AN: Since most of you are reading Saturday, what I'm about to say is old news. For those that aren't, here's a little update about what's going to happen with this story. I have been diagnosed with tendonitis in my left hand and I am in a splint for at least two weeks. I have two chapters (maybe three) of this story that are in the editing phase so I should be able to post them while I have the splint on, but I'm not supposed to type with my left hand while the splint is on which means that I'm going to have to take a little break. I promise that I'm not abandoning this story. It's actually more or less finished and I am just filling in plot holes at this point, so as soon as the splint is off, I'll be able to post chapters fairly quickly. Thanks for reading and I promise I'll be back soon!

Joe planned to take Molly to a bar that he'd heard was frequented by ballplayers after a win. Instead, after the police arrived and saw Molly's injuries, she was taken to a hospital to have them documented, and to have her foot looked at to make sure the fall hadn't aggravated the injury. When it got back to the team, what had happened, they sent a gift to her at the hospital. It looked like a large children's scooter, with three wheels, and a seat to kneel on. It was dark blue and signed by the team and came with two tickets to another game. She was delighted with it, and after someone from the hospital helped her adjust it, it took her about two seconds to master it.

The only thing they weren't sure of yet, was how Bob would respond to it. He had a thing for chasing skateboards, and they were worried he'd object to Molly's new wheels. The reason they didn't know how he'd respond was that Bob had spent several days at the Vet, under observation.

They had been to see him every day, and each day he was a little less subdued, but he was still definitely not himself. They had ruled out toad poisoning and were running tests on common poisons to try to determine what it was that he had consumed so they could target his therapy better. Joe dropped Molly off at work on Thursday morning, before he went to work and stopped in at the Animal Hospital to check on Bob.

He was taken back to see his dog immediately, and when Bob saw him, the dog lifted his head and wagged his tail excitedly. He didn't get up, but it was the most active Joe had seen him.

"Hi Buddy," Joe said. "You're looking good today!"

Bob licked Joe's hands, and Joe scratched Bob's ears for him since the dog was wearing the cone of shame, to keep him from licking at his IV.

"He's going to be fine," the vet said when he walked in. "You can take him home today if he's not going to be alone."

"This is a huge improvement," Joe said. "I take it you figured out what he got into?"

"Yep," he said. "It was plant-based. Pelargonium, otherwise known as geraniums. It lowered his heart rate and blood pressure, and it's going to leave him a little depressed for a while. He's going to need a lot of affection."

"He ate a geranium, and it did this to him?"

"Yes," he said, "There are a lot of common garden flowers that are actually quite harmful to dogs. I'm going to give you a list and considering Bob's eating habits, I'd suggest that if you have any of these in your garden, that you remove them."

"The only plant I have in my garden is a hydrangea my mother planted, and Bob uses as a urinal. It's been dead for a while."

"The test was definitive," the vet said. "I don't know what else to tell you. Is it possible he came in contact with the flowers some other way? Maybe in a flower arrangement?"

"My girlfriend is a florist; it's possible it was in one of the arrangements she's been leaving in the dining room, but my mother didn't say anything about him getting into them, and Molly would notice if they'd been tipped over and mom put them back."

"It doesn't hurt to ask," the vet said.

Joe called her.

"How's my favorite wookie?" Molly asked when she answered.

"Were there geraniums in the arrangement you put on the table Friday?" Joe asked.

"God no! Not with the way Bob eats," Molly said, "They'd make him sick. None of the flowers in that arrangement would hurt him."

"Apparently he's eaten some."

"Oh, the poor thing! He's probably miserable! I'm absolutely positive I didn't put them in the arrangement. Your neighbor has some in her front garden though; maybe he got into those?"

"That must be it," Joe said. "Thanks."

"No problem," she said. "Oh, poor baby! Ask the vet what would be best for him to eat, and I'll make it for him tonight."

"What about me?" Joe asked. "What do I get for dinner?"

