Thanks to all reading and reviewing!

Sorry this has taken a while to update. I've got so much personal stuff going on right now, constantly one thing after another so I'm throwing updates in as and where I can, but hopefully it l get easier now.

A/N: Parts in Italics are flashbacks.

Disclaimer: Not mine if you've seen them on CSI: NY.

Chapter 4

Ged was leading Jo to the bathroom. It had been hours and hours since he had finished stitching her up and although she was still sore as hell she was relieved to not be bleeding anymore. She walked into the bathroom and turned to face him, glaring at him, waiting for him to leave.

She was a little annoyed when he leant against the door frame, glaring at her. "You wanna watch?" she asked.

"You know this isn't personal." he replied.

"Excuse me?"

"It didn't have to be you is what I'm saying. You were just closest to the door, the easiest one to grab." he told her, thinking back to the night of the explosion.

He had waited outside, hidden from sight, for them all to walk into the empty warehouse. He had given them a minute before he had detonated the home-made explosives he had placed inside. He jumped as the bang of the explosion echoed around him. "Whoo!" he cheered as he ran towards the door.

He pulled his scarf up over his nose and mouth, not wanting to breathe in the smoke, and kicked the door open and looked inside. He could see the motionless CSI's through the flames. He couldn't wipe the smile off his face. Then he looked down and saw Jo, just a few feet away from him.

"I watched you all for weeks. I was trying to decide who was best to take but in the end I worked out that you all considered each other to be of equal importance, but I saw how Detective Taylor looked at you."

Jo looked at him, a little startled by his words. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

Ged pushed away from the doorframe and said, "I'm talking about the look in his eyes when he sees you... You're a smart woman, Alabama, don't pretend that you haven't seen it too." he said as he moved closer to her.

"I don't know what you're talking about." she spat at him, a little angrily. She was backing away from him, not wanting him so close to her.

He suddenly ran at her, closing the small gap between them. He slammed his body hard against hers, pinning her against the wall behind her. His hand came up to grab her throat before she could try to stop him, she could only try to peel it away as she struggled to breathe. "I'm talking about the way his eyes snake over your body, how they undress you." he said.

Jo knew the way Mac looked at her, it was the same way she looked at him, but Ged made it sound so dirty and cheap. "You're pathetic!" she spat at him, the words barely able to escape her lips.

His grip tightened around her throat. "Tell me sweetness," he said mocking her accent. "Has he fucked you yet?"

Jo tried to push against him, she wanted to hit him as hard as she could but she couldn't from the way he had her pinned against the wall.

"You can tell me." he laughed. "I bet if he hasn't he thinks about it all the time." he said as his eyes scanned Jo's body. "You're devastatingly beautiful. I bet most guys just see you as a fuck when they look at you."

Jo tried to ignore him as she struggled to stay conscious. He released his grip just long enough for her to take two gulps of air before he grabbed her again. "I wonder if Detective Taylor will still want you if I send you back to him…a little used up. I wonder if he would just think of me each time he looked at you, always knowing that I had beaten him to it. I think every time he thought about touching you he would see my face." he said menacingly. "A guy can get lonely and well, a beauty like you doesn't come along every day. I may just not be able to control myself much longer." he said, taunting her.

Using every bit of strength she had Jo pushed him off her. He allowed it and stepped back laughing. "Just you keep that in mind, Alabama." he said as he walked over to the door. He turned to face her and said, "I can do whatever the hell I want to you." he told her before he walked out and slammed the door shut behind him.

Jo wanted to throw something, anything, but she had nothing so instead she just let out a frustrated growl before she sat down on the edge of the bath tub. She was angry, humiliated and frustrated and it was too much to handle. Her tears began to fall so quick that she didn't have time to try to hold them back, so, she simply let them fall.

~0~0~0~0~

The hours that Ged had given the team seemed to fly by. Before they knew it they had less than four hours left. They were at the final crime scene. Mac was refusing to let them leave until they found something, not that any of them wanted to go anywhere anyway. However the long hours were beginning to tell on them.

They had all noticed how Hawkes was finding it more and more difficult to move around as easy. He was the one who Mac had said could go, but he refused to go. Jo was his friend and until she was back safe he wouldn't rest.

They had found some evidence at the third and fourth scene, but all the leads they thought they might have discovered turned out to be dead ends and they were left with nothing but this fifth and final scene. It was a loading dock behind an abandoned nightclub and being the most recent scene it was also the most untainted scene, but so far they had found nothing.

