Notes: I use the paper's chronology of events, not the airdates. See the preview to False Starts for a recap. (BTW, "Time's date is incomplete on that and covers that whole weekend, maybe more.)

In homage to Jayne Leitch's terrific "Crimes Against Criminals", I've made Winslow's first name Logan; otherwise he's my own interpretation.

I’ve used what many consider a good fit for Gary’s middle name.

Disclaimer: Early Edition, its characters, and its aired situations belong to Tristar Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended, and no money is being made off this work of fan fiction. On the other hand, all original material (including characters and situations) contained within this story belong solely to the author and may not be used without permission.

Archiving: Except for the mailing list archive, permission is required. (I like to keep tabs on my stuff.)

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Mixed Signals
by Scheherezade

Toni Brigatti looked in the mirror and sighed-again. She was wishing she’d taken Winslow up on his offer to bring her to this affair; but he’d come down with a nasty case of the flu and was unavailable anyway. And she had refused to ask Hobson; the station rumor mills had enough grist from her life where he was concerned. Which was also another reason she hadn't wanted to come with Winslow, the snitch. The result of her stubbornness? She was standing in the ladies’ room to avoid both her date and the ignominy of watching him flirt with as many women as possible. At least either Hobson or Winslow would have kept his attention focused on her. But this guy..., she thought in disgust, ...I should have known better. I will never go on another blind date as long as live! Brigatti also made a mental note to lace her sister-in-law’s pasta with a particularly nasty poison. I’d have been better off coming alone.

Brigatti focused her attention on her image in the mirror. “Well, at least I look good,” she said in an effort to boost her sagging self-respect. Indeed the shimmery, silver-grey dress she wore caught the light provocatively. She stepped back for a better look, indulging her vanity in a rare, but much-needed pep-talk. The stretch velvet fabric hugged her curves flatteringly, while the criss-cross of tiny straps in the back revealed just enough skin to be tantalizing yet modest. “Ball” had been a misnomer; “dance” would have been more accurate, but it just didn’t have the same ring to it. So Brigatti’s above-the-knee, slightly flared skirt blended perfectly with the array of hem lengths present.

Reassured, Brigatti heaved a big sigh and returned to the ballroom-to find her date being fawned over by a half-dozen women, two of whom she knew to be married. Refusing to let the guy get to her again, she sauntered over to the bar, making polite small talk with acquaintances along the way.

Salsa music soon separated the real dancers from the rest of crowd, who gathered around the edges to admire the energy and skill occupying the center of the dance floor. Brigatti had to admit that Michael Torres was an exceptional dancer; but he was also an exceptional egotist. Handsome and vain, mannered but shallow; exuding the kind of charm that quickly became obnoxious. Perfectly attired, not a hair out of place, even as he danced; confident, self-assured, oozing sexuality. No wonder nearly every woman in the place watched him, and only him, dance. She had felt the same pull when she’d first seen him; but an hour and a half later, the sight of him made her nose wrinkle as though she kept getting a whiff of something unpleasant but unidentifiable. The dance ended and Torres basked in the approval of the crowd. The room suddenly developed the cloying atmosphere of cheap cologne.

In search of purer air, Brigatti strolled through the clumps of people decorating the edge of the ballroom. The eclectic mix of music chosen for the event-everything from nondescript orchestral dance music to bass-heavy, hip-hop-flavored rap; from Frank Sinatra to LeAnn Rimes-allowed everyone there a chance to shine on the dance floor. Brigatti was deciding it was a very bad idea as the caterwauling of “pure” country music assaulted her ears and sent her toward the nearest exit in search of refuge.
Not twenty feet from the door, Brigatti spied something she never would have expected to see at the Chicago Policemen’s Charity Benefit Ball: Gary Hobson. Brigatti pushed her way through the swirl of people, alternately seeing and losing him as he too moved about the room. Dressed appropriately for the event, Gary moved with an odd combination of intent and uncertainty, as though searching for a particular product amid the aisles of an unfamiliar supermarket.

Brigatti’s heart leapt at the thought that he might be looking for her; but she quashed the idea before it could take root. She wasn’t some schoolgirl, after all. Then her detective’s curiosity kicked in. A quick cut to the left and a short dash through the dancing couples allowed her to outflank Gary and cut him off.

Gary pulled up short at her greeting. He should have expected her to be there, but it surprised him nonetheless. So much for getting in and out of here sight unseen, he thought. “Hello, Brigatti.” Gary was on a very tight schedule, so while he didn’t want to appear rude or attract undue attention, he had no time to waste. “Would you excuse me for a minute?”

Hobson disappeared into the crowd before Brigatti could respond. Questions from an infamous polygraph test resonated in her memory: Do you have a secret? Is there a side of you that you hide from the world? The examiner’s conclusion: Gary Hobson had a propensity for deception. Was he hiding something now? Or did he just need to go to the men’s room? Brigatti attempted to follow his path through the crowd.

Gary, meanwhile, hurriedly located the janitorial supply room where, according to tomorrow’s newspaper, a leak from a cracked water pipe would short out an electrical cord. The water and electricity would combine with the chemicals stored in the room to decimate the Chicago police force. By morning, 9 policemen and 6 civilians would be dead; another 12 people would be seriously injured, including Paul and Meredith Armstrong.

Applying the crowbar he had slipped from under his trouser leg, Gary worked at forcing the door open. It was just starting to give way when...

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

Gary looked up to see two men standing before him, eyeing him stonily. He had been around enough cops to know one when he saw one. “Uhhh...,” he began, pointing to the door. “I was just...I heard water. You know, like a leak.”

“And you just decided to break in?” asked the shorter man.

“Yeah...well, no, I didn’t just decide to break in-”

The taller man stuck out his hand. “Hand over the crowbar.”

Gary protested. “Look, there’s no telling what kind of chemicals are in here. If there’s a water leak, well, something terrible could happen like, like an explosion.”

“Uh-huh.” Unconvinced, the policeman ordered Gary to “spread ‘em” and place his hands on the wall.

Gary reluctantly complied. “Look, I’m telling you I hear water in that closet. At least check it out.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” one of them replied as took the crowbar from his hand.

The other officer, looking for concealed weapons, frisked Gary. Just as he finished, he felt a curious sensation around his feet and looked down to find water pooling around them. “What the...?”

Gary looked down. “Now do you believe me?”

Suddenly convinced, the two police officers helped pry open the door. Knowing what to look for, Gary sought out the offending electrical cord. Stepping carefully into the water, he said a silent prayer before touching the cord and deftly unplugged it from the outlet.

The water was continuing to leak, however. One of the cops grabbed some nearby towels and began wrapping the leaky pipe. The other gathered a stack of cleaning cloths and created a make-shift dyke to stem the flow of water out into the hallway.

“You guys know anything about chemicals?” Gary asked.

“Yeah. Why?” asked the taller one, who happened to be a member of Chicago’s bomb squad.

“Do any of these react...violently...in contact with water?”

The man looked around. “Shit,” he answered as his eyes fell on a particularly nasty possibility only an inch from the spreading water. He quickly snapped it up and handed to the other officer. “Take that away and get a plumber in here-on the double.”

“You got it,” came the reply as the shorter man dashed off.

“Here, help me with these,” the cop told Gary, pointing to more of the chemicals.

Ten minutes later, all the potentially dangerous chemicals had been moved to a safer location and the building’s custodian had arrived to begin repairs and cleanup-all without alarming any of the guests. After a quick look through the Paper to be sure that no other disasters were pending, Gary made his way back into the ballroom.

He debated with himself about whether or not to seek out Brigatti. On the one hand, he owed her for not calling her after their
date; on the other, he hadn’t called her after their date. On the one hand, he had apologized for hassling her at the movie; on the other hand, he had hassled her at the movie -while being there with another woman. On the one hand, he wanted to see Brigatti, spend some time with her; on the other, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be seen and risk a dose of her wrath. On the one hand, she hadn’t seemed particularly angry when she had happened upon him as he entered; on the other...why had she abandoned her normal tenaciousness and failed to catch up with him?

He got his answer when he caught sight of her on the dance floor. A contest of sorts had captured the attention of the crowd. One by one, couples were eliminated, backing away to join those watching and cheering. Four couples remained: the Armstrongs, Brigatti and a man who looked vaguely familiar to Gary, and two couples he didn’t recognize at all. The Armstrongs were eliminated next. Meredith, spying Gary, led Paul in that direction.

“Gary! What are you doing here?” she asked, her smile showcasing her pleasure at seeing him.

With more than a hint of cynicism, Paul Armstrong echoed, “Yeah, Hobson, what are you doing here?”

Meredith silenced him with a mild jab in the ribs.

“Well, I, uh….” Gary began looking for a way to dodge the question. “You two were great,” he gushed, hoping his smile and genuine compliment would divert the detective’s suspicious nature for a few moments. Returning his gaze to the dance floor,

Gary asked, “Who’s that with Brigatti?”

Although he knew who it was without looking, Armstrong reflexively turned toward the man in question. “Jack Wharton. He’s in our department.”

“Oh. I thought he looked familiar.”

“That’s Carl and Nancy Gwilliams,” Armstrong noted as another couple left the floor.

Meredith chimed in. “The other guy is Toni’s date.”

“Her date?” Gary asked.

“Mm-hum.”

“They’re dancing with different people?”

“Mm-hum.”

Gary cast a critical eye toward the man pointed out as Brigatti’s date. The fawning looks from many of the women attested to the man’s physical charms. He looked every inch the sometime model he was: chiseled features softened by Latin coloring; tall, not enough shorter than Gary to matter, with well-defined muscles. Gary figured the dreaded six-pack of abs was lurking beneath the guy’s perfectly pressed shirt. After a particularly impressive dance step, the man flashed a set of gleaming white, perfectly capped teeth -a maneuver which elicited a rolling of the eyes from the majority of watching males. Then Gary began to speculate on how much the guy spent on hair spray and gel. On the dance floor, the man was agile and skillful, an old Hollywood romance in action-and he knew it. He wore his charisma like a neon sign. Gary surmised that Brigatti’s date had the grace of Fred Astair, the looks of Valentino, and the mental and moral capacity of an amoeba.

Gary broke from his musings to ask, “Who’s the woman dancing with him?”

Paul answered. “Sandra Mulhaney, Vice.”

“She’s good,” Gary conceded.

