Since You Went Away - Chapter Sixteen: Death Takes a Holiday

[ubiquitousmixie]

Title: Since You Went Away - Chapter Sixteen: Death Takes a Holiday
Authors: i-must-go-first & UbiquitousMixie
Fandom: Brenda/Sharon, The Closer
Rating: PG-13 (Overall M)
Word Count: 9721
Disclaimer: Not ours. Please don’t sue.
Summary: A late-night craving and a coincidental meeting lead a certain deputy chief to discover that there’s much more to the inimitable Captain Raydor than meets the eye, and to realize that her mama was right: sometimes all a single woman really needs is a good girlfriend.
Authors’ Note: Dear readers, thank you again for your patience between postings. We’ve had a few unhappy comments about the length of time between each chapter, and unfortunately, that doesn’t motivate us to write faster. However, it helps to know that most of you are still sticking with us while we have to do inconvenient real life things like graduating from grad school, writing a dissertation, and working at jobs. We hope that this chapter will have been worth the wait! Please let us know what you think - you know how we feel about comments!

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Brenda was jostled from a deep slumber by the jarring, unfamiliar sensation of being touched. It had been so long since she had been caressed or held while she slept that she immediately tensed and opened her eyes, expecting a ski mask-wearing figure standing over the bed with a machete and a “God Hates Fags” sign. When her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw that the bedroom was empty save herself and the sleeping form of her friend. She heaved a sigh of relief and slumped against the mattress, adrenalin whooshing out of her.

She’d been so ready to snatch up the gun hidden in her nightstand that the quietness was nearly a disappointment.

With the haziness of abruptly waking up beginning to clear, she remembered why she had been woken up in the first place: there was a hand somewhere on her person. She didn’t have to lower her eyes to see that Sharon had palmed her breast; the first acknowledgement of the warmth of her fingertips spread like fire through Brenda’s body, settling hot and pulsing between her legs.

She knew that she should do something. The sensible part of her brain urged her to shift out from under Sharon’s touch or to at least gently remove the woman’s hand, but there was another part, a part that had been stifled and ignored for too long, that liked the way it felt.

Sharon was most assuredly asleep; over the past four days that they had been undercover, the captain had become increasingly agitated and fidgety, creating various ways to ignore the deputy chief’s flirtatious remarks and putting greater and greater distances between them. She was surprised that Sharon hadn’t moved to sleep on the sofa altogether and had been thoroughly confused by the unending mixed messages that the captain hurled her way.

No--if Sharon were awake, she would have been horrified to know that she had touched Brenda so intimately.Worse still, she would have been enraged and disgusted to know just how much Brenda was enjoying and encouraging it.

It was no secret that Brenda craved the touch of another human being. Her body had ached for forgotten pleasures. However, it was no longer the caress of a faceless lover that she desired but the touch of Sharon Raydor alone. She could not pinpoint when these fantasies had begun. After the club? After their first kiss or, perhaps, the second? Before they ever became friends and were simply antagonistic colleagues? There was no way for Brenda to know for certain. All she knew was that her body craved the brunette’s thorough attention.

Her nipple instantly hardened as her mind began to wander, no doubt pressing into Sharon’s palm like a pebble. Brenda closed her eyes, wondering what it would feel like if Sharon shifted just so and rubbed her thumb against it or, better yet, pinched and pulled and--

Sharon pulled back her hand and rolled onto her back.

Brenda stared in disbelief, waiting to see if Sharon had woken up. She watched the steady rise and fall of the other woman’s chest and once again swallowed her anxiety, clamping her eyes tightly shut to the sight of her. Her body was humming with need, throbbing ceaselessly between her legs.

What was wrong with her? Surely it wasn’t right to want to have sex with your best friend?

Brenda rolled to her side and clenched her thighs together, hoping that sleep would once again quickly claim her. Listening to the sound of Sharon’s breathing, Brenda wished that it had been the killer after all.

**
Brenda Leigh was in the pool, swimming laps like her life depended on it, when the doorbell rang. Sharon unfolded herself from an inverted pose with a sigh, slowly stretched her arms above her head, and then tripped lightly toward the door. An unexpected guest would, at least, offer a distraction from the heavy mixture of boredom, anxiety, and frustration that had blanketed her for the past three days; but it seemed exceedingly unlikely that the murderer would ring the bell, so they were no closer to accomplishing anything that was actually useful. Rodney and Thomas had been settled into their new home for several months before they were attacked, although the recent deaths had occurred much more quickly after the couples had moved in. She envisioned being stuck in this house, which had begun to feel uncomfortably confining despite its enormous dimensions, with Brenda Johnson for months on end, and shuddered. It was enough to make her almost glad that Pope was practically foaming at the mouth to pull the plug on the undercover op.

Sharon tilted her chin slightly and smiled at the woman standing on the doorstep. Those who knew her would have recognized the smile as predatory. “Ms. Heller,” she said. “What a nice surprise.”

“Wendy, please.” The captain wondered if the little blonde realized she was literally vibrating with nervous energy, bouncing in her bright crimson heels; Sharon doubted it was because she’d had an extra shot of espresso in her morning latte. “So sorry to disturb you, but I realized we still had your spare keys at the office, so I brought them by.” As if this were show and tell, she held a distended envelope up beside her face, and accompanied it with a bright, sickly smile. Sharon stepped back instinctively, worried that the realtor was about to vomit on her bare feet.

“Please come in.” Sharon opened the door several inches wider. “Would you like some coffee, or juice? Jean’s in the pool, but she’ll be so glad to see you. We don’t know a soul out here yet,” she continued with a confiding smile.

Wendy plucked at the skirt of her navy dress as she followed Sharon into the vast, open kitchen. “How wonderful, though, that the two of you have each other.”

“Oh, yes,” Sharon agreed breezily, pouring orange juice into two glasses. “I can’t imagine my life without her in it.” From outside came the sound of a splash, and Sharon’s grip tightened on the pitcher. She realized she was being completely truthful, not acting a part at all, and took her time putting the juice away so the other woman wouldn’t see the flush that had overspread her cheeks. “Are you married, Wendy?”

The younger woman blanched as she accepted the glass of juice. “I was.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

She smiled tightly. “So am I. -- But that seems like another lifetime, now.”

“How long have you been in real estate?”

