Mac sat and stared at his new evidence. He thought they must have a new suspect which they did not know who it was yet. There had to be someone else involved because of that set of fingerprints that were unknown. Mac thought there must be another victim somewhere that they did not know about. He did not know what all Curtis had done in New York and he had no way of knowing whether there were victims out there who did not report it. He knew there were many women who did not report rapes. The police could not do anything about problems that they did not know about.
Mac stood up and left his office. Reagan had left for the time being. Mac could not say that he was not glad. The guy was like a leech and he was too outspoken and argumentative. Mac wanted to talk to Caldwell again. He went down to the precinct and told Flack to bring Caldwell to interrogation. "I don't think he's going to tell you anything," Don said.
"We'll see," Mac replied.
Don went to get Caldwell and Mac waited in the interrogation room. Soon, Flack brought Caldwell in. He frowned when he saw Mac but he sat down at the table. "So, how is lockup?" Mac asked.
Caldwell frowned. "What do you want, Detective?" he asked.
"I want you to tell me who really hired you."
"I already did."
Mac leaned back in the chair and stared at him. "I know Jo Danville did not hire you," he said. "We have other fingerprints on the papers you had stored in your underwear drawer."
Caldwell looked surprised but he tried to hide it. "So?"
"I know someone else hired you to kill Curtis. It's only a matter of time before we find out who it is." Mac leaned forward. "You could help yourself if you would tell us the truth."
"I don't have anything to say to you."
"We know the person asked you to bring Curtis' private part to them. We found all that." Mac laid the evidence on the table. "We also know that someone paid you a lot of money to kill him. We're going to find those hidden accounts you have under aliases that you used when you were in security."
"NO!" Caldwell exclaimed before he thought. He swallowed hard. "What do you mean?"
Mac shook his head. "We know you put that money in an account and you intended to use it to pay those hospital bills for your daughter. We talked to your wife. She doesn't have anything to do with this."
"You leave my wife and daughter alone!"
"What do you think you're doing to them by doing something like this?" Mac asked. "You think it is going to help that little girl when she finds out her daddy is in prison for murder? Or that he framed a woman for this and caused her to be taken away from her young daughter?"
Caldwell looked like he was trapped. "Do you know what it's like to sit and watch your child suffer every day?" he asked. "All you want to do is take away the pain but you can't so you want to do what you can."
"So you resort to murder? Why?"
"It was the only way to get the money."
Mac shook his head. "There are a lot of ways to make money," he said. "Who told you to frame Jo?"
Caldwell was desperate but he knew he had been found out. "They knew she hated Curtis and that she had caused him to get away with rape."
"Hate is a strong word," Mac said. "She wanted him brought to justice."
"He raped those women. Who cares that he was murdered?"
"We care because even if he deserved to die, you were not the one to do it. Now, tell me who hired you. It wasn't Jo, was it?"
Caldwell looked down and then shook his head. "No," he said quietly. "No, she didn't."
Mac leaned on the table. "Then who?" he asked.
"All I wanted to do was pay those bills." Caldwell shook his head. "What did I do?"
"Tell me who hired you," Mac said.
"I can't. She doesn't want anyone to know that she was raped by that guy." Caldwell looked at Mac. "It wasn't Jo Danville but I can't tell you who it was."
"Then we will have to find out the hard way. We're going to find those accounts. It's blood money. You can't keep it."
"So it was all for nothing."
"Taking a human life is not nothing. You went out and killed someone."
"I'm not saying anything else. I won't tell you who she is."
"Well, at least you cleared Jo."
Mac put his evidence away and got up from the table. He looked at Caldwell. "I 'am' sorry about your daughter," he said. "She had just had a treatment when we were there."
Caldwell looked at Mac. "Was she okay?"
"She was sleeping and your wife was waiting for her to wake up."
"She always stays by her bed so she will be there when she wakes up."
"I'm sorry."
Mac left the interrogation room. Don was out there waiting. "Did you get that?" Mac asked.
"Yes," Don replied. "Should be enough for the DA to drop those charges against Jo."
"Get it to him. I want her out of there."
"I'll get her."
Mac went back up to the lab and to his office. He added that interrogation to his report and saved it. Then he went into the lab. "Have you found anything else?" he asked.
"No," Danny replied.
Lindsey came over to the table. "I was analyzing the paper that the note was written on and the ink, but there was nothing special about it," she said.
"Caldwell admitted that Jo did not hire him but he won't tell who did," Mac informed them. "He also admitted it was a woman who did it, and I know he has other accounts that he put that money in. He practically admitted that too. Russ Josephson is trying to find out some of Caldwell's aliases."
