Yeah, this story's pacing hits different. It's almost the end of memory Lane for Jade. Jimmy and Ceci have to come back to China Lake. But in this chapter, we get to know what the Tori watching was about... S.K.
Fourteen
Tori let out a sigh, and burrowed into her fluffy robe, as they watched dawn start to color the sky across the water. "We're going to be so toasted by tonight, you do realize that, right?"
Jade sipped slowly on a cup of fresh coffee, closing her eyes as a gust of cool salt air brushed across her face. "Oh yeah.. I'm glad I decided to go into the office today. I'd have probably driven off the road on the way back from the base otherwise." She offered the cup to Tori, who took it. "Besides, I've got a pile of stuff to take care of here."
"Me too."
They swung quietly in the rope chair for a few minutes. "Guess we'd better get started, huh?" Tori finally sighed. "I know I need a run to wake me up." She turned her head to look up at Jade. "Unless you want to maybe go over to the gym this morning…I could do circuit, too."
Jade nodded. "Yeah.. " She winced a little and exhaled. "I think I pulled a little bit of something in my back doing that crazy stunt last night. Running isn't the best idea… I think stretching everything out makes more sense."
Tori squirmed around and slid a hand behind Jade's back, probing gently. "Did you reinjure yourself?" She saw Jade nod a tiny bit. "Goofball." She scolded. "I've been telling you to have Dr. Dodie check that out, Jade... you never did go back for another scan."
Jade scowled. "It hasn't bothered me in weeks." She protested. "Must have been crawling through that tunnel that did it."
"Tunnel?" Tori queried. "Oh… Jesus. That explains why you had bruises on your knees." She sighed. "Well, come on - let's go get dressed, and see if we can work your kinks out." Neither of them moved, however, and Jade managed to get a snuggly hold on her that turned into cuddling, which turned into some kissing, which…
"This is not getting us anywhere." Tori murmured.
"Sure it is." Jade replied. "It's just not getting us dressed and headed to the gym." She resumed suckling on Tori's earlobe, earning a soft grunt of pleasure from her wife. Her hands were already inside the loosened wrap of Tori's bathrobe, and she ran a light, tickling touch over the ribs she could feel as Tori inhaled.
"Hey." Tori laughed softly.
Jade kissed her, then relented, and backed off to rub noses. "Tell you what. I'm going to invent an afternoon meeting we both have to attend, and we're gonna leave early."
"Yes, ma'am." Tori agreed. "So let's get moving. The sooner this day starts, the sooner it ends."
"Mama." Mayte slipped inside the outer office of senhora
Jade, where her mother was sorting mail. "I just heard something very bad."
"Si?" Mariela looked up. "What is it now? Is Jose flirting with the new senhorita in Accounting, once again?"
"No." The slim girl looked upset. She walked over and sat down next to her mother's desk. "It's about Ms. Tori."
Mariela was very surprised. Rumors about her boss, yes, that she was used to, and just after Vitoria had joined them, she had heard the things they had said about the two of them when they were together.
They had made such a cute couple, it was true. "What have you heard?" She asked her daughter, realizing that Mayte looked very anxious.
Mayte fiddled with her hands. "They are saying that Ms. Tori, she was with a man here, at night last night, after we all left."
Mariela's jaw dropped. "Comemierda." She snorted.
Mayte's eyes opened wide. "Mama!" She was shocked. "Someone was here, and they said they heard them, that she was, with her hands all over this man, and everything!"
"Who is saying that?" The older woman asked agitatedly. "Who is passing these lies? I want to know this, Mayte, right now!"
"B.. b.." Mayte stammered. "Mama.. I heard it in the break room. Everyone is saying it."
Mariela drummed her perfectly painted nails on her desk. "Why would they say this? Why would anyone want to hurt Vitoria?" She thought for a minute, then dialed a number on her phone. "Si, Ricardo? Can you check for me the log, please? Was there someone to visit Ms. Vega last night?"
Ruffling papers. "Looks like.. " Ricardo paused, then ruffled some more. "Oh yeah, here it is.. yeah.. she had a guy come up last night.. round six thirty, I guess."
