When the table's attention had shifted to the waiters who were serving their main courses, Alex took the opportunity to lean over and whisper in Bobby's ear, "Thank you."

He tensed as her lips brushed his skin, and tried to suppress the goosebumps her breath was threatening to give him. "For what?" he muttered, easing away from her slightly.

She matched his movement, both because she enjoyed unsettling him and because she didn't want the rest of the table hearing what she had to say. "For not doing anything."

He pulled away again, this time to give her an disbelieving look, and murmured, "Are you sure you're, uh, female?"

"Excuse me?"

He just shook his head with a small smile and settled himself back in his chair.

"Bobby!" she hissed through gritted teeth, turning her body to face him. "Explain."

He opened his mouth and took a breath, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by a call of "Hey, you two, get a room!" from the other side of the table.

Alex froze, then, fighting a blush, began to try to unobtrusively sit back down the way she had been a few minutes ago.

Bobby, on the other hand, snapped his head around and glared at his friends, trying to pick out the culprit. "Who said that?"

Six forks pointed at Oli, including the man's own. "You could at least wait until dessert to start the kissy-kissy stuff. That way the rest of us could hold down our dinner," he said in a curt voice that was belied by the amused look on his face.

"Well, it looks like Dan is your dinner partner," Annie broke in with a smirk. "Maybe if you buy him some chocolates or flowers, he'll let you . . ."

Dan blinked and, deciding to play along, turned to Oli. "You'll have to try harder than a box of chocolates to win me over, snookums. I don't come cheap," he said in a girlish voice, adding for good measure a snobbish sniff that resembled Janet Stapleton's from a few minutes ago.

"Speaking of cheap dates," Annie said, turning to Alex, "are there really pictures of you dressed up in your Vice clothes? I'd have collected them and burned them the second I transferred."

Alex's lips twitched as she fought a grin. "There really are, at least a few. The guys in Vice aren't what you'd call empathetic, and even though the pictures were Polaroids, we had a color copier, so . . ."

Bobby leaned into Annie. "You'd be surprised where those things have turned up," he told her conspiratorialy.

"What?" Alex squeaked, pulling him back to his own chair. "What are you . . . Bobby!" He'd never said anything to her about even knowing the incriminating photographs existed, and now he'd just announced to the table that he'd seen them?

"Don't worry, I confiscated whatever copies I came across."

"What, do guys trade them in the bathroom or something?"

"Something like that. You're a hot commodity among cops who . . . like to watch," he said, although he knew she was the only one who'd catch the joke.

"Uh, guys?" Oli said. "Do I need to repeat what I said about wanting to keep my dinner down?"

Alex gave Bobby a hard kick under the table and smiled sweetly at Oli. "Sorry. He doesn't get out much." Then, without any pause, she went on casually, "This chicken's good."

There was a beat of silence as everyone tried to catch up with her thoughts, then a series of murmured agreements were spoken as they all looked back down and started to work on their dinners.

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Alex excused herself to go to the ladies room between the main course and dessert, and as soon as she was out of sight, the table's collective attention turned to Bobby, who contrived to look oblivious to the study.

"Out with it, you!" Annie finally said, elbowing him in the ribs. "Who is she, where did you find her, how'd you manage to actually keep her . . ."

"Uh . . ."

"And can I have her if you decide you don't want her?" Dan added with a grin.

"No!" He glowered at his friend, who was obviously enjoying goading him, then shrugged. "I've already told you guys the main points."

"Oh, come on," said Susan, waving her fork at him. "I don't know about anyone else, but all I know is her name and that she's your girlfriend. Oh, and that she says you're a 'commitment-phobe'."

"I don't think I believe that," Janet spoke up, garnering surprised looks from her tablemates, who had almost forgotten she was there. "I happen to think that Bobby wouldn't have any trouble committing to the right girl."

Oli coughed to fill the silence that followed that remark.

"Bobby," Annie urged after a few seconds, motioning for him to continue talking. "Come on, I like her; I want to know more about her."

He sighed and began attempting to do origami with his cloth napkin as he spoke: "Her name's Alexandra. She's my partner at work, has been for about five years. We work well together. Um . . ." He looked up again, searching his mind for other facts about her that could be shared in mixed company. "She's tough," he finally added, looking back down at his hands. "Much tougher than me . . . as you could probably tell from the way she handled Jimmy a little while ago."

" 'Protective' is the word I'd have used," Susan said with a small smile. "Which probably works out well, since you never bother to defend yourself."

"Ok, protective," Bobby allowed. "She's got all the political skills between the two of us. Most of the people skills, too."

"She's pretty," Oli said. "And I say that as a distant admirer, not someone who wants to get onto her dance card," he added quickly, noting the scowl that appeared on Bobby's face. "It's just interesting to see someone that . . . delicate-looking be a hardass. She does it well."

"She does," he agreed. "As for how I manage to keep her," he went on, looking back at Annie as he addressed her earlier question, "I'm still trying to figure that out."

"Maybe she really likes things about you other than your . . . personality," suggested Janet, loudly enough for everyone at the table to hear.

"Or maybe," Oli retorted before Bobby could respond to her remark, "Alex isn't as shallow as . . . some women, and she's interested in things other than shoe size and homework."

Janet blanched as her insult of years ago came back to haunt her. "What else is there?" she said after a second, although this time she had the grace to say it under her breath.

"What else is there besides what?" Alex asked as she appeared behind Bobby's shoulder and slipped into her seat.

