The picture of Ian Turner with his arm around the shoulders of a man with messy salt-and-pepper hair and a days worth of stubble along his jaw flashed Malcolm back to when he was eleven and sitting, alone, in an interrogation rooms. The officer left to watch him while his mother spoke with detectives told him to stay there while he went to see if she was finished.

Malcolm sat there, silently wishing he could be somewhere, anywhere else. The door opened a few minutes later. His head snapped up, hoping to see his mother or even Officer Arroyo. Instead, a man in a rumpled suit entered the interrogation room. Malcolm recalled seeing him outside the house as they loaded his father into the police car that took him away.

The man had gotten in Officer Arroyo's face and yelled about the Surgeon being his collar. Malcolm hadn't understood what the problem was. Why did it matter who arrested his father as long so he couldn't hurt any more people? A sour odor wafted off the man as he walked towards him. Stale beer and cigarette smoke. As unforgettable to him now as Sorcha's perfume or Gil's aftershave.

"Hey, Malcolm. Do you remember me?" He placed a hand on the table. "I'm Detective Owen Shannon."

The detective seemed kind. Sympathetic even. However, Malcolm could tell it was all an act. That Owen Shannon wanted him to thinkhe was there to help him, to help those his father hurt.

What he really came there to do was prove his own complicity in what his father did.

To name him as his accomplice.

See him punished for his father's crimes.

"Yeah, we just wanted to review your statement from the night your father was arrested."

Malcolm didn't believe the detective. He didn't trust him. Something inside him told him he'd hurt him if he wasn't careful. He hunched his shoulders and pulled at the sleeves of his sweater to hide his fear.

"I already told you everything I know."

"Yeah, but, uhm, here's the thing." The detective placed his other hand on the table "The cop on the scene said he heard you and your dad share some parting words." Malcolm lifted wide eyes to Shannon's predatory ones. "We're the same." He leaned forward. "Why do you think your father said that?" Those words played over and over. Mixed with the other voices he heard. A never ending loop of noise. "That's what I can't figure out."

Malcolm squeezed his eyes shut. Tried to close out the images in his mind. To silence the voices. His hand, the one with the psychogenic tremor in it, shuddered. He tried to stop it by clasping it in his other hand but it didn't work.

"Hey, kid." Malcolm glanced up to see Gil standing beside his desk. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

That, in Malcolm's opinion, was an understatement. Owen Shannon was the last person he expected to find connected to this case.

The last person, outside his father or Paul Lazar he wanted connected to this case, in fact.

"I think I've found something," he told Gil. "A possible lead."

"Oh?" Gil perched on the edge of the desk. "What you find?"

He held the photograph up. "Detective Owen Shannon." His eyes met Gil's. "With Ian Turner."

"I remember Owen Shannon." Gil took the picture with a frown. "He made bad cops look like saints."

Malcolm didn't doubt it. His own encounter with the detective left an undeniable mark on him. His hand shook as he again recalled Owen Shannon's face. The rage on it when he didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. The hate in his voice when he accused him of being his father's accomplice.

"I'm well aware how bad a cop Owen Shannon was."

Gil glanced at him, a thoughtful frown between his eyes. "He spoke to you after your father was arrested, didn't he?"

The detective did more than just speak to him. The tremor got progressively worse after Owen Shannon interrogated him. As if on cue, another one rattled from the tips of his fingers all the way into his wrists. Malcolm slid them into his lap to keep Gil from seeing how effected he was by his discovery.

Last thing he wanted to get into was that interrogation or Owen Shannon. Especially with Collette roaming around the precinct and looking for any reason to discredit him. She did enough damage when she kicked him out of the interrogation room while the rest of the officers and detectives on duty watched.

"Owen Shannon was Ian Turner's partner."

Gil's gaze sharpened with interest. "Are you sure?"

Malcom nodded. "Positive."

"Must have been before Turner moved up the ranks."

"Seems to me that if we're looking for someone with a motive that Owen Shannon has one."

"Owen Shannon was a bad cop." Gil handed the picture back to him. "But even I can't see him doing something like this."

"Jealousy is a powerful motivator."

"After all these years?" Gil shook his head. "Doesn't make sense. Why would he decide to go after Turner now?"

"Only one way to find out." Malcolm set the photograph back in the box. "We go ask him."

"Go ask who what?" Sorcha spoke from behind him. "And if it's anyone who could shoot, stab, bite or otherwise hurt you, the answer is no."

"Sorch!" Malcolm stood up so fast he almost pitched himself against the cubicle wall. Gil thankfully grabbed him by the shoulder before he could thoroughly humiliate himself. "What are you doing here?"

An amused smile curved her lips. "I was in the neighborhood."

"You were in the neighborhood?" One brow tilted. "This is out of the way for you."

"The troubles worth it just to see the two most handsomest men on Christmas Eve."

"For that, you can take Bright with you to your family's." A smile played about Gil's mouth. "I'll even help you get him in the car."

