Cold and numb, he sat on the wet sand and cradled the precious burden in his arms as he waited for a sunrise that never came. Night faded to long shadows then receded to a palette of paler grays, until he saw the beach separate from the curling tongues of lapping waves and, here and there, a brief spray of off-white foam cast relief against the dark water. Along the shoreline small imperfections of driftwood and debris took form and substance in the misty dawn, proof that the endless night was over although only a shroud of muslin fog had replaced its blanket of darkness.

He watched in fascination as the mist cleared enough to show a stream of fireflies as they flowed across the bay in two uniform processions of blinking, orange lights and it slowly occurred to him that they weren’t insects but rather the distant cocoons of cars crossing over the still indistinct bridge. He shook his head and laughed, the sound a bitter groan from his frozen chest, and still he couldn’t dispel the crazy image of insects flying hand-in hand like tiny pallbearers. 

“Come on, Tom. We’re partners. You’ve gotta follow me. Who else is gonna cover my back?”

“I know,” he agreed and, although the words were little more than tortured grunts from the blackened skin of his ligature burned throat, Harry rewarded him with a wry grin.

“Really did a number on us, huh, Partner?”

“Yeah,” Tom agreed, pushing an errant strand of salt-drenched hair out of Harry’s face. “You told me you could swim, you bastard.”

“Funny,” Harry snorted. “So you gonna sit there all day, or what?”

Tom sighed and stared over the misty water. “Just waiting a bit longer.”

“Oh,” Harry said, his eyes confused. Then he shrugged slightly “Okay, whatever.”

“It’s gonna be light soon.”

Harry nodded, his lower lip trembling a little. “Wish we had some clothes,” he whispered.

Tom flinched and nodded. “Bastards.”

“Yeah…um…Tom?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

A frown formed between Tom’s eyebrows. “Thanks?”

“You know, for getting me out of the water. Least this way my folks…well, you know.” 

“Yeah,” Tom admitted, with a soft sigh that faded into the morning breeze.

“So you coming, or what?”

Tom smiled softly at his partner. “Soon,” he assured him. “Soon, Harry.”

In the distance he could hear the vague muffled voices of the searchers, interspersed occasionally by the higher pitched yelp of dogs. Some part of him understood that he should call out his presence and accept the hope of rescue, yet that small kernel of desire for warmth and light was too deeply swathed in layers of shame to find voice.

What was he supposed to say? Oops, dad, you know how I’m always losing my car keys? Well, last night I decided to lose my partner instead. We should have called for backup, but we didn’t and we blundered into something really big and now Harry’s neck is broken and I’m so high on pain and hypothermia that I’m sitting here talking to his ghost.

Harry was right.

It was too late. Death had already found him too, had wrapped his limbs in rigor mortis, had bled the life from his body into the soft grit of the sand, had drained the warmth from his skin until he was as frigid as the corpse embraced within his arms. He was just sitting vigil, a pale frozen ghost guarding the body of his partner, an unsubstantial wraith that would surely fade away the moment he was captured by a searchlight.

He was too tired to fear that dissolution. The pain of his injuries had blurred into chilled numbness and now his emotions were burrowing into that same peaceful oblivion.

There was nothing now except the lapping of the waves and the far-off dancing of the fireflies and the wry-grinned specter of Harry beckoning him to follow. 

~#~#~#~

Sand and beige, the hotel’s spacious bar’s cool atmosphere was shattered by occupation. The majesty of its vast marbled columns and sprawled luxurious easy chairs seemed marred by the cacophony of piercing multi-lingual voices. It was a place that seemed ageless and eternal, while its transient guests seemed as unwelcome as cockroaches scuttling over its pristine marble floor.

Or, perhaps, Ollie admitted to himself bitterly, it was just himself who felt so awed and out of place as he sat there, perched on his bar stool like a garden gnome who’d temporarily replaced his fishing rod with a Bloody Mary.

He certainly clashed with the smooth, flawless lines of the décor. He was sure that was the only reason any of the other guests even noticed his presence. Ollie Dashwood had no illusions that there would be any other reason someone would give him a second glance. He was living proof of the fallacy that women were as attracted to intelligence as they were to looks.

Forty-seven years of life as a myopic, five-foot-two, overweight genius had taught him that the only asset he had that might interest a member of the opposite sex was the substantial bulge in his wallet rather than that which he concealed in his pants. Which was ironic, in his opinion, since the God that had deprived him of height had found it amusing to compensate more than adequately in other departments. 

Sometimes it occurred to him that if he could just find the courage to walk into the middle of a department store and whip his dick out for general adulation he might find himself the recipient of a worshipful crowd clamoring for his attention. Since he never had, the only women who had been blessed by the benediction of his considerable asset had been paid by the hour.

Which was why, despite his designer suit, GQ haircut and five thousand dollars worth of dental perfection, he knew that the haughty blonde was a hooker the moment that she slid onto the next bar stool and gave him a cool, sideways glance.

He gave her credit for the way she played the game. It was a classy hotel and she had the right clothes and moves to carry off her brief hesitation at his cautious offer to buy her a drink. He particularly appreciated the slim black briefcase that she nestled on her lap like a pet poodle, her hands occasionally stroking the fine leather as though to validate her claim that she was a business woman in town for an important meeting.

Her whole act was as cool and emotionless as the fine-boned perfection of her face and she was so obviously unhurried in her seduction, lingering over several drinks, that it soon became plain to Ollie that she was only interested in catching a single, well-endowed client for that night.

He liked that. He hated the whores who were in a hurry. This one, at least, would spend the whole night and allow him the illusion that their meeting was more than a simple financial transaction.

It was too much to hope that she would be perfect. The type of woman he preferred didn’t haunt bars for their customers. They lurked like spiders inside their own lairs and forced their clients to crawl willingly into their webs. 

But she looked perfect and, for an unexpected one-night-stand, that would perhaps be enough.

She even had too much class to discuss price with him in the bar. The moment he gulped the last mouthful of his last drink and opened his mouth to speak, she pressed two fingers to his mouth to shush him.

“Let’s find somewhere more comfortable, shall we?” she said, and if her smile wasn’t reflected in the cold depths of her blue eyes he was too distracted by the slide of silk over her substantial breasts to care.

“I have a suite,” he blurted. “We could have another drink there, if you’d like.”

“I think you’ve drunk enough,” she said, unfurling herself off the barstool and glaring down at him. “In fact, I think you’ve been a very naughty boy tonight, don’t you?”

Heat pooled in his groin and he wondered exactly tools of her trade she might be carrying in her briefcase. Her cool, mocking smile reassured him that it was something he’d like.

“Give me your room key.”

Ollie bit his lip at the snapped command, handing over the keycard with a muted whimper of excitement. It took all his self-control not to say “Yes, mistress,” aloud in the public bar. 

In her high-heels she was so much taller than him that he felt like an errant schoolboy trailing in her wake as she strode towards the lobby. A very fat schoolboy scurrying after a tall, stern blonde mistress.

He decided that she was perfect after all.

~#~#~#~

New York, New York. So good they named it twice.

::Yeah, right::

Tom hoisted his knap-sack higher over his aching shoulder and stared with ill-disguised disgust at the crumbling red-stone exterior of the precinct house until the impatient bustling of passers-by forced him to mount the steps and walk inside.

::Shit::

The foyer was more chaotic than the street he’d left behind. The room was filled with screaming whores, sullen teens, a couple of blood-splattered drunks and someone curled up on the floor in one corner in a puddle of vomit. Tom wasn’t sure whether the huddled body was a homeless guy sleeping in the station or a corpse. At the desk a couple of burly uniforms had some crack-head pinned against the wall while a third cop performed a public strip-search.

He slammed his knap-sack down on the desk and the noise startled a bored-looking cop to belch and frown in his direction.

“What the fuck’s your problem? Join the queue.”

Tom curled his mouth into a sneer of derision, cocking his head mockingly at the bedlam that purported to be a ‘queue’. “I’m not part of the entertainment. My name’s Tom Paris.”

The cop returned his sneer, sliding his eyes up and down Tom’s body with obvious contempt. “You’re late. The Cap’n expected you two hours ago.”

“My plane got delayed. I only arrived an hour ago and I had to drop off my luggage.”

“Tell it to someone who cares, Paris.”

Tom narrowed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “You got a problem?”

“Me? Hell, no. I love having another city’s reject hoisted onto my precinct.”

Tom took a deep breath and resisted the urge to close his eyes in despair. So much for a ‘fresh start’. It was clear that the jungle drums had already passed the news of his ignominious past to his new posting. He felt sickened but unsurprised. His father had assured him that moving to the other side of America would help him leave his past behind but he’d always suspected it was simply Owen’s excuse to banish his now prodigal son.

He forced his mouth to twist back into a smirk.

“You wanna take your hand off your dick and buzz me through *Officer*?”

Gimlet eyes narrowed in distaste, the cop pressed the button that released the security door. Tom grabbed his bag and sauntered through, with a deliberately cocky swagger, into an equally chaotic open-plan precinct room. He wove his way through the sprawled desks, pretending not to notice the numerous unfriendly stares of their occupants and, unwilling to risk losing his composure by speaking to anyone, aimed at the one glass-fronted office at the rear of the room in the assumption that it had to be the Captain’s office.

He paused for a moment at the office door, reading the nameplate with relief, and knocked quietly for admittance.

“You’re late.”

Tom did a slight double take. A petite, attractive redhead had barked the gravel-voiced ‘welcome’.

“Um…I was looking for Captain Janeway,” he offered cautiously.

“You’ve found her. Glad to know your detective skills are better than your punctuality, Paris.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I’m sorry. My flight…”

Janeway interrupted his explanation with an impatient wave of her hand. “Close the door and sit down, Detective.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Captain,” she corrected, her tone firm but not sharp.

Tom slipped into the seat opposite the elegantly dressed woman and dropped his bag to the floor, feeling self-conscious and underdressed in his ratty jeans and sweatshirt. He flushed slightly under Janeway’s cool inspection, compensating for the color rising in his cheeks with an insolent smirk and a defiant crossing of his arms. Her eyes narrowed in obvious displeasure and a battle-line was drawn.

“I detest politics,” Janeway said. “I spend more time fending the political ambitions of the Mayor and the DA and every two-cent minority group in this city than I do in keeping the streets clean of scum. I spend every day kissing the asses of politicians just to get the funding to keep my guys out on the streets where they might make a difference. My operational budget got slashed in half this year. I’ve got over a dozen black and whites in the repair shop and no money to mend them. I lost four good officers in a drug deal that went bad and I was given two green rookies to replace them.

“And then, out of the blue, I got a call from the Commissioner’s office approving my request for additional funding. Suddenly the money I’d been told didn’t exist is now available. I can get my guys back out on the streets. I can get the station back to full capacity again. All I have to do in exchange for this sudden change of fortune is accept the transfer of a certain Detective Tom Paris into my precinct. A Detective that the SFPD are so keen to get rid of that they’re prepared to bribe the NYPD to accept him.”

The color drained from Tom’s face. “I didn’t know,” he whispered, his eyes stark with the pain of betrayal. He hauled himself to his feet and swayed unsteadily, too stunned to maintain his mask of indifference. “I’ll go…”

“Sit down,” she snapped and waited until Tom had sunk back into his seat before continuing in a slightly milder tone.

“I hate blackmail. I’m laying this on the line so you know exactly where I’m coming from here. Whatever anyone may think, I didn’t accept your transfer because of the pressure that came down on me from the Commissioner’s office. I didn’t accept you because of whom your father is.”

She flipped open a plain manila folder and perused it thoughtfully for a moment.

“Your record suggests that you’re a decent cop in your own right. You didn’t deserve what happened to you in San Francisco. You have a reputation for flying by the seat of your pants and disregarding authority. A rep like that makes people assume that when things go wrong you’re to blame. But I’ve read the report of what went down in that warehouse and it’s clear that what happened that night wasn’t totally your fault. You should have called for back up before entering the building, but other than that you played everything by the book. It’s easy to cast blame in hindsight, but even Internal Affairs eventually accepted that you had no way of knowing what you were walking into.”

