Killer Queen
"What the hell do you think they're doing in there?"
"I don't know…chicks are always anal about how they look." Carter replied to Andy's questioning as they hung by the door, trying to listen in, but only catching a few laughs between blaring music and water running. Jeff lounged on the couch, uninterested and rather disgusted by the situation at hand. He'd told Shane no, and as usual, she'd done the opposite.
"Jack's gonna kill us for this." Andy finally concluded, coaxing a devilish chuckle from Sands as they both turned to remind themselves he was there. "I'm serious, we're all fucked if he finds out about her going in there."
"Shane says it's our best bet." Again, Sands laughed at Carter's input as well.
"A couple of pussy's. You let Shane take charge…she's half your height and weight."
"She's Shane though…and she's your sister." Andy returned to Jeff, almost frightened by his statement.
From the opposing room, neither of the young women was within earshot of the conversation over them, and so only focused on the task at hand. Lily was now part of the mission as she so had hoped, and in such an accomplishment, she'd been assigned the first undercover gig. The two of them were planning a return to Jimmy's club that night, in order for Shane to have the inside eye of what was really go on, which is where Lily came in. Her job was to get as close to Tuzla's side as she could manage, whether it be the main man or not, as long as it was close enough to get within the circle of information. A fashion of whoring to some, but a task, a duty to the CIA. She'd be wired as Shane had mentioned, with the help of the guys from the hotel, inside of her ear.
As she sat on the bed with Shane, painting her nails red, they went over the details of everything she was supposed to do, and even some details she didn't quite care for. But she knew it was all necessary. She had wanted in on the case, and now she'd be first in line to the information, and to the takedown.
"So you just want to basically get into the club and keep your eyes open for anything odd. Okay?"
"Yeah. And the guys will be in my head?"
Laughing Shane nodded and presented the wireless earpiece to her, "Yep, you'll hear them through here, and it hides in your hair easy so no one will know."
"Can I talk to them?"
"Sure, but just be careful when you do. They'll be here at the hotel, and I'll be in the car outside the bar if you need me."
"Is there going to be some code to leave?"
"As soon as you find what we need, we'll be there to help you out." Lily looked to her nervously and only shook her head in understanding. A few minutes later, Shane encouraged her to hurry up and get dressed as she left to go back into the guys' room. Standing up from the bed, she moved into the bathroom to check her makeup and hair one last time, it held just the right about of flare, of seduction, and she felt like the quite the jezebel. This had never been Lily's taste for life or dress really, she was relaxed, sexy but simple in mindset. But even she had to admit while catching herself in the mirror, that she could be both and was tonight, no matter what her heart told her. She had to believe this was all for Tommy, for his memory, for everything that had been done to him and her family. She was fighting with fire for him.
"You sure she can handle it?"
"Yes Danny, she's fine. Lily's tougher than you think."
"Yeah, but Shane these are fucking mob bosses, the mafia of Florida. These aren't petty Boston criminals."
"Just trust me, her head's strong. She can do this." They all fell silent as Sands laughed from behind on the couch and rolled his head back. Shane was already annoyed with him after how he'd been acting with Lily there, and now for him to completely disregarding her choices in the case she'd been assigned, bothered her more than anything. He never had given her the easy way out to prove herself to him, and even now, all these years later, he treated her like the little sister and not the CIA agent she was.
"What the hell is your problem?"
"Nothing…" he sighed, pushing himself up from the couch. As she watched him circle it with his hands, it was in her head not to mention the boot a good five feet away, and because she didn't, he tripped over it roughly. "Fuck!" He shouted, flying forward to the glass door of the balcony, and then abusing the shoe as he kicked it away. Shane followed him, hands on her hip and a creased brow of annoyance.
"What's your issue with Lily?"
"Oh give me a break Shane…"
"I don't know what you said to her earlier, but you better cut the shit."
"Or what?"
"Or I'm making a collect call to Washington." Her answer was conclusive, but hardly enough to tempt him or place fear in him. Jack Morrison and Dane Levy owed Sands, and they all knew it. Calling them would do nothing but disturb the evident 'peace' of the case. Shane was in control it seemed, and there was really nothing he could do but sit back and listen to what she'd set up. He would have to deal with the fact that he wasn't running the show anymore, and probably never would again. And he especially had to live with the idea of Lily being around for the next two weeks, involved in the case, and risking her life for revenge that he himself wanted just as badly. He had to accept it all.
