Disclaimer: I do not own Crossing Jordan. The same goes for all Boston newspapers. xD

Note: Looks like I've been burning the midnight oil again. :)) Anyway, the following may be regarded as a spoiler - consider yourself warned: in order not to make this chapter outrageously long, I had to leave Jordan's part of the story for the next one.

And now a few words about the previous two chapters... Wow, I was really (pleasantly) surprised to see all those positive reviews! And this is why: I had been convinced that most of you would be bothered with the way I depicted Jordan's feelings towards her pregnancy. But what can I do, I never was really able to picture her as very happy upon finding about it. Anyways, glad you liked it after all! :) So, ruth609, BugFan4Ever, cjloverforever, lbcjfan, Mexwojo, xOlly, buddies, Sakura kaze fuku, thanks for reviewing!! xD

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: you make the Y incision with the belly of the blade, but the blade isn't blunt. Thanks to BugFan4Ever for pointing out my extremely stupid mistake from chapter 4 (which won't be corrected, so that it could remind me of my own stupidity). I really should have known better. Sorry. :)

The air was cold, but humid. "Funny weather for mid-July," a trivial thought crossed his mind. It was starting to rain again. He was trying to muffle his footsteps across the wet concrete as much as he could, for everything around him was perfectly, unnaturally, still in the dusky sunset. His heart pounded heavily as he was approaching the ramshackle old warehouse. There was no time to call for backup. There was no need to, either. What was the worst that could happen? He was wearing his Kevlar. His heart was beating fast and hard in his throat, choking him. This wasn't the usual rush of adrenaline he would get each time he was part of an important operation. This was pure fear. He was drowning in a pool of his own cold sweat. He had the feeling that his gun was going to hit the ground any moment – it was going either to slip away from his wet hands or to be dropped because of the uncontrollable shaking of those hands. Every second seemed like an eternity. Not until he was an inch from the door did he notice it was slightly ajar. He stretched out his trembling arm and swung it open. On auto pilot, he repeated the well-known and coordinated movements – he turned round the big, bare room to see where the perp was. He saw nobody. The room was empty except for a couple of carton boxes thrown carelessly around.

The shaking didn't cease, but his heart sunk as his eyes filled with burning tears of rage and impotence. He had been desperately trying to hang on to the very last, completely worn out, thread of hope, but now the grip was lost and he felt himself flying headlong, at the speed of light, into an abyss the darkness of which had no match. He didn't know for how long he had been unable to move – it could have been two seconds or two hours. He was about to leave that bleak place when he felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to cast yet another glance at those god-forsaken boxes. He swallowed hard. He knew not how he could have missed it earlier: amidst them was a pile, a pile which ominously resembled a human being. Involuntarily, he stepped towards it, stumbling over his own feet, his heartbeats suffocating him again. Then his heart stopped.

Her face seemed peaceful: her eyes were closed, her half-parted lips had the tiniest little unearthly smile on them. She seemed past all worries - so indescribably calm, so indescribably beautiful. The sight mirrored the one he had wanted to memorize down to its minutest detail the other morning. Only, then she had been tucked up in her bed, safe and sound, and now she was lying on the cold floor of a long-forgotten warehouse, her limbs under the strangest angles, an ugly dark flower in her unruly curls. He knew there was no need to call 911. He knew she was dead. He felt the unexpectedly excruciating need to touch her. He kneeled beside her and his unsteady hand reached out to touch her cold cheek. When his fingertips brushed her skin, it felt like he dived into a pool of ice cold water. He didn't manage to recover from this shock before her dark eyes opened and she looked him straight in the eye. Her gaze was full of anguish, lined with reproach. Then she slowly spoke, in a low, but clear voice, "You didn't find us on time."

