Bobby POV
Appreciation of my new-found happiness was short lived. Oh, I was ecstatic with my personal life. I mean, Alex had told me that she loves me. I don't think I could be any happier than I was at the moment those words left her lips.
And afterward, we had enthusiastically celebrated the milestone up against my front door. I say enthusiastically because Alex got a little more vocal than usual, and one of my neighbors came over and knocked on the door, just to make sure we were okay. That was the first time I ever heard Alex giggle, and it will be a sound forever in my head.
But this morning, I woke to chaos. There was a banging on my door that brought me out of a sound sleep. I hopped out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans.
"Who is it?" Alex asked sleepily.
"I have no idea."
A check of the clock told me it was a little before five. I grabbed my weapon and headed for the door. I heard Alex moving around in the bedroom, throwing on clothes, but I didn't wait for her.
"Goren, open up!" Logan yelled. I relaxed slightly and put the safety back on my gun.
"What the hell, Logan?" I asked when I opened the door. He came in, but didn't say anything. Instead, he shoved a newspaper in my face.
"Logan?" Alex asked as she came down the hall. She had dressed hastily in jeans and a t-shirt, and if Logan was surprised to see her in such a state at my place, he didn't comment. And that had me worried because normally the situation would've begged for a classic Logan one-liner.
I took the paper from Logan, and read the headline: NYPD Detectives Attempt Cover-Up
The secondary line directly below stated: Medical Examiner Involved
"What the hell is this?" Alex asked loudly, having come to read the article along with me. There was a photo of her and me, a stock photo from an old crime scene, but the implication was clear that we were the ones supposedly working on the cover-up.
"I'd say Hot Tub Harry just launched phase two of his attack," Logan said. And I thought I'd hated Judge Garrett three years ago. Those feelings were nothing compared to the emotions that simmered through me now.
"Holy shit, we're in it deep now," I muttered. "Where are Carolyn and Liz?"
"They're headed for the hospital. Rodgers wanted to show Ross the paper."
"I should've been ready for this," I said. "I know how his mind works." I handed the paper to Alex so that I could pace. "God damn it, I should have known."
"Bobby, you couldn't have known. We didn't even consider him a suspect until last night. Even if you had anticipated something like this, it would've been too late to do anything about it."
"If we had gone to the chief last night, we would've been credible. Now, after this article is out, we look like we're only telling him because we have to. We look like we have something to hide." I kept walking through the small apartment, afraid that if I stopped I was going to hit something.
"Well, we are trying to hide something," Alex said reasonably. "But we're doing it for the right reasons."
"This kind of thing always gets me into trouble," I said, more to myself than anyone else. "How do I always end up here?"
Alex stepped in front of me to stop my pacing and get my attention.
"Because you're a good man who does the honorable thing, even when it's hard." She put her hand on my forearm and her touch settled me a bit.
"Goren, relax man," Logan added. "It's not that bad. Ross knew the truth before this. He'll back you up."
"Ross. Is going to back me up. Right."
"Rodgers is on our side. She'll get him there, too," Logan assured me. And he could be right. She had already gotten him to take a sick day today rather than admit to having been shot, so she definitely had some influence over him.
"Okay. Okay. Garrett's trying to throw us off. He's trying to make us play catch up, do damage control. While we're doing that, he comes after another one of us," I said finally.
"So what do we do instead?" Alex asked. I looked around and realized that both she and Logan were staring at me intently. Both were ready to do battle by my side. I felt a surge of confidence. Judge Garrett was going to have one hell of a fight on his hands this time. I wasn't the same man as before. My weakness before had been my mother's vulnerability and my own self-doubt. But now my mother was gone, God rest her soul, and my confidence was back in spades.
"How's Ross healing?" I asked Logan. He paused at my non sequitur, but then, knowing how my mind works, he filled me in without question.
"Rodgers said he's a miracle to modern medicine. They're talking about letting him out today."
