Tilting at Windmills (Claire Lance)

by Geonn Cannon

  Mallory leaned in and kissed Lazareva's lips. Their tongues met and Lazareva drew slow circles around Mallory's clit with her thumb. As she came down off her orgasm, she heard Mallory inhale sharply through her nose, her body going rigid and her fingers tightening to claws on Lazareva's hips. Mallory whimpered, moaned, and then gently sucked the tip of Lazareva's tongue.

  They pulled back and looked at one another, each struggling to catch her breath as the water continued to sluice over them. Mallory leaned forward and kissed Lazareva gently, like long-time lovers, and smoothed her hands over Lazareva's hips, thighs, and smooth belly. "Did you order room service?" she whispered against Lazareva's lips.

  "I had to do something while I waited for you to get your ass in the shower," Lazareva said. She tilted her head and kissed Mallory again. "But it'll be a while." She kissed the corner of Mallory's mouth. "They were really...really backed up." She kissed Mallory's cheek, her chin, and then took her lips again. "Could be an hour," she said. "Or more."

  Mallory moaned into their kiss. "Good." She smoothed Lazareva's crimson hair down against her head, followed the strands down to her neck, and put her hands over her breasts. "Because I get the feeling this shower is going to take a while." She spread her fingers, squeezed, and leaned in to kiss Lazareva again.

  "Good...good...," Lazareva murmured as Mallory's lips touched hers. "I've always been a fan of long showers."

  Mallory withdrew her leg and pushed Lazareva to the smooth floor of the tub.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lazareva signed the room service tab, thanked the waiter, and pulled the cart into the room. She moved slowly so the wheels wouldn't squeak and parked it between the beds. She left the cart there and sat on the edge of the mattress, the light terrycloth robe rubbing against interesting spots of her body as she looked down at Faye Mallory.

  They had made love once more in the shower and then adjourned to the beds for round three. After an hour of exploring, Mallory had claimed exhaustion and asked for a thirty minute time out. Lazareva gently brushed Mallory's hair out of her face, letting her fingers hesitate on her warm flesh. Mallory looked peaceful for the first time all day. Whether she knew it or not, Mallory was overburdened by her debt to Elaine. It was on her face, in her shoulders, in the way she moved. Apparently only when she slept did the pressure let up.

  Lazareva bent down and kissed Mallory's cheek. "Hey. You awake?"

  Mallory's eyelids fluttered, then opened, and her eyes focused on Lazareva after a long second. She blinked and rolled onto her back. "No. Sorry, Toni, no. I really think I'm too sore," she said with a weak smile. "That thing you did with your thumb..."

  Lazareva grinned. "I have only ever had compliments about that, thank you very much."

  "Oh, no, it was great. I just need some time to recover, is all."

  "Well, good. I wasn't waking you up for that." She slapped Mallory's hip through the blanket. "Our room service finally arrived."

  "What time is it?" Mallory sat up and the blanket fell away from her breasts. She ran a hand through her hair, which had dried in the familiar spike-and-rat's-nest arrangement.

  Lazareva reached up and made a half-hearted attempt to smooth it, but ended up just stroking it. "Just after ten-thirty," she said.

  "Have you heard from Acheson?"

  Lazareva shook her head. She gestured at the room service tray. "What do you feel like? Do you want the cheeseburger, or the hamburger with cheese on it?"

  "You really know how to treat a woman you just slept with, don't you?"

  "Be careful or I'll do the thing with my thumb again."

  "Promises, promises," Mallory said. She threw back the blankets and slipped out of bed. She took the towel off the floor, stood up to wrap it around herself, and tucked the end under her armpit. Well aware Lazareva was watching her intently, Mallory stretched, and walked to the cart. She picked up one tray, peeked under the lid, and carried it back to the bed. She sat with her back against the headboard, her feet crossed at the ankles, and balanced the dinner on her thighs. Lazareva sat the same way on the opposite bed, setting the plate next to her. Mallory looked at Lazareva's legs, revealed all the way to mid-thigh by the way her robe fell open.

  Lazareva picked at her French fries. "Have you given any thought to Lance's travel plans? Do you still think she'll try to fly out?"

