Thanks to everyone who read.

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Sure it does. Prophet frowned. "We were just talking about this."

"I know we were, but that was…yeah, here. An individual person." Mick stabbed his finger at the offending line in his textbook.

"But it extends to the collective."

"No, it doesn't."

"Yes, it does."

"Wh—you just told me it didn't two seconds ago!" His mind wasn't that far gone. At least not yet, although much more of this and that might change.

Prophet shook his head. "That was a different case."

Mick groaned, dropping his forehead onto the table. Or at least onto his textbook, not that that served as much of a cushion. "But why are they different?" It came out a lot more plaintive than he intended, and Mick lifted his head and scowled at Prophet as he broke into laughter. "It's not funny."

"Oh, trust me, it is."

Mick crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. "Want to go down to the range tomorrow?"

"All right, all right." Prophet held up his hands in surrender. "Let's take a break."

Mick didn't want to take a break; he wanted this law rubbish to make sense. Unfortunately, saying so wouldn't do much besides make him sound like a six year old. He was damn well going to drag Prophet down to the rifle range tomorrow—or at least convince Prophet to take them down since he still didn't have a car—though, and he was going to thoroughly enjoy kicking the man's arse at any and every target shooting competition he could get him to participate in.

Mick sighed leaned forward again, running a hand through his hair. It wasn't just the frustrating attempt at studying that had him on edge, and he knew it. Oh, the seemingly random contradictions certainly weren't helping, but Coop had convinced the locals to check Mrs. Addison's house while she was at her quilting club this evening, and by Mick's estimate they would have left the station fifteen or twenty minutes ago. And even if he knew perfectly well that Coop had been taking care of himself long before Mick had ever met him and had managed just fine between the time they'd shipped home and Mick had arrived here too, the fact was that he was here now, and it was more than a little annoying that he had to just sit around while his friend walked into a potentially dangerous situation. Okay, yes, a seventy year old woman's house in middle-of-nowhere Michigan probably wasn't mined or booby-trapped or had snipers on the neighboring roofs or anything else, but that wasn't the point. He was supposed to be there.

He started as a hand slapped his shoulder and then relaxed slightly as Prophet set a mug of something down in front of him. "Thanks," he muttered.

"Don't thank me yet, it's still coffee."

He shrugged. Not that his opinion of coffee had changed much in the last day, but it was something to drink. And judging by the color it was half milk and sugar anyway. He could deal with that.

"Any point in telling you they'll be fine?"

Mick glared at him.

"Yeah, that's about what I figured." Prophet pulled one of Mick's other textbooks over, seemingly at random, and began to scan through it, not saying anything else, and Mick was just as glad. The last thing he needed was someone trying to convince him of something that he knew perfectly well.

He fiddled with his coffee cup for a few seconds and then went back to flipping through the book in front of him. Not that he was really processing much of what he was seeing, but it was better than staring at the wall waiting for the phone to ring.

When the phone finally did ring, it was his rather than the office landline, and Mick answered quickly without checking the caller. "Coop?"

"Hey."

He bit back a sigh of relief. Seventy year old woman, not a high risk, no sense acting like an idiot. "Hold on, let me put you on speaker." It only took a second, and he held his phone out so Prophet was included as well. "How'd it go?"

Coop did sigh, although his had a definite edge of frustration. "Nothing. Not even a child's toy or two anywhere in the house."

"Damn it," Prophet muttered.

"Well, we knew it was a long shot."

"Toys could have been left over from a previous visit anyway," Mick said after a moment. "So it's not like it would have proved anything."

"Yeah. And given how…thin…our excuse for going in was, odds are that a judge would have thrown anything we'd found—short of Emily herself, anyway—out if it ever had to go to trial."

"Hell, I still can't believe you managed to get a warrant at all," Prophet said with a snort. "But did you manage to keep the visit from her?"

"We didn't go in until she'd been clear for twenty minutes, and we pulled out when the car on her sent word back that she was leaving her meeting. There's a slight possibility that one of the neighbors might have noticed that something was going on since her dogs started barking the second we stepped out of the cars and didn't stop until we got back in, but there weren't any calls to the 911 switchboard or anything like that so hopefully it won't come up."

"Well, all the neighbors except Mrs. Keady think she's a busybody and probably don't go out of their way to talk to her," Mick said.

"That's what we're hoping." Coop sighed again. "Look, I know you finished your calls and said you hadn't come up with anything even remotely suspicious, but I want you to walk through her timeline again. Try and pinpoint any large blocks of time unaccounted for, anything like that."

"She's retired," Prophet pointed out. "There's going to be a lot of time unaccounted for."

