Re: Ocean's Eleven - Seven Hills: Neil, Cris & Sam
[Valentine's Day had come and gone, and Cris had spent most of it with his daughter. They'd made heart-shaped pancakes and went through the girl's box from school Friday, reading aloud from the various Valentine's she'd received. There was some pressure to have heart-shaped PB&J's for lunch, but Cris managed to talk Teresa down, telling her it'd be too wasteful to cut off all that excess bread and compromising instead, letting her smear hearts onto the peanut butter with strawberry jelly. They both decided not to do that again when they got corners, mashed, spit-wet bread, stuck to the roofs of their mouths, no jelly included. (¡Mala idea, papi!) It was too dry.—There was the usual hotel stuff going on, por supuesto, but Cris ignored it—put all of it on the back-burner, so he and Teresa could go sledding and watch the Duke/Syracuse ball game on TV. He needed it as much as his kid did. It was low-key. It was good.
He'd only gotten the envelope of photos earlier, right before Mass, the very compromising ones with Sam in them, and, immediately, he knew something was off. He was a detective, after all. The pictures were either old or—and this was more likely, he thought, after seeing Micah's post—a result of someone's wish. He knew they weren't recent, because Sam was still at Seven Hills—and wherever the photos were taken, it wasn't the guest bathroom.
He only started doubting himself on that count after he hung up the phone on Neil. Ni siquiera sabía que era lo que estaba pasando, but something was. He got to the place, dressed better this time at least—button up and slacks from church—but hard of breath. The door had dropped him a little ways a way and the prick of sweat along his hairline told of how he'd made up the distance—he'd run. Like a mile at least.
He'd didn't take the time to catch his breath.
Neil's nervousness came off in waves—he looked bad, like a bad cup of coffee—and Cris walked up to the other guy, hoping none of the staff would recognize him and toss him out before they did whatever it was they needed to do. He held out his hand for a shake, keeping his expression mostly neutral, save for a peak of brows.] Hey. What's goin' on?