Bobby POV

Ross ignored us all day Monday. In fact, he didn't even come out of his office. I was kind of hoping he would just spend the whole month in there and then we wouldn't have to worry about him, but that was probably a little bit of wishful thinking.

And it was. Tuesday things were back to normal. In fact, the verdict seemed to be that Ross was going to pretend that nothing had changed. Except our names. Now it seemed as though he was going to call both of us just detective. His issues with me, even though disproved, would just not allow him to say my name. Some habits die hard, I guess.

We didn't pick up any cases during the week, and by Thursday I was ready to pull my hair out. Four days in a row of paperwork was about three day too many. Although I felt bad for thinking that. It was kind of like hoping for someone to get killed just so I could leave my desk.

After work on Thursday, we met Mike and Carolyn for dinner. It amazed me how easily we had all fallen into this friendship, but it seemed to work all the way around.

Mike and Alex had forged a unique bond that allowed them to tease each other mercilessly. I imagined that was probably a glimpse of how Alex had been with her brothers growing up and I enjoyed the insight.

Carolyn was more quiet, like me, but she had a sharp, subtle wit about her, and she also seemed quite capable of diffusing Mike's temper with just a look, which was pretty impressive.

Alex and I arrived first, so we slid into one side of the booth and ordered drinks.

"My parents want us to have dinner with them tomorrow night," she told me.

"That sounds good," I agreed quickly. Her parents had been really good about our whole relationship-slash-wedding thing, so I had no problem sitting through a dinner with them.

And really, I liked them just fine. Her dad, although supportive, was a little reserved around me. Alex had explained to me that he and Joe had been pretty close, so I could understand his hesitancy to accept me with open arms.

Sort of. I mean, Joe had died more than ten years ago. Did he expect Alex to live out her life alone? To never fall in love with anyone else?

And I won't even get into what an ass Joe was to Alex while they were married. Every time she shared some new tidbit about her life back then, it made my heart break for her. And it made me feel even more appreciative of the fact that she was willing to take another chance. On me. I was the luckiest damn guy in the world.

"Alright, so spill it," Mike said without preamble as he and Carolyn approached the table. They sat down across from us.

We hadn't seen them since the weekend, and although we had spoken a few times briefly, we hadn't yet been able to fill them in on the details of the run in with Ross on Monday morning.

"What?" Alex asked with a smirk. She knew exactly what he meant, but like I said, she enjoyed messing with him.

"You know what," he replied, leaning low across the table and breaking into a mischievous grin. "I would've paid admission to see those fireworks on Monday. What happened?"

"That was four days ago, Mike," Alex teased. "I'm not sure if I remember."

"Don't give me that," he said, and then he turned to me. "With your memory, you can probably repeat the conversation verbatim. Let's hear it."

So I recounted the scene from Ross' office. And he was right. I had it down pretty good. I had a feeling that wasn't something I was going to forget any time soon, because I had enjoyed it too damn much.

"You really called Moran an ass-kisser?" Carolyn asked Alex as she nearly choked on her drink. "You still have to work for the man for another month."

"Don't remind me," Alex replied dryly. "And yes, I did call him that. And I'll say it to his face if he ever has the nerve to show up on the eleventh floor."

"Settle down, honey," I said, patting her on the leg. But I've got to admit, I love her temper. Not so much when it's directed at me, but still…even then it makes for some great make-up sex.

"And Ross didn't come out of his office all day?" Mike asked, still grinning. He was enjoying this scenario as much as I was.

"Nope. He finally started looking at us again on Tuesday, but he won't call us by name. He sticks with detective," Alex said.

"I would've loved to see his face when you interrupted him to remind him of your new name," Carolyn said.

"So how's the week been?" I asked Mike, changing up the topic. "You two have been busy, huh?"

"Her phone rings off the hook," Mike said with a tilt of his head towards his wife. "But we did solve the office space problem."

"Oh yeah?" Alex asked. The space Carolyn was renting was too small for four of us, so we had been trying to come up with an affordable option to allow us some more room.

"My apartment," Mike said with a grin. "The lease is up at the end of the month."

