Meet the Press

Who: Lucas and Sam
Where: ECPD
When: afternoon

After Max left, Lucas put the final touches on his story then left it on his editor's desk. Sam hadn't answered his messages yet so he decided he'd just go visit her. For once though, he did stop at home to change and shower. Max's comment on how he looked hadn't really bothered him, but he supposed if he was going to get what he wanted out of Sam he should look the part. By the time he was headed to the ECPD he was clean shaven, dressed in a new suit though without the tie.

He was going to walk, but with the rain and the obvious street war going on, he opted to take his car instead, parking in the cruiser lot without a care as to whether or not he was supposed to park there or not. When he entered the station he was whistling, nodding to a few familiar faces, none of whom seemed pleased to see him. He made his way straight for Sam's desk, dropping himself in the chair next to it. "Hello gorgeous."

Sam had been delegated to go through the reports of the fire because she was the one with the better chance of finding a connection than Jakob. She didn't have to go through and look back at everything. A brain that was a steel trap came in handy and so far Sam had found nothing that connected the past arsons with the Drake. Albeit, there wasn't much information on the Drake except where the fire chief had said where it started. There was just so much damage to comb through.

So when Lucas approached her desk, Sam pretended not to notice him. She'd been ignoring his phone calls and messages on purpose and even when he greeted her, she still ignored him. Adjusting her reading glasses, Sam turned the page of the report. She was a little more desheveled than he was in grey slacks and a matching blouse with the sleeves rolled up. Her blonde hair was twisted up in a bun at the back of her head held in place with a pen and she looked tired, forgoing make-up that day as she saw no need for it.

"Samantha, you really shouldn't ignore my calls. I could have been calling to ask you to dinner." They both knew he wasn't. He never had. They'd hooked up before, but usually it was the result of a drunken night at a family party gone well. Since she was ignoring him even now he picked up a folder off her desk, flipping through the photos one of the original arson cases.

Her hand flashed out quick and smacked him on the side of the head. She didn't necessarily have a problem with Lucas as a person, but he was a reporter and therefore he had sticky fingers. "Drop it," she snapped, finally looking at him. It's what he wanted after all. "You don't buy me dinner, remember?" It was boredom and convenience that had their past encounters. Not dating.

Lucas winced and rubbed the side of his head a little, then made a show of dropping the folder back on her desk. He frown shifted back to a playboy smile and he leaned across the desk, resting his arms on it, and watching her. "Even so, it's been a while..." he taunted, though if she took the bait he'd follow through.

Picking up the folder, Sam rifled through the pictures and put them back in order as well as making sure he hadn't taken any. Satisfied that he hadn't, she put it in the organizer on the opposite side of the desk. "I don't have any updates on the investigation right now. We're still scraping through the Drake and looking to see if this is the work of our current firebug." She ignored his taunt with practiced ease and took a sip of her now cold coffee. So they'd slept together. Well, she wasn't looking for a repeat performance at the moment.

"Any reason to believe they were trying to burn up our cousin Ian Sullivan?" Lucas asked, jumping right to the point. She'd ignored his offer, which was enough. He hadn't really meant it anyway, or at least not enough to follow through. They'd hook up again at some point, Lucas was sure of that.

"If that was the case, I'd be first in line," she reminded him with a smirk. "But no, nothing yet. Besides, there are simpler ways to get back at him if he pisses you off." Like mugging him in an alley for instance, Sam figured.

"Lies. His pretty boy, goody-two-shoes thing does it for you and you know it," Lucas teased again. He knew full well what Sam was like behind closed doors and he was pretty sure his cousin couldn't handle it. Ever. "Like the fact that someone jumped him in an alley?" There was little information that didn't get siphoned through Lucas at some point. "The two, they could be connected. Though there's also the possibility that the target was...larger."

Sam rolled her eyes which sent a shot of pain through her head and she cursed softly. Her headache was chugging along and was manageable as long as she didn't do things like roll her eyes. Hence the reading glasses. "Yeah, that Ian Sullivan sure lights my fire," she said sarcastically. Her mind went to Dutch at the next comment. She was unsurprised that Lucas knew about it. "Well the mugging we believe is a completely unrelated event." Besides, someone would've noticed Dutch lighting the building on fire. It just didn't seem like something her uncle would do. As for a larger target... "My grandfather is quite upset about the closing," she said neutrally. Dante Giacomo was upset that his little casino at the Drake was cut out. It was the more legitimate business being run in the family and to have it attacked like that...

"I thought he did," Lucas said with a smirk, shifting it to a sweet face, almost puppy-dog-like. The face that got him laid and got him the information he wanted. "So unrelated. But not related to the other fires. It's too quick a jump up for our little spark bug right?" He had to agree with her about her grandfather. He loved that damned casino, not to mention the amount of cash it brought in. "I'm sure they'll be operational before we know it. Maya Walker needs a place to hold her balls, Dante will want his cash cow up and running and my uncle needs a base of operations." His uncle being the big daddy of them all.

