Trish looked at her watch again. 12:05. Plenty of time, she thought. She didn't have to worry about traffic on the LIE since Kyle was letting her use his hydrogen powered helicopter to get from downtown Manhattan to LaGuardia Airport; though the son-of-a-bitch balked at letting her use the private jet to fly to Chicago, even though she tried to guilt him into it.

"Bruce Wayne would have let me use his private jet," she had said in a fairly accurate imitation of a petulant teenager.

Her boss halted the glass of single malt before it reached his lips as his eyes focused on her and his face adopted the look that she knew well by now that meant, seriously?

"Bull fucking shit he would have. Did he let Beth use his private jet?"

dammit, one flaw in an otherwise perfect plan.

"Fine. I'll fly with the rest of the unwashed masses," she said, the notes of disappointment playing clearly in her voice for all to hear.

The glass completed its journey before Kyle Richmond spoke again. "Good. You'll fit right in."

"Oh, fuck you."

Trish had to admit as her eyes went to her travel cases while her thoughts went back to her conversation with the man who owned half of Manhattan it seemed, not to mention the clandestine sites sprinkled around the country and, so the rumors said, several other countries as well, that there were not too many employers you could tell to get fucked without quickly finding yourself unemployed. She might, if she didn't work for him and have a strict no banging the boss policy, have been tempted to take their relationship in a different, and very unprofessional, direction.

Just landed, the text from Beth popped up on her phone and watch; right below the last conversation they had.

Kate says Dad says no problemo, Beth had written earlier.

So you chickened out, Trish had answered.

No, I didn't. I delegated.

Uh-huh, Trish replied, adding an Emoji that clearly displayed her skepticism.

Bitch, Beth replied, adding a hand gesture that sent its own message.

Right back at you. Thanks for asking him.

His guy will get back to us in a few days. Apparently there was a line forming, and we were not at the front.

Do I even want to know?

Nope.

Tis the season for turkey, and back channel requests to the DOJ for information on underhanded shit it seemed.

Trish passed the security checkpoint and began to scan the waiting faces. When her vision came to rest it was not a face that she was looking at, but a rather hastily written name on a piece of white paper.

Trish Walker

"I'm Trish Walker," Trish said as she stopped in front of the man who appeared, at first glance, to be sixteen years old if he was a day.

"Ms. Walker, I'm Bel Luna. ASA Lance asked me to swing by and get you," the young man announced as he stared at Trish like he knew her.

"Bel?"

His face, which Trish would described as tanned if she hadn't already guessed his heritage, broke into a bright smile. "It's short for Belmiro. Belmiro Magana Luna. That's me."

"Have we met?" It was only slightly possible. She would have remembered that face if she had seen it for any length of time. And he was much too young for Trish to have met him back in the day when she had met a series of men (and women) for only short periods of time, in dark rooms, after several drinks in various hotel bars.

"No, but ASA Lance described you to me," he answered, his response not quite ringing true in Trish's ear. He was holding something back.

He probably recognizes me from a modeling gig, she thought. But he didn't have the embarrassed look of someone who used to masturbate to her photos. She'd met enough of them to recognize that look immediately.

They continued walking towards the large doors that let out into the afternoon chill. Trish glanced at Bel several times, once catching him looking back at her, his face not quite smiling, but his mouth slightly open as if he was getting up the nerve to ask her a question.

Trish modified her estimate of his age up into the range of 25. Still too young for Trish to have met him in her wilder days. A bright eyed and bushy tailed up-and-comer in the world of legal minds, she thought, but without the connections to land a job more distinguished than with the Cook County State's Attorney.

"¿Cuánto tiempo lleva trabajando para Laurel?" Laurel asked the young man walking beside her in the language she'd guessed was his mother tongue though, as it turned out, guessed incorrectly. {How long have you been working for Laurel?}

"Desculpe, meu espanhol não é tão bom assim," the owner of two brown eyes and a mop of brown hair replied as his smile expanded even wider. {Sorry, my Spanish isn't that good}

missed it by that much, she thought to herself as she felt her face grow hot.

"Sorry, my bad. My Portuguese is a little rusty. Brazil, right?"

"Yup. Campo Grande. You know it?"

"No. Is it nice?" Trish asked as they stepped through the large sliding doors and turned right to walk along the sidewalk lined with people and luggage.

Bel zipped up his jacket and put on a pair of vintage Nikon sunglasses. "It's beautiful. If you're ever in Mato Grosso do Sul you should visit."

The wind picked up and began to play havoc with Trish's hair. The temperature wasn't downright cold, and the sun shone down unobstructed, but the wind began to cool the skin on her face nonetheless. "I'll do that. Do you get back often?"

"Once a year. It's a bit of a trek, it's not a cheap flight, and you don't go to work for the State's Attorney for the pay."

"I can imagine."

Trish didn't have to imagine for much longer as the man who was only slightly taller than she was stopped at the back of a red 2011 Chrysler 200 that was clearly in a no parking/no stopping/no standing/no nothing zone. Bel did not seem the least bit concerned by the CPD officer standing near his ride.

