A/N: We're approaching the end here . . . the story will almost definitely be done before chapter 30, and quite possibly before chapter 25. But never fear, I'm working on another one of those oneshots that insist on growing, so you'll still have things to read after we find out who killed Gabby Young!

"Got one!" Barek called an hour later, waving a slip of paper in the general direction of the other three detectives, who were sitting around the conference table and all had phones pressed to their ears.

Eames hung up her phone a minute later and grinned. "Me too."

"As usual," Barek said with a smirk and an exaggerated sigh, "the the boys are just too slow."

"Better than too quick," Logan muttered, covering the mouthpiece of his phone so the person on the other end didn't hear the comment.

The women looked at each other, confirming that he'd been implying what they thought he'd been implying, then burst out laughing. "He's got issues," Barek explained to Alex. "Don't try to tell him about your college boyfriend again, either."

"Thank you," Logan said decorously into the phone. Then he slammed it down and glared at his partner. "Carolyn!"

"What?" she asked innocently.

"You know 'what'!"

"Hmm, sorry, no I don't." She turned back to Eames and gave her a cheerful smile. "What's the name of the girl you got?"

Alex, who had been watching Logan's reaction with fascination, blinked and looked back to the other woman. "Melinda Parker. Yours?"

"Melinda Parker. Damn."

"And Melinda Parker for me, too," Goren said as he thanked his caller and hung up the phone.

"Well," Logan said with a shrug, "I guess it's a safe bet he dated a girl named Melinda Parker. Anyone get contact information?"

"Me." Barek handed him the slip of paper she'd been waving. "Got her phone number, at least."

"Same." Alex tore a page from her notebook and handed it to Logan.

Logan, one paper in each hand, looked expectantly at Goren. "How 'bout you?"

Bobby shook his head.

"Like I said," Barek teased, "then men are always a little behind."

"You want to go find yourself a new partner?" Logan asked sharply..

Barek blinked, taken aback by the outburst, then shook her head. "I was just kidding around, Mike."

"Whatever." He put the two papers down on his desk. "Who wants to call this girl?"

"Bobby?" Alex suggested, looking at her partner. "You did good with Claire; think you'll have the same luck with another girl her age?"

"Not particularly." He looked around at the other detectives. "Anyone else want to give it a try, or am I being elected by default?"

Logan, still tight-lipped from his partner's teasing, shook his head. Barek watched him, then sighed deeply. "I'll do it if I have to, but I have a feeling you're a lot better at being sympathetic than I am."

"How about we ask her to come down here, instead?" said Eames. "That way we can all get a piece of her, or not, depending on what she gives us."

"Works for me," Barek said with a nod. "What about you guys?" Both women turned to look at their counterparts. A second later, both women sighed in exasperation at what they saw:

Goren had his eyes on his partner's hands; Logan appeared to be staring at Barek's chest. Both men looked up, nodded distractedly, then returned their eyes to their tasks.

Barek and Eames looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "New bra, Carolyn?" Alex asked with a pointed grin, eyeing Logan, who was still fixated on his partner's body.

Barek smirked and raised her eyebrows. "Get your nails done lately, Alex?"

"Boys!" Alex rapped out when their joking failed to distract the men. "Can you save the ogling for after we talk to Melinda Parker?"

Bobby recovered first, looking at her with wide-eyed innocence. "Who's ogling?"

"Don't even try it, Goren. You're busted, fair and square," she informed him archly, reaching out to give his shoulder a playful push. "Although I have to say, Logan seems to be a lot worse off than you."

Barek very deliberately crossed her arms over her chest. Deprived of his view and belatedly realizing he'd been spoken to, Logan looked up at her. "Huh?"

She snorted her disgust. "You can be such a pig sometimes, you know that?"

He scowled at her, then tried to act like he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. Propping his feet up on the table and leaning back in his chair, he said smoothly, "So? Who's making the call?"

"Oh, for god's sake," Barek snapped, snatching her phone off the hook, "I'll do it while you try to get your blood flowing back up to your brain."

Alex choked on a giggle and ended up in a coughing fit for a few seconds. When she recovered, she looked over at her partner. "Uh, Bobby . . . can I talk to you out there?" she asked, jerking her head toward the door leading to the squad room.

