Hey! Sorry it's taken so long to update! Anyway here is chapter 10! This is MY chap, so back off! lol. JJ. But I did write it. Promise. Marcus does something a bit stupid but very Jordan. We get a bit of a closer look at our killer. Read and enjoy! Though of course I'm not telling you what to do or anything... :D

Chapter 10: Unconditional

Jordan paced the little room where the nurses had kindly placed the two detectives. Foxie had long since fled the room, looking uncomfortable at the vulnerability of the two. To tell the truth, Jordan could see the glint in Marcus's eyes, even as he winced in pain when the nurses changed the dressing on his arm and the one on his leg. Two major burns, but they would heal in time.
Jordan's pager buzzed and she jumped. She caught Camerez's eye, and he nodded. She went outside and switched her phone on, dialling.
"Garret," she said.
"Jordan!" he nearly exploded. "Where are you?"
"Boston General," she said, grimacing.
"What happened? Are you alright?"
"Foxie didn't come back?"
"No. What happened?"
"I'm fine," she said, stemming his questions. She could almost see his relief over the phone. "Marcus and Woody were burned," he said.
"What?" Garret snapped. There was a shuffle and she knew he had picked up his coat.
"Come down here and Marcus can explain it himself," she said, and shut her phone off.
She went back into the room, where the nurse sent her a strange look. She hastily went over to Camerez's side and took his hand.
"How are you, honey?" she asked. He frowned and made to pull his hand away but she held onto it and gestured with her eyes. The doctors comment from before fell into place.
"I'm fine," he said. Lucky Woody's asleep, he thought, unable to stem his grin. The nurse continued to eye her suspiciously, and Jordan willed for her to finish up her pottering and leave them in peace.
When she had gone, Jordan let Marcus's hand go, and watched his eyes. They were scanning the room, the exits.
"Don't you dare," Jordan warned. He met her eyes.
"Wouldn't you do the same?"
Jordan was hit with an unexplainable stab of relief that the burns hadn't reached his face.
She stared him down for a while, until she relented. "I would have already done so by now," she agreed. "But please don't, for me."
"For you?" he asked, eyebrow raised. Jordan was still sitting on the chair beside his bed.
Garret entering the room broke the stare and the two averted their eyes guiltily. Jordan watched Garret take everything in, from the extent of the injuries, to Jordan and Camerez's close quarters, to the peaceful look on Woody's face.
"I know what both of you are thinking," he said uneasily. He was actually surprised to find Marcus still here.
"Well you should start up one of those TV shows then," Marcus said matter-of-factly. "You know, the psychic people?"
"What happened?" Garret said, cutting through the small talk like a hot knife through butter.
"Well to cut a long story short," Marcus said, grimacing to Jordan about Garret's bluntness. "We got blown up."
"What?" he asked, weary now. He felt very uneasy that Marcus and Jordan were in the same room. Both of them hotheads, both of them prone to do something that was not advisable, both of them very dear to him. He could sense they were up to something. Even if they didn't even know it yet.
"We went to the guys apartment."
Garret's headsnapped towards Marcus. "What!"
"Don't worry, we then found out it wasn't actually his."
Garret groaned. "So you got nothing," he said, exasperated. Two good cops hospitalised and they got no information for their troubles. Something had to give.
Marcus grinned. "I didn't say that. We now have a mugshot."
"Where?"
He tapped his head. "Here."
Garret shook his head and looked at the floor quickly, gathering his thoughts. He walked over to the bed.
"Are you okay?" he asked gruffly. He wasn't used to caring about a man so much, Marcus was his closest friend next to Jordan but somehow it was easier to be friendly towards a woman. He shook away the thoughts in his head.
"Had a bit of a knock on the head," he said, shrugging and then wincing. "Deep burns all the way up my right side. And my throat is killing me!"
"What kind of gas was it?"
He shrugged. "It was out of our systems before they had a chance to test it. It was odourless."
Garret nodded and looked to the other bed. "And Woody?" he asked, looking at Jordan.
"Concussion, a few major burns on his arms and torso. He'll be okay in a couple of days. Probably a week before Marcus is out."
Something in her last sentence made Garret look at her, suspicion in his eyes. She met his gaze innocently. He nodded, and looked at his watch.
"I'm gong to call Nigel and tell him to get out of my morgue," he said. Jordan grinned.
"Working late?"
"With Jess and Caroline," Garret said.
"Ah," Jordan said. "That explains everything." She followed him out and Marcus watched the two discuss something he couldn't hear. Jordan put a hand on the Chief ME's arm and said goodbye, watching him walk away. Marcus frowned.
"What?" Jordan asked as she walked back in, catching the look. He shook his head.
"Trust Garret to come in and shake us back to reality. Now are you going to help me or not?"
"Now?" she asked meekly.
He nodded. "Before his trail gets cold."
"No," she said. "There's nothing really you can do until he kills again. I told Garret where the autopsy results on the last victim went. Until we've got something new there is no use putting yourself in any danger." She let her words sink in. "Besides, if you escape, then Woody is going to want to and then I can just see all the patients hobbling out of the place with their IV drips and monitors."
Marcus exploded with a rare laughter, the image playing itself out in his head. He stopped abruptly. "I just hate hospitals," he said quietly.
Jordan looked sharply at him. Was this something of his past leaking out? It had occurred to her many times before that she knew nothing of his past, of who he was. Only that he came from Nebraska. She shrugged. She wasn't exactly forthright with him when it came to her past either, so she let it slide.
"Please just sleep tonight, rest tomorrow and I will keep you completely updated," she said. She leant over and kissed him on the forehead, before walking over to Woody and squeezing his hand. His eyes fluttered but he did not wake.
"I'll see you tomorrow."

