She was not pleased. She hadn't found many names, but for each one she had taken it out on his room. The diary she'd laid hands on had mostly been filled with cops and guns and planes and serial killers and other thoroughly boring things. She'd have to go back and do a better search at a later date, just to make sure she hadn't missed anything.

Until then, though, she had a few errands to run before work and one special one at lunchtime. Thank goodness for answering machines.

The next morning, neither Jim nor Blair even bothered hanging up their coats as they walked into the bullpen. Instead, preempting Simon's summons, they headed straight for his office, solemn expressions mirrored on their faces.

"I hear we had a little break-in last night, gentlemen."

Jim nodded. "Living room was turned over, but Blair's room was completely trashed. No prints, either; whoever it was was wearing gloves and damn careful to boot. No prints, no mud, no hair."

"No salsa in the floorboards," Blair muttered, throwing himself into a nearby chair.

Jim favored him with a sour look. "And I can't smell a thing because of those stupid roses. The loft smells like them, the trucks smells like them," he sniffed. "Even your office smells like roses."

Simon clamped his cigar between his teeth and glared. Jim settled back against the desk, arms crossed over his chest. "We spent half the night tearing the place apart trying to find something and then the other half putting it all back together. Do you have some good news for us, sir?"

Simon nodded. "Megan's out of danger-- she's conscious, if not very coherent." He favored them with a tight smile. "Keeps asking if we'd killed the snake that bit her. Serena left a lab report on your desk, and I hope you will have more for me this afternoon than 'I think it's a Canadian, sir.'"

The truck was still warm from their morning drive to work, the back window only beginning to fog again in the chilly air. The streets were slick and wet, with wisps of evaporating water condensing again as they hit the colder air. In all, it gave a slightly eerie feel to the light traffic of the late morning.

"'Actually, sir, I think he's a Canadian felon, sir,'" Jim parroted back to his partner as Blair shifted in the truck seat next to him. "Insomnia does wonders for your wit, Sandburg."

"It was right there when I checked the fax from Victoria this morning. Matthieu Verte's wanted in two provinces for armed robbery, and he's hiding out in Cascade under an assumed name. How much simpler can it get?"

"So we'll pick him up. Something's not right, though."

"What, besides an obscure poison from Southeast Asia?" Blair referred to Serena's report on the toxin.

"Sarcasm does not become you either, Sandburg."

"What, like it's not blindingly obvious something's out of whack? He's Canadian, man. He holds up convenience stores with chain saws and hockey sticks. He's on the run from the Mounties, in hiding. What's he doing poisoning an Australian police officer he doesn't even know?"

Jim grunted.

"Unless he was trying to get Allison, instead."

"Now there's a thought."

"Oh, man, are we cranky this morning. Chill out, Jim."

"It's motive." They exchanged a look and Jim pressed the gas just a little closer to the floor. "What's her work address again?"

Serena Chang looked up from her microscope at the movement in her peripheral vision. "Thanks, John." She smiled at the mail clerk and his pile of brown inter-office envelopes. Stretching, she pushed back from her analysis of the brown streaks on a suspect's shirt, and turned to sort the mail.

Brought back to more of a sense of herself, she shivered in the cool air of the lab and pulled her coat closer around her. She sorted out the case files that Pommeran had asked for, and found herself with two envelopes addressed to Cassie Wells and Samantha Coppola. How odd... Curious, she peeked around the lab to confirm the inattention of the other two techs, and opened the envelopes.

Inside each were identical gold boxes with identical red ribbons and identical cards. Her first thought was of simple irritation, as she considered dressing down Blair and Jim for not sending her the boxes directly. They were even missing the proper evidence bags and markings.

Then, as she set down the envelopes, smoothing their surfaces, she noticed the handwriting, stark and plain. It had been some years since the last handwriting analysis seminar she'd been to, but laid out next to the simple cards, the jagged loops and circle-dotted i's were unmistakably identical.

Her hands trembled only for a moment before Serena calmly reached for an evidence bag, her notebook, and then the phone.

Roses. This time he could smell them from the street, and with them hints of other flowers and chocolate and mylar balloons. Inside the florist's, the scent was even more overwhelming. Jim found himself wishing he could sneeze or plead another allergy just to get away from the cloying scent that had lingered in his nostrils for a full day now.

The shop was open, the underlying decor of green and brown completely subsumed by the explosions of Valentine red on every display. "Good morning!" Allison popped up from behind the counter with a handful of ferns and a cheerful grin. "I thought you two might be here sometime today."

Blair smiled in greeting and gestured around the shop. "Are you the only one here? We're looking for Matty."

"Oh, he should be in back. I told him you might show up, and there was a batch of truffles that needed to be done before noon."

