When Dr. Melinda Warner first saw The Sixth Sense, she felt as if she had found a kindred spirit in the little boy who could communicate with the dead. She saw dead people every single day and some of the secrets they shared with her were enough to make anyone's hair stand on end. She thought herself fortunate in being able to help the dead speak, and doubly so because no one thought it made her crazy. She was simply a well-trained, insightful forensic pathologist helping New York City's crime fighting efforts. In place of supernatural powers, she had her scalpel and fully stocked lab. She could make any body divulge its secrets with the correct battery of tests.

At times, however, none of that knowledge made her job any easier. She could rationalize the concept of death all she wanted, but there was nothing she could do to make sense of the reasons some people killed other people in gruesome ways. She had done the autopsies on the five bodies on which Terry Paige had been convicted and testified at trial that each girl had suffered an unnaturally painful death. She had also autopsied Emma Anderson, helped Det. Olivia Benson prove that Paige had been responsible for her death too. As she pulled her car into the alley behind the New York Public Library, she prayed the body she was about to see wouldn't resemble one of those six.

Collecting a small gear bag from her back seat and taking a deep breath of the frigid air, she walked down the alley toward the crime scene, nodding greetings to officers and techs who looked familiar. She saw Olivia sitting with some man in a black SUV and waved, receiving a brief wave in response. Ducking under the yellow tape, she proceeded to the dumpster. Crime lab techs were busily photographing and cataloging the scene, along with Craig Davis, one of her assistants.

He greeted her as she approached, "Dr. Warner, you're early. CSU wants to finish dusting the lid and rim of the dumpster before they let us take her out, but I've taken all the photos I could without getting in."

"All right." She smiled at the eager young man. He was very bright and a talented pathologist, but he was still a little green. "We need an initial exam from inside the dumpster. I'll let you conduct that, then I'll look over the victim once we get her out."

"What, the boss doesn't feel like dumpster diving today?"

"It builds character, Davis. Now hop in. I'm going to go talk to Det. Benson. Let me know when they're ready to take the body out." She turned and walked away before Davis could argue. She hoped he hadn't noticed that she hadn't even looked at the corpse. Olivia would be able to tell her if the girl was Paige's victim, and Warner wanted that preparation before going to work.

Going up to the passenger side door, she tapped on the glass of the window, which Olivia rolled down. "Don't tell me you're ready for us already."

"Not quite yet. Nothing for me to do until they take her out of the dumpster. It looked a little warmer in here, so I thought I'd join you."

"No problem. Hop in." Olivia's usual open sincerity seemed forced. She allowed Warner to settle herself in the back before introducing her companion. "Oh, by the way, this is Andy Eckerson, with the US Marshals. They're sharing jurisdiction with us on the case. Andy, this is Dr. Melinda Warner, our medical examiner."

Warner reached forward to shake Eckerson's hand, wondering why Captain Cragen had split up his dream team. "Nice to meet you, Marshal Eckerson."

"I'd say the same, but then we'd both be liars. Nothing against you personally, Doctor, just that circumstances rarely make it nice to meet someone in this job."

Olivia smiled slightly. "Your cynicism is so refreshing, Andy." The way he grinned back at her made Warner wonder how long the two had known each other and if their relationship were strictly professional.

The three sat in silence for a few minutes watching the activity inside the yellow tape, until Warner finally brought up the issue she really wanted to address. "So you think Paige is responsible for this one?"

Eckerson answered quickly, not giving Olivia a chance to respond. "Couldn't tell you that. We haven't seen the body yet."

Before Warner could ask for any more information, Davis knocked on the window. "We're ready to take her out, Doc."

She excused herself, regretting that she had to go back into the cold. Two techs had spread a tarp on the ground and were lowering the body onto it. Warner knelt and began her assessment.