"It's not zoned for business, but I think we'll be okay," Carolyn continued. "Most everything is done by phone or computer. We rarely have clients show up at the door. It's fairly cheap and it'll give us all room to work."

"And you'll have plenty of square footage for pacing," Mike added.

"That's a great idea," I told them. "When the other guy moves out, we can get started getting it all set up." Alex nodded.

"Uh huh. And January 18th we'll be ready to start," she added.

"January 25th," Mike countered.

"What?"

"Take a week. Go on a honeymoon. Start on the 25th."

I started to argue, but Carolyn interrupted.

"Mike's right. And then when you get back, we'll work you like a dog," she said with a smile.

Who was I to argue? I'd been wondering how we were going to get to that anyway. It probably wouldn't go over well to use vacation days during our 30-day notice.

We had a nice relaxing dinner. Mike recounted one of the cases that they had picked up that week for review. It was going to be interesting work, and now that all of the pieces were lined up for it to happen, I was really looking forward to it.

A couple of hours later, we got back home. I started to put the key in the lock, but then I realized that the door wasn't closed tightly.

I stepped quickly to the side, taking Alex with me. Without saying a word, I drew my weapon and so did she. She looked at me quizzically and I nodded at the door. After a silent countdown, we burst into the apartment.

It was quiet. The lights were off. There was no movement anywhere.

With flawless unspoken communication, we swept the apartment in a matter of seconds. It was empty. We met back in the foyer where I closed and locked the front door and then re-holstered my gun.

"What's going on here?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know. We should check with the super."

"You know he would never come in here," she countered. And she was right, he wouldn't.

"You want to call it in?"

"Let's look around first and see if anything is missing."

On the surface, it seemed as though nothing had been touched. But as we went through the desk drawers and dresser drawers and cabinets it became clear that someone had thoroughly explored our belongings. But nothing was missing.

"Your jewelry?" I asked her.

"It's all here as far as I can tell," she replied. She booted up the laptop that we leave at home. Once it was fully on, she sat down and tapped a few keys.

"This was last shut down at four-thirty," she said grimly. "A burglar who takes the time to turn on a computer? And then turn it back off? Why not just take it with him?"

"This wasn't a burglar. Somebody was looking for something," I replied thoughtfully, although who or what, I had no idea.

I wasn't crazy about it, but we reported the break-in and had CSU come out to get prints. It took three hours and a lot of black powder for them to tell us that they'd come up empty. Our intruder had been smart enough to wear gloves.

Once we were alone again, Alex and I sat together on the couch.

"What's going on here?" she asked me, repeating her question from earlier.

"I don't know. They were looking for something, but for the life of me I can't think of what it would be."

"Me either. I don't have a good feeling about this."

I held my arm out and she quickly settled up against me. It was an unpleasant feeling, knowing that your personal space had been violated. It was almost worse that nothing was taken, because we knew the intruder had been looking for something specific. Had he found what he was looking for?

It wasn't money. Alex had been able to track the files that were accessed. It was our Outlook program. Emails, contacts, calendar. The spreadsheet where we kept track of our finances was untouched.

"I'll call Mike in the morning. He and Carolyn can come out and go through this place again. Maybe fresh eyes will pick up something we missed."

"Why would they have left the door open?" Alex asked.

"Whoever it was wanted us to know." And that thought was even more unsettling.

The next day, we picked up a case. A body had been found on the steps of a subway station during the morning commute. Hundreds of witnesses and yet no one saw a thing.

Alex and I canvassed the area for hours but came up empty. The victim was a young male, approximately twenty-four years old, and he had been stabbed in the throat. It would have been a messy job, and the killer had to have been coated with blood, so it was frustrating to repeatedly hit dead ends.

When we got back to 1PP at nearly five o'clock, there were two detectives waiting for us from the two-seven. They stood near our desks talking with the captain.

"Detectives," Ross said to us. Goren, I supplied silently. Detectives Goren and Goren. Although, I had to admit that sounded kind of like a TV show.

"These are Detectives Davis and Rice," Ross continued, unaware of my silent correction.

