Fic: In the Weeds (1 of 3) | WMC | Lindsay/Cindy | R

[liz_estrada]

Title: In the Weeds (1 of 3)
Author: liz_estrada
Fandom & Pairing: Women’s Murder Club, Lindsay/Cindy
Summary: KMN claims more victims and strikes directly at the club. Last in a series of six loosely related WMC stories. (six? cripes.)
Rating: R for sex, language and violence (though the violence is merely on par with the average thriller novel, it’s fair to call this a long, dark ride.)
Author’s Note: I did up an outline and started pecking away on this before learning that WMC would get three more episodes this spring, so this near 22k word rambler was originally conceived as a show-wrapper tailored to my peculiar, self-indulgent predilections. No plot spoilers here, just fannish speculation.

******

Claire Washburn stood on her front porch, watching Tom Hogan’s car slink toward the dark end of the street, the faint red glow of taillights like an echo of his embarrassment. She turned to her husband, Ed, watching beside her from his wheelchair. “Was the chicken that bad?” she asked.

Ed smiled and laid his broad hand across the small of her back. As a wave of low spirits broke at knee-level, Claire closed her eyes and unconsciously leaned into his steady, supportive touch.

The only witness to this moment, the only remaining guest from the Washburn’s busted dinner party, was Cindy Thomas. Leaned against the far porch railing, the fascinated young reporter watched a happily married couple in their natural habitat. The display of trust seemed especially rare and lovely, in light of the evening’s events. Cindy stared off into the dark and assembled a highlight reel in her memory:

- The New Mrs. Hogan joyfully informs everyone that she’s seeing a fertility specialist, that the Hogans will soon be a real family and she can’t believe that you guys never tried again to have kids after that miscarriage because won’t Tom just be the best father ever? Lindsay? Won’t he?
- Lindsay Boxer smiles sadly at her shamefaced ex-husband and agrees, yeah, he’ll be great.
- A phone call prompts Lindsay’s departure - and Tom’s peculiar, troublesome assumption that he will leave with her.
- Tom’s face hardens when she says, no thanks, Lieutenant, I already have a partner.
- Lindsay calls Warren Jacobi, then bids Claire and Ed goodnight.
- Kisses Cindy, whispers a request for pineapple cake, and leaves just as the argument starts.
- Fifteen minutes later, after pelting her husband with rocky words like unfaithful and codependent, sobbing Heather dashes off in a taxi and Tom stammers through apologies.
- Claire and Ed keep Tom there a while longer, until he calms enough to drive home and broker peace with his sweet yet spasmodically insecure bride.

“Did Lindsay fake that call to ditch out?” Claire crisply asked, cutting her eyes toward Cindy.

The redhead swallowed hard. Quite without cause, she felt guilty - the ‘Doctor Washburn’ voice sometimes had that effect on her. “Nope. I felt the phone vibrate. And I heard the caller talking about a hot tip.”

“Tom was right to say she shouldn’t go alone, but all the rest of that mess…” Ed rumbled. “I wouldn’t have pegged Heather as a cusser. Hadn’t heard some of those words since I walked a beat.”

“Well, I don’t care what drugs and hormones Heather’s taking. It’s no excuse for rubbing salt in that old wound,” said Claire.

Cindy agreed, yet found that she had nothing to add. If Lindsay wanted to let it slide as a gaffe, Cindy wouldn’t waste energy on ill will.

Behind them, the front door creaked open and sleepy-eyed Derek Washburn asked his parents what was up. Ed took point and ushered his youngest boy back inside, while Claire settled in a rocker and quietly laughed at her own folly. “I keep forgetting that my dining room is not Switzerland.”

“It was a nice idea.” Cindy moved to stand by her and spoke softly. “You weren’t wrong to try.”

Claire managed a weak, thankful smile. “Maybe. I guess I was hoping that, in spite of everything, we could all still be friends.”

“Hey, don’t give up. It could still happen, when things settle down.”

They looked at each other, both wondering if that day would ever come. “I won’t hold my breath. Life keeps changing, for better and worse. I just hate to think that after all those good years, we can’t even have dinner together,” Claire disclosed. “You know, this is when gracious friends usually change the subject.”

Cindy, who had waited all day for this moment, leapt at the opening. “This morning, I got a call from Tony Kipp, Edison Media’s west coast head of publishing. He really liked my Hunter’s Point articles, and he wants to submit them for the Farfel Prize - which I don’t stand a chance of winning, but it’s ten kinds of awesome to even be considered.”

“Hot damn!” Claire clapped her hands. “Is there money involved?”

“Twenty-five thousand and a trophy, but that’s not the half of it.” Cindy’s heart palpitated; she paused, took a breath, and soldiered on. “Kipp offered me a slot at the Los Angeles Sentry. Second chair at the crime desk, a guaranteed feature every month, bump to senior reporter when Ira Gillies retires next year.”

Several emotions flitted over Claire’s face, whipping together an emulsion of shock and pleasure and woe. With her words similarly jumbled, all she managed to say was, “Honey. You’re only twenty-seven.”

“Gillies was twenty-nine when he took over,” Cindy reasoned. “Plus, the Sentry is reorganizing. They’re buying out the contracts of older employees, closing bureaus overseas - everything’s changing. Mr. Kipp’s in town tomorrow and he wants to take me to lunch. Me! Can you believe it?”

“I’m not sure what you’re telling me.” Claire’s voice turned spiky. Her previously mixed expression congealed to apprehension. “Are you leaving?”

Wide brown eyes nearly bugged out as Cindy scrambled for a word stronger than ‘no’ and settled for a fierce shake of her head.

Confused and growing agitated, Claire didn’t give the reporter a chance to elaborate. “Well, you’re obviously thinking about it or you wouldn’t have brought it up. Have you told Lindsay?”

“Not yet. I didn’t want to make tonight any weirder,” Cindy blurted. “No offense.”

Claire frowned at first, then lifted the corner of her mouth in acknowledgment. “Hindsight being twenty-twenty, I can’t disagree. Now that you’ve seen my poor judgment in action, I wouldn’t blame you for rejecting my advice, but - ”

“Never. Never, okay? I have faith in your good intentions and remain receptive to your wisdom.”

Even as Cindy beamed at her with the earnest sincerity of a thousand Charlie Browns, Claire maintained an air of gravity. “Unless you plan to take the job, don’t even tell her about it. If Lindsay thinks you’re looking for a way out, believe me, she will help you find one.”

