The following morning, a slow drizzle fell on New York as Kabal and Stryker sat in a vegetarian café on the Upper East Side eating breakfast. Well, Stryker was. Kabal refused to eat in public because Kintaro's fire had bored grotesque holes through his cheeks, and those bulbous black holes, in his opinion, were more than enough to frighten normal, non-burned folks. His face made Two-Face's in The Dark Knight look like that of an angel, and no amount of reconstructive surgery could help him. It was bad enough that people could see his other scars. But he couldn't bear to hear the gasps or the hushed sounds of mothers rushing their children away from him like he was some kind of monster when they saw his face. As a result, he only ever ate or drank in private and only his partner and Mrs. Huang ever saw him without his mask. So while Kurtis noshed on a brown egg omelet and drank some sort of green smoothie, Kadeem thoughtfully looked out the window at the world outside, the yellow iPhone on the table in front of him.

After a few minutes in silence, he looked at his partner and pointed to his plate of half-eaten food. "Feeling better?" he asked.

The other nodded enthusiastically. "Mm-hmm! Christ, we haven't stopped to breathe since this thing started." He took another bite of his eggs. "Has it occurred to you-"

"Probably," he cut him off.

Kurtis narrowed his eyes in annoyance. "The bomber's playing a game with you. The envelope. Breaking into the other apartment. The dead kid's shoes. It's all meant for you."

"Yeah, I know," he nodded.

"So?" the other urged. "Is it...them?"

Kadeem cocked his head. "Them?" he repeated.

"The Black Dragon."

"Perhaps," he thoughtfully replied and then inhaled deeply. "Kano's not usually this subtle, though. Definitely not this much cloak and dagger. And he wasn't in the U.S. when Kyle Coffey was killed, he was still just a low-level thug in his dad's gang in Australia." Suddenly, the iPhone chimed beside them and they exchanged a look.

Kadeem swiped on the notification and a voice said: You have one new message. Beep. Beep. Beep. A picture then filled the screen. He looked at it. A cruel, thirty-something woman with heavily made up eyes. Both of the detectives stared at it.

"Could be anyone," the burned detective finally declared.

"Could be," Kurtis agreed. "Lucky for you, I pay attention to pop culture."

"What do you mean?"

"Lucky for you, I have an Instagram account and apparently know something you don't know." He got up and picked up the TV remote from the cafe counter and aimed it at the TV mounted in the upper corner opposite their table. He began to flick through the channels. Kadeem, puzzled, watched him to see where his partner was going with this. And then the yellow iPhone rang.

He picked it up. "Hello?"

An old lady's trembling, croaking voice responded, her voice thick with a Boston accent. "This one...is a bit...defective. Sorry...she's...blind." She paused. "This is...a fun...one. I'll give you...twelve hours…"

"Why are you doing this?" he demanded to know.

"I like...to watch you...dance," the voice replied before the line instantly went dead in Kadeem's ear. He glanced over at Kurtis, who'd found what he was looking for. A news channel was showing video footage with the same, hard-faced woman prominent on the screen. Under the segment was a running byline that read "Make-over queen Nikki Prince dead at 32."

"Turn that up," he ordered his partner, who obliged.

The news was showing a clip from a television show with Nikki supervising a makeover for a plump, pale man with a strong genetic resemblance to the blonde woman. "There's really only one thing we can do with that ensemble, don't you think, Kolby?" she asked the camera. Then an unseen audience started baying "Off! Off! Off!" Kolby awkwardly laughed as Nikki then started to pull down his pants to reveal a pair of sweat-stained boxers.

"Nikki Prince got famous as an influencer on Instagram and YouTube," Kurtis explained. "She would give people makeovers, but the way she would do it was what got her followers. She would do things to really embarrass people and shame them into allowing her to work her magic. But people loved the drama. Thought she was funny so she got her own TV show doing pretty much the same thing, only in front of a live studio audience."

Kadeem was about to ask him a question when suddenly a familiar face walked into the restaurant. In his mid-thirties, he was a man that time and age hadn't even started to touch, though it was odd to see him out of uniform, wearing jeans and a non-descript raincoat. The detective would recognize that silver hair and face, even with his eyes blotted out by his wet sunglasses, anywhere. Beside him, clutching his gloved hand tightly, was a creature with brown hair as long and free as her mother's falling down her back. She was a pale little thing, spindly and small, not at all surprising given what she was. He immediately got to his feet to greet them.

