Chapter 3-

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

When Woody demanded she leave his hospital room, and in effect, his life, Jordan had assumed it was just the fear of not knowing what was to become of him. He was angry. His legs lay in front of him in a hospital bed, refusing to move upon reflex or command as if mocking him. They had been strong and reliable, whether chasing down a suspect or slow dancing with Jordan, Woody's legs had always been an advantage for him in a world where he had seemed painfully average otherwise.

Jordan couldn't imagine the devastation he had to be feeling at facing a future without the use of his legs. Guiltily, she also couldn't imagine how he felt having had the woman he loved finally to return his affections….while he lay near death, bleeding and barely conscious on his way into surgery.

Luckily for Jordan, she never pretended to have the best timing.

So she had backed off as he asked, stopped coming around the hospital, at least when he was awake, and only catching news of his long recovery through the ever-flowing office grape vine.

If they had any less communication between them Woody and Jordan would have been sending up smoke signals from opposite mountain tops.

"Hey, Woodrow, what brings you to our dismal little neck of the woods today?" Nigel asked dropping his black Doc Martens from the edge of his desk and unfolding his lanky frame from a small, squeaky, swivel chair.

Woody offered him an uncomfortable smile. "I'm looking for Jordan…" he said with wandering eyes. "She here?" he asked finally, resting his eyes on Nigel's.

"Why? You need to ask her something about a case?" Nigel inquired as he pushed and pulled papers around on his desk looking for the sticky note he'd written a call out on for Jordan. She'd been in using the bathroom when her phone rang.

Woody raised one eyebrow. "No…I've finally broke down and decided to propose marriage. I mean we haven't talked about anything besides a dead body in two years, but I figure, what the hell?" he delivered dryly and Nigel triumphantly raised a hand with the yellow paper stuck to one slender, pale finger.

"Now see that," Nigel quipped. "And some people joked that they'd removed your sense of humor as well as your spleen.." he said handing the paper over. Body…dumpster…McCarthy and 12th. She's been gone about 20 minutes," he said and Woody started off down the hall with an "I owe you one" and a glance at the 12 year-old file he held under his arm.

He punched the down button on the wall and bent backwards cracking his back with a sigh. He'd chide himself for such an 'oldie' move if he didn't know the ache had less to do with his being thirty-something and more to do with the three and a half hours he spent in police storage looking for a file on Daniel and Claire Rosen.

The basics of the case had done little to impress upon Woody. A mob hit, or so it appeared to him. One the unfortunate second or third or fourth wife of a wealthy, disliked attorney and the other, a disliked attorney whose assassin had so little respect for the man he'd killed that he had not only executed him, but had gone further to desecrate the remains by digging a the bullet out of the back of his head.

"Ouch," Woody said aloud, rubbing the back of his head idly as he stepped off of the elevator on the first floor.

"Ouch what?" Jordan said suddenly appearing in front of him.

Once he'd peeled himself off of the ceiling, Woody shook his head. "Jesus, Jordan don't do that," he said holding his chest.

Jordan just shrugged and took the file he was holding, as usual without asking, and flipped it open. She stopped her journey into the elevator when she immediately noticed the names.

"Hey..." Jordan said whipping around with a hand stilling the closing doors. "What are you doing with this?" she asked stepping off of the car and next to Woody.

"This..." Woody said pulling the file back into his own hands and looking Jordan over swiftly, "is what I was coming to find you for…are you through with your call or…or could you come with me somewhere to talk about this case?" he asked, knowing that while reluctant to spend time alone with him after all the skeletons they had crammed into their respective closets, the ME in her couldn't pass up the chance to dig into a good old-fashioned cold case. Especially one she had obviously been so connected to.

"Sure…lunch at Mike's Grill? It's only a block away," Jordan said already starting out the door.

Woody couldn't help but smile. 'There's my girl' he thought following behind her when she grabbed the file again and buried her nose in it on her way back outside.

"…So…" Woody said finishing his soda and crunching a piece of melting ice before he continued. "Do you…and if it's too much or you feel uncomfortable that's fine…do you think you could throw up the flare, see if Max'll come back to help out?" he asked after explaining the deal made with a shooter in prison and his connection to a still open case of Max's.

Jordan sat back in her seat across from Woody in a booth and took in his story for the better part of her lunch break. In return, she told the detective everything she knew from listening to Max and Eddie talk about the case. She was thankful for the multitasking abilities she'd honed in med school as she listened to Woody while simultaneously watching the gestures he made with his hands and the excited way he talked about the possibility of solving this case that spanned over a decade. Even after all he'd been through in the past few years, mostly at her hands, Woody was still a cop excited about his work. Selfishly, Jordan reveled in the brief flashing moments where she would see a spark of the 'farm boy' she had once assumed him to be. And after all that she'd put him through, she knew she should try and help him out with this case.

