1:06 pm, Tuesday – Metropolitan Museum of Art

An overly-cheery greeter smiled at Sara and Danny as they came in. "Welcome to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Would you like to go on one of our tours?"

"No," said Sara. "Actually, we're with the police." Sara and Danny flashed their badges. "We're looking for one of your interns, Dana Carlson. Do you know where she is?"

"No," the greeter said. "But if you go up to the help desk, you could probably find her in the personnel directory."

"Thanks," Sara said.

After making their way to the help desk, they found the section Dana was working in. Walking into the research rooms, they asked caught the attention of the assistant curator. "Excuse me, this is a restricted area. Can I help you?"

Danny was the first to reply as they showed their badges. "Detectives Woo and Pezzini, sir. We're looking for Dana Carlson."

"Is she in trouble?" the curator said.

"No, sir. We just wanted to ask her some questions," said Sara.

The curator furrowed his brow eyes inquisitively and asked, "Does this have anything to do with that murder on campus? Dana left when she heard about it from one of her co-workers. Said she needed to take the day off, so I let her. I don't know where she went after that."

"How did she seem, sir, after she heard the news?" Danny said. Being thorough, he wanted to cover all of the angles, just in case Ms. Carlson was more involved than they all believed.

"Well, she seemed pretty disturbed. She rushed out soon as I told her she could leave," the curator said.

Sara took out one of her cards and gave it to the man. "If she happens to stop by, tell her to give us a call," she said.

"Of course," he said accepting the card.

Danny, always the polite one, thanked the curator before they left.

On their way out, Sara said to Danny, "Let's check her apartment. She's probably at home by now."

Danny agreed, but hunger won out for the moment. "Sure," he said. "But let's get a bite first. I'm starved."


3:32 pm, Tuesday – Streets of New York

Buffy and Willow were finished with researching. Even Giles had to admit they were getting nowhere, and he was usually patient. So they all decided to pound the pavement at around 2:15 to get any info. Giles had called Robin Wood earlier in the day, who was in Japan with Faith at the time, to see if he had any connections in New York through his mother's former Watcher Bernard Crowley. Bernard had died a few years back, peacefully, but had left Robin with valuable connections in case he ever needed them. After a few niceties on the phone, the group went to go check out the spots Robin e-mailed to them. They decided to go together rather than split up. It was going to take longer, but they all understood that New York wasn't Sunnydale. Bigger city, bigger ground to cover, bigger chances to end up in a dumpster somewhere. They didn't want to take the risk of being caught off-guard.


4:05 pm, Tuesday - 11th Precinct

Sara and Danny had gone to Dana's apartment. They expected Dana to be there, grieving over the loss of her friends. Much to Sara's surprise, no one answered the door. The mail hadn't even been picked up.

They both decided to catch some of the other Wicca club members who were unavailable at the time. They had gotten through most of the list, with the exception of Dana and a few others, and had no suspects. One girl mentioned an ex-boyfriend of Kyrie's in a relationship that ended pretty badly, but he had gone back to Florida for an internship at the end of the winter term.

They went back to the precinct to find a woman, dressed professionally and sporting jet-black bangs, talking with Captain Dante and Jake.

"Pezzini, Woo, this is Dr. Felcher. She's a psychologist on loan from the Feds," said Dante.

"Hello, detectives," the doctor replied.

"Hey," Sara said. "So what does the good doctor think about our killer?"

"Well," she began. "I can tell you that this person isn't motivated by rage. The relative precision of the cuts, as well as the lack of bruising or mutilation on the body reveal that they don't hold any grudge against their victims. The victims are just used for whatever purpose and discarded. I would say it's unlikely this person even knows them on a personal level, or does, but is a new acquaintance."

"Which rules out any jealous exes," said Danny.

"Also," said Dr. Felcher. "There may be some possibility this person is linked to the occult in some way. The captain here told me about how self-professed witches were being killed. Some ancient cultures believed that taking the heart of one's victims imbued them with power from the person killed. This killer may believe that taking these hearts, maybe even ingesting them, will give them that power. There is another possibility, though."

"And what's that?" asked Sara.

"It could be that this person is using these hearts ritualistically, in some grand scheme. Whether the result is real or not, this person believes it is, and will act accordingly to carry it out. They may also be extremely charismatic, since more than one person probably did the twins' murders. The killer may have convinced someone to help him, possibly promising him or her power or wealth or something. It's also possible that the killer is like the Son of Sam, hearing voices to murder these people. I wouldn't rule that out."

"That's a lot of possibilities, Doc," Sara said sardonically. "So this person's just crazy?" she said, trying to sum it up.

"Well," answered Dr. Felcher. "Crazy to you and me, but probably not to the point of antisocial personality disorder. This person is calm, patient, and knows what they want. While they stepped up their timetable for some reason, probably because of the police, they don't seem to be acting out impulsively. I would go so far as to say that these attacks were planned out well in advance."

Danny was confused for a moment. "I thought you said this person probably didn't know their victims."

"More than likely, no," Dr. Felcher answered. "But that doesn't mean they didn't keep track of them. These victims weren't random at all. There is nothing even remotely linking the victims together other than being witches. Someone would have to know these people were witches, meaning they had probably observed them for some time or knew someone who knew them."

"So what's the physical type we're looking for?" asked Sara.

"Likely, a white male, in his 30's or 40's. Probably unhappy with his lot in life. Most likely smooth-talking or charismatic. Might have some normal, healthy relationships but prefers to keep to himself. More than likely, if you saw him on the street you wouldn't suspect him. However, keep your eyes open. Nowadays it could be just about anybody with a little bit of knowledge and lot of ambition."

"Thanks, Doc," said Dante.

"My pleasure, Captain." After she left the office Dante closed the door and said, "Look, I don't know how long I can keep the witch details out of the press. The city's starting to lose its head and people want solutions. This thing gets out of hand and we might all be on the unemployment line. Get out there and find something, anything."

As the three detectives left, Dante said, "No, Pezzini. You stay."

Sara, visibly unhappy with that, closed the door to Dante's office.

"How much you been putting in on this case, Pezzini?" Dante asked.

Sara hated this. If it wasn't one thing with Dante it was another: questioning her methods, questioning her adherence to procedure like she was a rookie, or something else. Now he was questioning her commitment to the case.

She answered, "Cap, I've been giving this case all I got and then some."

"Really?" challenged Dante.

Sara challenged him back. "Yeah. Really."

Dante was staring daggers into her, and then relented. "I need you to do anything necessary to get this guy, Pezzini. You got that?"

Sara was a little surprised and voiced it. "I don't need to be told that, captain. I work twice as hard as anybody in this department and you know that."

"Then work harder," Dante retorted.

"Is the brass really leaning on you that much," Sara asked, "getting nervous that you might blow this one?"

Dante was pissed but held it back and said, "You know, you and your old man are quite alike: same attitude, same toughness... and the same amount of lip. Hope you don't end up like him, Pezzini." Sara's smile faded after that comment. "Just go out and do it, alright?"

With that Sara turned and left the office.

Joe, one day I'm going to cash in on that big favor you owe me, Dante thought. Big time.