Danny, who was searching nearby to Lindsay, saw her stand up and stretch her aching back. He pushed himself up and walked over to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently rubbed them. "That feel great." she told him.

"Look, why don't you take a break." Danny said to her.

"Jo doesn't have time for me to take a break." Lindsay pointed out. "What if we don't find anything here, Danny? What then?"

"It won't come to that. We'll think of something." he said as he pulled her into a supportive hug.

Mac was stood watching them. It made him smile a little that they had each other for comfort. He turned around and continued going over the scene. However, he had to stop when he thought about Jo, about the day when they had first visited this scene.

He held the tape up for Jo to duck under and then walked along with Flack who gave him the basics they needed to know. He then left them to go talk to some other officers.

"I can't believe he's killed again." Jo said to Mac as they crouched down by the newest vic.

"He's getting cockier. This murder took place just a few feet away from the main street." Mac pointed out.

"What's it going to take to stop him?" Jo thought out loud.

"I can't wait to catch this guy so all this will be over." Mac said.

He shook his head as he thought about how wrong he had been. They had caught the wrong guy and now Jo was paying because of it. The sound of a crash made him stand up and look around. When he saw where it had come from he went running over to Hawkes who was lay on the floor by a big red dumpster.

The others ran over to him too, all of them offering Hawkes a hand. He could only sit up, holding his leg. "Don, I need you to take him to the hospital." Mac said.

"Sure thing." Flack said as he and Danny helped Hawkes to his feet.

"No, I need to stay and help." Hawkes said. There was obvious pain in his voice.

"No, you need to go to the hospital. I won't be responsible for another one of my team being hurt. Now go!" he said.

Before he had chance to argue, Don and Flack carried Hawkes towards Flack's car. Mac stood there and sighed, feeling guilty for having let Hawkes stay when he knew he should have gone. Lindsay knew what he was thinking and said, "Mac, you know you're not responsible for Hawkes getting hurt, or for what's happening to Jo."

"I was so fixed on getting someone for these murders that I didn't stop to think we might have gotten it wrong."

"Mac, the evidence was all there. We've gone all over these scenes and we've found nothing more. I think Cullen's just playing with us."

Mac nodded, thinking she was right. He couldn't look her in the eyes so he looked down at the floor. That was when he noticed it. The dumpster Hawkes had fallen against had been pushed sideways by him. He crouched down and looked closer at what he hadn't seen the first time they had been here.

Lindsay crouched down next to him and looked at the same thing. It was a grid and the grate of it was partially broken. They both took out their Maglite's and looked into the grid. It was Mac who pulled on a glove and reached into the shallow gird.

He pulled out a role of silver duct tape. They both studied it. It had been torn at the end, not cut with scissors or any other type of bladed instrument. There were also some red fibres stuck to the side of it.

"All the vics were tied up with silver duct tape." Lindsay pointed out.

"Maybe we just finally got lucky." Mac said.

~0~0~0~0~

Jo was pacing around the panic room. Her stomach kept making loud hungry gurgling sounds. She was starving. She couldn't remember the last time she had been given something to eat. She'd heard nothing from Ged in the last few hours. She didn't know if it was because he was out or if it was just night time and he was sleeping. She hated that she couldn't keep track of time.

She walked over to the intercom and pushed the button. "Are you there?" she asked. She heard nothing back. "Cullen, are you there?" she shouted into it.

"What?" he yelled.

She could immediately tell he wasn't happy. "Can I have something to eat, please?" she asked.

"No!" he yelled at her.

She got no reply. Instead the lights were turned out on her. "Son-uv-a-bitch!" she muttered as she slapped the door.

~0~0~0~0~

Mac and Lindsay were back at the lab. Lindsay was dusting the tape. Mac had retrieved the tape from the last vic's evidence collection. They had matched the end of the roll they'd just found and the pieces of tape from the evidence collection up like a puzzle. Now they were just praying they would get something off the roll that could give them a new suspect, if there were one.

"I have a print!" Lindsay exclaimed.

"Let's get it in the system." Mac said, "And pray it gives us something in the next two hours."

~0~0~0~0~

After only a few minutes in AFIS they had the name of a guy with a long and nasty rap sheet. They had also managed to identify the red fibres that Mac had pulled from the duct tape, it was carpet upholstery. A search though the DVM database had told them everything else they needed to know.

Mac and Flack had wasted no time in going to the guys address. They pulled up on the street and Mac instantly saw the white van parked in the driveway. They sat there for a minute just watching the house. The garage door was open and they watched as their guy walked out carrying a box. He loaded it into the van and turned and walked back into the garage.

