Logan POV

By Sunday afternoon, things were starting to come together.

Goren had called earlier to tell me about the substance from the fire place. The lab had confirmed that there was ash from charcoal and Styrofoam mixed in with the expected oak and hickory.

"What about Rhonda?" I asked him because I knew that Eames had planned to get a blood sample.

"She is supposed to be meeting Eames at the lab to get that taken care of in the morning. She was agreeable," he added.

"So we're thinking it was accidental? Did Eames ask her about the charcoal? And who throws Styrofoam into a fireplace?"

"Rhonda claimed not to know anything about that. She said that Raleigh handled the fires."

"Of course he did," I muttered. "So he commits suicide by stupidity and then she dumps the body in the river so that she can maintain access to his money. Is that where we are?"

Goren didn't have a response for that. I think he was just as frustrated with this whole thing as I was. Not only was the evidence not matching up, but Ross was being an ass about it, too.

Eames was going to get into a whole lot of trouble if he busted her for sharing evidence.

After our conversation, I sat at the kitchen table and started making notes. I thought that maybe if I had all of the facts laid out in front of me that maybe I could start connecting the dots. I felt like I needed to turn up something since it was because of me that we were all involved. Okay, not completely because of me, but still…

Carolyn came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders, kneading the tight muscles.

I sat back and closed my eyes for a minute, enjoying the feel of her touch.

"Goren told me about you today," I said suddenly.

"What?"

"He told me you were in town. I guess Eames told him."

"What did you say?"

"I thanked him for letting me know," I replied casually.

"That's it?"

"Yeah. Well, I think I said something about us having been just partners."

"Mike, he's going to figure it out."

"Because of what I said?" I asked in surprise. I sat up straight in the chair and scooted back from the table so that I could pull her down onto my lap.

"Yeah. He's smart. He'll know you were trying to play it off."

"I think he's got enough on his mind right now," I countered. I pulled her against me and ran my hands through her hair. I tried to remember why we'd been hiding in the first place.

Oh yeah. Because I was a chicken. And I didn't want to look like a fool for letting her break my heart twice.

But after all we'd been through this past weekend, I felt a renewed sense of security in her commitment.

We were together. We were going to move in together. Why in the world would I want to try to hide our relationship?

"But if he figures it out, then he figures it out."

"Yeah?" she asked with a slow, sexy smile that sent a flash of arousal through me.

"Yeah," I replied quietly. I leaned in and kissed her leisurely, enjoying the slow build of intensity.

She pulled back much too soon for my liking, but she was still smiling.

"I've got dinner on the stove," she told me, getting up from my lap.

"Let it burn," I suggested with a grin. "We'll order out."

She laughed and went over to the stove to stir whatever she had cooking, and then she came back to the table.

I was back to sorting notes.

"So where are Raleigh's kids?" she asked absently as she resumed massaging my shoulders.

"Not here," I replied as I sifted through the papers. "One's in Michigan, one's in Arizona, and the other is…Connecticut. All reports indicate that none of them had much to do with their old man."

"Huh," she commented as she continued to read my notes.

I knew that tone. She had something. And damn I had missed working with her. I'd almost forgotten how smart she is and how intuitive she could be when working a case. Wheeler was a good cop, but she was no Barek. And Falacci…don't even get me started.

"What huh?" I asked when she didn't say anything further.

"The one in Connecticut…" she said thoughtfully.

"Yeah?"

"He's a cop?"

"Yeah, he's with the Danbury PD…shit!" I yelled. I stood up quickly and grabbed the photo-copied personal information sheet up off the table. "You don't think…"

"You said it. She has a thing for cops. And this guy is what…forty-two? That's a hell of a lot closer to her age than sixty-eight. What else do we know about Matthew Raleigh?"

"Hardly anything. I never really looked at their sheets. They weren't involved in the old man's life. Shit," I said again. "So you think she met him first?"

"What do you think?" she asked, wanting me to work it through from the beginning.

"She met Matthew. He's estranged from his father. She likes cops but she also likes money and when she realizes how much money the old guy had, they hatch out a plan."

Carolyn was nodding like crazy the whole time I was talking.

"We need to establish a connection between Matthew and Rhonda," she stated. "It's just a guess right now. But it would explain why she was with Walter."

"Yeah. Women like that don't usually stray from a type," I added thoughtfully.

I'd been her type. I shuddered at the memory and wished like hell that I could wipe it away altogether.

"What it doesn't explain though is why she called you," Carolyn remarked. "How did it end with you two? I mean, I know what you did, but what happened after that? Would she have thought she had a chance with you again? Or that she could keep you from investigating her?"