Paul chuckled slightly. “She ought to be.”

“Hey, Paul,” greeted a newcomer. The heavyset man had longish salt-and-pepper hair and a goatee that manifested itself in fits and starts. He nodded toward the dance floor. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”  Armstrong’s forehead creased in confusion.

“Looks like the start of a back-up plan to me,” the man added.

Armstrong didn’t answer, but watched the dancers intently. As Brigatti left the floor, the contest having been decided in favor of the other couple, the visitor tossed Paul a final “Think about it,” and moved on.

Meredith intercepted Brigatti. “You were great!”

“Thanks, but not good enough,” she replied, casting a stony glare toward her wayward date.

“I’ll get us some drinks,” Brigatti’s partner offered.

“Thanks, Jack.”

Meredith nodded toward Michael Torres. “I take it he won’t win any awards for dream date.”

“Ha! He could be the last eligible bachelor in the world and he’d still lose.”

In sympathy, Meredith put her arm around Brigatti. “Forget him. Guys like that aren’t worth the trouble.”

Brigatti sighed. “You’re right. I ought to be able to handle humiliation by now.”

“I know some very nice guys. You should let me-”

“No!” Brigatti insisted. “Never again. What I really need is-

Hobson.”

Meredith blinked. “You need...?” she began before realizing that Brigatti had sighted Gary standing next to Paul. By the time Meredith had caught on and started walking again, Brigatti was already standing before the two men.

“Nice dancing, Brigatti,” Gary praised.

“So where did you rush off to?”

Gary cocked his head and remarked with excessive civility, “I’m fine, Brigatti. Thanks for asking.”

Brigatti refused to back off. “Who invited you? You were in a big hurry when you got here. Why?”

“Did you just flunk charm school or do you actually practice being rude?”

“Actually, I’d like to know, too,” added Armstrong.

“Hey, Hobson.” Gary looked around to find the bomb squad officer extending his hand. “Thanks,” the man continued. “If you hadn’t noticed that leak, we could’ve had a serious situation on our hands.”

Gary shook the man’s hand. “I’m just glad I was there.”

“In the right place at the right time?” suggested Armstrong.

Gary looked him straight in the eye, almost daring him to make an issue of it. “Exactly.”

Instead, Armstrong sought further information from the officer. “What kind of leak?”

Gary hoped to take the opportunity to deflect attention from himself, but he turned to find Brigatti raising a speculative eyebrow.
“Well?” she asked characteristically.

“Well, what?” he responded in kind.

“You gonna tell me what you’re doing here?”

Gary shifted. “You gonna tell me how you hooked up with Arthur Murray over there?”

Automatically following Gary’s gesture, Brigatti’s gaze fell on Michael Torres as he whirled yet another woman around the dance floor. Brigatti shook her head. “Blind date,” she muttered softly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch that,” Gary taunted. “Did you say ‘blind date’?”

Brigatti’s look froze the smile on his face. “You tell me why you’re here and I’ll answer your question.”

Paul chose that moment to re-enter the conversation. “So just how’d you manage to notice that water leak, Hobson?”

Meredith rebuffed her husband with a look, and latching onto Gary’s arm, announced, “If you two are going to play detective at a social event, I’m leaving. Dance with me, Gary?”

Gratefully accepting the invitation, Gary escorted Meredith to the dance floor, leaving Armstrong and Brigatti with no one to interrogate.

“Someday I’m going to figure it all out,” Armstrong promised himself.

“Figure what out? Brigatti asked.

“Hob-never mind.” He smiled at her. “Wanna show ‘em how it’s done?”
 

Gary was relieved that a slow dance had begun just as he and Meredith had reached a clear spot. He didn’t fancy himself much of a dancer and didn’t want to embarrass himself, however much he wanted to avoid any more discussion of his “save” this evening. He would have left immediately had he not been spotted; but to do so now would only heighten suspicion, and since the Paper had no other emergencies for him....

“Are you here with someone?” Meredith asked Gary.

“No, I’m alone.” Then he looked closely at her. “Why?”

She chuckled softly. “I’m not interrogating, just asking. Don’t take it personally. Cops sometimes have a hard time separating their personal lives from the job.”

“So I’ve noticed.” Gary involuntarily glanced at Brigatti. Looking back at Meredith, he sheepishly added, “I guess they’re not the only ones.”

“Is that what happened between you and Erica?”

“Erica?” It had been almost a year since she’d abruptly left town; hearing her name again brought back memories that seemed more distant than they really were. He remembered the night that he and his then bar manager had had dinner with the Armstrongs after Gary had saved Meredith’s life. It was a disastrous night that had been the beginning of the end for his relationship with the blonde single mother. Now, though, he had to agree that it had never been much of a relationship. “No, not really,” he responded to Meredith’s question. “I guess, in the long run, it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Meredith nodded. Despite her matchmaking tendencies, she had suspected that something was missing-some spark, some intimacy; that compatibility and respect that could evolve into a deeper, lasting relationship. “Are you seeing anyone now?”

“You two are talking way too seriously.” Paul Armstrong had maneuvered himself and Brigatti right next to Gary and Meredith.
Meredith smiled enigmatically. “What? You two can’t stand being out of the loop?”

Paul smiled good-naturedly at his wife’s teasing. “I can’t stand seeing my wife in the arms of another man.”

Meredith beamed at his words and let herself be pulled away from Gary. Paul simultaneously guided Brigatti toward the now partnerless man. “Looks like he’s all yours, Toni.”

“Gee, thanks,” she told Paul sarcastically.

Brigatti and Gary looked at each other awkwardly.

“Go ahead, Toni,” urged Meredith. “He’s a good dancer; very smooth.” She winked at Gary, who was about to protest.

Only Paul caught the brief flush of embarrassment on Brigatti’s face. “I believe Toni’s already familiar with Hobson’s dancing.” He swung Meredith away before the daggers from Brigatti’s eyes could make contact.

With a final glare in Armstrong’s direction, Brigatti turned to Gary. “Are we going to stand here looking like a couple of idiots or are you going to dance with me?”

Not unlike a high school boy who was hog-tied by a lifetime of maternal instruction on good manners, Gary wagged his head back and forth noncommittally and murmured a none-too-generous “yeah”. He took her hand and, cautious not to get too close, carefully placed his arm around her waist.

Stiff and uncomfortable, neither of them looked as if they’d ever set foot on a dance floor. But soon Brigatti began to feel as conspicuous being kept at arm’s length as she had standing still in the middle of a roomful of dancers. In typical fashion, she launched the first volley.

“What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll bite?”

“Or punch, pinch, or kick,” Gary admitted.

“You look like you’d rather be facing a firing squad.”

“A firing-No, I....” The beginnings of a smirk tickled Gary’s lips. “You wouldn’t be wanting to dance closer to me, would you, Brigatti?” he asked as he moved in slightly.

“Close to you?” A small, deprecating laugh punctuated her denial. “I’d rather be close to a man-eating tiger,” she explained, moving closer to bolster her claims with the force of her presence.

“Like Paul Cantor?”

Brigatti looked as though she’d stepped in something disgusting. “Cantnor? Hardly.”

“Ah. So what’s-his-name then?”

“Who?”

“The dancing gigolo-your date.”

“There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Michael Torres planted himself firmly in their path.

“Speak of the devil,” Gary muttered.

Brigatti plastered on her best indulgent smile. “You must not have been able to see me for all the other women you were dancing with.”

Michael laughed-a lighthearted, carefree sound. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

Gary’s voice was hard as he interrupted. “Maybe a man ought to pay more attention to his date.”

“She’s having a wonderful time. Aren’t you...?” Without waiting for a response, or a reprimand for failing to remember her name, he continued, “I’ve been deprived of your company for too long.” To Gary, he added, “You don’t mind, do you?” and he took Brigatti’s arm and began drawing her to himself.

It took a moment for the action to register in Gary’s mind, stunned as he was by the man’s audacity-and Brigatti’s willingness to go with him. Disappointment and jealousy nagged at him like two gnats circling his head as Torres claimed Brigatti for himself.
“I know you’ve been disappointed that you couldn’t dance with me more,” Michael told her. He sighed dramatically. “It happens everywhere I go, I’m afraid. But I’m all yours now and-”

Brigatti cut him off and extricated herself from his grasp. Gary knew her body language well enough to find encouragement and awaited the outcome.

“Why don’t we just call it a night and you can continue dancing with any woman foolish enough to be flattered by it?”

Torres was aghast at Brigatti’s remarks. “You can’t be serious.” Seeing that she was completely serious, he huffed, “I’ve never... no one has ever...You're dumping me?”

“Sounds like you’re way overdue,” she told him, a distinct lack of sympathy in her voice.

Torres’ face hardened. “You can’t to this to me.”

Brigatti snorted. “Why not?”

Michael caught sight of Gary coming to rest at Brigatti’s elbow. He looked Gary up and down, disdain obvious in every feature. Brigatti followed his gaze as he asked, “What’s he got that I don’t?”

Brigatti returned her attention to her date. “He’s a gentleman.”

A pleased smile quickly overtook the look of surprise on Gary’s face. His eyes never left Brigatti as Torres skulked away.

“Walking ego,” Brigatti grumbled. She returned her attention to Gary, whose pleased expression had never wavered.

“You really think I’m a gentleman?”

“Well, sure," she responded, attempting to sound noncommittal. "I mean, compared to him-”

“That’s not much of an endorsement.”

Seeing his smile on the verge of fading pricked at her conscience. Something in her wanted to see him smile like that at her more often. “A gentleman might ask me to dance right now,” she gently suggested.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked as he took her in his arms.

The honesty they viewed in each other’s eyes, their nearness, the quickening of their breathing made them light-headed.

“I almost invited you to this shindig.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Would I have heard from you if it hadn't been for that incident at the movies?”

For the life of him, Gary couldn’t remember a single excuse he had used for not calling her. And suddenly he didn’t feel much like a gentleman. “I’m sorry, Toni. I...don’t have a good excuse.”

Brigatti blinked at the honest reply. But the hang-dog look on Gary’s face forestalled any indignant retort. Another person bore the brunt of her accumulated and unspent displeasure as Michael Torres chose that exact moment to restate his case.

“I know you’re upset that I danced with a few other women. Let me make it up to you,” he said, his plea the apologetic equivalent of crocodile tears.

