Chapter 10: Knocked Down

"I guess this is why you have a driver," Eames said to Leila Walker as she led her into the interview room, hands cuffed behind her back. "Can't even keep under the speed limit. Did you know you ran three stop signs before the border patrol picked you up?"

Eyes wet, Leila sat herself at the desk in front of Goren and stared at the table. "I didn't do anything." She said weakly, all bravado that she had once exhibited suddenly gone.

"Yeah, you did." Alex said. "You lied to us. You were in the city when your staff were murdered."

"I was at the spa." Leila muttered.

"No, see, you paid for your usual room for two weeks," Eames said. "Usual treatments for two weeks, but you were only actually there for one."

"Where's my son?" Leila asked.

"With Abby," Eames told her matter-of-factly. "Where you left him, remember? John said he didn't think you even knew where Abby lived."

"I'm not a complete moron," Leila snapped. "Staff records are in John's computer, I found it there."

Goren clicked his finger beside his own ear to get her attention. "Back to the murders... you lied about the date you came back. "Which puts you in town for the murders with no alibi," Goren added. "If you come clean, it'll help you in the long run."

Eames tilted her head to the side to Leila. "Did William come to see you?" She asked. "Did he tell you about him and your husband?"

Glancing up, Leila looked like she might burst into tears. "You don't know anything."

"Would certainly piss me off," Eames continued, ignoring her. "To find my husband was screwing around with a guy. And one who'd worked for him for so long."

"Do you think they'd been together all these years?" Goren asked her. "It's plausible, right? That's why he kept William on his staff."

"And paid for an apartment for him, John told us about that, too." Eames said finding a document in her folder to show Leila. A photo of the crime scene, the initial crime scene where Montague had been murdered, before he had been dumped on the stairs. The crime scene discovered in the very early hours of that morning. "See all that blood? Consistent with the head wound that killed him."

Leila's lip trembled. "I didn't..."

"You went to his apartment." Eames said sliding another crime scene photo in front of Leila. "Our crime team found blood, sheets, bleach and even a broken rum bottle in the dumpster outside."

Goren watched Leila, the way she chewed her lip. "Your shirt, it's silk? Hard to clean, were you wearing silk that day? A head wound bleeds like a river, you would have had it all over you. Is that how Madia found out? She saw your clothes? Saw the blood?"

"No," Leila's eyes widened. "She-she-"

"Did she see you positioning William's body on the stairs?"

Leila cleared her throat. "Madia killed herself," she tried to keep her voice even. "She killed herself."

"No, she was strangled first." Eames correct her. "Now, that one must have been tough. You couldn't bash her over the head, who'd clean up the blood at your home?"

"You strangled her," Bobby added. "Hung her up... she must have been heavy, all that deadweight, bet you really needed a massage after all that."

"He ruined my life!" Exploding, Leila smacked her hands on the table. "John ruined my life, do you understand that?" she snapped. "Being Matty's mother gives me nothing!"

"Yes, we saw that you're prenuptial agreement was, ah, altered after your son was born." Goren said sifting through his notes for the document. "You have to be married for another thirteen years before you'd be granted half of his assets in the event of a divorce."

"But John was done playing games." Eames said. "He reached a point in his life where he didn't want to lie anymore, and wanted to live as himself. With William, out in the open."

"And that means you get nothing, Leila." Goren said. "Well, except a life sentence."

Leila jumped to her feet and slammed her hands down flat on the desk over and over. "He would have ruined everything for me!" She cried. "I had to kill Madia and William, he was going to take John from me and she would have gone along with it. This is my life and John was going to change it! Don't you get that I don't mean a thing to him?"

"Well, pretty girl like you will mean a hell of a lot to someone in prison," Eames said, pulling her handcuffs from her back pocket. "Leila Walker, you're under arrest for the murders of William Montague and Madia Alvarez."

Leila let her tears fall freely as a younger police officer came into the room to lead her out. She stared at her feet, not making eye contact with anyone as she was walked away.

"Think she's got a chance at parole?" Eames asked her partner as their perpetrator disappeared.

"Well," Bobby said. "She chose to leave her son with Abby, might help her character. She knew enough to keep her son safe.

"Only good thing she did as a mother." Eames muttered, shaking her head.

"They're moving." Abby said to Bobby with a sad smile. "To California. I'm not invited."

It was a week later when Goren found himself at Central Park with Abby. He'd called her to meet up and inform her about some detail on Leila's arrest and upcoming trial, and Abby invited him to join her and Matty at the park. So, he went.

"John doesn't blame you, does he?" Goren asked, straightening Matty's hat on his head as he toddled past him.

"No, no, he's just... concerned. I don't blame him, really. The people who spent the most time with his son are all dead. He's pulling back from his work, doesn't want anyone to help him with Matty. Which I get... and it's good for Matty... just sucks for me."

"So, what'll you do? Another job?"

"I dunno if my heart could take it," she smiled tearfully. "Spending all that time with a wonderful child who isn't even mine..." she sighed. "In twenty years I'd find myself watching someone else's kids grow up and be too old to have my own. My apartment lease is up next month, and I have had a hell of a couple of years in New York," she helped Matty up onto his feet. "I think I'll go home for awhile."

"You mean Australia?" Bobby deduced.

"My mother's there." Abby pointed out. "Bobby, after a near-death experience, losing two friends and being caught up in some nutcase woman's obsession with you, I think I'm done." She lifted Matty under his arms and placed him in the sandpit.

"Leila could be lying about not poisoning you." Bobby said. "She said she didn't go after you, but she could be lying."

Abby sighed. "But you don't think so."

"No, I don't think so." Bobby admitted. "But, I do think it has to do with me and not you. So, you shouldn't worry about her."

"Thank you," Abby smiled. "This has been a very intense time of my life and you've... well, you've helped me out. So, thank you."

"You're welcome," Bobby returned her smile just as his cell phone beeped with a new message. Eames. New case in the Bronx. She said she'd meet him there. "Duty calls."

Matty promptly tripped in the sandbox and started crying. "Me too." Abby got to her feet. "It was nice to meet you, Detective."

She smiled again, warmer, friendlier. Or maybe that's just because Bobby was leaving that he took more notice. As he walked away, he kept glancing at her over his shoulder. She easily soothed Matty and then had him laughing again. It would hurt the kid not to have her, Bobby thought. But maybe it was better for her not to be around that family. Not to be around the city or people that Nicole infected with her viciousness.

Though he said goodbye to Abby that day, Bobby thought of her, often, because the Nicole Wallace addition to the Walker staff murders was still unsolved. As all of Nicole's crimes, the one with Abby couldn't be proven. Nicole got away with it, again. She loved that, and she loved that it churned Bobby's insides that he couldn't arrest her for things he knew she had done.

But as the weeks wore on, and Abby's attempted homicide fell further back into his pile of cases, Bobby stopped thinking about her so much. He drove by her apartment sometimes, on the way to a crime scene or a suspect's home.

That was, until almost eight months later, when he saw Abby again, back in Central Park.

Abby/Bobby TBC in a new fic titled Set Fire To The Rain, coming soon!