I headed for Catherine's' office, but thought better of it half way there. That couch was just a little to comfortable, that is it's comfortable when I didn't have it hoisted up over my head trying to angle it around the sharp corners of the lab hallways, and I didn't have much more sleep under my belt today than I had yesterday. I was determined to get through the diary before Webber was brought back to Vegas. The break room should be emn the desk in front of her. I stopped when she called me and took two steps backward to the open doorway.

"Hey." I greeted.

"Where are you on your case, the uh. . ." she shifted the papers on her desk, "the strangled girl from yesterday."

"Kelly. Kelly Knight." I reminded her.

"Yeah. Find her boyfriend?"

"n the desk in front of her. I stopped when she called me and took two steps backward to the open doorway.

"Hey." I greeted.

"Where are you on your case, the uh. . ." she shifted the papers on her desk, "the strangled girl from yesterday."

"Kelly. Kelly Knight." I reminded her.

"Yeah. Find her boyfriend?"

"Ex boyfriend. He hightailed it to Texas, he's in custody, Vega's working with the state police to bring him back."

"And the hairs?"

I nodded. "Belong to him. Mia made a match, his DNA was on file from two years ago a," I glanced down the report Mia gave me, making sure I told Catherine right. "assault case"

"Against the vic?" Catherine interrupted.

I shook my head. "No. A bar fight." I paused a moment. "He pulled a Mike Tyson and bit off part of a guys ear."

Catherine's face wrenched into a grimace. "Why isn't he in jail?"

"Had a good lawyer. Pled to a reduced charge, got probation."

She rolled her eyes, her face changing from a grimace of disgust about the ear biting to one of disgust over our justice system and the lawyers who navigate its twists and turns, like mice in a maze. Leaning back in her chair, she pushed her fingers into her hair, massaging her scalp like she suddenly had a headache. "Well, his hairs on her pillow don't prove that he killed her."

I nodded, agreeing with her. "I know. I've got her diary. . ."

Catherine cut me off "Her diary? You think she took a few moments as she was dying to flip though and jot down a dying declaration?"

I cleared my throat, swallowing my sudden resentment, and thought fast. What was I going to say? 'No Catherine, I want to read her diary to get to know this girl better, there's something fascinating about her, and I have to know'? No, that wouldn't fly well, not even with Catherine, who's always been cool, and knew things about me no one else on Earth does. "What I think is maybe there was a pattern of stalking, or maybe there was a new boyfriend; one we don't know about."

She thought about that for a moment, looking at me though narrowed eyes. "Want some help?"

"Nah." I tried to sound lighthearted and jerked a thumb over my shoulder. "I'll be in the break room if you need me."

"Ok." She said before bowing her head and returning to her paperwork.

Thankfully, the break room was empty. I grabbed the largest ceramic mug in the cabinet and poured it full of coffee. I debated with myself between sitting at the table and the couch that Sara and Greg had been sitting in the night before. With thoughts of this couch having the same effect on me as Catherine's sofa had last night, and putting me fast to sleep, I opted for the table, settling in and putting the book down on the tabletop in front of me where I stared at it for a few minutes, trying to figure out why my stomach was doing flip flops. With a deep breath of resignation, I opened it and began to read.


I'm sick and tired of being alone. I hate everyone who has someone who loves them. On nights that I can't sleep, and I get sick of tossing and turning, I go for long drives. Every house I pass, I pray, PRAY, that I could change lives with them. I'm mad at God for making me alone for so long. And then he doesn't answer my prayer, and I get even madder, and I hate myself for being mad. I try to remember that someday, some beautiful wonderful day that I can't even imagine, we'll find each other, and it'll all be worth the wait. I tell myself that there are people who are worse off than me, like those conjoined twins attached at the head, or the guy I saw on tv with a birthmark that covered half of his face. It helps a little, but I can't help but feel like I'm being punished for something.


I've been staring at this blank page for 10 minutes now. I just don't know what to write. Suzette says that I need to write something every night. So, here, I've written something.


Damn it! Why aren't you here yet? Why can't I find you?


