DISCLAIMER: This story is purely a work of fiction and is in no way associated with REMINGTON STEELE, MTM, the actors . . .yaddah, yaddah, yaddah . . .we all know the drill. This is purely a bit of fun for the latenight RS Chatboard crowd.
"More coffee, hon?" Mildred hoisted her own empty coffee cup speculatively, but the younger woman shook her head.
"What I want, Mildred," she said, "is a cup of herbal tea. Join me?"
"I'll do better than that," Mildred said, "I'll brew us a pot. You sit and relax a bit."
Laura offered a wry smile to the older woman's departing back. Staring down at the information Mildred had collected on her father, "relax" wasn't the word for what she wanted to do.
This wasn't at all what she'd expected. Of everything she'd imagined over the years about her absent father and where he'd been, what he'd been doing, the reality was like nothing she could have imagined.
She was torn between admiration, envy and a bit of guilt. After all the things she'd thought of him over the years, if she ever saw him again, she owed her father a huge apology, she decided. Not that it would be easy. But then, apologies never were.
"How did you find out about this, Mildred?" she called.
"Oh, old I.R.S. know-how," Mildred called back. "Once you know the codes and what they really represent, it's easy. Instead of tracking driver's license and old addresses, you do a financial search and find out about old tax records. They tell you more, sometimes, than anything else. The company listed is a CIA front. I've dealt with their employee's tax records before, that's how I recognized it. Your father has apparently been attached, via the CIA, to an elite Interpol group, the only group the CIA actually works closely with. But his paychecks are still in good old American greenbacks and his tax records detail all of it."
"We certainly knew what we were doing when we hired you, Mildred."
"No you didn't," Mildred said, laughing. "But you learned to appreciate my skills in the long run and that's just fine with me." The teapot began to shrill and Laura felt herself jump. She rubbed one hand distractedly against the other. Why did she have this odd feeling of danger nearby?
And what was she to do about it all?
He could see the lights of the airport before it hit him. He heard a squeal of protesting tires from the car behind him as he swerved to the right lane and headed for the highway exit. If he went to the airport, he would wait there alone. Carlton Holt wouldn't be there. He couldn't risk it.
Not with Felicia homing in on Laura.
He gunned the engine and turned the car back. Toward home.
"Miss Holt?" Mildred said, entering the livingroom with a laden tray. "I forgot to ask if you wanted lemon or cream and sugar, so I brought bo--" She stopped suddenly with a sharp gasp.
"Personally," Felicia said smoothly, her gun pointed directly at Laura's head, "I prefer lemon. Just a squeeze, thank you."
"What are you doing here?" Laura asked through clenched teeth. It seemed to be an automatic reaction anytime she got anywhere near this blond barracuda. Though this time, she did seem to have more cause than usual. The gun was a nine millimeter Berreta Special. And, at this range, there was no way Felicia could miss either of them.
"My dear, Lola, I've just come to borrow a cup of sugar. And some jewelry. It's just dreadful, being in a strange city with absolutely nothing to wear." Her smile glinted in the lamplight and the barrel of the gun shone dully.
"If you mean the necklace," Mildred said, setting the tray down on the coffee table, "we haven't got it."
"We wouldn't be stupid enough to keep it here," Laura added quickly. "You never know who might drop in unexpectedly."
"But I should think you know exactly how to get your hands on it, don't you?" Felicia said, smugly. "Daddy dearest wouldn't keep something like that from his baby, now would he?"
"Of course not," Laura said, her chin rising defiantly. "But he also wouldn't be fool enough to keep it where you could get at it so easily, either. I'm afraid, Felicia, that you're stuck with us for a few more hours."
"Oh?" she said, a thin edge creeping into her cultivated voice. "And why is that?"
"Because it's locked in my safe-deposit box. And I can't access that until the bank opens at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning."
Felicia's smooth features puckered into a frown. "That idiot! He left it at a bank? Where anyone might see it and recognize it? I should have killed him when I had the chance."
"Never too late for regrets, eh Felicia?" Carlton Holt was suddenly there, standing behind his daughter, a Smith & Wesson tucked in his own hand, pointed steadily at Felicia. "There are idiots everywhere, my dear. The one in your bathroom mirror is a particularly nasty specimen, I'm afraid."
"You may be right about that," Felicia responded, her smile glinting like a knife-edge, "but one needn't remain an idiot, after all." There was a sharp, barking report. Laura blinked in the aftermath of the muzzle-flash, then raised one hand to the side of her head, where something small and hot had passed by.
A look of surprise spread across Felicia's features and she glanced down at a spreading red blossom on her right shoulder.
Behind her, Laura could hear her father's heavy breaths, but she didn't take her eyes off Felicia, who hadn't released her grip on the gun, despite her injury. There was a sliding sound and a soft thud as her father's body hit the carpet.
"If he's dead, Felicia," Laura told the other woman in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, "so are you."
"Oh, my dear Lulu, you're hardly in a position to issue threats. Or hadn't you noticed?" Felicia's smile was firmly back in place. "Your knight in shining armor just toppled off his white horse. Right into a mud puddle, I'm afraid."
"How did you do it, Felicia?" Laura's voice was still steady, conversational, but Mildred could see the pulse throbbing in her temple. "How did you manage to graduate to murder? I wouldn't have thought it of you and I know Mr. Steele is still finding it hard to believe."
"Dear Michael," Felicia's smile lost it's hard edge for a moment, but only for a moment. "He always was such a sentimental fool. But I would have thought you'd know better, dear. After all, you're a woman of the world and you, of all people, should know that a woman has to do whatever it takes to survive in this world. Surely you've killed a few people in your time."
Laura shook her head, never taking her eyes off the other woman. "No, Felicia, not a soul. And even if I had, it would have been in self-defense, not cold blood."
"Oh, Liza, don't you know by now? Everything I do is done in self-defense."
"Is that what you call it?" Laura's mouth stretched into an improbable smile. "I would have called it self-interest. Or self-absorption. That's why you never won him. Not completely."
"Is it?" The other woman's smile was gone.
"Of course. Whatever else his faults, Mr. Steele is far from selfish. And you've never been anything else. It could never have worked. Pity you never noticed that little fact."
The gun trembled slightly in the slender hand. Mildred drew a shaky breath.
"What are you going to do?" she cried suddenly. "You know Mr. Steele will be back and he's not going to sit here and let you do this!"
"Shut up, you silly old cow!" Felicia snapped. "This conversation is between Linda and me."
"But darling," said a familiar voice from the doorway, "it's a reasonable question after all."
"Mr. Steele!" Mildred's gasp this time was pure relief. Laura didn't move, however, or take her eyes off the figure in front of her. "Boss!"
"Felicia?" his voice was still soft. "What are you going to do?"
Felicia suddenly favored him with her brightest smile. "Why nothing, Michael," she said, "nothing at all. You're going to do it for me."
"Do it?" he said, puzzled. "Do what?"
"Why, rob a bank, of course!"