. That was depressing.
With all that data crammed in her head, Vivian had to be on the ball and pay attention.
In school, she'd written a paper about the ineffectiveness of CATSA and TSA type jobs in general. Everyone saw the tools, the x-ray scanner and the metal detector. They assumed that since the tools were good, things wouldn't get past. But in the mid 2010s, numerous studies came out, highlighting the fact that US TSA agents missed 95% of contraband, and had caught nothing more than they normally would have.
Now. The obvious reason was managerial. They were pressured to scan people effectively but quickly, so they threw more people at the problem. And the new people, their training was, perhaps, a little lax. Thus more false positives and angry people. So now one could no longer trust the people, and worse they couldn't trust people who had a mind numbingly boring job. It was worse than being a cashier, and there was far less by way of happy customers.
The larger issue, as Vivian saw it, was the tools. People assumed the TSA agencies had modern equipment. They didn't any more than the cops did. And with the equipment they had, there was really a limit.
Take, for example, luggage through the x-ray. A two dimensional picture of items in a suitcase, often outlined with colored lines, and that was it. Vivian had done that work enough herself, especially recently, using the deep penetrating scan. Big Penn, as she'd taken to calling it, was great until it wasn't. She had often found herself trying to figure out what the hell a bright, thin, outline was. A knife? A wire? A pen? Worse, a grey box with wires could be a laptop and charger or an ebook.
Everyone could be pulled aside and checked, but that would piss off travelers. Of course, Vivian knew now how hard it was to work when people weren't happy. In general not many people liked cops, and that was a very deserved reputation. The less happy the people served were, the harder it was to keep happy.
None of which addressed the issue that the human mind wasn't actually great at spotting oddities. It could be, if one was trained, but how many people noticed that elevators had different dings for up and down? As Elaine would say, no one paid enough attention. Ever.
That was why most of Elaine's lessons, from the time Vivian was a teen, was about reading people to be a great cop. Actually Elaine's reason was not to make a great cop, like Gail and Steve, but to help Vivian connect with people. The side benefit was that it helped her be a damn good cop.
And as a damn good cop, she spotted something weird.
"She looks sketchy as hell," muttered Christian, sharing her monitor.
"The guard?" Vivian paused the video.
"Yeah, she's doing that thing you do, when you want to hide from cameras."
"You me, or you general?"
"You you, check it out." Christian waved a hand.
They re-ran the moment and the guard ducked, turning to talk to a visitor at the exact right second. The camera never saw her face. If she was a her. Looked like a her. "She has a mini computer," noted Vivian. "Look at that in her hand."
"That isn't a phone?"
"No one has phones with antenna. Not since the early 2000s."
"I feel old," muttered Christian. "What's she doing with it?"
Vivian frowned and watched the woman move. "No.. no way, hey, they tag the paintings right? RFID? Sabrina, where's the scanner?"
Sabrina blinked. "In my bag, why?"
"You know you can short out RFID, right?"
"Sure, in a microwave."
Vivian grinned. "Or hit 'em with a hammer. Thing is, if you tagged a painting, you have to tag it in a way that won't harm the painting, right? Can't hurt the art."
Her mentor looked interested. "The frame?"
"That's where you'd think, but someone who steals a painting takes it out of the frame. So the tag has to be very carefully placed. Obviously you don't plan to remove it, since the tags would go with."
Christian spoke up. "That's not a signal jammer is it?"
"Jammer or scanner. If she's trying to make sure it's the right painting..."
"How would she know?" Sabrina sounded confused.
Grimly, Lara replied. "Because a guard had access to the RFID tags in order to scan for stolen items. Her own scanner would tell her if the museum had a fake. But Vivian, that couldn't be..."
"Louise Hoffman? Sure could. Right height and build." Vivian pulled out her scanner and turned to the Royal agent. "I need to test my theory."
Behind her, Vivian heard Lara asking why Vivian was asking the guard, and Sabrina shushed her. The Royal guard nodded and went with Vivian to talk to the museum permanent guards, who hooked her into their system. Then they closed off the room, for cleaning, and Vivian went in to check.
