Interception

“Why didn't you tell me?”

Jill closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the window of her apartment, finding it soothing and, more to the point, distracting. She didn't want to turn around and face Strahm, knowing that as soon as she did she would have to start lying to him again. There was enough unhappiness in his voice; she didn't want to see it etched in his eyes as well.

“Perez doesn't trust me any more,” he was saying, grimly, “and I can't say I blame her. I really dropped the fucking ball here.”

“No,” said Jill, turning around. “I did.” She saw that she'd been right. His expression was set in cold and disappointed lines; the sight stabbed at her and she fought the urge to turn away once more. “Look,” she went on, desperately, “I've known Art a long time both professionally and personally. I just didn't think it mattered.”

“He's John's lawyer. He's John's business partner, for Christ's sake, Jill. He's also gone missing. How could that not matter?”

Jill fought for words for a moment. In truth she was still in shock herself; she struggled to understand what John could possibly intend by abducting Art Blank, and the fact that this facet of the game had been kept from her had thrown her completely off balance. She was, thus, in no fit state to deal with anything, let alone Strahm's hurt and angry queries.

“I know this looks bad, but –”

“You're damn right it looks bad, Jill, it looks pretty god-damned bad for the both of us” he said, vehemently, but then he was crossing the room in two quick strides and taking her head between his hands, looking closely into her eyes. “One word, one chance, and I swear I'll believe whatever you say, but I want you to look me in the eye when you say it: are you protecting someone?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He shook her gently. “Who?”

“You,” Jill told him, stepping back, moving away from his touch, “but you won't let me do that, will you?” she went on. “What would you say if I asked you to drop this case? Just walk away?”

“I can't do that,” Strahm told her, although he stumbled over the words and looked away.

“Can't or won't?” she asked, bitterly, but as she did so he moved in and folded her into his arms, and then his face was buried in her shoulder. For a second she thought she felt him sob as quietly as possible, but then the moment was gone and he raised his face to hers.

“We're out of time, aren't we,” he said, and Jill understood at once that it wasn't a question.

“Yes,” she said, then linked her hands behind his neck, “but not tonight,” and then, having run out of words for the time being, kissed him gently. For long seconds he didn't respond, and she felt him shake with stoicism in the warmth of her embrace.

“Let it go,” she breathed, her lips a ghost against the corner of his mouth. “Whatever it is, just let it go for tonight. No promises, no duty, no questions or lies. Just you and me. One more time. It's all we have left.”

This time she was sure; Strahm stifled an unhappy sigh against her cheek and then moved to return her soft affections with his own, tilting her head back, kissing and biting at her throat, but so tenderly and smoothly that she shook with delicious shivers and caught at him, her nails raking his skin even through his shirt. He gasped and drew back long enough for Jill to see a fire flare in his eyes, and then he closed in again and lifted her off her feet, carrying her to the bedroom.

“Are you sure?” he whispered, setting her down and gliding his hand up her thigh. She stopped him with one hand, laying a butterfly-soft finger across his lips.

“Shh, no questions, remember?” she said, quietly, and stroked his face over and over, trying to memorise the texture of his skin, the curve of his brow, the warmth of his eyes and that small, sad, faraway expression to which he seemed eternally given. He nuzzled her palm like a puppy and Jill turned her attention to his tie, loosening the knot and casting it aside, then unbuttoning his shirt.

She heard Strahm loose a small primeval noise as she placed her lips against the pulse in his throat and moved down, murmuring her pleasure as she licked gently at his chest. She revelled in the sweet, musky taste and scent of him a little longer and then raised her head once more. He smiled down at her now, and Jill felt a raw wound open up in her heart at the sight: it was not the smile she'd seen him wear before – the one that seemed perpetually touched with distant and irreparable sorrow – but something truly angelic, and so pure that for a moment she wasn't sure she could bear to look at it.

“It's okay, it really is,” he said, and once again she felt as if he'd heard her thoughts. Then he was undressing her with solemn care, his movements slow and considerate, and when he pulled her up and into his arms, Jill wrapped herself around him and for a moment they clung together in stillness and silence. Only after the beat of several breaths did Strahm shift position, entering her with such sudden need and urgency that she drew a shaky breath.

“That's it,” she whispered, her voice low and sweet, as he thrust into her. His movements were slow and languid, and she sensed that he intended to savour each stroke as fully as possible. She arched her back and matched his rhythm, the two of them curling and writhing together, perfectly synchronised, lost in each other's flesh. Somewhere in the midst of this, she felt as though she reached a climax, but if so it was cool and turbulent and passed beneath the threshold of perception.