Wendy visibly relaxed, her smile growing less strained and her posture softening. “Goodness, all my life. I started working for my uncle’s firm when I was still in high school -- just odds and ends, you know, filing -- and I loved it.” She dimpled. “I knew right away that it was what I wanted to do. As soon as I finished high school, I got my license. That’s how I put myself through college, actually,” she confessed with obvious pride.

Sharon’s eyebrows rose. “You must have been quite the child prodigy, if you sold enough real estate to put yourself through Stanford.”

Wendy sputtered a little as she swallowed a sip of her juice. “Oh, I just meant -- with scholarships, you know, and --”

They were interrupted by the slamming of the side door and Brenda’s voice loudly declaiming, “O Captain, my captain, our voyage is done! Our ship has weathered ev’ry rack, the --”

The captain in question clenched her teeth so hard that she was pretty sure she felt something crack. “Jean, sweetie, look who’s here!”

Brenda had already halted, frozen by the sight of the realtor, her eyes widening, but she recovered herself quickly, swooping into the kitchen and leaning down to kiss Sharon’s cheek. “Wendy!” she exclaimed. “So nice of you to come by. Suzie and I were just saying we’re gettin’ a little lonely out here all by ourselves.”

“I brought your spare keys,” the smaller blonde explained, and gulped the remainder of her juice like a frat boy in a beer-bonging competition. “Now, unfortunately, I have to be going. Houses to show.” The nauseated smile was back.

“I’ll walk you out,” Brenda offered, oozing southern charm.

When she returned to the kitchen a few minutes later she found Sharon spooning yogurt onto a bowl of granola. Green eyes met brown.

“Good thing,” Brenda began, “she didn’t come out here to go into actin’. She’s terrible.”

“If that woman went to Stanford, I’m the Queen of Sheba,” Sharon agreed.

The deputy chief nodded decisively. “I’ll call Andy. I’d say Ms. Wendy Heller’s just itchin’ for a visit from the boys in blue.”

**

Sharon sat at the end of the sofa, legs curled beneath her while she rested the case file of Rodney Crowther on her lap. She’d read the dossier a dozen times and had spent hours staring at the crime scene photos, hoping that she would discover something--anything--that might give her some insight into why he had been killed. Each time she reviewed the case she found nothing she hadn’t seen before and instead only fortified her resolve to find his murderer. Six days into the operation had yielded nothing but impatience and unanswered questions, but when she looked at his pale, lifeless face, she remembered why she was there.

If nothing else, going over the open files of each victim gave her something to think about that wasn’t her housemate.

At present, the woman in question was clattering around in the kitchen, having offered to clean up after dinner. The captain knew without question that Brenda was becoming restless. She couldn’t blame her, but the frisson of untempered energy was thick in the house, settling heavily on Sharon despite her best attempts at keeping busy.

It was slowly driving her insane.

She tapped her fingers against the rims of her glasses and closed the file, reaching instead for the file on the Millican-Crews. As she flipped through the case notes, she heard Brenda shuffle into the living room, dragging her feet in a juvenile display of exaggerated ennui.

When Sharon did not look up from her reading, Brenda slumped down onto the couch, dragging a case file into her lap with a heavy, burdensome sigh. Her fingers plucked at the pages in a way that would make the most amount of noise and her knee shook restlessly. When the captain still neglected to humor her, Brenda finally dropped the file back on the coffee table and whined, “Why won’t somethin’ just happen?”

“I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question.”

Brenda leaned her head back against the cushions and looked at Sharon. “Yeah. I just...isn’t this waitin’ makin’ your skin crawl?”

“It is, but complaining about it isn’t going to expedite the timeline of events that we’re not even sure will happen.”

“I’ve got Will breathin’ down my neck and the boys have come up with squat...I mean, what’re they doin’ over there? Havin’ a party?” She huffed again, shaking her knee more quickly. “I’m about ready to arrest everyone and call it a day.”

“I understand your frustration, Brenda, but you have got to calm down. You’re going to make me crazy, and you won’t like me when I’m crazy.”

Brenda smirked, raising a suggestive eyebrow. “Who knows...could be fun...”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “You need to relax. Go take a hot shower, paint your toenails, and stop distracting me.”

“Why captain, is that an order?”

“It is if it will get you out of my hair.”

“I bet Jean’s the one who calls the shots in the relationship,” Brenda guessed, getting to her feet. “I’ll just bet that she has Susan wrapped around her finger.”

Sharon snorted. “So why is Jean the one rushing off to do as Susan told her?”

Brenda pursed her lips. “I was gonna shower anyway.”

“Uh huh. Whatever you say.”

The blonde hovered, leaning over Sharon’s shoulder at the arm of the couch to look at the file. “Are you actually gettin’ anything new out of these files?”

“I’m certainly trying. Now go. Relax. Have fun.”

“Aye, captain!”

When the sound of Brenda’s feet padding up the stairs faded and the shower was turned on, Sharon let out a sigh of relief. She pressed her cold knuckles to her warm cheek and closed her eyes, willing her mind to focus instead on the connection between Rodney and Thomas and the other victims rather than the naked form of her friend upstairs. She clearly pictured the steam fogging the mirror as the blonde shed her clothes, allowing them to pool at her feet as she stepped into the scalding stream of water.

Sharon gulped and opened her eyes, fixing them to a bloody snapshot of Deborah Millican-Crew. She’d seen the photo so many times that she’d become desensitized to it, the stark spray of blood no longer evoking the queasy somberness she generally felt. She gave up on her work and stacked the files on the coffee table. There was no way that she could concentrate.

It was easy to blame Brenda’s restlessness for distracting her, but Sharon knew that it was Brenda herself who was the distraction. It was nothing she did to provoke a reaction; it was simply the fact that she was Brenda Leigh, incomprehensibly beautiful and effortlessly sexy.

Sharon stood with a groan, setting her glasses atop the files so that she could rub at her weary eyes. Her mind screamed for a distraction that would not leave her body tingling with unspent need and she remembered the handful of DVDs that Brenda had brought.

What better to distract her than a mind-numbing movie?

Recalling that Brenda had left the DVDs in their bedroom, Sharon swiftly climbed the stairs, hoping to come and go before Brenda had finished in the shower so that she would not be confronted by the sight of the slender woman, damp and naked except for a towel...

