12 Months...
Chapter Two
Alex looked outside through her window. She could see nothing. There was no moon, no stars, just low-lying rain clouds, as black as the sky. The inside did not boast light either. Only one lamp stood on the far corner of the living room throwing 40 watts. Darkness had stopped bothering the blonde slender woman who was but a silhouette blending perfectly with the motionless background.
Just then her doorbell rang. She heard it but she did not react. There was nobody in her life anymore that evoked any kind of reaction from her, probably because it wasn�t her life. It was the life of Samantha Coulter who had been just this morning fired from her third job within three months. Samantha Coulter the new woman in the block who had been asked by every eligible man there. Samantha Coulter who thought she was better than everyone to decline every one of them. At least that is what the rumor mill reasoned.
But Alex Cabot cared less about anything said about or happening around Samantha Coulter, just as she stood un-hearing the door bell that had already rung for the more times than she wished to count. Then it stopped ringing. Alex did not react. Soon after she heard�she heard the door opening. She reacted. She panicked. Slowly she walked towards the foyer and peeped at the doorway. Her heart immediately slowed down recognizing the person.
�Agent Gem!� She said a loud.
�Gem�Just Gem.� Gina said flashing a smile at the bespectacled woman. �I thought you were not home. I rang the bell like a million times.�
�So�If I am not home, you just walk in. I don�t think just because government gave me a new life, it can evade on it as it wishes.� Alex certainly wasn�t smiling or amused at Gina�s intrusion.
�Oh it�s not the government. It�s me. Remember your new best friend. SAM.� Gina emphasized on the new nickname as though that was a cue for Alex to spring into the character.
�I don�t need best friends.� Alex said curtly walking back inside the living room.
�And apparently you don�t need jobs either.� Gina let go of her smile and got into her business mode following the blonde. �I heard you got fired again. This was the third job I set you up for.�
�What are you my mother now?� Alex snapped.
�No. Just someone, who has to write a report on your developments.�
�Oh! So, I am failing and you are here to� what punish me. Give me more homework.� Alex wasn�t interested in FBI or the government�s concern on her.
�No, as a matter of fact, I am here to loosen you up a little bit.� Gina said undeterred by Alex�s nonchalant words. �Come on�now wear something nice. We are going out.�
�What makes you think I will go out with you?� Alex looked with the demeaning look that she had got famous for.
�Because�. A � I am not a man� B � I am not asking you out�. I am taking you out. That�s what friends do. They take their friends out when they are down. You lost your job. You are down. I am taking you out. SAM�. So let�s go.�
�A gay bar!� Alex exclaimed as soon as she realized the clientele of the club. �What makes you think�?� I am gay was to follow but Alex did not complete her question. �So come here often?� She asked instead remembering Gem�s comment about having crush on Olivia.
�No�Chicago is as new to me as it might be to you. But I was always told that for people who like cities�. Chicago offers almost everything that New York or L.A. does. And I believe it does.� Gina said looking around. �I thought you might like it.�
At that moment Alex knew that Gem knew yet the lawyer in her had to ask, �How did you know?�
�That you might like Chicago? Because, I figured you to be a city girl � I wouldn�t have put you in a little town.�
�No� about me being� forget it.� Alex wasn�t sure if her conclusion was even right, so she gave up probing further.
�That you were gay�.� Gina offered this time. Though the first time, she had purposely eluded the subject. �Olivia� your reaction to her name. I am trained to notice.�
It was a simple answer; but a simple answer that opened a whole lot of other reasoning. Reasons that were getting clearer to Alex now.
�Oh � God! You lied to me. You used Olivia�s name to make me sign those papers. To get me to volunteer.�
�I didn�t lie about knowing Olivia.� Gina chose to emphasize on the truth part. �Olivia and I graduated from the Academy together. We were dorm mates. My bunk was right next to hers. That wasn�t a lie.�
�Anyone can make that claim.� Alex the ADA was not going to be na�ve again.
�Agreed� but any one cannot know her like I do. Do you know that� the one class she had the worst trouble getting through was Criminal Profiling, because for that course you needed to think like a criminal and Olivia never let her self do so. She was scared that if she did, she would be her father. You know about her father right?�
Alex simply nodded in affirmation.
�Yep� One time she even ran out of the class crying. But once she was able to tell us� me and our other friend� can�t name her. Once she told us, she passed that barrier of being scared. After that everything else was a piece of cake.�
�But you never had a crush on her?� Alex remembering other piece of information Gem had shared.
