Bobby POV

"I wonder what the statute says about that."

"About killing a dead man? I'm pretty sure it's still illegal."

"Well how about we hide his body and say he went back into witness protection?"

"Tempting," I agreed. "But probably not a good idea."

And I could see why it was so tempting for Logan, considering how Ross had shown up at Liz's place this morning.

It was tempting for me, too.

This meeting tomorrow…I've got a bad feeling about it.

I don't like Maas being excluded, and I don't like how Zaring blatantly told Alex that the mayor wants Ross.

The really annoying thing is that it's not about Ross. He simply wants Ross to fill Alex's void after he transfers her.

If it were anyone else, it might be something that all involved parties could sit down and discuss like adults, but since Ross feels the job is his God-given right, he can't even grasp the fact that he's just convenient.

It's not fair that karma should work out so well for him.

"Yeah, well it could still happen," he mumbled as my cell phone started buzzing.

I pulled it out and glanced at the display and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Logan was flexing the fingers on his right hand while gripping the wheel with his left.

"Still sore?"

"Again sore."

"You didn't hit Ross, did you?"

"I wish," he said, flashing me a grin. "And I'd tell you what I did, but you already told me that you don't like hearing details about my sex life, so…"

"Got it," I said quickly.

"Alex?" he asked nodding towards my still-buzzing phone.

"No. I don't know who it is."

I clicked the button and answered the call.

"Goren."

"Hey, Detective. Are you a man of your word or not?"

"Who is this?"

"Enzo Lettiere. You remember me?"

Enzo.

The unofficial bomb expert who saved our lives.

As if I'd ever forget him.

"Of course I do."

"Good because you said you owed me one, right?"

"I did, and I do. What do you need?"

"I…may have run into a little bit of trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"I got popped this morning, but I'm telling you…I'm innocent."

"Popped for what?"

"Can I explain it when you get here?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm at the 7th precinct."

I promised him that I'd be down as soon as I could, and then I hung up and looked at Logan.

"Who got popped for what?" he asked.

"Enzo, and he didn't say, but he's asking for my help. I told him to call me if he ever found himself in a bind."

"And he waited two weeks. I'm impressed."

"That's not the good news," I told him. "He's at the 7th."

"Are you kidding me? What the hell was he doing in Lower Manhattan anyway?"

"I don't know, but it's a big squad room and it's Sunday. Maybe we won't run into Coleman."

"Yeah, because I'm that lucky," he said dryly.

We'd just picked up Phillip Downey and he was presently en route to 1PP in a black and white.

And neither of us had any doubt that he was guilty as hell.

"NYPD, open up!" I'd called out gruffly as I banged on his door.

He had it open before the third knock, and he'd stood there in his pajamas, staring at us like we were the angels of death.

"Phillip Downey?" I clarified.

"Yeah. What did I do?"

"I don't know, Phillip. What did you do?" Logan asked him as together we flashed our badges and then straightened up so that we were both standing at our full height, which was considerably more than his.

"I…I…"

"Grand theft auto?" Logan posed. "Murder?"

He stared at us for so long that I wasn't sure what to make of him.

No denial or confession, just a blank stare.

And then out of the blue, he swung the door closed as hard as he could and attempted to escape into his apartment.

I caught the door with my hand and shoved it back open and then ran inside after him.

"I'll go around!" Logan called out as he headed for the stairwell.

Phillip lived on the second floor of a building, so even though there wasn't a fire escape, it wasn't that far of a drop. And if he made it outside, we might lose him unless Logan was quick enough.

I tore through the apartment chasing after the suspect as he ran down the hall and into a bedroom.

As I turned the corner going into the room, he picked up his computer from his desk and tossed it at me and then turned around and started tugging on the window, trying to get it open.

I threw up one hand to block the flying laptop, but the corner of it still caught me in the forehead, causing me to falter slightly. I managed to keep the computer from dropping to the ground, since I knew we'd want to scour it for information, and I tossed it onto the bed as I hustled over to the window.

His feet were still visible inside, and I grabbed onto his ankles while the rest of his body dangled out of the window.

He kicked at me, trying to shake loose my grip, but I held on until I heard Logan call out.

