HAUNTED
follows "Quiver"

               ***October 28, 2024***

"Bobby, can I speak to you for a minute?"

Marc Thuringer caught up with Robert Goren in the lecture room as he was packing up his notes.

"What's up?"

Thuringer, a short, stocky man with a cap of dark hair just starting to go silver at the temples, explained as the two strolled the wide corridor leading away from the lecture room at the Boston field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "I've got a couple of suits coming in from DC tonight who are extremely interested in your syllabus. A pair of bigwigs from the main office, Barbara Hedlund and Stephen Briond. They'd like to talk to you. I wondered if you couldn't stay over tonight and meet them at breakfast or an early lunch. I promise you'll be home for Tuesday trivia even if we have to fib a little."

Bobby considered. "It should be all right, but I'll call Eames and see if I'm needed. I'm sure I'm not. Alex could take care of an earthquake and still not turn a hair. The Bureau putting me up?"

"Dinner and whatever meal tomorrow is on us. I can't swing the hotel, but I have a perfectly serviceable guest room and an 85-inch television. It's almost Halloween. We could watch a serial killer flick."

"Not if it's like the last one, with the dude with the horns. I think I'd prefer classic Universal horror."

Marc grinned. "I can handle that. Or...Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee?"

"Now you're getting to the point where I can't refuse you." Bobby eyed him. "This isn't going to be a recruitment bid, is it? We aren't moving to DC."

"It probably will degenerate into that, but I know you can fob them off, and the nicer you are to them, the more we both make points and you keep having lecture gigs. Give me your gear; I'll stow it in my office."

Bobby did so, then sighed. "I hate playing politics as much as Alex does."

Thuringer walked him toward the front door, knowing he was headed for the T and Cambridge. "How's she doing with the liaison job?"

"Loves the job, hates the people," Bobby quipped, quoting her, and Thuringer laughed. "Dude, I feel like that daily."

"You just want to go to Brattle Books and the Harvard Bookstore," Alexandra Eames Goren teased when he called.

"Eames," he protested, "would I throw you and the kids over for two bookstores?" He paused. "Marc's offering Hammer horror films with Peter Cushing."

"I knew there was a catch." She laughed. "Give him my regards."

Following his fractured childhood and uncertain adolescence, Bobby didn't know what friendly spirit he had suddenly pleased when they had sent Alexandra Eames to him as his partner at Major Case. Her initial impatience with his methods had turned slowly to admiration, and even after their parting when he had accepted a profiling position at the Bureau, they remained in touch. But only when they reunited three years earlier did they realize their partnership and later friendship had given way to stronger emotions.

"I know what I'll bring the children," Bobby remarked, "but what would my lady like?"

"You back early," Alex said.

"Marc's promised. He has a driver to take me directly home and says it won't be later than three."

"These must be really big bigwigs."

"Afraid so."

"Well, I'll see you then. I'm glad you keep the kit bag with you."

"Alex...you don't mind–"

"It's fine."

"Min feeling any better about Thursday?"

"We had a little talk this morning. As close as she and Ana are, she has to understand that they're two years apart, and Carlos is even older. They're all going to start to go their own way eventually. I assured her it doesn't mean they still aren't friends."

Bobby smiled to himself, recalling the previous year when their adopted daughter Olivia, just turned ten, was already eagerly planning for Halloween as early as August, at the end of the bus tour, excited that she and Ana Serrano, one of the children he and Alex mentored at Big Brothers/Big Sisters, would be trick or treating as Anna and Elsa from Frozen. Her planning for the current year had been interrupted by Randall Shaw's arrival at the end of August and then slipped completely off the rails when Ana broke it to her that she and Carlos were going to a teen party at their church this year. "After all, Carlos and I are too old to dress up for Halloween," she'd said. "You're welcome to come; a lot of the kids are bringing their younger brothers and sisters."

If their foster son Randall had been a little more excited about the prospect of dressing up for trick or treat, it might have mollified Olivia, Bobby would tell Thuringer later. But the variable eleven-year-old was completely wrapped up in his ASL project at school as well as now excited by the result of the visit to his imprisoned father two days earlier after which the man had agreed to allow the Gorens to adopt him. He shrugged when she asked him about a costume and said, "I guess I'll just wear what I do to the Dark Crystal for trivia," which was a Scarecrow outfit their friend Viola Perrino had cobbled up for him out of the jeans and plaid shirt he'd worn home to Milbury, both pieces of clothing which he was outgrowing: she sewed raffia around the wristbands and cuffs and at his waistband and around the shirt collar, procured a cheap brimmed straw hat and sewed more raffia to that. Alex would rub lipstick on his nose so it would look ruddy as in the film version of The Wizard of Oz, and for Randall, that sufficed.