In their bedroom, Sharon quickly found the box of miscellaneous items that the other woman had brought with her: CDs, books, and a variety of other random items that the captain knew Brenda would never use. As she reached the bottom of the box where the movies were stacked, an unmistakable sound from the ensuite bathroom ensnared Sharon’s attention so fully that she couldn’t move.

A moan: a stifled, high-pitched moan of pleasure.

Blood rushed to Sharon’s face and green eyes widened. There was no way that the moan could be attributed to anything but the fact that Brenda was touching herself.

Sharon found herself assaulted by startling imagery, her mind piecing together the picture of the deputy chief’s hand lodged between her thighs, rubbing herself to satisfaction. Was her head thrown back in pleasure? Was her free hand bracing against the tiled wall for support, or was she putting it to use, cupping one exquisitely shaped breast with needy urgency?

Her throat was dry. She needed water or, better yet, a cold shower of her own to wipe away the forbidden thoughts that she never wanted to have about her best friend. She pulled her hand out of the box, forgetting completely what she had been in search of, and rose to stand on unsteady legs. Her ears strained for any repetition of the moan but, hearing nothing, Sharon concluded that the other woman had obviously not intended to be loud enough to be overheard. Was Brenda muffling her cries with her hand or biting her lip? Was that moan the conclusion of her act or was it merely the beginning?

She pressed her cold hand to her throat and drifted toward the hallway, pausing momentarily to look back at the door of the bathroom. She had told Brenda to have fun, to relax. She had, for all intents and purposes, encouraged her to masturbate.

Had the same thought occurred to the deputy chief? If it had, did thoughts of Sharon linger in her mind when she slipped her long fingers between her folds?

Sharon scolded herself as she quietly crept back downstairs, careful to avoid the stair that creaked. She could not be thinking about what Brenda would look like when she came. She could not be humoring thoughts of climbing into the shower with Brenda and replacing the younger woman’s hand with her own.

She collapsed onto the couch and buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t do this. She had a job to do and a friendship to maintain; both of these things were far too important to throw away for something as pointless as sex.

It had to stop.

**

Sharon wasn’t all that surprised to find Chief Pope standing on the doorstep when the bell rang early that evening. She was slightly more taken aback by his attire: an unmistakable brown and yellow uniform, complete with knee-length shorts. He carried a large box, and intoned “Delivery” through gritted teeth.

She smirked even as she stepped back to allow the man to enter.

When she’d come inside earlier from a good hour and a half spent playing in Jean Hennessey’s cedar mulch (because she figured it was best that she stay as far away from Brenda Leigh as possible while her body calmed down and she talked herself back to sanity, and at least planting nasturtiums someone would surely later dig up gave her the illusion of productivity), the blonde had been sprawled on the sofa, her attention focused on the laptop resting on the glass-topped coffee table. She’d immediately turned it so the captain could see the photo on the screen.

A tan blonde in a pink tank-top grinned over the top of an oversized, umbrella-topped drink that was most assuredly of the fruity persuasion. There was a palm tree in the background.

“Meet Wendy Heller,” Brenda had said grandly.

“I’ve met her.” Sharon frowned. “I’m not that impressed.”

“You haven’t, actually.”

The brunette looked down and wiped a bit of excess dirt from her knees, and then turned back to the screen. “Why are we looking at photos of Wendy on vacation in Cabo?”

“Costa Rica, actually. And she’s not on vacation; she lives there. Has done since 2008.”

“You mean --”

“Yup.” Brenda grinned, her eyes bright and keen like those of a bloodhound following a scent. “Wendy Heller is not Wendy Heller.”

Sharon shook her head. “How did we not know she had a twin?”

“Yeah, how come you didn’t know? Can’t you all recognize each other, like the masons?” Brenda teased. “We didn’t know because their biological mother gave them up at birth. They were both adopted. The real Wendy Heller grew up in Washington State and went to Stanford. Her twin, Tricia Mangum, grew up in Iowa, and didn’t move to California until last year.”

“My head hurts.”

“This is the easy part. -- Wendy -- that is, Tricia -- cracked like an egg when the boys picked her up and questioned her.”

“Shocking,” Sharon interrupted dryly. “She seemed so cool under pressure.”

“Tricia met Wendy for the first time in 2008. Wendy just showed up on her doorstep in Des Moines. Her adoptive mother had told her on her deathbed that she had a sister, blah blah blah. According to Tricia, Wendy told her she was moving away to start a new life, but wanted to meet her first, because it would be the only time they could ever have any contact.”

“I call shenanigans.”

Brenda’s eyebrows rose in surprise at her friend’s flippant comment, and Sharon smirked. “It’s something the kids always said. Do we know why Wendy decided to flee the country?” Her eyes narrowed suddenly, all traces of humor disappearing from her countenance. “2008 -- Thomas and Rodney were killed in 2008. In January.”

“Wendy told Tricia that she’d gone through a horrible break-up and was afraid of her ex.”

“So she changed her name and moved to Costa Rica to get away from him? Personally I would’ve just taken out a restraining order.”

Brenda’s smirk was a fair imitation of the older woman’s habitual expression. “What if your ex was so angry that he was goin’ around killin’ people to get back at you?”

“Then I might move to Costa Rica. But I fail to see what this has to do with Rodney and Thomas, or with our other victims.”

“I fail to see that too.” Brenda whipped off her reading glasses, put them down on the table, and rubbed hard at the bridge of her nose. “But they have to be connected.”

The two women had sat in silence for several minutes, both thinking furiously.

“All right,” Sharon began finally. “Okay. So Tricia turned up here as Wendy last year --”

“In July,” Brenda supplied. “Havin’ already arranged to go into partnership with Blake Manley. She’d been livin’ in, get this, Chicago for two years, sellin’ real estate, since leavin’ Des Moines.”

“As Wendy?” When the blonde nodded, Sharon asked the glaringly obvious question: “Why?”

Brenda Leigh snorted out a laugh and rolled her eyes. “Tax evasion. Tricia Mangum owes the IRS over $200,000.00.”

“How convenient, then, that she has a twin sister whose identity she was able to steal.”

“Wendy wasn’t usin’ it,” the chief agreed calmly.

“So our homosexual-hating slasher is doing all this because, what, Wendy scorned him?” Sharon shook her head, perplexed. “The timeline makes sense: ‘Wendy’ comes back to Los Angeles, and the murders resume right where they left off.”

