A/N: This is the final chapter in this story. It's not because my co-writer and I have grown bored with it, but simply because that was the way it had been initially laid out. Hope you enjoyed it and thank you both for your kind reviews and your patience. Here's to more stories in the future and here's to hoping we get another season of our favorite crime drama.
Two years later:
Mac stared at the black and white photograph, recognizing the youthful features of a face he had not seen in some time; Artie, once known as Diana. Her frightened, shocked face stared back at him, huddled beneath an ambulance blanket as visible tears streamed down her face. She looked so young, nothing like the girl he'd seen two years ago.
"Damndest thing I ever saw," the detective said, noticing Mac studying the photograph. His name was Detective Hesling and he was from Naples, Florida; he was attending a police conference in New York, along with over a dozen other cops and CSI's. The detective, who was giving a lecture on serial killers at an urban level, had accidentally dropped the file and Mac, being nearby, had helped him pick up the photographs.
"Oh?" he asked, handing the photograph back, not admitting he recognized the girl in the picture.
"Yeah, poor kid; she went out to celebrate her fifteenth birthday, stayed out a bit too late, and came back home to a massacre. Her whole family, both parents, older brother, they'd been viciously slaughtered. Blood everywhere," Hesling said, shaking his head. "It was like a human-sized wolf had been there and just ripped them apart. Had a number of cops puking their guts up."
"I'll bet."
"Stupid thing was, no one heard or saw anything. In fact, the only thing they heard was the girl screaming when she found her family. Girl was cleared, though, beyond no shadow of a doubt 'cause a couple of weeks later, another body showed up, just like them and she was in protective custody at the time. The killings always seemed to happen during a particular phase of the moon and this one was right on time. Then, just like that, it stopped. We never did solve that case."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"So am I. I always did wonder what happened to the girl. Hope she's doing okay."
"I'm sure she is." He smiled politely at the detective and walked away.
As he got a cup of coffee from the refreshment table, he thought absently, "Now I understand that comment you made to me once. Hell of a way to celebrate your fifteenth birthday, huh, Artie? And I'll bet you made the bastard pay."
Then, for a moment, as if from far away, almost as if on a breeze, Mac swore he heard her reply and he swore he heard a hard satisfaction in her voice.
You're damn right I did.