One - Uneasy Partnership

Lorcan's in for a surprise...Rachel's caused a little havoc with a high-security government agency...

Rachel sighed heavily as she heard the door to the study slam. Lorcan was in a bad mood. Fantastic. As if it wasn’t enough she had to share an apartment with him…oh no, he had to be in a bad mood too. Wondering what had raised her partner’s ire, Rachel looked up from her laptop screen, closing down the top as she did so.

“What’s up?” she asked, not bothering to put as much acid into her tone as she usually did. The red-haired man scowled at her.

“We've got another dead end,” he fumed, slumping into an armchair. Rachel put aside her computer and rose to her feet to sort through a jumble of papers on the table, searching for one in particular. Finding it, she straightened, pen in hand.

“Which lead?”

“The Vivaldi one,” Lorcan muttered, raking a hand through his hair. Rachel sighed and crossed it off the list. That had been one of their most promising leads. Now they had to spend even longer in this apartment than they had expected. Damn the Head of Department and his rules!

“Do you want coffee?” Rachel asked suddenly, remembering what she had discovered just before Lorcan had distracted her. The man looked up and nodded. He had circles under his eyes…he mustn’t be sleeping well.

“Thanks, Rachel,” he said tiredly, and Rachel made her way into the kitchen, shaking her head. How he had survived on take-out for the last ten years she didn’t know…

 

Lorcan closed his eyes as Rachel moved into the kitchen. She might be a pain in the behind sometimes, but she made good coffee. He heard her take the mugs out of the cupboard and a spoon out of the draw, but then he drew his thoughts inwards. He had spent three days following yet another false lead…why couldn’t people just be honest and up-front about their dealings?! Then maybe there wouldn’t be so many murders and robberies and…the list went on and on. Lorcan snorted, his eyes still closed and his head resting on the back of his chair. As if that would ever happen.

“Coffee, Lorcan,” he heard Rachel say. She sounded amused. Lorcan opened his eyes to see a cup of steaming black coffee on the table in front of him. He sat up straight again, reaching out for the mug. How had he not heard her? Rachel settled silently into her chair, her legs curled up as she sipped her drink. She seemed to be contemplating something, so Lorcan stayed silent. He just drank the coffee…black no sugar, just how he liked it…and wondered how long it would take them to catch this new serial killer.

 

Rachel watched Lorcan discreetly, waiting for the moment when the coffee would kick in and he would be awake again. Finished with her own drink, she stood, flicking a long strand of her black hair out of her face. She would tell Lorcan in a moment what she had done. He would be angry at her, but he was nearly always angry at her.

“Hey, Lorcan,” she began as she made her way back into the kitchen with her empty cup. He wouldn’t like this…

“What?”

“Do you have any contacts in the FBI?”

“Why?” he asked, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen, his arms folded as he glared suspiciously at her, his empty coffee cup in one hand. Rachel reached out and took it from him, putting it on the edge of the sink.

“No reason,” she replied, hiding her cheeky smile. He would want to know more now.

“Rachel, what did you do this time?” Lorcan asked tiredly, closing his eyes. Rachel grinned.

“Nothing much. But in about five minutes fifty Special Forces will be surrounding this building. I may have…accidentally…hacked into their mainframe,” she confessed. It had been too easy to do, too. Lorcan’s eyes flew open.

“You…hacked into…the FBI?” he asked, sounding like he was choking. Rachel avoided his eyes. She hadn’t realised she had been discovered until an antivirus warning popped up on her computer screen. She had pulled out quickly then, but it was too late. The FBI knew where they were. She wasn’t prepared for Lorcan to grab hold of her shoulders and start shaking her.

“You idiot! That’s got to be the stupidest thing you have ever done!”

“Let go of me, Detective Fen,” Rachel said coldly, not liking how he was treating her. Just when they needed to get along, he was treating her like an inferior. Lorcan released her as if he’d been electrocuted. “Now, do you…?” she trailed off. Lorcan wasn’t listening. He was banging his head against the doorframe. “Hey Lorcan!” she shouted in his ear, making him jump and stop banging his head against the doorframe.

“What?”

“Do you know anyone who can help us out?”

“Possibly,” he muttered, rubbing his ear. He seemed more affected by the shout than the multiple knocks to the head. Rachel looked at her watch.

“Let's hope that means yes, because they’re going to come through the front door in approximately sixty seconds.”

 

When the armed troopers entered the room, Rachel was sitting calmly in the Lotus position on the long couch, her ID in her hand as she watched the Special Forces without emotion. Lorcan was sitting on the chair across from her with his arms folded, glaring at her. Why did she do this to him? She looked like she was actually enjoying the whole situation too. Lorcan sighed as at least ten gun-barrels were trained on him. Rachel seemed to not notice the ten focused on her as she opened her eyes.