  Mallory nodded. "I do. I think she'll try to get to Colorado."

  "Why?"

  "Her mother lives there. She came up to Chicago right after Lance went on the run, stayed for a good six months before she finally went home. She refused to believe the official findings rather than the fantasy her daughter spun. I guess it's a good trait — standing up for her little girl and all."

  This was the first Mallory had mentioned of Lance's side of the case. "What was the alternative story? What did Lance say happened?"

  Mallory shook her head dismissively. "She came up with some damn thing about how Madrid and his men forced her to shoot up. They held her hostage instead of putting a bullet in her head. They got her high, gave her bread and water, and after two weeks they just took her home. She claims they killed Elaine, too."

  "Who is Madrid?"

  "Oh, sorry. Benito Madrid, he was one of the scummiest drug dealers in Chicago at the time."

  "He's not an issue anymore?"

  "He was taken out of the picture not long after Lance disappeared. I was trailing her on the off chance she would make contact, but she...slipped away. Not twenty-four hours after I lost her, Madrid was dead and Lance was never seen or heard from again. I couldn't be assigned to my sister's case, but I was sure as hell going to get Lance for something. I begged to be assigned to the Madrid case. And now, almost a year later, Lance is still making a mockery out of me."

  She chewed her burger slowly, letting the anger seep from her as she swallowed. "The point is, if Madrid had discovered he had a cop in his midst, he wouldn't have played some stupid little game with her. He wouldn't have pulled some Machiavellian scheme to make her a hophead, and he wouldn't have killed an innocent bystander. His modus operandi with spies was suspect, confirm, eliminate. It wasn't in his character to keep any enemies around, let alone a cop. One bullet is a lot cheaper than a week's worth of drugs, believe me."

  Lazareva nodded. "I know. We have drugs in Texas, too." Mallory grimaced, and

  Lazareva could sense that retelling the story had opened up some wounds, so she changed the subject. "Colorado, huh?" Mallory nodded. "We should call the Colorado police and have them stake out the mother's house."

  Mallory hesitated, as if searching for a way to say no, but she finally nodded. "Yeah. That's probably the smartest course of action."

  Lazareva said, "Can I be frank?"

  "After what we did in this bed..."

  Lazareva smirked but hesitated, unsure whether she should continue. She had been thinking about it during the drive from Texas to Oklahoma, but now was probably the worst time for it to come out. She rubbed her forehead and decided to take the plunge. In for a penny, after all. "You have got to loosen your grip on this case. You aren't willing to let the Oklahoma cops do their job, you weren't willing to let me do my job—"

  "You're a Texas Ranger. If I hadn't brought you along, could you even be here right now?"

  Lazareva held her hands up in acceptance. "Point taken. But you only brought me along because you needed a ride. You have to accept the fact that someone else may get to slap the cuffs on Claire Lance."

  Mallory's jaw tightened and her eyes went cold. "I know."

  "No, you don't. You're not willing to let anyone help you. You came down here without a partner. And I'm only here because you wanted to get in my pants, right? Well, mission accomplished. But I'm not going to let you off that easily. You need to change the way you're chasing her. You need to let other people in because you're never going to catch her one-on-one."

  Mallory stared down at her burger. Finally she looked up. "You're right. I need to rethink the way I'
m going after her. I'm going to need help." She extended her hand. "Partner?"

  Lazareva smiled and clasped Mallory's hand. "Partner sounds good." She squeezed, looked down at Mallory's legs, and said, "Now hurry up and finish your burger so I can fuck you again."

  Mallory grinned. "Impatient, aren't you?"

  Lazareva shrugged and picked up her burger. "When I see something I like, I take it. It's always been my philosophy. You?"

  "I see something I like, I enjoy it, I move on."

  "Move on?" Lazareva said. She was surprised to hear a note of disappointment in her voice. "Always?"

  "Always."

  "So you're a one-night stand kind of woman?"

  Mallory nodded, then realized what she was admitting. She cast a guilty look at Lazareva and cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. I probably should have mentioned something about that before we—"

  "Hey, I'm the one who came into the shower. And I didn't come with a wedding ring." She ate a few fries and then said, "Have you always been like that, though? No ties, no connections?"

