Lindsay awoke with a start. The ice-pack that she had put below her neck before bed had leaked, and she was immediately aware of an icy-cold squelchy sensation in her hair and down the back of her nightshirt. She sighed a murmured half-asleep sigh, opened her eyes, and woke up fully when she saw what had awoken her standing next to her bed. Foreshortening and startlement would, no doubt, make the gun appear bigger than it was; she certainly hoped so, as it appeared to be as big as her head. She squeaked and scrabbled backwards, clonking her head against the headboard and sending a harsh twinge through her sore neck. She rubbed it and stared.
The gun moved slightly to the side, remaining trained on her, and revealed both a more reasonable perspective for it and a good look at the person holding it. The dim lighting did odd things to the woman's face, and she was dressed all in black, from high-necked shirt to gloves to boots, but it was unmistakably the same Lara Croft to whom she had delivered the bag earlier in the evening. Her butler stood behind her, likewise dressed in black, but with a respectful stance and blank expression that would have matched a suit and a manor better than skulk-clothes and the fresh red gash on his forehead.
"What's your game?" Lara snapped. "Talk. Now."
Lindsay sighed and rubbed her forehead with one hand. She was trying to like England, truly she was. The little Soho apartment she had rented was decent, and the neighborhood was quite fun. She had to admit that the accents delighted her, and her PI's new lab was well-appointed. Hell, she finally had her own desk. But between the warm beer and soggy pizza, the way people here always misspelled her name and narrowed their eyes as they tried to pull meaning from her elongated vowels - well, it could drive one to think that having aristocrats break into one's room at night was just another little quirk that made England different from the States.
Lara reached forward and grabbed the collar of her nightgown, wrenching her up and forwards into a seated position with a surprisingly strong arm. "Talk!" she barked.
"About what?" Lindsay asked, frustration saturating her voice. "Weather? Sports? Please don't make me talk about soccer; I hate soccer..."
"About the delivery you made tonight," Lara grated.
Something about the movement of her face made Lindsay look closer, and she saw that what she had initially thought an oddity of the lighting was actually a sizeable and colorful bruise on Lara's cheek. She frowned. "Does this have something to do with the idiots who rearended me on the way back and wanted to know where the bag was?"
Lara glanced back over her shoulder. The butler shrugged. With a click and a soft whoosh, the gun disappeared. "What do you know about what was in it?"
"Nothing," Lindsay sighed. "Just one of those little errands. Could you run this down to that place? There's a dear. I didn't even think about it." She looked up with trepidation. "It was drugs, wasn't it." Damn it, that would just take the cake. She would have to pack up all of her goddam crap again and move back to the States, find another job there, start over...
"No." Lara clasped her hands behind her back and started to pace. "Didn't tell you anything? Nothing at all?"
"Just that it was a personal... thing of some sort. She was pretty offhand about it all." She had worked for Diane for years, after all, and they had developed a very friendly and casual trust. One that might not outlast the coming week, at this rate.
Lara nodded and crossed her arms, a 'Processing - Please Wait' look on her face. She tapped one finger against the inside of her elbow, then, seeming to reach some kind of decision, smiled at Lindsay. "Right. Well, cheerio!" She swung out of the window, and the drainpipe clanked as she presumably shimmied her way down it.
The butler looked out of the window, coughed, and turned back to Lindsay. "Mind if I use the door?"
"Oh, knock yourself out," she growled, flopping back onto her bed once he did so, thinking about what she would have to do in a moment. Lock the door behind him. Empty the ice bag. Change the sodden sheets. It was definitely time for one of those sick days she had been saving up.
Hillary caught up with Lara halfway down the block. "You're getting soft," she muttered.
"There's no need to shimmy down a drainpipe when you have a perfectly serviceable door at hand," he whispered back.
"It keeps you in shape," she shot back, poking at his stomach. "Why are we whispering?"
They both looked around. While it was hardly a street party, Soho was more than busy enough to cover up a casual conversation. "Habit, I suppose," Hillary replied with a faint smile. It disappeared as they walked to the car, parked many blocks away in an alley. "She seemed to be telling the truth."
"Awakened like that, at that time of night?" Lara snorted. "She'd have to have nerves of steel to put on an act. I think she was telling the truth, as well. Which means we are headed to California. I am damned if I am going to wait for Diane to get back."
Hillary raised an eyebrow as they climbed into the car. "We?"
Lara nodded. "It will be a lot of hobnobbing and socializing, and you're so good at that." She smiled winsomely, tilted the seat back, kicked off her boots, and crossed her feet on the dash with a sigh of contentment as Hillary drove back to the manor. The smile slowly faded as Lara ruminated, trying to make a full meal out of too little data. She hated having her house invaded, her friends threatened, her belongings ransacked. But she hated being used even more.
She had no problem with her life being disrupted, as long as she did the disrupting. But, as Diane had seen fit to do the job this time around – well, Lara was quite ready to return the favor.