"Thanks, Bobby," Bel said to the officer with a wave as he loaded Trish's luggage into the trunk.

"No sweat, brother. Put in a good word."

They joined the rest of the traffic leaving O'Hare's arrivals terminal less than sixty seconds later.

They were on I-190 East heading back into the city when Trish repeated her question in a language that she was positive Bel Luna could understand.

"How long have you been working for Laurel?"

"Two years. Started right after getting my JD"

so not just a gopher

"Where'd you study law?"

"NIU. Northern Illinois University. About an hour west of here, in Dekalb?" he said, his statement ending as an implicit question whether she knew the city or the institution.

Trish wasn't familiar with either. "So you wanted to stick around Chicago after you graduated."

"I did at the time. I had a girlfriend here. Technically she's still here, just not my girlfriend anymore. But I like the work, and I like the people I do it with so, you know...silver linings."

"I can guess that the life of a young lawyer might not leave a lot of time for a relationship. Was she studying law too?"

"Earth, Atmosphere, and Environment. She finished her PhD the same year I finished my JD."

Beth's eyebrows went up. "OK. Sounds complicated."

"Pretty complicated. Not as complicated as law, though."

Trish could hear it in the tone of his voice.

Do my senses detect the topic of a long standing discussion/argument? Trish wondered, possibly the source of an inevitable breakup?

Trish was very much on speaking terms with a host of reasons for break ups. A large number of hers had been because of everything she had to keep secret from, or downright lie about to, her partner at the time. Relationships could withstand a lot of things, but not that level of dishonesty.

"Not as complicated as relationships either," Trish said before she realized that her heart had taken control of her mouth.

Bel nodded his head as his face took on a slightly unfocused look. His eyes were still directed at the traffic in front of them, but at least part of his mind was elsewhere. "True. Why is that?"

Jesus, don't ask me, I don't know shit about keeping a relationship going, she thought before she spoke.

"Because the main ingredient in any relationship is people, and people are complicated."

Bel Luna continued to nod his head in agreement, but his mind, the part that wasn't involved in navigating the afternoon traffic on the Tri-State Tollway, was elsewhere.

The George W. Dunne Building, home of the Cook County Offices and Assistant State's Attorney Laurel Lance, was a long sprawling building that took up a good amount of West Washington Street. Trish had no idea how many floors made up the building but at first glance she guessed at least forty. It was only when she and the man who was carrying and dragging her luggage entered the elevator that she realized she had overestimated by eight floors. But their ride upwards did not even cover half that distance, and as they exited on the 12th floor and passed through the door that separated the hallway from the ASA's office, more than one of the many faces in the office stopped for a moment and looked at her in much the same way that Bel had in the airport.

Jesus, no fucking way all of you have been jerking off to pictures of me, Trish thought as she smiled politely at anyone who made eye contact while walking in Bel's wake towards the office at the other end of the large space, the door for which was open.

"We have returned," Bel said to the woman standing behind a desk holding a phone to her ear.

"Douglas MacArthur you are not," replied the woman who appeared to be about fifty with a thick head of salt and pepper hair that was done up in a professional braided updo. She wore a bare minimum of makeup which accented her almost perfect complexion and blue eyes. "Give her a minute, she's finishing up with Kristen.

Bel needed no explanation who Kristen was. Kristen Wolf was elected Cook County State's Attorney in 2016 and reelected in 2020. To Trish the name meant nothing, but that was the norm rather than the exception when it came to Chicago. She only knew the name of the police commissioner because of her previous work in the city. The rest of what some people referred to as Gotham was, politically speaking, a tabula rasa to Trish.

Trish looked at the woman who was still holding the phone to her ear and extended her hand. "Hi, I'm Trish Walker. I'm a friend of Laurel's, of ASA Lance's."

A bright smile appeared at the same time as a well manicured right hand.

"Hello. I'm Veronica Lombardo. It's so nice to finally meet you in person."

Bel was clearly trying to give the woman some form of nonverbal signal, but Trish could not decipher it.

"I'm sorry?" Trish asked.

The perfect complexion grew noticeably red as it's owner spoke. "I mean it's nice to finally meet you. Laurel told us you would be visiting for the holidays."

What the fuck is going on? Trish wondered.

"Just the one holiday," Trish began to answer just as the door to their right opened and a familiar face emerged.

"Did you travel nine hundred miles to visit Veronica, or me?"

"Hey, you," Trish said as she embraced the woman she had become friends with almost immediately upon meeting her.

"It was nice meeting you," Bel said as he deposited her luggage next to Veronica's desk.

"Foi um prazer conhecê-lo também. Espero vê-lo mais tarde," Laurel answered which earned her a smile from the young lawyer, and perfectly manicured raised eyebrows from Laurel's assistant. {It was a pleasure to meet you too. Hope to see you later.}

"Look at you, all bilingual and everything," Laurel said as she shepherded Trish into her office.