Woody jerked awake. His clothes were drenched in sweat and his heart was thumping wildly, but he was immensely thankful to God when he found himself sitting at Jordan's desk in her office and not kneeling next to her corpse somewhere in the suburbs. That fit of joy, or rather: relief, didn't last long, however. He was well aware of how slim their chances were. She had been missing for over forty-eight hours. Assuming that the killer would stick to his timetable and... oh God... kill her near the end of day three, they had some twenty hours to find her. And they were still clueless. If he didn't find something real soon, he was bound to find her… No… No! That couldn't happen. It just couldn't! He would find her. Them. He had to. It was all his fault. Hadn't he been acting like a tenth grader… Hadn't he been sulking and just waited for her after work or gone to her place instead, had he… With great effort, he finally succeeded in shaking those thoughts off. Now he had to focus. He was obviously missing something. He opened the Madison Moore file for the umpteenth time, gathering all the strength he had left in a futile attempt not to look at the piece of paper which was lying near the edge of the desk, the one Nigel had given him a few hours before.

Some three or four hours earlier, the entire gang was in Autopsy One. Bug was hastily, but still carefully, doing the external examination of Jane Doe who had, in all probability, been the first victim of the Dark Dahlia killer. Meanwhile, Woody was shouting at Dr. Macy and Nigel. He was like a man possessed. The fact that Macy and Nige seemed to accept his words rather coolly wasn't very helpful.

"What's wrong with you, people?" he yelled, incredulous, waving the autopsy photos of Moore and Cohen in front of their faces.

Nigel looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight from one foot to another. At last, Dr. Macy stopped Woody's tirade.

"Calm down," he said firmly. The detective wanted to protest, but Garret's decisive movement stopped him. "Just after our conversation, Nigel came to my office. He thinks he knows why Jordan's left."

This was too much for Woody.

"Left?!" His voice seemed to increase in volume even more, although a couple of moments ago one would think that would be impossible. "Are you crazy? She hasn't left! She's been kidnapped! By the Dark Dahlia killer! For God's sake-"

"Calm down, Detective!" Macy interrupted. "Or I will have to ask you to leave. Your claim has absolutely no grounds."

Upon hearing this, Woody threw his hands in the air, desperate. What was going on? Had the entire morgue gone round the bend?

"At least for now," Chief ME resumed, somewhat soothingly. "Let's not panic. After you hear what Nigel has to say, you may change your mind."

The detective was fed up with Jordan's so-called friends' behavior and all that mysteriousness surrounding Nigel's revealing confession.

"What is it? What on Earth can be so important?"

Nigel was still staring at his shoes. Dr. Macy gave him a nudge.

"Nigel…"

"Oh, yeah..." He fidgeted. "I-I think you should see this," he made himself look at Woody as he was handing him a piece of paper.

A glance at the paper outraged Woody. To him, it made just as much sense as the Chinese ideograms on a paper bag from Yang Chow's.

"What the-"

Before he could proceed, Nigel continued, "On Wednesday, somewhere around lunch, I went to Trace to see if I could-" He was always doing it, this time unintentionally - telling the whole unnecessary story instead of two sentences, that is.

"Nigel," Woody growled.

"Anyway, as you probably remember," he looked at Woody, "Jordan was there. She was doing blood analysis, which I found odd since there was no blood at Julie Cohen crime scene. She told me she was analyzing Lilly Jones's blood, but I had my doubts. So, when both of you were gone, I printed the results of the last analysis carried out." He looked away guiltily. He had proven once again that he indeed was Mr. Gossip, sticking his nose in everybody's business. "The tests," he motioned towards the paper Woody was holding, "show… well, show that the person in question is pregnant."

The detective stared at him blankly.

"Why would Jordan go away because some Lilly Jones was pregnant?"

As he uttered the words, he realized, even before Nigel gently stated, "Lilly Jones was fifty-eight."

The autopsy room was spinning around Woody. He needed to sit down. Grabbing the edge of Bug's autopsy table, he muttered:

"She wouldn't." He shook his head: "She wouldn't. She promised. No more running away," he was talking to himself. But wouldn't she? Really? Her strange behavior wasn't a mystery any more. He remembered her storming off from Trace, the dark circles under her eyes, pushing him away, not taking his calls. Maybe… maybe she just needed some time to think it over. But if so, couldn't that period still last? No, no, she'd call by now. She would. She'd know they must be sick with worry. She would never just disappear.

