"That damn elevator music," Shepard thought as he silently rode the elevator up to Kelly's apartment with Dr. Chakwas.

The cheerful music that was playing over the elevator's speaker was not enough to cheer Shepard up. The bombshell that Chakwas had dropped at the café about Kelly's death had stunned everyone to silence. When Chakwas didn't get a response from anyone she continued to explain that a call came through to the Normandy from Commander Bailey. He called because he was looking for Shepard since Kelly had Shepard listed as her emergency contact. Aside from delivering the bad news and asking for Shepard to report to the scene, Bailey also asked for Chakwas to come as well. While the medical examiners were ruling Kelly's death as natural causes from a brain hemorrhage, something in Bailey's gut was telling him there was more to it and he wanted Chakwas to come and give a second opinion. Chakwas agreed and said she would pick up Shepard on her way.

When Chakwas finished recapping the events leading up to her meeting Shepard and the others at the café, Shepard apologized to Ashley, Garrus and Tali for having to cut their get together short. Before leaving with Chakwas, Ashley and Garrus asked Shepard if they could come as well. Tali couldn't volunteer to come since she was due back at the quarian embassy. Shepard understood that Ashley and Garrus wanted to help but he politely declined. He didn't want them to come if it turned out no help was needed. Besides he figured between him, Chakwas and Bailey, they would have more than enough people to piece together what happened to Kelly. Despite wanting to object, Ashley and Garrus understood Shepard's reasoning and Garrus said he would go back to C-SEC and Ashley said that she would wait for Shepard at their apartment for news. Shepard then said his farewells, including a quick kiss with Ashley, and followed Chakwas to a waiting taxicab.

After what felt like an extremely long elevator ride, Shepard and Chakwas stepped off the elevator and were instantly greeted by Commander Bailey.

"Shepard, Dr. Chakwas," he said, "thanks for coming."

"No problem Bailey," Shepard said while shaking Bailey's hand, "good to see you again."

"You too, though I wish it were under better circumstances. I'm really sorry for the loss of your friend."

"Thank you. Dr. Chakwas said that you called us here because you thought there was something suspicious about how Kelly died?"

Bailey didn't say anything to respond but did gesture for Shepard and Chakwas to follow him. He led them down the hall and into Kelly's room. The first thing Shepard noticed was a stretcher stationed by the bed with a large bag lying on it. The bag was open just enough that Shepard could see Kelly's face. Shepard found it hard to hold back the tears as he gazed on the face of his friend.

Shepard thought back to when he first met Kelly when she was the Normandy's yeoman for the Collector mission. The first thing Shepard thought when he saw her was how the loving, caring redhead could work for a sinister organization like Cerberus. Kelly tried to explain to Shepard that Cerberus was not as bad as he believed saying they had noble goals. Shepard knew better from his prior encounters with Cerberus but felt that maybe Kelly genuinely believed what she was saying because she hadn't seen the same things Shepard had. As the mission went on, Shepard and Kelly became good friends. Shepard had even invited Kelly up to his cabin for a meal. Despite some scuttlebutt on the ship saying that the meal was a date, Shepard and Kelly both knew that it was just two friends having a meal together and getting to know each other better.

When the Collector mission was completed, Kelly had become fully aware of how evil Cerberus was and left the organization. She eventually found herself on the Citadel where she began using her knowledge of psychology to help comfort the refugees during the Reaper War. Fearing that Cerberus might track her down and kill her, Shepard insisted that Kelly change her identity and appearance. Kelly was reluctant but agreed to do it. She dyed her hair blond and created the identity Felicia Hannigan for herself. Shepard's advice later paid off and Kelly was able to avoid detection by Cerberus during their attempted coup. When the Reaper War was over and with Cerberus dissolved, Kelly was able to take her real identity back and opened her own psychiatric office on the Citadel. When Shepard last saw Kelly at his and Ashley's wedding, she told him that she felt that she had found the perfect life for herself doing what she loved.

