What's It Like In New York City? Part 3 I've Got So Much More To Say
Fandom: Women’s Murder Club
Title: What’s It Like In New York City
Part 3: I’ve Got So Much Left To Say
Pairing: Lindsay/Cindy
Summary: AU
A/N: title taken from ‘Hey There Delilah’ by the Plain White Tee’s
A/N 2: sequel to ‘Chapter In Your Life Entitled San Francisco’ and ‘What’s It Like In New York City’ Part 1 ‘I’m Miles Away' and ‘What’s It Like In New York City’ Part 2 ‘Oh It’s What You Do To Me’
This was originally one piece with the next one coming up (it’s almost finished only a few more scenes to go) but this one ended up being far too long, it just seemed HUGE so I split it, hope you like it. Please tell me what you think.
Lindsay had always been a reasonably deep sleeper, which was a fact which would surprise most who met her during an investigation but usually she could sleep through anything, storms, alarms, arguing, dogs barking, you name it and most days Lindsay would be oblivious to it, the one Boxer trait she was proud of (besides being able to drink her own weight in whiskey), so most nights Lindsay would fall into oblivion as soon as her head hit the pillow… except when her instincts kicked in, when something wasn’t right then Lindsay wasn’t sleeping no matter how much she wanted or needed to. Some nights Lindsay was just awake, there was no changing that fact and she couldn’t explain why exactly.
Tonight was clearly a night her instincts were in overdrive, after what felt like hours of tossing and turning though she did finally manage to get to sleep only to sit bolt upright, instantly on edge and cursing the fact that some idiot from the hotel had sent her bags to San Francisco without checking with her Lindsay looked around the apartment for signs of what was wrong, she heard the noise again, bang, thud, bang, the same as before. It wasn’t the sleeping in her clothes on a lumpy couch at 3.19 in the morning after hearing a strange noise at the apartment door that Lindsay minded, it was not having her gun, to her she may as well have been missing her right hand.
Lindsay stood and moved towards the door, pausing slightly to intentionally shift her stance from ‘officer with gun’ to woman without one - it was harder than she thought, Lindsay hadn’t even know she’d gotten what her body perceived as a natural position, (feet planted firmly, shoulder width apart, both arms in front of her hands clasped, pointing down,) her training in the police academy wasn’t going to help her tonight instead her childhood was (strong fist, thumbs on the outside, pull back and put your body weight into it, kick, punch, scratch, soft areas, eyes first). Lindsay was about to move towards the front door and investigate when Cindy appeared in her bedroom doorway, a baseball bat in her hands.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I have no idea but you stay here.” Lindsay said, Cindy rolled her eyes and Lindsay didn’t even try and stop the redhead edging after her to the front door, Lindsay looked through the peephole, near the fish bowled edge she saw a figure disappearing down the hall, carefully she opened the door and looked both ways down the hall.
“Linds.” Cindy said softly, Lindsay turned to her and saw Cindy had paled and was pointing a shaky hand to what was disturbing her, nailed to her door was a piece of paper. Lindsay’s eyes narrowed at it.
“Stay here.” She demanded and took off down the hall after the figure that had disappeared a moment ago.
Cindy starred at the photo, it was a black and white shot of the last victim Layla DiAngelo, written across it in red was the words ‘You’re Next’, not thinking straight Cindy yanked it from her door and stormed inside, she had enough to deal with in her life at the moment with Lindsay back in her life and sleeping on her couch she did not have the energy to deal with a psycho serial killer in any capacity other than writing about his capture but it seemed like this guy had other plans, the same plan of so many before him, to screw with her mind, it was funny how they always thought they were original with that idea.
“Am I some sort of magnet for creeps and psychos?” Cindy asked herself as she went inside and not thinking she shut the door behind her. A few minutes later Cindy snapped out of her thoughts as she starred at the photo, her front door handle jiggled and someone pushed against the door, Cindy grabbed her bat and flung the door open, taking a stance Mickey Mantle would have been jealous of, she was ready to swing when her brain registered that it was Lindsay standing in front of her, slowly Cindy lowered the bat.
“Hello to you too.” Lindsay smiled.
“Sorry.” Cindy muttered embarrassed, even more so as a blush spread across her face, she turned and walked back into the apartment leaving Lindsay to follow, the Inspector did, shutting and locking the door behind her, Cindy propped the bat against the coffee table and flopped onto Lindsay’s makeshift bed.
“You sure can pick ‘em can’t you Cindy can’t you?” Lindsay asked and Cindy waited for a moment trying to figure out if she should take offence by the time she’d decided to let it go Lindsay had continued talking. “What is it about you? Any story you get manages to turn into the crime of the century and get the psycho after you; you’re some kind of magnet I swear.”
The same sentiment Cindy herself had moments ago but coming from Lindsay Cindy somehow found herself, irrationally that she knew, annoyed, she pushed those thoughts from her mind, ‘you go looking for a fight and you’ll find one’ she told herself and she didn’t have the energy to fight, just being near Lindsay seemed to drain her.
“I can’t help who finds me attractive.” Cindy said, staring at Lindsay a moment longer than necessary, Lindsay got the message and stared right back until it all became too much and she looked to the floor. Cindy nearly sighed; maybe she was being unfair; after all she didn’t always have to be on the offensive, did she?
“Besides I’d rather this than be stuck covering cat shows or something else ridiculous like that.” She added jokingly, Lindsay gave her a small smile but then the silence fell over them, for the first few moments it was comfortable until they both seemed to remember all the things that were supposed to make it awkward and that’s what it became, with neither one of them knowing what to say to fix it, it stayed quiet and awkward. Lindsay could hear the clock ticking and she felt like a century had passed when it hadn’t even been more than thirty seconds, rubbing the back of her neck she faked a yawn and Cindy stood looking around the living room and tapping her hands against her thighs.
“Time for bed I guess.” She said trying to sound casual, Lindsay nodded.
“Yeah, we can deal with this better in the morning.” She agreed gratefully and Cindy headed for her bedroom, she stopped at the doorway and looked back at Lindsay, now lying on the couch with the blanket pulled to her chin, eyes screwed shut tightly, Cindy sighed and disappeared into her bedroom, softly shutting the door. She knew Lindsay wasn’t tired, the woman had run on three hours sleep and watery coffee for a week once back in San Francisco, a rude awakening and a slight disruption to her latest REM cycle wasn’t going to throw her off her game then again she had gone looking for an escape and found one, you can always find those too when you need them and she supposed a transparent escape was a better way to end the night than a fight.
*
The gun was in her hand before she even registered her feet hitting the floor, a pretty amazing feat considering her bag was on the other side of the room, then again Lindsay had always been more focused with her hands weighed down by the comfortable feeling of the 9mm.
“Move and I’ll blow your head off.” She announced to the darkened room, hoping it was the same guy who had been leaving Cindy messages and more than that hoping he’d make a move so she’d have an excuse to soothe her itchy trigger finger, the figure froze and flicked on the lights.
“Whoa what the hell is the matter with you?” the woman shouted staring at the gun, her hands moved from palms out in a defensive gesture that had been automatic to sitting on her hips in an defensive stance, complete with a look on her face that could only be described as pissed off. Cindy then appeared in her bedroom doorway, tying her robe closed as she surveyed the situation, rubbing her eyes slightly.
“Shannon?” she asked, “What’s going on?”
“Ask Annie Oakley over there.” Shannon said and Cindy looked over at Lindsay, only just realising she had a gun and that it was, to most people, unusual to discover.
“Where’d you get the gun?” she asked.
“It’s mine.” Lindsay explained slowly lowering it to her side.