"Tomas," he said after the cyber-ninja had finished speaking with the cashier, drawing his attention.

At the sound of his name, the man turned and then a smile split his face in two. "Kabal!" he greeted in his thick Czech accent as they clasped forearms. "Where is your better half?"

"Here," Kurtis now said as he approached them, having abandoned the TV. "How are you doing, Old Man?"

"Oh, very good," he replied as he removed his sunglasses and grabbed the girl's hand again. "We are just in town because Little Miss, here, managed to chip her tooth in my weapons class, so we had to see the dentist. Her parents are preoccupied since the twins and the baby are sick with bronchitis, so that is why I am here instead of them. Thought I would treat her to a smoothie since she was very brave while the dentist fixed her tooth. Say hello to the detectives, Livy," he then urged the tiny girl. Livy hesitated and refused to say anything, prompting Tomas to tell her, "It is okay, milaku, they are police officers and our friends."

The eight-year-old knew them, but had evidently forgotten them. She was a shy girl and so she timidly pressed herself a little more closely to her uncle's leg. "Hi," she softly told them.

The adults smirked in response and then Tomas looked back and forth at the detectives with his unnaturally cybernetic blue eyes. "So how are you both? It has been a while since I have seen you."

"Oh, the same old, same old," Kurtis told him. "We're working a case right now. A tough one."

"Oh?" he said, lifting his eyebrow.

"Yeah," Kadeem agreed, and then he sighed heavily before he stepped closer to him and cupped his arm. "Listen, Tomas, you know I'm glad to see you both, but it's dangerous in the City right now. You need to get home to the Land That Time Forgot."

The cyber-ninja frowned. "What is going on?" he asked.

"It's a long story, but we have a terrorist on the loose," he quietly answered. "He's snatching people up on the street and strapping explosives to them. And he's doing it to get at me. So please, get home as soon as possible. So far he's just grabbing random people, but I don't want to wait for him to start targeting my friends, or - God forbid - this little one."

Tomas smirked. "My friends, if this bomber attempts to grab me or her, he will soon regret it," he told them. "But I will do what you say. We will return home now."

"Good deal," Kurtis told him as the lady at the register now gave the Enenra two small strawberry smoothies in to-go cups.

He quickly thanked the woman and then looked at the two of them, but especially Kadeem, who sighed and asked, "So…I haven't seen Anya for a while either, Tomas. How is she?"

The smile immediately fell from the Enenra's face. "She is doing well," he told him after a long pause. "Her days are filled with tending to our clumsy lot. She stays quite busy."

"I imagine it's a full-time job," Kurtis softly smirked, "being the unofficial mother to all those kids."

"I can't think of anyone better to do it," Kadeem wistfully replied.

Now Tomas sighed. "My friend, let me give you some advice," he began, patting his shoulder. "You need to let it go. Let her go. You are only torturing yourself by pining for something that will never happen. She is happy with her life as it is. If you are truly her friend, you will be happy for her."

A hard knot of pain sprang into the burned detective's throat at his words, so he nodded, unable to speak. It wasn't just as easy as letting go. But he inhaled deeply, patted Tomas on the shoulder, and then clasped forearms with him again.

"Oh, hey, I meant to ask you if you knew anything about Czech stationery," Kurtis now interjected.

Now Tomas' smile returned. "Just because I am Czech does not mean I am an expert on all facets of our culture," he replied. "To me, paper is paper."

"The bomber sent us a letter with Bohemian stationery," Kadeem told him, having swallowed his pain. "It was written in Bohemian ink."

"As much as I would love to help you, Detectives," he said, "I have no knowledge of these things. But I wish you well on solving your case. If you have further questions for me on the nuances of Czech culture, you know where to find me." He bowed his head to them and then pulled Livy along. "Come, milaku, it is time to go home."

That afternoon, both Kabal and Stryker found themselves with Lieutenant Mansfield in the morgue, staring down on the recently deceased Nikki Prince, her body ghastly pale and her skin mottled gray. Autopsy incisions that had been stitched shut formed zippers across her torso. The L-T held a file folder in her hands and was currently reading the paperwork contained within.

