A/N: Don't worry, I'm still working on White Hat. It's just coming along more slowly than this. I've got the next chapter about half done.
When Goren returned from an impatient twenty minutes of helping Myers with his profile, he found the mysterious doctor nowhere in evidence, and his partner deep in conversation with another female detective.
". . . Of course I got his number, Bron," Eames was saying to Detective Liggitt. "He's a witness; contact information is kind of important for those, remember?"
Liggitt sighed dramatically and pretended to swoon over Eames's desk. "Aren't you even a little tempted to put it to better use than just sticking it in a file?"
Catching sight of her partner as he approached, Eames gave the woman a warning look and said only, "We'll see."
"You'll see what?" Goren asked casually, pretending he hadn't overheard their words as he walked to his desk and sat down.
"Whether Eames is going to get a date out of your case," Liggitt said with a grin. "Good luck with that, Alex. I'll see you later."
"Bronwen!"
"Well, we were," was Liggitt's matter-of-fact parting shot as she turned and headed for her own desk.
Eames groaned quietly and shook her head. "This is why I don't like to hang out with women. That's going to be all over the squad room by the end of the day."
"That Hammond asked you on a date?"
"Probably," she said, rolling her eyes, "even though he didn't. Liggitt's just a little overexcited."
"At what?" Goren asked, unsure of what she was referring to, although he felt slightly more relaxed for knowing that it wasn't Eames going on a date with Hammond.
Snorting, she tossed a paperclip at him. "If you hadn't noticed, he's gorgeous. Definitely better looking than the slim pickings here." She paused, realized how insulting that had probably sounded, and added, "Present company excluded, of course."
"Of course," Goren said dryly. "Did he ask her out? Or was she just in raptures over the sight of him?"
"Raptures over the sight of him," she replied cheerfully. "She doesn't get out much. Neither do I, for that matter. You gonna begrudge us what little eye candy we can get?"
Acknowledging defeat in good humor, he shrugged. "Far be it from me. So, what did he have to say about the case when he wasn't busy sending Liggitt into raptures?"
She flipped through her notes, looking for the salient points she had written down. "Not much that you didn't hear while you were here. His practice is registered under his name - apparently psychiatry practices aren't set up like law firms - and Leah Olney worked there three days a week doing clerical work and phones. Maria White and Elizabeth Osborne saw doctors who work in the same office, but neither of them saw Hammond himself."
He nodded thoughtfully. "Did you get permission to see any office files?"
She gave him an incredulous look. "Are you kidding me? Hell would freeze over before any doctor worth his salt would release those without a subpoena, and no matter how cute he is, Hammond is still one of them."
"Hmm," he murmured, fiddling with his pen. "I thought maybe you'd charmed permission out of him after I left."
"You're vastly overestimating my abilities as a seductress," she said, giving him a teasing smile. "For which, by the way, thank you - I can always use an ego boost. But no, he showed no signs of being so dazzled by my beauty that he wanted to throw his ethics out the window."
He almost spoke up in protest of that before he realized that she was being facetious. "Fine," he muttered instead when he caught the smirk on her face. "I just figured I'd ask. That's all he gave you?"
"That, and his opinion of you," she said, her smirk widening.
"Which was?"
"You're 'unusual.' Shocker, I know."
Her wry tone and completely straight face forced a smile out of him. "That's it? 'Unusual'?"
Raising her eyebrows, she replied, "You were hoping for . . . what? Brilliant? Terrifying? Devastatingly handsome?" Noticing his eyes widen slightly at the last, she grinned. "He's a snappy dresser and he's beautiful. It's entirely possible that he'd be more likely to fall for you than me."
"No," he said without thinking. When she gave him a curious look in response to that, he shrugged slightly and turned his eyes to the pile of paperwork on his desk. "He was watching you. With interest."
"He was?"
"Yes." Keeping his eyes on the papers, he said without segue, "Where's this office of his, anyway? Can we get there today?"
"Subpoenas, Goren, remember?"
Actually, he hadn't remembered. He'd been occupied with other thoughts. "Mmm."
"Don't sulk," she admonished lightly, flipping open her laptop and pulling her notes closer. "It doesn't become you, and besides, the day's almost over. That's cause for celebration."
