The Final Chapter – Chapter 30

They had both managed to get a good night's sleep, the sun well and truly up before Mike made his slow way down the stairs, trying not to make a sound as he crossed quietly to the kitchen. Jeannie's room was right above it and linoleum in the old house could make quite the racket if one wasn't careful. So he padded around noiselessly, filling the coffee maker with one hand taking a lot longer than normal even though he'd had practice.

He was valiantly trying to mix the batter for pancakes when a sleepy-eyed Steve appeared in the doorway, just in time to lend a much-needed hand or two. And with just a little bit of coaching from the old pro, they managed between them to whip up a pretty decent breakfast.

Resigned to the fact that they weren't going to be able to do anything of true substance that day, they had decided to spend their time finishing their dive into Kovalev's remaining boxes. There had been nothing connecting Kovalev to Jeffrey Lonsdale, but there had been a lot of valuable evidence from other cases that Mike knew were still open. He had decided to set that material aside and that when they were completely finished with all the boxes, he could make the requisite calls to the various departments and arrange for pickups.

It had turned out to be a busier day than they were expecting and it had taken several hours to finish their careful examinations of the remaining boxes. The living room was covered with small piles, mostly paperwork, that would be handed over to the different departments in the hopes they could spark the reopening of several cases which were old, closed and cold.

They had worked their way through the afternoon into the evening without noticing and, not wanting to waste time cooking, phoned for a pizza delivery. Steve was in the kitchen, taking a couple of plates out of the cupboard, and Mike was upstairs when there was a commotion outside the front door and it suddenly opened. Surprised, Steve spun and took a quick step to the kitchen entrance in time to see the front door swing open and Jeannie trying to lug her heavy suitcase over the threshold.

"Mike!" she yelled, her attention behind her on the bag, "Mike, are you here?!"

As the bag thudded to the floor, she turned an anxious, happy face towards the living room and froze in surprise when she saw her father's partner standing in the kitchen door, his eyes wide and stricken.

Neither moved nor said a word for a couple of beats then her focus shifted slightly to the bandage on the young man's forehead. She frowned with worry. "Where's Mike?" she asked quickly, fear in her tone.

"I'm right here, sweetheart," came her father's startled voice from above and her eyes snapped to the staircase as he almost jogged down the steps.

Her smile of relief turned quickly to concern when she noticed the empty sleeve and his obviously bandaged left shoulder. "Oh my god!" she gasped. "Were you shot?"

"No, no, no," her father reassured quickly, raising his right hand and crossing to the door, trying to envelop her in a one-armed welcoming hug. Her arms automatically encircled him and she returned the squeeze gently; he could feel her shaking. Still holding tight, his chin resting lightly on the top of her head, he soothed quietly, "Relax, relax, relax… we just had a car accident, that's all."

She pulled away from him and looked up at his face. "That's all?" she almost spat out, fear getting the better of her. "What do you mean, you had a car accident? With the LTD?" Her eyes were now snapping back and forth between her father and his partner.

Trying to keep a lid on things, Mike smiled warmly as he took her elbow and led her towards the couch. She allowed herself to be propelled through the small forest of boxes and piles of papers that covered the entire living room floor, the coffee table and armchair stacked with papers, rubber stamps, bottles of ink and pens of various sizes and shapes. Her brows knit even further as her father pushed her down onto an empty spot on the couch and she looked up at him. "You have a beard…?" she mumbled and he chuckled softly.

He moved the stack of papers on the armchair to the coffee table and sat; Steve had wandered closer, ready to provide backup if needed.

Jeannie's eyes traveled around the room again then up to Steve before finally settling back on her father. He waited patiently, knowing the questions would come eventually when the young woman had taken everything in. "All right…" she said finally, taking a deep breath, "what's going on, Dad?"

Mike started slightly. It always rattled him when she called him that; it meant she was either deadly serious or really worried. He swallowed involuntarily then chuckled uncomfortably and raised his eyebrows. "Well, sweetheart, it's a long story – and one we'll tell you all about," he added quickly, glancing up at Steve, who nodded, "but I just want you to know that both of us are okay… all right? Yes, we were banged up and, yes, we're both on sick leave – that's why Steve's here. But as you can see," he gestured towards the ordered mess scattered throughout the room, "we're still on the job, so to speak." He paused and shrugged with a reassuring smile. "So… everything's fine." The smile disappeared and he frowned. "But, ah… what are you doing home so soon? I thought you had exams for another week."

Jeannie, who had been listening with a furrowed brow as her father did his best to explain what was going on, tore her focus from the messy living room to stare into his expectant blue eyes. Suddenly she was on the defensive, she knew; he was good at that. "I got a bye for my last two exams because of my marks… so I got to come home early…"

Mike's eyebrows shot up and he grinned. "You did? That's great." He glanced up at Steve, unable to mask his fatherly pride, and the younger man smiled back.

"Don't change the subject," she growled, her eyes narrowing as she pinned her father with a determined stare that should have made him proud. "I didn't see our car out there, that's why I thought you weren't here. Was it our car?"

Mike inhaled deeply and tried to grin. "Umh… ah, yeah, actually it was our car…"

Her eyes snapped up to Steve who returned a facial shrug and a tilt of his head. She looked at her father again. "Is it being fixed?"

Mike exhaled loudly, grimacing and shaking his head. "Ah, no… no, it's, ah, it's not coming home…"

"You totaled it?" Her eyes got a little wider.