"Send him on down, Goren!"

So I let him go.

He tumbled down onto the pavement below, falling into a heap at Logan's feet.

"Going somewhere, Phillip?" he asked him. "I guess we don't need to ask if you're guilty, do we?"

I watched as Logan hauled the young man to his feet and slapped on the cuffs and then I ducked back inside and called for CSU.

I was glad to see that the laptop hadn't broken when it hit my hard head. Hopefully there would be something useful on there.

I was pretty sure that Phillip was just another competitor, like Jared, and that he wasn't the one running the show, but it sure would be nice to find an electronic trail of breadcrumbs.

Logan and I had poked around for a little while and then we'd decided to head back to 1PP to see what Phillip felt like talking about, but that was when the call came in from Enzo, causing us a slight detour.

Because Italian mobster or not, I owed him. It's not like I could get him out of a murder charge or anything, but I could certainly take a few minutes out of my day to find out what was going on and see what I could do to help.

As for going to Detective Coleman's precinct…well, hopefully Logan's phone call to her had taken care of that misunderstanding.

We'd run into her last week when the sixth murder victim was found in her jurisdiction, the same day that we found her business card in Erin's apartment, and Logan had let me do all of the talking.

She kept looking to him like she wanted him to stand up for her or something, but he'd backed me up as I chastised her for her negligence.

By the end of our conversation, I think she was just glad to get rid of us.

And now we were coming back.

Hopefully it was some other detective who'd arrested Enzo.

And it was, but Coleman still made a beeline for us as soon as we entered the squad room.

"Are you back about the O'Hara case? Do you have any leads? I saw your boss on the news a few minutes ago and she didn't mention it."

I would've liked to have seen Alex's press conference, but I had no doubt that she handled it perfectly.

The woman is unflappable.

And intuitive.

And amazing.

And…I had to get my mind back on the task at hand.

"We're not here about that case, Coleman," I said as I looked past her in search of Detective Lipscomb, the one who'd made the arrest on Enzo. "It's something else."

"Oh," she said hopefully and then she shifted her focus onto Logan. "A personal visit? Because if you're here to ask me out, I think I'm going to require you to beg a little after leaving me on the line all weekend."

"If you're waiting on the line for me, you'd better settle in for the long haul," he replied. "Because I quit fishing about a month ago."

"So you say, and yet you're here."

"At your precinct. Where a friend of ours got picked up," he clarified, and then he turned to me, shaking his head at her persistence.

"Detective Lipscomb," I told her. "Point him out and we'll be on our way."

She sighed and pointed out the detective in question and so we headed for his desk.

"It was one night," Logan muttered. "You know, I find it really hard to believe I was that damn good."

I laughed at his befuddlement and then stepped up in front of the desk of Detective Lipscomb and introduced myself.

"You arrested Enzo Lettiere today?"

"That's right. Homicide. What's it to you? You looking at him for something?"

"No, but we'd like to talk to him."

Two hours later, we were back at 1PP, and three hours after that, we walked into Pete's after having secured a confession from the very transparent Phillip Downey.

I scanned the room quickly and saw Alex sitting with Stanley at one of our usual tables.

"Is this table just for brass, or can any old riffraff sit down?" Logan joked as he sat down heavily in one of the chairs.

I went around the table so that I could sit next to Alex and as I sat down, Stanley said, "Hang on, Goren. Has it been a long day again? Because maybe I should go to the bar and get the drinks before you say hello to Alex."

I didn't answer him because I was already leaning in to kiss her.

"Okay, so drinks it is," he said. "I'll be right back."

"You do that just to fluster him," Alex accused me amusedly after I finally pulled back and put my arm round her.

"No, I do it because it's been eight hours since I've seen you and I don't think I could wait another minute."

"Wow, you really say stuff like that?" Logan asked. "And where's Liz?"

"She'll be here any minute," Alex answered with a smirk. "Why, has it been eight hours since you've seen her?"

"At least," he replied.

"So tell me about Downey," Alex said, looking back and forth between us. "You got his confession?"

"That had to be the easiest one I've ever been involved with," I said.

"Well, except for the part where he tried to jump out of the window," Logan added. "But once he realized he wasn't going to escape, he was ready to talk."