I Long

I long for arms around me / To feel safe / And no longer alone / I long for hands cupping my face / To feel loved / And no longer alone / I long for lips on my lips / To feel wanted / And no longer alone / I long for eyes piercing my eyes / To feel seen / And no longer alone / I long for human contact / To feel known / And no longer alone


Sometimes

Sometimes I can feel him / From out there, somewhere / And I think that he feels me too / This connection seems so strong / The promise of what will be / Not of what might be / Sometimes I can feel him / As if he was here with me / The miles between us / Covered with hurdles from there to here / Didn't exist


I met my friend Charlene at a diner this morning for breakfast. She needed to talk about some problems at work she's having, and her cell phone rings, and while she's on the phone, I start looking around. There were these three men sitting in a booth by the window, one of them, the one that got up to pay the check, he was just so beautiful. I hid behind my coffee cup, pretending to be looking at Charlene, but I was really watching him walk across the room to the register, and all I wanted was for him to turn around and see me. Oh God, I would have died if he had, but holy cow, if only he had!

"Nick!" Catherine's voice startled me, I jumped in the chair, and I looked up to her in the doorway, blinking a few times. "I've called you three times. Is the diary that . . ." I could tell she was searching her brain for the best non sexual harassment word, cognizant that she was now my boss. "Pleasant?" She asked with a little smirk.

I shook my head, as much to clear it as to answer her question, and laughed a little, hoping it sounded real. "No. Nothing like that. She wrote some poetry. . . she uh. . ." I flipped through the pages, looking for something else to tell her about. "She was," It was my turn to look for the right word "desperate."

"Desperate, huh?" Catherine walked up to the table and pulled the book over to her, fingering the pages, flipping through them. "Well," she looked up from the diary over to me. "Vega's got your suspect in interrogation, care to join them?"

"What? Already?" I looked at my watch. It was nearly 8pm, and I wondered briefly if I'd fallen asleep again, then I glanced at the diary, Catherine's attention was back on it, she'd picked it up, holding it in both hands, I realized I'd read about half of the diary without even realizing it. But I remembered every word.

Catherine looked up to me, her eyebrows raised. "Are you going?"

I twitched my head, "Yeah."

I went into the observation room first, not wanting to interrupt whatever Vega had going. When I first walked in, I thought Catherine had to be wrong, this must be a suspect in a different case. There was no way in hell that Kelly could have, would have, dated this guy. I listened for a moment.

"So then why'd you take off for Texas?" Vega was asking. The guy only shrugged in answer. "Oh, come on, you pack up half your crap and head for the border on a whim?"

"I knew you guys would think I did it." He whined.

Good God, I realized with a sickening feeling in my stomach, this was the ex-boyfriend. He just wasn't what I had imagined at all. First of all, he was round. Round face, round belly that hung a little over his belt. And a mouth breather. His mouth hung open and only added another aspect of roundness to the whole picture. He was wearing glasses with thick black frames, and his nose was pinched up, like he was continually trying to keep the glasses on his face. It did not make for a pretty picture, this guy was no prince charming, what the hell did Kelly see in him?

"So tell me what happened." Vega relaxed a little, leaning back in his chair, like he was about to hear what promised to be a good story. Harry shrugged again, and Vega let out a deep, annoyed sigh, glancing toward the mirror I was behind. That was my cue.

I had the evidence bag in my hands, with the two hairs sealed inside. I also carried the case file from his barroom assault, and the report confirming the hairs as his. My heart was beating hard, so hard that I felt for sure Vega and Webber would hear it, and I slammed the interrogation room door behind me trying to mask the sound. Webber looked up, startled, Vega remained still, gazing at the suspect as if he'd known of my arrival all along. I glared hard at Harry, staring him down, and it worked, just seconds after I walked in, Harry's gaze was back on his hands folded in his lap. Vega, knowing Harry wouldn't catch it, glanced over his should to me, and raised his eyebrows What the hell was that? I ignored him and slapped the case file and evidence bag onto the table in front of Harry. Again, he jumped in his seat, and stared at me, his eyes wide behind his thick glasses.

"Know what that is Harry?" I said his name with the teasing twang of a playground bully. I hadn't meant to, and it sounded foreign to my ears.

He shook his head, "No."

"It's proof that you killed Kelly."

He shook his head again, more emphatically. "No. No I didn't!"

I put my palms down on the tabletop and leaned in to him, my face inches from his. He reeked of stale cigarettes and sweat, layers of sweat, the kind you get from sitting in a car for hours, then having your ass hauled back by the cops. There was also the unmistakable stench of urine. I glanced down; a large U shape of discoloration was spread out around his crotch. He was breathing hard, his breath coming out in pungent waves through his gaping mouth. "I think you did kill her." I paused, letting my words hang in the stink heavy air between us. "See. . ." I straightened up and pulled the clear evidence bag over to me from where I'd slapped it down. I held the bag up in front of his eyes, showing him the contents. "These are you hairs. I found them on her pillow." My stomach lurched at the thought of this foul smelling creature being anywhere near Kelly's bed.

