Author's notes: Warning: no laughs herein. No warm fuzzies. This is the chapter that makes the whole story hang together, so obviously I think it's important, but if you're easily distressed, you could just skip it, and you'll get the gist in chapter eleven. Some people might even think this chapter deserves an M rating; obviously I disagree. I assume most of you know what's coming anyway. You've been warned.

One more thing: I know there are some discrepancies from chapter to chapter as far as things like dating and number of victims, and with the way the site works, it's a huge pain to go back and try to fix them, so for now I'm going to ask you to go with the flow. Over the next few weeks I plan to post a pristine version on my own humble blog, so you'll eventually be able to find that there if you're so inclined.

And finally: thanks a lot, real New Tricks writers, because now I have to ask my gentle readers to assume that Sandra's checkered past includes two married D.I.'s named James. Brilliant.

Chapter Ten: Need to Know

As far as he can tell, the lights are off in her flat. He hesitates before knocking, recognizing the darkness as the equivalent to a 'do not disturb' sign, but he is already here, standing on her doorstep, and he's – not worried, exactly. Vaguely uneasy. He had never seen Sandra explode the way she had this morning, and he'd certainly never seen her storm out of the office at 9:30 a.m. Gerry, Jack, and Brian didn't catch a glimpse of her for the remainder of the day, not so much as a spiked heel or a blur of black cloth. Her mobile is still going straight to voicemail.

He has barely touched the door when it opens and he finds himself nearly nose to nose with Sandra, who blinks in surprise. She's wearing a khaki-coloured jacket over her dark top, her bag is slung over one shoulder, and her right hand grips her keys. "Gerry," she says flatly, his unexpected appearance leeching all inflection from her voice.

"I won't keep you if you're going out."

"It's not a problem." She steps aside so he can enter if he chooses. "So you're still speaking to me, then."

He chooses. "It'd give you too much of a thrill if I quit," he says lightly as he steps around her into the cool white hallway. She switches on the lamp, drops her bag and keys, and slips her jacket off while he watches.

"Your mobile's switched off, you know. I figured maybe you could use a friendly face."

She smiles faintly. She looks absolutely knackered, pale with fatigue and stress.

"If you have plans –"

"I don't." As he gestures toward her jacket and bag she admits, "I was about to go looking for a friendly face, as a matter of fact."

"Whose?" he asks without thinking, knowing he's prying.

"Yours."

He looks pleased, so she doesn't divulge that she's been standing in the darkened entryway for twenty minutes, agonizing over the decision of whether to go or stay. She doesn't want to talk, but she doesn't want to be left to her own devices, her own silence, either.

Now that he is here, the choice has been made for her. She craves the companionship, and she has only been postponing the inevitable. He'll find out soon enough anyway. So will Brian and Jack, but Gerry deserves to be told now, tonight.

"Buy you a drink?"

It sounds like a wonderful idea. After a drink or two will still be in plenty of time.

Sandra is quiet and seems almost jittery, but she makes no objection when Gerry reaches over from his barstool and squeezes her shoulder. If anything she leans slightly into his touch, which is enormously encouraging. After the better part of seventy-two hours she's not sick of him. There's a large G&T in front of her, between her elbows. She deserves it.

"Hey," Gerry says softly, and she lifts those brilliant blue eyes to his. They are clouded with some emotion he can't decipher, one he doesn't usually see between the hours of nine to five.

She finds a ghost of a smile for him. "Hey, yourself," she responds equally softly.

"You okay, Sandra?"

She sighs heavily and brings her fingertips up to rub at her gritty, irritated eyes. She hadn't slept well the night before, and not because she was in an unfamiliar bed. "Yeah, I will be."

"What is it about this one?"

The answer comes immediately. "Ray Arrington is a sick bastard, and he's guilty as hell. He has to be."

It occurs to Gerry now that she hadn't said a word about the investigation between Saturday morning and this morning. That had to be some kind of record for obsessive, single-minded Sandra.

"If that son of a bitch manages to get his conviction overturned –"

She is gripping her glass so tightly that her knuckles have gone white. "He won't," Gerry says confidently, although he can no more promise the outcome she wants than Sandra herself can. She acknowledges his effort, though, with a wry smile and the loosening of her death grip.

