A/N: This is NOT turning into a case file ... but the case they will work on in the next few chapters gets us moving toward the conclusion of my story.

And on the side note of reviews: Wow, I haven't gotten that many reviews since chapter one! Keep it up!

Weeks turned into months and life gradually shifted to a new feeling of normal for the detectives. Fin gradually got used to being woken up at one in the morning by his daughter's crying as she waited for someone to get the memo and go feed her; Bobby and Alex got back into the swing of things in their partnership as their new relationship was kept tightly under wraps; Olivia found the perfect way to tell Eliot that she had a tumor and it was removed without difficulty; and Wilma got used to the bimonthly request from Deakins that she be transferred to Major Case.

Oh, don't get the wrong idea now, nothing is perfect: Bobby and Alex still fought over things and suspects; Steven still got in the way of Wilma and Fin actually going on a family vacation with Jeremy; Rick's new relationship with Lynn Bishop caused some strife between the partners … and then the case came.

It was a case no one wanted, but Wilma and Rick took for the sake of finding the monster that could do something so heinous. A young boy was found murdered behind the private school he had attended. Wilma took one look at the corpse before she realized why they had been asked to take the case: the dead boy was Cody Stephens.

"Oh my God," Rick said when he saw the dead boy, "Isn't that one of the kids from three years ago?"

Wilma nodded, "Cody Stephens." She turned to one of the officers that had arrived first, "I need you to call Chelsea Rogers, here's her number, she's the boy's legal guardian. Let her know what happened and get her down to the 2-7 to ID the body."

The officer nodded and soon Wilma was kneeling beside the dead boy, trying to piece together what had happened to the now seven year old in his last moments of life. "He … Rick?" Wilma trailed off as she lifted one of Cody's – no the corpse's – arms to reveal a very dark bruise that had formed on his ribcage.

Rick swore when he saw the bruise. "Get a picture of that," he ordered one of the CSU techs that were seemingly mulling around the scene.

Wilma leaned closer to Cody's mouth, sniffing for any trace of what had happened to cause this incident. She dropped his arm gently and got up, determination etched in her bones. "We need a tox screen on his blood right away, she ordered another tech before explaining to her partner, "I can smell something in his breath. It's light … but it shouldn't be there to begin with."

"What is it?"

She shook her head, "I don't know. Could be any number of things – medications … seasonings … poison."

"Poison?"

"Could be arsenic."

"I was under the impression you couldn't smell arsenic."

"It has a very slight smell – just enough to point that something's slightly off. You have to be looking for it to notice anything at all."

"Oh."

"Yep."

---

It was her job to pull Kyle Stephens, Cody's older brother by three years, out of his first class of the day before it had even started. It was her job to tell him what had happened to his younger brother. It was her job to make sure he understood that for the third time in his short life he had lost another member of his family.

It was her job, and right then, as she looked at the ten year old boy who reminded her so much of her own son, in that moment she hated it with all her soul.

"You found him?" Kyle asked, his eyes wide and his voice horse from unshed tears.

Wilma nodded, "Was he missing, Kyle?"

The little boy nodded, "He didn't come home from school yesterday and Aunt Chelsea said she was going to call the police. H-how is he?"

The look on her face at the question was all the boy needed. It was the same look in her eyes that had been in his aunt's eyes when she had explained to him three years ago what it meant for a person to die. His brother was dead.

"Kyle … I'm so sorry," Wilma whispered, knowing it wouldn't be enough and also knowing that he needed to hear someone say it – someone who genuinely meant it as deeply as she did.

The boy nodded mutely, his emotions too thick to speak through as he launched himself into the detective's arms, burying his head into her shoulder and allowing himself to succumb to the grief he had been harboring for three long years.

She held onto him just as tightly, rocking slightly as she whispered empty platitudes into his ear in the way his mother would have, had she still been alive.

---

The next day, with no leads and watertight alibis for everyone close to the victim, Wilma and Rick were getting nowhere. That was when, of course, Captain Deakins showed up with a pronouncement: their case was linked to one a pair of his detectives had been working on for the past week and would be added to the Major Case Squad's bundle.

Wilma and Rick were furious.

"At least let us stay on the case," Rick pleaded. "The more people we have working on it, the faster it will go – especially if we're dealing with a serial killer."

"I don't know," Van Buren said, glancing between both her detectives and Deakins before turning to look at Wilma head on. "You both have a pretty heavy caseload right now as it is."

Wilma shook her head, "We broke the Trodson murder case before we were called to the school yesterday; we have a firm suspect in custody already for the Hailey double murders; and the jewelry heist that ended with five dead was already closed. This is it."

Van Buren sighed, turning her attention to Deakins again, "Who do you have working on it at your end?"

"Goren and Eames."

"Think you can work with your brother on this, Tutuola?" Van Buren asked Wilma with a slight smile on her lips.

"Absolutely."

---

Wilma and Rick made the temporary move to One Police Plaza for the case, the four detectives taking over one of the conference rooms as 'headquarters' while they tried to figure out who was going around, kidnapping boys and killing them with a lethal dose of arsenic before dumping them back at their school.

Three boys were already dead … they really needed to stop this guy before a forth was added to their number.

"What makes you so sure it's a guy?" Alex asked her partner and his sister as they stared at the growing profile they were building for the suspect.

Bobby didn't glance away from the corkboard he was adding to as he responded, "The anger … it's too deep to be –"

"No – she's right. It could be a mother who lost her son when he a small."

"But then why isn't she just kidnapping the boys and raising them as her own?"

"Maybe they don't want to play along," Rick commented as he continued his search for arsenic on the web.

"No, no, no," Wilma said, shaking her head as she thought it through, "Bobby's right, it's a man. He was probably abused as a child … and he's taking it out on …"

"Children who have loving families? That doesn't make any sense," Alex commented as she went through the files of the victims again.

Wilma's eyes snapped and met Bobby's, the motive clearing before them. "It's the parents," he said.

She nodded, "Cody's an orphan. What about the other three vics?"

Alex glanced, "James was – in foster care, abandoned as a baby; Howard was – living with his grandfather after his parents died in a car crash five years ago; and Stuart was – also an orphan."

Rick looked up at her then at the two siblings, "So, what? This guy has a thing against kids who've been through hell?"

Wilma shook her head as Bobby whispered, "He thinks he's putting them out of their misery by killing them."

A/N: Don't forget: reviews are our friends.