A/N: Hey NadezhdaSt! Holidays for another eight days! lol. You are actually the one who is keeping these chapters coming so fast - I see your review and I want to reply to it quickly, haha. So these authors notes are really the most important part! Hehe. Aw sorry for ending their little discussion session - it was drying up and so was I lol. But you know, they could pick it up somewhere in the future, I anticipate that they'll need to 'talk things through' after the events of this chapter...ok I like this length too so its all good! lol. Ah no problem - I loved your story!

Thanks Orlando-crazy, yet again. :D

Chapter 15: It Doesn't Work That Way

Jordan could hardly contain her sigh of relief once they had managed to get Harding and Renee out of her house. Garret had stayed long enough for them to confirm the reason of their discomfort, and give her a reassuring pat before following them out, promising he would come back the next day.

"Do you have to go to work tomorrow?" she asked. Woody gave her a startled look then burst out laughing.

"What?" she asked, disgruntled. "What's funny?"

He stared at her. "I shouldn't say," he said, mirth still written on his face.

"You've had to much to drink. Go to bed."

Instead of making him stop, that comment just dragged more raucous laughter out of the semi-drunk detective.

"What?" she demanded, shaking him.

"I shouldn't say," he repeated.

"Oh you'll say," she said, only half-serious. He grinned.

"Think about it," he said. " 'Are you going to work tomorrow' and 'you've had too much to drink, go to bed?'"

There was a puzzled look on her face as she steered him into the bedroom. "You have the bed tonight."

"Oh, you broke the chain!" he said. He was, in fact, not all that drunk, but the alcohol he had consumed mixed with the headache tablets he had taken and the complete weariness that had overtaken him had caused him to lose his 'better judgement' as he would have called it.

"Chain?" she asked, bewildered. "What on earth are you talking about?"

He couldn't speak, so he shook his head. "Hey," he said, looking around. "What are we doing in your room?"

"You're going to bed."

"I'm not tired," he said suggestively.

"I am," she said. He looked at her.

"What?"

She rolled her eyes and gave him a shove. He fell back on the bed.

"Night, Woodrow," she said, turning and closing the door behind her.

"What a woman," he mumbled, before falling into a deep sleep.

She waited fifteen minutes before she left the apartment, just to make sure he was asleep. She would have to count on her knowledge of the detectives sleeping habits, which wasn't all that vast, to hope that he didn't waken before she returned.

Her reasoning was that if Koreldy had been there, watching them, he would have to have stayed somewhere. The city was too big for her to begin her search here, so she had decided to go back to New York City. She still remembered Koreldy's address, how could she forget?

Ignoring the risk that Woody might wake up at the sound of the ignition, she turned her car on and drove off into the night.

A couple of hours later she had pulled up outside the house. It was just coming up to 1am on Wednesday morning. The silence was deafening as she stepped out of her car and carefully made her way up the path. There was no sign of anyone around, no lights illuminating windows in the house.

She was calm, had really taken the whole 'objective' thing to heart. This was just another case, just another hunch she had. Just another unconventional means of solving the case. Or in this instance, proving it.

She hadn't counted on not being able to get inside.

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Had Jordan known more about Woody, she would have known about his knack for being able to sleep extremely lightly. After he had slept of the intense tiredness, alcohol and paracetamol in his body, he emerged from the deep state of sleep the ME had left him in, and slept, not fitfully, but certainly lightly and in a state of semi-awareness. Hence, he was wide awake when the perverted couple next door broke off their love making and decided to start throwing perishable objects at each other. He sat up, and, not being able to discern where the noise had originated, got up and began to prowl around the apartment. A feeling of panic intensified in his gut when he realised that the woman he was supposed to be guarding had gone. Rushing to the window he stared out, and cursed loudly at the absence of her car. He picked up his cell phone off the coffee table and dialled her number.

"Pick up," he muttered through gritted teeth.

And pick up she did.

