Bobby was held up at work that night, having been put under orders to catch up on his paperwork or risk reassignment, and by the time he got to Pine Brook, it was almost nine o'clock. He gave the charge nurse a sheepish smile as he passed, silently asking permission to break the rules yet again. The nurse just smiled back, rolled her eyes, and pointed toward the TV lounge at one end of the hallway. "She's in there. Don't keep her up too late, Detective."

"I won't." And with that, he left the nurses' station behind and headed down the hallway, dreading the inevitable confrontation with his mother.

When he stepped into the lounge, he found her seated with two other woman around her age, playing a card game that looked suspiciously like poker. "Mom?"

Frances looked up at him and promptly laid her cards face-down on the table. "You'll have to excuse me," she told her companions. "That's my son."

"Of course," said Ginny, who was sixty-five and had snow-white hair, giving Frances a beatific smile.

Abbie, on Frances's other side, wiggled her eyebrows jokingly. "And a fine son he is, too," she said, pretending to fluff her hair, which was currently dyed an unnatural shade of red. "Although he doesn't look very happy with you at the moment, Fran."

Smiling slightly as she stood up, she nodded. "He's probably not," she whispered conspiratorially to the two women. "I've done a little meddling this week."

"Mom," Bobby repeated impatiently from his position a few feet away. "I need to talk to you."

"Of course, dear," she replied, giving him a calm smile as she crossed the room toward him. "Let's go back to my room."

He silently followed her down the hall, fully aware of the air of self-satisfaction that hung around his mother. She knew exactly what this was about, he realized. Even more worrisome, she didn't seem apprehensive about his reaction. When had his mother become such a sanguine schemer, anyway?

"I take it the letter reached her?" Frances asked conversationally as she led him into her room and settled down on the rocking chair he'd bought her a few months ago.

Bobby just looked at her for a few seconds, surprised by her easy admission. "Yes, it reached her. And then she reached me. Loudly." He sighed. "You had no right to do that, Mom. I told you Alex wasn't your business."

She shrugged. "And I told you that anyone who's got you this upset is certainly my business. She called you about it, I assume, since you said she was 'loud'?"

"Yeah, she called me," he said, grinding his teeth in frustration at her careless attitude. "She was furious, and I don't blame her. How could you do something like that?"

She gave him an assessing look. "Well, you certainly weren't going to volunteer to do it."

"Damn right I wasn't," he snapped, turning away from her and beginning to pace. "Because no one, including me, has any right to invade her life like that."

"Hmm," Frances murmured noncommittally. "Did she have any comments on what my note actually said?"

"Oh, don't get me started on that!" He pivoted and starting pacing in the opposite direction. "She read part of it to me, and -"

"Oh, dear." She looked down at her hands and swallowed. "I didn't think she'd do that. You have to understand that what I wrote -"

"Was intended for her eyes only?" he finished for her. "Too late. You told her I'm in love with her, Mom! And that I think she hates me!"

Ah, Frances thought, so Alex had only shared the beginning of the letter with him. Smart woman. "Well, both of those things are true, honey," she pointed out.

"That's not the issue here," he groused. "Whether they're true or not, you had no right to -"

His rant was cut off before he could really get started by the ringing of his phone, which echoed loudly off the cinder block walls of the hospital room. "Damn," he muttered, then gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry. I forgot to turn it off. I'll -"

"No, no," Frances broke in, waving a hand dismissively. "Go ahead and answer it. I'm not going anywhere in the meantime, except maybe back to my card game."

He gave her a quick, grateful smile, then turned his attention to unclipping the phone from his belt. The number on the caller ID display wasn't familiar, but he was in too much of a hurry to get rid of whoever was on the other end of the line and get back to reprimanding his mother to worry about that. "Goren."

For a long moment, there was silence on the other end of the line, and then his caller took a shuddering breath.

"Hello?" he tried again when the breath wasn't followed by any words.

"Bobby," a voice said thickly, then paused for another breath. "I . . . I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called. I'm -"

Alex. And she sounded . . . wrong. "Wait!" he blurted, afraid she was going to cut off the call. "Don't hang up, Alex. What's . . . are you ok?"

Silence for another minute, punctuated only by the unsteady breaths she took every few seconds. "No," she finally managed truthfully. "But it's stupid to . . . there's not anything you can do."

At a loss for what to do with himself while he listened, he glanced down at his watch, which said that it was past ten. A few seconds of time-zone math informed him that it was the middle of the night in New York, and he felt his anxiety level rise a little more. "I can listen," he told her gently. "Tell me what's wrong."

