Maddie watched her partner's back disappear through the office's front door with suspicion. She moved closer to Laura. "They're up to something," she said softly.

Laura sighed and turned away from the door. "I think I'd be disappointed if they weren't."

"I hate it," Maddie whispered, still watching the empty doorway. The vehemence in her voice made Laura glance at her with concern.

"Did I miss something?"

"I hate the games and the scheming and the—the lies." Maddie shuddered. "All of it—lies."

"Davy?" Laura asked.

"What?" Maddie's eyes turned to Laura's in genuine surprise.

"I'll tell you what, honey," Mildred said, bustling out of the break and storage room with two cups of tea in her hand, "that Mr. Addison of yours is a real pip. Quite the smooth talker. I'll bet he and the Boss get on just fine." She handed a cup of tea to each of the younger women and stayed until they both dutifully sipped and made sounds of appreciation. Satisfied that the outer office was well taken care of, Mildred returned to the back offices, leaving Maddie and Laura to stare uncomfortably at each other.

"Well," Laura said, at a loss for conversation starters with a woman she barely knew and shared little with beyond a slightly murky connection to two men who they both seemed to know rather intimately. She gestured to the couch to suggest a more comfortable venue for a increasingly awkward conversation and prayed Maddie would take the lead.

Maddie nodded graciously and followed Laura to the couch. "David's something, all right," she said, grasping for the only common ground between them. "How did you two meet again?"

Laura sat down heavily on the taupe cushions and tried to look innocent. "Junior year of college."

"I didn't think David went to college."

"He didn't."

"Then how—"

"We met in Florida. Spring break. It's a long story—boring, really. He did me a favor, and I like to think I did him one in return. He was in a lot of pain when I met him. I was in pretty poor shape myself. Davy and I listened to each other—just listened. And drank. I seem to remember a lot of tequila being involved. But we didn't—I mean, we never…" She trailed off, looking away from Maddie with a blush.

Maddie sipped her tea, smiling slightly. "That's a pity. I'd love some insight on how the young Davy Addison operated."

Laura shook her head, the image of Davy as he'd looked that night coming into her mind. He'd been thin and haggard; his hair had grown long and stuck out every which way. He hadn't shaved in the week since he'd left New York, and his clothes were reaching the crisis point where doing laundry became the only alternative to a wardrobe bonfire. And then there was the way his eyes glossed over every now and then, and he sunk back into himself—back behind blank expression until alcohol and her persistent coxing drew him out of his darker thoughts.

"Com'on, Davy," she'd said, laughing and pulling faces at him until his scowl broke into a reluctant smile. "You tell me your secrets, and I'll tell you mine."

"You're a math major. What kinda secrets you got, Stats?"

"Don't you want to find out?" she'd teased, laughing at him until he laughed, too, softly enough to make her lean forward, even though she was across the room.

"Yeah," he'd said quietly, "I'd like that."

Laura looked up at Maddie now, tears lurking in the corners of her eyes. She wiped at them and sniffed, before laughing a little and shrugging. "He was a good guy. He still is—well, as far as I can tell. It's been a while."

Maddie looked away, feeling irrationally guilty for spending the last two years with David and never quite reaching the level of intimacy Laura Holt had achieved in one evening. Was it youth or was it Laura? Maddie couldn't help but hold the latter responsible. Something about the infallible Miss Holt made a person want to open up his soul and show her all the redeeming qualities he'd stashed away inside. Was that quality the magic that had cracked open David's hard shell all those years ago?

"Yes," she whispered, almost reluctantly. "He's still a good man." And with that tiny fracture in the dam, the rest of the reservoir came rushing through. "He's bent, though. I mean you only have to look at that trickster grin of his to realize that. That man could sell sand in a desert and make you think you'd snatched up something rare and precious. The things he comes up with sometimes… And I just look at him, and I think how could you—how can you—uh! It's wrong! It's all just so wrong..."

She stopped talking for moment, reigning in her emotions and frustrations while Laura sat by quietly and nodded sympathetically. Maddie looked down at her now lukewarm tea and then back up at Laura.