"So she's still intending to wear her Trot outfit?"

"Yes, and with very little enthusiasm."

"I'll see if I can find an unusual book for her. And Randall the sign-language dictionary, of course. So what are you up to this afternoon until you have pickup duty? Please tell me Wilmot isn't hatching another bright idea."

He could almost see her flinch when he mentioned her bête noire at her new advisory job. "Thank God, no. He's off in the Bahamas for two weeks and out of my hair. No, just pickup line duty hoping I don't incur the wrath of Sister Mark Anthony. Oh, and a short stop at the IGA before that. Come to think of it, Bobby, I need to get moving so I have enough time to stop before picking up the kids."

Bobby's eyes grew reflective. "I'll miss you tonight, Alex."

He could hear her smile over the phone. "Call me late enough and we could have a...special conversation."

"I'll look forward to that."

She smelled blood.

Her breath came hard and fast, and her shoulders hitched in agony. She had to open her eyes—but no, her eyes were open, and she couldn't see.

A woman shrieked in pain, then begged for her life. Alex felt strangled. Why couldn't she breathe through her mouth? Air rushed through her nostrils, making a loud rasping sound.

No, no, no, this was over. She'd made her escape, that yapping little dog had found her; the hospital, Bobby at her bedside consumed with guilt and then revulsion when he realized what Jo Gage had done, how he'd taken her home after her release and slept crouched up on the sofa to make sure she was fine, met her after therapy sessions. One afternoon after she returned to work, he had brought her a little PetHaven box with holes in it and inside a blue budgie with a white face to replace poor slaughtered Polly.

She'd called the bird Robbie after him.

Why did the woman still scream? It was over, it was over. She'd never forget the names, for Heidi Conington was dead. And Jocelyn Bart, and little Amanda Hsin. They were dead—she was alive.

A door slammed. Alex's eyes popped open and this time, she could see. A small figure stood within the doorway, a witness to the ravaged bed, the sheets and blankets thrown down with her thrashing. "Mama, Mama, what's wrong? Why are you screaming?” In a moment, Olivia was in her arms, warm and solid and smelling of oatmeal-and-almond soap.

"Mom?" Randall said from the doorway, and Alex could hear him breathing hard.

"Come here, sweetie," and he ran to her, perching on Bobby's side of the bed. She hugged him back, blinking back tears.

"I’m sorry," she breathed finally. "I must have been having a nightmare."

Olivia's eyes opened wide. "But it's Papa who has the nightmares."

"Mr. G...I mean Dad...has nightmares?" Randall said disbelievingly.

"Yes," Olivia told him with importance. "From an undercover detail he was on a long time ago. They–"

"That's a story for another time," interrupted Alex hastily. "Thank you for coming to check on me."

"You do it for us."

They were distracted by a plaintive whine and discovered Sam silhouetted in the doorway, his plumed tail waving tentatively. He came to the foot of the bed, laying his big head at Alex's feet, his tongue gently swiping her toe.

"Everything's all right, Sam," Alex said, reaching out to stroke the oversized tricolor collie's head.

"What was the nightmare about?" asked Olivia.

"If it gave me a nightmare, I'm not telling you about it in the middle of the night," Alex objected.

"But if you told us what it was about, we might help you figure out why you dreamed it," Randall said practically. "That's what Dad would do."

"I know. But I'm not about to play 'analyze Mom's dream' in the dead of night. You two still have school tomorrow."

"When will Papa be home?" demanded Olivia. "Then you can tell him–"

"To bed, little sleuths," Alex requested. "Now."

She was rewarded with two pairs of rolled eyes as she kissed each child and they turned away toward their respective rooms. Sam remained with her, and she was just about to tell him to go back to the parlor where he usually slept under Bandit's birdcage, but Olivia pivoted and coaxed, "Keep him with you, Mama. Maybe you had the nightmare because you miss Papa."

"He's been away before."

"But not since we moved. We were closer together then. Maybe because the house is bigger..."

"I will, then. Good night, Min."

Alex patted the bed, and Sam obligingly jumped up beside her.

"Well, Mr. Sam, if you don't mind I'll read awhile," and she propped herself on a pillow and picked up one of the Taber books she still kept on her bedside table out of sheer sentimentality. As usual, the bucolic tales of Stillmeadow made her drowsy, and she laid the book aside, turned out the light, and rolled over in bed, Sam like a big furry body pillow next to her.