Cindy kneeled beside Claire’s chair; her fingers anxiously white-knuckled the armrest. “I’m not running out on her. I’m no quitter.”

“Good.” Claire squeezed one of the young woman’s hands and lowered her voice, as if confiding a secret. “You’ve got her thinking it’s okay to need you.”

“Because it is,” Cindy maintained. “I don’t intend to leave San Francisco unless she comes with me.”

Claire smiled and narrowed her eyes. “So you are thinking about this job.”

“I… I don’t know. Maybe just in the abstract sense, like how it means I’m being taken seriously.” Cindy shrugged, turning bashful. “That’s kind of a new feeling.”

“Oh, sweetheart… listen. My entire family adores you, and one of the dearest friends I have ever known is head over heels for you. That’s why I don’t want you to go anywhere,” Claire explained. “However, apart from my self-interest, know that I am very, very proud of you - that you deserve this - and that I love and support you no matter what you decide to do.”

Cindy bit her lip and looked down, embarrassed by her transparent need for a little semi-parental approbation. She glanced up at Claire and flashed a squinty, cautious grin. “It’s pretty cool, right?”

“No doubt. The Sentry’s a big paper. And L.A. is - ”

“Daunting.”

“Hmm.” Claire smoothed a few stray red strands away from Cindy’s crinkled brow. “How about we go inside and have some cocoa, talk about this some more?”

With no small amount of relief, Cindy agreed. They stood, and Claire looped an arm around Cindy’s shoulders, giving her a little sideways hug. Something flickered in the doctor’s sharp peripheral vision, some small movement interrupting the dim safety lights along her neighbor’s front walk. Claire eased Cindy into the house, but stopped herself at the door and took a long, slow survey of the side yard.

“Something wrong?” Cindy inquired.

After a tight, quiet pause, Claire told herself she was seeing things. “Nothing new,” she admitted, then went inside and locked the door.

******

Skeeter Litvak peeled himself off of the Guerrero Street tenement’s grimy front steps and stuffed a nearly full bottle of booze into his coat pocket. “You look nice, Inspector,” he said, as a lanky dark beauty swathed in black and dove gray approached. “Sorry if I broke up something good.”

“Naah. You kinda did me a favor,” Lindsay Boxer assured the man, one of her best (and oddest) street informants. “Just tell me you didn’t pick up another severed head. I don’t have the stomach for that tonight.”

The curly-haired, sixty-ish homeless man turned toward the tenement building, a five-story eyesore now girded with scaffolding, plastic sheeting and Pelham Rehabilitation signs. He pointed at the steps leading down to a garden apartment. “I’ve been cooping down there on and off a couple weeks. Few nights ago, way over in the morning, I hear noises above. I sneak a look and there’s a big guy, all covered up like a burglar, dragging stuff up and down the stairs. Heavy things, lots of thumping and bumping, so I bugged out. Place was empty tonight, so I go up and have a gander.”

“Was one of these heavy things a corpse?” Lindsay hastened. “Because stolen construction equipment is not my bailiwick.”

Skeeter, accustomed to her impatience, simply turned and mounted the steps. “No bodies. Much more weirder. You gotta see.”

She looked up the street and saw no sign of Jacobi, who was still at least ten minutes away. This was probably a fool’s errand, and Lindsay felt stupid for calling her partner in, but these were his new rules: always let me know where you are, and never go in alone. Technically, she rationalized, she wasn’t alone - she had Skeeter. From the folds of her dark coat emerged a flashlight and a Beretta M9. Lindsay jerked her chin at the door. “Lead on.”

He levered open a loose sheet of plywood near the padlocked entrance and they slipped silently inside. The dank, piss-stinking lobby was stripped of carpet and furnishings and it echoed like a lecture hall, magnifying their every step and breath. Lindsay shined light on the central staircase and urged Skeeter to pick up the pace. They crept up four creaking flights and emerged onto the broken checkerboard tiles of the third floor landing.

“Left. Last door,” whispered Skeeter. Lindsay nodded and followed, keeping the light several paces ahead of his feet, sweeping her eyes sideways and listening keenly for the sounds of others. Skeeter kicked lightly at the unmarked apartment door; slowly, soundlessly, it swung open. In the threshold, Lindsay leaned close to the quiet hinges and sniffed, catching a strong whiff of WD40 spray lubricant. She adjusted her flashlight beam to cast a wider illumining circle. As she took in the odd array of items laid out neatly on the front room’s peeling orange Linoleum, the skin on her forearms turned to gooseflesh.

“You told me to call about weird stuff. This what you meant?”

“Yes, indeed. Here, hold this.” Lindsay handed over the flashlight, readied her phone camera, and flashed through a careful photographic inventory.

One Honda EU1000i portable generator. One red plastic gasoline jug, one-gallon size, apparently full. Four unmarked coiled electrical extension cords. One roll of flexible, copper-colored sheet metal, approximately four feet long. One thirty-yard bale of soft-metal barbed wire, wrapped in thick plastic. One pair boltcutters. One box steel tenpenny nails. One Black Rhino fiberglass hammer. Plastic bag containing a dozen screw thread eye bolts.

Lindsay already had a strong sense that Skeeter had stumbled onto something major, but she wasn’t ready to name it… not until he led her into the oddly fragrant bathroom and lit up the tub.

“Lookit. Flowers,” he said.

“Roses,” Lindsay specified, staring into the multi-colored mass of mixed, torn petals, the scores of long-stems studded with ripping thorns. Something shiny caught her eye and she took the flashlight back, ducking down for a closer look at a smear of silver on the edge of the tub. Lindsay thought it smelled like motor oil, and a small thumbnail scrape revealed the consistency of axle grease between her fingertips. Again, she handed Skeeter the light and took a picture. Her phone vibrated just as she finished, and she answered on first buzz.

“Jacobi?”

“I’m running late. Got stuck behind some - ”

“Don’t worry about it. Meet me at the diner, about three blocks up from here.”

He sent a bullish snort through the phone. “You went in already, didn’t you?”

“Spank me later, okay? Right now, I wanna give this building some breathing room.”

Jacobi didn’t question her further, just hung up angry and hit the gas. Lindsay’s skin prickled from head to toe, stimulated by excitement and a healthy dose of fear. She smiled at Skeeter Litvak and decided to give him every bit of folding money she carried. “Let’s get the hell out of here. You’re staying in a motel tonight.”