“We were on stake-out to catch a minor league drug smuggler,” Tom agreed, his gaze distant as he stared into his own memories. “When we saw the boat pull up to the warehouse we figured we’d catch him in the act of unloading his stash. We should have called it in but…” his voice faltered.

“But?” she demanded, as though she hadn’t already read his file a dozen times.

“But we knew Rodriguez was a paranoid fuck who worked alone. He never dealt from the wharf. He’d just get the coke off the boat, into his car and he’d disappear into the city. It would go down too fast for back up to arrive. We…well we should have just called it in and trailed him.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because we might have lost him and there were two of us and one of him and…”

“And you wanted to make the bust yourself.”

“Yeah,” Tom admitted, his eyes dark with obvious self-loathing. “We wanted the glory, Captain. That’s all it was. We wanted to get the bastard ourselves.”

“But it wasn’t Rodriguez in the warehouse that night,” she pointed out, and almost flinched at Tom’s wince of remembered horror.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “We were watching that warehouse for six hours. It was locked up. Empty. No lights. Damned place looked like it had been abandoned for weeks. The boat *was* Rodriguez’s. The guy who came off it looked like Rodriguez.”

“But according to the M.E., Rodriguez was killed several hours before you apparently saw him get off that boat.”

“It was a set-up,” Tom said. “We walked into that warehouse and they were waiting for us.”

“A dozen unidentified men who had, apparently, simply sat in the dark for over six hours until they could lure you inside.”

Tom flinched visibly. “I know,” he spat. “I’ve heard it all before, Captain. No one believed me then. No one believes me now.”

Captain Janeway shrugged slightly. “In view of what happened to you and your partner, it’s understandable that you believe you were deliberately targeted, Tom, but I’ve read the report and agree with the conclusions that the IA investigation reached. You just inadvertently stumbled into a major drug deal and it was just an unfortunate co-incidence that they stole Rodriquez’s boat and took it to the warehouse you were staking out. It was dark. You were only expecting one man. You didn’t see the others disembark.”

Tom’s mouth twisted into a painful sneer. “Yeah, sure. I’ve heard it before, Captain. Twelve guys climbed out of a boat, walked up the jetty and into a door 30 meters from our car and we were too busy jerking each other off to notice.”

She frowned repressively, and shuffled the papers in his jacket. “Whatever happened, the fact remains that you made a mistake. A terrible mistake that cost your partner his life and perhaps *should* have cost you your badge. But I agree with the IA report. In view of your own injuries, it would have been cruel and pointless to punish you further for what was, after all, an act of rashness rather than deliberate defiance of protocol. Furthermore, I agree that it’s safe to assume you’ll think twice before acting impetuously again. I’m more concerned by the possibility that your experience might make you liable to back away from situations that you *should* engage in.”

“I can do my job,” Tom protested.

“Can you?” Janeway demanded, her expression oddly sympathetic despite her words. “I’d be far happier if I had a psychological report to support that. The absence of such a report from this file suggests that I wouldn’t like reading the findings.”

Tom smirked and his eyes iced over. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Cap’n. The report isn’t missing because the SFPD are hiding it. I didn’t *have* a psychological review.”

“It’s mandatory in a situation like this,” she protested.

Tom just shrugged. 

Janeway’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “Your father’s influence?” she demanded.

“I guess,” Tom agreed reluctantly.

“What the hell’s wrong with the man?” she demanded, and although her expression was furious it was obvious that her anger was directed towards Paris senior.

Which made a pleasant change, all things considered.

“I’m okay,” Tom offered, with a casual shrug.

Janeway shook her head furiously. “Anyone else would have received counseling and support. Instead, because of your father’s position, you received no counseling whatsoever? Despite the fact that the details of the ordeal you suffered became locker-room gossip?” she demanded incredulously.

“Tell me about it,” Tom sneered.

She ignored his combative attitude. “It seems to me that being your father’s son got you into this mess in the first place, so perhaps there’s a certain ironic justice in allowing your father’s influence to buy you a fresh start.”

“I don’t think there’s any such thing,” Tom replied, his tone bitter. He nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the crowded precinct room. “It appears my reputation’s already preceded me.”

The Captain stared thoughtfully at him for a moment, weighing and assessing, before shrugging slightly. “They don’t want you here,” she admitted. “But the real question is whether you have what it takes to prove everyone wrong, isn’t it?” She flipped through the file on her desk. “There was concern at the time that you were suicidal. The fact that you’re here now proves that assessment wrong. It also says in here that you’re a risk-taker with a tendency to rebel against authority but I’m trusting that you’ve learned in the worst way possible that the rulebook is there for your own protection.”

“Yes, Captain,” Tom agreed quietly.

“But, just in case you haven’t learnt that lesson, I’m pairing you with a guy who’ll kick your ass six ways from Sunday if you step out of line. He’s got a chip on his shoulder wider than the Jersey Tunnel and he’s got the rulebook so far up his ass that he farts regulations, but he’s the best cop you’ll ever have the privilege to work with. If you earn *his* respect, everyone else will follow his example.”

“And if he doesn’t like me?” Tom challenged.

Captain Janeway shrugged again. “The terms of the deal are simple, Paris. I give you a chance, I get my budget. You fuck it up, I still get my budget.” She pressed the intercom on his desk. “Tell Detective Chakotay to get his ass in here.”

A few moments later, Tom heard the door open and deliberately fixed his expression into neutrality before turning his head to get his first glimpse of Janeway’s ‘best cop’. 

“You wanted me, Cap’n?”

Tom swallowed heavily. The deep drawling voice resonated through his body and made his toes curl. Or maybe it was the bronzed skin and chiseled jaw that sent a shiver through him. Detective Chakotay was a chocolate-eyed, black-haired vision of Amerindian perfection and it wasn’t only Tom’s toes that were rising in salute.

Oh shit. That was all he needed. A hard-on for his new partner, a guy that Janeway had taken pains to present as a regulation-junkie. Tom had no doubt that if this guy Chakotay as much as suspected the lustful thoughts tumbling through his head he’d already be taking a swan-dive out of the window.

“This is Tom Paris, your new partner,” Janeway announced, her easy tone making it clear that she’d already discussed the situation with the older Detective.

Tom scrambled to his feet and thrust out his hand with a wide smile. 

There was a slight hesitation before Chakotay accepted his handshake, just enough time for Tom’s smile to become strained as he saw the dark eyes assessing him openly but then clouding opaque as Chakotay’s blunt fingers wrapped around his own finer hand with almost bone-crushing force.

Tom bit back a wince of pain and retrieved his hand, his eyes paling to wintry gray in response to Chakotay’s macho bullshit. Fine. He knew where he stood now. He’d clearly been judged and found wanting. The tingling pain in his fingers faded as swiftly as the heat fled from his previously interested groin. As Janeway had said, Tom wasn’t suicidal. Chakotay might *look* like sex on legs but he was obviously an asshole, probably a homophobic asshole, and Tom had come here to live down his reputation not get himself pounded into the ground by his new partner.

“Sorry to cut the introductions short,” Chakotay drawled, his tone holding no shade of apology. “We’ve got a jumper at 59th street, Captain. Took a head-dive out of the eighth floor of the Plaza,” Chakotay announced. 

“Another?” Janeway said, rolling her eyes. “It’s like a damned lemming convention this week.”

“Torres reckons this Vic might be the breakthrough we’ve been looking for. This one only fell eight floors. She might be able to scrape up evidence of a struggle this time.”

“Get on it,” she snapped.

“You coming, Paris?” Chakotay drawled.

Tom frowned at the slightly sarcastic rise of Chakotay’s left eyebrow, forcing himself to ignore the way it curved so sexily into the strange, wing-like tattoo that graced Chakotay’s forehead, and concentrated instead on the condescending glint in the brown eyes.

:: Coming? Not for you, big man. Nice ass. Shame about the attitude:: 

“Sure.”

“Hope you haven’t eaten breakfast,” Chakotay chuckled. “Boys on the scene say it’s a real mess already without *you* throwing up on the sidewalk.”

Tom ignored the comment, snatching his knap-sack off the floor and glaring at his new partner with dislike. “You got somewhere I can stash this?”

Chakotay grinned and led him out of the Captain’s office. 

“This is our desk,” he announced, dropping into a chair and gesturing vaguely at an overflowing file of paperwork. 

“*Our* desk?” Tom demanded, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Chakotay shrugged. “It’s too crowded in here for another desk. I figured we could share. Dump your stuff here. We need to get to the crime scene.”

“Where’s my locker?”

“Just leave your bag here for now. We’ll sort you something out later.”

Looking at Chakotay’s unyielding expression, Tom filled the blanks in for himself.

::If you haven’t already puked your guts out and run home with your tail between your legs::

Oh yeah, this was one hell of a fresh start. A precinct full of guys who didn’t want him. A Captain who’d been bribed to take him in and a new partner who was so sure he wouldn’t last the distance that he hadn’t even bothered to allocate him any personal space.

~#~#~#~

“It’s done,” she said, sliding into the opposite booth in a slither of silk and Chanel.

“I heard. It is all over prime-time news,” he replied precisely, his expression as emotionless as the cool blonde’s. 

“The money?” she retorted, her expression cool.

Nkosi Tuvok arched a brow. He reached inside his jacket pocket to retrieve a thick envelope, placed the envelope on the table between them but then rested his hand on it significantly.

She reached for the envelope. He pulled it back slightly.

“Our client requires one more hit. He’s prepared to pay a considerable bonus.”

She shook her head decisively. “Unacceptable. The final hit wasn’t clean,” she admitted, a slight tic under her left eye betraying her irritation. “They’re bound to suspect murder this time.”

He shrugged. “Given the fact that six men have died under the same circumstances, I highly doubt the police are still under the impression that *any* of the deaths were suicide. However, without motive or forensic evidence, they can’t prove anything.” 

“I still fail to understand the client’s instructions,” she complained.

“It wasn’t necessary for you to understand. You simply had to fulfill the client’s wishes. Six randomly selected victims. Six identical deaths. The seventh victim is *not* random. However, the client wishes you to use the same method of dispatch. The death should ‘appear’ to be suicide.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he raised his hand for silence. “I know,” he agreed. “Under the circumstances, an open-verdict is more likely. The police will not be able to prove murder, but will obviously suspect it. That is the point. The target has displayed suicidal tendencies in the past and there is a necessity to ensure the object of the lesson understands the death is no accident.”

“So the death is merely a message to someone else?” she queried.

“Exactly.”

“So why make it look like suicide at all?”

“Because a previous hit on this person went wrong. In normal circumstances, murdering this man would probably reopen the investigation into the previous attempt on his life. Something that would put an unwelcome spotlight on our client’s activities. This way, the investigation will center here in New York. It will be assumed his death is related to that of the other six victims. And since the other deaths will not be solved, neither will this one.”

“I see,” she snapped. “An elaborate scheme of legerdemain?”

“Exactly,” he agreed.

~#~#~#~

At Chakotay’s greeting, Torres straightened up, tore the blood-soiled latex glove off her right hand with a loud snap, and pushed her hair back out of her face.

Despite her frown of irritation, the C.S.I. was a stunning-looking woman. Black shoulder-length hair, olive skin, high cheekbones and eyes as dark and expressive as Chakotay’s. Always appreciative of beauty, even if it was on the wrong sex to spark his dick’s interest, Tom gave her his most blinding smile and offered his hand.

“Tom Paris.”

She blatantly ignored both his comment and his outstretched hand, instead turning her full attention to his partner. “’Bout time you got here, Chakotay. He’s starting to set on the sidewalk.” 

Chakotay frowned and, just for a moment, Tom imagined that he was going to comment on her rudeness. But all he said was, “What you got for me, Torres?”

“I’d say it’s definitely Dashwood. No wallet but height and weight fits. We’ve got partials off what’s left of the right hand and Carey’s running them now. Forget dentals. His head smashed like a melon.”

