I’ve taken a taxi to the precinct and I take another over to Golden Gate Park, arriving over an hour earlier than the 1645 Jinny had specified.   

The cabby drops me off on JFK Drive at the base of Rainbow Falls.  There’s a “You Are Here” sort of menu on a wooden placard covered in Plexiglas just a few feet away and I study it briefly learning the falls derive their name from lights installed in the 1930’s which at night lend the spray colors. They originate up a path to the east where water bubbles out a cairn of rocks but is actually piped in from a reservoir on nearby Strawberry hill and then cascade down from the base of Prayer Book Cross into a small catch basin and stream west along side JFK Drive into Lloyd Lake.    

This is the place.       

I ignore the benches and plop cross legged on the grass in as much sun as I can locate.  I rummage through my vinyl duffel bag, extracting files and my laptop whose battery is hopefully recharged enough to let me fart around a bit and in ten minutes or so I am lost to the world except I can’t quite forget I’m still cold.   

I know someone’s pulled up on a motorcycle but after a quick glance at my watch which says it is only 1550 I am once again immersed in the fascinating world of exploring SFPD’s inner workings.  With McCafferty’s log in and security clearance I am in like-- Well, like Finn.  

 I just need to get a grasp on how it is organized and structured and I’ve got everything I need right there at my fingertips; personnel files, background investigation records, complaints, cases, memorandums, directives, newsletters, pay records, work histories, family information…  I don’t want to attempt to hack in as Massey or Peyton either one until I can move confidently around without leaving big muddy tracks.   I don’t know who SFPD’s computer security analyst is but as long as I am on under McCafferty’s log in I’m safe.  If they do any detailed checks today they might wonder why she’s logged on using a different IP; they might be curious as to why it’s an IP they’ve never seen enter and march about their system before but the odds are this won’t happen.  The odds are they only check for hackers when there are numerous pings of someone knocking who can’t get in who would, after the standard three attempts, be logged as an invader which would then send out frantic electronic alerts while at the same time blocking and banning that particular computer.  I don’t fall into that category.  SFPD’s system thinks I’m Kaitlyn McCafferty.   

“You look busily ecstatic.” 

Oh shit.  I look up.  Now, why did it not occur to me she’d ride a Harley?   

“Sit,” I say and she sinks down on the grass obediently.  That’s a little scary.  She looks exhausted but then a couple of days without sleep will do that.  The look she gives me is guarded and watchful but I’m relieved there aren’t tears or any signs of impending Jinny breakdown.   

“You sleep?” I ask, turning my attention back to the computer. I am deep in a file McCafferty has kept on Massey.  The entries start two years previous to any of the evidence room fiasco beginning.  They’re splendidly revealing.   

“Not much,” she says and I glance at my watch again.   

“Take a little nap,” I tell her and indicate the computer.  “I’ve got another hour on here before this battery goes.  Since you’re way earlier than I expected…” 

At first it’s extremely difficult to concentrate with her stretched out on the grass on her back, feet crossed at the ankle, hands tucked into pockets but eventually her breathing goes slow and deep and I almost forget she’s there.  Almost.  And then the lure of having secret information laid out in front of me beckons me in and I forget everything, including the fact that my ass is on damp grass and the sun is mostly behind clouds making what had been a cool day downright uncomfortable.  I barely notice my teeth chattering.   

I don’t lift my head until the laptop beeps warning me the battery is going.  I’ve copied and pasted several things onto my hard drive and I frantically save and back out of SFPD properly so as not to alert someone of my presence.  Then I close the computer and look up feeling my eyes try to focus blearily on everything not a foot in front of my face. 

“Now, that’s what I call concentration,” Jinny comments and I see she’s rolled onto her side and has her head propped in a palm, watching me.  “There’s been some kind of bug walking around in your hair for the last fifteen minutes and you had no clue.” 

I swipe at my head and dislodge it, wondering how long she’s been laying there looking at me.  My watch tells me it is almost 1900 hours which puts our meeting over two hours late.   

“You should have said something.  Do you go back out tonight?” 

She shakes her head making the straight dark hair swing slightly.  “Nope.” 

