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A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Rin22 - I hope this update is soon enough. Hopefully more soon.

Part Nine: Where Do We Go From Here?

July 7, 2006

"Pretend?" Furious tears sprung to Jordan's eyes. "You think that was pretending? You think – God – I don't - I don't know what to say to you, to get through to you."

His face contorted. "But you know what to say to Danny McCoy? You gonna tell him about this?"

"What the hell are you-?" She hit the brick wall of her own lies. She pressed her fingers to her forehead and then ran the hand through her hair. She took several deep, trembling breaths. "There's nothing between Danny and me. I haven't seen him in months."

Woody said nothing. His eyes grew darker. "You said…."

"I lied!" She flung back at him.

"But – you said – Jordan, I heard your half of that conversation. You made plans to go to Las Vegas."

"For a medical examiners' convention!"

That stopped the homicide detective. For a moment, he stared at her, his mouth moving soundlessly. "Why?"

"Why would I go to a medical exam-"

"Why did you – lie about you – and – and Vegas boy?"

Jordan shook her head. Her fury had spent itself, leaving an acid residue of pain and confusion. Again. Her voice rang with an emotional retreat perilously close to an admission of defeat. "I wanted you to – to be jealous." She couldn't look at him when she said it. She was remembering vividly why emotional honesty had never been her forte.

"Why?" He gasped the syllable as if he'd been punched.

She laughed, near to hysteria, the sound infused with bitterness and a thousand kinds of regret. "Because I meant it," she managed at last. She looked up at him. "What I said." She paused, forcing back the tears in her throat.

"Why then, Jo? Why that day? Why?"

She shrugged, brushing at the tears that wouldn't be denied. "Because I've never been good at the whole – at the relationship and trust thing. And part of it was that I never really trusted my own judgment." She bent over for a moment, finding the tissue box had fallen to the floor next to her chair. She plucked out one and sniffled into it. "But –" She swallowed. "But when that call came, I – I – I saw my life, my whole life, before you, with you and what it would be like without you." She stopped again and gave him a rueful smile. "And suddenly every fear I'd ever had just… vanished. The only thing I was afraid of was losing you." She blew her nose again. "But I did anyway." She sat down on her desk and folded her hands against her still-bare thighs. She sighed deeply, drawing the air from her diaphragm to steady herself. "You think this was a mistake."

"I didn't say that," he said softly. He scrubbed his hands along his stubbly cheeks and into his hair. He sat next to her, careful to keep a distance between them because, if the truth be known, he could have had her again right there and then. "God, Jo, we managed to fuck this up, didn't we?"

She looked at him sidelong, her sleek eyebrows arching. "Pun intended?"

"What?" His face registered the double meaning and he blushed. "No. Sorry."

"You ever wish we could go back? Start over?"

"The bank job?"

She reached for his hand. "The bad ties?"

He put an arm around her, and she leaned against him. "What now, Jo?"

She sighed, beginning to feel like a balloon with a slow leak. "Maybe we should try to be honest with each other."

He pretended to be taken aback, gaping at her, his eyes serious, but not as haunted as a few moments ago. "Jordan Cavanaugh, do you mean things like telling each other how we really feel?"

She bumped him with her shoulder. "We've tried everything else, haven't we?"

Woody tossed a glance over his shoulder at her clear – and polished – desk. "I'd say yeah."

This time she hit him in the chest with her palm, but she smiled at the same time. She looked down at their mutual state of half-dress. Her cheeks colored deeply. "Maybe we should – uh…." She gestured toward the pile of clothing.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm kind of enjoying the view."

She ran her own eyes over his physique. "It's a little distracting though."

XXXXX

They ended up at an all-night diner, drinking cups of bad coffee and sharing stale apple pie. Neutral territory had seemed like the best plan once they were both fully clothed again. Woody had offered to help Jordan tidy up, but she'd assured him she'd take care of it in the morning.

"It is the morning," he'd observed.

"Later in the morning," she'd amended with a growl. "Possibly much later."

They talked quietly and seriously, facing each other with grave expressions over the Formica tabletop. When Woody left – alone – ninety minutes later, they both felt better than they had in over a year, but there was still a lot of distance to bridge.

