It was well after noon before Trish, Sara and Sharon were finished giving statements. The Chicago Police Department, the Illinois Bureau of Investigation, the Illinois State Police, none of them seemed interested in relying on any other agency for information. As a result, the three women were forced to answer many of the same questions multiple times, though they had gotten very good at doing so with the least number of words by the end. There was only one more interview remaining, and that one was brief.
"In case you need me for anything," Paul said as he handed each of them a business card, "you saved our asses today. None of us will ever forget that."
"We're not done yet," Trish said, "but I don't think they'll try something like that again."
"No, they'll try something completely different," Sara said.
"As long as it doesn't involve water," Sharon said before sticking her right hand out to the assistant director, "pleasure working with you."
"Same here," Trish said, "You did good for your first mission."
"First and last," he replied, "back to make believe for me."
The three women climbed into Sara's rental and made their way onto Lake Shore Drive.
in the car, heading out, Trish texted Simon.
got it. we're back home, he replied.
Trish knew that home was the designation for the hotel room where Annelie was staying under a bogus name.
how's the baby?
shaky, be replied.
be there in twenty.
It was already warm and muggy, though their proximity to the lake was making it more comfortable, and all the windows were down as they drove north. All of them had burned through their excess adrenaline some time ago, and so they settled into the comfortable drive, with the local station WXRT playing at low volume. Sharon had shed her borrowed blanket at the same time she had stripped out of her borrowed wardrobe and was once again dry and dressed as herself.
"How is she?" Sharon asked.
"Shaky."
"She gonna be able to go to work again tonight?" Sara asked.
"I don't know. It's all exteriors until Tuesday when they have the fight scene at the museum. They might just use her stand in," Trish answered before looking at Sharon, "her other stand in."
"Anyone want to stop for lunch?" Sara asked.
"Let's wait and order for everybody," Sharon said, "they must be just as hungry as we are."
Silence descended again on the car and it's occupants, if that was the right word to describe driving down Lake Shore Drive on a Saturday afternoon with the windows open. But it was close enough, close enough, at least, for the three women to review the morning's events and how it was that two men got so close to their (the men's) intended target and their (the three women's) protectee.
At least nobody died this time, Trish thought as her mind went back to the flight crew. The men this morning had been home grown, corn fed, professionals. Trish's opponent hadn't utter a word. Sharon's opponent had only spoken once, not enough to pinpoint where he was from, but enough to know that he was American.
"Whoever is behind this, they hired local for today," Trish said.
"Yeah, not like the shit heads on the plane," Sharon said.
"Gotta be some kind of money trail to follow," Sara said, "something that leads back up the food chain."
"They got paid by a guy who got paid by a guy...you know how it'll play out," Sharon said.
"Still worth following up," Sara said.
"But not by us. We already have a job. But I know someone we can ask, if we need to," Trish said as she thought of Dakota North, and the shit ton of money that she already owed her.
In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.
"How is she?" Trish asked.
"I gave her a Valium. She's better," Simon said, "She's sleeping."
"We're ordering food. Anybody object to burgers? I'm calling Epic. They deliver."
"Can I use your shower?" Sharon asked as she placed her hands near her nose, "Whatever that stuff was floating on the lake, it smells like shit."
"It probably was shit," Sara said.
"Use the shower in the other room so you don't wake Annelie up," Trish said.
"Jesus, this suit's bigger than the house I grew up in," Sharon said as she walked to the smaller bedroom, and it's attached bathroom.
"We need to debrief, but we'll wait for Sharon to get cleaned up," Simon said, "how are your knuckles?"
"Fine," Trish answered as she looked at the backs of both her hands, "they're tough. They'll heal quickly."
"They look like they're healing already," Sara said.
they are, but that's not something I plan on sharing at the moment.
"I'm gonna secure my weapon and change into something less sweaty," Trish said as she started towards the bedroom she was sharing with Annelie before stopping, "shit. I forgot."
Michael went to the door and cracked it an inch.
"She's out like a light. You should be fine."
Trish widened the opening of the door just enough to slide through before closing it behind her. Annelie was lying on her right side, not quite in the fetal position, but close. Her even breathing told Trish that she was, indeed, sound asleep. Trish stripped off the cloths she was wearing, and had just put on new panties and jog bra when she heard the door open again. She turned around to see Sara sliding through the door much like Trish had done a minute earlier.
"Is the food here?" Trish asked as she stood in front of the dresser.
"Not yet," Sara said softly as she pulled her shirt up over her head and dropped it to the floor.
holy shit, Trish thought as she looked at the sculpted woman as Sara walked up to Trish and stopped a few inches in front of her.
Sara took Trish's hand in hers. Her fingers were strong, yet gentle; and she used those fingers to lift Trishe's hand to her mouth. Trish felt her heart rate increase as Sara's mouth caressed her palm before guiding that palm underneath Sara's bra.
Trish closed the distance between them to zero as she pressed her mouth against Sara's and used her free hand to grab Sara's firm ass and pull their two pelvises together. It was only a moment later that Sara's own pants were on the floor around her ankles and, as she kicked them to one side, Trish and Sara's eyes met.
"We can't use the bed," Trish said.
"We don't need the bed," Sara replied before slowly guiding them both to the carpeted floor, and her face to the soft, warm place between Trish's inviting legs.
"Lunch is here!" Michael's voice said eventually from the other room, just after Trish had given Sara an Earth shattering orgasm, fair exchange for services rendered by Sara Lance only a few minutes earlier.
"The Commissioner promised us a full report, but I doubt either of those two is going to say a word," Simon said after the three women had given a detailed account of what had happened after Simon, Michael and Laurel had whisked Annelie away, "Laurel's on her way back right now."