“Oh.  Well, I don’t feel too bad then.  You get a nap?” 

“I did.  I feel almost human again.  So let’s get this over with.” 

The words are brief but the tone isn’t terse or angry and her body language doesn’t change.  She’s still sprawled out with one knee curled up gazing at me intently from calm green eyes.   

The photograph is in my jacket pocket where it’s been all day.  I take it out and resist the urge to look at it and she silently takes it out of my hand and pockets it.  She doesn’t have to look down to know what it is.  There’s a fraction of a second’s more hesitation when I produce her initialed cuffs and then they too are slid into the pocket.   

I wait to see if she’ll begin explaining or denying but she’s silent.  I think the words for the expression I’m seeing is quietly resolute.  It takes my breath away.  It’s the look of someone facing a firing squad and refusing the blindfold.   

“Is there anything else at Sylvie’s I should be looking for?” I ask finally.   

The breath she pulls in is deep and she slowly exhales it as she rolls onto her back.  Her profile is limned in gold from the rapidly setting sun which is out now that there’s only a half hour of daylight left.  I wait patiently.  She is the type of person who will despise every second of having to admit and lay out that she’s been stupid or careless and she deserves me just sitting here and letting her find a way to say it that’s acceptable to her.   

“I don’t know,” she says finally and the dark head rolls from side to side briefly before she shrugs.  “I honestly don’t know.”   

“Okay,” I say.  “Then you need to come over and help me look.  Because I don’t even know where to start.” 

One knee comes up and sways back and forth briefly.   

“Isn’t this a serious miscarriage of your investigation, Sgt?”   

“Exstead,” I say and wait but she won’t look at me, just stares straight up with her foot cocked on its heel in the grass and the knee swaying back and forth.   

“Jinny.”  My voice comes out a little more strained and urgent than I had planned and the knee stops abruptly.  It’s another thirty seconds or so before she swivels her head though and I can count every one of them off by the frantic pulse that’s hammering in my temples.   

“I’m not the enemy here.  We both know this isn’t about missing evidence.  You’ve got to stop fucking around and work with me.  The pussy’s out of the bag.” 

She blinks twice in rapid succession.  I see muscles in her throat and around her mouth work as she struggles to not laugh.  She loses and guffaws so heartily birds wing up out of the tree overhead in a flurry of wings and chaotic flight patterns.  Both knees come up to her chest and she’s rocking back and forth holding her ribcage in merriment, hooting hysterical deep belly laughter.   

“Oh fuck, that’s funny.” She gets out finally, mopping at her eyes and still giggling.   

I grin when she looks at me.  

“There now, you see?  I’m not the enemy and I’m not a total fuck up either.  You can trust me.  Not only do I not think you’ve taken anything out of the evidence room, I know none of this is about that to begin with.  I’ll help you.  I’m not so bad.”   

One corner of her mouth is lifted in a half smile and the green eyes are lazy now in a way that I find terrifying and intriguing all at once.   

“I guess you’re not,” she says finally and I frantically try to remember what I was thinking prior to looking at her and wonder how long I’ve been sitting there staring and is my breathing as heavy as it sounds? 

“Okay,” I say and it comes out fake and bright and cheerful.  “So…  You come over and you go through everything and remove-- Whatever else there might be.”  I absolutely cannot think about what else there might be or what various poses it might be in.   

I push myself to my feet and then feel distinctly uncomfortable when she doesn’t move but just lies there gazing up at me half smiling as if she knows exactly what is making me so uneasy and finds it amusing. There’s something very intimate about standing over a person who is sprawled out looking up at you.  Whatever this is going on with me I can’t handle or keep it under control anywhere near her-- I feel distinctly freaked out.  If having a one dimensional image of her had unnerved me the actual flesh and blood of her is way more than I can handle.   I flash suddenly on that dream this morning and realize in shock it had been Jinny’s head my subconscious mind had been holding to me and that mouth I had been  pumping against and shoving myself into.   I close my eyes and try to banish the image from my mind.  I can’t be thinking like this.  I’m going nuts and she’s just laying there watching it.   