Fools, he thought lightly, watching them from across the corridor where he was putting a wheelchair back in storage.
"Excuse me?" a man said behind him. He jumped and turned around. "Who are you?"
The man sighed as if he had been caught, and took off his stolen name-badge.
"Reporter," he said. "I'm going now."
The doctor glared at the man, and watched his retreating back. The man laughed inwardly. Fools, he thought again. That's all there is to it.

Jordan did not drive home. Who could sleep? She was seething inside that this bastard could effectively, in one swipe, make two strong people so vulnerable and out of action. She knew Marcus couldn't have escaped the hospital even if his desire was as burning as the fire that put him there. But she would be his eyes and ears for him, as well as her own. They'd catch this damn prick here, in Boston, or she'd follow him along with Marcus. They were bonded now.
"Surely he's about finished now," she muttered to herself and jumped when she ran straight into Nigel as she stepped out of the elevator.
"Jordan!" he said. "How goes our detectives?"
"Marcus and Woody are in hospital, nothing too major, Hannah's okay."
Nigel nodded at her briefing.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
She was quiet for a minute. "There has to be something we missed." She looked at Nigel. "I don't suppose you could find me all the autopsy reports from the last week could you? All of his?
Uh oh, Nigel thought. There's the hate. He had seen her like this a few times before, and could almost have grinned despite himself. This guy was going down, here in Boston.
"No problem love," he said, patting her arm absently and turning on his heel, walking towards the archives.
He returned with an armful of reports.
"Want a hand?" he asked.
"No," she said, and took the files off him. "Think Garret would mind if I borrowed these?"
"What he doesn't know…" Nigel said, trailing off. She grinned.
"Thanks," she said, and headed back down to her car.

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Hannah wasn't about to sleep either. She climbed into her car after leaving the hospital and went straight back to the apartment. It was rubble, the inside. The blast had not been large enough to disturb the foundation of the building itself, but the inside of the place was beyond repair. The detective picked her way around the charred items, and went into the bedroom. She jumped and put a hand to her mouth as she heard the door of the apartment opening and then closing. She stepped back, intending to go around the bed and inch towards the door, to see who the intruder was. Not that she could ID the guy even if it was him, she thought grimly. She stepped on something and it made a loud crunch. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she decided to take a chance. She jumped out of the room shouting, "Boston PD!" and pointing her gun in front of her. She was faced with someone else, also sporting a gun, then her shoulders slumped with relief at the realisation that it was Foxie.
"What are you doing here?" Foxie screeched. Hannah frowned.
"What's the matter…"
"I thought I bumped you off this case?"
"Calm down…" Hannah said. Foxie still had her gun pointed at the detective.
"No! Do you have any idea how much I have struggled with this case? Any idea how much of myself I had poured into this killer?"
Hannah frowned even more, if possible. Foxie was ranting. What was going on?
"Any idea how much of myself is this killer?"
Hannah stepped back.
"What are you talking about?" she said. "Put your gun down!"
Foxie lowered her weapon, and straightened up.
"Get out of here," she spat. Hannah did not argue, instead went straight to her car and started the ignition, her mind churning over the magnitude of the thing she had just learnt.

