A/N: Hope you're enjoying this story. To answer some questions, yes, soon we will know who stole the money, where are Anna and Kristof, and who revealed that information about Emma.
My laptop decided to die this week and my new one won't be ready until this weekend. So updates might be a little slow.
True to her word, Elsa was quite forthcoming with information about her sister, Hans, and Kris, providing Emma with intimate details of what had been said and the appearance of their relationships. "I can assure you that no threats were made overtly," Elsa told Emma that evening as they sat in the station's conference/storage room and looked at the hastily drawn family tree. "Hans and his brothers are brutes and cocky, but they wouldn't be so stupid as to make their intentions known."
The foam container beside her now empty of the fries and sandwiches that the two ladies had ordered in from Granny's, Emma tapped the hollow box with her pen. "He's not a great suspect, but he's all we've got at the moment. I am just trying to consider a motive. Kidnapping is ordinarily about money and not unrequited love or revenge for a relationship gone wrong."
"I don't know why he would do it either," Elsa agreed, the pink eraser of the pencil she had been using to draw the convoluted family tree was pressed to one cheek. "Hans is all about his family's money and standing, but if he kidnapped her he certainly hasn't issued a ransom demand. That's kind of a missed opportunity. That's the reason he wanted to marry Anna to begin with was to merge our families and their assets. You see, Hans and his brothers are all partners in their father's shipping business. They have been making moves over recent years to include a cruise line into their fleet. I suppose he thought that since we own those ski resorts, he could waltz in and make some sort of partnership between the two family companies."
"Shipping?" Emma asked. "Do they do business here in Storybrooke?"
Elsa twisted her mouth in concentration. "Well, I think they still do. Las time I saw him Hans was inspecting some sort of small scale boat at the Storybrooke Marina. It is supposed to be able to hold more crates than some of the smaller boats out there that most companies use but have better control over getting into some of these narrow harbors and inlets along the east coast. I know he was impressed by them and was trying to talk to the ship manufacturer about lowering the price if he bought more than the normal order. He's always about negotiating everything."
The deputy realized that the company in question had to be Killian's employer. "I think I might know someone at that company," Emma said, pulling her phone in front of her and typing out a message to him. "Maybe he can give us an idea as to what Hans has been up to lately."
Elsa shrugged her shoulders, and looked back at the stack of papers the two women had printed out. Using a highlighter, she marked certain passages as Emma's phone rang almost immediately.
"Hey," Emma said. "I guess you're not busy if you're calling this fast." She knew that her smile was probably not her most professional, but it seemed a natural state when she heard his voice. Anyway, she was sitting in a conference room with the family member of a missing person eating take out and talking about possible suspects. Standard operating procedure and protocol was already out the door.
"I got a call from a fair damsel in distress," he said, the cheekiness of his demeanor shining through even without sight. "What do you need, love? Can I bring you anything? Distract you from the doldrums of your day? Whisk you away for a while and pretend the world doesn't exist?"
"All wonderful options," Emma said, dropping her eyes from the not so subtle sight of Elsa listening in to the one side of the conversation that she could hear and pretending not to with an amused smirk. "I was actually going to ask for your professional expertise."
She could imagine him cracking his knuckles as he sat back and stretched his interlocked hands and arms over his head. "Anything for you, love. Are you in the market for a finely crafted sailing vessel?"
Rolling her eyes, she resisted the urge to laugh. "Actually, I need to find out about a potential client of yours. Someone named Hans who…"
"Sure," Killian said, interrupting. "Hans and his brothers run Southern Isles Shipping. A small outfit, but pretty successful. He was interested in a few new ones recently and tried to talk me out of a commission on them. Fortunately, I was able to pull off the sale and make some money." He paused. "Are you going to ask me how I did that?"
"If my investigation was into your sales technique, I would," Emma assured him. "But I'm afraid I'm more interested in learning about Hans and what he was doing."
"Horrible bloke with the personality of a dead fish," Killian offered. "He's a complete idiot when it comes to even the most basic of shipping terms and even worse when it comes to money. He throws around words like profit margin, but I doubt he actually knows what they mean."
"Did he pay cash for these boats or were they financed?" Emma asked, not quite sure why that was important but feeling that it was an appropriate question to ask. At least it kept her mind off of what Killian looked like as he was talking to her or how his voice was just as intoxicating even without his breath warm against her ear.