"I need your help tonight, Lily needs you to help her." He didn't say anything, only turned to follow Shane's request, the air outside growing colder with her words. "Look, I don't care how you really feel about her Jeff, you can hate her, but Carter and Andy can't help her like you can, you know that."
Nearly falling into response, his lips parched and glasses falling down against his nose, they're concentration was broken suddenly by the sound of a door opening from inside, and a gasp.
"Whoa…" at Carter's expression, Shane ran back inside to see Lily standing at the doorway, dressed, beautified and more than ready. Her dark hair was flowing with spiraling curls, her smoky eyes enough to drive even the most hardened criminal insane, and her black cocktail dress dangled to her knees, with pink stilettos to tie everything in. It was a flawless impression of Florida nightlife, and yet it actually suited Lily for some reason. Shane laughed out loud for her to turn around while the guys' jaws dropped even further, the dress completely backless, and dropping to a hollowed curve at her lower back. Half of the task was done.
"You look so great."
"Thanks," she replied meekly with a smile, noticing Sands come inside from the balcony between their shoulders. It was the first she had seen of him since their fight earlier in day, and he acted as though hearing her voice did nothing, standing near the closest bedpost for support.
"Let's just get you wired up." Carter came to her with a few smile, white wires, the earpiece that Shane had originally shown her, and a camera no larger than her fingernail that he attached to the inseam of her dress at the chest. She tried not to move while they were putting everything into place, and only focused on Jeff, standing idly, listening in on each word spoken but hardly paying any attention to them. After a few minutes she saw him shuffle around with a pre-rolled cigarette from his back pocket, lick at it a few times and light it to smoke. It didn't bother her much, it never really had, in all truth she'd tried desperately not to find the act entirely sexy.
"Shane told you everything about the ear bud?"
"Oh…" she shook her head away from Sands and looked up to Carter, "Y-yeah, she did. You guys can talk to me."
"Yeah, and likewise, you can talk to us if you need any help. The camera's simple too, just so we can see what you see."
"Ok."
While she continued to ask questions of Shane and Carter, Andy made his way over to Sands to ask for a cigarette, and when first turned down by the older officer, he was surprised by his second response. "I tell you what Loop…if you can tell me what she looks like, I'll give you a smoke."
Andy laughed and looked over to Lily again, his head shaking with a goofy grin before he whispered. "Well, she's uh wearing a black dress."
"How short?"
"Short enough for you," Sands laughed as Andy tilted his head to size her up better as he gave the description. "Her hairs down, curls."
"How long is her hair?"
"Uh…past her shoulders."
"Brown still?"
"Dark. And her makeup is dark too, but real sexy."
Jeff smiled, halfway between devilish and commemorative, as the other agent went on by his side biting down on his hand as he talked. "The dress man…if you could see this dress."
"Good huh?"
"Fuck yeah. The back's missing…the front's missing…" Stopping for a moment, Sands tilted his own head in thought, bit down on his lower lip, and took a long drag from his cigarette thereafter. The images his mind was conjuring up alone, were enough to send him over the edge in ways he hardly needed at that moment. So he smoked, and gulped, trying to ignore it while Andy concluded. "She's beautiful man, just…you know."
"Yeah. I did." He replied quietly with a brown cigarette dangling between his free middle and index fingers towards Andy. "Thanks rookie."
"Sure, Jeff."
Confident with all of the answers Lily had received, she took her purse back from Shane and nodded in preparation to leave. "Let's do this."
"Alright," Shane said, grabbing her own jacket and walking towards the door with the other guys asking her questions about the set up and plan. Lily stood for a moment only a few feet away from Sheldon, trying to catch her bearings before stepping out. But it was when she turned to leave behind Shane, that she heard the voice she'd been waiting for, "Hanson?" Dead in what little tracking she'd gained, her pink heels spun off in his direction at the bed, looking up to see his brow twitch as he puffed harder on the cigarette, and then she walked towards him.
