Log: Kane/Brand

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Kane's security footage requests haven't gone entirely unnoticed.



Kane's desk was piled high with files, supporting three other agents in the field with their files inquires. With his occasionally erratic schedule, there was an unspoken agreement with Duncan that longer term investigations didn't hit his desk often. Instead, to pull his weight, he took on some of the office work from the field agents so they could focus on their own investigations.

He was making careful notes on a pair of dispatches when the door opened, and he caught a flash of green hair. Abigail Brand. She had quickly established herself as the part-time bogeyman in the department. She was frighteningly intelligent, and had absolutely no qualms he'd noticed in using it against people. Already two agents had found their work mysteriously superseded on an successful investigation that she had taken credit for. The worst part was that the files supported her, not the others. One had already transferred out.

"Good afternoon, Agent Kane. I do hope I'm not interrupting anything important." There was just enough friendliness in her tone to make a casual bystander think she was actually sincere. "You seem to have quite the backlog happening."

"Can't complain, no one is listening." Kane said automatically. He supposed that he should give her an honest chance, but the woman's obvious and ruthless ambition left him consistently wondering just want she really wanted. "How did Reno go? The DA down there is pretty tough."

"Is he?" Brand sauntered closer to his desk, arranging herself in the chair opposite. "I thought he was a perfect kitten. Everything went just fine." She crossed her legs, exposing a long length of stocking and dark green stilettos with heels that looked more like daggers. "It's just a matter of knowing how to handle people."

"Uh-huh." He bit back a comment. There was another rumour that had just started, before Fred had stomped it down hard with both feet, that Brand had convinced a federal prosecutor to obtain a warrant for her using less than professional methods, and while it had solved the case, he'd been dismissed from his job after his stretching of the process was revealed. Was she that cold. "What can I help you with, Abigail?" He said, finally looking up with his best smile; the one reserved for suspects and never touched his eyes.

"Oh, nothing much, Garrison. Just a little thing I noticed and wondered about. Indulge me, will you?" She smiled at him, her expression just as calculated as his. "I found a request for security footage in the Neoset case. Yours?"

Uh-huh indeed. Kane's expression didn't change. "The Neoset case is mine, so yeah, the security footage was my request. There's the possibility of additional accomplices who provided logistical support to the primary suspects. If so, they would have likely come through one of the local terminals if they weren't locals."

"The evidence of accomplices is pretty thin, isn't it?" Brand replied, tilting her head slightly, her tone light and curious, but her eyes fixed on him. "Neoset isn't the sort of company that pulls in outsiders - all our data shows they keep things in-house."

"Never hurts to make sure, Abigail. That's what Fred always says."

"And we always do what Fred says, don't we?" Abigail's voice was nothing but sincere. "Find anything interesting in the footage?"

"A few leads to run down. More crossing things off the list as possibilities." What was she getting at? He'd known her long enough to recognize the deceptively innocent questioning as a sign that she thought she had something. "What about your own cases?"

She shrugged elegantly. "Oh, I'm not doing anything you'd find interesting. The special patient that they boarded towards the end of the second tape. What did you think of that?"

"Looks like someone who needs a lot of help. Hopefully wherever they're going, they'll get it." His smile was guileless.

She met his eyes, the faintest flicker crossing her face. What the expression actually had been was hard to say. "I hope whatever help they get, it's worth all the effort and expense. These things are never as simple as they seem on the surface." She uncrossed her legs and stood in one fluid movement. "Let me know if I can be of any help, Garrison. After all, we're all on the same team now."

"Of course, Abigail. I never considered it otherwise."