Fic: "New Year" - Heroes (Elle/Claire) - Part 1 of 2?
Title: "New Year" - Part 1
Author: erimthar
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: R
Word count: 2,458 for this chapter
Pairing: Elle/Claire
Warnings: Sexual talk and situations (f/f) - nothing too explicit.
Summary: Claire learns something important about Elle... and the world learns something about them both.
Notes: This story is the latest in an Elle/Claire series, preceded by "Departure", "Too Good To Deny It", "Storm Waters", and "Summertime Girls." However, I've tried to write this story so you can follow it if you haven't read those. All you really need to know is that Claire found a way to bring Elle back after Sylar murdered her; they're lovers; and they've started a new "Company" that's like a more benign version of Primatech or Pinehearst. Those earlier stories provide more details.
New Year’s Eve, 10:08 p.m.
“You’re being careful,” Claire’s father told her. “And when you’re being careful, I worry less. Which is to say, still a huge amount.”
“I’m always careful,” Claire said.
Noah gave her that steady stare with the expectant half-smile, that said I’m going to give you the chance to say it first, so I don’t have to.
Claire sighed. “OK, I’m not always that careful. But Elle has been completely different since she came back. I mean, she’s still got that attitude… she’s not lobotomized or anything. But she’s not into hurting people anymore. Believe me, I’ve been close enough to her to know if she was.” You have no idea, she added to herself with a secret smile.
“Elle was never very good at deception,” Noah admitted. “That’s one of the reasons she didn’t make it as a field agent. But the other reason is that she’s a sociopath, Claire. She’s erratic, unpredictable, has no sense of morality that the rest of us would recognize, and as I recall, the last time I saw you two together she put a bullet in you. You nearly died.”
I know… I was there. Unlike you, Claire thought. But what she said was, “You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”
Her father looked at her and gave her that resigned sigh… one she was becoming quite familiar with lately. “You’re right,” he said. “I am. Going to have to trust you.”
“She’s in good hands with Karen, here,” said Lauren Gilmore-Noah’s former colleague at the Company, and current girlfriend. She had just at that moment reappeared out of the milling crowd in the hotel lobby, pulling Karen Roth along after her. In honor of the festivities, Lauren was wearing quite a shorter skirt than Claire had ever seen her in before. She had lovely legs for a mom-aged woman. Karen, of course, was dressed in her usual businesslike pants-suit. The top two buttons of her blouse were undone, but whether that was New Year’s Eve flirtiness or just being too warm in a large crowd, Claire couldn’t say.
“I’m flattered by your confidence,” Karen said.
“Of course, when we were partners at the Company, trusting you was pretty much the only option available. When you have a partner who can detect any movement in the area-no matter how tiny-there’s not much room for keeping secrets.”
“Oh, admit it,” Karen said. “You loved our little road trips together.”
“I do admit it. It was pretty cushy having a partner who couldn’t be taken by surprise or hidden from, and who could take out a hostile shooter without even having line of sight. Also, you have a really cool mix CD collection. The only problem was when you’d be driving, and instead of saying Last rest stop up ahead, do you need to go to the bathroom? You’d say I’m stopping up ahead, because you need to go to the bathroom.”
“You contract certain muscles when you’re holding it in, and you would always get too distracted to say anything. Then we’d wind up in the middle of the desert, with you squatting by the side of the road with your pants down, hoping no trucks came by.”
“That only happened once!” Lauren protested. “And no trucks did come by, so nyah.”
“I can’t imagine how the Company failed with such crack operatives,” Noah said. “By the way, Karen, last time I heard you were charging seven figures for your consulting services. Unless re-shelving books at the university library pays a lot better than it did when I was in school, I’m not sure how Claire-Bear here manages to swing it.”
Karen shrugged. “Maybe I’ve reached a point where I’d rather be happy than rich.”
“Easy to say when you’re already rich, eh?” Lauren said with a grin, nudging her ex-partner with her elbow.
“Besides,” Claire said, “Elle is the sole legal heir of a man who could turn stuff into gold by touching it.”
That stopped the coversation for a moment.
“Your daughter here is pretty cagey, Agent Bennet,” Karen said. “She’s her father’s daughter. And Lauren: how easy is it to change her father’s mind about something once he’s got the bit in his teeth?”
“Ha!” Lauren replied.
