Disclaimer: I don't own Bobby or Alex or Deakins yadda yadda yadda. Why does Dick Wolf get all the best things!?

Author note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, especially Mox (tnargwoxow) for doing it three times, LOL. Sorry it took so long to write a new chap; my computer's gone to buggery, but it's managing to hold it together while I write this next installment! Here you go!

Chapter three: The Decoy

Bobby looked at the crime scene again, taking it all in, forming a theory in his mind.

"What did that old lady have to say?"

"Agnes? Oh, well she has about seven different cats and one of them escaped--" she gave a cynical laugh. She was used to witnesses at crime scenes and how hysterical they sometimes got, but some of the stories they told were beyond peculiar. "---and she was chasing it down the hall. It came into this apartment, as the door was ajar..."

"Oh great," interrupted a CS tech with an annoyed groan. "Cat hair in a scene like this!"

Goren could see his point. With a killer like this they needed every trace fiber they could get and cat hair didn't make anything easier.

Eames continued. "She saw a white male, in his late thirties or early forties. Couldn't see what colour hair or eyes coz the lights were off. She ran back to her apartment."

"Did the killer see her?"

"She thinks so. You don't think he'd come after her do you?"

"Well..." he thought for a second. "No. As far as we know, he's picking random people that mean something to him. He's got a list. He'll come back for Agnes but not now."

"Right, coz he doesn't like to be seen," Eames said, picking up the pieces. "He knows we'll all be here expecting him to come back."

Bobby opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly a thought formed in his mind. "Where is she now? The old lady?" He asked Eames. "She hasn't gone yet has she?"

"No, the Ambulance did a check on her and said she's fine. Why, what's up?"

"It's just...we need everything we can get if we're gunna get this guy."

"You're going to use Agnes as bait?" Eames narrowed her eyes slightly. "Goren..."

Alex Eames was all for Bobby's far-out theories and absurd hunches, because usually they worked themselves out and led them to the perp. But using a civilian as a lure for a serial killer...

"Well," He said rationally, "He's going to come back. He can't let anyone...escape."

"Goren, it's bad enough when I had to be Talbot's bait, and I'm and officer! Deakins won't let you do this." She turned away from him and walked to the door of the apartment.

"Oh come on! Eames, I'm getting a feel for this guy! I'm starting to know what he wants, what he needs. I promise that the old lady won't be in any danger."

She spun around and locked her burning gaze on his hazel eyes. "He's a serial killer Bobby."

"He's a criminal, Eames. He's done something wrong and he's going to get caught." He held her gaze. "Eames, I give you my word."

She gave in. It wasn't that she agreed with him; frankly she thought his plans had been a little off the mark in the common sense department lately, but he was brilliant in a weird, eccentric sort of way, and she trusted him.

"Agnes's outside if you want to talk to her," she said quietly. Clearly he knew what he was doing.

Detective Goren only hoped that he was on the right trail.

In the RRV again, speeding west.

Bobby hung up the phone. "Right, Eames, they've taken the body to the ME's so we'll have to look at it when we get back to the Big Building."

Cop talk for One Police Plaza.

Right now Eames and Goren were going back to the first murder scene, Carla Stanton's house.

"Sure," Eames replied. "What do you reckon this guy's all about, Bobby? Revenge, love? Something along those lines?"

He thought for a while. "No, not exactly. I think this's something bigger. Something's set him off and now he has to finish what he started."

Eames grimaced a little bit at the off-hand tone that Bobby used to refer to the macabre killings of a psycho. "Do you think he knows the vics?"

"Yes. In a way." With that he fell silent and talked no more till they arrived at the scene.

The first thing he noticed was a disheveled man with black hair and puffy eyes trying to break through the CS-tape to get into the house.

"Please! Let me in! It's my house, my possessions. Please!! Oh God, Carla..."

"Ed Stanton?" Bobby asked, putting his hand on the man's shoulder. "Do you mind if we ask you some questions?"

"Who did this to her?! Oh God."

"Mr Stanton," asked Eames, "Where were you at the time of the murder?"

"On – on a plane. I was going to Washington for business...if only I was here, this wouldn't have happened!"

"Mr Stanton I don't think whether you were here on not would've made any difference to this guy." Bobby added, "Except that now we'd have three victims instead of two."

"T – two? A...serial killer did this?"

"We think so, sir." Eames said. She continued with the questions. "You and Carla, were you married?"

"Yes, twenty years this August. We have a son, Charlie. He's twenty one."

"Can you think of anyone who would have a reason to do this to her?"

"No! No one we know would even think like this...."

"Mr Stanton," Bobby interrupted. "...I noticed...scars...on your wife's wrists. She was suicidal?"

The look on the man's face told Bobby everything he wanted to know. "I....no. Well, yes, but she's been happy for a while now."

"What changed her mind?"

"What, about suicide? Common sense I guess..." He dropped his eyes to the floor.

Goren gave a smile; not a warm one. The one that didn't quite reach his eyes. The one where he knew you were lying.

"She just...changed her mind" he clicked his fingers. "Just like that. Depressed one day and jumping for joy the next, is that it?"

Ed Stanton shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "She...well, you see, she went on anti-depressants for a while. Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, you name it. But they didn't work."

"So she needed something better." Eames offered.

"Something that allowed her to...escape...form her body." Deduced Bobby.

Finally the man looked up again, fixing his tear-filled eyes on Goren. "She got doped up on coke. I – I didn't like it but if it kept her here for a while longer why not!"

Goren sighed. With every new piece of information they got, the field just became wider and wider.

Next chapter up soon!

The case is spliting the detectives apart, meanwhile the killer closes in on his next vicitm. Can the detectives figure it out in time?

Thankyou to Grant Moxom, who is kindov like my co-writer/editor person.