"Me," Molly said.

He chuckled and disconnected. "My neighbor apparently has geraniums in her front garden," Joe said.

"Mystery solved then," the vet said. Joe got a copy of the toxicology report and clipped Bob's leash to him. "He shouldn't be alone for the next couple of days until he perks up."

"My girlfriend wants to cook for him," Joe said.

"Boiled chicken and rice. Nothing hard on his stomach."

Joe got a list of instructions for tending to the dog for the next few days and drove Bob out to Molly's shop. Ten minutes later, Molly had him installed on an air mattress in her office, with a pile of pillows and blankets, and when Joe left them, she was on the floor beside the mattress absolutely spoiling Bob. When Joe got to the station, Eddie walked to his desk and dropped the Molly file on his desk.

"Molly's dealt with three judges over the last few years, " Eddie said. "Judge number one, Judge Gary Clark. Worked about a million cases, no complaints against him. I pulled transcripts from previous trials, and he comes across as exceptionally fair, and if anything, more likely to side with the woman in the divorce. During Molly's proceedings he lectured her about being careless with her personal finances, basically told her it was her fault Lucien was able to take the money from her and was all in all a prick to her. Everything she asked for, every challenge her lawyer put forth, was rejected.

Judge number two, Lee Weston. Same kind of record as Clark. Family man, whose daughter was going through a nasty divorce at the same time Brasseau was dragging Molly back to court for violation of the Do Not Compete."

"The one that says she's not allowed to sell flowers in New York," Joe said.

"Sell, or advertise."

"How did she violate it?"

"She put her name in the bio on her store website. The advertising thing was limited to print media only. The Do Not Compete was very specific on that point. Weston told her that it was a major oversite on Brasseau's attorney's part and retroactively added it to the original document. He said it was in the interest of fairness. It put her in violation of the Do Not Compete and she had to pay a massive penalty. She told him she couldn't afford it. He told her to get another job, and did her the favor of letting her make monthly payments."

"And?"

"She does home inspections and renovation consultations."

"What kind of consultations?" Joe asked.

"Did you know she was an architectural engineer?"

"I did," Joe said.

"She makes sure a home is structurally sound, or that a renovation can occur without the house coming down. The company is registered under her middle and last names, and her photo appears nowhere on her website because she operates out of her flower shop. She's covering her ass."

"How is she doing?"

"If she didn't have Brasseau as a drain on her finances she'd be doing really well."

Joe shook his head in disgust. This wasn't improving his mood in the slightest, and a niggling suspicion that had been in the back of his mind for days was becoming more persistent.

"Judge three?" Joe asked.

"Morris Fielding tried to help Molly," Eddie said. "She brought Lucien to court because she couldn't afford to live and every time the business started doing well, Brasseau would drag her back to increase his support payments. She managed to get a new judge who looked at what she was paying, Lucien's personal wealth, assets, etc., and the original settlement. He put a stop to it all, and told Brasseau that he was going to be the one making payments from now on and that he owed her half of the value of their Condo."

"How much was that?"

"She bought it for half a million, but the condo was appraised at about $2 million," Eddie said. "When Brasseau said he didn't have that kind of cash, Fielding told him to put it on the market."

"He didn't though," Joe said.

"A week before the first payment was due, Fielding dropped dead of heart failure, and Brasseau took Molly back before Judge Clark, and things went back to normal."

"They are sure it was a heart attack?"

"Yup," Eddie said. "but according to his wife, who I spoke to not two hours ago, a man came to the house the same day Fielding had his coronary. She said he was French, attractive, and blonde. He told Fielding that Fielding had made a mistake with his verdict and that he was doing more harm than good. He said, and I'm quoting Mrs. Fielding here, 'She is better off bankrupt and alone. She's vulnerable and letting her cousin protect her, but the minute she gets her head above water, that'll change.' After that, she said they went into Fielding's office, and she didn't hear anything more. When the man left, Fielding said he was going to meet up with a friend for lunch, and he dropped dead of his heart attack while waiting to be seated at a restaurant."