As she went over the girl's numerous wounds, she practiced her favorite dissociation technique – reflecting on why she had chosen her career. Most people didn't understand that death was perfectly normal, not really something to be feared, especially when it wasn't happening to themselves. She thought back to a parent/teacher conference she had attended when her son was in first grade. His teacher had some concerns. "Jacob is a very well-rounded, happy child, but you may want to look into getting some counseling so we can nip potential problems in the bud." She produced a drawing from her desk. "The other day, I asked the children to draw pictures of what they would like to be when they grow up and, well, see for yourself." Warner had to hold back her laughter when she saw the drawing, which depicted herself, her son and a skeleton dancing around what appeared to be a gurney. The teacher hadn't appeared to see the humor. "I'm not quite sure what this picture could mean, but you can see why it raised some red flags."

"You'll laugh when you hear the explanation for this. I'm a forensic pathologist, and I work in the medical examiner's office. Jake is always saying that he wants to be a doctor like mommy, so I've taken him to work once or twice to either get him motivated or get him to change his mind. I guess this means he's motivated."

The look of horror on the teacher's face had been priceless. "You let your son visit you in a morgue?"

Warner couldn't let the opportunity pass. "It's not as if I'd let him near a corpse, at least, not until he's a little older." The discussion had ended right there with an insincere 'nice meeting you' and an uncomfortable handshake from the teacher. Warner had laughed all the way back to the morgue. She still had the drawing hanging in her office. It always brought a smile to her face.

She needed a reason to smile on days she had to deal with bodies like this one. She made notes on her clipboard, detailing the condition of the body. In her opinion, there were far too many wounds to record. As she and her assistant rolled the body, she came dangerously close to losing her mask of composure. The detectives weren't going to be happy to see this. Making a few final marks on her notes, she waved toward the Suburban. Olivia and Eckerson got out and walked over to hear her report. Warner found it odd that neither one registered any surprise when they saw the body, as if they knew what to expect. It was almost like they weren't seeing it for the first time.

Olivia opened the conversation with the flat observation, "Brown-eyed brunette. Just his type."

Warner ticked off her list of injuries. "Fluids are present and there's a good amount of vaginal trauma. Facial lacs around the eyes, nose and lips, probably made with a scalpel or some other very precise cutting tool. Bleeding indicates they were pre-mortem. Hands are tied behind her back with a cashmere scarf. Cause of death is probably asphyxiation from inhaling the blood when he cut her throat, but I'll know for sure when I've done the autopsy." She looked up, asking a question she already knew the answer to, "Matches your MO on Paige, right?"

"He beats her, rapes her, cuts her and slits her throat. That about sums it up. But you already knew that, Doc. You did the autopsies last time." Olivia had a strange calm about her, as if she were practicing some dissociation techniques of her own.

Warner understood the inclination. She was angry enough about Paige's treatment of the girl to need a quick count to ten before replying. "How could I forget?"

"Did you find anything tell us who she is?"

Davis jumped into the conversation, "We found her wallet under her when we took her out."

Eckerson inspected the contents of the plastic bag Davis handed him. "College ID from Columbia. Her name's Nicole Martin. She's a junior." Looking back down at the body, he asked hopefully, "Is there any chance it's a copycat? The news has been flashing Paige on TV so much that maybe some other sick bastard is taking advantage of the availability of a scapegoat."

Warner was a little confused by his readiness to invent another perp, especially when he was there specifically to catch Paige. "It can't be. The MO released to the press mentions the scarf and mutilation, but Paige's signature cuts were held back. No one outside the police should know about this particular pattern of lacerations."

He seemed disappointed. "Okay, so this is definitely..."

He was interrupted by the loud crash of the door as Elliot threw it open and stormed out of the building. "Well, we're done with our interviews, thanks to your partner, Eckerson."

Warner could only describe the woman who followed Elliot out of the library as the type of person she would expect to see wrestling bears in the wilds of Alaska. She started speaking as soon as she reached the alley and didn't stop until something else distracted her. "It was pretty obvious that we weren't going to get anything from anyone in there, since there are no windows that face the alley and no one was out here to see Paige dump the girl's body and I think your attitude is pretty unprofessional, Det. Stabler because I am just trying...oh, are we getting our forensics already? I thought I asked you to call me when we found anything out, Andy."

"Relax, Healey. Dr. Warner has just started her examination."

Healey, who Warner could only assume was another Marshal, was not shy about joining the discussion of the victim. "Well, Doctor, if you wouldn't mind starting from the beginning..."