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Jordan walked into the hospital room, grinning to herself at being able to evade the nurses, and stopped dead. Woody was still asleep, turned towards her, face serene. The other bed was empty. Marcus was gone. She snarled and whirled around, hurrying back to her car, hampered by the files in her hand. She knew where he would be.
She pulled up outside her father's old house. She looked up at the window, remembering the times when she would drive to this house and call it home.
Marcus sat, predictably, on the step outside. She leaned across and opened her car door. He smiled wanly and gingerly lowered himself into her car.
"You don't live here anymore."
It wasn't a question.
"Nor does my father," she said sadly, driving away from the house. Marcus looked at her.
"Where is he?"
She didn't answer for a while. "I don't know."
He nodded, not pressing her. They arrived at her apartment building and got out. Jordan surveyed her friend and stifled a laugh at his appearance. He had thrown Woody's jacket over his hospital gown, and pulled some of his own tattered trousers on, tucking the gown in. He scowled at her.
"Let me guess, you live up fifty flights of stairs."
She grinned in assent and he groaned.
"Elevator?" he pleaded comically.
Once they were settled in her apartment, she opened the bag she had been carting around and emptied the pile of files on the coffee table.
"If you're going to bum around here you can go through these with me," she said. He groaned. She stood and poured them both a drink.
"There is something we're missing," she began. "Is there anything, anything at all you haven't told me?" She searched his eyes. There was no guilt or guile in them, although she knew better than most at his capability, and the ease at which he would lie, even to her. He spread his arms wide, which was answer enough for her.
She sighed. "So his target is Foxie," she said matter-of-factly. "Why?"
Marcus shrugged. "You know her," he said. "She was pretty tight lipped about it. Maybe she doesn't know."
"Maybe doesn't work for me," Jordan said. "I think she knows more than she's letting on."
"How?"
"She's a good agent, no?"
"Yes," he agreed, not sure where this was going.
"And in 10 months, she has absolutely no more information than we have managed to gather? She has absolutely no idea as to who the bastard is?"
Marcus surveyed her. "I don't know either. So we're both in on it, are we?"
Jordan shook her head. "When did the killer come to Nebraska?"
"Almost a month ago," he said.
"Exactly," she said, sitting back. "A tenth of the time she has had. You can't tell me she has nothing more than what we do. If it was me I would have set up intelligence networks, made people his targets, somehow, done something to flush him out."
"She's scared, Jordan," he said, not knowing why he was defending her against Jordan. What the ME said made sense. "He knows her family intimately, he knows things about her no one else does, he has her terrified for her family. You ask Woody if you don't believe me: Foxie does not scare easily."
Jordan stood from the couch and walked restlessly to the kitchen. Her face was crinkled in concentration.
"Who could know things about ones family?" she asked.
"The record, your personal file."
"Another agent?" Jordan said.
"Foxie has investigated that possibility."
"Nothing?"
"Not even a suspicion."
"So there is no possibility her file was cracked open."
"There is always a possibility," Camerez gently admonished. "But it is unlikely."
"Family friend?"
He shook his head slowly. "She's been through that. No motive, no nothing."
"Double entendre," she muttered to herself at his last comment. "Her father would have had enemies."
"No," Camerez said. "I mean of course he had enemies, most people in power do. But there is nothing that fits, she's been through every scenario."
"And why are we just trusting her?" Jordan exploded. "She's the only one, the only one of us with this guy all the way. She's either doing it herself or knows who is!"
Jordan shocked herself with the accusation, and seeing her words thump into the detective opposite her she immediately wanted to swallow it. She said nothing.
Marcus frowned and swallowed hard before looking back up at her, shock written on his face.
"You're right," he said.
She joined him again on the couch.
"It's the only thing that makes sense," she said quietly.
"She can't be doing it herself," Camerez said, and Jordan wasn't sure if he was just in denial or he was being serious, until he continued. "She was with us at the time of a couple of the murders here in Boston, and in Nebraska."
Jordan nodded. "Okay. So it's someone else. Back to the drawing board. Who knows someone's family?"
Her mind was working overtime. She felt she was close, felt she almost had it, but something was evading her, them.
"Someone with insiders knowledge," Marcus said, feeling exactly the same feeling.
"An insider," Jordan said, locking eyes with the swarthy detective. "Does she have any other family?"
"She's an only child. The ones she's worried about is her father, mother and her aunt. The one with the roses," he added grimly as an afterthought. Her expectant expression niggled at Marcus, who shook his head.
"All very unlikely to murder people."
"Her father is a general in the marines," Jordan said. Marcus shook his head.