“I rest my case. But I will take good care of her, Noah. And I can vouch for Elle, too. I know she’s got a history, but nowadays she’s more of a naughty angel than the naughty devil she was.” Karen gave Claire a look and a smile.
“Okay,” Noah said. “I know when to quit.” Claire raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to make an observation. “This time, I know when to quit,” he amended. “Lauren and I will be out there in the crowd enjoying ourselves. Your mother is somewhere around too, with her new boyfriend.”
“Ned Flanders?” Claire clarified.
“Be nice. You might have trouble getting cell reception in this crowd on New Year’s Eve, but try either or both of us if you need to.”
“I have a satellite phone,” Claire said, pulling it out of her purse and jiggling it for him to see.
He looked at it and sighed. “Of course you do. Is Elle’s pink too?”
“Blue. Elle hates pink things,” Claire replied. Well, she does like some pink things, she added in the privacy of her mind, and blushed.
“Then we’ll see you for dinner tomorrow?”
“Spiral-cut ham, potatoes au gratin, green-bean casserole and fruit salad,” Lauren specified. “Bring Elle.”
Noah looked at her.
Karen chuckled and turned to Claire. “Let’s head upstairs, boss,” she said. “Time to get to work.”
New Year’s Eve, 10:19 p.m.
One of the things Elle’s inheritance had paid for was a very nice hotel suite right on the square where the New Year’s Eve celebration was happening. The balcony offered an excellent view of the crowd down below, surging around a stage where various bands had been performing all evening. In the middle of it all was the inevitable brightly-lit tower, topped by a sparkly star that would descend to count off the final seconds before midnight.
Karen and Claire arrived to find several familiar faces already there. Elle was sitting on the sofa playing with her phone, but at the sight of Claire she put it away, smiled, and patted the seat next to her. Claire sat down in the offered spot and gave her girlfriend a quick kiss.
“Is that the best you can do?” Elle teased her. “I hope you’re just saving the good stuff for midnight.”
“You’ll find out,” Claire replied with a wicked grin.
Elle was wearing a pretty black outfit with white ruffles, which nicely complemented the one Claire had on.
“Let’s get this stuff over with,” came a female voice from out on the balcony. “I wanna go dancing.”
The voice’s owner came into the room, shimmying and dancing in place to the beat of the music coming from down below. Green Fairy (she’d answer to no other name, though she accepted “Green” for short) was a loopy free spirit, but a sweetheart. She’d been one of Karen’s first recruits for the new “Company” they’d been putting together, and her power to put people into an instant, deep sleep had come in very handy on many occasions (and allowed them to avoid a great deal of violence.)
Green was wearing high-heeled boots, silver tights, a pretty green velvet jacket, and a matching beret atop her shaggy retro-New-Wave blonde hairstyle. She was not a girl for half-measures when it came to fashion, especially when there was fun waiting to be had.
The final occupant of the suite was a beautiful young black woman Claire had never met before, dressed in tight black jeans and a fuzzy red-green-and-black sweater. Karen introduced her as Aziza.
“If everything goes right tonight,” Karen told Green, “we’ll all be done and dancing and drinking and kissing our various kiss-people by midnight. If not, nobody will be doing any dancing because there won’t be any power.”
“Some people just can’t look at a party without trying to poop it,” Green pouted.
“And as you all know, this particular party-pooper is a character calling himself Blackest Night. That’s a comic book reference…”
“You know comic books?” Elle asked her, surprised.
“No. I know Google. Anyway, Blackest Night is indeed a nerd. His real name is Adam Mezvinsky, he’s 18 years old, and he has the power to suppress electrical current in a radius of almost half a mile around himself.”
“Hate him already,” Elle muttered, letting her own electricity play across her fingertips.
Karen continued. “This guy’s plan is to shut down all the power near this location at some time before midnight. He’ll pretend he’s making an environmentalist statement about the evils of excessive power consumption, but in reality he’s just a troublemaker looking for attention.”
“How do you know all this?” Claire asked.
“Because I’ve been working with his sister. Goth chick named Magdalene. She also helped me bug her brother’s phone, which is how I know what he’s planning tonight.”
“Bugging phones, turning sister against brother… you’re a regular Veronica Mars,” Elle said with a grin. “Only not quite as hot.”
“She is too hot,” Green protested. “Karen is beautiful.”
“She does have that sexy Marg Helgenberger look going on,” Elle admitted.
“Ahem,” said the subject of the conversation. “If you two lesbians could please focus on the job at hand, rather than my hotness or notness…”
“I’m not a lesbian,” Green said promptly.
