Monday, 5:00am

Sharon stared at the murder board, and the faces of eight girls, long dead and forgotten. She was grateful that she'd remembered to close the blind to the Chief's office when she left her sons in there; she didn't want her boys to see this.

She stuffed her hands in her pockets and studied the pictures, the bullet holes and the eerily clean rooms in which the girls had been found. She fought the memories that flooded her as she read the notes on the board, written in her own precise hand. She'd filled in the blanks, refused to speak. She couldn't bear to look Andy in the eyes, and she couldn't bring herself to speak to the Chief. They had only just reached the point of tolerating each other, and the last thing she wanted was to open this broken part of herself to Brenda Leigh Johnson.

Andy had given her space, still feeling the sting of her hand on his face. He knew he'd deserved it, knew what he'd done. He couldn't change their past, couldn't undo the mistakes he'd made. Something in him felt as if it had broken at the sight of Sharon, gazing with unseeing eyes at the board, trying so hard to be Captain Raydor. He didn't know how she was so calm; he knew her heart was breaking every moment Emma was gone. He remembered Emma as she had been all those years ago, a beautiful dark-eyed child who reminded him so much of her mother. She was always a smart girl, too smart for her own good he thought, because at only seven years old she understood what her father had done, had seen the sadness in her mother and absorbed some of it herself. There was nothing Andy wanted so much as to bring the girl home to her mother, but he felt a sense of hopelessness as his own eyes drifted over the murder board. Marcus Alexander, the one man they'd never caught, the one who terrorized Sharon and then drifted away, leaving Andy and Sharon to fumble, picking up the pieces as Alexander himself did whatever it was he pleased.

"Lieutenant?" Brenda said softly, coming to stand beside him, uncharacteristically stoic.

"Chief," he answered, turning to her.

He saw her face as she stared at Sharon, and the murder board. He realized there would have to be a briefing. They had mobilized the LAPD downstairs, had men searching everywhere for Emma's car, had officers with her picture and Alexander's in their hands, covering the city, they were doing everything they could, and he knew it would never be enough. It didn't matter what they did. The only person who could ever catch Alexander was Sharon, and at the moment, she was silent as the corpses of the girls whose faces Andy had never forgotten.

"Those girls," Brenda said slowly, as if she didn't want to finish her own sentence, "they look an awful lot like…" her voice trailed off, turning her head back to Sharon to fill in the blanks her words left.

Andy just nodded. They did look an awful lot like Sharon. All of them.

"We met Alexander a little over eleven years ago, when his girlfriend died. We could never prove her death wasn't suicide, but it didn't matter. He'd already fixated on her. It was maybe six months after we first questioned him that these girls started dying. They don't just look like the Captain, Chief. They've all got similar histories. Shitty parents, asshole ex-husbands, addicted to their jobs. The last few girls had kids."

Brenda stared at him, obviously trying to wrap her mind around the realization that Captain Raydor did, in fact, have a personal life. She seemed shocked, somehow, to find herself face-to-face with the reality of Sharon as a person. Andy understood her surprise; Sharon was an unnaturally private person. Always had been. There were some secrets, she said, that needed to be kept.

Unfortunately for Sharon, now was not the time for keeping secrets.

"Speaking of ex-husbands, what exactly happened to Captain Raydor's ex? I understand he's dead, but-"

"How?" Andy finished her sentence, already several steps ahead. This was one secret he really didn't want to share with the Chief without Sharon's permission, but he didn't know what else to do in this moment. And a part of him wanted to tell the Chief, wanted to show her just how awful things had become, there at the end.

"A few months after the last girl died, we hadn't heard a sound from Marcus Alexander. He just fell off the map. And then Sharon got a call from Mitch's- that's her husband- from Mitch's girlfriend. She was hysterical, said she came home from a vacation and found Mitch dead on the floor, shot in the head. There was a gun in his hand, so at first the investigating officers thought it was suicide."

"But," the Chief supplied, understand dawning in her eyes.