"Nikki Prince," she read aloud. "32. Had one of those makeover shows on the TV." She looked at a file again and was clearly impressed by the figures she saw, judging by her pursed lips and nodding head. "Apparently she was very popular. She was going places."

"Not anymore," Kadeem morbidly replied. "So, she's been dead for two days. According to one of her staff - Ramon Sanchez - she cut her hand on a rusty nail in the garden." He bent over to look at the influencer's hand. He immediately spotted a deep, nasty cut between her thumb and index finger; an injury this deep would've required stitches, but he saw no evidence that it had been stitched, nor evidence that the wound had been healing. No scabs, no scar tissue. Very odd. "That's a pretty bad wound. Tetanus bacteria entered the bloodstream and then goodnight, Nurse."

"I suppose," Stryker said.

Kadeem agreed with his partner's skeptical tone. It was too easy. "So...what's wrong with this picture?" he prodded him.

Now the L-T pointed. "What about that?" she asked. Further up Nikki's arm, there was a red scratch, very faint. The burned detective glanced at it but it offered no further insight either.

"It can't be as simple as it seems or the bomber wouldn't be directing us towards it," he sighed in frustration. "Something's wrong." He pulled the coroner's giant magnifying lens over the body and quickly examined the scratch. Nothing strange about it. Then a thought occurred to him. He abruptly swiveled it up to her forehead and found what he was looking for. He glanced over at Dr. Koontz, the medical examiner who'd done the autopsy on her. "That cut on her hand, Doc…Would have bled a lot, wouldn't it?"

The aging man nodded. "Yeah."

"But the wound is clean," he mumbled as he stood upright. "Very clean. And fresh. How long would the bacteria have been incubating inside her?"

"Um…about eight to ten days," the doctor shrugged.

"The cut was made later?" Stryker asked.

"After she was dead?" Mansfield chimed in.

"Had to have been," Kadeem told them. "So, the question is, how did the tetanus get into the dead woman's system?" He looked at his partner. "I have an idea. Go to Nikki Prince's house like you're a reporter."

Kurtis frowned. "Why not just go there as a cop?"

"Because I need data," he said. "And if the family thinks we're looking at them, they might lawyer up, and by the time we can get a search warrant, they could have gotten rid of any pertinent evidence."

He sighed. "And what am I looking for?"

"Nikki Prince's background. Family history. Everything."

"Right," he said and then left.

"There's something else we haven't thought of," Mansfield now told him.

"Is there?" he asked, looking at her.

"Yes," she replied. "Why is he doing this? The bomber. If this woman's death was...suspicious, why point us at it?"

"Good Samaritan?" he suggested.

"Who forcibly recruits suicide bombers?"

Kadeem shrugged. "Bad Samaritan?"

"I'm serious, Kabal!" she snapped. "Listen, I'm cutting you slack here, letting you run this case however crazy you want because you have this uncanny instinct that just blows my mind. So I'm trusting you. But out there, somewhere, there's some poor old woman decked out in enough C-4 to take down a building, and she's waiting for you to solve a puzzle. Just tell me something! What is this, what are we dealing with? Is this the Black Dragon?"

Kadeem looked at her, his seafoam eyes expressive behind his mask, thoughtful, eerily inspired. "Something new," he softly replied.

Stryker stood outside a swanky condominium on the Upper West Side with a man who looked sorely out of place here in spite of his designer clothes. Yes, the Valentino Uomo Hawaiian print shirt looked tacky, in the detective's humble opinion, but he knew that shirt had cost at least $700. Kolby Prince himself was not anything special, like he had been Nikki's dowdy, fat cave troll of a twin. There was nothing remarkable about him; dull blue eyes were squished into his round face like smashed jellybeans and half concealed by his bulbous, big cheeks. Those eyes were red-rimmed from crying as he looked at the detective in something like despair.

"I'm devastated," he moaned. "Of course I am," he mumbled as he motioned for Kurtis to follow him inside.

The detective looked around, overwhelmed by the sheer elegance of this place. Everything was made of white marble and black and gold accents, even the spiral staircase winding up to the second and third floor. Kolby led him directly from the main foyer down a short hall to the living room. In here, an intricate black and gold Persian rug stretched across the tile and black Italian leather sofas surrounded a gold and glass coffee table. On the far end of the room was an ornate fireplace, though no fire had been built inside of it for a long time by the looks of it, and that was because it was against the law here in the City. Instead, the only thing hinting at warmth in this room were all the family photos in gold frames sitting upon its mantle.

