Bobby POV

We were getting the hang of keeping our personal lives separate from work.

And that probably sounds strange considering we've been pros at that for quite some time, but this was different.

This was not letting the professional intrude on the personal, rather than the other way around.

But when Alex locked the door and told me that the case was on the outside and we were inside, I was right there with her.

Because if we'd started discussing Kevin and Sean and what was up with her dad…well, we might've been up all night and then had to start the next day even more stressed.

But instead, we didn't talk about any of that.

Instead, we undressed each other in the foyer.

I'd driven her to the brink, repeatedly, while she'd stood there with her hands in my hair.

And then she'd gotten down onto the floor with me, taking me in slowly until I thought I would explode just from the anticipation.

I wanted to grab onto her hips and thrust deeply inside of her but I forced myself to wait.

To let her go at her pace.

She'd wanted the night to be about me, and in a way, it still was.

It was about me tuning into her and knowing what she needed.

About me being able to stay on course when she was floundering, rather than the other way around.

For the past decade, she'd been the constant in my life. The stabilizing force who always managed to keep me centered.

So as much as she felt like she'd been doing the taking for the past couple of days, it had been me who'd been doing it for years.

And really, aside from that, there were no losers here.

So I'd gently held onto her waist as she continued to sweetly torture me by almost, almost taking me completely in and then slowly reversing the motion.

I'd held on, biting my lip until she leaned down and kissed me. Then she'd run her tongue along my damaged lip before bringing her eyes to mine and that had been it.

Because her look had said it's your turn.

A switch was flipped and my control was lost.

In a flash, I'd rolled us and then turned her onto her stomach before pushing into her, hard like I'd wanted to do earlier.

For a split second, I was afraid that I might have hurt her, but she must have sensed my hesitation because she urged me to keep moving.

And that's not exactly how she said it.

In fact, she'd said it in a way that had me pounding into her with reckless abandon.

And somehow her relentless teasing had conversely served to prolong the inevitable because we went at it for quite some time, on the floor in the foyer, until we both collapsed in a satiated, breathless heap.

I was aware that I was covering her completely, pushing her into the thick carpeting, but when I tried to move, she stopped me.

"Don't go anywhere," she murmured. My lips were near her ear, so I kissed her there, lightly and reverently, a tender expression of love after the frantic coupling of moments ago.

"I wouldn't dream of it," I replied. "I just wanted to make sure that you could breathe."

She chuckled and I could feel the sound as much as hear it. And even though she'd told me not to move, I still shifted onto my side, taking her with me so that she was tucked against my chest.

We stayed like that for several long minutes until her stomach growled, prompting us to once again face reality.

But we still didn't talk about the case.

Not at all, in fact.

We talked about Ross and Liz, speculating where they might have run off to.

And we talked about Cathy and Steve, discussing the progress that the two of them were making with their reconciliation.

After dinner, we curled up together on the couch and watched a mindless movie, and then we went to bed.

It was a lovely example of domestic bliss.

Until the phone rang at two-twenty.

"This is what turns people homicidal," Alex muttered as she rolled away from me to answer the phone. "This right here. They should do a study on murderers in prison and I bet more than fifty percent of them were repeatedly awakened from a sound sleep by a ringing phone."

I chuckled sleepily at her grumblings as she brought the phone to her ear.

"Goren," she practically shouted. "And this had better be good…Kendra?"

Her voice quickly changed from irritated to distressed.

She sat up in the bed and so did I.

"When? Did he see you? Okay, stay right there," she said firmly as she got up. "We'll be there as fast as we can. Don't open the door, do you hear me?"

She hung up the phone and looked at me with worried eyes.

"Kendra went home," she said as she reached for her clothes. I started getting dressed, too, as she filled me in. "She left the kids at her sister's, but then she went back home because she said that she needed to be alone. That she had decisions that needed to be made."

"About Kevin," I stated knowingly.