"Do we know who the friend was?"

"Marge Quillerston," Eddie said this name like it meant something, but it didn't ring any bells for Joe. "She is a former FBI unit chief."

"Did you call her?"

"I did, and she told me that Fielding said that he wanted her to look into a potential blackmail case he'd come across. He was going to give her a case file at lunch, but he died, and when they went through his briefcase afterward the only thing in it was an art magazine."

"What magazine?" Joe asked.

"Quillerston couldn't remember," Eddie said. "But she was fairly certain the magazine was new."

"Okay, so what I want you to do is look up any art magazines that would have been in publication around then, and see if there's anything mentioning Molly in any of them. He may have brought it as a means of identifying Molly without drawing attention to her case file. Or maybe there's something significant in the magazine."

"I thought that too, and I've already checked. I sent her the magazine covers, and she identified one. There's absolutely no mention of Molly in the magazine. The magazine's featured article is about an Art Critic, and I've read through the magazine, but I'm starting to think it is irrelevant and whatever was in the briefcase that was important was stolen."

"Give me the magazine," Joe said. "Maybe I'll see something Molly has mentioned."

"I'll email you the link," Eddie said.

His phone rang on his desk, the man on the other end was a man named Ron Simpread. Simpread was a Detective with NYPD and had worked more than one undercover case with Morelli. Morelli had specifically asked for his help with Molly, knowing he could be trusted.

"What's up?" Joe asked.

"So I get the footage from the ballpark, and I'm going through it. I see your asshole Brasseau talk to three dudes. Idiot number one is a career recidivist, and he's responsible for taking your girl's crutches. Idiots two and three, I got nothing on them, didn't get their faces on any cameras. I can follow them from their conversation with Brasseau to when they pick her up in the chair and to when they meet up with Brasseau after their confrontation. He gives them money, and they all leave together on the subway. I could probably trace them back to wherever they went from there, but that's going to take time."

"And now you have Brasseau in custody?"

"I don't," Simpread said, "I went to the judge to get a warrant so I could pick this asshole up, and press charges, and what do I get told? Insufficient evidence. We don't know what Brasseau said to the guys in the lot, for all we know he might have been telling them to lay off of your girlfriend."

"Did you pick up the idiot who stole her crutches?"

"I tried," Simpread said. "Except he seems to have disappeared, and I'm pretty sure we're not going to find him unless we dredge the East River."

"What makes you think that?"

"Witnesses saw him being stuffed into the trunk of a Buick."

"And that wasn't enough to get you a fucking warrant?"

"Given the lifestyle he leads, Brasseau is the least likely candidate to off him. We're looking, but like I said, I'm not hopeful that we're going to find this guy."

"Can you send me his file?"

"In your inbox as we speak. Hang on," Simpread said. Joe heard hold music and opened his email to find the details about the guy who stole Molly's crutches. His name was Curtis Lewiston. He was into a little of everything, a junkie, and a general fuck up. "Okay, something is definitely up."

"What?" Joe asked.

"The brass have just told my Captain that I'm to lay off of this shit. I've shown him everything you've shown me about your girl, and he told me that I'm to keep pursuing this, but from the angle of Lewiston and I'm to do it on the DL. I'll keep you apprised." Joe heard a voice in the background, it was muffled, and he couldn't make out what was being said. "Gotta run."

He filled Eddie in and looked at Bob's toxicology results.

"What's that?" Eddie asked.

"Bob ate geraniums," Joe said. "Turns out they are bad for dogs. He's been at the vet's since Saturday, and I just sprang him this morning."

"Where's he now?"

"Getting spoiled by Molly," Joe said. He put the pages down, "I'll be back; I have to check something. Keep the investigation into Brasseau to yourself."