“You brought it from hom-San Francisco?” Cindy exclaimed. Shannon caught the slip up of ‘home’ as she relaxed her stance but Lindsay didn’t, the brunette was too busy forming her reply.
“Good thing I did too, clearly I need it.” she said.
“For what? Warding off neighbours asking for sugar?” Cindy asked sarcastically and Lindsay rolled her eyes in response.
“Yes to defend you from the sugar fiends in your building.” She said dryly. “And maybe if that doesn’t take up too much time I might use it if that psycho comes back and decides to do more than use your front door as a message board.”
“You’ve overreacting.” Cindy exclaimed and Shannon watched the verbal tennis watch between the two intently.
“Yeah I’m overreacting to the fact that a serial killer knows where you live and has decided ‘you’re next’.” Lindsay said sarcastically, then she pulled back and shrugged. “Then again maybe now that you live in New York it’s become a more frequent occurrence than the three times it happened in San Francisco.”
“It did not happen three times.” Cindy protested.
“So Jaime didn’t kidnap you?” Lindsay asked pretending to be confused.
“That hardly counts.” Cindy said.
“He had a gun and forced you to go with him; that counts.” Lindsay exclaimed.
“Oh please, how many time do I have to tell you he only did that so-” Cindy was stopped by Shannon whistling loudly with her fingers in her mouth, one of the perks of growing up with two older brothers and a mother who was a huge Yankees fan, both Lindsay and Cindy stopped arguing and looked over at her with identical confused and annoyed looks on their faces, Shannon would have let them continue because it had been allowing her to get interesting insights into each of their characters as well as their dynamic together but they were starting to get even into territory she knew nothing about and it was confusing.
“Time out!” she told them both making a ‘T’ with her hands. “Ok let’s back up and explain the thing about some serial killing psycho saying ‘you’re next’?”
“It’s not a big deal.” Cindy protested waving her off and looking away, a sure sign she was lying - one Shannon had figured that in the first three weeks of Cindy living down the hall.
“It is a big deal.” Lindsay said looking at Cindy who pointedly ignored her.
“Both of you stop.” Shannon demanded before they could get into another argument. “Cindy this is a big deal.” Cindy’s head snapped up and she looked over at her neighbour and friend.
“You’re agreeing with her?” the reporter asked sounding very much like Shannon’s three year old, the pout on her face could rival her daughter’s as well.
“This isn’t grade school Cin, this is serious, she’s right, whoever she is exactly.” Shannon said as she looked over at Lindsay. “I’m Shannon by the way Cindy’s neighbour down the hall.”
“Lindsay Boxer.” Lindsay said offering her hand to shake, Shannon did. “I’m ah, Cindy’s… friend, from San Francisco.”
Shannon nearly laughed, ‘friend yeah and I’m the Easter Bunny’ she thought but she nodded and smiled just the same, Lindsay smiled back once she did it all cliqued in place for Shannon, everything came back to her because Lindsay was familiar yes and now she knew why, her memories rushed and stumbled to be front in line in her mind like her daughter did with the other children at pre-school.
Cindy was drunk on tequila, the semi-cheap kind, Shannon had attempted to lecture her but couldn’t, Cindy had looked so sad and helpless, so Shannon shelved the mothering skills she attained after 3 years of parenting her mischievous and adorable daughter and instead helped Cindy to her bed, Shannon could see Cindy’s face in her mind, the covers were drawn up to her chin, her eyes so sad it almost broke the blonde’s heart, ‘she never loved me Shan, not even a little bit’ and Shannon remembered shutting the door and getting only half way across the living room before curiosity had gotten the best of her and she’d headed for the coffee table and looked at the photos spread out all around, Cindy and a pretty smiling brunette. Lindsay.
Shannon now had a name for the face, she could barely believe the woman in front of her was the same one who had been all smiles for the camera but it was true and she knew one thing for sure - Cindy was wrong, Lindsay did love her. Shannon had known it then and watching Lindsay look at Cindy she knew it even more now but she also knew Cindy was just as blind to it now as she was when she was drunk of cheap tequila. Shannon would have found it funny if she didn’t find it tragically sad.
*
Cindy was still mad at her about the whole ‘pointing a gun at her neighbour’ thing and Lindsay could kind of see her point, in fact she almost went to apologise - twice, once over the awkward breakfast they’d had that morning, between the toast popping up and the kettle reaching boiling point, she’d tried again in the cab ride, at the red light right as DJ announced that they would be taking requests and listed the number to call and Cindy had been digging around in her bag for her wallet to pay her half of the cab fare but each time the apology hadn’t happened, at breakfast Cindy had asked if she still had two sugars so Lindsay said ‘yes’ and ‘thanks’ instead of ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I miss you’ and in the cab that smelt like sweat and popcorn despite forest fresh pine scented air freshener the light had turned green and Cindy had produced her wallet so Lindsay had smiled and took the money saying ‘See you tonight?’ instead of ‘I still love you’ and she got a nod and ‘have a good day’ in reply instead of ‘I forgive you’ and ‘I love you too’.
So the day hadn’t exactly gotten off to a brilliant start by the time she got to the station and found they still had no solid leads on the latest victim, young girl, a brunette, pretty, strangled and dumped in an alley, her body with the exact same markings. It was the same killer but they had nothing on her, for one thing she wasn’t a prostitute, she lived in a shitty neighbour where prostitution was high but she herself worked for a travel agent.
No one in the station was exactly thrilled at the thought ‘of some know-it-all from San Francisco sticking her nose in’ but Lindsay threw herself into her work to forget about how if she’d just said ‘I’m sorry… for everything’ instead of ‘please pass the butter’ things would have been different. By lunch most of the task force realised she wasn’t trying to take over and steal the glory but just trying to help out and the day got a little better, especially when someone came forward with what seemed like a promising lead of having seen the latest victim, Layla, arguing with someone the night she was killed, the older man was from the neighbourhood, he lived across the hall from the latest victim worked and was more than happy to go to the sketch artist, saying ‘it’s lucky some hood hadn’t smashed out the streetlight that night, I think I got a pretty good look at him’ and Lindsay thought maybe this would be the turning point she needed to break the case wide open.
*
The sketch was done and Lindsay looked down at it, a frown sweeping across her face, she glanced back at the old man, all the hope she had about breaking the case wide open fading away.
“Are you sure this is the man you saw?” she asked. He bobbed his head up and down in the affirmative, ‘like the bobble head on the cab dashboard this morning’ Lindsay thought casually, that had been what she focused on for the 12 blocks from Cindy’s apartment to her office building, she’d been trying to get the courage up to say something meaningful instead of ‘let’s call it $20 even’ to save Cindy 75 cents, because doesn’t 2 quarters, a dime and a nickel say ‘I’m sorry, I miss you, forgive me, I love you’?
“Oh yeah that’s him alright, I’ve seen him around the neighbourhood a couple of times, see he’s in real estate, just like that other greedy bastard, already owns hotels all over the place and the electric company but he’s like a bottomless pit, nothing is ever enough, he went to her trying to pay her off so she’d run off to Illinois Ave, but she wouldn’t she wanted the hotel, she was the thimble you see, prettiest thimble I ever have seen, I know why she got the title, she said she wasn’t going to give up the hotel.” The old man said.
Lindsay sighed, she could usually tell which tip was just a crazy with a conspiracy theory but not this guy; she was pretty sure they wouldn’t get anywhere putting out a bulletin for the guy from Monopoly.
“Rich Old Uncle Pennybags doesn’t like people who don’t want to play by his rules you see?” the old man said, he smiled and leant closer, whispering. “I found this though, he dropped it as he left, it fell out of his pocket and he can’t be rolling the dice and moving around that race car of his without it now can he?”