"But I trust him. He talks me into the most ridiculous schemes and I let him, because even though I only see black and white and he just sees all the shades of grey, usually he knows what he's doing. Or he knows how to land on his feet—one of the two. And he'd never hurt someone for his own profit. He can see the flaws in the rules and bend his way around them. I can't, Laura. I just can't. Rules are rules, and black can't be white. But we live and work in such a grey area, and sometimes I just have to trust him."

"But I bet you keep him from straying too far into the dark," Laura said, smiling. "That's a good thing, I think. You're good together, what little I've seen. Very different, very…vocal, but then I think that just keeps things interesting."

Maddie laughed weakly. "Well, it does that. Never a dull moment around the office. Of course, never a case either, but we're working on that."

"You've got a case now. Dr. Symmons death?"

Maddie shook her head. "We're a little stuck on that. Beyond coming to you about Charlotte Gear, we really haven't thought this through yet. I suppose we'll just start at the beginning and keep poking away until we get somewhere. It's always worked before—well, almost always."

Laura nodded. "Leg work—Mr. Steele's favorite. You won't have to start at the very beginning though."

"We won't?"

Laura shrugged. "I think I can safely say our client would be very glad to have someone paid to prove her innocence on her team."

"Charlotte Gear's your client?"

"We can't believe it either."

"She hired you, and you think she's guilty?"

"She certainly looks it. Want to help us prove otherwise?"

Maddie looked tempted, but then shook her head. "No. We'd be violating our client's confidentiality. It would be wrong."

"And yet you came over here for information?"

"I—" Maddie paused, caught in a grey area without David's shady vision to see her way out.

Laura set her cup down on the coffee table and then leaned back to meet and hold Maddie's gaze. "Let me ask you something—no schemes, no deception, just an honest question." Maddie nodded warily and Laura leaned in closer. "If you thought David had committed a crime—a serious one—say murder, and no one else in the world suspected a thing—just you—would you turn him in?"

Maddie froze, mind shorting out as millions of considerations piled in. "I—"

"There's no evidence. No one suspects foul play. What do you do?"

Maddie's eyes went wide, taking in the thought. "No evidence?"

"None."

Maddie blew out a sigh. "Well, I guess I'd hunt around for something to base my suspicions off of besides a gut feeling. I'd feel pretty silly taking that to the police, and besides…"

She trailed off, and Laura nodded. "Exactly. You don't potentially betray someone you care about on a hunch alone. You don't let him get away with murder, but you don't throw him under the bus either."

"And you ask him. I mean, if I thought—if I ever suspected that David could do something like that—I'd want to know why. I'd want a reason—explanation—something."

"And if it tracks in your mind, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all. Maybe the police don't need to know. Grey area."

"It sounds horrible," Maddie said, shaking her head. "What kind of person thinks like that? But yes, I do. I think David would have a legitimate reason. I think I'd want to hear it. I'd want to help him."

"And I think the feeling is mutual," Laura assured her. "Not that it's ever likely to come up. But we agree, you don't betray a loved one without significant proof?" Maddie nodded, confused by the tenor of the conversation. Laura enlightened her with another question. "Can you then explain to me why Charlotte Gear walked into our office Monday morning and announced that her fiancé might be a murderer with no proof and nothing for us to go on?"

"No," Maddie said, baffled by the thought. "I can't."

Laura smiled sweetly. "Would you like to help us find out?"

Steele entered the office first, expecting to find Mildred cowering under the debris scattered by Laura and Maddie reenacting the western front.

David came in behind him and stopped short, surprised to see the ladies in question sitting on the couch by Mildred's empty desk and talking like old school buddies.

"Jake Grove," Maddie was saying, "is convinced his fiancée didn't murder her gynecologist."

Old school buddies with loose mouths, David thought.

"Well, we'd love to say she did do it," Laura informed her. "All our leads point to her, but unfortunately her alibi is rock solid."

"My, my," Steele said, causing the two women to jump. "Isn't this cozy?"