He left the station and drove home. Mrs. Kusak was conveniently in her garden when he got there, and he walked over to her.

"This about my car?" She asked.

"We're probably not going to catch the idiot who tagged your car," Joe said. "We have his tattoos in the system, so if he gets picked up for something else, we'll bust him them, but I wouldn't hold my breath."

She went to get to her feet, and Joe helped her up. She brushed plant debris from her jeans and looked at him. "You didn't come over here to tell me you had nothing."

"No," he said. "I came to apologize for Bob."

"Why?"

"He got into some geraniums, and Molly said that you had some in your garden. Can I replace the ones he ate?"

"He didn't get into mine," she said. They are all fine."

"Could you do me a favor?" Joe asked. "There's only one other place I can think of that he might have gotten into them and I wouldn't know a geranium from a dandelion. Would you come to check with me?"

"Sure."

She followed him into the house, and he showed her Molly's flower arrangement. It looked exactly the same as it had Friday.

"This is a spectacular arrangement," Mrs. Kusak said.

It was that. The flowers were all green blooms, arranged by gradient darkest in the middle to pale, almost white on the outside of the arrangement, the color transitions were subtle, practically photoshopped in appearance. It was how he knew she couldn't have changed it without him noticing. Removing one type of flower would have ruined the effect.

"My girlfriend is a florist," Joe said. "She'll be devastated if it's her flowers that hurt Bob, and I really just want to save her the guilt, for an innocent mistake."

"No need," Mrs. Kusak said, "There aren't any geraniums in this arrangement."

"You're sure?" Joe asked. She nodded.

"This is incredible," she said. "It's such a shame that this can't last forever. It almost doesn't look real, like it's a sculpture of flowers or something. And it's such a happy arrangement! My niece is getting married in a few months. I don't suppose you have a card or something I could give her?"

"No, but I'll give you Molly's information if you want it," he said. He wrote down Molly's store details, and Mrs. Kusak left. He called the vet and asked them if they had any vials of Bob's blood remaining, and asked them to save everything so he could have someone from the crime lab pick it up.

His gut was telling him it was deliberate but, because of the way Bob ate, there was no way to determine what had been poisoned. It could have been anything. To be on the safe side, he put a scoop of Bob's food from the bag of kibble into a ziplock, and he took the rest of it out to the street and put it in the trash.

He got back into his Jeep, and backed down his driveway, hesitating a minute, before deciding where he was going. He drove out to the Cubed Root.

When he got there, Molly was with a customer, putting together a flower arrangement. Bob was off of his bed, and sitting next to Molly, leaning against her healthy leg. She kept stopping to scratch the top of his head, and whenever she did, he'd wag his tail a little.

Joe went to Mary, not wishing to disturb Molly while she was working. "Bob's been like that all morning. He's been following Molly everywhere."

"I'm surprised he's not hiding from the flowers," Joe said. "When he ate that toad last summer he was afraid of anything that hopped for months."

"Maybe that's why he's glued to Molly," she said. "She's protecting him from the scary flowers."

"I'm impressed that she knew about the geraniums," Joe said.

"Oh," Mary said, "No, don't be. She has a book under the counter with all of the plants that we carry that are poisonous. And see how the buckets we keep the flowers in are different colors?"

"Yes," Joe said.

"The green ones are edible flowers, yellow are nonpoisonous, orange are plants that are harmful to pets, and anything in red is poisonous to everyone. And that fridge with the lock on it contains the plants that are highly toxic and only Molly has the key to that one."

Molly finished up with her client, and Mary rang her up while Molly said hello to Joe and put Bob back to bed.

"How can he still be feeling this bad?" Joe asked. "The doc said he'd metabolized the poison already."

"It's depression," Molly said. "It's caused by the poisons in the geraniums. We're supposed to help him out of it by rewarding positive behavior and by making sure he's not alone until he gets back to normal."

"Mary says you keep highly toxic flowers?" Joe asked.

"I do," Molly said.

