Chapter 26
Invisible
"You might want to come and take a look at this..." Sara told her tremulously, unable to keep her voice steady.
"What have you got?" Finn asked, carefully picking her way across the room to join her in the doorway to the bathroom, "Oh..." she said quietly, standing stock still in the doorway and glancing over the other woman's shoulder, following the incredulous beam of her torch,
"Are they...Keys?" Sara murmured quietly, raising an eyebrow and turning to Finn, surprised as she saw that all of the colour had drained from the other woman's face.
"Yes...Yes they are..." She said quietly, moving numbly in to the room and staring at the scene before them.
Each key was tied to a piece of clear fishing wire, attached to small metal hooks screwed in to the tiles above their heads. The almost invisible strings gave the eerie impression that the little pieces of metal were weeping scarlet blood.
Now that it had began to trickle on to the neighbouring tile that was chalk white, the crimson liquid stood out in sharp relief in the little monochrome room, forcing the keys to be drawn to their attention set against the bland cream tiles.
Altogether, it was one of the strangest and most unsettling things that Sara had come across in a motel room bathroom, and considering they were in Vegas, this was something of a claim.
Finn continued speaking in a flat, disbelieving voice as she moved around them, examining them, "One lead. One silver. One gold."
"You've seen this before?" Sara asked incredulously, she herself being barely able to make out the fact that they had been keys beneath all of the blood.
"Maybe..." Finn replied evasively with a tone that said yes and an expression that said she hoped otherwise.
"Is that Alison's?" Sara asked quietly, gesturing to the crimson rain that continued to fall from their keys, "If it is..." she left out the implication that there was really too much blood in the bathroom to indicate that she was alright.
"Maybe not..." Finn said, deftly catching one of the drops on a swab as it fell from the key nearest to her.
She slipped from the room, handing Sara a camera as she returned with a little spotting tile that she placed the swab on to.
"Not human." She said taking a deep breath," It's probably pig's blood."
"Well that's a good thing, right?" Sara said quietly, taking several shots of the keys and the little blood pools that were forming on the floor in front of them,
"Yes and no..." Finn replied grimly, "Yes because it means she can still be found alive. No because that job just became far more difficult."
"Why?" Sara asked curiously, raising an eyebrow,
"Because I have seen this before." Finn said, gesturing towards the macabre floating keys, "And because it means that the twisted son-of-a-bitch wants to play games with us."
"Well we knew already..." Sara pointed out gently, reminding her of the fact that this killer had done almost nothing but that since they had discovered his first victim with the various references to the secrets in their pasts.
"Yeah, but now he really wants to play games." Finn said, "Cat and mouse. He's inviting us to go hunting. He's going to keep leaving us breadcrumbs. We follow them quickly enough, we find her. If not, then she's dead."
"I'm still failing to see the problem here..." Sara said softly, lowering the camera and glancing at the other woman, who was reacting more strongly to this than anything else he had left her so far, "He's giving a chance to find her, however twisted and however many hoops we have to climb through and strings that are attached, it's a chance right?"
"This guy's a killer Sara." Finn told her, a harsh edge creeping in to her voice, "All of these things are like carnival games or slot machines; they're rigged so that there's just enough chance to keep you playing, keep you dancing to his tune, but there's never enough for you to win anything."
"Are you OK?" she asked, placing a gentle, concerned hand on her shoulder as she drew a deep breath, looking away from the room in disgust,
"Yeah." She said tightly, angrily peeling off her gloves as she said, "I'm going to go get some air and call Russell, this is all hands on deck now..."
"OK..." Sara said quietly, watching her go with a look of mixed concern and confusion, knowing that there was more to this than she was letting on.
She returned a few minutes later, still breathing hard and collapsed down irritably on to a chair in the corner, still breathing hard and distractedly running a hand through her hair, drawing the dense blond curls from her face and holding them in place a moment before releasing them and letting them irritably cascade over her face once more,
"What?" Sara asked pointedly, dragging a chair over to sit opposite her,
"We're all being put on pause. The cavalry have been called." Finn told her tautly,
"No..." Sara pressed lightly, "What is with you?"
"Me? Nothing." She said indignantly,
Sara smiled ironically and sighed saying, "You are a terrible liar Finlay..."
"I'd rather wait until Russell's here to give you specifics." She said pointedly,
Sara refused to ease up saying, "So give me details, give me the big picture. What's this guy's game and why has it pissed you off so much?"
