The next time Natasha opened her eyes it was morning. It took a second for her to remember that the barely familiar, plain wallpaper belonged to Nathan's bedroom. She turned onto her side and faced Nathan who was still blissfully asleep. They were no longer holding hands but the memory of his promise from last night was still fresh in her mind. Regardless, she still had her reservations about trusting him again.

She quietly slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom, washed her face and swirled some toothpaste around in her mouth before making her way to the kitchen. When he woke up half an hour later, he checked on her first.

"Hey," he said in a gruff voice, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

"Hi," she said, not taking her eyes off the pan on the stove.

"My kitchen has never smelled this good," he commented.

"Probably because you don't do much cooking, judging from the contents of your fridge," Natasha snickered.

"True," Nathan agreed. "You didn't have to get up so early to cook you know. We could have gone for breakfast somewhere."

"I'm an early bird," Natasha shrugged. "And besides, it's not like I can go anywhere dressed like this."

"I think you wear the outfit well," Nathan teased with a smile. She threw a dish towel at him and he caught it easily and tossed it on the table between them.

"How's your hand?" he asked her.

"Just stings a little. Thanks for patching it up," she replied. "You should get ready for work or you won't have enough time for breakfast," she added dismissively.

"Why is everyone suddenly so bossy?" he muttered under his breath, going back to the bedroom. He joined her again, showered and dressed in a suit and happily dug into the breakfast that she'd laid out on the table.

"Thank you for last night," she said once he was done.

"Anytime and you can stay here as long as you need. Especially if you'll be making breakfast like this every day," he teased earning a small smile from Natasha. "On a serious note, if you feel like you have nowhere to go, my door is always open."

"Thanks."

He waited, thinking she'd say something else and when she didn't, he cleared his throat and spoke again. "I have a question about last night."

"What about?"

"The spare keys. Are you sure you don't remember the last time you saw them?"

"Mum and I rarely use them. We've each got a set and so does Danielle although she often forgets hers at her house and ends up using the spares when she comes over. She always puts them back when she leaves though," Natasha replied.

"Does anyone else besides the three of you know where you keep them?"

Natasha eyed him warily. "Is this some more detective work under the pretense of caring about me?"

"That's not..." he paused, trying to find the right words. "You remember that the murder weapon used on Mac was a knife from your house but there was no sign of breaking and entering that night which means whoever killed Mac had the means to get into your house. It can't be a coincidence that your spare keys are missing."

"So you think someone found out where we hide them then took them and got into the house to steal the knife?" Natasha said thinking the theory over.

"It makes sense. I'll need to talk to Danielle first then ask your neighbors if they saw anything out of the ordinary recently," Nathan said clearing the table and looking for his keys. "You're more than welcome to stay here and if there's somewhere you'd rather I take you, I will. It's up to you."

Natasha looked hesitant as she thought this through.

"It's okay if you'd prefer to stay until you're ready to face the world again. I wish I could stay with you but there's so much I have to do at work," Nathan said.

"That's okay. I think I'll stay here, clear my head," Natasha said.

Nathan nodded, jiggling his keys. "I'll leave my phone with you since you don't have yours. If you need anything you can call the station and ask them to put you through to me and in case I'm not in the office, call Michael. Both numbers are in there."

Once he left, Natasha cleaned up the kitchen then moved on to the bedroom but Nathan had already made the bed so she took a long shower instead, rueful that she had to put on the same t-shirt and sweatpants she'd slept in after. A knock on the front door startled her and she crept over to it peering through the peephole to see who it was. When she saw it was Stacey she opened the door and let her in.

"Hi Stacey. Nathan's not here," she said feeling awkward as Stacey walked in wearing a lovely, bright yellow summer dress and black heels.

"I know. He called me and told me you might need some clothes that don't reek of testosterone," Stacey winked at her before hugging her. She passed her a white bag of neatly packed clothes which Natasha immediately dug through and lifted a black, sequined dress with spaghetti straps. She gave Stacey a questioning look.

"We're almost the same size so you should fit in that perfectly fine," Stacey said.

"It's not the size I'm worried about," Natasha laughed. "A jean and a t-shirt would have sufficed."

Stacey waved her comment off. "There's a bunch of those somewhere in the bottom of the bag."

"A bunch!" Natasha exclaimed. "I'm not planning on moving in here."

"Sure," Stacey said slyly.

"I'm serious Stacey!"

"So am I!" Stacey laughed. "Now go try that dress on. You can wear it when Nate takes you out for dinner."

"Stacey!"

Stacey laughed again at the comical look of horror on Natasha's face. "Go change and we'll go get your hand checked out as per Nate's orders then we'll do something fun."