Kurtis had to refrain from letting out a low whistle as he took everything about this place in. He was envious and more than a little disgusted that an unpleasant girl on YouTube could make the money to afford this place just by being awful to people. His and Kadeem's apartment, in contrast, looked like a hillbilly shanty circa the Great Depression, and both tried to be decent human beings. No good deed goes unpunished, he bitterly thought to himself.

Then the detective noticed the Hispanic servant, Ramon Sanchez, who had been mentioned in the case report Mansfield read to them in the morgue. He was hovering in a doorway leading to a separate hallway. "Can I get you anything, sir?" he politely asked.

"Oh," Kurtis said, startled. "No. No, thanks." Wordlessly, Ramon melted away.

"Ramon's my rock," Kolby told him as he motioned for Stryker to sit on the largest sofa. "I don't think I could've handled any of this without him." As he said it, his eyes misted up and he sniffed. The detective smiled sympathetically at him as an ugly, hairless sphynx cat entwined itself around his feet. "We didn't always see eye to eye, but my sister was my best friend," he continued, wiping tears from his eyes. "She was so important to me."

"And to...to the public, Mr. Prince," he quietly added as the cat now jumped up on him looking for attention. It smelled strongly of Lysol.

The man's face lit up. "Oh, she was!" he agreed. "I've seen her take girls that looked like a Mack truck and turn them into princesses. Still, it's a relief, in a way, to know she's in Heaven now."

"Absolutely," he solemnly nodded, though in his head he figured, judging by how she treated people for subscribers, Nikki Prince's new zip code was a lot further south than Heaven. "Heaven has a new angel," he optimistically added a moment later, forcing a fake smile.

At the same time, at their precinct, Kabal stood in silence before a burgeoning evidence wall that he'd begun building in the conference room by his cubicle. His eyes drifted over the things he'd pinned to it: the bomber's hand-written envelope, photos of Kyle Coffey, of both hostages so far and where they were found, of Nathan Grayson's abandoned Bugatti, of Nikki Prince's autopsy photos next to some from her Instagram account. Below the evidence was a map of the New York underground and reams of Kadeem's hand-written sticky notes. He was lost in concentration as he fought to discern some sort of pattern.

Then his cell phone rang, breaking his concentration, and as he answered it, he hopped onto his laptop which was open on the conference table. At the same time, the L-T along with Valdez entered the room and gazed at the wall and Kadeem's mounting evidence.

"Great," he murmured into his phone as he typed away. "Thanks. Thanks again."

"It's a real shame," Valdez told Mansfield as she pointed to Nikki Prince's autopsy photo. "I liked her. She taught you how to do your colors."

"Colors?" the Lieutenant repeated, looking at her.

"Yeah, you know, what goes best with your complexion," she shrugged. "I should never wear pink, apparently. Drains me."

"Thanks," Kadeem said before he disconnected his call.

"Who was that?" Mansfield asked him.

"Homeland Security," he casually replied.

"What?" she repeated, her eyes bulging out of her head. "Homeland Security?"

"I have a friend there," he shrugged. "Dude owes me a favor."

"Don't lie, you don't have friends," Valdez slammed him.

Kadeem looked at Mansfield. "Look, L-T, is that a talking raisin?" he said as he looked at his nemesis.

"All right, you two," their boss said to them both. Then she looked back at Nikki Prince's photo. "Too bad about all this. She was a pretty woman. But I heard she had work done." She sighed. "They all do these days. People can hardly move their faces. Silly, isn't it?" She looked at Kadeem. "Did you ever see her show?"

He shook his head no. "Not until now." He pulled his laptop around for them to see what he was watching. On the screen was another clip from Nikki's show. Once more, her brother Kolby was there, dressed dowdily, prompting his sister to make a face.

"I really don't know where Kolby shops, do you?" she mocked him, encouraging her audience to tease him as well.

"I try, Nikki. I try," he halfway pleaded with her.

"I didn't think Wal-mart had a store in New York City!" she jeered, and the audience laughed.