Next to him, Frances cocked her head to the side and studied his face for a second, then stood up and headed for the door, mouthing poker game at him. "Take as long as you need, honey," she added in a whisper.

Bobby, his attention completely focused on the strained voice in his ear, hardly noticed her departure. "Alex, talk to me," he pleaded, unsettled by her silence.

"I . . . I'm sorry," she stammered again. "I . . ."

"Tell me," he said again, injecting a note of authority into his voice in the hopes that she'd automatically obey.

"My mom . . ." She said it so quietly he almost didn't hear it, and he was about to ask her to repeat herself when she went on, "My mom . . . had another stroke. The hospital . . . they couldn't . . ."

"Oh, god," he breathed as he realized what it was that she wasn't saying. "Alex, I'm so sorry . . ."

"I shouldn't . . . have called you." Her breathing hitched in the middle of the sentence, as if she'd been crying so hard that she was hyperventilating and couldn't quite stop. "There's nothing you can . . . I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing," he told her, lowering himself into his mother's rocking chair and scrubbing one hand over his face. "You can call me whenever you need to; you should know that. When . . . when did she . . .?"

"Tonight. It . . . I had just fallen asleep when my dad called me." She was silent for a moment, fighting back tears, and then let her breath out in a rush. "She . . . she was gone when I got there."

"Alex . . ."

"I thought I was . . . was ok," she went, sounding stricken. "And then everyone went home with their families and I came back here and . . ." She took a deep breath. "I didn't know who else to call."

"Where are you?" he asked, belatedly remembering the unfamiliar phone number his phone had showed.

"I, um . . ." There was silence for a second, as if she was looking around and trying to figure out the answer to his question. "Mid-town, somewhere. I just . . . I needed to distract myself, so I went for a walk."

Well, if she had to be wandering the streets of Manhattan at two in the morning, he supposed he should be glad she was doing it in one of the safer areas - but even midtown wasn't a place he wanted her to be while she was so upset. "Are you on a pay phone? Where's your cell?"

"Uh . . . it's here. And I am on a pay phone. I kind of forgot I had it." She tried and failed to smother a sob. "Bobby, she wasn't . . . she wasn't even seventy. She was doing really good. I don't . . . I don't understand why . . ."

"I don't know, honey," he said softly. "I wish I did." Mary Eames had always been a fixture in Alex's life, he knew - the one who bandaged scraped knees and scraped hearts, who explained about boyfriends and bosses - and he wished desperately that he could give her some bit of logic to hold on to tonight. Unfortunately, if there was a logical explanation in this situation, he couldn't think of it. And for the moment, he was more concerned with her safety than her peace of mind. "Alex?"

"What?"

"Would you do something for me right now?"

She paused, then said, "Like what?"

"Look around and figure out your cross-streets. Do you have money on you?"

"I . . ." He could almost see her fumbling through her pockets before she sighed and said, "No. I have my keys, but that's . . . the only thing I bothered to grab."

"Is there anyone you can call to come pick you up?"

"No!" she said quickly. "They're all asleep. I can't . . ."

That didn't surprise him; he hadn't really expected her to be willing to let her family see her like this. He was just glad he still had some friends in the city. "Ok, that's fine. I'm going to give you the phone number of one of my friends. His name is Sammy, and I want you to hang up with me and call him. Tell him where you are and that I need him to pick you up, and then call me back. Can you do that?"

"You want me to get a ride with a stranger?" she asked dubiously. "In the middle of the night?"

"He's a nice guy, I promise. And he owes me one. He'll get you home safe."

"Bobby, I -"

"Please," he said softly. "You know you shouldn't be out on the street right now. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight unless I know you're ok."

"Bobby . . ." Her voice trailed off and he could hear her take another steadying breath. "Ok. Give me his number."

Twenty minutes later, Alex watched a black pickup slide to a stop in front of her. "I think he's here," she told Bobby. "Black truck with flame-orange detailing?"

"That's him. I'll let you go now so you don't have to juggle the phone getting in and out of the car. Give me a call when you get home, if you feel up to it, ok?"

"Ok," she said quietly, watching a dark shape climb out of the cab of the truck and circle around to her side. "Bobby, I . . . thank you."

"Don't thank me," he replied gently. "Just promise me something."

"What?"

"I don't care what time it is - if you need someone to talk to tonight, or tomorrow, or whenever . . . you call me. Got it?"

