"This is an old story, one that I have to keep telling people, so forgive me if I don't readily spill all the salacious details about my previous life."

Miranda nodded coolly as she pulled out her phone and began to record the conversation, knowing that whatever the woman said, Andrea would be able to use that for her article on the events of the day, filling in readers to the humanity of the players involved. Erin glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow, and Miranda gave a small shrug as she made a small motion with her hand that Erin should continue on with her story. "We all have parts of us that we don't want to share with the world," Emily murmured. "It's hard, though, working for a magazine like this and having people constantly asking you how you deal with working for someone like Miranda."

"You have to have a tough exterior and a spine of steel, things that you develop over the years."

Erin nodded at Miranda's words, giving her a small smile before she took a deep breath. "I actually developed my armour over the course of a few weeks. As I said, there was a case that the entire BSU worked on, because it was of the utmost importance that we solve it as quickly as possible. I was placed in a small group with my best friend, Alex, and John Curtis."

"Best friend?" Miranda asked, picking up on the way that Erin said that name, and recognizing that it was the same person that she had asked Penelope to call. "It's rare to meet another woman in a position of power who has a male best friend."

"Alex is all woman," Erin said in a rush, a bright blush staining her cheeks as she cleared her throat. Miranda didn't push that, though she desperately wanted to know what had happened between the two women, since it was now completely obvious that they had been much more than best friends at one point in their lives. "But if you keep interrupting, I'll never get through this."

"Fine, I will try to keep all questions until the end of your tale. Will that satisfy you?" There was just enough bite to her question to let Erin know that she would damn well ask any questions when and if they came up, and the woman jerkily bobbed her head twice. "Now carry on."

"Yes, Miranda." There was just as much bite in Erin's voice, and Miranda felt like there was a good possibility that they could be quite good friends, if they had had a different introduction. "So, as we were trying to build our profile of who the unsub was, John and Alex went down a linguistical rabbit hole, convinced that they could find the man based on the letters that he was taunting Capitol police with. I was a little more skeptical, but went along with it because Alex was so convinced that she had everything in order, even if John was giving her a hard time about the fact that we should be listening to him more. That man always had an over inflated ego, something that I should have worked harder to nip in the bud before it became the huge issue that it devolved into."

"What happened?" Emily breathed out, and Miranda watched as Erin gave her assistant an indulgent smile.

"They came up with one suspect, and we took our finding to the Director, didn't even go to our Section Chief, which was, and still is, protocol. He went with the profile, arrested the man, and then we all ended up with egg on our face when it was revealed that John and Lexie's profile had fingered the wrong man. There was talk of a lawsuit and public furor, and in the end, as leader of our small group, I had to make the tough choice of telling the Director the complete truth, that John and Alex had been the ones to come up with the profile, and though I had tried to pull them back, they hadn't listened to me. That was enough to have the Director decide that they were the ones to face the consequences, whilst I was promoted to the rank of Section Chief when the current one was promoted as well."

Erin broke off there, and Miranda leaned in, knowing that there was more to the story that Erin wasn't telling them yet. "And how did Alex react?"

"Righteous fury. She told me that it would be a cold day in Hell before we ever spoke again, and I went home to my husband and tried to move on with my life. Eventually, I learned not to think about her, or John, or that case as I fought to be the best at politics in the office, and to learn how to protect my position. As the years went by, that became easier to do, especially with the help of liquid courage. Until that, too, became a crutch, and I very nearly lost everything that I had fought so hard to work for."

Again, Erin paused, looking up at the ceiling of the room in order to get her composure back. Emily scooted closer to them, and Miranda watched as the younger woman reached out to set her hand on Erin's knee in a gesture of comfort. "Alcohol is a bitch, especially when it's part of your culture."

Erin nodded as she gave Emily a wobbly smile. "That it is. But I fought it, and won. Until the last year of my normal life. Alex had rejoined our team, and from the first case, things just went sideways. There were a rash of replicated cases, and we all felt like we were being stalked. Everything came to a head when the team was called here on a Replicator case, and I came along, too. John found me in my hotel room, forced me to drink, and swore that he had laced it with his MDMA cocktail, though in such a dose that it would make me suffer a long, painful, death. Obviously, that was a lie, as I went into protection the moment I reached the coroner's office, while the rest of the team tried to capture him. It was thought that David had taken care of him, but there wasn't any conclusive evidence that that was the case, so for all intents and purposes, I did die that evening. I became Erin Smith, and tried to learn how to start over. And I was doing so with my collections, until you managed to bollocks everything up."

"Yes, well, if I had known that was the case, I don't think that I would have pushed quite so hard. But, if they do take care of this John Curtis, do you think that we can do a better spread in the next edition of Runway? And I know Andrea would love to interview you about your experiences, when you come out of protection."

Erin let out a loud, throaty, laugh as she shook her head. "And here I thought that I was persistent. I suppose that would be satisfactory, Miranda. Though you might have to wait for your next spread until I have the Alexandra collection finished. Because you'll want to give your readers something new, rather than rehashing the same sartorial choices, am I correct?"

"That would be nice, yes," Miranda replied, and they smiled at each other just as a loud knocking sounded on the door. Everyone tensed until Emily's phone began to ring, and she pulled it out before grinning at Miranda. "What?"

"It's safe for us to leave here now. According to Andrea, the threat has been neutralized." With that welcome news, Miranda rose to her feet, stepped back into her heels and went over to the door, entering the code to unlock the door before turning to look at the other women, beckoning them to their side as she began to open the door to their freedom.