Nick felt strangely better after his interview with Stanley Wolfe. The senior sergeant always made him feel at ease, even if it was in interview. Finally telling the whole story took some of the weight off his chest. Bruce Dalton used to make him feel that way, like everything was well in hand, like they were onto the right track. Dalton never had Wolfie's calm demeanor though. Dalton was more likely to laugh something off than to quietly nod and give further instructions.

The very thought of Bruce Dalton now practically made him sick. He'd told Wolfe all that he'd learned from Juliette, what her story was about, how it implicated him and Dalton. And he admitted in recorded interview that he did not know if the Majors investigation was tainted. He hoped it wasn't. He couldn't imagine that about Bruce, that his own mentor could set him up like that. But there was something there…

When Nick got out of interview, Duncan was walking by and saying that they were bringing Dalton in for interview. "But I've got a bit of time. Can I drop you at your car? It's just down the way," Duncan said.

"Do you know where Jennifer is?" he asked.

"Allie said she left after their interview. Just like you said, Nick, she didn't see anything. She's not involved in this. Don't you drag her into it," Dunny warned.

"No, I won't," Nick lied. Duncan couldn't possibly know that Jen was already a part of this. By virtue of Majors' connection to the fairy realm, Jennifer had been dragged in before either of them knew it.

As they walked out to Duncan's car, Nick tried to keep his eyes and nose alert in case Jennifer was around waiting for him. She might have gone invisible. But he couldn't get any hint of her beautiful floral scent. Maybe she was waiting back at his car. Or at his house. Or, unfortunately most likely, maybe she had returned to her own home. He'd wanted to talk to her, to tell her things, to reassure her, but he might not get the chance now.

It was a short drive to the garage where Juliette had been killed. By now, crime scene was nearly done. Pathology had come and gone, removing the body. The officers had allowed Duncan to drive through and pull up beside Nick's car. Now that the scene was starting to clear, he'd be allowed to drive it back home.

Dunny parked the car and paused, turning to Nick. "What are you doing, mate?" he asked gravely.

"Just trying to figure out the truth. Same as the rest of us," Nick replied. And that was the truth. He needed to know what had happened with Majors all those years ago. He needed to find Juliette's killer.

"I mean with that girl. Who is she?"

Nick did not like the reference to Jennifer as a 'girl.' She was a grown woman, and really, she wasn't even a woman. But obviously she couldn't tell Duncan that. He couldn't tell anyone that. "I told you about her. Met her in the woods a while back. Took her to Dominic's on our first date. We've been seeing each other since then."

"And you bring her to a meetup with a journo and a shady source?" Duncan asked incredulously.

Nick shook his head. "She was already with me when Juliette called. And she just…it's different with this one, Dunny," Nick told him quite seriously. "I know it's new and I barely know her but the thing is, I don't barely know her. I know her better than I think I've ever known anyone. And she knows me."

"You're in love with her?"

"Might be," Nick answered quietly.

Duncan whistled in amazement. "Never thought I'd see the day Nick Buchanan got serious about a woman."

Nick just shrugged and gave the softest hint of a smile. "Never met anyone like her."

Before Duncan could say anything else, his phone rang. It was Wolfe calling to say that Dalton was coming in. "I've gotta get back," he said, hanging up the phone."

"Yeah, 'course. Good luck, mate."

Duncan nodded. "Yeah, you too. Sit this one out, alright? Stay with that woman of yours and don't go rogue. We'll get to the bottom of it, Nick."

"Alright." Nick left Duncan's car and got into his own. Little did Duncan know that Nick had already made arrangements to very much not sit this one out. Every single bit of paper with investigation reports, transcripts, and court files were all sitting in a huge folder in the back of his car. He'd gotten them the day before but not taken them inside yet. Now he'd have plenty of time to pore over every single bit of it.

Thankfully the drive home was quick. There wasn't any traffic this late at night. The house was dark when he pulled up, and his heart sank just a bit. He'd been hoping that Jennifer would be there. He took the files from the back of his car and looked around, subtly sniffing the air just to be sure she wasn't there. She wasn't.

But then, strangely, the front door was unlocked when he approached it. And inside, a soft glow emanated from the living room. "Jen?" he called out warily.

Almost immediately, she appeared in front of him, blinking back to visibility—wings and all—as she hurried from the living room to the entryway where he was standing. "I didn't know if they'd let you come home!" she cried, throwing her arms around him.

Nick held her tight with his free arm, trying not to jostle the files. He was more relieved than he wanted to admit that she was here. "I'm not under arrest. They weren't going to hold me. And I'm suspended from duty, so I couldn't stay there. I'm just glad you're here."

She pulled back to look up at him. "Where else would I be? Particularly now. I know it's late, but I think we've got a lot to talk about."

