Tranquil, unhurried mornings were somewhat of a rarity in the Voight household. If it wasn't Alexis' one-sided chatter rousing them from slumber, it was a cell phone buzzing incessantly on the nightstand drawing them away from the soft, sumptuous and ridiculously expensive Egyptian cotton that Kate insisted on purchasing.
Yet this morning she was awoken by thin strips of sunlight filtering through the gaps in the blind, bathing the room in a soothing golden glow. Her heavy, gritty eyes told her it was far too early to be awake but still she found herself unable to drift back off to sleep.
Shifting onto her side, her eyes settled on Hank's prone form, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards into a soft smile as she watched him sleep. As usual he was sprawled out on his stomach with his face almost completely obscured by the feather-down pillow, his body rising and falling slowly with each deep, even breath. Kate let her eyes roam over the broad expanse of his back, taking in the myriad of freckles, blemishes and scars that littered his tanned skin; a tapestry of stories from what felt like a lifetime ago. She often found herself wondering what her life would have been like if she had moved to Chicago sooner. Would they still have fallen in love? Would their paths have even crossed at all? Alvin had told her once that, until she came along, he wasn't sure if Hank would have ever moved on after Camille passed so perhaps the story was just the way it was always meant to be.
"Stop thinking so loud."
He looked like he was still asleep when she flicked her eyes back to his face, momentarily startled by his deep, gravelly request but he soon cracked open a bleary eye to cast her an accusatory glance.
"You can see through your eyelids now?" She asked with a grin, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth when his eyes fluttered closed and he rolled onto his back with a low groan, exposing his toned torso to her appreciative gaze.
"No. I could hear you thinking."
"You could not." She argued with a quiet laugh when he tugged the sheets back up over his body and shuffled towards her, hands blindly reaching to wrap around her waist beneath the sheets. "That's impossible."
Chuckling at his inaudible grumbled response, Kate allowed herself to be drawn into his arms, humming in blissful contentment as she nestled her face against the warm skin of his chest. For a few long minutes, Kate was lulled into a serene state of relaxation by the sound of his heart thrumming steadily in her ear but their few sacred moments of peace was abruptly halted by the sound of a cell phone vibrating against the wood of the bedside table.
Trying and failing to wriggle out of a disapproving Hank's embrace, she settled for turning in his arms to pluck her phone from the table, thumb swiping over the screen to connect the call just as he began to track a path of gentle kisses along the slope of her neck.
"Meadows."
"Kate, it's Elliot."
Hank's lips froze against her shoulder as he heard the muffled greeting from Elliot Stabler, his spine involuntarily stiffening at the increasingly familiar voice at the other end of the line. Seizing her opportunity to shift out of his arms, Kate propped herself up against the headboard, turning to meet Hank's eyes as he peered up at her now suddenly wide awake as he rolled onto his stomach, his weight balance on his elbows and forearms.
"Morning El. Everything okay?"
"Yeah, sorry it's so early. I, uh, couldn't sleep so I thought I'd dig around to see if I could find anything on your dad's case." He replied and Kate could faintly hear him shuffling some papers around on his desk, knowing they were likely stuck under a mug of cold coffee.
"Any joy?"
Pulling her phone away from her ear, she put the call on loudspeaker so that Hank could listen to whatever Elliot had managed to unearth in the NYPD archives.
"Well, your guy's contact was right, Organised Crime worked the case in 2010. They had reason to believe it was the same crew hitting gas stations all across the Tri-State area. That not in your file?"
"Hartford PD case file only has records from the local precinct that investigated at the time." Kate replied, her skin prickling with irritation that she had spent over two years working a case with only half of the information available. "I didn't even know NYPD had looked at it at all until recently."
"Well there's not much here, only that the case was marked cold by NYPD Chief of Police Roger Marsh in December of that same year."
It wasn't a name she was familiar with but, given that the case formally went cold five years before she even joined the NYPD, it wasn't much of a surprise. Regardless, she made a mental note of the name so that she could do some digging of her own later.
"I'll ask Jet to take a closer look, see if she can unearth anything in the archives."
"Thanks El, I really appreciate it…hey, uh, how're you doin'?" She said softly, casting a quick glance at Hank who gave her a withering look at the change of topic, clearly having little to no interest in finding out how Elliot Stabler was doing.