 I’m relieved when she sighs and begins standing and I bend and gather up the folders, stuffing them into my bag.  When I straighten I catch her watching me with her head slightly to one side, chin tucked in.  The stance is almost combative but the smile she flashes me is most definitely not.   

“I take it you’re not driving the Porsche,” she says, lightly and I laugh and shake my head, no. 

  It reminds me I have questions; I want to ask her about Sylvie. I want to know where she is now and how did she get this much control over Exstead.  I want to know about the photographs and photographer and the negatives.  I want to ask if she knows who the man and woman are in the other photos and where that computer has disappeared to.  But I don’t dare bring any of this up right now because it means I am inviting that image back into my head and I can’t do that until she is safely somewhere not anywhere near me.  Much less right in front of me and standing way too close.   

She’s asked me something and I’ve missed it.  She sees and asks me again.  

“Do you need a ride back to the penthouse?”   

Oh shit.  On the Harley?  I feel dizzy and faint at the thought.   

I brandish my cell phone and attempt a cheerful smile.   

“I’ll get a taxi.  You go on ahead.  I can meet you there.” 

What’s that look?  Her brows have puckered slightly and the head tilts further to the side as she studies me.  When she speaks her voice is much lower pitched than mine but then my last sentence had had a sort of frantic shrieky quality to it.   

“Actually, I’m not going to the penthouse tonight,” she says slowly and I don’t mean to, but I blink and the “oh” that escapes me sounds conspicuously let down and disappointed.  

“I have a… date,” she adds, voice a tone deeper and slower still.  

A second “oh” emerges from me without volition and it’s markedly dull and flat.   Shit. 

Now someone else is talking through me because that cannot possibly be H. Cooper Finn rattling on like a high pitched moron.   

“Oh!  Okay.  That’s cool.  Maybe tomorrow or-- No, it’s Sunday.  Monday maybe?  Or Tuesday if Monday is too soon? Oh shit, I’ve got to go see Legaspi Tuesday.  Tuesday afternoon?  What’s your schedule like Tuesday afternoon?”   

She’s just standing there looking at me and then she turns and looks at the bike again and somewhere off in the distance before sighing and turning back to me.   

“I’m just offering you a lift on the bike, Sgt.”   

Her voice is level and even and there’s a dull shine of subdued anger and weariness in both it and her eyes and the set of her shoulders.   

“No, no, I mean, you’re busy, you’ve got plans—“I begin but she cuts me off abruptly. 

“Jesus Christ!  I’m not going to attack you for fuck’s sake.  I’m offering you a freaking ride.  I’m not going to drag you off and molest you somewhere.”   

God, she’s pissed.  She totally doesn’t understand.  There is no way I can get on that Harley with her, no way I can straddle her and put my thighs against hers, no way I can press myself up against her and wrap my arms around her because if I do I will go berserk.  The idea of spreading my legs and nudging my crotch up to her ass, just in theory, makes me shake and starts the two day old ache and throb inside.   

It’s getting dark and I can barely see her expression now even though the street lights have come on.  Her hands are shoved into her jean pockets and her chin is lowered as if she is fending off an attack or prepared for one to begin.   

“No,” I say and my voice is pitifully small and shaky.  “I’ll get a cab.  I’ve got the number in memory already.  See?” I press the button and request a taxi.   

She’s silent while I speak and then when I flip the phone shut she releases a very long and heavy sigh.  She appears to be having some sort of internal argument with herself, a debate of some kind and when she reaches the decision she takes two steps towards me and stops sharply, glaring at me.   

I can see her now; she’s shifted so the street light is full in her face.  She is furious.  What she wants to do is knock me a good one upside the head but she keeps her hands in her pockets.  I’d bet a hundred that they are knotted into fists.  I’m shaking and I fall back a step before I can stop myself and when I do her head comes up.  The light glints dangerously off her eyes and she deliberately takes the step back and then stands there, livid, daring me to fall back again.   

I steel myself.  No problem.  I can handle being less than six inches from her.  I can handle being so close I can smell her.  I can handle that in the motorcycle boots she is taller than me.  I can handle that I like her like this, all fierce and furious, like that I feel intimidated by her.  I can handle feeling the warmth of her, the heat that close.  What I can’t deal with is that I want to fall against her and wrap my legs around her and come with my face against her throat.  That, right now, if she were to so much as run a finger anywhere down me I would shudder and collapse helplessly into orgasm.  I am that close.   