“I am,” Elle said, and kissed Claire’s blushing cheek.
“You banged Sylar,” Green reminded her.
“Which was one very good reason for turning gay,” Elle replied. “Although I did eventually find a much better reason.”
“…And that’s very sweet,” Karen continued gamely, “but our task for the evening is to stop Mr. Mezvinsky before he can disrupt things. I’ve got a lock on his phone’s GPS, and know that he’s on one of the rooftops on the other side of the square. The idea is for Green and I to teleport over there, put him to sleep, and bring him back here.”
“Teleport? How?” Claire asked.
“That’s where Aziza comes in.” The girl in question smiled and waved at them. “Now, she’s a really good teleporter, I’ve worked with her before and I trust her completely. But… there are a couple of little quirks to her power. Aziza, maybe you’d be better at explaining it?”
“Sure. My power has a couple of really big advantages, and one disadvantage. One advantage is that I can easily teleport any number of people, as long as they’re touching each other. A whole town full of people, if necessary, with no extra effort or difficulty. The other is that if you ‘port with me, you heal up any injuries you had. Your body puts itself back together in perfect condition when you get to your destination. Just like your healing power, Miss Bennet.”
“Those are pretty damn good advantages,” Elle admitted.
“Yep. Now the disadvantage. I can only teleport living things.”
“That’s not so bad,” Claire shrugged. “So it’s kind of inconvenient not to be able to carry stuff with you, like bags or weapons or…”
“Clothes,” Aziza concluded flatly.
There were a few seconds of dead silence in the room.
“Oh,” said Claire. “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding.”
“Nope,” Aziza assured her. “Naked or nothing.”
“So when do we leave?” Green asked, looking around.
“It’s okay, Claire,” Karen said. “You don’t have to do it. You’ll be staying here at HQ to keep an eye on things and get help if anything goes wrong. And Elle, you’ll stay here too unless the power actually goes out. If it does, there’s a hospital just a couple of blocks from here that will be in big trouble. I’ll have Aziza come back and take you to the Intensive Care Unit over there, where you’ll have to use your ability to power things until the current comes back on. Understand?”
“Sure thing,” Elle replied.
“We’d better get to it, then. We don’t know when Blackest Night is planning to blacken the night, and it’s not long until midnight. Aziza, are you ready?”
“I’m ready. You ladies might want to remove any jewelry you’ve got on… save you from having to search around for it on the carpet when you get back. If you’re carrying anything breakable you’ll want to put that down, too.”
“I’ve got a couple of crowns on my back teeth,” Green said.
“That’ll be fine. Anything inside your body will come with you. Dental work, contact lenses if you keep your eyes closed, tattoo ink, the food you ate today.”
“Ick,” interjected Green.
“In fact, you can take small objects with you if you can fit them inside your mouth. Or, you know, up your…”
“Ick,” said Green.
Karen took Claire aside. “Claire, in my briefcase over there on the table is the information we were looking for. Hopefully everything will go smoothly tonight, and while we’re gone, you might want to take the time to read the note I left on top of the other files. I think you’re going to find it very interesting... I know I did. I’ll let you decide if and when you want to tell Elle about it. It’s going to be pretty disturbing for her.”
Claire nodded.
“We’re ready, Aziza,” Karen called.
“Alright, ladies,” Aziza said, stepping in between Karen and Green. “Give me your hands.”
“You know the procedure if we’re not back within fifteen minutes,” Karen said to Claire.
“Got it.”
“On three,” said Aziza. “One… two…”
She, Karen, and Green vanished. Their outfits remained behind, standing there in midair for a split second before falling into a trio of heaps on the floor.
Elle giggled at the sight. “That is so sexy,” she said. “Wanna fool around?” She looked at Claire and licked her lips suggestively.
“I told you, I’m saving myself for midnight,” Claire said demurely. “And don’t tell me you don’t have something special planned for then, Miss Dress-Up.”
“Hmph,” said Elle. “I might. I might just have something special planned. But right now, I’m pretending to be mad at you.” She flipped open her phone and started playing with it again, turning her back on Claire dramatically.
Claire waited until Elle was engrossed with her game or app or whatever, then went over and quietly snapped Karen’s briefcase open. There were several sheaves of paper clipped together into bundles, and on top of it all was a letter with “CLAIRE---“ written at the top in big letters. She took the letter out and began to read it.