He then pressed something small into Lindsay’s hand.
“You’ll need this, he’ll be coming back for it soon I bet.” He said.
“Thanks.” Lindsay said looking down at the matchbook in her hand that had and the sketch she was holding in the other, she then looked back up at the man.
“I helped right?” he asked anxiously. “She was a real sweet girl, always gave me a couple of bucks when she could afford it, not often but then again we can’t all be the banker now can we? She didn’t deserve to die just because that guy passed Go a couple of times and has a Get Out Of Jail Free card.”
“Yes, you’ve helped us.” Lindsay lied and the old man smiled.
“Good.” He said as he shuffled after one of the uniformed officers.
*
Lindsay was exhausted and tired of getting nowhere on the case, she was tired of not knowing what to do about Cindy either, because should she cook dinner? Would that be too intimate? Should she order take out? How could she know what Cindy wanted? Should she do nothing at all? Would that make Cindy think she was waiting for her to make dinner and serve Lindsay? If she did order or cook something for dinner when should she order it? No one wants to reheat takeout food in the microwave and waiting at the dining table for someone to come home while the dinner you worked so hard on grows cold reminds her too much of her childhood - should she call Cindy? Ask when she was going to be home? Would that seem like she was keeping tabs on her? Would it seem too, there’s no word for it but domestic and she doesn’t even live here so why is she wondering about cooking dinner and being domestic? She’s using up all the hot water too, and Cindy’s shampoo, it’s not like their roommates, it’s not like they’re living together or even dating or anything so why was Lindsay content to use up the hot water and call to find out when Cindy was going to be home so the dinner wouldn’t get cold and use up all of Cindy’s peach smelling shampoo? Lindsay shut the shower off quickly and jumped out, grabbing a towel and drying herself as best she could as fast as she could, she snuck out to the living room and grabbed a change of clothes and hung her towel up neatly. She didn’t fit here and that was painfully obvious to her now because she was completely unsure about what to do and she didn’t like that feeling. Still not knowing what to do about dinner Lindsay decided not to do anything about it, instead she got out the files that had been airmailed from San Francisco and reread what she already committed to memory.
Cindy came home a couple of hours later with Chinese and Lindsay smiled, relieved beyond belief, because Cindy knew what to do about dinner and she’d even ordered the spring rolls Lindsay liked, everything was ok. They talked about the case and Lindsay found it wasn’t as awkward as it could have been as long as she didn’t focus on the fact that she smelt like Cindy now. After dinner and work and the television on as background noise Cindy went to bed and Lindsay lay awake on the couch, alternating between looking at the ceiling and looking at the firmly shut door to Cindy’s bedroom, the front door seemed like her best option, run away and escape her mind screamed, but Lindsay didn’t moved, she pulled the blankets tighter and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that she still smelt like Cindy and didn’t know how to feel about it. It didn’t work so her dreams were full of peaches and the ‘what if’ of never having let the redhead in the next room go.
She woke up the next morning still smelling like Cindy and she still didn’t know how she felt about that.
*
Cindy woke up early to go for a run to clear her head, it didn’t really work because she still thought of Lindsay with each step she took away from the apartment where the brunette was still sleeping, then again if moving clear across the country didn’t help her forget the brunette than how could a couple of laps around the block help? Cindy also found herself angry at her i-pod, was there a ‘songs related to Lindsay Boxer’ button that she accidently pushed or did the universe just hate her that much right now? Cindy went with option B because, well because Lindsay was sleeping on her couch so it was definitely true enough, she shut her i-pod off when the twenty sixth song in a row managed to remind her of Lindsay and started to walk back to her apartment, the silence meant that she was constantly questioning everything and inevitable ended up with far more questions than she had answers, particularly when it came to what to do about Lindsay.
When she got to the building door and found Shannon is taking Rayleigh to school she realised it was later than she thought, Cindy tagged along because it was a distraction from the questions whirling around in her head and because Shannon had promised coffee after they dropped off her daughter. But of course the coffee had come with a price, for Shannon it was $4.20 but for Cindy it was information, ‘So you and Lindsay huh?’ and Cindy didn’t know what to say because her and Lindsay… she sighed, she would have been better off running in circles with songs reminding her of Lindsay in her head than having this conversation… but Shannon was holding her caramel choc mocha hostage and saying Lindsay was ‘just a friend from San Francisco’ was not only a lie but also it didn’t get the coffee released unharmed so she took a deep breath and started to talk about Lindsay.
By the time Shannon hailed a cab to go to work Cindy had shared more with her in those ten minutes than she had in the past ten months, she didn’t know how she felt about that as she climbed the stairs to her apartment. Upon arriving at her apartment she opened the door to find Lindsay pacing back and forth across her living room, at the sound of the door opening Lindsay spun on her heel and saw Cindy standing there, she seemed to relax for a second before putting her hands on her hips and the expression on her face becoming stormy.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asked. Cindy pulled a face.
“I went for a run and then went with Shannon to take Rayleigh to school, what’s the big deal?” she asked.
“You didn’t think to tell me? Or leave a note or something? I wake up and you’re gone and there’s a serial killer who knows where you live and I seem to recall something about a note, what did it say?” Lindsay asked, Cindy resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Lindsay’s sarcasm.
“See you next time? No that’s not it, what was it? Oh right, you’re next! So no big deal at all really except I went out of my mind worrying about you!” Lindsay exclaimed angrily.
Cindy was smart usually and most of the time observant but in this case the revelation hit her like a ton of bricks. Lindsay had been worried about her which meant Lindsay still cared.
“Lindsay I’m sorry, I -” Cindy began to try and do over the entire conversation from the minute she walked in the door but Lindsay just shook her head.
“I’ve got to go to work, maybe we’ll catch a lead or something today, I’ll see you later.” She said grabbing her bag and jacket and walking past Cindy.
“Lindsay wait… we can share a cab.” Cindy suggested hopefully from the top of the stairs but Lindsay shook her head as she continued down the stairs.
“It’s fine.” She said quickly and Cindy groaned and closed her eyes as she disappeared out of sight down the next flight of steps.
“Way to go Cindy just go ahead and make it worse why don’t you?” she suggested as she turned to go back in her apartment.
*
Considering how they met Lindsay was surprised that she and Shannon seemed to get along, to go from having pointed a gun at her face to yelling at Cindy’s coffee machine in order to make her a coffee in only four days was a pretty big leap, but Lindsay was surprisingly comfortable with it.
She liked Shannon, the blonde was down to earth, honest, loyal, smart and she had a good sense of humour in Lindsay’s opinion those were all good qualities but the two that Lindsay admired most about Cindy’s neighbour from down the hall was that she loved her daughter, that was extremely obvious to the inspector and she’d guess to anyone who was within a fifty foot radius of the pair, Rayleigh was Shannon’s entire world and Lindsay was in awe of the maternal side to Shannon that also extended to Shannon’s treatment of Cindy, it was clear they were best friends and Lindsay was glad to know that Cindy had someone in New York looking after her.
How the coffee date had happened was that Lindsay left the precinct early because there were no new leads and rehashing the old ones was only getting her closer to punching someone and Shannon had needed someone to talk to after a particularly hard day, usually that person was Cindy but Cindy was still at work. Already in the works were plans to put ‘Dora The Explorer’ on for Rayleigh and open a bottle of wine until Cindy got home but then as she hustled Rayleigh across the sidewalk crossing she saw Lindsay standing there on the stoop, her fingers hovering over the intercom box.
“Cindy’s not on there.” Shannon said by way of greeting, causing Lindsay to turn to her startled. Shannon smiled kindly.
“She listed under ‘Fernandez’ instead.” Shannon said.