  "Just since Elaine," Mallory said. She looked at the floor. "She and Lance were in a relationship for four years. Elaine gave everything for Lance. And after...what happened, I decided I would never be that vulnerable, that dependent on another person."

  Lazareva looked down at her plate. "Lonely kind of life."

  "I have my hobbies."

  "You have a white whale," Lazareva countered. Mallory scoffed and Lazareva elaborated. "You left Chicago at the drop of a hat when you heard Lance had shown up in Texas. How many other cases did you have working? How many balls did you leave in the air up there? How many other people will lose their sisters because you made them lower priorities?"

  Mallory was getting angrier with each word out of Lazareva's mouth. "If this is your idea of pillow talk..."

  "How many?" Lazareva said harshly.

  Mallory chewed the inside of her cheek. Finally, she went with the truth. "I have three open cases at the moment, not counting Claire Lance. There have been no leads on any of them. I'm not wasting anyone's time by being here, Ranger Lazareva."

  Lazareva pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. They sat in angry silence for a while, quietly eating their burgers. Lazareva stared at her toes and remembered Mallory's lips wrapped around the biggest one. She sighed and looked over at Mallory. "I guess we're not getting the next round when we're done eating, huh?"

  "No, guess not," Mallory said tersely. She put down her burger and moved the plate to the bed. She slid off the bed, pushing her towel up in the process and revealing her leg up to her hip. Lazareva looked away so as not to tempt herself. Mallory tugged the towel into place. "I'm going to get dressed."

  "Yeah." Lazareva sighed as she watched Mallory walk across the room and then looked down at her burger. She decided she wasn't very hungry after all and pushed it aside.

  #

  A beacon atop the tallest building swept in a wide arc across the sky, signaling the way home for any pilots still in the sky. From the radio, Jackson Browne plaintively sang that he was "Late for the Sky". Lance followed the circling light to Wiley Post Airport and circled the chain-link fence until she found an open gate. She checked the rearview mirror, squinting at the headlights of an SUV riding their bumper as she pulled onto the tarmac. The SUV drove off to the right and the interior of the cab became dim again.

  A few planes were taxiing along the runway, and one was just coming in for a landing, but Lance was looking for one already on the ground. Gwen was looking as well, and was the first to spot the open hangar. A man in a brown leather jacket was standing in the light of the open door and turned to walk back inside. Gwen pointed at him. "There."

  "Good eyes," Lance said. She picked up speed and drove toward the hangar's light. She parked across the front of the bay so the pilot couldn't take off unless she moved the truck, and she unfastened her seatbelt. She opened the door and looked at Gwen. "Just like when I bought the Pinto, all right? Sit tight and wait here for me."

  Gwen nodded and Lance got out and walked around the front of the truck. The headlights illuminated her from thigh to shoulders and Gwen saw her slip a packet of money out of her back pocket. She kept the money close to her body, ripped off the binding, and folded a couple of the bills into her shirt pocket. The rest went back into her pants pocket. The pilot was standing by the tail of the plane, one hand on the fuselage as he watched her approach. Lance lifted one hand in greeting.

  "How ya doing? Heading out, or putting her to bed for the night?" The rest of the conversation was wiped out by distance and the echoes of the hangar.

  Gwen looked around, half paranoid that the police were going to swarm down on them at any second. Her heart was pounding. She had never really been in a position to be afraid of the cops, despite her husband's "profession". Her only real transgressions against the law was stealing a pack of cigarettes when she was sixteen, and shoplifting jewelry when she was eighteen. She hadn't been caught, so she never had to face down a cop accusing her of something.

  At the far end of the airport property, a chain-link fence separated the runway from a road. Cars swept by in both directions, a sea of white and red, and she wondered if any of them were police officers. She wondered if any of them were carrying Garrett Hadley or the rest of his people. She knew she was being ridiculous, but she felt like there was a giant neon sign pointing to them, announcing they were fugitives, and the longer they sat still, the harder it would be for everyone to ignore it.

