FIVE

Standing in a nondescript apartment hallway, Kate Beckett took a moment to shut her eyes, take a deep breath and prepare herself to enter yet another crime scene. As was always her routine, she pushed any extraneous thoughts from her mind so she could be fully present to focus on the case. She owed that to every victim and that's what she dedicated herself too. Once all other thoughts had left her mind, she stepped forward, nodded politely to the officer manning the apartment door, and ducked beneath the police caution tape to enter.

Over her eight years on the force Kate had seen a lot of scenes. Rare were the ones that took her breath away, but this one was damn close. "Wow, this…wow," she said aloud as she took in the scene. The apartment was definitely on the smaller end for a one bedroom in midtown, so she could see almost all of it from the doorway. Just a few feet in, sprawled out on the floor was the body of a male. His head—rather, what was left of his head—faced her with his feet going in the opposite direction, almost as though he'd been trying to run out when he'd been struck and bludgeoned. Blood and brain matter coated nearly every inch of the floor and walls in the immediate area.

Operating as mindfully as she could, Kate tip-toed around the victim and walked towards where her friend, medical examiner Lanie Parish stood with their second victim. The female was slumped over on the couch. Her skull had also been damaged though less so than the male. She had clearly still taken one or two blows to the side of the head. Kate looked up then turned around on the spot to see all the places the blood spatter had landed. "Baseball bat?" she asked her friend.

"Seems a pretty solid guess, but I'll know more when I get her back to the lab."

Looking over to her partner Esposito, who was already on scene, she asked, "Do we have IDs' on the vics?"

"The wallet in the man's pocket has the photo id of Marcos Jimenez. As you can see, we're unable to use a facial match for recognition; hopefully we can find prints, but for now we'll assume he's Marcos. The purse on the kitchen counter had a wallet with an idea for Shelly McDougal. She's also the registered tenant to this apartment. The female vic does resemble the photo ID for Shelly."

Again, Kate observed the space. The petite eat-at table tucked by the entrance of the kitchen had one wine empty wine glass and two plates with crumbs remaining atop it. There was a second wine glass on the end table beside the female's body with a few sips of white wine left in it. "Looks like they may have been having a date."

Kate walked around the sofa and approached the kitchen area. As she expected, the space was barely big enough to turn around in, but it was tidy. She gloved up and began to go through Shelly's purse, laying out the contents on to the counter. Folded into the wallet she found two receipts: one for a grocery items at a nearby bodega, and another for Love Match Inc in Greenwich Village.

Cursing under her breath she called out, "Do we have a TOD Lanie?"

"Between ten and midnight last night."

Kate nodded, then walked over and handed the receipt to Esposito. "I'm going to need you to take point on this for now."

"Why?"

"Because I'm Rick's alibi from last night."

"You think Rick matched them?" Lanie asked as she approached.

Kate merely shrugged. "That receipt is dated for the evening before last; it makes sense. Regardless, someone'll need to talk to him. I'll text him and ask him to meet us at the twelfth."

Lanie patted her arm and said, "Sorry Kate."

She shrugged as it was not the first time they had to bring Rick in under such circumstances. Sadly, she also doubted it would be the last. "It just is what it is. We have to clear him to do this right. Then I can continue the investigation."

"At least your nookie gives him an easy out."

Kate flicked her eyes towards him and said flatly, "Thank you, Esposito." He merely shrugged and then walked away.

Once he was gone Lanie poked her playfully. "Don't be mad, Kate. They haven't been able to tease you about a boyfriend in over two years. They just have to get it all out of their system."

She huffed out a breath and nodded. She knew that good natured ribbing was just part of the package between her and her colleagues, but it had been a few months—one would have thought the novelty would have worn off by that point. Evidently not. "I gotta get back…thanks for your help Lanie. Please let me know when you've confirmed the identity of the male vic."

"Will do."

"You've called to seek my council so early on a case? Must be a big one!"

Kate looked up from where she was writing the details of their case on the "murder board" to see her boyfriend approaching with his usual grin. Given the nature of the case, she felt sad that he needed to be involved, but it unfortunately had to be part of the investigation. Maybe their male victim was not the man Rick had told their female vic, Shelly, about. Maybe his presence in her apartment had to do with something else and that was the connection to the murder. For Rick's sake she hoped that would be the case, but they would not be investigating properly if they did not take every lead presented to them.