“But why not just kill her? Why drag all these innocent people into it?”

“Brenda Leigh, does the word ‘psychopath’ mean anything to you?” The captain stood and began to pace behind the sofa, running the fingers of both hands through her long, loose hair. “Maybe he still loves her.”

“Great way of showin’ it,” Brenda had said, and then her phone had rung.

From her end of the conversation, Sharon very quickly gleaned that Pope wanted to shut down the undercover operation.

“A suspect in custody?” the deputy chief had howled. “Yeah, we’ve got Tricia Mangum, alias Wendy Heller, in custody, but I don’t suspect her of anything more than bein’ an idiot. There is no way she attacked eight people with a butcher knife, never mind the fact that she logistically couldn’t have committed the first murders because she was in Iowa at the time. If you close us down now, we won’t have any way of findin’ the killer until he makes a mistake. Do you really want to stand back and watch while the bodies of L.A.’s gay and lesbian community stack up?”

Pope was there now spoiling for a fight, but her first glimpse of him told the captain which way the wind was blowing. If he was really determined to pull her and Brenda out, he wouldn’t have played along by showing up dressed as the FedEx guy, never mind his grumbling about the insistence of Provenza and Tao; he would’ve just driven over as himself in his own vehicle. In fact, if he were really serious about terminating the op, he wouldn’t have come at all; he would’ve simply issued an order. Even Brenda Leigh had to comply with direct orders from the acting chief of police.

The captain, therefore, was fairly unconcerned. She popped herself some popcorn, poured a glass of tea, and sat down unobtrusively in a corner of the sprawling living room to watch the rest of the show.

Brenda had obviously reached the same conclusion as Sharon. She stopped herself mid-rant and abruptly demanded, “Will, why did you even come over here?” Before he could answer she interrupted, “I mean, why did you really come? Did you want to see the deputy chief and the captain in action, hmm?” In a flash she was at Sharon’s side, draped insinuatingly over the other woman’s shoulder as she reached to help herself to a few kernels of popcorn. “Did you want to see how domestic we are, what a convincin’ couple? What do you say, Suzie Q -- wanna put on a show for the chief, here?”

Part of Sharon was absolutely infuriated with Brenda for playing this game. The other part -- about thirty percent -- couldn’t help feeling incredibly smug as she noted how Pope’s eyes flicked from Brenda’s decolletage to her own bare legs, and how his adam’s apple bobbed and the tips of his ears turned bright pink.

“Fine,” he snapped. “Fine, you can stay through the weekend, but that’s absolutely it. I expect to see you both in the office Monday morning.”

Brenda smiled again then, once more all Southern graciousness. “I’ll walk you to the door. -- Is there really anythin’ in that box?”

Sharon popped another kernel into her mouth, but it stuck to her tongue, which suddenly felt dry. For once she completely agreed with Chief Johnson that staying under cover as Susan and Jean Hennessey was absolutely the right thing to do, professionally speaking. She owed it not just to Rodney and Thomas, but to the other six victims, to herself, to the entire city of Los Angeles, to do everything in her power to find this maniac with a knife fetish.

Still, she couldn’t deny that, personally, she wished Pope had pulled the plug and sent them straight home.

**

The following evening, Brenda found herself standing amidst the large, sparklingly clean kitchen, wondering when this had all stopped being fun. She had a feeling that she just couldn’t shake, the sort of odd, uneasy feeling she had whenever something was about to happen. She’d resolved herself to the fact that their undercover op was a bust and had hoped, despite her irritation over ending up with an unclosed case, that knowing they’d be returning to their regularly hectic lives as Deputy Chief Johnson and Captain Raydor would spark a renewal of normalcy between them. However, despite her best attempts at keeping things light, Sharon was as distant and reticent as ever. It was more than the reservation she maintained as part of her general disposition; Brenda was certain, the way she was certain about a suspect’s guilt, that Sharon was going out of her way to put distance between them.

Brenda looked out of the kitchen window, catching a glimpse at Sharon’s bare, unpainted toes where she was sprawled out along one of the patio chairs. The evening’s cool breeze drifted in through the screen, caressing the blonde’s bare arms invitingly.

Making up her mind, Brenda took down two wine glasses and opened a bottle of Sharon’s favorite Riesling, pouring some for each of them. The feeling in her stomach tightened as she neared the patio door. She took a fortifying breath to calm her nerves, reminding herself that nothing would ever happen (whether it be good or bad) if she hid in the kitchen and allowed Sharon to wallow in whatever it was that was eating her.

She carefully balanced the two glasses as she stepped outside, closing the screen door behind her. “Beautiful evening,” she remarked, looking out over the pinkish-purple sunset over the canyon.

“Yes,” Sharon replied, the green hue of her eyes intensified by the colors reflected in them. The glow that was cast upon her face by the vibrant evening sky was breathtaking and Brenda’s chest warmed pleasantly at the sight of it.

“Brought you somethin’.” The deputy chief held out the wine glass, relieved that Sharon smiled and thanked her when she reached up to accept it. Feeling more at ease, Brenda sat down on the empty chair beside her. “I can’t get over this sunset.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly--but the way the pink tones bled into red was nothing compared to the peaceful expression on her friend’s face.

“Mmm,” Sharon agreed. “It’s too bad Jean and Susan can’t see it.”

“They will soon enough...when this mess is all over, anyway.”

“If we catch our killer. If not...” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “It would be a shame if they missed out on this. I’d hate to think that this beautiful view might go to waste.”

“Hey...it’s not a waste right now, is it?” Brenda cradled the wine glass against her stomach and looked over at Sharon. “We’re sharin’ it with each other.”

The captain was reflective for a moment before she turned to Brenda and smiled serenely. “We are.” She held the younger woman’s gaze before looking back at the horizon, watching the sun dip lower beneath the clouds.

It would be dark soon and then it would be time for bed. The knot in Brenda’s stomach intensified once again. She’d secretly loved sharing the bed with her closest friend. It had been a comfort to her; it had shocked her to have the tiny presence of her kitten remind her just how much she hated to sleep alone. To lose that for an unknown period of time would have been awful...if she hadn’t had Sharon as her replacement.