Sam pursed her lips and looked away instead of rolling her eyes. "We're still working out any possible connections with the other fires," she said. "There just isn't a lot of information yet. Sorry I can't be of more help on that." No, she wasn't too sure that the Drake arson was related to the others but it also didn't mean that this fire just happened to get out of control either. "And I'm just going to ignore everything else you just said." Idiot.

"I didn't say anything that wasn't completely innocent." Lucas knew how to toe a line, more than that he'd never put the family at risk, even if he thought Sam should be one of them. She was distantly related, but somehow had wormed her way out of everything. If only they had a cop with the connections she had. He sat up from the desk, leaning back in this chair with another smile, tucking his arms behind his head. "Still working means you haven't found anything yet," he said and it was hardly a question, more like an observation.

She crooked a finger at him to get him to come closer and leaned in, a conspiratorial look on her face.

He watched her for a moment, knowing full well she might just be pulling him in closer to smack him. In a flash he considered that and realized he'd enjoy it so he went with it, leaning across his legs so his face was close to hers.

She didn't smack him, but her fingers grabbed his ear and she dug her short but sharp nails into his skin, much like one of their elderly aunts would do when they were all much younger. "I'm already wondering if I'm going to be facing the chopping block, Lucas DiGiovanni, because of your fucking family and because I've got tits and there's a lot of people in here who know about the connection and wonder if I can be fucking trusted." She dug her nails in harder and tugged. Her voice was quiet and innocent except for the thread of anger running under it. "So I'm not taking any chances and if some brown-nosing asshole happens to overhear certain remarks like that and do some digging, I am going to come after you and make sure that Lucas Spitfire will be permanently outta commission. Do you understand?

The entire thing sent a thrill through him, from the pain on his ear to the sharpness of her words and he let out a little hiss, which wasn't entirely rooted in the pain. There was no hiding that look of desire in his eyes. "Trust me love, we don't own you." Sad state of affairs that was. No wonder they want you to marry in. "But you have my word." Instinctively he tilted his head into her hand a little, eager for more.

Sam pulled her hand away, lip curled and she shoved him back in his chair. She knew he was into weird shit, which made threatening the bastard more difficult. "No one fucking owns me, but people think they do." She pulled the pen out of her wavy blond locks and ran a hand through it. "What else do you want?"

Lucas took the shove back with ease, chuckling a little as his chair skidded back an inch or two. "I wouldn't dream of it. I know better," he said, resting a hand on his chest and laughing again. Leaning in he dropped his voice a little. "You shouldn't let the boys with the badges either though. Chopping block or not." He leaned back, conspiratorial tone gone and amused smile in its place. "The other dead bodies. The O'Malley boys, anything new there?" he asked.

It took a second for Sam to remember who he was talking about. "The bodies found on Bedlam Property were not patients of the hospital. They were dumped there. As of right now, we do not have any suspects but we are still trying to find the identities of these men so we can inform their families. We do have reason to believe that they were members of the now defunct O'Malley gang, but our present priority is identifying them and giving them proper burials." Stick that in your juice box, ass.

"So no idea who offed them? I have an idea or two of who didn't do it, but that doesn't make for a good story. That's like saying 'we're pretty damn sure it's not the nuns over at the church.' No one wants to read that. Come on Samantha." He gave her that puppy dog look again.

She sighed and rubbed her temple. "Off the record?" Because she didn't want any of this getting into the papers as 'official police word', even though what she was about to say was a good theory that anyone could come up with.

"Yes, certainly." Though he hated doing it in this moment, he'd stay true to it. He wanted the story, but he was true to being a reporter. He'd spin a story, but he wouldn't quote someone off the record.

"It's not rocket science, but this isn't official," Sam said, knowing that she might get an eye roll if she didn't. "The problem that we're facing is that the O'Malley's are disbanded. There's no longer an organization we can trace so the man or men who were meant to dispatch those guys could very well be dead themselves." She grabbed her notepad and flipped to a clean page and scribbled down the coroner's office number and a name. "The autopsies are done, you can go and look at the reports. I have a couple of leads on a few of the guys, but until we know who they are, we can't really figure out why barring 'they got in trouble because the family collapsed'. You see what I mean?" She ripped off the paper and handed it to him. "If you want to, that's who to talk to down at the coroner. The O'Malley case is on the shelf so to speak while we deal with arsonist or arsonists or whatever it is that this is turning into."

The paper she handed him was better than her theory. Especially if she was right. The O'Malleys killing other O'Malleys got him a byline that solved the case, but it didn't give him a chance to make the DiGiovannis better in the process. Still a byline was a byline. "You Samantha are a goddess. Of the best variety." He tucked the piece of paper in his jacket pocket and stood, looking down at her.

Sam gave him a glowing smile and leaned back in her desk chair. "What am I getting out of this?" she asked expectantly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Lucas smiled the playboy grin, the one that got him into trouble as often as it got him out of it. He leaned down, one hand on her desk and one on the arm of her chair so he was eye level and awful close. "Whatever you want gorgeous. You just name it." He closed the rest of the distance between them and kissed her cheek then stood and strode out of the station, whistling to himself again.