Brigatti pulled back from Gary just enough to look Torres in the eye. “Let me put this in terms even you can understand. I have about as much interest in you as I have in open-heart surgery without anesthesia. Go away.”

When she turned back to Gary, Torres grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “Look, sweetie, you came here with me and you’re going to stay with me.”

Brigatti merely raised her eyebrow skeptically. To anyone else it would have been a warning sign, but Torres was blinded by the affront to his pride.

“Let her go.” Gary’s voice was quiet but firm. Torres ignored him. “The lady said to leave her alone,” Gary repeated, resolve hardening his tone ever so slightly.

But this time, Torres heard it-as a challenge. In one swift movement, he released Brigatti and punched Gary hard enough to send him sprawling into the couples behind them. Before Torres could swivel back to face Brigatti, a score of handguns cocked-all belonging to policemen who had served so long that they couldn’t even go to a dance without packing and all pointed at Torres. His ever-widening eyes eventually met Brigatti’s smug face.

“What?” she asked. “Forget you were in a room full of cops?” With the barest of looks to a familiar officer, who accepted receipt of the offending Torres with an imperceptible nod, Brigatti pivoted as though her infamous date had never existed. The band of policemen brandishing weapons parted to reveal Gary apologizing profusely and assisting startled women off the floor. The marked contrast between the two men pulled a small smile over Brigatti’s lips. She waited until everyone else had returned to their dancing and Gary had begun to survey the area for further “victims” before she approached.

The instant he saw her, his random thoughts converged to consider only her welfare. “Are you okay?” His voice was calm, but eyes searched for any evidence of harm.

She nodded. “I can take care of myself, you know,” she reminded him, her voice soft and tender.

“I know,” he replied in kind, leaving no doubt that he did indeed know that she could take care of herself, but that it wouldn’t stop him from being chivalrous.

Such depth of caring and character resonated strongly within her wary heart. She reached up, every so lightly balancing herself with her hands against his chest, and kissed him tenderly on the cheek. Afterward, she found herself unable to move, unwilling to abandon the nearness. Frozen in place, she felt her head resting against his cheek. Felt it as though she were a mere spectator, aware but having no control. Unable to act upon the growing realization that the beating of her heart might well drown out the strains of the orchestra.

Tired of trying to dance with a woman whose mind was so obviously elsewhere, Paul Armstrong stopped and forced his face in front of his wife’s preoccupied gaze. “Hel-loooo. Remember me? I’m the guy you’re married to, the father of your child.”

Meredith smiled and reflexively glanced away again.

“Okay, who is he?”

“Who?”

“The guy who keeps taking your attention away from me.”

Meredith laughed lightly and directed his attention toward the subject of her perusal. “Look.”

“What?” he asked with typical male perspective.

“Gary and Toni,” she answered as though it were obvious.

“Yeah?” Paul saw nothing obvious about it.

“Didn’t you tell me that they were once an item?”

“I said that was the rumor. But it was based mainly on some of Brigatti’s undercover work.”

“Right. The diamond thing. Well, it looks to me like it’s more than rumor.”

“Oh, no. Do not start in on the matchmaking, Meredith. Besides, Toni insists that there’s nothing between them and that nothing happened on that case. ”

“Maybe she protests too much.”

“They fight all the time.”

“Classic Tracey and Hepburn,” she said, dismissing his objection. “Look at them, Paul. There are enough sparks between those two to sear a pot roast.”

Somewhere in their private hiatus in the flow of time, Gary and Toni had started swaying to the music. The small part of Brigatti’s mind that was still conscious of her surroundings struggled to rebel at the passionate lyrics her ears perceived as emanating from some other world - something about need. Her familiarity with the song automatically filled in the words her conscious mind could not discern. I need you...like water, like breath, like rain. As always, she tried to tell herself that she needed no one. Yet the brief struggle was doomed before it began. The gentle pressure of Gary’s arms served as insulation, keeping her warring factions in check and allowing her to enjoy the comfort of the moment. She had changed so much since she’d first met Gary Hobson. How ironic that he’d been the one to get through to her about having a life outside of work when he.... She reined her thoughts in, unwilling to admit them even to herself.

Gary breathed in her perfume again as he had with every breath since he’d put his arms around her: light, delicate, barely there. Fresh and feminine. It was the same perfume she’d worn at the ball at the Hilton. Without realizing what he was doing, Gary’s face drifted closer, lured by the fragrance and her proximity.

Toni’s chest tightened as she felt his soft breath on her neck and she unconsciously eased still closer to him.

“Nice perfume,” he whispered in her ear.

Her mind blurred by Gary’s nearness, she struggled to form a reply. “I don’t wear perfume…Allergies.”

His lips were so close to her neck that Toni felt more than heard the soft moan that accompanied Gary’s grasp of the implication. Toni’s response was an intense desire to be alone with him.

As though reading her mind, Gary tentatively asked, “Wanna get out of here?”

“Uh-huh.”

Gary abruptly released her, took her arm, and ushered her off the dance floor-and right into the Armstrongs.

Seeing the discomfit on their faces, Paul shared a lop-sided grin with his wife.

Brigatti started at the sight of Paul’s teasing expression. “Paul!”

“Toni,” he replied smoothly. Casting a quick glance at Gary, he added, “Going somewhere?”

Brigatti turned her head as though seeking Gary then thinking better of it. Gary had flapped his jaw once as his eyes darted toward Brigatti, then looked impassively at Paul.

“Nowhere.” “Outside.” They said simultaneously.

“Outside.” “Nowhere.”

Brigatti meshed their alibis. “Nowhere in particular. Just outside...for some air.”

Gary cleared his throat. “Air.”

“Really? Well, we were just heading out for some dinner,” Meredith explained. “Why don’t you join us?”

“No, we couldn’t,” Gary began, plastering on a smile. “We wouldn’t want to intrude. Would we, Toni...Toni?”

“Dinner? Great idea. I’ll just get my coat.” Brigatti hurried off, leaving Gary agape.

“Meet you at the door.” Meredith patted Paul on the arm. “Pot roast.”

Gary’s perplexed expression at Meredith’s parting shot elicited a chortle from the black man. “Why don’t we go get the car, Hobson? You can get that air you wanted.”

Gary nodded vaguely. “Air. Very cold air.”

Armstrong, laughing heartily at the other man’s expense, clapped Gary on the shoulder before leading the way. “Come on, Romeo.”
 

**********
 

"I don't get it, Marissa," Gary told his best friend the next morning. "It was all...well, perfect. I was certain she...I mean we were going to-” Gary cast an uncomfortable glance at the woman and finished, “leave, when we ran into the Armstongs-”

“Detective Armstrong?”

“Yeah. And then she accepts their dinner invitation.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Gary looked at her incredulously, then shuffled uncomfortably as he realized that he was going to have to be more forthright. “We were leaving to...go to her place...or mine...you know.”

“Ohhh!” Marissa couldn’t help smiling at Gary’s discomfort.

“That’s what I thought anyway.”

“Well, what about after dinner?”

“After dinner?” Gary laughed humorlessly. “After dinner, she was Miss Untouchable again. You know, I’ve heard about keeping a man guessing, but this is ridiculous.”

“Gary, did you ever call her after your date?”

“Why?”

“Because it matters. Women do not want to be used.”

“Marissa, you know I would never-”

“Yes, but does Toni know? Gary, the two of you don’t really know each other very well, no matter how much attraction you might feel. She needs to know she’s not just a one-night stand.”

“I don’t do one-night stands.”

“I’m not the one who needs to know that. Gary, you need to pursue her. Unless you don’t really care. And if you didn’t really care, you wouldn’t be talking to me about it right now.”

“What if she’s really changed her mind?”

“Then you’ll know. Don’t make the same mistake twice, Gary. Call her.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Otherwise she may really believe that one night was all you wanted and she’ll be gone for good.”

Gary looked at his watch. “I have to go.”

“Gary....”

“Really. That thing with the EL. I’ll call her. I promise.”
 

**********
 

Sequestered in Armstrong’s office, taking advantage of the empty desk there to go through a stack of files, Detective Toni Brigatti once again found herself staring into her coffee cup. An irritated sigh escaped her lips. “What is wrong with me?”

“You’re in love.”

“With Hobson?”

“Did I mention any names?”

“I’m not in love with anyone, especially Gary Hobson.”

“Okay, you’re not in love with the guy. You’re infatuated with him.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why do you keep thinking about him?”

It was true: she had been thinking about the delici-- odd Mr. Hobson a lot lately. The question was why. So she’d panicked and sought refuge in dinner with the Armstrongs. No, she hadn’t panicked; police detectives do not panic. She had...reevaluated the situation and had decided to pursue another course of action. So what if she couldn’t forget the sensation of his breath on her neck or of his hand on her back as they’d danced? It was just a response to Michael Torres’ poor treatment of her. And so what if she still felt Hobson’s kiss six months later? Despite what she’d said, he was one hell of a kisser. But, she reminded herself, they were both playing parts then - newlyweds, to be exact. The breathlessness had been part of the act. And maybe she had enjoyed it when he had gently hooked the Lermontov diamond around her neck. That was only natural; it was a fabulous piece of jewelry, even for the fake it turned out to be. No, everything was explainable; all the evidence was strictly circumstantial.

“You know what I think?”

“No, and I don’t care,” Brigatti insisted as she rose to her feet and stretched out the muscles cramped from a Monday morning full of paper shuffling.

“He gets to you. Mr. Wholesome, Tall-Dark-and-All-American gets under your skin. You even like the fact that he’s a little eccentric.”

“A little?”

“He makes you feel things you’ve been afraid to feel for years. And it’s intoxicating.”

“Afraid? Gary Hobson does not frighten me. He couldn’t frighten a rabbit. And what else? Intoxicating? Ha! I’d come nearer being intoxicated by a glass of milk.”

“Then why were you so jealous of Amber?”

“Jade.”

“Whatever.”

“And who said I was jealous?”

“I suppose you’re going to deny everything that happened at the ball Saturday night, too.”

“Nothing happened.”

A raised eyebrow and a knowing smirk provided sufficient reply.

Brigatti decided that little voice inside her head was becoming a real pest. She’d shoot it, but that would be rather self-defeating.

“And what difference does it make if I think about him anyway? I think about lots of men.”

“Yeah, but most of them are obnoxious coworkers or hardened criminals. And your thoughts of them are usually less than friendly.”