They left everything as they found it, and moused for the exit. Down on the street, as they walked toward Lindsay’s Jeep, Skeeter’s nerves got the better of him and he stopped to take a drink. The neck on his unmarked bottle was so slender, he had to tip it up high and suckle to get a decent swig.

“Dammit, Skeet! Cut that out!” Lindsay reached for the booze, and he jerked it away from her.

“I know it ain’t good for me,” he said, “but I don’t feel right. Just gimme one more - ”

Lindsay lunged at him with purpose and snatched the bottle from his grasp. The absence of labels intrigued her and she examined it by streetlight. The antique-looking, scrollworked bottle with the abnormally narrow neck was half-filled with tobacco-colored liquid and floating brown trash. “What did you put in here? Cigarillos?”

“I didn’t put nothin’.” Skeeter groaned pitifully and clutched at his stomach. “I don’t feel right,” he said again, and vomited proof all down the side of Lindsay’s black duster.

She squeezed shut her eyes and tried not to flinch as Skeeter fell against her. He instinctively reached for the bottle and clumsily knocked it loose to shatter on the sidewalk. Lindsay nearly gagged as a sugary sick odor rose from the spilled mystery alcohol and combined with the lingering aroma of drunk puke. Everything’s a trade-off, she thought, while kicking the glass aside and helping Skeeter stagger to her car.

Driving away from what she believed was a future crime scene, Lindsay opened the passenger window to let Skeeter hang his head in the breeze. When he threw up again, she saw blood on his mouth and her sympathy turned to alarm. She called Warren Jacobi and asked him to change course again for the Mission Cross North ER.

Then she took a pre-paid cell from the console and placed a second call - this one to the home of Georgia P. Folsom, Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco FBI Field Office.

“Hey, it’s me. Can I come by tonight? There’s something I want to show you.”

******

After examining the job issue from every conceivable angle, and downing a significant amount of cocoa, Claire drove Cindy to Lindsay’s place and saw her safely through the front door before heading home. Upon entering the apartment, Cindy was immediately assailed by three unusual noises: the washing machine, the stereo (Pat Benatar rocking ‘You Better Run’ at middling volume), and Lindsay Boxer’s scratchy, measured singing voice. Cindy carefully threw all the locks and lingered by the door, listening. For a cop, Lindsay didn’t sound half bad.

Martha trotted up and sniffed at the plates of leftovers and dessert. “Sorry. Not for you, pretty girl.” Cindy gave the frustrated pooch a scratch behind the ears and a Milk Bone, then set out to find the black-crested Bay Area warbler…

…who happened to be lounging in her clawfoot porcelain bathtub, submerged in bubbles and sipping a glass of Riesling. Much to the reporter’s delight, she didn’t clam up on discovery, rather pointed a sudsy finger at Cindy and spat the angry bridge lyrics in her direction - though Lindsay wisely backed down to harmony as Pat’s crystalline high notes kicked in. After a bit of air guitar, the song blitzed to a halt and Lindsay leaned out of the tub and pressed STOP on the stereo remote. “Hiya,” she said, flinging a dazzling smile at her one-woman audience. “You just missed ‘Freebird.’”

“Somebody’s in a shockingly good mood,” Cindy observed. The bathroom felt sauna-steamy, so she doffed her favorite stripy sweater and leaned against the doorjamb in her snug, faded 49ers tee.

Lindsay’s grin took a lascivious turn. “You want to see a good mood, keep undressing.”

Tongue firmly tucked in cheek, Cindy pried off her shoes and socks and flashed a bit of ankle, prompting Lindsay’s slow, sarcastic wolf-whistle. Cindy then noticed the showerhead was dripping, indicating the fastidious cop had cleaned up again before settling in the tub. “Two showers and a bath in one day. Is your OCD flaring up again?”

“I got barfed on by a 90-proof vagabond,” Lindsay sedately explained.

“Whoa. Grody.” Cindy wrinkled her nose in sympathy. “Sorry.”

“Ehh. My coat took the brunt of it. It’s soaking in a washer full of Woolite Dark.” Lindsay drained her wineglass and set it on the floor near her towel-covered gun. “I think Skeeter binged too hard on somebody’s homemade hooch - he was throwing up blood. I checked him in at the hospital, they’re keeping him overnight.”

The journalist scrunched out a quizzical frown. “And your merry disposition grows ever more puzzling.”

“I have my reasons. C’mere.” Lindsay crooked a finger and summoned her closer. Cindy eagerly approached and squatted beside the tub, near enough for Lindsay to lean out and press one wine-sweetened kiss onto her mouth. Cindy craned after her, seeking a bit more than a peck, but Lindsay forestalled the pursuit with a wet hand on her cheek and a whisper. “We may finally be a step ahead of that sonofabitch.”

That sonofabitch, used in this context, could only mean one very specific person, so Cindy broadened the scope of her inquiry. “Huh?”

“Skeet found the next staging area - maybe. Folsom’s setting up on it tonight.”

For a few seconds, Cindy could do no more than gape like a fish tossed on the banks. “Holy frak.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s about right.”

They stared at each other while their comprehension equalized, as Lindsay nodded and smiled and Cindy twinned her expression. For more than five years, the Kiss-Me-Not killer had murdered and threatened, had eluded all pursuers, and the hope that his capture could be imminent was cause enough for celebration, for singing and drinking - hell, for a midnight Maenad romp through Inverness woods, if you asked Cindy. Since leaving home just then was out of the question, she reached out and led Lindsay into the deep wilds of a probing, lucullan kiss.

The knowing sweep of tongues soon inspired fingers to wander, to grasp and tweak and pet until Lindsay, nearly fit to burst, broke it off. Ecstatic and starry-eyed, she lifted from the water and folded onto her knees. Her wet hands insistently tugged up Cindy’s shirt and skimmed sticky-hot down her sides. “Take off your clothes. Now. Now.”

An ardent lover on any given Wednesday, Cindy had a knack for upping her game when the stakes climbed; she stood, whipped off her tee and unsnapped her brassiere in the space of a heartbeat. Lindsay, no slouch herself, worked open the button fly on tight jeans, tugging down pants and panties in one clean sweep. Long arms encircled Cindy’s hips and pulled her knees against the tub’s edge, her breast into Lindsay’s grasping mouth. Lips and tongue suckled roughly and tripped down her skin, moving lower until humid breath rushed through her curls. Cindy’s eyelids slammed shut. It took every bit of restraint she could muster to push Lindsay away, even for the five seconds it took to step out of her pants and into the tub.