Now Kelly's life had come to a sudden and tragic end and it was up to Shepard to figure out why. Apart from Kelly's body, the only other people in the room were two people from the medical examiner's office, a salarian and a turian. They seemed a bit impatient like they had been waiting a while and didn't want to be in the apartment anymore. The fact that it was only two other people in the room raised a small red flag in Shepard's head since he figured there should have been some crime scene techs or other C-SEC personnel if Bailey thought Kelly's death was suspicious. Baily seemed to pick up Shepard's concern and explained that it was only him who had doubts. The medical examiners were convinced that there was nothing suspicious about Kelly's death and wanted to get the body to the morgue. Without any solid proof that Kelly's death was suspicious, Bailey couldn't commit any other officers to the case. In fact the only reason Kelly's body wasn't already at the morgue was because Bailey had to pull a lot of favors to ensure it stayed in the apartment until Shepard and Chakwas arrived.

Bailey began explaining the facts to Shepard while Dr. Chakwas began examining the body with her omni-tool, "the building's superintendent found the body this morning. He had gotten a call from Dr. Chambers' secretary saying that the doctor had not shown up for work and had not called in to say she was running late so he agreed to check the room. Dr. Chambers was on the bed under the covers so the super thought she was asleep. It was only when he tried to wake her that he realized she was dead. He called it in and when I found out that you were listed as her emergency contact, I decided to take this case myself."

"Since then he's been making our job more difficult than it needs to be," said the salarian M.E., "the cause of death was a brain hemorrhage that Dr. Chambers apparently suffered while she slept. We didn't find any indication that it was caused by anything unnatural. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that there was foul play but the commander wouldn't let us take the body to the morgue."

"He said he wanted us to wait until your medic had a chance to examine the body," growled the turian M.E., "I fail to see how a doctor whose job is to patch up living soldiers could possibly know anything about examining the dead."

Shepard angrily glared at the turian M.E., "if you don't have something factual to say to me doctor then I would rather you don't say anything at all."

The turian held up his hands in surrender while Shepard turned his attention back to Bailey, "why do you think Kelly's death is suspicious Bailey?"

Bailey gestured to the bed, "a couple of reasons. First there are these dents in the bed. There is one on each side of the mattress. Based on the shape of the dents I would say that there were two people sleeping in this bed last night."

"Or the doctor slept on both sides of the bed," said the turian M.E.

Shepard shook his head, "no Bailey's right. It's barely noticeable but one of the dents has a slightly different shape than the other. It's been a while since I've heard from Kelly so I don't know if she was seeing anyone. Did any of the other tenants have anything to say about that?"

"According to the tenants I've interviewed so far, it does seem that Kelly was in a serious relationship for a couple of months with one of her patients, an asari named Serena. The tenants also said Kelly did come home last night with Serena. It was hard for them not to notice the ladies enter because they entered the lobby drinking and singing loudly."

"So let's assume that Kelly and Serena were sleeping together last night. She would've been lying next to Kelly when she died. But that would mean she should have been the first one to find her dead. Yet no call came in to report Kelly's death until after the superintendent found her. There's no way Serena wouldn't have noticed Kelly was dead when she woke up so why didn't she call for help."

"That's what bothers me too," Bailey replied, "if this death was natural, she shouldn't have been worried about calling for help. By fleeing the scene all she's doing is casting suspicion on herself. I have assigned some of my people to track her down."

"But Commander," the salarian M.E. said, "it doesn't matter if there was someone else here. We already said that the hemorrhage was not caused by anything unnatural."

Shepard held up his hand to silence the doctor, "you said there were a couple of things that were suspicious. What's the other thing?"

"This one isn't so much suspicious as it is disturbing," Bailey replied, "Dr. Chakwas have you finished examining the body."

Chakwas nodded as she closed her omni-tool, "I have run every scan I could think of and everything the other doctors say seems to be correct. The only odd thing I did pick up was that there were foreign fingerprints on Kelly's eyelids. Did you close them Bailey?"

"I did," the turian M.E. replied, "it was the decent thing to do. Except for some reason the Commander tried to tell me not to do it."

"When I first saw her," Bailey said, "her eyes were open and what I saw nearly gave me a heart attack. There was something spooky about them. You can open her eyes and see for yourself. Although I strongly suggest that you brace yourself as best as you can before you do."

Slightly confused by the warning, Chakwas put on some gloves so as not to add any addition fingerprints to the body. Then she slowly opened Kelly's eyes. She barely looked into Kelly's eyes for a second when her face turned white as a sheet. It made Shepard think that Chakwas had seen a ghost. He was barely able to rush over and catch her when it looked like she was going to faint. It was then that he too saw what was wrong with Kelly's eyes.