“Um thanks but I don’t even think she’s home.” Lindsay said.
“No she’s not, she called and left a message, she said she couldn’t get through to you about it, her editor’s really riding her about a deadline so she’s going to be working late.” Shannon explained as she unlocked the door and got Rayleigh inside. Lindsay nodded because she was sure Cindy did have a deadline and her editor probably was making some noise about it but she didn’t think it was as pressing as Cindy had made it seem but Lindsay shrugged it off because she was trying not to be harsh, bitter, paranoid jealous unreasonable (couldn’t you tell it was working?) Lindsay murmured ‘thanks’ when Shannon kept the door open for her and then she realised that she didn’t have a key to Cindy’s apartment, in all the drama and emotion of this morning she left the one Cindy gave her on the kitchen table.
“Um do you have a key to Cindy’s by any chance?” she asked. “She gave me a spare but I left it on the counter.”
“Is it the one with 4 engraved on it?” Shannon asked, Lindsay nodded. “Oh, she probably forgot, that key doesn’t work, a few months ago the super changed the locks on most of the apartments, first and last decent thing he’s done, so yeah I do have a key, that works.”
“Thanks.” Lindsay said gratefully.
“No problem.” Shannon told her and that was how they had ended up in Cindy’s apartment.
“So do you still have that gun I got so friendly with sometime on Sunday?” Shannon asked, Lindsay looked over at her curiously.
“Why?” she asked.
“Thinking about using it on my ex.” Shannon remarked, she looked over at her daughter, who was currently far too immersed in her colouring and the strange alien looking things on the television to pay the adults conversation any attention. “Asshole wants full custody now, not like he’s paid child support or even visited regularly or anything like that but all of sudden he wants full custody.”
“I’m sorry.” Lindsay said, not really sure of what else to say, she and Tom had divorced quite easily, the weird thing was that they were both happy to not be tied to each other like that anymore, they hadn’t fought over anything, not even the house, they’d both agreed to sell it and split the money, then again they didn’t have children.
“Sorry to be dumping all of this on you.” Shannon said slightly sheepishly taking the coffee mug Lindsay offered her (yes yelling at the machine had worked surprisingly, well that combined with making sure it was plugged in and pressing the right buttons but Lindsay swore the yelling helped).
“It’s fine, now I can’t give you my gun but if you happen to point him out it could accidentally go off if ya like.” Lindsay joked, Shannon smiled.
“Don’t tempt me - I might take you up on that.” She said.
“Well if that’s a bit drastic I have a friend who’s a lawyer, I could ask her to scare the crap out of him if you’d like, I mean she’s a criminal lawyer mostly and she’s based in San Francisco but your ex doesn’t have to know that.” Lindsay suggested.
“If things get worse I might take you up on that.” Shannon said, she sipped her drink and stayed quiet for a moment, trying to figure out what she wanted to say. With most other people Lindsay would have snapped at them to hurry up and say whatever it was they wanted to say already because she could clearly see that’s what Shannon was debating but she didn’t, in fact she pretended she didn’t notice because she was Cindy’s friend and Lindsay wanted her to like her because in some weird and strange and twisted way that would mean Cindy would like her again too, Lindsay nearly sighed, the three year old in the living room probably had better reasoning skills than her at this point.
“I think Cindy really misses you.” Shannon said finally, Lindsay looked over at her shocked, after a moment Shannon spoke again. “You know home, San Francisco, she misses everything.”
Lindsay tried to stop her heart beating so fast because ‘Cindy really misses San Francisco’ is entirely different to ‘Cindy really misses you’ and she wasn’t sure which she’d prefer to hear was the truth so she pushed it to the back of her mind when Rayleigh came over holding up a picture.
“Mummy, Lin-see lookit picture.” She said happily.
“Wow baby that looks great.” Shannon praised immediately, Lindsay looked at the colourful scribble and at the little girl’s face and found herself agreeing instantly too.
“It’s very pretty Rayleigh, you’re really good at drawing.” She said and Rayleigh beamed as Shannon’s phone started to play the shower scene music from the movie Psycho and Shannon sighed, she looked at Lindsay ‘my ex’ she mouthed and Lindsay understood, Shannon motioned to the door with her phone and then looked at her daughter. Lindsay nodded and Shannon smiled.
“Hey baby listen I have to go out to the hall to talk to someone on the phone but Lindsay wants to hear all about your picture ok?” she asked.
“Ok Mummy.” Rayleigh smiled. Shannon left and Rayleigh shoved the piece of paper in Lindsay’s face.
“This is a great picture, what’s that bit here?” Lindsay asked pointing to one side so she could find out about the picture without hurting Rayleigh’s feelings.
“You’re silly Lin-see, it’s Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter.” Rayleigh explained.
“The baseball players?” Lindsay asked confused, how on earth did a child as young as Rayleigh not only know about Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter but care enough to draw a picture of them?
“No.” Rayleigh said dragging out the word carefully as though it was obviously not the case, she pointed at the bottom left corner of the page, “That’s Ruth, she’s my hamster, the one that Cin-see looked after for me when we went to see Granma,” she moved her finger up to the top park of the page, “That’s Babe, he was Ruth’s friend but then he died, I was really, really sad and then we went to go visit my Granma and she has a birdy and IT CAN TALK!”
“Wow.” Lindsay exclaimed with a smile trying to take in and comprehend everything the little girl was telling her.
“Yeah really wow and it says ‘hello’ and ‘handsome birdie’ and ‘home run’ and ‘shudup’ cept that one’s a naughty word.” Rayleigh giggled. “It learned to talk off Granma and she’s funny.”
“She sounds funny.” Lindsay smiled.
“This is Granma.” Rayleigh said jabbing her little pointer finger at some lines across the bottom of the page. “And Mummy and me.”
“Oh, oh, oh and this is Derek.” Rayleigh said sliding her finger over to another ball of colour.
“Who’s Derek?” Lindsay asked.
“Derek Jeter.” Rayleigh said. “I told ya bout him already he’s Granma’s birdie.”
“Oh, ok.” Lindsay smiled, the family had an odd way of naming their pets, Lindsay somehow imagined them going down the Yankees player list with their eyes closed and sticking with whatever they landed on, it sounded kind of fun. Rayleigh made her way over to the barstool her mother had vacated and struggled to climb up onto it to sit next to Lindsay, she leant against the counter and looked at the brunette intently.
“Are you Cin-see’s kissin’ friend?” she asked suddenly, Lindsay nearly choked on her sip of coffee, Rayleigh swung her legs back and forth and waited for Lindsay to answer, coughing and spluttering the inspector finally managed to swallow and started to be able to breathe properly, with watery eyes she started shaking her head back and forth at the three year old sitting across from her.
“No.” she said but then thought she might have been a little too sharp with her refusal and she didn’t want to upset Rayleigh so she tried to soften herself and asked in a quieter voice. “Why do you think that sweetie?”
“I dunno, Uncle Ricky has a kissin’ friend, ‘Teven, he can do funny voices AND magic tricks.” Rayleigh exclaimed happily.
“Wow magic, yay.” Lindsay brushed over that fact quickly to move back to what was relevant to her. “So why do you think me and Cindy are… um, kissing friends?”
Rayleigh shrugged.
“I dunno, Mummy told Cin-see she oughta kiss ya and she says Cin-cee wants to wear your pants - isn’t that funny? Her legs are little or maybe yours are too big… I think you should kiss Cin-cee and maybe buy her pants so she doesn’t take yours.” Rayleigh paused and thought for a moment.
“Do you know magic tricks?” she asked but Lindsay shook her head, the only magic trick she knew was how to make good things in your life disappear and that wasn’t something she wanted to pass on.