She sank into the water and laid fully onto Lindsay, who wrapped her tight with legs and arms and kissed her desperately hard. Cindy raised her hips to create a fissure of space inside the smooth crush of their bodies, tucked her hand through and slid low to cup her lover’s sex. Lindsay flexed into her palm, lush and urgent, wet as oceans.

Cindy asked, “What do you need?”

“You. Anything,” Lindsay pleaded, kissing her still. “Just hurry.”

With her hand’s range of movement restricted by position, Cindy worked with what she had. Her fingers formed a pinching scissor along the stiff, nervy clitoral shaft, and she introduced a circular rhythmic pressure by rolling her shoulder, building steadily by flexing the bunched muscles of upper arm. Lindsay twisted her legs, canting her pelvis further into the needful touch. They moved well together, and easily; like every time since the first time, they found a cadence and fell into natural lockstep. Quick or slow, tender or tough, it didn’t seem to matter. Real sexual simpatico doesn’t discriminate between making sweet love down by the fire and a solid, fast fuck in the bath.

Short minutes later, Lindsay’s head lolled backward, and her breath dwindled to tiny, irregular bursts. Cindy felt her tensing, twitching, knew she was close and so sped her efforts, working with burning triceps until their hidden, feral shakings churned the bathwater like an outboard motor.

When she came, Lindsay didn’t flag her peak with a scream, merely went rigid and slowly relaxed under a thick, strangled groan - an utterance of profound relief that left Cindy feeling oddly satisfied herself. She slowed her motion to an easy vertical stroke, felt the prickles of lactic acid stinging her muscles, and soothed the ache by moving her fingers lower. The silky tremble of the one she loved, melting gently around her touch, was worth more than a little pain. She lifted up and stole a kiss, then another, content to hover and taste Lindsay’s tranquil smile while the woman roused again.

Damp tendrils of ginger hair canopied their faces until gathered and swept back, leaving her cheek bared to Lindsay’s straying, lazy kisses, her ear open to an unexpected question.

“When does your apartment lease expire?”

The corners of Cindy’s mouth twitched happily. “End of next month.”

Shortly, Lindsay’s chest swelled with a fortifying breath. “You don’t have to renew. If you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to,” Cindy said straight away, the words neatly by-passing her brain. She pulled back, saw Lindsay’s uncertainty, and clarified her response. “Renew, I mean. I don’t want to renew. I’m good with lapsing.”

Lindsay finally exhaled, and her face visibly relaxed. “The attic makes a good office,” she said, hoping it was nearly time to dismantle the secret shrine to her greatest professional failing and make way for more a productive workspace. “Needs a cleaning, though.”

“I can help with that,” Cindy cheerily offered. “We can knock it out in a weekend.”

“Thanks, but… I need to do it myself.” Lindsay took Cindy’s hand and held it to her breast. “When everything’s cleared away, you should take a hard look, make sure you really want this.”

Cindy squinted into the conversational horizon and saw where talk of co-habitation could easily bleed into discussion of further commitment, but she didn’t follow up. They were both pretty emotional, with good reason, and she didn’t want this nervy leap forward tainted by some sort of Catch-22 misunderstanding about jobs and futures. “I don’t do second thoughts,” she said offhandedly. “You’ve sealed your fate, sucker. This time next month, you’ll be neck-deep in Star Wars crap and back issues of Harper’s.”

Lindsay tipped her head back and laughed, quite unaware that the hoarder-slash-reporter wasn’t joking. Cindy took advantage of her lover’s ignorant mirth by scattering sloppy kisses down neck and chest, then suddenly boosting up onto her feet. She reached for a towel and blotted her hair while Lindsay ran fingernails up the backs of her thighs, muttering something about reciprocation. Cindy reluctantly slapped her hands away and disembarked the tub. “Dry off and meet me in bed. We’ll work something out.”

“Aww, come on.” Lindsay splashed around and flicked suds at her spoilsport girlfriend. “The water’s still hot.”

“True, but, in your bed - in addition to the easy, nice-smelling Irish girl who loves you - there will be pineapple cake,” Cindy revealed. She tossed her t-shirt at Lindsay’s face, where it stubbornly hugged on like a cotton-blend alien. “Don’t dawdle.”

Lindsay inhaled deeply before peeling the shirt away, lingering in one of those world-at-bay moments where her life was all good wine and better sex and the promise of cake. There was indeed a light at the end of the tunnel, and Lindsay Boxer was sick to death of laying on the tracks, waiting for the impact of a train. Kiss-Me-Not was nearing the end of the line, and it was almost safe enough to make plans for the future, plans she’d been delaying forever. She draped Cindy’s shirt over the shower curtain rod, picked up her gun and towel, and headed straight for bed, trailing bathwater and soap bubbles across the floor and not giving a good goddamn.

******

Tom called her upstairs to his office first thing the following morning. He was unshaven and looked as though he hadn’t slept. Lindsay braced herself for an awkward wade into make-nice conversation, but Tom jumped right for the deep end.

“Heather didn’t come home last night, and the school says she didn’t show up for work this morning.” He stiffened his jaw, rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “I think she left me.”

“What?” Lindsay couldn’t imagine it, even after factoring in Cindy’s blow-by-blow recap of their post-dinner scrap. “I believe you’re jumping the gun, here.”

“I just talked to her mother. She said Heather called last night from some hotel, crying, saying she didn’t know who I was anymore, that I lied to her and - ”

“Tom, stop.” Lindsay took him by the shoulders and nearly shook him. She wanted to be supportive, but preferred to remain ignorant regarding certain details of her ex-husband’s marriage. “Trying to have a baby is a big deal. If they’re shooting her up with hormones, Heather is chemically altered, stressed out and probably scared, but she’s a good person and she loves you. Let her get it together. Then she’ll come home.”

He looked away, finding that Lindsay’s compassion only made him feel guilty. He cleared his throat and backed away, edging behind his desk. “Pregnancy would be dangerous for her. The doctors all said so, but she won’t listen. She actually had a living will drawn up, so if something happened, I wouldn’t have to choose between her and the baby.”

This was news to Lindsay, though Heather’s determination was hardly a surprise. “I guess she believes it’s worth the risk.”

“I know, but the thought of losing her… it scares the shit out of me,” Tom confided. “Maybe she’s right, that I’m backing out on some of the promises I made. God knows, I’ve done it before.”

Lindsay wished for a phone call, a knock at the door, an earthquake - anything to halt this conversation. They’d been doing so well not talking about their break-up. “That was different. I did everything but pack your suitcases.”

