A/N: I seem to be on a major roll with this story (knock on wood)...mainly because I'm avoiding studying for my psycholinguistics final, writing my paper on Czech nationalism, and writing my paper on the phonology of garden path sentences. Yep, ficcing is sounding real good right about now...too bad this seems to be the only story I'm inspired for at the moment.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
She grunted quietly as she straightened up from bending over the photos an hour later. "Whoever took this set was just a little obsessive about their job. I think we could make a complete three-hundred-sixty degree panorama and still have copies left to spare."
"Better too many than too few," Bobby murmured, turning his head to look at her. "There's got to be something here."
"Exactly what is it that we need to find, again?" she asked, rubbing her tired eyes.
"The room was tossed. It had to have been tossed, but I just . . . can't spot anything out of place. A room that's been searched always has something the intruders forgot to fix."
"You've been staring at these for how long, again?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. Too long."
Trying to limit any movements that involved her ribs, she leaned carefully over the table again. "Ok, well, let's try this again. We're looking at a bedroom, right? A woman's bedroom?"
"Yeah." He took his eyes off the pictures for a moment to evaluate her physical condition and decide whether to let her keep participating or send her back to her chair. "There's photos of the rest of the house too, if it turns out we need them," he offered when he detected no overt signs of fatigue or pain on her face.
"Well, let's stick with the bedroom for now. You're a male, your eye isn't attuned to feminine bedrooms. And don't even try to argue with that," she added after a pause, "because whatever story you have to disprove it, I don't want to hear it."
He held back a laugh. "If you say so. So go ahead," he said, waving an arm over the photos, "impress me with your feminine knowledge."
She looked up at him and raised one eyebrow. "You mean I haven't already?"
He only response was to put a hand on top of her head and gently but insistently turn it back toward the photographs.
"Well fine, if you want to do it like that." She returned her eyes to the pictures, trying to analyze each piece of furniture or floor as a complete entity, despite the piecemeal fashion in which the individual photos were laid together. "The place is really a little too neat for my taste, but I don't think it's because of the search. A few books on the nightstand, bottle of water, pill package . . . all normal."
"I'd already figured that out, Eames."
"Don't rush me," she said without moving her eyes from the photos. "Perfection takes time." Bobby shrugged in response and there was silence for a minute as they both intently studied the virtual bedroom spread out on the layout table in front of them.
"Here," Alex suddenly said, startling him.
He followed her eyes to find that she was pointing to part of the victim's dresser, in the vicinity of the flat, rectangular jewelry box. "The jewelry?" he asked. "What about it? It looked pretty typical to me."
"Not the box. The area in front of it. See these earrings?" she said, directing his attention to the lace runner that covered the wooden top of the dresser. It was studded with a handful of scattered earrings and earring backs, none of which appeared to Bobby to be particularly special or valuable.
"Yeah . . . ?" he said slowly, waiting for her to explain further.
"You just don't do that. Women don't, I mean. These aren't expensive jewelry, but they're not cheap either, and you wouldn't want to lose nice stuff like this. You either leave the back off the earring and put both pieces in the jewelry box, or you put the back back on and leave it out. You don't leave the backs off and scatter everything all over the dresser, because that's when a kid swallows a back, or you vacuum up one by accident, or it just disappears into thin air."
He blinked. "Earring backs?"
"Trust me, they disappear like socks in a dryer, and it's just as annoying."
"So . . . what? The guy pulled the backs off each earring?"
She let out a tired sigh. "No, Goren. These were dumped out of the jewelry box, but either he forgot to put them back in or he thought it looked normal to have them sitting out like this. Obviously he wasn't a very obs . . . Bobby?" He wasn't paying attention anymore, she realized; his gaze was fixed somewhere over her shoulder. "Bobby," she repeated, beginning to turn around.
He grabbed her arm to stop her movement. "Don't look."
"What? Why?" She tried to look without turning her body, but failed.
"Does your father know Deakins?"
"Does he . . . what?" She yanked her arm out of his grasp and spun around, barely noticing the pain that twisting her torso caused. "Jesus Christ," she muttered despairingly, dropping her head into her hands at the sight of her father shaking hands with her boss as if they'd just finished a satisfying bit of business. "Please tell me this isn't happening."
"You have no idea how much I wish I could."
"Ok, I can deal with this. Wait here," she commanded decisively, moving toward the door as calmly as she could.
