She'd shooed her sister out of the kitchen. It was the one place where she'd found herself on and off during her vacation, even though she'd only really been home for a few days. Now she stood in the middle of the room with no idea what she was going to make. Anna bit her lip as she stood there, debating as to whether or not to turn on the radio and make her sister think she was actually doing something. But before she could, her sibling walked in, and shook her head.
"You're still thinking about that other lawyer, aren't you?" she asked. Anna rolled her eyes.
"I still fail to see why I bothered to tell you anything about that," she replied dryly. "Are you ever going to lay off about it?"
Tallulah Dowling shook her head, smirking. "Not at the moment, no," she said. "What're you making?"
Anna sighed. "I have no idea," she admitted. "I thought I knew, but I guess I really don't. You feel like helping me figure it out?"
Tallulah shook her head again, this time looking almost sympathetic. "Pull out the mixing bowls, we'll make cookies," she said. "Maybe it'll take your mind off your prosecutor."
Anna shook her head this time, but bent down to take the mixing bowls from the cabinet beneath her. "He's not mine," she said, a half-hearted protest since she knew Tallulah wasn't going to listen to her. "I don't even know what he is."
"But you do know that he's a guy and that you want him," said Tallulah, flatly, opening the freezer and pulling out a few bags of chocolate chips. "Is that or is that not so?"
"It's not so," said Anna, feeling contrary for reasons she wasn't too sure about. "We're nothing more than friends."
"And yet you come home out of nowhere, after you 'accidentally' kiss him. What d'you call that?"
"We were eating ice cream in the middle of the night, and someone shoved me into him. Before that, he'd just kicked my ass in court. What does that tell you?"
"That maybe there's more than meets the eye, and you don't want to admit it. Anna, I gotta tell you, ever since you got divorced, you've been awfully cynical."
Anna rolled her eyes. "We're not going there," she said, bluntly. "We are not, in any way, shape or form, going there. You hear me?"
Tallulah ignored her. "Grab the flour out of the pantry, will you?" she asked, and then, "Anna, sooner or later, you're going to have to go there. You can't just spend the rest of your life alone. You're 40 years old, for heaven's sake. You have heaven only knows how many years ahead of you."
"One could've said the same of Claire, and then she died in a car accident when we were thirty. What does that tell you?"
"That unfortunate things happen, but they don't happen to everyone."
"Now you're just being an optimist. I could've sworn I told you that Jack was seeing Claire on a personal level when she died. Maybe I just don't want to go anywhere with this because she was a friend of mine."
"She's been six feet under for almost eleven years now. Come off it, Anna, you can't play that card anymore. Maybe at first, but not now."
"You're awful." Anna pulled the sugar from the pantry, as well, and walked back over to the counter. "I'm supposed to be doing this."
"Yeah, well, you're not, so I'm doing it. Go drink a cup of coffee or something, sit here and talk to me. I don't want to be alone in here."
They were complete opposites, Anna thought, as she did as she'd been directed, and sat at the counter. Tallulah had no qualms about being watched in the kitchen; Anna hated to have anyone looking over her shoulder.
"Y'know I got the same lecture from Kaye before I left," she remarked finally. "She seems to hold the same views you do."
"Yes, well, no one knows you better than your friends and family," said Tallulah dryly. "Anna, I'm telling you, you're gonna have to talk to him when you go back to New York."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you're only going to make things worse for yourself. Not talking is only going to make you wonder, and we both know what you're like when you don't have answers."
Identifications had come in on the other two victims. Now along with Michael Garrett, they had one Dr. Samantha Glass, and a defense attorney by the name of Vincent Marshall.
"Marshall and Glass were both involved in cases before you came around," said Ed, to Nina as they sat across from each other at their desks. She looked over at him with raised eyebrows.
"Acquittals or convictions?" she asked. He sighed.
"Acquittals, both of 'em," he said. "DA's office tried to appeal the rulings on both cases, but it didn't work."
"And the prosecutors were?" Nina asked, leaning back in her seat. Ed looked down at the files.
"First one was McCoy and Abbie Carmichael, second was McCoy and Serena Southerlyn." he said.
"So, McCoy's pretty much the only link these people have to each other. That's lovely."
"You make it sound like you actually think he could've done this. Do you?"
"I don't know. Forensics got back to me finally, on the results from the Garrett scene. No fingerprints; the blood all belonged to the victim. Whoever's pulling this off knows what they're doing."
Results had already come in from the first two scenes. So far, all three victims had been killed in different ways. An attempt to throw them off, and both of them knew it, which made it even more annoying than it might've been otherwise.