"Well…" Jordan started with a sigh. "Max and I don't really talk anymore but he sent me a telephone number a year or so ago. It's a pay phone he stops at every Wednesday at 9 pm." She explained with a shrug, still ashamed after all this time that an occasional phone conversation with her father was all the contact they had anymore. "I'll try for you," she said softly, finally meeting Woody's intense gaze.

"Thank you, Jordan. I know how hard it is for you to ask anyone, much less your dad, for a favor…I really appreciate it and I'm glad we can still…kind of be…well… I mean, that we can…" he trailed off gesturing between the two of them and Jordan just nodded with a sympathetic smile.

"Yeah…" she said and before she could stop herself, Jordan blurted out, "I'm sorry for how it got between us…after you were shot and then what I said…how I went about it was just…" she stopped suddenly. Hopefully Woody would think it was because of the shrill chirp of his cell phone ringing in his pocket and not the pained look on his face.

"Sorry…I…excuse me..." Woody said with a nervous laugh as he fumbled for the phone in his pocket and stood from the table when he saw the caller ID. He was only a few feet away, but with the sparse after lunch crowd Jordan could hear his conversation clearly.

"Hey….." Woody said into the mouth piece, his voice intimately soft.

Jordan was sure it couldn't be his captain or even another detective. She had heard Woody was seeing some woman from the hospital over the past year, Maryanne, Suzanne…no, Leighanne. A knot suddenly formed in the pit of Jordan's stomach. Woody was on the phone with his girlfriend and every remaining fiber of her high school self bonded together, bent on assuring Jordan that the knot was in fact, jealousy.

"Yeah….yeah I'm just uhh…I'm meeting with somebody about a case I'm on….uh huh….yeah. No, it's a twelve year-old case so there's no big rush on it, I think I can still come over tonight…" he trailed off with a soft chuckle and shifted from foot to foot. Jordan wasn't surprised to see his ears turn red. "Uh…yeah…that'd…that'd be okay too…" he mumbled and cleared his throat. "Uh huh…yeah…..Yes babe, but I've gotta get back to work….uh huh…..I will…..I will….uh, you, too. Bye." He said and quickly flipped the phone shut before turning and walking back to Jordan, who was busy pretending she hadn't heard the conversation.

"Okay...so you'll call me once you know one way or the other from Max, great..." he said not giving Jordan a chance to answer as he gathered the pages of the file and stuffed them back in their brown folder. "I've gotta get back. I'll uh….I'll see ya, Jordan." Woody stammered out and rushed for the door before she could even get out a single word.

"That went well." Jordan mumbled with a glance at the clock and a shrug. "Well, it's five o'clock somewhere.." she sighed and held up a hand for the waiter as she tried to decide between one finger of Scotch or two.

It was Friday before Jordan got back to Woody concerning a possible meeting with Max. She had called her father on Wednesday night and he was happy to hear from her…she hadn't called in over a month. Feeling only a little bad for making her first attempt at calling him that month a business call, Jordan was happy to hear Max showing some interest.

"The Rosen case huh?" Max said hesitantly over the phone. "That's dangerous ground to be treadin' on sweetheart…you know what kind of people are involved in that case…" he warned in the fatherly way Jordan had ached for since his absence from Boston.

"Yeah…I know," Jordan started. "That's why Woody asked me to talk to you. He wants to meet with you to go over some things with the case. He saw yours and Eddie's name on it and he feels it's best to go to the source with cases like this and as long ago as it was.." she trailed off when she realized she was rambling. "So…would you? Meet with Woody somewhere?" she asked quietly.

There was a long moment as the detective in Max screamed in his mind at him to jump on the first train to Boston and wrap this case up once and for all. There was another long moment where the father in him imagined every worse case scenario for what could go wrong with this case and more specifically, with Jordan. She didn't know how closely she had been watched on the first go around with this situation. Eddie had been more attentive and watchful of her but as they were dating, Jordan had probably assumed he was going through a gentlemanly phase, walking her to her door more, holding her closer as they walked the streets. She never suspected that pictures had been showing up in the mail to both Max and Eddie. Packages that consisted of pictures of Max and Jordan leaving the station, Jordan and Eddie holding hands around the North End or heading into one of their apartment buildings together. They had decided it was best not to scare Jordan by letting her see the pictures. It was one thing for there to be threatening things sent to them over a case, it was a hazard of the job; but Jordan was an innocent and didn't deserve to be pulled into this.

