Firstly, I sincerely apologise that it has been ages since this one was updated. But, it seemed that my original outline for the story was altered and now, because of that, I had to change the direction of the story. So, sorry about that.

Fire Safety

Home of Jessica Marshall

The four detectives were inside her living area, searching through book shelves and looking through Jessica Marshall's things. Marshall was holding the search warrant in her hand, her face screwed up in confusion and anger. "How dare you people search my home without good reason."

"We dare." Logan told her, as he pulled opened a drawer and began looking through it.

Goren was looking at pictures of Marshall and what appeared to be family. "Who are these? Your parents?" Goren asked, picking up a picture of two people, middle-aged, standing closely together and smiling at the camera. He held it up to show her.

"Yes." she replied, still upset, it was evident in her tone of voice.

"Where are they?" Goren asked, as Eames picked up a small box that contained certificates, letters and small personal posessions.

Marshall looked at Eames angrily and then turned to Goren. "They're dead." she said, practically spitting it out.

"I-I'm very sorry." Goren said, quickly apologising and putting the photo back on the shelf. He could see Eames eye him but she quickly continued with what she was doing. She was passing things out of the box to show Logan as Wheeler was walking out of the room, speaking to another officer.

"Yeah, well, it was a long time ago." she told him, softening just a little but she was clearly keeping an eye on Eames and Logan.

"What are these?" Eames turned to ask her.

"They're letters and they are private." Marshall walked over to Logan and took them off him.

"Yeah, they're letters and they look like love letters. To Chris Webber." Logan told her, as she took the letters off him.

"It doesn't look like he got them." Eames said.

"Oh, he got them." she said, angrily, swiping the box off her. "That is none of your business. Please leave my private property alone."

Goren walked closer to Marshall and look at her thoughtfully, his mind trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. "You - you had given up on phoning him, waiting for him."

"I'm not waiting for anyone!" She told him, sharply.

Goren stepped closer to her, "You did not like the way he 'coupled' with you and then refused to have any contact with you." She eyed him, her anger increasing as he started hitting a button she didn't want. "You... he - he abandoned you! You didn't like that because you prefer control and Chris was the one who was telling you what to do."

Marshalls anger flared, "So what are you saying? That I burnt down his house to get back at him?" Eames and Logan looked at each other and then at Goren.

"How do you know his house was burnt down?" Logan asked, hiding the smirk from his face as her face dropped a little. "It's not written in the warrant and it's not been released to the press yet."

"It must be in the warrant..." Marshall said, opening up the piece of paper in her hand and re-reading it.

"No, see, it only mentions Clare Brooks and your relationship with the suspect, Chris Webber." Eames told Marshall, as she looked back at Goren with hatred. Eames pulled out her handcuffs and walked over to her.

"I heard convicting evidence..." Logan started as Eames pulled Marshall's arms behind her back. "Possibly even a confession."

"You're under arrest." Goren told her, as Marshall practically growled in frustration as two officers arrived to take her away. Eames passed her to them and then they dragged her out of the apartment. The three looked at each other and sighed.

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Interrogation Room, Major Case Squad

"No, no, no, no, no." Marshall repeated over and over and over again, as Eames and Wheeler sat opposite her and her counsel, Roger Hayes.

Hayes put a gentle hand on Marhsall's arms. "You don't have to do that. My client did nothing wrong, she was aware of the fire because she drove there." Hayes told them.

"She drove there?" Eames asked, incredulously, her eyebrows almost reaching her hairline.

"Why?" Wheeler asked, "To see him?" Marshall nodded.

"I thought you weren't waiting for him." Eames replied, "Why would you want to see him?"

"I wanted an explanation!" her voice rising in desperation. "He didn't give me one, I went there to speak to him. What I found was a smoking pile of rubble."

Eames looked at Wheeler in amusement, "Did you know Clare Brooks?" Wheeler asked.

"No! I did not kill anyone!" Marshall repeated, venomously. They heard a knock on the window behind them and as the two stood up Marshall continued, "If you see him you can tell him that I hate him!" Eames rolled her eyes at the pathetic request and they left the room and walked straight into the observation room.

As soon as they did an evidence bag was passed to Eames from Goren. "Look at this." He told her and she did. As soon as she read the words she looked at her partner and then at Logan with surprise. "It's one of the letters we took from her home."

"It's from Chris to her?" Wheeler asked, looking over Eames' shoulder to see the letter. Goren nodded.

"They were exchanging letters." Goren explained.

"How romantic." Eames said, sarcastically.

