[MD1, Delta office, 9:20AM]

>Flynn nodded, "She's right, we're all making assumption
>based on lack of facts."
>
>"And known reproductive biology," Newt added.
>
>"When has biology ever been predictable?" Kate asked.

Paul had been leaning inconspicuously against the wall since he came back into the office. Now he laughed, apparently finding something rather amusing in that comment. "It only takes one if he’s a good swimmer," he commented. "That was my office on the phone. Our flight’s at noon."

After that announcement, there was a flurry of activity as everyone hurried to get out of the office to go home and pack take care of what ever else had to be done before they left.

Finally left alone in the office, Kate and Paul stared at each other for a moment, Paul with a look of vague amusement, and Kate no longer veiling her hostility toward him.

"You could have allowed us a bit more time," Kate said.

Paul shrugged. "Not my fault, Katie. If you’d given them some warning last night instead of.. whatever you were doing.."

Kate slammed her briefcase down on the desk and threw the case file into it. "Whatever I was doing is none of your business. I want to get a couple of things straight here."

"One of your people was missing," Paul observed, ignoring her anger.

"Yes. Dinah Weill. What of it?"

"Nothing. I just hope there isn’t a problem."

"No. She did a little consulting work with the Metro office. She found the atmosphere more to her liking," Kate said with a shrug, then added, "Not that *that’s* any of your business either."

"Couldn’t work with you, huh?"

Kate glared at him. She couldn’t imagine why she’d told him as much as she had. Force of habit, maybe. "She didn’t give a reason, and I didn’t ask. Now, if you’ll excuse me.."

*****

Once she’d gotten rid of Paul, Kate left the office. In the elevator she paused, about to hit the button for the lobby, then changed her mind. She owed Josh an apology - a big one - and it was best done sooner than later. She got off on his floor and walked to his office. The door was open. Suzanne was at her desk, busily working over some papers. The inner door was also open, but Josh was not there. She remembered now that last night, before she had gone crazy and walked out on him, he’d said something about a meeting this morning

Kate turned and walked away before Suzanne had a chance to see her. When she said whatever it was she was going to say in hopes of patching things up, it was going to be in person, not through a third party.

*****

[Miami Airport, 2:45PM]

Getting off the plane after a thankfully uneventful flight, Kate gave Newt a smile and a quick pat on the shoulder. "That wasn’t so bad, was it," she asked.

"No," Newt admitted.

"At least, not this time," Sharlyn added.

Kate shook her head and grinned. In truth, after the flight to Scranton on their last case, she’d been no more thrilled about getting on a plane again than the rest of the team, but she hadn’t allowed those feelings to show. Just like she couldn’t allow her hostility toward Paul to show. It did no one any good and could only cause problems - not only for herself, but for the rest of the team as well. As she’d thought about it on the plane, she had realized that the only one not being hurt by it was Paul himself. But damn it, every time she looked at him, she couldn’t help remembering..

"Kate?"

They had gathered near the gate, and everyone was waiting for her to say something.

"We need to check in with the local field office," Paul said before Kate had a chance to respond.

Kate nodded. "We don’t need everyone for that. Dr. Quinones is expecting us at Dadeland Memorial, so whoever wants to.." She stopped suddenly and frowned. Something at a newspaper kiosk nearby had caught her eye and she walked in that direction.

In a wire display rack next to the legitimate newspapers, there were an array of tabloids for sale. Emblazoned across the front of one of them was the headline "Sterile Rapist Produces Mysterious Offspring." Kate picked up the paper, flipped through it and found the article. Aside from the fact that the reporter either had a very limited knowledge of the basic principles of biology or of the facts of the case - or both - what struck her was that the name of the mother of this ‘mysterious offispring’ was mentioned in the article, and that she wasn’t one of the victims listed in their file. She passed the paper to Flynn, who was standing next to her.

"You can’t be serious," Paul said as Kate paid for the paper.

"Why not?"

"The stories in those papers are just .. works of fiction. You can’t honestly tell me that you hope to find anything useful based on that."

"This particular ‘work of fiction’ bears a striking resemblance to the reason we’re here, wouldn’t you say?"

"Cases have been solved based on information from less reputable sources," September added.

Kate recognized the look on Paul’s face in response to that. She’d seen it often enough in the past. The look said ‘I forbid it and don’t even think about it,’ and if he had a chance to actually say that, there would be no arguing with him. And whether she liked it or not, he was technically in charge of the investigation. So she had to cut him off at the pass.

"You did ask for our help here," she said quietly, not quite out of earshot of the rest of the team. "So are you going to let us do what we do, or are you going to argue."

"You want to make a fool of yourself, I won’t stand in your way," Paul said.

*****

[Aquila Court Apartments, 3:25PM]

The block of ugly, square stucco buildings formed a sort of barrier between what could only be termed slums on one side and the beginning of the more fashionable part of the city leading to the waterfront on the other. Tracking down the woman in the article hadn’t been all that difficult. Even in a city the size of Miami, how many Sandra Lewandowski’s could there be? As it happened, there was only one.

Flynn knocked on the door of apartment 3B, and they waited. And waited.

"Not home, I guess," he said, but tried knocking again anyway.

Another minute passed, then a voice from inside asked, "Who’s there?"

"Miss Lewandowski," Kate asked. "FBI. We’d like to ask you a few questions."

This was followed by sounds of grumbling and locks turning. When the door finally opened, Kate was suddenly certain that Paul had been right and that this had been a pointless task. The woman standing in the doorway couldn’t have been less than seventy years old.

"What’dya want," the old woman asked.

"Sandra Lewandowski?"

"Yeah. What? This about that article?"

"Yes."

Sandra sighed and stepped aside. "Guess you two better come in."

Once Flynn and Kate were inside and settled in a pair of ancient and uncomfortable chairs in the tiny living room, and the preliminary introductions and questions were out of the way, Sandra began to tell her story.

"It happened nearly forty years ago," she said. "How that damned paper got hold of the story now is beyond me. My husband was a traveling salesman, gone most of the time. Well, one night when he was on the road, a man broke into the house. The rest is history."

"How did you know that your husband wasn’t the father of the child you had?"

Sandra laughed bitterly. "I didn’t. Not until the kid got a little older. Didn’t look like either one of us, but he was the mirror image of the rapist, and believe me, I’ve never forgotten that face." She got up from her seat on the sofa, rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a photograph, which she handed to Kate. "There. That’s what he looked like."

"If you’ll pardon the question, forty years ago, rape investigation weren’t as thorough as they are now, so.."

"There was no investigation. I didn’t report it. So how did I know he was sterile? He told me."

"I see," Kate said skeptically. Things weren’t adding up here the way she’d hoped. "And what about your son? Is he.."

"Dead. Died ten years ago," Sandra said without emotion.


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