Tim walked down the hall to the small conference room where Leslie Fargo was scheduled to be speaking. He'd spent the morning inconspicuously sneaking about the hotel for any clue that would be helpful to the team. So far, though, all he'd figured out was that the maids had found a new room in which to smoke and that one of the porters was having an affair, neither of which he thought were at all tied to the case. He'd thought about skipping the lecture to snoop some more, but he had paid for this convention and he wasn't going to let that money go to waste.

"Good morning, Thom!" a voice chirped from behind him. He turned to see Myrna following behind him. Today, she was dressed in a cream colored silk blouse, a tweed brown skirt with a pink ribbon running along the hem of it, and brown heels. Her hair was pulled back into a half-pony tail with the majority of it falling down around her shoulders. He was glad that Abby had taken a respite for the moment and her lab was currently empty. The last thing he needed was for her to be commenting in his ear right now.

Myrna furrowed her brow as she neared him. "Were you wearing glasses last night, too, or am I just going crazy?"

"Good morning," he said, returning her greeting. "No, you're not going crazy. My contact lenses weren't agreeing with me this morning, so I decided to just go with these. I don't usually wear them."

"Well, you should! I think you're one of those rare people who can actually pull off the dark-rimmed glasses look." Tim visibly blushed, much to Myrna's apparent delight.

"What's this one going to be talking about again?" she asked, pointing into the open room.

"I think she's going to talk about research sources."

Myrna twisted her mouth into a strange contortion. "That topic's a bit obsolete considering the technology we have at our fingertips, don't you think?" she commented as she slipped past him into the room. "If I need to find something I can get it in seconds, or at least find out where to get it."

Tim shrugged. "You've got a point." He grabbed one of the chairs from the table and pulled it out for her. "Oh, here, let me."

Her eyebrows shot up as she smiled sweetly at him. "Well, I can't say I've had that happen to me much," she told him as she slid into the chair. "Thank you."

He grinned at her as he took the seat next to her. "Are you going to all of the lectures today?"

"If this one isn't too boring I may go to what's his face's thing about getting published. That just seems like overkill, though, considering we're having a brunch tomorrow with publishers."

"What about Randy Veux's lecture?"

"Are you kidding? Like I'd miss that! What mystery enthusiast wouldn't die at the chance to hear Randy Veux talk about his writing? That's like an avid movie fan passing up the chance to see, like, Martin Scorsese or something."

"Yeah," Tim nodded in agreement, "I'm a big fan of him. In fact, when I was–"

"Oh, dear God! Duck!" Myrna hissed, grabbing the arm of his jacket and pulling him down as she hid the upper-half of her body behind the table. "The Frichter couple just entered and if they sit with us we'll have to listen to them talk about how they not-so-subtly have based the protagonists of their novel on themselves."

Tim looked to her about to respond, but stopped as he realized that their faces were only inches away from each other. He could feel her warm breath against his cheek and he found that his heart began to race. Myrna looked to him, suddenly aware of how close they now were. Her grip, which still held his arm, loosened and he saw her tongue gently flick against her top lip, slightly smudging the rose colored lipstick that was painted across it. Her eyes, which had been playful and teasing, softened as they trailed down his face.

Tim momentarily wondered if they were going to kiss.

"Sorry," she said in a soft tone as she straightened herself. "I, uh, didn't mean to pull you down so harshly."

Tim followed suit, his lips forming a small, disappointed pout. "It's okay…I mean, thanks for protecting me. After listening to them talk last night I kind of wanted to swear off all mystery novels forever out of fear that I may one day accidentally pick up theirs and actually read any of it."

"Mrorw!" Abby purred in his ear, imitating a cat. "Since when are you so catty, McGee?"

Myrna laughed at his comment. "Yeah, I can empathize with you there."

"So is this her?" Tim tried not to roll his eyes in response to Abby's question. How did she expect him to answer her? "Sorry," she added, as though reading his mind. "I guess you can't exactly talk with me right now. She's cute, though. When I came back down, you two looked like you were about to make out or something. I'm glad you didn't though. I mean, I don't really want to sit down here and watch you tongue some girl, McGee."

"Hey," Myrna said, disrupting Tim's thoughts, "if this one is boring, do you want to skip the next one with me and check out this little bookstore a couple of blocks from here? We should be back in plenty of time for Randy Veux's thing and the store looks like it has some interesting finds."

Tim wanted to say yes; he even thought about suggesting that they blow off this lecture together. But Tim knew that he was supposed to be keeping an eye on things around the hotel, not going on a date with some woman he'd just met, specifically considering he didn't yet know whether or not to consider her a suspect. "I, actually, really want to go to the next one," he said lamely. "But I'll take a rain check on it."

"Fine," she said with an exaggerated sigh. "But in return, you have to promise that tonight you'll rescue me if I get cornered by any boring people."

Tim laughed. "I promise, so long as you do the same for me."

She offered him the pink of her right hand. "Pinky swear?"

He hooked his pinky around hers, and they shook on it. "Pinky swear."

Julie opened the door and immediately scowled at the person standing there. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Look, we need to talk about this."

"No, we don't," she said. "You're dead weight right now."

"Look, I'm the one who took care of Nathan when he tried to back out. You can't just push me out of this."

"The only reason you're in this to begin with is because I told Nathan to include you. I'm the one he confided in, remember? I'm the one he told about the map."

"Yeah, after you fucking seduced him."

"I do what I need to," Julie snarled. "Don't be jealous just because it doesn't work for you."

"You bitch!" The figure stormed in, slamming the door shut. In the visitors hand was a spool of some kind of cord. Julie caught sight of it and her eyes widened in sudden fear.

"Get the hell away!" Julie yelled. She ran toward the bedroom, but was caught from behind. She felt the cord wrap around her neck and clawed at her neck in an effort to remove it. She tried to scream, but the cord was so tight she couldn't get any sound out.

The person held the cord tight around her neck until the body went slump. Julie's body dropped to the ground, her eyes still open in terror. The face of her killer loomed over her, a triumphant smirk on said killer's face. "Who's deadweight now, Julie?"