*"Yeah."

"How was that?"

"Sucked. I used to think it was better than Homicide because at least my victims were still alive. But it takes a lot out of you, seeing the despair in their faces, listening to their agony, knowing some of them wished they weren't still alive."

"How'd you end up here?"

"I worked a case with Hunter. Father Michael from St. Mary's. They were going back and forth as to whether he was a victim of sexual assault or just plain murder."

"Yeah, I remember that one."

"Well, we hit it off. Stayed friends. She and Sam are great." Casey paused. "Samantha Kennedy. She's with CIU now."

"I've heard of her. She was with Assault before."

"That's right. I suppose you would have heard her name. Anyway, Malone had a spot open so I requested the transfer after a bit of prodding from Hunter." She smiled. "It just took a little while to get a partner."

"Well, I'm happy to be here. Not that Assault was bad or anything, but after six years in Homicide, Assault seems a little tame."

"Yes, I'm finding that out." Casey held the door open and Leslie preceded her inside.

"What will you tell Malone about Donaldson's case?"

"You mean, what will we tell him?"

"Throwing me to the wolves right away, are you?"

"No. But I've never had to do this before. If it was me and another detective was going over my case, I'd be pissed as hell. But I've learned that Malone is easy to talk to. He doesn't play games. Everything is out in the open."

They walked into the squad room, finding it empty. Casey went purposefully to Malone's office, motioning for her to follow.

"You didn't get to meet Donaldson and Walker, right?"

"No. But their desks are over there, right?" she asked, pointing to the far wall. "I saw them."

"Yeah." Casey tapped on the doorframe with her knuckles. "Lieutenant? Got a minute?"

16.

*"Sure, O'Connor. What's up?" He looked past Casey and smiled at her. "Need to break up the partnership already?"

Leslie shook her head, then looked at Casey, hoping she would take the lead. She did.

"Got some news from Mac. The DNA hit on the semen matches a case from about three months ago."

"That's great, O'Connor. But why the long face?"

"Cold case," she said.

"I wouldn't call a three-month-old case a cold case."

"Donaldson and Walker had the case. No leads."

"Jesus," he muttered. "And I guess Hunter flipped out over that one."

"Yes, sir."

"And you want to pull the file and take a look?"

"If we can, yes."

"May I ask why Hunter is not the one in here demanding the file?"

Casey grinned. "I was afraid she might shoot Donaldson."

He laughed and Leslie was surprised at the amount of levity in the group. First Hunter teasing with O'Connor, now the lieutenant. This was something she wasn't used to.

Not at Assault and certainly not in Fort Worth.

"Okay, pull the file. Do what you need to do. I'll let Donaldson know what's going on."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Casey took her arm and led her back into the squad room.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Chapter Five.

Leslie unlocked the door to their apartment and went inside, hearing the TV blaring a baseball game. She sighed. Just once she'd like to come home without there being a game on, without ESPN on, or without one of Michael's buddies over competing in a video game. Just once.

"I'm home," she called as she walked into the empty living room and on to their bedroom. She paused at the door to the spare room, knocking loudly. "I'm home," she said again.

17.

*The volume was muted and a door flung open as Michael rushed out into the hallway and gave her a bear hug, picking her up and twirling her around.

"And how was your first day on the job?"

She laughed. "Please put me down." He did. "It was fine. I came aboard in the middle of a case, so I'm kinda lost." She leaned closer for a kiss. "And the neighbors hate you. You can practically hear the TV in the parking lot."

"Sorry. Got carried away." He turned to go back to his game, then stopped. "Plans for dinner?" he asked.

"No."

"Good. Jeff has invited us up for pizza. We've got a friendly wager on the Rangers game. You know what a big Yankees fan he is."

"Pizza, huh? Well, you know what, why don't you go without me? I've got a case file to read through."

"You don't mind?"

"No, of course not."

A part of her knew she should mind, of course. Jeff was his best friend. He also lived one floor above them. And on the third floor lived Miles and Russell. The four of them had been buddies since college. The problem was, they all thought they were still in college. At least Jeff dated occasionally. Miles and Russell never dated. But they had season tickets to every professional sports team in the Metroplex. And more times than not, Jeff and Michael were their dates.

She kept thinking it would change. When they started dating seriously, she thought Michael would stop spending so much time with them. Then, when they moved in together, she assumed he would stay home more. She now knew even if they got married, it wouldn't change. Not unless they moved into a house in a remote neighborhood. And so far Michael had balked at that suggestion.

And she, in turn, balked at setting a wedding date.

Casey sat on her deck overlooking White Rock Lake. She'd traded her water bottle for a glass of wine, which had turned into two. It was the deck. She found she could sit out here for hours, just staring at the water, her mind drifting. Even though it was nearly September and the days were still as hot as mid-summer, the evenings turned cooler, chasing the humidity away, hinting at what fall would feel like.

She'd only lived here six months, but it felt like home. The lake was small and surrounded by the city, but it was as peaceful as you could get within the city limits.