"Let's go." Mac said.

They got out and silently made their way towards the garage. Mac glanced into the back of van and immediately noticed the red carpet.

"Can I help you?"

Both Mac and Flack looked up to see the man come out of the garage carrying another box.

"James Murphy?" Mac asked.

"Who's asking?" James replied.

"NYPD." Flack told him.

James threw the box at them and bolted across the front yard. Both Flack and Mac wasted no time in chasing after him. Flack jumped up on a wall and crashed down on top of James. James tried to struggle beneath him but it was no good. Flack already had the cuffs on him and was reading him his rights.

Mac walked back over to the van. He looked into it and a blood stain on the carpet caught his eyes. He just knew they had their guy, the real killer.

~0~0~0~0~

Jo was lay on her mattress, she was still feeling incredibly hungry. She wasn't expecting it when the lights came on, blinding her. She heard the door suddenly 'whoosh' open. She tried to sit up but Ged's foot slammed against her chest. It knocked her flat on her back and knocked the wind out of her.

She wanted to clutch her chest and try to will the pain away but Ged fell down on top of her. He was straddling her and her left arm was trapped to the side on her, under his leg, his knee pressing down hard and painfully on it. She began to thrash beneath him, trying to free herself. It got her nowhere, he was too heavy, but it did seem to piss him off.

He grabbed her right hand and pinned it to the mattress by the side of her head. Jo saw the set of pruning cutters that he pulled out of his belt. She watched in horror as he moved them over her finger. She began thrashing even harder beneath him as she cried out for help. Ged moved so that he was now kneeling on her legs. It meant she couldn't move them at all and it hurt like hell to try.

She could only try to pull his arms away as he took hold of her arm again and placed the blades either side of her finger.

"I told him! I told Mac if they failed I would send you back to him in pieces. You have him to blame for this." Ged spat at her.

She turned her face away and waited for the sickening pain she knew she was about to feel. She was too scared out of her wits to hear the TV that was blaring in the room outside hers but Ged heard it. After waiting for the pain and not receiving it she turned and looked up at him. He was clearly listening to the TV that she suddenly heard.

"Detectives have now discovered that it was in fact another man who was responsible for the deaths of the five school girls raped and killed recently." The news reporter said. "James Murphy was arrested by Detectives at his home just a short while ago."

Ged pushed himself up off Jo and walked out of the panic room. Jo barely heard the loud 'whoosh' of the door as it closed, she was too busy curling herself tight into a ball and wishing this was all over.

Ged grabbed his phone and dialled as he continued watching the news. Mac answered after just two rings. "Good work Detective Taylor. I knew you could do it, if you were given a push. I was just about to get the first part of Jo ready for shipping back to you. Looks like I won't have to now. Thank God for that push, right?"

"More like a violent shove!" Mac spat back at him.

Ged just laughed and replied "Hey, you say po-tat-o I say pot-ato."

"When and where do I get Jo back?" Mac asked, getting straight down to business.

"Get her back? What are you talking about Detective Taylor? Your works not finished yet."

Mac wanted to kick himself. He should have known not to trust Ged. "You son-of-a-bitch, you said…."

"I said you get her back when you're done. You've only just started!" Ged snapped at him.

"You wanted your name clearing for killing those girls and it's cleared! It is done! Now give her back!"

"But I'm not, not with you and your team. I never said you got Jo back after you cleared my name, I said you would get her back when you were done! For a CSI you really should be more observant, Mac."

"What the hell do I have to do to get her back you fuck?" Mac yelled, unable to hold in his rage and frustration.

"You're clearly not thinking straight right now or else you wouldn't be speaking to me like this! Up until now I haven't really hurt your precious Jo, but that could change."

Mac bit his tongue and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry." he lied. "Just tell me what else I have to do?" he asked.

Ged took a deep breath and said, "No. Not tonight. You need to learn you can't speak to me like that. I'm the one in control here, Mac, I'm the gamekeeper. I'm the one who has Jo, and you and I both know what I am capable of, of what I am. Like I told Jo, she's a very devastatingly beautiful woman and the nights are getting colder. I could easily use her as a way to warm up and don't for a second think I won't."

Mac was about to answer when the line went dead. He wanted to slam his own phone down but he knew he couldn't. If it broke Ged would not be able to use it to call him and he had no idea of the repercussions that could have on Jo and he just wanted to keep her safe.

A little part of him couldn't help but think that he might never get her back, no matter how many of Ged's rules he followed, how many of his games he played along with.

TBC

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