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Part Ten: Hour upon the Stage

August 24, 2006

By the time Nigel and Jordan arrived at the beach where the latest victim had been found, the rain had petered out, though the air was still heavy with more to come. Carefully, they picked their way over the wet sand toward the police lights.

The girl had been strangled. Jordan knelt and peered at the ligature marks. "Nige, what do you think? A sash of some sort? Look at those marks."

Nigel joined her, his lips pursed as he considered the livid indentations in the girl's neck.

"Could it be this, guys?" Woody held up a gold, braided sash, its ends rough and frayed where they'd been hacked from some larger piece. Both Nigel and Jordan stood up.

"Yeah, yeah, that could be it," the Brit confirmed. He studied it from several angles. "What is it?"

"And where did come from?" Jordan added.

"For your first question, the answer is – I don't know. For the second…." He flicked up his eyebrows and gave them a grim, determined, tight smile. "It was found around the neck of our possible witness."

Jordan recalled that bit of information with a start. "How is… she? He?"

"She. No surprise there, right?" Jordan and Nigel both rolled their eyes in agreement. "She's been taken to Mass General. The paramedics weren't too optimistic."

"Our perp tried to strangle her, too, I take it," Nigel commented.

The detective nodded. "We don't know what stopped him – her – the killer – whatever." He paused. "The second victim put up a pretty good fight based on the way the sand was churned up."

"Good for her." Jordan's voice was as grim as Woody's smile had been. "We'll probably be able to get some good evidence then."

Nigel was poking around the scene. "Good thing, because we're not going to be able to get much from the victim or the scene. This rain…." He gestured futilely around.

XXXXX

Jordan returned to the morgue with the body, while Nigel went to the hospital to see about evidence on the as-of-now survivor. She recorded the corpse's vital stats, shuddering at yet another young woman – this one all of twenty-one – dead for some truly incomprehensible reason. She stopped for a moment, gathering up her emotions, searching for some objectivity. Taking a deep breath, Jordan resumed her clinical observation.

"What's this?" She murmured to herself as a gold glint caught her attention. The girl – Audra Daley – had an object clutched in her right hand. Jordan took photographs and then opened the girl's hand. As much as she hated prying open the joints of the deceased, this was somehow worsen – Audra hadn't been dead long enough for rigor to even consider setting in. If only someone had gotten there a bit sooner….

"Huh." The M.E. bit her lower lip. "Interesting." She removed, photographed and catalogued the item from the victim's hand. A gold pin with the Drama and Tragedy masks. "Could be our tie-in to the models. If she was…." Jordan's jaw dropped. She knew what had strangled the girl. She told herself - for the millionth time perhaps - that every tiny piece of what would eventually add up to show them who.

Jordan worked for nearly an hour before Nigel called her. The second victim had arrested in the ER and died on the table. "Oh, man," Jordan breathed.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Look, everything's arranged here. I'm going home. Unless…?"

She could hear in his voice his desire to get away from the case. "Nah," she told him. "I've got a few things to run and then I'm outta here, too."

"Autopsy tomorrow?"

"Yep."

"You sure, luv?"

Jordan glanced at the theater masks pin. "Yeah, it's fine. Nothing I can't handle."

She spent another hour taking prints and fiber samples before the door creaked open, driving her heart into her throat with a girlie squeak she would have rather no one ever heard. Woody grinned at her and apologized. "You'd probably hate for a description of that sound to get around."

She shot him a very level gaze. "Tell me – was Sam planning on using Marquez… or Hoyt?" Her own smile was playful.

"It wasn't…." He closed his mouth with such force Jordan was pretty sure she could hear his fillings rattle. "How'd you know about that?"

"Danny."

"You said you hadn't seen him in months!"

She shrugged. "I haven't." She stripped off her gloves and watched his discomfiture from beneath her lashes. "I never said we hadn't talked."

Woody had the grace to admit defeat with a shake of his head. He watched her as she washed up. "You getting ready to leave?"

She shrugged. She'd half meant it when she'd told Nigel she'd leave, but each "little thing" she did seemed to lead to another and another. "I – uh – I don't know. I found a few things…."

Woody was more alert instantly, his eyes flashing. "Like what?"

She showed him the pin. "I got prints from it. The victim's – and someone else's."

He cocked an eyebrow. "You're not just trying to get my hopes up, are you?"

"Nope." She showed him the comparisons of the prints. "It's a little smudged, but usable."

"Could be a friend's or someone in her family."

"Could be. But it could be the killer's. Woody, this guy has been so careful that he could be getting careless – finally!"

He chewed the inside of his lip. "You ran it?"

"Yeah," she admitted with a sigh. "Okay, so it might not lead us to the killer – it might help us convict when we do find him."

"Hey, I'm not criticizing, Jordan. This is – This is one of the best breaks we've had."

"There's more." She pointed out the murder weapon. "I figured out what it is." He waited. "It's part of one of those tie-backs they use at theaters – to hold the curtains back."

Woody looked at the cord with a new perspective. "You sure?"

"Pretty sure. If I'm right, I bet Bug can find all sorts of lovely details to help us figure out where it came from. Or at least narrow down the search."

Woody nodded. "The girl was a drama major at Radcliff. Maybe it was someone who knew her."

"Yeah." Jordan reached a hand around and massaged her left shoulder. "Nigel told me. About the other victim."

He nodded again.

"If I could find January's murder…."

"Still nothing?

She shook her head. "I even went back and checked December just in case."

Woody studied her for a moment, concern in his eyes. With her hair drawn back, her face looked thinner and, maybe it was the long day she must have had, but the circles under her eyes were too pronounced. "You're doing everything you can."

She tilted her head. "I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere."

"It'll happen. He made mistakes this time. There's going to be leads." He paused. "Let's get out of here, grab a late dinner."