When Shepard first saw Kelly's face, it looked peaceful with her eyes closed. Now that her eyes were open it told an entirely different story. With her eyes open, Kelly's face now conveyed terror. That indicated to Shepard that maybe Kelly's death wasn't as peaceful as the M.E.s seemed to believe. But the thing that bothered him the most was how her eyes seemed almost empty. There's a saying that the eyes are the windows to a person's soul. It could be argued that Kelly's eyes only appeared empty because her soul was gone but this was a whole other level of emptiness.

"I told you there was something wrong with them," said Bailey.

Shepard didn't hear Bailey as he was trying to put the pieces together in his head. Kelly was dating an asari. She also had a disturbingly empty look in her eyes. On their own those two elements didn't seem like much. But then Shepard threw in one piece of his own. It was something that was mentioned to him by Aria T'Loak, the pirate queen of Omega. "Nothing leaves a body quite so….empty as an…."

Oh no!

"Doctors we are done with Dr. Chambers," Shepard said while trying hard to hide the terror his realization was causing him, "you can take her to morgue now."

The M.E.s didn't need to be told twice as they walked over to the stretcher, zipped up the body bag and took Kelly's body out of the apartment. Bailey and Chakwas both looked at Shepard surprised. Bailey even tried to tell the M.E.s to wait but Shepard held up his hand to stop him before he had the chance to say anything. Once the M.E.s and Kelly's body were gone, Shepard closed the door and turned his attention back to Bailey and Chakwas.

"We have a serious problem Bailey," he said, "I'm convinced beyond a doubt that Kelly was indeed murdered….by an Ardat-Yakshi."

Chakwas gasped. She knew what Shepard was talking about. Due to Shepard having previously encountered Ardat-Yakshi twice during the time she had been on his crew, she had heard about how dangerous they were. Bailey looked confused for he had never had encounters with Ardat-Yakshi nor had he heard about them.

"What's that?" he asked.

Shepard explained to Bailey that Ardat-Yakshi were asari that had a rare genetic disorder that cause them to kill their bondmates during the melding process. Instead of a gentle merging of the nervous systems, when Ardat-Yakshi meld, they over power the nervous system of their mate. This leads to a hemorrhaging in the victim's brain leaving the victim as practically empty shells before they die. Worse yet, every time an Ardat-Yakshi mates, they become stronger, smarter and deadlier. Since Ardat-Yakshi feel compelled to mate because of their condition, the increase in power only makes the compulsion stronger. In short, an asari with the condition has the potential of becoming a sex craving mass murderer. The look on Bailey's face as Shepard finished told him that Bailey was now convinced of how serious the situation was.

Despite now knowing what had happened, Shepard had to admit he was surprised that an Ardat-Yakshi could even be responsible. During the Reaper War, the Reapers turned Ardat-Yakshi into powerful Reaper creatures called Banshees. This lead to the Reapers invading a monastery that served as a sanctuary for Ardat-Yakshi who were willing to live in isolation so as to avoid the temptation of giving in to their condition. As far as Shepard knew there was only one Ardat-Yakshi who survived the war and everything he knew about her indicated that she would never choose to become a killer. He would have to make a call to be sure but he strongly felt he was right. Unfortunately all that meant was that there was another Ardat-Yakshi out there and he had no idea who it was.

"So what do we do?" Bailey asked.

"We need to pick up the Ardat-Yakshi's trail somehow," Shepard replied, "unfortunately I can't think of how we could. Odds are that Serena is not even her real name so there's no point in running that through the databases."

"Yeah and it doesn't look like there are any pictures of Kelly with her so we don't have a physical description to go off. We could try asking the tenants if anyone could remember what she looked like but even if they did, asari generally don't look that different from each other. Trying to find one particular asari on this station would be like finding a needle in a haystack."

Shepard was about to nod in agreement when something he saw in the corner of his eye got his attention. Sitting on top of the nightstand next to the bed was a picture of a ship he would know anywhere. It was the Normandy. However it wasn't the picture that got his attention. Rather it was the dust surrounding it. It was obvious the nightstand had not been dusted recently but for some reason the picture of the Normandy was too small to cover the impression of a picture frame in the dust. The impression told him that a slightly bigger picture frame used to be in that spot until someone swapped it with the Normandy picture not too long ago.