"A more respectable man in that respect you couldn't meet. He was just an arsehole to her."
"So? What killer have you ever met who has a head screwed on properly?"
"I don't think it's the general. I still think we're missing something."
They sat in silence, scenarios flying around in anarchy in their minds.
Marcus let go of them all, knowing they would not achieve anything more tonight.
"We need to retreat and regroup," he said to Jordan, who, used to his euphemisms, knew what he meant.
"So what's the focus for the rest of tonight's discussion?" she asked, knowing the drill and also figuring they probably wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.
"Discussion? I was hoping we could take a stroll down memory lane and have some hot rowdy sex before your father gets home," he said, grinning wickedly. "What say you?"
She laughed. "As awol as my father has gone at the moment, I'll bet he'll choose this exact moment to come home," she said, grinning back at him. "Plus you're not at all well."
She hadn't taken his suggestion seriously, as he had anticipated. He tried again.
"Given any thought to my suggestion?" he asked.
She looked at him. "To, what was it, 'pick up where we left off'? As I recall it we left off with me waking up one morning and finding that you were gone. Right now, yeah, I'd go for that again."
Her voice had a hard edge to it, but now it was tempered with something else. Control.
He tilted his head to one side, watching her. She folded and gave up her seriousness, laughing at the boyish gesture.
"You've grown up in my absence," he observed.
"Grown up?" she asked.
He inclined his head. "I'm sorry I left like that."
"No you're not," she said lightly. He considered it.
"You're right," he said. "I wouldn't change it, if the circumstances came back."
Somehow, that comforted her more than false apologies and promises.
"I know the feeling," she said.
"Yeah you insinuated as much before. I sense you have much to tell me."
"Your senses, Detective, are paramount as usual."
Her cell phone started buzzing, and she picked it up.
"Cavanaugh."
"Jordan, where is Marcus?"
It was Foxie. A wave of unreasonable panic swept over her.
"Room 217, I think," she said, keeping her voice light.
"He's not there," she said, obviously through gritted teeth.
"What?" she said, trying to sound shocked. "Well, you know Marcus…" she trailed off.
"You're not worried?"
"Of course I am," she said. "But he's not stupid, he'll be curled up in a figurative corner somewhere – he'll turn up at the morgue all sore tomorrow."
"You have no idea where he is?"
"Not a clue. Well I'll see you tomorrow!" She snapped her phone shut and looked at Camerez.
"Figurative corner?" he scoffed.
"I was covering your charred ass," she said, tucking her phone away.
"Foxie," he said.
She nodded, and yawned widely. "If I'm tired then you must be more so."
"What do you mean, lying unconscious in a burning apartment is a breeze!"
"Go to bed," she said.
"Where?" he asked, still stalling. She pointed to her bed.
"Only the best for a cripple," she said.
"Where will you sleep though?" he asked.
"Here," she said, gesturing to the couch.
"I wouldn't want to put you out," he said. "I'll have the couch."
She shrugged. "No skin off my nose, she said, and walked to her bed, not bothering to disrobe, and climbing in.
Minutes later, she felt a presence on the bed next to her. She rolled over and stared at Camerez, who was lying on top of the covers, grinning.
It was infectious. She grinned back, although she was trying to be furious with him. He opened his arms and she shook her head, hugging him back.
"I changed my mind about the couch."
"Good to have you back," she murmured into his chest.
He smiled and kissed the top of her head. "Good to be back, to risk cheesiness."
She laughed, and after a while they both fell into the easiest sleep either of them could remember.

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Perfect, he thought, as he watched Camerez follow the Medical Examiner up into her apartment. Tension. It would work for him. This time around, he wouldn't have to kill one of them. Maybe he'd be able to work it so they did that little bit of dirty work for him. Who needs enemies when you have friends like these? He'd already had two of them pointing guns at each other. It bothered him that it was The Fox, though. She was giving too much away. If Hannah kept at the train of thought she was on…she may have to be dealt with. Camerez was clueless, not a real threat. He evaded the detective back in Nebraska, he could do it again. A thought struck him again, for the second time in just over 24 hours, that maybe he should have left Boston out of his tour. Camerez, while not a threat on his own, had the right information to set the feisty ME on the right trail. He grinned. Hopefully they'd break up into groups, all on the right trail, and small enough for him to destroy. "Tut tut, children," he thought. "Didn't your mothers ever enlighten you to the concept of 'safety in numbers'? He laughed hysterically, genuinely amused by his own wit. "You can have tonight," he whispered in the general direction of Jordan's apartment. "Then you're all mine."

The sound of a car speeding off into the night didn't even rouse the two, deeply asleep, entwined in one another's arms.