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"Danny did not kill Minhas," Stella stated, her green gaze daring Mac to say otherwise. In her hand was the printed paper that Donauh had brought them. Mac had closed the curtains, sealing his office from view of the rest of the lab.

"I know that," he said, meeting her eyes long enough for her to see the sincerity of his words. "That is not what's at stake here."

Stella looked pass the boss and faced her friend. Mac looked tired. With everything that had been going on lately, she doubted he had seen the inside of his apartment the past three days. And she knew that she was reacting emotionally when Mac needed her to be rational, a good sign that she was tired too.

"Have you shown this to Danny yet?"

Mac sighed. He was aware of the mental stress the young man had been under for the last few days, since the Minhas' shooting and, like Stella, he knew that that story hadn't completely died with the end of the IAB's investigation. Working in a closed environment as the NYPD network of police stations was sometimes more harmful than helpful. This was one of those times.

"No, I wanted your opinion on it first. What does this tell you?" He asked, pointing to the incriminating piece of paper in the woman's hand.

"Well, let's pretend for a moment here that Danny is a total stranger and see what this information tells us under those circumstances," she said, taking a deep breathe. "We have a killer that has obviously chosen his victims to pass along a message."

"Yes, but what exactly is he trying to tell us?" Mac pondered. A number of theories had already crossed his mind. What he now needed was to cross them with Stella's theories on the matter. Somewhere in between, they would be closer to their psychopath.

"He's trying to get our attention. The bruising markings on the victims' backs are like brands, undeletable signs of a committed sin. He's accusing us of letting Danny walk out after shooting a cop? Maybe one of Minhas colleagues or a former partner?"

"You think that this might be the work of someone in the force?"

"You don't?"

Mac didn't answer her. They both knew that being a policemen didn't meant that they were above mistake or that their moral values were better than anyone's else. It just meant that, for them, the law was not only something to be respected but also the reason why they got up in the morning to go to work. It was their work.

But the former marine knew that everybody failed and everybody had his/hers personal boogieman, waiting to play on their weaknesses and break them. For a police officer to do something like this to affect another one, he would have to be broken pretty badly.

Mac looked at the files on top of his desk. Danny's work for the past five years. They would have to go over all of them, see if any of the perps that Danny had helped to put away was out and seeking blood. The options were just too many…

"The way I see it, this is either someone targeting Danny, seeking out revenge, or…"

"Or?"

Mac met her eyes, relying on their years of working together to know that she would get there on her own. Looking closely, he could see the second that understanding came to her. Her eyes turned to slits and she seemed to double in size.

"You can't be seriously considering that!"

"I'm not considering anything at this point, Stella! But you know as well as I that we have to cover every possibility. We have six unrelated victims, none of which shows a single sign of having fought their attacker. Now, that tell us that, either they all knew the killer, something that evidence shows us to be unlikely, or that the killer was someone that they would implicitly trust…"

"Like a cop," Stella said, knowing where he was going with this. "I agree with you on that point, but Danny is probably the only cop in this city that wouldn't do it. What would be the sense of killing six people whose last name would spell his name?"

"We've seen stranger," Mac said. "And, like I said, we have to consider every possibility."

Every gut feeling inside his body was telling him that Danny was innocent, just one more victim in all of this. A deeper sense, something that somewhere along his years as a marine had become a part of him and had taught him when to duck even when the enemy was invisible, was telling him something more disturbing. Danny was in danger and the longer they took to catch this guy, the closer that danger became.

"And in the mean time?"

"We pursuit every piece of evidence we have so far, we go over our previous findings all over again, and you and I are going back to the Stutons' house."

Stella nodded, her hands smoothing the wrinkles her anger had imprinted on the crumpled paper. She handed it back to Mac.

"And Danny?"

"Danny's off the case. I'll order him home and get a uniform to watch him." Mac said. When he saw the accusatory look on Stella face, he realized she had misunderstood him. "For protection, Stella," he clarified. "If this is someone trying to get to Danny, I want to make sure he fails."

"Danny will not be happy," Stella said. Danny's Italian-tempered reactions were no strangers to any of them.

"I know," Mac said. "Tell him I need to talk to him, will you?"

Stella nodded as she made her way out. Danny wouldn't be happy at all.

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