The phone ringing startled him out of his thoughts. Connie still hadn't returned, not that he really blamed her. He doubted he'd have even noticed if the phone hadn't gone off. Glancing towards everything still on his desk, he took one file with one hand, and answered the phone with the other.
"Hello?" Silence. It didn't appear as if there was anyone on the other side of the line. After a moment, Jack moved to hang up, annoyed, and then a voice came.
"Jack, wait. I'm still here."
He dropped the file. Papers came out and flew everywhere as he sat forward. "Anna?" he asked, tentatively. She nodded, and then remembered that he could not see her.
"Yeah," she said, quietly, "Yeah, it's me…d'you…do you have a minute?"
"Yes," said Jack, at once, "I have a minute. How've you been?"
"Fine," Anna replied, somewhat uncertainly, "And you?"
"Could be better. Melnick's giving us all a run for our money," Jack replied. Anna laughed.
"There's Danielle for you," she said. "What else is going on up there?"
"You assume we have lives outside the courtroom," said Jack, mock-seriously. There was another silence. This was the sort of small talk they'd conversed in before. He wondered if they'd ever really be comfortable talking to each other again, and hoped they would be.
"That I do," said Anna's voice, breaking into his thoughts. "What's going on down there?"
"Nothing," said Jack. "Really. It's just life as usual."
Except for the fact that I've been running myself into the ground trying to figure out what I've done wrong, he thought, oddly amused. Anna said nothing, and after a moment, he spoke.
"Why'd you run?" The words escaped him before he could really think about them, but rather than stopping, he went on. "For that matter, why'd you apologize?"
Dead silence. He wondered after a while whether or not Anna had hung up, but then realized he could still hear her breathing, and decided to wait. After another while, she spoke.
"I don't know," she said. "I just…I don't know."
Well. That made two of them. He didn't know what he'd done wrong, and she didn't know why she'd run away. Talking hadn't made anything easier, he thought, it'd only made things more complicated.
"How much longer are you planning on staying away?" he asked finally. "Or are you coming back at all?"
"I am coming back," said Anna. "Everything I have is in New York; this place…well, I grew up here, but it's really too small a town for me. Guess I've just gotten used to living in the big city."
"Can I ask you something?"
"You just did." Anna bit her lip as the last word left her, and wished she could take it back, but knew she couldn't. On the other side of the line, Jack laughed.
"Well, at least you haven't changed yet," he said, and then, "Did you leave because of me?"
"Um…" said Anna, and sat for a moment, trying to think of something, anything that she could tell him without making it sound rude. "Not exactly…"
"So it was me, but I'm not the only reason why you took a vacation." Jack paused for a moment, and then sighed. "Will you at least tell me what I did?"
"You didn't do anything," said Anna, "It was me. I should've just left well enough alone, but I didn't, and now…" She cut herself off, sounding helpless. "We're still friends, aren't we?"
"Why wouldn't we be?" Jack asked in reply, startled by this question. The papers were still on the floor. He bent down to retrieve them, and hoped he'd be able to put them all back in order, not that he could really remember what order they'd been in, in the first place.
"I don't know. I just…this is really awkward…" Anna trailed off again, and gave an exasperated sigh. "You still want to know why I apologized to you?"
"As a matter of fact," said Jack, and she sighed again.
"Because it shouldn't have happened. Yes, I enjoyed going out with you that night, as friends, but the whole kiss thing…just…I don't know."
"So you regret it."
"What? No! I mean…yes…damn it, Jack, now look what you've done."
"This is why I'm a prosecutor. I know how to get people to tell me the truth."
"And I suppose my being a defense attorney only means that I know how to get them to lie."
"Not at all. They lie to you of their own volition; it's no fault of your own."
"That makes me feel so much better."
And they were back to sarcasm. Anna found it more than just a little bit strange how this could happen. First they weren't talking, and then they were, and then it was complicated, and now suddenly it wasn't…She ran a hand through her hair and sighed, yet again.
"We shouldn't be having this conversation over the phone," she said. "I know you're in your office."
"Well, when exactly d'you propose we have it, then? We can't put it off forever."
"You'd be surprised."
"Anna, please…don't start avoiding me again."
She looked at her cell phone with raised eyebrows, then, and wondered if she were reading more into that strange note she'd heard in his voice than she was supposed to have. She decided to ignore it.
"I won't," she said, and wondered if she'd keep this so-called promise. "I'm coming back to New York in a few days. Do you want to talk, then?"
"If you wouldn't mind."
"Well, I'll see you then."
And with that, she hung up. Putting the cell phone back down on the table, she wondered exactly what she was getting into.
She also wondered if it was really going to be worth it.
"The note from the District Attorney's office only proves one thing." Ed gave his partner a look over the desk lamp she had, and went on. "All it does is someone knows the address. Not necessarily that it came from a certain office. Damn thing didn't even have a name on it."
"I wonder why," Nina said sarcastically, "Come on, Ed, you've got to be kidding me. You really think he'd put a name on it?"
"You really think it's him?"
"I'm just going with what you said earlier, and you're the very one who said ruling anything out wasn't a possibility until CSU got back to us. They haven't."
"And you're jumping to conclusions. We haven't even talked to the guy; he's been so damn backed up in court lately that we haven't had a chance."
"Well, then we make him take a minute to talk to us. Two minutes, at the most. All he has to do is give us an alibi that we can back up, and then it's over. He's no longer a suspect."
"We have three dead bodies and no evidence. I say we go look at their family and friends again, see if there's something we missed. There's got to be something."
"I think you're putting too much faith in some prosecutor who could easily be some serial killer without any of us knowing, because everyone's convinced that he's too damn good to do anything of the sort."
"I still think you're jumping to conclusions. There's got to be something we've missed."
"Are you just saying that because you're not looking to have it be someone on our side of the law, or because you really think there's something we missed."
"I know you haven't known McCoy as long as I have, Nina, but come on. D'you really think the guy would go out there and just kill people in cold blood?"
"You said it yourself, even the most experienced people can snap. Maybe that's what happened here."
Silence. The two partners were still glaring at each other. Very little had come back from any of the three scenes where their victims had been found, and it was starting to grate on their nerves. The phone rang, suddenly, and Nina reached for the one on her desk.
"Cassady, Homicide," she said, flatly, a bit more rude than she'd really wanted, but it was too late to go back. There was another moment's silence, and then she hung up, frowning.
"What?" Ed asked, warily, not altogether sure he wanted to know the answer. Nina leaned back in her chair, and shook her head.
"That was an anonymous tip," she said. "If we can even call it a tip. Says the next victim will probably drop within the week."
"How would this person know unless they're the murderer?" Ed asked, skeptically. Nina shrugged.
"Could be they've overheard conversation, they live with the guy, work with him…hell, for all we know, this could be a woman."
"Good point." Ed trailed off for a moment, and then looked over at his partner again. "Did it sound like anyone we might know through work?"
Nina shook her head. "No one," she said. "At least, not anyone that I can think of."
"Well, we've got at least a day or two to find out who our next victim is," said Ed. "Let's get moving."