Mayte and Mariela looked at each other in stunned shock. "May I have his name, por favor?" Mariela asked quietly. "I need to send him something."
"Sure… West." Ricardo answered genially. "James West."
Mariela covered her eyes with one hand. "Gracias, Ricardo. I will speak with you later." She released the phone. "Jesu."
Mayte blinked. "Who is that, mama? Do you know him?"
"Si." Mariela looked troubled. "He is Jade's papa…he is a very nice, very sweet man. He is very much accepting of Vitoria, she is like another daughter to him."
"Ay." The younger woman exhaled. "I have heard her speak of him.. there is a picture in the office, I think."
"Si. That is Jade's mama, and papa. It was very hard, I have told you when Vitoria had such troubles with her family." Mariela was thinking hard as she spoke. "Mayte, we must fix this problem." She told her daughter firmly. "I cannot let this be said about Vitoria. Jade will be so upset."
Mayte blinked. "Oh."
"We must find who is saying this." Mariela got up. "Come. We will go to someplace where I know that all the talk gets to be heard." She led the way out of the office, and down the hall. As they passed the breakroom, she could hear the chatter, and Tori's name, and she grew very angry. "Do they not have better things to be doing?" She stopped, and peered inside. "Go to work!" She told the startled occupants. "Vamos!"
Mayte just looked at her, as the assorted administrative assistants and junior clerks bolted from the room, streaming down the hallway like an assortment of colorful birds.
"I am getting very bold, no?" Mariela asked. "I am learning from Jade."
"Yes, mama." Mayte murmured, as they continued off down the hall.
At the end of the long walk, Mariela lifted a hand and knocked on the thick, metal door before them, waiting a few seconds, then knocking again.
"Hang on... hold your horses." The door swung open. "Oh..." Josh, one of Sinjin's assistants, blinked. "Hi, Mariela.. what's up?"
"Shoo shoo.." Mariela waved him backwards. "I am here to speak with Sinjin. He is here?"
"Uh….uh… sure.. um.. he's in his office… but I… "
"Tch tch.. " Mariela brushed by him and circled the equipment packed console, where three techs were busy monitoring different screens. Sinjins' office was in the back, and she made for it, reaching out to tap on the half closed door.
"Look." Sinjin's voice floated out. "I don't give a crap what you think.. if you can't deal with other people having private lives that are not your business, find another place to work, dude."
Mariela hesitated, listening.
"From what I hear, it ain't that private." A softer, less distinct voice answered.
"Don't start that shit." Sinjin warned. "I'm telling you right now, Brent. Don't talk about them, don't repeat bullshit you hear at the urinal, and keep your redneck attitudes out of the office or I'll bounce you right on out of here."
"For what?" The response was outraged. "For having an opinion?"
"For insubordination and fucking with the anti discrimination regs." Sinjin stated.
"What about everyone else? They're.."
"Everyone else ain't in Jade's chain of command." The MISChief interrupted him. "You are."
There was a moment of silence. "Fine." Brent finally said. "Can I go now? I got stuff to do."
"Sure." Sinjin replied. "Take off."
The door swung open a moment later, and Brent emerged, his face crimson. He almost crashed headlong into Mariela and Mayte, and he paused to stare at them for a few seconds, before he brushed by and left. Mariela eyed him, then she shook her head and walked into Sinjin's office.
"Hey." Sinjin looked up, pausing in the act of listening to his voicemail. "Guess you heard." He chewed his lower lip. "About last night, I mean."
"Of course." Mariela agreed. "And we are going to fix it."
"Fix it?"
"Si. You have access to the eslack, no?"
"Our messenger service, yeah." Sinjin replied, puzzled. "What about it?"
"I want you to send a message, please, from me, to all the people, yes?"
"O….Kay… "Sinjin sat down slowly. "What kind of message?"
"I will write it." Mariela took a piece of paper, and one of Sinjin's cushion grip roller balls, and got to work. Sinjin watched her, twisting his head to one side to read the upside-down letters.
