Stone remembered that day; it was when things started getting weird for him. Logan had been late that Friday morning, and Captain Cragen had sent Briscoe out by himself to the Hamptons to check out a lead on a dead body from the night before, same M.O. as Frederick Martinio a couple nights ago. Big social party, famous guy's relation disappears, turns up with a knife in him. The dead guy? Nobody special, just the governor's stepson. Briscoe came back from the long drive with a pad full of notes and the positive ID of a witness, who had seen Page wander off with the governor's stepson. The second high official's relation to disappear with someone matching Amelia Page's description over a two-day period. They had a party guest, a little intoxicated, sure, but a party guest who would swear he saw Amelia Page go off with the dead guy -- who wasn't dead then -- and not return to the party. No one else in the party could seem to remember Amelia Page even attending the get-together, but they recalled seeing her car, a big flashy brown Bentley. It would be sufficient.
When Briscoe returned around 9:30 and Logan still had not made an appearance, Cragen was furious, and told Briscoe to take another detective, Stegner, over to pick up Amelia Page for some actual questioning, the kind where you read people their rights first.
"Back at her house, I'd say," Cragen told Briscoe. "You should find her there."
"It's a thought," Briscoe told him. "Let's see if she felt good enough to make it to work this morning first."
They found Amelia, chipper at first, then pissed off when Stegner put the cuffs on her, at work and in a meeting with a client. She glared at them all the way downtown and insisted on her lawyer being present. Briscoe kept in on her, hammering away while they waited for the lawyer. "I was dancing all night at Cantina. I go every Thursday night," she told first Briscoe, then Stegner, then both of them. "Go ahead, call my friends. They'll even tell you what I was wearing last night, and what I drank. They know me, the bartender knows me."
While Briscoe was occupied doing that, Logan finally slunk into the office.
"Is this your casual day, Detective?" Cragen asked him sarcastically, pulling him into his office and staring at Logan's outfit.
Logan shook his head, trying to clear it. Despite all the coffee he still felt half asleep, and barely registered the Captain's tone of voice. "Overslept," he mumbled.
"Yeah, well, while you were getting your beauty rest some of us were working." Cragen was having a hard time not completely blowing up at Logan, not only for stumbling in late, but for coming in wired with coffee and eyes red-rimmed, adjusting his tie, generally acting like he was about to collapse from exhaustion. He knew Logan was in no condition to do anything effective today, but restrained himself. "Head over to the interrogation room. We had another murder last night, in the Hamptons. Briscoe and Stegner already picked up your lunch buddy from yesterday, and they're talking with her. Try and wake up and get something useful before her lawyer pulls her out of there."
This seemed to make Logan a little more alert. "Amelia Page?"
"So you do remember something. Good. We'll get you in shape yet." Cragen looked down at his desk, and when Logan didn't immediately turn and leave he looked back up at him. "Is there a problem?"
"Are you sure we have the right perp?" Logan asked, groggy but genuinely confused.
"Well, that's your job, isn't it, Detective," said Cragen. "Now how about going and relieving Stegner from a case he knows nothing about and getting to work?"
Logan nearly ran over to the interrogation room, images of how he was about to lose his job battling with the hangover and lack of sleep in his head. He'd spent the entire night with someone who was now being accused of murder and that was not going to be excusable. It had been questionable to show up at the Cantina anyway, but she hadn't been accused of anything last night -- just a possible witness -- and he'd hashed it out, deciding a witness is not a suspect, and let it go at that. He knew last night what was right all the way and what was a little foggy, and he'd just let it ride. Something about that kiss in the hallway...he knew he couldn't have let that possibility slide. Of course, now that was over. He couldn't be expected to see her again after this, and he doubted she would forgive him for not standing up for her and preventing her arrest. He half-regretted not trying harder to get her really into bed. And at the same time, by four in the morning he'd been bushed too, and with the stress off, lying clothed with her was nearly as sexy as actually doing it would have been. And now, now he was probably going to be suspended, if not canned for last night's activities. He could hear the derision in his father's voice already, what he'd hear when he'd have to tell his ex-cop father that he'd been fired for this, and pressed it down deep.
