Bobby POV

Saturday had to be about the best day of my life so far. And how sad is that?

Because there wasn't much to it except that I was with Alex.

And the car worked.

But the car coming to life was secondary to my revelation about Alex.

I think that maybe she's interested in me.

I felt her eyes on me while I was working under the hood. And Lewis later confirmed my suspicions. He told me he'd caught her staring at me.

Actually, he said she'd been staring at my ass, but Lewis tends to exaggerate. Especially since he's been trying for years to convince me to get up the nerve to ask her out.

I've explained to him that I can't ask her out. She's my partner, for one thing. And for another, she wouldn't be remotely interested.

But now I'm wondering if maybe I'm half-wrong.

I admit that I couldn't take my eyes off of her when she pulled her sweater over her head. The action caught me completely off guard, and sent my resourceful imagination into overdrive. It took a split-second for me to picture her doing that exact same movement, only in my bedroom. And without the shirt on underneath.

She knew I was watching, too. She walked right up to me and looked me in the eyes while she licked her thumb and rubbed grease from my face.

And for a moment, I couldn't move. I don't think I was breathing, but I can't say for sure. All I know is that I have perfect recall of the entire event. And yes, I'm going to call it an event.

I managed to tell her thank you, but I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I imagined grabbing her into my arms and kissing her right then and there.

What would she have done?

She probably would've kneed me in the balls.

Maybe. But something in her eyes told me maybe not.

And I'll blame Lewis for interrupting our moment, but the truth is I wouldn't have done anything. I can't risk it. She means too much to me.

She dropped me off at about dinner time, and I almost invited her in, but I didn't want to push it. She spent her entire day with me, so I wasn't going to get greedy and expect her to stay for the evening.

Besides, it was Saturday night. Maybe she has a date.

That thought was like a bucket of cold water on my head.

Once it crossed my mind, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Does Eames have a date?

Is she, right this minute, out with some guy?

What is she doing?

Do I really want to know?

No. I have no problem imagining what Alex might look like in the throes of passion, but only as long as I'm the one who gets her there.

I paced the apartment for awhile, and then forced myself to sit down and read over the notes about Walter Raleigh.

I called Detective Morgan at the 6-8 yesterday, and then again this morning, but I haven't heard back from him. No doubt he was annoyed at the intrusion, and he's probably already filed a complaint with Ross.

Not that Ross has any say in what I do while I'm on suspension.

I can ask questions if I want to. Morgan is under no obligation to answer, but it still doesn't keep me from asking.

Anyway, by eleven o'clock, I'd been sitting with the phone in my hand for half an hour.

I want to call Alex.

I want to know if she's home.

But I don't really have a good reason to call. I've been trying to come up with some brilliant epiphany as to the whereabouts of Raleigh because that would be a valid reason for a late night call, but so far, I have nothing.

And then Morgan called.

"Goren," I answered.

"It's Morgan with the 6-8," the detective said amicably. Maybe he isn't pissed. Maybe he's just been busy.

"Yeah, hey, I'm sorry to bug you about this case. I was just trying to help out a friend," I said easily. I figure I can be diplomatic. Alex would be proud.

"No problem. In fact, it's no longer a missing persons case."

"Oh, that's great," I replied. "Old Walter finally went home, huh?"

"Not exactly. A fisherman pulled him out of the Hudson River this afternoon. The ME hasn't done the autopsy yet, but she said it looks like he's been dead a few days. I don't know how she can tell that just by looking at him because he was pretty messed up. We couldn't ID him by his face, that was for sure. That's why it took me so long to call you. I just got the confirmation on his ID."

"Who's getting the case?"

"Rich guy like that? Probably Major Case. All I know is that he's not mine anymore."

"Okay. Well, thanks for the heads-up."

I hung up with Morgan and stared at the phone for a minute longer as I processed the latest information.

Now I have my reason to call Alex, but it's not exactly what I was hoping for.

"He's dead?" she repeated when I gave her the news. That's how I know she wasn't really listening to me. That's one of her tricks. She'll just repeat the last couple of words. I wonder what she was thinking about instead of listening to what I was saying.

"Yeah, they found him in the Hudson. Morgan says it's probably going to Major Case."

"Looks like he's right. Hang on a minute. Ross is calling."

She put me on hold. Ross is going to give her this case? Does that mean he'll give her a partner to work with?

"Bobby," she said when she finished with Ross. "Looks like I'm picking this one up. I've got to go."

"You have to go now? They found him hours ago. And in the river. It's not like there's a crime scene."

"Yeah, I know, but Ross said that Rodgers has him on the table right now."

"What's the rush?"

"He's apparently a friend of the governor's uncle," she said with the expected amount of sarcasm.

"I guess it really is all in who you know," I mumbled. "So, you're um…going to the um…morgue?"

"Yeah. I'm getting up to get dressed now."

Oh, Alex, I did not need that visual.

I'm supposed to be thinking about a sixty-eight year old corpse, not what kind of sleepwear she's wearing - or not wearing - at the moment.

What does she wear to bed? Is she into silky things? Or maybe cotton? Or…

"Bobby," she said.

"What?"

"I asked if you want to come with me."

"To the morgue?"

"Yes," she said in frustration. She must have already asked me that once. But I can hear her rustling around and I just can't focus on her words.

"I…um…probably…you know…probably shouldn't."

"Ross won't be there, and he didn't assign me to work with anyone yet," she told me. "Come on. You're halfway into this one anyway. Rodgers won't rat you out."

