Three days after returning from Texas, Adrian Monk stood before the Commissioner, his beloved Natalie at his side, and Commander Stottlemeyer and Captain Disher at his right flank. He had spent his time in San Antonio gathering evidence and taking witness testimony as to what had happened with Lieutenant Albright and his fiancée. Now, as he stood in the middle of the Commissioner's office, he was fully prepared to brief him about what they had discovered and what was a far larger case than even he initially suspected.

"Here's what happened…" he began in a manner familiar to all in the room. "To the eyes of everyone around him, Steven Albright appeared to be a polite, handsome, mild-mannered, patriotic hero. He was smart and had good connections throughout his career. If ever there was somebody that was going places, it was him. And he knew it.

He came from a long line of Navy men and was pegged to be their successor. The plan was for him to come up quickly through the ranks, marry well, and then perhaps one day become a fleet Commander or even an Admiral. Caroline Shelton fit in perfectly with that plan.

Caroline was a beauty, quiet and unassuming - the perfect trophy wife. According to witnesses, they began dating shortly after they met in Austin at a charity event held to benefit children of US Navy personnel who were killed in the attack on the USS Stark in 1987 over in Iraq. This was before the first Gulf War even began.

Steven wooed her and won her, according to her friends, and soon they were engaged, although it was never smooth sailing after that. According to her best friend at the time, Cindy Powell, he began showing aggressive behavior towards Caroline about six months after they had gotten engaged. He was possessive and jealous and frequently accused Caroline of having illicit sex affairs with other men. Often, Cindy would notice bruises or find Caroline off somewhere crying. She would always say it was nothing and would always attribute the bruises to her own clumsiness or some small accident.

This situation went on for years, with Steven playing mind games with her, Caroline drawing away from him when he did, and then Steven pouring on the charm in order to win her back. It was a deadly dance.

He sent her to the hospital twice. The first time was in 1990. There was an incident in which Caroline's hand was badly burned by pressing into an electric coil burner on a stove. Cindy lamented that she knew Caroline's tale of her own clumsiness was a lie, because it did not explain the hand shaped bruise on her wrist.

Later, in the late 90s, when his friend Mitch Teeger was killed in Kosovo, Caroline saw that Steven was taking an interest in another woman, Natalie.

After many years of abuse, Caroline was finished. She told Steven in no uncertain terms that it was over and gave him back his ring. He did not take it well. Within days of the breakup, Albright came to her house and beat her to within an inch of her life. He threatened her and her family by saying that he would come finish the job if she ever talked. They kept her secret until the end.

Some of his familial connections in the Navy and politics helped cover for him and had him shipped out to the Persian Gulf where he stayed for most of the next decade. He went on to go build a somewhat successful Naval career for himself, having served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and rising to the rank of Lieutenant.

Eventually, he returned to the States and that is when he reconnected with Natalie. One of his shipmates was murdered and Steven had seen my picture in the paper standing next to Natalie. He deliberately asked me to investigate the murder, as a way to get close to Natalie. We were all on a submarine together, me, Natalie, and Dr. Bell..."

"Who is Dr. Bell?" the commissioner whispered, but Leland just waved him off and told him it wasn't important.

"He pursued my Natalie and after a little while he called her up and he asked her to um…" Monk rolled his shoulders and shook his head and she reassuringly rubbed his shoulder. "...Date him."

Funny how he had pretended this didn't bother him at the time. Now it bothered him a lot. Nevertheless, he continued.

"Just like he had been with Caroline, he showed himself to be this outstanding clean-cut, polite Naval officer with a strong set of values. Natalie knew him as one of Mitch's friends who'd always been friendly whenever he was around. But, he was really just still the same monster he had always been."

Natalie continued the story. "I first started seeing problems with Steven shortly after Adrian had recovered from being poisoned by Judge Rickover. I had been so concerned over Adrian and really thought he was going to die. However, when he lived, Steven became more and more possessive and jealous - insisting that I spend less and less time with Adrian and making it so that I couldn't even invite him over for dinner like I used to. Steven became verbally abusive and we fought. Yet, he would charm me and apologize, and we'd give it another go. His chief problem was, I wasn't Caroline. I knew that something was off, and soon I realized that, I knew that being with Steven was just not right. I didn't love him. I knew that I had to break up with him.