"Hey Woody," she said brightly. Woody scowled, breathing a sigh of relief that she was indeed able to answer a phone, therefore probably all right.

"Where the hell are you?" he growled.

"Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed," she said. "Which brings me to my question, what are you doing up?"

"What are you doing out?" he demanded.

"It's an old habit of mine," she said quickly. She was cursing herself over and over in her mind, she should have been prepared for him to wake up, should have been doing something. As it was, she had almost given up; she was not going to break a window in case there was a security system or the cops passed by. So she was getting a lecture for nothing, really.

"What, scaring the hell outta me?"
As she realised the true reason for his grouchiness she softened. "I can look after myself," she said, just short of stiffly.

"How many times have you told me that, Jordan, and how many times have you been wrong?"

"None," she said in a hard voice. "I'm not a child."

He started, remembering the night before, playing it over and over in his mind.

Where's Daddy? The pitiful voice asked. Is Daddy working late?

"Come home," he said, a little shaken.

"I can't," she said.

Mama said Daddy's job is dangerous.

He rubbed his hand along his forehead, his own personal nervous habit.

"Where are you?" he pleaded.

"I'm taking a walk," she said.

Mama is dead too.

"Like hell you are. Your cars gone."

"A drive, then."

"Where are you, Jordan?"

I should help James.

"No!"

"No…what? Woody?"

"Tell me where you are!"

She sighed. "You're going to hate me," she warned.

"I won't hate you, don't be silly."

Who will look after me now?

"I'm in New York City," she said.

Woody squeezed his eyes shut.

"Damn it!" he yelled, not really being able to pin the real reason for his anger. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was going to be home by morning. I could have explained then."

"Sure," he said icily. "You were going to lie."

"I wasn't, Woody, I…"

"Save it. Get in your car and drive home."

"No."

Woody thought quickly. "Then stay right there. Get in your car, lock the doors. I will come and we can do whatever it is you want to do together. You're at Koreldy's, aren't you?"

"Yes," she said reluctantly. "Look. You shouldn't come. Just let me do what I have to do and I'll be home by morning. There are some things you can't know." She stopped, thinking how much she sounded like her father. "I have to go," she choked, throat constricting. "I'll stay here." She shut off her phone and threw it to the ground. She had been sitting on Koreldy's step, head in hands, when her phone had rang, nearly scaring her to death.

If she thought the ring had given her a fright, she knew she was sorely mistaken when a distinctly male voice yelled, "Who's there?"

She jumped to her feet, staring around wildly. She was so frozen she didn't even have time to hide, so had to watch numbly as the door opened and her brother stood there, bewildered and looking just as pale and terrified as she.

"James!" she said, half-relieved. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Long time no see," he said drolly before beckoning her inside. She did so, completely forgetting her phone lying on the lawn.

"What are you doing here?" she repeated when they were inside.

"I could ask you that," he said. "But I think I know what you would say, as I am doing the same thing."

"I thought you were going to stick around before," she said. He looked at her.

"I didn't think it was advisable under the circumstances," he told her, and she nodded. "I'm here to prove that he…"

"Murdered your father, I know."

"You do?"

"Well I guessed."

"As good as," she agreed. "Listen, a cop is going to be here in about…" She looked at her watch. "2 and a half hours."

"What?" he hissed. "You should have come alone."

"I'm in custody, James," she said. "I tried to."

"So you told him where you were?"

"I had to do that, too."

"Uh huh," he said in a tone of evident disbelief. "How did we end up here, Jordan? Right now? In this little house, me on the run from the law, you with no left in your family but me? And a fat lot of good I am doing. I just wish I could do something!"

"How did this happen?" she echoed. "I'll tell you how. Because we did all we could. We did our best. In the end, that's really all we can do."

He shook his head. "If this is where our best gets us, I shudder to think what our worst could bring."

"Probably the same as this. Every action had a reaction, we're just suffering the consequences of our…"

"Our actions?" he said loudly. "Ours, huh? Damn it, Jordan, it wasn't our fault!"

