Alternate Series

Securing a job as a filing clerk on her detective boyfriend’s investigation team was the easy part. So were his overprotective meddling, his attempt at getting her to quit or him firing her (as if you could, Big guy). Writing about dirty cops proved quite different than hunting a serial or two, though. What started as a casual love affair may be the end of her. Literally! Shy and dreamy female writers should spend their days at the library, or so Chris James MacLaren, Chief homicide detective, believed. Too bad his girlfriend had never read the memo. Now, he has to protect her (for his team and herself both) as she traipsed around the city working on her cold case. Yah, even with just that one case he bestowed upon her, the woman could cause mayhem. He blamed the company she kept, in particular, her ex-hacker boyfriend–deceased, thank fuck–and his elusive agoraphobic sidekick, this one very much alive. Chris has a plan, though. He intended to make her days too busy with filing to run off or recklessly research the hell out of another one of her crazy ideas. As for her nights, they’ll be all his. Christopher worried too much. Surely, that filing clerk job she secured on his team will prove a perfect research project. Observing the Big guy handle his men (and women) was damn sexy, a little too much considering theirs was a casual relationship, right? Besides, she hated cops, and he was too tough and independent for anything serious, n’est-ce pas ? Yes, the two liked each other. Sparks flew. If it weren’t for dead bodies, beautiful women, turning up (at least, white parts of them), their lives would be grand. “You will let me read files and take notes as I want?” “Absolutely.” Christopher was charming when he wanted to be, wasn’t he? And he did seem to have made up his mind about letting her do her research. Not that she was convinced working in his office was such a good thing. What if she liked him at work? Didn’t she already like him too much? If she had her way, all of her ways, she would have been allowed to take the files home, but HR had said no, absolutely non-negotiable. “And I won’t fetch you coffee.” “Of course not, Angel.” Lucky Patricia wasn’t a mind reader because damn if he wasn’t thinking of ways to change her mind. If on such an occasion, she happened to be wearing that outfit with the skirt and heels, or anyone of the many other sexy outfits she had waiting in her closet, well, it would make it all worth it. Not that he intended to have her around long, that wasn’t part of his new emergency plan.

After her stint as a filing clerk, Patricia moved up in a world. Now (somewhat) happily employed in a big corporation, her life could return to its normal of writing, drinking, walking, and avoiding her recently ex-boyfriend cop. Moving in together? So much for casual! Perhaps she missed the infuriating man, maybe her new boss was a jerk, but damn it, she was not giving up on her brand-new ordinary life! Relationship hiatus aside, she didn’t have one worry whatsoever. So what if some lunatic kept sending her pen name cheesy love poems? Nobody knows my real name, Big guy. The gentleman stabbed in a mall toilet? Coincidental. The old geezer ran over on a country road? No link to her. And the dead man murdered at the rest area? Not. Tied. To. Her. Admittedly, Chris’s plan had backfired. The damn woman thought their relationship was still casual. Worse, she acted as if they were off while he believed they needed to regroup and plan better. At least, he did. Why couldn’t she follow his lead as his detectives did? If he smoked and drank Scotch, that had nothing to do with the damn woman borrowing guns, ignoring threatening fan mail or leaving a trail of dead men as she traipsed around the countryside, right? Play dumb. Play nice. Run. Fast. “So. What do you want to talk about?” Big smile on her face. He kept his head where it was, kept his hands where they were, kept the vein throbbing and didn’t answer. No way he was mad about one lousy gun, was he? She leaned closer and pulled his sunglasses off. His eyes were closed. Not good. He didn’t open them. Not good at all. “Is this because of the gun?” He didn’t answer. She thought she saw him shake his head once, barely, but couldn’t be sure. So she repeated, “Christopher, is this about the gun or not?” He finally opened his eyes to look at her. “Damn you! You shouldn’t have given it to me if it was registered!” “It’s not about the gun, but fuck, Patricia, what did you do with it?” “It’s not about the gun?” “No, it’s not. But now I’m worried. What did you do with it?” “Nothing. I didn’t do anything with it.” She wanted to be absolutely sure, though. “But it’s not registered, right?” He stared. She could have sworn his mouth twitched, the beginning of a smile. It lasted a millisecond. At the most. “No, it’s not.” “Good then. Because, hum, ah, I kind of lost it.” “Lost it?” A raised eyebrow. His voice was soft. Low and soft. “Lost it. As in, it’s gone. I’ll pay you back.” How much did a gun like that cost anyway?

