Ch.2

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He relished playing with their deepest fears, and phobias. He could always tell what they were. He enjoyed watching the detectives puzzle over his work. One of the detectives was a perfect for him. Someone he could play with.

He had been watching, no following their investigation since the discovery of the first body. Ah, the memories. His first kill. Pretty blonde with a crippling fear of heights.

The thrill he felt as he had tortured then killed her. The feeling he could never get enough of… his addiction.

And now, here she was an NYPD detective… blonde, petite … just his type. He had to find a way to get to her. He just had to have her. She had to be part of his collection.

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"Bobby no matter how hard you try you just cannot make evidence appear." She smiled warily at him. "I don't care how good of a magician you are, it's just not going to happen."

He stared at her completely lost in his thoughts. "You know I keep wondering why he didn't kill her in the same place as his previous kills… there has to be something, some reason why he had to change the location… but what?

"You think you could conjure up my bed?

He smiled, and then shook his head. "Alright I get it, it's late, you're right, I'm not getting much out of these files anyway, those witness statements weren't much help either … I'm just sure that there has to be something we're missing…."

"Bobby! For god's sakes, save that for tomorrow when we're both fully awake." Eames's tone of voice was a combination between sheer exhaustion and pure exasperation. Sometimes she wished her partner had an on/off switch. That would come in handy for nights like these, maybe then I could finally get more than five hours of sleep for once. She sometimes had the slight suspicion that her partner wished for the same thing, but like the many other things she always wondered about her partner, she would never get any confirmation about any of them.

"Uh, yeah, sorry Eames I just got a little sidetracked there." He replied sheepishly. "Sorry about keeping you here so late…." His voice was cut off by Eames's reply, "hey I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be, so spare me the 'I'm sorry' lecture, Goren. C'mon partner, I'll even give you a ride home."

"Eames you don't have to…" he started to argue, but the look on Eames's face stopped him short on his tracks. He knew better than to argue with a sleep deprived Alex.

There wasn't much traffic, but of course that was to be expected at these hours of the night. They were both quiet on the drive home, like they usually were. After all these years their silences had become comfortable silences. They had become used to being in each other's company, and sometimes words just weren't necessary.

After dropping Bobby off, Alex's mind couldn't help but wonder back to the case they were working on. So far five bodies had been found. All single women in their late thirties or early forties with no absolute connection to each other. Well aside from the fact that they were all killed by the same creep.

He dumped the bodies in places where nobody would dare look, but somehow they were always found.

"This guy is a complete psycho." She had told her partner after the second body was found.

"Well he seems to be a very methodical psycho… all these murders were carefully planned, he chooses his victims carefully… he gets a thrill out of killing them , it's almost as if he was forming a collection, of sorts… that's why he keeps a lock of their hair…so he has something to remember them by." Bobby had started on his profile after the third victim was found.

Well home sweet home. She thought as she pulled into her drive way. Her house was completely dark. That's odd; I thought I left the living room lights on, maybe the light bulb burned out.

She never saw the danger lurking in the shadows….