The Citadel's morgue was nothing if not solid, and the first thing Thena wondered was why no one had been evacuated down here the second Cerberus set even one filthy foot on the Citadel. But undertakings like that took time, and Cerberus knew too well the advantages that came with the element of surprise. There simply hadn't been enough time — not that she had to like it.

"So, our guy," Bailey said, leading the way. "He's got a pretty consistent MO. All the victims so far have been human refugees."

"Easier for him to pick off?" she asked.

"Less likely they'll be noticed if they go missing," Garrus pointed out. "Especially with so many coming in. Hard to keep track of them all. Some are gonna fall through the cracks; some always do."

"You're both right," said Bailey. "People coming in have lost everything. They're desperate. Someone offers help, most of 'em are gonna take it, no questions asked." As Bailey spoke, he hit a series of keys on a holo-keyboard until four containment units slid from a garage-sized storage locker, were plucked up by giant conveyer-claws, and whisked to a viewing bay.

"Biotags have helped ID the previous victims, but none of them have family on the station. They've been from Reaper-invaded worlds and colonies — we've got no kin to notify. The latest victim's biotag got corrupted somehow; we haven't been able to ID her yet."

"But you're figuring she was a refugee?" Thena asked. Bailey gave a grim nod.

"There's always someone who finds an opportunity in disaster," Garrus muttered, disgusted.

"I'm… sympathetic, Bailey, and if you need my help on this, you've got it. But I've got to confess, I'm not really seeing what this has to do with me."

"I'm getting to that part, Shepard." Bailey opened the door to the viewing bay, ushering Garrus and Thena both in. The room smelled sharply of antiseptic, and the four pods waited on steel tables, all open. "Our ME's on the way, but I can get you up to speed. Like I said, all four victims have been human, so far, all strangled. He'd marked the first three all the same, changing things up on his fourth victim. Fourth victim, kinda unique in a few ways — we'll get to that."

Thena peered into the pods, one after another, very carefully keeping her eyes off the victims' faces. She'd seen death before — she was no stranger to it at all, in fact, but this was too close, too… personal. This wasn't a battlefield and these weren't casualties of war or victims of crossfire; someone had hunted them down and ended their lives — someone had planned to do this.

"Marked them how?"

Bailey pressed a button and a soft whirr came from the first three pods as rollers inside carefully turned the bodies over. The word "SHEPHERD" had been carved into their backs, the word spanning from shoulder to shoulder, each letter jagged, dark, and deep against the ashen pale skin. Instantly, a wave of déjà vu crashed over her and her lungs froze, her stomach clenched, and her hands curled into fists that had nothing to hit.

Hey Shepherd…

It didn't seem possible. Hell, Thena didn't want it to be possible. She barely heard Garrus over the pulse thundering in her ears as he explained to Bailey that wasn't how she spelled her name. She knew that, of course, but she also had a creeping, cold inkling that it didn't matter.

Bailey shook his head, looking down again at the victim in the pod, saying, "We noticed that too, believe you me. To tell you the truth, we didn't see any connection to the commander — at first."

"Something's changed, I'm guessing?" Garrus asked. At any other time, Thena might have smiled — you could take the turian out of C-Sec, but you couldn't take C-Sec out of the turian — but this wasn't any other time. It was worse. She knew Garrus, knew he was a realist who wanted to be a cynic more often than he actually was; he was trying to distance her from this, trying to find the coincidence and classify it as nothing more than a coincidence.

She knew better.

When they all walked over to the final pod and looked inside, Garrus swore so viciously that not even Thena's translator could pick out what he'd said.

"My officer said the same thing," Bailey drawled, grimly.

Whatever Thena might have been expecting, what she saw didn't even come close.

The woman's hair had been red before it had been shaved off, but even that small contradiction did nothing to hide the markings up and down her arms, spanning her entire torso. They didn't look exactly like Jack's tattoos, per se, but the effect was clear — and obvious — enough. The lips had been painted, full and dark, the eyelids smudged with grey. The girl looked how Jack might have appeared to a casual viewer, to someone who'd only seen her at a distance.