He nodded in agreement. A small knot of dread reappeared in his stomach, having dissipated momentarily when she was revealed to be in his house waiting for him. "Let's go sit down and get comfortable on the sofa, and I'll tell you everything."

Nick went around turning on some lights and putting the files down on the table. Its song hitched slightly at the sudden weight placed on the wood. Nick murmured an apology.

Jen disappeared the glowing ball of light that had kept her company while she waited for Nick. She didn't know when he'd be back, and she wasn't sure she wanted anyone to know she was in his house. So she'd conjured the light for herself as she waited in the otherwise dark and quiet house.

They both sat on the sofa, each at opposite ends, looking at each other. Nick had his legs spread casually in front of him while Jen curled her own underneath her where she sat. She was still wearing his jumper, and her wings were draped around her shoulders just like when she slept. She seemed nervous but not uncomfortable, and for that he was glad.

"So I guess you know by now that the case I've been worried about, the one Juliette was doing her story on, was the Dane Majors case."

Jen nodded. "You mentioned it at our picnic. That someone was asking questions about it."

"Yeah," he confirmed. "Well, it's gone a bit further than that now."

And Nick explained everything. He told her everything about the case, how it had started, how he'd been first on the scene to see Tahnee's dead body and Dane's act of distress at finding her. The case had pointed to Dane the whole time, what with his history of domestic violence against Tahnee and his infidelity in their marriage. He had an aggressive streak with his mates, too. He was known to go too far, to lash out in anger and assert his dominance whenever he could. Nick told Jen about Tahnee's father, Graham Procter, who had been so devastated at his daughter's death and so intent on assisting police and prosecution however he could. And he told Jen that the trial was already underway without that crucial murder weapon until Nick was sent back to the house to do one last search. Nick had found that five-iron golf club wrapped up in the crawlspace of the roof, and it had a speck of Tahnee's blood on it after having been otherwise wiped clean. The judge ordered a new trial so the golf club could be introduced, and after that, Dane was convicted and put in jail for ten years.

"And that's all there was to it," he said, "until Juliette Gardiner comes around wanting to write a story about the case for the tenth anniversary of Majors' conviction. And Dane Majors is telling her that the cops set him up, which is the story he's been telling since this all started, and then she gets a call from an anonymous source with the same story, that me and my sergeant, Bruce Dalton, planted that evidence."

"But you know you didn't. You acted in good faith," Jen interjected, having listened intently to Nick's whole story and knowing quite confidently what sort of a person he was. Nick would never do anything like that.

He nodded. "Only I don't know how well the paperwork'll back that up. My word against anyone else's. But I have got copies of all the Dane Majors material. Case notes, trial transcripts. Can't see any harm in going through them while I'm not allowed to be working properly, eh?"

Jen smiled. "Do they just have things like that available?"

"No."

"So how did you get all that?"

"Illegally," he confessed with a small smirk. And yes, technically, he hadn't filled out the proper forms and gotten the proper permissions to copy and take everything, but he had to. He sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. "If this murder was about the story Juliette though she had, then the story is the key and that has to be about the evidence that turned up at the trial. In which case, it focuses on me and Bruce Dalton."

"And you weren't the one who did anything wrong."

Jen had seen right to the heart of it. Of course she had. She had a sense of things, he'd noticed. An innate understanding of things. Of him. "I just can't believe," Nick began quietly, hardly able to put voice to the words, "that Bruce would be bent. He was a cross between Sir Terry and Queen Bernice to me." He tried to use a point of reference she would relate to. "A mentor, a straight shooter. For him to plant evidence, let alone murder Juliette…"

"Okay," she interrupted, sitting up and moving closer to him. He was getting worked up, she could tell, and now wasn't the time for that. "Maybe it's a good thing for you to go over the paperwork, illegally obtained or not. I guess you just have to keep going after the truth, even if turns out to be something you don't want to know. After what Bernice told us, we know Dane Majors is capable of everything he was accused and convicted of. The problem is whether the case actually has proof of that. We know the man's not innocent, but if there's a chance he's innocent of this particular crime, you've got to figure it out."

"Guess so," he agreed half-heartedly.

A silence fell between them as their eyes met, each of them waiting for the other to do something. Say something. Anything.

Nick wanted more than anything to just pull her into his arms and kiss her and let her magic wash over him and take him away from all this rubbish. Just to let him escape for a little while. But it wasn't fair to ask that of her. She wasn't there to just make him feel better. Even if that was the effect of her presence, that was not her purpose.

"I should go," she said, finally breaking the silence. "You've got plenty to be getting on with. I don't want to be in the way."

There was a hesitant tone in her voice that told him to disagree with her. So he did. "Would you stay?" he asked softly.

"Can I help you with all this?" she asked in return.

"I'd like you to. But…tomorrow. For now, could we just…could we just go to bed?"

A gentle smile curved on her lips. "Yeah."