As Chief homicide detective, Chris had his hands full leading his men. The job was no picnic, but his team ran like a well-oiled machine. Well, except for those incompetents Central has just dumped on him. With years on the force, Chris hadn’t made friends with everyone, and someone at Central was making him pay times four. He was getting too old for the job. Thank God Patricia had abandoned her filing clerk stint. Although, knowing her, the damn woman would have had ideas on how to get rid of them. Now she spent her days at the library and her nights in his bed, at least when she did not run off to Italy or a desert yoga retreat. Just when he thought his life couldn’t become more complicated, a prostitute accused one of his officers of sexual assault. With Christopher busy helping his man out of trouble, Patricia intended to stay away from his precinct and soon look for another, more normal occupation. For now, she focused on her writing. A psychiatric might say that her story about a female serial killer proved both testimony and outlet for how gruesomely real her job as part of the Big guy’s team had felt. Write, sleep, drink, hide were her therapy, as was her relationship with Christopher. They had made a deal. She stopped claiming their affair was only casual; he refrained from asking her to move in with him. What’s a woman to do when her cop lover gets arrested, though? Marry him–strictly as a get-out-of-jail card, Big guy–buy a house, and help the infuriating man clear his name. For once, the extremes the damn woman took to support her friends were in Chris’s favour. Too bad he was too busy clearing the murder charges hanging over his head to enjoy her thoroughly. “What’s in it for me, DesForges, sweetie?” Patricia asked. That woman was a bitch. “What the fuck are you talking about, Babydoll?” “You heard me. You all heard me. What’s in it for me? If I get Hamilton out and about, what are you all going to give me in exchange?” He was stunned. Reid wasn’t. “I don’t care about Ham all that much, girlfriend. Quieter when he’s not around. I offer nothing.” Patricia started to laugh. “Reid, ma chérie, you don’t have anything to offer. Anyone else?” DesForges knew she wasn’t asking for money. Or sex; it couldn’t be, she was a woman for Christ’s sake! LeRoy, tacitly the team’s interim boss when Chris was out, no matter what the fuck Central had decided, took charge. “What is it you want, Babe?” “You know what I want.” Teasing laugh. Foxy lady. Des didn’t have a clue what she wanted. The way her brain worked, the woman was a surprise box to him. From the look of the others, they didn’t know either. “Christopher’s whereabouts.” “What the fuck, Babe?” She looked at each in turn her laugh turning sarcastic. “You don’t know? Damn it, none of you know!”

Patricia returned to her filing clerk-receptionist position at Chief Officer Christopher James MacLaren’s precinct to fill in for his sick secretary. Answering phones, fetching coffees, and admiring her cop of a boyfriend should be safe enough. Days at the desk and evenings writing a follow-up story of her female serial epic, life is grand. It was about time her PI character got a story of her own. The college-aged waitress murder would help her fictional character (not my alter ego as I only do fiction, Big guy). And nothing (or no one, including the infuriating man), could stop her from researching–wasn’t that what writers did–her one allotted cold case. Chris would prefer she spent her days at the library but figured nothing could go wrong as long as the damn woman stayed within precinct walls, right? Called on a crime scene on his day off, Chris merely intended to help out a rookie. When he finds a connection between Patricia and the vic, though, he takes up the case, intent on solving it without her involvement. As if that ever worked. As her past catches up with her, she gets it in her head to train his rookie officer, solve the case, and protect him. Him! I’m trained and armed, Angel. The idea of handcuffing her to his bedposts is becoming more enticing by the minute. “You guys in the mood for a beer?” Chris asked his men. “My treat.” His team was always in the mood for a beer, even more so when they had open cases or unfinished business. Fucking right, unfinished business. “Reid? Le? How about giving Patricia a ride, I’ll meet up with you there?” He had a feeling LeRoy and Reid wouldn’t be the only ones around for drinks. “Charles, Ham, my office. Now.” He didn’t wait to watch them scamper out of the conference room. “Ham, I want you to run a background check on our victim Lemieux while I talk with Charles. See what turns up,” he ordered midway to his office. “Charles, let me make a couple of calls before we review the case again. Any objection to working with us on this?” He didn’t wait for