Ned was waiting for her when Katie walked through the front door. He was nursing his third beer, two empty bottles on the table in front of him.

"Three beers?" She sat on his lap. "Rough day?"

"A long one," he finished this bottle with a big swig and relaxed into the comfy chair. "You?"

"It was, a day. I'm just glad to be home," she muttered, leaning in to kiss him. It's sudden and soft, and her hands were warm as they cradled his face, but for the first time since they'd become a couple, Ned didn't want to kiss her back.

He was hesitant, and she could tell when her lips slanted over his, she snuck her tongue into his mouth. He thought he might melt. His thoughts were jumbled. She did things to him, made him feel things, made him feel too much.

Her hands fumbled when she tried to discard his shirt, the shirt caught on her hair, and their laughter was breathless. She slid her hands across his chest, scraped her nails against his nipples, and he kissed, bit, and licked her throat. He nuzzled her breasts; she arched into him. He couldn't keep her eyes open when she trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses along his throat.

Oh, God. He thought. This was almost enough to forget about Mason.

He rubbed her side and turned his head away, and he told her, "We need to talk," his eyes soft.

"You know," she sighed. "Who told you?"

"My mother," he said as she moved off his lap and walking away from him. "C'mon, Katie."

"Of course your mother medeled," she muttered, opening the fridge. She glanced over the full fridge, chewing on her lip as she grabbed a half drank bottle of wine. She placed it on the counter as she sighed, muttering under her breath, "She always does."

"Your mother and father can be just as involved in our problems," he muttered, leaning into the counter.

"Not in the same way Ned, and you know that," she muttered, leaving the bottle where she left it as she stepped closer to him. "Your mother has never liked me as your partner. She liked me when I was just a Clancy."

"I like you better as a Banks, if that means anything." He sighed, looking at her. "I just wanted you to tell me about what happened with Mason. I was a waiting for you to say something, but you didn't. You never do. Not unless I bring it up."

Katie couldn't believe him, her eyes filled with tears as she backed away from him. She wiped them away, shaking her head. "You don't understand what it's like," she whispered.

"You always say that. I don't know. I don't know. But I do know Katie. I know that some man is in love with my wife. He takes pictures of her. He breaks into our home. He disrupts my work day by kissing you in your mother's store and you don't even have the balls to tell me about it?" He raised his voice, his face turning red as he cornered her, her back pressed against the fridge. "Why couldn't you just tell me?"

"Because this is how you react," she said shakily, closing her eyes. "Why would I want to escalate an already tense situation?" His phone went off, and she sighed, grabbing the bottle. "Take it."

He pressed the phone to his ear and heards what he doesn't want to hear.

Another crime scene. He almost threw the phone against the wall.

It's on him, these dead women. He was a cop, and he swore an oath that he would protect people, and they needed him. They didn't have anybody else. No one cared about them. No one. And someone was killing them, murdering them, slaughtering them, and he was supposed to stop it, but couldn't yet.

"It's important," he said, holding the phone off to the side of his ear. "There's another crime scene."

"Of course, it is," she said, walking past him and toward the stairs. "Go to work. You'd rather be there than with me anyway."

Ned reluctantly left when Jamison told him there was more than one victim this time. One dead and one alive. He's escalating. Whoever he was.

"I'll be back soon," he yelled up the stairs before he left, locking the door behind him.

As he pulled out of the driveway, Ned caught a glimpse of Katie. She stood in the window, a wine glass tipped back into her mouth.

He whipped his phone out and texted her.

I'm sorry for yelling at you.

His phone beeped before the end of the road and he read it sighing.

No, you aren't. Not really, Ned.

Reiley was smart. She listened to Ned. Nothing happened to her, but he couldn't say the same for her mother. When he arrived at the crime scene, Reiley was there, wrapped in a warm blanket.

A woman was found dead, and a girl alive. He hadn't thought it was her. She was so badly beaten he couldn't identify the dead victim at first.

It was Reiley's mother.

When Ned told Reiley that her mother was dead, he'd expected her to need a shoulder to cry on, except it was different. She wanted to help.

"I can help you," Reiley said. "I can be bait."

Ned balked, but she was adamant, just like Katie would be. "They won't know that you're watching, and you can swoop in before something bad happens. It's like in the movies." Except this stuff was nothing like it was in the movies, but Reiley wouldn't take no for an answer, and they needed to do something to stop the murders.

And it worked.

They caught the man who followed Reiley out of a homeless shelter that night, and they wrangled what they need from him.

He was paid in cash, and he never received any details from the employer, but he did meet the man, and they had him talk to a sketch artist. Ned raced off to obtain the arrest warrant the moment Jamison recognized the face in the picture.

Arrow Lucas.

Ned's heart stopped. This was what they need. A break in the case, finally. But, as it turned out, it wasn't much of a break.

They arrived at his house to find Arrow hosting a game of poker with his friends and they aren't able to find any incriminating evidence in the house, not a single fucking thing.

Ned came home an hour later, to find Katie in bed, the room dark. He touched her arm, and she jerked away from his hand.

"Don't," she snarled. "I'm not in the mood to talk to you, let alone to let you touch me."

He nodded, and went about his bedtime routine. She ignored him for days, not a word or peep coming out of her.

And, three days later, he stopped reaching out. It's the first time that he'd ever stopped trying.

She refused to think about it.