"Actually no. I'm sorry but this is an official visit."

Rick's brow wrinkled. "What do you mean?"

Before Kate could respond, Esposito walked down the hall towards them and called out, "Yo! Wizard boy!"

An exasperated Rick huffed a breath and muttered, "How many times… it's not magic!"

"Sure seems like magic to me. Why don't we talk about it more in interrogation?"

"Interro—Kate?!" Rick asked, doing a double take in her direction.

She shook her head and told him softly, "It's just procedure; there's no need to worry." Though Rick looked uncertain, he dutifully followed Esposito back towards the interrogation rooms.

Kate had finished the murder board and had only been sitting at her desk about ten minutes when she glanced up to see Rick and Esposito approaching. "We're good," Espo told her with a nod. She nodded back; not that she had expected any different, but procedure was procedure.

When Rick walked towards her desk she half expected him to sit down in the chair beside it as it was his usual post, but he didn't. Instead, he stood just in front of the murder board, slid his hands into his pocket and grazed his eyes over the newly posted information.

"I'm sorry, Rick," Kate told him softly.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and gave her an appreciative head nod. "She was excited when she came in—Shelly. She told me it was an early birthday present for herself."

"This isn't your fault."

"I know. I know," he repeated, a bit more confidently that time. "It doesn't make it easier though—knowing I had to be one of the last people she spoke to before…"

"Do you remember what you told her?"

"Ah…yeah. I saw a guy with dark hair, dark eyes. He was looking at her from across a room, probably an office. He wore a bright red shirt and his name started with an M. She said she thought she knew the guy—he made deliveries to her office."

Kate nodded slowly. "Well, we're still waiting for an official ID on the male vic, but everything seems to fit so far."

"Shit," he cursed as he flopped down in the chair by her desk and rested his head in his hand. "I just…I don't understand why this seems to happen to my customers," he said in reference to the fact that several of the murders Kate investigated that year were either clients of his or his family's businesses."

"Well, unfortunately, love and passion can lead to anger and jealousy. Violence in relationships is a lot more common than we like to think about."

He nodded and then was silent for almost a minute before he asked almost pleadingly, "Can I help? I mean, I'd like to help in any way I can. Please?"

Kate smiled, and reached out to give his forearm a squeeze. "Sure, Rick; we can definitely find a way for you to help."

Pulled from a sound sleep, Kate half-gasped, half-snorted as her head shot up off the pillow. She was dazed for half a second before her cell phone's ring tone registered in her brain and she rolled towards her right side. She sloppily groped towards the nightstand and felt around until her fingers contacted the cool edge of the phone. Drawing it towards her, she tapped the answer button and spoke in a groggy tone. "Beckett."

She slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position as the information from central dispatch filled her ear. "Okay…okay…what station was that again? Yes. Thank you." She sighed, dropped her phone into her lap and then rubbed her fingers across her eyes, willing herself to feel awake.

"Wh's goin' on?" mumbled the man half-asleep beside her.

"It's, um…" She pressed the home button on her phone to allow herself to see the time, which displayed 3:12 a.m. Groaning, she continued, "A couple was found murdered on a subway platform; they think it might be tied to our current case."

Three days had passed since they found Shelly and Marcos murdered in Shelly's apartment. When interviewing Shelly's coworkers, they had several reports of a former boyfriend who had been sending Shelly nasty text messages since their breakup two months earlier. Naturally, the ex, a man named Brent, jumped right to the top of their suspect list. Looking through her social media account they were able to find him quite easily, but he did not end up being a viable suspect. The shock Kate registered on him when they told him the news seemed quite genuine and as it turned out he had a solid alibi as he'd attended a friend's birthday party around the time of the murders. Video footage proved he entered the club at eight fifteen, left just after eleven, and arrived at his apartment building around eleven-thirty; thus, he was not their killer.