Still, before I broke up with him, I had to settle one thing that had always bugged me.

Steven once told me a little story about how Caroline Shelton had sobered up and then broke their engagement because she realized that she could do better than him. That didn't sit well with me because some of our mutual friends had told me that Caroline was basically a teetotaler and they were frankly surprised to see her with a party boy like Steven. So, shortly before he was to return from deployment out in the Pacific that last time, I hunted her down and gave her a call to hear her side of the story. I was stunned with what poor Caroline had to say – and to that day, she was very, very terrified of Steven Albright."

Adrian took over. "When Albright returned to shore, the first person he went to go see was Natalie. He expected a hero's welcome, and Natalie was polite, but she did the unthinkable and wisely and beautifully broke up with him. She tried to let him down easy, but Albright was not one to take rejection well. According to his own confession, he looked down at her kitchen counter and saw a phone number written on a scrap of paper. It had a Galveston, Texas area code. Since he knew his former fiancée's whereabouts from his continued stalking of her, he put two and two together. He knew that Natalie and Caroline had talked, and he also knew that if Caroline was talking, it could spell the end of his Naval career. So, he decided to silence her once and for all.

He had promised Caroline that if she ever talked, he would kill her. And so, he decided to carry through on that threat. Yet, it couldn't be like the last time. This time, he had to keep his fingerprints off of the matter. So, he contracted a former Navy buddy of his, who had been dishonorably discharged from assaulting a woman in Pensacola in 1995, to carry out the deed. The man called up Caroline trying to set up a meeting over something associated with her work, but Caroline saw through it and almost immediately moved to San Antonio. It didn't take long before they traced her there, and the man emailed Steven asking for instructions on how he wanted to handle it."

"We have the records right here." Randy Disher said, stepping forward with Albright's email records, which they had obtained by court order some thirty-six hours prior. He laid them out before the Commissioner.

Adrian continued. "Albright- a misnomer if I've ever heard one - told his contact that he wanted her taken out and sent him several vials of Ketamine from Naval Storage in order to sedate her enough to make sure the actual killing did not attract attention."

Stottlemeyer stepped forward and handed the Commissioner a folder containing records from the U.S. Navy. The commander explained: "The Navy found that the items were missing and presumed them stolen in a routine check of inventory. Albright was interviewed, however, since there was no Ketamine in his system, nor in his cabin when they did their investigation, they were never able to prove that he was involved and the Navy dropped the case."

Adrian walked over near the window in the Commissioner's office, continuing to talk as he walked.

"Albright's hit-man found Caroline's apartment in San Antonio and visited it one evening about four months ago. He drugged her, and then he strangled her. It all would have gone according to plan, except for the fact that he got sloppy. He left fingerprints. It was a month before Caroline's body was found and by that time the perpetrator of the crime was dead."

"Dead?!" the Commissioner asked.

"Yes. Killed in an explosion of a jewelry store in San Francisco shortly after he killed Caroline Shelton." Monk walked over to the commissioner and stood at the edge of his desk. "Yes, Commissioner. That jewelry store. You see, Steven Albright still had a problem. If Caroline was talking, she was talking to someone and that someone was my Natalie. Natalie, therefore, had become a liability. He knew he had one of two options. He could woo her back and convince her that they belonged together (which he knew was unlikely) or he could have her killed. If he went with B, then he knew that he would eventually be discovered because I would have been on to him like a bee to honey. So, I had to go too. He decided to go with plan B.

Since Natalie and I always travel together, he contracted the same hit-man to follow me and Natalie and to kill us and make it look like it was all part of some other crime. What he didn't count on was that it wasn't Natalie that was with me that day in the jewelry store, it was her daughter Julie. What he also didn't count on was the fact that the contracted killer, Tyler "Ty" Davidson Manville, and his cohorts would botch the crime. The plan was to rob the store and toss a bomb with a detonation device on it into the store after they left, causing an explosion that would kill both myself and Natalie. Instead, there was a struggle within the store in which Ty was accidentally shot in the throat. He fell on the detonator and the device exploded, and the walls to the Jewelry store came tumbling down."

