That actually makes him grin and there's a quiet laugh to go along with it. That is a prompt if he ever heard one ... and she's right, really.

"Fair's fair, huh?"

He readjusts his position somewhat as well, and takes a moment while the smile fades. He's trying to get a good look at everything that's going around his head.

"It is part of the reason. When I first graduated the Academy I was assigned to the violent crimes task force. I only stayed there two years before I applied to be reassigned to the counter-intelligence division."

He pauses briefly, eyes drifting.

"I was working this case ... a man who picked up a number of male prostitutes. He abducted them, raped them, and shot them several times. It took us several days to make an arrest. When I asked him why he did it he told me his victims had asked him to."

It had been the last straw in a long line of happenings that finally made Cooper decide to get out of all that. It had been a little too much, at the time. Embezzlement and espionage had seemed like vacation.

"I only got back into violent crimes a year ago. ... well, two years ago. My boss wanted me back on the streets. But the things you see there can really get to you."

There you go, Heather. It's a start, isn't it?