"But there were no prints on the gun, or anywhere in the apartment. There was no note, but we had a pretty good idea who did it."

"Alexander?" the Chief asked, stunned.

Andy nodded. "It couldn't have been the girlfriend. Not only did she have a good alibi, she didn't have a motive. Mitch had plenty of money, but she was just his girlfriend. All his money went to Sharon and the kids. I think Alexander did it. His way of reaching out to Sharon. In his own twisted way, he thought he cared about her, and Mitch had hurt her."

"So Alexander hurt him right back," the Chief said, still somewhat awe-struck by the news.

Sharon turned away from the murder board, tired green-eyes searching for Andy across the room. He caught her gaze, and nodded. He wanted to hold her, tell her everything was going to be ok, but he knew he couldn't. She wouldn't let him, and even if she did, he'd only be lying.

"Andy," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. She had become someone else, in recent years, someone who didn't need people, someone who believed in the rules and little else. Andy didn't recognize that woman. In this moment, though, she'd lost her usually commanding presence, and in its place was the Sharon Raydor Andy remembered from years ago, lost and scared and in need of a shoulder to lean on.

"I'm sorry I hit you," she said, the tone of her voice betraying an intimacy they hadn't enjoyed for over a decade. The Chief shifted on her feet, visibly uncomfortable, but remained to watch the scene unfold.

"It's ok," he told her, and he meant it. "I know why you're angry with me, but honest to God, I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

She gazed up at him, unable to cry any more than she already had.

"I'd always choose you, Sharon."

Eleven years before

"I'm sorry, Sergeant, but you're off the case," the Chief said matter-of-factly, his tone causing Sharon to bristle. Off the case? There was no case without Sharon. Surely the Chief of Police could understand that.

"Chief-"

"Sergeant Raydor, this is not a discussion. You're too close. This guy is gunning for you. I can't have you running around out there trying to track him down. You'd be making it easy for him."

Sharon opened her mouth to protest again, to say that she'd nearly gotten him to confess the last time he'd been in the interview room, if she just had one more chance, something, but the Chief interrupted her.

"Your partner agrees with me," he said.

Andy. Andy agreed with him? Andy thought Sharon should be off the case? She felt her anger rising, found herself unable to speak. How could he? Andy knew what this mean to Sharon. He knew. He knew that she needed to catch this guy herself. That she needed to prove to herself that she was strong enough to do this.

"In fact, he's the one who suggested it."

Sharon wasn't sure she could have felt more devastated, but the Chief's words crushed her. Andy suggested she be taken off the case. Andy didn't have faith in her. And here she stood in the Chief's office, not six hours after she'd been lying in Andy's arms, sweaty and naked and as close to happy as she'd been in a long time. God, this was the worst birthday she'd had in a long time.

"So, go home, Sergeant. Take some time for yourself. We're going to keep your home under surveillance, in case Alexander tries to make contact with you. Be careful." And with that, Sharon was dismissed, sent to her house, which she knew would feel empty without her children, who were still with their father, and her bed, which would feel empty with Andy, who was probably never going to come back there again. How could she let him, knowing that he didn't trust her to handle herself?

He was waiting for her outside the Chief's office, but she tried to rush past in an effort to keep herself from crying right there in front of everyone. Another dead girl, another failure, another time when Sharon Raydor wasn't good enough for the people around her.

"Sharon," he said, catching her arm, forcing her to look at him. "Let me explain-"

"There's nothing to explain, Andy. You don't think I can do my job. That's all I need to know."

The look on his face sliced through her like a knife, but she refused to yield.

"That's not true," he said softly, but she shook her head.

"Yes, it is. You think I'll screw this up, and you told the Chief," she was practically spitting her words at him.

"Sharon, no one could do better than you, no one. I'm just worried about you, baby."

As soon as the word was out of his mouth, he regretted it. It had been a simple slip; Andy always called his girlfriends baby, always made sure everyone knew who belonged to him. And he wasn't sure when he had decided that Sharon belonged to him, but he had, and he wanted nothing more than to have her.

Only Sharon wasn't his for the taking.

