John finally arrived at the precinct. "Why did you bring me here?" Mac asked. "I can't live at the lab."

"This is the safest place you can be," John said.

"I don't think she would try to come after me at the apartment again."

"Don't sell her short. She knows her time is getting short here and she is wanting to get this job done."

Mac looked at the precinct building and then at John. "Alright, I'll stay here for the night, but I want to talk to Christine again."

"You'll get to talk to her again later. Right now, we don't want this woman tracing any calls that you get to your phone."

Mac knew he was just being stubborn. "I know you're trying to help me, but this is not easy," he said.

"Hopefully, it will be over soon," John said.

Mac got out of the car and went into the precinct. Don Flack was sitting at his desk. "Hey, Mac," he said. "What are you doing back? I thought you were going home to rest."

"Someone broke into my apartment and would have killed me if it hadn't been for…a friend."

Don stood up. "What?" he asked.

"I want to get the team and go to my apartment and see if we can find anything that will lead to this hit woman."

"Woman?"

Don was surprised as Mac headed for the elevator. He followed him and got into the elevator too. "What do you mean someone broke into your apartment?" Don asked. "You didn't call."

"I couldn't," Mac said. "I was running down the fire escape."

"And how do you know that this person is a woman?"

"Because someone told me it's a woman."

"And just who told you that and how do they know it?"

"It is a long story, Don."

"One I'd like to hear. I have never seen the day where you would not call us if something happened."

The elevator doors opened and they went out at the lab. As they went into the lab, Danny was there as well as Sheldon. "Hey!" Don said. "Guess what just happened?"

Mac looked at him. "Will you calm down?" he asked.

"No! I don't want to calm down." Don looked at Danny and Sheldon. "Somebody broke into his apartment and tried to kill him and he didn't even call us!"

Sheldon's smile faded. "When did this happen?" he asked.

"Earlier this evening," Mac said. "I had help from someone and I didn't have a chance to call you guys."

Danny was trying to absorb all that. "What did they do?" he asked.

Mac blew out a breath and thought a moment. "I don't even know where to start," he said. "All this stuff that has happened is connected to this. I don't know what the point of drugging me was unless she just wanted to humiliate me first…or the person who hired her."

"Somebody hired someone to kill you?" Danny asked.

"Yes, according to that guy."

"What guy?" Don asked.

"They guy who was in the elevator with us before wearing the black suit?"

Don frowned. "Him?"

"Yes, him. Believe me, that guy knows what he is doing and there's another guy who works with him…some computer genius. He has a stiff neck and he acts odd too. Neither of them will tell much about themselves. I know the guy in the black suit's name is John. The other guy scanned my apartment and found a bug."

"What did he do with it?" Danny asked.

"I don't know. He took it with him, I suppose. Let's just go to the apartment and see what we can find."

"What about Christine?" Sheldon asked. "Is she safe?"

"Yes. They took her to a safe place," Mac said.

"You trust them?"

"Yes. And they have friends in the police department too…not in this precinct, but another one. I don't know which."

Don folded his arms. "So we're going to have to trust these mystery men?" he asked.

"Yes. That mystery man saved my life. He took those two guys down before I could even move."

"Military?"

"I don't know, but he's fast and he knows who the woman is but they don't know who has hired her to kill me."

"And he has friends in the police department?"

"Yes." Mac blew out a breath. "Let's go and get this started. He dropped me off here after we escaped with our lives, but I'm not staying here all night. We have to find out who did this if we can."

"He could have at least told you who the woman was," Don declared. "We might track her down if we knew who she was."

"Well, he didn't share that information but maybe they will soon."

They went to Mac's apartment and found the door slightly open. They drew their weapons and went inside to make sure no one was in the apartment but there was no one. Mac pointed. "She broke out that door over there again," he said. "I heard it when I was in the bedroom. There were four men in the hall." Mac pointed to the carpet. "I want this place scanned for hairs or anything. I don't think they could have left any fingerprints."

Mac walked into the bedroom. "I went through here and I went out the fire escape," he said as he went through the other bedroom.

Don shook his head as he looked at Mac. "I still can't believe you didn't call me," he said.

"Don, it has nothing to do with any confidence I have in you or the team. I told you, those other two guys were here. I had been over to Mindy's apartment to…help her."

"You went over there?"

"Yes, and I went to the landlord's apartment to give the keys back to him. I had gone to Mindy's apartment and I had to have the key."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. She had cuffed herself to her bed and she couldn't get loose. So after I got that done, I went to take the keys back to the landlord and that was when all this happened."

They searched the whole apartment and Danny even vacuumed the floors to make sure they got any hairs that might have been dropped or anything else that could have DNA on it. Danny studied the balcony door that had been broken out. "I don't see how she broke out this whole door like this," he said. "There's not even any jagged edges left around it, and it looks like it all just fell straight down, not like it was hit from the outside."

Sheldon looked at the door frame. "You're right," he said. "There's so much new technology out there these days, she could have used something that we don't even know exists."