That's not the only bi I am, Trish thought to herself as she remembered a steamy encounter with Laurel's sister Sara. They had not had the chance to get together again since then. Sara lived in Seattle, and her life was even more hectic that Trish's.

Laurel had been out to New York in September on business, and had stayed with Trish. Her visit had been short, but had given her the opportunity to meet Jess, Beth, Julia, and Aric. She had only gotten a distant glimpse of him, and the one-hundred pound German Shepard that seemed to never be very far away from him, before then; and Laurel had to admit that he was even more edible up close and, if she was being completely honest, Laurel was seriously jealous of they way he and Beth seemed to be so happy and relaxed when they were together. Laurel knew Beth's sister Kate by reputation, but very little else. They would bump into each other at events when Kate filled in for her father and Laurel filled in for Kristen, but it was all strictly professional. Her familiarity with Beth was also mostly professional, but in a completely different way. Beth's criminal exploits, globally and domestically while she was still in the grip of her alter ego Alice, was well documented, and one of Laurel's first jobs when she became a part of the ASA's office was to review the plea agreement for Beth that was still in force, and would be for many years. Laurel had argued strongly against it, though that was not something she would ever admit to Beth. But every government at every level had been more interested in the information that Beth could provide on The Religion of Crime, The Daughters of Lilith, and a host of other organizations, as well some recognition that Elizabeth Kane had been seriously non compos mentis when she had been under Alice's spell, and they had collectively had cut her the deal that eventually resulted in her freedom in its current form. Laurel found it hard to reconcile the calm, cheerful, slightly shy woman she had met that first time with the woman on the video Laurel had watched, the woman who screamed at the top of her lungs as she fought against the restraints that were keeping her from killing everyone who stood in her room in the psyc ward as those persons attempted to ask her questions. Trish's explanation hadn't helped either.

"Aric did something, none of us know what exactly. He won't go into detail. It's private, is all he says. Beth just says, he put me back together. I can't tell the difference, but Julia can; and she's happy, so I'm happy."

Laurel's mind had been consumed with what she had heard, and what she had seen (Jessica's boyfriend Luke had been a sight to see, as well as Aric, who could not possibly be as old as he claimed to be) the entire flight back to Chicago. She had spent two hours that night talking about it with Sara. They had both heard from an operative named Sharon how the snatch and grab team had gotten into, and then out of, Moscow via some supernatural bubble, their target in custody; and that Aric had been the source of that bubble. But what he did for Beth...

"Why is it I can accept that he can move people from New York to Moscow in the blink of an eye, but I can't wrap my head around what he did for Beth?" she had asked Sara.

"Some things are just easier to rationalize than other things. You have a scientific explanation for one, even if you don't really understand it. The other one is a complete mystery. I was dead and I came back to life. You accept that, even though it's a mystery. Some things you have to just take on faith."

"I accept that because it brought you back to me, and I'm not about to question my good luck or tempt fate by asking for an explanation."

"He has a gift. That's all anyone needs for an explanation," Sara had summed up.

All of those thoughts flew by in Laurel's mind in the time it took for her to escort Trish Walker into her office.

"Give me five minutes and we can blow this Popsicle stand," Laurel said as she stood behind her desk and looked at the display on her laptop.

"Sure," Trish answered as she looked around the office that was lined with shelves, all of which seemed to be filled with bound copies of The Revised Code of Laws of Illinois. Laurel was now sitting at her desk reading. If she had been talking to Trish, or talking on the phone, it might have masked the sounds coming from the outer office, but given Trish's enhanced senses, particularly her hearing, the chances of that were small. So it was a combination of her acute hearing and the number of times she had watch the video of her fight at Navy Pier earlier that summer that caused her to recognize the sounds of that fight emanating from the outer office. When Trish walked to the glass wall that formed the barrier between Laurel's office from the large room on the other side she saw six people standing around the flat screen monitor that was the source of the sound.

"Son of a fucking bitch," Trish said without thinking.

"What?" Laurel asked from behind her.

"That explains why everyone was looking at me like they recognized me from some porno movie."

Laurel took a quick glance out the window before opening her door and making a beeline to the group of people.

"Freeze!" Trish heard Laurel shout as the group attempted to break up. She stayed in Laurel's office while the ASA did a quick investigation.

"I don't have time for this now, but this is not over," Trish heard Laurel say before leaving the group and returning to her office.

"Sorry," Laurel said as she sat down. "In their defense, I don't think there's many people left in the Chicagoland area that haven't seen those clips. Sara got the same treatment when she was here."

Sara and Trish could have, and when they had both been in the city had been, mistaken for twins.

"It's fine I guess. It explains why Bel looked at me the way he did when he first saw me. I thought it was because he saw some of my modeling work."

"God, he'd have had a fucking heart attack," Laurel laughed as she closed her laptop. "Come on, let's get you out of here," she said before a thought occurred to her, "Did you pack a hat and some sunglasses?"