"Assuming McCoy really has nothing to do with this, which is what I'm going to go with until we get something saying otherwise," said Nina finally, "Why, other than the obvious, would someone go after people involved in cases that were acquitted?"
"There isn't really anything other than the obvious," Ed said dryly. "They could've been randomly chosen. It could all be a coincidence."
"Coincidence?" said Nina, once more looking at him with raised eyebrows. "I highly doubt it. Not when all three were related to cases that got acquitted. No way that's random. Someone had to have known."
"Say they were looked up, then," said Ed. "Doesn't necessarily mean that someone else involved with the cases did it. This could be some sort of vigilante."
"Lovely," Nina muttered dryly, "That's exactly what we need right now. Some sort of vigilante turned serial killer."
"We've still got more notifications to do," Ed remarked, glancing at the clock on the wall behind Nina. "Might as well get it over with now."
He rose to his feet, and so did she, both of them reaching for their jackets before leaving the squad room. Nina shook her head.
"Sometimes I hate this job," she muttered. "I swear there's nothing in the world worse than having to tell someone their loved one's been murdered."
"A necessary evil. No one in the city would know anything if the cops weren't around to tell 'em."
"Talk about pressure. You drive; I'm about ready to fall over." She handed him the keys, which had been sitting on her desk, and they walked out of the precinct and into the cold.
"She still hasn't talked to you, has she?"
"You know, for one who used to swear up and down you'd never be seen in a prosecutor's office, you're awfully good at going back on your word."
"Bite me, McCoy. Answer the question." Kaye closed the office door behind her and leaned against it, frowning slightly when he didn't. "I knew it. She hasn't. I'm gonna kill her."
"Well, there's a fine thing to admit in front of me," Jack said dryly. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to drag you out of here, if you don't mind. You can't just hide in here the rest of your life."
"Says you."
"What're you gonna do? Sit here and alphabetize your paperwork? Come off it. Even I know you're not really going to do that."
He looked over at her with raised eyebrows then, and shook his head. "And you wonder why most of us on this side of the line think defense attorneys are nothing but a pain," he said. "I'm not having this conversation with you, Kaye."
"Of course you're not. Anna wouldn't have it either, and now she's gone. And no, I don't know when she's coming back. I don't even know how long she's on vacation for; Trevor won't tell me anything. He thinks I'm going to try and call her back."
"I wouldn't put it past you."
There was silence for a long moment, and then Kaye spoke again. "Y'know, she only left to clear her head."
"Of what?" Jack asked, almost incredulously. "It can't possibly be that complicated. What, is she afraid someone saw us or something?"
"Well, you can't deny you've got a reputation. I don't know if that's what she's afraid of. I haven't really asked, either, but now that I think of it…"
"Leave it alone, Kaye. I don't need to know that. I just want to know why she'd care if that's really what it was. She'd have never cared before."
"True, but before, you had someone else and the two of you were just friends. Have you tried to talk to her at all lately?"
"If her cell phone's on, it goes straight to voicemail. I don't know how else to get hold of her. I'm starting to think it's not worth it. You know how she is."
"Even she can't avoid you forever."
"The last person she decided not to talk to, she hasn't talked to in almost eleven years."
"Now you're just making excuses. You know damn well the last person she wasn't speaking to was Claire."
Another silence. "That's it, isn't it?" Jack asked finally, and Kaye, who knew exactly what he meant by this, shrugged.
"I don't know," she said, even though she did, "And even if I did, it wouldn't' be my place to tell you. I don't like this any more than you do, but there's not exactly anything I can do about it. It's up to the both of you."
"Have you talked to her at all, since she left?"
"Yes. And don't give me that look, either. It's hardly my fault she still wants to talk to me."
"Well, according to her way of thinking, you haven't done anything wrong."
"Neither have you."
"You'd never know it, looking at everything she's done to get the hell away from me."
"It's not you. Well, it is you, but it's not like that."
"For someone who claims not to know anything, you sure seem to know an awful lot."
"What can I say? People tell me things. Even you tell me things, and don't act like you don't, either." Kaye trailed off for a moment and sighed. "I meant what I said earlier, Jack. You can't just sit in here and hide."
"I'm not hiding from anything."
"Of course you're not. You're just sitting in here because you can, and because you have things to get done."
"Is there a point to this conversation, or did you just come around here to bother me?"
"I didn't come to bother anyone, but if I'm getting on your nerves, then I'll go," said Kaye. She opened the office door, and stepped out before going on. "I would try to call her within the next hour or so. Odds are she won't pay attention to who's on the caller ID."