Chapter 4

Two days later…

Zoan Damir let his head fall to the table with a resounding thud. He heard the snickers of the team but didn't really care. They were just as frustrated as he was.

"You know I'm going to make you work, even if you give yourself a concussion." Ajani threw at the young man, unable to keep the smile from his face.

"What if I bang my brains out?" Zoan asked.

"Then they'll be inhabiting your seat as we bounce ideas off them. Literally."

"You're such a nice boss." The younger detective said sarcastically, not raising his head from the tabletop.

Carwyn Nalo rolled her eyes and wondered again how she had gotten the privilege of babysitting all these boys. When she had signed up to be a forensic pathologist, she didn't know it involved gaining brothers in the process. She might not have signed up if she had.

"If you two are done wasting time, can we get back to the case?" Nori Ofira asked, shaking his head at them.

"Yeah, let's get back to the plethora of information we have." Ajani said darkly, hoping that Nori knew his frustration wasn't directed at him.

"This guy is good." Carwyn commented. "Or lucky. I'm not sure which yet. He leaves almost no evidence behind. I can't do much with that. Roten has it the easiest right now."

Ajani rubbed his mouth and sighed. He had been hanging around Myri too much lately and picked up her bad habits apparently.

"And even he doesn't have much." Zoan mumbled.

"Let's go over the last victim again." Ajani instructed, trying to steer the team back towards the topic. Leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes, he prepared to wrack his brain with them. They weren't seasoned, but they were definitely good. Zoan and Nori were two of his best detectives, even if Zoan was only 25. Nori had been around almost twice as long, but they got along well so it worked out.

Carwyn was the lead forensic pathologist in Intelligence and was highly in demand. Myri had given him anyone he wanted to be on his team, so he had snatched the young Corellian up quickly. Sometimes she was awkward out of her lab, but she fit in well with the team. There were various other members who were also working on the case, but these three were his senior experts.

"Last victim: 26 year old human female. 5'0" tall, green eyes, brown hair. Worked as a waitress in a bar down by the main spaceport. No siblings, parents deceased and no boyfriend." Nori said from memory.

"Which really doesn't give us a pattern, because victim number 2 was a high-profile socialite from Kuat who just happened to be here for a business meeting. She had three kids, a husband of 30 years and was killed her first day on the planet." Carwyn added.

Ajani nodded, blowing out a breath noisily. "The only similarities," he started, "are their appearances. Petite, brown-haired women."

"Which narrows it down to roughly half the freaking population." Zoan added as he lifted his head off the table slightly and hit it against the surface again.

Carwyn scratched her head and looked at Ajani like she wanted to say something.

"What Carwyn?" He asked.

"This guy had to have done this before. Maybe not on this scale, but these women aren't his first victims. He's had practice on killing this efficiently and leaving nothing of himself behind."

"When did you become a profiler?" Nori asked, an eyebrow raised in question.

"It's common sense. He picks his areas too well. There's planning involved. It's almost as if he's taking more time selecting an area to kill these women in than who he's selecting. He doesn't care who the women are, what background they came from. He's only concerned with their appearance."

All three men looked at her with various degrees of shock.

"Sorry. Had a little epiphany there." She responded meekly, lowering her gaze.

"Actually, you have a good point." Ajani conceded. Not surprised at her thought process, since she was extremely intelligent. Carwyn usually didn't say much. If she had something to say you listened. He looked over at the other members and smiled. "Your turn boys. I want an epiphany from you this week. Preferably today, but I know that's asking too much."

"Hey!" Zoan said, while the other two laughed. "That wasn't very nice."

\__/

Karissa rolled her eyes again as she heard her brothers stomping down the hallway for what felt like the millionth time. They knew she was working on her light saber and with her parents not home yet, were taking advantage of the opportunity to drive her insane. After a few more minutes, and failures at adding a piece she had finally had enough.

"Will you two please stop it!" She said from her doorway. The boys tried to look innocent, but they hadn't achieved that feat since they were about 2 weeks old. Breaking into laughter, they leaned into each other to keep upright and Karissa felt like bursting into tears. Slapping the palmer so hard her hand stung, the door shut and she leaned against the wall next to it and slid down to the floor.

Her emotions had been a mess in the last few weeks and she had been very proud of herself at not breaking down. Until now. Karissa dropped her head to her knees and finally let the river loose. She didn't know how long she had sat there, but she heard her door open and refused to look up. Someone sat down next to her and intuitively, she leaned into him as his arm went around her shoulders.

"I told the boys to go down and play with Aiden for a little while." Micah told her quietly, not expecting an answer. "Now, I know the boys are sith in their own right" he told her, smiling when he heard a small chuckle come from her, "but I hope they're not the reason you're sitting on your bedroom floor bawling."

She shook her head gently, still not saying anything. Micah rested his chin on her head and wrapped both arms around her to give her time to calm down. He and Jarik had learned over the years that you didn't rush Karissa. If you did, it was not pretty. Finally, he heard her sigh deeply and she reached up to wipe her face.

"I just feel weird."

"Is this something you need to talk to my mom or aunt Jade about?" He asked suspiciously, laughing when her head rose up so she could smack him in the chest.