His eyes widened. "Oh boy."
Jade had taken a breath to say good morning to Mariela, when she opened the outer door and realized the office was empty. She closed her mouth with a faint click of teeth meeting, and entered, shouldering her laptop as she made her way across the quiet space and into her inner office.
The sun was pouring across the floor and she stepped into it, feeling the faint warmth through the fabric of her skirt as she circled her desk and put her briefcase down, pulling the leather chair out and settling into it with a tiny sigh.
"Morning, guys." She greeted her Siamese fighting fish, removing their jar of food from her desk drawer and sprinkling a little bit into the small tank. She watched the fish gobble their breakfasts, her chin resting on one fist, before she sighed again, and turned her attention to her monitor.
"Wonder what disasters we have to deal with this morning?" Jade asked the empty office, spinning her trackball to douse her screensaver and reveal her running programs. Her eyebrows contracted slightly when she saw the blinking Dogbert head in the lower corner, and clicked on it to bring up the corporate messaging alert the symbol represented.
Slowly, Jade's head tilted to one side, then the other, then she leaned forward and blinked as she read the message. "What in the hell?"
"To All Corporate HQ San Francisco Employees - You are please to read your handbooks in the section twelve, page 23. This page is saying that you may not say to everyone bad things about the officers of the company that are not true, or we can make you the termination. There is someone who is doing this, and when this is found out, this person I will myself see the termination if these bad things do not stop. Gracias. Mariela."
Jade's intercom buzzed. "Yeah?" She slapped at it absently.
"Did you see that message?" Tori' s voice floated into the office. "What the heck is she talking about?"
"I haven't a quarter clue." Jade murmured, shaking her head. "Whatever it was, sure pissed her off though. I'd better find her and figure out what's going on." She shook her head. "I'll call you back."
"Okay." Tori released the intercom button, and opened her mail. "Weird… very weird way to start the day, that's for sure." There was a knock on her door, and she realized Mayte must have stepped away from her desk. "C'mon in."
Clarice entered, giving Tori a very sweet smile before she closed the door behind her and crossed the floor to settle in one of Tori's visitor chairs. "Good morning."
"Good morning." Tori folded her hands on her desk. "What can I do for you?"
Sinjin leaned back in his chair, unconsciously putting distance between himself and the dangerously glaring ice blue eyes boring into his. "Hey, boss.. um.."
Jade rested her hands on Sinjin's desk and leaned forward, lowering her voice to a mere raspy growl. "I want to know who it was that started that story."
Sinjin took a breath. "Jade, you know how hard it is to track shit like that down." He tried to keep his tone even, and calm, his mind casting for the last time he'd seen Jade this mad. Ah. That would be never. "I bet Mariela's message stopped it."
Jade could feel her body shaking with rage. She knew that lack of sleep was making her hold on her temper very tenuous, and that she should go back to her office and calm down before she did something extremely stupid. "I want to know who it was." She repeated softly. "Don't you tell me you can't track it down, Sinjin. There was X number of people in this building, X number of people on this floor, and X number of people in the operations suite between the hours of X, and X, which you know from the security log."
Sinjin took his courage in both hands, and leaned towards his boss, reaching out one hand and covering the fist Jade had planted on his desk. "Okay, boss. I'll find that out for you, if you sit down and take it easy for a minute." There was no response in the stern mask looking at him.
He tried again, lowering his voice. "Jade, please.. go get a drink of water, huh? You're scaring the shit out of me and I just dry cleaned these pants."
Nothing, for a few seconds, then Jade's eyelashes fluttered closed briefly, and her body relaxed some of it's tension. "Sorry." She murmured. "But god damn it, Sinjin… of all the people in the company to be targeted by that crap, why her?"
Sinjin winced at the pain in his boss' voice.
"Me, I'm used to it." Jade went on softly. "I've given so many people so many reasons to hate me, I don't even think about it anymore." She took a breath. 'But what has Tori done to deserve that? "
Picked you? Sinjin wisely decided on not voicing the obvious response. "You know how people are, boss. They get jealous and all that crap. And you've got to admit, there's a hell of a lot for people to be jealous of Tori for."
