A/N: I have not forgotten! But I have been rather busy... I've got finals in two weeks so I am trying the best I can to get the next chapter, which has Mike doing Mike-ish things, written before then... But after that, I'm FREE!

I probably would have had this up yesterday, if it wasn't for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special (I can't believe Moffat wrote something good!)! If there are any Whovians out there, I'm sure you understand.


Connie awoke to the feeling of bed sheets that were not hers. She looked around the room; small beams of light emanated from the curtains blocking the deep sun. Sinking into her pillow, she tried to think about everything that had happened. After leaving the hospital, Morales took her to her apartment and TJ took Mike to his hotel so that they both could collect their respective belongings. Morales and TJ had requested two neighboring rooms, since it is easier to protect them in one area, and the hotel happened to give them conjoining rooms. They did not get to the hotel until 4 AM and looking over at the clock, Connie determined that she got about eight hours of sleep. Getting out of bed, she checked her phone for messages and went to take a shower.


She was just finishing her hair and makeup when there was a knock at the adjoining door. Opening it, she found Mike on the other side. Immediately, she noticed his relaxed appearance. He wore his suit sans tie, something he would normally only do after a long day.

Mike was the first to speak, "If you're hungry, I went to the deli across the street and got us some lunch". He gestured towards a small table behind him.

"That sounds… great", she was caught off guard but affably smiled at him.

"You sound less then enthused."

"I was just finishing getting dressed, hadn't got to the point where I was thinking about eating… but I haven't eaten in a while."

She followed him into his room, and he removed their lunch from the paper bags as she sat down.

"What are you thinking about?", he questioned.

"I don't know, a lot has happened…", she paused and grabbed their drinks out of the carrier, "There was a text on my phone from Carlos, he said that they're keeping Maria a bit longer, but my mother is going home."

"That's great", he replied, optimistically.

"Yeah", she agreed, distantly.

"Is there something wrong with that?"

Connie drew her attention back to the moment, "No, no, of course not."

Sitting down, Mike gave her a side-glance look, silently asking what is wrong.

While opening her sandwich, Connie took a deep breath and began, "It's Maria. I can't believe this has happened to her….Until, last night at the hospital, I hadn't seen or spoken to her in…probably more than a year."

He was surprised by her admission, "Why not?"

"Since I've been back here, she's only come up here from San Diego twice, maybe. There was a point, not too long after I got here, Mom…um, she was read her Last Rights, and the doctors told us to prepare ourselves….But Maria stayed in San Diego and I don't think we've really talked since then…she usually calls Dad. Carlos worries about her and tries to keep tabs on what she's doing, but he does not talk to her that often either."

"Oh", was all Mike could think to say.

"Don't get me wrong, God knows it took a lot for her to leave her abusive boyfriend and start over in a new city, but…."

He nodded knowingly.

Connie turned her attention back to her food, "But, I should really stop talking, I'm sure you don't want to hear about my family drama", she felt like she was saying too much.

"Not at all, Connie, friends talk… don't they? ", he said, nonchalantly, trying not to make the moment awkward. However, he was not successful, as his eyes revealed much stronger emotions. Their eyes locked. Both of them thought of the kiss they shared the day before, but neither of them spoke about the incident.

"You know this is isn't your fault, right?", Mike asked, trying to recover.

"She could have been killed because of me", Connie said, forcefully.

"None of it is your fault", Mike matched her in resoluteness.

"That's easy to say, Mike, but…...", she trailed off and gave him a vexed look. Foreseeing that the direction of their conversation was going nowhere, Connie stood and gathered her trash.


Later: 3:00 PM.

"Whenever TJ gets here we're going to do the walkthrough with Dr. Cruz at his house. Like to join us?", Morales asked, shuffling around papers on his desk.

"Sure", Mike paused, "Did CSU get anything out of the house?"

"No, but Maria had traces of two DNA profiles under her nails. We're running them both, but you know, we probably have one of them in custody—we're just hoping his accomplice had been in the system."

"Were you able to talk to Maria this morning?"

"No, but Dr. Cruz said that we will be able to later today."

