Chapter Text
"Are you sure?" Jane asked Susie, who was in the back of Jane's car, Frost riding shotgun.
"I was going to call her either way. My ass deserves to be immortalised."
"Ok, you've got your safe word?"
"Watermelon," Susie confirmed.
"And we'll be right here, ok?" Jane said, and Frost rolled his eyes.
"She's not dangerous, Jane," Frost said. "It might be Susie's first time undercover, but she's not in any danger. She's just asking some questions about the guy we have in lockup."
"If you get stuck..."
"Watermelon, I know." Susie got out of the car and smoothed down her dress.
"Wish me luck," Susie said into the wire as she walked into the restaurant.
---
"I'm glad you called me. Surprised, but glad," Claire told Susie, running her fingers around the rim of her water glass.
"Why?"
"Your friends seemed to be a little affronted by my obvious interest in you."
"Oh, Jane's just protective."
"I'm surprised she let you come, then," Claire said, turning to the waiter and ordering wine.
"What she doesn't know won't hurt her," Susie said, a wicked smile on her face. "How goes the exhibit?"
"Well, I suppose. You know, considering."
The murder had been front page news that morning, and the gallery had had to have uniforms staffed there to take calls for most of the day. That night's event was cancelled, fortunately for Susie.
"You'd rather be there than here?" Susie asked. "At the gallery, I mean. That's where you invited me."
Claire considered Susie across the table, reached out her fingers to stroke the back of Susie's hand where it rested on the table. "There's nowhere I'd rather be than here, with you," Claire said deliberately.
---
"She's smooth," Frost noted, and Jane nodded. "I'm taking notes."
"You've got you own moves," Jane pointed out. "Copying someone else - you don't need to do that."
"Sure, but I can always learn from a master, and that woman in there with Susie - she's a master."
"I feel kinda bad listening in."
"Susie agreed to the wire," Frost said. "But yeah, it sounds like a date."
"It's supposed to. Let's hope she can work that murder into the conversation - I spent some time with her on interrogation tactics but she's a scientist, not a detective."
"Trust her," Frost said.
"I do," Jane said, relaxing.
---
"But you're only booked in for two more showings at the gallery - won't missing tonight impact your work?"
"It won't bring back Naomi," Claire sighed. "It won't stop jerks from trying to convince me that men make better models, better lovers."
"They rarely do," Susie agreed. "Was someone trying to hire you?"
"I think so - he was pretty eccentric. He said he liked my work and tried to hire me to model him. He was pretty mad when I turned him down."
"You really never use male models?" Susie asked, sipping at her wine. "Not even if they commission you?"
"My work doesn't come that cheaply," Claire said. "And I wouldn't sell out. It wouldn't feel right, to me. I don't even know if I could, after all this time. And my heart wouldn't be in it. The models I use - they're all women that have inspired me in some way. I know I asked you to model, but this is..."
"An interview?" Susie asked. "I understand."
"My models aren't just beautiful women I want to immortalise. They're people I felt a connection to, however brief. Women I admire in some way."
"And you don't admire men at all," Susie concluded. "That would have made him mad."
"He said he'd..." Claire's voice broke off and she shook her head. "Enough about men! As though they don't monopolise most of our conversations. Tell me about yourself."
"I'm a scientist by day, an artist in my free time - what little I have of it. Nothing on your scale, but I enjoy it."
"Constance mentioned you do exquisite miniatures. Do you have any photos?"
Fortunately, despite telling Jane she didn't use dioramas in her everyday life, Susie had some normal looking examples on her phone, which she'd organised in case she had the chance to show Constance yesterday. She held out her phone, a copy of Boston Joe's she'd made a few years ago when Jane spilt coffee on that woman, the video that went viral.
"Constance always did have good taste. It seems a shame, that you're not showing anywhere. The attention to detail, the way you've conveyed attraction here -" Frost was leaning against the counter, talking to the barista "it really should be available to be studied." Claire handed the phone over. "You're very gifted."
Susie blushed, putting her phone away.
"It's just a hobby," she said, brushing her loose hair behind her ear.
"It's not 'just' anything." Claire was fixing a smouldering gaze on Susie, who blushed a deeper red. "It's amazing. You're amazing."
"I'm a better scientist than an artist," Susie said. "My mind... It likes exacts. I can shrink a real location down like this, but I can't create something new on my own."
"You don't need to. Look at my body of work. All I do is recreate what already exists."
"Is all your work to scale?" Susie asked excitedly.
---
"We've lost her," Jane groaned. "Are we going to listen in to their entire date?"
"We should," Frost said. "I mean, I said she wasn't dangerous, but after last week I want to make sure she gets home safely. I'm going to stop listening now, though." Frost took out his earpiece.
"Why would you do that?"
"I respect Susie too much to listen to her on a date," Frost said.
"You mean I gotta listen instead. You are so unfair." Jane flung herself back in the car seat.
---
"Would you like to come back to my studio? I'd love to paint you," Claire said suggestively as they left the restaurant and Susie, who had stuck to a single glass of wine, still stuttered her response.
"I, I would love to, but not - not tonight, it's, I'm not - I don't," Susie said ineffectively.
"You aren't the sort of woman I would normally take on the first date, but I'm only in town a few more days. Very well, I've enjoyed tonight. Can I see you tomorrow night? At my studio?" Claire's hand brushed Susie's face, cool against the warm cheeks. Susie nodded, and Claire leaned in, pressing her mouth gently to Susie's red cheek, taking her key from the valet and disappearing into the Boston night traffic. Susie looked dazed, and Jane got out of the car to collect her.
"What did she do to you?" Jane joked, doing up Susie's seatbelt.
"I... I don't know."
"You really going to let her paint you?"
"I'd already be painted if I wasn't wearing a wire," Susie said truthfully.
"Oh gross," Frost said. "Oh, no offense but that restaurant talk was hard enough to listen to. I've never heard so many euphemisms in a single sentence before."
Jane took the wire Susie had pulled out from her clothes and handed it to Frost.
"Aw it's still warm," he complained. "Uh, no offense again. I just know where it's been, is all."
"I think it's nice that you don't objectify your colleagues, Detective Frost," Jane said. "Let's get you home," she said to Susie. Susie nodded, hand to her cheek.