Title: What’s It Like In New York City
Part 3: I’ve Got So Much Left To Say
Pairing: Lindsay/Cindy
Summary: AU
A/N: title taken from ‘Hey There Delilah’ by the Plain White Tee’s
A/N 2: sequel to ‘Chapter In Your Life Entitled San Francisco’ and ‘What’s It Like In New York City’ Part 1 ‘I’m Miles Away' and ‘What’s It Like In New York City’ Part 2 ‘Oh It’s What You Do To Me’
This was originally one piece with the next one coming up (it’s almost finished only a few more scenes to go) but this one ended up being far too long, it just seemed HUGE so I split it, hope you like it. Please tell me what you think.
Lindsay had always been a reasonably deep sleeper, which was a fact which would surprise most who met her during an investigation but usually she could sleep through anything, storms, alarms, arguing, dogs barking, you name it and most days Lindsay would be oblivious to it, the one Boxer trait she was proud of (besides being able to drink her own weight in whiskey), so most nights Lindsay would fall into oblivion as soon as her head hit the pillow… except when her instincts kicked in, when something wasn’t right then Lindsay wasn’t sleeping no matter how much she wanted or needed to. Some nights Lindsay was just awake, there was no changing that fact and she couldn’t explain why exactly.
Tonight was clearly a night her instincts were in overdrive, after what felt like hours of tossing and turning though she did finally manage to get to sleep only to sit bolt upright, instantly on edge and cursing the fact that some idiot from the hotel had sent her bags to San Francisco without checking with her Lindsay looked around the apartment for signs of what was wrong, she heard the noise again, bang, thud, bang, the same as before. It wasn’t the sleeping in her clothes on a lumpy couch at 3.19 in the morning after hearing a strange noise at the apartment door that Lindsay minded, it was not having her gun, to her she may as well have been missing her right hand.
Lindsay stood and moved towards the door, pausing slightly to intentionally shift her stance from ‘officer with gun’ to woman without one - it was harder than she thought, Lindsay hadn’t even know she’d gotten what her body perceived as a natural position, (feet planted firmly, shoulder width apart, both arms in front of her hands clasped, pointing down,) her training in the police academy wasn’t going to help her tonight instead her childhood was (strong fist, thumbs on the outside, pull back and put your body weight into it, kick, punch, scratch, soft areas, eyes first). Lindsay was about to move towards the front door and investigate when Cindy appeared in her bedroom doorway, a baseball bat in her hands.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I have no idea but you stay here.” Lindsay said, Cindy rolled her eyes and Lindsay didn’t even try and stop the redhead edging after her to the front door, Lindsay looked through the peephole, near the fish bowled edge she saw a figure disappearing down the hall, carefully she opened the door and looked both ways down the hall.
“Linds.” Cindy said softly, Lindsay turned to her and saw Cindy had paled and was pointing a shaky hand to what was disturbing her, nailed to her door was a piece of paper. Lindsay’s eyes narrowed at it.
“Stay here.” She demanded and took off down the hall after the figure that had disappeared a moment ago.
Cindy starred at the photo, it was a black and white shot of the last victim Layla DiAngelo, written across it in red was the words ‘You’re Next’, not thinking straight Cindy yanked it from her door and stormed inside, she had enough to deal with in her life at the moment with Lindsay back in her life and sleeping on her couch she did not have the energy to deal with a psycho serial killer in any capacity other than writing about his capture but it seemed like this guy had other plans, the same plan of so many before him, to screw with her mind, it was funny how they always thought they were original with that idea.
“Am I some sort of magnet for creeps and psychos?” Cindy asked herself as she went inside and not thinking she shut the door behind her. A few minutes later Cindy snapped out of her thoughts as she starred at the photo, her front door handle jiggled and someone pushed against the door, Cindy grabbed her bat and flung the door open, taking a stance Mickey Mantle would have been jealous of, she was ready to swing when her brain registered that it was Lindsay standing in front of her, slowly Cindy lowered the bat.
“Hello to you too.” Lindsay smiled.
“Sorry.” Cindy muttered embarrassed, even more so as a blush spread across her face, she turned and walked back into the apartment leaving Lindsay to follow, the Inspector did, shutting and locking the door behind her, Cindy propped the bat against the coffee table and flopped onto Lindsay’s makeshift bed.
“You sure can pick ‘em can’t you Cindy can’t you?” Lindsay asked and Cindy waited for a moment trying to figure out if she should take offence by the time she’d decided to let it go Lindsay had continued talking. “What is it about you? Any story you get manages to turn into the crime of the century and get the psycho after you; you’re some kind of magnet I swear.”
The same sentiment Cindy herself had moments ago but coming from Lindsay Cindy somehow found herself, irrationally that she knew, annoyed, she pushed those thoughts from her mind, ‘you go looking for a fight and you’ll find one’ she told herself and she didn’t have the energy to fight, just being near Lindsay seemed to drain her.
“I can’t help who finds me attractive.” Cindy said, staring at Lindsay a moment longer than necessary, Lindsay got the message and stared right back until it all became too much and she looked to the floor. Cindy nearly sighed; maybe she was being unfair; after all she didn’t always have to be on the offensive, did she?
“Besides I’d rather this than be stuck covering cat shows or something else ridiculous like that.” She added jokingly, Lindsay gave her a small smile but then the silence fell over them, for the first few moments it was comfortable until they both seemed to remember all the things that were supposed to make it awkward and that’s what it became, with neither one of them knowing what to say to fix it, it stayed quiet and awkward. Lindsay could hear the clock ticking and she felt like a century had passed when it hadn’t even been more than thirty seconds, rubbing the back of her neck she faked a yawn and Cindy stood looking around the living room and tapping her hands against her thighs.
“Time for bed I guess.” She said trying to sound casual, Lindsay nodded.
“Yeah, we can deal with this better in the morning.” She agreed gratefully and Cindy headed for her bedroom, she stopped at the doorway and looked back at Lindsay, now lying on the couch with the blanket pulled to her chin, eyes screwed shut tightly, Cindy sighed and disappeared into her bedroom, softly shutting the door. She knew Lindsay wasn’t tired, the woman had run on three hours sleep and watery coffee for a week once back in San Francisco, a rude awakening and a slight disruption to her latest REM cycle wasn’t going to throw her off her game then again she had gone looking for an escape and found one, you can always find those too when you need them and she supposed a transparent escape was a better way to end the night than a fight.
*
The gun was in her hand before she even registered her feet hitting the floor, a pretty amazing feat considering her bag was on the other side of the room, then again Lindsay had always been more focused with her hands weighed down by the comfortable feeling of the 9mm.
“Move and I’ll blow your head off.” She announced to the darkened room, hoping it was the same guy who had been leaving Cindy messages and more than that hoping he’d make a move so she’d have an excuse to soothe her itchy trigger finger, the figure froze and flicked on the lights.
“Whoa what the hell is the matter with you?” the woman shouted staring at the gun, her hands moved from palms out in a defensive gesture that had been automatic to sitting on her hips in an defensive stance, complete with a look on her face that could only be described as pissed off. Cindy then appeared in her bedroom doorway, tying her robe closed as she surveyed the situation, rubbing her eyes slightly.
“Shannon?” she asked, “What’s going on?”
“Ask Annie Oakley over there.” Shannon said and Cindy looked over at Lindsay, only just realising she had a gun and that it was, to most people, unusual to discover.
“Where’d you get the gun?” she asked.
“It’s mine.” Lindsay explained slowly lowering it to her side.
“You brought it from hom-San Francisco?” Cindy exclaimed. Shannon caught the slip up of ‘home’ as she relaxed her stance but Lindsay didn’t, the brunette was too busy forming her reply.