"I hope this is over soon."
"The woman who hired Caldwell was another victim of Curtis'. He admitted that too. It could be anyone."
Mac went back to his office. They still had a lot of work to do. He scowled as he had another thought. He thought that Caldwell might contact his wife and tell her to take the money from that account before anyone could find it. Mac shook his head. He hoped she did not do it because then she would be in trouble too. He rubbed his face and blew out a breath. He hoped it did not come to that. He could not do anything but wait for more information now. They had no clue who the woman was who hired Caldwell now.
Mac sat at his desk for the rest of the day, and at around 6 pm, Jo came from the elevator. Danny and Lindsey met her at the lab and she hugged them, and then went on to Mac's office. She hugged Mac. "Thank you," she said.
"I knew you were innocent," Mac replied.
"I don't believe Serena Matthews did this either."
Mac sat back down at his desk. "I have been waiting all day for some sort of breakthrough but there has been nothing except that we proved that you didn't do it."
"What about the senator?"
Mac shook his head. "It doesn't look like he had anything to do with this. It seems that there was another victim that we don't know about."
"Another victim?"
"Yes. We don't know how many victims this guy had. The fingerprints on the papers that Caldwell had hidden along with the other evidence didn't match any that we have."
Jo sat down on the couch. "So, we're at a standstill then."
Mac looked at her. "You're going home," he said. "You are not getting involved in this case. Go home to your daughter."
"I've already done that. I don't want to…"
"I'm not going to argue with you. You're taking some time off and you're not getting involved in this case. Understood?"
Jo stared at him a moment. She had seen that look before and when he had it, no one was going to change his mind. "Fine," she agreed and stood up. "Would you at least let me know how it turns out?"
"I will."
Mac watched Jo leave. He did not want her involved in this and he thought she needed some time to get over what happened. He knew that whoever paid Caldwell to commit this murder had tried to bring Jo down too. He wanted to know who that was. Maybe they had been raped by Curtis after he got to New York and they knew if Jo had let that evidence go that he would have been in prison. He supposed that could cause some people to want to take vengeance.
By the time 9 pm rolled around, Mac had still not heard anymore news or gotten any more evidence. He got his coat and left his office. Danny and Lindsey were already gone and Sheldon was there. "I'm calling it a night," Mac said.
"I'll be here a while longer," Sheldon replied.
"Let me know if anything comes in."
Mac went to the elevator and down to the parking garage. He unlocked the Avalanche and threw his coat in. As he was about to get in, he heard a footstep. He looked around to see a woman standing at the back of the Avalanche. She had a mask on, but he could see long, curly auburn hair and she was wearing black leather. "You just had to get her out, didn't you?" she asked.
"What are you talking about?" Mac asked.
"Don't play dumb. You got Detective Danville out of jail. It was her fault what happened to me!"
Mac frowned. "It was you," he said.
"Yes, it was me. You even deprived me of my trophy."
Mac saw the gun she was pointing at him. "Hey, why don't you just put that down and we can…"
"Shut up!" the woman demanded. "Don't try to patronize me. I'm going to take 'you' for a trophy since you think Jo Danville is so innocent! I paid Caldwell for what he did. No one would want to convict him!"
"Look, you don't have to do this."
"Take your weapon and your phone off and lay them down there."
Mac just stared at her, but she pulled the hammer back on the gun she was holding. "You better do it," she said.
Mac took his gun and phone off and laid them on the ground. "Now, kick them away under that car there," the woman said.
Mac kicked the phone and gun away. The woman came toward him and felt of his pockets and everything to make sure he did not have anything else. Then she got into the Avalanche and slid across to the other side. "Get in!" she demanded.
Mac got in and put on the seatbelt. "Where are we going?" he asked.
"You let me do the asking questions. Just start driving."
Mac cranked the Avalanche and left the parking garage. "You're not going to get away with this," he said. "You're making things worse for yourself. You're going to wind up in…"
"Shut up! I don't want to hear your lecture! Just drive."
Mac did not know how he would get out of this but he supposed he might as well stop trying to reason with this woman. She was angry and wanted to hurt someone because she had been hurt by John Curtis. "Hurting me is not going to take away your pain," he said.
"What do you know about my pain?" the woman asked. "I'll show you pain."
Mac frowned. "Why me?"
"Because you let that woman go and you deprived me of my trophy, so you will replace it."
Mac was a little alarmed at that. He would definitely have to figure out how to get out of this without getting himself shot…