"Snug as a bug in a rug," David agreed. "Two bugs in a particularly sleazy rug."

"What are you talking about?" Laura asked in startled confusion.

Steele raised an eyebrow. "I think we could ask you two the same question. David, you'll excuse us, won't you? I just want a little word with my associate. Laura?"

Safely in his office, Laura voiced her confusion. "Would you care to explain yourself? Are you angry? You and Davy take off for parts unknown, and you're angry?"

Steele leaned against the door and watched her work up steam. He felt the chill seep into his veins, the way it did whenever he became truly enraged. "You already decided that we were going to partner with Blue Moon on this case?"

"Yes."

"You weren't even going to ask me? Laura, how many times are we going to have this discussion? How can I be involved and be dedicated to this Agency when you won't even give me a say in whatever the bloody hell we're doing?"

Laura looked thunder struck; no one could turn icy-calm like Mr. Steele. The man practically invented the expression. But it was one that she's seen less and less frequently over the years. She had almost hoped it had disappeared for good. But staring at him now, frozen by his frigid gaze, she realized that this particular iceberg would not be melting entirely anytime soon. She considered very carefully for a minute before nodding.

"I'm sorry. I guess I didn't realize you felt so strongly about Blue Moon. I assumed you would be in favor of the partnership. It means less leg work for us, and we both know how fond you are of leg work."

Steele pushed off the door to walk towards her, his icy-calm replaced with irritation. It's a start, she thought.

"Yes, Laura, I'll admit I do have a certain aversion to leg work. And no, I don't particularly mind partnering with Blue Moon. In fact, David and I were just contemplating the same alliance. But we were going to ask the two of you—not steamroll you into the deal."

"All right."

"All right?" he asked, taken aback.

Laura nodded soothingly. "All right. You're right. I should have waited to consult with you. You are my partner; you deserve a say in who we partner with even when I know you are going to agree. I apologize."

Steele scrutinized her sincere expression, already feeling his anger and frustration ebb away. "Just like that?"

"Just like that. I'm sorry."

Steele lips quirked upward. "I don't know what to say."

Laura laughed out loud. "There's a first. Why don't you tell me I'm exceptional again?"

He grinned and moved even closer to her, settling his hands around her waist and sending ripples of warmth up her spine. He kissed her nose and whispered, "You are exceptional, Miss Holt."

He kissed her lips for good measure, and they were both prepared to forget about the case when the door opened.

In the outer office, David and Maddie were having a similar conversation.

"It's my Agency, David. It's my call."

"Whoa, Blondie Blonde—did I say anything? Did I? It's your call; it's my suggestion. Now we're both on the same page, let's start over. How are you, dear?"

"David—"

"Splendid. I am also well, in case you were wondering."

Maddie pursed her lips. "That's—"

"Splendid? Spiffing? Another one of those marvelously special 'sp' words those Brits use? He's a piece of work, Maddie, but I can't help liking the bugger."

"He's a rat," Maddie said with fervor.

David chuckled. "Go on—tell me how you really feel."

Maddie clenched her teeth. "He's a bounder. And a cad—"

"Oh no—let me guess—he's a rascal, too. That rapscallion."

"David! I'm serious. He's a…" She trailed off, mulling over her choices.

"A what?" David asked, truly curious.

"A shitheel," she said with finality.

"Woah-ho! Maddie Hayes—you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"David—"

Not wanting to pursue the point of contention, he changed the subject. "You seem'd to be getting on pretty well with Laura."

Maddie smiled, pleasantly distracted from the subject of Steele. "She's lovely, David. Truly lovely."

He watched her smile widen even farther and realized he was genuinely pleased Maddie and Laura appeared to like each other. In fact, he might even go so far as to say he was delighted. He didn't think he'd ever been delighted before, at least not until Remington Steele had introduced the concept into his vocabulary. He looked at Maddie again, taking in her stunning smile and soft, slightly crinkled blue eyes. She was delightful. And he was delighted.

He returned her smile lazily, enjoying the heat working its way up between them. "She is lovely," he agreed. "And she isn't the only one."

