- 2 -
Sharon Raydor rubbed the bridge of her nose furiously and in the vague hope of chasing away the headache that was creeping up on her. Rusty took a turn without signaling first, but she decided to let it slip on account of the deep affliction of having to be Sharon Raydor at the present moment. She did not miss his sideward glance at her just before he went for another maneuver that was not exactly a testament to sensible driving either. He was doing it on purpose, she realized, not sure what to do with that particular piece of information right now.
"So Dott is your sister," Rusty began in that nasal teenage voice that never bode well, reminding Sharon that she was not only the loved yet boring spoilsport of a sister to flamboyant New Yorker Dott Emerson, but also loving and mostly patient foster mother to a teenager who had trouble meeting new people. If Ellie made a move on him, which she wouldn't have put past her seeing her with Dott's teenage son a few years ago ("Brendan, helloooohooooo!"), she would kill her with her bare hands. But telling those two that her foster son had a rocky relationship with sexuality in general and was just beginning to discover that he was gay would be no good. Well-meaning, yet bat shit crazy as they were, they would probably try and set him up with some guy. Pressure was the very last thing Rusty needed and so she sat up straight and decided to put on a brave face.
"She is," she replied softly, letting Rusty decide where he wanted the conversation to go before she made any assumptions that made him fly off the handle - as teenagers did so frequently - and kill them both in a rage and reckless driving induced car crash.
"She looks a lot like you from the photos," Rusty continued rather carefully. Sharon sighed. Dott had been sending her pictures of her and Ellie in obscure outfits all afternoon. After seeing one, Rusty had almost choked to death on a mars bar and then demanded to see the rest of them.
"I can assure you that this is where the similarities end," Sharon said dryly, looking out of the window at the lights that, at this speed, were blurred.
"Do you two, like, get along well?" Sharon resisted the urge to correct him, tell him to lay off the "likes", stop throwing them in every other word. He would probably just roll her eyes at her if he got it at all. At least he wasn't using any words that seemed to have become part of the English language at some point but didn't make sense to her at all. That reminded her, she still needed to google twerking as well as swag.
"We do, actually," she said honestly. "She just tends to, well, be a little overwhelming."
"And Ellie? You said they were close."
Sharon chuckled. "Just think of them as the female version of Andy and Provenza, Rusty. Just with more make-up and less scruples."
Rusty shot her a surprised look as he pulled into the hotel's parking lot, her relatively new car protesting with a groan. Sharon grimaced. This was a foreshadowing of the evening to come if there ever was one.
Dott and Ellie greeted them in a closed-off section of the hotel bar in the way they were comfortable having sections of bars closed-up to drink like fishes without being observed by the general public. Dott was wearing a dark red cocktail dress while Ellie was wrapped up in yet another hard to describe bubble gum pink lace sort of thing that looked weirdly fashionable along with the tiny hat fixed to the woman's golden locks.
"Sharon!" Her voice boomed as they saw her and Sharon had to try hard not to move in front of Rusty for protection as she approached and showered her with hugs and kisses as if they hadn't seen each other just mere hours ago. Raising an eyebrow at Rusty, she cocked her head. "And you, little man!" She leaned into Sharon, whispering rather loudly: "When did you have another one? Didn't think you'd let Jack near you in the past two decades."
"He's her foster son!" Dott corrected, shaking her head.
"Foster son!" Ellie said, her face lighting up. "No sex with Jack then. Good for you, girl. Good for you. From the looks of him I always figured he'd be a-"
Sharon was saved from having to listen to her sister's best friend's assessment of her husband's skills in the sheets by the arrival of Flynn and Provenza who were eyeing the women curiously. Sharon couldn't help but notice that Dott straightened up a bit at the sight of Andy and that her smile became wider. She was about to come to the conclusion that she needed a drink when a waiter arrived and handed her a flute of champagne that she very much felt like gulping down in one go, but didn't. Composure, Sharon.
Ellie and Dott greeted the whole team like the two skilled hostesses that they were, Ellie not-so-discreetly feeling up Sanchez' behind which made him blush furiously and Buzz almost spit out a sip of champagne. This was not good, Sharon thought. Somehow it would fall back on her, even though she was clearly the more normal sister. Someone would talk by the water cooler and soon everybody would just assume that she came from a family of cuckoos. Which was not the complete opposite of the truth, if she was honest with herself.
Soon the party was in full swing and even Rusty seemed to have forgotten that it was his job as a teenager to be perpetually sullen or upset about something that made him storm out of the room. He seemed happy and relaxed, sipping fizzy drinks and talking to Buzz and Tao. Sharon's heart warmed a little seeing him that comfortable. The feeling vanished quickly, however, as Ellie shrieked happily, announcing a game of spin the bottle and throwing a half full champagne bottle in the middle of the table, spraying the people around it with the cold liquid.
Sharon had another glass of champagne. Thank god for teenagers that were keen on driving, below the legal drinking age and terrified of her wrath should they dare and have even one sip of alcohol.
A tray of food was offered to her but Sharon was too busy staring at Ellie whose hand was wrapped around the back of Sanchez's head, pulling him towards her shoulder. The man looked weary, as if he had already given up. Sharon wanted to move forward to save him but was stopped by the waiter who topped up her glass.
A painful fifteen minutes later they finally moved on to dinner, seated in a secluded area out on the patio under a row of lights strung between potted trees whose leaves swayed gently in the breeze. The display wouldn't have been out of place in a romantic comedy, but before Sharon could dwell on it, Provenza had taken her arm to guide her to the table rather gallantly.