“No, Linz, not on purpose. Thing is, I knew I was losing you. The way you vanished into that case - it made me think you were never really there. Still, I shouldn’t have walked out,” he said, staring holes into his desk. “We had something good and I should have fought for it. I won’t make that mistake again.”

A year ago, maybe even six months ago, Tom’s words would have evoked a nostalgic agony in Lindsay, triggered a deafening chorus of what-ifs, but no more. As time passed and she learned how to solidly inhabit her own life, rehashing history had lost its lure. “Tell you what,” she began, intending to exit the confessional as gracefully as possible, “if she hasn’t called by this afternoon, I’ll help you look for her, on the QT.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Finally, Tom met her eyes, and it didn’t hurt nearly so much as he’d feared. “Thanks.”

“We won’t need to look, though.” Lindsay backed through the door, cracking an optimistic grin. “She’ll turn up.”

******

The phone calls Lindsay prayed for in Lieutenant Hogan’s office started coming before she even reached the bottom of the squad room stairs. The first was good and fairly tidy: her friend, ADA Jill Bernhardt, called to confirm a lunch meeting at her office. The second was neutral and more complicated: SAIC Georgia Folsom rang the inspector’s disposable phone to inform her of ‘no substantive activity’ at the Guerrero Street tenement.

“We have surveillance, live in front and a static camera on the alley. Should he show, we’ll send backup and box him in,” the career fed explained, still sounding as cool and formal as at their first meeting two weeks before, that clear morning when Lindsay Boxer showed up unannounced at Georgia Folsom’s office and laid out her concerns regarding the Kiss-Me-Not case - more specifically, concerns about the FBI agent assigned to investigate those murders, John Ashe. Folsom listened, found merit in the inspector’s suspicions, and agreed to conduct a private inquiry.

That inquiry had progressed from a perusal of Ashe’s personnel file to careful reviews of his casework, then on to troubling interviews with his D.C. supervisors and a college girlfriend turned restraining order petitioner. Although Ashe’s vacations and west coast work trips loosely lined up with the three previous murders, the link was purely circumstantial - but worth pursuing. Within ten days, the low-key examination had grown to a two agent mini task force devoted to discovering whether one of their own could be responsible for three ritualistic murders and, possibly, the death last month of Hollywood actress Griffin Paar - an alleged murderer herself.

Alleged because Paar gave only a sketchy confession to a bound and unwell (drugged) Lindsay Boxer while preparing to kill her. John Ashe, the last person to see Paar alive, claimed she spoke not a word before feigning illness to escape him and leaping from the eighth floor of a parking tower. No evidence linked Paar to any open cases, therefore, no allegations regarding her crimes were made public. Paar’s past remained under clandestine investigation by several law enforcement entities across the country, but until they were ready to make an official statement, everyone involved remained under a gag order.

Lindsay never fully bought Agent Ashe’s story, and the more she thought about it, the more it worried her. Griffin Paar was an egoist who admittedly craved the discovery of her true, homicidal self; the idea that she would commit suicide with her dream so close at hand was, to Lindsay, absurd. Her unease grew after returning from a week in Hawaii to find Ashe trailing her closer than ever, calling periodically to ‘make sure she was safe,’ and finding excuses to drop by at all hours to discuss his complete and total lack of progress in the Kiss-Me-Not case. She confronted him, nearly accused him of stalking, and he backed off… somewhat. He parked a little further down the street, called only with valid excuses, and the unwelcome visits diminished.

Even so, Lindsay remembered Griffin Paar’s words - “Monsters pass for normal, trustworthy people everyday” - and couldn’t shake the feeling that they might apply to John Ashe. After discussions with Cindy, Claire, Jill and Jacobi, she found herself in Folsom’s office, laying out a murder case against a federal agent. Now, two weeks in and close to a breakthrough, Lindsay was certain she’d done the right thing.

“What do you need from me?” she asked Agent Folsom, like always.

“You’re doing fine. As far as he’s concerned, nothing has changed, so keep to the median. Ashe doesn’t always follow you, but when he does, rest assured that we’re following him,” Folsom promised. “As of last night, I have eyes on him full time.”

“You brought in a third agent?”

“A temporary reassignment, working off-book like the others. There’s still no direct link I can use to make this official, so if we don’t smoke him out quickly, my spit-and-bubblegum detail falls apart.”

“He must be planning something soon,” Lindsay opined. “All that equipment. The flowers.”

“I pulled Pelham Rehab’s permits. They’re starting interior demo on that tenement in three days, so I agree, he’s on the verge.” Folsom’s crisp voice took on a darker, heavier timbre. “We are watching John Ashe, and we’ll stay on the Guerrero site. One way or the other, this will end soon.”

“From your lips,” said Lindsay, just as Georgia Folsom clicked off. The woman never said goodbye.

The third call was straight-up bad news: ER doctor Luke Bowen phoned from Mission Cross to inform her of the death of Stepan “Skeeter” Litvak.

“We thought alcohol poisoning at first, then he started convulsing and he couldn’t breathe. We used activated charcoal, trying to soak up whatever was in his system,” Luke explained. “For a while there, he improved, started breathing better. A couple of hours later, the convulsions started again - much worse - and his heart gave out.”

Lindsay propped her elbows on her desk and released a heavy sigh. Across from her, Warren Jacobi lifted curious brows. She nodded, a promise of forthcoming explanation, and he silently resumed his paperwork. “If it wasn’t alcohol poisoning, then what?”

“You’d need blood tests and an autopsy to be certain, but the symptoms read like strychnine exposure,” said Luke. “Maybe from dumpster food contaminated with rat poison.”

“Skeeter didn’t eat trash - he went to shelters for food.” But not for booze, she thought, recalling the polluted bottle he was nursing. Although she couldn’t see its importance last night, Lindsay kicked herself for not picking the up the shattered glass and saving it. By now, even if the street crews hadn’t swept it away, the evidentiary chain of custody was completely broken. “Luke, will you do a blood test and get back to me if you find something? I don’t want him cut up if it’s not necessary.”

“I already put in the lab order. Did he have any family that we should notify?”

“No,” Lindsay recalled, “he said they passed a long time back.”

“I kind of figured that. Your card was the only thing in his wallet.” Luke paused then, with the next question stuck in his throat. “So, are you guys doing okay at the Hall?”