He was halfway down the hall to the room when two shadowy figures passed him, a man and a woman, and under the flickering glare of a fizzy light bulb he saw Amelia Page walk right by him -- and never even give him a second glance. Logan stopped in his tracks and watched her walk off with the man who was obviously her lawyer, stunned. Not that he'd expected her to fall at his feet for mercy, or spit at him, or anything like that, but he'd figured on a flash of recognition, of retaliation, of reproach. Nothing. As if she'd never even met him. After a moment, he continued down to the interrogation room to find out what had happened.
"Oh, good afternoon, Mike," Briscoe greeted him with false charm. "So glad you could make it. Your seat partner just left."
"I saw her in the hallway," Logan told him with a twist to his mouth. "What happened?"
Briscoe gave him the rundown, slowing down as Logan's face morphed from confused to concerned to cautious.
"But you let her leave? Even with somebody who said he saw her?"
Briscoe shrugged. "She'd already told us where she was last night, which was two hours from the party, she had multiple witnesses of her own, and our witness was, by his own admission, a little tipsy. It swung back in her favor. We couldn't keep her."
"Where did she say she was?"
Another voice joined theirs from across the room. Logan started -- he'd been so wrapped up in finding Briscoe he'd never noticed they had a third party. "A club called the Cantina, Detective Logan. Does it matter, particularly?" Claire Kincaid took a few steps over to the detectives and folded her arms.
Logan pulled back a little. He'd been about to tell Briscoe what had gone down the night before, but suddenly, with Kincaid's appearance and oddly suspicious tone, he backed down. He could tell Lennie later. "Not particularly. Of course, you'll want us to check it out."
"You don't need me to tell you what you should do," Kincaid told him, and strode out of the room.
In the end, of course, Amelia Page checked out. Logan tried to tell Briscoe a few times not to try so hard with the bartender and the other club workers, that he had his own explanation, but every time he tried, something else came up, like lunch or a phone ringing, or Cragen handing them some papers. Finally, deciding he was being given a sign not to dig a deeper hole for himself, he stopped trying. After all, she'd already checked out, and in the end more people reported seeing her at the Cantina than had seen her in the Hamptons, and that would have to be good enough.
Later that day, when they'd met at the EADA's office, Stone had been livid. "You had a witness, wasn't there any other corroboration? How could one person be in two places at once? Couldn't you at least find out some kind of motive? Not even a try at a search warrant for the apartment? I can't believe you let her go."
Briscoe charged when Logan, usually more hot-headed, abdicated saying anything. "Stone, you and your office are always down our backs when we bring you a half-assed case. Don't blame us because she's checked out."
"What about getting a tap on her phone?" Stone wondered aloud. "Or at the very least, monitor her house. Everybody trips up once in a while."
Briscoe nodded. "All right. I'll take it to Cragen, we'll get somebody to watch her house."
The detectives were halfway down the hall when the sound of heels clicking on the linoleum made them turn, and in a moment Claire caught up with them. "Mike, can I speak with you for a minute?"
"Go ahead," said Logan, wishing the nightmare would be over and people would stop talking to him, so he could try recovering from the night before. "Hit me."
She glanced at Briscoe. "Do you mind if I speak to him privately?"
Briscoe raised his eyebrows, but shrugged and headed down the stairs.
Logan pressed his forehead against the wall, feeling the hangover pulse through his skull. "Be easy, Claire, I had a rough night."
"I bet you did," she snapped suddenly, and he opened his eyes. "How long are you going to let this little charade go on? How long are you going to let us chase our tails?"
Logan shook his head. "What do you mean?" But he did begin to realize what she was driving at, and felt his blood race to his shoes.
"I heard you, Detective, I saw the both of you in the hallway yesterday. I heard you talking about the Cantina. Yes or no, was that your big rough night?"
