Christmas Fare A Festive Story in three parts.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fan-fiction, written, and hopefully read, strictly for enjoyment. The main characters of Mark, Steve, Amanda and Jesse, as well as any others you recognise are from the series Diagnosis Murder, and as such are the property of CBS/Viacom. Anyone that is new belongs to me.

I have a wonderful set of beta readers who encourage me constantly. I am enormously grateful to them for all the help they have given me again this year, and hope they have a great Christmas. Time line: This story takes place during the first Christmas after Carol's death.

Chapter One For Hire

He knew he shouldn't feel fed up, that he was just being selfish, but he couldn't help it. With a deep sigh Mark poured the cold coffee down the sink and then made his way back across the tidy kitchen.

There was only a few days to go until Christmas, the beach house should be full of activity, with presents waiting under the decorated tree, the exterior of his home all lit up, and a freezer groaning with food, instead there was nothing.

Steve had drawn the short straw and was working all day, every day, until the 26th, including Christmas Eve and Christmas day; Mark supposed that it was fair really, his son wasn't married, he didn't have children to share the special day with. Jesse was working too, a double shift, which would take him from the late evening on the 24th through until the same time on the 25th. Mark shook his head, that very morning Amanda had come to him and said that Ron had invited her and the boys to spend a white Christmas with him at Quantico. She wouldn't go if he didn't want her to though.

So, everyone was busy, everyone had plans, whether voluntary ones or not, which he wasn't a part of. Even the pre-Christmas tasks, such as dressing the tree, and doing the festive shop had been put off and put off. Another deep sigh escaped him as he picked up a picture from the coffee table in the dining room. Steve looked up at him, his blue eyes shining, Jesse and Amanda were there too, and behind them was last year's tree. Carol had been alive then, not in touch, but safe and well, and although he had missed her the ache wasn't there, not like it was now. A tear slid onto his cheek and, as he was alone, Mark let it fall; maybe Christmas here, this year at least, wasn't a good idea after all. The memories had been threatening to overwhelm him ever since they had scattered his daughter's ashes to the four winds, and he had a feeling that a time of year which she had loved so much might be special enough, strong enough, to cause him to start crying and be unable to stop.

ooo

Steve huddled himself further into his jacket and wished that he was spending his morning anyplace other than where he was, which was in the driver's seat of a very battered yellow cab. The guilt he felt at lying to his dad about his whereabouts was only tempered by the fact that what he didn't know he couldn't spend hours worrying over, he just hoped everything went according to plan. Jesse knew, someone had to, and his best friend had promised not to say anything unless things did go wrong.

There had been five taxi drivers killed over the past six months, all of them shot, at point blank range, in the back of the head. After a couple of days their bodies were found back in their cabs obviously tortured and relieved of their takings. First of all it had appeared as if there was no link between the five, apart from the same weapon being used, but as the killings continued a tentative link had been noticed which had, with the final slaying, been deemed strong enough for the Captain to take the dangerous step of sending two of his own men out to work the day and night shifts with the hope of making an arrest. Robert Brannigan had gotten the nights and he was working the days, at least this week he was, the previous week it had been the other way round. So far they had caught no one, but they had learnt a great deal, most of it about things they hadn't wanted to know. If he had still been working vice Steve could have increased his arrest rate by about 60 percent, but he was supposed to be undercover, so he had just kept his eyes on the road and wished he were someplace else. He was back on days and he was still wishing that!

ooo

The expected call hadn't come and Jesse was getting worried. Steve had promised him that he would stay in contact, would let him know every two hours or so how his undercover assignment was going; that way Jesse wouldn't have to prepare his friend and mentor for the worst.

The arrangements that his best friend had made with him had surprised Jesse, and he had realised that not only was Steve entrusting him with a very big secret, but also telling him, in a round about way, that this assignment had him more scared than he had been in a long time. Amanda had done two of the autopsies on the cab driver victims, and she had been visibly upset on each occasion. Jesse had a sealed envelope in his possession which contained a request from Steve to the coroner that Amanda be denied access to even the paperwork if he became the sixth victim of the killer they were dubbing the Fare Man.