As far as bedmates went, Sharon was...different. When they’d slept together before, it had been about comfort and companionship. That closeness that they had since shared as friends was gone, replaced now by awkward tension and a growing distance that scared the hell out of Brenda. Had the kissing ruined things? She vividly recalled the talk they’d had about the importance of their friendship. What had changed? It certainly wasn’t Brenda. She had been as constant as the North Star--aside from the fact that her attraction to Sharon had grown considerably. For Brenda, however, her attraction only enhanced what she felt for Sharon as a friend. If nothing had changed on her part, what had?

“I wonder what they would be doing right now,” Sharon mused after she took a sip of her wine. “Susan and Jean, I mean.”

Brenda smiled. “Maybe they’d be doin’ exactly this.”

“Or maybe Jean would be doing the taxes and Susan would be cleaning out the fridge.”

“Maybe they’d be takin’ a swim.”

“Maybe they’d be fighting.”

“Or maybe,” Brenda said, lowering her voice slightly, “they’d be makin’ love.”

Sharon swallowed. “Who knows.”

“It’s a beautiful night for love makin’,” Brenda continued, the twilight darkening Sharon’s features only a little, allowing her to see the flush of color on her neck. “Maybe they’d be sittin’ out here, talkin’ over wine...and maybe Jean would have looked over at Susan and told her how she’s never, ever seen anyone or anythin’ so beautiful...” Sharon tilted her head, meeting her gaze through hooded eyelids. “And Suzie would blush and Jean would brush aside her hair and tell her that after all this time, she’s never known anyone who could make her feel the way she does.” Brenda hesitated for a moment and, with tentative fingers, caressed her fingertips across Sharon’s brow, tucking an errant lock of brown hair behind her ear. “I bet Jeanie’d kiss her then, ‘cause she wouldn’t be able to think clearly ‘til she did. It would be one of those long, slow kisses...the kind with tongue...the kind that makes your toes curl...and Susan would tell her to take her upstairs and make love to her ‘til the crickets sing.”

Sharon stared, cheeks red and eyes clouded with something Brenda vaguely recognized, before she blinked and set down her glass. She sat up and rubbed her temples, her hair curtaining her face from Brenda’s view.

Concerned, Brenda leaned forward and touched her hand to Sharon’s arm. “Sharon? What’s wrong?”

“That’s right: I’m Sharon,” the brunette replied, her tone hard.

“What in heaven’s name has gotten into you?”

“Whatever it is that you’re doing,” Sharon snapped as she got to her feet, “has to stop. Now.”

“I’m not doin’ anything,” Brenda bit back defensively.

“I don’t want to play this game anymore, Brenda Leigh.”

Brenda blinked in confusion at the other woman, wondering if it would be uncalled for to physically shake some sense into her. “What game? What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

Sharon snorted. “That’s exactly my point. You don’t even know what you’re doing.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked back at her friend, though it was almost dark enough that Brenda couldn’t make out the cool, icy look on her face. “I’d like to be alone,” Sharon finally stated, turning on her heel. She stalked away toward the pool and sat down on the edge, dipping her feet inside while Brenda stared intently at her back.

The blonde slumped against her chair, blinking up at the twinkling stars in the sky. She was completely at a loss. The telling knot in her belly swelled to uncomfortable proportions. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt like this or how to make it better. She couldn’t even talk to her best friend about it.

Brenda got to her feet and watched Sharon for several more minutes, hoping the woman would turn back to look at her. When she could barely make out her silhouette in the dark, Brenda took up the two wine glasses and went inside, deciding that she would shower and go to bed early.

**

A small, shivering, tinkling sound from inside the house roused Sharon. She realized how dark it was. She realized the soft pads of her toes were shrivelled from their long immersion in the water.

She realized someone was moving through the darkened house, creeping through the ground floor. Brenda Leigh Johnson did many things, but she certainly didn’t creep.

Moving as quietly and stealthily as she could, Sharon darted back to the house and eased the sliding glass door open. The tile floor felt icy cold beneath her damp, bare feet; her ears pricked, strained the way Manzana’s did when she heard something that set all her little feline senses on alert. Around her she heard only silence. It was a silence that breathed, that pulsed with a heartbeat that wasn’t her own. Further away, upstairs and a world away, she heard the faintest patter of water falling in the shower.

Well, she’d wanted something to distract her while Brenda showered, hadn’t she?

They were standing on opposite sides of the wall, Sharon and the intruder, inches apart. The captain heard the drawing of a single harsh, shaky breath.

Sharon reached out and flipped on the kitchen light. If her would-be assailant was startled by the sudden illumination, she -- because the diminutive figure was certainly that of a woman -- was completely taken aback by the older woman’s calm demeanor as she faced her.

“You’re early,” Sharon said in her most even Captain Raydor voice. “You must’ve known we’d still be awake.”

The woman gazed at Sharon with wide, glassy eyes, as if the captain were the one loosely but comfortably gripping a suitably wicked-looking knife. “You were expecting me?” she asked in a tone of wonder, her cheeks pinkening slightly as if she were -- flattered?

Had it not been for the knife, the younger woman would’ve looked like she couldn’t hurt a fly. Pale and slight, her caramel-colored skin sallow, those glassy eyes burning with a feverish heat, she looked -- no, the captain decided, not quite like one of the junkies down on the Boulevard. This fever was caused by something else.

“Yes,” Sharon finally answered her. “We’ve been expecting you.”

The smaller woman licked her lips. “Yes,” she muttered. “Yes, it’s a great work. I am the instrument.”

Oh, that ticked the box, then: right-wing religious mania. Sharon was instantly disappointed. It was so pedestrian, so futile, such a waste. The captain would bet that she knew her bible a good bit better than this young woman did; but this wasn’t really the time for a theological discussion.

There had to be more to it than that.

“Why us?” Sharon asked, politely curious, in the same tone in which she might have asked if the other woman wanted a glass of water.

“You revel in your sin. The wrath of the Lord must be visited upon the unclean, as an example to others.”

Sharon blinked a single time. “Right,” she said, and wondered if Brenda planned to emerge from the shower some time this century. “What about you, though? Is this your punishment, for what you were?”

Her grip on the knife tightened. “I am the instrument. I atone.”