He put his hands on his hips and stared at the ceiling. "Yes."
"So you were with her how late?"
"All night."
Claire stopped cold and her mouth hung open. "You spent all night with a suspect? You sleptÊwith a suspect? Logan, you're meat here. You'll never recover."
"She wasn't a suspect until nine-thirty this morning, when I got in, Claire. I didn't sleep with her. I ran into her at the dance club, and I saw her home. That was it."
"When did you leave her place?"
"A little after nine this morning."
"And you didn't sleep with her? Logan, that's not your style, not from what I've heard."
He sneered at her. "You have no idea, Claire, so keep your imagination out of this one. And no, I didn't. I made sure she was sleeping okay, and I never went home last night. I haven't even been out of these clothes."
She thought about it, noticing his jeans, and shook her head slowly. "I'd say this was pretty unbecoming conduct, Detective. You'd better think of a better one to tell. Obviously, she didn't do it. That's great. But you're going to have to think of something to tell Ben and Cragen to get them to call off the investigation on her, or I'll be the one to tell them why they should."
"You would?"
Claire nodded, steely.
Logan thought a minute, clutching his head. "Surveillance?"
"Come again?"
He twisted his lips and looked off down the hall. "Why couldn't I just have been watching the building. After we weren't able to question her yesterday, on a hunch I decided to follow her to her club -- which she had mentioned to me in the hallway -- and then after I parked my car outside her place and I sat there all night, watching the building. And after she got back from the club, nobody went in or out. End of story."
"On a hunch." Claire considered it. "It's not my call, and they'll ream you for watching without permission, or your partner, and they'll ream you twice for coming on to her in the first place, veiled or not, but it might wash."
Ben remembered he had been cajoled into accepting the story. Didn't like it, but was willing to go with it. Logan was a good cop, and nothing was served by digging a deeper pit for him. The main thing was that it cleared Amelia Page as a suspect. And they were back to square one.

---

"So you're saying he had been with you all night, wasn't making that up," he said to Alexa later on. "Why didn't you just bring it up under interrogation, get it all out in the open?"
Her brow creased. "Because they didn't interrogate me. They interrogated Amelia. I didn't work at her business, I was at home, sleeping until about one in the afternoon. She went to work the next day. If they'd come to the apartment, yeah, they'd have gotten me. Amelia knew nothing about Mike."
Ben knew it, and knew finally where the discussion had been leading all this time. Believing it the way Alexa told it, Amelia's lucky break in life had come when Alexa moseyed in, and, without realizing it, served as Amelia's alibi. But at this point he had no idea which of them -- Amelia or Alexa -- was telling the truth. One of them had gone to a party in the Hamptons and been the last person seen with the governor's stepson before his death. The other had gone dancing and been seen by multiple witnesses, including a detective. So one was lying, and one was not. But for the life of him he couldn't think of a way to prove which one was the liar. Stone suspected Alexa's story had more credibility to it simply because she admitted to lying to the police at the start. And yet she had covered for Logan.
After they'd initially cleared Amelia Page, it was another two weeks before they found another dead body, making it the third with the Page M.O. all over it, and this time they'd gone to Amelia's apartment to find their suspect. They'd found Alexa, napping after a long night before at Limelight. And this time, they'd hit paydirt -- Alexa at first continued being Amelia, but once Ben Stone came into the picture, and Logan left it, she asked for her lawyer and decided to come clean. Stone began to wonder what Amelia had been -- really, was still-- planning, for once this blew over, and if she ever intended Alexa to meet her parents in the first place. So easy to get rid of someone no one knows exists. So here Alexa was, explaining nearly everything and telling more than she realized.
Ben turned to her scrubby lawyer and said, "You realize, she'll have to testify against her sister in court."
Her lawyer started to speak, and Alexa put a hand on his forearm. "Mr. Stone, you can speak to me directly. I won't testify against her."