Smiling ruefully and taking a deep breath, knowing she was not going to be given a choice in this one, Finn took a deep breath, letting her hair fall from her hands once more as she pressed them together, applying pressure until the tips of her fingers turned white and she was forced to release the breath she had been holding painfully in her chest saying,
"We had a serial a couple of years ago in Seattle, a real twisted son-of-a-bitch..." she paused a moment before continuing, "He took several women and staged their kidnappings, leaving behind intentional clues, like, " she gestured grimly behind her at the keys still strung up in the bathroom, "We were then supposed to follow. Find the girl before she died...He killed eight women like that, tortured eight families as they waited desperately for the news that it became increasingly obvious we were never going to be able to give them..." she shook her head, staring away from Sara and up at the ceiling as she pushed irritable tears from her eyes, "After a while...We lost patience..." she said quietly, "We had enough of him figured out to set him up. An undercover..." she sighed tightly, locking her fingers together as she pitched forwards and said quietly, voice taut with emotion, "He had been getting more and more media attention and he had been becoming bolder and bolder with every day that went by...He pulled out all of the stops for her. He made sure that once he got his claws in to her there was no way we were getting her back..."
"What happened?" Sara whispered softly, instinctively reaching out to the other woman and squeezing her hand,
"She died..." Finn breathed sadly, hoarse voice cracking slightly. She sat up abruptly, pulling away from Sara as she wiped her eyes and said, "We got the bastard. She made sure that but...It cost her everything..." she paused again, taking another shaking breath and added, "We were close...In interview...He blamed me...He said that we had technically found her soon enough but he had to kill her because of me, because I had tested him, because I had pushed him too far. He sat there and he looked me straight in the eye and he told me that it was my fault that she was dead..."
"I'm sorry Finn..." Sara said quietly, feeling guilty that she had pushed her so hard,
"No, it's OK." She told her, managing a smile, "Thank you..."
Sara was quiet for a moment before saying softly, "How do you think Greg's taking it all?"
"About as well as could be expected..."Finn said, shaking her head, "Sometimes I think this is crueller than just murder..." she said softly, "The fact that only he knows what's going to happen, that he can drag it out for as long as he likes, dangle the possibility of her life in front of him, make him believe, really believe, that he might be able to get her back when he knows that it's never going to happen..."
"I know..." Sara murmured quietly, understanding where the other woman was coming from, "That's the job. That's what we have to do."
"And sometimes I hate it." Finn said bluntly, getting to her feet and walking to the door, saying tautly, "Could I, um, just have a minute?"
"Sure..." Sara said quietly feeling helpless as she watched her go, knowing that she had been rattled by this and wishing there was more she could do to help. "Shout if you need anything..."
She waited, carefully picking through the evidence they had collected and packaging it up to be taken back to the lab, watching the other woman draping herself over the balcony, her clear pain giving her more cause to detest this killer.
Russell joined them soon after with Greg in tow. While she pulled him in to a hug, Sara glanced at him and said,
"Greg, what are you doing here?"
"Well, Nick's looking over CCTV footage, Ecklie made Morgan go home and sleep and Russell came here...I had to do something and this seemed the less creepy of the three options to tag along with..." he explained gloomily,
Sara glanced wordlessly at Russell and he shrugged, "We'll only piss Ecklie off if he touches anything. Greg, you keep your hands in your pockets, we're good to go."
Sara smiled gratefully at him, briefly squeezing his shoulder in thanks, the first contact she had volunteered between them in days, before smoothly turning and going inside.
"What are we looking at Jules?" he paused, recoiling comically from her as she turned on him, glaring at the use of the taboo nickname, "An angry blood spatter analyst, let's try that again." He said smoothly, smiling and trying to placate her as she narrowed her eyes, the effect ruined as her lips were tugged into an unwilling smirk as he continued, "What have you found, Finn?"
"Trouble." She replied grimly, leading them towards the bathroom,
"Why does that not surprise me?" he muttered, following her,
Instead of answering with words she simply pushed the bathroom door open and allowed him to look inside,
"Oh, hello..." he murmured, glancing at the keys, "Silver, lead and gold?" he asked turning towards her,
She nodded. Sara and Greg glanced at each other; eyebrows raised, but gave their colleagues a moment of silence to explain themselves.
"You thinking Shakespeare?" he asked her with a raised eyebrow. She nodded silently and the two lapsed in to a thoughtful silence.
