Brody stood staring at me, his facial feature difficult to read. Billy had already left, and I wondered when he was going to say something. When he didn't. I did.

"Where's Bruce?"

I learned very quickly this was the wrong thing to say as he stormed over to me and gripped my shoulders and shook me.

"Where's Bruce? Where's Bruce?! I get a call from a cop that someone nearly killed you today and you ask me... Where IS Bruce?!"

He crushes me in his embrace, trying it would seem to reassure himself that I am indeed alive. He lets out a deep sigh and buries his face in my neck.

My arms wrap around him. I just hold him for a moment. "God, Lulu." He whispers near my ear. "The thought of losing you... I..."

He's too overcome to finish his sentence. "Shh..." I soothed, and ran my fingers through his hair. "I'm right here. You haven't lost anything. I'm right here."

He pulls away slightly refusing to let go. He lets out this halfhearted laugh. "You're always right here, yet there's this great divide between us. And for all my efforts to try to close that gap...we mind as well be standing on either side of the Grand Canyon."

"I'm sorry." It was perhaps the worst and most insufficient thing to say but I had no other response. I didn't know how to give him what he wanted. "I'm no good. You'd be better off without me. I've done nothing but torture you because I don't know how to love you, yet ... I can't live my life without you."

"Just let me in, Lulu. It's all I've ever wanted. I just want the chance to show you, everything that you mean to me, everything I know you deserve. Please, I can't take being on the outside looking in. I can't...I can't do it any longer...I love you."

I couldn't fathom how I managed to reduce him to this. Why he would love me? Why he would care? I always knew he did, but to hear the words. I turned away... it was too much. I couldn't...could I?

He turned me around, the look in his eyes, on his face when he said, "Lulu, please?"

The last word came out nearly a whisper. A desperate plea from a desperate man, a man whose only wish in life was to give and show me, love.

I nodded my head. I couldn't find my voice, it escaped me and he kissed me. That one kiss erased any thoughts, any doubts, in my mind. I melted into him like icecream on a warm summer's day. I suddenly, never wanted him to let me go.

I must have conveyed as much with my kiss as suddenly he lifted me from off the floor and carried me off to the other room, where we stayed for most of the afternoon.

I knew Billy would be back before dark or so I thought. When he didn't return I began to get nervous. I had made Brody and I a simple meal of spaghetti, as there wasn't much food in the apartment, typical of bachelor living.

When he saw me glance towards the door for the third time, he put down his fork and stared at me. "What is it?"

"Billy? He should have been back by now, or called. He mentioned the possibility of Feds being placed at the door but...nothing."

I could tell, just the mention of Billy's name rankled him. Despite what we just shared, old insecurities, it would seem, die hard. "Call the station."

"I can't. He went through great lengths to protect me. I don't want them tracing the call."

"Lu, I know you trust him. I know what you did for him, but how do you know he isn't one of them?"

"Billy? On the take? On Shamus' payroll?" I laughed, at the absurdity of the thought.

"I know who is on Shamus' payroll, Brody. I've seen them all at one time or another wander in and out of our home in Oh Aces. The corruption runs deep, deeper than I realized when the police commissioner came to Shamus to rat Billy out as an undercover cop."

"Donavan?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if he weren't the one now in control of the mob, with the police on his side, he'd be unstoppable. When Neil came to tell me what they were planning to do to Billy, I had to get him out. He didn't deserve to die."

Brody was frowning. I wasn't sure if it was what I had to say or something else. He looked up at me. He looked like he had decided something.

"Lu, I... I'd seen Shamus after he was murdered. I lost track of him, sometime after he visited the Velveteen. I didn't want to go because I knew he was going to see Rosie. Things between them have gotten rather serious and I just couldn't stand watching him fawning over her, when he had you tied up in knots worrying about him at home."

"When I came back to collect him, he was already dead in the alley. Beside him was a muffin, a peaches and cream muffin to be exact. I took a piece of it, and got Dr. Well to tell me the ingredients."

"The bastard somehow managed to master the recipe now that he knew the ingredients to Myna Darkly's Peaches and Cream muffin. It would have allowed him to corner the muffin market should he start to bootleg them before prohibition was lifted."

"He got Winks to finance him. A fleet of mobile stores, to roll out the moment the law is rescinded. The deal hinged on him producing the muffin. I know this because he had me set up the loan. I'm not certain where he was getting them produced as Caroline Grace turned him down flat, even after his threatened to ruin her."

"It's the one piece of the puzzle I couldn't figure out, until a few days ago. Caroline wasn't producing the muffins. Her factory the Baker's Tin was closed by court order. However, that meant the police had access to her factory."

"They've been the suppliers all along. Caroline had him move some old product before the police came in and shut the place down, but it was the D.A. not Donavan who set the deal up with Shamus."

"I'm thinking the cops must have made a similar deal with the NoLuks knowing that there was already bad blood between them. It was suggested to Shamus that he make a deal with KanBo and take out the Spanish Mob Boss so that together they could rule over all BG and Oh Aces."

I felt sick. It all came together in the blink of an eye.

"Donavan knew what he was doing. He knew their greed would take over and they'd start wondering why they should share the profits and do one another in."

Brody nodded in agreement. "I believe so."

I looked at the door again. Brody got up and he called the station. "Yes, I'm looking for Officer McCarty is he in? I see. When? Uh-Huh. Thank you." Brody hung up. "He left a few hours ago to go to the courthouse. They don't know when he will return."

"The courthouse?" I wondered what he could possibly be doing there, but at least I knew he wasn't in any real danger or at least that's what I thought before I got a call later that evening.