Jill moved now, raising her knees a little higher and allowing Strahm to penetrate her even more deeply. In response, he gasped into her hair and speeded his pace. She wriggled beneath him and tasted the warm moisture in the hollow of his throat, panting desperately against his skin, and as she scratched her nails across the small of his back he tensed, groaning softly, and spent himself inside her.

She held him as tightly as she could as his shudders abated, turning her face away, not wanting him to see that her eyes were, quite suddenly, filled with tears.

--------------

Amanda heard the tape recorder click just as she pushed through the door.

She stopped dead for a second and looked at the tableau in front of her, slightly puzzled. John removed his thumb from the switch and placed the recorder on the tray at his bedside. His eyes were upon her face and seemed clear enough, though tainted with the tiniest hint of discomfort. His inner gaze, however, seemed fixed to a point quite some way away in both space and time. Regardless, he was offering her a small, gentle smile, and it was so rare that she saw him do so that she moved forward gratefully.

“Another tape?” she asked, reaching out for it instinctively. “I thought we were all done?”

John's hand closed over her curious fingers and stopped her in her tracks. “It's a small matter of insurance, and nothing with which you should concern yourself,” he said, softly, squeezing her hand once before releasing it. Amanda knew that she shouldn't be so emotional over such a small kindness even after what had happened, but she was, suddenly, powerless to keep her stinging eyes from filling up. She turned her head away to cover her shame.

“Talk to me,” said John, touching her arm. “You swore to trust in me, so trust me and tell me what's wrong.”

(you dirty little bitch)

Amanda jerked reflexively at the sudden memory, gasping, her hand slipping from John's feeble grasp. She saw that her frightened withdrawal had bewildered and hurt him, and she regretted it immediately.

Blinking back the worst of the blurred vision, she drew up a chair and sat down beside the gurney. She swept back her tangled hair and studied John's expression in detail, and all at once her intended confession faltered and died in the back of her throat. His face was drawn and pale, nothing but the picture of concern, and she wondered all at once just how much – or how little – he really knew. Should she confess that her resistance to Hoffman's predatory intentions had been token, at best? Would John understand that part of her had relished and encouraged the brutality and the way they'd both drawn blood? If this was a test, she was suddenly mortally afraid of failing. She had long since weighed the prospect of death against the prospect of John's disappointment, and knew which of the two struck more terror into her heart.

(I'm sorry I know this hurts)

She'd been so sure of what she'd heard even through the pain and the fever, but now...was it John's voice? Was it? If not, who had come to her aid in the darkness? She screwed up her eyes and tried to piece together a memory that felt like a scattering of shattered glass; each individual image was outlined in bright, sharp lines, but the whole made no sense whatsoever and resisted all her attempts at resolution.

(You didn't deserve this)

“No, I didn't,” she whispered, not realising that she'd spoken aloud until John's gaze sharpened with curiosity. Distracted, unsure of herself, Amanda hopped to her feet and started to circle the room, her pace agitated, one hand rubbing and pinching reflexively at the back of her neck in an attempt to keep her restless fingers away from her cutting scars.

“I've let you down,” she said, her voice cracking.

“No, you haven't,” he told her, calmly.

“But you have to be sure, right?” she asked, halting mid-pace and rounding on John with her lips drawn back. “Everything's a test. You can't trust anyone. Except Hoffman,” she added sourly, flapping an angry hand in the air. “He's the only one who gets a pass. He's your fucking golden boy,” she finished, fists clenched in impotent fury. She cast a poisonous look at John, who merely returned this glare with his usual sad sobriety.

“Detective Hoffman will one day face his demons as you faced yours, you may depend upon that,” he told her. He paused to take a sip of oxygen and his chest fluttered momentarily. “I don't know how I can make it clear how much you mean to me if you can't see it by yourself. I wish I could give you the truth that would set your mind at rest, but there's nothing I can do for you unless you first have faith. Without that, anything I tell you now will fall on stony ground.”

She felt it. For only the second time since her initial test, Amanda felt a turning point. She had snapped and she had...screamed at him, why did you do this to me I could have died, and he had endured her flailing fists and her hysterical shrieks and held her to him and stroked her hair and then, only then, when she had subsided into broken, childlike sobs did he lift her head and say, but you didn't and I need you to understand just what that means...

“Do you understand?” he asked her.

“No,” she said, her voice hollow, and turned away.