"He can't," Sandra says tersely, and then shakes her head. "You must think I'm a bloody lunatic."

"I think you're… too invested in this one, emotionally, and you need to step back."

She swallows hard and her eyes don't meet his, but she stays calm. "Too invested," she repeats tonelessly. "Yeah." With a sudden motion she gulps down the rest of her drink and shoves her glass across the bar. "Another," she informs the bartender.

"Sandra," Gerry begins, and then stops. They've had two really tough cases in a row. If she needs to get thoroughly pissed and blow off some steam, that's her prerogative. She still doesn't look at him, and they remain silent as she goes to work on the second drink.

"There was a lot going on for me back then," she says suddenly. "In '95. It was… not a very good time for me. I was seeing James – who was married, you know; another married one – and working insane hours to prove myself to Jane Tennison in AMIP. And Arrington – Arrington, Gerry – " She breaks off and takes a quick drink.

"Brings it all back, does it?" He won't pry; he won't ask questions. He'll just sit by her and rub her neck, where the fibers are so rigid with tension that they feel more like bone than muscle. If this has to do with Hargreaves, Gerry's not so sure he wants to know anyway.

Sandra chuckles humorlessly. "You could say that."

He suggests they order food, and she hesitates only briefly before she agrees. She is so quiet as she pokes at her grilled salmon that he begins to worry that his presence is a burden. Perhaps she would breathe more freely alone.

"If you want me to go, just say," he invites without preamble, and she raises startled eyes from her plate.

"Yeah, Gerry, that's why I was coming looking for you: because I want to be alone," she snaps irritably, and then drops her fork to her plate with a clatter and sighs. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"'S okay. You had a rough day."

"I don't mean to take it out on you, Gerry. Honestly I don't. I – I need you on my side on this one."

He is quiet for a moment, unsure how to respond. "We're all on your side, gov."

"Jack isn't," she replies tautly. "Brian isn't." She needs Gerry firmly in her corner. The time has come to rip the plaster off, to explain it to him and get it over with. "Gerry –"

"Hey, let's talk about something else," he interrupts lightly, signaling for the bill. "Em dropped by today lookin' for you. She seemed better."

"Yeah?" she responds vaguely after a pause that she knows is too long. "That's good." It's so tempting to acquiesce. Yeah, Gerry, let's talk about something else and forget this nightmare case for a while – just for a little while, just until tomorrow.

Twenty-four hours ago things were good, as good as they could possibly be considering the maelstrom swirling inside her mind. She's hesitant to meet his gaze for fear that he'll see it there, looking at him from behind her eyes, but when she looks up he only smiles gently at her. He looks concerned.

It had been a good weekend. She reveled in the sensation of being wrapped in his arms, strangely easy after so many years, after so many second and third and thirtieth thoughts. That's what she wants now, not to think about this but to feel. What could it hurt? What difference will a few more hours make?

"Sandra?"

"Are you ready to go?"

When he pulls up outside her flat she says "Come in" and doesn't wait for a response. It doesn't really sound like a request, not that he planned to decline.

The Sandra awaiting him just inside her door is the one he's been expecting since Friday, the aggressive, competitive woman who refuses to lose. This isn't a contest, he wants to tell her, but he would have to tear his mouth away from hers to do that so it seems like a stupid idea. She presses him against the pure white wall, urgent, already tugging at superfluous clothing, and he says only, "Sandra."

"I don't want to talk," she returns immediately, grabbing his arm and tugging him down the hallway.

He goes willingly. All right, he thinks. It can be a contest if she wants it to be, because they're both going to win.

2.

Gerry is at his desk when Sandra enters. Brian is writing on the white board, and Jack is making tea. Brian and Jack still immediately. "Morning," Gerry murmurs to ease the transition, and she glances at him, her expression unreadable.

"Come sit down," she instructs all three of them, and they join her at the table. Jack in particular looks long at the top of her bowed head before he sits on her right. Angry as he was yesterday, as he still is, and as sure as he is that he was right and she was wrong, it pains him to see the shadows under her eyes and the grim line of her mouth. That mouth is meant to smile.