Jade sighed. "Find out who it was." She replied. "I'll be in my office."
Sinjin watched her leave, the heavy door swinging shut behind her tall form. "Sonofabitch." He cradled his head in his hands. "Why the fuck do I always get this shit to deal with?"
"Cause you, like, can?" His assistant, Shaun inquired. "You gonna tell her who it was?"
Good question. Sinjin leaned back and considered. "I'm gonna let her chill for a little while first." He decided. "Because otherwise she's gonna haul back and take the jerk's head off."
"Excuse me?" Tori felt her voice sharpen.
"I said," Clarice drawled. "You lasted longer than any of the rest of them, honey… was it a getting bored thing?"
Tori wondered if she looked as bewildered as she felt. "Clarice, I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you should just cut to the chase, and be specific. "
Clarice leaned closer. "Look, in this place, you can't keep anything secret."
"Right." Tori nodded faintly. "And?"
"And everyone's talking about last night."
She felt like she was in a dinghy, floating further and further away from the shore. "Last night?" Her mind went to her unexpected waking up, and she felt a blush color her skin. "What about last night?"
Clarice chuckled. "You obviously know… look, they saw you meet that guy here in the office."
The shoreline receded further. "Yeah… so?" Tori's brow knit in perplexity. "What about it?"
"What about it?" Clarice repeated. "Honey, do you two have, like, an open relationship? I had no idea."
"Huh?" Tori felt like grabbing her own head and shaking it. "Excuse me.. what in the hell does me getting picked up here last night have to do with my relationship.. which, by the way, is personal and my business, and not any of yours?"
Now it was Clarice's turn to look a little uncertain. "Are you saying that wasn't your lover?"
"What wasn't?" Tori asked.
"The man who picked you up here last night? Who you had your hands all over? Who you told Jade abandoned you?" Clarice almost shouted. "What the hell did you think we were talking about here?"
It was like being trapped inside a cartoon. Tori fully expected a clown to pop out of her desk and start laughing at the absurdity of it all. "My lover?" She enunciated the word carefully. "That guy who picked me up here last night?"
"Yes." Clarice nodded, relieved they were finally communicating. "Then he was."
"No." Tori covered her eyes with one hand. "He was not." She got up and went to the small bookshelf in her office, selecting a framed photo and bringing it back with her. "I think this is who you mean."
Clarice took the picture, and studied it. Tori was standing near a wooden pylon, apparently at some dock, dressed in a pair of water shorts and a bathing suit. She had one arm wrapped around a very tall, powerfully built man, who had an arm draped over her shoulders, and she was pointing to a dangerous looking lobster clutched in the man's other hand.
"That's my father in law." Tori supplied. "James West."
Clarice peered at the picture, then up at her. "Honey, that's kinky."
Oh no… she was at sea again. "What's kinky? The lobster? We ate it." She told Clarice in exasperation. "He's not my lover, okay? Would you get that idea out of your head? Yes, he picked me up, yes I hugged him, like I usually do... and why the hell am I standing here explaining this to you?" Tori's voice rose. "As a matter of fact, get the hell out of my office before I throw your ass out!"
Clarice jumped up, and laid the picture on the desk, before ducking behind the chair. "Hey look.. I was just trying to warn you…"
"Out!" Tori yelled at the top of her voice. "Tell all the jerks who want to know we pay you people to Make games, not come up with internal freaking company SOAP OPERAS!"
Clarice fled. She turned, and scuttled across the floor as fast as her heels would allow, getting around the door and it shut securely behind her before Tori could find something else to verbally pound her with.
For a second, all Tori could hear was her own labored breathing. Then she sat down in her chair with a thump. "JESUS." She expelled her breath explosively. "What in the hell is wrong with these people?"
A soft creak alerted her, and she swiveled in her chair to face her inside door as it opened, and a disheveled, aggravated, stormy head poked itself inside her office. "Have you heard the total idiocy going around here?"
