I Thought It Was You - 19/20

Summary: A little killing club killer, a little smut, a little unexplained poisoning and a worried John.

A/N: If I don't end this story now, it's never going to end and I'll never be able to write something new! So please forgive the farcical nature of this ending. I think it will entertain. And listen, just because Dena the Hack did it, don't shoot me. I've thought this was the case for a long, long time. Thanks for all the fantastic feedback!

The last part will be the epilogue.

Dedicated to the Queen Jolie, as crowned by the Loonatics.

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John handed Natalie a glass of water then he stalked around to the back of the couch as the hypnotist talked quietly to Natalie. John paced towards the door and then spun around and went the other way. He could see that Natalie was shaking, but the hypnotist, Andrew Bission, had waved him away. He was going out of his skin.

"John?"

Natalie's query snapped him out of the rage into which he was slipping. In a second he was sitting next to her. He took her hands in his and looked into her face wondering if she could ever forgive him.

"I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry about?"

"I know you care for her."

John looked down at their joined hands, a troubled look on his face.

"This is my fault. Wait," John said when Natalie opened her mouth to interrupt.

"I knew that she was falling in love with me, but I kept leading her on. I had hoped that I would be able to love her, but I couldn't. You already had me heart. It wasn't fair to her."

"It doesn't justify what she's done. Copying Marcie's book to cover killiing me. I just wish I had remembered this earlier, before that girl was killed. Before anyone was killed."

Natalie shivered. The images that she didn't realize were there flooded her mind. All the pieces that Andrew's techniques helped her fit together. How Evangeline was always around before a murder and at the police station afterwards. The things she had said to Natalie that didn't make sense at the time. The face she had seen in the woods when she first came to. The mint she had given Natalie before she got into the car with Antonio outside the Diner.

"It could all be coincidence."

"The woods? When we thought she was missing?" John picked up his phone and dialed Bo.

"I wonder how Marcie will feel about this. She was always singing Evangeline's virtues." Natalie lifted the glass off the coffee table and took another sip.

>>>>>>

"You shouldn't be here, you're a witness."

Natalie turned to look at her Uncle as he entered the small, dark room. She had been watching Evangeline's interrogation. John was standing stoically against the wall as one of his newly trained, and competent, officer did the questioning. He was there, as he told her earlier, to rattle the lawyer.

The new assistant district attorney Hugh Hughes was also present to assure that everything went by the book and counter Evangeline's attorney's protests. The attorney was her old boyfriend, the one her family wanted her to marry. The man more suitable than John McBain.

"She tried to kill me three times. She did kill three other people."

"And if we have to go to trial you'll have to testify and this is not..."

"Hugh knows I'm here. He's certain that Ms. Williamson will be striking a deal. She's already given up two of her accomplices."

"Who?"

"Her sister, some wanna be actress. She helped set up Julie and Hudson. And some janitor in her building who has been doing the heavy lifting in return for help with his green card."

"She's not going to be able to avoid prison time."

"I think she's more concerned about losing her law license."

"No one loses their license for murder in Llanview."

Natalie grudgingly agreed.

"She'll make a good jailhouse lawyer."

"That's not all she'll be."

Bo looked at his niece and assistant curiously.

"She just started to explain why she did it."

"Besides the fact that she's a homicidal maniac?"

"Besides that. Shhh."

"Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. It was always about Natalie. Look at me John. Look at me." Evangeline stood up and yelled at John. She ignored her attorney's attempts to quiet her.

"Look at me!" she screeched.

John moved off the wall and turned to face her.

"You stupid fool."

"Stupid?" John spoke for the first time.

"You wanted her so badly you would come to my office and screw me. Do you think I didn't know who turned you on?"

"That's not true."

"Don't lie to me now. It's time for the truth."

"Evangeline," her lawyer warned.

"I know what I'm doing. I'm telling Mr. Cop how many clues he missed." Evangeline ran her finger up John's chest to his chin.

He stiffened, but did not flinch away. His blue eyes, however, were full of rage.

"It was Natalie I wanted. But she wouldn't return my advances. She wanted you, so I took you and I kept you."

"Then why kill her?"

"Because no one, man or woman, will get away with rejecting me."

"That's enough!" Evangeline's lawyer stood up. "I need time to confer with my client."

"Actually, you need time to confer with me." Hugh Hughes in all his practically palindromic alliterative glory stood up and buttoned his suit jacket over his buff body.

Natalie snuck herself a little peek. John couldn't see her through the mirror. However, when she looked up he was unnvervingly looking exactly in her direction.

She shrugged and turned to leave.

"Hey, Natalie."

"Yes?" she turned and looked at her Uncle.

"Why don't you take the next week off to rest."

"What about John?"

"I think he has some time coming now that this case is wrapped up."

"Good." Natalie turned and walked out and headed for John's office.