Lindsay understood when he said ‘you guys,’ he really meant his old flame, Jill Bernhardt. Although they split several months earlier over Jill’s indiscretion with unctuous Public Defender Hanson North, it seemed nice guy Luke still held a few warm feelings for the blonde attorney. Lindsay understood that, too; Jill was easier to forgive than forget. “Not bad, all things considered,” she answered. “You should drop by sometime. Bring a chai latte.”

He snorted a quick laugh, recognizing Jill’s coffee order. “We’re so short-staffed these days, I practically live in the on-call room. But I’ll, uh… I’ll think about it. And I’m sorry about your friend. I’ll call when I get his blood work. Take care, Lindsay.”

“You too, doc. Thanks.”

Jacobi gave her a few seconds, then cleared his throat. “Skeeter cashed out?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Lindsay had known this day was coming. Homeless binge drinkers don’t often survive to retirement age, but the idea that someone may have hurried Skeeter’s death made it all the worse. “He had a bottle last night, unmarked, thin neck. It busted on the sidewalk and the booze reeked like syrup. Isn’t strychnine supposed to taste sweet?”

“If I recall correctly,” Jacobi concurred. “You think our friend knew Skeeter was lurking around and left out a mickey to shut him up?”

“It makes sense. If that neck had been a little wider, Skeet might have sucked down enough to get sick before he called me.” She made a fist and tapped it against her mouth. “Christ. Even when we think he’s hamstrung, the bastard still manages to kill people.”

“Don’t get drawn in too far - we don’t know for sure. Meanwhile, we need witness statements from twenty-two frat boys in the Coolbaugh shooting.” Jacobi slid a folder across their partnered desks. “Here’s your half. Make some calls, and slather on that Texas accent. That always gets the young fools talking.”

Lindsay sneered at the underhanded suggestion, but picked up the phone and got to dialing, grateful for the distraction of genuine, boring policework. “Fiddle dee-dee. Tomorrah is anothah day…”

Jacobi glared disapproval of her cloying Scarlett impression. “I said Texas, not Georgia.”

******

“Are you gonna eat that pickle?” Jill asked through a mouthful of turkey sub. “If not, send it my way.”

Fascinated by the unusual show of appetite, Lindsay dropped the dill spear onto her friend’s deli wrapper, already laden with chip crumbs, the doomed second half of a foot-long sandwich, and an empty cup of white bean soup . “I think ‘Reggie’ is a good name.”

Jill stopped chewing. “Fo’ pickle?”

“For your tapeworm,” said Lindsay. “I’ve seen farmboys eat slower.”

“I can eat slow when it counts.” Jill winked and took a sip of water. “Right now, I need the calories. My metabolism is friggin’ turbocharged today.”

“Ahh. Is that why you didn’t come to Claire’s last night - somebody give you a tune-up?”

“Crude,” Jill accused, then thought better of it. “Yet accurate. I am a proponent of regular maintenance, as you well know.”

Lindsay snickered into her lemonade.

“That’s not why I didn’t show, though,” Jill continued. “It was a couples dinner and I am not a couple. I mean, being the third wheel is nothing new, but I refuse to play seventh wheel. That’s nearly two and a half times more pathetic.”

“Baloney. You could have gone stag, or brought your new mechanic.”

After a moment’s thought, Jill shook off that suggestion. “No. It’s not even like that. Vertical dating is a non-starter.”

“Why?” Lindsay asked, strenuously projecting innocence and non-judgment.

“Oh, you think you’re so smart, with your little twinkling eyes and your open questions,” Jill grumbled. “I’m not telling you anything else because there’s no more else. I’m out of else.” She picked at her sandwich, set it aside and crunched down on the dill spear. “I fully expect to get dumped tonight, anyway.”

Lindsay couldn’t tell whether Jill was resigned or relieved at the prospect, so she moved on to a steadier, more shopworn topic. “Well, just so you know - when Luke called about Skeeter, he also asked about you. Again.”

The lawyer waved an index finger in warning. “Don’t. Just don’t. I can’t hope for that anymore.”

“But - “

“No buts. Even if Luke is lonely and having second thoughts, he’ll never trust me again. It won’t be like it was before.” Jill slumped in her desk chair. “All the other good ones are married, or gay. Or half-gay and moving in with redheaded sex maniacs.” Lindsay blushed, and Jill managed a mostly happy smile. “Does Cindy have a sister? Brother? Weird uncle who raises minks?”

“Sorry,” said Lindsay, with genuine regret. “Thomases are kinda thin on the ground.”

“Naturally. You know, I just want somebody to be crazy about me without literally being crazy. That’s not too much to ask.” Jill wracked her brain for possibilities and found those rather thin as well. Twelve to fourteen hour workdays meant a limited menu of contacts, most of them crooks or public servants or both, though factoring in another degree of separation would broaden the board of fare. “Hey - how about FBI Lady?”

Lindsay, who was crunching lemony ice chips, nearly choked. She rapped hard on her chest and wheezed out the name, “Folsom?”

“Yeah. What’s her deal?”

“I have no idea,” Lindsay moaned. “I don’t want an idea.”

Jill pitched a screwball eye roll. “Is she too old for me? Does she wear a ring? Did you see pictures of husbands or partners or kids?”

The inspector rolled her eyes right back, but searched through her memory of the fed’s spartan quarters, both work and home. “No, on all counts.”

“Goody. So, what does she look like? Give me some point of reference.”

She hesitated; Lindsay didn’t want to encourage Jill’s odd tangent, but neither would she lie to her. “Angela Bassett, maybe.”

“Ha! Now we’re cooking with gas!” Jill shook her fist and tallied up the pros on her fingers. “Compatible job, sane, single, and hot. Tell her if she catches our friend before spring, I’ll take her to Whistler for a ski weekend. She can leave her skis at home.”

“I’m not telling her that.” Lindsay sounded resolute until Jill’s darling pout compelled her to expound more kindly. “Partly because she’s got work to do, and the thought of you drinking brandy on a bearskin rug could’ve made Eliot Ness forget about Capone.”

“Aww.” Jill blew her a dilly kiss for the flattery.

“And partly because a thumbs-up from me won’t get you too far. Georgia Folsom already knows I ride the short bus.”

“Shut-up. You’re not stupid, you idiot,” Jill grumped. “If she thinks so, she can kiss that ski trip goodbye.”

“Five years of nothing on a serial case, three months with him shadowing me, Griffin Paar nearly punching my ticket without a fight… she’s got cause.”

The prosecutor opened her mouth, but muted her rebuttal as Lindsay’s legit cell lit up and buzzed atop the desk. They both saw the caller ID readout: J. ASHE, in stark black letters. “Speak of the devil,” said Jill.