"Yeah, but did he say anything to help you find the other four killers?"

"No, but Scott in CCS was going through Phillip's laptop and the history hadn't been thoroughly erased. He's piecing it together and he thinks he might be able to find the chat room."

"That's progress," she said.

"With the FBK?" Maas asked as he came back to the table with our drinks.

"Uh huh," I nodded, and then Logan and I filled him in. As we finished up, Liz came into the bar and made her way to our table.

"Sorry I'm running late. What did I miss?"

"Killer number two is behind bars," I stated. "And now that we're all here, we want to fill you in on what else happened today."

"If you say you ran into Danny…" Liz mumbled.

"Not Ross," Logan said quickly. "One go-round with him is enough for today."

"You saw him?" Stanley questioned.

"He came to my house this morning," Liz answered. "But I'll come back to that. What happened?"

"I got a call from Enzo," I said.

"The guy who defused the bomb?"

"Uh huh. I told him to call me if he ever got into trouble and…"

"What kind of trouble is he in?" Alex asked.

"He got booked on murder charges," Logan said. "But he swears he didn't do it."

"He's being set up?"

"Either that or they just got the wrong guy."

"Are you sure?" Maas asked. "I mean, we don't know much about him."

I caught Logan's eye across the table and he nodded at me.

"We're sure," I said. "We talked to him for a while. He's not a killer. I'm not saying he hasn't committed the random crime, but not murder. I think he's mostly all bark and no bite."

"So you're going to help him," Stanley stated. "Did you talk to the investigating detective?"

"He didn't want to hear it. He's sure he has his man."

Maas looked at Alex and said, "Something like this is going to be controversial. I'm surprised the reporters haven't already picked up on the fact that you helped broker a deal for Gino Bisetti, and now if your detectives are helping another Mafioso take a walk…"

"If he's innocent, then he's innocent," she said rationally. "It won't hurt to look into the case a little more."

"No, maybe he's right," Logan said. "If the press gets wind of this, it might be the final bit of leverage that Ross needs."

"You want us to back off?" I asked Alex.

She caught my gaze and we looked at each other for a long minute.

"No," she said at last. "You gave him your word. And I'm not going to let you not do your job in order to try to protect mine."

I shifted my gaze to Maas and watched him as he picked up his drink and tossed it back.

"She's right. And this Ross thing…it's gone beyond petty accusations now anyway."

"You mean you think it's going to happen?" Liz asked him.

"I think the decision's been made, good or bad," he said ambiguously. Then he looked over at Logan and said, "Did you get the…"

"Yeah," he answered.

"Good. I'll stop by later tonight and drop it off."

"Drop off what?" Alex asked.

"Oh, just some paperwork," Stanley deflected. He checked his watch and added, "I need to head out. I'm meeting Traci in thirty minutes."

"Traci," Logan said with a grin. "You mean answer-the-door-in-your-skivvies Traci?"

"Yeah," he answered on a laugh. "And I see my decision not to bring her here was a good one!"

"Come on, Cap. We'd love to meet her."

"Soon," he promised, looking at me and Alex.

And I could appreciate what he was doing.

He didn't know her well enough to risk our careers by outing us to her.

"I'll walk you out," Logan said as he got up from the table. "Be right back."

The two of them left and Alex and Liz both looked at me.

"So you're going to work the FBK case and Enzo's case? When are you and Mike going to sleep?" Liz asked me.

"When both cases are closed, I guess. Sorry Liz, but I don't see much chocolate in your future."

Logan appeared back at the table, only having walked Maas to the door. But instead of sitting down, he held out his hand to Liz.

"There's always chocolate in your future, sweetheart. Let's get out of here."

She flashed us an apologetic smile as she got up from the table.

"Bright and early," Logan said to me, and then he leaned down and kissed Alex on the cheek and said, "Don't sweat this Ross thing. We've got you covered."

Once he and Liz made their exit, Alex looked at me inquisitively.

"You've got me covered?"

"Don't ask," I replied.

"I'm asking."

"If it works, you're set. If it doesn't, you'll have something to talk about to the press because we're going to make national news."

TBC...