"I know, but if she's stealing hours to visit Emily somewhere, it's another way you might be able to spot it. Any word on her son?"

Prophet shook his head. "Garcia thought she had something, but it turned out to be just a small time forger based out of Louisville. We passed the info on—figured the locals could handle it or call in the white collar division themselves if they want to—but it doesn't help us much."

"If nothing else, it's some goodwill for the bureau down there. Might come in handy eventually. Keep on it; let me know what comes up. I'll do the same from this end; I think our next step is going to be trying to keep a tail on her full time for the next day or two, but the department isn't large enough that they can spare officers for weeks of effort."

"Thanks, Coop," Mick said, and Prophet echoed his words before the line cut off. "Guess there's not much else we can do tonight," Mick said after a moment. At least not besides studying, and he had no desire to do any more reading at the moment.

"Yeah." Prophet shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. "Come on, I'll give you a ride home."

"Damn it!"

Mick winced as Prophet slammed the piece of chalk down into the tray. That wasn't going to be useable again. "Come on, mate, let's have a break." It had been a frustrating morning going back through notes and calls and everything else and trying to map out a schedule on the chalkboard, and he was more than ready to grab a quick lunch and maybe fire off a few rounds down at the range to help clear his mind.

Prophet didn't move, and after a moment, Mick caught his arm and tugged lightly. And then rocked back abruptly as Prophet yanked his arm out of his grasp and spun on him. There was no sign of the relatively easy-going guy he'd become used to working with; this was someone who was very angry and unless Mick missed his guess, very, very dangerous.

"Calm down!" Mick snapped as Prophet's eyes flashed. It might not be the most intelligent thing to do—under the circumstances and given what little he knew of Prophet's past, that probably would be 'back off fast'—but…well, he'd never been the 'back off' sort of guy.

Prophet glared at him for a few more long seconds, hands clenched, and then he closed his eyes and some of the tension seemed to run out of him. Not all of it, but he did take a slight step backwards and relaxed his hands before he opened them again, and when he did, it came with a muttered, "Sorry. That wasn't directed at you."

"Kind of figured," Mick said, feeling his shoulders relax again as well as the Prophet that he was familiar with returned. "I mean, I understand that it's irritating to try and explain the same law to me three times in a row, but if you were going to bloody my nose for that, it would have made more sense to do it last night."

The attempt at a joke got a snort out of Prophet, along with the slightest twitch of his lips. "Never saw much point in punching people in the nose when there are more damaging places to hit. But having said that, taking a break is probably a very good idea. Want to grab something at the…?" He jerked his thumb towards the back door and presumably the restaurant-and-bar on the other side of the street.

"Works for me." It took all of two minutes to get there, and Mick glanced over as the waitress waved at them to take a table. "Can I ask what did set you off? You seemed fine when we got in this morning." No happier than Mick had been to start going through their stacks of paper again, maybe, but that wasn't exactly a red flag.

He shook his head. "Just frustrated. Was really hoping they'd find her last night. I mean, on one hand I knew it was a long shot, but at least it was a chance." He shook his head again.

"It's not over yet," Mick said. "I mean, I'm not in the habit of kidnapping preteens, but if I was, I don't think I'd be keeping them in my basement."

"Garcia says there's no other property in her name. And if we're wrong and it wasn't Mrs. Addison that grabbed her, she's probably already…."

Dead and buried—or at least disposed of—Prophet didn't say, but then, he didn't need to. "We knew that going in," Mick pointed out.

"Yeah. But she's just a kid, and I..."

"You want to go down to the range for a bit after we eat?" Mick asked, deciding that a change of subject was in order when Prophet looked away, showing no sign of continuing with whatever he'd been about to say. "Maybe thinking about something else for a bit will help."

"Yeah, because putting a gun in my hands right about now sounds like a great idea."

"You're wearing a sidearm, mate."

"Oh. Right." He shook his head, flushing slightly. "Guess I'm still getting used to that."

Putting his on in the morning had become so much a habit for Mick during his time in the military that not wearing had never stopped feeling wrong, and as much as he didn't plan on admitting it, it was nice to be back in a position where doing so was normal. He could see how that could be different for someone who wasn't used to wearing one, though, even if it did leave him suddenly curious about how the man that Prophet had killed had died. Although bringing that up wasn't likely to raise the tone of the conversation any—nor did Prophet have any requirement to answer him anyway—so he stuck with the original topic. "So what about it?"

"Suppose I ought to do something to make you feel better about not being able to keep basic search and seizure procedure straight," Prophet said, and if his smile looked a little forced, at least it was a smile. "Although if it's competition you're looking for, you'd be better off getting one of the range instructors involved."

Mick grinned. "I'm perfectly fine with showing you up."