“Who’s in charge here?” she asked calmly, folding her hands around her ID. A voice boomed from the back of the room, answering her question. Lorcan rolled his eyes. He really didn’t need to be chucked in jail this week. He didn’t need to be locked up ever, actually, but working with pain-in-the-behind-Rachel didn’t make his future all that optimistic.

“You have the right to remain silent…”

“Or anything I say can and will be held against me. I know, I know,” Rachel said in a bored tone of voice. “We have that spiel too,” she said, opening her hands and at the same time flashing her badge. Lorcan sighed again at her dramatic side. Working with Rachel was going to make him go grey prematurely. The man who had spoken strode forward, nodding to a man to one side of Rachel to grab the badge and toss it to him. He caught it and examined it, then nodded.

“Detective Jackson,” he acknowledged, tossing it back to her. Then he looked towards Lorcan, who was still frowning at Rachel. “And you are…?” Lorcan looked to the man and tossed his own ID to him, refolding his arms and resuming glaring at Rachel as the man inspected it.

“And Detective Fen, both CIA,” the man said, as if reading aloud. “Interesting. Would you mind telling me why the trace on the person that hacked our mainframe led us here?”

“Rachel, I’m blaming you for this,” Lorcan muttered as Rachel blinked innocently.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” she said with a smile and a cheeky wink. “I needed information, and FBI happened to have the information I needed. I didn’t realise I was being traced,” she added, her tone annoyed. “It takes so long to go through all the paperwork and procedure, and I needed the information yesterday,” she explained. The man tossed Lorcan’s ID back to him, and Lorcan resisted the urge to throw it at Rachel. Damn she was irritating!

“Well, nice to know the CIA can trust us,” he said, sounding offended. “Lieutenant Connors is my name and rank.”

“Nice to meet you. Now if you don’t mind, we’d like to get back to our work,” Rachel said pleasantly. She really was enjoying this. Lorcan made a mental note to strangle her later.

“Of course, Detective Jackson,” Lieutenant Connors replied, sounding almost respectful. He waved his men off, and the Special Forces fell back, marching out of the room in an orderly fashion. “I just request that you wait for the slow upper ranks instead of hacking into the mainframe next time,” he added, lowering a stern eye to Rachel, who smiled prettily and nodded. The lieutenant saluted, in a very militaristic style, then left the room, the door closing behind him. Rachel was silent for a moment, then started to laugh. Lorcan couldn’t resist any longer. He picked up a pillow from the couch and threw it at her. Rachel yelped as it struck her head, but then continued laughing, irritating Lorcan even more.

“What the hell is so funny?!”

 

Much to Lorcan’s further irritation, Rachel wasn’t even slightly repentant for the trouble she had caused. No, instead as soon as she had managed to stop laughing and Lorcan had stopped hitting her with pillows, she had stood up, opened her laptop and started tapping away at the keys again while Lorcan stomped back to the study. Rachel sighed and tied back her long black hair so her deep brown eyes could see the computer screen a little more easily. She shook her head as Lorcan slammed the study door. He really needed to control that temper of his…or they might never catch this strange killer.

 

Lorcan flipped an annoying red strand of hair out of his deep blue eyes and sighed as he crossed off the Vivaldi lead on his own sheet of paper. The most promising had turned out to be a false trail. Irritated to no end, Lorcan started to flick through the pictures of the crime-scenes thus far. There was something about them that he recognised, but he couldn’t place his finger on it. He didn’t understand what was happening.

 

About half an hour later, Lorcan poked his head out of the study at the smell of food, and Rachel bit back a laugh. Yes, he complained about her and wasn’t very civil towards her at times, but he liked her cooking. He emerged fully from the study as Rachel produced her specialty fifteen-minute dish, which she didn’t have a name for, and held out a bowl towards him. She grinned as Lorcan took the bowl and started to eat after muttered thanks, and settled into her chair cross-legged to eat her own meal. It was strange; the only time they could cooperate fully was when at a crime scene, an arrest, or during Rachel’s cooked meals. It was the only time Lorcan wasn’t glaring at her or ignoring her completely, and it was the only time Rachel would not try to annoy him. He was so funny when he got really annoyed with her. Rachel contemplated on her thoughts as she ate until her cell-phone rang.

 

After a quick few words, Rachel hung up on the person speaking to her.

“Who was it?” Lorcan asked, his words slightly muffled around the mouthful of noodles he was in the process of eating. Rachel looked at him with a serious expression, and Lorcan rolled his eyes as he quickly devoured the rest of his food.

“It was the HoD,” Rachel informed him relatively calmly, striding to the kitchen. “They’ve found another body.”

“Same suspected murderer?” Lorcan asked, following her with his empty bowl.

“The very same. We need to go there now.”