"My goodness! So, you're saying that Albright had Shelton killed and then he tried to kill you and Natalie?" the Commissioner asked.

"Yes. And he almost succeeded," Monk confirmed.

"The good part, sir, is that Ty's two accomplices, the two that survived, they're singing like the vultures they are," Disher interjected.

"Uh, Randy…" Stottlemeyer whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Vultures don't sing."

Disher furrowed his brows. "They don't?"

"No. They don't." Leland replied.

"Oh."

Natalie continued. "When he discovered that the plan had failed, he thought he would try for plan A. He gambled on coming back into town, hoping to lure me away from Adrian where he would either pull me back to his side or see to it that I was far enough away from him that he could have me killed, just like Caroline. Outside of San Francisco, Adrian wouldn't have the access he would need in order to solve the murder."

"He gambled wrong." Monk replied.

"He never had a chance." Natalie said, smiling at her boyfriend, and taking his hand.

The Commissioner listened to the rest of the story and looked at the evidence. The team had clearly done its homework and he congratulated them on solving a case that was not only difficult, but was personal. While they were there, he called the district attorney down to his office to review the evidence. The D.A. hadn't always been on Monk's side due to some professional jealousy, but once he saw everything laid out before him, he agreed that it was time to swear out a warrant for the arrest of Steven Albright and he would see to it that his best prosecutor took the case.

"What's going to happen to him?" Natalie asked, not so much in concern for Steven's personal welfare but wanting to know how likely it was that he would ever again see the light of day.

"Well, Ms. Teeger, from what I can tell he has broken several state and federal laws by doing what he did. The state of Texas will likely charge him with the murder of Caroline Shelton. Given his earlier history with her, he will no doubt get life in prison for that alone. In the state of California, we have two counts of kidnapping, multiple counts of murder for those who died in the jewelry store, multiple accounts of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon - all of which was malice aforethought. And, the military will take over from there. There isn't the same sense of double jeopardy for those in the military. He will be court-martialed, dishonorably discharged, lose all benefits gained hitherto and if the states weren't going to take care of him, they could even sentence him to death. In short, Albright is done. With the case you have built, I see no problem with sending him away forever. Nice work you guys. I wish all of my cases were this easy."

After leaving SFPD headquarters, Adrian and Natalie returned with Leland to his house where they were staying since Natalie's home was not yet ready for occupancy. Leland had called them when they arrived in San Antonio to let them know that part of her flooring would have to be replaced due to how far the blood had seeped through the floorboards, and once the crew got into the job they discovered the entire floor would have to be replaced which would take several days. T.K. took some pictures of some flooring options to show to Natalie since she didn't feel comfortable making the ultimate decision, and Natalie in turn asked Adrian which one he liked better. He said it was her house and whatever she chose was fine with him. Secretly, Natalie was considering what flooring would work best with Adrian's furniture and used that imagery when she determined which sample to go with.

Two days after Adrian had given his summation to the Commissioner, Natalie and Adrian were finally permitted to return to Natalie's home. They had mutually decided that they would take their walk-through of the house first before bringing Julie back with them and Adrian understood why. Going back into the house was going to be very difficult for Natalie, and if he was being honest, he wasn't quite sure how he would react at seeing the house again either.

The evening of their first date had started out so well yet ended so horrifically that it caused Natalie to have nightmares every night that they were in San Antonio together. Adrian would hear her cry out in the middle of the night and would rush to her room, holding her until she fell asleep again, before retreating back to his own room around four each morning. Now that they were back home, he had no idea of what they would face when she actually stepped foot into her house once again.

They held hands as they entered the house and her grip on his hand got uncomfortably tight the further they walked into the living room. Turning the corner, her eyes immediately trained on the spot where Adrian had fallen, where Steven had shot him. She remained quiet for a long time looking at that spot, then shook her head as if to say, that's enough of that, and asked Adrian what he wanted for dinner. She simply knew that she couldn't dwell on things too much or she'd never be able to stay in her own home again. All she would say when asked about her shiny new floors was that was that T.K. had good taste.

Four more days passed with four more nights of having nightmares – each one culminating in Natalie running downstairs in tears, trying to reassure herself that Adrian was still alive. Exhausted and shaken, she knew that she could not continue this way, and instinctively knew what she had to do.

