When Brooke McCoy gingerly opened the door, she was surprised to find her husband sitting at the computer, waiting for the printer to spit out a document.

"What are you doing," she asked as she closed the door and continued to observe him. "You never use the home computer."

"Not true. I planned several of our trips using this computer," he casually replied as he slipped the page into the satchel beside him.

"Are we going somewhere?"

"Who has the time? I'm checking room rates in Islip," he answered with mild sarcasm as he took care to delete not only his temporary file, but his search and 'send' history as well, before going through the steps to shut down the machine. "Given the fact the only way I'll see you until you get your guilty verdict is in is to book a room out there, I figured I better start looking at monthly rates."

"Not only did I say I was sorry," she said with a slight smile as she started passed him. "I sent you enough treats to keep you and the rest of the tenth floor fed for the next month. What more do you want?"

"I want to kiss my wife, for the first time in over a week," he said with poutiness that served to deepen Brooke's smile. "If that isn't too much to ask?"

"Only if you're going to be nice," she countered sullenly as she continued into the bedroom.

"How nice do I have to be?"

"Nice enough to give me a massage after my bath?"

"I'm the DA; not supposed to be 'nice'."

"You're secret will be safe with me," Brooke retorted as she leaned back on the bed after removing her shoes. "Now come here and give me that kiss."

As he complied, McCoy could feel the knots in both shoulders and Brooke's lower back as his hands ran over her body, while they exchanged a series of increasingly passionate kisses.

"If you'd slept in our bed you wouldn't have those knots," he said smugly as his hands began to work at the knots in her shoulder blades.

"The things I'm willing to give up for truth, justice, and the American Way," she murmured as she grinned up at the suddenly troubled McCoy. "Jack, what is it?"

With a sigh, McCoy wordlessly released her and muttered a feeble excuse about wanting to run her bath before the hour grew too late. McCoy swiftly moved to the bathroom to cut off Brooke's concerned prodding. As he leaned against the closed door, McCoy shook his head as he thought about the 'non-target' letter he had slipped into his briefcase moments before.

As a prosecutor, McCoy knew what he was about to do was, if not over the line right on it. As a new DA ,he knew if the one elected official that had pushed for him to fill Arthur Branches shoes fell from grace with the voters, McCoy's own chances to be elected to public office were almost non-existent. Most importantly, as someone who had at one time been close to the first lady of the state of New York, McCoy knew the devastating effect the news of Donald Shalvoy having not only been unfaithful, but unfaithful numerous times, with numerous women who services he had paid for, would have on a woman McCoy remembered as naive and idealistic.

"Jack? Jack, open the door."

McCoy bit his lip as he answered the concerned calls of the woman on the other side of the door. As she joined him in the bathroom, Brooke glanced at the empty tub and back at her husband.

"Lying had never been your strength," she said as she leaned against one of the two pedestal sinks and gazed up at him. "Running a bath requires the water to be on, Jack. What's really on your mind?"

McCoy fleetingly considered telling his wife about the governor's role in Excalibur Escorts, and discounted the idea just a quickly. It was bad enough he was risking compromising an on go murder case by alerting the man to the increasingly likely chance his indiscretions would soon become public knowledge, but to tell his own wife…an officer of the court…what he intended to do would be compromise Brooke's ethics by expecting her to keep the news to herself.

While he knew he could count on Brooke's loyalty with or without the provisions the law made for spousal privilege, McCoy wasn't as sure he could count on keeping not only his wife's trust, but her respect should he place her in such an ethical dilemma.

"It's this case," he said as he turned his back to her on the pretense of turning the bath facets on.

"What case?"

"Your case. The child rapist-murderer-baby seller case," he said as he impatiently paraphrased her words. "Brooke you're just starting to get over an abortion. Does Sam really think you're the right prosecutor to-"

"Hey, I thought the last thing you wanted was my ex-husband crossing the line into the personal again," she began, only to have McCoy swing around with an expression on his face that gave her more than pause. "What, what I meant was, Sam is my boss now, not my husband. He knows for me to have hung around for night court I must be hell bent to keep that SOB off the streets…that's what he wants in the lead prosecutor on any case. For this case, with all the roadblocks there are whenever you have to rely on the testimony of children, he needs someone whose ready to scratch and scrap for a guilty verdict on every damn count."

"When you interview those children... When you deal with the parents that lost their children...it could bring things back up-"

"I hope it does," Brooke said as she grasped his arms and looked up at him with eyes that were pleading for understanding… a sign she had completely bought the bill of goods he was selling. "Jack, most of us work even harder when a case involves children being harmed. After the abortion…after knowing we won't have a child… listen, I need to do this. I want to do this. I don't want to blow my own horn, but if anyone in that office can sell the whole package to the jury it's me. Hell by the time I'm done, I'll have every member of that jury wishing this state still had a death penalty."