Continued in Part Two
Author: erimthar
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: R
Word count: 2,458 for this chapter
Pairing: Elle/Claire
Warnings: Sexual talk and situations (f/f) - nothing too explicit.
Summary: Claire learns something important about Elle... and the world learns something about them both.
Notes: This story is the latest in an Elle/Claire series, preceded by "Departure", "Too Good To Deny It", "Storm Waters", and "Summertime Girls." However, I've tried to write this story so you can follow it if you haven't read those. All you really need to know is that Claire found a way to bring Elle back after Sylar murdered her; they're lovers; and they've started a new "Company" that's like a more benign version of Primatech or Pinehearst. Those earlier stories provide more details.
New Year’s Eve, 10:08 p.m.
“You’re being careful,” Claire’s father told her. “And when you’re being careful, I worry less. Which is to say, still a huge amount.”
“I’m always careful,” Claire said.
Noah gave her that steady stare with the expectant half-smile, that said I’m going to give you the chance to say it first, so I don’t have to.
Claire sighed. “OK, I’m not always that careful. But Elle has been completely different since she came back. I mean, she’s still got that attitude… she’s not lobotomized or anything. But she’s not into hurting people anymore. Believe me, I’ve been close enough to her to know if she was.” You have no idea, she added to herself with a secret smile.
“Elle was never very good at deception,” Noah admitted. “That’s one of the reasons she didn’t make it as a field agent. But the other reason is that she’s a sociopath, Claire. She’s erratic, unpredictable, has no sense of morality that the rest of us would recognize, and as I recall, the last time I saw you two together she put a bullet in you. You nearly died.”
I know… I was there. Unlike you, Claire thought. But what she said was, “You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”
Her father looked at her and gave her that resigned sigh… one she was becoming quite familiar with lately. “You’re right,” he said. “I am. Going to have to trust you.”
“She’s in good hands with Karen, here,” said Lauren Gilmore-Noah’s former colleague at the Company, and current girlfriend. She had just at that moment reappeared out of the milling crowd in the hotel lobby, pulling Karen Roth along after her. In honor of the festivities, Lauren was wearing quite a shorter skirt than Claire had ever seen her in before. She had lovely legs for a mom-aged woman. Karen, of course, was dressed in her usual businesslike pants-suit. The top two buttons of her blouse were undone, but whether that was New Year’s Eve flirtiness or just being too warm in a large crowd, Claire couldn’t say.
“I’m flattered by your confidence,” Karen said.
“Of course, when we were partners at the Company, trusting you was pretty much the only option available. When you have a partner who can detect any movement in the area-no matter how tiny-there’s not much room for keeping secrets.”
“Oh, admit it,” Karen said. “You loved our little road trips together.”
“I do admit it. It was pretty cushy having a partner who couldn’t be taken by surprise or hidden from, and who could take out a hostile shooter without even having line of sight. Also, you have a really cool mix CD collection. The only problem was when you’d be driving, and instead of saying Last rest stop up ahead, do you need to go to the bathroom? You’d say I’m stopping up ahead, because you need to go to the bathroom.”
“You contract certain muscles when you’re holding it in, and you would always get too distracted to say anything. Then we’d wind up in the middle of the desert, with you squatting by the side of the road with your pants down, hoping no trucks came by.”
“That only happened once!” Lauren protested. “And no trucks did come by, so nyah.”
“I can’t imagine how the Company failed with such crack operatives,” Noah said. “By the way, Karen, last time I heard you were charging seven figures for your consulting services. Unless re-shelving books at the university library pays a lot better than it did when I was in school, I’m not sure how Claire-Bear here manages to swing it.”
Karen shrugged. “Maybe I’ve reached a point where I’d rather be happy than rich.”
“Easy to say when you’re already rich, eh?” Lauren said with a grin, nudging her ex-partner with her elbow.
“Besides,” Claire said, “Elle is the sole legal heir of a man who could turn stuff into gold by touching it.”
That stopped the coversation for a moment.
“Your daughter here is pretty cagey, Agent Bennet,” Karen said. “She’s her father’s daughter. And Lauren: how easy is it to change her father’s mind about something once he’s got the bit in his teeth?”
“Ha!” Lauren replied.
“I rest my case. But I will take good care of her, Noah. And I can vouch for Elle, too. I know she’s got a history, but nowadays she’s more of a naughty angel than the naughty devil she was.” Karen gave Claire a look and a smile.