In the aftermath of Kathy Stabler's death, Elliot had been a man walking on a proverbial knife edge, barely toeing the line between being obsessively focused and arbitrarily reckless. She knew he wasn't the kind of man to turn to drink or drugs but, not unlike her, he would throw himself headlong into work in the hope that it would provide at least a few hours of distraction; hence why he was hip-deep in her dad's case file at four thirty in the morning. While the two detectives were no longer close, they shared a little too much history for her to be completely indifferent about his wellbeing.
"Well I got an empty nest for the first time." He said with a heavy sigh. "Eli's at college, Mama's with Kathleen until we can find an assisted living place. The dementia's slowly eatin' her up from the inside out."
"God El, I'm so sorry."
The handful of times Kate had met the Stabler matriarch, Bernie had gone out of her way to make the young detective feel at home.
'Ya know, both my husband and my son have been stupid enough to get in the way of a speeding bullet…I expected more from a smart thing like you.'
Elliot had scalded her with a hushed 'Mama' but Kate had simply smiled and watched she continued to shuffle around the kitchen before placing a steaming cup of tea and a slab of New York Cheesecake at Kate's elbow with a genial pat on the shoulder.
"Yeah…I took her on a job with me a few weeks back and it was like somebody turned the lights back on for a minute, ya know?" He said with a light chuckle, one more of wistful longing than true amusement. "Listen, I gotta go but I'll get Jet to give you a call if she finds anything, alright?"
"Thanks El. Please take care of yourself, okay?"
Kate killed the call after Elliot's quiet "you too" gave way to the monotonic beep signalling he had disconnected the line and lifted her eyes to meet Hank's questioning gaze.
Philip Meadows had been killed in 2008 and Hartford PD had dutifully worked the case for a few months until all viable leads had dried up and the case was moved to the bottom of the priority pile. But eighteen months later, NYPD Organised Crime picks it up and marks it cold after just two weeks of investigation.
What Hank couldn't quite work out was why OC didn't formally document their investigation into Philip Meadows' murder? When they marked the case as cold, they should have transferred their files over to Hartford PD so that all records pertaining to his murder could be logged but, from what he could tell, they didn't even let the original homicide detectives know they had reopened the case.
"Something's not adding up." Kate said with a shake of her head. "How could I not have known NYPD looked into his case?"
"Kate, it wasn't even documented." He replied with a shrug. "And Hartford PD didn't have copies of the NYPD investigation."
"Yeah but I lived and breathed this case for two years. I must've spent hundred of hours pouring over those files-"
Hank cut her off with a noise of disapproval as he shifted into a seated position beside her to rest one arm along the row of pillows at her back, his fingertips brushing the nape of her neck, drawing her eyes to his face.
"Look, you had less than a years' experience on the job and, let's face it, working for narcotics isn't exactly rocket science."
Aside from the occasional unpalatable possession charge that ruined a misguided teenager's life in the blink of an eye, it was simply a case of putting dangerous drug dealers behind bars. There were very few moral question marks and, while cutting her teeth in Narcos and Vice had given her an excellent foundation in undercover assignments, it wasn't until she joined Intelligence and the lines between good and bad got really hazy did she truly learn how to be a detective.
"Honey, you're kicking yourself now because you're a decade in and you know better." Hank murmured softly. "You see the bigger picture…the missing pieces. That's why I prefer taking kids straight outta the academy." He said idly, resting his palm in the curve of her neck and shoulder, tracing the pad of his thumb gently along the base of her skull "Ruzek, Burgess, Atwater, Erin, they were taught to look at bigger picture from the jump."
She hadn't really thought about it before but almost all of Hank's current unit had joined Intelligence either straight out of the academy or following a short stint on patrol. Alvin, Antonio and Jay had provided a balance but, aside from both herself and Hailey, he had clearly handpicked his unit with growth in mind.
"I mean, they still made mistakes. Big mistakes in some cases." He continued with a lift of both eyebrows and a wry smile. "But they got there faster. They became better cops faster."
After a few beats of silence, Kate angled her body towards him, reaching out a hand to cup his face in her palm, lips tugging into a soft smile when his eyes drifted closed at her touch.
"That's because they have a great teacher." She said quietly as she stroked her thumb along the sharp line of his jaw, the light stubble scratchy against her skin.
"It's got very little to do with me." He scoffed. "But they learn from spending hours on end with cops like you. Cops like Jay and Hailey."