“Least you got prints this time. That’ll speed up the formal ID.”

“This time?” Tom asked, remembering the Captain’s comments about lemmings. “How many are we talking about?”

“Did he come off the balcony or over it?” Chakotay asked, as though Tom hadn’t spoken.

“Given the trajectory of his fall, he couldn’t have been standing on the railings. He came over at considerable speed.”

“Like the others,” Chakotay muttered.

“Which others?” Tom asked.

They ignored him.

“You got a cause of death yet?” Chakotay asked Torres.

Before she could reply, Tom stared at the splattered brain-matter on the pavement and snickered loudly. The sound earned him a couple of hostile glares that at least disproved his theory that he’d become invisible.

“If you mean did he jump or was he pushed…too early to say. What I can tell you is he wasn’t alone in his room last night. Uniform’s got an eyewitness placing him in the bar with some blonde, probably a hooker, and there’s a used condom in the bathroom. Oh, and there are indentations on his wrists and ankles that suggest restraints.”

“He was tied up, then released and thrown out of the window?” Chakotay asked.

“Or he took a running jump.”

“We talking bondage games or something else?”

She just shrugged.

“Dashwood married?” Tom asked.

Torres blinked, shrugged again and finally consented to spare him a syllable. “No.”

“So we can cut out guilt or blackmail. Could have been the sex game got out of hand though. Maybe he died *before* he took a head-dive. You could check for hemorrhages in his lungs,” Tom suggested.

“Gee, Blondie, I’d never have thought of that,” Torres snarled. 

Tom ignored her, dropping to his knees next to the corpse and narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. “Pretty heavy guy for a dwarf.”

“Two Twenty, give or take,” Torres agreed.

“He wasn’t a dwarf, Paris.”

Tom’s back stiffened at the censure in Chakotay’s voice.

“Oops sorry,” he drawled. “Vertically challenged P.C. enough for you, Chief?”

“Don’t be an asshole and don’t call me Chief.”

Tom grinned; pleased he’d finally gotten a rise out of the surly bastard. Antagonism sucked but it was a hell of a lot better than simply being ignored. Maybe the same tack would work with Torres. 

“Would have taken a strong chick to pick him up and throw him over that balcony,” he drawled. 

“Chick?” Torres repeated incredulously. 

Tom rolled his eyes and smirked. “ A strong ‘woman’, okay? You don’t need to burn your bra, Torres.”

Her face flushing with fury, she turned to Chakotay. “Who the hell is this pig?”

“My new partner, Tom Paris,” Chakotay said, his mouth twitching with wry amusement. “Give pigs a break, Torres. He’s worse than that. He’s from San Francisco,” he added with a derisive wink.

“Figures,” she snarled.

~#~#~#~

Annika Hansen frowned thoughtfully at the photograph of her next ‘target’. 

She considered the whole assignment a case of literal over-kill. Murdering six people simply to provide a smoke screen for the murder of one man struck her as ludicrous. It would have been far cleaner and easier to simply corner the target, record a tape of him pleading for his life for the benefit of the person her Client wanted to teach a ‘lesson’, then dispose of him in a way that the authorities would accept as suicide. 

On one hand, if the client was willing to pay for seven hits, instead of just one, she wasn’t going to argue about it. Money was money. 

Yet something about the situation bothered her. 

No. Something about the ‘client’ bothered her. 

To her, murder was business. She removed inconveniences in exchange for cash. She was prepared, if the price was right, to enact a little vengeance by proxy while removing said inconveniences. She was happy, if the client requested, to ensure demise was as painful as it was efficient. She preferred, given the choice, a simple clean hit. In, out, two bullets into the head, check in the bank and a plane ticket.

But she understood that her clients were sometimes motivated by hatred rather than expediency. That she was as likely to be killing a cuckolding lover as a business rival.
She understood hatred as a motive for murder. The first person she’d ever killed had been her own step-father the night she decided she’d rather smash a baseball bat over his drunken head than open her legs for him again. Admittedly, she’d only been fourteen at the time and still prone to allow her emotions to get the better of her.

What she *didn’t* understand was a client who apparently got his rocks off by paying someone to murder random strangers. Whatever Tuvok said, there was no reasonable explanation for the first six hits except that the client was enjoying the idea of being a serial killer by proxy.

Which, naturally, made her wonder how stable he was. An unstable employer was an unpredictable employer. An unpredictable employer who knew her identity. She was possibly going to have to give serious consideration to eliminating him.

After she’d completed her assignment, of course. She had a reputation to uphold.

She disregarded Tuvok’s comments that she wasn’t the hit’s preferred ‘type’. In her experience, sex was sex and *any* man was sufficient slave of his dick to respond to her considerable charms regardless of his usual proclivities. Experience had convinced her that she was irresistible.

And, besides, she didn’t need to actually get into his *bed*. She just had to orchestrate a scenario in which he’d let down his guard enough to be alone with her in a suitable location. The problem wasn’t that she doubted her ability to complete the assignment with efficiency. Her dilemma was how to make initial contact.

She wasn’t looking at the face of a man who paid needed to pay for sex. In fact, with his face and body, she imagined he’d have no problem selling his own favors to the highest bidder.

So this assignment was going to require a little finesse.

She frowned again, tracing the man’s face with her index finger as she considered various scenarios, weighing the danger to herself against the ‘gratitude’ of her Client. There was always a nice bonus for cleaning up someone else’s fuck-up.

Not to mention the considerable self-satisfaction of a job well done.

~#~#~#~

Chakotay waited until he’d pulled into the precinct’s underground parking garage and cut the engine before he turned to his new partner with a disgusted glare.

“You born an asshole, Paris, or do you have to work at it?”

Tom returned his glare. “Fuck off, Chakotay. You’ve been riding my ass all morning. At least I was trying to work out what the hell happened to that poor bastard. You might prefer to sit back and hope forensics give you a nice neat theory to wrap up a case but where I come from Detectives actually ask questions and do their own legwork.”

For a moment, Chakotay’s conscience forced him to acknowledge a certain amount of justification for his partner’s anger. Then he reminded himself who his partner was. 

“Yeah, I heard all about your illustrious success record, Paris. Personally I prefer to get the perps bagged and tagged, rather than my partners.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, well that’s another thing I don’t do with my partners,” Chakotay drawled carelessly.

The color drained out of Tom’s face and he swayed in his seat as though Chakotay had struck him. 

“You bastard. You fucking bastard,” Tom gasped, his features contorting with a combination of pain and intense embarrassment. “Some fucking fresh start,” he added bitterly.

Chakotay looked over at him in complete confusion, then a small flush of color stained his cheeks a darker bronze as understanding dawned. Damn, he’d heard the jokes and innuendoes but had just dismissed them as no more than cruel gossip. People were assholes, somehow preferring to blame victims in that kind of situation. He’d had no idea that the gossip was based on truth.

No matter how pissed he was at getting saddled with Paris as a partner, he wasn’t capable of striking that low a blow deliberately.

“I didn’t realize I was striking a nerve. I…I mean, well shit…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a joke.”

“I’m not laughing,” Tom said, his eyes cold. “Not so P.C. yourself, are you, Chief?”

“Don’t call me that,” Chakotay replied, without heat. He was so stunned by his own faux pas that he just wanted the argument over and forgotten. 

“Tell you what? You don’t call me a faggot and I won’t call you ‘Chief’.”

“I’d never…”

“You just did, Chakotay,” Tom snapped. He threw open the car door, climbed out without another word and strode away, his spine stiff with anger.

~#~#~#~#~

::Shit. Shit. Shit::

Chakotay struggled with the urge to hit his head against the steering column and finally settled for leaning his forehead against the cold plastic and shutting his eyes.

Maybe Paris was a jerk but didn’t excuse what he’d said to him. Mentioning Paris’s dead partner had been a cheap enough shot by itself, something he was bitterly ashamed of, but Paris’s reaction to his tasteless joke implied that the gossip was true about Paris having lost more than just a partner with the death of Detective Harry Kim. 

He was surprised how disconcerted he felt at knowing his new partner was gay. 

It wasn’t that he had a problem with the idea itself. He prided himself on his own lack of prejudice. What it did do, however, was change his own perceptions of Paris’s behavior. 

It explained a lot about the way Paris interacted with other people. An openly gay cop was probably so used to having insults flung in his face that he’d probably learned that offence was the best defense. His sexist comment to Torres was possibly just an inbuilt self-defense mechanism. There was no way Paris would have known that Belle Torres was just a naturally abrasive person. He had probably misread her aggression as a personal slight and had reacted accordingly.

Just as Tom had *rightly* taken offence at his own attitude.

The thing was that it wasn’t Paris himself that offended Chakotay, it was the *idea* of Paris.

The idea that Detective Thomas Eugene Paris hadn’t just been satisfied with cruising his way through the academy and into plain clothes by riding his father’s coat-tails, but had used his father’s influence to ‘buy’ him a new position in New York because he’d fucked up so royally in his home city.

No one wanted to be partnered with someone they couldn’t trust and how the hell could anyone trust a cop who’d bought their badge instead of earning it the old fashioned way? The way Chakotay had earned his. Through blood and sweat and damned hard work.

When he got back to his desk, Paris’s knapsack was missing. He gave a guilty start. As much as he resented being partnered with Paris, his conscience wouldn’t lie easy if he were the sole reason the guy ran back to Frisco. He looked around the crowded room for a blond head, then gave up and walked over to where Greg Ayala was typing a report.

“You seen Paris?” he asked.

“Said somethin’ bout taking a shower,” Ayala muttered, without looking up.

His partner sniggered loudly.

“Something funny, Dalby?” Chakotay asked.

“Whatever you do, don’t follow him in there. Never know what’d happen if you turned your back on him, Chak,” Dalby sniggered.

“Exactly what the hell do you mean by that?” Chakotay demanded.

Dalby smirked nastily. “I heard it from my cousin Jake. You know, the one who works vice in San Francisco.”

Something lurched in Chakotay’s stomach and he wondered whether it was his own guilty conscience that was making him hope Dalby would just shut the fuck up. “I’m not interested in gossip, Dalby. I’ve got better things to do with my time and so should you.”

He turned his back dismissively, praying that Dalby would take the hint and shut the fuck up. Rumors could get a cop killed. All it took was one homophobic asshole failing to cover your back and you were dead. He didn’t like Paris, but he sure as hell didn’t want him physically hurt.

“So you don’t mind being partnered with a coward?”

Chakotay swung back in surprise. He’d half-expected Dalby to say ‘a queer’ but the word ‘coward’ came at him completely out of left field. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You know Paris’s partner was gang-raped before the bastards hanged him?”

“I heard the rumor,” Chakotay admitted. The dead had no secrets. Not even dead cops. The sordid details of Detective Kim’s murder had spread through the grapevine.

“So you gotta ask yourself why they left Paris alive, don’tchya?”

Chakotay shook his head with tired disgust. “You’re talking out your ass, Dalby. I.A. cleared him.”

“Course they did. His family owns ‘Frisco. Long as his name’s Paris, they don’t care if he’s some faggot cop who stands by an’ lets his partner get raped and killed, then whores his own ass ‘cos he’s too much of a fucking coward to take a bullet.”

“This is bullshit,” Chakotay growled, flushing with both anger and shame. Anger that Dalby should say such a thing out loud; shame that Dalby’s comments were such an insidious echo of his own suspicions that Paris had always ridden his family’s coat-tails. Dalby’s spin on the same scenario made him feel dirty and ashamed of his own automatic hostility towards his new partner. He decided, then and there, that from now on he would at least give Paris the benefit of the doubt. “They tried to kill Paris too. He was in ICU for three weeks,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” Ayala agreed. “I heard they hung ‘em both. Tied ropes round their necks and threw ‘em off the wharf. Only reason Paris survived is that the rope round *his* neck broke. He managed to get Kim free and pulled his body back to shore. He might not have saved Kim’s life but, even though he was half-dead himself, he managed to pull his partner’s body out of the water. That’s not the act of a coward, Ken.”