We shook hands quickly before getting down to business.

"You guys picked up a murder at Penn Station this morning?" the older detective, Davis, asked us.

"Yeah. Michael Compton," Alex told him. "Stabbed in the throat."

"I think we might have the first two victims for this killer," Rice said.

"Did you turn up anything today?" Ross asked us.

"Nothing," I admitted. "Morning rush hour and no one saw a thing."

"Rice and Davis would like to take over this case," Ross said. I kind of figured that was where this was heading.

"If you don't mind," Davis added. "We've been working this guy for three weeks now."

I looked at Alex and she just shrugged.

As Major Case Detectives, we could pitch a hissy and probably get to keep the case. We could most likely even take over their two murders. But Alex and I didn't like to play that kind of game. We were all working on the same side here, and if these two had put in three weeks of pounding the pavement trying to catch this guy, then as far as I was concerned, they could have it.

I pulled my notes out of my binder and added them to the slim casefile that we had amassed on our victim.

"Have at it," I said, handing it to Rice.

"Thanks, Detectives. We appreciate it."

"I guess we get our weekend after all," Alex told me with a smile after the others had left.

"I'm curious to see if Mike and Carolyn found anything," I said, suddenly remembering our break-in. She and I had been so focused on the murder all day that it had slipped our minds.

"I'll call them to meet for dinner," she said, opening up her cell phone.

"Your parents, remember? Aren't we meeting them?"

"I completely forgot," she admitted. "Um…would it be wrong of me to tell them we're working a case and can't get away?"

"It wouldn't have been wrong ten minutes ago when it was the truth," I replied with a smile. "Now…"

"Hey, I don't need you to be my conscience," she joked. "I've got enough of one all by myself."

She dialed her mom's number.

"Apparently not if you're going to lie to your own mother," I teased back. She shushed me and threw a paperclip at me.

"I'm just going to postpone. We'll go with them tomorrow night, okay?"

"Okay," I agreed easily. I would rather go out with Mike and Carolyn anyway.

She spoke quickly and deftly to her mother, handling the situation like a pro. No actual lies were told, just deflections and omissions. She hung up and grinned at me, and then started to dial Carolyn's number when a voice called out.

"Detective Goren."

"Yeah?" Alex and I asked simultaneously.

We looked up to find two suits approaching our desks. I thought I recognized one of them and I immediately felt ill. Not because I was guilty of anything, but just because that's the reaction they inspire. Kind of like getting a letter from the IRS. Whether you've done anything wrong or not, you know they can totally screw you over.

"Detective Robert Goren," the man clarified. I stood up.

"Yes, what can I do for you?" I asked.

"Walter Horsley," he told me. Shit, he was exactly who I thought he was. IAB. "This is my partner Evan Campbell. We'd like to speak with you in private please."

"What is this about?"

"Detective, if you'll just come with us," Horsley insisted, and he actually put his hand on my elbow to guide me towards the door.

"No, wait a minute," Alex said, getting up from her desk as well. "Go with you where?"

"Ma'am, this doesn't concern you. Please step aside." That was Campbell, and if he didn't watch himself, he was going to get his ass kicked by my wife because she'd gone from mildly confused to downright furious in a matter of seconds.

"You need to address me as Detective," she corrected him. "And IAB isn't just allowed to drag a man out of his own squad room without at least cluing him in as to what's going on."

"Settle down, Detective," Horsley said. He let go of my arm. "We're not dragging him anywhere. We would simply like to speak with him in a private setting."

"Just say it," I told him. "What's this about?"

Campbell looked at Horsley, obviously the senior partner, and the older man just sighed heavily.

"There's been a report filed against you," he said at last, lowering his voice so that only Alex and I could hear. Although I had a feeling that every detective in the room was straining his ears to pick up the words.

"What kind of report?" Alex asked cautiously.

"Detective, this is not about you," Campbell told Alex and she bristled even further. She stepped up closer to Campbell and glared at him until he took a step back from her.

"What kind of report?"

"It's been alleged that you have a drug problem, and that you have been using while on the job. We need you to come with us and submit to a drug test."

TBC...