Dempsey and Makepeace found themselves alone in the office. It was Wednesday; the weekend Harry had spent at the hospital and Dempsey had not felt inclined to another quiet weekend and had spent three heavy drinking nights with different guys from SI10 or his gym. Harry, he thought, seemed to have distanced her self yet again. Every time she did so he lost confidence, feeling not at all certain that she wouldn't leave properly despite all she had said about the exhibition she obviously had enjoyed the work. They seemed to be on a knife edge and the question of LA as an escape route still harboured in his mind. He had finally found time to pick up the two tickets he had ordered the previous weekend but that had been the easy bit.. Work never seemed quiet, he wished the criminals would give them a break and a few days where they didn't have to rush here and then there and follow that by an inordinate amount of report writing which is where he and Makepeace were at the moment.

"Have you thought about going home?" Makepeace suddenly asked out of the blue

"Home?" Dempsey thought it a strange question for mid afternoon half way through a stack of paperwork "Sure I'd love to go home but you normally tell me I have to do my share of the paperwork, now if you're volunteering Sergeant…"

" New York , now that Coltrane's gone"

"Well he's not gone yet" Dempsey wondered where the side ball had come from

"No but…"

"You think I'm outstaying my welcome?" Dempsey was instantly agitated, when it came to him and Makepeace war was never far away

"No" Harry was frustrated, she'd been building up to this question for ages and had finally found the resolve to ask one of her many nagging fears and all she got was antagonism

"You think you deserve that four weeks leave you bargained out of Spikings?" Dempsey scorned

Harry looked sharply "I saw it in the book" Dempsey pointed out with derision

Makepeace looked guilty "I've never claimed it"

"Not until I'm gone I guess" and with that Dempsey stood up and Harry was enraged at his needless resentment. There was an instantaneous explosion in her head and she set too with her accusations: "Well you have to admit you were an egotistical, conceited, self opinionated, rule flouting, gun shooting yank"

"Is that all?"

"No: patronizing, smug, self-important, self-righteous, self-satisfied, presumptuous brash, loud and downright insolent". Makepeace stopped to draw breath, as the list had extended her rage had subsided and evaporated; by the time she had got to smug a smile had started to find root and become fully fledged by the time she drew breath.

"Were?" Dempsey had picked up on the only word he was surprised to hear.

"Ok so I've got used to you" she conceded and Dempsey smiled as well

"Well you have to admit you were a toffee-nosed, priggish, goody two shoes uptight snob"

"Is that all?"

"No" he replied and took a deep breath "you were a pedantic, stuffy, snooty, superior, stuck-up 'Miss high and mighty'"

"I wasn't and am not" she defended

"You seemed like it to me"

"And now" she asked

"Well something's changed"

"May be it's your opinion"

"May be it's your attitude"

"May be nothings changed and like now you're still an aggressive, arrogant, loud, big-headed, gun shooting yank who's just got right up my nose"

"I know a cop in LA Harry Bosch, I've talked to him about working with the FEDs over there."

"Sorry?" Harry had been expecting a return attack and not an answer and she didn't much care for the answer either, it spoke more of her worst fears than anything else.

She had actually been enjoying the play fighting, it felt normal and it had been anything other than normal in the past few weeks.

"Where I would work back in the States" Dempsey had also enjoyed the sparring and this was his tease, or meant to be. Harry fell silent and Dempsey simply took it as an easy victory.

Tom and Dave came back into the office Harry turned back to her typing although her thoughts stayed with the concept of LA.

An hour later she was still typing and apart from a 'thanks' when a restless Dempsey had placed a cup of tea on her desk hadn't spoken at all. James was beginning to feel uncomfortable. He stood and leaned over Harry "Mind you" he spoke in hushed tones "I can't go anywhere until I find my lucky silver dollar" he looked straight into Harry's eye with as much of a knowing look as he could muster.

He intended to convey that Harry held his continued presence England totally in her power, once again she had no idea that he meant that much knowing the whole silver dollar thing to be a fabrication she took this to be more of his supercilious teasing. His inability to admit he'd ever been wrong was just another annoying trait that she had learnt to suffer, and if he had the audacity to refer his misplacing of the keys still without admission or apology she wondered why on earth she cared if he stayed or not. The trouble was that she did, very much.