"You don't have to babysit me. I'm not ten anymore and I'm sure you have better things to do," Natasha argued, sighing in relief when she retrieved a t-shirt and jeans from the bag as well as a pair of sandals.

"Once your babysitter, always your babysitter," Stacey said pinching Natasha's cheeks. "If you haven't changed in the next five minutes, you're not getting ice-cream."

***

"You look happy," Michael said narrowing his eyes at Nathan who was sitting at his desk when he entered their office. "Why?"

"Nice of you to finally show up," Nathan said, ignoring his question. Michael bit back a retort and went to his desk.

"I had an idea about our Chief dilemma," he said once he'd settled down.

"Enlighten me," Nathan said giving him all his attention.

"Good old stakeout," Michael said leaning back in his chair, with his hands behind his head. "The Chief and Margaret Bandieer call each other on a daily basis, they probably meet up every day or at least frequently. If we watch him, maybe we can catch Margaret paying him off especially since we rattled her yesterday. If we're right about them, she's going to go to him to get him to ask us to back off."

"Good idea but how much staking out will it take before we actually get any kind of evidence. They might not meet in person any time soon," Nathan replied.

"Then we'll have to give them a reason to."

"What did you have in mind?"

Michael tipped his head back, deep in thought before he spoke again. "We have to keep it as vague as possible so we don't get into trouble with our own trap."

"Detective Henderson. Carter."

Michael looked up to see who had interrupted their conversation. A huge grin broke out on his face as he locked eyes with the petite, young woman dressed in uniform with unruly red curls peeking out from under her cap.

"Naomi! My favorite rookie," he said.

"Not falling for that again, sir" she said giving him a stern look.

"That's what you said last time and you still went out to dinner with me."

Nathan could have sworn he heard Naomi growl before she took a deep breath and focused her attention on him, completely ignoring Michael.

"Detective Henderson. One of the prisoners is asking to speak with you. He's pretty insistent."

"Who?" Nathan asked although he had a feeling he already knew.

"Maxwell Bandieer. He says it's a matter of life and death." She rolled her eyes at this.

"Thanks Naomi. I'll stop by his cell," Nathan said dismissing her.

"Also, someone reported vandalism at 5 Wentworth Lane. It's Natasha Evans' address so I thought you'd want to know since she's a part of your case."

Nathan nodded and thanked her and she left without another glance at Michael, much to his disappointment.

"Who would want to vandalize the Evans property?"

"Natasha," Nathan replied picking up his desk phone and dialing his cell phone which he'd left with Natasha.

"Why do you think that?"

"I know she did that. She told me she was looking for the spare keys that they keep in a potted plant by the door and when she couldn't find them she started smashing stuff. Hold on a second."

"Hi Natasha," he said when his call had gone through.

"Hey," Natasha said. There was a lot of noise on her end and she sounded out of breath.

"Where are you?" he asked surprised.

"Stacey. Carnival. Crazy rides," she managed to get out in between gasps for breath.

"Eh, okay then. I just thought you should probably call Danielle about the smashed pots and put her mind at ease before she freaks out."

"Right. Good idea. I'll call her from your phone if you don't mind."

"It's fine. Do you need me to get her number for you?"

"No need, I know it off head." Nathan heard Stacey calling out to Natasha in the background; something about a shirtless guy and ice cream and she hung up right after. He put the receiver down, making a mental note to call Stacey later.

"So, missing spare keys, you said?" Michael asked.

"Yeah. Can you find out who reported the vandalism? If it's Danielle Pierre, talk to her about the spare keys and ask her when she last saw them. If we don't get anything useful from her, we'll go talk to the neighbors. I'm going to go and see Max."

Nathan headed straight for the cells and found Max lying on his bed, facing the wall. He had the cell all to himself and was curled up on the bed; the only indication that he was awake being the slight movements of his arm once in a while. Nathan cleared his throat to get Max's attention. Max sat up quickly, shoving something under the covers before standing up and going to stand by the bars of the cell.

"I heard you have a matter of life and death to discuss with me," Nathan said eyeing Max's casual attire which surprised him as he should have been dressed in prison regalia.

"I need to speak to Natasha," Max said.

"Why?" Nathan asked.

"The details aren't important. I just really need to speak to her," Max replied.

"Why are you telling me?"

"You're working on her case. I'm sure you can convince her that talking to me is in her best interests," Max answered.

Nathan folded his hands over his chest. "But I don't believe it is so I'm not going to do that."

"You have to. If you want her to live another day, you have to convince her to talk to me," Max said seriously.

"Is that a threat?" Nathan asked, eyes narrowed.

"Not from me."

"From who then?"

"I'll only tell Natasha so you better convince her to talk to me before it's too late," Max said going back to his bed and resuming his wall-facing position, leaving Nathan staring at him in confusion.