“Yeah? Then why did they cover up the fact that the *reason* Paris ended up in ICU was the fag needed forty-odd stitches in his ass?” Dalby challenged. 

“If he had stitches in his ass, he was raped,” Chakotay snarled, his eyes black with fury. “He was as much a victim as Kim, Dalby, so shut your mouth. It could happen to anyone. Even an ugly bastard like you.”

“Fuck that. The only way some faggot’d get near my ass is if he blew my brains out first. No *man* would let himself get touched like that.”

Chakotay snarled and took a step forward, his right hand bunching into a fist. Ayala caught his arm. “Ignore him, Chakotay. If a *nun* got herself raped, Ken would say she ‘asked’ for it. He’s being an asshole.”

Dalby glared at his partner, “I just say it as I see it, Greg. You think Paris and Kim didn’t ‘ask’ for it? Well, I got news for you. Paris and Kim were more than ‘partners’. You wanna know what *I* think happened that night? There weren’t any fucking drug smugglers at all. Some gang just caught ‘em inside that warehouse, fucking each other, and decided to show ‘em what it felt like to have *real* cocks inside their pansy little asses. They probably *begged* for it. Fucking faggots. Didn’t know that, did ya, Chakotay? That your new partner’s a *girl*. Bet the little queer’s beating his meat in there right now at the thought of you taking over where his last partner left off.”

“You *are* an asshole, Dalby,” Chakotay said. “I don’t give a shit whether he’s gay or not. He held it together today, when cops twice his age were puking their guts all over the sidewalk. He’s got balls. What he chooses to do with them in his own time is no-one else’s business.”

“Shit, Chak. You wanna watch out sayin’ stuff like that,” Dalby warned.

Chakotay’s temper finally snapped. He stepped forward, grabbed Dalby by the lapels and hauled him out of his chair until they were eye to eye. “Why, you think someone’s gonna call *me* a faggot, too?”

Dalby’s eyes bulged with terror. “Hey, man. Chill out. I was just kidding.”

“Dis’ Paris and you’re dissing my partner, Dalby, and that means you’re dissing me.”

“It was a joke. That’s all. Just a joke,” Dalby gasped.

“No one’s laughing,” Chakotay pointed out, releasing the smaller man to collapse back in his chair. He turned and faced the other cops. “Anyone laughing here?”

They all hurriedly dropped their eyes back to their reports.

Ayala stepped up to him and pulled him aside.

“Kid’s gonna have trouble, Chak.”

“Better not be from *your* partner, Greg.”

Ayala shook his head firmly. “I’ll take the little shit outside and remind him some manners,” he promised. “But he’s not the only asshole in the Precinct. ”

“Fuck. I knew Paris was going to be trouble,” Chakotay sighed. “I don’t need this shit.”

“So tell Janeway you want a new partner.”

Chakotay chuckled ruefully. “Want to know the truth, Greg? I only agreed to take him on in the first place ‘cos I was so sure he’d fuck it up by himself. If he does, I’ll happily pack his bags. But, in the meantime, I won’t stand by and let him get railroaded out of here just because he’s fucking *gay*.”

The irony of it was incredible. The reason he’d automatically hated and resented Paris was that he stood for everything he himself hated. Chakotay had spent his whole life battling other people’s prejudices. He’d spent his whole career in the force fighting the stereotype of his Amerindian blood. He couldn’t even go to a bar after work without some asshole making cracks about whether he could handle ‘firewater’. 

But Paris had been born with the proverbial spoon in his mouth. A handsome, Californian blue-eyed blond, born into a family who were practically SFPD’s royalty. His father was a police commissioner. His grandfather was a senator. Tom Paris would have been guaranteed his place at the police academy even if he’d had a gimp leg and a squint. And even when he’d fucked up so badly that any other officer might have been dismissed from the force, he’d just been transferred to a new city.

Yet, that whole perception of Tom Paris as being the golden boy who could do no wrong fell apart if Paris was gay.

What if his father hadn’t had him transferred to save his career? What if the true reason for Paris’s transfer was simply the fact that Commissioner Paris couldn’t handle the stigma of having his son outed during the investigation into Harry Kim’s death? 

If that bastard Dalby was right, Paris hadn’t only lost his lover and his partner that night in the warehouse. He’d also been raped viciously enough to put him in intensive care.

It hurt just to imagine someone that badly injured having a rope tied around his neck and being thrown off a pier. How had Paris felt when the rope snapped and he found himself, half-dead, in freezing water with the body of his partner dangling above him? How the hell had Paris managed to cut Kim’s body free and pull him downstream far enough to crawl out of the water? What the hell had gone through Paris’s head as he sat there on the shore, his dead partner in his arms, not knowing whether he’d be found before exposure killed him?

And that had just been the beginning of Paris’s nightmare, hadn’t it? 

Three weeks in intensive care, fighting for his life, only to then run the gauntlet of an Internal Affairs investigation into Kim’s death. Chakotay didn’t need the sordid details to imagine Paris’s horror at having his relationship with Harry Kim dissected in public. 

Or to imagine how many vicious, bigoted Dalby-clones had made Paris’s life hell at his own precinct in the wake of the tragedy. How many people had told Paris to his face that he ‘deserved’ what had happened to him? That he’d ‘asked’ for it? That he had ‘begged’ for it?

It was a fucking miracle that Paris hadn’t swallowed his own gun.

And, instead of standing by him, his family’s response to the scandal had been to pack Paris’s bags and put him on a plane to New York.

It was funny how the facts of the situation could remain the same but his own interpretation of events could make such a huge U-turn. Owen Paris hadn’t arranged Tom’s transfer to give his son a fresh start. Owen had simply banished his prodigal son to the other side of the country.

Paris wasn’t a willing beneficiary of his father’s influence.

He was a victim of it.

And, understanding that, Chakotay made the abrupt decision that his own attitude to Paris was going to change. From now on, he’d give Paris a fresh slate. He’d banish his knowledge of Paris’s past into the shadows where it belonged and deal with him as he found him.

~#~#~#~

It was easier said than done.

Quite apart from the less than illustrious start to their own relationship, Tom Paris had been walking with a chip on his shoulder for so long that he seemed incapable of responding to even the mildest question without sarcasm.

Paris reminded Chakotay of a pet dog that had turned feral. Everything about Paris screamed ‘don’t-touch’, from his cold, sneering grin to his sharp, biting tongue, but, every now and then, he caught a glimpse of a longing to believe in the otherwise icy eyes, a shadowed memory of trust. It gave him hope that there was still a likeable person lurking somewhere underneath Paris’s brittle exterior.

Or maybe not, he sighed, as a file was tossed rudely onto his desk. 

“This shit is all you’ve got? Either six copy-cat suicides or a ‘black widow’ who’s choosing victims at random?” 

Chakotay took a deep breath, counted to five, and then answered in a calm voice.

“The victims are all male. They were all in New York on business. They all took head dives out off their balconies and they all had sex shortly before they died,” he replied. “Other than that, none of the victims had anything in common. They work in different industries and come from different parts of the country. If it *is* murder, the *only* apparent motive is a sexual one.”

“No drugs?”

“Not even trace. Couple of the Vics had been drinking heavily but the other four tox reports are clean as a whistle.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Tom complained. “No woman could throw grown men off a balcony without leaving any signs of a struggle.”

“Not unless she’s the size of a sumo wrestler,” Chakotay quipped.

“Which she isn’t. She’s a classy broad,” Tom pointed out. “She’s killed six men in top class hotels and the only possible eyewitness describes her as a slim elegant blonde. That’s not the way a guy describes your average whore. Or sumo wrestler.”

“So we’re back to suicide.”

Tom shook his head in disbelief. “It’s got to be drugs. She *must* be using something untraceable.”

“Not according to Torres,” Chakotay replied decisively. “She says the toxicology is clear.”

“That’s what ‘untraceable’ means,” Tom snarled. “What if it’s something like rohypnol?”

“Rohypnol would still be traceable,” Chakotay argued. “It’s detectable for 24 hours.”

“So maybe she slips it to them earlier, making them more suggestible when she *does* pick them up. Or maybe it’s just something ‘like’ rohypnol. The point I’m making is that not all drugs are traceable, and she’s sure as hell using *something* to make them think jumping off a balcony is a cool idea.”

“Maybe it’s hypnosis,” Chakotay snorted. “Or demonic possession?”

“Why are you being such an asshole?” 

“Because I’m a cop, Paris. I deal in evidence and facts, not wild speculation. You can sit there and spout wild theories until they come out of your ass, but until we have something concrete we can’t do shit, okay?”

“We just sit here and wait for the next victim?” Tom demanded.

“Other than putting out an APB on every classy blonde, that’s about all we can do,” Chakotay said. He picked up a pile of files and thrust them in Tom’s direction. “If you want to solve some cases, take a look at these. At least we *know* these were murders.”

Tom scowled at him. “Why did they jump?”

“What?”

“Lowry, Copeland and Owen all had registered guns. Why travel to a strange city and jump out off a hotel balcony? Why not save themselves the airfare and just swallow a bullet at home? Statistically, jumping’s a female act. Guys swallow bullets. Women take pills or jump.”

Chakotay took a deep breath. “I’m not necessarily saying you’re wrong. I’m saying we don’t have a motive, a suspect or a case. So instead of wasting time pursuing something you can’t solve, get your ass into gear and work on something you can.”

Tom snatched the files and angrily strode off to find an unoccupied desk. Slamming his butt down in the chair, he spent several minutes flicking through the files until he was sure Chakotay wasn’t watching him, then he reached for the telephone and put a call in to the crime lab, demanding a fresh set of toxicology reports on the six victims.

~#~#~#~

“What the hell are you playing at?”

The snarling voice in his ear made Chakotay almost jump off his bar stool. He transferred his drink to his left hand and shook beer off his right hand. “Belle,” he acknowledged, with a smile.

“Don’t ‘Belle’ me, big man,” she spat, signaling the barman for a round. “What the fuck are you playing at? You think my department’s talking out of its ass or something?”

Chakotay blinked in confusion. “What’s the problem?”

“Problem?” Torres repeated incredulously. “I get back to the lab, after spending the afternoon in court on that damned Alderman case, and find out your partner had my team completely re-run the tox reports on the hotel lemmings.”

“What? I told him to drop it.”

“Yeah? Well all that got dropped today was half-a-dozen balls. Do you have any idea how backed-up the lab already is without Paris thinking we’re at his beck and call?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as he’d going to be,” she snarled. “I lodged an official complaint with Janeway about it.”

“Shit, Belle. I could have handled it. I know he’s out of order, but the kid’s only being over-enthusiastic about his first case. You didn’t need to use the big guns.”

Torres sighed and offered him a wry smile. “I know. I over-reacted, maybe. I do that.”

Chakotay snorted into his drink. “Yeah, just a bit.”

“It’s just I have so much to do and I *hate* wasting time in court. Why the hell can’t the lawyers present the evidence themselves? Facts are facts. Don’t see why I have to spell the damned things out for them.”

“Speaking of spelling things out, dare I ask whether the second tox reports turned up anything new?”

“No they fucking didn’t,” Torres snarled, snatching her drink off the bar and downing it in an angry gulp. “There’s nothing there, Chakotay.”

“So you don’t think the vics were drugged?”

“Of course they were probably drugged. How the hell else did she toss ‘em off a balcony? But there’s no *evidence* and it doesn’t matter how many fucking times we run the results, wishing isn’t going to chance the facts, is it?”

“I know,” Chakotay agreed. “I tried to explain that to Paris. It doesn’t matter whether we *know* the guys were murdered, without evidence we’re just whistling in the wind. But he doesn’t want to let it go.”

“Maybe he’s projecting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you said, it’s his first case since he’s been back on the job. He’s probably pissed as hell that no one found the guys who killed his partner. He’s angry about how *that* investigation was dropped for lack of evidence so he doesn’t want to walk away from *this* one.”

“You know what happened to him?” Chakotay queried carefully.