“I’ve had less than friendly thoughts about Hobson, too.”

“But that’s only because you’re jealous or-”

“Shut up!”

Heads turned at Brigatti’s shout. Concern and curiosity changed to puzzlement as her coworkers saw her all alone, seemingly shouting at apparitions. Brigatti smiled sickly as she sat and began scrutinizing the stack of papers on her desk.
 

**********
 

Gary watched with relief as the headline changed from the reporting of a fatality to a recounting of a city official’s speech. As he turned the page, Lucius Snow’s final words called to him. Somewhere between the pages of our newspaper, find the time to live life. “Somewhere between the pages,” Gary muttered to himself. He flipped the pages back and forth a few times as the realization struck. He was turning a page, timing his next save. What would he do with his life in between? Gary looked at the next article and, checking his watch, calculated that he had half an hour before he needed to begin making his way to the factory that was his next stop. A smile graced his features as he raised his head. With purpose and light-heartedness, the man who gets tomorrow’s newspaper today went in search of the nearest payphone.
 

Toni Brigatti had just filed away the paperwork she’d been saddled with all morning. She approached her desk, file in hand, to begin reviewing Sharkey’s statements from Friday night. They’d been able to charge him and keep him in custody as a flight risk pending trial, but they didn’t yet have enough to go after their real targets. At least, not that anyone had told her. She hoped she’d find a clue in the file.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

Winslow’s words brought her out of her strategizing. The man looked a little thin on his first day back at work. “Hey, Winslow. How ya feelin’?”

“For now, being mobile and without fever goes a long way.” He caught the name on the file. “Sharkey?”

“Yeah. There’s gotta be something we’re missing. He’s too involved with Freely to not give us more to go on.”

“You’re just bucking to get that empty desk in Armstrong’s office.”

She grinned. “Better me than you, Bubba.”

“Sorry I missed the ball; I hear it was something.”

Brigatti would have blinked at the sudden change of subject had it been anyone but Winslow. “It was nice.”

“I hear there was a bit of a ruckus.” Not getting a rise out her, he added, “Involving your date and that Hobson guy.” He was pleased to see her jaw set.

“My date was a jerk and received a nice police escort from the premises. Hobson...was there for something.”

“For what?”

Brigatti’s brow creased. “I don’t know.”

“You mean you were practically dancing inside his tux and you don’t know why the guy was there?” he asked incredulously.

Brigatti’s mouth dropped open in shock at his characterization. “I was not... Who said that?”

Winslow held up his hands defensively. “Hey, that’s just what I heard, Brigatti.”

“I am sick and tired of being the focal point of gossip around here!” she thundered, striding off with a new resolve to avoid that scenario by whatever means necessary.

Brigatti’s desk phone chose that moment to ring. While she completely ignored it on her way out, Winslow helpfully answered and prepared to take a message.

An uneasy silence acknowledged his greeting. “Can I speak to Detective Brigatti?” the man on the other end finally asked.

Winslow involuntarily looked toward the scene of her departure. “Brigatti’s not available right now. Can I help? Or take a message?”

Gary hesitated to leave a message, but he would soon be short on time. The pages of the Paper were calling. “Yeah. Would you tell her that Gary Hobson called?”

Winslow’s curiosity hit boiling temperature at the name. “Sure.” Then his mischeviousness kicked in. “Hobson? Can you spell that?” Winslow could almost hear the other man rolling his eyes.

“H-o-b- She knows me.”

“Really? How well?”

Gary blinked, then pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it as if it connected to Alice’s wonderland rather than the Chicago P.D. Putting the phone back to his ear, he asked, “Who is this?”

“Don’t worry. I will personally see that she gets your message.”

Somehow that promise didn’t comfort Gary. “Thanks.”

Winslow hung up the phone, determined to do some more investigating of his own. His finely honed rumor radar was set to humming by all that was not said. Spying a possible source, he started moving even as he called, “Hey, Armstrong!”
 

**********
 

“Paul?”

“Toni. Come in.” Armstrong motioned her to sit and pushed aside his paperwork, giving her his full attention.

“I think I found something,” she told him, moving away from the chair to pace before she’d had a chance to take the proffered chair. “We know that Freely’s involved in drugs, prostitution, gambling-”

“Just about every vice you can name,” Armstrong interjected.

“Right. And we know that at least a portion of his business is headquartered in that strip joint he owns.”

“Which is why we’re working with Vice to get someone in there. McWherter thinks we can at least nail him for prostitution out of that location.”

“Well, we need to nail him for a lot more than prostitution if we’re going to put him away for any length of time.”

“Tell me about it. Let’s just hope that we can also get a lead on his other activities in the process.”

“What if we attacked on multiple fronts?” Brigatti asked. Armstrong looked at her quizzically. She opened the file in her hand and placed it in front of him. Pointing to a particular section of the document, she explained, “Look at what Sharkey said. ‘There’s more to prostitution than streetwalkers.’”

Armstrong mulled over the criminal’s statement as Brigatti waited in anticipatory silence. Finally he looked up at her. “You think he’s talking about-”

“Call girls,” she finished for him. “High-priced call girls.”

Armstrong leaned back in his chair and pondered the possibility. A grimace overtook his expression of concentration as he thought about the sleazy criminal being involved with what would be considered a “classy” crime. “Freely?” he asked incredulously.

Brigatti nodded.

“Who in his right mind would hook up with a call girl from Freely?”

“I know, he gives slime a bad name. So, he’d have to be working with someone else. And if he’s working with someone else.…” She drifted off, allowing Armstrong to fill in the blanks.

“Then we could make a deal with that someone else so that we can get to Freely.” Armstrong smiled broadly. “And if he catches on to the mole in the strip club, we have another, more removed avenue. If he doesn’t, we just get that much more on him. Good work, Toni. You may get that desk over there yet.”

Her victory smile widened. “You’ve had this office to yourself for too long, budget constraints or no budget constraints.”
Paul Armstrong still felt a dull anger remembering the detective who used to sit across from him. A dirty cop was always a bad thing; discovering that a man you almost considered a partner was a dirty cop-that was jolting. Savalas wasn’t just on the take, though; he had instituted a murder-for-hire scheme. He had tried to frame Gary Hobson for one of the murders, and had almost succeeded. Funny how intertwined their lives were. Hobson would have been convicted of murder if Toni hadn’t believed in his innocence and kept digging; Savalas would have killed all three of them if Hobson hadn’t risked capture or worse to expose the real killer. Armstrong was glad that Savalas’ desk had been empty for several months; it had allowed him time to deal with the betrayal. But Toni was right; it had been too long. He looked at her. “If you keep on like this, you ought to be at the top of the list to get that desk.”

She smiled smugly. “Maybe I already am.”

Armstrong laughed. As Winslow’s questions and suppositions wove their way back into his awareness, Armstrong counted on
Brigatti’s good mood to allow him to delve into her personal life. “So, Toni,“ how’s Hobson?”

She hadn’t expected the question. It threw her. “He’s fine, I guess.”

“You don’t know? I mean, I got the impression Saturday night that the two of you were getting pretty close.”

“You were wrong,” she insisted, her tone indicating that the subject was not open for discussion.

“Okay.” It was quite possible that she didn’t return Hobson’s apparent interest. It was also possible that the interest was mutual, but fleeting. Then again, something was making her taciturn regarding Hobson. Not that Toni Brigatti was given to talking about her personal life. Whatever the situation, it was best to drop it; he’d find out sooner or later if anything was going on between them. He handed Sharkey’s file back to her. “See what you can find out about the call girl angle.”

Brigatti felt the tension depart her shoulders as the conversation returned to work. “Will do.”

Her cell phone rang before she’d taken the first step, the voice she heard put an end to her short-lived relief. “Hobson?” Her eyes flew up to meet Armstrong’s smug grin. Feeling the heat rise to her face, she beat a hasty retreat to the hallway. “How’d you get this number?”

“You gave it to me. Back when Crumb was in trouble,” he reminded her, referring to their second encounter when they’d saved an ex-cop friend of Gary’s from a bank robber.

“Oh, right. What do you want, Hobson?”

Gary almost flinched at the harsh tone. Someday he was going to figure out why she did that. He wondered briefly if he should go through with it. Then again, even if Brigatti turned him down, he wouldn’t have Marissa nagging him to call. “Well, I...I was wondering if you were free, uh....”- Gary glanced at tomorrow’s paper; tonight was definitely too busy-“...this weekend.” Gary hoped he’d actually be free, that the Paper wouldn’t commandeer him. “I...I thought we might do something...together.”

A little smile played on Brigatti’s lips. “Are you asking me out again, Hobson?”

“Yes, I am. You want to go?”

Interest and caution warred momentarily as she debated the merits of the case.

“Brigatti?”

“I’m thinking.”

It was the last answer he expected. “Oh.” Quickly becoming miffed with her continued deliberation, Gary supplied, “Listen, if you want a financial statement, I can just tell you that it won’t be flattering.”

“I’m free Sunday night,” she finally told him.

“Sunday night? Okay. Okay, Sunday’s good. What time should I pick you up?”

She thought of all the speculation regarding her personal life, and her relationship with Gary Hobson in particular, now circulating throughout the station, if not the entire police force. Keeping it low-key was probably best. “I’ll make dinner.”

“You?”

“What? You don’t think I can?”

“No, no, I-”

“I’m Italian, Hobson. Of course I can cook. You like ravioli?

“Ravioli? Sure. I just didn’t think of you as the cooking type.”

“You always go around typing people?”

“No, I-”

“ Just what type do you think I am?”

“That’s not what I meant. I just...I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”

Somewhat mollified, she elaborated, “Homemade. None of that frozen stuff.”

“Well, I’m looking forward to it, Brigatti.”

Her eyes twinkled in response to the flirtation in his voice. Just as she was about to find a chair and really enjoy the conversation, a uniformed officer approached.

“Lieutenant wants you,” he told her.

Brigatti nodded her understanding. Into the phone, she said, “I gotta go. Eight o’clock?”

“Eight o’clock.”

The decision behind her, Brigatti floated toward the lieutenant’s office, her broad smile leading the way.
 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Gary turned quickly. He hadn’t noticed Marissa entering McGinty’s cluttered office. “No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was good. She’s cooking dinner for me Sunday night.”

“Cooking dinner? Wow! See, I told you, you should call.”

