A/N: Woohoo, I'm on a roll!


By the time their pagers went off at four o'clock, both detectives were back at their desks, their tempers under what semblance of control they could manage, and the three FBI agents had scattered throughout the room.

Eames reacted first to the buzzing, unclipping her pager from her belt and holding it up to see the message. "Shit."

Goren checked his a second later, looked at her, and sighed. "Agreed. Kratzer and Straub wanted to see the next scene - you want to go find them, or should I?"

"I'll do it," she said with a shrug, then threw back her head and yelled, "Kratzer! Straub!"

Both men were at her desk within seconds, looking like they'd sprinted from wherever they had been. "What's up?" Kratzer asked, noticing the pager she was still holding. "Oh, hell, is there another . . ." He didn't need to complete the question; the looks on the detectives' faces told him everything he needed to know. "Where?"

"The Park again," Eames said as she began gathering her things. "Cherry Hill."

"Does this guy have a fruit fixation or something?" Straub asked jokingly, relieving her of the coat she was holding so that she could reach for her bag under her desk.

"I doubt it. Thanks," she said distractedly, taking the coat back and straightening up. "Everyone ready? Is D'Argenzio coming?"

"Nah," Kratzer said, looking over his shoulder at the room. "A detective named Barek talked him into doing her running for her. Let's just say he's preoccupied."

"Barek?" she echoed, grinning, as she led the group toward the elevators. "Damn, she's good. Logan and an FBI agent at her beck and call."

"A pretty face goes a long way," Straub said with a shrug, then immediately held up a hand to defend himself from her smack. "I'm not saying it's good. I'm just saying that that's the way it is."

"Save your opinions for the rest of the peanut gallery," she scolded without any real heat. "We've got a less-than-attractive dead body to focus on."


"Damn!" Eames yelped as she turned the SUV into Central Park's no-vehicle zone.

Startled, all three men jumped to attention. "What the hell?' Straub asked, giving the back of her seat a pointed kick.

She mumbled an obscenity. "I just remembered that I told Ch- I told my friend that I'd meet him at six. There's no way in hell we're going to be done with this girl by then."

"So call and reschedule," Straub said with a shrug as he relaxed back into his seat. "It's not like you planned it this way."

Sighing, she nodded and pulled the car to a stop beside a pair of black-and-whites. "Guess I'll have to. You guys go get started. I'll be there in a minute."

When the men were out of the car, she pulled out her phone and dialed Hammond's number.

He answered the phone with his typical greeting to her: a warm "Alex!"

"Hi," she said, stifling a groan at the prospect of imparting bad news to him. "I, uh, have a little bit of a problem. I was wondering if you'd mind pushing back the time for tonight. We just got word that there's another body, and I'm not going anywhere but to the scene until probably seven or eight."

"I . . . Alex, you know my schedule is tight," Hammond replied, sounding vaguely alarmed. "You promised me -"

"I know, I know! And I'm sorry, seriously. But this isn't something I can get out of. So can we make it eight o'clock, or do you want to try for another night?"

He sighed, loudly enough for it to be audible to her through the phone. "No, eight is ok. Just try to actually make it this time, ok?"

"I know," she sighed. "I'm really sorry about this. I'll see you at eight - come hell or high water."

"That's the spirit. I'll see you then, Alex."

"Bye." She closed the phone and sighed again as she re-clipped it to her belt. She hated breaking appointments, and she especially wasn't happy with having to break an appointment with a man who was attractive and intelligent, in favor of tramping around the park in the mud trying to avoid speaking to her partner.

A knock on the window startled her out of her thoughts, and she turned her head to find Straub grinning at her through the glass. "Yeah, yeah. I'm coming," she muttered as she opened the door and stepped out. "Something wrong, Eddie, or did you just miss me?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

He put a casual arm around her shoulders and turned her around to face the body and the crowd surrounding it. "Who's the hot woman in the red shirt?"