"You don't give yourself as much credit at you should, Hank." She chastised after a short pause. "Your closure rate is-"
"It's our closure rate." He corrected firmly. "Y'know I get asked at CompStat meetings all the time why my solve rate is so high and I just lean into the assumption people make about me breaking the rules to get the job done."
"Which is clearly not true." Kate said wryly, the two of them sharing an amused chuckle at the thought of anybody believing that the notoriously defiant Hank Voight was a stickler for the rules.
"But the real reason Intelligence has the highest closure rate is because we have the most skilled team in the country…and I've been around for a thousand years so I guess I've picked up a thing or two about how to catch assholes." He muttered with a shrug, lifting his free hand to scrub at his face and Kate found herself biting back a groan of appreciation as the sheet dropped into his lap at the subtle movement, exposing his toned upper body to her hungry gaze.
His chest was still carrying an olive hue from their honeymoon, the smattering of salt and pepper curls contrasting against his golden skin and Kate couldn't help but track her eyes down the length of his body, following the line down his belly to where the sheet was sitting low on his hips.
"A thousand years huh?" She muttered coyly, stroking an index finger down the centre of his chest, tracking lower and lower until she reached his bellybutton. "I wonder what other skills you've picked up in that time?"
With a quirk of his lips, Hank used the hand on her neck to draw her in for a slow, sensual kiss, his tongue tracing the seam of her mouth in a silent request for entry that she willingly granted with a tight whine of delight.
"Y'know, I'm startin' to think this is the only reason you keep me around." Hank mumbled when he drew away from her lips to press a series of hot, open-mouthed kisses along the underside of her jaw, slowly making his way down the cord of muscle at her throat to nip at her collarbones, grinning against her skin when her head fell backwards to grant him unrestricted access.
"Don't be silly." She breathed, her fingers carding through the short tresses at the back of his head as he continued his journey south, rolling her onto her back so that he could skim his lips along the silky flesh between her breasts. "You do the laundry too."
His amused chuckle gave way to a disappointed groan when his intimate exploration of his wife's body was halted by the familiar shrill shriek through the baby monitor signalling their few moments of solitude were coming to a premature close.
"Muuuuuuu-MA!"
"Perfect timing, as always." Came Hank's muffled complaint from where his face was still buried between Kate's breasts, lips peppering soft kisses to her skin.
"You realise that having another baby will mean even less time for sex, right?" Kate laughed, gently stroking a hand across his broad shoulders when he tightened his grip around her waist, preventing her from shifting out of reach.
"Babies sleep." He muttered simply, settling his weight between her parted legs and sliding a palm along her hip to draw her thigh around his waist. "And I can be quick."
"I'm not sure that's something you should brag about."
Her amused retort gave way to a sharp intake of breath when he found a particularly sensitive spot beneath her left breast and each subsequent brush of his lips against her skin elicited a quiet moan of pleasure until suddenly she went still beneath him, Hank's eyes darting upwards to meet hers. Releasing her pebbled nipple with a quiet 'pop', Hank pushed his weight onto his hands, peering down at her with a look of concern etched onto his handsome face.
"Kate? What's the ma-"
"I'm late."
He blinked slowly for a few long moments after she cut him off, the thick haze of lust slowly lifting only to be replaced by a cloud of confusion that resulted in a blurted response.
"Late for what?"
For an incredibly intelligent man, Kate wondered how on earth he could be so dim but, as she took in his flushed chest and blown pupils, she figured he was probably having a hard time forcing the blood that had been pooled in his groin back towards his brain.
Taking pity on him she repeated the two words again, this time slowly and purposefully to give him ample time for processing and, from the way his eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline, it seemed that the message was received loud and clear.
"You think you might be…" He tailed off as though saying the words out loud might somehow jinx it.
"I dunno…" Kate replied with a shrug. "I don't have a burning desire for banana milkshakes."
The corner of Hank's mouth tugged into a grin recalling all of the odd cravings she experienced during her pregnancy with Alexis but with the sweet memory came a sharp pang of sadness that they hadn't been able to do this the first time around. She had found out she was carrying his baby while he had been God knows where drinking himself into a stupor. Drawing in a deep breath, Hank brushed the backs of his fingers along her smooth cheek, his chest slowly filling with excitement as he leaned down to touch his lips to her forehead before shifting his weight back to the mattress beside her.
"Took a little longer this time around." He mumbled with a wry smile, his palm instinctively falling to rest against Kate's still-flat stomach.
