A very big thank you to everyone who has sent reviews/feedback.

Also, a caveat for this chapter... I promised another chapter before I left for DragonCon this weekend, but I did forewarn that you might hate me for that. That being said, I hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend. I will be (mostly) out of contact until some time Monday/Tuesday - depending on just HOW good the weekend is ;-)

Consider yourselves officially warned.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017 02:00 AM PST

The tension wrench and pick easily bound the pins of the lock into place and the door to the apartment opened with the faintest of noises. He quietly moved inside, the art of becoming invisible second nature to him by now, and closed the door with less noise than when it had been opened. Considering the residence, he was surprised there wasn't more difficulty in the entry, and knew from his previous perusals of the residence just where he needed to go.

The last thing he wanted to do was rush this. He wanted to savor every second - the feel of the carpet beneath his boots, the quiet stillness of the place while everyone else in their little corner of the world was asleep, the fragrant aroma of lilac and lavender that seemed to permeate every inch and fiber of the place. Scanning the shelves and furniture, he was struck by the pictures of the happy couple that graced the features. Running his hand along the back of the couch, his fingers itched to grab one of the pictures and smash it against the wall or the floor, any hard surface really….

But such actions would alert others to his presence, and he really didn't want that. He wanted her alone. He intended to go slow, take his time and draw this one out to make up for the amount of time his talents had been held at bay.

Slowly... quietly… he made his way down the hallway, fingers running along the wall as he went. This wasn't the first time he'd done something like this, but it had been far too long. The first time since his employer had gotten him out of his last jam and he'd promised to do better… to refine his craft so that next time there was no chance he would get caught. In the last few years, he'd been content to watch, content to sit in the office/apartment that they had set up across town and collect information, learn the lives of the people his employer was interested in and catalog their secrets. And then she had come along.

She was his type… quite possibly more his type than any of the women who had come before her. Independent, beautiful but not necessarily traditional, headstrong. He was sure a criminal psychologist would find loads of other commonalities that he never would have considered. All he knew, all he cared about, was that there was something about her that made him need to possess her.

And after what he'd seen earlier, he had to do it now. There was no holding back, no more observation, no more waiting.

He stopped at the entrance to the bedroom and his breath hitched. Her outline as she lay asleep in the bed, silhouetted by the moonlight cascading in through the blinds, with her back to him, made his heart beat faster and his palms sweat. It wouldn't be long now.

He entered the room, the air seemingly alive with electricity, and circled to the far side of the bed. More than anything, he loved the relaxed expression on her face while she slept; he'd seen it so often in the last several months that he practically had it memorized. He watched her for a few moments, his fingers itching to reach out and touch her, to finally claim her as his even as she clutched a pillow to her chest. His pillow.

He placed his bag on the floor by her bed, everything he could possibly need for any outcome he could think of right there, and slowly, carefully brushed a lock of her hair off of her face. A gentle smile moved across her face and she shifted on the bed, lying more fully on her back.

Exactly what he had hoped for.

Her positioning now made things so much easier than it would have been. Carefully, so as not to dip the edge of the mattress too much, he edged his way up to her from the foot of the bed. He was just about even with her hips when she shifted, fully on her back now, one hand casually laying across the pillow above her head.

It was perfect.

Almost as if she could read his mind.

Slowly, carefully, he pulled the knife from its sheath on his belt. Holding it in his right hand he cautiously inched closer to her side. His anticipation was growing. He had dutifully waited as long as he could, after tonight his employer could do what he wanted, because this… she… was so going to be worth it.

He took a deep breath to steady himself, to calm the increasing build of anticipation of what was about to happen.

In the next instant he was on top of her, hands pinned above her head, knife to her throat. The utter look of terror in her eyes only fueled his excitement.

He leaned forward, the faint smell of the perfume she wore earlier in the day invading his senses. She tensed further as he moved the knife away from her throat, pushing an errant lock of hair off of her face and tracing a trail down her cheek.

Her eyes closed and he spotted the unshed tears in the corners of her eyes. She was so calm, so docile beneath him. He shifted against her, the evidence of his arousal pressing into her stomach as he straddled her, and she tensed beneath him without so much as a whimper.

He watched the movements of her throat as she swallowed and followed the path further to the edge of the satin decollete of her nightie. His pulse sped up as he envisioned just what he was going to do to her. Just how glorious the night would be.

He closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds, and that was when his whole plan started to fall apart.