"Carolyn…" I began, shaking my head. I didn't want to dig into that moment of my life any more than was necessary.

"Mike, quit thinking about it from a personal aspect. Think about it as facts."

"She…um…she wasn't mad. I was mortified. She wanted to keep things going, but I couldn't do it. She…um…she tried to provoke me. She wanted me to treat her bad."

"So you were too nice."

"Yeah, I guess. I didn't want to use her. I mean, not once I realized that was what I was doing."

"So she knows you're a nice guy. And she knows you probably still feel guilty about what you did. So if she plays up to you and leads you in one specific direction, you might not be inclined to look elsewhere."

"You think she knew the body was going to turn up?"

"I think that she and Matthew planned the murder. I think they poisoned him with the fumes from the fire and then, most likely, Matthew hauled him away and dumped him into the river. As long as Walter was only missing, then Rhonda could keep spending all of his money. Once he was dead, it would be split three ways. And that's assuming Matthew even knew he was in the will."

"We need to find evidence that these two knew each other," I said. It was all supposition and theory, but it fit too damn well not to be right.

I had never understood why Rhonda would be with an elderly man after running through the equivalent of a precinct full of cops.

But being with him as a means to an end…that was exactly Rhonda.

"I'm going to call Goren," I told her as she went back to the stove. I went to grab my phone, but then I made a detour to where she stood and wrapped my arms around her waist from behind.

"Thank you. I had almost forgotten what a great detective you are. You should think about going into the consulting business. You'd make millions."

I kissed her on the neck and then went to make my call.

Except I called Eames instead of Goren. It was her case, after all.

She could fill him in.

Hell, she probably wouldn't have to say a word. He would know all of the details just by looking at her.

Bobby POV

I had hoped Alex would make it earlier, but she ended up taking a detour to talk to Rhonda about giving a blood sample. After that, she'd gotten stuck in traffic, so it took longer than we'd expected.

She sent me a text to let me know about Rhonda's scheduled test, and she also filled me in about the lab report which confirmed our suspicions of charcoal and Styrofoam.

I called Logan because I knew he was just as into this case as I was. His theory was that it had been an accident, but that she'd dumped the body so she could keep his money. I couldn't argue with that at this point.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when Alex arrived.

"How's everything?" she asked vaguely when I let her into the apartment. Her eyes darted around the room as though she was trying to look at everything but my injured area.

"I'm fine," I told her as I followed her into the kitchen. I liked that she was getting more comfortable here. She didn't wait for me to take the lead.

"Did you put ice on…it?"

I stopped in my tracks. Is she really asking me if I iced my balls? This was a conversation I never dreamed I'd be having. But since I was, I decided to be difficult about it.

"On my jaw? Yeah, a couple of times."

She played it cool. Of course, I didn't expect anything less from her.

"It looks a lot better," she commented. She tentatively reached out and touched the bruised area on my face. "The swelling seems to have gone down."

"Uh huh," I mumbled. I was enjoying the feel of her touch too much to think of real words.

"But I was actually asking if you'd put ice on your…other injury," she said as her eyes flicked briefly downward. I had traded my jeans for sweatpants to allow things to have a little more room, but I was suddenly wishing for the confinement that the denim had provided.

"I…um…no."

"You need to," she said, turning away from me and opening the freezer. "It'll help."

"And you know this because…"

She kept her back to me as she pulled out an ice cube tray and then searched through my drawers for a Ziploc.

"Eames," I said when she didn't answer my question. She finally stood up and turned around to look at me.

"I asked Rodgers," she admitted.

"You what?"

Oh my God. Please tell me she did not tell Rodgers that it was me. The last thing in the world I needed was for Rodgers to be thinking about my equipment.

"I didn't tell her it was you," she insisted. "I was concerned for you. You couldn't walk normal even after an hour. I asked her if you needed to see a doctor."

"I'm fine," I said again. But I took the bag of ice that she held out to me and then I turned and went into the living room.

"Don't be mad," she said as she followed me. "I just knew you wouldn't get it checked out."

"I'm not mad," I sighed as I sat down slowly. Truth be told, I was still sore. And it shouldn't be taking so long for the pain to go away, so I was worried about it. "What did she say?"

"She said to ice them…it…the area as much as possible for the first twenty-four hours," she told me, stumbling through the words in a very un-Eames-like fashion.

It was kind of amusing how flustered she was getting just talking about it.

I mean really. This was Eames.

There wasn't a shy bone in her body, and some of the things she talked about, the things she'd learned from her days in Vice, well…

Okay, I really needed to think about something else.