Ugly bruises encircled her neck.

"What the hell did he do to her?" she breathed, shock stealing most of her voice, and sudden anger making it ragged.

The next voice made her jump.

"Ligature marks at the wrists and ankles indicate the victim was restrained, possibly over the course of days. Tracheal bruising and crushed windpipe indicate the cause of death as strangulation, likely without the aid of any sort of implement; bruising patterns indicate he used his hands. Bruising patterns also indicate the suspect is likely human, batarian or asari." They turned to find a salarian in a C-Sec uniform, with the addition of a pristine lab coat, one long blue stripe down the right arm. He was reading the autopsy report off an omni-tool. "Scans also indicate… disfigurement and… ah, body modifications were likely, though not definitely, performed posthumously."

Though chilling, the knowledge provided Thena a flash of relief for the dead girl.

"Sorry, Doc, I figured you got held up, so I got Shepard and Vakarian here up to speed. Nearly, anyway." Bailey turned to Shepard, indicating the newcomer. "Commander Shepard, this is Doctor Taron Sarik, C-Sec's head medical examiner."

"An honor to finally meet you, Commander," Doctor Sarik said brightly, stepping forward and extending his hand. "Granted, it would have been far preferable under different circumstances."

It was hard to gauge the age of salarians in general, but Doctor Sarik seemed somewhat on the young side. And perhaps it was simply the inherently brisk demeanor so common to salarians, but Doctor Sarik seemed also exceedingly chipper.

"Doc's new to the post," Bailey explained. "Sharp as a tack, but still a little wet behind the ears."

Garrus and the medical examiner exchanged a patently puzzled look as the latter reached up curiously to feel the side of his head.

"I'll explain later," Thena murmured in an undertone. Hell, Bailey was even more generous with his idioms than she was.

And with the sort of mental swiftness customary to salarians, Doctor Sarik whisked over to the side of the pod holding the fourth victim. "There's nothing unique about the implements used to render the drawings on this woman's skin. Mostly permanent ink — the pigments used are native to Thessia, possibly purchased in Illium, or even Omega. Thessian pigments themselves are popularly used in tattoo art, but in this case there are traces of solvents and resins present on the skin that tell us the killer used nothing more sophisticated than common inks purchased at any number of asari-run shops throughout the galaxy. There are some such shops even on the Citadel."

"Do you think we're looking for an asari?" Garrus asked as Sarik hit the same switch used to turn over the body.

"It's far too early to tell, but I'd say that's unlikely. Given the asari tendency toward biotics, while they could kill with their hands, they don't tend to. And none of the victims have shown any indication that biotic ability played a part in their deaths."

The young woman, made to look so like Jack, was turned over and her back revealed. SHEPARD, in deep-cut letters, glared up at them; it seemed somehow wrong that this surprised Thena less than the woman's altered appearance. She wondered if maybe that had been the whole point — no, not Bailey's intent, but whoever the sick bastard was who'd done this in the first place.

No, she was no stranger to death, no stranger to violence — Mindoir had been a hell of an initiation there, followed up by the events on Akuze, Virmire, everything on the other side of the Omega-4 relay, but she'd never experienced something like this, that someone had died — no, been killed… why? Because of her? For her? She knew there were deranged people in the galaxy, but this… this couldn't be blamed on indoctrination, couldn't be blamed on the Reapers, couldn't be blamed on Cerberus.

The only person who could be blamed was the person who'd let him out in the first place.

After several seconds of disgusted silence, Bailey coughed once. "We, ah, think the killer may be… trying to get your attention."

"I think he's got it," Thena muttered. "Shit," she added in a hiss. Cursing again through gritted teeth, she took out her omni-tool. "EDI. This is Shepard. Come in."

