Chapter Twenty-One – Motive

For a while, Bobby and Alex were caught up in trying to get back in sync with each other. It wasn't easy, especially at first. Their lives had changed and so much had happened that there were many false starts and misunderstandings. Boyd, and whatever he had planned, remained at the back of their minds. There was the constant nagging worry of where he was and what he might be doing like an itch that couldn't be scratched.

Alex went back to work at Major Case. She, Bobby, Mike, and Carolyn continued to go over the casefile on Boyd, but were unable to glean any new information. Alex's supposed case agent from being in witness protection was dead. How he had met Boyd, and why he had agreed to help him, remained a mystery. They received correspondence from Boyd only once in the next few months, in the form of a greeting card in which he had scribbled: Enjoy your vacation. Apparently, they were to get a reprieve from his game.

"But why?" Alex asked for what felt like the hundredth time. "Why would he go to all the trouble he did just to let it go?"

"He's doing something else," Bobby answered, again for what felt like the hundredth time. "He's probably preparing the next step in his game."

"Patient bastard," Mike added.

"But how do we find him?" Alex demanded, standing up.

"We need more clues," Bobby muttered. "We have to wait for him to start playing again."

"That is such bullshit," Alex stormed, leaving the room in a rage.

Bobby and Mike watched her go. "Aren't you going to follow her?" Mike asked.

"I don't know what to say." Bobby stared at the closed door resignedly. Sometimes it seemed like there was always a closed door between them. Other times it was like they had never been apart. But it gave Bobby the same feeling as picking his way down a flight of stairs after missing a step: very cautiously, suddenly aware that this thing that should be automatic could leave him faltering. She was likely feeling similarly, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do about it.

"Let's call it a night," he said to Mike.

When he found Alex again, she was standing in Lexie's room, rocking her. "Hey," he said softly. She didn't answer, but instead lowered Lexie into the crib.

"She's asleep," Alex whispered as she passed him.

Bobby wordlessly followed, unsure if he should try and talk to her, or let her be. He was saved the trouble of trying to figure out the best course of action by her spinning around to face him.

"Why?" she asked tremulously. "Why does he want to play this game with us? What did we do to deserve this? Why can't he leave well enough alone? Why did I have to miss a year with you and Lexie? Why didn't I figure out that something was off sooner? Why didn't I come back right away? Why?"

By now there were tears in her eyes and she struggled against the tears, breath hitching with each question. "Why?" she asked again, her resolve finally crumbling as she collapsed in on herself, giving in to tears.

In two smooth steps Bobby had wrapped his arms around her. "I ask myself the same things," he muttered hoarsely into her hair. "I don't know," he murmured. "I don't know. I wish I had investigated more fully, I wish I'd questioned everything. Why didn't I? I don't know."

"You had Lexie," Alex sobbed. "What's my excuse?"

"You didn't know," Bobby answered. "Hey," he said, leaning back to see her. "You couldn't possibly have known." He stroked her cheek with one finger, then gently took her jaw in his hand and tilted her chin up. "It wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it?" she asked. "I brought him into our lives; I should have seen through his game-"

"Who would have expected this?" Bobby asked.

She leaned forward to rest her forehead against his chest. "You're right," she hiccupped. She took a deep shuddering breath before stepping back to look at him again. "You're right," she repeated. "This is no one's fault but Boyd's."

Though her eyes were still wet with tears, it did nothing to mask the determination that burned behind them. "We're going to get him Bobby. We have to."

"You know, something has bothered me about this since the beginning," Bobby remarked.

He and Alex were sitting on the floor with the Boyd files spread all around them: scattered on furniture, strewn across their own laps, and mixed with empty coffee mugs spreading around where they sat like the centre of a ripple in water.

"What's that?" she asked, tipping the last drops of coffee into her mouth before discarding the mug with the others.

"From the day of his sentencing in court he had said to you that he was going to destroy all of you."