“What about Wendy?” The taller woman continued to speak coolly, keeping the weapon in her peripheral vision. Yoga kept her in very good shape, but she wasn’t confident she’d be able to wrestle that knife away from the other woman in a tussle without inflicting some serious damage on both of them. Damn it, Brenda, something’s finally happening, and you’re missing it! If you’re up there getting off again, I’ll kill you.

If she didn’t get herself killed first, of course. This was a lovely house, but not so lovely that Sharon relished the thought of bleeding out on the kitchen floor.

“You love Wendy, don’t you?”

For a few seconds Sharon thought she’d misstepped by mentioning Wendy Heller. The other woman’s entire body trembled as if with a kind of frenzy -- but her grip on the knife only tightened again.

“I love Wendy,” the younger woman agreed. “And Wendy loves me.”

“Wendy is afraid of you,” Sharon replied, steadily meeting those dark eyes. “She knew you killed Rodney Crowther and Thomas Rios, didn’t she? -- What’s your name?” the captain asked suddenly.

The other woman blinked, surprised, but answered in that same hollow, dreamy tone. “Jacqueline.”

“Jacqueline, Rodney Crowther was my friend. He was a kind, lovely man. What did he or Thomas ever do to you?”

Sharon heard her own voice, like that of a teacher chastising a naughty pupil, and knew she should shut up, but she couldn’t. It didn’t make any sense; she needed to understand why, why the two of them, who’d had absolutely nothing to do with Wendy Heller.

Jacqueline’s impossibly wide eyes had widened further. “You were there,” she said now. “You -- you had on a black dress. And pretty hair. I used to have pretty hair.”

Sharon owned a lot of black dresses, and wore them frequently; but now she remembered Jacqueline. “You work for the catering company,” she said. “You were at the mixer. And at Thomas and Rodney’s housewarming?” She released a single sharp, dry chuckle. “You’re not on a mission, Jacqueline. You’re mad because your girlfriend broke up with you.”

Shit, she thought as the knife blade landed against her carotid artery and one of Jacqueline’s surprisingly strong arms went around her waist. This was a fine time for the reserved captain suddenly to develop an inability to keep her mouth shut; but that tended to happen when she was disgusted and infuriated.

“You don’t know anything about Wendy or me, you filthy cunt.”

Sharon felt a fleck of Jacqueline’s spittle against her cheek. People always talked about steel being cold; against her skin it felt hot and seemed to tingle. Nice language, she reflected, for the Lord’s avenging instrument.

“I know that Wendy was so afraid of you that she gave up her entire life and left the country.” Talking made the blade dig into her flesh. It was a fascinating, unpleasant sensation.

“But she came back because she loves me. She doesn’t see yet, but she will. She’ll understand our work. I’ll save her.”

“You’re gonna save her by murderin’ a whole bunch of innocent people? It’s been a while since I went to Sunday school, but I don’t remember the part where Jesus said that.”

Finally, Sharon thought. Brenda Leigh really was late to everything. She’d probably been shampooing her hair and shaving her legs.

“You’re not innocent!” Jacqueline shrieked. “You’re vile, disgusting sinners, and God will punish you!” The knife blade dug into Sharon’s flesh, and the sting was enough to make her wince.

Stepping into the kitchen, Brenda pursed her lips. “What we are is LAPD.” She calmly stepped close enough to press the barrel of her glock to Jacqueline’s temple. It was an impressive sight: Brenda with her blonde curls dripping all over the place, stark naked save the blue towel cinched around her torso, pointing her service weapon as nonchalantly as if this were just another session at the firing range. “And you brought a knife to a gunfight.”

For someone going around cheerfully murdering sinners for the greater good of humanity, Jacqueline was singularly unwilling to die herself. Sharon reached up and removed the long-handled knife from her unresisting fingers.

From beneath the towel Brenda produced a pair of cuffs, and Sharon decided not to think about where the deputy chief had been hiding them. Her chocolate eyes flicked to Sharon’s green ones. “I’ve always wanted to say that,” she admitted. “Makes me feel like John Wayne.”

**

It would have been easy to succumb to the exhaustion that was beginning to set in now that the chaos following Jacqueline’s arrest had ended, but Sharon would not give her body the satisfaction it craved. When her adrenaline high had finally crashed, she felt the full brunt of tense muscles and frayed nerves and achingly longed for her own bathtub in her own house. Soon, she promised herself as she lugged out her suitcase.

While Brenda dealt with the remaining stragglers downstairs--namely a few black and whites and Chief Pope, who was undeniably pleased that the killer had managed to show up before he closed the operation and that Brenda had not been the one in imminent danger--Sharon had retreated into the seclusion of the house’s second floor. Though her body ached for the comfort of their bed, Sharon could not allow herself to lay down even for a brief repose. She couldn’t spend another night in this house, lying beside the woman who had pushed her headfirst into an uncharacteristic tantrum and had still managed to come to her rescue.

Sharon had caught the woman who murdered her colleague. She had closed the case and was able to honor his memory by putting the crazed religious zealot behind bars. She had almost been killed, had almost met the same fate as Rodney. Still, despite all of these perfectly legitimate reasons for being on edge, it was Brenda Leigh who stole her attention and her sanity.

It was Brenda that she needed, and so it was Brenda that she denied herself.

Sharon began emptying drawers, neatly stacking her clothes in the suitcase. She heard the final car parked outside drive off and took a deep breath, bracing herself for Brenda’s imminent presence.

“You don’t waste any time, do you?” Brenda said, standing in the doorway. Sharon hadn’t even heard her come up the stairs. “Are you that antsy to get away from me?”

“It’s been a long week, Brenda,” Sharon replied, refolding a black sweater before placing it in the suitcase. “It would be nice to give Jean and Susan their house, don’t you think?”

Brenda rolled her eyes. “At one in the mornin’? I don’t think so.” She stepped inside the room, her hands lazily tucked into the back pockets of the jeans she’d managed to slip on before the uniforms arrived. Her ponytail bobbed as she tilted her head, ardently watching the captain as she stuffed her socks into one of the suitcase’s compartments. Sharon avoided her gaze until the other woman gasped. “Sharon...you’re bleedin’!”

Sharon’s fingers instinctively touched the small cut on her neck. The blood had dried, its flaky remnants a startling reminder of how very real that knife had been. She shuddered.

