Inamorata (18b/36) – WMC fic

PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy
DISCLAIMER: Characters, not mine. Story, mine.

The guards assigned to Jill and Claire were on loan to the search for Cindy. Lindsay had insistently volunteered her own detail as well, for more than one reason, but, regardless of her reminder to Tom, with a barely suppressed shudder, that the threat to her was elsewhere engaged, he’d been unwilling to let them leave the premises without her escort.

So maybe her story hadn’t been entirely convincing.

Lindsay had prepared for him to disagree with her logic, but it would have made things so much simpler if he had just let them go unaccompanied. Now, there was an even number on either side of the equation, seven guns of which she was aware, and a potentially explosive situation.

As predicted, the detail moved through their futile parking garage choreography. One to check the car. One forward to inspect beyond it. Two sweeping the sides of the garage.

Lindsay followed the car checker, Officer Burnish, against whom she’d held an unjustifiable grudge ever since he found the note that let her know Cindy was in danger, and waited anxiously behind him for the other men to finish with their duties and come join them around her SUV. She watched Jill help Jacobi around to the passenger side, knowing that Claire was still behind her, right where she should be. With significantly less rehearsal, their system was nearly as precise as that of the detail. It was the familiarity, often overlooked in work like this, but unquestionably advantageous.

As Burnish arose from his under-the-car exploration, the other three men returned to the vicinity, one stopping on the passenger side with Jacobi and Jill, the other two coming up to stand with Claire behind her. She hated not being able to see them, but she was just going to have to have faith in her team.

Officer Burnish leaned across the front seat, and Lindsay was struck by the motion. It was like that night, like that moment, so very evocative. An often-asked question rushed back for an encore.

Why wasn’t anyone seen putting the note into her car?

The security cameras had failed to pick up anything suspicious, but that could be explained away. There were plenty of blind spots in the garage that the cameras didn’t reach. If a person could figure out where they were, it was certainly possible to get in and out without being caught on camera. So that’s the solution they had come to when the footage turned up naught.

Ashe was, beyond a doubt, busy… with Cindy… at the time that the note was being found, but Lindsay’s car had been sitting there all day. He could have left the note at any time. It was quite the chance he had taken, it was possible that the note would be discovered before Cindy was abducted, but, if it was the only opportunity that he had, there was no choice but to take such a risk.

Or there could be a far simpler explanation.

It should have been considered. At the time though, Ashe wasn’t the prime suspect. In some circles he still wasn’t, but knowing what Lindsay knew now, the notion occurred.

“You’re friends with Ashe, aren’t you?”

She remembered hearing Burnish talk about him before. More than once. Favorably.

Distracted, he glanced back at her, before continuing with his work.

“We’ve had a couple of beers. Sure.”

It was an innocent enough answer, and the delivery was nearly impeccable. But there was one infinitesimal flaw, a pause, brief enough to be meaningless, but, for Lindsay, too telling to ignore. And the comprehension brought with it a rage that produced slight alterations to the plan. She was supposed to make Burnish her temporary hostage. She wasn’t necessarily supposed to do it so violently.

Lindsay drew her gun and yanked the officer from her car so swiftly, there could be no counteracting it. The grip she had on his shirt was purposely choking and when she shoved her gun up under his chin, she did it with force enough to make his head snap back. It was difficult, but she peeled her eyes from him and glanced around.

“I’m really not looking to kill anyone here,” Lindsay harshly told them. “I just need you all to stay calm.”

Across the car, Jacobi helped himself to the service weapon of the officer standing at his side before the man had any chance to react to the situation on his own. He’d been on the force nearly as long as Jacobi. They’d worked side-by-side for many years. It was all very wrong. But there was no other way. All of these people were under Tom’s orders and no doubt those orders were to use any means necessary to keep her from getting away from them.

“You probably shouldn’t do that,’ Claire’s voice turned Lindsay’s head.

She watched Claire take the cell phone from the hand of the daring guard beside her, the gun she was holding leveled carefully at him. Lindsay had been unsure about giving Claire the weapon. She didn’t want to be responsible for putting a gun in Claire’s hand, but it was her only option. She doubted Jill’s ability to follow through and actually shoot someone should things get too out of hand, and given his present condition, arming Jacobi didn’t seem the most productive choice. Claire had an intense protective streak, almost rivaling her own, when it came to Cindy. She had a feeling that she could count on her to take any vital actions.

“Guns, phones, cuffs,” Lindsay demanded.

Clearly irate, the guards removed the requested items and put them down at their feet. They may have spent their lives on one side of this scenario, but they did know how to play the other.

“Jill.”

Jill stopped to take the cell phone from the man beside her before rounding the car.

“Check their legs,” Lindsay told her.

Jill glanced over at her, then did as she was asked, dropping to run her hands over the men’s pant legs.

“Sorry about this. It’s nothing personal,” Jill said, coming away with nothing.

“Cuff them back to back.”

They were here to protect her. She had threatened them. Now she was incapacitating them. Lindsay knew that she would never regain her character in their eyes. Never again would they be able to work together without a great deal of turmoil. She was never going to apologize for the steps she was taking, but she did wish that there was a better way.