Maddie bit her lip and her eyes sparkled. "Oh no?"

"Nope," he said, grinning down at her. "I'm not so bad myself."

She laughed and he suddenly realized the absence of noise coming from Steele's office.

"Do you think they're done?"

She shrugged and turned to head for the inner office door. "They'll have to be. We have a murder to solve."

The door opened and Maddie walked into the office to find Steele and Laura lip-locked.

"Oh my—I'm terribly sorry—"

David came in behind her and grinned. "I guess it's a good thing you didn't go into risk management after all, huh Stats?"

Steele and Laura broke apart—she blushing, he unabashed.

Maddie was still fussing. "How embarrassing! I'm so sorry—"

"Don't be," Steele said with a sigh. "We're used to it."

"Well, of course you'd say that," Maddie said in irritation. She hurried over to Laura with concern. "Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

Laura looked at Maddie with a mixture of amusement and confusion. "Maddie, I'm fine. We're together—well, for a given amount of together."

"I resent that," Steele objected, but he was smiling.

Maddie glared at him. "Well, you know men—"

"Apparently not the way you do," David interrupted, closing the subject. "Now, can we move on to the case?"

"Splendid idea, David," Steele agreed. "Splendid."

David grinned. "I knew you were going to say that.

An hour later, Laura stood up to pace. "So what do we have? We have a murder and a suspect who couldn't have done it because she was half a state away getting French tips."

David watched her pace and began to feel dizzy. "We have a fiancé who might have done it because he found out the love of his life was screwing another man. Stats, would you cool it?"

"She thinks better in motion—gives her a sense of urgency," Steele said, pinching his eyes to forestall the oncoming headache. "And the fact that Jake Grove's so adamant about proving his fiancée innocent would appear to tip the scales in his favor."

Maddie nodded and swung her feet up onto the desk in front of her chair. "And the way he talked about her—a man betrayed in love couldn't talk about her like that. He was glowing. She might as well have been the Virgin Mary."

Laura stopped pacing and sighed. "We seem to be running out of suspects."

Steele stood up and stretched his back. "It seems to me we've been short on them since this case began. I keep getting this nagging feeling that there's another person wrapped up in all of this."

A thought occurred to Laura. "Psycho? The Hitchcock movie? Paramount Pictures, 1960. Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles."

Steele's expression turned thoughtful. "Jake Grove believes himself to be Charlotte Gear and while assuming her identity kills the man she's secretly been poisoning? Not bad, Laura."

David scratched the back of his head, looking skeptical. "It's a bit out there."

"Can you come up with something better?"

"How about—"

But David never got to finish his suggestion because at that moment Mildred came bursting through the door.

"Boss, my old IRS buddy at the bank just called. Someone calling themselves Charles Gear called ahead to make sure the funds from his account would be available when he comes in to close it in half an hour."

Steele kissed her on the forehead and shouted her praises. "Mildred, you are a genius!"

Laura grabbed her hat off the desk and grinned at David and Maddie. "Ready, partners?"

David grinned back. "Do bears bear? Do bees be?"

"Does he ever stop using that line?" Maddie asked with exasperation.

But on the way out the door, Mildred had another call.

"Hold it gang. Ms. Hayes and Mr. Addison are urgently required back at the office. That was Miss Agnes Dipesto on the phone. She says your client's back, and he's brought trouble."

"And we'd better get back there on the double?" David finished for her.

"Yeah—how'd you know?"

"I have a gift."

Maddie shook her head. "He speaks Dipesto."

On the way to the bank, Steele stared out the window, lost in thought.

"His Girl Friday," he said finally.

"What?"

"His Girl Friday. Columbia Pictures, 1940. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Grant plays the shady, fast talking newspaper boss trying to reconcile with his ex-wife and top reporter played by Russell. The sparks fly, tempers flare, but in the end there no denying they're meant to be together."

"All right…"

"All right? Laura, it's perfect."

