Alex POV

"And you waited until now?"

"I…wanted to…I don't know. Savor the moment a little. You know, keep it between us."

"Huh."

"Oh, come on, Liz."

"No, it's fine."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah," she said with a grin. "Now let me see it."

I held out my hand, showing off the diamond that was now on my finger.

It was risky for me to have it on, even here in the morgue, but I couldn't resist wearing it while I stopped by to see Liz.

I was overdue for a little girl talk anyway, and I was tired of hiding it.

All day yesterday, I kept it in my pocket, and it was going to have to go in there again today, but not just yet.

I wasn't at work yet.

I'd stopped by the morgue first, on business of course, but also for some of that aforementioned girl talk.

And even though I can't wear the ring at work, any time I'm outside of the office, I plan to keep it on.

Which, again, is dangerous, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

Bobby put it on my finger for me on Tuesday night, after he'd finished his down-on-one-knee proposal that would be forever etched in my mind.

"Wow," Liz said appreciatively. "You've got to love a man who knows his jewelry. And his woman, because it's got your name written all over it."

"I know," I said with a smile. "It's exactly what I would've picked."

"You should've seen the one my ex bought for me," she said wryly. "The only thing smaller than that stone was his penis."

I barked out a laugh and looked at her skeptically.

"Okay, relatively speaking," she added with a shrug. "But damn…Alex. That's gorgeous."

"I hate taking it off," I admitted. "And I'm not usually all that much on jewelry."

"So he gave it to you Tuesday night?"

"Uh huh. It was…memorable."

"Memorable, huh? Romantic-memorable? Or…stumbling and dropping the ring in the toilet kind of memorable?"

"In the toilet?" I laughed. "Please tell me there's no true story involved with that scenario."

She raised an eyebrow at me but then said, "Okay, so it wasn't the toilet, but it may as well have been since that's where the marriage ended up."

"Well, there wasn't any stumbling involved with Bobby," I assured her.

"Dr. Rodgers?"

I quickly pulled my hand from Liz's and put it in my pocket while she turned to see who'd come into the morgue.

"What is it, Luke?"

"I got the full documentation that you requested on that Jane Doe from Paramus," he stated as he crossed the room.

"Are you looking for something in particular?" I asked her, moving so that I could read the report along with her after she took it from her assistant.

"The autopsy mentioned something about a kidney abnormality," she replied as she scanned the ME's notes. "I wanted to see what he had to say about it, something that maybe didn't make it into the final report."

"Kidney abnormality?"

But she ignored me for a moment while she scanned through the notes.

"Scarring," she mumbled. "The ME noted that there was scarring on her kidneys, and it must not have been deemed relevant because it's not in the report."

"Scarring due to what?"

"His guess upon visual inspection was pyelonephritis. There's no way to know for sure now, not without having her exhumed and maybe not even then, but…"

"If she had a kidney disease of some sort, she would've been seen by a specialist," I finished.

"Bingo, Captain."

I pulled out my phone as I headed for the door.

"Thank you!" I called out over my shoulder.

"Any time," she replied easily. "Oh, and Captain…the um…"

I looked back at her and saw her waggling her fingers at me, so then I looked down and realized that I was still wearing my ring.

That's right, Alex. Get yourself caught in the eleventh hour, I chastised myself as I gave her a nod and pulled the ring from my finger.

"And I'm going to need to hear details!" she added as I sailed out the door.

Details.

Like I was really going to tell her that Bobby had been completely naked as he'd knelt in front of me and asked me to promise myself to him for the rest of our lives.

That I'd been completely naked when I practically tackled him after he slipped the ring into place, and then we'd had round two right there on the kitchen floor.

And then I figured, yeah, what the hell?

Maybe I would give her details.

Bobby answered his phone as I walked down the morgue hallway. I'd dropped him at our corner about twenty minutes ago, so I figured he'd be in the office by now.

"Mr. Eames," he answered, causing me to start laughing again.

"Oh, you're going to be a progressive kind of guy, huh?" I teased. "Please tell me you're not sitting at your desk where Mike can hear you, or you'll never hear the end of it."

"I'm not at 1PP yet," he replied. "I stopped for coffee, but I'm heading in now. What's up?"

