Two days later, the expedited DNA test came back on their Jane Doe. She was Madison Kate Meyers (formerly Archibald).

Rios told Sharon Raydor she needed to stay away from the suspect until the investigation is over. She may be a witness.

"How, we live together?"

Rios frowned. "It didn't say you changed your address in your file."

"I didn't formalize it." They had been staying together every night for two months.

Rios sighed. She didn't even know what to say. Before she could respond, Chief Taylor appeared.

"The media is all over this story." Once they declared that the Jane Doe was the ex- Mrs. Archibald, journalists were swarming the case. He turned on the news.

"LAPD has just confirmed that the murdered Jane Doe is Madison Kate Meyers, the ex-wife of famous writer Craig Archibald and the mother of his two adult children.

Meyers ran away to Fiji 26 years ago, breaking up with her husband via phone conversation. A source says she didn't even show up for her divorce proceedings, leaving her parents to find her a lawyer.

Somehow her remains washed up on the shore of Los Angeles and the police have not said when she died or how she died, but they have called this a homicide."

The next channel.

"Craig Archibald is not under arrest, however he has been questioned by the LAPD as have his two sons."

The next channel had even more about Craig Archibald.

UCLA's lawyer showed up to the murder room. "Is Craig Archibald under arrest?"

"You are …"

"Forgive my rudeness Rudy Swanson III, attorney for UCLA."

"Mr. Archibald is not under arrest as of yet," Rios told him.

"Is he a suspect?"

"We cannot answer that?"

"If you were the Dean of UCLA, would you tell him that a substitute was teaching his class for the rest of the semester?"

"We wouldn't go that far," Chief Taylor told him.

"Good enough."

"Now they really look out for their faculty," Sharon said dryly.

"He did call his own lawyer," Taylor pointed out.

"I wonder why," Rios glared at her.

Mark still couldn't believe his mother had been dead all this time. He remembered the baseball bat signed by Bobby Bonds that he got for his 13th birthday, but she had been long dead by then. He knew his father and his grandparents loved him. They were crazy enough to do all this for them, but she was gone. He always knew he would get to know her some day. She would come home, explain why she had stayed away for so long, but it was impossible.

Christine came to check on Mark. "How are you holding up?"

"Do you talk to your father?" he asked her.

"No," she said sadly.

"Why not?"

"He always picked drinking and gambling over us. Mom had to throw him out because of it, and I thought he'd turn it around, but he never did. We were never enough for him."

"Do you think he will change?"

"I hope he will, someday."

"I always had hope my mother would come back, even when Jr. had been saying it was useless for years. She died 20 years ago. I don't even know what to think anymore."

Christine hugged him. "Maybe your mother wanted to come back. I'm sure she loved you, even if she couldn't raise you."

"How do you know?"

"Because I don't think your father would have fallen in love with a woman who was heartless, and she'd have to be heartless not to love you."

Mark hadn't thought of it that way, but Craig was a victim too. He didn't date for over a decade after she left him. It was more than two before he found Sharon. Had he been hopeful that she would come back some day?

Craig and Sharon were alone in her condo. Rusty was with a friend's for the night and their kids were in his home.

Sharon felt like a mess. "I don't want my kids to see my like this. I'm supposed to be the one who keeps it all together, and I just feel like melting down."

Craig held her. "I know. For so long, I've done it all alone. I don't know what I would do if you weren't here with me right now."

He pressed his lips to her. Their movements were slow, painfully so as they were both weighed down by all of the stress on them. Their careers and future together were both in doubt. They both knew it. They both feared it and they both felt powerless to stop it.

Brenda couldn't do much to help Sharon. She knew her friend would flip at any implication that she had been going against the rules, so Brenda couldn't go there. There also wasn't much to go on. They were still waiting on tests from the Jeffersonian. Miss Wick was trying to narrow the time of death from maybe 20 years ago to something more specific.

The only thing Brenda had been able to do was contact the Prickly Pear and make sure any pictures of Sharon and Craig together stayed off their website. As soon as their relationship was discovered, it would be chaos.

"No I can't come home now!" Kelly yelled into her phone and no it was not her boss.

…

"Because my mother needs me."