Brenda grabbed a tissue and crossed the room, tilting the other woman’s shoulders until Sharon was facing her. When her fingertips brushed the pale, elegant line of Sharon’s neck, the captain jumped and snatched the tissue from her hands. “Don’t. I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.”

“Why didn’t you have someone take a look at that?” Brenda demanded hotly, hands on her hips. She watched as Sharon put some distance between them.

“I was a little preoccupied with getting an assailant into custody,” Sharon said dismissively. “I forgot about it. But it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Brenda snapped, and Sharon knew she was right. “You taunted an armed woman! Do you have any idea how stupid that was? How reckless?”

“I was unarmed, Brenda. What would you have had me do?”

“You coulda screamed, for starters! Alerted me somehow that she was in the house!”

“It wasn’t worth the risk. She was unstable and had a knife. I knew you’d show up eventually.”

Brenda exhaled sharply, pressing her hands to her forehead. “Sharon, you could have died!”

“But I didn’t.”

Brown eyes filled with tears. “But you could have. My God, Sharon...you coulda been killed while I was washin’ my hair and I wouldn’t have known till I came down to see if you were still mad at me.” She let out a sound that was part-laugh, part-sob. Brenda bit her lip and launched herself at Sharon, wrapping her arms around her neck. She hugged her tightly and hid her face in Sharon’s shoulder.

Sharon blinked, dizzy now from Brenda’s rapid shift in emotions. When she felt a stray tear hit her neck, she registered how badly the younger woman was shaking. Reflexively, Sharon curled her arms around Brenda’s waist. “Hey...it’s okay. I’m still here, thanks to you.”

“But you might not have been!” Brenda gasped, her voice muffled by Sharon’s throat. “You can’t ever do that again, ever!” She pulled back far enough to see Sharon’s face, her hands tightly gripping her shoulders. “D’you hear me?”

“I did my job, Brenda. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing in my position.”

The blonde pursed her lips in quiet contemplation. “That doesn’t matter. It wasn’t me in that position.”

Sharon chuckled. “You and your double standards. Listen--I’m all right. It’s over now.”

“Is it?” Brenda pulled away, her face reluctant as she slipped out of Sharon’s grasp. “We’re not all right, are we? Whatever happened earlier...it’s not better, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Will you tell me what’s goin’ on? You could’ve been killed tonight and you’re too important to me to just let you go off bein’ mad when I have no idea why. Let me at least have the chance to fix it.”

The taller woman’s response was a small, pained smile. “You want to fix it,” she echoed. “That’s -- I wish you could.”

Brenda’s heart gave a single hard leap. “You’re scarin’ me,” she admitted with trepidation. She watched as Sharon turned to look out the window, but instead of seeing into the darkness, the captain was confronted with her own reflection and, behind her, Brenda with her hands clasped anxiously in front of her abdomen.

Sharon ran her fingers through her hair and sighed before turning back to face her friend. “I’m not upset with you, Brenda Leigh. With myself, yes. And I’m --” She breathed deeply again and looked around the large, airy bedroom as if searching for the words. “Envious,” she finally concluded very quietly, and chuckled without humor.

Brenda’s forehead knitted in confusion. It was silent, with not even the ticking of a clock to distract them. “Of?” she asked at last.

“Jean and Susan.” Sharon shook her head and reached up to rub at the back of her neck, her smile rueful, self-deprecating. “The way we imagined them, here, together, in this house.”

The younger woman drew a quick, harsh breath through her nostrils. She was wary of speaking, moving, even breathing too loudly and interrupting. She was afraid Sharon would stop if she did, and Brenda knew with instinctive certainty that what the captain was about to say was going to be something she needed to hear.

“This is a nice house,” Sharon resumed more conversationally, folding her arms protectively over her chest. “Nice pool, nice view, nice stainless-steel refrigerator. It’s not exactly my taste, but it’s lovely. It was fun to play with it all for a few days, like being on vacation.”

Brenda swallowed nervously and thought that if the tension and anxiety of the past week had felt like a vacation to Sharon, then the other woman was obviously in dire need of a real vacation.

“That’s the thing about a vacation, though: it’s not real life. It’s just temporary. It’s a fantasy, a narrative you create for yourself. If it were permanent, it would be about remembering to renew the car insurance and taking out the trash and arguing over who spilled wine on the carpet.”

Sharon looked down, her long hair screening her expression from Brenda’s view. “But the fantasy was really appealing,” she admitted even more softly. “It would’ve been nice to be Susan Hennessey for a little while.”

The blonde quickly licked her lips before speaking. “I know what you mean,” she said, her voice as soft as Sharon’s. “It’d be nice to be somebody else sometimes. It’d be nice to have a partner, not to be alone.”

Soft green eyes steadily met Brenda’s dark ones. “You do know what I mean,” the older woman agreed after several seconds of careful study. “And you know that’s not it.” Despite herself she stepped closer to her lovely, skittish friend, and felt herself reaching out to twine her fingers with the other woman’s. She felt the slide of a warm, slightly damp palm against her own. “This evening by the pool, drinking wine, admiring the sunset with you -- Brenda Leigh, you made me want to be Susan. You did that on purpose.”

Brenda’s fingers trembled against Sharon’s and then tightened convulsively. “Yes,” she agreed roughly, as if her mouth had gone dry.

Sharon’s voice had dropped to a low rumble, her eyes darkening to match. “Did you want to be Jean?”

The smaller woman nodded quickly, fairly certain that the power of speech had deserted her. Sharon’s tongue automatically moistened lips that suddenly felt too dry, almost chapped, and the way Brenda’s gaze zeroed in hungrily on the movement made the older woman’s heart pound like a trip-hammer. When, Sharon wondered dimly, had they moved? Had she moved, or had Brenda? They were standing much closer now, close enough that their breasts almost brushed and she could feel the blonde’s quick, excited breathing on her cheek, spurring her on.

“Wh - what,” Brenda stammered as if the words were being yanked from her in short, sharp jerks, “would she have done? Susan?”

“What they both wanted.”

Sharon’s voice was still smoother and steadier than hers, the words almost breathed against Brenda’s lips. Sharon gazed at her from beneath long, thick eyelashes, and Brenda’s heart pounded as fast and lightly as a hummingbird’s. Please, she thought. Please.

Brenda’s eyes closed in what Sharon immediately recognized as surrender and anticipation. Sharon began to shake with a deep-rooted tremor that seemed to originate at the center of her being, as if all that centered energy built up over years of yoga was dying to burst out.