The case had been all over the papers since the first slaying, and Jesse could tell that Mark had been relieved when Steve hadn't been the cop who took the initial call. Serial killers were a law unto themselves, they knew Steve's job was dangerous, but they also knew that he was experienced and wily when he had to be. A serial killer broke all the rules though, and no amount of experience or deviousness was enough to second-guess them. If Steve didn't get in touch soon Jesse knew that he would have to tell Mark that this time the deviousness had been used to protect his father, and he wasn't sure how Mark would handle that.

His cell phone rang as he processed these thoughts and he pulled it from his pocket and pressed the connect button as he did so. "Steve?"

"Jess, please … tell dad I love him, arghhhhhh!" The phone suddenly went dead in his hand and he dropped it, unable to keep a hold on it. With a groan Jesse sank down into the chair behind him in the empty trauma suite incapable of doing or saying anything else.

ooo

The room was dark apart from the regular intrusion of a flashing Christmas tree shaped house decoration from the other side of the street that cast an elongated green and red shadow across the floor in front of him.

Steve hadn't been able to believe his luck when his captor hadn't taken his cell phone, and he had prayed that he wouldn't realise his mistake before he had had the chance to use it. He had waited too long in his anxiety not to get caught however, and had just connected with Jesse when the man who held his fate in his hands had come back and he had changed what he wanted to say, thinking of his father and what his captivity would do to him. He had just started speaking when the man had struck him with what looked like a baseball bat that had also sent the phone clattering to the floor where it had shattered into a myriad of pieces before he had landed amongst it, unconscious and bleeding.

The flashing decoration seemed to be keeping time with the pounding of his head, and Steve had no idea how long he had been laid out by the attack with the bat. However long it had been it had given his jailer time to roughly tie his ankles together as well as his wrists. His shoes and socks had been removed, and Steve knew that the toes of two of the previous victims had been broken during their torture.

A shudder passed through him as he thought of the injuries he had read about as each victim's details had arrived on his desk. It hadn't been his case, the publicity the killings had generated hadn't included him and that was one reason why he had been chosen for the driving duties. As he moved slightly to try and get the circulation back into his gradually numbing legs Steve tried to recall how he had found himself in this position, knowing that he needed to keep his wits about him if he was to stay alive long enough to be found.

"You for hire?"

"That's what the sign says." Steve looked in his wing mirror to see the clean-shaven, smartly dressed man behind the voice.

His cab had been hailed on the corner of Magnolia Boulevard and Irvine Avenue just as Steve was about to go off duty for a well-earned lunch break. He was only five minutes from the station, and guessed his guard had been down, but the man had seemed to pose no threat.

"Where d'you wanna go?" Steve had switched the 'for hire' light off and wound up his window.

"Riverside Drive."

Steve pulled away from the curb; it was maybe a five-minute journey, eight if the traffic was heavy. He would still have time for lunch and to call Jesse. He opened his microphone and relayed the details back to dispatch and then turned onto Wiltshire Avenue.

"Which end d'you want?"

"It doesn't really matter, since we aren't stopping there." The unmistakable feel of a gun muzzle against his neck caused Steve to take a sudden breath in. The screen between the front and rear of the cab was open, he hadn't heard it move but it most definitely had.

"If you want my money, man, just take it." Steve tried to move his hand towards the radio but heard the gun being cocked.

"Try it and I'll blow your brains all over your cab. It makes no difference to me where you die."

Steve turned into Riverside Drive not indicating, not even slowing down, hoping that someone would do more than just blare their horn at him, but no one batted an eye, and he knew that the bad driving of some cabbies was hastening his fate.

The instructions had come thick and fast after that, and Steve had driven as recklessly as his gun toting passenger would allow, but to no avail and when they had finally pulled over to the side of the street he was beginning to lose his bearings.

The door to his prison opened, flooding the room with artificial light and Steve squinted up to where he could see the outline of his captor.

"We're awake then, good. It's no fun if you aren't." The tone of voice and the baseball bat that the man held in his hand caused Steve's blood to run cold, and he tried to back away from the advancing shadow.

"What … what do you want?" He had no identifying information on him, so he knew that this guy had no idea he was a cop, not that it would make any difference, he'd killed five times already, he would get the death penalty whether he murdered a police officer or not.

"I want you to suffer, that's what I want. You and your kind. I want you to suffer like I have, like we have, and then I'll kill you."