"Okay. Yeah, okay great."

"I'll pick you up in thirty minutes."

I hung up with her and then decided to give Logan a call.

I spoke with him earlier in the day but I didn't have any news for him since Morgan hadn't returned my call by that point.

He had been apologetic about leaving me with Rhonda on Friday, but he didn't elaborate on why he'd left. Something's going on with him, but he in't my only puzzle anymore so I'll have to come back to that.

I filled him in on the death of Walter Raleigh.

"In the Hudson? Shit."

"I'm going over to the morgue with Eames. We should know more after Rodgers takes a look at him."

"Eames pulled the case?"

"Yeah, Ross just called her."

"Who did he assign her as a partner?"

"No one yet. I'm guessing he's going to wait until it's confirmed that it was murder as opposed to him falling off of somebody's boat."

"Let me know what Rodgers says. If it's a murder, I'll talk to Ross and see if I can work it with her."

"You know Ross doesn't like you, right?" I can't resist giving him a hard time. It's nice to have someone else in the same boat with me. Ross does like him a little more than me, but not much.

"Yeah, I know. But it's worth a shot. And considering I have a history with the deceased's live-in, maybe he'll go for it."

I hung up with Logan and quickly changed from sweatpants into jeans. I threw on a clean shirt and grabbed up the notes I'd accumulated and left the apartment. I don't want to make Alex have to find a parking spot, so I went downstairs and waited out front.

Rhonda Hagen wanted Logan to look into this case. Why? Did she suspect that someone was out to get him or did she simply not want to lose her cash cow?

I haven't gotten much background on Raleigh yet. Quite honestly, I haven't put much work into the case at all. I made a couple of calls to Morgan and then spent the day with Alex.

It's not like me to be so casual about a case, although it's probably because I wasn't overly concerned about the man.

I mean, I met Rhonda. I would've run away from her, too.

But still, odds are that now we have a murder. No one in their right mind would've been taking a pleasure cruise up the Hudson in January. And if he had been on someone's boat, then that person would've reported him missing.

I wondered about his enemies. He had to have them. Money always attracts women and enemies.

But he was pretty old. Was he still in the game? Were there people he had stepped on along his way to success who maybe now wanted payback?

I really need to spend some time doing a little research. It's unlikely that Rhonda will have any answers. She only seems to care about the limit on his credit card.

"You're thinking awfully hard."

I guess I had been since I didn't even heard the SUV pull up. She'd put the window down to get my attention.

"Yeah," I agreed as I opened the door. "Thinking about old man Raleigh."

"And Rhonda?"

"Uh huh. I can't decide how she fits into this, but isn't it odd that she approached Logan on the day before the body was found?"

"Not really. He'd been missing a few days, and she didn't feel like the cops were concerned. I can understand that."

"Maybe," I mused. "Or maybe she wanted someone involved in the case who she felt like she could manipulate."

I'm glad that I have my head in the case. I was worried before that with my increased infatuation with Alex, maybe I wouldn't be able to concentrate.

I don't want to get to the point were I can't think about the details of a crime because I'm noticing that she decided to put her hair up. And she's wearing faded jeans, different ones than what she had on earlier. And she's wearing the boots that I like.

See, I can think about both.

"And she would think she could manipulate Logan? She doesn't know him very well then."

"She knows a side of him that we don't," I countered. "At a time when we didn't know much about him at all. He said it was over a year ago. It was right after Carolyn left."

"Oh, you know she's back."

"Carolyn?"

"Yeah. She's called me a couple of times just to see how things were going. I haven't seen her yet though."

"Where was she?"

"Colombia. Some kind of FBI-ATF thing."

Huh. I wonder if Logan knows she was back. I wonder if he even cares. He seemed fairly down when she left, but again, that was before we started hanging out more. And it could've just been because he lost another partner.

I made a mental note to ask him about it. And to find out why he left me on the line with Rhonda.

We got to the morgue and went down the nearly-empty hall towards the autopsy suite.

"Detective Eames," Rodgers greeted when Alex went through the door ahead of me. "And Detective Goren. What a surprise."

"He's…um…just tagging along," Alex told her.

"Hey, you're always welcome. Just don't touch anything," she said to me.

I assumed she was kidding because she knows I can't keep my hands to myself. I already had one hand in a glove and was working the other piece of latex into place.

"Find anything interesting?" Alex asked her as I moved closer to the body.

I can understand why Morgan's people had trouble identifying the body. This guy was a mess, but it seems like the damage was all from naturally occurring phenomenon.

I poked at the gelatinous skin briefly before Rodgers cleared her throat loudly.

"I did," she told us, and the tone of her voice suggested that it was, in fact, quite interesting. I stood up and took a step back from the table.

"Don't keep me in suspense," Alex told her.

"Well, for starters, he was dead before he went in the water. His lungs are dry and there's no sign of laryngospasm."

"So his airways didn't close off…" I began.

"Due to the cold water. Yeah, I got it," Alex finished with a grin.

"You two don't miss a trick, do you?" Rodgers said. "Anyway, what is interesting is that he has Chlamydia."

"He has an STD?" Alex choked out.

"Yeah, well, he was old, but he wasn't dead. I mean, now he's dead, but…sorry. Morgue humor."

I stifled a chuckle at Rodgers' ramblings and then posed the next question.

"I'm pretty sure Chlamydia isn't fatal. What's the COD?"

"Carbon monoxide poisoning."

TBC...