Straub took one look at Goren the next morning and started snickering. "What the hell happened to you?" he asked, gesturing to the knuckle-shaped bruise visible on Goren's jawline.
Eames, keeping her face perfectly expressionless, looked up at the FBI agent and said, "Good question, Eddie." Moving her eyes to her partner, she raised her eyebrows questioningly. "Bobby? What did happen to you?"
Goren's jaw tightened for a second before he looked at Straub and shrugged. "Got in a fight."
Kratzer, who had once again gotten stuck with carrying the coffee, heaved the box onto Goren's desk and chuckled. "A fight, huh? How'd the other guy make out?"
"Walked away," he said shortly, moving a little too abruptly as he got to his feet and picked up the box of coffee that Kratzer had just put down. "We got a lead last night. You guys ready to get started?"
The two agents, surprised by the sharpness in his voice, both looked at Eames for an explanation, but she just shrugged and stood up. "The two girls who went to CUNY had the same advisor - and the advisor has a record."
"Talk about your good morning!" Straub said with a grin, dropping a hand onto her shoulder appreciatively. "Tell us more."
She pointedly used her thumb and forefinger to lift Straub's hand off her shoulder. "Where's Tony?"
"Coming," Kratzer said, watching her action with amusement. "He didn't fit in the elevator we caught. This place is a zoo in the mornings."
"You're telling me," she said with a grin. "As long as you didn't abandon him in Times Square or anything, he'll find his way up here eventually. Let's head into the conference room, guys. I left my notes in there last night." Not wanting the comment to sound like it had any significance, she was careful to keep her eyes turned away from her partner as she added the last sentence.
"Uh, yeah," Goren said slowly. "Me too."
"Geez," Straub said, looking at Eames with raised eyebrows. "You both forgot? How late did you guys work?"
"Way too late," she muttered, turning her back on all three men as she headed into the conference room.
"Huh," Kratzer said thoughtfully, watching Eames's retreating back. "First morning she hasn't had a wisecrack ready for us. I wonder what's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong," Goren said quickly. "She's just tired. We all are."
"If that's 'tired,'" Straub said to Goren over his shoulder as he started to follow Eames toward the conference room, "I'd hate to see her when she's pulled an all-nighter."
Goren just scowled and fell in behind him.
"Ok, wait," Straub said a few hours later, holding up a hand to interrupt Eames, who was in the middle of giving the expanding task force an informal summary of the few leads they had in the case. "Are we going to say that we've got two killers at work here? Or maybe a guy with multiple-personality disorder? I mean, three of the girls are connected by a shrink, two of them are connected by an advisor . . . but nothing connects all four. It's really unlikely that the guy's going to change hunting grounds mid-career unless he gets scared out of the first one."
"We're nowhere near close enough to scare anyone off," Eames said with a shake of her head. "Not even a paranoid, if he is one."
"He's not," Goren and Kratzer chorused.
Eames rolled her eyes. "Ok, fine, he's not. Either way, we've got nothing on anyone at this point. We didn't even know about the professor when the killer switched."
"The only person we've gotten close to is the psychiatrist," Goren pointed out, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair to watch her reaction.
"It's not him," she countered, copying his posture. "Hammond doesn't fit the age range, and he's not impulsive. And his work history certainly isn't spotty."
Seven pairs of eyes - the FBI agents, Watson and Higgins, and Liggitt and her partner, Wilson - turned to look at her with interest. "How do you know that?" asked D'Argenzio.
"I interviewed him," she said stiffly, studiously avoiding looking at Goren. "As far as I'm concerned, he's clean unless and until we find evidence against him."
D'Argenzio, looking appropriately abashed, just nodded.
Goren cleared his throat and reached out to lightly touch his partner's wrist. "Uh, Eames . . ."
She turned to look at him, a warning clear in her eyes, and said coolly, "Yes?"