Jade slid inside and walked over, taking a seat on Tori's desk. "Yes."
"Is that not the stupidest thing you've ever heard?" Tori went on. "What a bunch of total bonehead losers we have around here sometimes." She stood up and started ordering Jade's unruly locks with her fingers. "Honey, what did you do here, stick your head out your window or something?"
"I was outside on the balcony down the hall." Jade admitted. "Drinking half a gallon of milk and trying to calm down enough not to fire the entire fourteenth floor just to get rid of the jackass who started the whole thing. "
Tori rubbed a bit of white off her partner's lip. "Ah.. so that's what that is." She let her hands rest on Jade's shoulders. "Are you okay?"
"Am I okay?" Jade managed a smile. "I think so… I was more worried about you."
"Me?" Tori chuckled. "Jade, you forget I grew up in a very public household. I've had stories told about me since I was seven, and got bitten by a duck while I tried to steal her chicks." She patted her wife's side. "Your poor father… that's twice in one night. The lady at the car dealership mistook us for husband and wife when he dropped me by there."
Jade blinked. "So you're okay with this?"
"Well.. I don't like it.. but I'll live.. why, you weren't really going to fire the entire floor, were you?" Tori asked. "Jade?" She traced the flutter of nervous motion under the skin of her wife's cheek. "Hey?"
A sigh. "No, I wasn't."
"You okay?"
Jade gave her an unhappy look. "I have a stomach ache from drinking too much cold milk, I'm tired, and I'm cranky, and I want to take a baseball bat to the person who thought you were making out with my dad."
"Oh."
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, I enjoyed the play."
Tori touched her forehead to Jade's. "With a start like this, the day can only get better."
As if on some evil signal, both of their pagers went off, and Tori's main line lit up.
The phone beeped twice, softly, before Jade lifted her head from her hands and touched the response key. "Yes?"
"Jade, it is Sinjin here to see you." Mariela stated quietly. "Do you have a minute for him?"
"Sure." Jade returned her chin to its resting spot on her fists and exhaled. "Send him in." She'd given up trying to focus her overtired vision on her monitor a short time before, and had merely been sitting there, waiting for time to pass and bring her to the end of a very long day.
The door opened, and Sinjin entered, moving quickly across the floor and taking a seat across from her.
For a moment they studied each other, then Sinjin shifted. "You look like shit, boss."
For some reason, that brought a smile to Jade's face. "Thanks. It's been a suck filled day."
"Yeah." Sinjin nodded. "I know.. listen, that T1 you ordered for the base is in. I had them terminate it, and did a loopback to make sure it's solid. The telco tech confirmed your hub's onsite, and everything looks okay."
"Good." One thing off her mind, at least. "I'll connect everything tomorrow morning, then I'll need you to give me space on the big boxes to suck everything up."
"No problem." Sinjin assured her. "We've got the slots already allocated for you - just let me know when you're ready, and we'll open the pipe."
Jade nodded. "I will. Did Houston get their data center back up? If the payroll computer doesn't come back online before tonight, we're all in deep shit, you know that, right?"
Sinjin felt a prickle of surprise at the unusual use of an expletive, which Jade tended to avoid in her normal workplace speech. "I can't believe the power block blew up in there." He said. "American UPS sent a team in, and they're working on it, but so far it looks like they're going to have to run an emergency three phase panel just to fire the main CPU's up. ETA is midnight, but I've got my fingers crossed for sooner."
"Will going there and yelling help?" Jade asked.
"No." Sinjin answered, not even caring if it was the right answer for the company or not. "They're doing their stuff, Jade. It's all moving, it just takes time to split the power off the main transformer, and run the big cables."
"Okay." Jade accepted that with a feeling of relief. Flying to Houston was something she so didn't want to do at the moment. "Can we find out the liability limits of AUPS, and what's going to happen if they can't get the power restored?"
"Tori took care of that already." The MIS Director reassured her. "She's been on it since this afternoon.. I think we're covered."
"All right."
Sinjin cleared his throat slightly, and crossed his fingers, held below the level of the desk where Jade couldn't see them. "I also gave Tori the information on who it was that was hanging around here last night and peeking into offices."