"Yes, Shepard?"

"Were all of the Normandy's communications logs scrubbed with the Alliance refit?"

"No, Commander." Despite their best efforts, her tone seemed to say. "I still have records of all incoming and outgoing communications. Was there one in particular you needed?"

"Send me all incoming messages date-stamped to within a week after Jack joined the crew."

"Yes, Shepard." A few scant seconds ticked by before EDI's voice came across the channel again. "I have the messages you requested. Shall I forward them to your omni-tool?"

"Yes. And keep it secure."

"Of course, Shepard." Her omni-tool chimed seconds later, carrying a communiqué from EDI with several encrypted messages attached. It took no time at all to find the one she was looking for.

"You got something you want to share with the class, Shepard?" Bailey asked, pressing a series of buttons that closed the pods and whisked them back into storage. "Know something about this guy?"

"I wish I didn't," she said, forwarding the message in question to Bailey, Sarik, and, after a moment's consideration, to Garrus as well, not looking forward at all to the conversation they were very likely going to have, later. "He calls himself 'Billy,'" she said as the others in the room accessed the message.

Text slowly filled her omni-tool's display.

Hey Shepherd heard I have you to thank for getting out of Purgatory (sent a ship to round me up, but they didn't weapons-check good enough)! I'm gonna carve your name instead of mind into my next victim as thanks, got anyone you need dead (haha)? You did take a shot at me though on my way out so I have to kill you, you know how it goes. Dad taught me that you let anybody hurt you, they get ideas so you make sure to send a message, not like I'm sending now, though! See you around, the people who live here are coming back and it's showtime! Look around for your name, I'll make sure you find it before I find you! Billy…

"I received that message a few days after recruiting a squad member off the Purgatory."

Garrus' silence was stony and the look in his eyes unreadable; Doctor Sarik was still reading the message intently, likely for the fourth or fifth time already. Bailey, on the other hand, took no pains to hide his shock.

"The Purgatory?" he asked. "That was the one run by that lowlife Kuril?"

"I assume you've never sent anyone to lockup on the Purgatory, Bailey?" she asked.

"I never said that," he replied with a shake of his head. "I said Kuril was a lowlife. Unfortunately, he was a lowlife in charge of a prison ship full of even worse lowlifes, and sometimes that's where people get sent. Heard there was some kind of dust-up on that ship a while back. Bunch of high-security prisoners escaped and Kuril was killed. Would this be the, ah, 'recruitment' mission you're talking about?"

"Warden Kuril decided Shepard would be more valuable to him as a commodity than a customer," supplied Garrus, coolly. "Not much choice left but to fight our way out."

"Taking our new squad member with us," Thena added. "When I got this message…" She still remembered the confusion followed by the helpless frustration she'd felt the moment the words flickered across her terminal monitor, the realization that there was nothing whatsoever to go on, nothing to build on, no way to do anything about what had happened, what was about to happen when the writer of that message sent it. "There wasn't any way to trace it at the time. There was nothing I could do about it. And I had a team I had to prepare for a suicide mission."

It was all true, and yet the words still felt like ashes on Thena's tongue.

"Sounds like the Alliance tried to get him back under lock and key," Bailey muttered, reading the message again.

"Sounds like they failed," said Garrus. He frowned, eyes still scanning the message. "We can only speculate this guy's human, despite the name," he muttered, mostly to himself. "I doubt the name's real."

"For that matter, we can only assume it's a man," Thena added.

"So all we've got is a Purgatory escapee who's got some kinda crazy fixation on you, Shepard?" Bailey asked. "That's not a lot to go on."

She hated to admit it, but it wasn't.

"Got any thoughts on this, Doc?" drawled Bailey, looking over at Doctor Sarik, who was still reading and re-reading the message.

