This story has been a labour of love to write. Working in the criminal courts as I do, I have consciously tried to keep work and writing apart, but this storyline has stayed at the back of my mind for such a long time that eventually I had to capitulate and put it down on paper. It's the longest thing I've ever written and I couldn't have completed it with my wonderful Brook to help me. It also helped me through some tough recvery time and I hope you, the readers enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

WARNING - this story deals with rape - both male and female. If the subject matter offends, it's probably best not to read

Dedication - For Aussie Angie, who must be the most prolific reviewer ever. Thanks hon, love ya.

Disclaimer - Don't own 'em, no money made, but love to play with 'em some!

Chapter 1

The road was long, stretching away from the brunet's blue sneakered feet and extending out as far as the eye could see. He stopped running, bending over to try to keep his breath. He had no idea how long he'd been running, but the blood thundered in his ears and the breath sobbed in his throat. In the moonlight he could see the tree lined blacktop extending way into the distance and something told him he needed to reach the end. He heard the scream again and forced his body to start its fevered race once more as he plunged down the dark highway. Ahead he saw a house, its windows alight with warm yellow light making it look like a smiling, friendly face looking out onto the dark world outside. He turned, pushing open the gate and racing up the path to the front door. Starsky pushed it open without knocking and ran inside.

He was faced with a corridor a mile long, extending into the far distance; so long he couldn't see the end of it, and down each side were a hundred doors leading off right and left. It never occurred to him to think it strange that the small domestic dwelling should have such a place. The scream rang out again and galvanised him into action. Reaching out his left hand he opened the first door, plunging inside with no thought for his own safety. A clown with white painted face looked back at him, its red painted slash of a mouth fixed into a permanent leer. Starsky staggered back from the ghastly presence, out into the hallway and tried the next door and the next.

In each room he met the same thing, a clown staring back at him in alarm, shaking its head and pointing back to the hallway. He could feel the sweat of fear running down his back as he charged on down the never ending line of doors, pushing though one after the other without ever finding the owner of the pitiful scream. He could hear it reverberating around his head in a continuous cycle taunting him for not being able to find the woman.

He shouted out in frustration. 'I'm here. Tell me where you are an' I can come get ya'. But he received no answer.

The next door he opened brought a different sight. A woman's pale body, almost luminescent in the harsh electric light, looking back at him. The girl stared with sightless eyes at him, her throat cut and the blood dripping down from her naked breasts to lie in an ever increasing puddle on the floor at her feet.

Shocked, Starsky staggered back, closing the door. Pitiful as the sight was, that woman hadn't screamed, no sound would ever come from that slitted throat ever again. But as he started pushing each successive door open the rooms all contained naked women, all with their throats cut and all with their empty, soulless eyes staring back at him. He could feel the bile rising in his throat as another scream rang through the house and again he yelled out to it. 'Tell me where you are. I'm here, I can save you'.

He thought he heard another noise and forged on but the doors along the corridor kept on multiplying until his body rebelled, his legs telling him that he couldn't go on further. In desperation, Starsky raised his head and yelled his fury and frustration into the air, ending in a strangled cry as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

'Dave? Dave. C'mon David honey, wake up huh? C'mon honey, come back to me. Ssh….'

Starsky opened his eyes and stared at the end of his own bed, the bedclothes rumpled and wrapped around his legs. He was sitting bolt upright, sweat rolling down his bare chest and matting his curls as his arms shook. Slowly he calmed his breathing, realising he must have screamed out in his sleep and scared the life out of the woman at his side.

'That's better honey. C'mon, just lie back and relax. What's the matter? Another nightmare? That's the second this week'.

Starsky slowly relaxed back onto the bed, his pillow feeling damp with his own sweat. He put an arm over his eyes as he tried to regain his equilibrium.

'M'sorry Molly. Jeez that was a doozy!'

The woman got off the bed and went to the bathroom, returning a moment later with a towel soaked in cool water. She knelt next to the muscular man on the bed and started to sponge down his chest and arms, cooling and calming him as Starsky tried to forget the dream. It was a mark of the state of his disquieted mind that even the beautiful naked woman now ministering to him failed to raise his ardour.

'Was it the war again?' she asked quietly.

The curly haired man sighed. 'No. I almost wish it was. I could handle that'.

'Then what?'

'Nuthin'.

'Dave you screamed out in your sleep. The bed shook so much I thought the San Andreas was doing its thing! That's not nothing honey. Let me help you'. Molly put down the towel and lay back on the bed, curling herself around her man and resting her head on his shoulder.

'There's nuthin you can do. It's just….'

'It's that job again, isn't it?'

'I don't understand it. I've dealt with this shit before and it never got to me like this'.

'Well talk to me. Let me in. My Mom used to say a problem shared is a…'

'Problem halved. Yeah Ma says that too. It's their faces – the girls that've died. Well not just their faces, it's their bodies too. God this punk is such a sick puppy. He aint content with rapin' 'em. He….' Starsky sat up again, dislodging the woman and put his head in his hands. Molly sat up next to him and put her arm around his shoulder, feeling the residual shakes from the nightmare.

'I'm strong enough. Tell me'.

'I dunno Moll. I don't even know if I'm strong enough!'

'You don't know unless you tell me' she urged.

The brunet ran his fingers through his matted curls and sighed again. 'K. Well there have been five girls in the past seven months. All the girls are from local colleges, all in their late teens early twenties and all have dark brown or black hair. They've been dumped outside or close to local hospitals with notes pinned to their bodies – literally pinned into the flesh. They're naked, they've been tied in the same way – hands behind their back fastened with bailer twine and they've had their throats cut. But the real special thing is that the coroner says they've been drugged first – some kind of neurotoxin that leaves 'em conscious but unable to move much so they know exactly what's goin' on but can't do shit about it. Then they're raped, brutally, then the flake cuts 'em up before he slits their throats. It's still a point of argument as to whether they're alive when he does that'.