Killian grunted as if the very act of trying to remember the details in some fog of a memory of men and women who had bought boats from him over the past little bit. "Cash," he said finally. "He went through this whole thing about needing to apply for credit. We told him he needed a co-signer. We push through the paperwork and then the little weasel came in with the cash. Not even a cashier's check. It was green paper money. Never made mention of where it came from or who might have helped him out of that jam."
"Interesting," Emma commented, her eyes shielded by her hand resting on her forehead. "If you think of anything that might be helpful, please let me know."
"Of course, love," he said softly. "Is there anything you need? I could do with seeing you tonight."
"Maybe later," she said as she finished saying goodbye and turned her attention back to Elsa.
"Any information from your boyfriend?" Elsa asked in what Emma would probably describe as her best innocent voice.
"Hans did make the purchase, but used cash. Killian wasn't sure where he got the money since he had been talking about using credit."
The older sister was not too sure what to make of that news and let it slip, turning her focus back to the project at hand. Elsa pointed with a long finger to the family tree she had drawn, explaining how Hans and his brothers had become the shipping magnates they were in details that were probably way too specific for Emma's benefit. She even sketched his likeness, exaggerating his sideburns that she said were a trade mark of his.
"He's a pompous and arrogant man," she explained with a flourish of her hand toward the small caricature. "I know we've just talked about this, but I just don't know that he's capable of kidnapping or whatever this is."
Emma chewed at her bottom lip, trying not to breathe in the dusty air too deeply. They had commandeered the small conference room that spent most of its life as storage space. Boxes leaned precariously with lids askew and papers hanging out. Elsa had shyly asked if that was what they did with all evidence, which Emma admitted was a valid point given the condition of the room.
"Men don't like women to dump them or being replaced," she said thoughtfully. "I would imagine that if Hans has any ego at all, Anna leaving him and becoming involved with Kris a short time later was probably not an easy blow. Does he have a temper?"
Elsa might have been a little friendlier to Emma, admitting that she could see a bit of herself in the other blonde, but she was still very careful with her words and thought each one through carefully. "He angers easily, but I couldn't say he was violent. I've never seen him strike Anna or even threaten to do so. Call her names, maybe. Withhold affection, certainly. But he never hurt her physically."
Emma drew a breath as she heard the familiar refrain. "Those other things are abusive as well," she said, not wanting to rock the tremulous partnership that had been formed so far. "But let's get back to the money situation. You said he was interested in some sort of an agreement with your family's company."
***AAA***
Emma wondered how she was going to make it into her apartment from her car, as the weight of the day and her exhaustion were weighing heavily on her. She and Elsa had stayed cooped up in that space until way past midnight, questioning each other and themselves on any possible scenario. If it wasn't so cold outside, she would have already removed the leather boots that were now pinching her feet and padded barefoot into the apartment where she hoped to have enough energy to fall into bed instead of on the couch or floor.
She used both of her hands on the metal railing to push herself up the last of the stairs and onto the landing with a grunt of protest for her aching muscles. That was when she saw him outside her door. He was curled into a ball with his leather jacket as a pillow and a canvas tote next to him. His hair was mussed with evidence that he had been running his fingers through the dark lochs. Kneeling next to him, she pushed back a few of the stray strands from his forehead and said his name gently.
His eyes fluttered open with a confused gaze at her. "I didn't mean to fall asleep, but it is nighttime and we are meant to do that."
"What are you doing in my hallway?" she asked, rubbing her hand over the red indentations from his jacket and sleeve on his left cheek. The prickle of his whiskers felt like a comfortable hello from him though she had never really been partial to men with facial hair before him. She could always take it or leave it. "I could have just texted to say I got home safe."
"Missed you," he mumbled, his hand circling her wrist and turning his face up toward hers. "Least you could do is kiss me awake."
She held back a full laugh out of respect for her neighbors. "Who do you think you are now? Sleeping beauty? Snow White? I kiss you to wake you up and we live happily ever after?" She shook her head slightly before pecking his lips with her own. There was a cocked eyebrow to say to him that his plan wasn't working.
"I think we could write our own fairy tale perhaps," he said, returning to his sitting position and then stumbling up to standing. "Make it quite an adventure."