Pausing as she came to him, she noticed his hand move to the pocket of his jeans and pull out a small black wrapper of something. "Give me your hand…" he said, holding it gently as he placed the package into her palm and closed his hand around it.
"What is it?"
"Someone might try to get you to…you know…" gesturing with his head seductively, she giggled and then looked on serious, "…just slip these into his drink."
"What will they do?"
"I won't ruin the surprise. But…they'll work." With a smile she tucked them into her purse for safe keeping and then paused once more to look at him, the somber attitude he had, almost as if remorse had come over him in the last few hours. She wanted to say so many things to him, but settled for her head's interpretation. "Jeff I'm sorry about earlier, I just--"
"Ah. Don't." He interrupted, with a hand fixed out in front of him.
"What?"
"Always go into a case with a clear head."
"Oh…oh ok yeah." She replied with a furious nod of acceptance while turning away from him for the door, but he caught her upper arm gently and pulled her back only slightly to see him. "Be careful Killer. And if you need me…I'll be right up here." Moving his hand up softly to where he felt her cheek, hair and ear, he tapped with his index finger and smirked. After saying her thanks, she grinned and walked away from him to where Shane was waiting at the door. And Jeff, even without his eyesight, could feel her smile.
Halloween Night – Police Academy Party
Boston, MA. 1994
They'd had an argument, they always were. Sands and Lily constantly felt the need to attempt defying the other's wit, intelligence, and usually it was her that prevailed in the sport. Everything had been fine at Tom and his apartment, on the car ride over to Finn's Bar for the party, and even during the first twenty minutes or so. Dressed in perfect unison as a pirate and his wench, they had danced, conversed, drank and kissed madly. Jeff loved walking into room's with Lily, the looks he received, the acknowledgement that she was his; it felt too good not to be proud of it. She wasn't his trophy, but she certainly was his better half, and every one of their friends knew this, especially Tommy.
But on this night for some reason, there had been tension from previous days, words left unsaid and thoughts incomplete, and it was when he caught her talking with one of the Freshman trainees near the dance floor, that he lost it. Sands had Irish blood rooted deep within his veins, the only thing he ever appreciated receiving from his father, and at the sight of another man touching Lily's arm, he had advanced. A warning to the kid and a tug of her wrist back towards the bar solved the problem momentarily, until she decided to take over with Shane to the bathroom. Or at least that's what she told him.
Heated and disturbed by the way he acted, the jealousy that burned his cheeks, she had stormed off with Shane, a few minutes of passing argument and rage in the bathroom, and eventually she was alone to her own mind. Which unfortunately, didn't last as long as she had hoped for. After a few minutes of running cool water over her face and pressing her cheeks to the tiles of the wall, she was interrupted by Greg, the guy Jeff had caught her talking with in the bar only a few minutes before. He looked wearied, drunk, and as he eased his way across the open floor to where she was, his cowboy hat tilted down against his left eye, he smirked in a way that left her intimidated. She tried to move around him, but it was no use. Her legs had grown to weak from the drinks to have any reflex, and she only stood against the wall, watching him come to her as he covered her lips with his, biting down.
Outside in the bar, Jeff grew confused when he spotted Shane back out on the dance floor, running around wild with Tommy and his friends. Lily wasn't with her, and when his eyes darted across the space before him, there were also no visible cowboys. Dropping his beer to the counter and pushing through the crowd of costumes and other worldly beings, he grabbed Shane's hand away and pulled her back, "Hey, where's Lily?"
"Geez…I don't know."
"Shane!"
"She's in the bathroom I think…why…?" his head turned quickly in the direction of the shallow hallway, he let go of his sister's hand, and trudged the space to the ladies' room. If there was one thing Jeff had been prized for thus far in the Academy, and for that matter with the Boston P.D. it was his inept sense of danger, the ability to know something was wrong even before it became apparent to the human eye or ear. He was their seeing eye dog in a way, and this night was no different. As he made it down the hallway there were girls crowded everywhere, screaming about the bathroom being locked, a few of them kicking it roughly with heels. With the loud music and their screeching, he couldn't hear anything else past the door, "Move!" he shouted, pushing a few of them out of the way and shaking the handle violently. But when nothing happened, he instead chose to brush the women down the hall further, and make a darting kick from the opposite wall, pounding against the wood of the door with the heel of his pirate boots. The girls laughed at him, not realizing exactly what he had, and after a few kicks, the door fell inward and so did he.