"No idiot."

"Then talk to me." Micah told her as he pushed her hair out of her face to look her in the eyes.

"You know that one thing we talked about?" She asked quietly.

"Um, Kissa you're gonna have to be a little more specific. We talk about a lot." He murmured, knowing that laughing at her right now was not what she needed.

"About Jarik."

"Ah." He responded, then remained quiet. "Yeah. I remember. Did something happen?"

Karissa shook her head, then buried it back in his chest. Micah sighed and closed his eyes.

"Between that, my demon brothers, worrying about that stupid survival test, working on my saber and the serial killer on the loose…I'm feeling a little overwhelmed." She whispered.

"Well hell Kissa. I don't know why." He joked. "Add to that trying to become a Jedi knight and a pilot at the same time and I'm surprised you haven't gone dark yet." He snarked, wincing as he waited for the smack to his chest. When none came, he got a little worried. "Why don't you just talk to him?" Micah asked as he heard the front door open and hoped it wasn't Jarik.

Karissa sat up and gave him an incredulous look. "I can't!"

"Why the sith not? He's your best friend Karissa. Don't you think he would understand?"

"You're my best friend, too." She said, standing to walk across the room and sit back down at her desk. Micah pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them as he watched her.

"Yeah, but you're not in love with me." He whispered.

\__/

"Kids! We're home!" Jaina called as she and Jag walked in the front door. It was quiet. Too quiet. Reaching out, she felt Karissa and Micah in her room, but the boys weren't in the apartment. Jessa was over at Kyp's so she wasn't worried about her.

Jaina stopped in front of her daughter's door and started to knock when she felt a spike of sadness from Karissa.

"Jay?" Her husband said, coming up to stand next to her. "What's wrong?"

"She's upset."

"Well, she did have her favorite class today." He chuckled quietly, garnering a smile from his wife. Jag kissed her cheek and continued on down the hall, knowing that Jaina was probably better equipped to handle Karissa in this state.

Taking a deep breath, she knocked and waited for someone to answer. A smile leapt to her face when Micah opened the door.

"Hey Micah. I see you're feeling better." She said, her gaze darting to her daughter's figure at her desk.

"Yeah, I am. But don't tell my mom. I'm still trying to garner sympathy." He joked. "I sent the boys over to my place since they were being a little loud." He revealed, knowing that Jaina would be worried about the city if the boys were running loose.

"Thank you. I appreciate that." Jaina told him as he looked back over his shoulder. "Are you staying for dinner?"

"No, I have a big test tomorrow. I need to study a little tonight." He said, giving her a lopsided smile.

"Ok. Honey, you want to help me with dinner?" Jaina called out to her daughter, hoping she would say yes.

"Yeah, in just a minute mom. Let me finish this real quick." Came Karissa's quiet reply. Jaina smiled at Micah, then turned to walk down the hall to her own room.

\__/

Micah stood at the door, still staring at it when it closed. "You gonna be ok?" He asked, hearing her sigh and then get out of her chair. Turning as he heard her approach, he smiled when she wrapped her arms around his waist and he kissed the top of her head.

"Yeah. Sorry I lost it there." She mumbled.

"You're allowed to every once in a while, Kissa."

\__/

Jade looked up as her door opened and smiled at her husband.

"Hey." She said quietly as he walked over to give her a kiss.

"Hey yourself." Kyp responded, sitting on the edge of her desk as she finished putting her things away. "You ready to go home?"

"Yep. Just give me a second."

"One." He said, standing and pulling her arm with him.

"What?"

"You said give you one second. That was one. Let's go." He smirked.

"Good grief Kyp. It's not like you're going to get some nookie when we get home." She said, chuckling as he pulled her towards the door. He stopped and turned around, pulling her close so he could kiss her nose.

"I love that you still call it that." He said, leaning down to give her a lingering kiss. "Besides, all I was planning on doing was sitting on the couch and snuggling. I can still do that with my wife, right?"

"Yes. You can. Plus you can embarrass your son."

"Ah yes. One of the added benefits of having children. Embarrassing them with the knowledge that mom and dad still do what brought them into the universe."

"What are the other benefits of kids?" Jade asked, kissing his neck and smiling when he tightened his hold on her.

"Taking out the trash, doing the dishes, walking the pets."

"We don't have pets, Kyp." She whispered, loving how she could still affect him.

"Then we need to get some because Galven doesn't get embarrassed near enough."

\__/

"I thought we agreed no more for awhile?" The man sneered at Cutter through the comm unit. He didn't know where the younger man was right now, or he would have found him and knocked some sense into him. "You kill too many too fast and you're going to get caught." He added.

"No, you agreed. This is my game old man, so I suggest you stay out of my way. If you wanted to get the revenge yourself, you should have never involved me."

"Look. We need to be preparing a bigger attack that will get more attention. Then you can go back to your killing." The old man said, trying to make Cutter remember the plan. "You'll have time to play with them later."

"I want to make sure he knows that I'm gunning for him. The only way to do that is through his woman."

"Maybe we can achieve both goals at the same time. I just had an idea.