A good portion of the afternoon passed with us working on reports, discussing events and planning our next moves. Frost had managed to do the background check for 150 of the 200 participants. I knew that he was working quick, but with a killer on the loose who didn't waste much time we were under a lot of pressure.

Maura had made some calls and pulled some strings with the governor who again did the same with the policepresident. As a result I received the allowance to officially help the LAPD to solve this crimes.

We were now sitting in one of the smaller conference rooms and I studied the tall, red haired man that was seated in front of me. He was working for the company that had organized this event.

The doc, who had wanted to join me for this interrogation sat next to me and waited for me to begin. I greeted him politely and noticed that he was annoyed.

"Look detective. I'm really sorry for what happened. But I hope that you understand that I just organized this event. I was never present when the murders occurred. There is no information whatsoever I could give you on that behalf." He stated.

I gave him a long silent stare that appeared to make him nervous. "Mr. Brooks. I hope you understand that I still have a few questions regarding the organizing of this conference. Whose idea for example was the murder game?

The man stared at me. "The LAPD wanted a workshop. One of my interns came up with the idea. We thought that it would be funny and a good way to test the collaboration between the departments. The ME and chief of police thought that it was a great idea so we went for it." He shrugged.

"So the messages in the envelopes were planned?" I asked and he nodded, obviously realizing that there was only one way for him to get this over with quickly. His cooperation showed in the posture of his body.

"We had 100 envelopes, one for each team. 98 envelopes were filled with the message that a murderer was hiding in plain sight. One envelope contained a note that these two team members were to act as if they had been killed and the last one belonged to the killers so to speak. The last two envelopes contained vague ideas how to pull it off and stating possible motives. As those two teams weren't participating in solving the case we wanted them to work together as a team in another way."

That made sense to me. Maura nodded slightly and said: "You need the ME for the probable causes and the detective to stage the scene." Mr. Brooks nodded.

"What about the video call after Dr. Clarks death?" I asked, seeing a frown on his face that let me know that this hadn't been part of the plan before he even confirmed it in words.

"Why didn't you stop the madness right away?" was my next question. "You could have alerted the police." I pointed out but he shook his head vehemently.

"As I've mentioned before, detective, I wasn't present. My presumption was that someone form LAPD or the ME's office would call if something would go south. I never received a call." He shrugged but I wouldn't let him off the hook so easy.

"Did they know the details of the murder game? Would they have known that the video call wasn't part of the plan?" I questioned and saw his face turn a shade paler.

"Or did you even know all the details of the plan?" his face went even paler.

"I'm a busy man, detective and I had no reason to mistrust my intern. He has been in our company for 6 months and he was always reliable and trustworthy."

I refrained from shaking my head. He was the boss, he should have checked. Now, he was in deep trouble because a judge could always charge him with felony murder. It was his game that had somehow led to the death of two people but I wasn't the one who was going to tell him.

He only relunctantly gave us the interns address, but as soon as we've got it I called my liason officer at LAPD and let him dispatch a unit to bring him in. Then we dismissed Mr. Brooks who quickly left the room without much of a goodbye.

Someone from the hotel stuff brought us some coffee and we discussed the results of the interrogation. Maura who had never been allowed to witness one was impressed and shaken at the same time.

She had told me earlier that day that she had become an ME because she wasn't good with the living people. I still recalled her blush and my reassuring her that it was fine.

A background search had revealed that Mr. Brook had been working for the company Chilli events for almost 10 years. The rating on the internet was rather bad, which didn't surprise me, now that I had met him. If the other employees were as lazy as he, the ratings had to be bad. "Sloppy work." She mumbled and Maura agreed.

"I bet that he let the intern do all the work." I continued.

"He doesn't feel sorry for the victims. Just sorry how the things make him look." The doc stated, explaining that she had taken several trainings in behavioral reading. Coming to think of it, I had the same feeling in my gut. Part of me almost wished that he would be charged with felony murder but that was mean and I was glad that I wasn't the judge who had to decide this because of being biased.

The phone call from the liaison officer came a good hour later, telling us that they hadn't been able to find the intern. His apartment had been disheveled and chaotic as if he had left in a hurry. "Could also be possible be the result of a fight." The officer said which didn't surprise me. We were living in a world were people tried to make a lot of money without having to invest much effort or energie. It was possible that he had been offered a lot of money to do what he did. Now he was either on the run from the police or some perps, or worst he had been silenced as a witness.

Grunting, I leant back in my chair to stare at the ceiling. We were once more stranded. I highly doubted that the police chief or the head of the ME department would be happy with an interrogation, but they were the next ones on my list. Although I doubted that they had much to say except that they had decided to do the conference and lay the organization into chilli events hands.

But who knew, maybe they would surprise us with some information that we didn't know. Hence, ten minutes later we were on our way to the precinct.

As we were a bit early we stopped at a café where I invited Maura to a cup of coffee. My offer to buy her a blueberry muffin was declined though which didn't hinder me to take some. One for now and two more to eat at the hotel room later. The doc chuckled at my antics.

"You really are one of the best detectives I have ever worked with." The blonde said while stirring her tea. We were sitting at a window and I was glancing outside, hoping that she wouldn't notice my blush. I think I have never been complimented so often by the same person before and the words coming from Maura meant a lot to me.

"Thank you. You are definitively the best ME I had the pleasure to work with." I replied and saw how she blushed as well.