One dark eyebrow lifted sharply. "I thought I told you to bring that here."
"You did." Sinjin said. "But Tori asked me to let her handle it, and since she's my direct report, I respected her directive."
Jade observed him for a few seconds. "I don't think I like having my direct orders countermanded." She stated flatly. "Especially by my subordinates."
"I know you don't." Sinjin responded bravely. "But Tori said she'd take the responsibility for the decision." It felt cowardly to hide behind Tori's skirt like that, but one look at the expression on Jade's face made him grateful for the shield. He only hoped it would be a big enough shield to keep him from getting his butt burnt off, that's all.
Jade remained silent, watching him from under half lowered eyelids until Sinjin started to fidget nervously. Then she drew in a breath. "Fair enough." She remarked. "I'll take it up with her."
Looking profoundly relieved, Sinjin stood up, and circled his chair, resting his hands on the back of it. "Hope you have a better day tomorrow, Jade."
That got a faint grin back. "Me too." Jade watched Sinjin leave, then sat back, and pondered. Was she mad at Sinjin?
No. He just did what he was told. Was she mad at Tori? Jade regarded the wood panel walls bemusedly. She was too damn tired to be mad at Tori, and besides, she didn't want to be mad at her. But should she be?
Jade considered the question seriously. Tori had been the person involved, had been the one with rumors spread about her, and was, in fact, Sinjin's direct supervisor. On the other hand, Jade had given a direct order, which had been ignored, and countermanded, something she couldn't recall ever happening before.
No one else would have dared, she decided. Was Tori using their relationship to take an unfair advantage of her? Jade scowled. Or was Tori simply making a good business decision, using her admittedly unfair knowledge of Jade to realize having the CIO beat an employee over the head with a paper shredder was not only bad employee relations, it was also just plain stupid? Especially since the CIO in question would be doing it because the employee in question had insulted her strictly against company rules, wife and partner?
Hm. Jade idly watched her fish swim around. She looked up as the inner door opened, and watched as Tori visibly squared her shoulders before she entered and proceeded across the room, arriving at Jade's side with a look of sober determination.
"Listen." Tori's hands flexed slightly, the fingers curling into a partial fist in unconscious reaction to confrontation. "I just talked to Sinjin. I want you to back off, and let me handle this situation, because it's my department, my issue, and my staff."
"Mm." Jade responded.
One of Tori's eyebrows rose. "What does that mean?"
"That color looks really cute on you." Jade evaluated the coral silk blouse Tori was wearing. "Very tropical."
The brunette woman put her hands on her hips. "Jade, I was being serious."
"I know… you're right. Go ahead and handle it." Jade nodded in agreement. "I'll be down at the base all day tomorrow anyway, so have at it."
Tori sighed. "Do you know how long I've been standing in the corridor, screwing my guts up and trying to figure out exactly what approach to use with you on this?"
Jade allowed her face to relax into a smile for the first time that day. "Sorry about that.. I was just thinking it over when you came in. I know my first reaction was to appease my ego and yell, but you know what? I'm just too tired to." A shrug. "Besides, you are right.. it's your issue to handle, and the only reason I wanted to do it is because I go into a crazed overprotective mode when it comes to you."
Tori's lips twitched, then eased into a grin. "Yes, you do." She relaxed and moved a little closer, perching on the edge of Jade's desk. "Very self aware of you to notice."
Jade smiled, and propped her head up against one hand. "They finally got the T1 in place. Now I can get that entire data set transferred, and we can really take a look at it."
"Think you'll find anything?"
"Maybe." Jade shook her head. "There's something there.. it's just really hard to pinpoint. Little discrepancies in the programs, things that just don't feel right.. I can't really be specific. Just that I know there's something not one hundred percent clicking."
"I've got an idea." Tori reached out and pushed a few strands of dark hair off Jade's forehead. "I just finished my last conference call for the day… Want to take off? Are you covered here or do you have something else you need to handle?"
