Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Warning: Mild references to events in episode 3.03. Please consider this a spoiler warning.

Also, the rating may change. Still debating that plot point. ;)

Author's Note: Darn the muses. I sit to write Phoenix Rising, and all these other stories keep popping into my head. Argh. I anticipate that this one will be about three or four parts total.

Part One

Lonely Road.

The white lettering on the green road sign practically glowed when the headlights from the Bronco illuminated it.

As Nathan slowed to turn onto the narrow road, Audrey leaned her head back against the headrest. Lonely Road. It sounded like a bad joke. Or a country song. Yet it seemed appropriate for the pine-tree lined, pot-hole laden, middle-of-nowhere lane cloaked by night. They weren't likely to see another vehicle out here.

For that matter, they could barely look at each other.

It had been a week since she and Nathan had their blowup. It went perfectly, she had told Claire Callahan. And it had, in theory. Nathan allowed her distance. No more small gestures, like picking up morning coffee for the both of them or bringing in her favorite cupcakes from Rosemary's Bakery. No more drinks after work in the Grey Gull or making fun of his comically bad aim at darts. No more stopping by her office to share a joke. No more trying to protect her.

No more trying to save her from herself.

This was what she wanted.

And she hated it.

It's for the best, she reasoned with herself.

That had become her mantra.

It's for the best.

It's for the best.

Lucy loved the Colorado Kid, and look what happened to him. Was she so arrogant to assume she could have Nathan in her life and keep him safe? Not when her captor—a known murderer—was still on the loose. And at the finish line of her ticking time bomb of a life as Audrey Parker, then what?

No, it was better Nathan become detached from her now. If it meant she had to be cruel to be kind, so be it.

Audrey chanced a glance at Nathan. His gaze remained fixed on the road as he clutched the steering wheel, squeezing it within an inch of its life. His jaw clenched and his mouth pressed into a tight line.

This was about more than the case they'd followed up on that night.

She wished she hadn't looked.

Earlier, they had followed a lead. An off-season caretaker reported that someone was squatting in the old Stappert place outside of town. Whoever it was left behind a calling card: a bolt gun. The gun itself was on the way to a police lab in Bangor for analysis, courtesy of Stan who didn't even bat an eye when Nathan asked him to take it there immediately, despite the late hour.

But as always, they were left with more questions than answers. Now at least, they had something tangible. Of course, first they had to prove that it was the same bolt gun that killed Roslyn Toomey and Janet Soong.

But the trespasser had left her with more than that.

"A cattle bolt gun in a seasonal vacation home. What are the chances?" Nathan asked crossing his arms.

Audrey fought against shuffling her feet on the wood floor. At least he was speaking with her. "Right. This isn't a coincidence." No. This was calculated. Just as the use of the bolt gun itself was deliberate, brutal.

"Tests will verify that it's the same one. Maybe give us prints or…," he stopped, noticing her expression. "What?"

"He didn't leave this here accidentally. It's a message."

"Meaning?"

"I don't think the gun itself is going to lead us to him, but he needed a way to draw us here, to let us know it's him. I think there's something else here."

Both began to search, running their eyes up and down the walls, the floor, and the furniture, looking for anything amiss.

"Parker." Nathan tilted his head toward the fireplace. Audrey turned to see what Nathan caught sight of. Behind the fire screen sat a portable radio cassette player sitting in the fireplace, as though it were just another log. "Seem out of place to you?" he asked dryly.

"You could say that."

He moved the screen aside, and she knelt in front of the hearth. "There's a tape inside. That's old school."

"Early 80's old school," Nathan commented as he stood over her shoulder.

With latex-gloved hands, she retrieved it from the fireplace and set it on the hearth. "Tape looks labeled." She opened the compartment. 'OUR LOVE SONG' was written in neat block letters. "One way to find out." She pressed the play button. The boombox creaked to life, its battery evidently nearly depleted. The words and music were slow, distorted, and yet unmistakable.

'Once I ran to you.
Now I run from you.

This tainted love you've given.
I give you all a boy could give you.
Take my tears and that's not nearly all…'

"'Tainted Love'. Think that's your message?"

"One hell of a message," she replied looking up at him.

"Think it meant something to Lucy?"

"Don't know, but it must mean something to our guy."

"Let's look around some more. Make sure there isn't anything else we've missed."

Audrey stifled a yawn. In the worn passenger seat of the Bronco, she was about as comfortable as she had been lately. Coupled with the low music of the truck's radio and the lack of a good night's sleep in more than a week, she fought to stay awake. The sudden hissing of the radio, then silence followed by the Bronco slowing, perked her up. It took only a split second for her to realize that something wasn't right. Nathan pulled the Bronco off the road with the last of its momentum.

"Why are we stopping?" she asked.

"For the scenery."

Audrey would say that his cantankerous sarcasm was situational, but that had been par for the course the last week in her dealings with Nathan.

He tried to crank the engine, but it wouldn't turn over. He reached over, pulled a flashlight from the glove compartment in front of Audrey, and exited the Bronco.

While he lifted the hood and peered at the inner workings of the truck, Audrey dug her cell phone from her pocket. NO SERVICE.

"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered before following him. "How's your cell phone service?"

Nathan retrieved his phone from his pocket, looked at the screen, and replied, "Nonexistent."

Suppressing a groan, she went back to the passenger side of the Bronco and reached across the seat for the police radio. She pressed the talk button. "Laverne?"

Static.

Unbelievable. What were the chances so many things could go wrong at once? But like she'd said earlier, she didn't believe in coincidence.

"Did you plan this? Fiddle with the spark plugs or something to get me alone?"

Audrey saw a flash of anger in his eyes as he replied, "If I had 'fiddled' with the spark plugs, the truck wouldn't have started in the first place."

"I'm not a mechanic," she defended herself, though the words themselves sounded lame to her own ears in the aftermath of her accusation. What was she thinking?

"In any of your incarnations, apparently."

"So can you tell what's wrong?" Loaded question. What wasn't wrong?

Nathan shook his head. "Everything looks normal. I don't see anything leaking or overheating."

"So no cell service. Static on the radio. No working vehicle. And it's 12:23 a.m. That's great."

"You forgot the 'and I'm stuck with you' part." Annoyance rolled off of him in waves.

She gaped at him.

"No one's coming by. Not this road. Not tonight," Nathan added, matter-of-factly.

"How far to town?"

"About eleven miles, give or take half a mile. About eight back to the Stappert place."

She looked up at the sky. "Moon's not out tonight. Think your flashlight battery will hold up?"

"No."

"You're just full of good news tonight." She exhaled loudly, her breath visible in the cool night air.

"It's been awhile, but I think Bill McShaw still has a hunting cabin a few hundred yards up the road. He won't be there, but maybe he has a landline phone. If nothing else, we can get you out of the cold."

"I'm fine. You don't have to look after me."

"Fine. I won't."

With that, Nathan closed the hood of the Bronco, went around to the driver's side to retrieve a few items, and started down the road alone, flashlight in hand.

Seriously? He was just going to leave her there in the dark?

"Hey! Wait up!"

To be continued...