"We have to take responsibility for ourselves, James."

"It wasn't our fault," he repeated. "If she hadn't…"

"It is most definitely not her fault," Jordan said, jumping to her mother's defence. "We can't blame anyone for this. It's just a…"

"Big mess, out of anyone's control?"

"I didn't say that."

"You were about to."

"It is never out of our control," she said, voice growing stronger in her conviction.

"I'm sick of running," he said after a pause. "Let your cop find me."

"James…" she warned.

"Don't," he said. "I don't know what to do."

"Neither do I. Lets find something."

"Something?" he asked, mildly. "I'm kinda new to this. What exactly are we looking for?"

"Something that puts Koreldy in Boston."

"Ah."

There was nothing, predictably. He had covered his tracks well. Jordan sunk down next to the couch.

"Does it seem weird to you that this house is…"

"Normal?" she finished.

"Yeah," he said.

"No more surprising than finding your house to be so."

This quietened him. "This whole thing is weird, hey?"

"Only if you let yourself think about it," she said.

"Mm." He sat down beside her. "Maybe we should talk?"

"Talk how?" she asked. Her eyes were closed. She was tired, but would not recognise it, thinking if she didn't acknowledge the fact then it wasn't there – one of her sub-philosophies in life.

"I don't know. Catch up on 35 years of small talk?"

She laughed. "Wasn't that storm terrible in 1986?" she laughed. He grinned back.

"Awful," he agreed. He couldn't even be bothered to add up how old he was in 1986, let alone where he was living at the time.

"Do you think he was following us?"

"I'd count on it."

"Then there has to be something. Something that puts him in Boston, for even the remotest of reasons. At least then I'd be able to get them to investigate the possibility."

"Aren't you friends with all of them anyway?" her brother asked with just the tiniest hint of bitterness.

"Doesn't work that way," she said. "This one is stubborn."

"Hm."

"You should, by rights, be a suspect as well. But seeing as you…"

"Don't exist?"

She laughed. "Yeah, there is that."

"So the testimony of two cops doesn't change anything?"

"Of course it does, formally." She paused. "Your memory is good, remembering that there were two of them."

"A man and a woman," he confirmed. She nodded. "How could I forget that?"

"Why did you do it James?"

"Which part?" he asked wryly.

"All of it," she whispered. "Why did you come back?"

"I don't know, in truth. I told myself I wanted to see you, to know you."

"You told yourself?"

"Part of me wanted to see Max again, too," he confessed.

"Why?"

"To condemn him, to yell at him, to ask him why he let our mother go behind his back and why he let me be born. I don't know."

She nodded. "He loved her," she said. "He couldn't stop her, not really."

"Why did he keep so much from you? I'm guessing I wasn't his only secret."

"I was only just beginning to untangle the web of deceit he wove. But I'm sure he…"

"What, meant well?"

The two were certainly a sight. Slumped on a nicely carpeted floor of the man who killed her father, leaning against a rickety old lounge that wasn't likely to hold them much longer, chatting calmly about her father's dark life. And death.

James seemed to be thinking along the same lines. It was downright laughable, if you looked at it the right way. It took a death, a murderer and a wrongful murder charge to make this happen – typical of their messed up existences, collectively of course. They were both complete wrecks – and they wouldn't have each other any other way.

They fell into a contemplative silence, and Jordan must have drifted off, because the next sound she heard was a car pulling up outside the house. Panic stabbed into her belly and she rolled over shaking James who was also asleep. She looked at her.

"What?"

"He's here," she hissed.

"Jordan?" the call was heard only faintly, but heard nonetheless by the two. James jumped up as if he had been burned and looked around wildly.

"Déjà vu," he muttered.

"Come back," she said to him, but wasn't sure if he'd heard as he had already turned his back. She ran to the back window and watched him run away into the night. She was getting thoroughly sick of seeing her brothers back, but reasoned it was far better than watching him look at her with sunken eyes and bedraggled hair from the bars of a jail cell.

