By the Book Chapter 10

Spoilers for Criminal Intent Season 2 episode "Anti-Thesis"

Warning for language

Well at least Alex could breathe a little easier on one count. Bobby had promised to hang in there for a while, and she knew she could count on him to keep his word whether he wanted to or not. That was Bobby, he was nothing if not true to his word. But that was just one part of it. She still worried about the investigation itself, if they could come up with the right evidence and in time, and whether or not Bobby would survive the inmates.

She couldn't help but wonder about Bobby in that place. He must be going crazy, locked up in that little cell all day and all night. No one to talk to except a guard who'd either ignore him or worse yet probably just mess with his mind. What did he think about all day? Whatever it was it had to be even worse at night, when his demons normally came out. How bad were those demons now? And was he scared? Anyone would be. Her imagination was running wild, thinking about him and what he was going through. But she finally had to stop, she couldn't dwell on that and still concentrate on the job of freeing him. And Bobby was no doubt dwelling on it enough for the both of them.

Tomorrow she'd check in with latent, and see if they came up with anything to match to Nicole's mysterious boyfriend, and then check in with Deakins to find out the latest on his part.

Rikers, that night

Ever since Eames had left that day, Bobby couldn't get Nicole's boyfriend, or rather the fact that he officially now existed, out of his mind. He'd always known someone had been in the room before him, but now the idea that he could possibly be identified excited him. Of course knowing and identifying this man and proving he was the killer were two different things; they still had him, Bobby, over the body. But at least now there might be reasonable doubt. And that was a big thing.

At the beginning of all this Bobby had never dreamed it would all go down like this, he figured it would all be straightened out in no time, his reputation intact. He would never have settled on being released because of reasonable doubt, he'd want his reputation untarnished, there to be no doubts of his innocence. But now? All he wanted was to be free, however it came about. It was another restless night.

Xxxxxxxx

The next day Joe Simons showed up again, and once again Bobby was led into the interview room.

"I assume, from what I gather from your partner, that I'm still your lawyer? Or I guess technically, her lawyer, but…"

Bobby wandered around the room, which was somewhat bigger than his cell. It felt good to stretch his long legs a little. "I'm sorry, Joe. I'm…stressed. Christ! I've been accused of murder! I've had the crap beaten out of me, and I'm looking at life in prison, providing of course that I escape the death penalty. So yeah, I'm stressed. I'm also…sorry. Besides, Eames and I have a deal."

"What deal is that?"

Bobby looked sheepish. "The deal is, I keep you on, she lets me live."

Joe couldn't help but smile. "Okay then, let's go over a few more things."

He finally got Bobby to sit down and over the course of a couple of hours they discussed various points and strategies of the case.

"Okay," Joe said at one point. "I'm sure the D.A. will go into this next point and I don't want any surprises. So I have to ask you this…"

Bobby looked at him quizzically. "Ask me what?"

Despite the fact that Joe was nearly as big as Bobby, he pushed his seat just a tad out of Bobby's immediate reach. "Were you ever…um…intimate with Nicole?"

"WHAT?"

"Calm down!" Joe said with more than a little authority in his voice. He knew he'd have to get a little tough to keep Bobby from getting defensive and losing his focus. "It's bound to come up, it's one of the reasons you're in this mess to begin with!"

Then, very calmly, came Bobby's answer. "There is no way in hell I was ever intimate with her."

"Good," Joe nodded. "You're sure?"

Bobby stared at him for a second. "I think I'd remember if I fucked the brains out of a pathological serial killer."

Joe looked as stupid as he felt. "Uh, what I meant was, was there anything else? Were you attracted to her?"

"No."

"Not at all? Ever? C'mon, Bobby, I've seen pictures of her. I'd be attracted to her!"

"You should have been a D.A." Bobby muttered.

Joe wouldn't allow himself a smile. "Answer the question, Bobby. Were you or were you not attracted to her? And think carefully about the answer."

Bobby thought about the question, hard, elbows resting on the table, head in hands, occasionally running his hands through his curly hair. Had he been attracted to Nicole? No. As he told Joe, she was a pathological serial killer who had no heart. How could anyone be attracted to something so cold like that? Then he thought back to the first time that he'd met her. She hadn't seemed so cold and heartless then…

Elizabeth/Nicole-- "Well everyone knows that academics are all talk and no action."

Bobby—"Does that include you?"

E/N—"If it did, I would have stayed in my cozy little office on Manor Road, lecturing women's writing and uh, punting on the Cherwell on weekends."

B—(smiling)"No skinny dipping in Parson's Pleasure?"