She was in a dusty basement room, cluttered with excised furniture and junk. A bloodstained block and tackle hung from the ceiling in front of her, swaying to and fro like a metronome. The air was stifling, and she gasped.

About 20 feet from her, a woman was seated in an old office chair, her back to Alex. Her blonde hair made a neat cap on her head and she seemed to be moving an object in front of her.

What was that scent? Was it...

The woman turned. Jo Gage.

"Jo's gone," Alex's subconscious told her firmly. "She's been dead for nine years."

"Hello, Eames," Jo said with her crooked smile.

The thing she had been moving out of sight was evident now, a sharpened pinking shears. Alex swallowed, bile rising in her throat.

"Cat got your tongue?" Jo asked brightly, then made the scissors snick. "Of course, I can take it for you. After all, I made mine go away."

Alex backed up, casting her eyes around for a weapon. But Jo made no move to hurt her, and Alex asked, "How did you know?"

"Know what, Detective Eames?"

Alex remembered what Dec had told them nearly three Decembers ago. "That your father had lost Bobby to me. Your father said–"

"Did he?" Jo asked, looking pensive, her head cocked almost as Bobby's did. "How funny. I didn't think he had listened. As for you and Bobby, a dead woman could have seen it..."

Alex awoke abruptly, finding Stillmeadow Seasons tumbled in her lap. Sam raised his head as she gasped, then lifted his nose and nudged her hand.

Why this? Why now? She'd had other close calls at Major Case, although none so dramatically personal. Not to mention that face-off with the Albanian mob while she worked in Homeland Security, staring into the barrel of a sniper's rifle as their FBI liaison negotiated for her life. Sleep had been difficult for a few months after that.

Why this ghost, why now?

"Last night Mama woke up screaming."

Bobby looked again at the text Olivia had hastily sent before she ran downstairs for breakfast, swaying with indecision. He'd worked hard on his tolerance of diplomacy since his Major Case days and could even look back on some incidents of "not playing the game" and realize how difficult he'd made it for himself and, by extension, for Alex. The lectures, like his tenure as The Wizard, had become familiar and fond. He saw recurring faces yesterday, agents who'd been to his first session and returned for a refresher. Surely those weren't in danger of budget cuts.

Still, it was advisable to keep in good graces with the Powers That Be, especially in this election year.

"I'll be home soon. You and Randall look after her, okay?" he'd responded.

He'd do breakfast with Hedlund and Briond, but Marc's promised driver had better be ready when he finished the last of his orange juice.

Alex pulled up to the spot designated each morning without fail by Sister Mark Anthony. Her head felt cottony and her ears were ringing, and, even though she had slapped on some makeup to cover her lack of sleep, she fancied even tall, rangy Sister "Marksy" could tell she had a restless night, judging by the sympathetic smile on her face.

"You ought to go back to bed, Mama," Olivia advised solicitously as she hefted her backpack out the right rear door.

"Maybe after I clean up..."

"Let the dishes soak," Randall told her as he exited the left side of the Pilot. "Livia and I will clean up when we get home. I did it for my mother lots of times when she wasn't...well."

Not well? Alex considered muzzily. More like in shock after discovering her husband dealt drugs rather than worked on Wall Street.

"We have a dishwasher!" Olivia reminded in a high treble.

And Sister let Randall get away with stopping to kiss her, although the rule was a stringent "All farewells before dropoff."

Did even Sister Mark Anthony think she looked that bad? She sat up as she pulled away, caught her reflection in the rear-view mirror, and decided that maybe all three were correct.

She was glad for a direct drive home after several weeks of road repair following the damage from heavy rains in August; the county and the state were doing additional repairs, but detours were fewer now. She was so sleepy she almost overshot the driveway and headed automatically to 4 Courant, and something inside her still mourned the loss of the smaller house. Had Olivia been correct last night? Could this be a delayed reaction to the move?

Once she parked the car, the feeling of dislocation passed, but although the morning drive to St. Gregory's Academy had been routine for a year now, the fact that the sun had barely risen less than a half hour ago—she'd be happier when Daylight Saving Time would be over and mornings would be brighter!—was throwing her off. The backyard was still dark and shadowy from the oaks and maples, the sun porch was dim and chill although temps would be in the low 70s by afternoon, and the kitchen was the only bright spot since she'd run out without shutting off the overhead light.

She opened the dishwasher and haphazardly arranged the breakfast dishes and utensils, oatmeal pan, and egg fry pan inside, leaving the table untidy. It was odd: even the house felt shadowy today, although she snapped on lights at every step, as if the walls had absorbed her bad dreams. The minute shaft of light coming through the clerestory window over the front door created a shadow that resembled the sharp blade of a pair of scissors.