"Did the Commissioner have anything to say about how is twelve hand picked guys became fourteen?"
"Laurel has everything they know so far. We'll get updates when they have anything new to share."
Need to meet. Intel to share, the text from Dakota North said on Trish's phone, same place as last time.
"I have to meet someone," Trish said as she pocket her phone, "I'll be on comms."
"Want some company?" Sara asked.
"Yes," Trish said as she smiled at her doppelganger, "but I have to go alone."
"Don't be too long," Simon said, "Annelie will be awake soon, and she'll want you here."
"Quick as I can boss," Trish said as she chambered a round in her compact side arm before securing it in it's customary place.
"Hey, stop by Garrett's and pick me up some popcorn!" Trish heard Sara call as she closed the suit door behind her.
"That lying motherfucker," Trish said after reading the printed information a second time, "I knew he was lying to me. He knew the whole fucking time."
"So did she," Dakota North said. She had reviewed the material, at Jessica's request, and had reached the same conclusion that Jess had.
"Yeah, but I can tell you who's fucking idea it was to keep that a secret," Trish said, "Kyle fucking Richmond."
"Look on the bright side, it's not a leak."
"No, it's the opposite of a leak, it's a clogged pipe. Son of a bitch."
Trish needed a minute to take it all in. Annelie knew who was sending the letters, and there was no way she wouldn't have told Kyle. Trish was seriously fucking pissed at Kyle Richmond, but she was also pissed at herself. She had walked into Kyle's office, taken one look at the gorgeous actress and accepted the assignment, no questions asked. She had not even done the most basic research on her protectee. A stupid fucking Wikipedia search would have flagged Annelie's dead boyfriend, and the mystery surrounding his demise. That alone would have set off alarm bells in Trish's head. But she hadn't done shit besides fuck her protectee three hours after meeting her.
"He kept everything that he knew to himself," Trish said, "and I didn't even fucking ask."
"What would he have done if you had asked him? And what would you have done if he had said it's none of your business?"
"I guess we'll never know, and that's on me."
"Would you have done anything differently if you had known everything?" Dakota asked.
"I don't know," Trish answered, which was the truth. She had no fucking idea what she would have done differently. Her job was to keep Annelie Bodin safe and, as blind as she had been to these details, she had done that. It wasn't her job to keep the flight crew safe, and Trish would never have guessed that they were in any danger even if she had memorized everything in these pages days before ever meeting Annelie. Nothing in this information pointed to the fact that Ekaterina Sokolova would go off the rails like she seems to have done.
Trish placed the pages back in the briefcase before looking at Dakota.
"What?" Trish asked the woman who had been staring at her.
"You finally got there," she answered.
"Where?"
"You realize that nothing in those pages would have changed anything for you. It might even have biased your work."
"Biased it how?"
"It might have shifted your focus from the woman you were hired to protect to the woman who was threatening her."
"It might have."
"Maybe that was why Kyle didn't share this with you, assuming he knew all of this. He might only have known her name, and he didn't want you to run off half cocked."
"I don't run off half cocked. When I run off, I'm fully cocked."
"Well?" Trish asked Annelie as they all sat around the large dining room table, "got anything to add to this?"
Trish had simply walked back into their suite, placed the printouts on the table, and spread them out in the order that Jessica had zipped them, and Dakota had presented them. Annelie's stunned face when she began reading said everything that Trish needed to hear, but instead of exploding in a cloud of profanity and hurt feelings she had called a team meeting before methodically running down the timeline and the evidence that supported it. It hadn't taken long for the room to become completely silent except for the sound of Trish's voice as it read the report that Jessica had written.
"No," Annelie said after Trish had concluded reading the report and asked her question, "that about covers it."
Everyone was quiet for several seconds.
"I assume that since none of you knew these details that Renee didn't know them either," Laurel said.
"Kyle worked directly with her. I have no idea what he shared with her, or what he told her to hold back."
"You're probably right," Simon said, "none of this would have changed anything for us, and it's his company, and his money, and his decision what to share; but I would have like to have known."
"Did you tell him about Sokolova?" Sara asked the actress directly, her voice emotionless.
"Yes."
"Anything else? About Elliott? About the database?"
"Elliott died in a car accident. There was nothing to suggest it was connected to her in any way. And I didn't know about the database, or how they were tracking my movements or where I was staying."
"Did you ask him to keep any of this from us?" Trish asked, her voice equally emotionless.
"No. He said that we would keep Katya between us for now. He said the important thing was keeping me safe, not confronting Katya."
"He could have turned her into the authorities," Laurel said.
"You're a lawyer in America, you have no idea what it's like in Russia. For people like her there are no laws. She can do whatever she wants, and the police will do nothing," Annelie said with emotion.
Good, stop being a fucking doormat and start fighting back, Trish thought.
"That's true," Laurel said, "I apologize. None of this is your fault."
"It's not our fault either, but it is our problem," Trish said, "Sokolova clearly hasn't given up yet, and she has no problem hiring the work out to whoever is willing to take it."
"That's also true," Michael said, "if we want to end this threat, we have to either make the cost prohibitively high, or cut the head off of the organization."
"I need to talk to Kyle," Trish said, "what's on for tonight? Are they shooting the Chicago River stuff or not?"
"They want to get it in before the rain starts," Annelie said, "tomorrow is interiors at the museum, but we have to be finished and cleared out when they open at 9:30."
Trish was quiet for a moment while she considered her next words, which she finally directed at Simon.
"Take me out of the rotation. I may be flying back to New York tomorrow."