XXXXX

Jordan slipped into her office about an hour late. She closed the door as quietly as she could and took stock of the situation. Except for the office supplies strewn around her chair, it would be possible to deny anything ever happened there just a few hours earlier. She was still picking up paper clips when the door opened.

"I know you're in here, Jordan," Nigel's voice teased. Grimacing briefly, the M.E. raised her head above the desktop. Nigel arched an eyebrow and gave her a sly, knowing grin. "Problem, luv?"

Jordan improvised. "I – uh – yeah…." She stood up, holding the last few paper clips aloft. "I knocked the paper clips off my desk." She nodded, studying to see if he was buying what she was selling. "Uh, you know. This case. With the models. Frustration."

Her friend's face into the widest grin she'd ever seen. "Why do I doubt that?"

Shit! "Doubt what?" Please let my face be the innocent one that Sister Mary Immaculata always believed.

"Oh, you know." He shrugged. "The frustration part." Then he waggled his eyebrows at her.

She felt hot blood rush into her cheeks. She averted her gaze. "No. Um – what are you talking about?"

"Oh, nothing much." He sauntered over and sat in the chair Woody had occupied the night before. "I just have the tiniest suspicion that my little ruse to get Woodrow over here last night was – shall we say? – a stunning success."

"Define stunning," she challenged, recovering her equilibrium somewhat.

Nigel chuckled, enjoying the fact that his generally unflappable Jordan was walking so easily into verbal traps this morning. "Oh no, I'll leave that up to you and Woody."

Jordan put her head in her hands. Without looking at him, she asked, "Are you here for a reason?"

"Wanted to see what happened."

If she hadn't just picked up all the paper clips, Jordan might have thrown them at him.

"So, did you two work things out?"

She choked at his expression. "Uh – Um…." She wiped her palms on her jeans. "We talked."

"And…?"

"And what?"

"Was that before or after the paper clips ended up on the floor?"

"Mostly after," she admitted, blushing again.

"We-ll." Nige rubbed his hands together in anticipation and happiness for her. "So – Woody and Jordan, sitting in a tree-"

"Nige! Quit. We talked. And we – the…." She arched a brow as he leaned forward, his elbows on her desk. Sweetly she said, "You may not want to put your elbows there."

"Why not-?" This time, to Jordan's delight, Nigel blushed. "Okay, I deserved that. But, come on, Jordan, I've watched you for the last year. You've flirted with Danny McCoy, dated that lovely reporter chap and a few others, but it's still Woody you've cared about."

She smiled. "Okay. Yeah. You're right. But – But, Nige, it's not that easy."

He nodded. "I know. It's better though?"

Now she nodded slowly, taking a deep breath. "We talked. Really, really talked about – everything, I guess." She flattened her palms on her desk. "There's a lot we both have to get past. We'll see."

"That is an improvement, Jordan."

"And none of it is going to happen with this case open."

Nigel shifted gears with her. "Did you find anything last night?"

Jordan nodded. She pointed to the board in the corner. "I'm pretty sure we got February and March."

"Not January?"

"We didn't – later."

He nodded sagely, letting her off the hook with that one. "Should I get the others?"

"Might as well. The more input, the better. Maybe we can finally crack this guy's … pattern."

No such luck.

July dragged itself into August with almost no progress to show. Tempers began to fray as the media started to get an inkling of what BPD and the Coroner's Office weren't saying. Humid, muffling, record heat settled on the city for almost three weeks, adding to the emotions roiling in the case.

Jordan was just about to her car after a long day of autopsying deaths due to heat stroke, drowning and even severe food poisoning. Outside the heat had finally broken as the sky opened up and bucketed rain on the city. "Cavanaugh."

"We've got another one, Jo." Woody's voice was tense, angry and at the very limit of frustration.

Jordan thought of the skies. Please tell me she's inside. Please. "Where?" She groaned when he gave her the location. "Does this psycho control the weather?" She slammed her hand down on the roof of her car. "Three weeks of dry, dry weather!"

"I know. Believe me, I know."

"I'll grab Nigel and head over there. We'll salvage what we can. Damn!"

"Jo?"

"What?" Her voice was sharper than she intended.

"We may have a witness. If she lives."

END Part Nine