Sorry for the delay with this one. I had some technical issues that left me without the use of my laptop.

Emma had been reluctant to let him go when the first knock on the door had come, and her entire body had tensed with fear in his arms. Killian managed to fish his phone out and sent a quick message to Victor, to tell him that the door was open and how to get through to the back deck, all while the young star continued to sob into his shirt.

He finally had to pry her hands off his jacket when the second knock sounded, to let the medical team into her home. But when he followed the female doctor back through to the living room, they found the pop star staring at the painting above her fireplace once more. Killian did his best to try and engage the young woman again but gave up trying when the doctor gave him a gentle nod and moved around the sofa to begin her examination.

While the medic was tending to Emma's burns, Killian excused himself to check on the progress the crime scene techs were making in the dining room.

"Same as before?" he asked, as he stepped into the room and closed the door softly behind himself. Victor handed over a pair of latex gloves and Killian pulled them on before he turned his attention to the items spread out over the plastic sheeting on the mahogany table.

"Almost," the other man replied, as he made more untidy notes on a piece of paper attached to a clipboard. "The rose petals, stuffed toys, and finger in a box are all identical. But the pictures this time are much more gruesome, and the letter's different."

The pictures made sense, given the condition they'd found their last victim in. But the changes to the letter were what piqued Killian's curiosity. He picked it up from the middle of the table, where it was already sealed inside of an evidence bag, to read what it said.

Emma, my Love,

You're exhausted! I know that the internet raved about how beautiful you looked performing the other day, but those fakers don't know you the way that I do. They couldn't see the exhaustion in your eyes.

Not the way that I can.

Nobody will EVER understand you the way that I do.

I have another gift for you. This one was particularly vicious after that performance, and she deserved everything she got. Those fools that blindly follow her every word will soon see the truth, Emma.

The whole world will!

Now she's as ugly on the outside as she is on the inside.

I saw those men watching your home, Emma. You should be careful. They can't be trusted to keep you safe, my love. Only I can do that. But it doesn't matter. They don't know you the way that I do. They never will.

I hope my gift makes you happy.

I did it for you.

I do it all for you.

Look what you made me do, Emma!

"Wow," Killian murmured, as he turned the sheet of paper over in his hands to see if anything else had been added to it. As he had expected, the rest was immaculately clean.

"Yeah. Your psychopath is becoming more psychotic with every kill," Victor agreed.

"What do you think he means by, 'those fools that blindly follow her every word will soon see the truth?'"

"Social media?" one of the other techs supplied, a little nervously. It was her first time working an active case with Special Agent Jones, and he was far more attractive in person than the gossip in the women's locker room had made him out to be.

"In what way?" Killian set the letter back down on the table and then turned to offer the young woman his full attention. She blushed a little under the intensity of his gaze but managed to find her voice quickly enough.

"The uh… the previous letters mentioned followers. And that's a term often used for connections made on social media. You can follow accounts and subscribe to notifications there. Maybe the victims were social media influencers?"

"Thank you. I'll get the tech team to look into that possibility."

Killian wasn't much of a social media fan, so he certainly didn't know all of the technical terms used to describe what happened there. But right now, he wasn't prepared to rule out any possibilities.

"Did you sort through the pictures yet?" he asked, as he turned his attention back to Victor.

"Yep. All photographed, bagged and tagged. Why?"

"Is there one of our victim's face that I could show to Miss Swan? She might recognize them when they're not slashed to pieces and bleeding heavily."

Victor reached for another series of sealed bags and quickly flicked through each of the images that had been included in the package before he found one of the relatively tame ones. Their victim was still clearly bound to a chair, gagged and absolutely terrified. But it was better than what the rest of the pictures had shown.

"Thanks, Man." Killian clapped him on the shoulder before he pulled off his gloves and tucked them inside of his pocket. "Gimme a shout before you leave."

"We still have the entire deck to process," Victor sighed. "We'll be here for a while."

Killian nodded his understanding. He had a feeling that he wouldn't be leaving any time soon either, which meant that he was likely to miss dinner with his brother and Ellie that evening. He pulled out his phone and typed a quick message to Liam, explaining that he was in the middle of a murder investigation, before tucking it back into his pocket once more as he headed for the lounge. His brother would understand. He knew just how demanding Killian's job could be. Ellie would be less understanding, given that her father and uncle had tried their hardest to keep the harsh realities of Killian's job from touching her life. Unfortunately, that often left the teenager feeling like her uncle didn't prioritize spending time with her, over his job.