…

"Because her boyfriend finding out that his missing ex-wife was murdered is more important than your mother's dispute with the venue over flooring."

…

"I never even liked the venue."

…

"I told you three different times."

…

"Yes I can leave you alone with her. She's your mother. If you can't stand her, how do you think I feel?"

Her future mother in law started yelling at her.

"Why didn't you tell me I was on speakerphone?"

…

"It's none of her business what I say about her on the phone with someone else."

…

"I'll talk about her any way I want to. She's a witch."

…

"Fine, the wedding's off!"

…

"Yes I can call it off on the phone."

…

Kelly hung up. She was ready to break her phone, but then she took a breath. "Fuck my life."

Junior was in the next room, pretending he couldn't hear anything, but her yelling had overpowered his meager headphones. He tried to stay in his room, but eventually, he had to leave for some water.

She was sitting in the window, hair down and legs folded. Her green eyes were hidden from view but Junior could see their reflection in the glass.

He cautiously approached her. "Are you okay?" It sounded like a stupid question but what else was he supposed to ask right now?

She sighed. "Right now, I'm okay. I'm more worried about when I go back to New York." She knew his family would make a lot of hassle for her at work and everywhere else.

"Did you two live together?"

"Luckily no. I refused to get rid of my apartment in the Lower East Side. I have some stuff at his place, but none of it is terribly important." His family didn't see any reason to go past midtown. They didn't know why she kept a home in such a "slummy" place.

"What about your job?"

She shrugged. "He might try to make waves, but I'm not worried about being fired. Even if I leave the firm, I know at least three others that would hire me in a heartbeat. I just don't want to go back. I have to, obviously, it's just …"

"Really sucks."

"Yeah. Is your love life any better than mine?"

"No. I had a girlfriend who seemed too good to be true. She was gorgeous, smart, came from an old money family. Didn't know what she wanted with a worker bee like me and I knew I had to be the best guy I could be for her. She cheated on my left and right and now that I finally ended it, she cant' seem to let go." Junior showed her his phone. She had called him six times since the news about his mother hit the airwaves. "It's like she wants me around so she can have someone to cheat on."

"Maybe she sees you as a husband but not as a lover."

"What's the difference?"

"When I think of a husband, I think of a good father, someone I would want my kids to be like. When I think of a lover, I think of someone exciting and a bit dangerous. Someone you shouldn't keep in contact with but you always want more."

"Which one was Jacob?"

"In the end, neither." He wasn't a bad guy, but she didn't want her kids to be like him. She hoped they'd have a greater appreciation for the simpler things in life.

The next day on the news, Gerry, Craig's ex was on television going on about their relationship.

"He was a nice guy, a really nice guy, but he's strange."

"What do you mean?" Harvey Levin asked him.

"I mean he works out obsessively. I don't think he misses a day in the gym for anything. Everything in his house has a proper place, and I mean everything and if you put something in the wrong spot, he'll like immediately move it. His sexual interests are a bit peculiar for my tastes and he has quite the libido, but I shouldn't say anything else about that."

"But that's what everyone wants to know."

"I know, maybe next time."

"Why did your relationship end?"

"Work got in the way. He had just gotten tenure at UCLA. I was filming a lot. We didn't make enough time for each other."

"Do you think he did it?"

"No, he hardly seemed like the type to kill someone."

"Is there a type?"

"I don't know."

"Would you ever reconcile with him?"

"I don't think so, and he has a girlfriend doesn't he?"

"He does?" They hadn't found one.

"Yeah, Sherry or something. They were together when I saw him last."

Sherry or something, "Do you know what she does?"

"Um. I thought she was a cop or did she play one on tv?"

Everyone started looking for an actress or a cop named Sherry that could be Craig's girlfriend. He had already shut all of his pictures from public view, but pictures that his friends had taken were still available. It was only a matter of hours before TMZ realized that Craig Archibald was in a relationship with Sharon Raydor.

Chief Pope groaned as he looked at the television.

"This is just in, Craig Archibald, famed writer whose ex-wife was murdered under mysterious circumstances is in a relationship with Captain Sharon Raydor of the LAPD, head of Major Crimes and previously the officer in charge of his ex-wife's murder investigation. Now we're here with Asst. Chief Russell Taylor. Aren't you worried that the investigation has been compromised."