She didn't even try to keep from groaning this time as her eyes fell on the woman in question. "She's the M.E.," she told him, stepping out from under his arm and starting toward the body. When he caught up to her a few steps later, she looked up at him and added, "She's also Goren's girlfriend, so I suggest you keep your distance."

Straub stopped mid-step and stared at her. "Goren's got a girlfriend? How'd I miss that one?"

Giving him a sympathetic smile, she shrugged and pulled him along by the arm. "He doesn't talk about himself much. Blink and you'll miss it when he does."

"Yeah, I noticed that. Guy's got issues."

Eames chose not to respond to that. "I think they only got serious recently," she said, forcing herself to contain the other comments that came to mind at that thought. "He's always been fine at scenes with her."

"What about her?"

"Huh?" she mumbled, increasingly distracted as they drew closer to the body and she could see more of the woman's wounds.

"What about her," he repeated. "Is she fine at scenes with him?"

"With him?" She snorted. "Yeah, she's fine with him. With me, not so much."

"Detective Eames!" Danielle called in an overly sweet voice, leaving Goren and the body behind and trotting toward Eames. "I was wondering where you were." She paused, looking like something had just occurred to her. "Or should I call you Alex?"

"Call me whatever you want," Eames said brusquely, noticing that next to her, Straub was inching backwards. Apparently he was smart enough to recognize dangerous female behavior when he saw it. She wondered if he was going to try to make a run for it, or if he was just trying to get out of range in case Danielle shot off something other than her mouth "I'm more interested in the body."

"It's so odd to see Bobby without you in tow," Danielle went on as if she hadn't spoken. She glanced over her shoulder at where he was crouched over the body, then turned back to Eames and smiled. "But he doesn't seem to mind, does he?"

Straub put a hand on Eames's tensed shoulder and pushed her slightly to the side so that he was the one standing in front of Danielle, then cleared his throat. Holding out a hand, he announced, "I haven't had the pleasure, ma'am. Eddie Straub."

"Mmm." Danielle eyed him, then nodded slightly and shook his hand. "Danielle Matthews. Are you a . . . friend . . . of Alex's?"

Eames, fed up with the woman's jibes, touched Straub's arm and smiled her thanks at his attempt to shield her, then walked away, heading for the body and her partner.


"What'd you find?" she asked Goren a minute later as she squatted down next to him.

"All her clothing's gone," he replied without looking up from his study of her hands. "Residue of something on her thighs. Danielle says she can't tell whether it's semen or lubricant until she can process a sample in the lab."

"Mmm," she murmured noncommittally, pulling on a pair of gloves. "He ripped the clothes off again. Is there an ID?"

"You didn't get that from the cops on-scene?" he asked, looking at her in surprise.

"I was on the phone," she said in a tone that brooked no argument. "You want to answer my question?"

"Liliana Zamora," he sighed. "CUNY. Go chat up the detectives, Eames. I've got the body covered."

"Of course you do," she said coldly. "You'll have to excuse me. Didn't mean to hone in on your territory."

"Alex, it's not -" He looked up again and cut himself off as he realized that he was speaking to thin air. Groaning, he wondered how he'd ever dug himself so deep a hole and what he'd have to do to get out of it.

"I think she went to meet her . . . friend," said a voice from behind him.

He twisted around to see Danielle just reaching the top of the hill he was on. "What?"

"Her, uh, 'friend'," she repeated with a smirk, putting an even more heavily suggestive inflection on the word. "About six-foot-two? Looks like he can bench press me?"

"Oh, Straub," he said with a nod, returning his attention to the body and completely missing her attempt at insinuation. "Kratzer should be around here somewhere, too. You should introduce yourself."

"Who's Kratzer?" she asked, confused.

"Straub's boss. They're -" He looked up, blinking, as he realized that she sounded lost. "They're FBI profilers. What did you think they were?"

Danielle turned a rather unattractive shade of red, but recovered quickly. "Well, from the way your partner was all over that Straub guy, I figured . . ." She shrugged. "You know."

