-1Hey guys,

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Chapter Six

December 24th

She thought, briefly, about lying to him. She hated giving in to him like this, about giving anything about her, about them to this monster. She wanted to hold onto the memories of them, keep them pure, keep them hers, rather than let Aaron Reiner get his bloodstained hands onto them.

Aaron watched her through the haze, his eyes glinting with amusement at her discomfort. "An answer for an answer, Lindsay. Otherwise the game ends and I walk out of here. How long have you been sleeping with him?"

"Since September." The answer, torn out of her like blood from a wound. "We've been together since September."

"Since September." Aaron sat back. "It's a nice time to fall in love, isn't it Lindsay? The end of the summer, just coming into the fall. New York is beautiful in September, always my favourite time of the year. I remember…."

"I answered your question, Aaron." Her voice was cold. She wouldn't show any weakness in front of him, couldn't show any weakness to him. She owed it to his victims to be strong. "Now its my turn."

"Ask away." Aaron stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one, filling the room with more smoke. "I've got nothing to hide. Not from you, Lindsay."

"Who is the killer? Who are you using on the outside?"

Aaron started to laugh, his shoulders shaking with amusement.

"Aaron? Who is it?" She felt her temper to start to boil, her fragile control starting to snap. She was tired of him, tired of him laughing at her, tired of him hiding in the corners of her dreams. "Answer me, damn you! Tell me who it is!"

With an effort, he brought his laughter under control. "That's not the question you want to ask, Lindsay. That's the question that you think Mac Taylor wants you to ask, isn't it?"

How did he know her so well? How could he read her so easily?

"Yes."

"Ask the question that you want, Lindsay."

"Why me?"

He smiled, the same smile that she saw in her nightmares, the same smile that woke her when she slept alone. "I liked the way you looked when you are frightened."

"I'm not frightened of you, Aaron."

"Yes, you are."

XxxXXXxxx

"Fuck!" Flack slammed his fist against the locker door. "How the fuck did we miss that, Mac? All this time we've been hunting this bastard, and that's been looking us right in the face and we fucking missed it!"

"I know, Don. All I can tell you is I'm sorry. We messed up."

"How'd we miss it?"

"I don't know." Mac sighed. "I asked Danny and Hawkes to go through some of the earlier evidence and they noticed it when they looked at the victim's photos."

Flack uncurled his fist, hissing a breath through his teeth as pain flared through his knuckles. "We let this bastard get under her skin, let him fuck with her head. We let her down. I let her down."

"We've got a break, though. We know what his victim profile is, we know how he chooses them. We can catch him, Don. We will catch him."

"I let her down, Mac." He stared at his hand, slowly curling it into a fist, wishing that he had Aaron Reiner there, that he could take his anger and frustration out on the bastard that had hurt her. "I let her down."

"You were there when she needed you, Don. I know that, so does she. You couldn't protect her all the time."

"I should have known, Mac." He slammed his fist against the locker again, ignoring the pain. "I should have seen it. Dammit, Mac, I should have seen it. Me, Ali, you, Danny, Stella, one of us should have seen it..

"I know."

XxxXXXxxx

October 18th

She hated being alone in her apartment.

When she was alone, he started to appear. In the shadows, cast by the furniture, in the fabric of the curtains, caught in the October breeze, hiding, waiting for her to let her guard down…

And when she tried to sleep, he was there, waiting for her, his face twisted in that same malevolent grin.

"Stop it! All you're doing is frightening yourself."

She looked at the bed and shivered. She knew that there was no way she was going to get any sleep. Not now, not until he came home.

She hated feeling so weak, so frightened. She was a detective, a CSI. She shouldn't be so weak.

She snatched the comforter off the bed, wrapping it around her shoulders, padding barefoot through the apartment. She settled down on the couch, pulling the comforter tighter around her slender body, switching on the television, using it, using the noise to drive away the shadows and the darkness.

Watching the clock.

Waiting until he came home and she could get some sleep, safe from him and the dreams he gave her.

XxxXXXxxx

December 24th 1045

"You okay?"

"Why does everybody keep asking me that?"

Danny shrugged, smiling ruefully, shivering a little in the early morning chill. "I heard you tried to beat the shit out of a locker door."

Flack shrugged, flexing his fingers, ignoring the stabs of pain coming through the joints. "Needed to do something."

"Is she okay?"

"I don't know, Danny." Flack's form seemed to crumble, his shoulders starting to slump under the strain. "God help me, I don't know if she's okay. I don't know how she keeps going. I don't know where she finds the strength."

Not knowing what to say, Danny put his hand on Flack's shoulder. Flack had always been so strong, so protective, so…in control. It was strange to see him this close to losing control, strange to see this display of fear and emotion, strange and frightening.

"We'll get him, Flack. I swear to God, we'll get this bastard, and we're going to nail him to the nearest wall."

"I don't know how much more she can take, Danny. I don't know if she can take any more of this."

"Don?"

Hastily, Flack pulled himself together, turning away from Danny, turning to face his partner. "Yeah?"

If Ali saw the marks of his struggle, the depths of his emotions on his face, she didn't call attention to it. "We got a call."

XxxXXXxxx

"What have we got?"

Stella looked around. "Just working through the evidence from the Carlson case."

"We got anything to go on?" Hawkes came to stand next to her, looking at the photographs spread across the table.

"It's the same knife as he's used in the previous killings." Stella illuminated the wounds, hacked into Lucy Carlson's body. "Same depth on the wounds, same curve, same…" Her words trailed away and she stared at the photos, shaking her head.

"It's just so hard to treat this like just any other case."

"We have to. If you let this get to you, get under your skin, you're no use to Lindsay or to us."

"I know." Hawkes took a deep breath, forcing himself to concentrate. "What do you want me to do?"

"Mac has a list of the people who have been to see Aaron Reiners in Rikers Island. Go through that, see how many of them had contact with Lucy Carlson."

"I'm on it."

XxxXXXxxx

October 22nd

He sat at the small table in his cramped cell. Ignoring the sounds, the smells of the prison around him. Turning the biro through his long fingers, concentrating on the page in front of him. Thinking about her. About her face, the way she carried herself, the way her eyes lit up when she smiled at him.

The way she bit her lip when she concentrated.

The way she died a little more inside, with every new scene he left for her to discover.

His CSI.

He licked the tip of the pen with a flourish and started to write.

Detective Munroe,

Can I call you Lindsay? Detective Munroe seems too formal, especially for everything that we have shared….

End of Chapter Six.

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