"How toxic?"

"Well the Fox Glove and Oleander are more or less straight digitalis, so if you drink the water the plants are sitting in, you're going to have serious heart problems. I have to be careful how I dispose of the flowers and the water. The aconite is gorgeous but exceptionally poisonous, and the juice from the stems can be absorbed through the skin, and it's fatal. Angel's Trumpets contain scopolamine, which can be used as either an anti-nausea drug or it can be used to put someone into a highly suggestive state."

"I actually know something about that," Joe said. "We had a case where a bunch of people were dosed with it."

"That's scary," Molly said. "Why?"

"To screw over Vincent Plum," Joe said. "His wife was tired of his cheating and decided to get vengeance on a spectacular scale."

"They didn't get it from me," Molly said, "I don't stock a lot of it."

"Why do you keep plants that poisonous anyway?"

"They are beautiful and people like them. Hell Aconite is a common garden flower."

"Do you need a permit to have them?" Joe asked.

"Nope," Molly said.

"You're well versed in natural poisons then," Joe said.

"Yep," Molly said. "So if you ever need someone to tell you where to find a deadly plant, I'm your girl."

Joe closed his eyes and sighed. She wasn't even a little suspicious about his line of questioning. She was in a good mood and drinking her coffee without a care in the world. Two weeks ago, if someone had told him that his dog had been deliberately poisoned with a flower, and he was dating a florist he barely knew, he'd be arresting her under suspicion of animal cruelty and cutting his losses. Now he was sitting there, gently interrogating her, and hating every second of it, because he knew she was innocent.

"Joe," she said. "Are you all right?"

"Molly," he said. "Mrs. Kusak's geraniums were undisturbed."

"Oh," she said. "Do you want me to check out the other neighbors' gardens? Some species of geranium don't look like the common variety, and…"

"I think it was done on purpose," Joe said. "I don't think he got into a garden."

"What?" Molly said. "Joe… you don't think that I…"

"No," he said, quickly and firmly. "I think this was Lucien. I think this is what he was going to do to drive us apart. I think the stunt at the ballpark was to establish an alibi."

"No," she said. All of the color drained from her face, and she put her hand over her heart. "No… I… I'm going to be sick."

He reached for the trash can and brought it around to her. He held her hair off of her face, for her while she vomited and when it was over, he rubbed her back. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have…"

"Molly," Joe said. "You did nothing wrong."

"Yes, I did!" She said. "Joe, I knew what he did to Michael, and I knew he'd be furious if I got close to you, and I put you and Bob in danger and…"

"You are not finishing that thought," Joe said firmly, "Do you hear me, Molly? You are not about to call this off to protect me, or Bob."

"But he could have killed Bob!"

"But he didn't," Joe said. "Bob is depressed, but he's fine. And what is ending this going to accomplish exactly? He's going to want to punish me for touching you, anyway. He's not going to leave me alone just because we're not together anymore. I refuse to let go of this, because what we've got going on here is better than good, and I'm not giving that up. Not over this, not over anything."

"What are we going to do?" She asked. "Tell me. Because I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if something happened to you or Bob, because of me."

"It's not because of you," Joe said. "It's because of Lucien. What we're going to do, is we're going to stop this son of a bitch. In the meantime, Bob doesn't get left alone, ever."

"What if it was laced in his food?" Molly said.

"I'm having that tested," he said. "And I'll switch to canned food for a while so it can't be tampered with. Bob'll love it."

"Joe," she said. "I need you to be sure. I won't think less of you if you can't do this. I really won't. When this crap is all sorted out if you want to…"

"Molly," Joe said. "I'm sure."

"He went after Bob?" She said. "Like he really went after Bob?"

"Yeah," Joe said. "I want you to come with me back to the police station. I want to file a restraining order."

"I was told that if I tried that again…"

"That was in New York," Joe said. "We're in New Jersey."