"Woody-"

"I've hardly seen you, Jo."

Her eyes widened and in them, Hoyt detected a new worry – not that he was getting to close, but that she'd waited too long. "We agreed there were too many distractions. This case or us. Didn't we?"

"Yeah, I know. I'm not – I'm not trying to accuse you of anything. I just… miss seeing you." To reinforce his point, he crossed the room and took her in his arms, kissing her forehead gently before moving to her mouth. She relaxed against him for a moment, but pulled away all to soon. He gazed down at her, his eyes questioning.

"We said we weren't going to – um – do this again," she reminded him.

He brushed a thumb along her cheek bone, watching her eyelids flutter as she fought the desire he was building in her. He dipped his head and kissed her jaw, moving up slowly to her ear. "I know what I want, Jo." He threaded his fingers through her hair and tickled the lobe with soft nibbles. "You."

"Woody-"

He kissed her again, teasing her mouth open with his tongue. She moaned softly, the sound undulating through his body like a rising tide. His fingers kneaded her scalp as he pressed her to him with more ardor. For a delicious moment, she responded, her body curved into his, her tongue brushing his own, her pulse racing. Woody lifted her up, his arms around her waist. He hoped he knew these hallways as well as he thought he did, because the last thing he wanted to do as he carried her off to her office was have to stop kissing her to see where he was going. Idly he wondered if her couch was still stacked with files.

Then she was sliding out of his embrace, pulling away, shaking her head.

He let her go with a frustrated snort and a shake of his head. He backed away, ready for the usual Jordan litany of why this shouldn't happen. He could have sworn she must have written it down over the years. "All right, Jordan. Why not now? Why last time and not now?"

She arched an eyebrow at him and, with a sweep of her hand, indicated he should look around the room. "Woody, we're not even in an office. We're in a room where dead bodies are examined. It's creepy."

His blue eyes took on a hopeful sparkle. "That's it?"

"And we both needed time to think."

He closed his eyes as a deep sigh escaped. When he looked at her, the sparkle was gone. "Here we go."

Anger flashed across her face. "What do you want, Woody?"

"What do I-?" He exhaled angrily. "What do I want, Jordan? I want you!"

"Why?"

His look of disbelief stung her, but she held firm, saying nothing until he deigned to answer. "Why? Because – Because I love you."

"Then you'll be willing to wait until we solve this damn case."

"Jordan, it makes sense – some sense! But – Why is that so important to you?"

"Why did you shut me out of your life for so long?"

He struggled for a moment with the twist in the conversation, but eventually went along with her. He glanced at the floor, then back at her. "Because I was scared and angry and you were the only person I knew I could make feel as badly as I did. And then – Then I started getting my head back on straight and saw how much I'd hurt you and I didn't want to risk hurting you… Damn it, Jo!"

"It's not easy, is it?" Her voice was tight with tears, her eyes warm with empathy.

He took several deep breaths. "I'm beyond that. I want us to move beyond it. I want there to be us."

Jordan took the leap she had shrunk from for so long. "So do I, Woody. But I want us to stand a chance. And that's not going to happen if we start off in the – in –" She chuckled. "- Somewhere there's a whole convent of nuns who are really happy, even though they can't explain why." She took a deep breath. "We don't stand a chance if we start off in bed."

"Jordan, it's not all about that. It's not."

"I know. But – it would be easy to start there and tell ourselves that great sex meant a great-"

"Great?"

"You didn't think so?"

He laughed. "No, I thought so. I didn't know if… you…."

She smiled at him and this time it was Jordan who crossed the few steps between them. She put her arms around his neck and looked up into his eyes. "It was great, Woody. Really, really great." She shrugged. "But I want more than great sex with you. I want a great relationship. And that means, in the beginning, I want fewer distractions and pressures."

"Jo, there are always going to be homicides."

"But hopefully there aren't always going to be psychotically clever murderers stalking women for reasons we haven't begun to understand. I want to be able to go out for chowder when it's cold, watch the Patriots on Sunday and have a few beers, sit and tell each other what we did for our – our seventh birthdays." She watched his face, searching his eyes for comprehension, which she found. She finished with a sly grin. "And then we can have great sex."

He smiled at her before dropping a light kiss on her forehead. "Thank God."

"For great sex?"

"That, too." He hugged her to him. "For a minute there I was really worried."

"About…?"

"I thought you'd grown up completely."

She smirked. "No, probably no chance of that, Farm Boy. Just enough to know what sitting on the fence got me and enough more to realize that old habits weren't going to make me any happier than they ever did."

He brushed a hand over her hair, loving its soft texture against his palm. Slowly, drawing out the moment, he dipped his mouth to hers, until she leaned up and caught him by surprise. When they pulled away – at the same time – her face was flushed and her honey colored eyes glowed with a desire that was as much emotional as it was physical. Woody kept smiling at her. "Can I take you home if I tell you all about my seventh birthday party?"

She rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm kidding." He kissed her forehead again. "We'll wait."

XXXXX

Woody ended up leaving before Jordan. He protested, but she promised him she could get from the bathroom to her car safely by herself. Reluctantly, but exhausted, his old injuries acting up a bit, he gave in.

Jordan was determined to go home. She was too tired to do any good tonight. As she hurried down the hall to her office to collect her purse and keys, she saw one of the night security guards walking ahead of her. She started to greet the woman, but realized this one must be new. Jordan was familiar with everyone else. The scent of a strong aftershave lingered in the hall, making the M.E. shake her head in wonder. "Interesting personal choice."

The woman with the slight build and long, blond ponytail turned around. "Can I help you?"

Jordan knew why they hadn't found January's victim. And she knew she wasn't heading home after all.

END Part Ten