He saw Lily's legs just short of her high skirt, one being held by the thick fingers of another guy, the cowboy, as he fondled over every inch of her body, uninvited from the fearful yelp she let out. "J-Jeff!"
Catching his balance, he stepped in with his hand grasping Greg's arm and pulling him away from the wall where he had her pinned. Jeff used every knuckle in his fist to break his jaw twice, full blows, more screams from the hallway and from Lily as he fell to the tile at both their feet. He was unconscious by the time Sheldon had managed to lift Lily up and carry her out gently in his arms, where spectators viewed him as nothing short of a hero, and friends of Greg's darted the premises. Lily was beautiful, and it was on that night that he had truly seen what kind of damage could be done when he wasn't around, when his jealousy led her to loneliness, and her solidarity could lead to other men taking advantage. Even though the pain had been minimal and the cowboy had barely managed to make it past first base with a head full of liquor, Jeff worried that the next time, she wouldn't be so lucky. It was his job to protect her, he'd promised Tommy and her mom that he would, no matter what. And he would.
Ybor City - Raw Lounge
10:28
"Can you guys hear me?"
No answer. They were preoccupied, all three of them. Danny and Andy were fighting over a bag of cheetos and beer, and Sands was sitting at the longer end of the hotel couch, cigarette dipping from his lip, and his headphones slowly falling down off his ears as he drifted to sleep.
"Guys!" she shouted under harsh breath, tapping at the bud at the back of her ear and tugging down at the wrinkles in her dress as she stood outside of the club. They immediately jerked themselves to the TV to see the view of a darkened street where she was, the glow of neon lights, and tall, leggy blondes. "Can you hear me?" She repeated once more, growing annoyed.
"Yeah, hey Lily we're here." Danny answered finally, sipping at a beer with fixated eyes and jaw, "Damn. I think I need to come."
"Ew, what?"
"Sorry, come down there…wish I was there with those blondes…"
Andy laughed crazily, tugging back the chips and then leaning over to nudge Sands awake.
"Hey man, she's there." Coming to the cruel lighting of the TV, pounding in past the skin of his covered eyes, Jeff cracked his neck from the quick rest, and then reached out for a beer. Fumbling, it was Andy who popped the top and handed one to him, reminding him to also replace his headphones to hear what she was saying at a distance. Danny continued egging her on as she walked carefully to the line outside of the club.
"I feel like I'm riding on a cloud…of breast-age." Sands looked up with a wince of the beer cutting off his breathing, and scrunched his nose at Danny with annoyance and then threw his boot at his head. "Ow, fuck man!"
"Leave her alone you cunt, she needs to stay focused." Stopping dead in her tracks, a smiling wiping across her face, Lily heard his voice, defending and protecting her just as Shane had convinced her he would. Jeff was there, with her, and as he continued to talk into the mic on his headset, she realized he was speaking directly to her.
"…gotta flip the bouncer that little gold card Shane gave you, ok?"
Coming back to reality, she darted a gaze at the bouncer, then whispered away from the forming crowd to reply, "What…say that again."
"Jesus…ok look, just keep walking towards the line, see that big thing full of people right in front of you. There is one there isn't there?" Although Sands couldn't, Danny and Andy could see everything she could, from the delightful level of the one place they all secretly wished to be. Lily though, was in no mood to be patronized.
"I can see it smartass, thanks. And I just show him the gold card?"
"Yeah, that will get you in quicker."
"This isn't Disney World, this is a club."
"Just trust me."
"Fine." Huffing and taking a dip back out of the crowded line she'd arrived at, her pink stilettos cracked at every step, the sensual molten honey of skin noticed by every male patron as she walked past them, and her dress, which left only one thing up to the imagination, gave her every reason to get in with or without the gold card. But, she did as she was told and pranced in front of the two large, black men at the doorway, flashing a winning smile and tucking her breasts out further as Shane had recommended.
"Back of the line, miss."
"Oh…" she winked once with a pout, drawing the card out from her braless dress, eyes darting up to each of them. "…I was told this would get me in…quicker."