***

"Did you find out who reported the vandalism incident?" Nathan asked Michael once they reconvened in their office after his brief talk with Max.

"Two people actually; one of the neighbors, Miss Treville and the Evans' housekeeper, Miss Pierre. Miss Pierre called back later though and said everything was sorted and it wasn't vandalism after all. I suppose Natasha spoke to her as per your suggestion," Michael reported.

"Probably. Did you ask her about the spare keys?"

"She said she last used them about two or three weeks ago. She did check for them once within that time frame and when she didn't find them, she assumed either Natasha or Judge Evans had taken them so she brushed it off and never thought of them again."

Nathan turned back to the board stuck on their wall, just staring at it for a while before he turned back to Michael. "Two to three weeks ago is the time of Henry's murder."

"It could be a coincidence," Michael shrugged.

"Or not. Henry's murderer used a gun that was similar to Natasha's missing gun. The only way they could have known to do that would have been if they saw it themselves. So maybe the killer stole the spare keys, went into Natasha's house and stole the gun then went out and bought one similar to it," Nathan countered.

"How would the killer have known that Natasha had a gun?"

"Max is the only one who knew about it and where she kept it. He must have told someone so he could set her up for killing Henry."

Michael thought this theory through. "And Max's motive to have Henry killed would be to make sure he wasn't kicked out of the will or the lavish mansion for not being a Bandieer?"

"And framing Natasha would have been some twisted payback for her threatening him and breaking up with him," Nathan added.

"But then if he wanted to frame Natasha, why go through the trouble of getting someone with similar features to her and stealing the gun and then finding another gun and using that one instead?" Michael asked.

"Mind games?" Nathan suggested.

Michael shook his head. "Or maybe whoever killed Henry for him had a change of heart about framing Natasha which means it could be someone close to her who cared enough to kill Henry for threatening Natasha but also made sure Natasha wouldn't get into trouble. A best friend maybe?"

"Hair, eye and skin color of the best friend are way different from Natasha's and the optogram," Nathan argued.

"Ever heard of wigs, contact lenses and a shit tonne of make up?" Michael said pointedly.

"I still say it's not the best friend. According to Natasha, no one knew about Henry's threats and Kelsey hates Max. She'd sooner shoot him than kill anyone for him," Nathan countered.

"She makes sense Nathan. The age, motivation and she probably knows where the spare keys were kept, being her best friend and all. I'll just put her on the board as a 'maybe suspect' for now," Michael said writing their newest theory down and pinning it to the board. "So what did Max want?"

"He asked me to convince Natasha to talk to him or else she might die," Nathan replied flatly.

"Interesting. Will you tell her?"

"I will but I doubt she will want to see him. He's probably trying to mess with her head or something," Nathan said dismissively. "About the Chief, what were you going to suggest before Naomi interrupted us?"

"We need to find a way for the Chief to overhear that we have a lead that may prove that Margaret killed her husband and we are anticipating an arrest within the next 24 hours. If he really is working for her, he won't hesitate to share the information with her so that she can try to get ahead of whatever evidence they think we have. You have to go and bug his office so that if he calls her, we can at least hear his side of the conversation since tapping his phone is out of the question. Maybe we'll hear talks of a payment or a meeting to make a payment; something," Michael said.

"Sounds tricky," Nathan said skeptically.

"No harm in trying," Michael said.

"You know she could just wire him the money to take care of the problem, no need for a meeting."

"Criminals don't have money wired to them Nate, that would leave a trace. If she's paying him off, it's going to be cash," Michael said firmly.

"If you say so then," Nathan said resignedly. "How do you propose we do this?"

Michael picked up a stack of papers from his desk and gave them to Nathan. "Take these to him. They are case files that he needs to review. While you're there, I will call you and you need to make it sound like I'm telling you something big about the Bandieer case. Be vague but convincing. He'll probably listen in the moment he hears 'Bandieer' and then before you leave his office, make sure you put this bug somewhere on his desk so that if he calls anyone, we can hear him."

"One problem," Nathan said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't have my phone on me today."

"Where is it?"

"Natasha has it," Nathan replied to which Michael stared wide-eyed at him. "It's a long story. Just borrow me yours and use the office phone."

Michael reluctantly gave him his phone then set up the surveillance equipment and handed Nathan a tiny black device after which he made his way to the Chief's office, decoy papers in hand. Nathan went into the Chief's office and told him he had some case files to discuss with him. While the Chief was preoccupied with looking over the papers, Nathan attached the device under a corner of the desk. The phone rang just then and Nathan apologized to the Chief for the interruption before answering it.

"Henderson," he said in a serious voice.

