A/N: Yay, the plot's back again!

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Gabrielle Young's widower was nowhere to be seen when his housekeeper reluctantly opened the door for Goren and Eames the next morning. A sizeable middle-aged woman, she carefully studied their badges before nodding tersely and opening the door wide enough for them to enter, hissing as they passed, "Portense bien! Mi jefe es buen hombre; no le molesten!"

Alex, who had only a basic understanding of Spanish, figured from the woman's tone that she was admonishing them to behave themselves, and tried to look as harmless as she could.

Bobby, on the other hand, paused and looked up at the woman, then managed a halting reply as he continued to follow Alex deeper into the apartment: "Sabemos que ya está . . . uh . . . desolado. We don't want to make things any worse than they already are for him, ma'am."

"Good. You keep it that way. He is in his office, through there," the housekeeper said, pointing them in the right direction.

They found Norman Young slumped over an expensive-looking teak desk with his head in his hands, a forgotten Mont Blanc pen dangling from his fingers. "Go away," he told the intruders without lifting his head.

"Mr. Young," Alex said, approaching the man and putting a hand on his desk in his line of sight. "We're so sorry for your loss, and I know the last thing you want to do right now is answer questions, but we were hoping you could give us a few minutes."

Young straightened up to face the two detectives, looking as pale and shaken as his posture had suggested he would. "I'm sorry," he said as he tried to compose himself. "Of course. What . . . ask anything you need to."

Bobby glanced at Alex to make sure he wasn't about to step on anything she wanted to say, then looked back at the man in front of them. "How are you holding up, sir?" he asked gently as he bent over the desk to see Young's face, knowing that the man's responses - both spoken and physical - would tell them much about his feelings for his dead wife.

"I'm . . ." He knifed a hand through his blonde hair and sighed deeply. "Numb, most of the time. And when I'm not numb, I want to be. I just can't believe she . . . I don't understand who could kill Gabrielle. She was a good person!"

"Did your wife have any enemies, Mr. Young?" Alex asked. "Anyone who would benefit from her death?"

He took a breath as if he was about to speak, then let it out on a sob, shaking his head, instead. A second later, he determinedly regained control of himself and said, "All lawyers have people who hate them. Former clients, other lawyers who they've made look dumb . . . I suppose Gabby had as many 'enemies' as anyone else, but there was no one who seemed to truly hate her."

"What about her, uh, will?" Bobby said. "Are there any unusual . . . or not-so-unusual, for that matter . . . bequests?"

"No," Young said with a firm shake of his head. "Claire and I are the main beneficiaries. My daughter gets ten percent of Gabby's liquidated assets when the will is executed; the rest goes into a marital trust that's under my control until my death, when it passes to Claire."

Goren blinked, a slight smile on his face. "Well, that was . . . thorough. I'm impressed."

"We were both lawyers, Detective. We helped draft each other's wills."

"Just out of curiosity," Alex said thoughtfully, "does your will specify the same set-up?"

"Yes. Look, could you just . . . skip ahead to the important questions? I'm very tired, and the funeral arrangements . . ."

Goren and Eames exchanged looks. "And which would be the 'important' questions, sir?" Alex asked dubiously.

Young gave her an exasperated look. "Where I was at the time of her death," he began as if he were reciting a memorized list, "whether I own a gun, whether our relationship was in any trouble . . . Please, I want myself eliminated from your list of suspects as fast as possible so you can start looking at everyone else."

There was a long moment of silence before Bobby glanced at Alex, who shrugged, and said, "We'll take the answers to those for now. Let's start with whether you own a gun."

"I don't. And neither does Claire, as far as I know."

"Ok," Alex replied as she began recording his answers on her notepad. "So, how about telling us where you were between eight-thirty and ten-thirty the night your wife died."

"I was at a crisis meeting at my firm. I got called in right after dinner and we went past midnight arguing over the best defense for the Larsen case."

"Larsen? The rapist?" she said in surprise

Young gave her a reproachful look. "Not unless he's convicted."

She tried not to look as repulsed as she felt at that rationalization. "You have people who can confirm the times and that you were there, I assume?"

"Yes."

"We'll need their names," Bobby said, "if you could write out a list for us before we leave so we can contact them, that would be a big help. Now, tell us how your relationship with your wife was going."

Young looked at his hands. "We loved each other. Married for thirty years." He swallowed. "It took thirty years for us to truly start to understand each other, and thirty seconds for it all to disappear."

Alex suddenly found herself fighting back tears at his words. She'd finished crying years ago for the death of her husband, but something about the way Norman Young spoke about the suddenness of the loss had pierced the well-armored weak spot that had remained after she had come to terms with her grief. She instinctively backed up a step, using her partner's body to partially shield herself from the eyes of the stranger they were facing.