“Good thing I did too, clearly I need it.” she said.
“For what? Warding off neighbours asking for sugar?” Cindy asked sarcastically and Lindsay rolled her eyes in response.
“Yes to defend you from the sugar fiends in your building.” She said dryly. “And maybe if that doesn’t take up too much time I might use it if that psycho comes back and decides to do more than use your front door as a message board.”
“You’ve overreacting.” Cindy exclaimed and Shannon watched the verbal tennis watch between the two intently.
“Yeah I’m overreacting to the fact that a serial killer knows where you live and has decided ‘you’re next’.” Lindsay said sarcastically, then she pulled back and shrugged. “Then again maybe now that you live in New York it’s become a more frequent occurrence than the three times it happened in San Francisco.”
“It did not happen three times.” Cindy protested.
“So Jaime didn’t kidnap you?” Lindsay asked pretending to be confused.
“That hardly counts.” Cindy said.
“He had a gun and forced you to go with him; that counts.” Lindsay exclaimed.
“Oh please, how many time do I have to tell you he only did that so-” Cindy was stopped by Shannon whistling loudly with her fingers in her mouth, one of the perks of growing up with two older brothers and a mother who was a huge Yankees fan, both Lindsay and Cindy stopped arguing and looked over at her with identical confused and annoyed looks on their faces, Shannon would have let them continue because it had been allowing her to get interesting insights into each of their characters as well as their dynamic together but they were starting to get even into territory she knew nothing about and it was confusing.
“Time out!” she told them both making a ‘T’ with her hands. “Ok let’s back up and explain the thing about some serial killing psycho saying ‘you’re next’?”
“It’s not a big deal.” Cindy protested waving her off and looking away, a sure sign she was lying - one Shannon had figured that in the first three weeks of Cindy living down the hall.
“It is a big deal.” Lindsay said looking at Cindy who pointedly ignored her.
“Both of you stop.” Shannon demanded before they could get into another argument. “Cindy this is a big deal.” Cindy’s head snapped up and she looked over at her neighbour and friend.
“You’re agreeing with her?” the reporter asked sounding very much like Shannon’s three year old, the pout on her face could rival her daughter’s as well.
“This isn’t grade school Cin, this is serious, she’s right, whoever she is exactly.” Shannon said as she looked over at Lindsay. “I’m Shannon by the way Cindy’s neighbour down the hall.”
“Lindsay Boxer.” Lindsay said offering her hand to shake, Shannon did. “I’m ah, Cindy’s… friend, from San Francisco.”
Shannon nearly laughed, ‘friend yeah and I’m the Easter Bunny’ she thought but she nodded and smiled just the same, Lindsay smiled back once she did it all cliqued in place for Shannon, everything came back to her because Lindsay was familiar yes and now she knew why, her memories rushed and stumbled to be front in line in her mind like her daughter did with the other children at pre-school.
Cindy was drunk on tequila, the semi-cheap kind, Shannon had attempted to lecture her but couldn’t, Cindy had looked so sad and helpless, so Shannon shelved the mothering skills she attained after 3 years of parenting her mischievous and adorable daughter and instead helped Cindy to her bed, Shannon could see Cindy’s face in her mind, the covers were drawn up to her chin, her eyes so sad it almost broke the blonde’s heart, ‘she never loved me Shan, not even a little bit’ and Shannon remembered shutting the door and getting only half way across the living room before curiosity had gotten the best of her and she’d headed for the coffee table and looked at the photos spread out all around, Cindy and a pretty smiling brunette. Lindsay.
Shannon now had a name for the face, she could barely believe the woman in front of her was the same one who had been all smiles for the camera but it was true and she knew one thing for sure - Cindy was wrong, Lindsay did love her. Shannon had known it then and watching Lindsay look at Cindy she knew it even more now but she also knew Cindy was just as blind to it now as she was when she was drunk of cheap tequila. Shannon would have found it funny if she didn’t find it tragically sad.
*
Cindy was still mad at her about the whole ‘pointing a gun at her neighbour’ thing and Lindsay could kind of see her point, in fact she almost went to apologise - twice, once over the awkward breakfast they’d had that morning, between the toast popping up and the kettle reaching boiling point, she’d tried again in the cab ride, at the red light right as DJ announced that they would be taking requests and listed the number to call and Cindy had been digging around in her bag for her wallet to pay her half of the cab fare but each time the apology hadn’t happened, at breakfast Cindy had asked if she still had two sugars so Lindsay said ‘yes’ and ‘thanks’ instead of ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I miss you’ and in the cab that smelt like sweat and popcorn despite forest fresh pine scented air freshener the light had turned green and Cindy had produced her wallet so Lindsay had smiled and took the money saying ‘See you tonight?’ instead of ‘I still love you’ and she got a nod and ‘have a good day’ in reply instead of ‘I forgive you’ and ‘I love you too’.
So the day hadn’t exactly gotten off to a brilliant start by the time she got to the station and found they still had no solid leads on the latest victim, young girl, a brunette, pretty, strangled and dumped in an alley, her body with the exact same markings. It was the same killer but they had nothing on her, for one thing she wasn’t a prostitute, she lived in a shitty neighbour where prostitution was high but she herself worked for a travel agent.
No one in the station was exactly thrilled at the thought ‘of some know-it-all from San Francisco sticking her nose in’ but Lindsay threw herself into her work to forget about how if she’d just said ‘I’m sorry… for everything’ instead of ‘please pass the butter’ things would have been different. By lunch most of the task force realised she wasn’t trying to take over and steal the glory but just trying to help out and the day got a little better, especially when someone came forward with what seemed like a promising lead of having seen the latest victim, Layla, arguing with someone the night she was killed, the older man was from the neighbourhood, he lived across the hall from the latest victim worked and was more than happy to go to the sketch artist, saying ‘it’s lucky some hood hadn’t smashed out the streetlight that night, I think I got a pretty good look at him’ and Lindsay thought maybe this would be the turning point she needed to break the case wide open.
*
The sketch was done and Lindsay looked down at it, a frown sweeping across her face, she glanced back at the old man, all the hope she had about breaking the case wide open fading away.
“Are you sure this is the man you saw?” she asked. He bobbed his head up and down in the affirmative, ‘like the bobble head on the cab dashboard this morning’ Lindsay thought casually, that had been what she focused on for the 12 blocks from Cindy’s apartment to her office building, she’d been trying to get the courage up to say something meaningful instead of ‘let’s call it $20 even’ to save Cindy 75 cents, because doesn’t 2 quarters, a dime and a nickel say ‘I’m sorry, I miss you, forgive me, I love you’?
“Oh yeah that’s him alright, I’ve seen him around the neighbourhood a couple of times, see he’s in real estate, just like that other greedy bastard, already owns hotels all over the place and the electric company but he’s like a bottomless pit, nothing is ever enough, he went to her trying to pay her off so she’d run off to Illinois Ave, but she wouldn’t she wanted the hotel, she was the thimble you see, prettiest thimble I ever have seen, I know why she got the title, she said she wasn’t going to give up the hotel.” The old man said.
Lindsay sighed, she could usually tell which tip was just a crazy with a conspiracy theory but not this guy; she was pretty sure they wouldn’t get anywhere putting out a bulletin for the guy from Monopoly.
“Rich Old Uncle Pennybags doesn’t like people who don’t want to play by his rules you see?” the old man said, he smiled and leant closer, whispering. “I found this though, he dropped it as he left, it fell out of his pocket and he can’t be rolling the dice and moving around that race car of his without it now can he?”
He then pressed something small into Lindsay’s hand.
