"Uh… Garcia, she's coming over here," said Reid, panic rising his voice. He looked frantically around for an escape route but the moment he tried to take it Garcia hooked onto his forearm, holding him rightly and perfectly in place. "Let go. What are you doing?"

"Getting you a girlfriend," she muttered as the pretty amber-haired girl came into earshot and gave them a dazzling smile.

"Hi, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you dropped this when I bumped into you," she said. She extended her hand, in which she held a folded sheet of paper. Garcia bit her lip and pranced away to observe from their table on the other side of the patio. "You can take it, Dr. Reid. I don't bite."

"Thanks," he said.

He tried to slip it into his pocket but his hands were too shaky to allow them entrance. He licked his lips and stuttered a little as he spoke. "Y-you know my name. I don't remember really introducing myself to you before."

"That's because you rushed away too quickly for me to take the breath to ask. So I asked around, until someone could tell me," she said. "I'm-"

"I know your name. Garcia told me, it's Vivian Améliorer," said Reid.

She nodded. "I was hoping you had asked her. I'm glad they got the guy who shot her. It was so frustrating that I could draw a more detailed picture of him."

"So that's how you met her?" he said.

She nodded.

An hour later, Vivian and Reid were seated on two adjacent reclining pool chairs. After the dinner had been served, most everyone had moved inside. The rest, like the two of them by the edge of the pool, simply lingered in pairs across the dimly lit terrace. He took back all he had said about the business parties. Vivian was beautiful and knowledgeable. She was an artist and knew things about human nature from what she studied by drawing and painting them for so many years. She listened to his long-winded stories closely, right until she lost him, when she would promptly interrupt him and journey off on a tangent. He knew she was but did not mind because for the most part she kept up.

"What got you into police sketches?" he asked.

"I've always carried around a sketch pad. One evening on the subway, I happened to be doodling the man across from me when he turned around and shot a woman as he got off. I presented it to the police and after the case was closed they asked me if I wanted a job."

"You aren't carrying one with you now," Reid pointed out.

She brushed her long, soft waves behind her ear and looked at him with her speckled green eyes that glittered with delicate guilt in the moonlight. "I haven't in almost a year. I've rarely drawn anything for myself since I started working for the bureau."

"Why not," he said, sitting on the edge of his seat.

"I have grown so accustomed to drawing what I have been described that I'm having trouble drawing for myself," she said. "I guess I've lost my inspiration."

"Degas got all his inspiration from spending hours in the Parisian opera houses watching the ballerina's practice or sitting in cafés as people came and went. He even paid some models to stand in front of him on a little platform in his studio so he could just look at them and sketch until the real idea emerged and that's when he sent them away," he said. "In fact, Little Dancer, Age Fourteen posed for him for months before he finally got the idea to sculpt her. Maybe your Little Dancer is out there, you just have to find them…"

"I wish I had time to sit in cafés and opera houses."

"You could always start with carrying around a sketch journal again."

His knuckles brushed hers. She unfolded her hands and intertwined them in his. Reid's pulse raced as she leaned closer to him, staring relentlessly. He could feel it and it made his stomach twist in a throbbing knot. The warmth of her skin, the fragrance of her hair in the breeze, and their closeness frightened and exhilarated. Vivian was close enough that he could have counted the faint freckles on the apple of her cheeks. He wanted to reach up and touch her face or run his fingers through her hair, but his arms felt too heavy to lift away from hers. Her eyes fluttered close and his followed suit.

"Hey, Reid," interrupted Morgan, from the top of the patio. "We gotta go, man."

Vivian sat back instantly, blushing scarlet in the shadows. Reid abruptly stood up and nodded off in the direction of Morgan, who, conscious of what he disturbed, tapped his watch, and turned back into the room. He dug hands into his pockets, unsure what to do next. Vivian cleared her throat and gave him a gentle smile.

"Sorry, I have a certain obligation, and I can't miss a plane," he said.

"I know," she said.

"Can I see you again?"

Vivian nodded. "Yeah, I'd like that. Do you have a pen?"

He felt through his pockets and shook his head. She looked through her shoulder bag for close to a minute and Reid all hope of redeeming the moment Morgan had stolen from them, when she clicked a little ballpoint pen.

"I haven't got any paper though," she said and then shrugged, before Reid could retrieve the one he had returned to his pocket. "Here," she took his hand and jotted down her digits carefully across the back of his hand so that they were neat and legible.

"I really have to go," he said, more in an attempt to convince his feet to move than for Vivian's actual knowledge.

"I know," she repeated.