Jill took up the handcuffs, handcuffing the two men together. Jacobi needed no instruction. He already had his old colleague handcuffed to the side mirror of the car in the adjacent space. Jill gathered up the weapons and hardware on the ground and put it in the floorboard of the backseat of Lindsay’s SUV. Claire held the gun at ready, just in case.

Confident that everyone not on her side was sufficiently unarmed and that the situation was under control, Lindsay turned her full attention back to Ashe’s guard friend, using her free hand to find his gun and cell phone and hand them off to Jill, before proceeding with her line of questioning.

“What did you tell Ashe about us?”

“About who?”

It was a denial enough that Lindsay slammed him hard into the side of her car, her gun resuming its position beneath his chin.

“I said that I wasn’t looking to kill anyone. I didn’t say that I wouldn’t.”

“Just that you were passing notes and that I thought there might be something there. It was just two guys imagining two hot girls together. That was it.”

For him to say that now took a lot of nerve. Clearly it became a lot more when Ashe wired the restroom and searched her desk for confirmation of their frat boy fantasies.

“And the message he left for me? He did leave it right?’

Real fear passed over the face before Lindsay. Or was it remorse?

“Ashe said he would put in a good word for me at the FBI,” he stated quietly. “I thought he was for real.”

“He left the note with you, didn’t he? You planted it for him.”

“He told me that it would help break the case, get you to open up about Kiss-Me-Not. I didn’t really think that it meant anything.”

It was true. She could tell he wasn’t lying. He was simply too damn naïve to be a police officer. But the naivety defense went only so far.

“And when Cindy really ended up missing? You didn’t think to mention any of this to anyone?”

He just stared back at her. He didn’t know what to say, and Lindsay felt more than obliged to help him. Gun firm in her hand, she slammed it into the side of his head. When he turned back to her, she didn’t even blink as blood trickled down next to his eye. She was sure that it was clear in her expression that she wanted to, and would, use greater force if he required it.

“I didn’t want to lose my job,” he feebly admitted.

The disclosure rang roughly in Lindsay’s ears as ‘my job was more important than her life’. Her hand should have been shaking as she placed the gun back beneath his chin, this time with a more clear-cut objective, but it was amazingly steady. She wanted him to know what it felt like to have his own life mean so little to someone. At least for the split second before he didn’t feel anything anymore.

“Lindsay.”

The voice was calm, protective. But it wasn’t Claire’s plea that gave Burnish a reprieve from his own final act. It was the knowledge that, if he had immediately gone to Tom about Ashe’s role in all of this, Tom would have apprehended Ashe right away. According to the law. According to procedure. But Ashe never would have cracked. It’s very possible they might never have found Cindy. It was better that Ashe thought he was mostly in the clear. It was also possible, though, that they still wouldn’t find Cindy, and it was this sycophant’s fault that Ashe knew anything in the first place.

As his luck would have it, though, Lindsay could make use of him.

“Go tell Tom about Ashe. Don’t make any stops on the way, or the next time we see each other I will kill you.” And if something irreparable had already happened to Cindy, she would be coming to find him then too, but she didn’t give him that warning. That part would be a surprise. “For you… it is personal.”

She shoved him in the direction of the door and watched him walk as fast as his quaking legs would carry him. There was a visible weakness as he pulled it open and disappeared to the other side.

Her opportunity for escape had just been further limited. As soon as Tom knew what she was up to, he would send a whole legion after her, but, even with that awareness, Lindsay was slow in turning around. She had severely underestimated how hard facing Claire, Jill and Jacobi would be after that. She didn’t want to see how they might be looking at her. Expecting the worst, she finally steeled herself and turned toward them, but they were surprisingly composed. Disturbingly. Is this really what they expected out of her? Not that the answer mattered at the moment.

“Take their car and drive Jacobi back to the hospital,” she ordered.

Nobody moved. That was no shock. Lindsay knew that there would be resistance. She also suspected that they were aware, and angry, that this was her plan the whole time. Get them to help and then get rid of them. But if she could barely face them now, there was no way in hell she could face them after what was coming.

“Get in the car,” Jacobi gave the conflicting order to Jill and Claire.

“Jacobi,” Lindsay started.

“Why do you need to be alone?” he challenged.

Lindsay looked away from him. It was unfair to ask a grueling question when he already knew the answer, especially when there was no time for Lindsay to even try her hand at clever fabrication.

Jacobi climbed into the passenger seat. Without a word, Jill and Claire followed suit and filled her backseat.

“Whatever you need to do,” Jacobi uttered quietly, the sound barely reaching her through the open driver’s side door, “we’re not going to get in your way.”

Just like that, her solo manipulation of the situation was at its end. She could argue about it with them and waste more time, or get out of here while she had the chance.

She pulled the keys from her pocket and climbed up into the SUV. As she turned the key in the ignition, she saw the blood on her hand. She dropped her hand to her jeans, hastily wiping it off, and glanced in her side mirrors at what they were leaving in their wake as she pulled out of the space.

“I’m sorry,” she said, though she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what for, or if it was even sincere repentance.

“You should be,” Jill’s voice was soft. Lindsay glanced back over her shoulder, but Jill just continued staring out the window. “I would have hit him harder.”

There was such genuine, pulsating intensity in her voice, Lindsay decided right then and there -should, God forbid, the need ever again arise, next time Jill was getting a gun.