"Agent Brockner," she called when he was about to walk into the meeting room.

He turned to her. "Lieutenant?"

She didn't look at him but at the list in her hand. "A narcissist. Anything else?"

"Maybe also a paranoid."

Gillian looked up, narrowing her eyes. Her memory was going at full speed through an imaginary index in her head, to locate in which of Brock's manuals she'd read about paranoid behavior. "A paranoid narcissist," she muttered with a quick nod, and resumed reading as she sipped her coffee.

Brock went into the meeting room, picked up the files he wanted to check before going to sleep and walked back out, turning off the light. He paused before leaving to look for the last time at Gillian there at her desk, reading and scribbling notes in the soft glow of the lamp, a framed picture of her son near her hand in the quiet office full of shadows. He would've liked to stay, at least a while longer. Because she looked so alone there, after sending everybody home—him included—while she stayed behind, trying to find any clue or lead all by herself.

But she'd said she needed a quiet while, and Brock knew his presence wouldn't help her focus, keeping her in that defensive attitude she'd wielded since he arrived. Well, no wonder, since almost his first words had been to kick her off the case. Had she not reminded him why they needed him, he would've walked away. A real shame for his twenty-five years in the field, behaving like that in such a situation. Yeah, blame it on Burton and his silly comments, but Brock couldn't quite tell why the Section Chief's tease had gotten him built up like that.

Gillian didn't acknowledge him leaving, but she heard his firm strides echoing away down the empty hall. She would've liked him to stay, but there was nothing he could help her with as she revisited names and memories from her two decades in the force. And this time she knew that if any doubt or question came up, she could call him, no matter the time, even if only for him to scold her and be the particularly bitter ass he'd been that night.

Her email found Brock laying back in bed, wearing the elegant navy blue pajamas Andrea had given him for Christmas, laptop open on the bed at hand and a bunch of folders spread on his lap.

He pulled the computer closer at the beep, frowned at the incoming message and checked the time: three a.m. Gillian was still at her office? Did she ever sleep? Look who's talking, he thought, opening the email. She had narrowed down the list to twenty-eight names, but had added some more, so they still had thirty-five people to check. Well, looking at the bright side, it was less than half of what they had just a couple of hours earlier. He was about to forward the narrowed list to Brandon, for the tech to pull the files of the new names first thing next morning, when he got another email from Gillian.

Seeing her first email was almost instantly opened, she was tempted to send Brock a "go to sleep, stupid workaholic, 'cause we need you fresh and sharp in a few hours." But she only wrote, "background check will be ready first thing tomorrow."