Chapter 7

Can I Call You 'Mo?

Those phone calls never came. Jordan didn't know whether to be annoyed or relieved. Because she said she would, Jordan picked up his mail, watered his plants, and fed his goldfish...Elmo.

Woody once told her that this was the fifth incarnation of Elmo. The first Elmo came shortly after his two weeks on the DL that ended up with him flying to LA to hunt down a killer. That case he was coming off an injury and was totally on his own. This time he was healthy and had Seely watching his back. Her fingers still itched to buy an E ticket and have Nigel track his lojack.

At first, she debated on taking Elmo into work, figuring he'd have a better chance of survival surrounded by doctors and scientists. In the end she was glad she didn't. Elmo proved to be a great listener. As days stretched together, the conversations become longer and more meaningful. Jordan found herself looking forward to the few minutes she spent with him everyday.

As had become her habit, Jordan let herself into Woody's apartment and asked Elmo if Woody called. It was an exercise in futility. Elmo just groused behind the glass looking for his fish flakes. Woody had forwarded all his calls to his cell. It wasn't like he had anybody around to take any important messages.

Jordan set the mail down on the counter next to Elmo's bowl along with a box of leftover kung-po chicken from lunch.

"It looks like it's just you and me again tonight," she said sprinkling his dinner in the bowl. "I like you Mo. I can call you Mo can't I? After all, we've been sharing our deepest, darkest secrets every day..."

Elmo dived for his flakes showing more enthusiasm than Jordan felt days. Jordan took at as an affirmative.

"Good," she said carrying the bowl from its usual spot on the kitchen counter to her preferred site on top of Woody's dresser.

Jordan started dragging the bowl around with her on her second day of apartment watching. Each evening she found herself staying a few minutes later. At first she told Elmo she was just doing Woody a favor by slaying a few on the dust bunnies that had collected under his furniture, confessing to Elmo that Woody's nasty habit of cleaning only from nose to knee level drove her up a wall.

Before she knew it, Jordan was staying until one or two o'clock in the morning going through the motions of running a dust rag around and telling Elmo about everything from being a closet Bruins fan to falling in and out of love with JD. It was easier to talk to a fish than go home to her own empty apartment, its cold bed and empty answering machine. So easy, in fact, she wondered if she should be either paying him by the hour or at least starting each conversation by saying 'forgive me Father, for I have sinned...'

After the apartment had been cleaned from top to bottom and inside and outside, Jordan had to get more creative with her excuses for staying. Tonight, she told everyone at work she was spending her evenings with this new guy she met in Woody's building. He was a nice, laidback guy. A great conversationalist, even if he drank a little too much. It wasn't too far from the truth. Jordan made a mental note to clean Elmo's bowl before she left.

She kicked her shoes off and curled up on the bed with her box of cold take out. She didn't want to dwell on why she was so comfortable in that particular spot. At least not right now...even though the answer was right on the tip of her tongue. To say it would give it life, and to give it life would be admitting she needed him. Needing him would mean opening herself up to a broken heart when her heart had been shattered so many times already she doubted there'd be enough pieces left to put it back together again.

Elmo had finished eating and was just drifting around his plastic plant. Jordan rambled on for few minutes about her day and asked Elmo for his pick for Sunday's games.

Finally she cast a jaundice eye to the bowl and asked the same question she had every day since Woody and Matt left...

Why hadn't he called?

"No news is good news...at least in the department. If anything bad happened I would have heard," she said rolling over on her side to face the dresser. "He's busy. But you'd think he'd at least make sure I haven't flushed you yet."

Elmo grazed the pebbles on the bottom of his bowl.

"I wish I could be as nonchalant as you are. Your life is on the line here. I can't even keep a plant alive...he knows that."

He loves me. He trusts me.

"Trust?" she snorted. "Love has nothing to do with trust...right?"

Elmo relieved himself.

"You're right. Love means picking up the damn phone."

Woody hung up the phone after the fifth ring. He didn't want to talk to Jordan's machine. He wanted to talk to her.

From the second they landed in Topeka, Woody and Matt were in over their heads. What started out as a simple case of picking up a local porn distributor, snowballed into something bigger and more twisted.

Their investigation had moved from the town of Salina. More to the fact, the crossroads of I-135 and I-70. For first two weeks they followed the lead of their insider. Day in and day out they watched 18 wheelers come and go...any one of them could be part of the distribution. The location made sense...two big trucking highways offering easy access to the entire nation.

The morning of the twelfth day they hit pay dirt. They had their man. A single father from Concord. He claimed he was only delivery man. He was only doing it to make ends meet. His ex-wife was bleeding him dry. He was a little worse for wear when Matt and Woody turned him over to the locals. Matt swore on a stack of Bibles that the suspect simply tripped getting out of the vehicle...and Matt's knuckles were inadvertently scraped up by helping the poor man off the concrete. Woody just said he was in the rest room and didn't see a thing. He blamed Seely's fixation with the truck stop's taco surprise.

While the suspect was having his clumsy moment he mentioned a name. Not the name of a potential suspect in the case, but that of a fifteen yea- old boy he had just delivered to a house in Wichita. Matt neglected to give the information to the Kansas State Police...or the FBI for that matter. For Seely, the case was getting more and more personal. By the end of the day, they were in a motel one block away from the house.

'This is the ring leader. I can just feel it Hoyt...' Matt had justified. He didn't need to convince Woody...but Walcott was another story. She gave them until the extradition paperwork could be filed on their initial suspect. Renee said she could stretch it for three days...but not a second longer. If they couldn't find anything concrete by then they had to come back to Boston and turn everything over to the feds.