Instant suspicion arose on the part of Sharon Raydor.
"Your sister and her friend seem to be very wealthy," he said and she raised both brows.
"Dott had a brilliant divorce lawyer and Ellie makes a lot of money with her books," she replied, even more taken aback by the fact that Provenza pulled out her chair for her. Something was definitely up. And finally, after a lot of meaningless small talk that was not usually Provenza's style, came the ambush she had been suspecting all along.
"Your sister," he said rather casually. "Is she... spoken for?"
"Oh god, Sharon! Are you okay?" On her other side, Rusty leaned into Sharon and put his hand on her arm as she coughed helplessly, having choked on her wine.
"I'm good," she breathed, feeling everything but. Provenza liked her sister? She stole a glance at him and from the looks of him - bright pink face and wide eyes - she realized that she had been spot on. Sharon took another sip of wine that burned its way down her sore throat, making her feel even more miserable. Faking another round of coughing to stall the inevitable, she looked over the table at Dott who was telling Andy a story, waving her hands in the air and smiling in the carefree sparkling way that sometimes was hard to achieve when you had worked in Internal Affairs for two decades and still hadn't officially divorced your gambling husband. Flynn's head was angled at her in a way that made it impossible to see from her vantage point whether he was being polite or truly interested.
There you are, Sharon. The boring sister again.
And whoever had labeled her that wasn't wrong, she thought scornfully. She was terribly boring. Rule-abiding. Hard-working. Devoid of friends that insisted on climbing the fence and were falling face first into the sand as a result, as Ellie was currently in the middle of attempting.
"Captain, you're staring into space." Sharon turned her head and looked at Provenza, trying to remember what he was waiting on. Then it dawned on her.
"Oh, sorry." She tried a smile. "Well, I am not sure. She is not married if that's what you're asking."
"Ah," Provenza said with feigned disinterest, but his eyes flitted towards Sharon's sister, eyeing her cleavage. Sharon felt a little sick.
Tao and Sanchez had succeeded in rescuing Ellie from her sandy predicament and were currently busy resettling her in her chair which was a little hard considering that Ellie was trying to push her foot into Julio's lap which Tao did his best to ignore. It was all quite comical and she could feel the level of drunkenness rising at all fronts around her. She would have to make sure they all got a cab later. Or could carpool with Andy.
Said lieutenant looked at her across the table that very moment while Dott was still engrossed in one of her stories and smirked. Sharon hiccupped and felt mortified.
"Sharon are you drunk?" Rusty's eyes were wide and innocent. He looked like a little boy now and Sharon felt the urge to hug him tight. Instead she straightened up.
"Rusty, please," she said sternly. "I am not-" - hiccup - "drunk."
Rusty looked at her.
Sharon looked back.
"That was unfortunate," she said with as much dignity as she could muster. She was a little tipsy, she had to admit. But not drunk. "Excuse me."
Once safely inside the ladies' room, she splashed water on to her face, careful not to ruin her make-up. She looked good, but of course her modest midnight blue satin dress was no match for Dott's risque little red number. Sharon applied a generous amount of lipstick, pouted at her reflection and then turned to leave, feeling in control of her bearings again.
Outside in the dimly lit hallway stood Andy Flynn, waiting next to a yucca tree, hands buried in his pockets.
"If this is supposed to be secret surveillance, you're doing it wrong," she told him. He looked very attractive against the backdrop of the velvety summer night.
"I am just staking you out to see whether you're going to attempt to climb your way on to the beach, too," he replied smoothly.
"Because that worked so well for Ellie?" Sharon smirked and sauntered closer.
"I would like to see you try. With a skirt that short it should be a spectacle I feel interested in watching."
Sharon's stomach fluttered at the remarkably well-hidden compliment.
"Like the earrings, too," Andy said, gently touching the simple silver strings with his fingertips.
Sharon felt light-headed and besides the fact that Andy was standing in front of her, admiring her jewelry, she knew that all that champagne was what as physically putting her in this state. Deciding that it didn't matter, she took two less than graceful steps into Andy's direction, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him senseless. Surprised by the ferocity of it, Andy fell into the yucca tree and almost knocked it over, albeit returning her kiss, running his hands down her back and grunting appreciatively at her. Or maybe it was the pain from the handle of the window in his back, one could never be sure.
They were interrupted by both of their cell phones beginning to ring simultaneously. Sharon groaned and let go of him rather reluctantly.
"Give me your phone. I am going to climb that fence and throw them in the ocean," Andy said, still a little breathless.
"You threatened to throw them out of my bedroom window last weekend," she reminded him as she searched through her purse for the offending piece of technology, currently blasting Mozart at a volume that was ungodly. The Queen of the Night's aria from The Magic Flute no less. Damn Rusty. What had she done wrong this time? He liked to change her ringtones if she was too strict with him for his liking.
Andy had found his cell phone, too, and was bringing a little distance between to provide them both privacy. She felt a little ridiculous holding on to his hand until they stood too far apart to reach each other, but Dott's attempts to gain Andy's attention had made her feel weirdly possessive of her secret boyfriend of six weeks.
"Captain Raydor, we have a body." She could tell from the look on Andy's face that he had been called with the same message. Their eyes met and she was hearing the others' footsteps coming up the corridor already. Ten frantic seconds later she had scrubbed her lipstick off Andy's face and stood tall, still tipsy but somewhat dignified, to await her team and their two shadows.