DISCLAIMER: Women's Murder Club and its characters are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
FEEDBACK: To Demeter94[at]yahoo.de
SERIES: Thunderstorm Series
The Traitor Inside
By Demeter
In the bathroom, which is surprisingly small for the luxurious suite, she watches her reflection in the mirror. Tired, that's a given, from the long flight and the somber thoughts on her mind.
He walks up behind her, his arms around her tight, and automatically, her lips curve into a smile, a practiced, fake reaction."Couldn't wait?" The words come out low and sexy, showing none of the disgust she is feeling.
"You were taking too long."
His hands move to open the belt of her robe, slipping underneath. Her breath catches, and for a moment, she wishes to be anywhere else but here, with the weight of responsibility and fear pressing down on her. Nothing she can do about that now, though.
Lindsay closes her eyes and thinks of San Francisco, her life there, the job she's agreed to do, and forbidden thoughts of Cindy who is with Jill now. It doesn't matter. She might have felt guilty about it under different circumstances, but at the moment, the single imperative is to survive. Any way.
"I'm glad you came," he tells her later.
"Me too," she lies, feeling a bit sick of herself. The game is on.
"Will you stay with me tonight?" Lindsay asks, and the request, while very much welcome, surprises me so much I actually hesitate for a couple of seconds. Too long, I can read it in her expression. "If there's anywhere you have to go--"
"No, it's fine. Really." It's just that I'm completely blindsided; we've fallen into a pattern for the past two weeks and I've learned not to question it, because what we have is fragile, easily broken, and I'll be damned if I let it go, ever again.
She lays down beside me, switching off the lights, her 'thank you' barely beyond a whisper. I'm – happy, of course, a little confused and concerned. The rules of the game are changing too damn quickly. A month after the rescue her time in Cambodia still casts a long shadow, and I don't know half of what we're dealing with.
We find each other in a clumsy, needy embrace.
"I'm sorry," she says, frustration and impatience evident in her voice, and it's more of the woman I remember. "I know it's not what you want." That's, however, not something I can accept.
"I want to be with you." I wanted to the first time we met. "I understand. It sucks when someone you trust betrays you."
Lindsay sighs. "It wasn't like that. FBI approached me before... I knew who he was when I went with him."
I have to replay those words in my head twice to really understand them, and when I do, anger is the winner over all those intense emotions I have for her. "What?" I just can't believe it. "Why the hell did you go then? They couldn't make you!"
Even saying the words out loud, I know it probably wasn't so hard. There was an agent whose cover had been blown, and a once in a lifetime chance to get her out alive. Or so they might have sold it to her. I wish I could go back in time so we could be together for real without the ghost between us. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"I wasn't supposed to. You would have worried too much," Lindsay claims, and I wonder if I'm stupid to ask questions of which I'd known the answers before.
Worried too much. Part of me wants to shake her for talking so casually about a mission that wasn't hers to begin with and nearly cost her her life, but of course I rein the impulse. It makes me incredibly sad to know that there's nothing I could have done. Being here, now, it's the only thing I can do, and I'm often afraid that it's not enough. "That comes with loving someone."
Lindsay tightens her arms around me silently. "He lied to me," she says. "I couldn't just let it go."
She leaves me to wonder if she'll ever let me in completely.
The End