Blair glanced at Jim, already heading behind the counter. Jim shook his head, no, but followed him into the back. The kitchen, redolent with the scent of rich chocolate, was empty and clean. The battered copper pans were all hung on their hooks, and the only evidence of industry was a single pan of fudge on a rack.

Behind the stove, the door to the back alley was open a crack, swinging slightly in the gusts of a cold breeze.

Allison appeared at the doorway behind them. "Didja find him?"

"No-- do you have any idea where he might have gone?" Blair asked.

"Oh, no! Isn't he here?" Allison peered around the empty kitchen. "But why not? He's supposed to finish the truffles!"

Jim gritted his teeth, ready to let Blair ask the questions, but the tiny rose pendant around Allison's neck caught his eye. "Ms. White, where did you get that necklace?"

She preened, touching the chain and glancing coyly at Blair. "Matty gave it to me this morning. Isn't it pretty?"

"Yes, very," Jim lied through his teeth.

She continued to look at Blair for his response.

"Uh, yeah, nice. Do you have his home address?"

"Oh, sure. Over on Vivid Lane. 484, apartment C." She rattled it off from memory and smiled. "Is he in trouble?" She didn't seem too concerned.

"Yes." Jim strode out the door, reaching for his keys.

Hurrying after him, Blair looked back once to make sure they were out of earshot. "You saw it too?"

Jim nodded, opening the car door. "It's from Helsang's-- matches the description. Matty's back to his old tricks."

"Yeah, but one thing I don't get. Why would he give her jewelry if he's trying to kill her?"

"'Thanks for pointing out the cops are after me?' I don't know." Jim slid behind the wheel and started the truck. "I don't think Allison's giving us the whole story though."

Blair nodded and grabbed for the door frame as they pulled into traffic. "I know man, she creeps me out."

"I thought she'd be just your type, Sandburg. Pretty, perky, potential felon."

"Ha, ha, Jim. You're one to talk."

"Molly?" The tall, lanky student peered around the bookcase in the small office. "You in here?" He poked at a file teetering on the edge of a shelf at eye-level and rubbed his nose at the puff of dust raised by his action. "Moooo-lly!"

"I'm here, I'm here!" The brunette in question scooted her chair into view, putting down her crack-spined paperback. "I'm in hiding, Mark, what is it?"

"Susan wanted me out of the office, so she sent me out on mail rounds. You've got another box from your secret admirer." The last two words were sing-songed. "Who is this geek?"

"Some love-struck freshman in that seminar I'm TA-ing for Henderson." Molly smiled and shook her head. "He'll get over it." She peered at the package in Mark's hands. "Hey, looks like he's progressed from badly-rhymed sonnets."

Mark handed her the small gold box and perched on the edge of her desk expectantly. "So what is it?"

Molly shook her head. "I don't know, Mark, and I'm not going to find out." She held the box over her wastebasket and dropped it in. "I don't accept gifts from students."

"You are just too principled-- it's sick." He stooped to pluck the box from the trash can, and was thwapped with the paperback for his trouble. "Hey!"

Molly just laughed. "You don't know where that's been, Mark, now shoo."

He shooed.

Vivid Lane didn't live up to its name. It was a very drab side street, filled with tiny old houses packed closely together. The postage stamp sized yards were unkept, filled with weeds and trash. They had to slip between two of the houses, down a narrow, cracked sidewalk, to get to the second story apartment over the garage.

Jim paused halfway up the stairs. "Smells like roses, Chief."

Blair snorted. "Doesn't look like it."

"No, no, like the flower shop."

"He does work in one."

"No, he works in the kitchen. He should smell like chocolate. It doesn't sound like he's home, anyway."

The door at the top of the stairs was locked, but yielded almost embarrassingly easily to the application of Jim's shoulder. The door opened into a shabby little kitchen, dominated by a small table with a single chair. A door beyond the table led to a small, equally shabby bedroom.

The apartment was achingly bare, the kitchen cupboards yielding little besides junk food and an embarrassment of chocolate in all forms. Blair heard Jim return to the room and picked up a small gold box to show him. "Looks like he believes in his own cooking." Blair opened it to show half the contents gone.

"I wouldn't know about that. He's more of a direct kind of guy. I found a few bullets on the floor, but no gun." Jim traded the brass for the box and sniffed. "This has the same nut that was in Connor's."

"You sure? Why would he keep the poisonous stuff mixed in with the rest of it?" Blair opened one drawer, where half a dozen more boxes lay.

Jim opened a few of them. "These are normal. Maybe he didn't know."

Blair shook his head. "Why wouldn't he know...unless he wasn't the poisoner. And if he didn't, who did?"

