Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

A/N: Damn, this is fun. I mean it. I am only a chapter ahead now, and the pace may slow so I hope you will hang in there. All of the angst that I love so much is well represented here. Thanks for the support. Each little bit I get makes a difference.

Sheila

Control

Chapter 6

She answered the door with her gun in hand, again wearing Grandma Logan's nightie. He smiled at her and presented her with a pizza box.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Logan, you gotta be kidding me."

"Nope."

"Okay, I'll bite. What's your line? I'm dying to hear this."

"No line." He brushed past her into the apartment and went straight for the kitchen table. He put down the pizza and started rifling kitchen cupboards for plates and silverware. "I'm hungry. You're not eating these days. You're having nightmares. I'm having nightmares. I need someone to talk to. I talk to a guy, he's going to tell me to get drunk and get over it. I have tried that three nights running. It's not working and the hangover's getting harder to hide."

He found some napkins and gestured at the table. "I swear to God, Carolyn. That's all that's on my mind right now. If it'll make you feel any better, you weren't even my first choice. I went to Goren's place, but he won't open the damn door."

She had long since stopped listening to him and opened the box. It was thin and greasy; her favorite although she wasn't going to tell him that. For a few minutes, she didn't say anything, sneaking peeks at him while he mowed through ¾ of the pie. "I didn't know you were having nightmares too."

He wiped his mouth and nodded. "I'm a man's man. I'm not supposed to admit that stuff, but I'm getting too old for this strong silent crap."

She waited another couple of minutes. "Goren wouldn't open his door. You're sure he was there?"

"Yeah, I think so. He stole the file, you know. Deakins was dancing around his office when I left this evening. I heard him leaving a colorful message on Bobby's machine. He's going to need a SWAT team to get that file back."

"I wonder how long he had her, I wonder about what happened." She studied the grease stains on her napkin. "I think about Lisa Polacek, and the time line she described. I wonder about it and it makes me ill…it's hard for a man to understand, I think. I can't explain the complexity of what I felt when we found her jacket. On the one hand, I grieve that she might be gone and on the other, I feel relief that she's no longer with him."

Mike thought for a few minutes. "You're right. I don't have a clue what to say or think about any of that. All I got is the here and now, and right now I don't have any room for the idea she's dead."

Carolyn sighed and got up to clear off the table.

He watched her for a moment. "Tell me about something I can do something about. Tell me about you."

She rinsed dishes in the sink, wiped her hand on a towel and turned to him. "I don't know what to do. Most days I wake up sure that I will pack up my things and leave this apartment. Then I get to work, reason with myself, and decide that he won't push me out of my home. Sometimes I wake in the night and I see the snakes; they're hissing at me or slithering onto my chest. So I sleep with the lights on. I hear a noise or something falls off my counter and I start crying uncontrollably. I take my gun everywhere, to the bathroom even. Every day I wonder if my nerve is gone. I wonder if I'll be Lisa Polacek. I have thought about moving in with my mother. If it gets so bad I have to leave Major Case, then what's next? Will I be waiting tables at some bistro in the village hoping to one day reclaim my life?"

Her confession exhausted both of them, and for a while they sat in silence.

"This being partners with a girl thing is complicated," Mike said finally.

She looked up, her forehead creased. "You're a big help, Logan."

Naw, listen. If you were Lenny Briscoe, my old partner, I would just say what's on my mind. But I feel like with a female, I gotta censor myself. I'm worried that I'm going to say the wrong thing, make you feel bad."

She shook her head, chuckling. "Pretzel Logic is the only phrase that comes to mind as a response to all that."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "You really want to hear it?"

"'Cause you really think that I can be hurt further after all this? Lay it on me, Logan; metaphorically, of course."

"Okay. You shouldn't move away from this place. You shouldn't do anything that satisfies his purpose in terrorizing you. Be fierce like Lisa Polacek." Her eyesbrows rose. He nodded. "Yeah, I know what I said. That girl has my respect. It takes a lot of balls to shape a new life discarding all of your old dreams; finding a way to make peace with what you have. I know a little something about that. I took the Staten Island ferry every frickin' day for ten years thinking about it. Polacek didn't give up because the brass ring got smaller. She fights every day for what she can make of her life. Same goes for you. You're afraid and angry about what happened. I would be too. It's just something you're going to have deal with. I know, I'm a man, I don't understand, but those are the breaks, Cookie. You need to keep it from interfering with who you are 'cause you're a damn good detective and I've been around the best."

"It's not easy, Mike."

He shrugged. "This is the part where I get screwed up 'cause you're absolutely right, I don't understand one damn thing about it."

She grinned. "You're something of a revelation, you know."

"That's right, Cookie. I got layers, lots of them."

"Yeah, don't get comfortable calling me cutsie endearments either. If I wasn't so tired, I'd probably tune you up for that."

He laughed. "Nice to see your spirit coming back. I gotta go. Gotta get home and toss and turn for a few hours."