the rookie’s answer. If he wanted the case transferred (and Charles temporarily assigned to his team), Chris had to hunt for a replacement for the local chief. He briefly thought of the quartet’s leftovers but decided against it. He had enough enemies already, hadn’t he? Enemies but friends also, it took him about a dozen phone calls, half an hour of favour calling, flattery and bribes to set up everything; he even called Central to check it with them. Not that it would have made a fucking difference for him. Just keeping my eyes on Lemieux for you, Darling of mine. He briefed Charles about the way of the team. About his ways. “I know you want in. I see it in your eyes, same as in my guys, but Charles, it won’t be easy.” Fuck, the guy looked like a kiddie cop–a fucking rookie. He briefly hesitated on what to tell the kid about Patricia. “About Patricia. She works here part-time. She. Is. Not. A. Cop.” He decided to spell out precisely what was allowed and what was not. “Anything she says, asks, demands, requests, orders, or begs for, you clear it with me. She doesn’t do anything or go anywhere without me breathing down her neck. Got it?” As he spoke, he speculated how long it would take for her to trick the rookie. He repeated, keeping it simple, “Never do anything she asks; never let her go anywhere she wants to visit unless I, your boss, have authorized it specifically, out loud and face-to-face. And Charles? I will never consent to it. Ever.”

Chief Homicide Detective Chris MacLaren never took vacations before he met Patricia. But the damn woman ran off, again, leaving him by his lonesome to varnish a wood bench or go fishing. Since the countryside was never his thing, when an old flame lures him down memory lane, the missing person case soon turns into a murder. Forget work, the beach, dirty dead cops, and her infuriating cop of a boyfriend’s overprotectiveness. Patricia wants to pretend the last weeks even happened and what better place for her ignorance bliss than Italy? Although sometimes he’s too close for comfort, she soon misses the infuriating man. She returns home only to find he left for parts unknown with an old leather-clad dominatrix ex in search of her step-son. The last time Christopher disappeared, mayhem ensued. This time, Patricia intends to stick by his side no matter what. As soon as she finds him, that is. He had left messages, one for each morning, afternoon and evening. “Call me,” they all said, without one mentioning the Dom. Apparently, jet lag, exhaustion, and sadness did not mix well for she called regardless. He answered on the first ring. “About time, Princess.” She caught her breath. How could he still do this to her? “Hi.” Should she tell him she knew? “You sound funny. Is everything all right?” “Groovy.” She paused; he was so infuriating! “What are you doing?” “Fishing.” “Fishing for what?” “What do you mean, fishing for what? Are you sure you’re OK? Where are you calling from?” “Where do you think I’m calling from, Big guy?” A pause on his end. “The transmission’s great. So, what have you been doing?” “I’ve been busy getting fat on food, drunk on wine, and numbed from, hum, well, you know.” “No, I do not know. Getting tired on what? You had better be tired of walking, Angel.” She liked his voice, soothing and even; he had a deep, sexy voice. “A lot of things have exhausted me. How about you, Big guy?” Another pause. She didn’t like when he took too long to answer; his breaks meant he was protecting her. She imagined too well from what, who he was shielding her this time: his old dominatrix friend. “I miss you, Angel. How about I come over?” “Would you?” “Yes. Right away. Where are you?” “I’m, hum,” she hesitated. His voice was too level; he had the cop face on no doubt. Fishing indeed, but not for fish! Well, Christopher. I think it’s time I did some fishing myself. “I called Bridget earlier. How come you went to the precinct on your vacation?” “How come you called my secretary on your vacation?” “I wanted to ask Bridget if she wanted anything Italian. What’s your excuse?” “I needed a few things.” I bet you did, Big guy. Leather, oversized breasts, and a whip, “An old acquaintance stopped by.” Old acquaintance my ass! The arrogance of him, he wasn’t even claiming his innocence! “Ah. Really?” “I told you about her. Jessica.” She had never heard of a Jessica-the-dominatrix in her life. “She saw me in the papers.” “Did she now? How nice.” She did more than see you in the newspapers. Did she scrub your back? “Patricia?” “Yes?” “I like it when you’re jealous.” The nerve of the man! “Fuck you,” were her last words before she hung up on him. So what if she had said he could do whatever the hell he wanted? Had she not forgone an Italian god for him? Surely an Italian god was much harder to forgo than a dominatrix.