After a little over a week in the hospital, Steven had been released directly to San Quentin Prison to await his trial. Given the seriousness of the charges and the likelihood that he was a flight risk, he was denied bail. Knowing that he was there and now knowing all that he had done, and that which he intended to do, Natalie needed to see him. For her own peace of mind, she needed to look him in the eyes and face her fear. Perhaps then, she could get the nightmares to stop.

At first, Adrian was not willing to go along with Natalie's decision to see Steven; however, as was typically the case, she persuaded him to go along with her plan. He agreed to ask Leland if he could arrange for the meeting in a way that also maintained Natalie's safety, and she was correct in her presumption that he did so because he expected the commander to come up with some official-sounding reason as to why the visit wouldn't be possible – that way, Adrian wouldn't have to be the bad guy and tell her no.

Unfortunately for Adrian, his little scheme didn't work. Leland informed the prison of Natalie's desire to meet with Albright, and Steven wanted to see her as well. The only saving grace for Adrian was that Leland didn't sound any more enthused about this idea than he did. But neither one of them were about deny her the visit and the next day Leland picked them up at her home and drove them to the prison.

Natalie had spent the entire night thinking of what she would say to Steven when she saw him and even wrote down bullet points on a little note card that she carried with her into the jail. But she wasn't emotionally prepared for what happened next.

As soon as she walked past the cell-block, she saw Steven being escorted from his cell down the hall towards an empty visitors' area just ahead, guards surrounding him on every side. His prison-issued orange jumpsuit was belted with a metal chain around his waist that connected to his handcuffs, and the shackles on his ankles clanked as he walked. As he approached her, his eyes bored into hers with a look that said he despised her and he wished he had killed them both that night. The guards forced him quickly past her, but he spit on the ground in front of her as he past. Looking back, he smirked. Natalie shivered despite herself, the look on his face was what she imagined Caroline Shelton must have seen the night he beat her.

Immediately, she turned and walked away, so fast Adrian had to scramble to catch up with her. It wasn't easy, and he wished he'd brought his cane. As he watched her cry, it nearly broke his heart. He wanted to tell her that Leland could take them home right then, no questions asked, but he knew that wasn't Natalie's way. She had gone to the prison for a reason and it was Adrian's job to support her in any way he could. So, he held her in his arms and whispered what he hoped passed for words of comfort until she stopped crying, and then he wiped her eyes with his thumb. Finally, she nodded and told him she was okay and was ready to go back and talk with Steven. She could be strong - for Adrian's sake, for Julie's, for her own. As long as she knew Adrian was there waiting for her when she was finished, she would get through it and they could go home.

So, with Adrian and Leland promising they'd be there if she needed anything, Natalie slowly stepped forward and called for the guard and asked to be taken to where she and Steven would be talking.

Natalie sat down across the table from Steven, brushing off some non-existent lint on her jeans and lifting her head so she was face-to-face with Steven Albright. This was her last chance to tell her ex-boyfriend what he had done to her. There was no choice. She had to confront him not only for herself and for Adrian, but for Caroline. Caroline who had ultimately given her own life to make sure the next woman in Steven Albright's life stayed safe – she was Caroline's voice.

If Natalie was going to do this she was going to do this the right way, she was going to show him that she was strong and that he hadn't beaten her. And that meant looking him confidently in the eyes when she talked to him.

"Hello, Natalie," Steven said evenly. "I appreciate you coming to see me. I assumed you'd be angry with me for allowing your defective detective to be shot. I hope I didn't set back his recovery too badly."

Natalie blinked multiple times to keep the tears at bay. If she squinted, she could almost imagine that he sounded sincere, but now she knew better. She knew that was the psychotic personality talking. And she refused to give him back the power and satisfaction of seeing her cry.

"You don't care about Adrian. You don't care about me or the innocent people that were killed when the jewelry store exploded. Everything you did was about covering up what you did to Caroline."

Adrian's-voice-in-her-head encouraged her to be louder and project confidence. She swallowed. "Don't think that I'm here for you because I'm not. I'm here for me, because Adrian Monk and I are going to have a good life together. He's a good man and he doesn't deserve for me to waste one second thinking about you. So, after I leave here today, I won't."

