"What, Hawkes? What is it?" Mac asked.

"Have you called Stella yet?" Hawkes asked, ignoring the question.

"I just got off the phone with her. Why? What's happened?"

"Well, when I got back to the lab, I started processing the postcard. I fumed it for prints. Now, most of them had been washed away by rain and such, but under the stamp I found a print. I ran it through AFIS and got a match."

"You did?"

"Prints came back to a Patrick Lafayette, also known as Patrick Andries."

"What?" Mac asked disbelievingly.

"Yeah, he changed his name at eighteen because he didn't know his father, wanted his mother's maiden name. She died in '08 of liver disease."

"Patrick Andries? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, but that's not our biggest concern. It was postmarked for a week ago."

"What is the problem, Hawkes?"

"Patrick Lafayette was murdered two months ago in Central Park. Same MO as our Jane Doe. I swabbed the knife, and I got back six different female blood samples. These blood samples gave me six case-to-case hits in the last three years."

"Hawkes, are you trying to tell me we've got a serial killer?"

"Uh, not just us. Three of those other six cases were in New Orleans."

"New Orleans?" Mac repeated.

"Yeah. They've got most of the information. I was going to call –"

"Mac!" Adam burst into the room, almost running and looking shaken. "I have something and it's really important and –oh, uh, hi, Hawkes," he finished abruptly.

"What do you have?" Mac asked Adam. Adam cleared his throat.

"So the writing on the postcard was too faded to read at the scene, right? So I dried it and looked at it under a UV light, to see if any of the ink fluoresced. It did. All if it. But it was faint, so I took a sample, right? And I noticed that the ink was a weird red color and so I swabbed it and it came back positive for blood."

"What? Who's?" Mac spat out.

"I ran the DNA, and it –it –it's –it's" Adam stuttered and began shaking.

"Adam! Calm down!" Mac grabbed Adam's arm and led him over to a chair. Adam took a deep, shaky breath.

"It's Stella's, Mac." Adam looked up at his boss as he took in the news. Mac's face went pale, and his expression became stony.

"Are you sure?" he asked in a dangerously quiet and barely controlled voice. Adam nodded shakily.

"I think she's dead, Mac," he whimpered. Then Adam's eyes grew wide and rolled back in his head as he passed out.

"Adam?" Mac asked. "Sheldon, I need you." Dr. Hawkes walked over and felt Adam's pulse, checked his breathing, and looked in his eyes.

"He might have just passed out from fear," Sheldon offered after declaring Adam okay. Mac nodded, his mind elsewhere. A postcard had been written to someone in Stella's blood.

How had that happened?

More importantly, why didn't Stella mention anything like that? Thinking quickly, he made up his mind and grabbed his cell phone.

"I'll be right back," he announced. "Keep Adam in my office, and shut the blinds. He doesn't need the embarrassment. And stay with him, Hawkes, you understand?" Hawkes nodded. Mac grabbed his jacket and left his office so fast he bumped into someone.

"Hey, watch it," he growled before he saw who it was. It was Jo.

"Hello to you too," she said cheerfully. She looked up at Mac's face and her smile faded.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Something happened with Stella. I'll explain everything later. I can't talk now, but we probably should talk soon," Mac said shortly. Jo simply nodded, and Mac stepped around her and continued to the elevator. When he got to the first floor, he called Stella again. This time she answered the phone on the third ring.

"Bonasera."

"Stella, its Mac. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what, Mac?" Stella sounded confused.

"Don't try to play innocent, dammit. Why didn't you tell me?" Mac demanded.

Stella got defensive. "I'm not playing innocent. I have no idea what you're talking about. What happened?"

"I don't know, you tell me," Mac snarled. "You wanna explain to me why the postcard we found with the picture was written in your blood?"

Stella was silent. "What?" she finally said.

"It was written in your blood, Stella," Mac repeated heatedly. "Adam processed the postcard. He thought you were dead. He passed out, he was so scared."

"Oh, my god," Stella gasped. "Is he going to be all right?"

"He's going to be fine. I'm more worried about you, and how they got your blood," Mac said. "Why didn't you tell me something like this had happened?"

"I don't know," Stella said honestly. "I mean, clearly, I'm not dead, but someone took my blood without my knowledge."

"How the hell did they do that?" Mac asked incredulously. Stella was silent for another full minute.

"I donated blood a few months ago," Stella said eventually. "They could have gotten it then."

"I'll look into it," Mac said. "Meanwhile, we have a serial killer. Both of us."

"What?"

"Yup," Mac said grimly. He explained the connection between the two cities.

"I worked those cases," Stella said disbelievingly. "We decided it was a serial killer, but we'd had nothing since then."

"That's because the serial killer, for whatever reason, moved to New York," Mac explained.

"Mac, I have to go back to New York. I need to give you everything I can on this. I'll ask the captain for permission. I have to go," she said hurriedly. After a quick goodbye, they hung up, but Mac didn't go back up to the lab. Instead, he took a walk. He had some thinking to do.

He turned the corner, heading towards Central Park. His thoughts surrounded him like dogs on the hunt, snapping and growling, ready to rip him to shreds. He tried to wave them away, but each time they returned, tearing more deeply into his head.

Stella was coming back to New York.

He missed Stella.

A serial killer killed in New Orleans, then picked up and moved to New York to continue killing.

Someone sent a victim a postcard written in blood

Someone took blood from Stella's donation to do it.

She didn't know they'd done it.

He'd felt guilty about laughing with Stella and then having to put on a façade with Jo.

He was in a relationship with Jo, and he didn't know what he thought about it anymore.

He didn't want Stella seeing other guys.

He was glad she wasn't.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. He gritted his teeth. Since when had he ever been confused when it came to Stella? Stella was… well, she was Stella. She was dependable, solid, strong, someone who he could always count on. Stella was the constant in the equation when everything else was variables. Stella was anything but confusing. He sighed and decided to ignore it. He moved on to the next most worrying thing: a serial killer was in New York, killing in the exact same way as he had in New Orleans. Before he had a chance to contemplate that, however, his phone rang.

"Taylor," he answered irritably.

"Hey, is everything all right?" It was Stella. Mac sighed.

"Yeah, everything's fine," Mac lied unconvincingly.

"Mm-hmm," Stella said, not fooled. "Wanna talk about it?"

Mac groaned. "Not really. You talk to your chief?"

"Yeah," Stella said, accepting the subject change gracefully. "I'm flying out at 3:30. I'm going home to pack now. Just thought I'd call and let you know."

"Okay, great," Mac said. "Hurry, go home and pack." Stella laughed.

"Okay," Stella said. "My flight gets in at about ten your time. I gotta go now, okay?"

"Okay," Mac said. "Goodbye."

"Wait!"

"What, Stella?"

"I'm coming in from Terminal 6. Do you want to be there, or should I hail a cab?"

Mac answered without hesitation.

"I'll be there."

"Okay. I'll call you when I get in."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye, Mac." Stella hung up the phone and grinned.

I'm going back to New York, she thought excitedly. I'm going home.