Unfortunately for their case, they had very few other leads. Shelly's apartment building's main entrance did have a camera, but no non-residents or guests who weren't vouched for were seen entering or exiting around the time of the murders. According to residents the rear stairwell entrance was occasionally left propped open and there were no cameras at that angle, which led Kate's team to assume this is how their killer entered and exited. They tried to find some security footage of the surrounding street area, but the few videos they found didn't provide anything useful. They then reinterviewed some of her immediate neighbors, her family, and the woman with whom she shared a cubicle space at work, but unfortunately no new leads had presented themselves and the case had all but come to a standstill.

Kate tossed back the covers and had just turned on the lamp by the bed when Rick asked, "Can I come?"

"It's three o'clock in the morning," she said flatly.

He looked at her, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the light. "I know, but I still want to come. Maybe I can help on this case too."

Too tired to argue, she merely shrugged and said, "Okay, if you want."

They both dressed efficiently and were able to leave his apartment in less than fifteen minutes. Kate drove them to the subway stop in question, parked as close as she could get, and then led the way towards the blocked entrance. She flashed her badge and then they descended down the stairs, where the area was brightly lit and filled with official personnel. She asked one of the uniforms to point her towards the detective in charge, a Detective Grant, with whom Kate was unfamiliar. When she found him, she introduced herself and her boyfriend as an official consultant.

"Well I appreciate you both coming. The ME tipped us off to the case similarities with the couple and I thought maybe you'd want to take a look," Detective Grant said.

Kate nodded. "I appreciate it—and I absolutely do. Do you have IDs on the vics?"

"No, looks like they've been robbed. Her purse is empty except for some makeup and his wallet—if he had one on him—is gone."

Kate nodded and walked closer to the victims. She saw plenty of blood on them, but not much splatter. "COD?"

"Unofficially stab wounds to the neck and torso. The man has some defensive wounds on his hands and forearms as well."

Kate gazed down at the female, who lay on her side, and the male, who was mostly face down except his head was turned to one side, for several moments before turning back towards Rick. "Do you…oh," she cut off her own question when she saw the look on his face. "You recognize one of them, don't you?"

"Her," he said simply. Then lifted his hand to gesture towards the spot above his right ear. In that spot, the girl's jet-black hair had a two inch wide streak in cobalt blue. "I remember the hair. Her name was…Katelyn. Possibly Kaylin. Something like that. I would have record of it at my shop."

Kate nodded as Detective Grant wrote down the information. "Do you know when she was at your shop?"

"Ah, yeah…would have been—oh. I think it was the same day as Shelly," he said, a slight note of horror creeping into his tone.

Kate looked at the other detective and said, "That's my vic. If they visited his shop on the same day, that could definitely be a connection."

"Was Shelly stabbed as well?"

"No, bludgeoned with a bat in her apartment."

Grant hummed as he wrote. Then, he looked at Rick. "What did you say this shop was again?"

"It's, ah, Love Match in Greenwich.

Grant's brow furrowed. "The palm reader?"

"It's—it's not," Rick replied a bit weakly.

Stepping in, Kate said, "I think you and I need to work together on this one, Detective. I'm willing to share everything we have so far with my case, but I'll be honest: it's not much. We hit a bit of a dead end, so hopefully there's some evidence—DNA or prints—left behind here that we can use."

"Or, maybe they're not connected at all," Granted pointed out.

Kate nodded. "That's always a possibility; we have to look at everything. For now, I'm going to go with Rick back to his shop. We'll look at all his records from that day to see if there could be other women who are in danger."

"Works for me," Grant said.

"You really think it's the same killer? Even though these two were stabbed in a subway station?" Rick asked as they ascended the stairs back to street level.

"The change in MO is unusual, but I feel like the fact that both Shelly and this new vic were in your shop on the same day is too much of a coincidence not to be a clue."

"Yeah—oh, god. I think I had two other female customers on that day!" Rick gasped with notable horror.

Kate nodded and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Don't worry Rick. We'll get uniforms to their homes as soon as we get their information. This won't happen to someone else.

Rick felt ill; horribly, horribly ill. His chest felt tight, his stomach was in knots, and there was a persistent throbbing behind his left eye. He felt so poor that not even his favorite Chinese take-out could convince him to eat. Instead, it just sat sadly on his plate.