"Stay. I have a spare bedroom. There's a big bed in there. I might get some sleep knowing I'm not alone. You might too."

He gave her a look.

She fumbled over her words. "That's all I'm offering: just a spare bedroom."

He snorted. "Angelina Jolie could be doing a strip tease in your living room about now, and I wouldn't be able to keep my eyes open."

"Good. Let me get you some extra pillows."

"I snore, you know," he said following her down the hallway.

"Of course, you do. You're a man's man. I'm still shocked when I see you use utensils."

"Hey Cookie, these pillows have ruffles and flowers. Who you think you're dealing with here?"

…………………………………………….

Logan pounded on the door again. Skoda winced a little at his force. He turned and exchanged looks with Barek while Logan bellowed into the door. "I know you're in there, Goren, and we're not going away."

There was silence. Logan turned to Skoda. "Come on, Doc. They pay you to say the right words. Say something."

Skoda shrugged. "He doesn't want to talk. What do you want from me?"

Logan scowled at him and returned to the door. "Come on, Goren. Hell, we got information for you."

A few moments later the door opened on the chain. A feverish brown eye peeked out. "What do you know?"

"You're turning into a psycho, that's what I know," Logan blurted. The door slammed in his face. He turned, arms raised in disbelief.

Skoda rolled his eyes and Barek pushed Logan out of the way. She pressed her ear to the door for a moment and then spoke, "Bobby, you're not the only one who cares about this. We care about her too, and we're not giving up on this."

She waited a couple of beats and then stood back. The door opened slowly. She pushed it in and a stale smell greeted her. She turned to glare at Logan. "Can you behave yourself? 'Cause otherwise you're waiting in the hall." Logan smirked and maneuvered past her. Skoda shook his head and followed.

Bobby's apartment was dark for mid day. They followed Logan into the living room and found Eames' file spread everywhere. Photos and paper were taped onto every flat surface in the room. Takeout was crowding a corner table. Bobby sat in the middle of it glaring at them defiantly. His beard was thick and the shadows under his eyes almost as dark. He held his hands together as is trying to control the jitters that followed in him during stress. Barek walked past him and opened a shade. Sunlight flooded the room.

"The photos will fade," he growled.

She ignored him and went around liberating all the window shades.

His eyes were rheumy and vague. Skoda stepped forward. "Are you sleeping?"

"Only when she does."

"Is there anything I can—"

"No! If you're here to help her, good. I don't need nor do I want any other kind of help."

Logan piped in. "Good 'cause I wouldn't even know where to start although if you get any more ripe smelling, I might be persuaded to turn a hose on you."

Bobby looked away. It was clearly a trial for people to see him this way. Bobby was usually the most meticulous of men: clean, expensively dressed.

Barek stepped in. "Tell us what you've been working on here."

Bobby blinked and shook his head as if struggling to focus himself. "The key is to find out where he's got her. He has a property. He has the money for that. He needs a hiding place."

"We know it's not in his name," Barek added.

Goren gestured at a laptop on the couch. "I've been trying other names: people he knew, the women he was with, but that's been a dead end as well."

"You tried Lisa Polacek, right?"

"Yeah, I got nothing."

"She's Serbian, you know."

Bobby sat up straight. "What are you thinking?"

"She's an immigrant. I doubt she was born Lisa Polacek. I don't know any Serbs named Lisa and Polacek doesn't sound right either."

Goren got up and strode to the computer. "Where do we start?"

"Let's try any females with the initials L.P. who purchased property in New York state in the last six years."

"That's got to be thousands of people," Logan said, shaking his head.

"Then we break them down to names that sound Eastern European."

Goren nodded. "Yeah."

"I don't think Polacek had anything to do with this. I got a good feeling off her." Logan planted himself in a chair. "Besides, why don't we just ask her?"

"Sounds like a good job for you, Mike." Barek fixed him with a pointed look.

Logan pulled himself up again and grabbed his coat. "A two hour drive on my day off; just how I wanted to spend my day."

Barek sat on the couch and gently pulled the laptop away from Bobby. "Let me work on this. You look too blurry to make heads or tails out of a bunch of fine print. Go take a shower. Put some fresh clothes on. You need it." Without waiting for a reply, she took the laptop over to the corner and shoved the take out of the way. It took her a couple of minutes to realize that not even this was going to be good enough. She found a garbage can, and began dropping wrappers, boxes, and bags inside. It took ten minutes of this plus pulling two windows open before she could really settle down to the task at hand.

Skoda sat there, not saying a word. Bobby turned his gaze to him. "Are you scheming up a way to get me admitted to the psych unit?"

Skoda shook his head and looked away. "I was trying to imagine what it would feel like to be this connected to another human being. She's a part of you and I don't mean that in any sort of unhealthy sense of the word."

He rubbed a hand over his face. "Don't think you can understand because I don't think it can be understood."