The RFID tag still was correct, or at least it still matched the system. Assuming the system hadn't been tampered with, of course. Which Vivian would have done. She quickly scanned a few more paintings, and surreptitiously a few more on the walk back, and skidded into the computer the second she hit the door in their little pseudo AV lab.
"Talk to me, Peck," said Sabrina, gently reminding her that she had a job.
"A few thoughts. First, I'm checking the system to see how many times someone queried this painting. I want to see if there's a check for the same timestamp as the suspect. Second, I need to make sure the system hasn't been tampered with. I can't do a full forensic check from here, but I can do a quick historical look up and make sure the RFID tag matches what the system says from all the way back and compare it what we recorded when we handed it over for, evidence. Third, I pulled some other tags to use as a baseline to compare. See if there are other paintings someone's scanning."
Her fellow rookies were dead silent. Sabrina was some what used to those thoughts coming from Vivian. "I'll call forensics for a full review. Who's that guard, Volk?"
Lara startled. "Oh!" She tapped on her tablet. "Lina LaBrek. She's been a guard for a couple months."
Vivian frowned. "Before or after the painting was moved— before or after we decided to move the painting here?" When Lara hesitated, Vivian gave the date her mother got the sign off. It was before that, but not by much. "Jesus... Sabrina, what if he leaked?"
"Walter? That's a possibility." Sabrina was on her phone already. "Christian, you find her on more tape?"
"Yes, ma'am. And she's shifty as hell. But I got her in the garage every day, like she's scoping it out. I'm hanging on to this for you, Viv."
That was not a good sign, mused Vivian. Her quick dig into the system showed no tampering. RFIDs matched and the suspect had only scanned the paintings and items that had belonged to the Hoffman family. Vivian dumped her diagnostics into the reporting app they used with the lab, and spun the chair around. Sabrina was now talking to what sounded like Gail.
"Show me, C," she asked her roommate and friend.
He rewound the video and Vivian felt a chill. Christian was right to ask her to look. There was a way people looked when setting bombs. People who were tricked into holding IEDs tended to have a dead man walking expression. Suicide bombers had an almost sereneness in their panic because no one really wanted to die. Bombers for destruction and not death, like Safary, looked crafty and clever. But killers...
People made fun of what Pecks did for memory skills and practice. And Vivian understood why. Even Elaine, who had been retired for 30 some years still studied and memorized the important Peck things. She knew what every driver's license in the country looked like, going back fifty years. Ditto all the border states in the USA. Naturally so did Vivian. Plus passports and voter IDs and every other type of identification.
They also studied people. Vivian was shit at it when she wasn't in full on cop mode, which was why she had a hell of a time understanding what people were thinking in a more intimate setting. Most women found cop-mode a turn off, and those who didn't wanted to play with handcuffs.
People who set bombs to kill, people who killed, had an expression Vivian was never able to fully describe. It wasn't evil, it was just ... People looked deadly. There was no other way to describe it. They looked like they were going to kill. And it was part resignation and part determination.
As the suspect turned, and her face was caught in the reflection of a car window, Vivian knew two things.
First, the woman was Louise Hoffman.
Second, she was scoping the place for a bomb.
"Oh fuck..." The room fell silent. "Lara, can you find her right now?"
"Working on it," said Lara, listening intently to a radio.
God. Vivian rubbed her face. If she was going to blow up someone today, it would be someone important. Because if she had lost everything, her family and her inheritance, then she'd want everyone to know that she'd been hurt. And she'd want to hurt them back.
She turned to the Royal Protection Agent. "What time is your... uh. When is she getting here?"
The man nodded and looked at his watch. "Half hour. I can call it off if you have proof."
"I don't..." Vivian looked at Sabrina. "If we can't find her, then she may still be here. I don't know..."
"We don't have proof. Right. Hi, Inspector Peck, we have a positive on Louise Hoffman being here, and a high probability that she might be dangerous... IED." Sabrina closed her eyes. "No, ma'am. Volk and Fuller are looking now. It's an alias... Lina LaBrek. ...Lina with an I, LaBrek only with a K. ... No, I don't know if that's the only name she's working under." Sabrina snapped and pointed at Vivian.