  She looked back into the hangar and saw Lance holding the money out in one hand. The pilot's arms were crossed over his chest, hardly a receptive pose, and he was staring at the truck while Lance spoke. Feeling as if she was on display, Gwen ducked her chin. Please help us, she thought, as if the man could read her mind. We're just two women asking to go to Colorado. We're not drug dealers, we're not bad criminals; we just need a little distance between us and the bad people. We just want to be safe. She looked up in time to see the pilot take the money, count it, and then nod slowly.

  Lance shook his hand and turned on her heel. She walked out of the hangar, went to the driver's side, and pulled the door open. She grabbed Gwen's suitcase and said, "Come on."

  Gwen opened her door and hopped out onto the tarmac. The roar of plane engines was louder outside of the car, and the wind picked up her hair and whirled it around her head. She followed Lance into the hangar, which looked and smelled like a big garage. Lance's boots made loud, hollow echoes as she walked, like gunshots, and Gwen found herself jerking slightly each time the heel hit the ground. Her own sneakers were quieter and her footsteps were dulled by all the other sounds around them.

  When they reached the pilot, Lance handed over Gwen's suitcase. Gwen felt a twinge of panic and looked back at the truck. She grabbed Lance's sleeve. "Lance, where's your bag?"

  "In the truck," Lance said flatly. To the pilot, she said, "You make sure she lands safely. Do you hear me?" Her voice was fierce, the kind of hardness that comes when someone is trying to sound stronger than they really are.

  Gwen looked from Lance to the pilot. "What? What are you talking..." She moved her hand to Lance's forearm and squeezed. "You're sending me to Colorado alone?"

  The pilot blinked. "Wait, Colorado?"

  Lance lowered her voice and looked at the pilot. "Can you please excuse us for just a second?"

  "I thought you said Texas," the man said. "I'm only going—"

  "Yes. Texas. Go."

  The man held up his hands and walked away shaking his head. When he was gone, Lance gently took Gwen's hand off her arm and lowered it. She turned to face Gwen and closed her eyes. "Gwen, listen to me. I didn't buy a flight for two to Colorado. I bought a flight for one to Dallas."

  Gwen was horrified, betrayed and frightened. "What—"

  Lance grabbed Gwen by the wrists and brought her hands up. She kissed Gwen's knuckles. "I'm sending you home, Gwen. This isn't your fight. In the truck, you asked me if I was going to
run forever and the answer is yes. Forever, or as long as I can get away with it. It's not fair to ask you to come with me."

  "But I want to stay with you. I want to go to Colorado with you."

  "You want to now," Lance said. "I've been doing it for a year. Okay? And I'm sick of it. But I can't stop. And if you come with me, you won't be able to stop, either. Right here, right now, it's your last chance to get off. It's your chance for a normal life."

  "But Hadley and—"

  Lance shook her head. "Don't worry about them."

  Gwen knew then that Lance was planning to go after Hadley. "They'll kill you, Claire! You can't fight them and run at the same time."

  Lance released Gwen's hands and wrapped her arms around her. Lance held tight, amazed that she had only met this woman three days before. Not even seventy-two hours had passed and she was already aching at the thought of never seeing her again. Gwen pressed her face into Lance's shoulder and started to cry. Lance cupped the back of her head and softly said, "If they kill me, then I'll die protecting you. That's something I couldn't do for Elaine. Maybe it's my chance at redemption."

  "Don't. Don't commit suicide for me. Don't send me away; please, Claire, don't."

  "I'm sorry, Gwen." She broke the hug and used every bit of strength she had to push Gwen away. She turned and called out to the pilot. "Okay, we're done. Whenever you're ready." She released Gwen's arms and backed away, her boots again echoing like gunshots as she walked away. "Goodbye, Gwen. You deserve to find someone who loves you and is willing to sacrifice for you." She turned and walked away, her back straight and her hair streaming behind her like a banner, blending in with the dark night outside the hangar door. She couldn't stop, couldn't show a moment's hesitation. If she faltered now...

  "Lance!"

  Lance closed her eyes to keep herself from looking back. She walked around the front of the truck, got inside and revved the engine. As the truck pulled away and turned to go back the way it had come, she allowed herself one look in the rearview mirror. Gwen had dropped to her knees and covered her eyes with her hands. Lance quickly looked away and focused on the road ahead of her.