A/N: Thank you to all of my reviewers, but especially Shawnee89 for the inspiration. Hugs to all!

A/N/2: Sorry this took so long, I had writers-block, and then my PC had to get upgraded, so it went away for a few days... but here it is!


Coming Back

Jordan walked back to the hotel, head hung, and fighting back tears. She hardly paid any attention to where she was going. Even though she had never been to Boston, her feet instinctively knew where to take her, so she needn't worry about getting lost. Before she knew it she was at her hotel room door, digging through her bag for the electronic key. She fumbled with it for a moment, and when she finally got in, she threw her bag on a chair and flopped down on the bed. Everything hit her at once. Michael was dead, she had gotten shot, people thought she was someone else, and she wasn't sure who she was anymore. She sobbed into her pillows for a long while. After she had calmed down slightly, she got up to find some painkillers that had been prescribed for her arm. She poured a glass of water from the bathroom sink and took three tablets, leaning against the windowsill, looking down onto the streets of Boston.

A thousand thoughts ran through Jordan's mind. If she had never been here before, why did Boston make her feel so at home? Why had she felt so at ease at the morgue, a place of death and sorrow? Why had Detective Hoyt seemed so warm towards her? Why did all these people think she was someone from their past? Did she even really know who she was?

This was all a mystery to her, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. Seized by an adventurous impulse that was always characteristic of Jordan, she found the number to the local rent-a-car place. After booking the rental of a black SUV, she took a cab to the parking lot where the vehicle was stored. She didn't know why, but she had an image stuck in her head. It was an apartment building, and for some reason she knew it was in Boston. She drove around until she found the building she had stuck in her subconscious. Parking out front, she strode in through the front doors, and took the elevator to the fourth floor. When she found apartment 445, she stopped. Taking the notepad again out of her bag, she wrote a hasty note and slid it in the crack between the door and it's frame. She walked out, unsure of what she should do next. Unsure of what she had just done.


Woody was upset. They hadn't made much headway at the morgue since Jordan and stormed out. Lily was so unusually upset that Garret had sent her home before 4:30. Woody and Nigel were standing in the conference room in silence when Bug came in.

"Mr. Demers was defiantly killed by a .22. Our witness was right." He informed them, trying to keep his voice neutral, a difficult task for all of them that day.

"So Jordan didn't lose any of her medical-examiner-crime-fighting brilliance." Woody said sullenly.

"I guess not." Nigel said, "I was thinking the shooter was likely somebody Jordan got upset."

"That really narrows it down, Nige. Do you know how people she's pissed off over the years?" Woody asked.

"No – really? Jordan piss someone off?" Bug said sarcastically. After a laugh his tone became more serious. "I guess we should start going through her cases. Any Arabs she got convicted that were just released." Woody nodded in agreement and followed Nigel and Bug to their still-shared office. He hovered around them impatiently while they searched through Jordan's old cases.

"Eureka!" Nigel exclaimed suddenly. "Haquim El Fabir. Released two weeks ago from an 'Accomplice to Murder' charge. Jordan had that case, I remember it. She spent weeks gloating about it. Nobody thought she would ever be able to get a lead, but she did." He finished proudly.

"Ya, Jor surprised us a lot over the years, didn't she?" Woody said wistfully. He sighed, "Who wants to help me get this bastard?" Nigel went with Woody to the El Fabir residence. Woody knocked on the door while Nigel stood back nervously.

"Boston PD, open up!" he commanded. The door creaked open.

"What do you want?" a thick Arabian voice asked.

"We want to talk to you." The door opened a bit wider.

"Who's 'we'?" the man asked suspiciously.

"Detective Woody Hoyt, Homicide, and Dr. Nigel Townsend, Boston Medical Examiner's office." Woody said formally. The door opened to reveal the man standing there.

"What would you like to talk about?" he said, obviously trying to fight back nervousness, not succeeding too well. Both Woody and Nigel could see right through him.

"Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, formerly of the Boston ME's office." Nigel said sternly.

"Oh, that bitch. She put me behind bars, and I didn't do anything." Haquim said bitterly.

"So when you got out, you wanted to get her, didn't you?" Woody was using common police interrogating skills. And they were working.

"Yes. I mean no. Of course not. Why would I do something that stupid, prison was hard enough innocent, let alone guilty." He blundered.

"Do you own a .22 millimeter gun, by any chance?" asked Nigel.

"No, I don't. Why would anybody let me have a gun straight out of jail?" Man, this guy sure thought he was good at lying.

"And where were you earlier this morning?" Woody continued interogating.

"I was walking home from my new night job at the lumber mill. I got off late today and didn't start headig home till at least 8:00 am, much later than usual." It was obvious that the suspect was getting nervous. It didn't take a detective to figure out that that didn't give him a proper aliby.

For Woody, that was enough to arrest him by. They took him to county lock-up and started formally interogating him. But he wouldn't talk anymore without his lawer, and his lawer refused to come in until the next morning.

"Woody, you might as well go home. There's nothing more you can do tonight. We'll hold him and you can work this out in the morning." DA Renee Walcott told him, just getting off her cell phone.

As a change, Woody listened. He made a quick stop back at the morgue to make sure he wasn't needed there, and returned to his car. He drove home to find a surprise for him. A note, in familiar writing. Writing he was used to spelling out causes of death and suspects, not this plea.

'Please, Detective Hoyt, I need to know what's going on here. I know you can help me.'

And with it there was a phone number. Woody recongnized it as being a Californian cell phone number.


A/N: You know the drill, read and review. It's not that complicated.