"That's her brother," Valdez needlessly offered when Kadeem paused the video. "No love lost there, if you can believe the tabloids."

He looked at her like she'd just said something completely stupid and then pressed a key. Lots of pop-up windows appeared, the one on the top being a Reddit thread.

"So I gather," he replied. "I'm having a very fruitful chat with people who love this chick. Fan sites. They're great resources for gossip." An instant message suddenly appeared with a photo of a smiling Nikki with an ugly sphynx cat, drawing his attention.

Back at Nikki's condo, Stryker felt the beginnings of a headache talking to Kolby. He was a gentle soul, timid and sweet. But if he were to shove an entire bottle of anxiety meds down the dude's throat, he doubted if it would help quell that nervous energy. The man was currently pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, occasionally crying over a photo of his sister, then moaning for some sort of an explanation as to what had happened to her.

"It's more common than people think," Kurtis told him. "Tetanus is in the soil. People cut themselves on rose bushes, garden forks, that sort of thing. Left untreated…"

Kolby nodded. "Don't know what I'll do now," he said. "I mean, she's left me this place, and it's lovely, don't get me wrong…but it's not the same without her…" He began to cry again.

"That's why my online newspaper wanted to get the full story straight from the horse's mouth," he said. "You're sure it's not too soon?"

"Oh no," he quickly sniffed and then wiped his eyes. "You fire away." As he said it, the hairless cat settled onto the detective's lap again. He tickled its ears and then smiled sympathetically at Kolby, breathing in the strong aroma of Lysol. Curiously, he lifted her up and looked at her paws, which she shockingly tolerated, and then carefully pressed her toe beans to force her claws out. An idea was brewing in his mind.

Once more, Kabal found himself at the photo wall, mumbling to himself. "Connection, connection, connection. There must be a connection! Kyle Coffey was murdered twenty years ago. And the bomber knew him. He admitted he knew him…"

"We should check," Lieutenant Mansfield said. "His school records. Everything-"

"I'm already on it," he waved her off and then pointed to his computer. Then he returned his attention back to the photo wall. "The bomber's phone was inside stationery from the Czech Republic. The first hostage was in the Bronx. The second one in Manhattan. The third one, Boston, at least by the sound of her accent." He shook his head and sighed in frustration. "What's he doing? Working his way round the world? Showing off?" He was now yelling.

"Okay, calm down, Kabal," the L-T told him. "Getting mad isn't helpful."

He started to reply to her when suddenly, the yellow iPhone rang. He quickly pulled it from his coat pocket and answered it. "Hello?"

The old woman's voice warbled. "You're enjoying this…aren't you? Joining the…dots?" When Kadeem didn't answer, she said, "I'll take that…as a yes. Three hours…boom! Boom!" The phone went dead.

He frowned and then slid the phone back into his pocket as Mansfield looked at him and said, "Well?"

"He's taunting me," he replied. "Just reminding me that the clock is running out."

"We're gonna get this bastard," she reassured him.

"I know," he replied, and then his actual phone rang. The song "Macho Man" by the Village People played loudly in his other pocket. It was Stryker.

"Hello?" he said after he answered the call.

"It's me," his partner said. "Look, get over here. Quickly. I'm onto something."

"You are?"

"Yeah, but you're going to need to pick some stuff up first. You got a pen?"

"I'll remember," he said.

In the condo, Ramon had returned with a tray of coffee, cups, and condiments. He carefully poured each man a cup, and then left the room once more. "Thank you, Ramon," Kolby said as he departed and then began adding milk and sugar to the brew. Stryker followed suit and added two sugars and a splash of milk to his own cup. "So will he be long, your photographer?" the man asked him as he stirred his coffee. "I don't want to be rude but you'll have to be quick. I've got the funeral to arrange and all sorts of things to take care of…"

"Of course, of course," Kurtis agreed. "It'd be an interesting angle, that's all. 'Nikki's brother rebuilds life after tragedy'."

"Oh yes, I like that," he replied a moment before the doorbell rang. "That'll be him," he said. Sure enough, Ramon showed Kabal inside a moment later, and as requested, he was carrying a lot of bulky camera equipment that he'd borrowed from forensics.

"Hi!" he greeted in an oddly cheerful voice. "Mr. Prince, isn't it? Good to meet you. Very sorry about your sister."