She sniffled, feeling the veil of loneliness beginning to slip back over her at just the anticipation of his voice being gone again. "Yeah," she managed in a near-whisper as the mysterious Sammy leaned back against the hood of the truck and watched her silently. "Got it."

"Good. Try to get some sleep tonight, if you can. And . . . and Alex?"

Sammy seemed to be in no hurry to interrupt her conversation, and she wondered just how big a favor he owed Bobby, to wait so patiently for the person he'd been sent after. "Uh, what?" she asked Bobby after a second, realizing that he'd said her name again.

"I . . ." I love you. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but at the last second he swallowed them. She didn't need to have any more surprises thrown at her than she'd already had tonight. "I'm here if you need me," he said instead. "Now, hang up the phone and let Sammy take you home."

Her mind jumped forward to the unpleasant thought of her empty apartment, and without further comment to Bobby, she distractedly closed her phone and shoved it into her pocket.

"You Alex?" Sammy asked, taking a step closer and moving into the light of a street lamp.

Somehow, she wasn't surprised to find that she was facing what looked like a Hell's Angel gone semi-legit. Sammy had long, dark hair that was partially covered with a red, white, and blue bandana he'd tied around his head, and the stubble on his face looked like it had been there since Clinton was president. His jeans and t-shirt were clean, though, and his black leather jacket, though beat-up, was free of any of the chains and studs that passed for fashionable among the biker set.

It wasn't until Sammy cleared his throat that she realized she'd been staring. "Yeah," she said quickly, applying all her willpower to forcing back the tears that had begun to fall while she spoke to Bobby. "Sammy?"

"Yep." Moving as if it were a natural action for him, he pulled open the passenger side door of the truck and stood by, spotting her, as she barely managed to hoist herself in because of the lack of running boards. "Sorry 'bout that. I don't drive a lot of women around."

"It's ok," she said quietly, buckling her seatbelt.

Sammy slammed the door behind her, then walked around and climbed into the driver's seat. "So, where to?"

She gave him her address and then, unable to squelch her curiosity, took a moment to study him. "Are you the tattoo guy? The one who identified the Serbian Tigers tattoo?"

He looked over her with raised eyebrows as he pulled away from the curb. "You have a good memory. That was a couple of years ago." Moving his eyes back to the road, he added, "I guess that means you're the girl who was his partner, then? I wasn't sure."

Her breath caught as his use of the word was struck her. "I . . . yeah. Yeah, I . . . I was."

Sammy glanced quickly at her as he caught the note of . . . something . . . in her words. "Are you ok? Do I need to take you to the hospital or anything, I mean?" Noticing her look of confusion, he shrugged. "Goren wouldn't have called me out unless it was really important to get you . . . somewhere. Wherever that may be."

She shook her head. "No. No h-hos-" The word caught in her mouth and she had to force it: "No hospital." Take me to LA, her subconscious cried. I need Bobby with me to make it through this! She couldn't say that, though, and so she murmured only, "Just . . . home."

She'd hung up on him yet again. He wondered if it had become a habit of hers, or if only he got the special treatment.

"Robert?" Frances's tentative voice asked from the doorway.

He moved his eyes to her and stuffed his phone into his coat pocket, not bothering with its belt holster. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

She ignored the apology in favor of moving closer to him and watching him worriedly. "What's wrong? What was that about?"

"She . . ." He looked down at his hands and sighed. "Alex's mom died. She's . . . devastated."

"Oh, honey," Frances breathed. "I'm so sorry. Did you know her?"

He nodded slightly. "I met her a few times. At . . . holidays and things. She was . . . everyone loved her."

"The poor girl." She moved past him to sit on the bed. "You were on the phone a long time. Is she ok?"

He didn't like having to think about that question, but he answered it honestly: "Not really. She . . . the rest of her brothers and sisters are married, and they all have someone to share the grief with. Alex . . . doesn't."

"Bobby." He looked up in surprise when she put a firm hand on his knee. Meeting his eyes and enunciating the words emphatically, she said, "I don't need you here, but she needs you there. You'll hurt her worse if you stay here. Do you understand me?"

Mutely, he nodded.

"Good. Can you get time off from your job?"

He nodded again. "Riley'll cover for me. He . . . he likes her," he added with a reluctant smile.

"Okay." With an air of determination about her, Frances jumped to her feet again. "I'm going to go get a phone book, and then we can start calling the airlines."