“Yes, you did. Thank you, Marissa.” Gary stretched out in the chair and placed his hands behind his head. He looked at his friend and business partner with a self-satisfied smile on his face. “She’s making ravioli, from scratch.”

Marissa eagerly sat in the free chair. “Tell me everything.”
 

**********
 

Paul Anderson leaned over to whisper in Toni Brigatti’s ear. “So what do you think of your new assignment?”

She glanced around the room before looking at the tall, handsome black man. “I’m thrilled with it. Can’t you tell?” It was not what she had in mind when she’d spent so much of her week eagerly pursuing other methods of getting to George Freely.  “Why me, Armstrong?”

“We need the best.”

“Forget the flattery. I’m not buyin’.”

“Even if it’s true?” Brigatti started to turn away. “Okay, so it’s an unusual assignment-”

“Unusual!” she began. More loudly than she’d intended.

“Hey, it was McWherter’s idea, not mine. But you’re good, Toni, and we need to nail this bastard.”

“That I agree with. But why couldn’t Vice handle it?”

“You heard what they said. They think they need a fresh face to minimize detection.”

Brigatti harrumphed softly, obviously not believing the excuse.

“You could say no.”

“And end my career? Turn down an assignment this big and I can forget any dream of a promotion.”

“I know it’s a tough one, but if we get Freely….”

Brigatti sighed in resignation. She hated being manipulated. But Armstrong was right; if they had a chance to bring George Freely down, then they had to do it. Besides, it was her detective work that led to this opening. But she was not looking forward to her cover at all.

She narrowed her eyes as she looked up at his refined features. “Just once, I wish one of you guys could play the victim.”

 “Are we boring you, Brigatti? Armstrong?”

The two detectives turned to see Tom McWherter eyeing them stonily. Both mumbled apologies as the other detectives in the meeting smirked at them. Satisfied, McWherter stroked his sporadic goatee and continued with his briefing. “I’ll be conducting the first stage of this operation…”
**********
 

The men, who comprised most of the people on the room, guffawed, while Brigatti glowered and the other female detective, Sandra Mulhaney, rolled her eyes.

“Who-hoo! Can we come watch?”

“Try it, Winslow, and I’ll superglue your eyelids shut,” Brigatti snapped.

“Don’t worry,” Mulhaney told Brigatti. “Just think of the opportunities for using such a talent in your personal life.” She flashed a mischievous smile.

Brigatti smiled indulgently. “Not my style.”

The other woman tossed a handful of thick blonde hair over her shoulder and shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Watching the group’s reaction, Detective Paul Anderson was glad he’d decided to leave that particular part of his briefing until the end. “Okay, settle down. Everyone clear on their assignments? Anything else, Tom?”

“No, that’s it for now,” the detective from Vice answered as he pushed his heavyset form away from the wall he’d been leaning against. “See everybody back here on Monday, ready to go.”

Detective Antonia Brigatti picked up her briefing notes and started for the door. Some of the men teased her and found themselves limping home with bruised egos.

“Toni?” Paul Armstrong motioned for her to come forward, which she did after a final glare at her tormentors. “I know you’re uncomfortable with this,” he began.

Brigatti waved him off. “I’ll get over it.” As long as no one I know sees me, she added silently.

Armstrong read the misgivings under her professional manner. “One or two nights. That’s it. It’ll only be to get your foot in the door; then Mulhaney will cover it.”

“So I can be the slut covering the hotels. Gee, thanks, Paul. I feel so much better now.”

Paul held up an admonitory finger. “Not slut. Call girl. Very expensive call girl.”

Just then Sandra Mulhaney stuck her head in the door. “Brigatti! First lesson’s tomorrow. Call me.”

“Somebody is going to owe me big,” she declared.

**********
 

Gary took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. It had been an interminable few days. Every morning when he opened the Paper, he expected to have any personal plans overruled. This morning he hesitated to open the door, fearing what would be in the Paper and when he’d have to take care of it. But here he was on Brigatti’s doorstep.

He’d had to stop a bus from plowing through an intersection and killing a pedestrian about half an hour ago. And he’d arranged for Marissa to give him a call about ten o’clock so he could stop a mugging down the street. But other than that, he was free and clear tonight. Gary frowned at the door: Brigatti hadn’t answered yet. Confirming that the lights were in fact on, he rang the doorbell again. As he waited, he maneuvered into the light to look at the Paper. Perhaps something had happened to her, or would happen to her. If he had missed seeing it.... The door opened as he was searching the headlines.

“You take that thing everywhere you go, Hobson?”

Gary hastily folded the Paper. “Habit.”

Brigatti opened the screen door. “Come on in.”

“I was beginning to think something was wrong,” Gary told her as he entered. “Maybe I had the wrong time...or something.”

“Oh, I was, uh... tied up in the kitchen.”

Gary smiled affectionately. “So I see,” he said, gesturing toward her cheek, where a dash of flour had settled.

Brigatti laughed self-consciously and ineffectively ran the back of her hand over the area.

“Oh, here, I brought this.” Gary pulled a bottle of wine from under his arm where he’d tucked it while reading the Paper.
Brigatti took the bottle and appraised it. “Good stuff.”

Although Gary basked in her approval, his only comment was a self-deprecating shrug and a mention of McGinty’s stock.

“Make yourself at home. I have to go check on the, uh, dinner.”

“Yeah, go ahead.” Gary watched her walk into the kitchen, and a pleasant view it was. He took off his jacket, slipped the Paper inside the sleeve, and laid it across the back of a chair.

Brigatti looked at the devastation that was her kitchen. It would take forever to clean up the mess, and she didn’t even have the ravioli to show for it. She attempted for the umpteenth time to stuff the ravioli. In her frustration and haste, she knocked over pans and utensils, spilling what ravioli she had managed to complete.

The noise and subsequent cursing prodded Gary toward the kitchen. “Can I-?” The kitchen was a shambles. Gary looked around in amazement, his eyes finally lighting on his hostess. “Need some help?”

“No, thanks. Everything’s under control.”

“Under control? It looks like a volcano erupted and spewed pasta all over the place.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Not so bad?”

“I’d like to see you do better.”

“I can cook.”

“What? Hot dogs?”

Gary gestured around the room. “You’re going to question my cooking ability?”

“It’s been a while,” she countered lamely. Gary didn’t respond. “I really do know how...”

“I believe you.” Gary was less than convincing.

Brigatti took a good look around her. He was right; it was a disaster. “My grandmother would kill me.”

“Why?”

“From the time I was six, I got weekly lectures about needing to know how to make ravioli so I could catch a nice Italian man.” Brigatti ran a hand through her hair. “If she saw this, I’d never hear the end of it.”

Gary surveyed the damage again. “Good thing I’m not Italian.”

She saw the corner of his mouth turn up and his eyes crinkle in preparation for a smile. Her frustration and embarrassment melted in a fit of laughter. When Gary joined in, she threw a sliver of uncooked pasta at him. The look on his face sent her into renewed gales of laughter.

“Oh, God, what a mess!” Brigatti remarked when guffaws finally subsided to chuckles.

“So what’s for dinner?”

“Pizza.”

“Delivery? Or are you making that from scratch, too?”

“You’re pushing it, Hobson,” she teased.

“Pizza it is. I’ll help you clean up.”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll do it later.”

“Brigatti, you made this-” He stopped himself before he said “mess”, then continued, “-for me. I don’t want you to spend all night cleaning it up.” He picked up the nearest bowl. “Call in that pizza order; I’ll get started.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“I did get the salad and dessert made.”

“I didn’t come here for the food; I came for the company.” He paused to see that she had understood and accepted his remark. “But I am getting hungry, so you’d better order that pizza,” he warned, pointing toward the phone.
 

**********
 

It had been so pleasant, so comfortable cleaning up the kitchen with Gary that Brigatti was almost sorry when the pizza came. But she learned so much about him as they ate that the feeling quickly vanished.

“So you just put the babies in his arms and let him take all the credit?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Gary shrugged. “I didn’t want the publicity.”

Brigatti accepted that without question; she’d already figured out that Gary Hobson was the farthest a person could get from a publicity hound without being a recluse. “He just passed out?”

“He’s afraid of bodily fluids.”

Brigatti had to laugh. “You’re joking!”

“No. No, I’m serious. The minute her water broke, he was out cold.”

She shook her head. “I know what Jade saw in you, but what on earth does she see in him?”

“Well, you have to know Chuck. Chuck is very- What  do you mean what Jade saw in me? She was just playing a role, you know.”

Brigatti was wishing she hadn’t opened that can of worms. “So, tell me about your family.”
 

**********
 

“He didn’t!” she protested.

“Oh, yes. Yes, he did. Took me years to get over the humiliation.”

Brigatti laughed. “Your father must be a real character.”

“You can say that again.”

“Okay, one embarrassing story deserves another.”

Gary leaned forward, eagerly awaiting Brigatti’s tell-all. She’d been so relaxed, so vivacious all evening-well, since the end of the pasta disaster. It was like seeing for miles on a clear day rather than catching glimpses of the road ahead through a patchy fog. Gary was fascinated.

“When I was twelve, my sister Francesca and I were madly in love with two of the boys at church-” The ringing of the telephone caused only the slightest interruption in her story as she walked over to answer it. “We decided on the way to Mass one Sunday to get their attention. Hello? Oh, sure. Just a minute.” She waved the phone at Gary. “It’s for you. Marissa.”

“Marissa?” Gary looked at his watch: ten o’clock. He’d been having such a good time, he’d completely forgotten about her call, and the Paper. He rose and, taking the phone, thanked Brigatti. “Marissa?”

Brigatti mouthed that she was taking their plates to the kitchen.

Gary nodded and pretended to be listening to Marissa.

“Gary? Are you there?” Marissa was asking.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m here.”

“I was supposed to call you.”

“Oh, right. The mugging,” he whispered as he moved farther from the kitchen.

“Well, don’t worry about it. I called the police, told them I heard a disturbance. They’re sending someone over there.”

“You what?”

“I didn’t think you should be disturbed. And I figured a phone call might handle this one.”

He reached over for his jacket and took out the Paper.

“Did it?” she asked, suddenly worried that she had made the wrong decision.

The article was still there. “No. It’s still here.” He really didn’t want to leave, but he had no choice. He prayed that Brigatti would be understanding. “Okay, Marissa, I’ll be right there,” he said a loudly. He stuck the newspaper in his back pocket and took a deep breath. “Brigatti?”

