Buffy
 

Chapter Three

Lois sped down the highway, and never looked back. Brenda did,
though. She could see Jax had run out into the middle of the road, barefoot
and shirtless, screaming at the top of his lungs for her to stop. In moments
though, he disappeared, and she turned around, sighing.
“What the h#ll is going on?!” Lois screamed. Brenda ignored her, and
Lois knew she wouldn’t get an answer right away. Lois had the windows
rolled down, and at the speed she was driving, Brenda’s hair was whirling all
over her head. It helped to hide the few tears she had allowed to fall, in all of
her rage. When she thought they had dried, and Lois was sure they had
gotten far enough away that Jax couldn’t follow them in his truck, she slowed
down. Brenda leaned down and rolled up her window.
“You’re going to get us pulled over,” she said, casually. Lois just
glanced at her, basically ignoring her.
“You know,” Lois said, “I’ve been strung out over a guy before, but
nothing that bad. You look like death warmed over.”
“Well thank you very much for the unsolicited opinion,” Brenda said,
reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out a ponytail holder and
brush. “How’d last night go?”
“It was a trap,” Lois said. “I didn’t go.”
“Yeah, I figured it might have been. What do you think it means?”
“I just think this guy is a lot smarter than we took him for. He knows
we’ve been tracking him, so he started tracking us, which is why he was
seven counties away from where he was supposed to be, in a little out of the
way bar, the same bar that we were in. And we walked right into the trap.
We’ll just have to be more careful now. We’ll have to get off his back for a
while, and then come after him again, from a different angle.” Brenda
nodded.
“Sounds like a plan. I mean, it just occurred to me this morning that
there were way too many coincidences. Did you get our stuff from the hotel?”
“Yeah, it’s in the back. I kept thinking about what you said when I hung
up the phone last night. He wouldn’t be SEVEN counties away, you know?
And he didn’t leave when you left, so I walked outside the bar with some
people who were leaving, a real big group, and he came out, looked around,
didn’t see me, and he went back in. I had the guy on the door walk me to my
car, and I drove around a while.”
“He didn’t follow you?”
“Never even saw me leave, and since we switched cars back in El Paso,
I don’t think he knows what we’re driving anymore.”
“Well,” Brenda said, cringing at the shrill yell she knew was about to
come from Lois, “the police know.”
“The police know what?” Lois asked, paying more attention to the road
signs than Brenda.
“The police know what kind of car we’re driving.” Brenda had to put
her hands on the dashboard to keep from flying forward when Lois slammed
on the brakes.
“EXCUSE ME?! But how do they know what we are driving, Brenda?!!?”
“Jax is a cop,” Brenda said quietly.
“What? No, see, I know you didn’t just say what I think you said. Nope,
you didn’t, and that’s just it. He’s a cop? A COP?!?”
“Yeah,” Brenda said, waiting for the fallout to be over.
“Oh,” Lois said scoffing, “that is bull! And you fell for it, hook, line and
sinker, didn’t you?”
“Lois, it’s been years, how was I supposed to know--” Before Brenda
could finish her sentence, Lois had unbuckled her seat belt and gotten out of
the car with her purse, and began walking back down the road. Brenda got
out of her side. “Lo! Come on, where do you think you’re going?!”
“I’m walking BACK to that sleazy motel that eye candy’s stayin’ in, and
I’m turnin’ myself in, because it’s only a matter of time before every police car
in Dallas is lookin for us in our ‘champagne’ colored LEXUS!!”
“I’m SORRY!” Brenda said. “Will you just get back in the car?! People
come flying through here, you’re gonna get hurt! LOIS!” Lois stopped in her
tracks, but didn’t turn around. Brenda knew when she stopped that Lois
would come back, so she just sat back down in the car, and waited. Lois got
back in, slammed the door, and began driving again. She put on her seat belt
with one hand and steered with another. Brenda turned to her and started to
say something. Lois put one hand up, indicating to Brenda that she didn’t
want to hear it.
“Just get that map out of the glove compartment and tell me where the
next Enterprise is, so we can switch out this stupid car.”
“It’s pretty close,” Brenda said. “About ten minute’s drive.” Lois
pressed her foot on the gas.