For the first day, they split up looking for any information they could about the house and its habitants. While Woody took the logical route and canvassed the neighbors and local businesses, Matt went to the local school yard and ultimately a neighborhood daycare. That was where he found him lurking in the shadows. He was more than willing to tell them what he knew about the house...after a little gentle prodding. This time Matt was the one that had to take a leak. What they heard was enough to make Woody sick...and enough for Matt to drop dime on this pervert after getting a few names out of him.

By da tywo, Matt was standing on the desk of the Special Agent in Charge of the Wichita FBI field office. They gave him a song and dance about manpower and hearsay. The local police were willing to listen...after Matt threatened to go to the local TV station. Woody just smiled at them and said he was the good cop.

What they found in the house would stay with Woody for a very long time. The house itself was seeming harmless looking. Something out of a Brady's Bunch set...only dingier...like the walls themselves reflected the cancer of what was going on with in them. They found three bedrooms and an array of child sized clothing, a newsprint quality press in the basement and a single ledger book stuffed in a drawer in the kitchen. It looked like another budget book you'd find in any other household...only this one didn't list utility bills and grocery tabs. There were names, column after column. Names and ages...and sale price. They were not only looking at a child pornography ring. They stumbled on something more depraved.

The house was empty. They hadn't been gone long...and when they did move it was quick. They missed them by minutes. After two days it was obvious whoever was behind all this was gone. There was nothing left for Woody and Matt to do but turn everything over to the feds and the local police...and go home.

The next available flight wasn't until morning. They'd spent one more night at the motel. Neither of said anything about the missing boy as they mutually decided on a brewed malt dinner instead of taco surprise.

Woody needed to talk to her. He needed to disappear inside the reassurance of her voice and remember why what he did was worth it...even when the bad guy gets away...

"She's still not home," Matt said as he mindlessly flipped the channels on the small TV. The last few weeks had taken their toll on the cocky young detective. Woody didn't need to look in the mirror to see he looked the same.

"Nope," he said tossing the phone on the mattress next to him and taking a deep drag off the brown bottle in his left hand.

"Have you tried her cell?"

Woody shook his head mumbling something about not wanting to upset Jordan while she was working. He didn't add that he couldn't be sure she was working...or was alone. He didn't want to deal with the directionless nature of their relationship. What he didn't realize was that Seeley saw right through him.

"Call her man," Matt said handing Woody a fresh beer. "I know I've done my share of teasing you about Cavanaugh. You have to admit you're too damn easy when it comes to her," he added with a morose chuckle. "I'm not joking now. Call her."

Woody shrugged. "It's late in Boston."

From across the room, Matt pointed at the clock with the neck of his bottle. "Just make sure it doesn't get too late," he said with a slight slur. "I don't know how it's possible that someone as intelligent and beautiful as Jordan Cavanaugh has anything to do with a schmuck like you..."

"Are you thinking about asking her out?" Woody teased.

"Oh hell no." Matt was quick to say. "I don't know what YOU see in her," he added with a visible shiver.

"So you're coming on to me," Woody smiled, thumbing the label on his beer.

"Christ Hoyt! You're a sick man," Matt said flopping down on his own bed. "What I'm trying to say is that you need to step up to the plate..."

"Jordan once told me baseball analogies don't do it for her..."

"She sure as hell not with you for your sense of humor," Matt said tossing his empty bottle in the trash was a resounding rattle at it clanged against the battalion of solders that fell before it. "She's with you because she wants to be. You are a very lucky man Hoyt..."

"Now I know you're hitting on me."

"Can you get your mind off sex for one minute and get it back on...sex."

Woody couldn't help but grin as he watched a quickly-becoming-drunk Matt try to make sense of what they were talking about.

Matt waved his hand in the air as if to erase whatever sound waves were left to his comment. "What I mean is when you get on that plane tomorrow morning you have someone to go home too. You need to track her down NOW and make sure she is there to meet you at the gate," Matt said with a conviction that comes moments before admitting you're very drunk.

"That way you can take her straight home and screw your brains out until you've totally purged out all the bullshit you've put in there since we were first handed this Godforsaken assignment. You're a fucking lucky dog Hoyt," he reiterated.

Woody finally pulled the label off his beer and laid it on the stack he already had off. "I'll be sure to tell Jordan we finally have your blessing."

"I'm serious. Don't fuck it up Hoyt."

Woody couldn't help himself. "I thought you just told me to go forth and fuck..."

Matt was silent. Woody looked over to make sure he hadn't passed out. He found Seely staring blindly at the ceiling. The look on his face was one that reminded Woody of himself...the first time he saw Jordan and JD together. When Matt spoke again his words were soberly clear.

"Don't let some narrow-minded macho ideal of how a guy should act screw what you have up. A woman needs to know exactly how you feel. Then when you see without a shadow of a doubt she knows for sure...you have to tell her again and do anything and everything to show her...over and over, and over again. Everyday, every minute...because there is always someone else, in the wings, that will...and you'll be spending your evenings alone to your cat...your goddamned flea bitten cat...

"I have a goldfish. Actually he's pretty good company..."

Woody waited for Matt to come back screaming at him that he's missing the point...but the lump on the other bed was quiet. Matt was out...cold.

Woody thumbed his phone. It was two in the morning in Boston. Since she wasn't home she was either busy at work...or just busy. The pad of his thumb danced over the speed dial button and before he could second guess himself like he had all night he punched in her cell.