They had been actively trying for over three months and, given they had conceived Alexis after one hurried, albeit sexy as hell interlude in the front seat of Hank's Dodge, they had perhaps naively expected the conception of their second child to be just as easy. With each passing month, Hank had watched Kate become more and more disheartened despite her valiant attempts to remain nonchalant and he couldn't help but wonder if this was finally it.
"We'll stop by the store on the way home tonight and-"
"Oh no, not a chance." Hank interrupted with a scoff and, sure enough, after they had dropped Alexis off at daycare, he made a detour to a nearby pharmacy on the way to the district and frogmarched a bemused Kate through the aisles, haphazardly plucking a selection of pregnancy tests from the shelf.
Thankfully the bullpen was still empty when they arrived but Kate didn't even have the chance to put her purse away before Hank was shooing her into the locker room, the door closing behind them with a quiet click.
"I can't believe I'm doing a pregnancy test in the damn locker room." Kate grumbled from the middle stall, listening to the muffled thud of footsteps and the rustling of fabric as Hank paced the length of the room.
"I won't put you in the field pregnant." Hank said stubbornly, folding his arms across his chest as he waited impatiently for Kate to exit the cubicle.
Despite being a father of three, Hank found it oddly ironic that this was the very first time he had anxiously stood around waiting for two pink lines to appear. Camille had already been to the doctor when she told him over dinner that she was pregnant with twins and a trauma surgeon had broke the news about Alexis so the tentative bubble of excitement blooming in his chest was somewhat of a novel experience for him.
He was stopped in his tracks by the sound of the toilet flushing and he turned on the spot to see Kate exiting the stall with the thin white stick in hand.
"You're being unreasonable." She muttered, placing the test carefully on the counter before hunching over the basin to wash her hands.
"I'm not being unreasonable!"
Closing her eyes with a sigh, she turned off the faucet and yanked a few paper towels from the dispenser on the wall to roughly dry her hands.
"I just meant I could have stayed at the district today if we caught a case." She explained patiently, stepping into his space to wind her arms around his waist, forcing him to unfold his arms and follow suit.
"Honey, I know my recovery was hard on you." Kate's heart clenched in her chest when he swallowed thickly, his beautiful russet orbs softening as he tightened his hold on her body as though the mere discussion of her injuries ran the risk of her wounds reopening right before his very eyes. "But I love our daughter more than life itself and I struggle every single day with the guilt that I almost got her killed."
They had talked about this at length over the last year, how she shouldered the crippling weight of knowingly putting her unborn baby at risk by chasing down a gun-wielding maniac with an axe to grind. Through some miracle they had both made it out the other side but Kate had been steadfast in refusal to put their future children in the same precarious position.
"You won't get any arguments from me about getting benched if those lines appear." She added, jerking her head towards the granite countertop where the test sat face down.
He dropped his forehead to hers with a long sigh of relief, his tense muscles relaxing in the knowledge that this wasn't something they would have to go to war over but he was also acutely aware that it wouldn't be long before she would ask the same of him.
She wanted their children to have both of their parents around for as long as possible and, having lost his own father when he was just a child and knowing that Daniel only recognised Justin through photographs, it wasn't as though he could blame her.
Their few moments of intimacy were interrupted by the chirrup of Kate's alarm signalling that their three minutes of waiting were already up. With a comforting peck on her forehead, they made their way back towards the vanity, both of them gazing apprehensively down at the test as though it were a stick of dynamite that might explode at any second.
"Ready?" Kate whispered, glancing up just in time to see him nod before she lifted the test from the counter and slowly, almost reluctantly, turned it over.
One line.
Not pregnant.
Kate's entire body sagged against him as she dropped the stick back onto the vanity with a clatter, suddenly needing to be as far away from it as possible. Enveloping her in his arms, Hank cupped the back of her head in his hand as she buried her face against his neck with a quiet groan, her eyes squeezing shut against the burn of tears threatening to break free.
"I'm sorry." She mumbled quietly, her fingers bunching his shirt in a white-knuckle grip as he held her against tight against him.
"Don't be…just means I got more excuses to get you naked." He replied in a deep, gravelly tone but knowing that he was just as disappointed made her evermore appreciative of his droll, lighthearted sense of humour.
"Oh the hardship." She muttered sarcastically, drawing her face away from his throat to press a series of soft, sensual kisses to his lips, each one lasting a little longer than the last until they were startled by the locker room door being shoved open with a loud bang.
