The next day . . .

It was noon and Alex was focused on her computer screen, trying to pretend she didn't know Webster was watching her, when the phone on his desk rang. As he diverted his attention to answer it, she breathed a sigh of relief and let herself relax slightly.

That feeling of relaxation lasted all of ten seconds, until Webster, the phone still to his ear, looked up at her and said to whoever was on the other end of the line, "Why . . . yes, there is. Why do you ask?" A short pause as he listened, then: "I believe so, yes. Would you like to speak to her?" A second later, he covered the mouthpiece of the phone with one hand and said her name.

"What?" she muttered, trying to sound disinterested.

"Some guy named Riley, wants to talk to you."

She blinked. "Riley who?"

Webster shrugged. "I don't know. I think that's his last name. You going to pick up or not?"

"Yeah, fine." She waited for him to transfer the call to her extension, then picked up. "Eames."

"Alexandra Eames?" asked a male voice she didn't recognize.

"Uh, yeah. Can I help you, sir?"

The man cleared his throat. "Yeah. Uh, I'm Detective John Riley, with the LAPD. You know a Bobby Goren?"

All the air left her lungs in a rush. There was no reason for anyone Goren worked with to call her, unless . . .

Swallowing, she managed to croak out, "Yes. Is he . . . what's wrong?"

"Oh, hey, whoa," he blurted, seeming to have just realized what she might infer from his call. "Didn't mean to scare you. He's just fine. I'm, uh . . . I'm his partner."

Webster was watching her again. Without looking up from the phone, she gave him the finger. "Oh. Yes, I know him. Now . . . if he's ok, then why's his partner calling me?"

"You're Alexandra?" Riley asked again.

Alex sighed. "Didn't we already go over this? Yes, I'm Alex; now tell me why you're calling me."

Riley laughed. "Man, you're a cracker, aren't you? You and him must have been a hell of a couple."

"I beg your pardon?" she asked sharply, purposely not looking up when she felt Webster look at her with renewed interest at her tone. "What are you talking about?"

"You and Goren," Riley said matter-of-factly. "You dated, right? Or he at least had a crush on you?"

"Why are you calling me?" she repeated through gritted teeth.

"You know he's got a picture of you? In that binder thing he carries?"

Alex chose to be silent rather than repeat herself yet again.

"He looks at it when he thinks no one's paying attention."

He still thought about her that much? She fought the surge of warmth that thought sent through her. "Detective Riley, my time is valuable. If you have something to say to me, please just say it."

The was surprised silence on the other end of the line for a moment. "Uh, ok," Riley finally said. "I want to know why you two aren't in contact anymore."

"Why don't you try asking your partner that?"

"Because he won't talk about you. He walked out yesterday when I asked too many questions."

She snorted. "I don't blame him. I'd walk out on you too, if you were here to walk out on."

Riley sighed. "Ok, look Alexandra - Detective Eames - whatever . . . I just thought you should know that from what I can see, he's dying to hear from you. He's a nice guy, but he's . . . isolated. I tried to set him up with my sister, and he just told me to tell her he's gay, because he didn't want to deal with it. The only person - man or woman - besides his mother I've ever heard him mention is you, and . . . I just think maybe you should bury the hatchet. At least talk to the guy."

"Thank you for your advice, Detective," she replied coldly. "I'll take it into consideration. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Uh, no. Nope, that was it." Riley paused to clear his throat. "Thanks for listening, ma'am."

"Yeah, sure. Have a good afternoon." She moved to slam down the phone, then checked her movement at the last second and set it gently back in the cradle.

"What -" began Webster.

"Don't. Ask."

Riley hung up the phone on his desk and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and wondering what the hell had possessed him to make the call he'd just made. Goren wouldn't thank him for calling the woman, no matter how much he might be dying to hear from her, and the firebrand that was Alexandra Eames hadn't sounded too pleased about it, either.

"Riley, it's only one. It's way too early to be falling asleep on the job."

Riley cracked one eye and found his partner looking down at him with amusement. "Sorry, chief. Long hour with you gone, what with playing mailman and all."

"Another card?" Goren asked absently as he settled into his chair.

"Yep." Riley pulled out the card that had precipitated his irrational phone call-making in the past hour, and turned it over in his hand, pretending to examine the envelope. "You know, from all these cute cards she sends, you'd never know she has quite a mouth on her."