"Then you'll be facing accessory after the fact, Ms. Page. There isn't any way around that. You'd be looking at almost as much time as your sister." When Alexa didn't respond, he hammered it in tighter. "If you're worried about being accepted into the family bosom, Ms. Page, I can assure you that in the light of this, no matter what you do, you will be rebuffed. They will blame you. You cannot save your sister."
Suddenly the lawyer sat up and whispered in his client's ear. "I think we're done here, Stone. You have no case, just a lot of red tape. You have no evidence that you can pin to one particular person. You may think it is Amelia Page, you may think it is Alexa Page. But despite the fact that they are identical in appearance, they are two different people. And you can't prove at this point which one of them was seen at the Hamptons. When you have something more concrete, we can talk again."
They were halfway to the door when Ben said, "You realize, Ms. Page, that if your sister turns you in we will have her word against you."
"She won't talk against me," Alexa braved, but didn't feel completely sure.
She was loyal, Ben reasoned. Her loyalty might be misplaced, but it was there. She wouldn't speak against her sister, who would surely speak against Alexa to save her own tail, and Claire had had to go to Logan to peel what he knew out of him. And then Ben had an idea.
He leaned over to Claire and whispered something to her. Turning to Alexa and her lawyer, "If we might," he said, "just speak with you over at the precinct, one more time."
Alexa flushed at the thought and realized if she went there was the risk of seeing Logan. "Can I go after that? Will you leave me alone?"
Ben nodded for a few seconds. "Yes, I think after that we'll be able to leave you alone."

---

The interrogation room at Precinct 27 was desperately in need of paint. Green flakes peeled off the ceiling and walls, exposing dingy white, and a single light bulb illuminated the small room, which was decorated with only a wooden table, three chairs and a large one way mirror against the wall. Alexa had been asked to sit alone in there, her attorney promised that no official questions would be asked of her, and if they were he would be allowed in. Meanwhile, he was asked to watch the proceedings with Ben and Claire from the other side of the mirror. He consented, not liking the situation, but was willing to monitor it. He knew Ben Stone from reputation, and suspected the man knew what he was doing. Alexa, remembering her luncheon debate with Ben from just a few days ago, felt much the same way. The silence she was left in gave her time to think, just a few minutes to ponder what was going on, to begin to realize exactly how she had been set up all this time, cloistered and made to feel inferior. She began to doubt Amelia ever expected to bring her to the family, and she began to suddenly fear what might happen if Amelia wasn't arrested....very gradually, Alexa was learning exactly how alone in all this she was.
They kept her in there alone for about fifteen minutes, and then the door opened and Ben Stone led Amelia in. "You're here?" she asked loudly, surprised, immediately. It was the first time they had been together in public, and Alexa could see her sister visibly blanch. Stone left the room without saying a word. "How did you get here?"
"They asked me to come in," she told her sister. "They didn't say why."
"Oh no?" Her sister pulled a cigarette from her purse and lit up. "They certainly were asking me why the other day in this room. Oh, yes."
"They brought you in here? You never -- said anything," said Alexa, confused.
Amelia shrugged. "Some ridiculous nonsense about a difficulty at that Hamptons party you went to. I told them I didn't know anything."
Alexa stood, fists clenched. Now she knew what her sister was going to do. "I didn't go to any Hamptons party. I don't even know where the Hamptons are, Amelia. You went with Staffan. I went dancing, remember?"
Amelia stared at her and waved her cigarette at the window. "That was quite a performance, Alexa. You do so well when other people are watching."
"But you went to the Hamptons. I went dancing."
"Silly girl. You have no idea. Of course you didn't go dancing. I borrowed your silver dress and went and let you pretend to be me, just like you always do."
Alexa felt the knot in her throat return and said nothing, just sat down hard in her seat and rammed the heels of her hands in her eyes. She wondered how much of what her lawyer said was true, and if they didn't have something concrete on one of them they couldn't just go and arrest both. She was on the verge of weeping, and hated it, the frustration making her crazed, but she wouldn't let her sister see her cry.
