The wire was silent. He knew he was still in range, but he heard nothing. "Eames?" he said softly.

"Nothing yet, Bobby."

"Mike?"

"We got nothing out here either. Assume you're still being watched. Maybe he's following you to the subway."

"I'm almost there."

Then Eames' voice caressed his ear. He fought down the jolt his body felt at the sound of her whisper. "Hold on a second..." He stopped at the entrance to the subway and waited for her to say something more. "Someone's at the door. Everyone get ready."

He heard a round chamber into her gun, and a lump formed in the pit of his stomach. Then, he heard her soft gasp. "Nicole," she muttered.

He froze. No. He had to have heard her wrong. "What? Come again, Eames! Repeat!"

Her voice came back, more firm and filled with loathing. "Nicole Wallace."

She was not talking to them. He felt fear and panic grip him like a vise. "No! Mike, get up there now! Hurry!"

He turned from the subway stairs and headed back toward the apartment at a dead run.


When she saw Bobby's partner sitting on the couch, she was more than a little surprised. But she hid it well, allowing her hatred for this woman to overshadow any surprise she felt. "Detective Eames. I should have known." Her eyes flicked to the wig at the far end of the couch. "Playing brunette for him tonight? And you, a married woman."

Eames got to her feet and stepped toward Wallace, keeping well out of her reach. She refused to react to the barb. "Bait, Nicole, to catch a rat. This wasn't about him or me."

"You're a poor liar, detective. I know what I see."

"Then your eyes deceive you." She frowned, continuing to buy time until Logan and Barek got there with her back up. "Why would you do this?"

"I was just having fun with him."

It took a moment for her words to register, they were so far into the realm of psychopathy that Bobby visited far too frequently. "Fun?"

Wallace seemed to sense that there wasn't much time. "I would love to chat, detective, but I have better things to do."

"You're not going anywhere, Nicole. You're under arrest for murder."

Wallace laughed, a chilling sound. "In your dreams," she cooed seductively. "And his, too, I daresay."

Eames always tried to predict her opponents, but with Wallace that was nearly impossible. She was full of the unexpected. Not even Bobby could predict her, and he came closer than anyone did to understanding her warped mind. Eames was prepared for a fight-or-flight response from her adversary, which was the expected response from a cornered animal, but when Wallace didn't move, she stepped closer, handcuffs at the ready. Wallace smiled. "Ever ready to protect your partner," she said bitterly. "He's so fortunate to have you."

Eames would never figure out exactly what happened. Wallace brought her hands forward in a pretense to be cuffed, but at the last moment, her right arm swung wide. Prepared, Eames began to move out of the way, but Wallace shifted her position. Eames' world exploded in pain and light as something bashed into the side of her head. As she crumpled to the ground, Wallace slipped out the door and vanished into the shadows.


Logan burst through the stairwell door into an empty hall with Barek and the two other detectives right behind him. He banged the apartment door open, weapon in hand. He felt his heart lurch and his stomach drop when he saw Eames on the floor, blood pooling on the carpet by her head. "Ah, no... Check the apartment and the hall. She's gotta be around here somewhere. And someone call for a bus."

"Mike?" Goren's voice sounded through the earpiece. Logan could hear the panic in his voice.

"Uh, she's not here, Bobby. We never saw her."

"Eames?"

"She's unconscious." He dropped to his knees beside her, running his hands over her, looking for injuries. He found only the wound on the side of her head where Wallace had struck her. "She was hit on the side of the head. I can't find any other injuries."

Barek came out of the bedroom. "She's not here."

They got the same report from the search of the hall. Logan asked, "Did you copy, Bobby?"

"Yeah. Paramedics are on the way?"

"Yes. I'm sorry we didn't get up here in time."

Goren didn't respond, and that made Logan feel worse. He lifted Eames' head into his lap and held her as the rest of the team went searching for Wallace. Softly she groaned and he smoothed her hair back from her forehead. "Easy. We've got a bus on the way. She really clocked you."

"Eames?" Goren's voice was winded.

"I'm okay," she answered. "Just a headache."

"Take it easy and let the paramedics take care of you." He paused. "I'm going after her."

"No...not by yourself!" He didn't answer. "Bobby!"

More silence. Logan swore. "He turned off the damn wire again."


He continued to run toward the apartment. Whatever went down between him and Wallace, it was between them alone. Eames would insist he have back-up, but he wouldn't give her the opportunity. This had stepped beyond the official; this was personal. And he made his first mistake of the night: he was overconfident of his ability to arrest Nicole Wallace.

There was no one outside as he approached the apartment building, and he turned into the alley that ran alongside it, eyes searching the shadows. He had no idea where she would go, so he followed his instinct. The alley dead-ended at one that paralleled the street. He turned left, where the alley ran toward a quiet side street, glancing between the buildings, left and right, as he went. He came out onto the side street, and stopped, breathing hard. He looked around, afraid she had gotten away once again. Then, half a block down the street to the left, he thought he saw something move. Hand on his gun, he headed toward the movement and turned into another small alley. The lights from the street only lit the alley halfway to the fence at the far end. He had to have imagined it. He was about to turn and leave when again he thought he saw movement, deep in the shadows. This time he was more certain. He couldn't see her, but he sensed she was there, the shadow of evil. "You're not going to get away, Nicole."