She reentered the room, a dessert plate in each hand. “What’s up?”

“Uh, Marissa. She’s, uh, she’s got a little problem I need to help her with...minor emergency. I’m sorry.”

Brigatti face fell briefly, but concern quickly replaced the disappointment. “Anything I can do?”

“NO! Uh, I mean, no, it’s not serious, just...I just have to go...now.”

“Then go. Somebody needs help, they need help.”

“Sorry about dessert. That looks good.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go, Hobson. You’re keeping the lady waiting.”

“Go. Right.” He reluctantly left, closing the door behind him.

Brigatti looked at the dessert she still held. “Well, I guess it’s just you and me.”

The front door reopened. Poking his head through, Gary asked, “You... you think you could hold on to that dessert for me?”

A pleasantly surprised Brigatti threw a note of challenge into her voice. “It won’t last long.”

“That...that’s good. I won’t be long.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”
 

True to his word, Gary had returned in short order, though a little worse for wear. He had explained away the torn sleeve on his jacket and the ugly scratch on his hand as a result of mistaken identity.

“Uh-huh” had been her final response to his story. It left him both relieved and curious. Armstrong certainly would have questioned him. Brigatti didn’t seem to want to dig deeper at all, which didn’t fit in with her exceptional track record as a detective. Maybe her outlook sprang from the same place as her eventual faith in his innocence regarding the Scanlon murder had. Or maybe she’d just decided she simply didn’t want to delve into it tonight. The latter seemed like a good idea to Gary, so he shelved the whole question of her apparent lack of interest and focused his attention on his hostess and the wonderful dessert that she had prepared for him.

“You were going to tell me something about you and your sister,” he reminded her.

Brigatti grimaced. “I was hoping you’d forgotten that.”

“Not a chance. As you said, one embarrassing story deserves another. Confess.”

She sighed good-naturedly. Then she wagged her fork at him. “You will not pass this story on to others.”

“My lips are sealed,” he assured her.

“Okay, we were on our way to Mass and….”
 
 

**********
 

Midnight came and went without notice. In fact, neither of them noticed the time until a lull in the conversation elicited simultaneous yawns, and the requisite apologies.

“What time is it?” Brigatti asked from behind her hand.

Gary checked his watch. A small measure of disbelief colored his answer. “It’s after one o’clock.”

Brigatti had already verified the time on her own watch. She gave a little self-conscious laugh. “I had no idea.”

Gary glanced away, dipping his head slightly. “Time flies,” he suggested, leaving the rest of the adage understood, as he pulled his gaze back to her.

Brigatti’s shy smile acknowledged her agreement with the sentiment. She was torn between never wanting the night to end and wishing it had never started. Once she had begun laughing over the mess she had made in the kitchen, her nervousness had disappeared-until now.

“Thanks for the dinner.”

“Best pizza in town,” she quipped.

“Yeah, the pizza wasn’t bad either.”

The sincere appreciation in his eyes stole the retort right off the tip of Brigatti‘s tongue. She looked rather like a rabbit deciding whether to freeze or run for the hills.

“Well, I guess I should go,” Gary said into the silence.

He shifted in preparation for rising from the couch, but she made no move to stand. Instead she stared into Gary’s mud-puddle green eyes only to find herself looking repeatedly instead at his full, bow-shaped lips.

Gary caught the movement and started to lean in to kiss her, stopping to gauge her intent when she hadn’t responded. She closed the distance like a lioness pouncing on her prey. But the kiss, when Gary caught her in his arms, was warm and gentle, almost tentative. It was the kiss of two people who wanted and feared in almost equal measure; a tiny but significant battle between cowardice and hope, between the danger of opening oneself up to the possibilities of the unknown and the safety of cocooning oneself in the quiet discontent of unfulfilled aspirations.

Even as Gary slipped slowly along the path of possibility, Brigatti’s senses took in the feel of his stubbled cheek on her hand, the warmth of his fingers as they moved across her back. She pulled away abruptly. “You should go.”

Dazed from both the kiss and her sudden end to it, Gary wasn’t following. “Huh?”

She reigned in her breathing, clamped down on the conflicting emotions within her. “It’s late. You should go.” Without looking at him, she stood and retrieved his jacket.

Confused, Gary watched her as he followed and reached out to take his jacket. “Toni, is something wrong?”

She refused to look at him.

“Toni, talk to me. What happened? W-- What’d I do?”

Finally, she raised her head. The blinds had been lowered again. “Good night, Hobson.”

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” she asked, defiance ringing in each word.

It set him on edge. The lines of his face hardened. “Okay.” He thrust his arms into his jacket and roughly snapped it into place. “Whatever you want, Brigatti.” With a frustrated exhale, Gary turned and put his hand on the doorknob. Wanting to understand, he turned back.

Before he could speak, Brigatti, her head lowered once again, whispered, “Please, Gary. Go.”

More confused than ever, Gary slowly opened the door. For her to call him by his first name was unusual enough. To do so with that look on her face.... The only word he could think of to describe it was “pain”.

Gary actually winced when the door closed behind him. It would be a very restless night as he tried to understand what had happened, to shed some kind of light on Toni’s abrupt change in demeanor.
 

**********
 

He was still perturbed the next morning as he shared a cup of coffee with Marissa. The poised black woman kept after him until he confessed the reason for his preoccupation.

“She...when I....” He regrouped. “Marissa, you’re a woman-”

“Thanks.”

“Why do some women pull you in, encourage you, even act jealous around other women, and then slam the door in your face?"

“Toni does that?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Depends-on the woman, on the circumstances…Lots of variables.”

“Oh, that’s a big help,” he groused.

“Well, she could be playing with you. But Toni Brigatti doesn’t strike me as the type.”

“No, she’s not. What else?”

“Fear,” she suggested.

“Brigatti? No.”

“Everybody’s afraid of something, Gary.”

“So what’s she afraid of, Dr. Clark?”

“You tell me. It’s not like you’re Mr. Fearless in the relationship department.”

Gary bit back his retort.

“Did you do anything to frighten or offend her?”

“Other than run off in the middle of our date?”

“You didn’t do anything?” a skeptical Marissa asked.

“I told you. I got there, I helped clean up-” he plowed on quickly to forestall any questions on that point- “we ate, we talked, I left. I came back, we had dessert, we talked. I started to leave, I kissed her…that’s it.”

“You kissed her.”

“Well, actually we kissed each other. Then all of a sudden, she asks me to leave.”

A ghost of a smile tickled Marissa’s lips. “How was it?”

“How was what?”

“The kiss.”

Gary shifted uncomfortably. “It was okay.”

“Just okay?” She continued before Gary could start hemming and hawing. “And the last time the two of you were together, she…how can I put this? She backed out of a private rendezvous.”

Gary cast her a sidelong glance. “Rubbing salt in the wound doesn’t help.”

Marissa sighed at his lack of perception. “There’s a pattern here, Gary. Put two and two together. Figure out what you’ve been afraid of all this time and you’ll probably have your answer.”

Gary glared at her. “I’m not afraid.”

“No?” she responded as she rose and tapped her cane as a prelude to her departure. “Then you should begin by being honest with yourself about that kiss.”
 

**********
 

Fifteen messages in four days: at her home, at the office, on her cell phone. Not one of them was returned. Twice she had answered and made some lame excuse that immediately ended the phone call. Eventually, her calls were routed to the front desk; she never returned any of those calls either; he wasn’t even sure the messages had been taken. He’d even sent her a fax, to no avail. The one time he had ventured to her townhouse, she hadn’t been home. Gary was ready to give up; but the lack of any answers kept nagging at him. There was one thing he hadn’t yet tried: visiting Brigatti in person at the police station. It wasn’t like he didn’t have time; the Paper had been ridiculously uneventful, like it was slowly crawling to a halt. But if his calls were being screened, it was unlikely that he’d get the opportunity to see her. Unless he lay in wait for her, which didn’t seem like the best of ideas.

Any attempt was forestalled, however, when his parents chose to surprise him with a long weekend visit. Gary loved his
parents, but dreaded their insightful, if pushy, meddling into his personal affairs. So he did his best not to seem distracted and plied them with activities normally infeasible because of his duties with the Paper. But Gary’s luck ran out at breakfast Monday morning.

“Son,” Lois Hobson began, “is there something bothering you?”

“No, no, nothing’s bothering me.”

“Are you sure? You’ve been distracted the entire time we’ve been here. Did we come at a bad time?”

“What? No, Mom. I’m glad you’re here,” he told her, smiling gamely.

Bernie Hobson, returning from the kitchen, sat on the other side of his son. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” said Gary.

“Does Gary seem distracted to you?” Lois asked.

Bernie studied his son while Gary rolled his eyes and tried to keep his annoyance in check. “Mom, I am not distracted.”

“There hasn’t been much activity from the Paper since we’ve been here,” Bernie suggested. “Maybe it’s the Paper. Gary doesn’t know what to do with all this free time. Good thing we came, huh, Son?” Bernie clapped Gary on the shoulder.
The younger man forced a laugh and responded, “That’s right, Dad. The Paper’s been too quiet.”

Lois remained skeptical. “Then why is he still distracted even though he’s had company? He’s gone out of his way keep us all on the run all weekend. Frankly, I’m exhausted.”

“Would you stop talking about me like I’m not here?”

“Did anything happen before we got here, Gar?”

Lois was suddenly concerned for her only child. “Honey, did something awful happen with the Paper? Why don’t you tell us about it?”

“Nothing awful happened, Mom.”

Lois narrowed her eyes and scrutinized him carefully.

Gary felt it and did a double-take when he saw the intensity of her gaze. He leaned away from her slightly.

“Well, something’s bothering you,” Lois announced. “I’m your mother; I can tell.”

Bernie raised his left index finger. “I know. It’s woman trouble.”

Gary closed his eyes, hoping the idea would die a quick death.

Bernie nudged Gary in the side and gave him a huge, just-between-us-guys grin. “You got a problem with a woman, Son?”

“Nope.”

“Hmm!” Marissa had been quiet throughout the whole exchange, so her quiet snort caught Lois’ attention as though it had been clarion call.

Lois looked at the blind woman and, seeing the irked expression, quickly ascertained that Marissa knew more than she was telling. Lois turned back toward Gary to catch him glaring at Marissa. Gary’s attempt to act nonchalant didn’t faze his mother one bit.