"Nothing I can't handle with my cell phone." Jade said. "Pushing to get the payroll systems back online.. I don't need to be here to do that." She straightened. "Sounds like a plan…go get your stuff, and I'll meet you at the elevator."
Tori got up and twitched her skirt straight. "You're on." She turned and made her way back to the inner door, pausing with her hand on the sill before she exited. "Jade?"
The pale blue eyes flickered as Jade's eyelashes fluttered. "Hm?"
"It was Brent." Tori's expression was regretful. "Sinjin feels pretty scummy about that." She ducked through the doorway and closed the door behind her, traveling quickly down the back corridor and past the cleaning closets to her own office.
Her phone was ringing as she entered, and she contemplated letting it go to voicemail, then sighed and answered it. "Operations, Tori Vega."
"Hey Tori.. this is Ilene, from the church?" The voice hesitantly asked. "I do the youth group counseling with you?"
"Oh...sure." Tori felt her mental train jerk onto a new set of tracks. "Sorry.. what's up?"
"Have you heard from Lena? The kid in the group.. you know the one I mean?" Ilene asked. "She was supposed to meet me for lunch yesterday, but she never showed."
Tori started shutting down her computer. "Well, maybe something came up. You know how it is… she didn't call or anything?"
"No.. and yeah, I know stuff happens, but two of her friends were here just now looking for her.. they said she hasn't been around for a couple days, and they're a little worried.. I thought maybe she might have contacted you."
"Me?" Tori's brow creased. "No…I don't think I gave my number out to the group.. and I'm not listed in the phone book. If she does contact me somehow, though, I'll definitely get in touch with you. Do they think something happened to her or..?"
"No one's sure… it's just weird for her not to be around for that long. She didn't say she was going anywhere." Ilene sighed. "Well, it was a long shot, but Casey said Lena really liked you, so I thought maybe you'd given her your number or something. Thanks anyway, Tori."
"No problem." Tori replied. "I'll keep an eye out for her, okay?"
"Much appreciated… talk to you later." The unexpected call ended, leaving Tori a bit unsettled. She finished closing down her system and shouldered her briefcase, then checked her caller ID, saving her number on her phone. She'd met the other councilor a few times at church functions, and rather liked her, but they hadn't spent much time talking to each other since then.
Pity, really, since Ilene shared her general background and upbringing, having been born in Detroit, into a family of old car money whose reaction to her coming out had been, if not as spectacular as Tori's parents, at least as vicious. They'd thrown her out of the house and taken just about everything she owned, forcing her to move somewhere, anywhere, and support herself.
She had, just as Tori had, but for Ilene it had been much harder since the only job she'd had prior to moving was as a movie usher. She'd mixed in with a tough crowd out here in San Francisco and gotten into a little trouble, but had ended up taking vocational courses and scraping herself together a career as a mechanic.
Put things into perspective, sometimes, when you looked at other people, and realized how lucky you were, Tori admitted, as she closed the door to her outer office and walked down the hallway to where Jade was leaning against the wall, waiting for her.
They took a detour past the church, and it's surrounding area on the way home, after Tori told Jade about the missing girl. Despite the fact that they were both tired, and she knew that Jade was in worse shape than she was due to her own nap the night before, making several passes around the general neighborhood was definitely in order.
"You think something actually happened to her, or did she run off?" Jade asked, as she scanned the twilight shadowed streets. "Wasn't that the kid whose mother was spouting off ?"
"Yeah." Tori leaned on her steering wheel, enjoying the feeling of height her new car gave her. "I don't know, Jade. I don't think this is getting us anywhere." She sighed, and turned the SUV around, heading back across the City toward home. "Maybe she just hitched down to Los Angeles for a few days… I know she's got a few friends up that way."
"Grmph." Jade slumped against the doorframe, and relaxed, idly watching the street lamps flash by. "Seemed like a nice kid."
"Mm." Tori agreed, making the turn onto the ferry dock. "They all are, really." She listened to the engines of the boat roar as they parked, and sat back, regarding the sky overhead thoughtfully. "Hope she's okay."