"Yeah, I'll call you on Friday to let you know when, but tell Woody to be prepared to meet with me at any time in the near future, I won't be giving much of a warning at all when I feel it's safe to come back there okay? Oh and Jordan?" he said seriously with that voice he always used when she was going to a party in high school.

"Yeah Dad….I know, I'll be careful okay?" she said softly. "And thank you for doing this I really appreciate it," she told him awkwardly.

"You're welcome sweetheart. On Friday, wait for my call." He said quietly before the line went quiet and Jordan hung up the phone.

"I will," She whispered again and hung up the phone.

By Friday Woody was anxious to get moving on this case. He wasn't sleeping well at night, he had been snapping at Leighanne, and Jordan's confession at Mike's two days before was still weighing heavily on his mind and conscience.

He cared a lot for Leighanne. She was the only person who seemed to be able to look at him without pitying the poor detective down the end of the hall. She was sweet, she was caring, she was tall and willowy with long, wavy, blonde hair, but most importantly she wasn't Jordan and when he got out of the hospital that had been exactly what Woody was looking for.

They had exchanged numbers in the hospital, but Woody was still going through therapy and getting over all the emotional trauma that followed his being shot. By the time he got up the nerve or the energy to call her it had been nearly eight months and he felt silly to try and get in touch with her after so long. And so he hadn't. But as fate would have it, one night he had gone out for a drink after work to a bar near the hospital, and in walked Leighanne, still in her white scrubs from work.

Woody had offered the stool beside him and Leighanne had declined with a smile and told him a booth was better for his back.

Three hours later they closed out the bar. Woody walked Leighanne home to her apartment only a few blocks away with a promise to call her the very next day. He had and they began going to the movies every once in a while as Woody continued to wean himself of what feelings he still had for Jordan. Movies turned to dinner, dinner turned to take out and movies in each of their apartments and when they were both ready, take out and movies led to breakfast in bed. Woody never mentioned Jordan to Leighanne. In his mind, talking about the one who got away was just as bad, if not worse, than talking about ex's and so he had avoided the topic altogether.

Woody thought he was over Jordan. When he had begun dating Leighanne seriously, he told himself that the Jordan chapter of his life was closed and that he might just be able to settle down with this woman. She was safe, reliable and she could tell him anything. She was everything that Woody thought he wanted in a partner and for the past year she had been.

So on Wednesday night as he lay in bed watching Leighanne sleep, Woody was confused as to why he was suddenly caught up again in thinking about the woman he'd forced out of his sight and mind and her sudden re-appearance in his personal life. He hated doing this to Leighanne. She was a good woman and he cared a lot for her. Just thinking about Jordan as he lay beside Leighanne made Woody feel like he was cheating on his girlfriend. He smiled sadly when she opened her eyes having felt she was being watched.

"Hey you," Leighanne said stretching out beside Woody and watching his face before she decided not to snuggle closer to him. For as long as she had known Woody there was always a 'something' there that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

When he was in the hospital Woody had a frequent nightly visitor. A tall woman with dark hair and even darker eyes that seemed more tormented on each visit she made. The floor nurses had made bets on who she was. They said it couldn't be his girlfriend,

because she only came when he was asleep and she couldn't be his sister because she had looked at him with more than just familial love.

"You know…" Leighanne said propping herself up on one elbow and looking at him critically. "For as long as I've known you and as much as you've told me about yourself…sometimes when I look at you I have absolutely no idea what's going on inside your head," she admitted and reached out to touch his cheek.

Woody closed his eyes and cringed when he saw her slender hand and short nails caressing his cheek on the inside of his eyelids. He opened his eyes again finding long manicured nails and not the honey brown eyes and soft dark curly hair of his dreams, but Leighanne's pleasant blue eyes and lemon blonde waves close to his face.

"You can't ever know everything about a person, Leighanne." Woody sighed and dropped his head backwards onto his pillow. "It doesn't make sense to say you know everything there is to know about someone cause….cause new things happen to them all of the time.." he said rubbing his eyes and folded his hands behind his head.

After regarding his statement for a long moment Leighanne rolled over to rest her chin on his bare chest. "Okay..so what's new Wood?" she asked softly.

Woody felt uncomfortable lying to her. "Nothing really, just thinking more about that case I'm working on, but you know I can't talk about it or anything." He said hoping she'd end the conversation at that.

Leighanne shifted a little beside him and Woody cast his eyes towards the wall. He felt uncomfortable lying and even more uncomfortable when she knew that he was.

"Okay…good night then, Woody. I love you." She said barely above a whisper and he nodded.

"Good night Leigh…you too," He said closing his eyes without turning his head back to her or holding her any closer in his embrace.