Sorcha snorted a laugh. "As if he'd go."

"If Tally showed up looking like you and wanting me to go with her? I'd bounce in an instant," came from JT as he lumbered over to hand Gil some papers. He shot Malcolm an appraising look. "His skinny ass on the other hand..."

The retort on Malcolm's tongue died as Sorcha came around the corner of the cubicle. The dress she wore clung to her body, showed off her supple arms, the long line of her back, and her long, long legs. The color reminded Malcolm of the waters of Hanauma Bay. Beautiful erotic glimpses of pale skin, soft curves, delicate lines filled his head.

Desires, demands, things he ignored because he didn't deserve them called out to him. Beckoned him. Lured him towards a dark and dangerous web.

Her soft, husky laugh shattered those spindly webs. Malcolm looked at her just as the light caught the glimmer of the sapphires dangling from thin gold chains from her ears.

Another gift.

This time from a man whose absence was never more painfully felt than today.

His only complaint with how she looked was she wasn't wearing her charm bracelet. I should give it to her now, he thought as that heady, intoxicating scent so uniquely hers curled itself around him and tried to lure him back into fantasy.

"Mal, you okay?"

"Yeah…" Trying to find his scattered wits proved more difficult than he imagined. "It's just… you look beautiful."

"Imagine that." JT snorted what sounded like a laugh. "GQ knows how to compliment a lady." He shook his head. "Wait until Dani hears about this."

Malcolm frowned as he walked away. "Why do people think I don't know how to give compliments?"

"Because you typically don't," Gil said. "That's why."

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "I give compliments all the time."

"Coached in psychological jargon." Gil squeezed his shoulder. "Which isn't always flattering to hear."

"I'm used to his using psychological jargon to express his feelings," Sorcha teased as she reached out to tuck a strand of his hair back behind his ear. "It's especially cute when he does it while he has that slightly dazed, dreamy expression. Course, it usually leads him to—"

"Why are you here?" Malcolm cut in before she could say exactly what his dazed, dreamy looks could lead him into doing. He frowned as Gil chuckled. "I thought you were heading to your brother's?"

"I brought over the cookies and brownies we made last night before you got called in."

"Right. Sorry." Embarrassed heat flooded his cheeks. "I was supposed to bring them in with me this morning. I just—"

"Got caught up in your case." Sorcha's lips twitched. "I know. That's why I brought them. You've got your hands full enough with this case." Sadness filled her face. Dulled the sparkle that filled her eyes seconds before. "What a terrible thing to happen on Christmas."

"Murder doesn't understand things like holidays."

"Believe me, I know."

"Your dad spent quite a few Christmases away from home?"

"And my mom."

One of Gil's brows tilted. "Your mom was also in law enforcement?"

"Nurse, actually."

"And here you didn't follow in either of their footsteps." Gil folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. "Shameful."

"Well, I redeemed myself." She sent a playful grin at Malcolm. "I went into the Bright babysitting business."

Gil hummed a soft laugh. "That's a lucrative business."

"He certainly keeps me busy."

Malcolm frowned at her to show he wasn't amused. "I don't need a babysitter."

"This from the man who routinely has one bottle of sparkling water in his fridge."

"Not much of a cook here."

"Tell me about it." Sorcha heaved a long, drawn out sigh. "No pie pans. No baking racks. I had to run to Bed, Bath & Beyond for a hand-mixer and bowls."

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "You did not."

"Wait until you see the sheets I bought you." Her eyes twinkled with mischief. "Leopard print."

Malcolm wasn't sure whether he was amused or appalled. After a few seconds deliberation he decided he was neither. No, what he was, he realized, was intrigued.

"You bought me leopard sheets?"

"Silk, too." She sent him a saucy wink. "Very decadent."

If Sorcha was trying to distract him, she was succeeding. A bit too well, in fact.

"Okay, time to go."

"I need to get going, anyway," Sorcha said as Gil chuckled again. "Sean wants to beat the traffic…" She made a face. "If that's possible."

"Sean's here?"

Malcolm had to admit that with Lazar making veiled threats towards his family and Sorcha, it brought him a small measure of comfort knowing Sean was with her. Let Lazar try to get through him.

He might land a few good blows, but he had a feeling that Sean would give as many as he got.

"He's waiting in the car, actually." Sorcha took his hand in hers. "Come down and say hello."

He hadn't seen Sean in more than a year, he realized as he took her hand. Mandy and her mother in two. People as important to him as Gil and Jackie and his mother and sister. Yet, I cut them out of my life and I don't know why.

"You go on, kid," Gil told him as he turned to head to his office. "I'll meet you downstairs in a few minutes."

"I'll keep him out of trouble." Sorcha squeezed his fingers gently. "I promise."

"You deserve overtime pay," Gil called over his shoulder. "Because he can't go one day without getting into trouble."

Malcolm pulled Sorcha from the squad room before she could reply.

A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!

I just want to send special thanks to Rookblonkorules for their lovely reviews!