“Of course I know what happened to him,” Torres snorted. “Poor bastard. You think cops are gossips? You wanna try forensic scientists. A copy of the crime scene report hit my desk the afternoon after they found him. Believe me, you do *not* want the details.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” She called for another drink, took a sip, and then sighed heavily. “Wish I hadn’t reported him today.”

“I’ll talk to Janeway,” Chakotay offered. “Smooth it over.”

“Thanks.”

“Then I’ll kick his butt and make sure he’s too busy to do it again,” Chakotay added, with a wink.

~#~#~#~

Tom was just about to step in the shower when he heard his cell phone ring. He contemplated ignoring it. The water was already only running lukewarm and experience had taught him that if he didn’t grab the opportunity when it was offered, some other bastard would drain the hotel’s inadequate hot water tank before he got back to the bathroom and he’d be taking yet another cold shower.

With a rueful sigh, he turned the shower off, wrapped a towel around his hips and walked back out into the small, dingy bedroom. He really needed to think about finding somewhere decent to live.

“Paris,” he snapped.

“Thomas.”

The sharply spoken word made Tom cringe and wish he’d chosen the shower after all.

“Hi, dad,” he replied quietly.

“You don’t even have the sense you were born with, have you?” Tom swallowed, blushed, and unconsciously straightened his shoulders. “If it wasn’t for your mother, I’d have let them nail you to the wall. You’re a reckless fool. For once in your life, just shut your goddamned mouth and follow orders.”

“What have I…”

“You’re supposed to be keeping your ears clean, Thomas. Do you have *any* idea how many favors I had to call in to get you that transfer? And how do you repay me? You haven’t been there a week and you’re already making waves.”

“I don’t know what…”

“You take it upon yourself to demand a crime lab put aside critical work and re-do a report for no good reason whatsoever?”

“How did you…”

“Are you denying it, Thomas?”

Tom swallowed heavily. “No, sir.”

“You’ve got neither the experience nor the intelligence to second guess a forensics report. I’m informed that Torres is the best in her field.”

“I know, but she’s missed *something*. I just know she has.”

“According to Captain Janeway, there’s no evidence to suggest these deaths are anything but unrelated suicides.”

Tom shook his head angrily. “I don’t care what the evidence says, common sense alone says that six perfectly sane men don’t suddenly decide to jump off their balconies within days of each other.”

“Since when did you become such an expert on common sense, Thomas?”

“Then call it a hunch.”

“As I recall, the last time you followed a ‘hunch’ you got your partner killed.”

Tom dropped the phone and stared at it as though it was something poisonous.

“Thomas?”

“Thomas?”

“THOMAS?”

Tom backed away until he stumbled against his bed and sat down heavily. He continued to stare at the handset long after his father’s outraged voice had been replaced with a disconnect tone. Then, finally, he shook himself, rose to his feet, and staggered blindly over to his still half-packed suitcase.

He rummaged through his clothes until he found the bottle, then he clutched it to his chest with his left hand while he unscrewed the top with his right.

The first mouthful made him splutter and choke. It burned like rotgut through his throat. He closed his eyes, dropped to his knees, and took another gulp.

By the sixth mouthful, it was less of a burning fire than a warming glow.

By the time he was halfway down the bottle, he was too numb to feel anything.

~#~#~#~

“How much did you drink last night?” Chakotay demanded, as Tom wrenched open the car door and collapsed into the passenger seat.

“What the fuck’s it got to do with you?” Tom snarled, as he reached into the glove compartment and ferreted until he found a pair of shades. He slipped them over his blood-shot eyes and uttered a low groan of relief.

“You look like shit.” 

“Hey, don’t spare my feelings. Tell me what you really think,” Tom replied, with a sneer. 

“What I *think* is that you’d damned well better sober-up before we reach the precinct.” 

“It’s a migraine,” Tom protested. 

“It’s a hangover,” Chakotay corrected. He indicated, switched lanes and pulled over in front of a coffee bar. 

Chakotay decided it was probably a measure of how shitty Tom felt that he just climbed out of the car without protest. 

“I needed this,” Tom admitted, as their coffee arrived. He reached into his jacket’s inside packet, pulled out a foil of Tylenol and swallowed four dry before reaching for his drink.

“You’re supposed to take two,” Chakotay pointed out.

“Then four’ll work twice as good,” Tom retorted with a shrug. 

Chakotay shook his head despairingly and waited until Tom was halfway through his second coffee before speaking again.

“I take it you had a rough night?”

Tom was still wearing the shades, so Chakotay couldn’t read his expression, but his shoulders stiffened slightly at the question.

“Don’t worry about it, Chief. I don’t make a habit of drinking ‘til I puke.”

Chakotay took a deep breath and reminded himself not to rise to Tom’s aggression. “I didn’t suggest you do,” he said, when he was sure he could speak steadily. “So what happened last night?”

“Like you don’t know?” Tom demanded bitterly.

“Why would I know?”

“What the fuck did you think would happen after you dropped my ass in the shit, huh? Tell me, Chief, you always go running to Janeway like some ass-licking puppy dog when you don’t get your own way?”

:: Fuck. He’s talking about Belle’s complaint ::

“It had nothing to do with me. The complaint against you came directly from the Crime Lab,” Chakotay replied, as the penny dropped.

“That bitch Torres, huh?” Tom snarled.

Chakotay resisted the urge to slap some sense into Tom’s self-pitying face. Tom *had* been out of line, but it wouldn’t help to say so. He reminded himself that Tom had suffered so much crap in the wake of Harry Kim’s death that he’d earned the right to be a little bitter and unfair about other people. Belle Torres could survive Chakotay not jumping to her defense. He wasn’t so sure that Tom could survive his new partner taking her side in the situation.

“I told her she should have complained to you directly, instead of reporting you” Chakotay agreed easily. “Did the Captain give you a hard time?”

Tom stared at him with clear disbelief for a moment, then his shoulders relaxed slightly as he apparently decided to accept Chakotay hadn’t been the one to report him. 

Chakotay was surprised how relieved he felt at this small measure of belief from his new partner. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted Tom’s trust.

“Janeway?” Tom snorted. “Nah, she didn’t lower herself. She just rang my dad.”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah,” Tom agreed, with a sound that was half-laugh and half-sob. “It’s like I’m twelve again or something, isn’t it? Behave yourself or I’ll tell your dad you fucked up.”

“I take it he wasn’t happy with you?” Chakotay asked carefully.

Tom pulled off his glasses and met Chakotay’s concerned gaze with an oddly amused look in his blood-shot eyes. “Let me tell you a secret, Chief. My dad hasn’t been ‘happy’ with me since the day I was born,” he snorted. “Why the fuck should anything have changed?”

“If nothing’s changed, how did he manage to upset you so much?” Chakotay asked reasonably.

Tom shrugged expressively. “He didn’t.” He smiled wryly at Chakotay’s look of polite disbelief. “I don’t give a fuck about my father’s opinion of me.”

“So what happened?”

Tom chewed his lower lip for a moment, his eyes gauging the sincerity in Chakotay’s face. “He just…um…reminded me of something,” he said awkwardly. “You could…um…well, let’s say I wasn’t drinking alone last night. I had a few ghosts keeping me company.”

“A few? Or just one particular ghost?” Chakotay asked softly.

Tom’s head reared up in alarm. “Fuck you, Chief.”

“It’s hard losing a partner. Particularly under those circumstances.”

“What the fuck do you know about it?” Tom snarled.

“I know what happened to Harry Kim.” 

Tom’s expression twisted painfully through grief and into anger. “You and the rest of the world,” he mocked. “It’s hardly a fucking state secret, is it?”

“So, is it true that you and Harry Kim were lovers?”

Tom spluttered into his coffee. “Come again?”

“I asked about your relationship with Harry Kim.”

“I heard you. You just caught me by surprise.”

Chakotay flushed slightly. “Sorry. I know it’s none of my business.”

“It’s okay,” Tom said, with a careless shrug. “We were lovers. It’s not something I’m ashamed of admitting.” He smirked at Chakotay’s look of surprise. “Yeah, well I admit I’d rather it wasn’t public knowledge but, since it is, I’m damned well going to act like I’m ashamed of the fact. If people can’t deal with it, it’s their hang-up not mine.” 

“I agree,” Chakotay said, and smiled sadly at Tom’s look of bewilderment. “He meant a lot to you?”

“Yeah.”

“How long were you together?”

“Fucking each other, you mean?” Tom demanded, with a sneer. Chakotay just stared at him, until Tom shrugged and offered him an awkward smile. “Sorry, I tend to do that. I open my mouth to say one thing, and that kind of self-defensive crap comes out instead.”

“You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to.”

“It’s okay…No, really,” he added, at Chakotay’s disbelieving frown. “Like I said, it isn’t something I’m ashamed of. It’s just that I can’t handle the idea of someone turning it into some kind of cheap joke.”

“I wasn’t…” Chakotay began.

“I know,” Tom agreed quietly. He took a couple of deep breaths, then sighed heavily. “I knew him for six, maybe seven, years. Harry and I met at the Academy, became friends…best friends. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that it became something more between us.”

“Because you were worried about being outed as gay cops?” 

Tom laughed softly. “I guess that’s one damned fine reason but that’s not it. Harry…well, Harry wasn’t gay.”

“I don’t understand,” Chakotay admitted, his expression bewildered.

“I always knew I was gay. I can’t remember when I first realized it. It kind of crept up on me during adolescence. You know those normal ‘crushes’ you have on older guys when you’re a kid? Well, for me it wasn’t just a phase. All my friends were starting to sniff after girls, they were huddling in the locker rooms discussing tits and asses and pretending they’d gone ‘all the way’ with some chick and I was still drooling over the biceps of the Captain of the football team. I didn’t even realize I was being so obvious about it until he held me back after practice one day and ‘invited’ me to suck his dick.

“I was so fucking scared. He told me if I didn’t do it he’d tell all the guys I was a ‘faggot’. It wasn’t just that I knew they’d kick my ass. I was terrified my dad would find out. I was sure as hell more scared of my dad than I was of sucking his dick. Didn’t stop it being the most humiliating experience of my life. I was kneeling on the floor, crying my eyes out, snot all over my face and I couldn’t breathe ‘cos he’d stuck his cock right down my throat. He held my hair and fucked my mouth so hard that I could barely speak for a week. Like I said, it was the worst god-awful humiliating experience of my life. Well, up to that point, anyway.”

Chakotay frowned. “How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well it sucked. Forgive the pun. But the weird thing was that when I finally pulled myself together I realized that the experience was awful because of his contempt, not because of the actual act itself. I started to fantasize what it would be like to do it again.”

“With him?” Chakotay demanded, his eyes wide with shock.

“Fuck, Chakotay. I’m a queer, not a masochist. If he’d ever touched me again I’d have bitten his fucking dick off. I didn’t have any trouble with him though, to tell the truth. I guess he couldn’t tell anyone I was gay without admitting he’d let me blow him. So, although my introduction into the world of gay sex was pretty shitty, it at least forced me to face the truth about myself. It also taught me to be damned careful about my choice of partners.”

“You said Harry wasn’t gay,” Chakotay prompted.

“He wasn’t. I don’t even think you could really call him bi. He had this long-term girlfriend, Libby, and he loved her. She was at Julliard, studying violin and he was supposed to join her there. He played the clarinet. It was a real gift. When he played, the hairs on my arms used to stand up. I mean, he was so fucking talented it was kind of a crime that he decided to become a cop instead. His folks didn’t understand his decision, but they supported him anyway. They just wanted him to be happy. His girl…well, she wasn’t quite as understanding. I think she meant to stay with him but they started to drift apart and then she dear-johnned him and ran off with a second bass. Poor Harry was shattered. Completely heartbroken.”

“And he came to you on the rebound?” Chakotay inquired gently.

Tom shrugged. “I guess you could say that. I think he just needed someone he could depend on, someone whom he could trust completely. He’d always known how I felt about him and one day he turned around to me and said he loved me and couldn’t imagine ever feeling so close to another person so maybe we should see whether love was enough to overcome his natural feeling of distaste at the idea of a homosexual relationship.”