"Hey Woodrow…wakey wakey time…" Framus said tapping the toe of a pair of her famous stilettos against his desk.

Woody lifted his head slowly and glared at his partner. "What do you want Roz..." he said more than asked.

"World peace, an end to hunger, and Jimmy Choo Kidskin ankle boots in size 9 wide, but that's neither here nor there.." she said shaking her head. "The naughty night nurse is at the desk, go sign her in," she said thumbing towards the door and Woody popped out of his chair like he'd been sitting on a spring.

"Leighanne's here?" he asked starting for the door already.

Framus just nodded, already having had her attention captured by something else in the room more interesting than her partner's little picket fenced life.

"Hey…sweetie, what are you doing here?" Woody asked striding towards the front desk and grabbing the sign in sheet as Leighanne was fitted with a visitors pass on her shirt.

"Hey you, I brought pizza." She smiled and stood on tip toes to kiss him quickly.

"That's…great Leigh, really it is...but I'm sort of waiting on someone about that case. You know the 14 year-old one I can't talk about?" he asked kissing her back quickly and guiding her towards his office.

"Oh come on Wood, lighten up," Leighanne said with a roll of her eyes and set the pizza down on his desk. "We'll make a party of it. You, me, Roz and whoever it is that you need to talk about this case with…" At Woody's warning glance and the turn of his lip that always let Leighanne know a lecture was coming on she held up a hand. "Don't worry, I'll put on my ear muffs so I don't hear any details about your little case and…"

She stopped in mid sentence when someone cleared their throat at the door and she raised her eyes to meet those eyes again. Those same haunted eyes that had looked after Woody in the hospital several nights a week.

Leighanne was surprised enough to see that same look in those eyes as she'd seen in the hospital, but she was even more surprised to see that 'something' in Woody's eyes that had kept her awake some nights wondering what she'd missed in the stories of his life he'd told her. Her woman's intuition told her that this woman somehow was responsible for that 'something' and as Woody's girlfriend, she felt it was her right to know how she fit into his life.

"Oh..hey…Jordan…this, we're just eating dinner…I thought you were coming by a little late,." Woody said standing and wiping a spot of pizza sauce off of the corner of his mouth.

Jordan took in the sight of Woody and Joanne, Brianne, Leighanne and smiled tightly. "Uh, well I was finished early at work and was going to see if you wanted to grab a bite before but apparently you've already…grabbed one so, I'll just…here's that information you needed. I set up that meeting for you and it's going to be tomorrow at 11 pm. The location is in here." She said handing him a folder and backing for the door.

"Oh please, stay and have a slice of pizza…Jordan… is it?" Leighanne asked and turned to hit Woody's arm gently. "Don't be rude Woody, ask her to stay…I'm Leighanne by the way…how do you know Woody?" she asked lightly and sat back on her perch at the corner of Woody's desk comfortably.

"We work together sweetie, she's a ME." Woody explained quickly and hoped Jordan would make a quick retreat.

"Ohhhh like Quincy huh? Oh jeez, I'm sorry bet ya never heard THAT one before..." Leighanne said with a roll of her eyes embarrassedly.

Jordan just shrugged uncomfortably and Woody rubbed the back of his neck with a nervous chuckle.

"Ha..yeah, well..I better uhh…I've got to get going, thanks for the offer but I'll take a rain check on the pizza," Jordan said quickly. "It was nice to meet you, Leighanne." She said with a quick wave and hurried down the hall.

"Well…." Roz said around a piece of pizza. "As much fun as it is here in awkward town, I'm sure I've got some new 20 year-old recruit to practice frisking techniques on...I'll uhh….yeah." She said hurrying out the door the same way Jordan had gone.

Leighanne looked back to Woody after watching Jordan leave the room in a rush. That 'look' was still on his face and it finally all clicked for her that this woman had once been very important in her boyfriend's life. Selfishly, she hoped that wasn't still the case.

"I'm just gonna be here a while longer so…so you know don't wait up for me, I might not even make it over tonight with this case and all that…" Woody said pretending to be engrossed in the file he held.

Leighanne watched him for a moment silently before she gathered up their trash and the left over pizza. "Sure…umm..I'll see you tomorrow maybe? We can meet at Starbucks for breakfast like usual?" She said softly, her voice betraying her uncertainty in what was going on between Woody and Jordan with the troubled eyes.

"Yeah, sure, tha…that sounds great Leigh."

"Okay, well don't stay up too late with this case. I'll see you…"

"Yeah…yeah …see you soon…"

"Love you," Leighanne said softly, reaching up to kiss him gently before backing towards the door.

"Yeah…you too."