The man across the table from her in the prison jumpsuit smirked. "Yes, you will. Every time you look at him, you'll think of me and how I almost killed him and took everything away from you."

"But you didn't," she told him. "You didn't kill him, and you didn't kill me. We survived your reign of terror, Steven. Caroline Shelton wasn't so lucky, but we're going to make sure she didn't die in vain. You're going to be held accountable for her death and the death of all those innocent people."

Steven shrugged. Ty was dead because he botched the jewelry store explosion and if he had done it right in the first place, and killed Natalie and Monk, Steven wouldn't have had to take matters into his own hands to see that the task was accomplished. He wouldn't have had to stalk Natalie and there would have been no hostage situation that night. Ty and his incompetence were the only reasons that Steven was in jail.

"The people in the store were unwanted casualties," he said. "They weren't supposed to be hurt. They didn't deserve it."

"Like Caroline and I did?" Natalie challenged him. "You said something to me at the Policeman's Ball, Steven, that I want to remind you of. You said that you were sure Adrian didn't 'make me feel the way that you did', that 'no one would love me the way that you did'. You were right."

The fury in his eyes cooled for the time being and his smirk twisted into something resembling a smile. Natalie shuddered inside at Steven thinking she was saying anything positive about him and hoped Adrian and Leland were close outside so they could leave soon. She didn't want to stay there a second longer than she had to. But she needed to finish this, for her own sanity. She smiled, but it wouldn't ever reach her eyes.

"You used your declaration of love as an excuse to treat me the way you did. I'm sure you did the same thing to Caroline, every time you hit her, each time you beat her. But that's not how you love someone. Adrian has taught me every day what love is supposed to be like and what it's not supposed to be like. He says I'm beautiful and doesn't mean it as a way to get what he wants from me. He doesn't think that my body is all that I'm good for - unlike you. He knows what no means, Steven. And he lets me have an opinion on things, and do you know what? He's proud of me when my opinions are different than his. He doesn't beat me into submission. He doesn't hit or beat me at all, because that's not what's supposed to happen when you love someone." Natalie felt no shame, now, in letting the tears fall. "I'm thankful every day that I met Adrian Monk because he makes me a better person instead of bringing me down. I couldn't think of any other man that I'd want to be my partner for the rest of my life and more importantly, to be my friend. I only wish Caroline had been so lucky to meet someone that treated her well instead of an abusive pig like you."

Natalie leaned forward to where she was close enough to Steven Albright to smell his breath. Clearly, hygiene wasn't first on the list of priorities in prison, she thought.

"You wanted to take the best man away from me that I've ever known and for that I don't know how to forgive you. I will, though. My boyfriend will show me how." She patted his cheek and straightened the collar on his prison-issued jumpsuit. "I can't tell the military or the judge or the jury what to do, but personally, I hope you die in prison." And for the first time in days she didn't feel guilty about thinking it. "And, I hope that you get what you deserve while you're in there."

Steven actually made a motion like he was going to get up from the table and the guards on either side of him placed their hands on their weapons and forced him back down.

She finished. "So, you were right. Adrian doesn't make me feel the way that you do. No one ever could if they were a good person. But, you were also wrong - after I leave here today, while you're rotting in jail until you die and I'm out enjoying a life of love and freedom with my brilliant and handsome detective, I will most definitely not be thinking about you. You're simply not worth the time nor the energy it would take to think about you at all. You're a nothing and a failure and that's all you're ever going to be."

With that, she stood up and nodded at the guards. She was ready to go. The guard opened the door and she walked through it, immediately throwing her arms around Adrian who was standing just outside.

Monk looked over at Albright yet showed no emotional reaction whatsoever. Inwardly, he knew that to give Steven anything, be it anger, or hatred, or fear - it would be to give him exactly what he wanted - what his psychopathic mind needed. That wasn't going to happen. Instead he looked down at his Natalie and smiled. She had done what she came to do and now it was time to go home. The terror that Albright brought into their lives was at an end.

In the car in the way home, Natalie mused that she doubted a single thing that she had to say really had affected Steven at all. How does one actually get through to a person without a conscience? But that didn't really matter. What she did was not for him, but for them. And with everything said and done, they could now move on.