"Thank you," he said, standing up. "You're very kind." He then walked to a decorative mirror on the opposite wall to preen himself.

Meanwhile, Kurtis tugged at his partner's sleeve. He was now bursting with excitement and pride. "You were right," he whispered. "The bacteria got into her another way!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"All set?" Kolby now asked, facing them.

Kurtis cleared his throat. "Um...yes. Kadeem, I think we're ready. I think we should do a close-up." He motioned for him to grab a camera. His partner did and then zoomed in close on him.

"Not too close," he said, "I'm raw from crying."

"Right," he said. "Kadeem?"

"Hmm?" his partner replied.

"Take a picture," he urged.

"Oh. Erm…yeah." He pressed the button and set off the flash. Kolby blinked, blinded by the light. "Um…" He clumsily fiddled with the camera, accidentally taking another picture, blinding the man again.

"Look, will this take long?" he grimaced.

"Half an hour, tops," Kurtis reassured him as the cat wandered in.

"Oh, who's this?" Kadeem asked, now looking at it as it rubbed against his legs.

"This is Sekhmet," Kolby explained. "Named after the Egyptian cat goddess."

"Interesting name," he drily remarked. He stroked her head, which she liked. "Was she Nikki's?" he wondered.

"Yeah," he replied. "Little present from yours truly. Nikki's life was…very busy. Didn't leave much room for personal things. So I got her Sekhmet to keep her company." He scooped up the hairless cat and began cooing at her. "Didn't I, kitty?"

Kurtis turned suddenly to his partner, beaming. "Kadeem?"

"Yeah?"

"Pictures!" He grabbed the camera from Kadeem and flashed it right in Kolby's face. Once again, it blinded him and now the cat jumped from his arms. In a second, the detective was on the floor, his face pressed close to the cat as he took a picture of the creature too.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Kolby moaned as he rubbed his eyes.

"Sorry! Sorry!" the burned detective quickly apologized and blocked the man's view of his partner. He wasn't entirely sure what Stryker was up to, but he knew he needed to distract the brother.

"Jesus, you two are acting like the cast of Jackass!" he yelped as Kurtis quickly got to his feet again just in the nick of time. "What is going on here? What kind of publication is this?"

"That's all right," the detective told him almost breathlessly. "I think we've got what we came for."

"What?" he asked. "I've never had a photo shoot like this before!"

"Come on, Kadeem," Kurtis said, grabbing him by the elbow. "We have a deadline."

"But you haven't taken anything!" Kolby yelled as they rushed out the front door.

Outside, both men hurried from the condo, but Stryker couldn't help but laugh. triumphantly. "Yes! Yes!" he yelled as he punched the air.

Kadeem smiled at his partner from behind his mask. "You think it was the cat," he deduced. "It wasn't the cat."

"What?" he cried. "No! Yes! It is! It must be. That's how he got the tetanus into her system! Its paws smell like Lysol."

"It's a clever idea-" he began before the other interrupted him.

"He coated it onto the claws of her cat!" he insisted. "It's a new pet. Bound to be a bit jumpy around her. A scratch was almost inevitable. But she'd never pay much attention to it and-"

"I thought of that as soon as I saw that scratch on her arm," he interrupted him. "But it's too random. No guarantee that the cat would scratch her before the tetanus died on its claws. And it's far too smart for the brother. He's not the brightest crayon in the box, Boss."

"He murdered his sister for her money," Kurtis declared as cars raced by them on the street.

"Did he?"

The detective's face fell. "Didn't he?" he asked his partner.

"No. It was revenge," he told him.

"Revenge?" he incredulously repeated. "Who wanted revenge?"

"Ramon," he shrugged. "Their servant. Kolby Prince was the butt of his sister's jokes, week in, week out. Virtually a bullying campaign. Finally, they fell out. Badly. It's all on Reddit. She was going to disinherit Kolby. Ramon had grown used to a certain standard of living, so…"

Stryker frowned. "But what about the disinfectant? On the cat's claws? It would kill the tetanus and wipe out all the evidence."

"Ramon keeps a very clean house," he said. "You came in through the front door. You saw that floor. Scrubbed within an inch of its life. You smell like Lysol now too." As he said it, the detective wilted, knowing his partner was right and he had just been crazily grasping for straws with his theory. But if Kadeem noticed, he ignored him and continued, "No, the cat doesn't come into it. Ramon's internet records do, though."