Molly had her hand over her mouth. 'Oh my God. Those poor girls. The news didn't say anything like that – just that there was a serial killer around'.

'No. We asked 'em to keep it quiet – the details. Thought we may be able to catch him quicker' he snorted. 'Shows how wrong we were'.

Molly hugged her man to her, rubbing his back comfortingly. 'You're not a one man band you know'.

'I know. But Hutch feels the same way'.

'Well there are more than two of you on the force. It's not all down to the dynamic duo'.

'Feels like it. It feels like this guy is taunting us. Like he almost wants us to catch him but at the last minute he backs off. It's like it's personal. Well, it is to me. I'm gonna get up close an' personal to this flake if it's the last thing I ever do. An' when I am face to face with him, I'm gonna look into his eyes an' force him to tell me why'.

Molly sat quietly for a moment, her imagination running riot. No wonder Dave had had nightmares. The world he lived in was so alien to her. She was more used to photography and the world of glossy magazines. In fact that was where she'd met Starsky - at a photographic club. He'd shown up with his Nikon, they'd shot off a couple of reels of film and by the end of the night he'd asked her out and she'd said yes.

'What did the notes say?'

'They're no more'n scribbles really. We had a handwriting expert look at 'em an' he says that this guy is a cold, calculating type. Probably white. Probably educated to a reasonable standard somewhere in the mid west. The notes are all done in capital letters an' say the same thing. ONE LESS BITCH IN THE WORLD'.

'Wow! Like you say, one evil son of a bitch'.

Starsky turned to look at her. Molly wasn't the usual sort he went out with. Although she was attractive, she wasn't beautiful. But she had a wholesome quality to her that made him feel special and wanted. At 5'5" and slim she looked tiny compared to the cop and her dark brown hair cut in an elfin cut gave her fine features an almost surreal quality, the short cropped hair emphasising her big brown eyes to perfection. And as he looked at her, his mind superimposed a picture of the dead women, their gore spilling from their bodies, and he closed his eyes against it.

Last night, as she'd climbed into bed, wearing nothing but Estee Lauder perfume, she'd snaked her hands under the sheets and stroked down his flat belly to the tops of his legs. Last night, like the past five nights, he'd wanted to take solace in her body, but the day's activities had left him feeling empty and somehow broken. And gently he'd moved her hand, clasped it to his chest and murmured his apologies.

Molly saw him look away from her and rolled onto her back, looking up at their reflections in the over-bed mirrors on Starsky's ceiling.

'Dave, don't so this. Don't let this one guy ruin your life' she urged.

'M'sorry. I haven't been paying you enough attention' he said. With a conscious effort he cleared his mind of blood and bodies and rapists and concentrated instead on the woman next to him. Slowly he started to trace the line of her neck, from under her ear, over her collarbone, following the contours of her breasts and stopping for a moment to rim her navel. His hand ducked lower and she started to run her fingers down his spine, feeling his body finally begin to respond to her caresses. She sighed into the hollow of his neck as he reached down and….

The bedside phone rang, jangling his nerves and stopping their fledgling love making in its tracks. With a heavy sigh, he rolled over and snagged the receiver in his right hand.

'This better be good' he snapped into the phone.

'Dobey wants us. There's been another victim. This time she's still alive'.

Hutch's words galvanised Starsky into action and he sat upright in bed, Molly's heavenly body forgotten for one brief moment.

'You sure it's him?'

'Sure it's the same MO buddy. I'll be round in fifteen minutes'. Hutch's usually smooth voice sounded tense and brittle.

'No, s'ok. You're closer to the hospital. I'll come round for you. We can save time. Be there in ten'.

The brunet put down the phone and sprang out of bed, casting around for his clothes. Picking up his blue jeans, his red tee shirt and hopping on one foot to get his still tightly laced Adidas onto his left foot he heard his girlfriend sigh.

'Guess that's it for tonight?' she said a little sullenly.

'Sorry Hon. Gotta go. They've found another girl, but she aint dead. This is our big break. I'm gonna nail this bastard's ass if it's the last thing I do'.

'What happened to not mixing work and pleasure?' she asked quietly.

Starsky won the fight with his shoe and leaned over the bed. Tenderly he lifted Molly's chin and kissed her full on the mouth. Try as she might she couldn't stop herself responding. He was such a special guy.

'Don't know when I'll be home. Leave the key on the lintel huh?' he said as he picked up his holster and his cream coloured jacket. He opened the door and looked back at her. 'M'sorry Hon'.

She smiled and picked up a pillow. 'Just go' she laughed as she threw it at his retreating back.

oOo

A man made his way quietly back to his small room and closed the door behind him. Fastidiously he took off his overcoat and hat and hung them neatly on the hanger by the door and then went into the bathroom, rolled up his sleeves and set to washing his hands. Turning the tap on, he waited until the water was almost blisteringly hot before pushing his hands underneath. He reached for the soap and lathered, rubbing his hands together before rinsing and repeating twice more. Turning off the hot water, he dried them thoroughly, the reached for the bottle of bleach and poured it over his hands, massaging the stinging solution into his skin and stopping to check everything was clean before rinsing in cold water and towelling dry once again. He placed the bottle of bleach back in the cupboard, beside the other nine bottles and went to sit down in the small living room. Neatly arranging his belongings around him, he picked up the book and began to read.