Chapter 2: Descriptions

Lace walked into the office, throwing her keys down on her desk. She sighed before looking up at her partner. "Okay, I ran it and there are four matching cases, two each year. They're on the same date, and this is the first of the year. The next doesn't come for a while now. His type--blond, tall, skinny, but muscular, between fifteen and twenty-one. Um... Each victim was able to describe a few characteristics, but that's all, no full descriptions, not enough for an ID. All of them said Latino."

"Any matches on the DNA?"

"Warner's backed up, but she's trying to run it." Lace rolled her eyes with a smile when she saw Howard walk in. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Mark has a fever. I had to leave work. I'm on the way to drop them off at your mother's and I decided to drop you off some left over chicken I made," Howard answered.

"Liar."

Howard grinned. "So, maybe I'm a little... nosy, but what are you going to do about it?"

Lace arched an eyebrow. "What kind of chicken is it?"

"Your favorite! What else would I bring?"

"Is this apology food or real food?"

"Maybe it's both."

"What'd you do this time? Wreck my car? Drop the baby?"

"No. Nothing like that. I lied. I forgot to drop the kids off at day care. And I didn't go to work. Called in sick."

Lace laughed, throwing her head back. "Luckily, you're your own boss, so you can do that whenever you want to, right? And not get fired, I might add. Get out! Take 'em to Mom's and then go to work."

"And if I don't?"

Lace glared at him. "Our date tonight is canceled, and I'm moving in with Mom."

"An empty threat, but just the same, I'm going." Howard kissed her with a grin.

Lace glared at his back as he left, but she couldn't hide the smile from the rest of the unit. Elliot raised an eyebrow, glancing at Olivia. "How long have you been married?" he asked.

"Almost eleven years," Lace answered distantly, staring at the the file. "I'm trying to think of how we can get enough of a description to actually look him up. We have to narrow it down somehow. At least get enough so we're not pulling random people off the streets."

"Talk to the other victims?" Elliot suggested.

"No. It's a description. Already in their file and I don't think they'll remember much more." Lace sighed, throwing down the file. "We could..."

"Could what?"

"Well, all the victims gave about the same description, but some added a few things. We could stick them all together, and see what we come up with. Narrower weight than what Abby gave us. Height, eyes, we know, Latino, a tattoo on his arm of a dragon, all that. We could do it and probably get a little closer. Lot easier to narrow down the list."

Fin nodded. "When we catch the guy, his lawyer might have a problem with it, but his DNA will catch him. Let's try it out."

"Exactly." Lace jumped to her feet with a grin.