"Meadows, you in he- oh!"
Their mouths parted with a telltale smack, headings spinning towards the doorway at the sound of Trudy's voice but, despite being the target of the Desk Sergeant's nettled glare at finding them locked in a passionate clinch, Hank refused to loosen his grip on her waist.
"Is no room in my damn district sacred?" She huffed, rolling her eyes when they both answered her question in perfect sync, Kate tentatively defensive and Hank, as anticipated, outright defiant.
"We weren't-"
"No."
Equal parts irritated and amused at her own misfortune to once again be the one to catch the two of them canoodling in places they shouldn't be canoodling, it didn't take Trudy longer than a few seconds to spy the abandoned pregnancy test on the counter and she suddenly became uncharacteristically giddy with excitement.
"Well don't keep me in suspense!" She pressed after a few beats of silence. "Are you?"
When Kate shook her head with a sad smile, Hank instinctively ran a soothing hand along her spine and Trudy's expression softened into one of empathetic understanding. Being a female cop in today's climate was hard enough but being a female cop in the late eighties and early nineties meant that you had to choose between a career and a family; you didn't get to have both. And while Trudy had never doubted her choice of career, she occasionally found herself picturing what life would have been like if she had given the misogynistic assholes in the Ivory Tower the middle finger and started a brood of her own. She supposed that, in a round about way, she eventually got the best of both worlds. Now she got to serve the city she loved while moulding clueless rookies into good, solid police officers, many of which she came to love like her own flesh and blood.
There was no mistaking that Kate was one of the most natural cops Trudy had ever laid eyes on but, if there was one thing that Katherine Meadows was born to be, it was a mother and seeing her in the arms of her husband looking so woefully despondent had Trudy's gut clenching in sympathy.
"Well…knowing you two, it's not through lack of trying." Trudy muttered good-naturedly, her sarcastically dry delivery combined with yet another long-suffering eye-roll drew an undignified snort of amusement from Kate. "It'll happen." Trudy added softly, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards into a reassuring smile that both Kate and Hank returned with gratitude.
"Thanks Trudy. Did you need something?"
"Brass are waiting on your report from that domestic disturbance a few weeks ago…the one that was too time-sensitive to get a warrant." Trudy said pointedly, making a noise in the back of her throat when Kate groaned quietly, loosening her arms from around Hank's waist and taking a small step away from him, instantly regretting her actions at the loss of his comforting warmth.
"It was extenuating circumstances. Atwater saw-"
"I know that." Trudy placated, lifting both palms in mock-surrender. "Perhaps you should finish that report and tell Kelton that so I don't have to keep fending off his pack of rabid hyenas."
Pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, Kate sent Trudy an apologetic look and promised to have the paperwork on her desk before the end of the day and, satisfied her message had been received, Trudy quietly slipped out of the locker room, leaving the two of them alone.
"Duty calls." Kate eventually sighed, drawing in a long, steady breath as she plucked the test from the counter, hesitating just a beat before she dropped it into the trash with a metallic clatter.
"Hey." Hank said softly, grasping both of her biceps in a gentle grip as he turned her to face him, bending slightly at the knee so he could meet her eyes. "This is the fun part."
"I know." She replied, struggling to fathom how regular, mind-blowing sex with her husband could ever be a bad thing. "Believe me, I'm having a lot of fun." She added wryly, sliding her hands along the firm planes of his chest.
"Then don't stress about it." He ordered gruffly, pressing a firm kiss to her forehead. "If it's meant to be, it'll be."
With a final peck on the lips and a quiet 'I love you', they separated and made their way back to the bullpen where the rest of the unit were already situated at their respective desks, the smell of roasted coffee beans percolating in the air as they fuelled themselves for a day of paperwork. Kate had barely gotten two sentences in when Kevin wheeled his chair towards her, black sneakers squeaking as he pushed his way across the room.
"Yo, what're we gonna do about the Lowry thing?"
The two of them had been finishing up a neighbourhood canvass following a murder-suicide in Lincoln Park when a shrill scream from a house across the street had them both drawing their weapons and setting off towards the sprawling property at a sprint. Taking cover either side of the huge oak door at the front of the house, they paused for a few long moments, listening intently for any further sounds of distress and, sure enough, a few seconds later a high-pitched cry had Kevin peering into the bay window to see a tall dark haired man pinning a terrified woman against the wall by her throat. Before Kate could say a word, Kevin was putting his boot through the door, sending splinters of dark wood skittering across the plush cream carpet of the hallway, the shards crunching underfoot as he moved into the house with a stunned Kate following a few steps behind. The sudden noise and appearance of two armed police officers was enough to startle the young man into stumbling backwards a few paces, yanking his hand away from the woman's neck and leaving her to slump to the floor gasping for breath.