There was complete silence for a few seconds, then Bobby said in a dangerously soft voice, "Excuse me?"

"Your Alexandra, here . . ." He flipped the card across their desks toward the other man. "An impressive woman."

"And how would you know that, exactly?" Goren asked, figuring that his partner was just trying to get his goat again, as he concentrated his attention on slitting open the envelope.

"Thought she was going to come through the phone and throttle me," Riley said conversationally. "How was I supposed to know she was such a pessimist?"

The card, which he hadn't even unfolded yet, was set down on Bobby's desk with a gentleness that only barely concealed the surge of anger he felt. "The phone, Riley? What the hell did you do while I was gone?"

"Research." He showed Bobby a printed-out webpage. "A woman you were close with, from New York . . . like I keep telling you, I'm not as stupid as you think. All I had to do was search the NYPD website to find her contact information."

Almost unable to believe that Riley would have gone so far as to actually contact Eames, Goren could only stare at him for a second. "You . . . you hunted down my partner? Just because you were curious?"

"Curious . . . among other things," Riley agreed. "Let me tell you, I think she almost had a heart attack before I managed to get out that you weren't hurt or anything. And hey, I thought I was your partner," he added, pretending to sulk.

Momentarily diverted from his anger by Riley's comment, Bobby blinked. "She was worried about me?"

"Well, yeah. I didn't really think about how I was going to introduce myself, so I just asked her if she knew you and said that I was your partner . . . I think she assumed that the only reason I'd be calling her would be to . . . you know, give her bad news."

The pencil in Bobby's hand snapped in half, but his face remained composed as he said, "And why, exactly, did you call her, when you know that you had absolutely no business doing it?"

"Hey, man . . ." Riley said cautiously, watching his partner's face. "I worry about you. That thing about my sister . . . that was the last straw. I decided that I was sick of seeing you moon over this Alex woman, so I called her and told her so."

The two pencil halves hit the desk, along with the flat of Bobby's hand. "You told her that I was 'mooning' over her? So help me, Riley, you'd better tell me within the next five seconds that this was a joke, or you're going to wish you never met me."

Riley coughed and tugged at his collar. "Listen, Goren, it was just a short call . . . I just wanted to let her know you miss her, you know? It's not like I told her any big secrets - not that I know any of your big secrets in the first place. I told her that I thought she ought to forgive you for whatever it is you fought over and she pretty much hung up on me - that's all that happened."

"She hung up on you?"

"Well, she thanked me for my advice - sarcastically - and told me to have a good afternoon before she did it, but yeah."

In spite of his anger, Bobby found a smile trying to creep across his lips at the thought of Alex giving Riley a dressing-down that didn't require words. "You told her she should forgive me and she told you to have a good afternoon and goodbye?" he summarized. "That's all?"

"Uh, yeah, pretty much." And then there was the part where he'd told her about the photo Bobby carried around . . . but he wasn't about to admit to spilling the beans on that one.

"You called Alex," Bobby said slowly. "At work. In the middle of the day. To tell her that you thought she should start speaking to me again? In what possible universe could that have seemed like a good idea to you?"

Riley shrugged. "Hey, I'm Irish. We're known for our impulsiveness, not our our clear thought processes."

"As you keep reminding me, Riley, you're not as stupid as you look. You'd better swear to me, right here and now, that what you just told me is all you told her."

"Or what?" Riley challenged, genuinely curious about whether he'd found something that would actually inspire the usually-impassive Bobby Goren to violence.

Goren shook his head. "Or I might just give Alex your address and sic her on you. Not only does she have 'a mouth on her,'" he mimicked with a cool smile, "but she's a hell of a good shot, with her gun and with her knee."

Riley just smirked and leaned back in his chair again. "Sounds like you're pretty proud of her. And that is basically all I told her, but . . . come to think of it, if it meant the two of you getting together, I might just accept the beating from her, you know that? Always more fun to get socked by a pretty girl than another man, no matter what."

"Shut up," Bobby snapped. "You talked yourself out of bodily harm on this one, but you're on thin ice."

"Hey, thanks, partner," Riley said with a grin. "I'll be sure to get my ice skates sharpened."