Chakotay sucked breath between his teeth. “Forgive me for saying this, Tom, but that sounds like an incredibly cruel comment for him to make. I’m surprised you didn’t punch him in the mouth.”

Tom laughed. “That’s only because you never knew him, Chakotay. Harry Kim was the most blindingly honest and decent person I have ever known. He was incapable of calling a spade a shovel. He was honest to the point of bluntness. He cared about me too much to pretend a physical attraction that he didn’t feel. I entered a physical relationship with Harry with my eyes fully open, knowing that there was every chance that he would freeze with revulsion the moment I took my clothes off. It was terrifying, but I loved him too much not to try and I trusted him enough to take the chance.”

“And it worked out?”

“For over four years,” Tom agreed sadly. “If…well, I think we would have stayed together forever. When he died…I…I wanted to die too.”

Chakotay swallowed heavily. Tom’s pain was palpable. He wished he could do something or say something that would help but the truth was that he couldn’t even fully empathize with his partner’s obvious misery. The problem wasn’t that Tom’s lover had been a man, but that Chakotay had never known, let alone lost, the kind of love Tom was talking about. The only time he’d gotten close to falling in love with a girl, he’d been figuratively kicked in the balls. He’d been forced to accept Seska had only ever dated him as a deliberate act of rebellion against her parents when she’d been rewarded for dropping him with a new car and an increased allowance. Since then, he’d been careful to keep his heart well and truly separate from the desires of his dick.

So he wasn’t sure whether to grieve for Tom’s loss or envy him for having it to lose in the first place. 

“Has there been anyone else?” he asked.

“Since Harry? Nah. It’s funny really. I can’t even walk into the showers without all the guys wrapping towels around themselves like I’m some deviant but the truth is that I’ve been celibate for so long that I’ve probably got cobwebs in my ass.”

Chakotay choked on his tea.

“That’s not an image I want in my head.”

“What image *do* you want in your head?” Tom teased lightly, then froze in shock. Color rose in his cheeks and he stiffened defensively. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. Honest.”

Chakotay, whose own cheeks were burning, shifted awkwardly in his seat and Tom flinched in reaction, his eyes wide with alarm.

“I’m not going to hit you,” Chakotay assured him. “I’m not that damned insecure, Tom.”

Tom visibly relaxed and risked a grin. “Shit, for a moment then I thought you’d think I was coming on to you.”

“You mean you weren’t?” Chakotay quipped easily, and grinned so wide at Tom’s startled reaction that dimples appeared in his cheeks. “You saying you don’t fancy me? Am I too old for you? Or am I just not your type?”

“Fuckit, Chief. That’s not funny,” Tom complained, his eyes clouding with poorly concealed hurt.

Chakotay blinked with astonishment then mentally kicked his own ass. He was such an insensitive jerk, he decided, as Tom’s cheeks blushed such a deep crimson that it was obvious he’d hit a nerve. For god only knew what reason, Tom obviously *was* attracted to him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that but he definitely knew that joking about it would be a shitty way to deal with the situation. 

And though his first impulse was to save them *both* embarrassment by pretending he didn’t understand, he knew that the tentative friendship they were building couldn’t survive that kind of deception. His intrinsic honesty forced him to acknowledge the invisible elephant that had just rudely seated itself between them.

“I’m sorry, Tom. You’re one hell of a good-looking guy and if I *was* that way inclined I’m sure I’d be flattered,” he said, determined to let his partner down lightly.

Tom blinked with astonishment, opened his mouth to say Chakotay had misread the situation, then instead dipped his head in acknowledgement and took a gulp of his coffee to steady his nerves.

“S’okay. Hell, I probably should just be grateful you didn’t punch me in the face,” Tom laughed nervously. “It’s not you, really, I swear. It’s just that… well, sometimes you remind me of Harry, you know? And it’s hard to…well, it’s just hard. I miss him,” he ended, in a near whisper.

Chakotay took a deep breath then raised his face so he could stare right into Tom’s wary blue eyes. “Like I said, it’s flattering, Tom. Just because I’m not interested doesn’t mean I have to be an asshole about it. We’re partners, and in my mind that’s as close as two guys can get. Just because I don’t want to take that closeness into the bedroom doesn’t mean I have a problem with *you* feeling that way about me. Tell the truth, I’m kinda sorry I’m straight. I could do a hell of a lot worse.”

“Like Janeway?” Tom suggested, with a sly smirk.

Chakotay flushed again. “Who the hell told you about that?”

“You know what rumors are like,” Tom sniggered. “I heard you’ve been sniffing after her panties for years.”

Chakotay stiffened and his eyes flashed for a moment but then the corner of his mouth twitched. “Crude, but accurate,” he admitted. 

“What’s she got that I haven’t?” Tom asked, his mouth quivering into a mock pout.

“Besides a pussy?” Chakotay chuckled.

Tom choked on his coffee and snorted wildly. “Guess that’s answer enough,” he admitted.

Chakotay grinned and raised his mug in a salute. “To pussies,” he proposed.

“And you called *me* crude,” Tom sniggered.

Chakotay shrugged and arched an eyebrow. “I you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” He drained his mug, sighed with satisfaction and slammed it down on the table. “Your round, partner.”

~#~#~#~

“Next time I say I hate women, kick my ass,” Dalby said, as he rifled through the photos on the ornate mantelpiece. “What a honey, huh?”

“Don’t tempt me,” Ayala snorted. Dalby could be a real asshole sometimes but, truth was, Dalby was also a damned good detective. As a father of two boys himself, Ayala could understand how the tragic death of Dalby’s wife and daughters in a car accident had left the man twisted and bitter. So he tolerated Dalby’s shit and appreciated Dalby’s brilliance. 

“What a pair of tits, huh?” Dalby grunted, as he drooled over a photo of the victim’s girlfriend that had been taken by the pool on the penthouse terrace. “She’s a fucking goddess.” 

Ayala rolled his eyes and counted to ten. 

“Weird there’s no photos of them together though,” Dalby commented idly. “I mean there’s photos of him and photos of her, but no happy couple snapshots.”

Ayala felt something twist inside his stomach, a strange but familiar feeling like a jolt of electricity. The feeling he always got when Ken Dalby’s warped but brilliant brain kicked into gear. 

“So you think she’s involved in his disappearance?” he asked, deliberately keeping his tone light. “According to the doorman, the two of them were inseparable. He was agoraphobic and she refused to leave his side. They’ve lived in this gold-plated prison together for years.”

“Sounds like a damned good motive to me,” Dalby snorted. “Why the hell would a honey like that agree to get walled up in a mausoleum like this with an old fart? Do the math, Greg. I reckon the pretty bitch got tired of spreading her legs and offed him.”

“How?” Ayala demanded. 

Dalby just shrugged. That was the $64,000 question, wasn’t it? No body. No signs of struggle. No evidence of any foul play in the penthouse. No way Bryson could have left the security-controlled building without being seen by security or captured on the CCTV cameras. Bryson had simply ‘disappeared’.

~#~#~#~

“So you gonna at least tell me where the fuck we’re going?” Tom demanded, as Chakotay slammed the car into gear. 

Chakotay swallowed a smirk at Tom’s petulant tone. He’d won the usual argument over who was driving by simply snatching the car keys out of Tom’s hand.

“We’ve got a lead on the Moseley case. One of Greg’s informants called. He said Moseley’s shacking up with an old girlfriend in the Bronx.”

“Oh great,” Tom grunted. “You got the hubcaps insured?”

“You read the file on Moseley?”

“Just some small time drug dealer who broke parole, right?”

“Right.”

“So why the hell can’t uniform handle it? Moseley’s small fry. Way I see it, the only reason he took off is he’s probably using again and couldn’t risk a mandatory drug test.”

“He’s small time,” Chakotay agreed. “But he’s got his ear to the ground. Knows where a lot of dirty linen is stashed. Maybe he’s scared enough to cut a deal this time.”

Tom nodded. While he didn’t see any point in putting much effort into catching a dealer stupid enough to sample his own goods – since the guy was effectively signing his own death warrant anyway – he liked the idea of getting the dirt on some more serious players. “We gonna call for back up?”

“He’s just one guy. Let’s do this quietly,” Chakotay suggested. “No lights, no sirens. You take the front, I’ll take the fire escape.”

“He armed?”

“Dunno. Let’s assume the worst. But the girlfriend has a baby so I don’t want this to go down as a firefight. Take it nice and easy, Tom. Knock, say you’re the police and stand the hell back from the door. With any luck, he’ll just run right into my arms.”

“I’m not a big believer in luck,” Tom muttered under his breath, though he agreed with Chakotay’s plan. If there was a woman and baby in the apartment, he didn’t want to run the risk of them being mown down in crossfire or used as hostages. “You sure you want to take the back, Chief? I’m younger, fitter and faster.”

“I’m bigger and meaner,” Chakotay growled. “Move your ass, Paris.”

Tom snorted with laughter, checked his weapon, climbed out of the car and began to saunter nonchalantly towards the main door of the building. Chakotay shook his head, checked his own weapon and headed around the building to the fire escape at the rear.

The building made his own hotel look like a fucking palace, Tom decided, as he walked through the crumbling entrance past the broken elevator and started up the staircase. Most of the overhead lights were broken, paint was flaking off the damp-stained walls and his nostrils flared from the overwhelming stench of piss. 

He had to pause and catch his breath outside of apartment 56. Not so much because of the climb itself, but the fact that he’d tried not to breathe during his ascent. He pulled his weapon, pressed his back against the wall, and reached out to rap his knuckles on the door while keeping the rest of his body out of the line of fire.

Silence.

He knocked again, louder this time, and heard the faint wail of an infant from inside.

:: Shit::

He banged the door a third time. “This is the police. Open up,” he called, and readied himself to force the door open.

~#~#~#~

By the time Chakotay reached the fifth floor, he’d decided he’d made a mistake. He should have just waited down in the alley for Moseley to descend. The problem with *that* idea, of course, was that if Moseley decided to fight rather than run, Tom would be alone up there. The problem with his original plan was that by the time he’d reached the third floor he’d realized that the fire escape should have been condemned before he was even born. Rust had eaten through the metal like a ravenous wolf. There were jagged holes in most of the steps; some large enough to swallow a foot, and, more worryingly, the bracketry that held the rickety structure to the brickwork was dangerously loose.

The whole staircase was a precariously swaying death trap and he suspected that the weight of another body might rip the whole structure off the side of the building.

He couldn’t head downwards again. Not only would that leave Tom without back up, but also he’d be completely exposed to Moseley’s gunfire. He’d be a sitting, well running, duck. Besides, he wasn’t sure he *could* safely descend the fire escape before it fell.

His only option was to keep going and hope he could reach Moseley’s apartment before Tom broke through the front door.

~#~#~#~

:: Why the fuck aren’t I wearing Kevlar?::

Tom’s shoulder impacted against the door, sending a jolt of pain through his left side. As old and decrepit as the rest of the building, the door didn’t just swing open. It collapsed off its hinges and crashed to the floor and, caught completely by surprise, Tom fell with it.

He landed in an ungainly sprawl on top of the busted door, his ears ringing from the loud retort of a gunshot; plaster spraying from the wall behind him. He scrambled to his knees, his right hand automatically raising his weapon in self-defense, sweat pouring down the back of his neck as he realized that if he hadn’t fallen Moseley’s bullet would have exploded into his face.

The baby was screaming in earnest now, its cries barely smothered inside the frantic hugging arms of its terrified mother as she crouched in the corner, her eyes darting between Tom’s gun and the empty bedroom doorway that Moseley had disappeared into.

There was a loud, groaning sound from the bedroom, the sound of a warped wooden window frame being forced open. 

“Stay down,” Tom snapped. He flicked his eyes over the woman and child, satisfied himself they weren’t wounded, and scrambled to his feet. He charged for the bedroom, his weapon extended, in time to see Moseley jump down onto the fire escape.