02:15 AM PST

It took almost every ounce of Claire's willpower not to scream the second she opened her eyes. The most basic instincts told her to scream at the top of her lungs and hope for the best. Even being a technical analyst, she'd completed the basics of the Police Academy, and everything in her training and the few classes she'd taken since - either professionally or for 'fun' - told her that if she wanted to get out of this she would have to let her wits prevail and not allow instinct to kick in too much.

She closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to fall, knowing what he planned for her by his reactions, and if this guy was as good as he seemed to be, as prepared as he was, chances were he had no intention of leaving her around to identify him. She swallowed the scream that built up in her throat, praying she would have a better opportunity to use it in the not too distant future.

Her stomach lurched when he leaned forward, and she almost missed him closing his eyes. The contented smile on his face causing a sick chill to run down her spine. If she was going to have a chance, this was it. She couldn't afford for it to be a wasted opportunity.

She bucked her hips up off of the bed as hard as she could, sending the man crashing forward. With all the force she could muster, her forehead connected with his, and she lunged her arms up to push him off of her as her knee came up to connect with his groin. The man doubled over and she shoved him off of her, grabbing for her cell phone as she scrambled off the bed.

As she took off for the doorway, Claire felt the resistance when the cord tugged before releasing her phone. She turned down the hallway and clicked the screen, swiping her finger over the emergency button. Her forehead pounded where it had connected with the man's nose and there was blood on her nightgown, whether it was hers or not she couldn't tell.

She vaguely heard the 911 dispatcher receive the call and rattled off her address and badge number before a force hit her from behind, her phone flying across the room when she landed on the floor. Claire kicked up the best that she could, but between the weight on top of her and the fact that she was pinned face down to her floor, her maneuverability was rather limited. A fist grabbed her hair and she waited a breath as the man leveled himself with her, loosening his grip slightly when he assumed she was acquiescing. Her head lolled forward slightly until she felt like the positioning was good and then she reared her head back and smashed into his face once again.

The muffled, "Fucking bitch," barely resonated as the pounding between her ears increased in tempo, but she was able to scramble away from him. Claire grabbed her phone a second time as she scurried toward the door, the distant sounds of sirens piercing the typical ensemble of noises that made up the Los Angeles nightly symphony. She was thankful for them and hoped that they were indeed headed her way. Rushing toward the door, fully aware of the sight she must make - covered in blood, frazzled and in her satin night gown - she opened the door and attempted to hit the emergency button again, instead dialing the last number previous to that.

A force pulled her back into the apartment and she stumbled, falling into the form, a sharp pain in her side finally ripping a cry from her lips. She struggled against him as the sirens grew closer and they both grew more frantic in their attempts to succeed. Her hands reached back and clawed at his face, gripping at his ears and desperately attempting to locate his eyes. Finally, her hand wrapped around something she could use, and before the opportunity could slip from her grasp, she plunged the knife wherever she could reach, feeling the blade slice into her hand in the process. She backed away from the her attacker and tripped, slamming into the wall before sliding down it and everything faded to black.

02:20 AM PST

Incessant buzzing pierced the veil of consciousness surrounding Ricky and he fumbled in the darkness to find his phone, knocking over a picture frame and sending the remote tumbling to the floor in the process.

"Damnit."

He swiped his finger across the screen to answer the call. "Claire? What's up?"

Muffled noises, a cry, the sound of something crashing in the background, all brought Ricky to a sudden state of awareness.

"Claire?!"

"Ricky? What's going on?" The image of Sharon Raydor in her nightgown and robe with Andy Flynn next to her in his pajamas probably would have been a source of amusement for him on most days, but he couldn't quell the sudden sense of dread that was building within him.

"I...um…" Ricky stared at the phone in his hand. "I think something's happened to Claire."

His mother was by his side in an instant while Andy grabbed the phone off the kitchen counter. "What's her address, son?"

Ricky rattled off the address while Andy dialed the phone and Sharon took his cell from him, speaking quietly into it. A thousand things were going through Ricky's mind as he watched it all play out before him, the hole in the pit of his stomach growing deeper as his mother looked up and calmly shook her head to Andy.

"Units are already on scene. Apparently they got a 911 call, Claire was able to give her address and badge number before it became an open line with obvious signs of a scuffle in the background."

Ricky looked up when his mother placed her hands on his shoulders. "Get dressed. We'll leave in a few minutes."