Looking slightly nervous at the summons, he nodded and followed her outside. "Uh, Eames, I'm sorry. I was -"

She abruptly turned to face him. "Now do you believe me about the tension between Logan and Barek?"

He looked blank for a second, then frowned. "Yeah, I guess I'm starting to."

"You're the one who spotted the hickey!"

"Good point," he said thoughtfully. "Did you drag me out here just to say 'I told you so'?"

"Basically," she admitted sheepishly. "And to remind you to keep your eyes on your work, too. What happened to subtlety?"

"Uh, sorry. It's just . . ." He looked down at her hands. "You have very nice hands."

"Well thank you," she said grudgingly, "but can you save the admiration for after-hours from now on?"

"Sorry," he said again, trying to look appropriately chastened.

She smiled reluctantly. "You are not, you big liar. Come on, let's go back in before they kill each other."

"Would one of you like to tell me what's going on here?" Melinda Parker snapped later that afternoon. "All the guy who called me said was that it was about my ex." She shoved her heavy fall of blonde hair over her shoulder for the fourth time since she sat down, glaring at the two detectives in front of her.

Alex, unconsciously imitating one of her partner's habits, stood up and spun her chair around, then sat back down straddling it as she looked at Melinda with a direct gaze. "You mean Tony Meadows?"

"Of course that's who I mean," the girl snapped, almost snarling at the mention of his name. "Now can we get on with it?"

Barek took a moment to compose her thoughts, then turned and studied the the girl. Melinda Parker resembled Claire Young in many ways - young, slightly built, and blonde - but she appeared to be a lot more spirited than Claire was. If Melinda Parker had something to say about Tony Meadows, Barek decided, she was going to make sure they heard it. "Can we call you Melinda?"

She scowled. " 'Mel' is fine. Now . . .?" Her tone remained impatient and she began to tap her foot.

"Sure," Barek said after a quick glance at her temporary partner. "I take it you aren't on good terms with Tony anymore?"

"You take it right," Melinda said, twirling her soda can in her hands as if she was trying to keep them busy. "He's worthless and he's scum."

"Ok, so you're on very not good terms with him," Alex quipped. "Why is that?"

Melinda snorted derisively. "You got a few hours to hear the list?"

"How about you just give us a quick summary," Barek replied evenly.

The girl sighed. "Fine. Let's see," she began, preparing to tick things off on her fingers as she listed them, "there's the way he always 'borrowed' money without asking, there's the bags of weed I kept finding in his car . . . oh yeah, and there's his bad habit of knocking girls around. That do it for you?" Finally looking up from her soda, she looked hard at the two women, as if daring them to challenge her statement.

Alex, whose mouth had snapped closed at the mention of abuse, nodded slightly. "Yeah, I think that's a pretty good starting point. Anything to add, Carolyn?" she went on, looking to Barek.

"Tell us about the abuse," Barek said promptly. "Physical, emotional? Where did he hit you and what set him off?"

Melinda's eyes narrowed and she regarded Barek with suspicion. "Tony did something, didn't he. Oh, no," she exclaimed, looking like something horrifying had just occurred to her. "Please tell me that girl wasn't stupid enough to stay with him and get herself killed."

"Which girl is that?" Eames asked carefully.

She shook her head. "Claire somebody. I didn't pay too much attention; I was busy hightailing it out of Tony's firing range when I found them together."

"Hmm." Barek struggled to hide her eagerness as she said, "You think he's capable of killing a woman? Is that what you're saying?"

"I wouldn't put it past him. He cracked one of my ribs once and didn't think twice about it."

The two detectives exchanged a look. "Was he always physically abusive?" Barek asked. "As opposed to emotionally, I mean. Or did the hitting only start as the relationship progressed?"

"Oh, Tony's a real sweetheart in the beginning," Melinda said scathingly. "Right up until the first time you don't do something he wants. Then you get the guilt trip about how you must not love him. If that doesn't work, next time he pretends like he wants to break up with you."

"Did you ever try to break up with him?" Eames broke in.

"Sure. The first time he hit me, which I guess was about a year after we started dating, you better believe I got the hell out of there. He called me the next day and wouldn't stop calling and telling me how much he loved me until I agreed to get back together with him." She shook her head, suddenly seeming to lose some of her fighting spirit. "Stupid, right? I even knew it was a bad idea, but I kept doing it anyway."