Right. Vivian turned to the very confused museum guard. "I need a list of all your female guards who were on shift ... wait. How many female guards do you have?"
"Forty-seven."
"I can do that fast enough. Show me all of them." When the guard didn't movie, Vivian dropped her voice and used a tone she'd heard three times in her life, but somehow summoned it from the depths of her soul. One word. "Now."
The guard and Christian jumped. "Jesus, you sounded like Gail," muttered Christian.
"Now's the time to spin up that Peck skill," muttered Vivian and she started to scroll through the guards.
Gail snapped, using a voice she knew her mother would be proud up. "I want an answer and I want it now. How the hell did she pass your background check?"
The head of security at AGO winced. "Well it's the timing. After we were told about the need for heightened security, we ran checks everyone new. Finger prints and basic backgrounds. But we didn't DNA check and we didn't recheck."
She held up a hand to stem the tides of babble. "Stop."
He did. Thank god.
Roger cleared his throat. "This background check is deplorable," he said cooly. "Inspector Peck is right."
There was something about Roger's tone that implied Gail was out of line with her anger. Damn brits. "It was crap. You would have let Dahmer in."
Again, Roger cleared his throat. Oh fine. Gail threw her hands up and stomped to the deck door of her office and pushed it open, embracing the sticky July heat. She pulled her cellphone out and dialed Sue's number. "It's bad," she told her friend the moment Sue picked up.
"I'm sending a van out, but how bad?"
"Louise Hoffman is a guard, skulking around the garage."
"I know that. Sabrina said Vivian thinks it's a car bomb."
"Most likely," agreed Gail. "It matches her style."
"You can't find her?"
"No. We have uniforms checking the building, but ... she hasn't been seen on camera. She's really good at avoiding them."
"So we have no proof she's there at all." Sue understood. "And if too many cops show up, then we might scare her off and never get her. But if she's here, her target is ..." Sue trailed off, and Gail could hear the expression of horror.
"Then we kill the Princess Royal, and second in line for the throne. Yeah."
"Jesus, I do not want your job, Peck."
"Fuck off, Tran. Just ... If you need anyone. Anything. Today? I will get it."
"Is the Princess still going?"
"Is there. As soon as we've spotted Louise, I'll be where ever she is." The door behind her creaked. "I'll call you if I find anything."
"Ditto." And Sue hung up.
Roger's threat clearing was really quite familiar. "I understand you're mad. We should have demanded a re-check."
"That was substandard, Rog. Even a tv fake identity holds up better than that one."
"She had to have known," pointed out the King's man.
And Gail knew that. She knew. "Walter told her," she said quietly.
"If this puts her at risk, we will press charges."
"I'll deal with him tomorrow. Today ... I'm putting him in solitary and having his guards checked." Gail leaned on the railing. "I don't see how we can search the building without tipping her off."
Roger was silent and leaned beside Gail, clearly thinking. "Do you know what she said this morning well I called her? Asked if she'd reconsider the timing?" Gail shook her head. "She quoted her great aunt."
It took a moment but Gail laughed. "Not bloody likely?"
"Indeed," said Roger, nearly laughing. "If this was anyone else, what would you do?"
"Easy, dress my guys up like civis and guards and have 'em look for her at the museum. Send a couple Ds to the addresses. Go to the museum myself and run it from there."
"I think," said Roger slowly. "I think this is indeed the right choice. And you and I will go. The Princess trusts you, Gail."
Gail snorted. "She barely knows me, Roger. Shit, you hardly do!"
"True. True. But your record speaks for itself." He hesitated, patted her shoulder, and went inside.
She was old, recognized Gail. She didn't want to be in charge of this, as the heady responsibility of an air to the throne was incredibly daunting. Not to mention the volume of negative emotions for her.
When she'd come back from protecting the Prince of Wales, Gail had been flummoxed by how agonized Holly was. Didn't she know this was Gail's life? That Holly had married an obsessed woman who put others in front of her? And yet, when Holly had sobbed in the shower, Gail felt her universe shift.