"Captain Raydor has been nothing but professional. As soon as she found out that there was a possibility that our victim was Craig's ex-wife, she removed herself from the investigation and turned over all of her files. She's no longer attached to the investigation."

"Aren't you worried that …?"

Taylor left before they could ask any more questions. Every news network was running with the story.

It wasn't long before other connections between Craig and the LAPD were made. "He's friends with former Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, who now works at the prosecutor's office. He's acquainted with every member of Major Crimes. Perhaps it's time for another agency to take over the investigation."

As pundits started making baseless accusations, Pope had a difficult decision to make. Finally he called in the FBI. Before they arrived, he had to talk to Major Crimes.

"This isn't a reflection of your character or integrity, but we need this investigation to not only be fair but to also look fair. The more the media blows this up, the more of a problem we will face at trial."

They groaned. "Pack up your files everyone," Provenza told them.

The FBI, sans Fritz took it over.

Dr. Wick stayed as she didn't actually know Mr. Archibald. "I found minute fractures in the hyoid bone."

"What dos that mean?" the agent questioned.

Flynn laughed. "I won't be missing that."

"It means she wasn't bashed over the head. She was slammed into a metal object, possibly a wall or some type of siding."

"Anything else?"

"It was likely a crime of passion, as opposed to a planned attack."

"You know this how?"

"Planned murders usually involve bringing a weapon, not using what is conveniently around you."

"Like an ex trying to take your kids after being absent for 6+ years."

"Or a current ex who dumped you."

The FBI found out about Barasa, but the LAPD had yet to locate him. "We don't know if it's a first name or a last name," Sykes told them.

First, the agents tracked down the PI that Craig had used. The man had long retired, but he kept his files in the attic.

"Who was the client again?" The PI was rather old.

"Craig Archibald."

"The writer guy?" He looked. "Here it is. He phoned in 26 years ago, saying his wife dropped off their kids at her parents' house and disappeared. I called her friends and eventually one of them told me that she had found a guy and run off to Fiji. It was cheaper to hire a local PI than to fly out there, and when I got a report back that she was with this guy Barasa. They sent me photographs and Craig confirmed that was his wife. He called her, and she said she wasn't coming home and he was better off alone. She wasn't fit to be a wife or a mother."

"Didn't that strike you as odd?"

"It was a little odd, but I figured she maybe settled down too young. They say guys have to sow their wild oats, but maybe some girls do too. Anyway, he paid the bill and that was it."

"Did he ask for the photos?"

"No. He just wanted an address so he could serve her with papers."

He turned over the file to the FBI and the made copies.

"This Barasa guy is huge," easily 6'5 and 250lbs of muscle.

"I don't blame him for not confronting him."

"Maybe that's why he works out so much."

They ran the photograph through their aging software and developed a recent profile. They sent it to the news stations.

"Now the FBI is looking for Meyer's former lover, the man who lured her away from her husband to go to Fiji. He was called Barasa, but they do not know if this is a first name or a last name." They had both a copy of his old picture and the modern rendition. "This is what he looked like 26 years ago and this may be what he looks like now."

Now everyone was debating whether it was Craig or Barasa.

"Maybe she wanted to come home and he followed her here and killed her."

"Maybe they both wanted the children and Craig killed her to stop them from trying to get custody."

The rumors and allegations swarmed the city.

UCLA had to keep the journalists off their campus to protect Craig's students. Somehow, he kept his composure as he taught his classes.

His students clamored about it when he wasn't in sight, but they all became silent in his presence.

"I can't believe they think he is a murderer. He's so nice," one student said.

"And he's hot!"

"That means he's innocent," added a third.

"It should!"

Comparisons started being made between Archibald and Scott Peterson, the man who killed his wife right before Christmas while she was seven months pregnant.

"These cases are nothing alike," one of Jeannine Pirro's guests said on television. "Scott Peterson murdered his wife to get out of becoming a father and he wanted to start over with his mistress. Craig Archibald clearly wanted to keep his children. There is no mistress (that LAPD can find) and she actually did just run away. Peterson tried to say his wife had been kidnapped by a cult. Meyers actually fled. Who knows when she came back or if she came back at all? The killer could have dumped the body in the pacific and she washed back up."