To help a friend, a relative of her ex, Patricia ends up playing hostess on a tacky show. To make matters worse, her cop boyfriend Christopher feels compelled to take her to his latest crime scene as a form of therapy. Couldn’t she focus on her writing instead? Writing is the only constant in her life, after all. With no family but for a couple of odd friends whose past company gave her plenty of reasons to hate cops, she enjoys losing herself fin her characters’ lives. Thus, setting up house with the Big guy feels like a momentous step. As if her life wasn’t complicated enough. Understandably, she’s somewhat deferring their house shopping. Surely, the infuriating man doesn’t expect her to move into a porn palace without a single café in the vicinity! All she wants lately is to work on her book and forget about everything else, murders, exes, and jobs, hers and his included. Chris can tell ghosts from her past still rattle Patricia. As a tough, no-nonsense, chief homicide detective, more bent on getting results than following the law, he feared nothing. Then he met her, and now fists and knot keep him up with worries. Old friends, corpses, dirty cops, part-time jobs make for a challenging relationship. As they were in the middle of a discussion, he’s called to a crime scene and bring Patricia. Think of it as therapy, Angel. At the site, a bodiless leg dangles from a butcher’s shop sign. A riddle tattooed on the thaw skin taunts them. Another sicko roams in the city. Do not get involved, Angel. “It looks funny,” she said from six steps back. I didn’t have to wait long now, did I, for your damn curiosity to bring you closer? Her observation mode (her fucking research as she called it) had activated. “It’s a limb hanging from a butcher’s sign, Babe. What do you expect?” “I meant the skin. It looks weird.” He motioned the medical examiner over. The med guy never said anything unless he had had his hands on the body for a couple of hours, but he did venture a few educated guesses. “Unofficially, it’s possible the appendage was drained.” “Drained?” “Emptied of its blood. And frozen. That would explain its shape and colour. Now gentlemen, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to the leg officially since, after all,” the man concluded, “that’s why you called me here, and in this weather, the thing is rapidly decomposing.” At that, Chris caught her scrunching her nose and frantically batting her eyelids. Had she been breathing through her mouth the whole time? “How long is it going to stay there?” The men shrugged. “As long as it takes.” Therapy, Princess. Time to bring her closer. With his hand on the small of her back, he pushed her gently. Three steps forward, she froze again and dug in her heels. They were close enough now for the remnant to smell even if they were downwind. He smiled. This crime scene tour was fucking therapy for both of them. He might even consider having her back at the office, handcuffed to her desk, though, but back nonetheless. “What’s that black dotted line on the thigh’s inner side?” She wanted to know. Still too far to see clearly, Princess? “A tattoo. A riddle.” “Riddle?” Was she or wasn’t she going to take another step? He hid a grin and waited. Your call, Pussycat. When she fished out her phone, he gave her a silent count of five before stepping in front of her. Allowing her to research the leg might be a form of healing for her, but it was far from soothing for him. She put the phone back in her pocket, then started frowning, swallowed hard, a sure sign her imagination was going into high gear. Therapy was over. He drove her home. “I want your word you won’t leave town, Pussycat.” “Really, Big guy,” she smirked and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Why would I−” “Your word.” “Fine. I promise I will stay in town.” She didn’t leave. She didn’t need to. There were plenty of places to run off to in the city, wasn’t there?

