Sorry about the delay in updating. To everyone who reviewed: you are all officially the sweetest, nicest, most amazing people in the world! :-)

***

The next morning, Johnston was blurry around the edges from a sleepless night of walking the floor. Draining two large cups of coffee did nothing to help, and he sighed as he sat down in his seat--or rather, the place where he thought his seat was. He collapsed at once to the floor with a heavy thud.

"Are you OK?" Radha was peering at him over the desk.

Johnston hastily scrambled to his feet, slipped on a stray piece of garbage, and sprawled on the floor again. "Yeah," he mumbled, blushing beet red as he--very slowly and carefully--got up.

Radha smiled and slipped her hand through her hair, brushing it back nervously. "I, um, I just wanted to say... I really, really like you. You're one of the sweetest guys I've ever known, and you've been amazing, doing all this for me..." She was fiddling with a loose thread on her pink blouse cuff. "But, uh, I... I really can't accept this. It's just... it's too much. I appreciate the thought, I do, and it's beautiful, but it's..."

She handed him the small black box she'd been hiding behind her back. Johnston slowly curled his fingers around it and released it from her grasp, lifting it from her hands. "It's a gorgeous necklace," Radha continued, a pleading note creeping into her voice. "But all those diamonds... I mean, they must have cost a fortune. I really can't take this, it's not fair."

She suddenly smiled and took his hands, clasping them gently. "You don't have to do this, you know. You've already won me over." And she kissed him soundly for emphasis, before being reluctantly called back to her desk; she winked at him and blew a rosy, red-lipped kiss before disappearing through the doorway.

Johnston stayed frozen where he was, his jaw slumped in a wide gape and a staggered look in his eyes. The little black box dangled from his fingers. "D-d-diamonds?" he spluttered out.

"Call the bank and freeze your account right away," was Eames's advice when she heard the story. She was sitting at her desk with a pen in hand, facing the trembling, tense detective.

"A diamond necklace," Johnston moaned, banging his head against the desk and crumpling a few pages of Goren's latest report. "I'm dead. I'm toast. I'm dead toast."

"Maybe it's only one diamond," Eames offered, holding out her free hand. "Let's have a look."

Johnston shoved the box towards her and covered his face with his hands. Eames flipped open the lid and was silent for a few long minutes. "Is it just one?" he whispered hoarsely through his fingers.

For her answer, she took the starry, shimmering thread of polished diamonds out of its velvet shell and curled it in her palm, letting it sparkle in the light. Johnston stared at it, then slumped limply to the floor as he fainted away.

***

Goren came in the next day, unwinding the scarf from his neck and stamping out the snow on his boots, to find Eames busy at her computer. "What're you working on?" he asked lightly, leaning over her shoulder to see.

"Remember I told you about Johnston?" Eames was flushed, frustrated, exhausted, thirsty, and triumphant. "It turns out that the only time he ever gave out his credit card number over the Internet was to an online dating service."

Goren let out a soft snigger, which quickly changed to a cough at Eames's glare. "What did he give out his credit card number for?" he asked, to divert her attention.

"He ordered a bouquet of roses from the site, for one of his dates," she answered, tapping away at the keyboard and clicking the mouse. "The only other people he gives his credit card number to are his electric company, his phone company, his hydro company... safe, reputable places. If anybody's using his number, it's this place. So."

"So?" he prompted.

"So I have a plan," Eames finished exultantly, making the website vanish with a click and a beep before beginning to describe her idea to him.

***