"My specialties are in xenobiology, anatomy and physiology, Commander Bailey. My knowledge of psychology, particularly abnormal human psychology, is nowhere near as vast; however, at first glance, this Billy does seem to blame Commander Shepard for having shot him, which, though understandable given the circumstances, is not entirely inaccurate. Perhaps the fixation stems from a perceived wrong he believes the commander has perpetuated against him. But then the tone itself doesn't seem angry, but rather… matter-of-fact, as if it is perfectly reasonable and acceptable to threaten to kill anyone under such a set of circumstances. The reference to his — let us assume that as a gender-neutral indicator — father is curious. I suspect there's more to that. The tone itself is genial, almost friendly, despite the very obvious threat. The problem I see is that if Billy's goal is for Commander Shepard to receive his… message, now that she has—"

She folded her arms, rocking back on her heels. "He may start looking for me next?"

Sarik nodded. "That is the most plausible conclu—"

"Let him."

There was a nearly audible click as the salarian's lower lids snapped upward in a blink. "Commander?"

"I said, let him," she ground out, anger pounding hard in her veins, blood thundering in her ears. "Let him look for me. Let him damn well find me."

Garrus sent her a long, calculating look lasting several beats of silence. Then, finally: "Let's… call that Plan B, okay, Shepard?"

"That's not the worst advice you'll get today," Bailey chimed in.

"All right," she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in and letting it out. "Then tell me what it is you want me to do about this, Bailey."

Jerking a thumb at the refrigeration pod, saying, "Well, considering how you responded to the victim when you first took a look, maybe you can tell me what it was about her that got you so rattled."

Thena kept her arms folded, fingers gripping her elbows. "The victim was made to resemble the woman we were taking off the Purgatory. Jack."

"Any idea where Jack is now?"

There was a beat of silence as Garrus and Thena exchanged a look. Garrus was the first so speak. "We aren't actually worried about Jack's safety, are we?" he asked her in an undertone.

The ME cleared his throat. "It's a possibili—"

"She'd wipe the floor with him," Garrus interrupted, his tone flat.

"Jack is… an incredibly powerful biotic," Thena clarified. "She doesn't suffer fools lightly, and she's got a… fondness for violence. They were keeping her in stasis on the Purgatory."

Bailey let out a low whistle. "So what's she doing now?"

Thena cleared her throat and noticed Garrus watching her, his expression very clearly saying, Can't wait to hear you explain this one, Shepard. "The Alliance decided to reward her work with me taking down the Collectors. She's now a biotics instructor at Grissom Academy. Her students are currently providing support in the field."

A beat of silence followed.

"So the ex-con's a schoolteacher. You know, one of these days, Shepard, I'll learn not to be surprised by anything that comes out of your mouth." Bailey ran one hand over his close-cropped hair. "This Jack. You trust her?"

"Absolutely," she answered, without so much as a breath of hesitation. Jack was prickly as hell, and all of her tact would barely fit a thimble, but she was trustworthy. "I trust all my people."

"You know how to get in touch with her? If someone thought enough of her to turn one of his victims into come kind of tribute to her, she might be able to shed a little light on this."

Personally, Thena thought that was doubtful, since Jack had spent most of her time on the Purgatory in stasis. But Bailey had a point, however slim. "I'll see what I can do," she said, considering who might be willing or able to tell her where Jack and her students had been placed, and how best to initiate contact. "In the meantime, what else can we do to help?"

"I'll take whatever you can give me, Shepard. This guy's slippery. You'd think we'd be able to get more off the victims — hair, skin cells, something. And we've gotta be careful warning the refugees something's wrong — things are already too tense right now to go throwing another powder-keg like this into the mix. Best case scenario, we catch the guy. Worst case scenario, you make a whole lot of scared, paranoid, desperate people just a little more scared and paranoid."

"What are you doing so far?"

"You know how thin we're stretched after Cerberus came through this place. I've got as many extra men as I can spare on duty in the holding area."

Thena's mind worked quickly, considering duty rosters and whose off-duty time fell when. "I could probably spare a few men. Vega already spends all of his time in port playing poker in that part of the station."