“You’ll need this, he’ll be coming back for it soon I bet.” He said.
“Thanks.” Lindsay said looking down at the matchbook in her hand that had and the sketch she was holding in the other, she then looked back up at the man.
“I helped right?” he asked anxiously. “She was a real sweet girl, always gave me a couple of bucks when she could afford it, not often but then again we can’t all be the banker now can we? She didn’t deserve to die just because that guy passed Go a couple of times and has a Get Out Of Jail Free card.”
“Yes, you’ve helped us.” Lindsay lied and the old man smiled.
“Good.” He said as he shuffled after one of the uniformed officers.
*
Lindsay was exhausted and tired of getting nowhere on the case, she was tired of not knowing what to do about Cindy either, because should she cook dinner? Would that be too intimate? Should she order take out? How could she know what Cindy wanted? Should she do nothing at all? Would that make Cindy think she was waiting for her to make dinner and serve Lindsay? If she did order or cook something for dinner when should she order it? No one wants to reheat takeout food in the microwave and waiting at the dining table for someone to come home while the dinner you worked so hard on grows cold reminds her too much of her childhood - should she call Cindy? Ask when she was going to be home? Would that seem like she was keeping tabs on her? Would it seem too, there’s no word for it but domestic and she doesn’t even live here so why is she wondering about cooking dinner and being domestic? She’s using up all the hot water too, and Cindy’s shampoo, it’s not like their roommates, it’s not like they’re living together or even dating or anything so why was Lindsay content to use up the hot water and call to find out when Cindy was going to be home so the dinner wouldn’t get cold and use up all of Cindy’s peach smelling shampoo? Lindsay shut the shower off quickly and jumped out, grabbing a towel and drying herself as best she could as fast as she could, she snuck out to the living room and grabbed a change of clothes and hung her towel up neatly. She didn’t fit here and that was painfully obvious to her now because she was completely unsure about what to do and she didn’t like that feeling. Still not knowing what to do about dinner Lindsay decided not to do anything about it, instead she got out the files that had been airmailed from San Francisco and reread what she already committed to memory.
Cindy came home a couple of hours later with Chinese and Lindsay smiled, relieved beyond belief, because Cindy knew what to do about dinner and she’d even ordered the spring rolls Lindsay liked, everything was ok. They talked about the case and Lindsay found it wasn’t as awkward as it could have been as long as she didn’t focus on the fact that she smelt like Cindy now. After dinner and work and the television on as background noise Cindy went to bed and Lindsay lay awake on the couch, alternating between looking at the ceiling and looking at the firmly shut door to Cindy’s bedroom, the front door seemed like her best option, run away and escape her mind screamed, but Lindsay didn’t moved, she pulled the blankets tighter and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that she still smelt like Cindy and didn’t know how to feel about it. It didn’t work so her dreams were full of peaches and the ‘what if’ of never having let the redhead in the next room go.
She woke up the next morning still smelling like Cindy and she still didn’t know how she felt about that.
*
Cindy woke up early to go for a run to clear her head, it didn’t really work because she still thought of Lindsay with each step she took away from the apartment where the brunette was still sleeping, then again if moving clear across the country didn’t help her forget the brunette than how could a couple of laps around the block help? Cindy also found herself angry at her i-pod, was there a ‘songs related to Lindsay Boxer’ button that she accidently pushed or did the universe just hate her that much right now? Cindy went with option B because, well because Lindsay was sleeping on her couch so it was definitely true enough, she shut her i-pod off when the twenty sixth song in a row managed to remind her of Lindsay and started to walk back to her apartment, the silence meant that she was constantly questioning everything and inevitable ended up with far more questions than she had answers, particularly when it came to what to do about Lindsay.
When she got to the building door and found Shannon is taking Rayleigh to school she realised it was later than she thought, Cindy tagged along because it was a distraction from the questions whirling around in her head and because Shannon had promised coffee after they dropped off her daughter. But of course the coffee had come with a price, for Shannon it was $4.20 but for Cindy it was information, ‘So you and Lindsay huh?’ and Cindy didn’t know what to say because her and Lindsay… she sighed, she would have been better off running in circles with songs reminding her of Lindsay in her head than having this conversation… but Shannon was holding her caramel choc mocha hostage and saying Lindsay was ‘just a friend from San Francisco’ was not only a lie but also it didn’t get the coffee released unharmed so she took a deep breath and started to talk about Lindsay.
By the time Shannon hailed a cab to go to work Cindy had shared more with her in those ten minutes than she had in the past ten months, she didn’t know how she felt about that as she climbed the stairs to her apartment. Upon arriving at her apartment she opened the door to find Lindsay pacing back and forth across her living room, at the sound of the door opening Lindsay spun on her heel and saw Cindy standing there, she seemed to relax for a second before putting her hands on her hips and the expression on her face becoming stormy.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asked. Cindy pulled a face.
“I went for a run and then went with Shannon to take Rayleigh to school, what’s the big deal?” she asked.
“You didn’t think to tell me? Or leave a note or something? I wake up and you’re gone and there’s a serial killer who knows where you live and I seem to recall something about a note, what did it say?” Lindsay asked, Cindy resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Lindsay’s sarcasm.
“See you next time? No that’s not it, what was it? Oh right, you’re next! So no big deal at all really except I went out of my mind worrying about you!” Lindsay exclaimed angrily.
Cindy was smart usually and most of the time observant but in this case the revelation hit her like a ton of bricks. Lindsay had been worried about her which meant Lindsay still cared.
“Lindsay I’m sorry, I -” Cindy began to try and do over the entire conversation from the minute she walked in the door but Lindsay just shook her head.
“I’ve got to go to work, maybe we’ll catch a lead or something today, I’ll see you later.” She said grabbing her bag and jacket and walking past Cindy.
“Lindsay wait… we can share a cab.” Cindy suggested hopefully from the top of the stairs but Lindsay shook her head as she continued down the stairs.
“It’s fine.” She said quickly and Cindy groaned and closed her eyes as she disappeared out of sight down the next flight of steps.
“Way to go Cindy just go ahead and make it worse why don’t you?” she suggested as she turned to go back in her apartment.
*
Considering how they met Lindsay was surprised that she and Shannon seemed to get along, to go from having pointed a gun at her face to yelling at Cindy’s coffee machine in order to make her a coffee in only four days was a pretty big leap, but Lindsay was surprisingly comfortable with it.
She liked Shannon, the blonde was down to earth, honest, loyal, smart and she had a good sense of humour in Lindsay’s opinion those were all good qualities but the two that Lindsay admired most about Cindy’s neighbour from down the hall was that she loved her daughter, that was extremely obvious to the inspector and she’d guess to anyone who was within a fifty foot radius of the pair, Rayleigh was Shannon’s entire world and Lindsay was in awe of the maternal side to Shannon that also extended to Shannon’s treatment of Cindy, it was clear they were best friends and Lindsay was glad to know that Cindy had someone in New York looking after her.
How the coffee date had happened was that Lindsay left the precinct early because there were no new leads and rehashing the old ones was only getting her closer to punching someone and Shannon had needed someone to talk to after a particularly hard day, usually that person was Cindy but Cindy was still at work. Already in the works were plans to put ‘Dora The Explorer’ on for Rayleigh and open a bottle of wine until Cindy got home but then as she hustled Rayleigh across the sidewalk crossing she saw Lindsay standing there on the stoop, her fingers hovering over the intercom box.
“Cindy’s not on there.” Shannon said by way of greeting, causing Lindsay to turn to her startled. Shannon smiled kindly.
“She listed under ‘Fernandez’ instead.” Shannon said.