“You better be out there, Chief,” he cursed, as he crossed to the window.

Afterwards, he’d say it was like an earthquake. A minor tremor such as was practically day-to-day life in San Francisco. Because it was something he was so accustomed to, he barely noted the faint shaking of the floor or the way the window shuddered in its frame. What sent a ripple of dread down his spine was the noise. A low rumbling that transformed almost instantly to a high pitched metallic scream, as though the building itself was howling in pain.

And, in front of his frozen, horrified eyes, the entire fire escape began to rip away from the building and collapse into the alley below. He saw Moseley cling momentarily to a rusted railing, his eyes almost white with terror, before his body was flung into space to smash against the sidewalk below. He saw Chakotay, one floor below, raise an equally terrified look in his direction as the platform he was standing on began to collapse.

“JUMP!” Tom howled.

Chakotay just blinked up at him in stunned disbelief.

“NOT DOWN,” Tom roared. “JUMP!”

He saw understanding dawn on Chakotay’s shocked face but with a final, defiant scream, the platform collapsed beneath him and Chakotay dropped.

“CHAKOTAY!” 

Tom clutched the window ledge, his eyes staring blankly at the mushroom cloud of dust rising from the fallen fire escape. He pictured his partner’s body, crushed and mangled inside the jutting metal corpse and bile rose to choke him as he faced the prospect of cradling another partner’s broken and lifeless body.

“Oh, fuck, Chakotay. What the fuck do I do now?” he groaned out of the window.

“I was kinda hoping you had a plan when you told me to jump.”

“CHAKOTAY?” Tom screamed.

“Well, I’m not fucking Spiderman,” Chakotay’s voice replied, “though you’d be forgiven for confusion under the circumstances.”

Tom leaned sideways out of the window and saw Chakotay clinging to a drainpipe about ten feet below.

“Hang on,” he shouted.

“Believe me, that’s the plan,” Chakotay drawled. “But, though I hate to say this, Tom, I don’t think this pipe feels the same way.”

Tom looked sideward to where the pipe rose past Moseley’s apartment. It was clear that it was beginning to break away from the wall under Chakotay’s weight.

He jammed his gun into its holster and raced out of the bedroom. 

“Call 911,” he screamed at Moseley’s girlfriend as he passed, then he ran for the staircase and hurtled down to the fourth floor.

He didn’t even pause to knock at apartment 46. He hit it running, knocking the door off its hinges and barreling past the surprised occupant towards his bedroom. 

“I’m calling the police,” the old man called from behind him, as he wrenched the window open.

“I am the fucking police,” Tom spat, swinging one leg over the windowsill so that he was almost face-to-face with Chakotay. 

Unfortunately, he was still about six foot short of reaching the pipe. But if he leant out enough, and Chakotay reached for him, they would just about be able to clasp hands.

“How you doin’, Chief?”

“I told you not to call me that,” Chakotay gasped, with an attempt at a smile. “So what’s the plan, Paris?”

“I hold onto the window with my right hand. You take my left hand. And you hope like hell I don’t drop you!”

“Shitty plan, Paris. I’ve got forty pounds on you. Grab my hand and I’ll just take you down with me.”

“Yeah? Well it’s the only plan I got, so tough shit.”

“Is there someone there who can hold onto you?”

“Yeah, but he’s about ninety,” Tom drawled. “We’d end up doing a free-fall in formation.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Look, Tom. You can’t help me and I’m sure as hell not taking you with me.”

“Oh, I get it. You just don’t like the idea of having your ass saved by a fag,” Tom snorted. “Look, I’m tying something ‘round my waist, okay?”

“What?” Chakotay demanded.

“A sheet. I’m tying myself to the bed with a sheet. So even if I drop *you*, I’ll be okay.”

“Yeah?” 

“Trust me.”

“Okay,” Chakotay agreed.

“Reach for me, Chief.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Yeah, well you can punch me in the face later, okay? Let go the pipe and take my hand.”

“Oh, fuck. It’s breaking away from the wall, Tom.”

“Take my fucking hand!”

“You’re tied to the bed?”

“YES I’M FUCKING FINE. TAKE MY HAND!”

For a moment he thought Chakotay wasn’t going to do it, then almost two hundred pounds of dead weight swung onto his hand and attempted to wrench his arm out of its socket. He bit back his automatic yelp of pain, clawed his right hand into the window frame and tried to drag Chakotay upwards.

“It’s no use,” he gasped, as his arm refused to even move. “I think you’ve dislocated my shoulder. You’re going to have to climb up yourself.”

He howled as Chakotay began to pull himself, one hand over the other, up his arm. Then cried out in relief as one of Chakotay’s hands grasped the window ledge and, abruptly, the weight was gone and Chakotay was clambering into the bedroom under his own steam and dropping heavily onto the threadbare carpet.

“Smells like a fucking urinal in here,” Chakotay gasped. “You wet yourself, Paris?”

“Very funny,” Tom snarled, cradling his agonized shoulder. “Think this is bad, you wanna smell the fucking staircase.”

“Where’s the sheet, Tom?” Chakotay suddenly demanded, his voice dangerously quiet.

Tom gave a half-shrug, then winced at a vicious jab of pain through his arm. “Guy only had a fucking duvet. What can I say?”

“You lied to me,” Chakotay snarled. “I could have fucking KILLED you.”

Tom offered him a soft, sad smile. “Losing another partner *would* have killed me, Chief.”

Chakotay absorbed that and nodded slowly. “I guess I owe you, huh?”

“Would seem so,” Tom agreed.

Chakotay nodded again, then smirked. “What do you want in return? Does this involve my first born child?” 

Tom snorted. “How ‘bout a lift to an ER?”

“You okay?” Chakotay demanded, his expression fierce again.

“Will be when someone reattaches my arm. Ever considered a diet, big guy?”

“Diet?” Chakotay protested. “I’m *prime*, Paris.” He slung an arm around Tom’s waist and helped him towards the door.

“No arguments there,” Tom muttered.

Chakotay waited until they were halfway down the staircase before saying, in low but serious voice, “In my culture…well, when you save a man’s life that life is yours.”

“You saying your ass is mine, Chief?” Tom quipped.

Chakotay stiffened, then chuckled. “Only in a manner of speaking, you pervert.”

“Fuck,” Tom moaned. “Should have known it was too good to be true.”

To his relief, Chakotay just laughed. 

~#~#~#~

“Uniform found Bryson this morning,” Chakotay announced, as he walked into Janeway’s office.

“Alive?” she demanded.

He shook his head. 

“Damn,” she cursed, though she wasn’t really surprised. 

“Body’s at the crime lab. Ayala and I are going down there to see what Torres has got for us.”

“What about Paris? I thought you said the hospital gave him the all clear.”

“They did,” Chakotay assured her. “His shoulder popped right back in place. He’s got a mother of a bruise but he’s okay.”

“So why are you working with Ayala?”

“I sent Tom over to break the news to the girlfriend. I don’t think Dalby’s cut out for that kind of stuff.”

“But why do I get the feeling you don’t *want* Paris to go with you to the crime lab?”

“It’s Ayala’s case,” Chakotay protested. “Paris and I are only along for the ride.”

Janeway shook her head. “Don’t mess with me, Mister. You can’t lie for shit.”

Chakotay flushed and dropped his eyes from her knowing gaze.

“I thought you and Paris were working out,” Janeway said, her tone sad rather than accusing. “If nothing else, he *did* save your life yesterday.”

“And nearly got himself killed in the process, stupid bastard,” Chakotay growled. “He’s a bit…overenthusiastic…sometimes, but he’s a good cop.”

“You like him,” she concluded.

Chakotay shrugged and smiled wryly. “As soon as I stopped being an asshole, so did he,” he laughed.

“So why are you cutting him loose?”

“I’m not. I just don’t want him working the Bryson case with me.”

“Why?”

“Take a look for yourself,” Chakotay said, dropping a file on her desk.

Janeway frowned at the file on her desk, rifling through several crime scene photos with a look of distaste, before returning her gaze to Chakotay. “Damn,” she cursed.

“Yeah,” Chakotay agreed. “I don’t want him looking at the body.”

“I agree,” she said decisively. “It’s too soon for him to deal with a floater. We got a cause of death yet?”

“Torres says he drowned. No injuries. No evidence of foul play. She’s doing a more thorough autopsy as we speak.”

“So we’re talking probable accident or suicide?” 

“Or a very clever murder,” Chakotay suggested. “Why the hell would a filthy rich recluse suddenly decide to take a swim in the Hudson?”

Janeway muttered. “Another damned mystery. I suppose we should be grateful he didn’t take a running jump out of his penthouse.”

“Pushed by his classy blonde girlfriend,” Chakotay agreed, with a snort.

“For god’s sake don’t repeat that to Paris,” she chuckled. “I can just see him charging in there and accusing poor Sandy Selgower of being Dashwood’s mystery hooker.”

“You know Selgower?”

“Not personally, but she and Bryson supported a lot of local charities so I know of them. It’s sad, really. Bryson made his money through computers. She made it the old fashioned way.”

“She *was* a hooker?”

Janeway laughed. “Not the way you mean. She was a playmate of the month. Rumor is that Bryson got obsessed with a photo of her. Offered her a fortune to pay him a visit She arrived and never left. Everyone assumed she was after his money but, between you and me, I reckon he’d have given her anything she asked for in exchange for the occasional visit. She *chose* to stay with him.”

“You’re saying it was ‘love at first sight’.”

“Don’t laugh, Chakotay. It may not happen often, but it *does* happen. Give me another reason why a girl who looks like that hasn’t stepped foot out of Bryson’s penthouse in over five years.”

~#~#~#~

“She killed him,” Dalby said. “I don’t know how but I’ll lay odds she did it.”

Tom just shrugged. Although Chakotay had assured him that Dalby was a good officer, regardless of his bigoted attitude, it was fair to assume that as long as someone was female, black or gay Dalby was prone to consider them guilty of *something*.

“Why don’t you let me talk to her,” Tom suggested quietly, as they walked through the lobby and into the elevator.

“Sure,” Dalby sneered, pressing the button for the penthouse. “She’d probably prefer to talk to another girl.”

Tom stiffened. “You born an asshole, or did you have to work on it?”

“Fuck off, fag. You might have fooled the rest of the guys with that stunt you pulled yesterday, but in my book you’re still scum.”

“Well, just as long as we both know where we stand,” Tom replied mildly.

Dalby slammed his hand on the emergency stop, swung around to grab Tom’s shirt and shoved him back against the wall of the elevator. Tom yelped as his bruised shoulder smacked against the metal. “Take your fucking hands off me, asshole.”

“Why? Don’t ya like it?” Dalby sneered, grinding his body against Tom’s. “Bet this turns you on.”

A loud click made Dalby jump backwards, his eyes widening in shock. “You pulled your fucking *gun* on me?” he demanded furiously, eyeing Tom’s weapon with disbelief. “You crazy mother. I was just foolin’. I could have your badge for this.”

“Yeah?” Tom drawled. “I could have yours for sexual assault.”

The color drained out of Dalby’s face. “I was razzin’ you. It wasn’t fucking sexual *anything*. I’d cut my dick off before I let a dirty queer like you touch it.”

Despite his fury at Dalby’s actions and attitude, Tom almost smiled at the look of absolute horror on Dalby’s face. The older guy actually looked like he wanted to throw up.

“Calm down, Dalby. It isn’t catching,” Tom snorted. 

“It’s fucking *sick*, that’s what it is,” Dalby retorted, his face regaining a little color. “It’s… it’s just not fucking *natural*.”

“So?” Tom said, with a careless shrug. “Why the hell do you care who I sleep with? I assure you I don’t give a shit about *your* sex life. How about we both just do our jobs and accept the fact we ain’t never going to be drinking buddies, huh?”

“Stay outta my face and I’ll stay outta yours,” Dalby agreed sulkily, reaching out to press the button for the lobby.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tom demanded, as the elevator began to move downwards.

