Chapter 4
Clarke was walking around her living room. She was growing weary of Finn complaining. For over an hour he had been arguing and sulking, accusing her of spending the night with her ex-girlfriend. Technically he was right of course. The thought made her giggle just a little bit.
Not once within this hour had he asked if she was okay. He hadn’t cared enough to stay with her the day before either. She stopped walking.
“Finn, why are you here?”
“What?” He pushed his hair back behind his ear and looked at her.
“You didn’t stay with me when they brought me home more dead than alive and you haven’t been here yesterday. Why are you here now?”
He seemed confused. “I had business meetings and you said you were okay.”
“Finn, I was kidnapped and almost killed. Why on earth would you believe me?”
“But you said …”
“You said you needed to go to a business meeting. You said it was important. It seemed like your life depended on it. What did you expect me to say? I just whished I had been more important than your job.”
“Clarke, you’re not making sense.”
She looked at him. When had he become like this? When had they become like this?
“I think you should go.”
“What?”
Clarke looked at him and suddenly things were as clear to her as if a veil had been lifted. She looked at her finger with the flashy engagement ring that was so much different than the one that was still in a box in her desk drawer. The one she chose for Lexa. The one she couldn’t have brought herself to throw away. She took the ring off her finger and gave it to Finn.
“Clarke, what are you doing?”
“What I should have done a while ago. I don’t want to marry you, Finn. I shouldn’t have said yes in the first place.”
He looked at her in bewilderment. “You’re making a mistake, Clarke.”
“No, I am not.”
“Is it because of her?” He made a gesture in the general direction of the door.
“No, it is not. She just reminded me of something.”
He stared at her.
“And what’s that?”
“How it feels when somebody actually cares for you.”
When the door opened, Finn rushed out like a bull in the arena. For a second Lexa thought he was about to hit her, but he just stopped, stood still and stared at her for a moment. When Lexa didn’t break eye contact, he gave her a contemptuous laugh. “Well, I guess you two are just perfect for one another.”
With that he turned and left.
Lexa looked at Clarke, who was standing in the doorframe.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She smiled at her. “Thank you for asking.”
“You’re welcome.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Do you want to come in?”
Lexa looked at her and smiled back.
“I would love to, but I have to go.”
“You are leaving?” Clarke’s smile dropped.
“I just got a call from Bellamy. I’m needed at the precinct and I really have to shower and change. I literally slept in this.” She looked at her clothes.
“Indra is already on her way to take my post. You’ll be safe with her.”
She saw Clarke’s look.
“Don’t worry. She is intimidating enough to even scare me.” She laughed.
Another moment of silence.
“Clarke, if it is alright with you I will come back tonight and take my post again?”
Clarke’s eyes seemed to lighten up just a little.
“I could bring some food and then maybe we could talk? I think it is time for us to talk, don’t you?”
Clarke looked at her.
“Maybe you are right. Maybe it is.”
“Do you have any idea, how much footage there is, Lexa?” Monty yawned. “I’ve been here for almost 24 hours.”
Lexa placed a coffee cup in front of him. “That’s why I come bearing gifts.” In her other hand she had a box of doughnuts.
Monty took one and smiled at her. “Well, that could just do the trick.” He took a bite. “Okay, this is what we have.” He turned to the monitor in front of him and started the video.
“This is Ontari leaving the bank. We have bank statements that put the withdrawal at about 5 minutes earlier than this, so this is pretty much her leaving with one million dollars. I guess they’re in the bag she has with her.”
Lexa nodded. “Okay.”
“Next she walks to her car and puts the money in the trunk. Then I have about 12 hours of footage from different cameras that have her driving around, running errands, that sort of stuff. The bag is still inside the trunk. Eleven p.m. is where it gets interesting.” He started another video. Ontari got out of her car and took the bag out of the trunk. Next she was walking down the street to what looked like a laundromat. She entered it and left about two minutes later, this time without the bag.
Lexa looked at Monty. “What happens next?”
Monty grinned. “What happens next is what I call a homerun.” He fast-forwarded for about two minutes, and then a man appeared on the screen. He wore a hoodie, so Lexa couldn’t see his face. He entered the laundromat and came back out a minute later. This time he was carrying a bag, Ontari’s bag.
Lexa looked at Monty. “You can’t see his face.” He just smiled. “Oh, yes, you can, Detective. Only not from this angle.” He switched to a different camera and there he was. Cage Wallace. Lexa gave Monty a high five.
When Lexa entered the room Bellamy looked up from the files he was reading.
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“What are we going to do now? Take her in and hope for a confession?”
“You don’t really think that it was her idea?”
Bellamy shook his head. “No. From all that I’ve gathered, Ontari is her mother’s right hand, but I highly doubt that she is the one who decided to have Clarke killed. My gut says it’s her mum, but my gut won’t do us any good in court.”
Lexa helped herself to a cup of coffee and set down at her desk.
“So what shall we do, partner?”
Bellamy sighed. “I have no idea.”
Lexa sipped her coffee in silence for a minute.
“Bellamy, there’s one thing that we haven’t considered yet.”
“What’s that?”
“How did Cage know where and how to find Clarke?”
“Well, doesn’t she always leave the hospital the same way?”
“I don’t think so. She usually takes her car and the car park is in front of the hospital. That day Clarke took the back entrance, because it’s closer to the subway.”
Bellamy looked at her.
“So either Wallace was inside, watching her or he must have an informant telling him where to find Clarke.”
He took a moment to think about this. “If he was inside the hospital the security cameras must have caught him. I’ll have a look.”
Lexa nodded. “We should also check what happens around Clarke at the time she leaves. If there was an informant he or she must have made a call or something. I doubt Clarke publicly announced that she was leaving through the back door.” She took a look at her watch. “It’s getting late. I have to replace Indra.”