“Well, we’re gonna make it in five.” The rest of the drive was spent in
silence. Lois went in and traded the cars, complete with red wig that was
startlingly realistic, fake smile, and even faker ID. She switched their
champagne colored LEXUS with a silver Ford Focus, and when she was sure
they were far enough away from the car rental place, she pulled over and
removed the tag, replacing it with another one for Houston. Brenda helped
her, and then went on the driver’s side, to switch with Lois. When they were
on the road again, Lois directed Brenda to get on the interstate and head for
Houston.
“I thought we were going to Corpus Christi.”
“We are, but we’re stopping in Houston first.”
“Why?”
“Well, since we have a cop trailing us now, I have a friend that can help
us out.”
“Help us out how, Lois?” Brenda asked, a sinking feeling coming over
her. When Lois didn’t answer, Brenda stopped the car. “Oh, what now?” Lois
asked.
“Explain to me right now just how this friend is going to help us? Lois,
you cannot put a hit on Jax, do you hear me? You can’t!”
“What do you care? He screwed you over, in more ways than one! And
he cannot catch up with us, Brenda. Get your priorities straight.”
“No, Lois, I told you when I started this thing that I was not gonna just
start killing any and everyone that got in my way.”
“Look at the big picture, Brenda. Look at why we’re doing this.”
“I KNOW why we’re doing this, and you know it. No one understands
more than I do, but I am not going to let you kill Jax.”
“Well then what, pray tell, do you suppose we do with him?” Brenda
paused for a few moments, and then sighed, looking at Lois. Her expression
said it all. “Hey,” Lois said, “it ain’t my story to tell, but I was under the
impression that you were keeping that particular secret to yourself for life.”
“I always planned to,” Brenda said, pulling back into traffic. “But now
I’m not so sure.”
“He’ll never understand why we do what we do. He’s a cop, we brake
the law, and that’s all he understands, it’s all he knows, and he has to stop us,
and we have to keep him from doing that. There can only be one winner in
this game, Brenda.”
“I’m not playing games anymore, Lois. Look, why can’t we just try to
lose him? IF he finds us, I’ll explain, and he’ll--”
“What, look the other way? Yeah, right. Brenda, use your head,
darlin’.”
“Well what if we just get out? What if he finds us, and we promise to
get out, and we just quit?”
“Are you ready to do that?” Lois asked.
“Well what about you? You’re pregnant. You don’t honestly think you
can keep this up after you give birth.” Lois looked down at her still flat
abdomen.
“I’ve been thinking, maybe I’ll give the baby to Ned to raise, you
know?”
“What? No way, Lois. You want this baby, I know you do. I know you
want to be in her life.”
“Not if they’re going to arrest me before she’s even a year old.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Of course I do, Brenda. How many people in our line of work go off
and become June Cleaver and Donna Reed when they get pregnant? They try
it, they get caught, and they have their babies in jail, and never see them again.
I’ll be d@mned if that happens to me, or my kid.”
“So you’re just gonna go drop a baby off on Ned’s doorstep,--”
“And then I’m comin’ right back in and finish what I started.” From the
look on her face, Brenda knew that the subject was closed as far as Lois was
concerned. They rode along in silence for another hour before Lois spoke
again. “So how’d you know he was a cop?” Lois asked.
“Hmm?” Brenda asked, her thoughts occupied still with Jax.
“I said, how’d you spot that he was a cop? What, you went through his
stuff and found a badge? A gun?”
“No, I was in his truck, and he had a police scanner.”
“Well so what, we’ve got one too?”
“Yeah, but his was special issue, Lois. It had been installed and it had a
serial number and everything. It was in perfect working order. He didn’t
steal that from anywhere.”
“So what’d you say when you saw it?”
“I played the role of dumb female, asked if it was a high tech radio, and
I jammed the signal. He tried to stop me before I did it, and I’m not even sure
he knows yet that I did it. He kept it turned down pretty low. He’ll find out
this morning, though.”
“So you jammed the signal, and then what? I mean, you just stayed with
him, knowing he was a cop?”
“He gave me some line about being a private investigator--”
“And you believed him,” Lois said, in more of a statement than a
question.