"Bring him back in here!" Ross told them, as they looked at Marshall who was leaning on her elbows and taking deep breaths and Hayes was trying to comfort her.

"Is she for real?" Logan asked, shaking his head as they watched.

Eames snorted, "My heart bleeds."

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Logan and Wheeler were interrogating Jess Marshall as Goren and Eames were interrogating Chris Webber. "So the letters that the two of you wrote to each other, what was that?" Wheeler asked Marshall, as she appeared to be calmer.

"Private communication." She replied, hatefully. "It has absolutely nothing to do with you."

"Well, we think otherwise." Logan told her, "You see, you couldn't get an explanation out of him and you led us to believe there had been no communication between the two of you since... you know." He implied, with a grin. "So, what's going on?"

Marshall looked at her counsel, who nodded, she then looked back at Logan. "You read them?" Logan and Wheeler nodded, "Then you already know. I love him!"

"After only having a one night stand?" Wheeler asked, incredulously.

Marshall nodded, "You've never experienced love at first sight." Marhsall told her, "It actually exists."

"Well this is more like love at first sex." Logan responded, sarcastically.

"I do love him! We're meant to be together!" She said, determined. "He will be mine!" Hayes put his hand on her arm again to stop her from taking it too far.

"Even though he's been sleeping with other women since you?" Wheeler asked, looking down at her sheet to confirm that.

Marshall looked at her for a moment before saying quietly, "Those were just mistakes. He came back to me."

"Why? Because of your love?" Wheeler asked, not believing it at all.

"Yes, he realised and he came back."

"Jesus, where is my violin?" Logan sarcastically asked. "He didn't come back! You know that, we know that. So stop fooling yourself." She looked at him, shocked. "Come on! We read the other letters. You know, the ones you didn't send to him." She turned away and looked at her hands. "Hell, he only replied to a few of them, and then they were impersonal."

"That's just his way." She told him.

"You didn't like being nothing, did you? You didn't like being pushed aside afterwards." Wheeler said, continuing on. "You wanted to get back at him, so you thought that you would frame him."

Marshall was shaking her head vigorously. "No."

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Goren looked at Eames and then back at Webber, "She was insistent. She pushed. You didn't get angry at her for that?" Goren asked, Webber just sat still. The table in front of them was filled with letters from Webber to Marshall and there was also the letter that Darren O'Rourke had been given from Webber. "You had to come up with a way to get back at her, that's why you burned down your house and allowed her to know about it first."

Webber sighed, "No."

"You framed her for the murder of Clare Brooks and for your own house fire." Eames repeated after already saying it several times.

"You have no evidence, Detectives." His counsel pointed out to them, sighing at the same time.

Goren looked at them both, "Uh, we have the letter that you sent to her. 'I have an idea, one that will send you away to a place where they keep you behind lock and key'. You didn't write that?"

"No." Webber said,

"It's in the same handwriting as the letter that you sent to Darren O'Rourke." Eames told him.

"I told you, I didn't send that letter. Why would I? I didn't know about her boyfriend! It wasn't something we discussed before..." Webber let his sentence drop off.

"Before you got down to business?" Eames asked, enjoying his reaction. Webber looked at her but didn't say anything. He was desperately trying not to lose his patience with her again but she was being difficult.

"Before you killed her?" Goren asked, showing him a picture of Brooks, laying cold on a slab before she had been buried.

"I didn't kill her! Why don't you ask Jess? She's the one who kept telling me she'd make me pay! Why don't you ask her?"

"Chris that's enough." His counsel said to him, pointedly shooting the Detectives a look. Goren picked up all of the letters and evidence bag and then followed Eames out of the room. Walking into the observation room they immediately noticed Logan, Wheeler, Carver and Ross.

"We're not going to get anywhere whilst they are pointing the finger at each other." Carver pointed out, tiredly.

"They're playing tug of war with each other... and us." Goren said, quietly as he was thinking. He looked down at the letters and his seemed to space out again.

"What?" Eames asked, pulling him back into reality.

"The handwriting... i-in the letters... It's all the same." Goren said, stammering as he tried to put his thoughts into a complete sentence.

"What do you mean?" Ross asked, curious.

Goren passed some around to everyone. "Every letter, no matter who it is from, whether it Jess or Chris... the handwriting is the same. Even the letter to Brooks' boyfriend."

Logan looked between both suspects and nodded, "So this game of cat and mouse has a cat." He looked at Jess, "My money is on her."

"Great." Eames said, sarcastically. "Now I feel sorry for Jerry."

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TBC

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