"How bad did Ross chew your ass after we left?" I asked so that we could move the topic of conversation off of my balls.

"No more than usual," she replied, but then she nodded her head at my hand and I realized I was still holding the bag of ice.

The best thing to do would be to shove it down my pants, but I just didn't see myself doing that with Alex sitting five feet away from me. But if I didn't, if I just set it on top, then the heavy material of the sweatpants wouldn't allow for much of the coolness to seep through.

She seemed to recognize my dilemma.

"I'm going to get something to drink," she said, standing up quickly and heading for the kitchen. "You want something?"

"Yeah," I agreed, and then as soon as she was past me, I let loose the string on my pants and jammed the ice down into place.

I closed my eyes as I tried to adjust to the freezing sensation. This sucks.

And then I opened my eyes and Alex was standing in front of me, holding out a can of soda.

I still had my hand down my pants.

Great, Goren. I quickly let go of the ice and pulled my hand out.

"There are some places that aren't meant to be frozen," I mumbled as I accepted the drink from her outstretched hand. She smirked at me and went back to her chair.

"So Raleigh had been breathing in the fumes for a period of time," she said after taking a drink. I was grateful that she was getting back to the case.

"And we'll find out about Rhonda tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"What else do we know?"

"Not much. Raleigh's three kids are the sole heirs. They're supposed to divide everything equally. The total estate is estimated at approximately twenty-four million dollars."

I let out a low whistle. That was some serious change. That would explain Rhonda's interest in him. Maybe. I was still confused as to what made her switch from cops to sugar daddies, unless she was just slow to realize that most cops were broke.

"You think there's any truth to her claim that he was going to change his will?"

"I don't know. If there was, that just makes her even less of a suspect. Why kill him now?"

"Unless she didn't mean to," I suggested.

"You think it was an accident."

"I'm wondering if it was an accident that it happened now. Carbon monoxide in small quantities can just make a person feel like they have the flu. Run down, lethargic…enough to make someone not care if a money-hungry bimbo was streaming through the bank accounts."

"But they were having sex," Alex argued. "She wasn't just keeping him drugged up."

"We don't know how recently they'd been having sex. Maybe she just used it as a means to get her foot in the door. Then she started with the Styrofoam fires and was able to quit putting out."

"I wonder if she gave him the STD or if it was the other way around."

"You think he was having regular sex before she came along?"

"I would bet that a man with twenty-four million dollars would have sex any time the urge hit him."

"So go back to the kids," I continued. "Where are they?"

"Spread out and apparently all estranged. That would lend some truth to her statement that he would change his will. If his kids didn't like him and now this beautiful young woman was in his life…it's not a stretch."

"You think she's beautiful?" I asked. And yeah, it was slightly off point, but I was surprised to hear her say that. She gave me a funny look before she replied.

"Well, I think she's a bitch. And she's loud and somewhat obnoxious. And she apparently has a leg like Pele, but yeah, she's also good-looking."

"No," I argued with a shake of my head.

"What? She's every guy's dream. Tall, thin, big…"

"Eames," I interrupted. For some reason I wasn't sure if I could handle the word breasts coming out of her mouth.

I don't know why I was having so much trouble today. Maybe I'd been on suspension too long. Or maybe it was the ice down my pants.

But whatever it was, I was looking at things differently today.

"She's not every guy's dream," I told her.

"Well, Logan seemed to like her just fine."

"Logan is wracked with remorse over his drunken encounters with her," I told her. I had to stand up for the guy.

"Encounters?" she asked with a grin. And I should've known she would pick up on my use of the plural form of the word.

I loved how quick her mind worked.

"So the kids," I said, pulling us back to the case. "They don't live around here and they're not involved in the old man's life."

"Right. Well except for one. He lives in Connecticut."

"We should look at him, just to rule him out."

"Maybe not," she said as she looked over the papers.

"Maybe not look at him?"

"Maybe not rule him out. He's a cop," she said, giving me a pointed look.

"And we both know how much Rhonda likes cops," I replied.

We barely had time to discuss the possibilities when Alex's phone rang.

"It's Logan," she told me just before she answered.

I used the opportunity of her being distracted to remove the baggie from my pants. It was now filled with water and my pants were slightly damp from the moisture coming off the bag.

Great.

I got up from the couch and tossed the bag into the sink.

I had to admit that the ice had helped somewhat. I was able to move with more ease.

I went down the hall and into my bedroom so that I could change pants. I wasn't going to sit around with a wet stain on my crotch.

She hung up as I got back into the living room.

"He came to the same conclusion we did," she told me. "We need to look at the son."

TBC...