"Okay," she said. "But you have to promise to post bail when I get arrested for contempt of court."

"I promise," he said. "I'll even hang out with you in lockup while you wait for your hearing."

"Thanks," she said. Joe helped her up, and they drove Bob to Joe's mother's and then took Molly to the station. She filled out the paperwork. The restraining order would cover both of them and their places of work and home. The Order would be good until there was a hearing to decide if it should be made permanent. Given how crammed the courts were, it should give her a month. If Lucien came anywhere near her in that time, he'd be arrested on the spot.

Three days after the TRO was issued, Detective Simpread called Joe at home. Simpread had taken a great deal of pleasure serving Brasseau with the Restraining Order, and then, at Joe's request, had Lucien followed.

Lucien stayed in his apartment for two days, before exiting the building and going to his lawyer's office. He remained in the offices for ten minutes before he was escorted out by his lawyer. Who Simpread said was holding the TRO papers. He said he'd take care of it, but that it might be time to just let it go. With Judge Clark retiring, he wouldn't be able to find another judge who was quite so sympathetic with Lucien's cause, and he didn't want to have to worry about all of his hard work getting undone.

Lucien got into his car and drove to a private club called Blades, where he exited his car and handed his keys to the valet. There were some harsh words delivered to the valet, and then someone Lucien appeared to know, approached. They were unable to get a clear shot of his face, thanks to a judiciously placed ball cap. They went into the lounge together, and they did not appear to exit the building. When Simpread saw the staff shut down the club, Simpread approached the valet.

"He told me that there is a gym in the facility and a bar, but the primary function of the club is to put luxury vehicles into longterm storage, where they will be properly maintained and cleaned before their owner returns from wherever they are going. They drop off the car, they wait in the bar for their party to arrive, and then they are taken to wherever they wish to go via luxury car service. Members of the club had access to the club's private airstrips, and helipads throughout the world."

"I take it Brasseau went to one of these Helipads?" Joe said.

"The valet said yes," Simpread said. "But I need a court order to find out where he went, and there is no way I'm going to get one."

"Do you know what the altercation with the valet was over?"

"Brasseau said they chipped the paint on his car the last time he used the service, and the paint color they used to fix it, didn't match the rest of the car. He wanted the whole car re-sprayed."

"Are they doing it?" Joe asked.

"Yep," he said. "Only they can't re-paint it the color it is currently because it's discontinued. He's apparently fine with that and told them to paint it dark blue. He only had it done in yellow because the car was supposed to be a gift for his ex after they got married."

"Did you say yellow?" Joe said.

"Yeah," Ron said, "Why?"

"I'm a fucking idiot," Joe said, "I have to go."

He hung up his phone and went to Eddie's desk where he grabbed the file box on Brasseau. He hauled it up onto Eddie's desk and started going through it until he got to the information on Brasseau's vehicle history. He'd completely forgotten about the asshole in the yellow BMW the morning he took Molly to the hospital.

There it was, Lucien's car was a metal flake yellow BMW M2 Coupe. He'd been there the second night she spent at Joe's house. He had to have followed them there. Eddie came back to see Joe disrupting the paperwork on his desk, and let out an exasperated sigh.

"Where's Finch?" Joe said.

"With the other zygotes in tech, flirting with that chick, Zoe," Eddie said.

Joe left Eddie with Joe's mess and found Finch eating a sandwich while talking to a rookie fresh out of the academy and working cyber crimes. "Those doorbell cameras, how much data do they hold?"

"They don't," Finch said. "It saves to a cloud account they rent from the manufacturer of the doorbells."

"Yeah yeah, whatever," Joe said. "How much does it store?"

"It archives stuff forever, or until the manufacturer goes bust. Why?"

"I want you to go back as far as you can until you see the car in this file the first time. Can you do that?"

"Yeah," Finch said. "It logs every movement in front of the doorbells. So basically any car that goes by the houses."

"Do it," Joe said.

"Why?"