"As in the play-write?" Sara broke in, looking enquiringly from one to the other,
"As in the serial killer." Russell told her,
"You might need to give us more than that Russell..." Greg told him ruefully from the doorway, "Contrary to popular belief, we're not psychic..."
Russell grinned and obliged "We had a killer in Seattle who based his crime scenes on murders from Shakespearian plays."
"Yeah, all of them on the clock." Finn snapped derisively,
"Quite..." Russell said softly, giving her shoulder a soft squeeze, knowing her history with the case, "For example, we had a Romeo and Juliet style case that had our Juliet hooked up to an IV drip filled with a sedative...If we took too long in finding her, she would OD, which she did..."
"OK..." Greg said quietly, "So the significance of the keys in that context is..."
"The Merchant of Venice." Sara said, smiling and making the connection,
"Right in one." Russell told her, smiling,
For Greg's benefit, Sara explained,
"As part of the B-plot of the play, Portia is attempting to choose out the right suitor for herself, she devises a system using three different boxes, each with the promise of something different inside. The choices she had were lead, silver and gold..."
"And that's exactly what our killer's done." Russell told them smoothly, reaching up and removing a key from the ceiling, he winced suddenly turning to Finn as an aside and checking, "Tell me you've processed that?"
"You're still standing aren't you?" She smirked pointedly,
"Excellent point..." he quipped. He carried it over to the sink and had Sara pass him a little evidence jar, carefully washing the blood from the key in the sink. He then carried it back over to them, revealing it to be made of lead as he read out the inscription, "Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath."
Joining him in the room, Finn and Sara removed the other keys from the ceiling and washed them in the sink, Finn with silver, read softly,
"Who chooseth me shall get what he deserves."
Sara paused a moment before reading the inscription on her gold key,
"Who chooseth me shall get what he desires."
They all paused a moment, glancing between one another before Sara spoke cautiously,
"I know that in the context of the play, the 'right' key is the lead key...I take it it's not quite that simple?"
"No." Finn said, sighing heavily, "To give you some background, every case started in the same way. A young woman went missing. Exactly twenty four hours after her death, a note relating to the play that her death would potentially be based on was delivered to her terrified family, always with unusual terms. The kidnapper wanted the police involved and every time, he chose a specific criminalist that he wanted to work the case...They predominantly became one or both of us..." she paused a moment to collect herself and Russell smoothly took over the explanation for her,
"We were then told to go to a specific location, as time went on, we were left clues to follow to find said location, in this case the motel. There we would find something concrete that tied to the kidnapping and gave us something to chase. In this case, the keys and what they lock."
"Every time we were told that it was either all or nothing. We either saved the girl and caught the killer, or we got nothing. She died and he got away." Finn said tautly, filling in more details about the killer as Russell paused,
"That actually worked?" Greg demanded incredulously, "He was just found sitting there, holding her hand, waiting for the cops to show up?"
"Yep." Russell said smoothly, "That was the plan anyway, but he started getting malicious and vindictive..." Russell said, the first flicker of something more than passive reflection crossing his face, Sara glanced at Finn, understanding this.
She however, chose not to dwell on it, carrying on, "For all intents and purposes, yes. But this one was a little different..."
"How so?" Sara asked,
"We're given three options here." Russell said quietly, "When it comes down to it, if we find whatever these keys open, we can choose one and one only."
"So what are the choices?" Sara asked quietly,
"Gold is the simplest." Finn explained quietly, "Who chooseth me shall get what he desires. In the play, what the princes desired was Portia; in this case, what we desire, is Alison."
"Sounds good to me." Greg said quietly, "What's the catch?"
"We have to let the killer escape if we want her back." Finn said quietly, "In which case, he just takes another girl and repeats the process..."
"OK..." Sara said quietly, wanting to discuss all of their options before they decided anything, "What do the other two represent?"
"Silver, who chooseth me shall get what he deserves. In this case, what we 'deserve' is justice. So, in Laymen's terms, we get the killer."
"So then that means that with lead...We get both?" Sara asked cautiously,
"Technically." Finn said quietly, "But it's not as simple as that, who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath...The fact that you get both the killer and the victim ties in to the play." She explained quietly, "In the play, Bassanio chooses the lead casket, and by doing so, he gets everything that he wants..." she paused a moment and added, "In reality, the inscription on the key gives a warning. If you want both you need to be prepared to take a risk and make a sacrifice."