“Yeah, I believed him,” Brenda said. “Or I wanted to, anyway. I mean, I
looked at that face of his, and I felt his arms around me again, and I WANTED
to believe it, even if I didn’t really believe it. I just put it out of my mind, I
guess. I didn’t see it, or I WOULDN’T see it. But in the cold light of morning,
I realized my mistake. I called you, and you came. You know everything from
there.”
“So the police are on to us, huh?”
“Seems to be that way, Lois. But this has happened before, you know?”
“Yeah, Brenda but before, the police had me as a redhead and you as a
blonde, sans beautiful birthmarks. Now they’re going to have exact
descriptions.”
“Just of me, not you.”
“Look, admittedly, that bar was pretty dark last night, but eye candy
came right up to our table and he had to see that I didn’t have red hair.”
“Would you quit calling him eye candy, Lois? He has a name.”
“Enlighten me,” Lois said, as she pointed the direction for Brenda to
turn.
“His name is Jasper Jacks. Jax for short.”
“I can’t believe in all these years you’ve been talkin’ about Mr. Right, the
one that got away, and you never told me his name.”
“There wasn’t a single reason in the world for you to know it before
now, Lois. And could you please stop giving me a hard time about this? I feel
like enough of a heel by myself. I made a mistake, and I intend to do what I
can to rectify it.”
“How are you gonna do that?”
“Well, it’s only a matter of time before he catches up with us. And it’s
preferably before we reach Corpus Christi. We don’t want to bring down the
whole organization with us.”
“I’m with you so far,” Lois said.
“Okay, well, he’s gonna want to bring us in, but I think I can convince
him to let us go.”
“You gonna tell him the truth?”
“No choice really,” Brenda said, the lump forming in her throat
whenever she thought of him. “And he’ll just have to understand. He’ll
understand, and he’ll let us go.”
“Some plan,” Lois said.
“Hey, you got a better idea?”
“You KNOW what my idea is.”
“Yeah well, that’s out of the question. This will work, Lois. It has to.”
“But how are you going to explain it to him while you’re in handcuffs
in the back of a police car? He’s going to arrest you as soon as he sees you.”
“Not if I can get him away somewhere, for a day or to, and just explain
things to him.”
“Where are we going to take him?”
“WE are not going to take him anywhere,” Brenda said. “I’m handling
this on my own.”
“The h#ll you are. Brenda, I wouldn’t care if it were just you, but I am
involved in this too. If he’s already got reports out looking for us, then I do
not want to be taken out of play by some trigger happy rookie cop, okay?
Now if we’re going to do this, then I’m d@mn well gonna help you.”
“Fine, but this is my show,” Brenda said.
“So, are we still on to Houston, then?”
“Yeah, we’re on for Houston. We’ll just set a little trap, let him follow
us, and then we’ll kidnap him.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” Lois asked. “Hit him over the
head? He’s bigger than the both of us. And I don’t know about you, I try to
make it to the gym every once in a while, but I am not draggin’ a 6’ 2” male
from the parking lot of a Houston bar and putting him in the trunk of my car.
Besides, what are we going to do with that truck of his? We can’t be driving
that thing down the highway, someone is going to see us and pull us over
before we even get as far as Waco.”
“Look, will you just let me think a minute? I’ll figure something out.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Lois said. “And while you’re doing that, pull over,
let’s get something to eat, I’m starving. And,” she added with a smirk, “while
we’re waiting, I want to know what Roxy means.”

Jax sat in his truck, fumbling with his radio, trying to recall what
buttons Brenda had pressed while he was driving. It had taken him moments
to realize that the signal was jammed, and now he couldn’t do anything with
it. He had gone back inside, called his partner, Detective Chase, and asked her
to meet him at the motel. He showered and changed, checked out of the
motel, and now, here he sat, trying to figure out the radio, when he heard a
knock on the window that made him jump.
“Hey,” she said, when he got out of the cab of the truck, “I heard what
happened.”
“Is it all over the department?” Jax asked.
“Not really,” she said. “Well, sort of.” She gave him a smile. “I defended
you.”
“Thanks. Now, can you do me another favor? Can you figure out what
the bloody h#ll is wrong with my radio?”