"Okay. Okay, then, we let Ross handle the media backlash. We let him handle the brass. But from the hospital. He needs to stay there today. We're going to sniff out Ethan Garrett. He'll lead us to the old man."
Logan waited while Alex and I showered and dressed. Independently of course. Logan remained impassive, although he did waggle his eyebrows at me a few times when Alex headed off for the shower. I ignored him.
Alex volunteered to make the phone call to Ross, since he liked her best, so she took care of that while I accessed the database so that I could find out who was Ethan Garrett's parole officer. I pulled up the information on Harold Garrett's p.o. as well, but I had no doubt that this would be a dead end.
I was grateful that Alex made the call to Ross instead of me. I saw her have to pull the phone away from her ear a couple of times, but ultimately, he fell in line squarely behind us. He was going to talk to the brass, and construct a follow-up press release. That said, he also suggested we stay the hell away from 1PP for the time being.
Logan spoke with Carolyn and asked her to track down the reporter who wrote the article to see if we could shake anything loose from that angle.
By the time we left my apartment, it was seven o'clock. I was very conscious of my surroundings, since now it seemed we had stalkers. I didn't see anyone, though, and we hustled to Logan's SUV.
We spent the morning doing typical detective work. Ethan Garrett had been out of jail for two years, and had been checking in regularly. However, since his dad's parole last month, Ethan's p.o. said he'd been AWOL. His last known address was a bust, as was tracking down Ethan's former high school buddies. None of them had seen Ethan since the trial in 2005.
Harold Garrett had not once checked in with his parole office. The address he'd given him wasn't even a legitimate address. I scribbled a note in my binder, reminding myself to report that to the p.o.'s boss. I'm not normally a whistle-blower, but something so basic as confirming if a paroled felon's address is legit, well…I just couldn't let that one go.
"Don't you miss this, Logan?" Alex asked after our fifth strikeout of the day.
"Miss what? Wasting half my day chasing bogus leads? Wearing my shoes out walking around this city?" he asked. He barked out a laugh. "Hell yeah, I miss it."
"Hey, aren't you supposed to be at work today?" I asked suddenly. It just hit me that Mike and Carolyn had completely put their lives on hold just to help us.
"I had some time coming to me," he replied casually as though it was no big deal. Mike worked for our old boss, Jimmy Deakins. Whenever the chief of D's got sick of me, that would probably be where I ended up, too.
"And Carolyn?" Alex asked.
"She only does consultation work now so she makes her own hours. It's kind of nice, actually. With a mind and reputation like yours, Goren, you might consider that one of these days." It was a hell of a compliment, and it struck me silent.
"We've got to get some lunch," Alex said, breaking the quiet. I checked my watch and was surprised to find that it was after two. Alex, who had managed to steal the keys from Logan first thing this morning, maneuvered the SUV into a parking spot near a little diner in Brooklyn.
"Okay," Alex began after we had placed our orders. "Looks like it's going to be Plan B."
"What's Plan B?" I asked. I was apprehensive. Alex looked too smug. She looked at Logan and he gave her an encouraging nod. What the hell?
"You two making plans without me?" I asked. I gave Logan my best glare.
"Hey, leave me out of it, pal. This was her idea. While you were intimidating the landlord at Ethan's old place, she was hatching this thing up."
"Thanks for the back-up, Logan," Alex said sarcastically. "I appreciate it."
"So what's this plan?" I asked again, knowing full well that I wasn't going to like it.
"I think I need to go back to my place," she said. "Alone."
"What? No, no way."
"Now just wait a minute, Bobby. Hear me out. I go alone, but you and Logan are behind me keeping an eye on things. If Ethan was at my place looking for Liz, then the plan may not work. But, you know as well as I do, that Ethan has quite the ego on him, and I'm guessing that he didn't like getting punched and shot at by a woman. I would bet that however the list was arranged before, I've moved up to being next."