“I’m sure even *you* can handle a girl by yourself, Paris. I’m gonna go do some *real* police work.”

Tom gaped at him in disbelief. Dalby had just said he suspected the woman had murdered Bryson; so leaving Tom alone with her was breaking every rule in the book.

But he was fucked if he was going to ask Dalby to stay.

“Fine,” he snapped, folding his arms across his chest and sneering coldly at the other man. “Do whatever the hell you want.”

~#~#~#~

“Stop right there,” Torres yelled.

Chakotay halted so suddenly that Ayala bumped into him. “What?” Chakotay asked, looking down at his feet in confusion for some contaminant.

Torres laid down her bone-saw and stepped around the autopsy table, her eyes narrowed into a frown. 

“What?” Chakotay repeated nervously, as her eyes raked over him.

She shrugged. “Nothing. I can’t see it.”

“You can’t see what?”

“Your halo.”

“My *what*?”

“Well you haven’t sprung wings so I was looking for a halo,” Torres said. “I couldn’t think of any other reason you’d think you could fly.”

Ayala sniggered loudly at Chakotay’s blush.

“I hear Paris saved your ass,” Torres continued. “Has he decided what to do with it yet?”

“Belle,” Chakotay snarled warningly.

“What’s this?” Ayala asked, his eyes brightening.

“Didn’t you know?” Torres asked sweetly. “Now Paris has saved Chakotay’s life, Chakotay’s ass belongs to him.”

“My *life* belongs to him,” Chakotay growled.

“But from what I hear, I’m sure Tom would much rather have your ass,” Torres pointed out.

“My ass isn’t on offer.”

“Sounds like a cop-out to me,” Torres retorted. “I don’t see how you can say he owns your ‘life’ unless he owns ‘you’. And if he owns *you*, well I think…”

“I think you should keep your nose out of my love life and tell me how Bryson died.”

Torres’s eyes went wide. “Did you hear that, Greg? He said his ‘love life’.”

“I heard,” Ayala agreed, slapping Chakotay heartily on the back. “You old dog you. Never even thought you went for blondes, let alone blond *guys*.”

“Oops,” Torres laughed, as Chakotay’s face turned a deep purple. “I don’t think he’s laughing, Greg.”

“Lighten up, Chak,” Ayala said, tapping Chakotay’s shoulder. “Since when couldn’t you take a joke?”

“Since it’s at the expense of my partner,” Chakotay snarled. “You want to take the piss out of me, go ahead, but leave Tom out of it. He saved my life yesterday. He could have died. So excuse me if I don’t think it’s funny that people are still more interested in the fact he’s gay than the fact he’s the best damned partner a guy could have.”

“You’ve got me wrong,” Torres retorted. “What interests *me* is the fact that I’ve *never* seen you get so riled up and defensive about someone before. You really like him, don’t you?”

“So?” 

“So, since he’s gorgeous, intelligent, brave, and ‘the best damned partner a guy could have’, it’s a shame you’re too hung up on the fact he’s a man to see what’s in front of your eyes, Chakotay.” 

Chakotay glowered and opened his mouth to retort. Before he spoke, she sighed and raised her hands in surrender.

“Okay, Bryson drowned and the water in his lungs is river water. So he wasn’t drowned in the bath and dumped,” she added, with a nod to Ayala.

He shrugged. “It was just a thought,” he muttered sheepishly.

“There’s no abrasions, no signs of a struggle. He just fell into the water and drowned,” Torres continued. “The water was near freezing. Even if he could swim, which we don’t know, the hypothermia would have gotten him.”

“So that’s it?” Chakotay asked. 

“Oh no,” Torres replied, with a smirk. “The funny thing about a person plunging into cold water is that they undergo something called the ‘diving response’. As soon as the cold water strikes the person's face, the diving response is triggered. It reduces the blood supply to the skin and most muscles and saves it for the heart and brain. That’s why a lot of people can be successfully revived after drowning in cold water.”

“Very interesting,” Chakotay snorted. “I think Bryson is a bit past resuscitation, though.”

“Ah, but there’s a side effect of the change in blood supply,” Torres continued. “It means that toxic substances that ‘should’ have washed out of the blood stream remain in the skin and muscles in a form of residue.”

“You’re saying Bryson was drugged?”

“Oh, yeah. Though it’s an absolute miracle I found the evidence. It’s something I’ve never seen before. A hybrid of rohypnol, LSD and some chemicals I still haven’t identified. It’s a real designer drug, Chakotay. As far as I can tell, it hits the bloodstream, makes the victim completely suggestible for about an hour, and then immediately disperses out of the skin. It just sweats itself right out of the pores. Someone could have shot this into Bryson, told him to take a walk down to the river and throw himself in, and he would just have done it. And, if the water temperature had been even a degree higher that night, there wouldn’t have been a trace he’d been drugged.”

“Fuck,” Chakotay spat. “Tell me you’re not thinking what I’m thinking, Belle.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Tom was probably right about the lemmings. Except for Dashwood, the Vics fell so far that most of their skin had to be peeled off the sidewalk. So even if there *had* been a trace of the drug it would have been assumed to be a contaminant. We weren’t looking for drugs *on* the skin. We were looking at the blood and organs.”

Chakotay turned to Ayala, his eyes wide with alarm. “Bryson’s girlfriend. She’s a tall, elegant blonde, isn’t she?”

“Can’t be her,” Ayala argued. “Selgower’s been with Bryson for years. They were inseparable.”

“What if it isn’t her?” 

“What?”

“You told me Dalby thought it was weird there weren’t any photos of them as a couple. What if that’s because the woman in Bryson’s apartment *isn’t* Sandy Selgower? I mean, all we knew about Sandy was that she was a gorgeous blonde ex-model. So no-one's even questioned whether the woman in Bryson’s apartment actually *is* Sandy, have  they?”

“Oh, shit,” Ayala swore. “We need to call Ken and Tom. They’re with her now.”

Chakotay turned to Torres. “Get Janeway on the phone. Tell her what we found out and get her to run Bryson’s girlfriend through the system. We need a photo of Sandy Selgower. She was a model. There’s got to be photos of her on record. And get a couple of black and whites to meet us at the Bryson building.”

He turned back to Ayala, “Come on, let’s head over there. We can call Tom and Ken from the car.”

~#~#~#~

Janeway ripped the photo of the printer and, seeing Dalby at his desk, charged into the precinct room.

“The fact you’re here probably proves Chakotay’s wrong, but take a look at this picture,” she said, thrusting the photo under his eyes.

Dalby’s eyes widened. “It’s not mine,” he said, his posture defensive. 

“I didn’t say it was,” she snapped. “It’s Sandy Selgower.”

Dalby shook his head. “Nope. She’s a honey, but she ain’t Sandy.”

“You’re telling me this isn’t the woman in Bryson’s apartment?”

“Well, *she* was wearing clothes,” Dalby chuckled, “and it’s been a few days, but I never forget a pretty face. This isn’t her, Captain. Why?”

“What do you mean ‘a few days’?” Janeway demanded. “You and Tom Paris were supposed to go see her this afternoon.”

The color bleached out of Dalby’s face. “Paris…um…he went on his own. I mean, we went together but he pointed out he’d be better breaking the news of Bryson’s death and I figured his sort are more, well, sensitive, so I …well, I left him there.”

“His sort,” Janeway repeated in a furious hiss. “You’d better get your ass over to the Bryson building now and pray he’s okay, Mister. If anything happens to Paris, you needn’t bother coming back. You understand me?”

~#~#~#~

“I can’t raise them,” Ayala said, as Chakotay spun the car through another illegal U-turn and cut through three lanes of traffic.

“Shit,” Chakotay cursed, flooring the pedal and speeding through a red light.

“Jesus, Chak. We’re not going to be much use to them dead,” Ayala yelled, as another sharp turn threw him against the door.

“Uniform beat us,” Chakotay announced, as he slammed his foot on the brake and brought the car to a skidding halt next to a couple of black and whites.

“Can’t see how the hell they did,” Ayala muttered, feeling his shoulder for bruises. “Fucking maniac.”

Chakotay jumped out of the car and ran up to the lobby, flashing his ID. 

“There’s no answer from the Penthouse, Sir,” one of the uniformed cops announced, as he charged into their midst. “And the doorman said someone matching Selgower’s description left the building twenty minutes ago.”

“Alone?” Chakotay demanded.

“Yeah. She got in a cab. He said she was carrying a suitcase.”

“Put out an APB on Selgower,” Chakotay snapped. 

“It’s not her. Whoever she is, she’s not Selgower.”

Chakotay spun around at the breathless voice. “Shit, Ken. I thought she’d killed you both. Where’s Tom?” 

“I don’t know,” Dalby confessed, white-faced. “I left him here. I just found out about Selgower. Came right over.”

“You left him here? Alone?” Chakotay demanded.

“I didn’t know,” Dalby wailed.

Chakotay didn’t stop to think. He simply punched Dalby in the jaw, felling him to the floor. “Bastard,” he spat, stepping over the groaning man, and racing for the elevator.

“Wait,” Ayala yelled, as the doors were about to close. “The elevator is high-security. It won’t open on the top floor without a key.”

“Here,” the doorman said, thrusting a key-card into Ayala’s hand, his eyes bright with excitement at the afternoon’s unexpected entertainment.

Ayala grabbed the key in his right hand. Then he grabbed Dalby by the scruff of his neck with his left hand, and half-dragged, half-carried his partner to the elevator.

“We don’t need that piece of shit,” Chakotay growled, as Ayala threw Dalby inside.

“He owes it to Paris to be there,” Ayala spat. 

“I didn’t know,” Dalby protested, his eyes begging Ayala for understanding. “How the hell *could* I know?”

“You knew,” Ayala replied coldly. “You said it yourself, Ken. There weren’t any pictures of Selgower and Bryson together. She got rid of them. Got rid of anything that would have showed she was an imposter.”

“Why?” Chakotay demanded. “Why the hell would she do it? What did she want? If all she wanted was a place to lay low, why report Bryson missing?”

Before Ayala could think of an answer, the elevator chimed and came to a halt. He slipped the key-card into the elevator mechanism and the door slid open.

Chakotay burst into the Penthouse, his gun drawn. “TOM?” he yelled. “TOM?”

Their own guns raised, Ayala and Dalby worked their way through the luxury apartment, checking room after room, while Chakotay charged out onto the terrace.

“He’s not in here,” Ayala called after him. “Place is clean, Chak.”

“Maybe he left,” Dalby suggested. “Maybe she just carried on her act til he’d gone, then packed her bags and ran. Maybe he just hasn’t called in yet.”

Chakotay shook his head furiously. “No, he’s here. My gut says he’s here and in trouble.”

“The doorman didn’t see him leave,” Ayala agreed.

“Maybe we should check the roof,” Dalby said hesitantly. 

“There’s no way up there from here,” Ayala pointed out. “The service stairwell cuts past this penthouse from the floor below. Bryson was more scared of intruders than fire.”

“But the elevator goes to the top,” Dalby replied.

Chakotay slapped Dalby on the shoulder as the three of them ran towards the elevator, his anger at the man temporarily displaced by gratitude for the suggestion.

They tumbled out onto the roof and spread out to check around the various protrusions of the gas vents and water tower.

“Oh, shit,” Ayala gasped, as he moved towards the north side of the building and saw Tom sitting on the edge of the guard-rail, his legs dangling into space, his arms raised and slowly flapping in imitation of a bird.

He stepped backwards slowly, then turned and gestured to his companions, his right index finger pressed against his mouth for silence.

“He’s over there,” he stage-whispered, as Chakotay and Dalby reached him. He grabbed Chakotay’s bicep firmly as the bigger man made as though to charge in Tom’s direction. “He’s right on the edge, Chak. If he so much as startles, he’s going to fall.”

Chakotay nodded his understanding. “Okay. Dalby, go down to the lobby and get hold of the Captain. Tell her what’s going on. Tell her Tom’s probably drugged out of his mind. We need to keep this quiet. If a news team sends a ‘copter, it might push him to jump.