Rationally he knew that there was nothing he could have done differently. He had no way of knowing that some horrible person was spying on his shop with plans to later attack two of the patrons. Still, the guilt ate away at him as he thought about Shelly and Kaylin. And the two other women—Jacqueline and Paris—who had visited that day. Both had been spoken to by the police and warned to be extra vigilant, but still he worried for them, since until the killer was caught, they could all be at risk.

"Rick? Do you want me to put that in the fridge for you?"

"Hmm?" Rick glanced to the side. He'd barely heard Kate's question, just the sound of her voice mumbling words he couldn't fully process. She repeated the question, that time pointing at his plate and he responded with a shrug. "If you want."

She stood, arched her body over his and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Then she picked up his plate and disappeared with it into the kitchen behind them.

Kate was, as per usual, being incredible. She was turning over every rock; looking at every possible angle. They searched the street his business was on for security cameras, but as it was a mostly residential area there weren't many. The ones that did exist only saved records for twenty-four hours before overwriting them and they were well past that window. She organized all the evidence for both cases, staring the investigation over from the viewpoint that they were connected. They'd made some progress that day, but not much. Still, since they'd had such an early start Kate insisted they both leave the precinct at six and start over the next day with fresh eyes.

"Would you like another beer?"

"Wha…oh no I guess I really didn't even drink this one. I just feel…sick," he confessed with a wince as his stomach roiled.

She sat down beside him, placed her hand on his arm, and shook her head. "Rick, this isn't your fault. You had nothing to do with any of this."

"Rationally I know that, but that doesn't change the fact that the killer found both his victims because of my shop."

"We don't know that for sure." She pointed out. He gave her a look and she dipped her chin. "Right…yes that is the most likely outcome."

"Which means it might not be my fault, but I still feel responsible somehow. Like they became targets because of me, because of what I do."

She shook her head. "You cannot possibly be responsible for the actions of a complete stranger. Whoever did this—it's on them. They're the one choosing to kill."

His chest tightened again and he softly said, "I know."

"But, you know, while we're on the subject…we need to talk about something."

That time, his stomach leapt halfway up his esophagus. "Kate," he sighed frailly, "if this is about us, I really hope it can wait until-"

"What? No, no—not about our relationship. I promise. C'mere." She held out her hand to him and when he reached for it, she gave him a tug. He stood and followed like a dog on a leash as she led him to the couch and gestured for him to sit. When he did, she sat on the coffee table across from him and placed her hands gently on his knees. "I think…I think maybe it's finally time you tell me how your business works. Your gift, I mean."

His jaw dropped with mild horror. "You think I'm involved in this somehow?"

"No—not at all. I know you're not involved, but I also think knowing could possibly help us solve the case. That is: how many people actually know how your gift works?"

He pressed his lips together, considering, and then shook his head. "I really couldn't say. The only person I've explained it to was Meredith, and while she isn't known for her secret keeping, I don't know if she was ever really interested enough to spread it around. My mother…well who knows, she could have easily told people. And my cousins? All my other relatives? It would be possible for me to say how many people have been told. It could be a handful; it could be hundreds."

Kate nodded. "Right, okay. So…so how does it work? You have visions?"

Rick went to speak, but hesitated. He looked at her, taking in her steady gaze and focused attention. He didn't mind telling her, but she had been resistant ever since he met her nearly a full year earlier, so he felt he needed to double check. "You're sure you want to know?"

She bobbed her head. "I'm asking."

"Okay, well. It's…it's a feeling. It's rather hard to explain to someone who's never had it, because it's really quite unlike anything else. The best thing I can compare it to is that prickling feeling at the back of your neck when you have a realization or a gut instinct about something. I take someone's hand, hold it with mine, then shut my eyes, relax my body, and open my mind."

"Did you have to learn how to do this or were you born with the ability?"

He quirked his lips. "Both. I was born with the ability, but I had to learn with practice. Just like a sport... no one's kicking field goals on their first day of peewee football."

She leaned back and folded her hands into her lap as she asked, "So what do you see?"

"It varies. I can see flashes of images—sometimes still, sometimes more like a video of a moment. I can also sense feelings of connection. It's…like trying to remember a dream that someone else had."

"So you see the customer with their soulmate?"