He thought fast. It would a betrayal of her trust to publicize her relationship with Hammond, no matter how much he disagreed with it, and anyway, he wasn't going to let anyone handle the psychiatrist but himself if and when the time came. Sighing, he shook his head and turned back to the group. "Never mind. We have nothing on Hammond, but we haven't ruled out him or anyone else."
Beside him, Eames let out a quiet breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.
"Ok," Kratzer announced into the silence, giving the table a cheerful slap with his hands and looking around the room, "does everyone have a copy of the profile?"
A chorus of murmured assents answered him. Waiting for either Goren and Eames to retake control of the meeting, Kratzer stole a quick glance at the end of the table where they sat across from each other, but the detectives appeared to be absorbed in a staring contest. He made a mental note to question them later, then rose. "Ok, I think that's all for today. If you guys have questions, you can contact Detectives Goren and Eames. Thanks, everyone, for coming in."
It was only when the sound of chairs scraping back from the table filled the room that the that Eames blinked and looked up, realizing that Kratzer had closed the meeting for them. "Ted . . ."
"Not a problem," Kratzer said without looking up from the notes he was finishing. "You can pick up the tab on lunch."
Eames only ate one slice of the pizza they ordered for lunch before standing up and looking around at the FBI agents and then her partner. "If you guys will excuse me, I have a . . . friend I need to call."
She disappeared into the conference room before anyone could respond to that, and three pairs of eyes turned to Goren, looking for an explanation.
Goren just shrugged and focused his eyes on his pizza, suspecting that he knew who she was calling but hoping he was wrong. "She's calling a friend," he reiterated to the men surrounding him. "You'll have to ask her if you want to know who, because I don't know."
Kratzer pulled another slice out of the box. "Of course you don't."
"So," Straub broke in, leaning toward Goren with a conspiratorial look on his face, "now that she's gone, you want to tell us about how you managed to get into a fight last night?"
"Hell," Kratzer added, nodding, "I want to know how you stayed awake long enough to get in a fight in the first place! The three of us crashed the second we hit the hotel."
Goren tensed, then very deliberately took a bite of his pizza. "I, uh . . . had a disagreement with a friend."
"A friend?" echoed D'Argenzio. "Geez, if that's what your friends do, what do your enemies have to look forward to?"
Kratzer and Straub snickered.
Goren concentrated on his pizza and pretended he hadn't heard the question.
The four men ate in a slightly uncomfortable silence for a few minutes until the conference room door opened and they heard the faint sound of Eames giggling. "No, really, I have to go," she was telling whoever was on the other end of the phone when she got within earshot. "We're just taking a break for lunch and then . . . no, I promise I'll be done by then. Believe me, I'm sick enough of this place that I'm going to get out as fast as I can at the end of the day. So I'll meet you there? . . . Ok, great. See you tonight."
"Hot date?" Kratzer asked her, watching with raised eyebrows as she looked up, realized how close she had been standing to the men and how audible her words must have been, and blanched.
"Man, one detective gets in fights and the other's going on dates, and all three of us feebs are in bed snoring," Straub sighed, shaking his head. "Why do I get the feeling I joined the wrong agency?"
"Don't worry, Eddie," Eames teased, recovering quickly enough from her embarrassment to force a smile and pat his shoulder comfortingly. "You wouldn't be getting dates if you were a cop, either."
"Was that your boyfriend, Detective?" D'Argenzio asked quietly as she sat down on the edge of the desk he was sitting at.
"Boyfriend? I'm not sure," she said thoughtfully, speaking to him but looking at her partner. "We've only been on a couple dates. Then again, that doesn't seem to stop some people."
Goren choked on a bite of pizza and broke into a coughing fit, earning himself a wallop on the back and a concerned look from Kratzer. "You ok, there?"
"Fine," he wheezed, then coughed again.
"Hey Alex, what do you know about this mysterious fight of your partner's?" Kratzer asked, turning to look at her. "He won't tell us shit beyond that he 'had a disagreement with a friend'."
"Hmm." She leaned over D'Argenzio to pull a slice of mostly-cold pizza out of the box, then straightened up and glanced at Goren. "He's telling the truth; he did have an argument with a friend. I don't know what else you guys want me to tell you."