And then, the interrogation room door opened, Detective Mike Logan entered, and the door was pulled shut behind him.

---

He stared, and stared, and did not move for what felt like forever to Alexa. When he did stir it was to run a hand through his hair and mutter, "Jesus." He half turned to the door again, decided against it, and pulled up a third chair and sat on it backwards. "You have got to be kidding me."
Chagrined, Alexa felt her face grow hot. He looked right at her, then at Amelia, and back again. "So which one is which?" he asked, waving a finger between them. "Which one of you is actually Amelia?"
There was a pause as Alexa waited for her sister, who seemed to be pondering the wall intently. No one said a word, and the silence grew so pervasive Alexa could hear Mike's watch ticking.
"Neither one of you is Amelia?" Mike raised his eyebrows. "Nobody wants to be Amelia. So that means both of you must be Alexa, and one of you's been lying to me. I hate that."
Amelia leaned across the table and twisted her mouth. "What difference does it make which one of us is which," she asked, nonchalance dripping from her words.
He leaned forward to her and matched her malice. "Because one of you is wanted in connection with a murder, and the other --" he paused and Alexa could imagine him fast-forwarding everything in his mind -- "is not."
"And how do you propose to tell the difference, Detective?" asked Amelia.
He tilted his head. "I have absolutely no fucking idea. I didn't even know there were two of you 'til they put me in the room. Just now. So anyone feel like helping me?"
Alexa couldn't keep quiet any more, and it burst from her in a rush. "Mike, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for it to work this way. I was just pretending -- "
Amelia whirled on her sister, incredulous. "Excuse me, 'Mike'? You knowÊhim?" And in that instant realized what she'd said, realizing how her sister knew the detective. Whirling on Alexa, she spat, "Just couldn't wait to get your filthy mouth on some cop dick, could you?"
Logan flinched backwards in surprise, and started to rise from his chair but Alexa beat him to it, jumping up from her seat and belting Amelia across the mouth with her fist. "Ah, shit," she muttered, and shook her hand.
"You bitch," her sister spat through a bloodied lip, cradling it with her hand.
The door flew open and Detective Briscoe pushed past his partner, followed by Amelia's lawyer, and handcuffed Amelia. "Amelia Page, you are under arrest..." he began, leading her from the room as he Mirandized her.
In all this time, Alexa and Mike had never stopped staring at each other, and never moved from their seated and standing positions. When the dust cleared, Ben Stone stuck his head in the room and said in his smoky voice of authority, "You can leave, Alexa. We're done for now." And tactfully he pulled the door closed behind him.

---

Alexa hugged her fist and winced again, then tried to bend it out, sat down, and pulled her knees to her chest in the seat, starting to weep, partially from release, partially from the adrenaline, and partly in repressed frustration. Resting her forehead against her knees she hardly knew Mike had gotten up and moved next to her until she felt his arm around her shoulders. Raising her head she avoided looking at his face, and tried to wipe some of the tears with the palm of her hand. Delicately, he placed his thumb and forefinger under her chin and turned her head to him. "You okay?"
She nodded and her throat hitched.
"You really clocked her one, you know that?"
She laughed in a gasping burst and turned to look at him. "I--I had no idea, Mike, what was happening. Ben had me so confused. Scared. I'm so sorry. Really, really sorry."
His hand reached up and stroked her hair. "Shh, calm down, it's over, don't worry." He waited until she was breathing normally again, and cleaned off her face with his handkerchief. "Better?"
Alexa nodded and sniffed, amazed he had stayed. "Thanks, Mike."
"See, there you go, you called me Mike again."
"You sound like you don't like it."
"I think I was getting used to Detective Mike."
This time she laughed in earnest.
"It really is you, you really never were Amelia, were you," he asked quietly.
She shook her head. "I was just play acting. It was fun, at first. I told you I thought it was all about parking tickets."
He sat back on the table and looked at his hands. "Yeah. Well, nobody else knew there was a game going on."