Patricia agrees to a holiday trip to Scotland, Christopher’s ancestral. The two of them alone, strolling the streets in between bouts of lovemaking. “I know what I want for Christmas,” he’d said. “You and a story written solely for me.” So how do they end up in the MacLaren castle, mere hours after landing on Scottish ground, amongst his dysfunctional brood? And let’s not forget the ghosts, old and new. “A bath, some wine, and a massage were all I wished for, Big guy. Can’t I, just once, go a-travelling without encountering neither corpse nor family? This is all on you, Big guy.” With all the goings-on at the castle, Patricia doesn’t know which part’s real and which is fiction. Either way, what’s a wee murder amongst kin, right? Kester snaps his fingers in front of my nose, yanking me back to the present and the man in flesh and blood glaring at me. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Dark frowning expression. Stubborn jawline. Clenched fists. His smell is incredible. Male and cologne and soap and camphor (is the formidable laird injured?) and musk and horse. I could have done without the camphor scent, but on him, it’s not entirely unpleasant. “Speak up, boy!” I have a sudden urge to kiss him. That would shut him up on the spot. Especially considering I’ve concealed myself in men’s clothing, and nothing in my spying so far leads me to believe Laird MacLaren inclined towards males. “I’m looking for employment,” I belatedly blur out in a suspiciously high voice. I clear my throat in what I hope is a manly fashion before repeating, “I was a-lookin’ for empl’ment. Heard your Lairdship was hi-e-ring.” I’m lousy at fake accents, let alone fake male accents. The dark eyes travel up and down my body, then stare pointedly at the thing lying in the straw with marked scorn on his severe features... “Did you have to kill a man right from the start of the tale?” the Big guy chastises. I frown at Christopher. Hard. “I do not handle criticism well when I’m hungover and jet-lagged.” “You can’t be hungover if you’re still drunk, Princess.” He has a point. We came straight from the airport to drop our luggage at the hotel. Downtown Edinburgh is snowy. I wrote the beginning of Christopher’s gift story while he gathered our suitcases, rented a car, drove us to the hotel, showered, and ordered a breakfast-lunch-hangover cure meal instead of resting. “I want to take a nap.” “No naps, we have a city to explore.” “We could practise the sex scene,” I offer as I stretch out on the bed as an incentive. Closing my eyes might have betrayed my ulterior motives, though, since I’m yanked by my ankle, then my waist, until I find myself looking into dark eyes laughing at me. “I know you too well, Pussycat. My scenes require you being awake.” “Scenes? I did not agree to more than one. It ain’t that kind of novel, Big guy.” “It’s about me and you, right?” Seeing as I neither confirm nor deny, he takes it as he wishes. Of course. “Then, the story should describe plenty of sex. You could spend a couple of chapters naked.” I should never have agreed to this. Normal couples give each other ties, cigars, and jewellery. “You get to read, Big guy, but I never said you’d get to decide or even comment.” “Why?” “Because I don’t know where this story is going, and if you remark on every single word, we’ll never get it done!” “Let me rephrase that. Why did you kill a character on the first line?” “How should I know!” “Try.” “I honestly have no idea how my mind works.” Ain’t that the truth? **Kester and Patrea’s story, as well as Chris and Patricia’s, continue in Denary**

When Patricia receives Martin’s message, she forgets writing, book tours, boyfriends, townhouses, or her normal life, and heads straight back home. Home? Fifteen years elapsed since she left the country and yet, as soon as she crosses the border, she feels the melancholy she escaped from return. She arrives too late for Martin, though. A freak work accident the newspapers say. What are the odds of him falling to his death the same week he had called her? She long learned things were never simple with her siblings. Now, she has one dead, one missing to research. As soon as the damn woman slips away, Chris follows with the A-team in tow. Decades in the police, a chief detective position, two townhouses, and a somewhat newly adopted son are not enough to stop him from travelling to some shack lost in the boondocks in search of the love of his life. When she takes a job at a plastic factory of all places, so does he. As if he’ll let her investigate some jerk’s death without him. He doesn’t know who the fuck Martin is, but he won’t allow her to run to the bastard without stepping in her way. Talk to me, Angel. I’ve never called Christopher an asshole, but I’m about to now. “What the heck are you doing here?” My teeth are clenched so tight, I barely get the words out, but the a-hole hears me just fine. “I got a job. Lift truck driver. The fishing is shit in this weather. I’m waiting for rain.” I turn on my heels. Do I look like a stupide, idiote, imbécile? “What are you doing?” he asks less than a minute later, as I’m taking out my anger on a silly waterline. The damn