Alex cast her memory back and found the half-forgotten conversation they had had what felt like a lifetime ago. "The wrong word," she recalled. "He said all instead of both."

"Right."

"He was probably including you," she said, shrugging. "Given the games he's played since, I think it would be safe to assume that's what he meant. He was including you, me, and Cassleman."

"Why?"

"How should I know?" Alex asked irritably. "Because we got him locked up-"

"Right," Bobby interrupted, "But that was you and Cassleman; I had nothing to do with that."

"Okay, sorry," she snapped, slapping the file she was holding into the floor and reaching for another. "Next time I'll let the perp walk."

"That's not what I meant," he said. "I'm not blaming you. What I'm saying is that if this was all about revenge, then why was I included in the game from the start?"

Alex looked up from the file, frowning. "Entertainment?"

"Maybe," Bobby acknowledged. "But I wish I knew for sure. It just doesn't sit right with me. If he was after revenge, killing me or harming me in some way to get to you would make more sense."

"Well he killed Cassleman and left Jessie alive," Alex reminded him.

"Yes and there's that too," Bobby said. "If it was strict revenge; you locked me up, now I'm going to punish you – then you and Cassleman should have been treated the same. Either both killed, or both drawn into his game. But he only killed Cassleman. He never even bothered to communicate with him before the fact at all. Why?"

"Maybe he killed Cassleman in revenge and then thought of a much more sadistic method for me?"

"I don't buy that. He's way too methodical. This was all planned down to every detail. Changing the plan on a whim doesn't fit. Besides, he already included me in the game from that day in court, before Cassleman's murder. He wanted to draw us in from the beginning."

Alex pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes squeezed shut. "I don't know Bobby," she sighed. "It hardly matters at this point. I just want to put him away for good so that we can get on with our lives."

"Everything matters," Bobby disagreed. "If he targeted both of us from the start then that changes everything. It changes Boyd's profile, which could lead us to him."

"Right," Alex agreed with a sigh. "So what does it mean if you and I were both targeted from the start?"

Bobby frowned, dropping the case files and organizing his thoughts. "Take revenge out of the equation," he began slowly, "What does that change?"

"His motive," Alex supplied. "We've been assuming this whole time that all of this was because Cassleman and I put him away. But if it isn't revenge then why is he doing this?"

"Okay," Bobby muttered, clearing a space in front of him and grabbing a pen. "Let's say there is no revenge motive." He grabbed a paper and began scribbling onto it as he spoke. "You and I were the targets from the start. Then Cassleman's murder wasn't revenge – it was done to get to you. Step one in his game."

"But you were the one who pointed out the wrong word from the start," Alex reminded him. She shifted positions so that she could look at the rough diagram of words and lines Bobby was constructing. "If he was threatening you and I instead of Cassleman and I, he should have still said both and not all. And I'm sure he meant Cassleman; he was looking at him."

"Okay," Bobby muttered, writing Cassleman's name and circling it. "Okay so he did want to punish Cassleman. But I still don't think it was revenge, Alex. He should have treated you the same if he had the same motivation for him as for you."

"What else is there?" she asked.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment before Bobby spoke again. "There has to be another connection."

"Between you, me, Cassleman, and Boyd?" Alex asked doubtfully. "Us locking him up is the only one; I'm sure. I mean, I'd only worked with Cassleman for about a year. You didn't have a connection to Cassleman besides me, did you?"

"Not that I know of," Bobby replied, eyes narrowing in concentration. "Not unless it was something small or some time ago that I've forgotten about."

"Well if it's so small and insignificant then it wouldn't be Boyd's motive, would it?" Alex asked.

"It may have seemed like nothing to us and been something more to him."

"Well where does Boyd fit in then? Honestly, Bobby, I don't see how there could be another connection that none of us were aware of."

"All right, so forget all of this for just a second," Bobby instructed, tossing his diagram aside and grabbing a file folder to scribble a new one on instead. The word motive, underlined and in large print, was still visible on the paper with how it had landed.