“Okay,” Noah said. “I know when to quit.” Claire raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to make an observation. “This time, I know when to quit,” he amended. “Lauren and I will be out there in the crowd enjoying ourselves. Your mother is somewhere around too, with her new boyfriend.”
“Ned Flanders?” Claire clarified.
“Be nice. You might have trouble getting cell reception in this crowd on New Year’s Eve, but try either or both of us if you need to.”
“I have a satellite phone,” Claire said, pulling it out of her purse and jiggling it for him to see.
He looked at it and sighed. “Of course you do. Is Elle’s pink too?”
“Blue. Elle hates pink things,” Claire replied. Well, she does like some pink things, she added in the privacy of her mind, and blushed.
“Then we’ll see you for dinner tomorrow?”
“Spiral-cut ham, potatoes au gratin, green-bean casserole and fruit salad,” Lauren specified. “Bring Elle.”
Noah looked at her.
Karen chuckled and turned to Claire. “Let’s head upstairs, boss,” she said. “Time to get to work.”
New Year’s Eve, 10:19 p.m.
One of the things Elle’s inheritance had paid for was a very nice hotel suite right on the square where the New Year’s Eve celebration was happening. The balcony offered an excellent view of the crowd down below, surging around a stage where various bands had been performing all evening. In the middle of it all was the inevitable brightly-lit tower, topped by a sparkly star that would descend to count off the final seconds before midnight.
Karen and Claire arrived to find several familiar faces already there. Elle was sitting on the sofa playing with her phone, but at the sight of Claire she put it away, smiled, and patted the seat next to her. Claire sat down in the offered spot and gave her girlfriend a quick kiss.
“Is that the best you can do?” Elle teased her. “I hope you’re just saving the good stuff for midnight.”
“You’ll find out,” Claire replied with a wicked grin.
Elle was wearing a pretty black outfit with white ruffles, which nicely complemented the one Claire had on.
“Let’s get this stuff over with,” came a female voice from out on the balcony. “I wanna go dancing.”
The voice’s owner came into the room, shimmying and dancing in place to the beat of the music coming from down below. Green Fairy (she’d answer to no other name, though she accepted “Green” for short) was a loopy free spirit, but a sweetheart. She’d been one of Karen’s first recruits for the new “Company” they’d been putting together, and her power to put people into an instant, deep sleep had come in very handy on many occasions (and allowed them to avoid a great deal of violence.)
Green was wearing high-heeled boots, silver tights, a pretty green velvet jacket, and a matching beret atop her shaggy retro-New-Wave blonde hairstyle. She was not a girl for half-measures when it came to fashion, especially when there was fun waiting to be had.
The final occupant of the suite was a beautiful young black woman Claire had never met before, dressed in tight black jeans and a fuzzy red-green-and-black sweater. Karen introduced her as Aziza.
“If everything goes right tonight,” Karen told Green, “we’ll all be done and dancing and drinking and kissing our various kiss-people by midnight. If not, nobody will be doing any dancing because there won’t be any power.”
“Some people just can’t look at a party without trying to poop it,” Green pouted.
“And as you all know, this particular party-pooper is a character calling himself Blackest Night. That’s a comic book reference…”
“You know comic books?” Elle asked her, surprised.
“No. I know Google. Anyway, Blackest Night is indeed a nerd. His real name is Adam Mezvinsky, he’s 18 years old, and he has the power to suppress electrical current in a radius of almost half a mile around himself.”
“Hate him already,” Elle muttered, letting her own electricity play across her fingertips.
Karen continued. “This guy’s plan is to shut down all the power near this location at some time before midnight. He’ll pretend he’s making an environmentalist statement about the evils of excessive power consumption, but in reality he’s just a troublemaker looking for attention.”
“How do you know all this?” Claire asked.
“Because I’ve been working with his sister. Goth chick named Magdalene. She also helped me bug her brother’s phone, which is how I know what he’s planning tonight.”
“Bugging phones, turning sister against brother… you’re a regular Veronica Mars,” Elle said with a grin. “Only not quite as hot.”
“She is too hot,” Green protested. “Karen is beautiful.”
“She does have that sexy Marg Helgenberger look going on,” Elle admitted.
“Ahem,” said the subject of the conversation. “If you two lesbians could please focus on the job at hand, rather than my hotness or notness…”
“I’m not a lesbian,” Green said promptly.