Automatically, he turned and scanned the crowd for Eames. After a few seconds of searching, he spotted her standing next to Kratzer and talking to one of the uniformed officers. "Alex was hanging on Straub?" he asked Danielle skeptically, turning her eyes back to her. "I doubt that. She won't let him touch her most of the time."

"Well, she's -"

"Danielle, please," he sighed in exasperation. "I'm trying to get my job done here. Can we focus on the dead woman instead of the live one?"

"She could push you under a bus, and you'd still come running when she called, wouldn't you?" Danielle snapped.

Out of patience, he spared her another glance and then returned to looking at the body's hand, which he still hadn't managed a complete examination of. "Leave it alone, Danielle. If you're not going to help on the case, go find something else to keep you busy."

Muttering curses, she did as ordered and stomped off.


Eames had the questionable luck of being alone at the bottom of the hill when Danielle huffed away from Goren, and she would have been been mown down if she hadn't reacted quickly and jumped out of the way. "Jesus!" she gasped, turning to see who it was that had nearly run over her. "What's - oh," she broke off as she caught sight of the last possible person she wanted to see. Gritting her teeth, she managed to keep her reaction short and to the point: "You should watch where you're going, Dr. Matthews."

"You," Danielle shot back, "should just get out of my way. Everywhere."

Eames, taken aback by the virulence in the woman's voice, could only stare at her for a second before she said, forcing herself to stay calm, "As far as I know, this is the first time I've ever been in your way, Doctor."

"Oh, please. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Logic dictated that Danielle was talking about Goren, but Eames was at a loss for what it was that she had done to get in the other woman's way. "I don't know what you're thinking I did, but last time I checked, you seemed pretty happy with where you were."

"This is ridiculous!" Danielle snapped, throwing up her hands.

"I agree. So if you don't mind, I'm going to -"

"Do you know who answered his phone last night?" Danielle hissed, leaning forward and putting her face within inches of Eames's. "Me. And do you know what he did when I told him what you said? He jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, and ran out the door. To you. So I'm saying it again: stay out of my way."

"He ran to the case, not to me. And," she added, lowering her voice to a near-whisper, "you're the one sleeping with him. I doubt I could do anything to stop either of you. Now would you please leave me alone?"

"In a second. You want to know a secret about Bobby?" she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she gave Eames a malicious smile and answered her own question. "Of course you do. So listen to this: he doesn't get turned on by skinny women who act like men. So don't hold your breath, sweetie." With that, she turned and marched away, leaving Eames standing alone on the grass, arms crossed defensively across her body.

Eames took a deep breath and let it out, trying to slow her pounding heart and force her hands to relax from the fists they had formed in the face of the other woman's attack.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been standing like that when she heard her name being spoken quietly. The sound jerked her rudely out of her thoughts. Blinking rapidly, she looked around and found Kratzer watching her with concern.

Seeing that she had come back to reality, he put a tentative hand on her shoulder and moved a step closer. "Alex? You ok?"

"Yeah." She blinked again, cleared her throat, and gave him her best smile. "I'm fine. Uh, you need me for something?"

He glanced over his shoulder at Straub, who was leaning against the SUV and watching them. "We're about ready to leave. Goren's in the car. You . . . uh, you got anything else you need to do here?"

She realized with alarm that the scene had continued to move around her while she stood frozen. "Uh . . . I have to talk to the . . . to everybody," she said weakly, pulling out her notepad and taking stock of who at the scene she'd interviewed and who she hadn't gotten to by the time Danielle pulled her aside.

"Taken care of," Kratzer said quickly. "I mean, you can do it again if you want, but I think Eddie and I covered everyone who was here. Half of them are gone now anyway."

She nodded slowly and took another breath. "Yeah, I'm ready, then. Just, uh . . . give me a minute, ok?"

"Ok," he said, patting her shoulder. "Give a yell if you need us."

She gave him an abrupt nod, then turned and headed for the lakeshore.