And it was convenient. Tori and Sam lived just on the other side of the lake, making it hard for her to say no when Sam invited her for dinner. Which was often.

18.

*She smiled and sipped her wine, thinking how much her life had changed since she'd met Tori. As she'd told Tori once, she had a lot of friends, a lot of buddies on the force who she could grab a beer with or a quick dinner. But she didn't have a really close friend, and she certainly didn't have a lover to come home to every night. Well, one of those things had changed. Tori had become that close friend she'd craved.

They escaped often for a beer after work, just to talk, just to share things. Sam didn't mind their friendship. In fact, she encouraged it. And Tori had finally told her about her family and their murders. Casey had wept with her as Tori recounted that night all those years ago. And Casey had finally told Tori about how her brother had forbidden her to see his kids, forbid her to contact them. She leaned her head back, looking into the sky, remembering that day so well. Her niece was a tomboy, just like Aunt Casey.

Her niece wanted to be a cop, just like Aunt Casey. And her niece never wanted to get married, just like Aunt Casey. That had been the breaking point. Casey was a bad influence, so her brother had a talk with her. Don't come around anymore, he'd said.

Don't call. You're not needed here.

Damn, that had hurt. Her niece was all of twelve years old. She didn't understand.

Hell, Casey didn't understand. So she reached out to her grandfather, hoping he could talk some sense into her brother. No. He'd agreed with him. None of them wanted Erica to turn out like Casey. They all had big plans for Erica. Doctor or lawyer, anything but a lowly cop. Anything but a lesbian cop. And so she'd faded away from the family. Even her mother, she lost touch with too. Of course, her mother had been ostracized from the family years before. A bitter divorce will do that. Her father's death hadn't helped ease the strain between her mother and her brother.

That was seven years ago. Her grandfather's death and funeral had come and gone, all without Casey. Oh, she'd tried. But her brother had said a firm no, she was not wanted there. And her niece's high school graduation had just come and gone. For that, she had made no attempt to go, to contact Erica. It had been too many years.

So she made up for her lack of a family by being a friend to everyone and surrounding herself with lots of people. And for the most part, she was happy. She dated some.

Not a lot. Dating took time. But she wasn't lonely. Not really. All she had to do was pick up the phone. Which she'd been doing less and less of lately. As much as she enjoyed being around Tori and Sam, it made her realize how superficial the relationships in her life were. What Tori and Sam had was something Casey longed to emulate. That special someone, that one person who loved you without doubt, without cause. That's what she wanted in her life. And so she'd stopped most of the meaningless one-night stands. If she were simply craving a physical release, she could get that all by herself. The last time she'd slept with someone without worrying about tomorrow had been when Marissa Goddard had buzzed in and out of town in a week's time. And while the sex had been good-great, in fact-it was still just a meaningless act once it was all said and done.

So for now, she was content sitting on her deck, watching the water and the twinkling of lights that surrounded the lake. For now, she had her career. And she had two really good friends in Tori and Sam. For now, that was enough.

Chapter Six.

19.

*Leslie sat quietly at her desk watching Casey watch Tori. Tori was reading through Donaldson's file. She and Casey had gone over it yesterday, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Every lead was followed up on. Interviews were documented. All possible angles were covered. And as Casey had warned her then, Tori was going to be pissed.

She flinched as Tori slammed the file closed. "Goddamn."

Casey flicked her gaze to Leslie, then back to Tori. "Told you. It's clean."

"Okay. So I jumped to the wrong conclusion. No harm, no foul."

"No, no. You owe him an apology."

Tori's eyes narrowed. "The hell I do."

"You know you do. You might as well get it over with."

"Kiss my ass, O'Connor."

Casey laughed, glancing quickly at Leslie and winking. And she couldn't help it. She found herself grinning back, not really knowing what was so amusing. She apparently had a lot to learn about her new team.

"Just having a little fun, Hunter." She pointed at Leslie. "Tell Tori what you found, Les."

Tori looked at her expectantly. Leslie pulled up the screen where she'd put her notes, her mind still reeling from Casey's shortening of her name. She hadn't been called Les since college. "I went back to the first murder, just to crosscheck the apartment to see if any nine-one-one calls were made from there. Not her apartment, no. But the complex, yes. Two days before the murder, a call came in reporting a Peeping Tom.

So I widened the search. In the three weeks before the murder, nine Peeping Tom calls came in from a four-block radius. After the murder, none." She paused, seeing the thoughtful expression on Tori's face. "Then I checked our current victim. Same thing. Two calls from her complex came in for Peeping Toms. In all, seven calls in three weeks in a four-block radius. Again, none since." She shrugged. "Of course, it's only been three days."

Tori nodded. "Good work, Tucker." She turned in her chair, looking at Casey. "What do you think?"

"Our guy gets off watching them. And that's enough for awhile. Then he wants to get closer. By now, he knows who lives alone, knows their routine."

"But neither place had forced entry," Tori reminded her.

"Maybe it's someone they were familiar with. A delivery guy," Leslie suggested.