"Sorry?" Alex asked, pulling her gaze from the discarded paper and trying to follow where he was going now.

"We need to go back to the start."

"I thought that's what we were doing?"

"No, not from Boyd's incarceration," Bobby clarified. "Back before the game started, back to the very beginning. How did you and Cassleman get assigned to this case?"

"Umm," Alex mumbled, switching gears and searching her memory. "The mayor requested Major Case involvement, I think."

"You think or you know?" Bobby asked. "It's important; every detail is relevant."

"I know," she snapped. "I know," she repeated, firmly this time, in answer to his question. "One of the victims was the mayor's niece, he asked for us to be involved after her murder."

"Right, okay," Bobby muttered, scribbling that information onto the back of the folder. "Which victim number was she?"

"Four," Alex replied. "Homicide had only just connected the first three when the mayor's niece was killed."

"Why did it take them so long?"

"They were from out of State, so it took some time to ID them."

"They weren't connected until they were ID'd?"

"No," Alex replied. "They had all gone missing at the same time, and were last seen together. Their bodies had been burned post-mortem so the evidence of torture and signs of strangulation weren't visible right away. We didn't even know about the torture until the tapes."

"How was the fourth victim connected to the others?"

"She was tortured, strangled, and burned post-mortem like the others. The ME linked them based on COD and the burning post-mortem. And after the tapes were sent it was confirmed."

"Okay, two things," Bobby murmured absently, pen scratching away. "First, when did you get the first tape? Before or after you and Cassleman were the lead detectives?"

"After," Alex replied. "And we didn't get them. I wish we had. They got sent to the victims' families."

Bobby nodded to himself. "So Boyd sent the tapes."

"Right."

"Only after you and Cassleman were involved."

"I guess."

Bobby was still nodding to himself, so Alex asked, "What was the other thing?"

"Well, the first three girls were all taken at the same time, from the same place. But the mayor's niece was taken alone. That's a pretty significant change in MO."

"We thought so too," Alex agreed. "But the first three who were taken were higher risk victims. They were all addicted to meth, for one thing. We figured the perp said he was holding and lured them all that way. The fourth victim was only one rather than a group, but would have been more difficult to take because she lived a less risky lifestyle. We thought he was challenging himself to more difficult victims, but starting small. Or that he had taken all three of the previous victims just because he could, rather than separating one from a group like he needed to for the mayor's niece."

"Or the mayor's niece was chosen to get Major Case involved."

"To get us?" Alex asked. "So he wanted Major Case? The same way that some perps want FBI involvement?"

"Boyd is meticulous," Bobby answered. "Every detail was planned out carefully. I don't think he just wanted Major Case. I think he wanted you."

"Well he'd have no way of knowing that I'd get the assignment," Alex replied. "Besides, that was all before I'd ever met Boyd. Why would he have targeted me before I even got his case?"

"I don't know," Bobby mused. "You're absolutely certain there's no personal connection?"

"I'm sure," Alex insisted. "What about you?"

"Me?"

"You said he targeted both of us. Maybe you're the connection?"

Bobby frowned. "I don't think so, Alex. Although… He mentioned something to me before; when he was masquerading as a doctor. He talked about my time in the military. Maybe I met him there without even remembering? Did he ever serve in the military?"

"No," Alex replied. "I'm sure I would remember that. Besides, if he met you in the army, what's the connection to me, except by association? The connection has to be more recent. It had to involve something that's happened since we met."

"A case we worked as partners?" Bobby guessed. "Maybe we should look back over unsolved casefiles. It's possible that Boyd was the perp in a case we worked together."

"But that brings us back to revenge," Alex said. "And I thought revenge wasn't the motive?"

"It's not revenge if we didn't catch him," Bobby pointed out.

"Okay, but what about Cassleman? How is he connected?"

Bobby threw the pen down in frustration. "We're still missing something."