By then, they'd reached the unmarked police car and got inside to return to the station.

A couple of hours later, Kabal marched into Lieutenant Mansfield's office where she and Stryker were having a quiet conversation about the case and promptly threw a hefty manila envelope onto her desk. The official seal of Homeland Security was pressed onto the sealed flap. He looked at them and triumphantly crossed his arms.

"Ramon Sanchez is your killer," he announced. "Kolby Prince's servant. Second autopsy shows that it wasn't tetanus that poisoned Nikki Prince. It was botulinum toxin." Surprised, Kurtis flashed him a look. "We've been here before," he continued. "Kyle Coffey? That wasn't so smart. Our bomber is repeating himself."

"How did he do it?" Mansfield asked.

"Botox injections," he replied.

"Botox?" she repeated. "That crap women put in their heads to keep from getting wrinkles?"

"Yeah," he said. "Botox is a diluted form of botulinum. Among other things, Ramon Sanchez was employed to give Nikki her regular facial injections. My Homeland Security contact got me a complete record of Ramon's internet purchases. He's been ordering Botox in bulk for months. Bided his time, then upped the strength to a fatal dose."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm sure," he said. "We need to get an arrest warrant for him right now."

She nodded then lifted her phone from the cradle and dialed the district attorney. As she spoke, both detectives left her office to return to their own cubicles. But Stryker, Kabal couldn't help but notice, was glowing red now and scowling."

"How long?" he demanded to know.

"How long what?" he asked.

"How long have you known?"

Kadeem shrugged. "Well, this was an easy one, really. Like I said, the bomber's repeated himself. That was a mistake."

"But the hostage!" he snapped. "That old woman on the phone. She's been there all this time…we don't know if she needed insulin or something, Jesus. What about that?"

"I knew I could save her," he told him nonchalantly. "I also knew the bomber had given us twelve hours. I solved the case quickly and that gave me time to check on other things. Don't you see? We're one up on him!"

"No, what I see is that you sent me on a wild goose chase when you had it figured out from the moment you looked at that woman's corpse!"

"Well, not that soon," he replied, gesturing with his arms.

"Fishing is nice," Valdez called with a smirk on her face. "You should try fishing, Kurtis."

"I might," he growled before he glared at his partner and then stormed off.

He watched him leave and then caught Valdez staring at him with that smirk on her face still. "Very classy," she sneered. "Hey, Kabal, when you finally go to prison where you belong, your bad manners are probably just going to be a turn-on for some guy named Tank."

"Oh, well maybe when you're there for a conjugal visit, you can ask him to take it easy on me," he shot back and then returned to his desk.

When he sat down in his chair, he quickly logged into the NYPD Twitter account yet again. He quickly typed out a message that sounded like the ending of a game of Clue to him: Ramon Sanchez, the house servant, Botox.

Lieutenant Mansfield now approached. "We'll have the warrant within the hour," she told him.

"Good," he replied as he stretched momentarily in his chair until the yellow iPhone rang again.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Help me…" she croaked, hiccupping through sobs.

"Tell us where you are, ma'am," he said. "What is the address?"

She didn't answer his question. Instead, she said, "He was so…his voice…he sounded so…soft…"

"No!" he shouted at her, suddenly alarmed. "Don't tell me anything about him! Nothing!"

"He sounded so soft…" she gently said, and then the phone instantly went dead in his ear. He froze. Somewhere deep down, he knew. He just knew. She was dead, and probably a bunch of other people were too.

"Hello? Hello?" he hopelessly cried.

"Kabal?" Mansfield said, her own face horrified. Somehow, she knew too.

"What's happened?" Stryker, who had just returned, now said as he curled his hands over the shorter cubicle wall.

Kabal set the phone on his desk and looked up at them. He could only muster one defeated word: "Boom."

nadillaandlaprasthefireandice, haha I saw that insult one day and saved it in my head to use against my work enemy if ever given the opportunity. But then she got fired so I never got the chance, so it's just been rattling in there, hoping to be used. I've never even watched that show but I saw a clip of the character saying it to his work enemy and I about died laughing.

the-06, thanks. I'm drawing heavily from Sherlock Holmes so that's why he is the way he is LOL