My God, she thought exasperatedly, I'm so tired my brain's working all those Halloween film ads overtime. A local movie station was having a "Monsterfest" for Halloween week and had advertised nonstop through October, clips of men in twisted masks, bloodstained and trembling hands wielding daggers dripping more blood, and of course, women keening in terror with hands over their mouths and eyes stupefied in horror.

She paused to peek in the library to breathe in the aroma of books she associated with Bobby. That's all it is, she told herself firmly, taking comfort in the library scent, those terrible horror movie ads nonstop together with the equally terrifying election ads, each mounting accusation upon accusation, and not sleeping last night.

She paused downstairs one final time to spend ten minutes with Bandit, chilling out by scratching him under his chin and telling him all about her nightmare of being captive. Finally, she kissed his fluffy head, returned him to his cage, and promised to be back later, then trudged up the stairs to the spare bedroom to her computer. No matter how tired she was, she had to check in with her BLE e-mail and make sure nothing vital was pending.

She sent the PA a message that she was under the weather, sent two other e-mails assuring the recipients she would respond to them later, and thanked God that Lawrence Wilmot was in the Bahamas, then wandered into the bedroom.

Discarding her shoes, she stretched out on the unmade bed and was almost immediately asleep.

She was looking through a plate-glass window at Declan Gage.

Alex knew she was dreaming because this was not part of her own experience. She allowed herself to drift within it because Bobby was visible through the mirror, his eyes as tortured as she had ever seen them.

Following Jo's arrest and Ray Wiznesky's suicide after holding Bobby at gunpoint, he had been unusually unsettled. One night after a long bout of paperwork, Alex asked if he’d join her for a drink, hoping to shake away his blues. Instead, he'd imbibed considerably more than one, and in his inebriated and remorseful state, had rambled on about how he had failed her and failed Jo—"She was just a kid, y'know, when I met her, taking her dad away from her," to which Alex restrained herself from protesting, "You were barely more than a kid yourself, Bobby"—and then proceeded to tell her in minute detail about his accusations to Declan Gage.

In her dream, courtesy of a vivid description from a tipsy profiler who had nursed his final glass of whiskey, through the window Gage looked rightly astonished, "Bobby, everything I've taught you about profiling, everything you know about me at all, says it can't be me."

"That's why it could be you." And Bobby Goren had burst from his chair like an avenging god and pinned his formerly beloved mentor against a wall, bellowing, "I'm tired of it! Where is she?"

(She knew this was not a drunken exaggeration on his part. When Alex returned to work, several people had taken her aside—a few with scornful relish, like Patrice MacMillan—and confided in her about Bobby's rage and fear. She was worried Ross would lecture her or perhaps suggest it was time for them both to have new partners, but the strong-minded new captain was strangely silent on the issue.)

But in this nightmare, Bobby kept beating Gage's head against the wall until there was blood, and Bobby's hands were drenched in it, and he was repeating through his teeth, "Where is she? Where is she?"

She woke from her nap covered in sweat, gasping and protesting, "No! Bobby, stop! You're not like him, you're not Brady!"

This was a new wrinkle in the disturbing dreams, her concatenation of two events: Bobby's story of her kidnapping and the aftermath of Frances Goren's death and serial killer Mark Ford Brady's execution. After Frances' funeral, callers had stopped by Bobby's apartment, bringing him food, flowers, and condolences. Alex and his buddy Lewis the "car crazy" one, had swept through the house before visitors arrived, putting things away or undercover, sweeping the floor, and removing the trash. Even Bobby had blinked at how tidy they'd managed to make things look after weeks of neglect while he was at Carmel Ridge on deathwatch, and had given them both a grateful look.

Lewis was the penultimate departure, with only Alex remaining. And then she, too, rose to leave. "Bobby, you'll call me if you need anything?"

He'd smiled wanly at her. "Thank you, Alex." The use of her first name suddenly made her eyes fill.

"I mean it, Bobby," she'd said gently, recalling her mother's stroke. "I've been through this. It's hard."

Awkwardly, she'd put her arms around him and was surprised when he embraced her back.

"Eames...will you stay a little longer?"

"Of course," she said, remembering his vigil at her bedside.

They sat opposite one another in Bobby's tiny living room, a space now more crowded with stacked cardboard cartons of his mother's things removed from her room. On top of one box, Frances Goren's photo albums lay askew. Alex ran her fingers over them, then asked, "May I?"

Bobby nodded silently from his seat on the sofa, and she picked up two of the albums and joined him there.