"Just do it," Joe said.

He left the station and drove to the Cubed Root and instead of going into the store, he knocked on JigSaw's window. "Has he ever threatened her with more than just a trip to court?"

"Not a threat, no," JigSaw said. "There was an incident just after Ranger got involved."

"What happened?"

"I'll show you," JigSaw said.

He picked up his tablet from the passenger seat of the car and navigated through some screens and handed the tablet to Joe. The video showed a split screen of the empty store and Molly in her office. It looked like she was doing some bookkeeping and using her phone as a calculator when Brasseau entered the store.

"Just a minute," Molly called out. She went back to her calculations, unaware of the fact that Brasseau was the one in the store until she heard him on the stairs to her apartment, and she came running out of her office. At first, her face was pleasant, and a quick admonishment that the upstairs was off limits was halfway out of her lips when she saw that it was Lucien. She dove for her handbag under the counter and grabbed her panic button. She pressed it a bunch of times and then ran up the stairs after him. They could hear her telling him to get out, and then a threat to call the police, and the sound of something breaking, before they were both on the stairs again. Brasseau went to the cash register and opened the drawer while Molly tried to get him to stop, and he shoved her off of him. She hit the floor with a solid thump that winded her temporarily.

"There's hardly anything in here," he said.

"What? Were you tired of waiting for the courts to give you permission to rob me and figured you'd just skip a step?" Molly said.

"There's fifty dollars in here," he said. "Where's the rest of it? In your safe?"

"What safe?" Molly asked with a wry laugh.

"This is…"

"Pathetic?" Molly supplied for him. "Believe me I know. That's not even my money. It's Lester's. Work has been slow this month, and you officially took my last dime in that last payment. I'm broke, Lucien. You won."

"You think I've won?" He snarled. "You think I won? You think this is some fucking game?"

"I don't know what it is!" she yelled. "I don't know what you want from me! What do you want? Tell me so this can stop because I can't do this anymore."

"I want what I'm owed, Molly."

"What you're owed‽" She yelled and jumped to her feet. "You have our apartment, you have my store, my reputation, my friends, all of the money I made and saved and I'm paying you more a month in fucking support payments than I can make. When will it be enough? When I'm living out of a cardboard box on the streets?"

"I gave up everything for you Molly! Do you understand me‽ I gave up everything. I want it back, and I'm taking it back now."

"You already have everything!"

"No I don't," he hissed. "But I will, and I'll do anything I have to, to get it."

Ranger walked into the store, then, with his weapon drawn. "Get out."

Lucien put his hands in the air and walked out of the store.

"Come with me," Joe said. He went into the store with JigSaw and his tablet. Molly was in her office and came scooting out on her new contraption to see who was in the store. Her face lit into a smile when she saw Joe.

"You're a wonderful surprise," she said. She made to wheel over to Joe, and he held up a hand to stop her.

"I need to ask you some questions before I kiss you the way I want to right now, and it makes you stupid."

She looked torn between hurt and amused, "Okay."

"Show her the video," JigSaw said. He played it for Molly, and when it was over, she looked at Joe.

"If you're wondering why I stayed on the floor for so long, it's because I banged my tailbone pretty hard and both of my legs went numb for a second."

"Did something happen that day to piss him off."

"I don't know," she said, "We weren't exactly speaking then."

"Assume for a second that he was watching your every move, every second of the day."

"Joe it was months ago," she said, "I don't…"

"You were texting someone in the video," he said. "Who were you texting?"

She thought about it for a minute, and she shook her head, "I can't remember his name."

"It was a man?"

"yes but..."

"Just tell me everything you remember, how you met, whatever you can recall."

"Lester and I had lunch that day. Lester was trying to talk me into accepting a job at Rangeman. He wanted me to rebuild my credit and use the money I would have been paying in rent, towards start-up capital for when I re-opened the cubed root. He got called away to something, I don't know what, but Lester paid the bill, and told me to think about it. This guy sat next to me, he said his ex-girlfriend was like that, always leaving in the middle of dates. The job always came first. I told him Lester was my brother, and we flirted a bit and exchanged numbers."