“I am,” Elle said, and kissed Claire’s blushing cheek.
“You banged Sylar,” Green reminded her.
“Which was one very good reason for turning gay,” Elle replied. “Although I did eventually find a much better reason.”
“…And that’s very sweet,” Karen continued gamely, “but our task for the evening is to stop Mr. Mezvinsky before he can disrupt things. I’ve got a lock on his phone’s GPS, and know that he’s on one of the rooftops on the other side of the square. The idea is for Green and I to teleport over there, put him to sleep, and bring him back here.”
“Teleport? How?” Claire asked.
“That’s where Aziza comes in.” The girl in question smiled and waved at them. “Now, she’s a really good teleporter, I’ve worked with her before and I trust her completely. But… there are a couple of little quirks to her power. Aziza, maybe you’d be better at explaining it?”
“Sure. My power has a couple of really big advantages, and one disadvantage. One advantage is that I can easily teleport any number of people, as long as they’re touching each other. A whole town full of people, if necessary, with no extra effort or difficulty. The other is that if you ‘port with me, you heal up any injuries you had. Your body puts itself back together in perfect condition when you get to your destination. Just like your healing power, Miss Bennet.”
“Those are pretty damn good advantages,” Elle admitted.
“Yep. Now the disadvantage. I can only teleport living things.”
“That’s not so bad,” Claire shrugged. “So it’s kind of inconvenient not to be able to carry stuff with you, like bags or weapons or…”
“Clothes,” Aziza concluded flatly.
There were a few seconds of dead silence in the room.
“Oh,” said Claire. “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding.”
“Nope,” Aziza assured her. “Naked or nothing.”
“So when do we leave?” Green asked, looking around.
“It’s okay, Claire,” Karen said. “You don’t have to do it. You’ll be staying here at HQ to keep an eye on things and get help if anything goes wrong. And Elle, you’ll stay here too unless the power actually goes out. If it does, there’s a hospital just a couple of blocks from here that will be in big trouble. I’ll have Aziza come back and take you to the Intensive Care Unit over there, where you’ll have to use your ability to power things until the current comes back on. Understand?”
“Sure thing,” Elle replied.
“We’d better get to it, then. We don’t know when Blackest Night is planning to blacken the night, and it’s not long until midnight. Aziza, are you ready?”
“I’m ready. You ladies might want to remove any jewelry you’ve got on… save you from having to search around for it on the carpet when you get back. If you’re carrying anything breakable you’ll want to put that down, too.”
“I’ve got a couple of crowns on my back teeth,” Green said.
“That’ll be fine. Anything inside your body will come with you. Dental work, contact lenses if you keep your eyes closed, tattoo ink, the food you ate today.”
“Ick,” interjected Green.
“In fact, you can take small objects with you if you can fit them inside your mouth. Or, you know, up your…”
“Ick,” said Green.
Karen took Claire aside. “Claire, in my briefcase over there on the table is the information we were looking for. Hopefully everything will go smoothly tonight, and while we’re gone, you might want to take the time to read the note I left on top of the other files. I think you’re going to find it very interesting... I know I did. I’ll let you decide if and when you want to tell Elle about it. It’s going to be pretty disturbing for her.”
Claire nodded.
“We’re ready, Aziza,” Karen called.
“Alright, ladies,” Aziza said, stepping in between Karen and Green. “Give me your hands.”
“You know the procedure if we’re not back within fifteen minutes,” Karen said to Claire.
“Got it.”
“On three,” said Aziza. “One… two…”
She, Karen, and Green vanished. Their outfits remained behind, standing there in midair for a split second before falling into a trio of heaps on the floor.
Elle giggled at the sight. “That is so sexy,” she said. “Wanna fool around?” She looked at Claire and licked her lips suggestively.
“I told you, I’m saving myself for midnight,” Claire said demurely. “And don’t tell me you don’t have something special planned for then, Miss Dress-Up.”
“Hmph,” said Elle. “I might. I might just have something special planned. But right now, I’m pretending to be mad at you.” She flipped open her phone and started playing with it again, turning her back on Claire dramatically.
Claire waited until Elle was engrossed with her game or app or whatever, then went over and quietly snapped Karen’s briefcase open. There were several sheaves of paper clipped together into bundles, and on top of it all was a letter with “CLAIRE---“ written at the top in big letters. She took the letter out and began to read it.
Continued in Part Two