My stomach clenched and my heart was in my throat. No freakin way is Alex going to be bait. And then I looked at her and it hit me. Eames was going to be bait. This was the ultimate test of whether or not I could handle being in love with my partner. Could I? Get a grip, Goren. Of course I could handle it. I've been doing it for years.
I listened while Alex and Logan laid out the plan, and then added a few ideas of my own. I agreed with Alex that she was likely next on the hit list. But we had to account for everything, so the plan was for Carolyn and Liz to stay at the hospital with Ross. We didn't think, or we hoped anyway, that the Garretts knew which hospital Ross was in. Evasive measures had been used each time Liz had visited, since we had thought she was the target all along. We figured that if they stayed there, and Logan's house and my apartment stayed empty, then eventually our suspects would come to Alex's.
To increase our chances of luring them in, we wanted to make ourselves easy to follow. Working on the theory that they would be expecting us to be at work, we made a quick stop by my apartment to pick up the other SUV and then we separated from Logan.
Alex drove us downtown and parked as close to 1PP as we dared. Then she and I got out of the car.
"Bobby, you're crazy!" she yelled at me. Thank God I already knew what she was going to say, because she was a great actress.
"So you're always saying!" I shouted back. We were standing at the hood of the SUV near the back entrance of 1PP, an entrance we hoped no one of any importance would use. But we used it, and if our stalkers had been following us for any length of time, then they would know we used it.
"If you want to follow up on another one of your unfounded theories, then fine, but leave me out of it. We worked all weekend. I'm done – I'm going home."
"Come on, Eames," I said. I was losing my momentum because I hated fighting with her, even if it was only pretend.
"No, Goren. This mess is your fault," she insisted. "You figure it out. I'll see you tomorrow." And without a backwards glance, she climbed into the SUV and drove off, leaving me on the sidewalk. I stood there and stared after her, but peripherally, I watched for any cars to follow. I didn't see any, but that didn't make me feel any better.
I turned to make like I was going into the building, but then I backtracked and hoofed it two blocks over where Logan was waiting in his truck.
"We've got to go. I don't want her going into her place without us there," I told him.
"That was a hell of a display you guys put on," Logan said wryly as he whipped out into traffic. "I could hear you from two blocks away."
"Take the Brooklyn Bridge over to the BQE," I told him needlessly as we moved through the throng of cars on the busy Manhattan streets. "This time of day the traffic will move better."
"I'm not new, Goren. Relax. You told her to go up the FDR, right? We should beat her to Forest Hills."
I pulled out my cell phone and called Alex.
"Eames," she answered. Her voice far away and I could tell she had done as we discussed. She had me on speaker and the phone was still lying on the seat next to her. I didn't want her holding the phone to her ear in case they were close enough to notice, and I wanted her to have both hands on the wheel.
"Do you see them behind you?" I asked.
"No, nothing yet."
"Keep an eye out. They were watching."
"You saw them?"
"No, but I could tell. Couldn't you?"
"Yes," she confessed. In the old days, she would have never admitted to something just on a feeling, but I guess after so many years with me, I was starting to rub off on her.
"It's fine. I'm fine. Relax, Bobby," she added. And she was right. I really needed to relax. "Hey, Carolyn's calling. She might have something. I'll let you know when I get close to my place, okay?"
We disconnected, and I couldn't deny the sinking feeling that was creeping through me. I focused on my breathing, and leaned my head back on the seat. I replayed some of last night in my head: the sound of Alex giggling and the look in her eyes when she had turned to me to tell me that she loved me, too. I relaxed slightly.
"Holy shit," Logan said, causing me to sit straight up in the seat. I looked around us and realized we were in gridlock. The BQE was jammed, and we couldn't go forwards or backwards. And then my cell rang.
"Alex?"
"Bobby!" Alex yelled. "I just came out of the Midtown Tunnel and he rear-ended me. He's trying to run me off the road! Where are you?"
TBC...
A/N: Back entrance to 1PP? No idea. But it works for me.