Danny looked at Sheldon. "Are you saying we're behind in the technical game?"

"Absolutely." Sheldon looked at Danny and smiled. "Hey, I don't know of anything that can do this."

"Neither do I."

When they were done there, they went back to the lab. Danny poured the contents from the vacuum. "Just look at this," he said.

Sheldon looked at the almost non-existent contents. "What's wrong with that?" he asked.

Danny snickered. "You know what would be in this if we vacuumed our apartment?" he asked. "This is just too clean. If I vacuumed our apartment like there, there would be all kinds of crumbs, and candy, dried peas, wads of Barbie hair, and anything else you can think of."

Sheldon smiled. "Well, Mac is not at his apartment very much. I guess it stays clean."

"Too clean. Everybody needs to get their place a little dirty sometimes."

They stared at the contents and found a long, blond hair. "That could belong to Christine," Danny said.

Sheldon got the magnifying glass and looked at the end of the hair. "It has a root at the end, so we can analyze it to see who it belongs to."

Danny picked up a short hair from the pile. "That could belong to Mac but it doesn't have a root," he said. He shook his head. "There's nothing else here."

Sheldon began the analysis of the hair DNA. "Maybe this will tell us something if it doesn't belong to Christine," he said.

Mac was sitting in his office thinking. He wanted to take Christine away after this. They would get married and they would spend a honeymoon somewhere…somewhere that his phone would not ring and interrupt them with a crime scene and he did not have to be at the office.

The phone on Mac's desk rang. "Taylor," he answered.

"Mac?"

Mac sat up. "Christine? Are you alright?"

"Yes. I'm fine. I'm just a little bored."

"Do you know where you are?"

"No. I was blindfolded until we got here."

"I'm sorry about this."

"Oh, Mac, don't say that. This is not your fault."

"When we get out of this, we're going away together. Anywhere you want to go."

"I don't know where I want to go, but if I'm with you, I will be happy."

"We're going somewhere that we won't be interrupted by phones or anything."

"Sounds wonderful. Maybe we can share a kiss without the phone ringing."

"I'm sure we can. We'll make sure they're turned off."

"So, are we going to get married?"

"Absolutely. When this is over, we're going to get married and run away together."

"When are we going to pick out our wedding bands?"

"As soon as possible."

"I love you, Mac, and I miss you."

"I love you too, and it won't be for long."

"I can't sleep. There's a dog here. I think he's a German Shepherd. He's on guard."

"At least you're not all alone."

"He seems to know what I'm saying if I talk to him."

"Probably."

"So, what are you doing?"

"I'm sitting here at the office waiting on analysis."

"You think you have something?"

"Don't know yet." Mac did not want to tell her about what happened at his apartment. "We'll see."

Christine was quiet a moment. "You're hiding something from me, aren't you?" she asked.

"How do you know?"

"I know you, Mac Taylor."

"They broke into my apartment tonight and we're trying to see if we can find something that will lead to that woman."

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, thanks to our mystery helper."

"Do you know anything about these guys?"

"No, but you can trust them."

"I realize that." Christine was quiet a moment. "I think I'll just have something to eat. I guess he might let me call you again tomorrow."

"Okay. Good night."

Mac hung up the phone. He was glad Christine was safe but he wanted to see her. However, he knew he had plenty of time to see her…if he survived this ordeal. They intended to spend the rest of their lives together.

Danny soon came to Mac's office. "Mac, we found a long blond hair in your apartment," he said. "We ran the DNA and…" He gave Mac the computer screen he was holding.

Mac frowned as he was looking at it. "That's her, alright," he said. "That's the landlord's wife." He looked at Danny. "Maria Fortner?" He shook his head. "How did she get married to him with the name Teresa?"

"Mac, there's no telling how many people are running around in this country with a fake ID," Danny said.

"I know that, but she was right there in my building and I didn't even know it. She's a hit woman."

"Maybe you should ask your landlord about her habits or something. Maybe he could tell you something that would help."

"Maybe he could." Mac looked at Danny. "The last I saw him, he was getting drunk."

"Might not be a good time to talk to him now, huh?"

"I don't know but it's late and I don't want to be waking up any groggy drunks tonight. We can talk to him in the morning."

"So, what are you going to do in the mean time?"

"Try to get some sleep here I guess."

Danny started to leave the office and then turned around. "Oh, by the way, that guy who was killed in the Christmas display…he was killed by his mistress. They had been having an affair and he called her there to break it off and she was so furious that she even fought with him and stabbed him with one of those trumpets."

Mac shook his head. "Well, I guess he should have stayed in his place."

Danny left the office. Mac walked over to the couch. It would not be comfortable but he supposed he could tolerate it tonight. He laid down on the couch and stared out the window. He wondered what that maniac would try next…and he was sure she would try again. People like that were not prone to give up until they were either stopped permanently or they achieved their goal. He hoped the former would be the way it ended.

As Mac was about to fall asleep, he could see the Empire State Building blinking its Christmas theme. He hoped they got this situation solved so that he and Christine could enjoy Christmas together.