The reason Kate had been sluggish in handing in her report was because the man in question happened to be the youngest son of one of the most prevalent judges in the city and, with the petrified girlfriend refusing the press charges, they were now staring down the barrel of an unlawful entry complaint. She knew Kevin had acted on instinct alone when he'd spotted the young woman frantically clawing at the hand clutched tight around her throat but, not only did they not have a warrant, Kevin had been so keyed up that he'd neglected to announce his office once they breached the threshold.
"What we're gonna do, Kevin Atwater, is we're gonna put four hundred thousand dollars' worth of legal training to good use and get creative with our paperwork." Kate replied, giving her partner a reassuring smile. She'd already spoken to Hank and Trudy, both of whom had endorsed her decision to embellish the truth of how they came to arrest a federal judge's son so all that was left for her to do was find enough legal loopholes to avoid either of them getting hauled in front of a review board. It wasn't a tactic she enjoyed using but the alternative wasn't an option either.
"Appreciate you havin' my back." He said after a few moments, his voice sounding unusually gruff but it wasn't until Kate lifted her eyes to meet his did she realise that his dark brown eyes were glittering with emotion.
"You know as well as I do that a partnership is a pretty sacred thing in this line of work and you sometimes find yourself going to bat for people just because it's what you should do; even if they don't deserve it."
Kate paused for a beat, her eyes locking with his as she reached out a hand to rest on his forearm.
"But you're a good man, Kevin. And I will always have your back." She implored softly, the unspoken declaration that he deserved her unwavering loyalty plain to see.
The two simply stared at one another until Kevin dipped his chin into a slow nod of acquiescence, placing one giant mitt over the hand that was still resting on his forearm to give her fingers a firm squeeze in silent thanks.
"Now, get over here and sprinkle some Harvey on this for me would you?" She said with a jerk of her head towards the unfinished report on her screen. "I need to make this shit believable."
As promised, the report was dutifully tucked in Trudy's out-tray before she left for the evening and, as eager as ever to get back in time to put Alexis to bed, they declined the offer of a few drinks at Molly's in favour of heading straight home.
"We had pasta the other night." Kate complained as she slipped out of the passenger seat and onto the gravel driveway. "My ass is growing faster than Mouch at an all you can eat buffet."
Despite her very real concerns that she would soon be prematurely back in her maternity jeans if they didn't start having something healthy for dinner, she couldn't help but chuckle at the visual of Mouch haring up and down a buffet table like a Niffler in a gold mine but her amusement was swiftly replaced by a sharp squeak of surprise when Hank pressed up behind her, both hands cupping her denim-clad globes as he pressed a hot kiss to the nape of her neck.
"I happen to love your ass just the way-"
His rumbled compliment was cut short by the sound of metal being dragged across concrete and, it wasn't until both of their heads spun in the direction of the source of the noise did they notice that the gate leading to their backyard had been left slightly ajar. Although they weren't home much during the day, their house wasn't a fortress. The logical part of Kate's brain reasoned that it was probably a new delivery driver leaving a package or something equally harmless but the sound logic wasn't enough to stop her dropping a hand to her right hip to palm the grip of her weapon. Sharing a brief glance with Hank who had mirrored her actions in perfect synchronicity, they intuitively assumed a tactical position with Hank leading the way, inching the gate open until there was enough space for them to slip into the narrow alleyway leading to the back of the house.
Adrenaline was surging through her veins like wildfire as she followed Hank into the darkness, her heart thudding violently against her ribs until they cleared the alley to find a familiar figure slumped casually in one of their garden chairs, a bored expression on her face as she scrolled through her phone.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Hank growled, his weapon still trained on Anna Avalos as she cocked her head to one side, her black eyes glittering in the moonlight and an arrogant smirk playing at the corner of her mouth.
"Looking for you."
Kate had watched countless women trip over themselves to garner the attention of her husband and, whilst it wasn't necessarily fun to witness, she'd would have much preferred a husky, seductive lilt over the icy coolness of Anna's response. It wasn't until Hank briskly patted Anna down that Kate finally felt comfortable enough to return her Glock to its holster but, even still, she couldn't prevent the uncomfortable shiver that lanced down her spine as Anna took a few steps towards them.