Walking carefully towards the nightstand, Shepard looked over the picture frame carefully to ensure it was not attached to any kind of trap. Convinced that nothing seemed to be an immediate threat, he picked up the picture. Suddenly the picture of the Normandy disappeared and a screen showing a thumbprint being scanned took its place. After a few seconds the thumbprint vanished and the screen read "I.D. Confirmed: Captain Shepard." Finally the screen displayed a picture of a silhouetted figure behind a desk with a button that read "play video" at the bottom. Feeling that he had no other choice, Shepard pushed the play button.

"Hello Shepard," the figure in the video said with a distorted voice, "forgive me if I don't introduce myself. My identity will come in due time. For now let's just say I'm the one that you have been trying to find for almost two years now. I'm the one who helped fund Balak, Dalatrass Linron and Finch's little schemes."

Shepard looked to Chakwas as the both shared a look of surprise. This was the first time that the backer they and the rest of the Normandy crew had been hunting was reaching out them. Unfortunately for Shepard between the backer being a silhouette and the voice being distorted, there was no way for Shepard to determine their identity. He also felt some anger begin to grow inside him. The backer had called the plots he had foiled "little" schemes. "Little" was hardly what he would call an assassination attempt, a plot to detonate a chemical weapon on Tuchanka and a hostage crisis. He wanted to tell the backer that but since they weren't having a two-way conversation, he could only listen as the backer continued.

"If you are watching this video then you have discovered what happened to your friend Dr. Chambers. I must say that I wish I didn't have to have my asari friend kill her but I had to get your attention somehow. You see, I decided it's time for me to talk to you about those schemes I invested in. As I'm sure you have figured out by now, those schemes were merely parts of a much larger operation that I have been running simultaneously with them. Each one had their role to play in the grander plan and despite the fact you managed to foil one of them, I am ready to launch the final phase of the operation."

If the backer had been talking live to Shepard, they would have seen that Shepard had a look of confusion on his face. The backer's last statement didn't make sense to him. He had stopped all three schemes. Yet the backer said he had only foiled one. The backer continued speaking before Shepard could think about the matter further.

"Now I could just allow the operation to continue but I'm a fair individual. I'm willing to give you a chance to stop it. Aside from this video, the picture frame you are holding has a file stored on it that you may find interesting. The file should give you all the info you need to figure out where I'm going to strike next. Oh and in case you have someone from C-SEC watching this with you, let them know that my asari friend is no longer on the Citadel and they don't need to worry about any more bodies turning up there because of her. The ball is in your court now Shepard. Good luck, you'll need it."

With that last statement, the video disappeared and a file icon appeared in its place. Shepard didn't push it right away though. All he could think about was the fact that the backer was practically taunting him. "Catch me if you can" was the overall purpose of the message, not to help Shepard. It was almost as if the backer was treating this as some kind of game. That just made Shepard even angrier. A good friend of his was murdered to start the backer's game and if it was the last thing he did, Shepard was going to make the backer regret starting it.

"Well Captain?" Chakwas asked.

"I'm afraid your job is done Bailey," Shepard replied, "your killer is gone and likely somewhere beyond your jurisdiction."

"That's what it sounded like," said Bailey, "I guess it's a good thing I have a friend who is a Spectre and not limited by jurisdictions. Promise me that you will catch the killer while you are out looking for her employer."

"That's what I'm planning to do. Thanks for calling us here Bailey but before we go I wonder if you could do something for me?"

"Name it."

"Will you see to it that Kelly receives a proper service?"

A small smile appeared on Bailey's face as he nodded to confirm that he would see to Shepard's request. He then shook Shepard's hand before he proceeded to walk out of the apartment. Before leaving, Shepard took a minute to take one last look around the apartment regretting that he never had the chance to visit Kelly in her apartment while she was alive. After he finished, he and Chakwas left the apartment as well.

"I'm going to call the Normandy and tell them to prepare for departure," he said, "from what the backer said we know their next move won't happen here on the Citadel so we need to leave here as soon as possible. Meanwhile I want you to call Williams and tell her to meet us there."

"Aye-aye Captain," Chakwas replied as she pulled up her omni-tool to place the call.