“Move over,” she said, climbing inside. She pressed a few buttons,
turned a few knobs, and in moments, she had the radio working again.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“I just played the dumb female,” she said, getting back down with his
help. “I just turned whatever knobs and pressed whatever buttons I would
have, if I looked at that thing and took it to be a big fancy radio. It was easy.”
She smiled easily at him, and boy was he glad to see her.
Cordelia Chase had been his partner since he became a cop. They rose
in the ranks together, and had requested one another on a number of cases.
There was no one he’d rather have as his partner. She was smart, beautiful,
almost as tall as he was, and had long, dark hair. She could play any role he
threw at her, and she was a challenge. There was nothing more important to
Cordelia than being a detective, and bringing in the bad guys. She didn’t
know much about Brenda Barrett and this Lois Cerullo person, but she knew
it was her priority to bring them in, and that’s exactly what she intended to
do.
“All right,” Jax said, leaning against the door frame of his truck. “What’s
the plan?”
“Well, I made the mistake of letting you handle this on your own. You
told me you could handle her, that seeing her again wouldn’t open up all of
your history with her. Is that still true?”
“It is,” Jax said. “I can still handle her.”
“Well all right then, you’re not a hopeless case after all. But from now
on, we’re going to do things my way.”
“You have no arguments from me, Chase.”
“Okay, then let’s go grab a bite, and we’ll come up with a game plan.”
“Sure,” Jax said. “Hey, did you drive the jeep?” Cordelia turned and
looked at her 2000 Grand Jeep Cherokee. It was black, spotless, and her
pride and joy.
“Yeah, I drove it,” she said, “but there’s no way I’m going to let you
drive it.”
“Come on,” Jax said, stepping closer to her. “I know how much you’ve
been wanting to get your hands on my truck.”
“You wish,” Cordelia said, pushing him gently away.
“Ow,” Jax said, rubbing the side of his stomach.
“Is that how she got away?” Cordelia said, lifting up his shirt and seeing
the bruise from where Brenda had kicked Jax. Cordelia was about the only
woman Jax would ever let take such liberties with him. When Cordelia
touched the bruise lightly, Jax shrank back. “It’ll clear up,” she said, touching
the side of his face, delicately. “Come on, let’s just go.”
Once Cordelia and Jax had made it to a diner and ordered breakfast,
they went over the case. “Any idea where they’re headed?” she asked.
“I placed a tracer in Brenda’s purse while she was asleep. It’s in her
compact.”
“Oh she’ll see that immediately, Jax. Why didn’t you think to put it
somewhere else?”
“It’s behind the mirror, she’ll never find it.”
“How on earth did you get it back there? And why is it you’re always
using your contacts to get all these cool gadgets and I’m always stuck with
police issue crap that every suspect always has a leg up on?”
“Just lucky I guess,” Jax said. “From what I can tell, they’re headed
towards Houston. South, anyway, there are plenty of places they could be
going, Galveston, Corpus Christi, even Waco.”
“Well we’ll get them before they even get as far as Galveston. How
much range does that thing have?”
“It has enough. I can’t track them if they cross water, though.” Just
then, their food arrived. Cordelia barely touched hers. “I thought you were
hungry,” Jax said.
“I ate,” she said defensively.
“You ate half a waffle and drank all your orange juice.”
“What do you care?” she asked.
“Are you going to finish it?” Cordelia just smiled and pushed her plate
towards Jax.
“You’ll never change. Here, let’s just eat and go. I want to catch them
before they get too far ahead. I’m going to go pay the bill.”
“No you don’t,” Jax said, putting a hand on hers. She let him hold her
hand, and still dug around in her purse with the other one.
“Jax, stop being such a gentleman, would you? I can cover this.” He
stuffed a $20 bill in her hand and grabbed her wallet from her other hand.
She sighed, looked at him wearily, and then got up to pay the bill, giving him a
small smile before she left. Jax just shook his head. He was going to have a
hard time getting to Brenda, and keeping Cordelia at bay. She was a dear
friend, but he knew he couldn’t explain his feeling for Brenda to her, and
have her understand. She was a cop, first and foremost, and she was going to
do her job. Jax just hoped she could do it without taking Brenda and Lois out
of play for good.