"Right. Anyway, he'd told her about the car, but she thought he was creating the drama so that she'd feel sorry for him. She didn't believe there to be any kind of threat," she said. She paused for a moment, catching my eye before adding, "Bobby, he's out there right now."

"The guy?" I asked in alarm. "In the red Mercedes?"

"Yeah. I've got to call 9-1-1 and get someone in the vicinity to go to her house, but I don't want them to scare him off, either."

I nodded in agreement as I put on my shoes.

This could be a huge lead for us, but obviously it wasn't worth the risk of Kendra getting hurt.

Would the killer attempt to go into the house?

That wasn't his MO. At least not as we'd been able to determine so far.

So far, he'd attacked two firemen while they were outside of their homes. And of course, the one drug dealer.

And the whole thing was complete supposition, I reminded myself.

We really didn't know for sure who or what he was, or who or what he was interested in.

Within three minutes of receiving the call, we were on our way out the door. Alex had her cell to her ear as we hurried down the stairwell.

"This is Detective Alex Goren with Major Case, badge number 5798, and I need a unit to check out 42 Rose Avenue in Floral Park," she said to the 9-1-1 operator.

She went on to instruct them to have the unit stay under the radar if at all possible, and then hung up as we got into the SUV.

"I can't believe she went home," she muttered as she started up the car. "What was she thinking?"

"Her life is a mess right now," I said. "She probably wasn't thinking about much of anything except to wonder exactly when the wheels fell off."

"I know," she admitted. "I know. I just…Kevin told her that someone was watching him, and he asked her to stay away from the house, and then she went right back there."

"She's angry at him," I reasoned. "And hurt. She's probably feels like she's been sleeping with a stranger."

"Do you think he'll do anything?"

"Our guy? I don't know. I don't think so. He's probably watching for Kevin."

"Why?" she asked in frustration as she drove us furiously in the direction of her brother's home. "If he never tries to come in, why just sit out there and watch? I mean, if he's doing recon, he could certainly be a lot more covert about it."

"My guess? He likes the additional fear it causes. He's into more than just killing. He wants to instill the terror that comes from not feeling safe in your own home."

We hashed theories back and forth until we turned onto Crocus. We could see the flashing lights before we even got to Rose.

"Shit," Alex said under her breath. "Do they not know the meaning of staying under the radar? They really came in with lights flashing?"

I didn't have an answer for her.

I was afraid that the lights meant something had happened.

As we approached Kevin's house, we saw a black and white parked sideways in the road.

There was debris scattered over the street.

And Kendra was sitting on the pavement talking to an officer who was squatting down in front of her.

Alex brought the SUV up next to the officer's car and then the two of us got out.

"What the hell happened here?" Alex shouted.

The officer stood up and held out his hand to impede our approach.

"Ma'am," he began.

"It's Detective Goren," she corrected, pushing past him so that she could get to Kendra. I quickly flashed the officer my badge.

"We're the ones who called it in," I explained.

"That's right," Alex said, looking at Kendra. "And I told you to stay inside."

"I couldn't," she said. "I'm sorry. But if that asshole is gunning for Kevin then I couldn't just sit inside like a coward."

"Kendra, what did you do?" Alex asked her, and her voice had softened. She knelt down next to her.

"I peeked out the window, and he was just standing there, leaning up against the car, smoking a cigarette. He was being so damn casual that it just really pissed me off, so I got the bat from the closet."

I glanced around and saw that the baseball bat was now lying in the grass next to the sidewalk, and suddenly the debris made sense.

"You hit his car," I stated.

And let me say this about Kendra.

She, without a doubt, belongs in the Eames family.

She was attitude and courage in a small package.

"You're damn right I did," she said, bringing her eyes up to mine. "I would've hit more than his car if the neighbor's dog hadn't started barking. I went out the back door and snuck around the side of the house, but that was when the barking caused him to look in my direction. And let me tell you, he wasn't so casual then. He dropped his cigarette and ran around to the driver's side so that he could get away. By the time I got to the car, he had the engine running, but I got in a few good licks before he was able to get it in gear and drive away."

