Chapter 3

The knee was the thing that kept him awake. Bobby convinced the front desk to give him some pain relievers, but in the end the pills just weren't strong enough to do much good. By 6 a.m., he was on the landing smoking a cigarette from a fresh pack, with a sack of ice on his knee.

Thinking back, he could have avoided it. Celia's letter had sent him into Frank's old neighborhood, and for some reason, he just hadn't been on his game. Brock had been out on the stoop, with a tallboy in his hand and an empty on the ground beside him.

"You lost?" Brock asked.

"Looking for an old friend," Goren answered. That's where he made his mistake. He caught the two on his left, but he didn't pick up on the one coming up behind him on the right.

"Ain't no friends of yours around here."

Bobby grinned, which was exactly the wrong thing to do. Brock was not one to be charmed. "Celia Walker," he said.

Brock finished off his tallboy with a long, slow, drink. He crushed the can in his hand and looked at Goren. "You in the wrong neighborhood."

"Not according to her, I'm not."

The two on his left moved in, and as Bobby turned to deflect their hits with his left, he was tackled on his right. He crashed to the pavement and took a few punches before they scattered. Once they were gone, he pushed himself back to his feet, only to find that his bad knee was acting up again.

He wiped the sweat from his face and turned in a slow circle, only to find no sign of his attackers. In anger, he kicked the empty can at his feet and immediately regretted it. With a curse, he slowly tottered down the block, forcing himself to put his weight on his bad leg.

It was just luck that he was spotted. Xavier called to him from the alley, by name, and he knew it hadn't been a wasted trip.

"You're Goren."

"Yeah. And you?"

"Xavier. You're too late, Goren. They shipped her out of here yesterday."

"What do you know about it?"

"I know she asked you to come. I know she's gone now."

The pain in Bobby's knee was seriously limiting his patience. "Where is she, then?"

The man slipped him a card. "Thursday nights you can get a square meal for a song."

As Bobby read the back of the card, Xavier skipped back into the shadows. Goren's body tensed as he recognized the handwriting. He headed off for the bus station, as quickly as his bum knee would allow.


"I don't like it," Logan said, wolfing down the last of his sausage and eggs. He was short on sleep, thanks to Goren, and like a wolf with a bad temper, he wasn't going to back down now.

"I don't either." She drank her coffee. "But he said it was personal."

"Personal like Tates was?"

She shook her head at first, but then she nodded. "I don't know, probably."

"Eames, when he went in at Tates, at least he kept you in the loop. This time…"

Alex squeezed her eyes shut. Logan had just put his finger on the very thing that was bugging the crap out of her. This time, he was shutting her out. "What are you gonna do?" She asked him.

"I'm gonna talk to Ripper, find out if he knows where the hell he went."

"I'm going to see if I can find Celia Walker." In that moment, over scraps of eggs and half-eaten toast, they had a pact. Robert Goren was going to have back-up, whether he wanted it or not.


Bobby ground out the cigarette and left the butt in the glass tray. The Virginia sun was rising quickly, burning off the morning fog. He adjusted his ice pack and replayed last night's meeting in his mind.

"You look like hell," he'd said. It was true. The last time he'd seen Kenny Song, he'd looked older, wiser, but still strong and confident. Last night he'd looked frazzled… if Bobby hadn't known better, he would have even said Kenny was afraid.

And then Song had looked at his bum knee and told him he already was involved. Shit. He was right. Frank had gotten Celia into something she couldn't get out of, and knowing that Kenny Song was involved meant it was some serious shit. Song worked for the CIA. He'd slid right from Army CID into a job with the Feds as easily as a baseball player rounding second to land on third.

Bobby had seen him on time since, about a year ago, and he didn't think they would ever cross paths again. Goren took the ice pack off his knee, flexing and straightening his leg to test it. The pain was more manageable for the moment. With a grimace, he got to his feet and went inside to get ready for his day.