Mike opened to his mouth to reply, paused, closed his mouth then looked up at Steve. "I, ah, I wasn't driving…"

Jeannie's eyes snapped to her father's partner. "You were driving?" She sounded almost accusatory. He nodded. "Why were you driving?" She looked back at her father again. "Why was he driving?"

"Ah…" Mike hesitated, "well, ah… we had a prisoner in the car and –"

"You had a prisoner in the car? In our car? Why did you have a prisoner in our car?"

Mike looked up at Steve, who smiled at him helplessly but kept mum. "You're a big help…" he mumbled under his breath as he turned back to his daughter, who was getting more and more irate by the moment. "Ah, well, ah, I had to drive the car back anyway –"

"Back from where?"

She doesn't miss a beat, he thought with a mental sigh as he tried to figure out exactly what to say. "Well, ah, from, ah, Venice…" He shrugged.

She glared at him for a few silent seconds, her eyes narrowing even more. "I'm assuming you mean the one in L.A. and not the one in Italy…?"

Mike nodded enthusiastically. "Right, yeah, that one."

She glanced up at Steve again, who had yet to say a word. He nodded with raised eyebrows. "What were you doing in Venice?"

Mike inhaled deeply. "Well, ah, that's the beginning of the long story."

"Well," she said, sitting back and crossing her arms, "I have the time…"

Mike looked up at his partner again, his eyes widening in a silent threat. Steve opened his mouth to comment when the doorbell rang. Both men jumped slightly. Steve smiled. "That must be the pizza. I'll get it," he said quickly as he almost raced to the door.

Mike leaned closer to his daughter. "Sweetheart, there's a lot I've got to… explain to you, I know… But you have to understand…" He sat back slightly and gestured towards the stacks of boxes and papers that covered the living room. "We're trying to close a really old open case of the rape and murder of girl younger than you…"

Jeannie uncrossed her arms and sat up. She stared into her father's eyes for a long moment, knowing he was being truthful with her, then reached out and touched his face. "I'm sorry, Daddy, I didn't mean to be so…" She shrugged apologetically. "I'm just worried, that's all…"

He smiled with a gentle chuckle. "I know, honey, I know. But we're fine, really, both of us," he glanced towards the door where Steve was paying the delivery boy, "and after we eat, I promise we'll tell you all about it, okay?"

She smiled at him with a mixture of relief and love. "Okay…" She leaned forward and kissed him. "Your beard is rough," she laughed as she grabbed his right hand and squeezed.

Steve was just disappearing into the kitchen with the pizza box. Mike took her hand and started to pull her up. "Come on, let's have dinner, and we'll tell you all about it."

Laughing, she let herself be dragged into the kitchen.

# # # # #

It took the better part of an hour, and the delivery of a second pizza, for them to fill her in on most of the details of the past couple of weeks. They studiously left out several details, like the seriousness of the treatment Mike received at the scene, and the fact that Jeffrey Lonsdale had escaped with his gun.

But they did tell her about Jerry Renneker's phone call, Steve tracking his partner down in Venice, the surveillance of Hiraro's and the acquisition of the fingerprints, and the very fateful, and aborted, drive home. By the time they were finished telling her about the Monte Carlo, Stanley Kovalev and the significance of the boxes in the living room, she was almost overwhelmed.

They were both looking at her with thinly veiled expectancy as the silence settled over the room. Her eyes travelled slowly over the boxes and piles of papers, documents and photographs before returning to her father's still startling hirsute face. A smile flickered over her features as she shook her head in disbelief once more. "I still can't get used to the beard…" she muttered softly then reached out and took his hand again. "You remembered that forger from so long ago?" There was genuine awe in her voice.

With a self-conscious smile, he nodded with a slight shrug.

Steve chuckled, "A mind like a steel trap."

Jeannie grinned at him then sobered. "And you're sure you two are okay?"

Mike pulled his right hand out of her grasp and raised two fingers. "Scouts honor!"

She laughed, relieved. "Okay, so, that can't be everything. What's next?"

The partners exchanged a very quick, and almost guilty, look. "Well," her father began slowly, "well, Steve and I have to take another little road trip tomorrow…"

"What?!" Her suddenly worried eyes snapped from one to the other. "I thought you were both on sick leave -?"

Mike put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "Jeannie, sweetheart, relax… relax, please…" She bit her lip, her furious eyes not backing down. "We're just going upstate to do a little more digging, that's all…" he lied. Beside him, he felt more than saw Steve fidget slightly; he only hoped his daughter was too focused on him to notice. "And we have Rudy's blessing… And besides, Bill Tanner is coming with us and he's going to be doing all the driving and, well, basically, all the work too." He glanced up at his partner and smiled; Steve mirrored the look with a encouraging shrug.

Jeannie's eyes narrowed. "So you're not going to be doing anything dangerous?"

"What?" Mike snorted. "No, of course not. It's just to follow-up on a lead that we got from these boxes, that's all?"

She took a deep breath and held it. When she finally released it, he knew he had won her over.

"Hey," he said suddenly, "you want to come out and see the new car?"

She stared at him expressionlessly for another couple of beats then chuckled and shook her head, rolling her eyes. She knew she had been bested; it wasn't the first time and would certainly not be the last. "Okay…"

"Great!" He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. "Wait till you see it? It's a beaut."

As he opened the front door, she looked up at him. "So how many pizzas have you and Steve eaten in the past few days?"

"Pizzas?" Steve could hear Mike ask, his voice unusually high, as father and daughter disappeared down the concrete steps. "That was just the first one…"

Laughing, Steve shook his head as he looked down at the map and the black circle around the town of Dorris. His smile disappeared.