Consequences

“Mother fucker,” Sinead swore, slamming her desk phone back into its cradle.

“Still nothing?” Jules asked, looking up from her computer.

Sinead rubbed both hands on her face and groaned. “Nothing. It’s like Financial Forensics is a black hole.”

“You’re lucky the Captain even let you continue on the case,” Jules said. Sinead’s partner had been covering their day-to-day work again for about a week after Sinead had found out that nothing had progressed on the Le Français case since she’d orchestrated the raids. There had been a handful of petty charges and a bunch of fines, but nothing big. No leads that hooked the money laundering network to whoever had been organizing and using the whole thing. “What if there isn’t anything else to find?”

“There has to be something else,” Sinead said. “We know Le Français is still active on the street. There isn’t a CI on this side of Brampton that doesn’t have a rumour about him. Most of them are worthless because they’re too old.”

“Sinead, you’re spiralling,” Jules said with a deadpan expression.

“I’m not fucking spiralling,” Sinead grunted. “I’m just getting fucking cockblocked here.”

Jules leaned forward over her desk, lowering her voice. “What are you saying? You think Financial Forensics is covering something up?”

“To say that I’d have to know if they are doing anything at all,” Sinead said. “I mean, seriously. I don’t even get e-mails back, and there’s an admin who takes my messages but I never get a call back.”

“Could just be they are actually understaffed,” Jules said.

“Maybe,” Sinead said, chewing the inside of her lip. “Either way, it’s dumping this case in the fucking toilet.”

“Well, what did you do last time?” Jules asked. “Just do more of that if you really can’t make Financial Forensics put out work product.”

Sinead took in a deep breath and blew it out. Jules still didn’t know what Sinead had done to get the last break in the case. It had been three weeks since the raids, and the night that she’d ghosted Marc Fornier. There was no way that she could go back to him for more help.

“I’ll try,” Sinead growled more to herself than Jules. It was just numbers, right? How hard could it be to figure out a few tips and tricks?

“Well, I got one answer at least,” Sinead said as she flopped onto the couch and picked up the beer, taking a big swig of it.

“Please, come in,” Jules said, still standing at the door of her little two-room apartment. “Help yourself to a beer.”

“Sorry,” Sinead said.

“What’s the problem?” Jules asked, shutting the door and heading into her little kitchenette to grab another beer from her fridge. “What did you find out?”

“Financial Forensics isn’t just understaffed. They have two guys covering everything across the entire Greater Toronto Area. I guess it was some sort of budget cut issue, along with low wages compared to the private sector. No one with the know-how wants to stick around for a Cop’s pay.”

“Bastards,” Jules sighed. It wasn’t clear if she meant the people who quit because of the pay, the higher-ups who decided where budget cuts went, or the politicians who fucked with the Police budgets to begin with. It was usually a mix of all three when the issue came up. “At least that means there probably isn’t a mole or something.”

“Or it means that one of the guys sticking around is a mole and is supplementing his shitty pay to make it worth sticking around,” Jules said.

“You know you can’t investigate that,” Jules warned her. “That’s an OIPRD issue.”

“I know, I know,” Sinead said. “It’s not like I have anything but suspicions to report to the Independent Review pricks anyways.”

“So what now, then?” Jules asked. “Maybe you should take a break. You know, go out and have some fun or something. You’ve been head-down on this for almost three months now in total.”

“The money is going to disappear,” Sinead said. “If I don’t break this soon, Le Français is going to be a fucking ghost all over again.”

“What about the thing you did last time?” Jules asked. “It’s not working?”

“Teaching myself forensic accounting isn’t exactly an easy task, Jules,” Sinead grunted. It was, in fact, mind-meltingly boring and totally complicated. She had a stack of books from the public library on her coffee table at home, along with about three dozen youtube tabs open on her home laptop, and both the videos and the words were like she was learning Greek.

“Well, you’ll get it,” Jules sighed. “Just don’t burn yourself out completely. I do need you back eventually.”

“Yeah,” Sinead grumbled, thinking about what she would have to do. “Yeah.”

“Detective,” Marc said as he opened his apartment door. It was almost eleven at night and this time he was still fully dressed. He’d just gotten home from an evening session of his PADI re-certification course. “This is a surprise.”

“Marc,” Sinead said by way of a greeting.

“Well, please come in,” Marc invited, shifting out of the way for her to enter his apartment. There were only two reasons for the Detective to have come back, and he doubted it was to deliver an apology for standing him up and ghosting him.

Sinead entered, looking somewhat mollified compared to the last several times they had met. She was in a similar outfit as before, though she was showing less cleavage and had left the pushup bra at home. Marc followed her into the kitchen, but she didn’t sit on one of the stools and instead stood with her hands braced on the kitchen island.

“I need your help,” she said.

“Really?” Marc asked. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her.

“Yes, really,” Sinead said, a spark of that fiery personality rising back up. “It’s-”

“Important,” Marc said, waving a hand dismissively. “Rien n'est important tant que ce n'est pas important. If it was so important for you to have my help, you certainly have an interesting way of repaying favours.”

“I was busy,” Sinead made her weak excuse.

Marc tutted and shook his head, making it clear that wasn’t a good enough excuse. “You broke your word, Detective. And not only that, but you were rude about it. Why would I trust you at all with any further deals we made?”

“Because this is important,” she said sternly.

“I’m going to want payment up front this time, Sinead,” Marc said, swapping to her first name. It was a simple tactic, shifting the footing of the conversation. She had started to get comfortable, that edge in her voice coming back.

“Fine,” Sinead said. “Whatever. I’ll do a quick dinner with you. Tomorrow. Then you look at the files and-”

Marc tutted again. “No, Sinead. Dinner was a favour between friends. And, considering it all, it wasn’t much of a favour at all. If you think dinner is all it will take to make up for your lies and your rudeness, you need to rethink your position.”

“I can’t afford your consulting fee,” Sinead said.

“I don’t want your money, Sinead,” Marc said. “If this thing is going to happen between us, I’m going to want something more intimate than dinner, and certainly more personal than money.”

Sinead dropped her jaw at his brash intimation. “How dare you?” she demanded.

“You’re a beautiful woman,” Marc shrugged. “And if I’m going to debase myself, I think it only fair if we feel even.”

Sinead turned on her heel and stormed out. Marc didn’t bother following her, and only blinked when she slammed the front door closed behind her. He’d taken a chance and planted the seed. He couldn’t tend to it or water it, and maybe it would die without sprouting.

The Detective knew what the price would be now.

Marc considered calling up Felicity to see if she was free, but it was late and a weeknight. Starting something with her now would take hours, and he needed his sleep.

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