"Liz found a lead for you on the J.D. from Paramus. She may have had a kidney disease, so get her picture out to every nephrologist in New Jersey and you might get a name. Manhattan, too. She might've come into the city."

"Or she might be from the city," he posed. "Just because she was found in Paramus…"

"That's true. But why hasn't anyone claimed her?" I wondered aloud. "Her face has been shown on the news for three days now."

"People don't want to get involved…or they don't believe it could really be someone they know…or they don't watch the news…"

"Yeah, I know. Okay, I'm headed your way now, but get started on that and see what you come up with."

"So did you show Liz?" he asked, his voice dropping to a hushed tone.

"I did," I answered as a smile spread across my face.

"And?"

"She said you did good. Which, by the way, you did. I wish I could wear it all the time."

"Still no word on those regs, huh?"

"Not yet. I think Moran just wants to get through this week before he starts a new fire."

"I guess I can't blame him for that. And it won't kill us to wait a little longer."

"No," I agreed on a sigh.

"Did Liz tell you that Mike's taking her away for the weekend?"

"She mentioned something the other day, but she didn't say anything today. They're still going?"

"I think it's kind of a surprise. You know, it's her birthday tomorrow."

"No, I didn't realize that," I replied. How did I not know that? She's my friend. I should know things like that about her. "Let's make sure we get him out of the office then. Find this guy by tomorrow afternoon, okay?"

"Tomorrow? No, we're going to find him today."

It was a lofty goal, and yet by the time I ran into him and Mike in the squad room, they already had good news.

"Brianna McMahon," Bobby stated triumphantly as I entered the conference room.

"The first girl?" I asked in surprise.

"Dr. Kim, one of two nephrologists in Paramus, confirmed about two minutes ago that our Jane Doe was her patient. Brianna was nineteen and has a Maywood address."

"Go check it out," I said needlessly. "Where are Wyatt and Yuille?"

"We found a suspect associated with Lindsay Hill," Bobby answered. "They went to pick him up."

"Yeah, Scott tracked the URL associated with the photo upload," Logan added. "The idiot actually did it from his home dial-up account."

"So that means we've caught the killers for the last eight victims," I said with a nod. "In less than two weeks' time. Excellent work."

"We're not done yet, Boss," Logan said. "Now that we know the first victim, we'll get the main guy."

Because here's what they deduced yesterday.

The million dollar pot was a hoax.

Scott discovered that the screenshot of the bank account was bogus. Not the account itself, but the balance amount, which meant that this guy had actually opened the account so that it would look authentic, but he only had ten dollars in it, not a million. He'd altered it using a basic photo shop program.

They also learned that the rules of the game that were found in the forum had been posted a day after the first Jane Doe, Brianna McMahon, was killed.

So the working theory is this: Brianna was killed and in order to hide the crime, her murderer set into motion a rash of similar homicides in hopes that the police would consider them all as random.

The intent was never to hide the contest, but rather to keep detectives so busy tracking down the murders committed by contestants that they'd never look closely at motive for any of the killings, since they were supposedly only done as a means to win the pot.

That being said, now that we know the identity of the first girl, it's very possible that Bobby and Mike can track down her killer, someone who likely knew her well, thus his fear of detection and his need for misdirection.

"Good," I said. "I can't think of anything I'd like more than to be able to announce in tomorrow's meeting that we've put the FBK instigator behind bars."

"Nothing?" Mike asked me with a raised eyebrow. Then he looked at Bobby, shaking his head in disappointment before bringing his eyes back to mine.

"Get out of here," I said on a chuckle. "And keep me posted."

Once they were off and running, I spent the next hour in my office. I managed to get a lot of work done, despite the fact that my mind was preoccupied.

Tomorrow's meeting.

D-day.

I'd been invited to it, courtesy of Moran.

"If Ross is going to be here, then you should be here, too," he'd stated on the phone yesterday.

"Thank you. I appreciate that. I also appreciate you talking with Theresa the other day."

"Theresa the reporter?" he asked in surprise.

"Channel 7."

"Why the hell would I talk to her? Although I guess she has come around, hasn't she? Stanley told me you were going to give her a piece of your mind. I see it must have worked."

"So you didn't discuss the highlights of my career with her?"

"It wasn't me."