"Allison gave you the chocolate in the first place, Chief. And she's the one who fingered Matty."

"Yeah, but what's she got against Megan?"

"Fit of jealousy?" Jim shrugged to indicate his bafflement.

"What, like keeping Megan away from Matty? She doesn't know Megan from a kangaroo. And why implicate Matty?"

"Well, why don't we ask her, Chief?" Jim slipped the box into an evidence bag from his pocket and left by the door held by his partner.

"Hey, isn't that Chris' place?" Blair sat up straight in the passenger seat as they passed an apartment building ringed with yellow tape and police cars.

"Who?"

"Christine Hong-- I was dating her about the time we ran into Lash."

Jim's brow furrowed in thought. "Have I met her?"

"Yeah, once, I think."

Jim froze suddenly, fists slowly whitening on the steering wheel. "She doesn't wear rose perfume, does she, Chief?"

Blair frowned. "Vanilla, I think. Why?" He had to grab frantically for the door handle as Jim brought the truck in a tight U-turn, slipping slightly through the slick puddles on the street, and pulled up behind one of the squad cars.

This once, Blair beat Jim to the officer in charge of the scene, and was inside almost before Jim's feet hit the pavement. "Johnson, what's the scoop?" Jim asked the sergeant, an older, balding man with the physique of a bodybuilder.

"Your partner said something about one of your current cases being related? Hell, the coroner's van hasn't even had time to get here." He shook his head and spat on the lawn. "Damn shame-- girl keeled over in her own kitchen, roommate found her." He nodded toward a shivering, crying girl wrapped in a blanket, staring blankly at the ground as an officer asked her questions.

"Mind if I take a look?"

"Go on ahead."

The last time Blair had talked to Christine had been over a year and a half ago, at a Math Department party. He couldn't remember the reason for the party-- the Rainier Math Department was famous for two things, beer and advanced number theory. Most people attended the parties for the beer. Christine had been there with her roommate, and they'd said hi, traded inconsequential updates on their lives, and moved on.

He remembered her dancing, later. She had always been a graceful dancer, throwing herself into the music and letting it dictate the beat and sway of her body.

There was nothing graceful left in her now. Christine lay sprawled across the bare linoleum of her kitchen, hand crabbed uselessly towards the fallen phone on the floor, a foot out of her reach. Her jaw was slack, her eyes open and empty.

Blair knelt by her side and reached out to close her eyelids. Behind him he felt a familiar presence, and he rocked back on his heels and stood.

"I'm sorry, Chief." Jim's comment was quiet.

"So am I, Jim." Blair shuddered convulsively and turned away, eyes shut tight.

On the kitchen table were a profusion of papers: envelopes, bills, cards, exams. Jim nudged aside an archeology midterm dated two years ago to uncover the source of the rose scent that had been plaguing him from the street. The gold box was open, a red ribbon still taped to its top. Two of the chocolates inside were missing, the girl on the floor mute testimony to their whereabouts.

Stuck in the tape of the ribbon was a small card. Jim flipped it open. Scrawled on the thick paper was the message: 'To Christine, from your secret admirer.' The pen had bitten deep into the paper, the slant of the words quick and angry. Also pressed into the thick paper were other words and numbers, almost visible to the non-Sentinel eye. 'Naomi Flt 1038.'

"Chief."

Blair's head came up and he carefully avoided putting the body in his field of vision. "It's Allison, isn't it?"

"When did you say your mother was visiting?"

"What? Sometime this week or next. She's going to call with her flight time." His expression grew worried. "Why?"

"This card has her name and a flight number. Are you sure you don't know what day she was going to be here?"

"No, man." Blair started fishing in his pocket for his cell phone. "Who's with Megan now?"

"Brown."

"You call Rafe and ask him to pick up Allison at the flower shop, I'll call Rhonda to see if Naomi's on today's flight."

Ten minutes later Blair flipped his phone closed with a savage snap. "She wasn't at the shop, Rafe's on his way to her apartment." He slumped against the truck door.

"And the airport?"

"Mom landed five minutes ago." Blair tapped his fingers against the window a few times. "Can this thing go any faster?"

"How many more traffic laws do you want me to break?"

Jim stepped into the terminal, took one whiff of the air and wrinkled his nose with a grunt. "You'd think people would bathe if they were going to be sitting in a box with fifty other people."

Blair nodded and pushed him towards the gates. "You can get to the plane faster. Naomi might still be there. I'll check the baggage claim."

Jim looked down at him, solemn. "On it, Chief." He pushed through the crowd and disappeared from sight.

Blair swiveled on his heel and started his hunt through the terminal.