E/N—(a short laugh) "Very good, Detective. Did you memorize the Oxford tour guide on your way here?"

B— "No. (slightly embarrassed laugh) No, I spent a couple weeks there once…chasing coeds…"

E/N—( flirting) "Took you that long to catch one? I'm shocked!"

B—"That's very funny, Professor. Does Mark Bailey find you… funny?

Definite flirting. Was it all part of the game they were each playing? Or was there some real attraction there at first, even a little? And some weeks later, in interrogation…

Bobby—"When I met you, you wanted me to know who you truly were, how smart, how funny, how charming you are. You wanted me to know you, Nicole Wallace, the sparkling little girl who survived horrible abuse with her wits intact."

She wanted me to know her…She was attracted to me, and--oh god!--he had been attracted to her, too.

"Bobby?"

He looked up at Joe. "I…I was attracted to her. A little. At first." His words were hardly more than a whisper.

Joe looked at him in concern. "It's okay, Bobby. It's out in the open. We can work around it now. We can build a defense—we just don't want them to spring anything on us. Did it go any further than attraction?"

"No! Well, not on my part. Eames always thought she had a thing for me, a love/hate thing. But whatever it was, love or hate, she turned it into complete and total hate. Which brings us to my current situation. She's been trying to get to me for years, and she finally did it. It took her dying to do it, and I'm sure she never planned it this way, but she did it. I'm convinced she's laughing her ass off at me now, just waiting for me to join her in hell."

Given what he'd already learned about Nicole, Joe had to agree.

That same night

All these latest developments had him more restless than usual, he was up and down all night, really getting on the night guard's nerves. He didn't particularly want anything to do with his charges, and he damn sure didn't want to be bothered by them in any way.

"Goren!" he said angrily. "Why don't you just knock it the hell off and lay down before I chain you to the fucking bed!"

Bobby ignored him.

Finally the guard was forced to get off his lazy ass, and lumbered his way over to Bobby's cell.

"Did you hear—"

"Fuck you."

"Yeah, you listen to me, smart guy," the guard hissed at him. "You think you're so fuckin' smart? Well you're gonna find out real soon that smarts don't get you nowhere in here." He looked Bobby up and down. "I think maybe you're the one who's gonna get fucked. Up one side and down the other." He was sneering now. "And that ain't half the shit they got planned for you. Y'know, sometimes things happen, like some night the door to your cell is 'accidentally' left unlocked for the inmates. I hear things, ya know, and what I hear is…well, eight or ten guys…there ain't gonna be a whole lot left when they get done with you."

"Now you listen to me," Bobby said, in an eerily calm voice. "I don't have any doubt at all that you guys can take me down. If you're gonna do it, you're gonna do it. But I guarantee you that I'm taking one of you down with me, and I figure it might as well be you."

The guard kind of stared at him for a second or so. There was no doubt in his mind that Bobby would do as he promised.

"And another thing," Bobby continued. "I don't know what, if anything, you're getting out of this…money or whatever it is, it won't be worth it. You think I'm smart? You don't know the half of it. And my partner? She's smart, too. We have the highest solve rate in the NYPD for a reason. And my partner's tenacious. She's gonna be watching you like a hawk. If your lifestyle suddenly changes for the better, she's going to be on you like flies on shit. You'll be sitting on that money forever. Forget that new car or that new wide screen tv, if you so much as get a new bike for your kid, she'll be at you till the day you die.

And if anything should happen to me, you're the one going down for it, we've already talked about that. You know how they phonied up all this evidence on me? Well the NYPD can do that, too, and a lot better than they did. And then, guess what? You'll be sitting in this very same cell as me, right at the bottom of the foodchain, cause as I'm sure you know prison guards are only one step up from cops. They'll be wanting you nearly as much as they want me. So if you know of anything going down, you'd be a lot better off telling them that the time just isn't right yet. Bottom of the foodchain," he repeated.

"Yeah, well we'll see," he said lamely, but Bobby could see the uncertainty in his eyes as he went back to his little nook.

Bobby watched him for a little bit, then went and sat on his cot. He always knew the threat existed, but to hear it finally verbalized was downright mind numbingly scary. Prisoners would always want to take out a cop, that was a given, but a high-profile one like the Major Case Squad's Detective Bobby Goren would be an extra big notch in someone's belt, even more so if it was particularly ugly. He wondered if his own threat would buy him any time. Another quick glance at the guard, who was now doing his own pacing, told him it did.

Tbc

A/N The conversation in italics with quotation marks between Bobby and Nicole was taken from the Criminal Intent episode "Anti-Thesis" Season 2.