She held her breath as her lips very lightly skimmed Brenda’s for the briefest of half-seconds. The younger woman held perfectly still, waiting, her fingers strangling Sharon’s.

Experimentally, Sharon softly, chastely pressed her lips to Brenda’s again, and felt Brenda’s mouth move subtly, conforming to hers and clinging.

A violent shudder ran through Sharon from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head, and her free hand grabbed at the other woman’s upper arm and clutched. Her mouth moved gently, not needing her dazed, petrified brain to tell her what it needed to do. Each heartbeat seemed to dilate, each second to crystallize and lengthen until she felt a sharp, piercing, ecstatic pain. There was such softness, such incredible softness, and so much of it that it scared her.

Brenda’s breath hitched. Sharon tasted it, and then pushed forward to taste her, opening her own mouth and then nudging the other woman’s lips apart so they could feel, breathe, taste each other. Brenda’s arms, slender and strong, went around her when their open mouths melded together. The kiss remained gentle, as if they were holding something fragile between them, something incredibly delicate that they’d both promised to shelter and protect. They trembled together like leaves in a fierce spring rain storm.

Sharon finally eased them apart and back down. She kept her eyes closed tightly, at last disengaging from Brenda and curling her fingers into tight fists.

“Sharon?”

She opened her eyes as if it hurt her. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m still Sharon.”

Brenda blinked dazedly, her lips pink and wet and undeniably alluring. “I know you are. I don’t want you to be anyone else.” She let out a little breathless laugh. “That was...”

Sharon turned away. She couldn’t bear to look at her anymore, feeling the way she had when she was a child staring up at the sun for too long. She glanced wistfully down at the carpet. “They have it good, don’t they?”

“Huh?”

“Jean and Susan.”

“I guess they do,” Brenda said softly, and Sharon cringed. “But I wasn’t Jean kissin’ Susan.” She took a step up behind her and Sharon could almost see her hesitating about putting a hand on her shoulder. “I was Brenda kissin’ Sharon...” Her fingertips settled on Sharon’s upper arm; her grip was unsure, as if she were waiting for Sharon to turn around and bite her.

“It was pretend, Brenda. That’s the point: all of this was pretend.”

“Sharon Raydor.” Brenda’s voice was firm, entirely no-nonsense. She sounded not like Brenda but like Deputy Chief Johnson, lacing her tone with enough intimidation to rattle Sharon’s already frayed nerves. Brenda’s hands were no longer trembling when she gripped Sharon’s shoulders and turned her around, carefully directing her backward until she was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Do you really think that none of this would have happened if we hadn’t had this undercover case?”

Sharon pursed her lips and considered the question. By the look of Brenda’s raised eyebrow, she clearly expected an answer. “No, it wouldn’t.”

Brenda rolled her eyes. “Yes, Sharon, it would have. This house was just a pressure cooker.” She sat down beside her, nudging away the suitcase with her hip. “We’d have ended up in this exact same position one way or another.” She took up Sharon’s hand in her own. “I wanted it to happen. Me, Brenda, not Jean. Did you want it too?”

Sharon let out a slow breath as she studied the way her hand fit with Brenda’s. The insistence in the blonde’s voice was so raw, so desperate that Sharon felt her stomach tighten. It would be so easy to say that she wanted it to happen--but it wasn’t as simple as two people kissing whenever they felt like it. It was their work, their friendship, their lives--what position was Sharon in to add to the complication of what they could be without knowing if it was something she even wanted? She licked her lips. “It doesn’t come down to such a black and white explanation, Brenda. I wanted to kiss you--” her voice shook when Brenda squeezed her hand “--but whatever this is that’s happening between us...it’s going to complicate things.”

“Our relationship is already complicated,” Brenda simply replied. “Life is complicated.”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “It’s easy for you not to take this seriously--”

“I am takin’ this very seriously.” With her free hand, Brenda brushed back a loose strand of blonde hair. “We’re not Jean and Susan. I don’t wanna be. I like bein’ us. I like the way things are. I’m...” She cleared her throat. “I’m attracted to you, Sharon, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got any sort of idea or expectation about where to go from here. I guess what I’m sayin’ is that we should just do what feels right for us. This friendship is my priority and I’m not about to do anythin’ to jeopardize that.”

Sharon nodded. “Neither am I. I can’t allow that to happen.”

Brenda’s nostrils flared as she exhaled an uneven breath. “A little kissin’ isn’t the end of the world, Sharon. Pretendin’ we’re not attracted to each other has only made things worse.”

Sharon couldn’t deny that Brenda had a point--it was the avoidance of the attraction that had blown it out of proportion, though she couldn’t picture the two of them chatting over coffee about their mutual interest in adding a physical dimension to their already intense friendship. No, the world hadn’t ended by kissing Brenda for a third time, but things had irrevocably changed. Sharon longed for the ease of the early days of their relationship, a time when they’d been blissfully unaware of any feelings lurking in their collective unconscious. Those days, she regretfully admitted to herself, were over.

“You’re right,” Sharon finally said. “Perhaps we should try a new approach.”

Brenda held her breath, her mind constructing a wonderful tableau of fused mouths and tangled limbs.

“I’m not saying that we should follow these impulses whenever they arise,” Sharon carefully went on, her gaze direct, “but perhaps we should talk about them if they do.”

Brenda nodded. “If this is what havin’ a wife is like, I think I’ll pass.”

The brunette snorted and smiled, relieved that the tone had considerably lightened. “Perhaps we jumped a little too quickly into marriage.”

“Agreed.” The blonde pulled her hand back and slowly pulled off the little gold band. “With this ring, I thee un-wed.” She set it in the palm of Sharon’s hand. “And though I’ll still love and honor you as my friend, I can’t promise to obey.”

Sharon chuckled and allowed Brenda to remove her own wedding ring. She had thought, for a brief moment, that she would feel naked without it, but it was a gratifying relief to let it go. “Mmm...let’s leave married life for Suzie and Jean, shall we?”

“Are we okay?”

“Yes.”

“Was there a ‘for now’ at the end of that ‘yes’?”

Sharon rolled her eyes, closing her fist around the two wedding rings. “Don’t push it or I’ll make you sleep on the sofa tonight.”

***