"That was that day," Joe said. "How long before Lucien showed up?"

"I can't remember. You could probably find it in my phone records, he drop-called me, so I had his number," Molly said. She frowned, "Huh."

"What?"

"I forgot about him because he didn't text me after that."

"It was the same number you were using when we met?" Joe asked.

"Yes," Molly said.

"Why didn't you go through with Lester's idea?" Joe asked. "Stubbornness?"

"Ric told me that Lester hadn't run the idea by him yet. He wasn't going to hire me. What Ric did do was sign a one year contract to have me supply flowers for all of the apartments, and lobby at Rangeman. And he sent a client my way, a friend of his who was having a big circus of a wedding. It was enough to get me through a serious dry spell."

"Would you have taken it, if he'd offered you a job?" Joe asked.

"Yes," Molly said, "Which is why he didn't. I stumbled for a second, and I needed a hand, not to become dependant on a crutch I didn't really need."

Joe forgot his next question, and just cleared the few feet that separated them, and kissed her until she was breathless and a little crosseyed.

"What was that for?" She asked.

"It's just what I want to do whenever I see you," Joe said. He kissed her again. "I'll be home for dinner tonight. Want me to pick something up?"

"Sure," she said, and blew out some air, "I know why you wanted to ask me questions first."

He grinned. "Later, Sweetheart."

He went back to the station and pulled Molly's phone records from the day Lucien went into her store and took the $50 out of her cash register. He found the drop call. The number belonged to a Roger Paziclovich. Joe ran the name through the system.

On the same day Roger met Molly, he was mugged on his way home from work. He was waiting for the bus when a man came up to him and slammed his face into the side of the bus shelter. Roger managed to get his phone out, and his attacker took it from him, put it down on the bench in the bus shelter, and then repeatedly smashed Roger's face into it, before taking Roger's wallet, and watch. All Roger could remember about his attacker was that before he used Roger's face to smash his phone to smithereens, he said, "This is what happens when you try to take things that don't belong to you."

Roger said he thought the guy sounded foreign, maybe French.

"Finch!" Joe yelled. "What's going on with that car!"

Septimus came hurrying over to Joe's desk, "I'm still looking, but it looks like there's no sign of his car before the fourth."

"The fourth?" Joe said, "Not the fifth?"

"No, the fourth. A taxi pulled up into the camera blind spot in front of your house and pulled away. Then a few minutes later the BMW pulled up in front of your neighbor's house and stayed there until the morning when it left suddenly. A few minutes after that, a black 9-11 showed up."

"He's intercepting her text messages," Joe said. "Manoso texted Molly to say he was five minutes out. That's how Brasseau knew when to clear out, and that's how he knows where Molly is going to be when she goes on dates."

"She needs to change her phone number," Finch said.

"She just did, when she replaced her phone. When else did you see the car?"

"It was there all night on the 5th and left just before you did on the morning of the 6th. It showed up just after you got home that night, and stayed until an hour before your neighbor's car was vandalized. It hasn't been there since that night."

"It hasn't been there since Manoso put a protective detail on my street," Joe said.

Joe put everything he had together. All of it was circumstantial evidence, but he wasn't looking for a conviction, just enough reason for any sane judge to agree that Molly's fear of Lucien was justified enough to warrant a permanent restraining order. The implied threat in the store, the assault of a man she'd exchanged numbers with after he'd issued that threat. The incident at the ball game, and then Lucien's presence on the night they met and the subsequent nights until Ranger put the men on the street. Bob. It should be more than enough. Especially if what Simpread heard was an indication that Lucien's pull within the justice system was now gone. If they could do this, Molly could breathe a little easier, and they might actually get to that stability Molly said she was looking for.