She happened to open the album he had been paging through on the day he realized that Brady was almost certainly his biological father, the one with the telltale photo of his mother that had matched a different one in Brady's infamous souvenir album.

"Your mom was on top of the trends, huh?" Alex asked simply, tapping the photo of her in a herringbone tweed skirt and matching pillbox hat. "This is a very 60s outfit."

He smiled crookedly. "Mom said Jackie had one just like it."

"What's your favorite story about your mom?" she asked, and with a wan smile he had begun to speak...

Alex woke sprawled on the bed and decided she wouldn't go back to sleep. Instead, she took Stillmeadow Seasons, padded downstairs to make herself coffee, then joined Bandit in the back parlor. He flew around the room twice, then perched on her head; she transferred him to her shoulder and settled back in the sofa, reaching for the television remote. She wanted comfort programming to play in the background and ended up on one of the live channel services, where an old Bob Ross painting show turned out to be sufficiently soothing.

She was not more than four pages into her book when Bandit decided her attention had been diverted too long. He hopped from her shoulder and perched at the top of the book, industriously gnawing page 75. Alex replaced him on her shoulder, but in a minute, the bird had returned to the book to begin again, and she left him alone. He eventually got bored and fluttered into the hollow made by the top of her breasts and snuggled there.

Sam, who had ambled in soon after she took her seat, lay quietly at her feet. Eventually, the painter's tranquil voice diverted her from the printed word and her head tilted against the sofa.

The pain. Her shoulder muscles felt stripped from her bones. Till the day she died, she would never forget that pain; it would rank up there with her nephew Eddie's birth and the time she had been shot in the upper arm leading a bust on a suspected terrorist cell and one of the perps had hit her with a .38 slug.

She couldn't see, her mouth was stuffed with cloth and tape held it fast. This time, she would die.

The cold blade of the scissors was on her cheek. This time the gag wouldn't come off, no one, not the man with the dog, not Bobby, not the saint she was irrationally praying to, would hear.

Through the gag, she tried to cry out nevertheless.

Bandit vacated his place of safety with a startled scold when she shouted, flying back to his cage with feathers fearfully slicked against his tiny body. Sam whimpered.

Bobby said, "Alex!" and her book thumped when it struck the floor. He had her in his arms...warm...safe...home.

Alex finally gave in and cried.

"What's set this off?" she fretted later as they cuddled on the sofa.

"It could be anything," he said, his chin resting on his fist, eyes surveying her anxiously. "It could be an incident you don't even recall. I remember being terribly lonely for my mother one day in Albany and finally having to hide out in a stall in the men's room so no one would see the tears. Then I remembered I'd walked past the ballet school that morning. It was summer, the windows were open, and the students were practicing Swan Lake. They'd been playing "Waltz of the Flowers," one of my mother's favorite pieces of music. Auditory and olfactory memory triggers are common. Sometimes it's as simple as that."

"I'll discuss it with Dr. Chaudry tomorrow morning," she said reluctantly. She reached out and brushed fingers down his cheek. "I didn't expect you home this early."

"When my daughter sends me a scared little text that says 'Mama screamed last night,' I get hustling."

"That little monkey," Alex sighed. "She narked on me, huh? I'm glad. But what about your meeting?"

"It went fine; apparently Ronni Heller and Carl Rigman have been talking me up at headquarters and they wanted to see what was true. I was right about their ploy: planned recruitment. I was civil. I told them my family was happy where we were and I couldn't consider uprooting any one of them. And then I had Marc hustle my driver and get me home. We probably broke a couple of speed records on the Mass Pike."

"Not to mention that we'd have to give up Randall if we set foot permanently out of Connecticut."

"That most of all." He continued after a pause, "Alex, tell me about yesterday. The tiniest detail."

"O Mr. Profiler, you aren't–"

"Maybe we can figure it out together. If we could work out the why, it might stop the nightmares."

"You've thoroughly indoctrinated Randall. He said the same thing yesterday." Alex sighed and leaned against him. He had taken an Uber to New Haven early that morning for the train, so she began with the alarm. As if giving a deposition, she tried to mention every detail of their usual routine, even an inconsequential remark Olivia or Randall had made, the traffic—"Andy Berkowitz must have been late for work, because he zoomed out of Sycamore practically on two wheels!"—and even an annoying stop-and-go driver just before the Southbury town line. She'd dropped each child off at each school (Carlos at Pomperaug, then Ana at Rochbeau, finally their own, asking after Olivia's lay teacher who'd been out sick), coming home, cleaning after breakfast, her morning run (Alvin Danielson said hello, Mrs. Nowicki on the other side of the pond was in the hospital, she'd passed TJ Gomes on his run during her return leg), upstairs to her BLE work, then the quick trip to the IGA delayed due to Bobby's call. The supermarket had been crowded with shoppers loading up on Halloween candy and ordinarily she wouldn't have stayed, except they had run out of teriyaki sauce and paper towels.