Sighing, he sat up a little straighter and reached for the Maria White file that was lying on her desk. "I'm going to try to get in touch with White's next of kin."
" 'Kay. Enjoy yourself."
"Cause for celebration, huh?" he asked an hour later, leaning forward to cover the laptop screen with his hand and startling her out of her reverie-disguised-as-working-on-the-computer.
"Huh?" she managed after a second as the momentary surge of fight-or-flight adrenaline faded.
"You said the end of the day is a cause for celebration."
"Oh, yeah. It is. Is it the end of the day already?"
Snickering, he nodded. "Yeah, it is. What were you so absorbed in that you lost track of time?"
She glanced at the screen, which was displaying a page of the notes she'd been typing before her mind got sidetracked by images of her short talk with Hammond. Had Goren been right? she had been wondering. Had the doctor been looking at her with unusual interest or intensity? If he had, her memory hadn't recorded it; maybe her partner was just being protective.
"Eames."
She blinked and focused on him again. "Sorry. I was typing up some notes."
"With your eyes on the Santa mug?" he asked - a polite way of telling her he knew she was full of shit, she knew.
"So I started daydreaming. Sue me," she shot back, sticking out her tongue at him.
Affecting a look of concern, he shook his head sadly. "You know, the longer you work with me, the more like me you get. That's got to go, before we both end up stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to think and get ourselves run over by impatient pedestrians."
Eames burst out laughing, surprising both herself and him. "With you coming up with images like that, Bobby, believe me, I'm totally secure in my relative sanity. Now, if it's the end of the day, maybe we should consider going home, eh?"
"Uh, yeah." He cleared his throat, looking like he was trying to decide whether to add something else. "Actually, I was wondering - do you have plans for tonight?"
Not having expected that, she looked at him blankly. "Tonight?"
"Yeah. It's been a while since we went out for drinks or anything," he said, cautious in the face of her confusion. "I figured we could both stand to blow off some steam from this case."
Cocking her head to the side, she gave that a few moments' consideration. "Yeah, ok. I have to get home soon-ish to feed the dog, though, unless I want him eating whatever he can get his mouth on instead."
"No problem. It was ugly enough that one time he ate your shoe and I had to watch you chase him around the apartment wi-"
"It wasn't just a shoe, Bobby - it was an Enzo boot with the perfect stacked heel!"
He gave her a look that made it clear that as far as he was concerned, said boot was just a shoe. "You have lots of pairs of boots."
She closed the laptop and stood up, giving him a comically haughty look. "Infidel! I'll have you know, those were the only pair of boots I owned that actually got the top of my head above your shoulder without making my feet hurt like hell."
"Ah." Enjoying the easy banter that was washing away the awkwardness of their earlier conversation about Chris Hammond, he got to his feet. "In that case, we should have given them a proper burial."
With a knowing smile, she shrugged on her jacket and picked up her bag. "There's still time."
"There is?"
"Yeah. I let him have the boot as a chew toy. Figured it might keep him from eating any others."
"That sets a dangerous precedent, Eames," he said, shaking his head despairingly as he pulled his suit jacket off the back of his chair. "What if he thinks boots are fair game now?"
She sidled over to his side of their desks, waiting for him to gather his belongings, and gave him a cheeky grin. "In that case, I'll give him you as a chew toy."
With a philosophical shrug, he followed her out of the room. "I won't fit quite as easily in the dog bed."
She took his arm, pulling him along. "I'm sure we can come up with a way to get around that. But," she added as he turned his head to push the elevator call button, "the dog's bed is my bed. It might get a little crowded. And you've been known to snore."
The only reaction he could muster up for that was an incredulous laugh and a mildly peeved, "I don't snore!"
Smirking, she nodded in obviously-false agreement. "You wish. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you definitely snore when you pass out drunk on my couch."
"Eames! That happened once, and as I recall, you were just as smashed as I was."
Giving him a laughing look, she stepped into the elevator and leaned casually against the wall. "If you'd stayed awake a little longer so you could propel yourself there, you could have used the bed. So, what bar are we hitting tonight?"
Would that have been with or without her in it? Trying not to think too hard about that statement and the ensuing question it raised in his mind, he could only stare up at the numbers above the doors as they lit up and shrug helplessly.