She again shook her head and fished her keys back out of her pocket to let them inside. "I think we should start by getting you a key," she said, not missing the raised eyebrow he shot her at the implication of such an act. "If you're going to insist on showing up here to surprise me then we might as well give you a more comfortable spot to rest than the hallway floor. People are going to think you're a bum. So are you going to tell me why you're here?"
He shrugged, helping her out of her own jacket and placing it on the hooks beside the door along with his own. "I missed you, love. Can't blame me for that. It has been quite a day what with my idiocy about not contacting you and letting you face that awful article alone." He winced. "And I was a bit worried about you?"
She sat on the couch and tugged inelegantly at her boots, sighing in relief when she was free of them. "Worried?"
"Love, there is someone or a group of someone's trying to hurt you," he said. "They even followed you and took photos that were made to look like you were up to things."
She smirked that he was unable or unwilling to say what he wanted to say about what she had been up to in all that. "You do realize that between the two of us, I'm the one who is authorized to carry a weapon. I'm the one who has taken classes and had all the training and experience. You sell boats."
"I'm quite impressed with your skills, love," he said, bopping her nose with a pointed index finger. "If I am ever in such a quandary, I will make sure you are my first call. Doesn't mean I am willing to sit and ignore a threat to you." He smiled warmly. "I hope you will allow that."
She reached back, unfastening the clip that held her hair into place and let it fall over her shoulders. "I think I might be able to be convinced, but I should warn you I'm not that good at these things."
He pulled her up from her seated position, chest to chest, one his hands coming to rest on her hip and the other at her neck in her hair. "I don't think there is anything you can't do, love. You never cease to amaze me."
Her eyes fluttered down. "I'm not good at asking people for help," she told him. "I'm usually opposed to it so you're going to have to be patient with me about that."
"Of course," he said. He turned his head to the clock there by her couch. "It's late. I should let you get some sleep." Brushing his lips against her forehead, he held her there for a moment. "Sleep well, Swan."
She craned her neck back to look at him. "You came over here to wish me a good night? Now you're going home?" The confusion was evident.
"I don't wish to overstep my bounds. You need rest and I merely wanted to see you. You must admit it has been a tiring day."
She pinched her mouth together as though she was thinking of how to talk to him about something difficult. "I know I'd sleep better if you stayed here with me," she said in a soft voice that sounded almost musical to him. "What do you say? This is me asking for your help."
He chuckled lightly, still holding her close to him. "Since you are requesting my assistance and I just offered to help in any way that I could…"
"Killian?" she asked, trying to keep him from rambling since she was feeling very much like she could fall asleep at any moment.
"Aye, darling?"
"Shut up and come to bed," she laughed. "You can be noble again in the morning."
***AAA***
If there was a better sensation that waking up with Emma in his arms, Killian was not sure what it was or how he could find out about it. He had no complaints about any of their bedroom activities, which they had managed to fit in after just an hour or so of sleep. She had admitted that she was much better at expressing herself physically than with words, which he had no issue with when it came to her. He was clearly becoming addicted to every aspect of her. He enjoyed the way she moaned and sighed with each bit of attention he could muster and the way her eyes fluttered shut just as pleasure reached an explosive point in her body. The sated smile that graced her lips when the most physical part of their coupling was through always made his own heart flutter with pride and satisfaction, knowing that she was happy and pleased.
But his favorite was to wake before her and watch her sleep there in his arms. She was not twisted in the sheet as she was normally, but instead using his chest as a pillow. He could feel her breath against his skin and feel the way her eyelashes moved when she was dreaming. He let the tips of his fingers travel up and down the length of her spine and lose themselves in the golden hair that tended to be thrown back in the midst of her passionate release.
"Early," she mumbled just minutes before her alarm. "Go back to sleep."
It was one of the things he had learned about her. She was not a morning person and hated the very thought of waking up before the incessant beeping of her alarm. There was something almost cat like about her in how she would stretch and hum herself awake, not opening her eyes until she was fully ready.
When the beeping clock woke her, she slapped it and pouted. "I was having a nice dream," she muttered, wrapping her arm over his waist and burying her face into his shoulder and neck. "Don't make me get up."
He wondered for a moment if she had been this way as a teenager. Was she that reluctant to wake up, a pretty pouting face, a tough exterior, a soft goodness when you got to know her? He wished that he had known her then, been able to protect her from the pain that had obviously infiltrated her life. He couldn't imagine not wanting her, not holding and cherishing her. It was a great mystery to him why anyone would have rejected her at all.
