A/N: With this song, I managed to pick all of the parts I liked and smush them together..so now they don't rhyme at all. Brilliant on my part. But anyway, I managed to survive driving lessons thus far. But I'm still scared to death. If there was any confusion in the last chapter, I'm gonna clear it up right here, right now. Things are getting intense. Ryan's having a rough go of it. r&r and pray I don't die while driving. Yours 'till the wheels fall off ;)

"I've already given up on myself twice, third time is the charm, third time is the charm...And I've traced your shadows on the wall, now I kiss them whenever I'm down...Things aren't the same anymore, some nights it gets so bad that I almost pick up the phone.."-Fall Out Boy

Lanie Parish marked one last thing on her chart and then sat it down beside the body of her two latest murder vics. She'd called for Ryan to come down, which meant that Javi would be, too. She smiled to herself. Maybe they could try to make it work again. They hadn't had alone time for a couple of weeks now. And as Beckett and Castle burst into the room behind the other two detectives, she knew that she wasn't going to get any now. She rolled her eyes and got back up to greet them. She embraced Kevin, knowing how hard all of this must have been on him. She kissed him on the cheek and searched his crystal blue eyes with her own smooth, dark ones. He smiled grimly at the floor, avoiding her gaze. Lanie turned back to everyone else in the room.

"You get an I.D on the vics yet?" Esposito demanded. Lanie gave him the eye until Javier was forced to look elsewhere. She caught a hint of a smile on Beckett and Castle's faces.

"Like I was going to say, I got a positive I.D on all three vics. First, Kevin, honey, I can tell you that it's not 3XK. Today is officially over seven days from the time the first vic showed up. Both women were strangled by a green and white rope, but I took a closer look at each body. The first blond Beckett brought in here a few days ago looks like she could have been one of his victims, but she isn't. Because..." here Lanie went to fetch her folder on the victim, "Because the strangulation marks were too low on the neck. And the pressure used on the neck was entirely too heavy to be 3XK. This was done by a much heavier, sloppier copycat."

"And the blond from two days ago?" Beckett asked, walking around the table to take a closer look.

"Still strangled with a green and white rope, but there's hesitation here and here," she pointed to the bruises on the dead woman's skin, "But then here there's an explosion, almost, of force."

"Like someone else got tired of waiting and did the job himself," Castle commented quietly.

"Right. Now I have your on the vics. This took a while, but the older male vic is Joseph Coppola, age 35. Cause of death was a bullet to the back of the head.'

"Execution style," Javier said. Lanie moved on.

"The bullet model and the gun it was fired from is right here," she pointed to her file and slid it across the table, "The woman is Alexandria Coppola, his wife, age 32. Autopsy showed that they were healthy, they ate right, and they didn't drink. I'm not sure how the hell they got mixed up in this mess, but they died too soon."

"The kid?" Ryan prodded gently. Lanie had heard about how the drop had gone. She tried to be careful with this one.

"The kid's name was Mickey DiFrozo. He was 19, almost twenty. His autopsy shows that he was way to skinny for his age, and I discovered some bruising and scars about the body, like on the knuckles and upper and lower arms."

"What are you thinking?" Beckett questioned, already knowing the answer.

"Either this kid got into a lot of fights, or the abuse was coming from home." Lanie hesitated before she continued.

"Autopsy also revealed that the bullet that killed him...it was a cop killer."

Beckett taped the autopsy photos of Mickey, Joseph, and Alexandria up on the white board.

"We need to find a link," Beckett announced, turning back to face the team. Castle was looking over her case files, and Ryan and Esposito were whispering about something. Kate turned back to the board and peered at Micket's face. The poor kid was only nineteen when he died. She closed her eyes.

"We need to find out who 'they' are," Castle said lowly, putting a hand on her shoulder. She started suddenly and then looked at him.

"Who?"

"The 'they' Ryan said Mickey was talking about before he died? He said that they made him do it, and that he got the wrong people."

"Oh my God," Ryan murmured, just loud enough to be heard.

"Find something?" Kate asked, striding over, Castle in tow. Ryan couldn't speak, so Javier did it for him.

"Coppola's family. His whole family..." He gestured to the screen so that everyone could see. Kate could see why Ryan had been in shock. There was Joseph and Alexandria...and a little girl.

"The two of them-" Ryan began. Esposito nodded grimly.

"They could be mistaken for Jenny and Riley."

Ryan took a gentle pull at the bottle by in his passenger's seat and turned on the car before Javier could notice that he was missing. Esposito had gone to get them some food, promising that he would be back in a couple of seconds. But being alone was just too much for Kevin to bear alone at the moment, and he had to take his leave. He turned on his lights and started down the street. Every now and then, his gaze flickered to the bottle beside him. He picked it up every single time. He hadn't wanted to go this route. Driving around, wasted, not knowing what was happening. Jenny wouldn't have liked that. Hell, Jenny didn't like it at all when he drank. He studied the bottle one last time, and then he seized it and rolled down the window, tossing it out before he could regret it. He floored the gas peddle and drove with the window down, not hearing the roar of the engine, not feeling the freezing chill of the wind, not thinking about what would happen if he crashed...He stopped suddenly and banged both fists on the wheel. He thanked God through his silent tears that no one else was out tonight. He could have killed himself, or worse...someone else. Someone innocent. A woman walking a dog. A little girl walking home. His thoughts shifted to his missing family.

"Why?" he questioned, trying to get a handle on his breathing.

"Why them? They were...they were innocent. If you wanted to get back at me, why not just take me?" But he knew why. Taking them was more heart wrenching than just killing him. It might hurt for a moment, sure, but then he'd be dead, and Jenny and Riley would have to live with that. With not knowing what had gone wrong. But since they were gone...well, the roles were reversed. But the only thing he felt was guilt. It didn't matter that Mickey had told him that it wasn't supposed to be them, that it had been a mistake. It didn't matter. Because fate was fate, and she always got her way.

Esposito dialed his partner's number again, uttering a long string of curses when he failed to pick up. He was back at Kevin's house, but Ryan wasn't there. The uniforms out front were useless, and he hadn't wasted any time in telling them so. What were they there for if they couldn't even make sure that he didn't leave the house? Locking the door behind him, Javier strode out toward his car and climbed in. He wouldn't call anyone yet. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but he wanted to know before he said anything.

Ryan let his phone go to voicemail for the fifth time. He knew that Esposito was the one calling. But Kevin didn't feel much like talking. He'd pulled over and sat with his head in his hands for some amount of time. Until the phone started ringing. He toyed with the unlock pattern before he finally entered it correctly. His finger hovered over the call button. He knew that it would destroy him, but at the same time, he needed it. He did.

"Hi, you've reached Jenny Ryan. Sorry I didn't pick up, but you can leave a message and I promise I'll call you back ASAP!" They'd found her phone. It had been under the couch. It had probably dropped during...during the struggle. He bit his lip and hung up. And then he dialed again.

"Hi, you've reached Jenny Ryan..."