She heard the cynical note in his voice and it hurt her. "Did Ben tell you anything?"
"'Ben'? You make friends fast."
She rolled her eyes and slumped her shoulders. "Mr. Stone. Did he tell you anything?"
He let out a sound of frustration and stood up, pacing the room. "All I know is this: I'm at my desk making more phone calls to try to link Amelia Page to what went down. And I'm thinking, this is crap, I know this woman, she's not a suspect, but Briscoe keeps pushing it, saying he's sure there's something up, and I better start using my head for once, and that ticks me off, so we're not talking. And suddenly your friend Ben, the from the goddamn D.A.'s office, is standing there with my boss and they're telling me to get over to the interrogation room, pronto. That's all I know. They don't say a word to me about what's going on, and I'm thinking, this is some kind of joke. And I come in here and there's two of you standing there, and neither one of you pretends to know me. I'm thinking, I'm going crazy. That's all I know. Finito. And I don't know if I want to hear anything more about it."
"Okay," she said, and rested her cheek on her raised knee. "If that's how you want it."
In two steps he was in front of her again on the chair. "Why did you say you were Amelia? Why did you pretend? What were you getting out of it?"
She looked at him again and realized she'd started crying again, just a few hot tears, and the knot in her throat had returned. There was a knock on the door, and they started, realizing that though the room was closed, it was not private, and Logan swore under his breath. "What?" he growled at the door.
Claire came in with a folder. "Alexa," she said, offering it to her, "this is your statement from earlier today. When you've read it, sign it, and we'll keep it as evidence. With luck, you won't be needed for the stand."
Alexa sniffed. "If I sign it, does that mean you won't charge me with anything?"
Claire smiled a little at her. "I don't think you're going to be charged no matter what you do. But we need your statement, and you've already made it so....." Alexa nodded and took the folder. Claire turned to Logan. "And you, Detective," Logan raised his head, "go easy on her. She's had a rough couple weeks."
When the door clicked behind Claire, Logan stared at the folder for a few minutes, then said, "Before you sign, do you mind if I read this?"
Alexa shrugged. "If you want." The life had drained from her voice, and she couldn't muster the energy for any more words.
Logan eyed her. "How about this. How about you let me read this over dinner. We can bring it back tomorrow, when you've signed it."
She half wanted to get up and tell him it didn't matter, he could do what he wanted. But against that first instinct, she really didn't want to think it was over between them, before it had really even started. "Okay."
"You like Chinese?"
"I like Thai," she offered.

---

He let her scan his notes from the past few weeks while she picked at her Pad Thai and he dove into the sheaf of papers dictated earlier that day. Neither of them had been much in the mood to sit in a restaurant and read, so they went back to Amelia's apartment -- quiet and forbidding, somehow, now that its owner was in jail for the night (arraignment in the morning) -- and sat on the living room floor, reading. Swoozie had padded up to Mike, resting her head on his thigh, and absently he patted the silky fur. Buster and Clark had taken up residence on either side of Alexa, as though protecting her in their toy-dog way, sensing how miserable she was.
As Alexa read, the events of the past few weeks began to make more sense. Though she'd never known it until recently, Amelia had been called in for questioning twice -- both from her work -- so they had actually had the real Amelia in, not Alexa playing Amelia. Mike had noted her distant attitude in his notes, put question marks around a lot of comments, and tried to hastily scribble down what she had been telling them, which all along was a mimicking of what she thought Alexa had been doing. And at night, after interrogating Amelia, Mike had often come out and met with Alexa, who -- to his mind -- oddly never commented back on that afternoon's talk -- or even acted like it had existed. They'd seen each other in the evenings three or four times in the past month, and during the day Amelia had seen him apparently nearly as often.
