When Beckett arrived back at the precinct, she wasn't surprised to find Adam at his desk with Watkins, pouring through pages.

'What's all that?' she asked, jutting her chin at the printouts.

'Nicky's journal. He wrote, a lot, about how annoyed he was by petty people at school, how the professors that marked him down were walking dangerous lines, that he was supposed to be number one because his mother wouldn't want it any other way.'

'That was fast,' Beckett commented, and Adam shook his head.

'Nicky had the file open on his laptop so when we ran it through CSU, they had this to us within the half-hour. Where's Nicky now?' Adam asked.

'Booking. Julian's going to bring him up when he's ready for the interview. His lawyer met us down there.'

'That was fast,' Adam said back to her; it was Beckett's turn to shake her head.

'Nicky's father had him on standby to meet us here.'

'Sadly enough, there's not much a lawyer's going to be able to for Nicky aside from make a good case for his illness being reason for him to get help, not be put in general populace.' Adam sifted beneath the journal pages to find another file folder. 'Doctor's files, specifically Nicky's shrink. He was diagnosed with multiple issues after the car accident and his shrink cut back his medication after showing signs of improvement.'

'Wait until Ian Link gets him on the stand,' Beckett murmured. 'I feel sorry for the poor bastard already.'

'Our interview record shows he's gone off the deep end,' Adam went on, then grimaced when Beckett shook her head a second time. 'Oh, come on, Kate! I knew it was him right from the start!'

'I know.' It made Beckett's gut churn acid as she remembered the paleness of Sarah Ritter's face, a small part of her blaming herself that she hadn't listened to her younger, and okay greener, detective.'That's why I need to do this, and more you're not a parent.'

'Kate-'

'He lost his mother suddenly. I'm a mother who also lost her own suddenly. If he sees that gentle maternal side instead of someone gloating, he will open up more.'

'I wouldn't gloat in front of a suspect!' Adam retorted with such vehemance that Watkins shot up out of her chair and mumbled about going to call her fiance. 'Kate, how disrespectful do you think I'd be? You think I want this kid to fry? He's sick, just like I was when i was drinking half a mickey of vodka a day.'

'I don't think anything like that Adam, I'm simply telling you that a boy who lost his mother suddenly would open up to a maternal authority figure when under duress.'

'Are you forgetting the reason I had a drinking problem was because I lost my mother suddenly too?'

'No, I'm not, but your emotions on this one are much more complex than mine are, and that's not a bad thing, it's just the way it is.' Beckett wanted so badly to give him this interview, but that passion and pain she heard in his voice was exactly the reason she knew she had to take it for herself as a solo. 'Adam, everyone knows your interview skills are top notch, but I'm telling you as your superior officer you need to sit this one out and watch from Observation.'

A muscle twitched in Adam's jaw; he got out a very stiff 'Fine' through clenched teeth. Papers gathered up for her to take into the box, he followed her over; they separated at the door.

The first thing Beckett saw when she went into the interview room was that she recognized the lawyer that sat with Nicky, he was one of the people in the single photo that Nicky had on his bureau in his room. A family connection, most definitely, yet not one from the mother's side; couldn't be from the way that he huddled close together with the boy.

'Detective Kate Beckett in interview with Nicholas Tomasi and his representative.'

'Joachim Ludovico,' he said with the faintest of accents.

'Mister Tomasi, have you been informed of your rights?' Beckett asked him, and Nicky nodded.

'You informed me of them once we were outside the school. I'm aware of what I need to do.'

'Very well.' She sat down, opened her files; before she could say another word, Joachim jumped in and spoke for his client.

'Miss Beckett, I'm not just a lawyer I'm also Nicky's uncle, married to his father's sister so I am quite familiar with the...illness and instability my client has had in the past several years. I've advised him to give you a full and detailed account as to what has transpired rather than you questioning him.'

'And your client agreed to this?'

'Nicky?' was all the lawyer said and Nicky nodded his agreement.

'He said it's the best thing to do, so that the judges can see I'm mentally defective and get treatment while I'm in jail.'

'Are you so certain you'll go to prison?' Beckett asked and Nicky gave a shrug so casual and calm that it made her skin crawl.

'I killed my professor and hurt my friend, I would say I'm going to jail.'

'Okay, Nicky,' Joachim interjected calmly. 'Tell it from the top, like we talked about.'

'Right.' Nicky took a deep breath, straightened up and began to speak like he was reciting a monologue for a theatre audition. 'My mother's family, their name is well known and it has a lot of money behind it. Not prestige, exactly, but notoriety sure. Not the gangland ties everyone thinks they have, but they have that kind of influence without the violence.'

Money talks, Beckett thought, sometimes better than a gun. 'You were pressured from them?'

'She was. My father's family, they're from Hell's Kitchen, which in my grandfather's and uncles' eyes was considered a bastardization of our grand Italian heritage. Little Italy is so much 'better'-' Nicky made air quotes with his fingers '-whatever that means. Bottom line, they hated that she married my father and were always trying to find ways to get them apart. They thought they got that when she...after the accident.'

'They tried to take you from your father?' Beckett asked, genuinely interested in the answer.

'In their way, they tried to explain that he'd be better off with them in Hell's Kitchen or Long Island and that there was no getting around that. My father basically told them to fuck off. This was all at the funeral when I'm crying my eyes out, wanting my mama.'

Though she knew this boy was truly no boy, Beckett still felt her heart break for the mourning child as Nicky continued, 'They blamed me, and I had no one in my life to tell me otherwise, so I believed that I was responsible for her death.'

'When did you start seeing your therapist?'

'Two years later, after I had a bit of a snap, I guess you'd call it. I couldn't handle what was going on in my brain. I'm less medicated now, and that clears the mind, controls the temper,' Nicky added with a touch of wistfulness, as though he missed being out of control.

'You seem like you've been doing so well, Nicky,' Beckett commented as she picked up one of his files she'd received from Anna Leung. 'You're focused, driven, involved at school. Why did you want to hurt Professor Hill and Sarah?'

'Sarah, that was just an accident, I didn't want to hurt her just scare her off nosing around.'

'Explain.'

'I had some people over on Saturday night, you know, trying to keep things normal and Sarah wandered off to find the bathroom,' he recounted, 'and she went into my room to use my ensuite and found the peanut oil.'

'You'd already kept it in your room?'

'Part of a chemistry project I was already working on.' Nicky shrugged. 'She didn't think I saw her put it together but I saw it. My mother always said I was very observant. So she needed to be taken care of.'

'And Professor Hill?' Beckett ventured, sincerely frightened to hear his response. Her blood went cold when she saw him shrug again.

'He wouldn't let me into his class. I had to fix it.'

'All this because you weren't permitted into his AP math class? You killed a man over something that trivial?'

Nicky just blinked. 'It was a problem, I fixed it.'