As he looked at Macy's and Nigel's sympathetic faces, it hit him all of a sudden. There was a simple way to check their assumption.

It still felt so strange that he actually had a spare key to her place that he would often forget he had it. He unlocked the door anxiously.

"Jordan?" he called gently, but there was no reply. He quickly searched the apartment, but she obviously wasn't there.

He smiled. The place was in a familiar, Jordanesque mess – a book here and there, an empty carton of chunky monkey, a half-empty box of chocolate pralines, empty bottles of evian, a blue sock on the floor next to the couch, a couple of tee-shirts carelessly thrown onto a chair. He recognized the one she was wearing when he last saw her and was snapped back to reality. He was right. She obviously hadn't left. There hadn't been a time in his life when he more wished he was wrong. He needed to get back to the morgue as soon as possible.

And here he was: in the morgue, in Jordan's office. He put the Moore file down. It was frustrating. He couldn't find anything helpful. Nigel hadn't still managed to trace her phone. The situation seemed hopeless. He took a deep breath. There had to be something. His eyes fell onto Jordan's picture in a newspaper. It was the edition for Thursday. The photo must have been taken on Wednesday when she was leaving the morgue. She looked distracted, worried. She must have known by then.

"I only wish you had told me, Jordan," he whispered. He knew she must have been frightened. He knew the whole story about James. "I wish you had told me, baby."

He forced himself to return to the file. She would tell him. He was going to find her, them, and she was going to tell him. Everything was going to be all right. It had to be.

Bug walked in. He still had his scrubs on.

"I finished the autopsy," he said solemnly, "and I am now convinced that this Jane Doe was the first victim. COD is strangulation. Lacerations are postmortem. He was practicing on her. His cuts are less precise; you can see hesitation, insecurity. Seely is still searching through missing persons reports and Dr. Macy is trying to get a dental records match, but it will take some time."

It took Woody a lot of effort to restrain his tongue. Time was precisely what they lacked.

"But we did find something," Bug continued. "On the blanket she was wrapped into. Traces of a solution called collodion. It was used in the so-called wet plate photography. Some still use it."

He paused for a couple of moments before adding:

"It's not much-" he stopped, taken aback by his friends actions.

Woody had opened Jordan's laptop and was typing frantically. The word 'photography' resonated in his brain, followed by: "Millie has a scrapbook with all Maddie's appearances in social column." and "That was taken the other day." as well as his own: "The photo must have been taken on Wednesday." He had been so stupid, so blind!

According to Google, there had been eight newspapers in Boston. He first eliminated the Spanish one and then Beacon Hill Times and Business Journal. In the end, he was left with Herald, Tribune and Phoenix. After a few more minutes, he found out that only Boston Tribune had published short news about the "Cook of the Month" competition that Julie Cohen won.

"He's a newspaper photographer," he addressed Bug, motioning towards the screen. "This photo from the contest Julie Cohen entered and this photo of Jordan," he pointed at the copy of Tribune lying besides the computer, "were taken by the same man, one W. P. Douglas. And I bet he's photographed Madison Moore and Jane Doe, too."

Bug was unconvinced. "Press reporters use digital cameras," he pointed out. "Besides, it might have been a reader."

"No." Woody shook his head impatiently. "It's him. Who says he doesn't do that wet… whatever thing in his free time? And look at this photo, the only one published from that charity thing" he turned the laptop towards Bug. "Julie Cohen isn't in it. There are only kids. It couldn't have been a reader. Our guy was there."

He was completely convinced of his theory and the ME was starting to believe in it, as well. As Bug slowly nodded, they heard fast steps in the corridor, followed by Nigel's frantic "I've managed to trace her phone!"