Garrus nodded, adding, "Cortez, too — speaking of another set of eyes, he's got the sharpest I know of. EDI could recon — record some footage, see if there's anything strange going on, any patterns, or—" but then he frowned and shook his head. "No, no good. EDI doesn't exactly blend."

She thought of Jack, who didn't precisely blend, either.

Dr. Sarik tipped his head to the side, considering. "Given that the killer appears to want Commander Shepard's attention; too many additional Normandy crew members may well let him know he's achieved that objective."

"Vega's been a fixture in the holding area for a while now," she countered. "It wouldn't be strange if he brought Cortez along with him. Ash either; she plays a mean hand of Skyllian Five. She'd fit in."

"Problem is," Garrus said, shaking his head, "no one knows who to look for yet." He turned his attention to Bailey. "Any security footage of this girl, Commander?"

"Thinkin' we might cross-reference some shots of her with the other victims?" Bailey asked him. "See if they talked to any of the same people?"

"Crossed my mind."

He nodded. "I've got some techs working on that now." Taking a step back, Bailey addressed them both. "I appreciate you're both willing to help — and, Shepard, even a few extra pairs of eyes'll be helpful, spread thin as we are — and it will help, but there's a lot here we don't have, namely leads and manpower. We're doin' what we can, but things have been rough here."

"It's also likely that the killer will attempt to use these circumstances to his advantage," Sarik added.

Bailey grimaced as if with actual, physical pain, which could have been the case. "Let's hope that doesn't happen."

"Just let us know what kind of help you need, Bailey, and we'll try to make it happen," Thena said.

"You've got that reporter on board, right? Diana Allers?"

"Yeah."

"Whatever you do, make sure she doesn't get wind of any of it. Keep her busy with fluff pieces. Better yet, send her out in the field to film an expose on that thresher maw took down a Reaper on Tuchanka."

Thena reined in her bark of laughter so that it came out as a cough. "Not a fan of Allers, then?"

Garrus chuckled. "C-Sec and the press don't exactly have a history of getting along. One thing my father hated more than Spectres? Reporters."

"Smart man," intoned Bailey. "Listen, Shepard — I trust you, and, hell, you being a Spectre, maybe you can get things done faster than we can. That said, I know you've got places to be, things to shoot, and asses to kiss."

Thena shook her head. "We can spare some time, Bailey. There's other business we can wrap up here while we're docked." Besides, when it came right down to it, this mess wasn't anyone's to fix but hers. There was no pinning this one on Cerberus, and she knew it.

"Fair enough," replied the commander, pulling out his omni-tool. "I'll forward you what we've got so far on the case. Not much, but you might be able to do something with it."

Garrus shifted his weight and leaned against a steel countertop. "Do you think we can get any record of when the victims arrived on the Citadel? If we can narrow down the time frame a little, we might be able to get an idea of when our guy got here."

Bailey's expression darkened as he let out a long breath and shook his head. Sarik, closing his own omni-tool, looked over at Shepard and said, "The victims' biotags have been the primary source of identification information. Given the influx of refugees on the Citadel, and the circumstances under which they've been arriving, accurate passenger-lists have become a luxury. If larger ships dock, the station keeps record of it, but numbers arriving by shuttle have been far more difficult to keep track of."

"We'll take what we can get, Doctor," Thena assured him.

"Shepard's right," added Garrus. "Any intel's good intel."

"We've got some information on that score, Shepard, but not much to build a case on." Bailey gestured to his omni-tool, adding, "Everything C-Sec has on this is in that file. Hopefully it'll be enough."

Thena's 'tool chimed softly with the incoming message. "If it's not, we're going to have to start turning over rocks and taking a look at what's underneath," she said.

"Under a rock is just where I'd expect to find this guy," Bailey muttered.

Or out in plain sight, Thena added silently.

And she knew which was worse.