Chapter 14

Alex came down the hall just in time to see the study door close. He was avoiding her. Frowning, she turned into the kitchen and set up the coffee. She checked the clock: five a.m. Just as she filled the back of the machine with water, Bobby's phone rang on the counter.

Alex picked it up. "Robert Goren's phone," she said, and was met with silence. Alex checked the display, and it read "UNAVAILABLE." Her body stiffened, and she took a deep breath. "Nicole," Alex finally said.

"Where's Bobby?" the woman answered.

"Oh, he's busy right now, Nicole, having a life. Without you."

Nicole's voice was full of amusement. "Ah-ah-ah, be careful… Captain Eames, now, isn't it? Wouldn't want something to upset the happy family. It must be hard, being so far from your baby girl."

Alex's heart constricted, but she kept her voice steady. "What is it you really want this time, Nicole? Is it Bobby? Money and toys weren't enough anymore, so you decided you need the one man you could never have? Well, you're too late, Nicole. Bobby made his decision a long time ago. He chose me."

"You silly girl," Nicole said. "You're jealous. You'd think a mature woman like you would be beyond all that. Perhaps the insecurity is there for a reason. Perhaps your little utopia isn't so perfect after all. Tell Bobby I called."

The phone clicked, and Nicole was gone. Alex held the phone in her fist and managed to keep from chucking it across the room. After a moment, she used it to call Katie.

"Daddy?" Katie said, shaking herself from her sleep.

"Oh, no, it's me, honey."

"Mom? What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry to wake you. Uhm… I just… needed to hear your voice."

"Are you okay, Mom?"

Alex forced herself to smile. "Sure. I'm okay."

Katie took out her pen and made a note on her ledger. "Obsessed with Daddy. Infatuated. Mid-life crisis?"

She looked through the file again. When her father used anthrax to trick Nicole into revealing her true identity, he'd said "If I could be wrong about Dan Croyden, then how could I be right about you?" She scanned through the transcript again. Her father had said, "You blew it, Nicole, your one chance of happiness with Gavin. One chance, and you had to come back to me? You couldn't leave well enough alone. That's the price of denial."

Katie sat back on her haunches and mused on that scene, that day, that interrogation. She'd still not read her father's reflections on these interrogations, but she knew him well enough that she had a sense of what he thought. Katie, however, saw something more. She put herself in Nicole's shoes.

Her pen flew across the paper. Poor self-image due to childhood abuse, finds personal worth and value in acceptance/love from others. Manipulating others is easy for her, except for Daddy. She became obsessed with him not because she needed to substantiate her own delusions about herself, but because he was the only one she couldn't control. Distorted understanding of love and what love is… Nicole thinks she's in love with Daddy. She mistakes admiration and respect for love. Until she can force him to admit or demonstrate some kind of love for her, she cannot see herself as successful, she can't accept herself. His tactics of empathy work on her; when he says he believes there is good in her, she is encouraged that he feels something for her, that he loves her.

Alex opened the door to the study and found him in the desk chair, surrounded by his old notes about Nicole. His chin was resting on his hands, and he was staring at the Dick Tracey poster hanging over the desk.

Not sure how he was feeling, she put her hands on the backrest of the chair. "I… I have to go to work soon," she said. "Katie's okay. I called her."

"Alex, did I miss something?" He sat up straighter and waved a hand over the piles of paper in the room. "Is it possible that after all of this, I don't really have her figured out?"

She sighed and squatted on the floor beside his leg. "I don't know, Bobby. I don't see how."

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

Bobby took her hand and tugged on it until she rose and sat in his lap. He kissed her neck, then her jaw. "I love you."

Alex turned and kissed him sweetly on the mouth. "It's not about us, Bobby. There's never been any doubt here," she said. Alex hugged him.

"I have to go to work," she said again. Alex rose and walked back to the door, where she turned to face him. "Bobby, she called."

His anxiety level skyrocketed. "What did she want?!"

"To drive a wedge between us."

A/N Thanks for hanging in there with me! The chapters are coming slower now because I have to do a lot of research (aka rewatching awesome Nicole episodes) to get this right and to get Katie's take on the whole Bobby/Nicole thing. I will diligently pursue this and keep writing, but we may only have one chapter a day for a while. Just know my slower pace should pay off in a much better story for you! Thanks for reading and reviewing!