Several moments passed before she stepped out of depths of the darkness that surrounded her, smiling wickedly. "Hello, Bobby. How nice of you to come looking for me. I thought for certain you would rush to her side."

"She's being taken care of."

"I could have hurt her badly, but that was never my purpose for being here. You were the one I was after." Her smile was more of a sneer. "You should thank me for sparing her. I could have killed her."

He fought down his rage, but he couldn't keep the tremor from his hands. "Why hurt her at all, then?"

"She was in my way. You know I won't allow myself to be arrested again."

"You have no choice in the matter. You murdered two women and assaulted a police officer."

"I was just having some fun with you."

He had a hard time wrapping his mind around that. The taking of any life, in his mind, was not a game. That was one concept he couldn't quite grasp, a part of her pathology that eluded him. There were some aspects of the criminal mind, of true evil, that a good man would never understand, no matter how long he studied psychopathy or how well he understood those twisted minds. Those were elements of darkness that would always elude a soul that dwelled in light. They belonged only to the soul that was truly lost.

She moved closer and he tensed, hand still on his weapon, but he neither drew nor moved away. In a moment she was in front of him. Reaching her hand forward, she brought it to rest on his chest, and he made a lethal error. He let her. Slowly, her hand began to move, gently caressing, drawing abstract patterns over the muscles beneath his shirt. His eyelids lowered a fraction, and she noticed, gracefully stepping into him. His body was already wired and it took very little effort on her part to get a response from it. And she now confirmed something he had known for years: Nicole Wallace was a master manipulator who used her considerable skill to get what she wanted. And what she wanted right now was him. "Le besoin biologique, Bobby," she whispered. "Biological need."

His mind stopped working before he thought to step away, and then he had no will to move. When a soft, involuntary moan escaped from him, she smiled, delighted by his response. She had him and she knew it. But Nicole Wallace had never been one to let things just happen. She had one final dig to get in and so she did. Leaning in close, her face inches from his, she muttered, "I'll even let you play your game."

Game? Her words failed to fully register through the pounding rush in his head. "What game?" he managed.

"You can pretend I am her," she said, unable to keep a sneer from her voice.

Her...? Slowly the fog began to retreat from his brain. Her...Eames... The only one who could always reach him, no matter how far away he wandered... Without any warning, he stepped back, beyond her reach on every level. As his mind focused on his partner, his anger at his adversary grew, and that anger calmed his body and cleared his mind. Nicole's eyes narrowed. "Tell me you felt nothing."

"There is nothing."

"You-you responded to me!"

"Y-yes. Yes, I did. But that was purely a response to physical stimulation, nothing more. Biologische Notwendigkeit, you said it yourself. Anyone could have gotten that kind of response. Don't kid yourself, Nicole. There is no emotion involved. No positive emotion, that is."

Her eyes blazed with fury. "Anger and hatred can ignite as much passion as love, maybe more."

He shook his head. "Not for me."

She was ready to explode. He reached under his jacket and pulled out his handcuffs, holding them out to her. "You know what's next. You can't believe this would end any other way, regardless of what transpired."

She laughed, and it was a cold, mirthless sound. "And you won't be surprised if I refuse to submit to you, Bobby, regardless of what I would be submitting to."

"There's no way out of it. Like my partner told you, you're under arrest, Nicole, for murder, and now, for assault as well. Don't make this difficult."

"I have no intention of making it difficult."

As he stepped forward, she reached out and pressed her hand into the middle of his chest. He grasped her wrist and pulled it away, bringing the cuffs up with his other hand. She took advantage of his distraction to bring her other arm forward. He felt a sting in his side, followed by a burning sensation that quickly became a spreading warmth. He pulled away too late. Nicole smiled as the handcuffs slipped through his fingers and clattered to the ground. "I'll be back," she whispered. "Never doubt that. You have not seen the last of me." She brought an empty syringe into his line of vision and dropped it to the ground. "Just enjoy the ride. Good-bye, Bobby."

She moved quickly away. He turned to follow her, but she had vanished as stealthily as she had appeared. His head was beginning to fade into a fog he couldn't fight off. He started toward the mouth of the alley, but the ground began to tilt and the world around him started to spin. He took a couple of unsteady steps toward the street, but he didn't get far. The ground wouldn't hold still, and then it was rushing toward him and he hit it hard. Turning onto his back, he looked at the buildings above him but they were moving in odd directions, rushing down toward him and then spinning away, dipping toward each other, then pulling back to reveal the inky sky beyond. There was no pain, and he didn't feel bad at all...but there was a darkness encroaching from the sides of his field of vision, and he let it come.