Alex Eames looked across her desk at her partner, and sighed. He was doing it again.

"Earth to Bobby Goren?"

"Huh?" Her partner returned from whatever planet he'd been occupying and gazed vaguely in her direction. That was the third time he'd done that that day, and she was starting to get concerned.

"You wanted me to remind you that that conference upstairs you're going to starts at midday? Half an hour to go."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, thanks." He returned his attention to the papers in front of him. She would have sworn he'd been looking at them for the past half hour without seeing them. Yet more un-Goren like behaviour. But then, Bobby had been acting weird for the past week or so, and she was still trying to puzzle out why. Admittedly, it wasn't major weird - he was in work at his usual time, they were working together on their new case as efficiently as they usually did, he didn't seem ill or unhappy about anything… just distracted.

Possibly someone who didn't know him as well as she did wouldn't have noticed, but every so often, he seemed to be temporarily mentally absent for a few minutes, then he'd shake his head and return to whatever he was doing. For most people, this wouldn't have been anything out of the ordinary, but for Bobby Goren, who would probably have done his job for free if the city didn't pay him for it anyway, it was unusual bordering on alarming.

It was odd, she thought, rubbing her arm absent-mindedly and running her mind back over the events of the last four weeks, trying to puzzle out what had started it. Four weeks ago, Bobby had returned from the Shorokogat surveillance operation with a very interesting tale to tell. The official story, of course, was that he and the others involved had simply gone up there to carry out the operation, been frustrated by the bad weather, and then found out that their target had drowned during the freak storm that had prevented their listening in.

The unofficial story, as related to her by Bobby over take-out at his apartment one evening shortly afterwards, was a lot more interesting; wrecked planes, rescue missions and rogue CIA agents, oh my. She still suspected he wasn't telling her the whole story, but accepted that there were probably some parts of it he'd been forbidden to tell anyone.

Since then, he'd been apparently back to his normal self, if somewhat grouchy the first day or two back, probably due to sore muscles following the cliff rescue he'd been involved with, she supposed. Then, two weeks ago, they'd gotten news that there was talk of creating a new Interpol division in New York to tackle criminal organisations operating in the US who originated in the old Soviet bloc; essentially, the Russian and Eastern European mafias. Very politically sensitive due to the current security climate, and they were looking specifically for individuals with some understanding of the culture of the countries of origin. She knew a few NYPD cops who were considering applying.

The point of the conference Bobby was going to that afternoon was to try to identify possible cultural barriers and sensitive issues that anyone involved in the division's work would need to be aware of to work effectively. They'd originally both been invited along to discuss the experiences he and she had had working the original Shorokogat case in New York - when it had been simply an investigation into an illegal abortion ring among immigrants - as part of the setting-up process for the new division. The conference was being held at One Police Plaza, partly because it was expected that quite a few of the new division's personnel would be NYPD on secondment, but partly, she suspected, because everyone knew that the catering staff there did better coffee than almost anywhere else in a five-mile radius. Cops, even (perhaps especially) senior cops in suits with offices, took their coffee seriously.

It hadn't been too difficult for them to persuade Deakins that he could really only spare one of them from their current case; the phrase "there's no reason why BOTH of us should be bored to tears sitting in a meeting where we'll speak for about one hour then listen to others being self-important" hanging unspoken between them. Bobby had volunteered on the grounds that she'd suffered enough due to this investigation (true: her broken arm had healed completely, but that had been a frustrating few weeks off work, not much consolation in the fact that Shorokogat's bodyguard was awaiting trial for assault on a police officer), and in any case, he knew two of the Interpol personnel who would be at the meeting from the surveillance operation.

Eames was jolted out of her reverie by the phone on Bobby's desk ringing. He picked it up; she followed the conversation with half an ear, noticing that he sounded unusually annoyed, even agitated. He put the phone down and sprang up from his desk with a faintly worried expression. "Eames; I'm going downstairs. Morelli needs to speak to me about that case he's working…"

"The one last week where we found that homeless guy living in the piano? You want me to go?"

"No, needs to be me, it's about some papers they found with the guy, they're in German, he says… can you tell anyone who asks, I'll be back in ten minutes?"

"Sure." She watched with a perplexed expression as he practically sprinted out of the bullpen. It was almost as though he was worried about the conference, which was unlikely. Public speaking wasn't something either of them did on a regular basis, but for someone with Bobby's intelligence, confidence and acting ability, it was hardly something he needed to worry about. She'd read the notes he'd prepared; they sounded fine. If he was only going downstairs for a few minutes, he didn't need to worry about being late… maybe he was worried about meeting the other people from the surveillance op again?

That was the only explanation she could think of, but it raised a few questions of its own. Why would he be worried? It sounded as though the three of them - Bobby, Whitefield and Tovitz - had all gotten along fine, and they'd come through the op with barely a few scratches and some bruises. Perhaps the answer lay somewhere in the bits of Smith's actual arrest and its aftermath that Bobby had covered over with a few glib sentences. If so, she was unlikely ever to find out the whole truth. That bugged her. Alex Eames was not a woman to willingly let a mystery go unsolved.

She finished reviewing the profiles of possible suspects for the latest cases, and glanced up at the clock. Bobby had been gone longer than he'd intended; he'd probably just go straight upstairs to the conference. She stood up from her desk, stretched, and headed over to the door herself, intending to grab a coffee from the machine and spend another hour on the case, then go get some lunch.

As she made her way out into the corridor, she was absent-mindedly wondering whether to be health-conscious and go for decaff, or be realistic and go for something which might actually have seen a coffee bean at some point in its existence, when someone caught her arm, causing her to jump. She turned quickly, and found herself face to face with a besuited young woman with bright red hair and a slightly harried expression.

"Excuse me? I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm looking for Detective Goren - do you know him?"