From the inside of her head, she could hear the guys a mile away at the hotel, laughing, grunting, choking and cheering. Danny spoke with a desperate howl, "Christ man…if one of those fuckers in there doesn't lay her tonight…" trying not to laugh, she held her cool as the two burly bouncers looked her up and down with pleasing smiles, and then drew back the red velvet rope.
"Have fun little girl."
"Thanks." Her hand ran across the closest bouncer's shoulder, a look of jealousy from the second, and then the angry voices of the mob outside, playing out through the speakers as the guys continued to root her on from her ear.
Sands who was mostly quiet, only whispered once past the noise, the very last thing she would hear clearly before the music hit her ears, "Good job, kid." Kid…kid…there it was again. Killing her softly. She hated how desperate she was to forget all that had happened, and make it up to him. She hated how her medical skills were both the furthest and closest thing on her mind with him. She hated how far they had drifted and how little he or she could do about it now. Kid, she didn't hate it anymore.
Inside, the atmosphere immediately changed. Not that Lily had never been to a club before, in fact, she was a regular at most of the ones in Boston and DC on the weekends, with friends, guys, all sorts of people. But this, a Florida nightclub, was completely different. Everyone was blonde, or had great bodies, tans, smiles, everyone drank martinis instead of beer, and they all looked at her as though she were an outsider, or simply, a brunette. That of course though, was only the women inside. The men though, took to her on an entirely opposite and complimentary level. She was offered drinks almost as soon as she stepped inside, one man with hands like a tiger across her shadowed and open back and another with no shirt on, ready and willing to take her in the bathroom of the club. She laughed out of not knowing what else to do, and continued on until she could find the bar and order a drink.
The music was fun, it was alive, so wanton and deliberately sexual it almost hurt not to laugh at it and the people dancing to it. Approaching the bar, she caught the first tending server she could, and yelled over the noise, "Mojito, please."
"Mojito, you got it."
"Mojito…this girl, man. Fuck Harvard." Danny chuckled, sipping at another drink and leaning over to get a better of view of the room. Andy was involved in trying to stake out anyone who looked as if they might be of interest to the case, while Jeff sat even quieter, caught up in only the sound of women around her, the bartender dropping her drink to the wood, loud music, Justin Timberlake based on the pitch and familiar lyrics, and then, her voice, but this time speaking to him directly again. He perked up, focused in on the words and tried not to smile.
"Jeff, did Shane say anything about there being some kind of private suite in here…for you know, like big spenders…" her voice crackling in with the loud noise but he could hear her well enough and responded with what his sister had explained to him from the blueprints she snatched of the club. "It's near the bathroom, she said there's some sort of a VIP marking at the east wall, I think. But you'll never get in without--"
He was cut off immediately by the sound of another man, not Danny and not Fruit Loop; this was a man at the club, speaking to her, taking her attention away. His voice sounded vaguely familiar, although Jeff tried not to focus too hard on the hue, only the words. All three of them were directly focused in.
"So Miss Mojito…you here by yourself?" Hesitant by the actual fact of the three gorgeous men inside of her head, Lily smiled and replied innocently. "Y-yes." The man in front of her was not just a man to be sure, but an entirely other world. He was an athlete, one she knew, a big spender, just what she needed as leverage. His eyes were ruling over her body as he slid in closer, his beer touching the warm skin her forearm, making her body tingle.
"I saw you from across the room, wanted to come over and introduce myself." The guys, near to being on the floor just by what was playing out before them, choked on beer, wanted to scream from nervous tension, and then clawed back when Jeff asked them what was going on, who the fuck it was, the man he couldn't see.
They had no response; they could only let it play out to his ears as it panned across their vision in humor, in unbelievable stature and multitude.
"Oh…well, I know w-who you are." She was stuttering, but then again, she had every right and reason in this case. Her eyes fluttered up to look into his, the dark streams of hair falling down into his eyes, the same face she'd seen plastered from magazine to commercial, all over the TV on Sunday and Monday nights alike, Tampa Bay's offensive weapon. Her knees had never been so weak before, except maybe, the first time she saw Jeff. This though, was different.
"It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise." He grinned widely, as he ducked in to her ear closer. "What's your name, beautiful?"