"I wouldn't try and I got a wife and an ex who'll tell you I wouldn't know the first thing about a deep emotional connection with a woman."

Goren snorted. "Detachment: the secret weapon of psychiatry."

"Detachment is overrated."

He looked up shyly. "You think it was a sexual relationship. Most people do, but it wasn't that. It never was."

"I wouldn't make that assumption."

Bobby squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath. Then he let his eyes pop open as if struggling to rejoin the living. "I should shower. I should change clothes."

"Bobby, I don't know you well, but I gotta tell you something. You're not crazy, not even close, and I don't think you're going to be. You're not your mother."

"Like you said, Emil, you don't know me very well."

Skoda sighed and got up. "I think I'll go help Barek with her search.

"Are you consulting, Emil? Are they paying you?"

Skoda turned to him. "No, Deakins offered, but no, they're not paying me."

Bobby closed his eyes again. "I'm sorry. I'm not a nice person sometimes."

"Don't worry about it. Take a shower, please, before Logan gets back. I think he'd actually be willing to intervene, you know."

………………………………………………………………………………….

The woman who answered the door was in her sixties and she spoke with a thick accent. At first, she pretended that she didn't understand him, but Logan wasn't put off by something that subtle. He just raised his voice as he often did when talking to non-English speakers, his size and demeanor always a factor. They always either gave up and starting speaking English back or they went to find somebody who could.

This woman spoke back. "Lisa is not here. Why do you want here?"

"I just want to talk to her. She was helping us with an investigation."

The tiny woman looked away. "No, she is not here. I will give her message."

"Mrs. Polacek, can you write down for me Lisa's full name?" He pulled out his notebook and a pencil.

She narrowed her eyes at him as if trying to divine his true purpose. Reluctantly she took the pencil and notebook. What she handed back to him was Lisa Polacek. Then he handed it back to her. "Please write her birth name as well."

The woman stared at him for a few moments. Logan suspected that she had faced far more threatening figures than himself in her years, and he knew bullying her was not going to work. "Please Mrs. Polacek."

Finally she spoke. "It is not always safe to have real name even in this country."

He nodded. "I promise you that I only need it for our file."

She shook a finger at him. "This is why I don't want to."

He took her arm. "Mrs. Polacek, I am going to have to arrest you as a material witness in the disappearance of Alexandra Eames. You have the right to remain—"

She wrested her arm away and scribbled in the notebook. Then she shoved it at him and slammed the door in his face. Logan looked down at the name written on the sheet, "Latinka Pomoravlje". It was definitely not Lisa Polacek. Logan grinned and reached for his cell.

……………………………………………………………………………

Deakins waited for them at the entrance of the squad room. He couldn't remember the last time he had been so agitated. When they had shown up, he had been floored. It felt as shocking as if Elvis had walked in to discuss his prescription drug use. It was all he could to keep from climbing over his desk and getting his hands around the man's throat. He had to fight for all the control he had spent years building as a captain within the NYPD.

Jimmy Ross's lawyer looked more frightened than he did. Joining them was a slight woman with a briefcase who identified herself as his psychiatrist. Faces began appearing at the windows to his office, and Deakins suspected that he had better get this under control before his squad became the next police brutality headline in the New York Post.

Eyes flashing but refusing to look at his guests, he went to his office door and yelled at his people to get back to their work. People backed away, but nobody returned to their desk. He turned around and barked at those seated in his office to get up and follow him. He got them to the nearest interrogation room and locked them in. With his back to the door, he punched numbers into his cell phone.

He stood at the door to catch them as they came in. When Carver showed, he merely nodded and let the counselor go by. Carver slipped into the observation room. Logan and Barek showed up next, and Deakins pointed a finger and hissed at them. "This is my show. Get in observation and don't say a word until I get there."

Amazingly, Bobby seemed the calmest. Deakins had to plant a hand in his chest when he tried to get past him, but otherwise he acquiesced as the captain directed him into observation.

Carver and Barek had their faces an inch from the glass watching Jimmy Ross as he sat calmly in a metal chair waiting to make his statement. Logan paced the small room unable to contain his aggression. Bobby came in with the captain and everyone stopped.

"I don't know what the hell he has to say, but I want this done right. Do you understand,

People?" Deakins' face was red, his agitation beginning to show.

"Who goes in? I know I'm taking myself out of the running. My plan would cost me at least ten years at Sing Sing," Logan said, running a hand roughly through his hand.

"I'm going in alone," said Carver.

"Not a chance," Bobby whispered. "Not a chance."

"Detective, I don't need a loose cannon in there."

Bobby straightened up and ran a hand down his chin, his face being as shaved as it had been in two months. "I am good at this. I want his story and I want it told right. You're going to need me in there. Jimmy and I have history."

Carver looked over at Deakins who looked at the ceiling for a moment before letting out a deep sigh. His head nod was almost imperceptible.

Bobby looked at Carver and gestured with his hand. "After you, Counselor."

………………………………………………………………………….

TBC