When he eventually made it back to the living room, after taking a wrong turn and ending up in another bathroom, the medic was just finishing with Emma and looked to be ready to leave.

"How is she?" he asked, pulling the doctor aside.

"You mean aside from being absolutely terrified? She has second-degree burns to both legs. The fabric of her leggings held the water from her coffee against her skin, which has made the burns slightly worse than we'd usually expect to see in such a situation, but the affected areas are reasonably small. As long as she changes her dressings regularly and continues to apply the ointment I've left with her, she shouldn't find them scarring."

"Thanks, Doc."

"She's uh… she's been drinking," the doctor stated carefully, almost like she wasn't sure if she was raising her concerns with the right person. "Someone should stay with her for a while. I've given her some painkillers to take the edge off, but she's not had a full dose given the alcohol in her system. And even now, I'm reluctant to leave her unsupervised."

"I'll take care of it," Killian promised. "Can I show you out?"

"Thanks."

After ushering the medical team out of the front door, Special Agent Jones used the time to scan the area around Emma's home for anyone that might have been lingering. Their offender had already proven that he liked to watch over his idol. But the neighborhood seemed just as blissfully quiet as it had been when he'd first gotten Emma's call, which meant that either this guy was good at blending in and making himself look invisible, or he lived close by.

"Emma," Killian called out gently, as he made his way back through to the living room. He made sure to keep his footsteps heavy so that she'd hear him coming, but that didn't stop her from startling when he took the seat beside her own once more. "Emma, I know that this is tough right now, and you're probably in a lot of pain, but I need to ask you some more questions. This could be really beneficial to our investigation. It might help us finally catch this guy."

"You're not gonna catch him," she laughed bitterly. "You literally have people watching my home and he still got in. It's not gonna help."

"Don't you at least want to try and help us find him before he kills someone else?" Killian snapped. "I get it. You've given up and you don't care. You're happy to drink yourself into an early grave. But I haven't, and I will do everything it takes to make sure nobody else dies at the hands of this guy. So you can either answer my questions for me here, or I'll take you down to the office to do it."

Emma finally pulled her eyes away from the painting above her fireplace to turn and face the man sat opposite her. Instead of the broken woman he'd seen when he'd first entered her home, Killian was faced with a fiery Emma Swan. And he took that as a small sign of progress.

"I care," she hissed at him. "Of course I care. Why do you think I called you in the first place? I'm just… I'm not you. I'm not… Until he sent me that first box, I'd never seen a dead body before. And now, I'm getting body parts sent to me in little boxes professing some psycho's love for me. So I'm sorry for being scared right now. And I'm sorry that you think my fear is a lack of compassion for others. But spare me the help crap, Agent Jones, because you and I both know that there is nothing you can do to help me right now. You don't even have a lead to chase on this guy. It could literally be any one of the almost forty million people in this state."

"Then help me come up with something," he begged. "Sit down with me and go over what we have. You are the person that connects this entire investigation, Emma. So I'm willing to bet my car on the fact that you'll be the one to help point us in the right direction at last. Help me, Emma. If not for yourself, then for the people this guy's attacking. Help me bring closure to the families of those young girls who have been killed."

He had fully expected her to avoid his gaze after making such an impassioned plea, but Emma Swan surprised him once more. Instead, she held his eyes and gave one firm nod of her head, as she whispered a soft, "okay," into the space between them.

Killian released a sigh of relief he didn't know he'd been holding before he stood from the sofa once more. "Okay. How um… how about some tea before we get started?"

"I'd uh… I'd prefer coffee," she whispered softly, as she stretched the arms of her sleeves down over her hands self-consciously. "I never got to drink mine earlier."

"Coffee it is," he agreed, turning to head for the kitchen. Killian stopped just as he was about to cross the threshold into the hallway and turned back to see Emma watching him intently. "You um… you might wanna talk me through using your coffee machine first."

Emma snorted out a laugh at the look of complete confusion on his face.

It was perhaps the first time he'd seen that spark of life behind her eyes since they'd met.

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