"What do you want?" He asked, instinctively shifting to the left as Anna approached so that Kate was now at his back rather than at his elbow.
"I can get you Los Temidos."
Hank raised a disbelieving eyebrow at the bold statement, his reaction eliciting a huff and an eye-roll from Anna who folded her arms protectively across her chest in response to his silent challenge.
"Trust me, I wouldn't be here if I didn't have the goods to back it up."
"And you think showing up at my house…where my daughter is asleep…is going to get me to trust you?" Hank replied, jerking his head towards the house.
"C'mon, you really think I'd hurt your kid?" Anna scoffed, her eyes sliding from Hank to Kate at the mention of Alexis, a curious expression on her face as she dropped her gaze to Kate's left hand, taking in the selection of platinum bands on her finger and clearly putting two and two together.
"I don't know." Hank said pointedly, interrupting the silent stare down between the two women. "Look Anna, you gotta give me something."
With a sigh, she stuffed both hands into the pockets of her oversized puffer coat, her eyes returning to Hank's face.
"There's a deal goin' down in two days. Los Temidos is closing in on a deal with a new connect in Milwaukee; kilos of product, key players right to the very top. Everything you could ever need to bring them all down."
"What's in it for you?" Hank asked but Anna was quick to redirect the conversation back into what she deemed as safer territory.
"You won't get El Leon without my help. But I'm not goin' on paper. No Franks Motion. No testifying in court.""
The name 'El Leon' was a recent addition to their case file following weeks of hard work and, if their intel was correct, El Leon was the kingpin of Los Temidos; but a name was all they had. Before Hank could respond, his phone buzzed in his pocket and, with Anna's short prompt for him to answer, Hank pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced down to see an unknown number displayed across the screen.
"That's my number." Anna said, sliding her own cell back into her jacket. "Call me tomorrow if you're serious about taking me up on my offer."
And as suddenly as she appeared, she vanished, breezing past them without a backwards glance, leaving a stunned Hank and Kate in her wake.
"What is it with people hiding out in your backyard?" Kate breathed, the tension in her muscles finally easing once she heard the telltale rattle of the garden gate closing signalling Anna's departure.
"Our backyard." He corrected absentmindedly, more out of instinct than any real need to apportion ownership. "We've been working Los Temidos for nearly two months and she's given us more in two minutes."
In one sentence, Hank had managed to capture and verbalise the very thing that terrified her the most. You didn't just wake up one day and decide to rat on one of the most dangerous men in the country. There was definitely something else going on with Anna Avalos but she was playing her hand extremely close to the vest.
"You think we can trust her?" Hank asked quietly, resting his weight on the edge of the large wooden table that sat in the middle of the tiled slate patio.
Kate followed him across the yard, taking a seat in the chair Anna had recently vacated with a sigh.
"What's your gut telling you?"
"That, whatever she's into, she wants out."
"That's one hell of a risk to take." Kate muttered, leaning forwards to brace her elbows on her knees as she peered up at Hank who was staring off into the darkness, clearly deep in thought.
Even if they managed to find El Leon and put them away for good, there was no getting away from the fact that Anna Avalos would have a target on her back the size of Texas. The deeper the moved into the tangled web of Los Temidos, the more apparent it became that this gang had more boots on the ground than another other crime syndicate they'd seen; a stark realisation given the amount of collective experience they had in hunting down criminal organisations over the past few decades.
"Why not just pack up her kid and disappear? That's what I'd do." Kate said with a shrug, knowing full well she would leave everything she'd ever known in a heartbeat if it meant keeping Alexis safe.
"That's what makes me nervous."
Despite his reservations, one look at his face told Kate that they were going to move forward with utilising Anna as a CI. It was as risky as hell but there was no denying the potential reward if she made good on her promise.
"Well, if we're gonna do this we need to find someone who can go under with her as a believable buyer." Kate said, her mind already turning with feasible options to build Anna's cover story with the necessary protection to make sure they could keep her safe. "We know they don't let in outsiders easy."
"We're gonna need someone from the Southside. Cicero? Pilsen maybe?" Hank suggested, mentally running through a list of prospective names but Kate's wry smile implied that she already had someone in mind.
"I think I know just the guy."