Bellamy grinned.
“Off for another round of sparring?”
Lexa sighed. “Something like that.”
“Hey Indra. Everything okay?”
Indra nodded at her. “Nothing happened. I actually had some to time to catch up on my reading.” She held up a book.
Lexa smiled. “You can go home now. I’ll take it from here.”
Indra got up. She looked at Lexa and down at the take-out boxes she was carrying. “Are you sure you’re fine alone?”
Lexa grinned. “Yes.”
“Okay then. See you tomorrow, Detective.”
Lexa waited for Indra to leave, then she knocked at Clarke’s door rather then using the bell. Clarke opened with a smile.
“I knew it was you.”
“Yes? How?”
“You did that knock that only you do. You’ve always done it.”
“I have?” Lexa thought about it. “You’re right. I do that.” She smiled. “I brought dinner.”
Clarke looked at the boxes. “Chinese. Good call. Come on in.”
Lexa stepped inside and took a look around. The place looked exactly the way she remembered it. No wonder she had been able to maneuver through the darkness without falling over a chair. She still knew this apartment by heart.
She took the take-out to the kitchen and put it on the table. Clarke went to fetch two forks. They sat down and started to eat in silence until Lexa felt Clarke’s gaze on her and she looked up.
“What?”
“A week ago I would have laughed at anyone telling me that we would sit in my kitchen today, having take-out like civilized people.”
Lexa smiled. “I know what you mean.”
When they had finished Clarke put the boxes in the trash. Lexa got up and wandered around in the living room.
“You have new paintings on the wall.”
“Yes. I needed to change a few things to make me feel … whole again.”
Lexa turned to look at her. Clarke was observing her from the kitchen counter. So this was how it started. The talk. The one she had been avoiding for three years.
“I am sorry if I made you feel … ‘not whole’.”
Clarke looked at her. Lexa saw that the color of her eyes had changed to a darker shade. She could see all the feeling that had been bottled up in Clarke were now ready to come to the surface.
“When you left I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t know why it happened, Lexa. We were happy. At least that’s what I thought.”
Lexa kept her distance, but her gaze didn’t waver. “We were happy.”
“Then why did you leave?”
Lexa could see the tears in Clarke’s eyes and she had to remind herself that it wasn’t her place to go and comfort her anymore. She had to remind herself that she was the cause of these tears. She owed Clarke an explanation and she would try to give it to her even though she wasn’t sure of the ‘why’ herself.
“When you asked me to marry you I was … overwhelmed. I don’t know how else to put it. You, your family, your friends, everybody had been nice to me from day one. I was part of something and it felt great, but everybody was so accomplished. The senator, the doctor, you going to med school … and on the other hand there was me, the foster kid, the one without the ridiculously good university degree. I felt …” Lexa was searching for the right words. “… inadequate.”
Clarke just stared at her. “Inadequate? Are you kidding me? If I thought you inadequate why would I have proposed to you? To keep you as my trophy wife? Keep you around because of your looks?”
Lexa sighed. “No, Clarke. It wasn’t you or how you made me feel. It was me. I messed everything up, because I had this … this urge to prove myself. Not to you. I knew you didn’t need me to. I did it for me. To prove to me that I could be on my own again. That I am my own person. That if everything around me fell apart again, I would be fine, because that is how it always was. Me. Alone.”
Clarke shook her head in disbelief. “This is madness, Lexa. You left me, because you were scared that we’d fall apart? I fucking proposed to you!”
“I know! I know. And I am so sorry. I am sorry for all the hurt that I caused you, because I’m screwed up.” Lexa’s legs felt like they were about to give in. She sat down on the couch.
Clarke wiped her eyes and came closer. “You realize how hard this is for me to understand?”
Lexa sniffed. “Yes, I do. It's hard for me to understand as well.”
Clarke sat down next to her.
“You could have just tried to talk to me, you know? Packing you’re stuff in the middle of the night and leaving the city for months wasn’t the best option.”
“I needed the distance.”
“Well, I needed you.”
They sat in silence for a long time.
“I’m sorry, I hurt you, Clarke.”
“What about you?”
“What?”
“How did it make you feel?”
Lexa hesitated, but answered truthfully. “Miserable.”
“Why didn’t you just come back?”
“And tell you what? Sorry, Clarke, this was a stupid idea. Let’s just get married anyway?”
“Well, at least it would have spared me the engagement with Finn …”
Lexa looked at her. “Don’t you love him?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.”
“What are you … Will you tell him?”
“I already did.”
“You did?”
“Yes. This morning. I broke it off. This is how you do such things by the way, in person.”
Lexa couldn’t help, but smile a little. “Point taken.”
Clarke let herself sink into the couch. “What are we going to do now, Lex? You’re here, I am here. You’re supposed to make sure I’m safe and I’m fluctuating between wanting to kiss you and the urge to slit your throat.”
“You are?” Lexa turned her head and stared at her.
Clarke laughed. “Wanting to slit your throat?”
“No, the other part.”
Clarke smiled just a little bit. “I might.”
Lexa let out a sigh. “I guess we will have to wait how this internal struggle of yours plays out then.”
Clarke looked at her and nodded. She got up.
“I will bid you goodnight now, Detective. Is it okay for you to sleep on the couch or do you prefer the floor outside the apartment door?”
“The couch is fine, thank you.”
“There are blankets in the cupboard.”
Lexa smiled. “I know.”
Clarke looked at her. “Yes, you do. Goodnight, Lexa.”
“Goodnight, Clarke.
Lexa got a blanket and another pillow from the small cupboard, switched off the light and lay down on the couch. Clarke thought about kissing her. She closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come.