"Blair!" After being stepped on and shoved by far too many over-tired, under-caffeineated travelers, the call took him by surprise. It was Allison, smiling sunnily and waving at him from the top of one of the baggage carousels. She seemed to be fiddling with something in her other hand."You're not supposed to be here."

Blair tried not to glance around wildly for his partner. "I had to meet someone's flight." He edged closer to the carousel.

Allison grimaced, then hid it behind a smile. "I know, you bad boy, that's why I'm here. I'm saving you the trouble." She nodded decisively and turned her attention back to the crowd.

"That's ok, Allison, I can take it from here."

"No!" She bristled, her lips curling back from her teeth in a feral snarl. "You're mine! I won't let her near you!"

Blair held up his hands placatingly, involuntarily backing up a step. "Ok, ok. How about Jim? Can he meet Naomi and then I don't have to?"

She frowned, then smiled shakily. "Yeah, I think so. Does she like Jim?" The last was said pleadingly, as if by a little girl.

"Yeah, yeah, she likes Jim. She really likes Jim." She'd better listen to Jim, too, and get the hell out of here! "Say, Allison?"

"Yeah, Blair?" She perked up and fluttered her lashes at him coquettishly.

"Now that we don't have to wait for Naomi, maybe you can come down and we can go somewhere and have a cup of coffee?"

"You mean, like on a date?"

Blair shuddered inwardly. "Uh, sure, like a date." Court date, maybe. Appointment with a shrink, maybe.

"Ok. But if it's a real date you have to pick me up at home. I'll need ten minutes to freshen up." She winked at him. "I have just one small errand to run. Buh-bye!" Allison hopped off the carousel and darted into the crowd.

Shit! Blair's stomach hit his shoes as he realized what the heavy chrome weight in her hand was. Jim would be able to tell what manufacturer and caliber it was, but it was enough to know the gun was large and likely loaded.

Allison dodged behind a heavy man with an enormous golf bag and disappeared. Blair slipped between two flight attendants and hopped up, trying to see over the mass of people entering the baggage area. Men and women streamed down stairs and escalators and milled around in the controlled chaos.

Trembling in his frustration, tossed by the sea of humanity, Blair was more than ready to whip out his badge and bully his way up the stairs when he saw Jim's head appear at the top of the stairs. No! He was reaching for his own gun even as he caught the flash of blonde and chrome out of the corner of his eye.

Naomi smelled like sage and cinnamon and grass, a tickle right under his nose that threatened a sneeze, but not quite. It was exotic and familiar at the same time, and right now, thankfully grounding. Eddies of unfamiliar smells surged around him, perfume and soap and aftershave and coffee and jet fuel.

Naomi was a little subdued; the faint crease of a pillow crossed one cheek, and she let Jim push through the crowd in front of her. He let himself listen absently to the murmur of her voice as he scanned visually for Blair and for their quarry.

"Anyway, I'm so glad you got my message. I hadn't planned on coming through Cascade until next week, but when Menthe called about the seminar she wanted to run on indoor herb cultiva..."

"When did you leave that message?" Jim asked distractedly.

"Let's see, we'd just left the monastery in Crestone, so it must have been last night. They had the most marvelous early morning za-zen meditation circle up there."

Last night-- during the break-in? A sudden hint of roses made Jim pause at the top of the stairs to the baggage claim, and he saw Blair's drawn face at the bottom and a flash of chrome close to his left.

His hearing went down, the screams of startled, frightened people around him muted as they swiftly cleared the area between him and Allison. He pivoted, the gun was almost within reach, the girl's eyes cold and inhuman through the sights.

They both froze. He was between her and Naomi, her aim unwaveringly on a shape she couldn't see.

"Mom!" Jim didn't flinch at Blair's strangled shout, but Allison's eyes widened with fright and comprehension and the terrible knowledge of a miscalculation. The gun wavered, she let the barrel drop, and Jim uncoiled from his crouch. He was within reach, another step and he had her, when her eyes changed again and she threw the gun at him in desperation.

Torn in a split second between flinching back and ducking down, muscle memory took over and Jim caught the gun, one hand reaching up and closing around the barrel as cold metal slapped into his hand.

Allison had turned and slid down the banister, heading for the exit and freedom. He reversed the gun and aimed. His shout of "Freeze, Police!" was still dim in his own ears, but he kept his hearing down. More people scattered as she reached the bottom. Jim let his sight zoom in-- center mass; his finger tightened on the trigger.

And then Jim let the gun drop, the corners of his lips tugging up. Allison lay prone on the ground, Blair's arms around her knees in a tackle Jim would have sworn was more appropriate for a football field.

Blair scrambled for his cuffs, rolling Allison onto her front to lock them on. He looked up, hands busy. "Hi Mom, how was your flight?"

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