“Um thanks but I don’t even think she’s home.” Lindsay said.
“No she’s not, she called and left a message, she said she couldn’t get through to you about it, her editor’s really riding her about a deadline so she’s going to be working late.” Shannon explained as she unlocked the door and got Rayleigh inside. Lindsay nodded because she was sure Cindy did have a deadline and her editor probably was making some noise about it but she didn’t think it was as pressing as Cindy had made it seem but Lindsay shrugged it off because she was trying not to be harsh, bitter, paranoid jealous unreasonable (couldn’t you tell it was working?) Lindsay murmured ‘thanks’ when Shannon kept the door open for her and then she realised that she didn’t have a key to Cindy’s apartment, in all the drama and emotion of this morning she left the one Cindy gave her on the kitchen table.
“Um do you have a key to Cindy’s by any chance?” she asked. “She gave me a spare but I left it on the counter.”
“Is it the one with 4 engraved on it?” Shannon asked, Lindsay nodded. “Oh, she probably forgot, that key doesn’t work, a few months ago the super changed the locks on most of the apartments, first and last decent thing he’s done, so yeah I do have a key, that works.”
“Thanks.” Lindsay said gratefully.
“No problem.” Shannon told her and that was how they had ended up in Cindy’s apartment.
“So do you still have that gun I got so friendly with sometime on Sunday?” Shannon asked, Lindsay looked over at her curiously.
“Why?” she asked.
“Thinking about using it on my ex.” Shannon remarked, she looked over at her daughter, who was currently far too immersed in her colouring and the strange alien looking things on the television to pay the adults conversation any attention. “Asshole wants full custody now, not like he’s paid child support or even visited regularly or anything like that but all of sudden he wants full custody.”
“I’m sorry.” Lindsay said, not really sure of what else to say, she and Tom had divorced quite easily, the weird thing was that they were both happy to not be tied to each other like that anymore, they hadn’t fought over anything, not even the house, they’d both agreed to sell it and split the money, then again they didn’t have children.
“Sorry to be dumping all of this on you.” Shannon said slightly sheepishly taking the coffee mug Lindsay offered her (yes yelling at the machine had worked surprisingly, well that combined with making sure it was plugged in and pressing the right buttons but Lindsay swore the yelling helped).
“It’s fine, now I can’t give you my gun but if you happen to point him out it could accidentally go off if ya like.” Lindsay joked, Shannon smiled.
“Don’t tempt me - I might take you up on that.” She said.
“Well if that’s a bit drastic I have a friend who’s a lawyer, I could ask her to scare the crap out of him if you’d like, I mean she’s a criminal lawyer mostly and she’s based in San Francisco but your ex doesn’t have to know that.” Lindsay suggested.
“If things get worse I might take you up on that.” Shannon said, she sipped her drink and stayed quiet for a moment, trying to figure out what she wanted to say. With most other people Lindsay would have snapped at them to hurry up and say whatever it was they wanted to say already because she could clearly see that’s what Shannon was debating but she didn’t, in fact she pretended she didn’t notice because she was Cindy’s friend and Lindsay wanted her to like her because in some weird and strange and twisted way that would mean Cindy would like her again too, Lindsay nearly sighed, the three year old in the living room probably had better reasoning skills than her at this point.
“I think Cindy really misses you.” Shannon said finally, Lindsay looked over at her shocked, after a moment Shannon spoke again. “You know home, San Francisco, she misses everything.”
Lindsay tried to stop her heart beating so fast because ‘Cindy really misses San Francisco’ is entirely different to ‘Cindy really misses you’ and she wasn’t sure which she’d prefer to hear was the truth so she pushed it to the back of her mind when Rayleigh came over holding up a picture.
“Mummy, Lin-see lookit picture.” She said happily.
“Wow baby that looks great.” Shannon praised immediately, Lindsay looked at the colourful scribble and at the little girl’s face and found herself agreeing instantly too.
“It’s very pretty Rayleigh, you’re really good at drawing.” She said and Rayleigh beamed as Shannon’s phone started to play the shower scene music from the movie Psycho and Shannon sighed, she looked at Lindsay ‘my ex’ she mouthed and Lindsay understood, Shannon motioned to the door with her phone and then looked at her daughter. Lindsay nodded and Shannon smiled.
“Hey baby listen I have to go out to the hall to talk to someone on the phone but Lindsay wants to hear all about your picture ok?” she asked.
“Ok Mummy.” Rayleigh smiled. Shannon left and Rayleigh shoved the piece of paper in Lindsay’s face.
“This is a great picture, what’s that bit here?” Lindsay asked pointing to one side so she could find out about the picture without hurting Rayleigh’s feelings.
“You’re silly Lin-see, it’s Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter.” Rayleigh explained.
“The baseball players?” Lindsay asked confused, how on earth did a child as young as Rayleigh not only know about Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter but care enough to draw a picture of them?
“No.” Rayleigh said dragging out the word carefully as though it was obviously not the case, she pointed at the bottom left corner of the page, “That’s Ruth, she’s my hamster, the one that Cin-see looked after for me when we went to see Granma,” she moved her finger up to the top park of the page, “That’s Babe, he was Ruth’s friend but then he died, I was really, really sad and then we went to go visit my Granma and she has a birdy and IT CAN TALK!”
“Wow.” Lindsay exclaimed with a smile trying to take in and comprehend everything the little girl was telling her.
“Yeah really wow and it says ‘hello’ and ‘handsome birdie’ and ‘home run’ and ‘shudup’ cept that one’s a naughty word.” Rayleigh giggled. “It learned to talk off Granma and she’s funny.”
“She sounds funny.” Lindsay smiled.
“This is Granma.” Rayleigh said jabbing her little pointer finger at some lines across the bottom of the page. “And Mummy and me.”
“Oh, oh, oh and this is Derek.” Rayleigh said sliding her finger over to another ball of colour.
“Who’s Derek?” Lindsay asked.
“Derek Jeter.” Rayleigh said. “I told ya bout him already he’s Granma’s birdie.”
“Oh, ok.” Lindsay smiled, the family had an odd way of naming their pets, Lindsay somehow imagined them going down the Yankees player list with their eyes closed and sticking with whatever they landed on, it sounded kind of fun. Rayleigh made her way over to the barstool her mother had vacated and struggled to climb up onto it to sit next to Lindsay, she leant against the counter and looked at the brunette intently.
“Are you Cin-see’s kissin’ friend?” she asked suddenly, Lindsay nearly choked on her sip of coffee, Rayleigh swung her legs back and forth and waited for Lindsay to answer, coughing and spluttering the inspector finally managed to swallow and started to be able to breathe properly, with watery eyes she started shaking her head back and forth at the three year old sitting across from her.
“No.” she said but then thought she might have been a little too sharp with her refusal and she didn’t want to upset Rayleigh so she tried to soften herself and asked in a quieter voice. “Why do you think that sweetie?”
“I dunno, Uncle Ricky has a kissin’ friend, ‘Teven, he can do funny voices AND magic tricks.” Rayleigh exclaimed happily.
“Wow magic, yay.” Lindsay brushed over that fact quickly to move back to what was relevant to her. “So why do you think me and Cindy are… um, kissing friends?”
Rayleigh shrugged.
“I dunno, Mummy told Cin-see she oughta kiss ya and she says Cin-cee wants to wear your pants - isn’t that funny? Her legs are little or maybe yours are too big… I think you should kiss Cin-cee and maybe buy her pants so she doesn’t take yours.” Rayleigh paused and thought for a moment.
“Do you know magic tricks?” she asked but Lindsay shook her head, the only magic trick she knew was how to make good things in your life disappear and that wasn’t something she wanted to pass on.