"What did you say?" she snarled, jerking her arm out of his grip.

"Look, Sharon, I'm sorry but you've-"

"I'm going home, Flynn," she said, and stormed away.

Andy didn't follow her.

She drove home without realizing what she was doing, the car just sort of steering itself down familiar roads until she pulled up in front of her house. She sat in the car for a long time, thinking about the mistakes she'd made, and the note Alexander had left for her.

The darkness is coming for you, Sharon. No one is safe.

She had the feeling the darkness wasn't coming. She felt as if it were already upon her.

When she finally got out of her car and walked into her house, she didn't immediately notice something was wrong. She should have, really. He'd gone through her things; moved some pictures, read some letters, helped himself to a glass of water. She didn't notice his jacket draped over her catch as she drifted through her living room.

She did notice him when he pressed a gun against her back and murmured in her ear, "I told you I was coming, Sharon."

She couldn't think, couldn't move. She still had her gun, tucked in its holster under her jacket, but she didn't reach for it. She didn't know what to do.

"Where're the kids, Sharon?" he asked, nudging her into the kitchen with the barrel of his gun.

"Not here," she answered, shocked by how steady her voice sounded. Every part of her felt as if it were shaking.

"Don't tell me they're with Mitch," Alexander said, and Sharon shivered. He knew her life, knew every part of her. And he could take it all away from her, with the twitch of a finger.

"It's his turn," she said simply, and the man barked out a laugh.

"As if he deserves them, after leaving you for that harpy."

"Something tells me you didn't come here to talk about my ex-husband. Maybe you came to talk about all those girls you killed." She was grasping at straws and she knew it, but she needed to keep talking. Needed the time to think.

Alexander laughed again, motioned for her to sit at her kitchen table, though he kept the gun trained on her.

"Very funny, Sharon. I didn't come to talk about them; I came to talk about you. Which is the same thing, I suppose."

She stared at him, at the shiny metal of his gun, wondering how long it would take her to draw her weapon and drop him where he sat across from her.

"Don't even think about it, Sharon," he said sharply, as if he'd read her mind, and she tensed.

"I actually came here to talk about your friend Andy," he said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out an envelope. He opened it with one hand, keeping a careful eye on Sharon, and produced several small pictures. He spread them out in front of her.

Sharon and Andy sharing drinks at his house last month.

Sharon and Andy kissing in the parking lot outside the restaurant where they ate dinner two weeks ago.

Sharon hugging Andy as he arrived at her door with a white box the night before.

"Seems he's got quite the crush on you, Sharon," Alexander said, his familiar tone sending chills down her spine. "And maybe you have a little crush yourself. But I have to tell you, Sharon, I don't think it's going to work out."

···

Andy couldn't say what it was, exactly, that tipped him off to the fact that something was wrong. He pulled into Sharon's driveway, and her car was there, where it should have been, her door closed, as it should have been. Something just wasn't as it should be, and so he approached the front door carefully, his hand on the gun at his side.

His fingertips were on the doorknob when he heard two shots in quick succession, and he threw the door open, desperate to find her.

He ran into the kitchen, and found Marcus Alexander, his shoulder bleeding, and one arm wrapped around the limp form of Sharon Raydor.

"Freeze! LAPD!" Andy shouted, aiming for him, not firing off a round for fear of hitting Sharon instead.

Alexander sneered at him.

"Go ahead, shoot me!" he shouted. "You'll kill her. She's losing a lot of blood. You really want to take that risk, Flynn?"

Andy braced himself to fire, and at that moment, Alexander threw Sharon forward. Without thinking, Andy lunged to catch her. He collapsed underneath her on the floor, her blood staining her pale skin and the front of his white button-down, and Alexander took the opportunity to run out the back door. Andy fired off three rounds at his back, but the man was already gone. It was too late.

"Andy," Sharon said, her voice distant and weak sounding.

"I'm right here, Sharon. I'm right here." He grabbed the phone off the counter, not letting her out of his arms, and called for an ambulance.

"I'm right here."