A/N: Sorry - this took a little longer than I hoped!

Chapter 1

"So. Whattya think?"

"I think you look pretty cute."

Don rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay, can we move through any of that stuff as quickly as possible and get down to business?"

Megan smiled. "I'll try. Actually, you don't look all that different. It's amazing."

"That's what my Dad always says." Don managed to suppress a yawn, followed it with a chaser of coffee. It helped a little, even though a half bagel had had to stand in for the hot breakfast. He studied the card pinned to the large board, next to shots of the corpse and the crime scene.

He couldn't say that he agreed with Megan or his dad - to him the grinning kid in the baseball uniform seemed almost a stranger: someone he barely remembered, smile still unmarred by the cumulative burden of intimate knowledge of the worst that people were capable of doing to each other. It was as if in shutting the door on that earlier life, that kid had disappeared completely - the only remains preserved in effigy on a worn baseball card. He struggled with another yawn, less successfully this time.

Megan nudged him. "So how come I'm the only one who got to sleep in?"

"Didn't need you yet." Don kneaded his forehead. "David and I talked to the landlady and the neighbor who called the police while Colby did a door to door - figured that one of us alert in the morning would be to our advantage. You won the toss."

"Very considerate." Megan's eyes traced the images marching across the board. "The wine bottle they used as a weapon - do we know if it was hers?"

"Seems likely. There was an empty space on the wine rack and the bottle was dusty, like the others. Hoping forensics will be able to tell us for sure."

"Maybe just an opportunity kill. Maybe her being a federal witness was just a coincidence."

"And maybe she just happened to be a fan of minor league ball?"

"Maybe."

"Yeah. Maybe. But that's about one too many coincidences for me. Especially since we didn't find any other baseball memorabilia around, and none of the neighbors seemed to recall her ever going to games or talking about them."

"She live there long?"

"Ten years." Don leaned back against a desk, trying to get a broader view of the board. "You know, I would have sworn that only two of those remained in the world - one in my old box of stuff from the Stockton Rangers, and one in my parents' scrapbook. Weird to suddenly see it somewhere else."

"Aw." Megan patted his shoulder. "I would have saved it."

Don gave her a half-hearted scowl. "I thought we were finished with that?"

Megan's smile broadened. "That was the last one - I promise."

"Bet you could buy it on eBay," Colby interjected.

Both Megan and Don turned to look at him and he shrugged. "You can buy anything on eBay."

"Yeah, I don't even want to imagine what you're buying there, Granger."

Colby smirked. "Couldn't if you tried, Reeves."

"Probably some secret, shameful fixation with the ballet or Madame Alexandra dolls." Megan moved closer to the card and tilted it into a better light.

Colby stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Okay, now that hurt."

"Not much spatter on this - do we know where they found it?"

"We have the notes and the crime scene diagram, but it's hard to tell if it should have caught any or not. LAPD is sending over the forensics tape - that should tell us more. What about the ValCom witnesses? Any moves on any of the others?"

David looked up from his phone. "Not that we know about. But it's too early to be sure."

"Okay - " Don allowed himself one more rub across the eyes, then uncapped a marker and moved to the board. "So, we have one possibility - a hit on a ValCom witness. David, you tracking down whether or not there was anything special about her testimony?"

"Working on it."

"Good. What else? Random killing of opportunity? What for? Any sign of robbery or sexual assault?"

"Her purse was still there and looked untouched - " Colby volunteered. "And the place was pretty neat - not ransacked."

Don nodded, making a note on the board. "So if anything was taken, then it was by somebody who knew where to find it. Sexual assault?"

"Still waiting on the ME." David moved closer to the photos. "But I don't know. Doesn't seem likely from the position of the body and the state of the clothes."

"We'll wait on the ME. She was in her robe, though - could be a date that went bad."

Colby wrinkled his forehead. "You mean like post-date regret?"

"Sounds like you know something about that, huh, Granger?"

Colby grinned wolfishly. "My reputation speaks for itself, Reeves."

Don tuned out the friendly sniping, his eyes dragged again to the baseball card, looking incongruous among the blood splashed crime scene photos. He generally kept careful walls between the different sections of his life, but ever since his return to LA, they had begun to overlap in ways that he wasn't quite sure he was comfortable with. He had finally broken down and joined the FBI baseball team, but that was as far as he had ever let his baseball life and FBI life intersect. The fact that some unknown somebody had breached even those delicate boundaries really got under his skin. Abruptly, he dropped the marker. "I'm getting coffee. Anybody want some?"

He didn't actually wait for an answer, but as he entered the small kitchen, he could tell he had picked up a shadow. Megan. Great. Here we go.

He splashed coffee into a paper cup and reached into the small fridge for milk before adding, "I would have fixed your coffee. I know how you take it."

Megan leaned against the counter and watched him tear open a packet of Splenda. "So. What time did you actually leave here last night?"

He poked at the coffee with a stirrer. "I don't know. Late."

"I figured. Maybe you should take a couple of hours. Get some sleep."

He shook his head. "I want to get everything from the witnesses organized while it's still fresh."

"Fresh. Interesting choice of words. Because you actually seem anything but."

Don bit down on the stirrer to stop a sharp answer. When he was sure that the flash of irritation was under control, he flicked the stirrer at the trash and slumped against the counter next to Megan. She was right. His nerves were in shreds.

"It's weird," he confessed.

She nodded. "Very."

"I mean, seeing this - piece of my past up there, surrounded by crime scene photos…" he dropped his eyes to the depths of his coffee cup.

"For us too. Probably why we're overcompensating with humor."

Don almost smiled. "Don't tell Colby that's what you're doing - he hates being analyzed."

"Are you kidding? That's going to be my very next salvo."

Don bent to take a sip of coffee, but lowered the cup abruptly without drinking. "So, tell me. If it was anybody but me - just any baseball player - would we even be bothering with that card?"

"Well, one way or the other, it's evidence, but…" Megan shrugged. "It is you. And that makes it significant."

"There's no way anybody could know that call would go to me."

"But they knew the call would go to the FBI - and so knew it would eventually reach you."

Don sighed, one hand drumming restlessly on the countertop. "Let's check with dispatch anyway - see who took the call and patched it through."

"Okay. That mean you're going home for a few hours?" He shook his head. "Okay, how about this - you go see your dad and Charlie. Take the paperwork with you. Work on it somewhere else, where you don't have to stare at that board for a while. Clear your head."

Don grimaced at his coffee, then finally nodded. "Yeah. Maybe you're right."

Megan elbowed him. "I'm always right. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

Don tossed his coffee down the sink untasted and chuckled. "Put it in a memo for me so I'll remember."

"Forget it - I've seen your filing system. I'll sic Granger on dispatch. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Call me the second that forensics tape gets here from the LAPD. I mean it, Megan - I want to look at it right away. And have David keep plugging away at the other witnesses."

"I'm on it. So - second base, huh?"

"Yeah." Don paused. "What about it?"

"The way you run, I had you pegged for an outfielder."

Don grinned. "And you say you're always right. Looks like even a crack profiler can't deduce everything."

TBC