Bobby glanced over his should to see what had prompted her movement and was momentarily speechless when he saw raw emotion in her eyes. The Eames he knew was a champion at covering up any emotions an interview might bring to the surface; somewhere in this conversation, something had gone very wrong for her. "Eames, uh, would you mind getting some background from the housekeeper while I finish up with Mr. Young in here?" he asked casually, deliberately providing her with an excuse to leave the room.

She nodded briskly and mentally added another beer to the six-pack she already owed him as she left the two men behind and went in search of the housekeeper.

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He gave her an inquisitive look ten minutes later as they stepped into the hallway and the door of the Young apartment closed behind them. "What just happened in there?"

She shook her head self-consciously, avoiding his eyes. "It's not anything related to the case. I'll tell you about it later."

He considered pushing the issue, but decided that it wouldn't be worth the trouble the action would earn him, and after a few seconds he reluctantly accepted her attempt to postpone the discussion. "Yes, you will. So," he said as they stepped into the elevator, "where to now?"

She checked her watch. "We've got an hour until lunch. 'Lunch,' otherwise known as 'briefing the boss,' that is."

"Takes at least half an hour to get back to One PP from here."

"Not really time to talk to any other witnesses. Should we just catch the train back?"

"Sounds good to me."

They made their way into the subway station and to the A-C-E train platform, which was crammed with anonymous citizens on their lunch breaks. Out of protective habit, Bobby maneuvered Alex between him and a metal support column and turned his back to the crowd. "Do we actually have anything to tell Deakins?" he asked when she leaned back against the column and looked up at him.

"Well, if the husband's story checks out, we can pretty conclusively eliminate him as a suspect. That's progress, of a sort."

"You know," he said, letting his eyes drift toward the ceiling as a thought hit him, "have we stopped to think about how the perp got into the Youngs' apartment? I mean, he'd have to get past the doorman and then get Mrs. Young to open the door to him."

"Not something she'd be likely to do for an ex-client, not long after business hours."

"Right. There also might be a sign-in book with the doorman . . . damnit!" he growled, giving the column a thump with his fist above her head. "Why didn't this occur to me when we were there?"

"Because you're human and you got, like, two hours of sleep last night?" she suggested lightly. "Give yourself a break . . . besides, here comes the train. Start worrying about not getting your wallet stolen, instead."

The car they stepped into had been full even before the train pulled into the station, and as the people on the platform attempted to squeeze in, Alex found herself crushed against the edge of one of the doors as she tried to pass through them. She gave the man who'd bumped her a dirty look and elbowed past him, trusting Bobby to make his own way through the crowd.

A few seconds later he appeared next to her, watching with amusement as she tried to stretch her arm far enough to grasp the bar that had replaced old-fashioned hanging straps a few years ago. "I hate these damn things," she muttered as he easily held onto the bar and grinned down at her. "Forget this." She released the bar, meaning to switch her grip to his arm, but found herself launched full-length into him instead as the train lurched to a start under them.

He quickly put his free arm around her, holding her steady. Giving their pressed-together bodies a speculative look, he bent down and whispered teasingly, "This works for me, how about you?"

"You're a hell of a lot easier to hold on to," she replied as she settled her head against his chest. "We're going half the length of the island, though. You're going to get tired of supporting my weight."

"I'll live. Want to fill up the time by telling me what upset you back there with Young?"

"Not particularly," she sighed. "It's not something you'd want to hear about."

"Yes, it is," he countered, tightening his arm across her back. "Come on, Alex - if it cut you deep enough that I could see it on your face in the middle of an interview, then it's important enough for me to hear about."

"It didn't 'cut' me, not really." She didn't look up at him as she went on, "It just . . . he hit a nerve I didn't think I even had anymore when he talked about how quickly she was . . . gone."

"Ah," he said, the one syllable neatly conveying that he recognized what she was referring to but wouldn't push for more details if she didn't want to share them. "Is it something you need to talk about?" he asked cautiously when she didn't respond after a few seconds.

"Not really," she said, wishing she could burrow further into him, both for his warmth and to avoid the massive backpack the boy standing behind her was wearing and hitting her with every time the train slowed down or sped up. "I mean, I understand my response. I just wasn't prepared for it to surface right then."

"Ok." As if sensing what she wanted, he pulled his greatcoat across her back so that they were both wrapped in it. "You can talk to me about him, though . . . I mean, if you ever want to. It wouldn't make me uncomfortable." Well, it might, a little, if he was honest with himself, but that was his own issue to deal with. For her, he would ignore his imaginings about her husband and force himself to just listen.

She nodded against him. "I know." Then, consciously changing the subject to a more comfortable one, she checked to make sure no one was paying attention to them and then went on tiptoe to kiss him lightly. "So, what kind of takeout should we make Deakins pay for?"