"You could start with what he did to piss the guy off," pointed out Straub, licking pizza grease off the side of his hand. "We've never even seen Goren yell, and yet he somehow managed to get in a fight?"
Leaning back in her chair, she stole another look at Goren, meeting his eyes just long enough to tacitly remind him that she could tell the truth and humiliate him any time she liked, then shrugged elaborately. "He yells. Just not often. As for what he did . . ." She paused to take a bite of pizza, chew, and swallow. "He got caught in a lie."
"That's it?" D'Argenzio said disbelievingly. "Just a lie?"
She gave him her most charming smile and took another bite of pizza. "Apparently the other guy didn't think it was 'just' a lie."
"Alex, enough," Goren warned, standing up to throw out his paper plate. "You've made your point."
"Am I making you uncomfortable, Bobby?" she asked him sweetly. "You could tell them the story yourself, if you'd prefer."
He glared at her. "No one's going to tell the story. We have a case to solve."
"He's touchy," she stage-whispered to Straub behind her hand. "Hates admitting he lost a fight."
"What was I supposed to do, hit you back?" Goren snapped without thinking.
Silence enveloped the area surrounding their desks. Eames's jaw clenched and she gave her partner a look so dark that any reasonable man would have fled.
Goren, belatedly realizing what he'd said, cursed and jumped to his feet, glaring back at her. "I have better things to do than listen to this," he bit out. "I'll be back later." And with that, he turned and disappeared into the crowd that filled the squad room.
"The hell?" Straub said blankly, turning to give Eames a look that demanded explanation. "You're the one who hit him?"
"This has nothing to do with you, Eddie. Leave it alone. That goes for you guys too," she added, looking from D'Argenzio to Kratzer, both of whom were looking at her with newfound respect.
D'Argenzio, too fascinated by the revelation to pay attention to her words, stared at her. "He let you hit him?"
"He didn't know it was coming," she muttered. "He didn't 'let' me do anything."
Kratzer, eyebrows up around his hairline, let out a whistle between his teeth. "Well, judging by the bruise you left, you've got a mean - what was it, a hook?" Interpreting her answering shrug as a 'yes,' he nodded, agreeing with himself. "Did you knock him out?"
"No," she said shortly. "I'm not going to talk about this, Ted!"
"It's kind of hard to ignore at this point," Straub spoke up, eyeing the room in the direction Goren had fled. "Considering how he hauled ass out of here and all."
"It is possible to do work without him, guys. I know it may come as a surprise to you, but I know my way around the case as well as he does. Maybe better."
"None of us are saying you don't," Kratzer said soothingly. "I think Eddie's point was just that curiosity is inherent in our profession, so we can't watch what just happened and then go back to work as usual. We want an explanation."
"Well, you're not getting one!"
D'Argenzio, who had been watching the exchange warily, straightened up in his chair and, cocking his head to the side, looked at her. "Did you really catch him in a lie? Was that part true?"
"What?" she asked distractedly, sparing him only a quick glance before going back to glaring at Kratzer. "Oh. Yeah."
"What'd he lie about?" Straub pressed.
"Drop it," she snapped, looking around at the three of them. "All of you. Or I'm going to walk out, too, and you're going to have to solve this case by yourselves."
Kratzer sighed. Catching Straub's eye, he shook his head slightly, silently telling the younger man to leave off the questioning for the time being. Then looking back at Eames, he nodded. "Ok, Alex. We'll leave it alone for now."
"Yeah," Straub said, nodding vigorously. "Didn't mean to upset you. So, uh . . ." He looked around the desks, searching for a new topic of conversation, then snatched up a copy of the profile he and Kratzer had prepared. "You said you talked to the shrink, right? You want to go over this and give us a point-by-point rundown on where he matches and where he doesn't?"
Ready to grasp at whatever straws she was offered, Eames nodded and pulled the paper out of his hand. "Sure. Pull up some chairs, guys - you're making me nervous hovering around like that."