Lindsay answered the call and fell quiet, listening intently for nearly a minute. Her healthy complexion, still bearing trace evidence of a Hana suntan, paled several shades. “Yeah, I heard you - third floor. I’ll be there.” She clicked off and stared out Jill’s window, toward the azure March sky struck through with clean white clouds. It seemed especially wrong to Lindsay that anyone should crave horror on such a beautiful day. Her voice, when it came, was the rustle of dry leaves. “A sculptor in the Richmond swung by his studio for a lunchtime showing and found a dead body. Unidentified white female, posed naked. Mouth sewn shut.”

Jill’s blue eyes darkened with fear; she gave a tight nod. “Get Warren and go. I’ll tell the girls.”

******

Claire Washburn held the phone for a long time after Jill hung up. There really wasn’t much she could do; the FBI had their own medical examiner, and their forensics team would process the crime scene. Lindsay and Jacobi wouldn’t call with any details for perhaps another half-hour, maybe more. Just then, there really wasn’t anything Claire could do, and that made it all so, so much worse. She felt feverish and hostile. She decided to take a walk. It was either that, or go scream in the freezer.

On her way out of the morgue, Claire slammed the heel of her hand against a metal filing cabinet.

Her assistant, the muscular Brazilian whose name was pronounced Howph, examined the cabinet’s new, deep divot. Ralph Almeida, who had once snapped a man’s femur in a Jiu-Jitsu match, decided right then and there to never, ever fuck with his boss.

******

Since Tony Kipp was the west coast head of publishing for a media conglomerate and Cindy Thomas was, in comparison, lint in his pocket, he chose the place for their schmoozathon, come-work-for-the-Sentry lunch meeting. He picked Zuma, the four-star restaurant where, one month earlier, Cindy’s taller half was ambushed and nearly done in by a psychotic blonde ingénue.

Cindy presciently deemed this a bad omen. When her phone rang as they were seated, Kipp and the maître d' gave her the stink-eye. When she recognized Jill’s office extension, answered, and shortly told Tony Kipp she needed to leave because Kiss-Me-Not had killed again - well, that was pretty much the end of the courtship.

“You know, this situation is not unique,” Kipp ventured. “There are plenty of lunatics in Los Angeles.”

“Yeah, but none of them asked me to move in,” Cindy added, well under her breath.

“How’s that?”

“Nothing. Mr. Kipp, thank you very much for the opportunity, but - honestly - this is my town.” Cindy gathered her things and stood up. “This is my story. I need to see how it ends.”

Tony Kipp had dealt with reporters for nearly twenty years, and he understood they sometimes formed intense attachments to certain cities, telling the stories and working the sources until that posting became home. He nodded at the promising young journalist, shook her hand, and watched as she walked away without looking back. He ordered a double Jameson, neat, and some lobster bisque, then erased Cindy Thomas from his iPhone. It would be quite a while before Edison Media called on her again, though Kipp didn’t honestly believe she would care. He knew a lifer when he saw one.

******

SFPD barricades blocked Ninth Avenue between Anza and Balboa, keeping the growing crowds of onlookers and media away from the building entrance. Lindsay and Jacobi met Agent John Ashe in the rear parking lot and accompanied him into the freight elevator, where they stood rather pointedly side by side, and well behind him. On the ride up, no one spoke but Ashe, who stared rigidly ahead.

“The tenant, an artist named Willy To, returned this morning from a week in Mexico. The killer didn’t find this empty loft by accident, but To says only friends and family knew he was gone. We’re assembling a list for interviews. The forensics team are working right now, so I’ll need you to hang back for a few. Okay?”

The elevator stopped and Ashe reached for the canvas strap to raise the door. He turned slightly, tried to catch Lindsay’s downcast eyes. “Okay?” he repeated.

“We understand,” said Warren Jacobi. “Open the door.”

Ashe regarded them strangely, as if offended, then went ahead. The inspectors surveyed the wide, bright loft space then looked to each other. Both were nonplussed; it was as if they had entered some sort of alien greenhouse. Willy To worked in sculpture and mixed media, and his current passion was the creation of metal and glass flora, both great and small. Fragile - yet razor sharp - peonies and hyacinth flashed on tables, their leaves glossy with sun from open skylights. There were ten-foot palms with welded trunks and prismatic fronds, and bamboo trees with shimmering green glass armor. Similar gardens and groves covered nearly all of To’s workspace, but these copulations of the scientific and the organic held no allure for Lindsay Boxer.

In To’s bedroom, behind a caster-mounted moveable display wall, cameras flashed and low voices chanted direction. Lindsay stepped away from her partner, still gorging his eyes on the otherworldly modern art, and got closer to the action. Evidence techs pulled fingerprints from To’s bureau and night table, and Lindsay longed to shout that it was pointless. They ran a vacuum over the rugs, and she bit her jaw. Jacobi approached and laid a hand on her shoulder, tense as petrified oak.

“I can’t stand this.” Lindsay moved in, peered around the wall just as two men pulled a thick, striped horse blanket off the bed, revealing yet another dead woman. Naked and pale, posed on her back with arms spread wide, her face distorted and blue, lips marred by thick stitches. Something shiny glinted in one hand, then departing agents passed between, and Lindsay couldn’t see more.

“Mr. To covered her with the blanket,” said Ashe, coming around the wall. “He found it by the foot of the bed, sort of cast off, discarded. There’s a glass flower in her right hand - a blue crocus - and an empty willow cradle by the window. She’s twelve hours dead, at most.” He drew a slow breath and motioned them forward. “I would have called you, regardless, but… once I realized… I just thought you’d want to see. I haven’t told anyone yet.”

Lindsay snarled at him as they entered the bedroom, “Haven’t told anyone what?” And then she saw the dead woman up close. The honey-blonde hair, the smile lines around closed eyes she knew to be bright blue. The empty, whiter span of skin on Heather Hogan’s left ring finger, where her wedding band should be.

“Dear Lord.” Jacobi stayed close, but faced away. With one careful look, he had seen enough.

Beside him, Lindsay stared on, blankly at first, then thinking of offenses and apologies, of kindergartners and cookies, of bathroom stall confessions, and how that’s all there would ever be. Heather, who only wanted a love of her own and a child and a future - but was willing to risk all and fight hard for these simple things - was dead. Not in a delivery room, trying to make her dream of motherhood a reality, but murdered by someone who degraded and terrified her for sport, who mutilated and sealed her ready smile. She was over, gone, and it was too soon and it was never right for anyone to die like that, not ever.