And now with the thoughts that someone was trying to hurt her with a revisionist theory of the past, he was ready to fight any that stood in the way. She was a marvel to him, a beautiful example of tenacity and hard work. He swore to himself that she wouldn't come to any harm because of someone's vendetta or idea of fun.
"You look too serious," she said, her voice heavy from sleep. "What are you thinking?"
"Nothing important," he said, stifling his own yawn. He had not lied when he said that their day had been long, as it had not been a fun experience to have her so close at mind and wonder what was going on with her. And he had not slept all that well, worrying about her and hoping that whatever the mess they found themselves in was not as serious as he had feared.
"Don't do that," she warned. "You want me to be open with you, you should be open with me." She looked more awake, ready to challenge his behavior.
"I suppose I owe you that same courtesy." He felt her shift so that she could see him, her hand flat on his lower chest and her chin on the back of it. "Emma, I am simply worried about you, love. The article is one thing, but clearly someone was trying to hurt you. They delved into your past. They followed you. They…They could have done so much worse. And I was too busy being shocked and hurt to do anything to stop them."
She closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose as his hand combed through her hair. "I'm fine," she told him, repeating it in a firmer voice. "Yes, it sucks. And yes, I'd love to know who did it. I'd probably punch them for it. But I'm okay. We're both okay."
His smile was a bit shaky. "I'm trying to believe that, Emma."
She pushed herself up to sitting, swatting his hands away as the sheet dipped to reveal a bit more of her skin and the tops of her breasts. "You think on it in the shower," she told him. "I thought I'd make us some breakfast before we go prove to our bosses that we are capable of doing our jobs without the hysterics of missing each other."
He puffed out his breath and chest resentfully. "I wasn't in hysterics. I merely missed you and may have lost my temper when some bloke proved his IQ was closer to his shoe size."
Rolling her eyes, she swatted at him again, only for him to catch her hand and place each finger to his lips one by one. "Don't distract me," she warned, earning herself a slow brush of his lips against her palm and then at the pulse point of her wrist. "I have to get to work, Killian. So do you."
"Mmmmhmmm…." he mumbled, climbing higher up her arm.
She pulled away slightly with a chastising grin. "That may work for Gomez Adams, but I'm not Morticia. I'm going to make breakfast while you shower. Then we'll switch."
Killian was making use of her shower that morning as she scrambled a few eggs and fried some bacon under the guise that it would be cheaper than Granny's and less likely for them to run into some of the gossip hungry residents of the town. She was just removing the eggs from the heated burner when the familiar pounding on her door jolted her from the thoughts of him naked and just a wall away.
"Well, you're not dead," Ruby said, sliding her sunglasses up to rest on her head full of raven hair. "I was beginning to wonder since you aren't answering text messages."
"We were worried," added Mary Margaret. "There's someone out there trying to ruin your life and you don't answer the phone. It made us worry."
"I'm fine," Emma said, stepping aside as the two women entered the apartment and shed their coats and scarves onto a chair. Both of them were complaining about the bitterness of the wind that morning when Ruby raised an eyebrow at the breakfast piled high on the table and Mary Margaret's ears perked at the sound of Killian's singing in the shower.
"Better than fine," the women said to each other with knowing smirks as they realized they both said it at the same time.
Emma rolled her eyes. "You expected him to be some place else?" Emma asked, a hand on one hip and a cooking utensil still in the other hand. "Ruby, I'm disappointed in you. You have a wild imagination."
"I was distracted," Ruby said, pouting her lips and settling her arms over her chest. "But you'll still want to hear what I have to say. I have information about the investigation into the stolen money."
Emma walked back into the kitchen and placed the cooking spoon down as she gathered a few condiments for their breakfast. "What would you know about that?"
Mary Margaret chewed her lip nervously as Ruby milked the dramatic pause. "Mayor Mills hired an investigator. Someone from New York to come in and question everyone and go through the records." She lifted a hand to inspect a nail. "He's someone you know and want to avoid."
Emma sighed. "I am supposed to guess."
Mary Margaret elbowed her way past Ruby and sighed. "Emma, it's Neal. He's the investigator. This isn't good news."
A/N: Some of you have guessed that I would bring Neal back in with this story. I thought I would in a different kind of a way. Hope you enjoyed that twist.