"Jordan?" the call came again.

"In here," she shouted, walking towards the front of the house. He came into view, and she almost smiled. He had the look of one who had only just woken up, his hair was ruffled and his clothes were wrinkled. His eyes had a look that was a cross between anger and fright as he pushed open the door.

"I told you to wait in the car," he said, stopping and staring at her, taking in her nervous, panicked look, flushed face and the deep breaths she was dragging into herself in an attempt to calm her racing heart.

"It was…" she fished around for an excuse. "Does it matter?" she asked irritably when she couldn't think of a plausible one.

"Yes, it does," he said, pulling gloves on. "Did you touch anything?"

"Yes," she said.

He rolled his eyes. She did it back at him, half-mocking, half-serious.

"Is it going to be admissible anyway?" she asked.

"If we sell it right," he said. "If we say you weren't here."

"Ah. You came here yourself in the middle of the night."

"You shouldn't have come," he muttered, rummaging through drawers.

"I've already looked," she told him, ignoring the comment.

"Well look again," he growled. She shrugged and did as he bade.

"Is the car here?" he asked after a while.

"I don't know, I didn't look," she said. He gave her a look and ceased his rifling. She followed him.

"What are you doing?" she asked. He ignored her. "Look, I know you're pissed at me…"

He whirled around. "Damn right," he said. "Do you know how worried I was when I woke up and you weren't there?"

"You don't have to worry…" she began, but the cut through her.

"About my job if you disappear? I practically wouldn't have one!"

She bristled, hurt. "I wouldn't do a complete runner," she just short of shouted.

"No?" he yelled back. "You wouldn't? You've changed, is that it?"

"Don't you dare…"

"Don't I dare? Don't I? God, Jordan! You should not be here!"

"Well neither should you, so I guess we go down together," she said in a low voice. "Why did you come if you were so worried about your job? I told you I would be back by morning."

He opened his mouth, but thought better, and shut it, turning his back on her, and walking towards the shed.

She shook her head with intense frustration and followed him. She opened her mouth at the car that was sitting innocently on the concreted floor.

"I didn't even think to look in here," she said, and allowed herself to grow excited. "I'll look in the car."

"No, I will," he said roughly, pushing past her. "You stay there."

She breathed deeply, containing her anger and turned around. She opened a cupboard door, not really expecting to find anything.

"Here!" came a shout from the car. She ran towards it, cupboard forgotten.

"What?"

"Receipt!" he said, and their quarrel was forgotten as he held out a scrap of paper. She reached for it but he yanked it away.

"Gloves," he warned, and turned its face back to his own. "This is a receipt for fuel in Boston…the day your father was murdered."

He delighted in the relief that crossed her face.

"Thank god," she breathed.

Hating to quash her excitement, he was reluctant to stamp on the party.

"Its not enough," he said. "We need more to overturn your charge. The evidence…"

"Puts me there. I know. Lets keep going, huh?"

She turned and went back to the cupboards, feeling his eyes bore into her back, allowing the first trickle of hope to creep in.

Fifteen minutes into the search, it was she who shouted, "Here!"

He came over.

"Guns," was all the said, and left it to him as he opened the door of the cupboard. "I can't believe we didn't look here."

He was too preoccupied to take any notice of the comment.

"Right," he said, standing. "What do we…" He was cut short by another shout from the ME. She was pointing at a small rectangular box at the back, almost hidden by the guns. He pulled it out and opened it, mouth opening as he rifled through what seemed to be papers. He looked helplessly at her.

"What?" she asked. Normally, she would have grabbed the box out of his hands, but looking at the expression on his face, she wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

"Gloves," he muttered, and handed her a pair, which she pulled on expertly, and took the box gingerly from his hands. She dropped her eyes to the box, and Woody watched them grow round before narrowing.

"My God," she uttered.