Lindsay’s sorrow built toward dread and on to anger. Anger then, and even hatred, going nowhere, round and round for years with no end and no exit - until she looked at the back of John Ashe’s head and it suddenly made perfect sense to reach for her gun.

Only Jacobi’s iron grip on her wrist kept her from drawing. “Lindsay, this isn’t our case,” he said. “We’re leaving. We have to tell Tom.”

Ashe turned toward them and wavered, apparently unsettled by Lindsay’s distress. His nervous hands extended toward her as if on strings, then haltingly retreated to his waist. “I could handle that for you. It might be easier for everyone.”

“No.” Lindsay didn’t speak so much as grunt. She couldn’t look at him, or Heather’s cold, naked body. She focused on the glass flower, the blue crocus, and found she didn’t care what it signified. The parable, the lesson, the why of this murder meant nothing just then; the mere fact of it was bad enough. “It should come from us.”

“Well... please give the Lieutenant my condolences, and my sincere apologies.”

That was a little too much to take. Lindsay yanked her arm away from Jacobi and got up in Ashe’s face. “Just what do you have to be sorry for? You’re doing top-notch work here.” She wanted and needed to point at the bed, to let him know that she knew… only she didn’t really know.

He didn’t back away, and he didn’t engage. Ashe looked around the room, evading her nailhead eyes. “Mrs. Hogan wasn’t considered a likely target.”

“Likely target?” Lindsay stepped back and opened her arms. “I’m right here. What kinda coward threatens a cop, then kills a schoolteacher? I’m right fucking here!”

“Thank you, Agent.” Jacobi took his partner by the arm and nearly yanked her off her feet - they were leaving whether Boxer was ready or not. Enough damage had been done today. “Please keep us apprised.”

They departed quickly and didn’t speak on the way down. In the car, in the quiet, they cooled and came solid again.

“I don’t understand. Folsom told me they had him last night.” Lindsay spoke calmly, as if she hadn’t nearly shot an FBI agent five minutes before.

“Slim coverage. He could have slipped it. Maybe he knows they’re watching.” Jacobi paused, stilled the keys swinging below the ignition. “Or maybe it’s not him.”

“If it isn’t him, then how do we stop this?” Lindsay asked the only man she invariably trusted. “If there’s a way, anything at all… ”

Jacobi had no answers, no anodyne counsel. Police solved cases with physical and circumstantial evidence, with witness statements and, ideally, confessions. He knew Lindsay had looked at this from every angle, in every light, ‘til it drove her half-blind. The straining was for naught; this killer left only sick tableaus devoid of practical clues, murdering in a storybook vacuum. Until Kiss-Me-Not decided to show them something, there was simply nothing to see.

Sitting there delaying their only clear task wouldn’t make the news kinder, or the telling easier. He started the car and headed back to the Hall.

******

In the press line, Cindy Thomas jotted down notes. Some were relevant to her article, like details of the street and the loft building, the names of officers and EMTs on scene (for future interviews), and some were more relevant to the investigation, like descriptions of odd or familiar faces in the spectating crowd, license plate numbers of cars parked in the area, and so on. Even though she scarcely needed the notebook, being graced with near-perfect recall, she knew that memories were not facts, and nothing could legitimize a memory like careful, concise note taking.

After writing for the third time Ofc. Cho watching me, she moved clear of the crowd, waved over the young uniformed officer and asked him why.

“Inspector Boxer radioed a few minutes ago and said that if I let you out of my sight, she would, umm…”

“What?”

“Throw my punk ass off the bridge,” Cho mumbled. “Since I can’t fly, or swim, I’m your new shadow.”

Cindy half expected something like this. She imagined that, across town at the Hall, Jill Bernhardt and Claire Washburn were getting similar treatment - hovering, armed Boxer-proxies to prevent Kiss-Me-Not from doubling down. “Are these official orders?”

“Official enough for now. She’s clearing it with Captain Rand.”

Not Lieutenant Hogan, Cindy thought, knowing that meant Tom was either out of the loop, or cinched in the middle. “Off the record. Have you heard anything about the victim?”

“No ID yet. The first guy on scene, that new kid from Bakersfield? He said she was young, pretty, with long blonde hair. Then the feds swooped in and dragged him off before he could say more,” Cho recalled. “So this is Kiss-Me-Not, for sure?”

Despite a nagging sense of dismay regarding the victim’s description, Cindy found his question amusing. “You’re asking me.”

He shrugged. “I figured if Boxer knew, you’d know, since you guys are... you know.”

“Nuh-unh. It doesn’t work like that,” Cindy corrected, still a little tetchy over how nosy the SFPD was about Lindsay Boxer’s social life. She saw a flash of red over Cho’s shoulder and craned her head around just in time to see an ambulance creeping through the barricade, followed by the dark Ford Crown Victoria of Agent John Ashe. “So much for an on-scene statement. Listen, I need to get cracking, and today my schedule includes committing a few misdemeanors.”

Cho looked lost, and not a little alarmed. “What should I do?”

“Since you’re my shadow, I guess you should come with.” Cindy gave him a wink and started walking. “Being seen with the man might cramp my style, so you’ll have to wait outside.”

“Not too far outside.” Cho glanced back to make certain another officer had taken his place, then jogged after her. “Where we going?”

“The beautiful downtown offices of Pelham Rehabilitation.”

“For what?”

Cindy looked him up and down, and decided to play it honest. “Undercover journalism. I intend to tell some big, fat lies in order to obtain information that may or may not prove relevant to this story.”

“If it helps your story, could it maybe help solve this case?” he asked, hopping a bit from excitement.

She gave him a sidewinding smirk. “I didn’t say that. I’m a reporter, not a cop.”

Cho didn’t completely buy that. Cindy Thomas had a knack for looking innocent and guilty at the same time. “You’re onto something. I can help.”

“Nope. You can’t.”

“Yes, I can! If the uniform’s a problem, I’ve got some civvies back in my patrol unit. You can say I’m your - ”

“No, no, young Padawan,” Cindy chastised. “I don’t want you getting in trouble. You must resist the lure of the dark side.”

His eyes went all wide and shiny; Michael Cho had a serious weakness for bold, cute girls who liked Star Wars. So, apparently, did Inspector Boxer. In light of this new information, her bridge-tossing threat seemed almost justifiable.

In the Weeds (2 of 3)