Rick twitched at the word, which he didn't particularly like. Soulmate implied that there was only one singular person for another in the universe, but in his experience that wasn't true. Since people evolved over time, the person who could love them the best at any given time changed. Yes, it was entirely possible that the person his visions led a customer to was the person they spent their life with, and he loved when that happened, but it wasn't necessarily a guarantee—and usually only happened when clients saw him a bit later in life. Then again, he didn't have too many sixteen-year-olds willing to pay for his services.

"I see the client with the person who will love them. Soulmate is more a kitschy term my family uses for marketing. A person's love could change over time."

"And what do you provide the client with?"

"Just like with the vision itself, it can vary. Sometimes I get a name. Sometimes just a face. Sometimes the information is more vague, like something to look out for in the future."

"You have to be touching other person for this to work?"

"Yes."

"Is that why you can't do it to yourself? You can't hold your own hand?"

He laughed lightly. "No, it's not that. I can only see outside, not in."

"Does that ever make you mad?"

As her question suddenly sounded like something she would ask in an interrogation room, he frowned. "I thought I wasn't a suspect, Kate."

She scooted towards the edge of the table and placed her hands on his knees again. Her tone softened, she continued, "I know you'd never hurt anyone, Rick. I'm just trying to understand how this works for you. Don't you get frustrated finding he loves of other peoples' lives knowing you'll never find your own?"

He thought for a moment on how to best answer her question because that really wasn't the case. For as long as he'd known about his abilities, he had known about their restrictions, so such thoughts rally never had been a part of his life. He understood why Kate was asking, but it simply wasn't a factor for him. This being said, he could think of one frustration he had for them. "I... I'm sad for Alexis. I want my daughter to find love and happiness and it frustrates me that I could give that to others with relative ease, but never her."

Kate's brow crinkled. "But she's outside not in…"

"Family - outside meaning outside of the family," he clarified.

"So, if you have the powers you can't use them on anyone that also has them?"

He gave a somewhat committal head wiggle, "Something like that, yes." The answer to her question was unclear, as their abilities didn't come with a century-old instruction manual, but from what they could best understand, that seemed to be how it worked.

Kate was quiet for a moment then asked, "But you didn't answer my question: don't you want to find your mate?"

He felt their discussion was drifting into dangerous waters—ones that contained the subject matter they'd unofficially dubbed as forbidden: Rick's violation of her trust when he used his abilities on her. Not sure how else to avoid that topic, he instead answered with an argument he figured she'd understand. "You don't want to find yours."

She straightened her back. "Yes, but we're different."

"In what way?"

She huffed out a breath while pushing herself to her feet. She walked around behind the coffee table, folded her arms over her chest and said, "You're kind and thoughtful and believe in love as your literal job and... I think love is kind of scary."

Ah, Rick thought, now they were getting somewhere. In the months since they had rekindled their relationship, things had certainly changed between them. When they had been together before, it was quite obvious how much Kate kept herself at arms' length from him. When they got back together, she was definitely in reach, but he felt as though his arm was stretched pretty hard to hold on to her. They were intimate and affectionate and she spoke about her thoughts and feelings on her cases and current events, but never in the context of their relationship. She never came out and said how she felt about him and thus he, fearful of scaring her off, kept those feelings inside as well.

Hearing her viewpoint on how they differed actually made a lot of sense. Though he didn't agree with her statement, it made sense with how he suspected she viewed herself and them together. Thinking love was scary would be a reason to hold oneself back from a blossoming relationship. The thing of it was: love was scary, particularly the great, whole-body consuming love he felt for her. In his opinion, that was part of the fun of it. He also suspected that given the increasingly intimate moments the two of them had shared over the prior few months, Kate wasn't quite as scared as love as she thought she was.

"Love can certainly be kind of scary and for the record: you're kind and thoughtful too."

"Thanks."

"To answer your original question - I've always known that these powers wouldn't work on me so it's something I accept. Yes, it can be disappointing but just because they don't definitively work doesn't mean I have no idea."

Her brow knitted together and her voice was colored with shock. "You...you know?"

He tried to remain casual and shrugged one shoulder. "I believe I have an idea."

She shook her head quickly, anger beginning to cloud her expression. "But if you know who would love you best then why are we together? Why would you want to be with me?"