"Alright", Mike yawned, "When do you think TJ will be here?"

"Half an hour, hopefully. But if it makes your afternoon start any better, there is fresh coffee in the break room."

Mike stood up, "Sounds good."

As he made his way to the break room, he checked his Blackberry. No text from Connie. He was not sure what he was waiting for, there was not a reason why he would be expecting a text from her—except for, of course, just to hear from her. He grabbed a mug from the cabinet, in the break room, and poured himself a cup.

"Afternoon detective", a voice startled him out of his thoughts.

Mike turned around to find Connie's father sitting at a table in the corner, drinking coffee and reading the paper. Mike briefly looked around the room looking for someone else, but Dr. Cruz was staring directly at him.

"Good morn- afternoon, Dr. Cruz", Mike replied, approaching him.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

"No, I just didn't see anyone in here."

"Would you like to sit?", Jose gestured at the chair across from him.

"Sure."

"I'm sorry, I don't remember your name from last night."

"No, of course not", Mike stopped pulling out the chair "Mike Cutter…I work for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office", he stuck his hand out to shake with Jose.

"Oh!", Jose exclaimed, as they shook hands, "Baseball guy. Connie's old boss."

Mike laughed as he sat down, "Yeah"

"Well, it's very nice to meet you, District Attorney Cutter. I've heard a lot about you from Connie."

Mike smiled at that bit of information, "Sir, please call me Mike... And you have?"

Cruz was affable, "Please, no sirs—it's Jose. And yes, I've only ever heard good things."

"Then Connie was definitely talking about someone else. Jack McCoy, perhaps?"

"No, I definitely remembered when she did mention you, after watching your guys on Sportscenter."

Mike chuckled, "Well, I've defiantly been remembered for worse."

Cruz laughed as well.

"So you came all the out here from New York?", Jose questioned.

"Yeah", Mike shifted uncomfortably and took a drink of coffee, "Well, I was the lead prosecutor on Spencer's wife's murder case."

Jose gave him a sympathetic smile, "It's good you're here to help. And I'm sure Connie is glad to see an old friend.", He paused, "Would you like the sports page?"

Mike picked his head up, "Yes, please."

"Here it is", Jose tossed the sports section in front of him.

"Thanks", Mike picked it up, "So, Jose, how about those Angels?"


Connie, Jose, Mike, Morales, and TJ walked through the wrecked home: family pictures thrown to the ground, lamps toppled, furniture overturned.

"Your mother was just saying how much she hated that ugly lamp", Jose tried to joke, looking at the broken living room lamp.

"Yeah… you mean the one that was passed down from Grandma, who once rescued it from a fire", Connie replied, withholding laugher.

"The sentimental value doesn't make it any less ugly" he retorted, laughing.

After a few moments, Connie announced, "I'm going to look around up stairs…see if- what they took."

"And I think I will take a look around outside in the light", TJ added.

"Alright", Morales replied, nodding his head to the two.

After a few minutes of following Morales and Jose around, when they went to look around the family's office, Mike casually stayed behind in the living room, and snuck up the steps. He found Connie digging through a wrecked room he assumed to be hers. Upon hearing him approach, she turned around.

"They have a special fondness for electronics…", she stood and gestured around the room, "Jewelry is here but they took my laptop and backup external hard drive."

He slowly entered the room, "Anything special on either of them?"

"No, not really, just personal documents… tax information, pictures, and such."

"I doubt this is about committing identity fraud", Mike stated, as he took in her childhood room.

"But what do they want. They also stole Malone and Bell's computers—what are they looking for?", she began to pick some of her items off the ground and placed them on dresser. Mike bent down and picked up some things with her.

He suddenly froze.

"What?", Connie asked, not able to see what stopped him.

The corners of his mouth curled into a dimple-revealing smile, as he reached under some clothes and pulled out a black baseball cap.

"I was wondering where this went", he said, amusement clear in his voice, holding up his old Yankee's cap that he had given Connie during the baseball game they went to before she left New York. The cap was inside out and when pushed through top, he could clearly see his name written in marker on the inside tag.

"I…um… you had left that with me…", Connie began to blush.