"Well, I guess I'm having trouble finding the correlation between verbal foreplay and our dead gynecologist—oh…"

Steele grinned. "Rather apt parallel to our amusing, but romantically challenged partners-in-crime, eh?"

Laura snorted. "I suppose that depends on who you want to cast as Rosalind Russell."

He shrugged. "Yes, well, as luck would have it, that's not really our problem. Now it's your turn."

"My turn for what?"

"Well, that was my perspective giving movie reference for the day. What's yours?"

"You are impossible."

"Oh—Laura…"

"You know what bothers me?"

"You're going to have to be a little more specific."

"Nail polish."

Steele glanced at her for a moment before nodding in serious contemplation. "Yes, the subject often keeps me tossing and turning at night."

Laura rolled her eyes. "I'll bet. But what bothers me is that we keep hearing about these French tips, and I don't remember seeing them. Do you?"

"Well, I've seen them, yes. Just white tips on a nude base, right? Quite fetching, really."

"Good to know. And if they're fetching, you'd be likely to notice if a woman had them, right?"

"I suppose so. Yes."

"Right. And what color were Charlotte Gear's nails the morning she came to see us? The Monday she arrived home from her spa weekend in preparation for her wedding—the spa at which she got French tips?"

Steele thought for a moment and then turned to Laura in shock. "Red—they were blood red. I remember thinking those things would draw the same color blood on whoever's back they encountered next—sorry, Laura." He looked sheepish.

She kept her eyes on the road. "Mind on the case, Mr. Steele. Why would a woman remove nail polish she'd paid good money for and reapply her own—all on the morning of her return while she's distraught over the prospect that she's engaged to a murderer?"

"If she chipped it killing Dr. Symmons? But she didn't because she was getting French tips. And if she was at the spa, and she got French tips, then she couldn't come to our office and accuse her fiancé with red nails, thereby implicating herself. How the hell—oh."

"The third person in the case, Mr. Steele. The first person we ever heard about Monday morning. Just as you suspected."

Steele pouted. "That's not fair, Laura. You didn't cite a movie reference."

David whistled while driving a sullen Maddie back to Blue Moon.

"Something bothering you?" Since she did not seem inclined to respond, David continued on without her help. "Me—I'm disappointed. Of course we'll have to give Jake Grove back the money now that his fiancée is about to be shown for the murderer she really is. That check would have gone a long way in the pool table fund, I can tell you."

Nothing. No rise, no rebuttal, no Maddie.

"Maddie? You all right there?" Silence. "Are you mad again? You know you have to tell me these things." He waved one hand in front of her face. "Mad-dieee? Hello?"

"Sexual harassment," she said suddenly.

"Hell of a segue."

"Steele and Laura—it's sexual harassment. The way he treats her—never mind kissing in the office."

"Because a parking garage is so much more romantic," David muttered under his breath.

Maddie chose not to hear him. "I can't believe it. In this day and age. The—the—slime—the filthy slime we have to put up with from you men!"

"Oh, geez, Maddie. Lighten up. I think you're reading this situation all wrong. Steele's a great guy. Maybe I wouldn't let him marry my sister, but I don't have a sister, and Laura can hold her own. They're happy."

"Oh, a great guy, huh? Let me tell you about that great guy. He—"

"Left you all alone in a swanky restaurant. He abandoned you; he humiliated you. But Maddie it's not all about you. Can't you accept, just this once, that just because he didn't want to stick around for your dessert doesn't mean that he's not prepared to fetch Laura breakfast in bed?"

"Addison, you are the most despicable—"

"Cool it, Blondie. Plenty of guys are mad for you—do you need to throw a hissy fit when just one would rather go crazy for Laura and beat the line?"

Maddie gritted her teeth. "But it's not just one, is it?" She spoke so softly that he almost missed it.

"What?"

Maddie sighed. "I don't know, David. I'm sorry; I didn't mean that. I'm happy for Laura, if she's happy. But how can she be? She's the nuts and bolts of that place—you saw it! She ran that meeting. She knew that file backwards. And he takes all the bows and all the credit because it's his name and his Agency—" She stopped, already seeing the abyss opening before her.