"Eames, I don't think it's a good idea to -"
"Wait here!" she snapped, then stepped out of the room and let the door slam behind her.
The crash of the door made heads jerk up all over the squad room as she made her way to where the two men stood.
Deakins had the grace to look guilty as he mumbled a quick, "Eames," before turning and retreating into his office posthaste.
She stopped a few feet away from her father and crossed her arms, giving him a cool look. "What are you doing here, Dad?"
"Just stopped by to talk to an old friend," Johnny Eames told, matching his standoffish posture to hers. "Can't an old cop shoot the breeze with a colleague?"
"Just 'shoot the breeze'? Shoot the breeze about what?" She snorted when he paused before opening his mouth. "You haven't talked to Jimmy Deakins in years. Don't bullshit me."
"Watch your mouth," he warned sharply, then reminded himself that his daughter was far from being six anymore and they were standing in public. "Sorry, habit."
She just sighed. "Tell me the truth, Dad."
"Look, Alex, let me take you to lunch. You shouldn't be here working so soon, anyway." He took her elbow in a gentle grip and pulled her slightly into the hallway so that they were out of the sightline of most of the squad room.
"I'm going to disown the next person who tells me that, so watch your step," she informed him as she pointedly extricated her arm from his hand. "Now, are you here to check up on me?" She leaned slightly to her left and glanced over her shoulder to see what Bobby was doing and found him with his nose almost pressed to the glass of the conference room wall. "Or are you here to check up on him?"
"Robbie told me -"
"I know what Robbie told you, and first of all, he 'told' you wrong. Second of all, I can't believe you'd be inconsiderate enough to actually corner me at work and try to talk about it."
"That's why I want to take you to lunch. I have every right to -"
"No you don't!" she said, then paused, realizing that her raised voice was attracting too much attention when two heads poked around the wall to sneak peeks at the scene she and her father were putting on. She gave her co-workers a death glare, then looked back at her father."I'm not fifteen anymore," she added, lowering her voice.
"Alex, please."
"You're going to have to trust me on this one, Dad," she said, meeting his eyes and refusing to be stared down. "There's nothing going on between me and Bobby that you need to be worried about."
Johnny chewed on that for a second. "I don't like it, Al. You should know better than to get involved with your partner."
She blinked, at a loss for a response to that simple point. Quite frankly, he was right - she should have known better. It was just too bad that she didn't seem to, in reality. "Please, just go, Dad. I assume Deakins told you I'm in no danger of being fired, and that's all you should have been worried about."
"What I'm worried about is the fact that that man is living with you and sleeping in your bed!" he said, lowering his voice to a hiss to foil the eavesdroppers he knew were there.
"I am not fifteen," she repeated firmly. "You have to realize that. And for the love of god, I had relationships when I was fifteen that you should have worried about more than you're worrying about this one now!"
"Your captain said he's a good cop."
"Oh my god," she groaned, covering her face with her hands, "please tell me you didn't go in there and tell my boss that I'm sleeping with my partner and therefore you needed to know all about him."
"Of course not. I just mentioned that I didn't know much about him and I was curious. He filled in a few blanks."
She shook her head, unable to believe his gall. "Blanks like what?"
"He's not married, he doesn't step on you to solve cases, and he's never had any domestic violence complaints filed against him."
She could feel her jaw drop, but it was a few seconds before she could convince her hand to work enough to push it shut. "Domestic violence? Dad! You could have asked me - or him, for that matter - for an answer, you didn't need to go to Deakins! Jesus, you . . ." She shook her head in utter disbelief and slumped against the wall. "I can't believe you'd even bring that up in regards to him. Did you see him with the kids last night? And with me?"
"Your mother is worried about you, honey, and -"
"Oh, don't try to hide behind Mom. If she was the one really worried about me, then she'd have called me and demanded answers, not snuck in here to quiz my boss."
"Ok, fine. I'm worried about you. But I refuse to let you make me feel guilty about that."
"Dad, go home. I'm not continuing this conversation; I need to go do damage control now that you've probably put all sorts of ideas in Deakin's head." Even though she was tempted to storm away in a huff, she gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek before the stepped back and looked at him warningly. "If you want to know something in the future, ask me."
"Alex . . ."
"Goodbye, Dad," she said tiredly. "I'll call tonight." Unable to believe her day could have possibly gotten this bad this fast, she turned her back on him with a sigh and headed for Deakins's office to find out what sort of damage her father had done.