"She was already dead!" Tears filled his eyes, spilling over, leaving wet trails down his checks.

"This is your only chance man. Tell us what happened." Vega said from behind me, his chair squeaked as he sat up and leaned in, crossing his arms over each other on the tabletop.

Harry wiped his arms across his nose; a sheer stream of snot clung on, hanging in the air for a moment until it snapped in two. He took a deep breath "I went over to talk to her . . ."

Vega cut him off "She had a restraining order against you, that means your not supposed to go over there, to talk or anything else."

Harry jabbed a finger into the air, "That was a misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding?"

"Yeah. See, we worked together, and she, she was my friend. I told everyone she was my girlfriend, 'cause, well. . . I liked it that people thought she was." He looked up at me, "You wouldn't understand." He sniffled again.

"She wasn't your girlfriend?" I asked. He shook his head. Well, that explained a lot.

"Keep going." Vega urged.

"She was nice to me, she let me talk to her, and when I got fired a couple a months ago, well, I kept calling her, trying to get her to get them to let me have my job back."

"How often did you call her?"

"To often, I guess."

Vega opened the file in front of him and ran a finger down the page. "She's got it documented that you called eight to fifteen times a day for the first few weeks." He looked up, glancing at me then at Harry "It only gets worse after that."

"Yeah, I guess." He shrugged. "I wanted my job back, and . . . I liked talking to her. She was the only one who was nice to me. My mom said that nothing good would come of it; she said that Kelly was just a nasty whore. . ."

"Hey!" I objected, my fist clenched and unclenched, straining against the urge to beat the crap out of him.

"I know she wasn't." He said quickly. "I tried to kiss her once, and she didn't even laugh at me."

"What about your mom?" Vega had noticed something.

Harry shrugged, a gesture that was getting on my nerves. "Nothing, my mom just didn't like it when I told her Kelly was the one who thought I should get my own place."

"You lived with your mom?" I asked, incredulous, the guy had to be in his mid to late thirties.

He nodded, and hung his head again, staring at his hands in his lap. "When I told my mom I wanted to move out, she said that Kelly was. . ." he stopped and looked at me anxiously, not wanting to get yelled at again for repeating his mothers words. "Not a nice person. Kelly told me that I had to be a man, get my own place for my own good." He smiled then, and I guessed he was reliving the memory of Kelly referring to him as a man.

"Your mom didn't want you to move out." Vega said. It wasn't really a question, but Harry answered it anyway.

"No. She didn't. She was desperate for me to stay. Said she needed me, but she never lets me do anything expect take out the trash. She started showing up at my work, and when she kept doing it, even after I told her not to, that's when I got fired. That's why Kelly said she could maybe help me get my job back." He crunched his nose up, and pushed a finger at the nosepiece of his glasses.

"Kelly was going to help you get rehired?"

"Um-hmm. She said she was."

"Ok, so tell me how your hairs got next to a dead body."

Harry started to cry again, his chin quivering. I glanced over my shoulder to Vega; the look on his face said the same thing I was thinking: Can you believe this guy?

"Like I told you, she was already dead when I went in."

"What were you doing there?" Vega sounded as irritated with this wimp as I felt.

"I wanted her to take off the restraining order. When she didn't answer her door, I thought maybe she was in the shower or something, so I tried the knob, and it opened. The TV was on, loud, in her bedroom. I went back there, and that's when I saw her."

"She'd already been strangled?"

"Yeah." He muttered. "I went to her, and felt for a pulse, but no." His crying became jagged sobs, and he put his face in his hands.

Vega and I stared at each other for a moment, neither of us comfortable in the presence of a sobbing man. A short knock on the door was almost drowned out by the blubbering. Catherine cracked the door open, and stuck her head in. She stared at the hunched over suspect for a moment before saying "Uh, his mother is here."

"Oh no!" Harry jumped up out of his seat. "Oh no! I was smoking, she's gonna kill me!"

Catherine stared at him, dumbfounded. I watched as her eyes traveled down from Harry's puffy face, landing on the drying wet spot at his crotch. Her eyelids quickly fluttered shut, and she turned her head, suppressing an urge, either to laugh or cry, I'm not sure.

"You're free to go Mr. Webber." Vega told him, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Wringing his hands, Harry moved shyly past Catherine and through the door.

After a moment, Catherine said: "He's our killer?"

Vega and I looked at each other, gauging the others opinion. I shook my head. "A cry baby mommas boy who pisses his pants? No, I don't think he's our killer." My heart sunk as I said it.