David was silent for a moment before speaking very quietly, his tone dangerous. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe she lets him? That maybe she likes letting him take the credit and the bows so long as they're together and he's happy and at the end of the day he knows who to thank and how?"

Maddie let one tense moment pass before daring to breathe again. "We're not talking about Steele and Laura anymore, are we?"

"Nope," David answered tersely, his grip on the steering wheel turning knuckle-white.

The chill between Maddie and David froze the outer office of the Blue Moon Detective Agency when they walked it.

Agnes recognized the arctic blast from many a previous argument and ducked behind her desk, pointing to Mr. Addison's office with the one hand still in shrapnel range.

Maddie marched to the door; David trailed behind. They entered to find a happy couple snuggled into the leather couch. The couple sprang up, embarrassed to be discovered.

Jake blushed. "Sorry, Ms. Hayes, Mr. Addison. This is my fiancée—the one all the fuss is about—my very own Charlotte Gear."

"Charlotte?" David asked, just to make sure.

She nodded. "My sisters' names are Emily and Shirley. My mother was a fan of the Bronte sisters—sometimes I think she would have been better off in a Gothic novel."

"Gee, that's a cheery thought."

Maddie and David stared at the blonde woman that they had expected to be on her way to Rio now after a quick stop at the bank.

"Addison—if she's here…"

"And so is he…"

They turned to look at each other, cold war temporarily forgotten. "Who's going to the bank?"

"Red nails, no ring," Steele muttered, thinking out loud.

Laura nodded. "She wasn't lying about Emily having an affair with out dead doctor; she just left out one little, minor detail. She is Emily."

"And she kept seeing him after she left town and helped him embezzle from his own practice."

"They put the money in an account under an adaptation of her sister's old nickname, Charlie."

"And Emily plans to slowly kill her partner using low doses of poison so that she can keep all of her unjust rewards. And if he's dead, no one will ever be able to prove whether she killed him or her twin sister did. I think this was an Agatha Christie novel."

Something clicked in Laura's mind. "Say that again."

"What? Agatha Christie?"

"No—the part just before."

"And if the doctor's dead no one will be able to prove it wasn't her twin sister who killed him? Why?"

"His office sent us their files on those two, right?"

"They weren't supposed to, but then much stronger bureaucratic systems have crumbled before Mildred Krebs."

"Do we have them?"

"Somewhere." He leaned back and dug through the papers on the back seat. He pulled out two manila envelopes. "Here we are. What am I looking for?"

"A difference. Anything that might help to tell the twins apart. Anything that only our good doctor would have noticed."

Steel opened the first file and began to read. He gave a low whistle. "This could ruin women for me, Laura."

Laura rolled her eyes. "I'll risk it."

He flipped open the next one and compared the two.

"Apparently, our twins were identical in every respect." Laura was amazed to see him blushing. She giggled, earning her a disapproving glance from her partner. "Not so fast, Miss Holt. There is one discrepancy. It appears our Miss Emily has a birthmark in the shape of a pear where most ancient sculptors would discreetly place a grape leaf."

"And Dr. Symmons was the only person with documented proof of the difference—the only one who could tell the difference between the two to a jury of their peers.

"Yes, but why the rush? He was going to die eventually. Charlotte would be the only one known to be in town, and Emily would get away scot-free. He can't identify her from beyond the grave."

"We're missing something."

"The anticipation's killing me." He thought about that statement for a moment and reconsidered. "All right, bad choice of words."

David looked at Jake and Charlotte in the rear view mirror.

"Everything all right back there?"

Charlotte nodded. "Cozy, but fine."

Maddie stared ahead, pondering. "Who's the third person? If it's not him, and it's not her, who's left?"

David glanced into the back seat again. "Either of you got an evil twin we don't know about?"

Charlotte shrugged. "There's my twin sister Emily. She's nuts."

David blinked and looked at Maddie. "The evil twin—really? You got to be kidding me. That's the oldest cliché in the book. It's so old, the book refused to reprint it in its second edition."

Maddie shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."