"There was an elderly lady," she chuckled. "Looked like the Ancient Mariner, and cussed like one of his sailors. I supposed I couldn't blame her; she was in one of the store's electric scooters, and a snail could have outdragged her." Bobby laughed. "The IGA already put out in-aisle displays for Christmas and Thanksgiving, and I was blocked, stuck behind her while she decided which brand of paper towel was cheapest. Then I picked up the kids and ordered pizza for supper. The children told me about their day. We watched Star Trek as usual—the Roman one, with the 'sun' worshipers—and then Randall and I watched Monk and Olivia was reading the "H" volume of the World Book until bedtime."

She was breathing heavily as her eyes took in an endless hallway.

It resembled the place where she had been imprisoned, old chairs, tables, and assorted junk forming an obstacle course along the walls...except this hallway stretched into infinity, bare bulbs overhead illuminating a long passageway lined with doors.

One might lead her out! She darted to the closest door and frantically tugged it open to find a brick wall. The next door revealed a shallow closet. When she threw open the third, a giant pair of pinking shears thrust out of unfathomable blackness and she staggered backward.

Jo Gage emerged from the darkness. "Your turn!" she smiled, snicking the blades at her.

Alex shouted in defiance, "No!"

Then she was awake, upright in bed, as was Bobby.

"This sucks," she said as she caught her breath. "I'm sorry. I thought having fun at trivia tonight would normalize everything."

"How many bad nights have you nursed me through?" he responded, curving his arm around her. "Were you trussed up again?"

"No, I'd freed myself, but the basement...where they found me—instead of what you saw, it was one long corridor lined with doors like Let's Make a Deal on steroids. Jo was behind the third door with the pinking shears. She said I was next, and I told her no."

"Then you've progressed. You're fighting back." He looked thoughtful. "Whatever triggered this was based on strong emotion. Alex, you're happy...doing the BLE work?"

"What?"

"You're pretty vocal about Larry Wilmot, but is the work upsetting you in another way?"

"You think it's my work? There's no threat in it, just aggravation occasionally. It's a job, Bobby. I take the good with the bad, like you and the brass at breakfast yesterday."

"Maybe..." and she could hear self-doubt creep into his voice, "maybe things have happened too quickly?"

"What's happened too quickly?" she responded quizzically.

"Within three years, you've accumulated an 'acquired taste' husband, two active children, a big dog who always seems to be in the same place you want to be, and a crazy budgerigar. Not to mention an 'adopted' sister-in-law, a bunch of kids, and a woman who loves you because you prune the bittersweet."

She caught the half-jesting, half-sober tones and replied with faux indignation, "That's absolutely untrue, Robert Goren. Bandit is not crazy!" and he chuckled deep in his throat. Then she added softly, "I'm here because I wanted to be, because it makes me happy, even school mornings."

"Want to spoon?" he asked, pressing his nose against her hair.

"Going to protect me from the big bad dream?" she asked cynically.

"I know you can care for yourself," he said gently. "I'm here to support, not to rescue."

"Spooning helped slightly," she admitted to Dr. Chaudry the next morning, "but I still ended up kicking my way out of his arms about five o'clock. Bobby has a bruise on his right leg where I slammed him with the heel of my foot."

"But Robert's correct. You're progressing. On Monday you were trapped, by Tuesday you were fighting back. It's almost as if you have to see the progression through."

"I'd rather figure out what the trigger was," Alex responded crossly. "I hate this. I don't do this."

"Not even after the original event?" her therapist asked shrewdly.

"Then I had an excuse." She rubbed her eyes at the memory. She'd slept only with the help of sleeping pills for several weeks before forcibly weaning herself, and the dreams had been vivid, with not just sight but the sharp smell of death and the shrill screams of pain and begging for mercy, and even the metallic taste of blood. She scowled. "It's not just the dreams. Since Monday everything...puts me on alert. Strange sounds make me jump. I see shadows in the shapes of scissor blades. And they don't just hang over me. They're over my kids. Over Bobby. Even over Sam and Bandit. I hate it. It needs to end."

She set her lips stubbornly, put her chin up, and presented a confident face to Dr. Chaudry. "We have Big Brothers this afternoon and I hope talking with the kids will put all this morbid crap behind me."

"Perhaps it will."