Before, it had always been her work first, then others, then herself. But suddenly Gail realized her choice. Putting Holly, and Vivian, first felt so much more important to her. Gail didn't want to lose the people she loved, and if that meant stepping away from accolades and praises and power, then goddamn it, she would. That was her choice. The job or the family, and she picked family. She refused promotions and stood in the same job for almost a decade now because she wanted her family.
That did mean all the negative emotions that had come up after the last time saving crown and country were back.
Gail sighed and shoved the feelings of being a bad wife out of her head. She called Andy and explained what she needed, and why. She called Frankie and asked for the best detectives. She called Chloe and put her in charge of Andy and Frankie, leaving Gail free to monitor the big picture. Then she called the prison to have Walter moved to solitary, which involved a side call to a judge who understood and expedited the order.
All that before the lunchtime visit of Charlotte, Princess Royal to the AGO, and no one had a sight of goddamned Louise Hoffman.
As Gail pulled up at the museum, she was surprised to see Duncan working the security booth. "Boss," he said simply. "You ain't parking in here, are you?"
"No, I'm taking the outside. You're not letting civilians in, are you?"
Duncan snorted and pointed at the sign. Lot Full. And another uniform, Gagnon, was in disguise explaining to a woman that the museum lot was partly closed and she'd have to go across the street. "Inspector Price is pretty damn clear."
"Where'd you put Goff?"
"Back at the station. He's not ready for this."
Out of the mouths of babes, mused Gail.
Inside the building, Vivian and Sabrina were in their tactical uniforms of black shirts and grey cargo pants. They had headphones on and were studiously watching a video. Chloe and Sue were at another monitor, each talking quietly into their own headset. Lara Volk and Christian were in the uniform of a museum guard, and looked at Gail the moment she walked in.
"No news," said Gail, loud enough that everyone looked up. "Chloe, please give me something good."
"We have eyes on. Hoffman just came in."
Gail looked over at the Royal Protection guard, standing silent sentinel. "Where's your charge?"
"Level one, looking at a painting of George VI."
A photo op, no doubt. "And where's our suspect?"
"Level three by the really ugly statue in the court," said Chloe, bringing up the screen before Gail had to ask. "It's a good cover spot. Can't see her face, but Peck figured out her RFID reader could be tracked."
Gail smothered a grin. Her kid was ignoring her, watching a video of the garage. Someone, possibly Gagnon, was checking out cars. No... no that was too tall. "Why is a unit down there and not those two?" Gail jerked her thumb at the ETF agents.
Sue explained, "Hanford's checking the civilian cars. There's such a limited signal, and if I send in Peck, I want her in full kit, we'll spook her." Not to mention the Royals' car wasn't in there.
Good. Gail approved. "Volk, Fuller, you ready?"
"Yes, ma'am." They looked terrified.
"Go. Tell her she needs to come talk to the day manager. If she runs, grab her. Make it quiet." The pair nodded and headed down. "My kingdom if this works," she muttered. "Where are the other guards?"
Chloe pointed to the map on the table. "Marked in blue. Frankie has first floor and elevators staked out. Stairs too. She's not getting out."
Gail exhaled deeply. "Do it."
Over on the side, Vivian and Sabrina were studying the video still. Then, as Christian and Lara left, Sabrina pulled out a fancy tool and spoke up. "Inspectors. We can run the Cyranose on Hoffman's bag, scan her for chemical trace."
"Of course," said Gail, looking past them to the video. "What are you watching?"
Sabrina hesitated and looked at Vivian. Oh. It was the kid's idea. "Tracking Hoffman back out. She's been running the tapes in reverse."
"Well that'll make you car sick," muttered Gail. "Anything interesting?"
"Yeah, but you won't like where she set a bomb, if she did it." Vivian sounded grim.
Gail stepped over and looked at the video. The only car on screen had bullet proof glass, extra thick panels, and flags. "Oh. Of course. Kit up, kid. If you were gonna blow up big, you'd pick the princess too."
Silently Holly watched her daughter wave her hands as she explained something to the gathered police officers. Always self contained, restrained, Vivian was expressive in her own way, but not one people commonly understood. But the cops in the bar, they seemed to know exactly what the young woman was saying.
