DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em. Willing, ready and able to stage a coup.

NOTES: I've only been working on this for six months now. The upcoming premiere motivated me to get it done! Oh and the police work and forensics is incredibly unrealistic, I know. Call it creative license which, were I being paid for this, I wouldn't do, but given I'm not…well, do the math.

DEDICATION: Those of you who so kindly feedback my stories. I appreciate it tons and tons. J/W fans will like the way this one turns out – after a lot of twists. Scout's honor!

I Know You're Out There Somewhere: Haunts me to the End

Staying under Dr. M's radar meant working on Jordan's case sporadically and staying under Dr. M's radar was important because it let him stay under BPD and the D.A.'s radar. Nigel had taken to working lunches, staying late, coming in early. More than once he's spent the night on Jordan's couch in her office. He enlisted no one else's aid. Not yet. He knew he was likely to need Bug's help before the end and he certainly would need Macy's help and, most likely, Woody's in convincing the D.A. when the time came, so he couldn't risk their involvement yet. He knew the angles everyone else was working, the slender puzzle pieces being laid on the table, but he also knew none of those were going to provide the ultimate answer. And BPD, in the form of Lu Simmons, wasn't interested in finding the ultimate answer. She was interested in finding Jordan.

Nigel knew that for Lu, the case had become personal. That gave him a source of bitter amusement. Jordan had a way about her of making it personal – even when it was the last thing she tried to do. Of course, Jordan was out for justice; Lu was out for vengeance and that did not provide Nigel any amusement.

The criminologist spent a frustrating day after receiving the D.C. accident report. The morgue was wall-to-wall bodies, it seemed. He ran analyses, examined trace evidence, began DNA comparisons and made more fingerprint matches than he could remember, all the while thinking of the file he now had, itching to study it, to drag from it any clues that might help Jordan.

Dusk had come, his colleagues had shuffled out of the morgue, exhausted, as tasks were finally completed for the day. Macy stuck his head into Nigel's lab. "Heading out?"

Nigel hesitated. "I – uh – in a bit."

They stared at one another for a long moment. Finally, Garret nodded. "Anything I can do?"

"Not yet."

Another beat of intense silence. "Let me know."

"The minute I have anything," the Brit promised, his voice fervent.

Nigel ordered up dinner from the corner deli and waited. Though everyone had gone home for the day, Woody had developed a habit of dropping in from time to time, checking on his active cases, he claimed, but clearly hoping for more information about Jordan. Once or twice he'd been followed quite closely by Simmons. The two of them – singly or in an unholy pair – were the last thing Nigel needed or wanted.

The coast clear at last, he opened the folder and read everything. He hissed "Yessss!" as he made notes in an encrypted Word file. Whatever digging Lu Simmons had done, it hadn't been very deep. She must have heard that Pollack had been in a car accident and nothing more – or hadn't wanted to hear anything else. Witness statements were quite clear: Pollack's car had just entered the intersection near his paper's office when the suspect's car had left a parking space, tires squealing and even smoking as he accelerated forcefully. The impact had driven Pollack into the stationary traffic to his right. The suspect had abandoned the car, fleeing on foot.

The D.C. crime scene unit assigned to the case found the car had been wiped clean of all prints. The glove box had been innocent of any documentation, from registration to insurance to even a library card. Tracking down the owner through the VIN number had proven only that it had been purchased from a single mother in Bethesda and never re-registered.

While Pollack had suffered some deep bruising and minor abrasions, his life had never been in serious danger, the attempted murder charge against the assailant notwithstanding. In his own statement, Pollack had mentioned he was a reporter who often worked on "difficult" cases. He'd evaded all questions about any current investigations in which he'd been involved. Nigel read between the lines quite well: the accident was a warning.

A warning the Aussie hadn't heeded.

That made Nigel wonder… why not? The man was an impassioned journalist, but he hadn't seemed foolhardy. Spending some time in a jail cell for contempt when he failed to release a source's name was one thing… endangering his own life? Why would he do that?

Nigel absently ate a few of the chips that had come with his sandwich and stared at the notes he'd made. What article could be so important? They knew, from his flash files, that it had to do with a federal judge and some very guilty people going free. A travesty, yes; worth the reporter's life? Why?

Nigel stopped mid-chew. Not why. Who?!?! "Bloody hell," he whispered. "It couldn't be…." He swallowed. "Could it?"

This was Jordan's life. Of course, it could be. It had to be.

J.D. Pollack had gotten closer to finding out who killed Emily Cavanaugh than anyone ever had. Anyone who actually wanted the answer revealed that was.

And he'd died for it.

END Part Three