Alex had seen Bobby blindside suspects for years. He would build a rapport with them, convince them of his friendship, then, like the swift swish of a pair of shears, pull the rug out from under them.

He could not, however, fool her.

Nevertheless, she played along on Wednesday as he subtly guided her, cutting his session with Dr. Chaudry short to ask her if she wanted lunch at Miller's Diner. The Oxford area had been hard-hit by flooding in August and the diner had sustained minor damage, but had just reopened. They had caught up with Celeste, Ruben, and Bobby's other friends, dining on juicy hamburgers and crisp fries before heading back to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, arriving just as the children poured in from early release day. Most were persuaded to sit and work on homework for an hour, and then Bobby and Russ Jenkins herded the boys to the basketball court to release excess energy. Except for Melora, who plunged into the game with gusto, the girls preferred to sit in the bleachers and chat, Carmelita crocheting another baby blanket, Ruby and the others swooning over the latest hot new hip-hop star.

All her suspicions were confirmed when Bobby cooked her favorite braised pork chops in applesauce for dinner and then proposed schlocky horror films for the eve of Halloween. He'd found an old television movie called Midnight Offerings online, and they had fun watching the overwrought story of teenage girl witches, one bad, one good. Olivia said the evil girl reminded her of Madame.

Bobby hazarded as they prepared for bed, "How was your day, Captain Eames? Did it hit some positive notes?"

"It was a symphony, Agent Goren. We'll see what happens."

The pain had dimmed. She felt heavy, yet as if she was floating horizontally. She could smell antiseptic soap, alcohol, latex.

"Hospital," she croaked.

"Eames?" Bobby's head, lowered over yet another of his thick books—something related to psychology or crime, she knew automatically—lifted, his somber eyes brightening when he saw her heavy eyelids lift.

"You're still here," she whispered hoarsely. "You've been here..." She cast her head back and forth, looking for a clock, then huffed impatiently.

"You've been asleep awhile," he said, bookmarking his reading with a forefinger. "I've been home. I've eaten, had a shower, and slept. But I thought I'd do my research here."

"Research?" she asked faintly.

"I'm helping Logan and Wheeler with a case. Their suspect may be bipolar."

"Captain didn't assign you a temporary partner?"

Bobby ducked his head. "Captain Ross thought it more prudent for me to be a floater, helping out where I'm needed."

She'd smiled a little, and answered pertly with her voice barely audible, "What, you didn't ask for Bishop back?"

He let out a breath. "I don't think...I c-could look Bishop in the face."

"Mnnn," she said and licked her lips. The book was set down and he was out of the uncomfortable plastic bucket chair in an instant. "Here, have some water. You're dehydrated."

She eyed the multiple IV bags. "No shit, Sherlock."

The retort made him smile, but his eyes were still melancholy as he brought the straw up to her dry lips. "Slowly now."

"Yes, Mom," she sighed and sipped on the water as instructed. When she'd had enough she turned her head to the side, and he set the glass back on her tray, returning to his seat.

"Go back to the office and do that," she bade, her voice stronger. "That chair–"

"The chair's fine," he said, opening the book again. "Too quiet in the office." He tilted his head at her. "You wanna hear about the case?"

"Sure," she said.

Alex opened her eyes. She was lying on her back, reveling in the air stirred by the slowly beating ceiling fan. The curtains of the windows to the left of the bed fluttered fitfully in the night breeze. The barely-ajar bedroom door presented a misty vertical line of light from the nightlight in the hall. Beside her, Bobby lay sprawled on his right side, breathing evenly and deeply, arm coiled protectively around her stomach. All was right.

She slept once again, dreamless.

Olivia had sighed the morning of Halloween, "I really don't want to trick or treat as Trot. I play Trot twice a week."

"It's a little late to change now," Bobby observed over his oatmeal.

"Well, I have an idea," she said with a little gleam in her eye, "if Mama will let me borrow a dress and let me use her makeup."

"What kind of dress?" Alex asked dubiously, watching the child's animated face.

"A formal one, like the black one with the spaghetti straps. And maybe some of your jewelry and a scarf? It will be warm tonight, it won't hurt me to go sleeveless for an hour or two. Please?"

Bobby asided to Randall, "You know what's going on here?"

Randall sighed. "I don't 'get' girls yet, Dad, not even 'Livia." Bobby chuckled at his world-weariness.

"It's a surprise. Please? You'll be with us, and can see that I care for the frock."

Alex felt Olivia had experienced enough disappointment when Ana and Carlos chose the party over trick or treat. "All right. We may have to use a belt on it, though."

"You have ripping belts, Mama," Olivia said enthusiastically. "It will work."