Everyone wanted to hear about the day. Vivian was important, but Christian and Lara were being celebrated as well. They'd all done their jobs perfectly and properly. Louise Hoffman was arrested, the bomb defused, the leak discovered, and Holly had solved the poisoning.
Sadly her part of the case was the boring stuff. That was okay though. They couldn't all be winners.
"Ready to go?" Gail's voice was low and quiet. Exhausted.
"Hmmm. Yes." Reflexively, Holly took Gail's hand and squeezed it. "Should we say goodbye?"
"Nah, she's having fun."
At that moment, Vivian was drinking a beer while Christian pounded on her back and Lara laughed. "She does seem to be," agreed Holly. She let Gail tug her out of the Penny and into the thick July night.
Gail looked up at the sky and leaned, bumping her shoulder into Holly's playfully. "Well. Today was fun."
"Fun." Holly smiled and bumped Gail back. "You have a twisted idea of fun, honey."
"You knew that before you kissed me."
Holly laughed and turned to Gail, steering her into an embrace. "How are you?"
With a deep sigh, Gail shook her head. "Tired. Emotionally. I really want the tub."
"At the cottage?" It was only a few hours drive. Four on a bad day. "We could go..."
"Not till after CPR leaves town."
"CP... oh, really? That's what you're calling her?" Holly laughed again at the absurdity of Gail nicknaming the princess.
"She gives me a heart attack. She wants to have lunch with Viv. Invited Jamie along."
"Oh, that's going to be fun."
"You," said Gail drolly. "Have a twisted idea of fun."
Holly smiled and leaned into Gail, kissing her softly. "Well your daughter did save her life."
Rolling her eyes, Gail leaned in for a second kiss. "She did not. She just defused a car bomb."
"A car with the driver in it."
"Well." Gail smiled and kissed Holly's nose before letting go and tugging her to the car. "Kid was calm as a mother fucker, tell you that much."
"Yeah? Proud?"
"So proud," agreed Gail. "The kid is a damn hero."
"You are too, you know." Holly's fingers lingered on Gail's wrist before she opened the car door for her wife. "You're my hero."
This time Gail's smile was a little thinner. Almost apologetic. She didn't say anything, and neither did Holly, but they both had to be thinking of the time Gail was undercover. The ride back home was quiet.
Holly didn't mind when Gail got lost in her head anymore. For many years it had been a struggle to pull Gail out, or get her off of the self-destructive cycles the Pecks beat into her and Steve in their youth. Now, now Gail was calmer and thoughtful and quiet. She raged now and again, but for the most part, she thought deeply.
The Gail Peck who had vanished in the night for a case just didn't exist anymore. After Gail came back from what had turned out to be the last undercover stint of her life, she'd told Holly that she would never put her family through that again. And she never had. Gail turned down promotions and opportunities, distancing herself from the woman who put everything before herself, just to be with Holly.
Instead, Gail had pushed Holly's career, giving her the space and freedom to handle a dual job with more work than three people needed. Because she loved Holly. Because she loved being with Holly. And because she wanted Holly to know that she was was worth it, that they were worth it.
"I'm sorry," said Gail softly.
"It's been 13 years, honey. We're good."
"All of it?"
"All of it." Holly glanced over. "I happen to be very proud of you tonight, Gail. You did that takedown with so little fuss, the news complained it was over so fast. And the Princess is happy and everyone lived."
Gail essayed a smile. "Yeah. I guess I did do that."
"Yeah, you did." Holly pulled into the garage. "When do you get your car back?"
"Oh my god." Gail laughed. "I can't believe Goff hit my car! That ass." She undid her seatbelt and leaned across the console. "C'mere."
Obligingly, Holly leaned over as well and easily found Gail's soft lips. Warm, welcoming, and just a little wanting. "God, I love kissing you, Gail," sighed Holly.
"Mutual," Gail replied, her voice a murmur. "I do love you, Holly. You know that. Right?"
Holly smiled.
She did.
This is not a wrap on season four.
I know. But Jamie's scenes got cut! So we have to do a thing.