"Yeah, I remember", he continued to smile.

"You can have it back… if you want…since it's yours", she said, speaking fast and stumbling over her words.

"No, no", Mike replied, stepping closer to her, "If I remember correctly, it looks much better on you."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that…"

He placed the cap on Connie's head.

His voice was just above a whisper, "Absolutely beautiful."

Her whole body felt flush at his flirtation. Meeting his intense gaze, her heart began to flutter. Mike reached up and stroked her cheek. Closing her eyes at his touch, Connie placed her hand over his.

Ring!

His ringing cellphone made Connie jump. Mike took a deep breath and gave her an apologetic smile. Coming back to reality, she backed out of his grasp. He ignored his phone and stared at her with a concerned expression.

"I'm just a bit on edge….", she assured him, taking off the baseball cap and running her fingers through her hair.

He hesitantly nodded and dug his phone out of his pocket, "It's Jack."

"I'm going to see if they've got anything…", Connie pointed out the door and began to move around Mike.

"Okay."

Connie could hear him answer the phone as she left the room. Once in the hall, she almost ran into her father.

"Dad, you scared me!"

"Sorry, Hun."

Connie looked around; he was coming from his room, meaning that he would have had to pass hers.

"Where's Morales?", she asked, trying to subtlety gauge whether he had seen her and Mike.

"Downstairs with TJ", he displayed nothing to indicate that he had seen them together.

Mike came out of her room, "Things are starting to make a little more sense."


LAPD:

"I hear that you guys have got something?", Lieutenant Gonzales asked, walking into the full conference room.

"Yup", TJ verified, looking over at Mike.

"This letter was sent to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office", Mike began, as Morales handed her a copy of the letter in question, "It's from Julia Spencer, Kyle Spencer's sister, singed to Miss Rubirosa."

Connie piped in, "Back when Mr. Cutter and I were prosecuting Spencer for his wife's murder, I was able to convince her to testify against her brother…. And it looks like she was reaching out…sort of…."

Mike picked it back up, "In that three-page letter, she details how her brother thought that his wife had given her a flash drive with information on his extracurricular activities. And to protect herself, she told her brother that she had given that material to Miss Rubirosa in a package with the instructions to open it, if anything ever happened to her."

"Really", the lieutenant seemed encouraged, "Where is this package?"

"Well, that's the thing", Connie said, ominously, "At the bottom of page two, she reveals that there was never any such package. Julia's sister-in-law had told Kyle Spencer that she had given the package to Julia to try to keep herself safe, but he killed her anyway because he didn't believe that his sister would turn him in."

"You've got to be kidding me", Lieutenant Gonzales said, as she sat down at the table next to her detectives and across from Dekker, Connie, and Mike, "So… let me get this straight. Julia Spencer went on to use the same plan against her brother that her late sister-in-law had used?"

"Well", Morales answered, "According to the letter, she tried to tell her brother that the flash drive did not exist but he didn't believe her and when she wouldn't…"

"Because she couldn't", TJ interjected.

"…give it to him, he threatened to kill her, so she had no choice but to say she had given it to Connie", Morales finished.

"All of this is over something that does not exist", Dekker summarized, flatly.

"When did she send this?" the lieutenant asked, trying to process the new information.

"It's post stamped almost four weeks ago", Mike answered.

"And we're just now getting it?"

"Like I said, it was addressed to Miss Rubirosa. No one at our office knew what to do with it, apparently, it didn't occur to anyone to forward it, and so it went person to person until DA McCoy got ahold of it this afternoon…. But that's not the worse part…."

Gonzales stifled a painful laugh, "It gets worse?"

"The NYPD is unable to find Julia Spencer—she hasn't been to work and she's not at home", Mike replied.

Lieutenant Gonzales exhaled and began to give orders, "Alright, well, I just got off the phone with Dr. Cruz and he said we could come by the hospital and speak with Maria, so Morales, Connie, and I, will do that…. Jaruszalski, why don't you and Cutter coordinate with the NYPD on Ms. Spencer's disappearance, and take a look at Spencer's known associates in New York, see if anything comes up."


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