Timing (1?)

By:Lisa

Rating: MA overall

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf, Kathryn and Vincent get all the credit.

Summary: Eames' husband comes beck from the dead, i.e. the Witness Protection Plan

A/N: My Criminal Intent muse has a mind of its own and won't let me stop writing. Feedback and suggestions are appreciated.

Eames laid the last of her reports in a pile to her right and stretched her arms out over her head. It had to be a personal record; six straight hours filling out reports and expense forms. She looked around the squad room and saw that it was mostly empty early on a Friday night, but she could still see her Captain sitting in his office. She picked up the reports and strode into. She wanted them off her hands as soon as possible.

"They're done, finally," she said, laying the large stack of folders on his desk.

Jimmy Deakins looked up at her and smiled, "Thanks. Goren skip out already?"

"Yeah, he had a date," she replied, heading for the door. "Well, have a good night. See you Monday."

"Alex, can you shut the door and have a seat?" her captain said in that serious tone that he only used when he was really concerned.

She looked back at him and then closed the door, but she didn't sit. Just stood, ready to take whatever criticism she had coming. He could be a hardass but as bosses went he was fair.

"What, Sir?" she asked, noticing his hesitancy.

"I got some information this afternoon about an old case. David Mincelli…"

Alex's face paled at the mention of the man that had ordered the hit on her husband that had resulted in him being killed in the line of duty.

"…David Mincelli is dead. He was killed in the prison yard yesterday."

Alex stood there as if she were made of stone. Her husband's killer was dead and she was glad.He had lived for the last seven years when her husband hadn't had the same chance. The man that had actually done the deed was still on death row. He would get what he deserved soon enough.

"How did he…?"

"He was stun gunned by a prison guard and it led to him having a heart attack," Deakins said, solemnly.

"Oh…," Alex said heading for the door again, still trying to grasp the information.

"Alex, I think you should sit down," Deakins said, making it more of an order than a request.

Alex sat down in one of the offered chairs and stared at her captain, wondering what else he could possibly have to tell her.

"As you know Mincelli had feelers out all over town for anyone who could take down your husband...that's why we had Michael in protective custody. But Mincelli had connections to the mob and we were afraid that, well, police protection wouldn't be enough. The FBI were called in and they put him in protective custody," Deakins said, still dancing around what he really wanted to tell her.

"What are you saying?" Alex asked, leaning forward, her hands on her knees.

"Alex, Michael has been in the Witness Protection Program for the last seven years. He's alive," he said, sitting over her on the edge of his desk.

He sat there and waited while she digested the information, but her reaction was the last thing he expected as he watched one of his most hardened detectives throw up in his trash can.

TBC