Both men were attractive and the public had first believed Scott just to turn on him. Would the public turn on Craig too?

"Also, the passage of time is a huge factor," another guest said. "With the Peterson murder, you saw Scott on tv pleading for information on his wife, but in this case, Craig didn't even know his wife had left until months later. He had been in the military when she ran away, so he thought she was at home, just to open the door and see his wife and kids are gone and no one had been there in months. We didn't see his reaction. Maybe he was depressed or angry or relieved. Maybe their marriage was terrible. Who's going to remember 26 years later and if he makes it up, who's going to call him out on it?"

"Do you think that too much time has passed to solve this case?"

"I think it's going to come down to forensics. We don't have any eye-witnesses."

"Working on this case is Dr. Daisy Wick from the Jeffersonian."

"She is a very experienced forensic anthropologist. If there is something to be found, she'll find it."

Craig turned off the television. He was pretty much stuck to watching dvds or cartoon network if he wanted to avoid the legal drama. "

Sharon was on paid leave until further notice.

"I'm sorry," he said to her.

"This isn't your fault," she told him.

"I know but it's still because of me that you can't go to work, that the media hounds us every day, that your week with your kids was a disaster."

"My kids enjoyed their time here and liked meeting your sons. I'm sure their next visit will end on a cheerier note." Sharon was trying to stay positive. She needed it. Her patience was dwindling.

"I used to wonder why 'persons of interest' would leave the country if they were innocent," Craig said. "Now I get it. I would totally fly to the Netherlands right now if it didn't make me look guilty."

They had to settle for the discovery network.

Kelly got home to her apartment after a week away. Everyone was asking her about the wedding.

"Jacob is beside himself."

"What are you going to do?"

After her day at work, she put on her big girl panties and called him, "we need to talk, in person."

They met in Central Park, a place where they once had lots of dates. Kelly thought she would have wanted to get married here.

"We both said some things we shouldn't' have. Can't we just forgive and forget?"

"What we said isn't the problem. What got us there is the problem. Jacob, this isn't working."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not happy. I haven't been in months. You have a set path: become partner in your father's firm, put the next thirty years or so into your career, get the next generation ready before you retire. I thought it was a plan I could be apart of but I can't. You work all day and half the night sometimes. I don't see you for weeks and when I do hear from you, it's about what your mother wants for the wedding. When's the last time we did anything for us?"

He frowned. "But you knew this is what I wanted, what we wanted."

"Yes I did, which is why I'm not trying to change you. Instead, I'm letting you go. There are dozens of women, hundreds probably, who would marry you in a heartbeat. I need something more than the penthouse on the Upper East Side and round the clock staff. I need someone who has his time to give me, and you don't."

She gave him back his ring.

"It's really over, isn't it?"

"It is, but for what it's worth, I think you are a good guy. You're just not my guy."

He smiled weakly. "Don't be a stranger Kelly."

Needless to say, Jacob's family wasn't as sympathetic to Kelly as he was. They suggested making her pay for the wedding costs, even threatening to sue her.

"You are not going to sue her," Jacob told his mother.

"What?"

"You can't sue someone for not wanting to get married." It's not like she scammed him. She just realized her heart wasn't in it anymore.

"Like hell you can't. Do you have any idea how much money I spent?"

"How much of it did Kelly ask you for?"

His mother frowned.

"How much of it did she even want?"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying my world and her world didn't meet up. We're too different. Did you even want me to marry Kelly?"

"Not really."

"Then why are you mad that she ended it?"

"Maybe you should call Jennifer? I was always fond of her."

Jacob frowned. Jennifer was his college sweetheart but she ended it upon graduation. She hadn't told her family, but she's a lesbian. "It won't work. We're just friends."

Mark was back in Chicago, burying himself in work.

His boss came to see him. "We can give you more time if you need it."

"Actually, it's easier to be here, away from the journalists and the people staring at me in the street."

"I'm sorry about your mother."

"Yeah, me too."