He'd called her later on in the day after she'd walked right by him in the hallway, the day after their first 'date,' trying to apologize for what had happened. Obviously, thanks to a screwed-up witness, the department had decided to arrest the wrong person, and he felt badly for that, and wanted to see how she would react. To his surprise and bemusement, she never even mentioned it. "I'm so sorry I passed out on you last night, Detective Mike," she told him on the phone, more casual than he remembered her being just that afternoon. "Too much rum makes me sleepy. Too much beer over lunch makes me something else."
"I was calling to apologize to you, actually," he started carefully.
She laughed. "Whatever it was for, don't worry about it. Just say you'll come dancing with me again."
And they had. Logan fought it, at first, knowing what he was doing would be frowned on by Stone's office and possibly severely taken under investigation by Cragen, and yet he felt a kind of personal apology was needed for what she'd had to go through, and how, even though he hadn't been needed, he never came to her rescue. And then, once he'd worked past the mental block that somehow what he was doing with her was wrong, or unethical, convincing himself that really, it wasn't, he stopped thinking about it. When she said "don't worry about it," he heard a kind of complicit understanding behind it, as if she were saying "I know what happened, and I don't blame you for doing your job." After that, when she was called in -- and this time he had no alibi for her -- he treated her like any other suspect. She'd never been brought into custody again, just....questioned. And then allowed to leave. And never being a real suspect after that one mistaken witness, Mike let himself be convinced there was nothing really to worry about.
And then, last Saturday, they had driven out to Connecticut -- that wasn't in the notes, but Alexa remembered it. It had been the day she met her birth parents.
Of course, she had gone as Amelia, so her parents never suspected anything was up, and had asked Mike if he cared for a drive out to Connecticut to keep her company and meet the whole Page clan. Amelia hadn't known about Alexa's trip -- but Alexa knew she couldn't wait any longer, she wanted to at least see what the family was like. Finding an address in a pile of Amelia's letters had been easy, and she'd gotten directions from three sources, told that finding the place wouldn't be difficult. She didn't know exactly why she wanted Mike to come along, but she had never seen him in the daytime -- barring the first time they'd met -- and he gave her a sense of grounding, as though everything would turn out all right. She felt safer bringing him along.
But it was hard acting all day, pretending she wasn't just seeing Adora Page and Glenn Page for the first time, or seeing her two younger brothers, Felix and Greg for the first time either. They had treated it like a regular day out in the back yard, with burgers and hot dogs and a badminton net, and Alexa had to pretend she wasn't overwhelmed by the size of everything, and how much money was really sitting on this land. Mike had to pretend, too, but for the sake of tact -- he too had no idea just how much the Pages' worth had been and was floored. He began to wonder just what a society girl was doing, messing with a cop, but he didn't put too much stock in it. Something about Amelia had made him feel she wasn't slumming, and he suspected in his heart he had never been trying to fuck a social class. And then, who knew. He could hear his father's words ringing in his head if he'd have seen this place, and tried not to make it his own voice. They'd spent the day there and after dinner walked around the grounds, coming upon a horse stable, and Alexa had come alive on a different level once they'd gotten there. "Horses!" she'd cried.
"What, they new here?" Mike had wondered.
Alexa caught herself. "Um, no, just that I love horses. Look, Mike..." she'd pulled him to the tack and saddles. "Let's go riding."
"Amelia, it's night. And I'm used to riding in a car."
"It's easy. Come on, we'll give you the old and feeble one," said Alexa, peering into each stall, hoping to choose the right one.
In the end they had gone quietly trotting down the road, up a few paths, to the top of a large hill that overlooked much of the surrounding trees. In the distance, they could see her parents' place, and there they'd dismounted, tying the horses to nearby trees and laid back on the slope of the grass. He'd held her to him, and she murmured, "You smell like horses and leather," and looked up into his eyes.
"New scent," he'd told her back. "I'm gonna market it."
"No," she'd whispered, "keep it just for me."