Eames shook her head and said firmly, "Maybe it was bad judgment on your part, but it's sure as hell not your fault that he hit you, no matter how bad your judgment was."

Barek nodded. "She's right, you know. Now, did he have . . . a preferred method of abusing you, or a special part of the body he liked to hit most often? Anything like that?"

Melinda grimaced at the remembered pain. "Oh, he's a big fan of kidney punches. That, and pushing you against the wall and holding you there by the neck while he starts a 'discussion'."

"Sounds like you went through a lot while you were with him," Eames said gently.

"Don't you pity me!" the girl said fiercely, turning on the detective. "I made my mistakes and I learned from them and now I would like nothing better than to nail Tony Meadows to the wall, so for the love of god, would you people just tell me why I'm here!" She stopped there, gasping for breath after her outburst.

Barek raised her eyebrows and looked at Eames, who shrugged an assent. "The girl Tony left you for . . ." Barek began, choosing her words carefully as she went, "Her name is Claire. Claire Young, to be specific. And yes, she's still with him."

"Is she . . . is she ok?"

Alex drew in a pained breath at that. "Claire is alive, and as far as we can tell without strip-searching her, she doesn't appear to have been physically abused, at least recently."

"So if Claire's ok . . . then what? Are you going after him for abuse and you need a complaining witness?"

"That's a possibility for the future," Barek remarked. "But no, that's not exactly why you're here. Claire is alive, but Claire's mother . . . she's not. We think Tony might have killed her."

"Because of Claire?" Melinda said, eyes widening. "He killed . . . she's really dead? God," she muttered, closing her eyes as if trying to block out this new knowledge, "and I was sitting at home thinking that all that mattered was that I got out and that the next poor fool he trapped would have to fight for herself, like I did. I shouldn't be surprised he finally fucking killed someone. What did I expect?" Seeming to run out of words, she dropped her head into her hands for a moment and took a deep breath, then let it out. "Ok," she finally continued when she raised her head to look at the two detectives,her face a mask of resolve. "What do you want to know? I'll tell you everything I can, right down to what size underwear he wears."

"Uh, we'll skip the underwear for now," Alex said with a slight smile. "Let me walk you through this, ok?"

"Sure."

"We're working with the theory that Tony killed Mrs. Young, probably to protect his hold over her daughter. We know that Claire was with him the night of the murder, because she's his alibi. She claims that he was never even in her mother's apartment that night, and he and she spent the night at home."

"We think she's lying," Barek explained, "to protect him. Either he's got her convinced that he's innocent and faking an alibi is a white lie, or she's so scared of him that she's doing it even though she knows he's guilty."

"She admitted to us that Tony had been rough with her - she's got some bruises on her arms - but defended him to the detective who interviewed her." Eames shrugged. "We haven't been able to find the weapon that was used, let alone connect it with Tony. The crime scene technicians are batting zero. The only one who can give us what we need to arrest him . . ."

". . . is Claire," Melinda finished. "Jesus, the poor girl. She won't talk?"

"Oh, she doesn't have much of a problem talking," Barek said. "It's just that, whether consciously or unconsciously, she's censoring everything she tells us."

"Ok . . ." the girl said slowly. "So what do you need me for, if she's the one you need to talk to?"

The detectives exchanged a quick look in anticipation of the next, most important question. "We want you to talk to her."

"Me?" Melinda said, shocked. "Why me?"

"Because," Barek said, leaning forward and pinning Melinda with the intensity of her eyes, "you know the way he works. And you can tell Claire about it. She thinks he acts like he does because he loves her; we need you to explain to her that it's a repeated pathology, not a gesture of affection."

"A pathology," Melinda mused. "I guess that's one word for it. What do you expect to happen if I can convince her?"

"We want her to tell us the truth about where Tony was the night her mother was murdered."

"Damn, you people don't ask much, do you?" she said sarcastically. "I'm willing to give it a try, but I can't promise you I'll be able to convince her."

"We know, Mel," Alex said reassuringly. "And if you can't, well, we'll find another way to work on her. But you're our best hope."

"Yeah, I know." Squaring her shoulders as if she'd just taken on an important duty, Melinda looked from one detective to the other. "So . . . when are we going to do this thing?"