Which meant I was back to being baffled about the source of her information and the cause of her sudden support.

It made me slightly suspicious of her motive, but there was no mistaking the fact that she's firmly behind me now.

Yesterday, when I had to do the press conference with my hair soaking wet because of another unexpected sprinkler system shower, I'd taken quite a bit of ribbing from most of the reporters.

"Casual Wednesday, Captain?" the mouse called out, in reference to my jeans and turtleneck sweater.

What he didn't know was that I was really glad that my back-up outfit consisted of a turtleneck because Bobby hadn't exactly been careful with his proprietary kisses the night before.

As for the jeans…well, I'd had a pair of slacks in the locker room, too, but then Jacobs had been vomited on by a suspect and so I'd loaned them to her.

Thirty minutes after that, the room was doused in water, and ten minutes after that, I was changed into my jeans and turtleneck and was standing out in front of the cameras.

"I'm sure it's not news that we're having trouble with the sprinkler system," I stated.

"Major Case isn't important enough to have their pipes fixed?"

"They're working on it. I'm working on catching killers. Which one do you want to talk about today?"

"Tell us about FBK," another reporter called out.

"I'm not going to comment this particular ongoing investigation."

"Because there's nothing new to report?"

"Because it's an ongoing investigation and it would be counter-productive," I said smartly.

"You sound a little put out today, Captain. Are you getting tired of us? Or is it because you know that after Friday you'll be looking for work?"

That was the mouse again.

And to think I used to take pity on him.

"She's just tired of you, Herb," Theresa called out. "Ask a real question or shut the hell up."

"Oh, like you have a real question," he fired back. "Last week, you were convinced that the captain is sleeping with one of her detectives, and now suddenly you're defending her?"

The verbal sparring went back and forth until I finally cleared my throat loudly and then proceeded to do a rundown of all of the current cases.

Well, with the exception of FBK.

"One more question, Captain," another reporter called out. "Herb mentioned Friday…are you worried about the mayor's decision?"

"He's in that office for a reason. I'm sure he'll make the right call," I concluded confidently, and then I left the podium.

Now today, I was thirty minutes away from what might possibly be my last press conference, because if Holt thinks I'm going on camera after he gives my job away, then he's lost his mind.

My phone rang, and I looked at it quickly, thinking maybe it was Bobby, but it wasn't. It was Maas.

"What can I do for you, Captain?" I said when I answered.

"It was Zaring."

"What was?"

"He talked to Theresa."

"Are you kidding me? Why?"

"I don't know, but Denise took a stack of paperwork to his office early Tuesday morning, and later she realized that your jacket was included in that stack. I'd been reading it over last week in preparation for the meeting with the mayor."

"Okay, so he read my file. That still doesn't explain why he would've spoken with her."

"I think maybe it was a little dose of reality for him. Until then, you were just a face on camera. You were making him look good, and Holt look good…I don't think he ever stopped to consider you as a person."

"So he suddenly grew a conscience?"

"It's a hell of a file, Captain. And it's possible I added some notes."

"It's possible?"

"Okay, so I made notes," he admitted. "Like I said, I thought I was going to need it to defend your position, but it never really turned into that after Logan drummed up the resignation letters."

"This whole thing has gotten completely out of control," I commented, although I couldn't help but feel good about the extraordinary level of support I've been receiving.

"Because of Ross," he said venomously. "Well, it'll all be over tomorrow."

"In a good way, I hope."

"Me, too. But I know Ross has gone to see Holt twice this week. He's pushing hard, and we both know he doesn't mind playing dirty."

My phone buzzed with an incoming text, so I told Stanley to hold on while I read the message.

Postpone your press conference until this afternoon. We've picked up a guy and we think it's him. If we can get a confession, you can go live with the news of the capture of the original FBK.

I typed out a reply.

How sure are you?

"Stanley?" I said as I put the phone back to my ear. "Can you delay the press conference until this afternoon? I might have something good."

"Holt likes it in the morning so that it makes the noon news. If you put it off and then you don't come through…"

"Hang on," I said as I looked down at my phone again.

Call it a hunch.

Was I willing to bet the farm on Bobby's hunch?

"Make it for four-thirty. And trust me. This'll be evening news material."

TBC...