�No� unfortunately or fortunately I am straight. We were just friends. Great and even best friends� but just friends.� Gina said admitting her lie.
�So� is she?� Alex asked. She had to know.
�Does it matter now�? SAM?� Gina reminded Alex of her new name. �I got you here, so that you can move on with your life� with SAM�s life. You got to let go of that life. You are not going back. I know� I have done this for too many people for too many years � remember.�
�And no one goes back?� Gina had told her that many a times, but she had to ask one more time.
�No one goes back.� Gina didn�t mind repeating it once again.
The coffee was already on the brew while two pieces of bread were in the toaster. Gina was deciding between butter and jam when she heard another presence in the small kitchen/dinning area.
�I see you let yourself in again.� Alex simply said, not shocked or surprised this time.
�Well, I didn�t want to disturb you and your overnight guest. But I see she left already. I was making breakfast for three.� Gina pointed to the three settings she was preparing. Gina took out both the butter and jam seeing that Alex had both but no cheese.
Alex simply sat down and waited for coffee offering no explanation.
�When I said move on� and left the bar. I didn�t mean pick up the first Liv look a like. When I saw her leave� I had to look twice for a second. She looked so much like Liv� with short hair.� Gina said sitting across from the sleepy eyed blonde.
�Olivia has short hair; the cutest cut in the world. And then when she gels it just a little� all I want to do is run my hand through them. Once I remember she decided to have blonde highlights� she looked so good in it. I even told her to stay with it� but the very next day� she stripped the color. She said she liked the darker look. The darker look is definitely ��
�Sam.� Gina�s hand was on Alex�s stopping the blonde. When Alex looked up Gina simply nodded her head, and Alex knew what she was doing.
�It might seem oxymoron of me to tell you to forget your old self and then tell you that I got to escort you to give a signed statement to a Federal Prosecutor. But that is what I came here for.� Gina said changing the subject.
�And I thought you came as a concerned new best friend.�
�Oh! A concerned new best friend with a job to do.�
�Keep the prosecutors happy.�
That was the unwritten rule of Witness Protection Program. The only reason why a person ends up in the Program is because the Prosecutor wants something from them. To make sure they get it, it was the job of the Contact to make sure that the new life was comfortable for the witness. Sometimes to make it comfortable they had to go to an extent, like buying them drugs to prostitutes. And Gina, who was specifically recruited from the Police Force for that program, had done it all. And for her to take Alex to a gay bar and make sure that Olivia look a like was there to take her out of her gloominess� wasn�t something she did out of goodness of her heart. It was just her job. Like it was her job to sit and keep a professional eye on her witness as she gave the prosecutor the necessary statement.
Gina sat couple of tables away doing her job. While Alex talked to a handsomely dressed Federal Prosecutor, who looked more like her date as they pretended to share a cup of Joe on that small fairly empty caf�. Couple of table away from them all sat a man peering at his newspaper, but in actuality taking few very good shots of all three from his pen camera.
The pictures were staring at the person as much as the person was staring at them.
�You did a good job.� The person told the man who had clicked the pictures.
�Not good enough though. When I tried to follow them I lost them. So, apart from the fact that we know she is alive, she is in the Witness Protection Program and she is in Chicago, we still don�t know where she is or who she is as. Chicago is a big city, and the only thing I could get on Agent Gem is that she is good.� The man accounted his failures.
�Don�t worry. How about you do a little search on Gina Ramsey? Last I knew she still had a father.�
�Who is that?�
The person pointed to the picture of the Agent who was sitting alone doing her job on the moment the snap was taken.
�Real names of the Agents are guarded like a national treasure. How did you know her name?� The man certainly wasn�t new to what he did. He knew his stuff and he knew that the information his boss just provided wasn�t something that anyone could just have.
�Well� legitimate life has its advantages.� The answer was simple and true. �Call it Ms. Cabot�s unluckiness that I have crossed path with Ms. Ramsey in my past. Now get to her weakness and make sure we get Ms. ADA before the court date.�
The man gathered the photographs he had taken that morning before he walked towards the door.
�David�� He was interrupted. �Here take this.� He was handed an envelope with a hurriedly scribbled �Gina�. �Keep this with you.�
�Should I give it to her?�
�No. Just keep it with you all the time. You don�t have to give it to her.