“Spill,” she told him.

“I have some work to do in the office,” Gary replied, moving quickly off the barstool and toward the office door.

“Gary Matthew Hobson!” his mother began in that dreaded “because I’m the mom” tone.

Bernie waved her off. “I’ll talk to him.”

Lois turned from Bernie’s retreating form to find Marissa attempting to sneak away. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Marissa’s incriminating smile preceding her back to the stool next to Lois. “Nowhere,” she replied, dreading the inquisition to come.
 

**********
 

By the time his parents had finished with him, Gary knew he’d never get a moment’s rest until he got out of the Bar, even if it was under false pretenses. Between his father’s well-meaning, somewhat macho advice and his mother’s pouty I-want-you-to-get-married-and-make-me-a-grandmother face, Gary didn’t stand a chance-not with Marissa taking their side as well. Besides, his mother had threatened to stay until he attempted to resolve the situation. So, trying to figure out a way to see Brigatti without seeming like he was stalking her, he stood on the opposite side of the street from the police station where she worked. He had paced up and down the block several times, trying on different scenarios with each lap, before he saw the flower shop across the intersection on the far side of the street. Inspiration struck.
 

**********
 

“I have a delivery for Detective Brigatti.”

The officer at the desk looked up to see a large bouquet of flowers atop a man’s body. He attempted to look around either side, but the colorful bouquet was too large. “Just set ‘em down. I’ll see that she gets them.”

“I…I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” the officer queried in that no-nonsense, I’ve-heard-it-all tone that career officers often developed.

“Well, I, uh…Singing telegram.”

“What?”

“The flowers come with a singing telegram.”

The officer’s brow creased. Okay, so he hadn’t heard it all.

Worried at the delay, Gary added, “If you want to sing it for her-”

“No! No, I’ll call her.” The sergeant started to pick up the phone, then asked, “Who are they from?”

“Uh…her sister.”

Without comment, the officer dialed the appropriate number. “Brigatti, you got a delivery up here.” Before answering another line, he told the delivery man, “She’s on her way.”

With a discreet sigh of relief, the flower-topped man waited at the desk’s edge. He shifted the flowers, the constant pressure of holding them up taking its toll on his arm muscles.

“Whatcha got?”

The flowers tensed at the sound of Brigatti’s voice and angled themselves to remain in her view as she passed.

“Flowers,” responded the desk sergeant.

Brigatti had registered their presence no differently than the rest of her surroundings: as a seasoned detective passively taking in her surroundings; a routine precaution, almost unconscious. But knowing now that they belonged to her, she looked at them with keen interest. The giant bouquet was composed of an astonishing array of flowers representing the entire color spectrum. The site made her swallow hard.

She leaned over the desk and whispered tot he officer, “Any idea who they’re from?’

“Your sister, supposedly.”

“My sister?”

He shrugged and added, “Comes with a singing telegram.”

Brigatti grimaced. “Figures.”

She moved to the flower-covered man. “I’m Detective Brigatti. Those for me?”

The man slowly moved the flowers aside.

“Hobson?”

Gary balanced the flowers in one arm and held the other up in a placatory gesture. “I’ll just be a minute, Brigatti.”

She gazed at him a moment, then cut her eyes toward the flowers. “Nice flowers.”

Gary dropped his eyes and resumed a two-handed hold on the vase. “I didn’t know what kind you liked, so I figured I’d cover all the bases.” He looked at her from under his long, dark lashes.

Brigatti turned her face and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear to cover the grin that threatened to escape. She inhaled deeply and asked, “So do I get to keep the flowers when you’re through with your spiel?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Gary replied, offering the vase to her.

She walked purposefully around him, then turned and declared, “No, I want the singing telegram first.”

“Huh?”

Brigatti gestured toward the officer who had called her. “Officer Newell tells me that a singing telegram goes with the flowers. Let’s hear it.”

Gary’s eyes went wide. He looked over at the officer, who was busy handling a citizen’s inquiry. “Brigatti, I only said that to-”

“Hey, Harry,” she called. When the officer had turned, she asked, “Didn’t he say there was a singing telegram, too?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“You lying to a cop, Hobson?”

“Uh…” He glanced over his shoulder at the officer who merely raised an eyebrow in return.  Gary forced a laugh, which eroded into a blatantly counterfeit smile. “No, of course not. I’d never lie to a-”

“Then let’s hear it,” Brigatti commanded. Standing as she was with her arms crossed defiantly, she looked every inch the hard-nosed detective.

Nervously glancing back and forth between the two onlookers, Gary furiously tried to think of a tune, any tune. “Okay. Okay, let me just remember what it said.” Annoyed by the desk officer’s excessive interest, Gary raised the flowers to hide his face from the man.

Then, using the words he’d wanted to say to her because he couldn’t think of any others, Gary began to sing, hesitantly and slightly off-key, to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”.

“I tried to call you for days but
“You wouldn’t call me back.”

Brigatti compressed her lips to keep from laughing.

“So I got you these flowers to say that
“I’m sorry for whatever I did or didn’t do.
“I don’t know what happened the other night,
“Or any time before that.”

Both became serious as the subject matter overcame the silliness of the whole singing telegram concept.

Gary softly spoke the rest of his message to her. “I don’t know if I hurt you or offended you or what. But whatever I did, Toni, I’m sorry.” He moved closer to her. “I’d really like to spend more time with you, get to know you better. Maybe if you told me what happened….”

Brigatti shook her head. “It’s not you, Gary.”

“So I’m going to get the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech?” His voice held no anger, no chastisement, only regret.

Brigatti found it hard to explain without confiding in him, and that she could not do. “I’ve got…look, I’m just really…I’m working on this really big case right now, and…”

Gary nodded, understanding more than he would have thought. “You know what I think? I think you’re using work as an excuse. You know how I know that? I know that because I’m an expert. Well, Brigatti, somewhere along the way, you’ve gotta decide to live your life-or you just might miss the chance.” Gary held the vase out to her. “Here.”

Brigatti demurred. “Gary, I…”

“I got them for you,” he insisted, allowing a sliver of his disappointment to show. When she had taken possession of the flowers, he backed up a step. “Guess I’ll see you around.”

Gary had taken only a few steps when she called him. He turned and waited for her to close the distance.

“It’s…complicated.”

“What? Telling me what’s wrong or not hiding behind your work?”

“Both.”

“You could try.”

She considered it. “No, I can’t. Not right now.”

“Not with me.”

“I didn’t say that. I said, not yet.” She sighed. “Look, I really do have a very important case I’m working on right now. I can’t put my personal life first.”

Gary broke eye contact and cast his gaze around the room, though he didn’t really look at anything. When he brought his eyes back to her, he raised his hands questioningly. “Who asked you to put your personal life first? All I’m looking for is a straight answer. Look, if you want me to get lost, just say so.”

“I…I don’t know what I want.” The courage that had enabled her to voice that fact failed her as she waited for his response, and she looked away.

He appraised her for a time before nodding minutely. “Okay. Let me know.”

“You’ll…be there?”

Gary thought about Snow’s reminder that life was fragile, fleeting. As much as Toni Brigatti attracted him, if someone else came along in the meantime, did he want to snub his nose at a chance for happiness? “I don’t know.”

Watching him walk out the door and turn down the sidewalk, she wondered whether or not she could truly appreciate his honesty.

“Nice haul. What’d you do to rate that kind of money?”

Brigatti was in no mood for Winslow’s jesting. So when he opened his mouth again, she shoved the vase into his hands. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

A very perplexed Winslow soon followed her disappearance into the detective’s department.

“Brigatti?”

The detective looked up to see Hobson’s flowers only inches from her face.

Winslow set them on the corner of her desk. “I don’t know who these are from, and I don’t care. But somebody went to a lot of effort and expense to get them for you. If you don’t like the person who sent them, just enjoy the flowers for what they are: a spot of real beauty in an ugly world.” With a nod of his head, Winslow left her.

Brigatti looked at the exquisite arrangement and realized that her co-worker was right. They were beautiful; why not enjoy them. She rose to see if they smelled as wonderful as they looked, and, as she put her nose up to the bouquet, she saw a card tucked way down between the stems. Her breath caught as she pondered whether or not she dared open it. An innate curiosity and a generosity of spirit that years in law enforcement had not extinguished guided her hand to the small envelope. She sat again and steeled herself before she pulled out the little card. It took a moment to register, but when it did, nothing could have been more appropriate. All it said was
?    Gary
 

**********
 

Marissa listened carefully as Gary worked his way through invoices and other paperwork generated by the bar they co-owned. He’d been rather sullen and preoccupied lately; and he rarely shared either the news in his special edition of the Chicago Sun-Times or the results of his efforts to change the future. Marissa had been his sounding board since the beginning, and now he had shut her out. Something was definitely wrong. And, since he’d been acting like this since his last date with Detective Brigatti, that something had to be her. The question was what, if anything, to do about it. Gary obviously didn’t want to talk. Apparently going to see the woman in question, as his parents had insisted, didn’t do the trick. Marissa briefly considered going to see the detective herself, but quickly decided that probably wasn’t a good idea at the moment. Accepting that they would just have to work it out themselves, she sighed.

Gary looked up from the paperwork to find his partner lost in thought, frowning. “What?”

Marissa turned her head at the sound of his voice. A little leery of voicing her concerns, she nonetheless answered, “You’ve been very quiet lately.”

“Thank you for your concern, Marissa, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I know. That’s why I haven’t asked. But, Gary?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t keep it bottled up, eating at you, for too long. What are friends for if not to help shoulder the burden of what’s troubling you? So, whenever you’re ready....”

Gary knew she meant well and was only concerned for his well being. “Thanks, Marissa.”

“Anything big in the Paper today?” she ventured.

“No. A couple of small things. It’s pretty quiet.”

“Maybe you should get some extra rest. When the Paper picks up again, it might make up for lost time.”

Gary smiled ruefully. “That would be a nice change of pace.”

Marissa decided she had cracked open the door enough for now. “Well, I’m going to check in on the kitchen.”

