Chapter 7

Nick slept fitfully, unable to shake the thought that he was missing something. A vital clue that would blow the case wide open.

When he did sleep, his dreams were plagued by images of the dead boy. In some of them, his own nine year old face took the place of the dead boy's.

After a particularly nasty one left him sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, drenched in sweat, Nick decided to take an over the counter sleep aid. He knew Catherine would pull him from the case, if he came to work in worse condition than when he left. He needed to sleep!

Several hours later, he had to resist the urge to throw the alarm clock against the wall, especially when he couldn't seem to get it to shut up.

When the sound stopped on its own a moment later, and wakefulness finally crept into Nick's brain, it dawned on him that it wasn't the clock, but his phone. He'd forgotten to turn it off before hitting the sack.

Finally looking at the clock to see what time it was, Nick was surprised to find it was three forty-five. Just minutes before his alarm was set to go off.

Now his phone was signaling a new voice mail. Picking it up, he dialed the voice mail number, punching in his pass code when the option came up.

"Nick, this is Wendy. I thought you'd want to know. I've had some interesting results come up in CODIS for some of your DNA samples," Nick thought Wendy might have said something more, but he was already closing his phone and scrambling out of bed.

He was dressed and at the lab in thirty minutes.

Practically running through the halls, Nick said a hasty hi to Catherine and Ray, who were conferring in the hallway outside of DNA.

"Wendy! What have you got?" Nick tried to control his voice, knowing he already looked a bit on the unstable side from his mad dash through the building.

Wendy flashed Nick a smile, turned to the computer and brought up the results she'd called about.

"This is Brandon Andrews's exemplar sample you pulled from his toothbrush," Wendy began, gesturing at the results as she spoke. "I ran it through CODIS, and got back this list!" clicking a button, Wendy showed Nick the list of cases the DNA had matched. "These were all unknown semen samples collected from seven to nine year olds who'd been molested, and strangled," she paused a moment, "It gets worse. The oldest case is from ninety-four. That suggests there may have been more before that time, since no one collected DNA before that."

Feeling faint, Nick grabbed hold of the table to steady himself. "Oh, my God! He killed eight other little boys!"

Wendy pushed a chair behind Nick's legs and urged him to sit. "Take it easy, Nick. I was shocked, too," Wendy said. Nick was grateful she hadn't asked if he was okay.

"Have you checked to see what NCIC has on these cases?" Nick asked, once he'd regained control.

"Actually, it's all printing right now on the other computer," Wendy replied.

A new fervor lighting his eyes, Nick said a quick, "Thanks! I'll be back for it in a bit," and sprinted out the door to Brass's office.

Brass was just finishing up a phone call, when Nick burst into his office.

"Hey, Nick. Where's the fire?"

"Brass, I need Brandon Andrews's wife, Penny Andrews brought in. I think she knows more than she's letting on."

"Okay, I'll ask her to come in," Brass replied, picking up the phone again. When he set it down again a few minutes later, he said, "She'll be here in ten to fifteen minutes.