Danny Parks tapped a pen against the desk in front of a typewriter he was not using.

"You don't stop that bloody noise I'm going to take off your finger with a pocket knife," his supervisor called as he passed through the room.

Danny left off the tapping but didn't apologize. He was granted a bit more respect in Melbourne than he was in Ballarat, despite that comment, but with a lot less fondness. These were simply people he worked with. For instance, he didn't even consider chucking the pen across the room at his supervisor's head when he said that. What kind of working environment was that?

This whole day his mind kept drifting back to Ballarat. Sure, sometimes he thought of his Uncle Christopher and how in the world he could be back, really, how in the world he could have been missing for so long and not killed. But mostly, bits of childhood would just drift in front of his mind. Earlier this morning he'd been at a crime scene investigating a robbery. He'd been supposed to catalog the items missing, look for ways someone could have broken in, but the dishes had the same pattern as his mother's – her fanciest, that was. They were white with gold edges and sprigs of green leaves and deep red flowers that made him think of Christmas.

When was the last time he'd seen his mothers' dishes? Had they been sold when she died? What happened to them? He was 17 when the Lord took her and the last thing on his mind was who got her good dishes. Auntie Jean would know. She knew everything. She knew how to keep him aloft when his parents passed and how to run the doctor's house when he passed, and he hadn't even thought of how she'd taken care of herself and her boys when Uncle Christopher died. Jean just managed. Always. He hadn't worried about anything with Auntie Jean around.

Oughtn't he have known what happened to those dishes, at least?

Lucien had said not to come, but when did he ever do just what Lucien said?

Danny must have taken up with the pen again, because his supervisor sighed deeply and asked when he'd have the report done. "If you're tapping, you're not typing," were his actual words.

Danny apologized and turned his attention to his paperwork, as much of his attention as he could command, that was. It truly only took a few minutes. He unspooled it from the machine and laid it in front of the man with stern eyes but a round face.

"I need to go home for a day or two," Danny said. "There's been a bit of an emergency."

"You scheduled this weekend?"

"Not today, but Sunday."

"Nothing bad every happens on a Sunday," he said by way of agreeing. "You find anything interesting at the scene? Anything I should know about without having to read all this?"

"The man was missing a gold watch with an engraving on the back from his father. Seems heartless to steal a thing like that."

"I meant to do with solving the crime."

"Right, well, blood on the door-jamb, maybe from breaking in. Forced entry for sure. Man was out for the evening. Said he was at the movies. When he came back, the door had been forced open and his house tossed. Watch was missing, a few hundred in cash from the kitchen, and some other small things. Neighbors hadn't heard anything. Hadn't seen anything strange. No one else was robbed nearby but they're all worried now."

"Sure, everyone's afraid they'll be killed in their sleep for their mother's good china. Doesn't usually work that way. We'll check pawn shops for the watch, but I doubt much'll come of it. You've got the description here?"

"It's all there," Danny said. His foot tapped now making his whole long, lean frame shake a bit. He didn't realize he was doing it till the supervisor shot him a look. He stopped. He was pretty sure something else would be tapping soon, though.

"Get out of here. Hope all's well at home."

"Thanks, boss!" Danny said, grabbing his jacket.

"Hey, you said emergency, no one's dead I hope." His supervisor said, probably doubting his last joke.

"Kind of the opposite, actually," Danny called back on his way out the door.

Lucien walked into the morgue, late, which wasn't unusual. Alice would have gotten started without him and be doing a damn fine job. He had managed to convince Charlie to stop by the house but Charlie would not let Lucien get out.

"Then let me just leave you here to keep an eye on Mrs. Beazley," Lucien said.

"Who'll be keeping an eye on you?" Charlie had muttered, but he got out of the car. Lucien knew Charlie's heart was nearly as large as his own, with similar vulnerabilities – Jean being chief among them.

Having left Charlie at the house Lucien shed just enough worry so that he stood a chance of doing his job as he entered the morgue.

"Alice, have you got started?" he asked.

"No, I waited for you."

"Whatever for?" Lucien asked, slipping into his lab coat.

"Because you know something about this, something you haven't told me, and I don't enjoy being at a disadvantage."

Lucien opened his mouth to dispute her assertion, then sighed. Who was he kidding. He wouldn't get anything past Alice.

"Very well," Lucien said. "This girl was known to Jean's son, Jack. She was pregnant at one point and I believe the child was Jack's. That's all I know, I swear." Lucien held his hands up in surrender.

Alice raised an eyebrow and surveyed him with a sharp eye that looked a bit hawk-like. Lucien wondered what his life would be like if Jean and Alice ever became truly close. He thought just then he might not invite Alice round the house too much for fear of a truly unstoppable alliance. "Does Jean know?"

"Well, she knew about Ivy the last time she came through town, and knew about the child. She doesn't know she's here now and I don't want her to, yet."

"Hm," Alice said, then turned her back to Lucien and reached for her tools.

"Jean has a lot going on just now. I don't want to add Jack to her list of worries."

"Jean Beazley has had a lot going on most of her life and handled it just fine without you deciding what she should and shouldn't know. She's stronger than you think."

Lucien put a hand on his hip and the other on his brow. Was he underestimating Jean? She was the strongest woman he knew, but didn't we all have our limits? God knows he'd faced his many times. "Let's just see where this leads, Alice. Once there's something to tell her, I'll tell her."

As he began to look more deeply into the secrets that Ivy Douglass's body held, he asked himself if he was protecting Jean or himself. There was a small part of him, one he didn't want to give voice, that feared for something and it wasn't for Jean's safety, it was for his own. Because he knew if his own wife showed up on his doorstep, the one thing that would drive him to her would be fear for his daughter. Lucien needed to solve this case and he needed to do it quickly, before anyone in town so much as whispered Jack Beazley's name.