Although he knew she couldn’t see him, Gary nodded. He breathed deeply as he watched her feel her way out of the office, his eyes landing on the Paper when he looked away. He stared at it a moment before leaning back in his chair. The Paper had been excruciatingly quiet all week-small stuff mostly, quickly handled. Although he had saved a divorce lawyer from the revenge of an unhappy ex and had prevented a hit-and-run driver from killing a pedestrian in a crosswalk, the rest, what little there was, had been minor. For nearly four years he’d been asking for a break, for the chance to have a life. Here it was-and he didn’t want it. It would have been so much easier to have stayed busy so he didn’t have time to think.

“So why now?” he asked the Paper.

“Meow.” The Cat jumped up on the desk, seated itself on top of the Paper, and stared at Gary.

“What?”

The Cat began licking its front paw.

“Is there something else in there?” Gary asked hopefully.

The Cat didn’t budge from the Paper, just switched to the other paw.

Gary pursed his lips at the Cat. “You’re making me crazy. You know that, don’t you?”

The Cat paused in its grooming and looked nonchalantly at Gary for several seconds before resuming its task.

He stared hard at the animal. Sometimes the Cat actually tried to talk to him, but Gary didn’t have a clue what it was up to right now. “What do you want from me? Every time I try to have a relationship, you and that Paper mess it up. Now when a potential relationship crashes and burns on its own before it’s even had a chance, you do nothing. Literally nothing.”

The Cat gave Gary an insulted look and lay down on top of the newspaper.

The “oh, gee, thanks a lot” thought was evident from the curl of Gary’s lip and his pinched, fake smile. He turned away with a sigh and shook his head, wondering what kind of help he really expected from a cat. Just as he returned to his paperwork, a thought came to his mind-a tiny weapon well-suited to his current situation. Gary turned slowly to the Cat. “She’s allergic to you, you know. She hates cats.”

“Meow.”
 

**********
 

“Concentrate, Brigatti.” Sandra Mulhaney, a lanky but curvaceous detective normally assigned to the Vice squad, watched Toni Brigatti practice for her undercover role and shook her head. Finally, with a sigh, she called out, “Let’s take a break.”

Brigatti gratefully plopped down on the nearest chair and tucked a strand of her dark bobbed hair behind her ear. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. You’re overanalyzing. You’re thinking like a cop.”

“That could be because I am a cop.”

“No, this time you’re an undercover cop, which means that you can’t act like a cop.” Mulhaney pulled on her ash blonde ponytail, tightening it. “Sometimes you get the hang of it; other times…. Brigatti, you’ve done undercover assignments before. You know how this works. So, what’s the problem? And don’t tell me it’s the assignment. I know this is a little different than what you’re used to, but the concept is the same. And your reputation precedes you. So what’s distracting you? A guy?”

Brigatti’s head flew up. “Why do you say that?”

“Other than the fact that you just confirmed it?” Mulhaney asked with a smile. “Tell me.”

They might have been working together for the last two weeks, but that didn’t mean that Brigatti was ready to discuss her personal life-such as it was-with the woman. “Thanks, but-”

“Look, we’re not getting the job done while you’re distracted and time is running out. We have to be ready. You have to be ready. You get distracted on the job and you could blow our cover, or worse.”

“You don’t think I know that?”

“So let’s deal with the problem. I promise it’ll stay between us.”

Brigatti eyed her current partner appraisingly.

“My lips are sealed,” Mulhaney assured her as she drew a zipping motion across her lips. “Spill.”

Sighing heavily, Brigatti began, albeit hesitantly, to explain. “We’ve only been out a couple of times, although we’ve run into each other several times on the job.”

“He’s a cop?”

“No.” Brigatti paused, unsure of how to proceed without giving away too much information. “It’s complicated. But I first met him on an assignment when I was a U.S. Marshal doing witness protection.”

Believing that her companion’s hesitancy to reveal more was rooted in work-related ethics, Mulhaney signified her acceptance of the information and motioned Brigatti to continue.

“He’s a nice guy, although a bit of a fruitcake.”

The blonde detective waved off the description. “All men are fruitcakes; it’s part of their charm.”

Brigatti chuckled. “No, he’s fruitier than most.”

“But a nice fruitcake, not a creepy fruitcake.” At the shorter woman’s nod, Mulhaney asked, “How nice? What kind of nice?”

“Peanut butter and jelly, apple pie, Boy Scouts…Not even a parking ticket.”

“Stepped right out of a Normal Rockwell painting, huh?”

“He gave half of…his business to a friend.”

“Now you’re pulling my leg. People like that don’t exist.”

“I know. But he does.”

“If you tell me he’s good-looking, too, I’m going to turn in my badge and join a convent.”

“He is.”

“Never mind. Just give me his number.”

Brigatti’s brown eyes flashed as she paired the woman’s blonde athleticism with the flirtatious tone of her request. “I don’t think so,” Brigatti answered, unconsciously allowing a chill into her voice.

“Whoa! That’s some case of jealousy you got there.”

“What jealousy?”

“Okay, okay. I was just kidding anyway.” Brigatti looked away. “So is Prince Charming a good kisser, too?”

The dark-haired woman looked up like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. “He’s…okay.”

Mulhaney noticed the blush form on Brigatti’s cheeks. “Okay? No, I’m betting he rocks your world.”

Brigatti’s eyes got even bigger and the blush deepened.

“Oh, yeah,” Mulhaney continued without mercy, “he sets your blood to boiling. He makes your toes curl like little elf shoes. He melts your butter.”

“Oh, forget it!” Brigatti stood abruptly, knocking the chair over. “Let’s get back to work.”

“No.” Mulhaney grew serious. “You need to talk this out so you can focus. I’m sorry I teased you.” Brigatti didn’t answer, so the taller woman pulled rank. “I’m senior on this one. Sit down, Brigatti.”

Although her movements were angry, Brigatti’s professionalism led her to right the chair and take a seat.

Mulhaney propped her arms on her knees, leaning toward the other woman. “Tell me what’s bothering you. What’s wrong with this guy-other than the fact that he sounds too good to be true?”

“Exactly.”

“Bad experience in the past?”

The look on Brigatti’s face answered the question.

“How long ago?”

“Right after college.”

Mulhaney swallowed her surprise. “Some creep did a real number on you, huh? Another woman?” Brigatti nodded. “I’m guessing he was nice and good-looking, too.” Another reluctant nod.

The Vice detective carefully studied the woman across from her. After a few seconds, she observed, “For something that happened so long ago to still be affecting you, you must think it was somehow your fault.”

“You got a psychiatric degree to go with that diagnosis?”

Leaning back into her chair, Mulhaney gave her a grim smile. “No, but I’ve seen it happen often enough. And I’ve been there.”
Brigatti looked up then to judge the woman’s sincerity.

But Mulhaney readily offered proof. “Did you know I’m a single mom?”

“No.”

“A year and a half into my marriage, I got pregnant. My husband hit the roof. Told me he’d never said he wanted kids and how could I do that to him. He walked out and never came back.”

“I’m sorry.”

The pony-tailed woman shrugged. “I was, too, for the longest time.” One day, years later, my son asked me why I was so sad all the time. I’d never realized that it was affecting him, or that he’d even noticed. I thought I was hiding it pretty well.”

“Perceptive kid.”

“Yeah,” Mulhaney replied, a warm smile tugging at her generous mouth, “he is. But I never had a single co-worker-not one other cop-spot it. We all hide our feelings so much in order to get through the day, to do the job. Sometimes we forget to turn them back on when we go off duty. And sometimes we get too good at shoving them aside. See, I thought Jake’s leaving was my fault, that I had done something wrong, even though I knew that something wasn’t my child.”

“Does he ever see his father?”
 

Mulhaney shook her head. “I let Jake know when Mark was born, but he told me he didn’t want anything to do with him. And he’s kept his word.” Mulhaney looked earnestly at Brigatti. “How can somebody not want their own kid? Still, it took Mark asking me before I laid the blame where it belonged-on my slimeball of a husband.” The gray-eyed detective smiled. “I have a little celebration of that day every year. I spend the whole day at a spa-massage, facial, the works-just to remind myself that I’m worth the effort and attention and that Jake was an idiot not to realize it. Then I spend the evening with Mark, thanking my lucky stars that I’ve got him.” Mulhaney reached over and patted Brigatti’s hand. “It’s those lies we hang on to that keep us from really enjoying our lives.”

“And all this time, I thought it was fear.”

“Yeah,” Mulhaney responded with a smile, “but fear is built on lies. Knock down the lies and the fear has to fall. The truth will set you free.”

A brave smile ventured onto Brigatti’s face. “That’s a tall order.”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained…in the past or in the present.”

Brigatti’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The new guy…Prince Charming? What worries you most? The possibility that you’ll get hurt again or how much you want him?”

This woman had been so open and honest with her that Brigatti felt compelled to reciprocate. “Sometimes…sometimes I feel like a junkie craving her next fix. And sometimes…sometimes it feels life a great vise has clamped down on my heart and is slowly pulling it out, breaking bones and ripping flesh the whole way.”

“Girl, you got it bad. I envy you.”

“Why?” Brigatti asked, incredulous.
“The potential. You hurt because you’re afraid to give in to that potential. And you’re afraid because that creep from your past is still messin’ with yo’ head.”

“Yeah, so what do I do about it, Detective Shrink?”

“Two things. One, start telling yourself the truth about what’s holding you back so you can break the stranglehold that your fears have on you. And two, give in to your feelings now and then. Really enjoy the times with him that don’t cause your defense mechanisms to turn into a swat team. And when the alarms do start going off, go ahead and take a risk-small ones at first-but allow yourself to hope enough to be vulnerable.”

“That ought to be easy enough.”

Mulhaney chuckled at Brigatti’s sarcasm. “Yeah, but it’ll be worth it. You’ll see.”

“You got a written warranty with that guarantee?”

“Even if this guy you find so distracting isn’t Mr. Right, he can help prepare you for the right one. Or help you rid yourself of old ghosts.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Well, now you have. So relax.” Mulhaney stood and stretched. “Another benefit of my advice? It’ll help you focus on your assignment. Now, back to work.”

Brigatti moaned and rose from her chair.

Turning on some music, Mulhaney reiterated, “Tell yourself the truth and eliminate the fear. Sometimes you need to rein in your emotions, like you do when dealing with human vermin undercover. Other times, you go with your feelings; use them. For instance, right now I want you to let your ‘addiction’ run rampant.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“As long as you’re distracted, you might as well use it to your advantage.”

“I knew I was going to regret saying anything.”
 

**********

Email the author:  seriouslysci@yahoo.com
 

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