"Kate," he began gently, but her frustration had already begun to spiral.

"No, I want to know; I want you to tell me, because none of this makes sense. You used your power on me. I didn't want you to, but that doesn't change the fact that you saw—you saw!—so then you must know who—who I'd…" Her voice trailed off before she could finish the sentence out loud. "And if you know, if you know who would love me best, why would you still stay with me? Why wouldn't you want me to be with him so that you can be with-"

"Because I love you!" The words exploded out of his mouth in a bit louder of a volume that he'd intended to use, but he didn't know how else to make her see. God, he'd really made a mess of things hadn't he? If Kate had been thinking all along that she should be with someone else and so should he, no wonder she seemed so skittish at times. He supposed the fact that she hadn't brought it up previously could be explained away by her fear, but unfortunately now that the muddled version was out of the open he had to be as honest as he possibly could be.

Taking a step forward, he reached out his hand towards her and dusted his fingers across her bicep. She gazed up at him, her eyes a bit glassy, and his heart swelled with adoration. "Kate, I love you. I hope it's not too soon for you to hear that, but it's the truth; it's how I feel."

"But…what about her—your match?" she asked in a tone barely above a whisper.

A light laugh escaped his lips at the notion that the detective wasn't being very observant. He took another step closer, slid his hands beneath her jaw and cradled her face as he spoke. "Kate. It's you."

"Me?"

"You," he confirmed, brushing his thumbs against her cheeks.

Her eyes darted back and forth and she tried to shake he head. "No. No, you saw…"

"I saw nothing."

That time she stepped back out of his grasp. "What do you mean?"

"When I held you hand, I saw nothing—my mind was blank; there was nothing there."

Creases forming in her brow, she shook her head. "I don't understand."

"Neither did I initially—not until I spoke with Mother. It had never happened to me before, you see, but it had to her—when she held the hand of my cousin's wife." To add a bit more emphasis to his point he shrugged and said gently, "Our powers don't work on family."

She swallowed hard. "You think we're related."

He couldn't help but laugh. "No, not blood family. A new family; our family. Kate." He stepped forward and took her hand, pulling it into his chest and holding it there. "It's you. I knew that practically from the moment we met, long before I was dumb enough to try and see your match while you were sleeping. You're extraordinary and my life is extraordinary with you in it."

He held her close for several moments, watching as the emotions in her eyes morphed from disbelief to curiosity and then, finally, a little sparkle of light. The corners of her lips began to turn upwards and a single tear slipped from the corner of her right eye. She brushed it away with her free hand, then reached out to grip on to his forearm as though she needed to steady herself.

"Are you okay?" he asked gently, knowing she had never been one for displaying emotions and the prior ten minutes of their conversation had most definitely strayed heavily into that territory.

"I think I am," she said in a tone that indicated amazement. "No one has ever said anything like that to me before. I don't think I even would have believed it before I met you."

Feeling his chest swell with emotion, Rick asked hopefully, "And now?"

"Now," she began with a bit of a laugh, "you…you make my life extraordinary, too. Definitely."

Unable to help himself, he pulled her in close and gave her a long, sweet kiss followed by a few quick ones against her bottom lip. He wound his arms around her shoulders, and she slipped hers around his waist and they held each other close for several moments before he asked, "So where do we go from here?"

"Well, we have to solve this case—find out who has been killing these couples."

Oh right. The case. Feeling his mood dampen quite significantly when the terrible deaths of his clients returned to the forefront of his mind, Rick asked, "Do you think I'm the first person in history that has ever inspired two different serial killers?"

She twisted her lips to the side and thought for a moment. "I don't think we can call the first one a serial since it was three related killings for a singular purpose, but in a broader sense: possibly."

"Great," he grumbled.

Shaking her head, she reached up to gently touch his cheek. "It's not you. It's unfortunate circumstance."

He gave her a sad smile and said, "Well at least I know NYPD's best detective is on the case."

"The best team," she corrected, "and that includes you."

Grinning, he slid his hands down her spine until he could cradle her hips. "We do make a pretty good team don't we."

Leaning her body into his, she didn't hesitate to agree, "Yeah, we do."

A/N thanks for reading! Epilogue will be up tomorrow :)