"Why not just choose gold?" Greg asked quietly, "Just get her?"
"Because it's not as simple as that." Finn said, shaking her head, "If you choose gold, you're not just going to open the box and she's going to be standing there waiting for you. All it really means is that you choose which one to aim for. If you choose gold, he sets everything up in a way that means she'll die in the given time frame, with or without his input, like the poison in the Romeo and Juliet set up." Finn explained quietly, "If you choose silver, he'll kill her there and then and give you the time to find him." She finished quietly, "In choosing lead, both options remain open, but in return, you have to play some sort of game with him...Once you make a choice it's final, you can't go back and change it, you're stuck with it. You then get the next clue based on your decision."
"Son-of-a-bitch..." Greg snarled, slamming a hand on the outside wall and pitching away from them in frustration,
"Hey, hey, that's enough, come on Greg..." Russell told him firmly, quickly taking control of the situation, "Finn, take the keys back to the lab, find Nick and Morgan and find whatever they open. We don't have to make this decision right now. Sara and I will stay here and process the rest of the room, maybe we'll get lucky."
Finn nodded, gathering up the sparse amount of evidence that she and Sara had managed to collect and left them, pausing only to give Greg's arm a quick, reassuring squeeze on the way out.
Russell turned quietly to Sara and asked softly, "Have you done the bed yet?"
"No I was-"she began quietly but Greg interrupted them from the door,
"You think he raped her?"
"Greg, we don't know that." She tried quickly, "It's just protocol, you know that."
"Yeah..." he said softly,
"You don't want to be here Greg..." she said quietly,
"I'll stay." He said tightly,
"Greg-"she tried to reason gently,
"I said I'm staying." He snapped,
"OK..." she murmured quietly, wincing slightly at his raised voice, instinct driving her to protect herself, irritating her as she told herself forcefully that it was Greg. She had spent too much of her life recently being on edge because of what had been done to her...She was tiring of it.
It was something that did not go unnoticed by Russell as he looked up at the younger man in the doorway but he was already well on the way to trying to correcting his mistake, without his supervisor's reproachful eyes,
"Sara, I'm sorry, I'm just-"
"It's fine." She told him quietly, setting up the ALS as she spoke,
"No, no it's not, I shouldn't have snapped at you." He pressed, "I just-"
"It's OK Greg..." she said, standing up and looking him in the eye, "I understand, it's fine."
He nodded quietly, tensing as she moved over to the bed, shifting the sheets out of the way. Something fluttered out from between them and she bent down to retrieve it with a small pair of tweezers,
"Condom wrapper..." she told Russell quietly, unable to break eye contact with him as they both processed what this could mean.
"I can't do this..." Greg said, his voice cracking as he turned and disappeared down the steps,
"Greg!" Sara called after him desperately,
Russell quietly caught her arm, releasing her immediately as she tensed up beneath him but stuck to his intentions and told her quietly,
"Don't go to him with nothing...Whatever you're telling him, tell him something. Evidence first."
She nodded tightly, switching on the ALS and tossing a pair of safety glasses across the bed to him.
"Anything?" he asked quietly as she moved it across the sheets,
"No, nothing, no sign of any-"she began, removing the light
"Whoa, whoa, easy there..." he said, gently placing a hand on hers and causing her to freeze, "Go back up a little, on the wall..."
"What is that?" she asked quietly, staring at it,
"I think it's an 'A'..." he said, raising his eyebrows at her,
"Thank you Sherlock, I had deduced that." She quipped lightly, "I mean, what's it written in..."
"Well..." he said, glancing around him and eventually getting down on his knees to peer under the bed as she stepped back to try and take in more of the message, "Ah..." he said triumphantly, emerging with a little tub between his hands,
"Vaseline..." she said, nodding, "Fluoresces under a black light..."
"Petroleum jelly specifically..." he told her, brandishing the tub at her, "So what is our killer trying to tell us?" he asked, squinting at the wall and stumbling over the unusual word, "Adjø?"
"I don't think our killer's trying to tell us anything..." Sara said hollowly,
"What do you think it is then?" Russell asked curiously, raising an eyebrow,
"It's from our victim..." she told him quietly, "Norwegian..."
"Really?" he asked curiously, raising an eyebrow, "What does it mean?"
"Goodbye..." she said in hushed tones.