"Kendra, what if he'd had a gun?" Alex asked, although I could tell that she was impressed. "He could've killed you."

"Maybe," she agreed. "But if he was going to stand around long enough to take aim, then I would've at least had time to give him a broken arm, and then you guys would've known who to arrest."

"Still," the officer spoke up. "You're admitting to smashing up his car. You know I'm going to have to arrest you for vandalism, right?"

"What?" Alex and I asked at the same time.

"She was protecting her home," I finished. "She was trying to stop a stalker."

"Who was on a public street and was attempting to leave," the officer stated.

"He's a killer," Alex insisted. "And where were you during all of this? How long did it take you to show up after I called 9-1-1?"

"He got here a minute or so after the guy drove off," Kendra answered.

"And you didn't try to pursue him?" I asked. "How hard would it be to find a red Mercedes with smashed out tail lights? Now he's gone and he's probably fixing his car as we speak."

"Or stealing a new one," Alex suggested.

"You're not arresting her," I said firmly.

"I can't just let her go."

"There's no one to file charges," I countered. "If he shows up at your precinct and wants to press charges against her, then fine. But until then, it's a moot point."

I went back to the SUV and got out a flashlight and a baggie and then went back to the road.

"About where was he parked?" I asked Kendra, ignoring the officer altogether. She pointed out the location and I searched for the cigarette that he'd tossed.

"Did you get a look at his face?" Alex questioned her. "Or his plates?"

We were pretty sure that the car was the one stolen from Joshua Sabin, but plates would still be helpful. If they were Sabin's tags, then that would confirm that it was his car. If the tags belonged to someone else, then it wouldn't confirm ownership of the car, but it would give us another lead.

"I got both," Kendra responded. "White male, fairly tall, dark hair…you want me to meet with a sketch artist?"

Yeah, she's an Eames, I thought with a smile.

"In the morning," Alex told her. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I'm just so…pissed."

"Got the cigarette," I announced as I bent down to retrieve it. I slipped it into a baggie. "So now we'll have DNA."

"What am I supposed to do here?" the officer asked me. He'd lost some of his belligerent attitude, so I decided to cut him some slack. I pulled a business card from my pocket and handed it to him.

"If you need Mrs. Eames because a complaint is lodged, then just call me. I'll make sure that she's at your precinct upon request."

I figured there was no harm in making that promise. There was no way in hell our killer was going to file a complaint.

"Thank you," he said as he took the card. He took a last look around the scene and then went back to his car.

Alex and Kendra got to their feet and I went to fetch the baseball bat.

"You're not staying here," Alex told her. "Why don't you come home with us for tonight? Tomorrow after you meet with the sketch artist, you can go back to your sister's."

"Okay," she agreed. "Thanks. I'm sorry for this. I shouldn't have come here. I just…everything is…"

She trailed off and just shook her head.

"Go on inside and grab what you need," I encouraged. "Then we'll go back to our place and you can get some rest."

"Thanks," she said with a nod.

"She could've been killed," Alex said quietly to me once Kendra was in the house. "I can't believe she did that."

"You would have," I reminded her. "If someone was after me, and you had the chance…"

"If someone came after you, he'd have to worry about a hell of a lot more than broken tail lights," she said firmly.

And of that, I had no doubt.

I also had no doubt that no matter how angry Kendra was with Kevin, she still loved him. Which was a very good thing for him because it meant that eventually she'd probably be willing to try to work things out.

"Risk aside, she's helped us out tremendously. Now we'll have DNA and his car's damaged…"

"And we know that he doesn't carry a gun," she added. "But he knows that she saw his face. What do you think that means?"

Her question was rhetorical, of course.

We both knew what it meant.

Now Kendra would be on his list, too.

TBC...