"Carter, who the fuck is it? He's going to screw her up…"
"Man, you're probably dead on with that statement..." He laughed back, keeping his eyes on the screen, on Lily's breasts so close to him, on the man staring directly at them at her expense, at Jeff's.
"My name is Alex." It had been something her and Shane had come up with on the drive to the club, and it worked well as he leaned back, offered her his arm, and smiled.
"Well Alex, what do you say we get out on that floor for a while?"
"Sounds….great." She smiled to him, dropping her glass to the bar, heaving once, twice, breathing deep as only Jeff could hear and understand over the music, and let her new date spin her across the dance floor, under the blue, the green, the red hypnotic lights, filled in space and time with music, harmony, something completely new, something completely different than what she had been stuck with the last week. Her mind, her memory, all fading with the noise, the pressure of a man's jeans at her backside, his hands on her body, his breath on her neck. Every lasting joke played over in her head, the funniest things she'd ever heard before had come from his mouth, and now it was hot on her ear.
As she let everything fade away, it was who was ready to drive recklessly and blind to kick some ass. He didn't understand why his body, his mind was betraying him now, of all times, when she needed his help and focus. But then again, she had decided to scamper off with the first hot famous man to walk across her path, and forget even involving herself in the case.
He sat silently and still for another minute or so, letting the music drift in and out of his pores, consume him, burn him with the heat of her breath in the darkness, in his ears as it was in this other man's. It should have been him there, doing whatever this guy was doing to her body, her spirit, the noises he was making, the whispers of strange, instant intimacy, all of the romantic cliché's playing out, it should have been him. But it wasn't, and he kicked himself for even admitting that now, got up from the couch, ripped the headphones from his ears and wandered off into the blackness of each step, feeling for the bed as he tripped over its corner, a chair, the table, his guitar, struggling to just make it out to the balcony, just make it to get a smoke. He needed to inhale the demons that had kept Lily Hanson at bay for eight long years, hold them within, burn his liver, his lungs with them, and then release it all until he stopped trying to imagine what ritzy hotel bed she would end up in, at what end of the city it would be, and upon which position her celebrity love interest would graze her into.
"What the fuck is his problem?" Carter asked Andy as they sat stunned by the damaging leave, the angry fit. The younger agent shrugged his shoulder without response, and in the focus of trying to determine what it was that was up with Sands, they heard Lily speaking again, and saw her stepping away from the other guy with a shouted apology, backing out of the dance floor, and off towards the bathroom.
She made it in free and clear, without any tears or angry fits in public. But inside of the bathroom, empty, alone, she began to kick the wall, the door, slammed her hand down on the counter as she drew the faucet on, and ignored completely the camera hidden away inside of her dress, as well as the two remaining men, breathing heavily in anticipation within her ear. She wet one of the fancied towels on the marble counter, ran it over her face, neck, and down against her breasts, everywhere that the heat was, everywhere she needed to relax. Something had taken over her during her spout with fame on the dance floor, something she didn't like, because it wasn't her at all. And the guys had seen it, Jeff had listened to it probably, and that made her nervous with embarrassment. While she calmed herself though, and looked deeply into the mirror at her eyes, her lips broken with the heat of another man's on accident, she began to cry. Danny, surprisingly enough, was the one to console her.
"Lily…" he spoke gently into the headset. "…you ready to come back for the night? We can do this tomorrow or something."
"I'm sorry you guys, I really wanted to help."
"Its fine, Lily." Andy broke in, watching her tears fall down between her crossing fingers. "There's a hundred different ways to catch this fucker, we'll call Shane for you."
"Ok." She replied finally, brushing away the last of the tears, wiping her nose, fixing her hair, and all the while thinking about why she hadn't heard Jeff speak yet. She looked closely into the mirror, where she knew they could see her, and finally asked, "Is Jeff there?"
They hesitated to respond, simply because they didn't know what the hell had gotten into him as of late, just as she was fixing to find a lover in her celebrity date, he had darted away. Danny though broke into both of their thoughts.
"He just…left, Lily. I think he needed to smoke."
She had known it, because she had known Jeff too well. And with a plastered smile to the mirror, a tip of her heels backwards as she walked to the door of the bathroom, she whispered quietly to both of them, on her way out of the club, "I screwed up."
