I hope I didn't upset too many of you with the last chapter. This one will clear things up a bit. And sometimes, flaring tempers are the best way to get the truth out into the open. Now the hard work begins.

Mike was worried his old partner might faint by the time they finally reached his office.

Watching Steve lean heavily against the large desk, his back heaving from too many forced breaths, sweat running down the side of his face and disappearing in the collar of his gray dress shirt, he waited a few moments for him to calm down, before clearing his throat.

"Care to explain to me what your Porsche was doing down on Van Ness last night? And why I have a witness who gave me a very detailed description of you arguing with our murder victim?"

With both hands holding onto his desk, his head dropped to his chest, Steve let out a defeated sigh, and eventually shook his head.

"Her car had broken down. Looked like the battery was dead. So, I drove her home. She copped an attitude about me not letting her sleep at my apartment. That's what we argued about."

"What was she to you? Girlfriend?"

"No. God no.", Steve answered too fast, finally deciding to turn around and face his best friend, "She was my secretary…and entertainment."

Mike let out a faint grunt, then shook his head in unmasked disappointment at his best friend's erosion of values.

"Entertainment? Would you please care to elaborate on what is going on here?"

Steve straightened back out and loosened his tie, running a hand across his wavy hair and mumbling something Mike couldn't understand. By the time he glanced back up, his eyes had grown angry and unwelcoming.

"Quit pretending you don't know what I am talking about, Michael."

It would be the final straw on this tension-filled morning.

In one big step, Mike bridged the distance to his uncooperative friend, towering over him in no uncertain terms, lips pursed shut to stop himself from saying something he might later regret, his patience effectively wearing thin.

"Don't you dare to Michael me right now.", he finally growled and poked an angry finger at his friend's chest, his blue eyes turning cold and distant, "Five people are dead and it all seems to lead directly to this campus. And you are right in the middle of it. And not in a good way, I might add. So, you better start giving it to me straight, because no matter how much I refuse to believe you have anything to do with this, circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise in McGowan's murder. And you know that too. Now, I am here trying to get to the truth, get your neck out of the sling, and all I am getting from you is attitude and roadblocks. I have had it with that. Is that clear enough?"

Steve clenched his jaws and fell quiet, his eyes wide in fear at the angry outburst that was aimed to put some sense back into his thick skull.

"Now, you wouldn't be this defensive if there wasn't at least an ounce of self-respect and caring left in you beneath all this…this posturing you're hiding behind these days. So how about we start all over again so that we can get this…this petty situation behind us. What was your relationship with Rachel McGowan?"

Helplessly pinned against the desk, Steve fidgeted for a box of cigarettes on top of the nearby file cabinet, his shaking fingers barely able to retrieve a lighter out of his pant pocket as he dropped his head to his chest again, this time in shame, that much Mike sensed.

"She was lonely. I was working many late hours. Somehow, one day we decided to start playing. I don't expect you to condone any of this. It just is what it is…or was."

Mike waited until the young Professor tried to pull a cigarette out of the box before grabbing his wrist, stopping him in his tracks.

"You're damn right about that. I don't condone any of this. What I expect from you is not resort to every vice in your life each time you get a little hot under the collar. Two years in this place and you're completely out of control. You were one of San Francisco's finest detectives. Now you're acting like a…like a junkie trying to get a cheap fix. What happened to you, Steve?! If you needed help, why didn't you call me? You know I would have helped in a heartbeat."

At the painful truth put out into the open, Steve froze in place for a fleeting moment, then straightened out and pulled his wrist from Mike' strong grasp to put the box of cigarettes back on the shelf.

"I really don't know what you want from me.", he began, his head hung low, before nervously flattening the tie against his chest, "Yeah, I was with Rachel last night. Yeah, we had intercourse in my office. I drove her home around midnight. Dropped her off at Siggy's bar because she wanted to grab a drink. We argued, I left her to do her own thing and drove home. End of story. I swear it's the truth."

"I'll tell you right now what I want from you! I want you to look at this case we're dealing with…take a long hard look. Because as of right now, you are the last person to be seen with Rachel before she was killed. And you and I both know what that looks like on paper. All I am asking is that you to give me a rock-solid alibi to put into my report, before I have to answer some uncomfortable questions downtown. And then we gotta figure out who's trying to set you up and why."

Much to his dismay, Steve shook his head and chuckled.

"Mike, I don't have one. I live alone. I came home late because I stopped by the bridge for an hour or so to get my nerves back under control. I doubt anybody saw me there."

Letting his hands sink back to his hips, Mike bit his lip, desperately trying to contain his growing unease about the carefully laid out path leading right up to his best friend. Woefully aware of his brooding, Steve pushed himself away from his desk, one hand nervously playing with the gold cufflinks on the sleeves of his suit jacket.

"Something tells me Dan hasn't got the foggiest idea that you have a witness who saw me…and you and I both know I didn't do this. But you need to submit the information regardless, it's the law. And Dan needs to know too. He's your partner."

When Mike only nodded, the young Professor began to pace the office nervously, his eyes trained on the phone near his cluttered desk.

"She had to have met somebody after I left her. Somebody she felt comfortable enough around that she wouldn't worry. Rachel had a paranoia streak. It had something to do with her past. She worried a lot. She wasn't somebody you can just approach over a vodka tonic."

"Did she have an ex-husband or boyfriend? Somebody who might be jealous of what was going on here and is now trying to get you indicted for murder?"

"No…", Steve argued and put his hands behind his head, an unmistakable sense of defeat exuding from each pore of his body, "This was our secret. Nobody knew about it. As far as what went on outside of these office doors, she was just my secretary."

Watching his friend pace the length of the large room once again, Mike finally sighed and shook his head in unmasked sadness and disappointment.

"And here I thought you quit your rewarding job with the police force to advance your career. Not to engage in such…petty foolishness."

The words meant to cut right through his best friend's defenses must have hit their target when Steve stopped in his tracks; thought about a fitting answer for a second, then approached his old partner with a renewed sense of haughty posturing.

"I quit my rewarding job with the police force because I felt I could make a bigger difference with these kids out there. And because I grew tired of having to kill people in the line of duty. Tell anybody downtown questioning my innocence to let that sink in."