"Whatever you do, keep a straight face and remember to be vague," Michael said on the other end of the line.

Nathan pretended to listen a little while longer before he said, "I thought Margaret had an alibi for Henry's murder?"

He paused again, noticing that the Chief had stopped his scribbling and was listening closely to his every word though he kept his eyes down. "Well if you're sure about this then get started on getting an arrest warrant right away." He hung up after that and put the phone away in his pocket.

"I'm sorry, I have to leave," he said to the Chief.

"A case?" the Chief asked.

Nathan nodded. "Looks like we might just make an arrest today for the murder of Henry Bandieer. I will send in a report as soon as it's done." He left the office right away and found Michael already wearing headphones and listening intently. A moment later he put the headphones down.

"Chief didn't waste any time. He called someone and told them to leave town right away before the cops get something solid to pin on them and I'm willing to bet my last dollar that he was talking to Margaret," Michael said.

"So all we've achieved is knowing for sure that he is the one leaking information to Margaret and not in a very legal way. What now?" Nathan asked.

"They didn't talk about a payment," Michael mused, deep in thought.

"Maybe they have an unspoken agreement. For every bit of information, he gets a dollar stashed under a rock in their secret meeting place," Nathan joked.

Michael made an annoyed face at him. "I think we should tail him, just in case he meets with her before she leaves town. I can't see any way we could legally keep her here." He called reception and asked her to let him know if the Chief left the building.

"Macmillan's funeral is the day after tomorrow. I don't think Margaret would miss that," Nathan said after he'd finished his call.

"She strikes me as the type who would to save her own skin," Michael said. "You need to go and meet with Macmillan's wife. See what you get from her. I'll hang around here in case the Chief leaves and I'll have to follow him." Nathan gave him back his phone and left right after.

***

Nathan got the address to Macmillan's house and drove there. The place was a hive of activity and Nathan assumed they were probably preparing for the funeral. It took some convincing before Macmillan's wife agreed to see him and only for a few minutes.

"I'm Detective Henderson. Thank you for agreeing to see me Mrs Bandieer. I know this is a difficult time and I'm sorry about your husband," Nathan said when they sat out back.

"Thank you and please call me Tracy," she said in a low voice. Her face looked haggard and her eyes were red and puffy like she'd been crying non-stop for days and her dark hair was tied into a loose ponytail. "I can only spare five minutes then I have to get back inside."

"It's okay, I won't keep you. I just have a few routine questions then I'll be out of your hair," Nathan said, to which Tracy nodded.

"Where were you on the evening your husband died?"

"I was at a charity event at city hall for most of that day. My phone was off, that's why I didn't get the call about Mac. I saw it on the news," she said lips trembling.

"I'm sorry about that," Nathan sympathized. Tracy wiped away her tears and composed herself before asking him to continue.

"Do you know anyone who would have a reason to want to hurt your husband?"

Tracy shook her head. "Everyone loved him."

"Did anything out of the ordinary happen in the past month or so?" Nathan asked.

"Like what?"

"Odd calls, threats, strangers hanging around?" Nathan elaborated.

Tracy tried to think of anything that could have been considered odd. "I can't think of anything at the moment."

"That's okay. If you remember anything, please let me know," Nathan said giving her his card.

"Okay Detective," she said looking over the card.

"Mrs Bandieer?" a young woman approached them timidly.

"Yes?"

"The planner isn't picking up her phone and the caterers said they would rather talk to her about the changes as she was the one who originally contracted them for the job," she told Tracy.

"I have a good mind to turn this over to Margaret and let her deal with the stress since she's the one who insisted on moving up the funeral," Tracy groaned, standing. "If there's nothing else Detective..."

"That's all for now," Nathan said standing too. "I don't mean to pry but did you say your husband's funeral was moved up?"

"Yes, why?" Tracy asked.

"I'm surprised that's all," Nathan replied.

Tracy led the way to the front door. "Margaret wanted to move it to today and I told her that's absolutely impossible and way too last minute so I got her to agree to tomorrow."

"Do you know why she wanted it moved?" Nathan asked although he suspected he knew the reason.

"You've never been married huh?" Tracy said once they reached the door. Nathan shook his head, confused at her remark. "In-laws rarely ever make sense about anything."

***

I can't believe my last post was over a month ago lol. I'm sorry, I'm terrible at time management. At one point I almost posted the unedited version of this but you'd probably kill me if I subjected you to my 19 year old writing.

Some of you have asked how much more of this story is left and I'm pleased to tell you there are only 8 more chapters left (based on the first draft) although this may change slightly for example this chapter and the next were supposed to be one but it was getting too long and I had to cut it in half but I'll try to stick to 8. As always, thank you for your patience.