I make a sound suspiciously like a whimper and she starts a little.  I don’t move back from her but I get a hand up and swipe at my face.  It’s trembling.   There’s no way she can miss it.   

She doesn’t.  Her voice is very low and if I weren’t this close I wouldn’t be able to make it out.   

“I’m just going to wait till the cabby gets here, Sgt Finn.  It’s not exactly safe after dark.” 

“I’m armed,” I say and I cannot believe how tremulous my voice is.  It quavers all over and breaks in the middle and to my horror I realize my eyes have teared up to boot.  Oh, this is wonderful.  My sex drive wakes up and makes me crazy and I want to fuck girls now.  And not just any girl but a prickly sullen one that won’t respect my personal space and keeps getting closer because she thinks the problem is I’m afraid she’ll hit on me which pisses her off and being a difficult girl she has to keep pushing those buttons.  Oh, I’m so glad I stuck around for all this.   

“Oooooh,” she says, her eyes going round and she makes her voice sound impressed and intimidated.  “Good thing I’m not going to molest you, isn’t it?”   

“Please stop,” I get out and thankfully I hear a car engine approaching and see head lights slant across the street and glance off the chrome of her Harley.   

“I’m not fucking doing anything,” she snarls and shoves both hands through her hair in exasperation.   “I’m not going to jump you just because you’re—“ 

Now there’s an image I didn’t need.  I put a hand up and finally manage to look at her because the taxi is pulling up to the curb and my escape is within sight.  She actually shuts up and waits which is amazing.   

“I don’t think that.  That’s not what’s going on here.  That’s not it at all.”   

 My last words are emphatic and she shakes her head, puzzled and then both brows lower in a dangerous and ominous line.  I have to get out of here before she decides she has to know what is going on because once that conversation starts I am going to be helpless.  And I am absolutely terrified at how much I like the idea of being helpless and having the full force of Jinny Exstead turned on me.   

She’s stomping along right behind me.  Jesus, she isn’t this dense, why can’t she just figure it out and get freaked herself and back off?  But oh, no.   

“Sergeant!” she finally bellows so loud even the cabby turns his head and all the windows are up as he waits idling at the curb.   

I stop and let her catch up to me but I won’t look at her.  Not even when she mulishly puts herself right in front of me.  I stare at her chin instead.   

“I’ll call you.  To set a time up about—you know.  And… thank you.”   

It’s an offering and I know it.  It’s a “meet me halfway” thing, a truce, a flag she’s waving.  I nod.  I don’t dare look at her though.  Especially not when she doesn’t want to kick my ass. 

 She’s still standing there, waiting, hesitating.  Her head lowers and she kicks at the grass and finally she sighs and says, “Tell me you’re not running away because you’re afraid of me now.” 

 My laugh is utterly maniacal.  There is nothing mirthful in it and it’s a moment before I can stop it and answer her.

 “I can’t tell you that.”   

 She nods.  Now it’s her laugh which is a rough and ugly sound and when she speaks her voice isn’t much better. 

 “You know, honesty, like sobriety, is really over rated.  And both at once just… suck.” 

 She sounds surprised and clears her throat and somewhere in there I summon enough courage to actually lay a hand on her sleeve and squeeze her arm until she looks at me.  Somewhere I find the nerve to look her in the eyes and say it flat out even though I know I’ll regret it the moment it’s said, even though I know I’ll spend the rest of the night, probably much longer, trying to resist the urge to re-paint the scene and change the words and take them back. 

 “You terrify me.  But it’s what I’m wanting from you that’s making me run.”

 I don’t look at her again.  I can’t.  Whatever expression she is standing there with, whether dismay or shock, anger or disbelief, it won’t be what I need because what I need is for my life to rewind nine months and eight days.  I need to be in Austin and pregnant, waiting on Jase to come home.  I need this part of me, this side, to have never been called forth.

 And it’s too late for any of that. 

END OF ELEVEN

{~> Crossroads  Next Story, Please <~}