And this time it was slower, a few kisses here and there, he rubbed her shoulders, she leaned on his chest and they kissed that way. And then something happened in her, something turned over, and she found him unbearably attractive. She wasn't drunk on alcohol, or tired, or anything that had made her say stop before, and she wanted him. As they kissed he ran his hands through her hair and held her head above him, and she began to unbutton his shirt, and rub him underneath the fabric. He let one arm down her back, and roughly began to rub her, pulling her shirt from her jeans, and roaming his hand under, caressing her breasts over the fabric of the lacy bra, then undoing it and feeling the soft flesh of her naked breast. He rolled over on her and pinned her arms back behind her head and forced himself to stop. They stared at each other, breathing hard, and he noticed a light bead of sweat had formed on her forehead. That, somehow, was enough for him, and he whispered, "You'd better say 'when' because in a few minutes I won't be able to stop any more," and it wasn't a threat, just a fact. He was going to have her, but if she said no now, he thought he could still deal with it.
"No 'whens,'" she told him. "Not tonight."
So that was how under the cover of a cool June night they made love on Green Hill, with only two bored horses in attendance. When he penetrated her she had gasped and cried out, and he realized she never had been lying to him, that garters or no this was her first time, and he tried to slow down, and be more gentle. She'd tensed up then, her eyes wide, but she'd forced herself to calm down, and when, after more kisses and touching she'd relaxed somewhat, he resumed moving in and out of her. Each moment she groaned less and responded more, until they hit a kind of rhythm, and she was helping him along, not fighting it, and he found the whole experience the sexiest thing he'd ever been through, knowing he was showing her something she hadn't done before, something she'd now know forever.
He rolled off Amelia and lay flat back, exhausted, and began to feel the sweat on him chill. She inched to his arms and curled up fetal-like, resting her head where it had gone that first night, in the crook of his shoulder, and he heard her crying a little.
"Hey, Amelia," he whispered to her. "Are you all right?"
She nodded. "It was terrible and wonderful and like nothing I can even explain," she said. "I wasn't so scared, but it hurt. I'm sorry. I guess I wasn't very good."
He laughed quietly. "You were fabulous. I've never been someone's first. Even when it was my first."
"How many have there been?" she murmured.
He never knew how to answer this one, but he always tried to count. "Ten...eleven...sixteen...thirty? I don't know. Amelia, I'm no saint."
He could feel her nod. "All right."
They'd lain there for a few more minutes, regaining their strength, and finally got dressed slowly, kissing along the way, and rode the horses slowly back. Alexa sat side-saddle, already beginning to feel sore and stiff. Back at the Page house everyone had gone to sleep, so they headed up to the rooms and stayed in the one with a light still on -- the one Alexa had to pretend she knew was hers. During the night Logan woke up from a dream where they were still on the high green hill and wanted to do it again right there in bed, but he settled for staring at Alexa, exhausted, and unwakable, and beautiful in her rest.
Then, the following Wednesday, Alexa had been called to Ben's office for her story. And she had told what she knew. Alexa finished reading Mike's notes long before he finished hers, and she curled up on the floor next to Buster and Clark, resting her head on a pillow, and soon had begun to doze. Something made Mike look up from his reading, and he watched her sleep like he had watched her in Connecticut, and his heart seemed to actually move inside him. When he finished reading another half hour later, he did what he had done that first night, lifted her up and carried her to her room amidst growling toy dogs, then laid her down in her bed and took off her shoes carefully and slowly. After removing his own and laying his tie and jacket on a chair, he slid in next to her and curled up next to her, like she always did to him, and buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. He'd read her story, how she'd thought he was a bully at first, loud and in a cheap suit that didn't quite fit him right, with too much hair, how somehow in the process of playing her sister she'd come all the way around again and wanted to be with him, he'd read how even now she wouldn't rat on him and their relationship, odd as it was, and he read just how her sister had used her. And no one had ever talked about him that way, with such loyalty and respect, no one had volunteered to sacrifice themselves for him. And finally he figured it out -- when she said she wouldn't testify against him, he realized there was an x factor for her too. He curled up against her shoulder and felt his own salty tears running down his face. Mike let them go. It was, suddenly, going to be all right.