"I owe you all an apology for my behavior yesterday," she begins, sounding subdued, almost oppressed. "It was completely inappropriate and unprofessional." She glances down at the manila folder she grips tightly between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand before continuing. "No matter how I may feel personally about Raymond Arrington, what I want from you three is what I always want: to help me find the truth."

"We know that, Sandra," Jack assures her, meeting her eyes with his keen light ones. "This isn't the first time one of us has gotten too close to a case."

"That's what Gerry said, that I was too involved emotionally." As she says his name she spares him a glance. If Jack and Brian are at all surprised that she has spoken to Gerry since her dramatic exit yesterday, they don't show it. "I know he was speaking for all of you – and you're right. But I need you to understand that I have my reasons."

"You spent five months on this investigation," Brian comments, his eyebrows drawing together in sympathy. "That's reason enough, Sandra. We've all been there."

"Arrington's a nasty piece of work," Jack adds.

"He is. And he's clever." Sandra lays the folder down and links her fingers together. Here's the church and here's the steeple. "It took us five months to catch him – five months, six lives, and we'll never know how many women he attacked besides."

"The case file says your lot concluded he was escalating," Gerry puts in, and she nods.

"The taste for killing was new, but as a rapist he was an expert. He was incredibly careful down to the last detail. And practice makes perfect."

Despite the fact that this is neither surprising nor new information, it is sobering. "Arrington spent at least a month stalking each potential victim, learning her habits, her routine. Tennison was sure he always had two on the go simultaneously." Sandra steadily looks from man to man. "I think the reason he bottled it with Melanie Tyler and allowed himself to be caught was that he hadn't finished his… research."

Brian considers. "That would make sense," he agrees.

"You mean you think Melanie was meant to be victim number seven, rather than number six?" Jack clarifies slowly, and the superintendent nods.

"Then what made him change his plans?" Gerry asks logically.

"A change in the habits of the original number six," Brian suggests. "She got a different job, moved away, moved in with her boyfriend – anything that could cause her not to fit the profile. It could even be some minor detail that would seem insignificant to anyone else: she got a pet, joined a gym."

Sandra shakes her head a single time. "It's even simpler than that, really. She fought back hard enough that he couldn't finish her, so he wasn't satisfied and had to go after Melanie."

Gerry frowns. "Wait. You're saying that there definitely was a sixth victim before Melanie?"

"There's nothing about that in the file," Brian jumps in indignantly.

"Because there was no proof that it was Arrington. He didn't use the taser, so it was more personal and physical than his previous assaults; but he wore a stocking cap, so she never saw his face, and there wasn't a shred of physical evidence." As she speaks, Sandra opens the envelope and turns to face the white board. She efficiently clips up a close-up of a woman's neck encircled with lurid bruises in the tell-tale pattern of grasping fingers. "There was absolutely no proof," she reiterates. "She had certainly been raped, but the identity of the attacker was anyone's guess." The next image displays a knife wound high on a female thigh, nasty-looking but shallow, ineffectual. There is a torn blouse, ripped trousers, all neatly documented. Sandra lines them up next to one another with military precision.

"Why are you so sure this was Arrington and not another assailant altogether?" Jack asks in a low voice.

Bruised thighs, scraped knees. "The choice of victim would have been too coincidental. She fit Arrington's profile perfectly: single, very successful in her career, lived alone, no real boyfriend – or girlfriend – and not much of a social life to speak of. And he attacked her in a deserted area when she was leaving work," Sandra explains steadily, looking from Jack to Brian and back. "She was meant to be Arrington's grand coup, his 'fuck you' to the Met and to the world."

"Why?" Gerry hears himself ask, and is surprised to hear that his voice sounds so normal. His flesh is crawling and he feels nauseated, hot bile already rising in his throat along with the crumpets he'd toasted for both of them at breakfast, and he awaits confirmation while he pleads for denial. No. Please, no no no.

Sandra doesn't meet his gaze, but continues to survey the photographs dispassionately. "Because," she replies evenly, simply, "she was me."

One more note: I was nervous about this chapter, especially since I love Sandra more than one should love a fictional character. Let me know how I'm doing.