purge valve won’t open. I was wrestling with it while I caught Christopher around the corner of my machine. I’m back to wrestling with it, and despite my fury, the damn thing is not intimidated. Neither is the grinning cop next to me. “Want help with that, Pussycat?” “Hey, l’anglais,” Michel, one of my lovely mechanic colleagues, yells from the front of the press. “They’re looking for you in the storage room.” The cop-driver-a-hole next to me grins at me before replying unperturbed, “Give me a couple of minutes. Your guy here asked my help with some shit.” Did he just refer to me as a guy? He’s such an ass. “Keep the attitude, Officer MacLaren,” I whisper from my hiding point behind the machine, “and they’ll fire your ass before the end of the day.” What am I saying? I don’t give a damn if HR dweeb fires Christopher. Quite the opposite. The ex-cop of my life hunkers down next to me. “Need help with that lever?” I put all my weight on the blasted thing. It doesn’t rotate by a hair. That sure showed him. “You could have warned me!” I snap. Between the valve and Christopher, I’m not certain I’ll survive the work shift before losing it. “Warned you how?” “Oh, I don’t know. You could have left a message or something!” I grumble without looking at him. That cursed valve should have split and cracked open by now the way I’m looking daggers at it. “Leaving messages is your thing, Angel of mine.” I jump back as if he had just slapped me. “Do. Not. Call. Me. Angel.” So I’m a little edgy. His eyes have narrowed into thin slits. “What the fuck’s going on here, Patricia? What are you trying to prove?” “I’m not trying to prove anything. I just thought...” What? That I could save Martin? Too late for that. Save Cécile? Save myself? “I’m working here, Big guy. Some of us do work for a living, you know.” “You write. The rest is just for show. Pretending you’re normal.” “I think by now we both know I’ll never be normal. What’s your excuse, Christopher?” “You.”

When the A-team discovers another body close to home, Chris does the unthinkable to protect the love of his life. He won’t have her caught in the crossfire of decade-old revenge. But when she figures out all that’s at stake, the damn woman retaliates in kind. Following Christopher’s betrayal, Patricia disappears, but with the team under attack, her fight-or-flight reflex turns from a yoga retreat to a full-frontal confrontation. Christopher can keep his guns; words, hackers, theft, sex, cell app, she gathers her unique arsenal to protect her friends, the infuriating man included, from further harm. For once, will Christopher and Patricia trust each other to handle the murders’ investigation together? “Who is he?” “I do not know, M’aingeal.” Nor do I care. My thoughts stay focused on her, on keeping her safe. “Come now.” I try stirring her gently towards the back entrance of the stables. She remains stubbornly still. “The tomahawk contradicts any accident hypothesis.” “Indians use tomahawks; Scots wield Lochaber axes.” “The handle is too short for it to be an axe, Kester.” “The handle is broken, Patrea. Notice its splintered tip?” Her stare doesn’t stray from the soles of the stiff’s shoes. Is she pretending the corpse merely sleeps? “Any idea who might have out him here? And don’t you dare declare that he tripped on his weapon!” “I’ll not tell you anything, lass. Go back to the keep with Tam.” I glance at Tam who has just joined us out, “Make sure the men return to the dormitory, then bring her to our quarters. She’s to remain inside. The air is turning chilly this night. Inform Filib I’ve need of him. Do not tell the others anything. That goes for you too, ma loove.” “Yes, Kester Sir!” She salutes before stomping away. For once, I’m thankful she’s not fully recovered for she would have argued and insisted on staying. If only for once, the real Patricia was as docile as her alter-ego character, Patrea, Chris reflects. “Welcome home, Love of mine.” “How dare you!” “This isn’t our first fight, Pussycat. And I intend to make sure it’s not our last.” “You’re so... so... so damn...” At a lost for words, Angel of mine? I could suggest a few. Crazy. Protective. Scared. She lowers her head and inhales deeply. Looks up at the garden. I watch the play of emotions on her face. She gulps in another audible breath before closing her eyes. When she opens them and turns her glare back to me, the ice queen returns. “Ingrid. Thomas. Taskill. Abigail. Elizabeth. How lovely to see you all. I take it you’re all well, oui? And what brought you happy campers to the war zone on this rainy day?” “Sit,” I cut before my family starts vying for her attention. “All of you.” My cousins settle on the couch side by side. Ingrid hugs Patricia before dropping her ass onto one of the armchairs. The queen remains standing, arms crossed and an arched brow to provoke me. For added effect, she taps her foot impatiently without uttering a word. The guys fan out, Des and Ham at the dining table, Lonz in the other armchair, MacCarmick against the mezzanine stairs’ guardrail. “We have a situation,” I declare. **The sequel to Kester and Patrea’s story, as well as Chris and Patricia’s, started in Ennead!**