Silence.

A few awkward looks.

And then Janet gave her a sweet smile and said, "His . . . size, dear. Don't you agree that it rather overwhelms his other qualities?"

Alex hadn't realized she'd walked into a hostile environment when she returned, but the other woman's sniping made it amply clear that she had. She took a moment to compose herself, knowing that hurling a fork at Janet wouldn't help her win whatever argument this was, and then smiled back, just as sweetly. "Actually, I don't. Once you've been close to him for a long time, you kind of forget he's any bigger than anyone else, unless you need him to be."

"How's that?" Oli asked, genuinely puzzled. "I'd think, for someone as small as you, it would be hard not to notice."

"Hmm," she said pensively, trying to figure out how to explain it clearly, "well, there's a difference between being aware of something, and actually noticing something. Of course I'm 'aware' of the size difference, but I hardly ever 'notice' it - partly because he does everything he can to minimize it, at least at work."

"But what about outside of . . . work?" Janet shot back. "There are times when you, well, can't help but notice." She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

The insinuation was clear, and Alex didn't appreciate it, both because it was embarrassing for Bobby and because she didn't want to contemplate how Janet Stapleton knew about those "other times." She looked down at the table for a second, composing herself, then raised her head and gave Janet a half-smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Those times work fine for me. Maybe you just didn't know how to . . . handle him."

"Alex," Bobby said through gritted teeth as he tried to wish this entire conversation to hell.

"Sorry," she said, not looking the least bit contrite. "So, how did we get on the subject of how . . . tall you are, anyway?"

"I was, uh, telling them about how you're much tougher than I am," he semi-lied, relieved that she'd obeyed his implicit request.

Cocking her head to the side, she studied his face. It was obvious to her that he wasn't telling her the whole truth, but she'd get it out of him later tonight. For now, she'd humor him. "I don't know about that. I'd definitely say I'm more aggressive than you, but 'tougher'? Nah. You know very well I would never do some of the things you jump into. Like go vestless into a hotel room with a disturbed man holding a shotgun," she added, feeling the familiar sense of anger and dread that rose in her whenever she thought about that day.

"That sounds more like plain old stupidity, to me," Annie said as she tried to imagine the situation.

"That too," Alex said with a nod. "But you see my point."

"Yeah, I guess. But now that you put that scenario in my head, I think I might end up having nightmares about it."

"Join the club," Alex responded, being careful not to look at Bobby, who was unaware of the many bad dreams she'd had about that case.

Bobby leaned forward and stared hard at her. "You never told me you -"

He was cut off by the feedback of a microphone, followed by an amplified voice from the stage in the front of the room. "Test one . . . test one two . . ." said the woman who stepped up to the podium. At an unseen signal from someone to the side of the stage, she took another step forward and said, "Hello, B.F. High, class of 1979!"

There were a few scatted whistles and cheers, but most of the audience just watched the woman curiously.

"I'm Bonnie Green, co-chair of the Reunion Committee, and I'd like to welcome you all here tonight and thank you for participating. We had a great crew who helped organize this event. I'd like to introduce them to you now. Guys, if you'd each stand up when I say your name? First, we have my co-chair, Walt Guerrero," she said, then waited as a tall man with long black hair pulled into a ponytail stood up and gave the room a small wave.

"Next is Melissa Conway, who was in charge of the many hoops we had to jump through to book this place." A statuesque woman with white-blonde hair and piercingly blue eyes bobbed up, nodded to the crowd, and quickly returned to her chair.

"Then we have Susan Alexander-Hunt, who was in charge of creating and maintaining the guest list and invitations." The occupants of the chess table clapped enthusiastically as Susan, her face tinged with red, stood up and smiled, then sank back down next to her husband.

"And finally, we have Emily Andrews-Vincent. She's the woman you can thank for the fantastic decorations, food, and drink we're enjoying tonight."

Remembering Janet Stapleton's earlier barb, Alex watched intently, wondering what the woman would look like, as a sleek dark-haired head began to rise slowly above the crowd. When Emily's face became visible, gasps could be heard around the room. She studied the woman's high cheek bones, mass of shiny red-brown hair, and aristocratic bearing, and let out her own gasp when recognition hit her.

Leaning over to Bobby, she whispered, "Isn't that . . ."

He nodded. "Congresswoman Emily Vincent. I can't believe I never noticed the resemblance before."

"I can't believe you didn't either, Sherlock," she teased before turning to check out the reactions of the rest of the table.

Dan and Oli, unsurprisingly, appeared fixated on the woman's beautiful face. As Alex watched them, Oli made a show of pushing his jaw shut and she rolled her eyes at him. Susan and her husband were smirking as they watched everyone else find out what they'd already known. Annie was staring wide-eyed at the woman, amazed by the change in her appearance since high school, when Emily Andrews had been a chess nerd with a poof of dried-out curls and glasses two sizes too big for her face.

Janet Stapleton, as usual, was displaying a totally different expression from everyone else: a cross between dismay and anger. Alex could easily read the thoughts written all over her face: Why didn't anyone tell me about this? Susan Hunt just sat there and smiled when I mentioned Emily's high school looks, damn her!

The applause began to die down as Emily Vincent returned to her chair. After Bonnie Green had thanked everyone again and sat down, dessert was served. Susan paused and looked up just as she picked up her fork to sample the cake. "Oh, Janet, tell me . . . do you still find it so 'hard to believe' that Emily helped organize this?"