After recapping her report for Elliot and Healey, Warner continued, "You should also see this." She and Davis carefully rolled the body, revealing a plastic bag attached to the girl's back. The bag contained an envelope addressed in an instantly recognizable hand, To Elliot and Olivia, Manhattan SVU, c/o Nicole Martin.

Olivia looked as if she were about to vomit, but managed to say, "It's definitely not a copycat." She leaned forward slightly to get a better look at the note, drawing back immediately as she saw how it was affixed to the victim's flesh. "Are those...?"

"Nails? Yeah. This looks like it was pre-mortem too. And look at these bruises. The coloration indicates that some are new, but others have had time to form and fade. This girl was beaten severely, over a period of several days, I'd say."

"Paige just escaped this morning." Eckerson seemed doubtful of Warner's assertion."Are you saying that he kidnapped and raped a girl who was already being tortured by some other sick freak?"

Elliot stated quietly, "Or his accomplice grabbed the girl a few days ago and started the party early."

"We never proved that he even had one."

Olivia didn't seem eager to discuss the subject, but Healey jumped all over the idea. "What's going on? There was no mention of an accomplice in your report."

Olivia sighed, but reluctantly elucidated the topic, "We had a theory when we were working the case that Paige had to have help in kidnapping the girls and dumping their bodies. We never found the guy, but the whole thing never quite resolved itself with Paige as the only perp."

"And do you have any forensic evidence to support this ludicrous claim?" Healey's demands for illumination seemed relentless.

"No, but there are some holes we never filled in." Warner had never seen Olivia answer a question so timidly.

"Like how and where he got the scarves," Elliot interjected, trying to support his partner.

Healey seemed surprised, "Scarves? You're creating another perp based on the fact that you can't place Paige in some store, God only knows where, buying scarves?"

"Not just scarves, Burberry scarves." Elliot seemed unwilling to let Healey intimidate Olivia, and appeared to be ready to fight the point. "The ones he used to tie his victims hands, found on each body."

Healey remained unimpressed. "Oh, you can get those scarves anywhere. I walk past guys in Times Square everyday selling the things out of garbage bags."

"Yeah, but those are fake. Paige only uses the real thing, and they were purchased in person, never online."

"How could you possibly know where they were purchased?"

Elliot's growing annoyance with Healey was clear in his response. "We tracked them by the lot numbers. Y'know, police work."

Olivia, seeming to gain strength knowing she had the support of her partner, once again became willing to explain. "Each scarf was purchased two days before each girl was taken. They were bought at different stores around the city, Saks, Macy's, the Burberry store off 5th, and all paid in cash. Two-hundred dollar cashmere scarves shouldn't have been that hard to trace back to Paige if he'd bought them himself, especially after his picture was splashed all over the news, but..."

Warner listened to the detectives and Marshals bat their ideas back and forth, and was suddenly very happy that she had chosen a career in medicine. For her work, it was usually a matter of filtering through the information that could be gleaned from a corpse and deciding which details were relevant. From there she could simply order the right tests and wait for the results. If there were a problem, she reviewed her findings and ordered more tests. Whenever a mystery presented itself on her autopsy table, it was only a matter of time before she got all the information she needed to fill in the standard blanks. Cause of death? Check. Suspicious marks? Check. Blood work? Check. She had nearly limitless options and a nice sterile environment in which to exercise them.

The people surrounding her, debating, had no such checklist and no sanctuary. A corpse was only the beginning of the investigation for them. She didn't envy their jobs for a second. They had all fallen silent, lost in their own musings. She was dissatisfied with her inability to give them anything but breadcrumbs, but tried to make the best offer she could, "I'll call you once the autopsy is complete."

"How long?" There was no demand in Olivia's voice, only a plea for some information that would help her stop Paige from killing again.

"I'll make it my top priority." Warner wondered how many people she spoke those exact words to every day. Every squad wanted their data as soon as possible, which she could understand seeing that some cases had no leads other than those provided by forensic evidence. Usually when she told detectives that she was making something a top priority, she meant that it would get done as soon as all of her other top priorities had been seen to. Today, however, her intent matched her words. She headed back to the morgue to make good on her promise.