Alex had left "the little black dress," a sleek silver metallic belt, a trio of bangle bracelets, and a blue and purple scarf out on Olivia's bed when the pair returned home from school. Olivia hugged her, then said apologetically, "I need the pink and green scarf instead, Mama, for this to work. Is that okay? And maybe that pretty necklace with the pink stone on it—unless that's a real peridot. I wouldn't want it lost."

"It's just costume jewelry," Alex said, amused, and brought the required items.

They ate supper early and then Randall trudged upstairs to don his Scarecrow outfit. Olivia darted outside with Sam following her, moving about in the far rear of the yard for a few minutes before bringing something inside wrapped in paper towels. Then she dashed into her bedroom only to stick her head out the door five minutes later to wail, "Mama!"

Alex, not yet changed into her Princess Ozma costume, raised twin brows at Bobby and trotted away to assist Olivia. She returned a minute later to fish out another scarf and her sun hat from the closet.

"Emergency wardrobe correction," she grinned at Bobby.

When she returned, Bobby, in black jeans and a black t-shirt under his green-lined Wizard's cape, was just positioning his broad-brimmed "authentic Maxwell Grant 'Shadow' hat" at the perfect tilt when Alex hurried back in.

"So what's the secret costume?" he asked.

"Even if I knew, I wouldn't spoil the surprise for you and Randall. I needed to pin the dress for her, and she kept a couple of spare pins for something else, and she wanted my sun hat for a 'finishing touch.'"

When Alex was fully in her Ozma outfit, with the little crown and the blue-and-silver cape, and the pale blue full-skirted dress she wore underneath with a silver belt and pale blue flats, the two of them walked arm-in-arm from their room to find Randall in his Scarecrow costume sprawled on the bench in front of the hall window, reading.

"If she doesn't hurry up," he proclaimed, "everyone will be out of candy."

"Deux secondes!" floated out from behind her bedroom door.

When she did emerge, even Randall looked impressed, because she wore Alex's knee-length dress more like a gown, prettily set off by the silver belt snug on her waist and the pink peridot pendant peeking out from under the artfully arranged bright pink-and-green scarf with a knot over her right collarbone. She had black leotards under the dress and wore her Sunday Mary Janes with stacked flannel lifts under the heels to make her slightly taller. Whether she had received coaching from Ana or had learned it from her maman, she had applied the makeup quite well, a good deal of mascara but properly worked, eye shadow, blush, and a dark pink lip gloss. She flashed an artificial smile at them.

Alex's sun hat was the final touch, for she had tucked up her hair under it, wrapped Alex's green chiffon scarf around the hatband, and pinned to the front the last of Bess Atherton's pink roses that trailed over the Gorens' back fence.

Bobby's hearty laugh brought an impish smile to her face. "You know, Min, I think if you were in France, Madame Pepin might try to sue you for defamation of character."

Alex had a hand over her mouth to smother her reaction. "Did Ana put you up to that?"

Olivia's eyes sparkled. "I thought it up during algebra. But when I told Ana she nearly fell over, and Cerise thought it was funny, too."

"Is that what your evil stepmother looked like?" Randall asked, puzzled at the hilarity.

Olivia's face hardened. "She was never my stepmother."

"Easy," Bobby cautioned. "We've never told him the whole story."

"Well," Olivia said, trotting beside Randall as they headed downstairs, "first of all she turned out to be a Nazi..."

Alex and Bobby now followed the two children at a leisurely distance as they scampered along the street, turning into the Novinos' yard, and he commented quietly, "Looks like Min is exorcising some ghosts tonight. I didn't think she'd ever laugh so easily about Evangeline Pepin."

"Clever and cheeky all at once," Alex said, amused. "The roses were an inspired–"

She stopped stock still on the sidewalk, her mouth ajar. "Oh, my God. The roses. It literally was right under my nose all along."

His eyes alight, he tilted his head quizzically. "Under your nose..."

"The older woman at the IGA. She was drowned in perfume. Except it wasn't—I know what the scent was now, an old-fashioned one that smelled like roses."

His face illuminated. "Pierre LeRitz."

"Yes. The same lotion Sebastian used and Jo copied."

"The smallest things awaken the largest memories," Bobby said regretfully. "I'm sorry, Alex."

Olivia and Randall came bouncing out of the Novinos' driveway with news of Snickers bars, at least as well as the former could bounce in her doctored Sunday shoes.

"They're canoodling again," Randall observed with raised eyebrows. "Isn't that for Valentine's Day?"

"Mama and Papa are different." Olivia regarded them thoughtfully. "But I don't think Mama will wake up screaming any longer."