Sorry for the delay, guys. My area fell off the wi-fi grid for a while.

A DISCLAIMER TO MY MORE SQUEAMISH FANS: Thsi is perhaps the goriest chapter yet, probably deserving of an M rating. If I feel the need, I'll bump up the rating in later chapters, but for now, this should be the worst of it. If you're still intent on reading the chapter, skip the paragraph describing Jason Anderson...

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8. The Butterfly Effect

"The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing." – Herodotus

The elevator doors opened onto an unusually quiet office; most were solemn, others simply absorbed in their work, but aside from whispered queries, the room was silent. Eyes followed Liz as she made her way towards the war room; she knew they were watching her, waiting for her reaction, but all she did was assume a blank expression and slap her heels extra loudly against the tile floor. At last, her sweating hand found the door handle, and conversation gradually returned to something resembling a normal level. Once inside, she leaned back against the door to shut it quickly; she'd always worried that her relationship with Don would create some office awkwardness, but she'd never expected this – any of it.

Luckily, her private musings had only a small audience. Colby was sitting on the conference table, eyes fixed on the tiny screen with which his Nokia was equipped. Liz took a stab at nonchalance.

"What have you got?"

He looked up briefly. "Megan's at the house in Santa Monica – she sent us a few photos that might help, since we can't get at the file at the moment."

She set her bag on the table and frowned. "What?"

Flipping the phone shut, he nodded and sighed. "Yeah, the guys down in Fugitive Recovery are being a pain in the ass; they're claiming that since Anderson was their guy, once upon a time, they should be investigating his death. We haven't been able to get our hands on any of the evidence or reports."

"Sounds thin to me," she said, holding out her hand for the phone. "How long is it gonna take to knock it down?"

"The guys upstairs say a few hours."

"Don may not have a few hours." She spoke without thinking and instantly regretted it, and yet Colby's expression didn't switch to the portrait of mild distaste everyone else seemed to have permanently adopted; instead, his features softened, and he looked away instead of staring. She distracted herself with the phone, scrolling through the images with a restless stomach: the phone lying on the carpet, the bullet holes in the wall, the shattered front window, and finally, and most grotesquely, a few choice shots of Jason Anderson himself.

The figure sprawled in the bloody chair reminded her of one of those children's book about the human body; his killer had pulled back a flap of skin, revealing red, shiny organs and stringy muscles, some of which had been extracted and piled in gleaming heaps on the arms of the chair. His cheeks had been cut with a scalpel and flipped up, revealing the kind of empty smile that skeletons are capable of giving. The walls were a tame shade of beige that was only interrupted by the spray of slick gore that had exited his head at the urging of a bullet from temple to temple. Liz's stomach turned as she stared into wide, fear-filed eyes and realized that these monstrosities were probably performed ante mortem.

"Disemboweled," Colby said, rubbing at his face as if happy that his cheeks were intact and in the right place. "That's the first time I've seen someone disemboweled."

"Well, if it's the same guy who's been killing our Fugitive Recovery agents, he's broken his MO," she managed to point out without losing her lunch.

"I find that most sadistic psychopaths generally follow the same rules," Megan butted in, pushing through the door as if it were made of iron and luckily distracting Liz from the grisly show.

"That was fast," Colby said, brows raised.

"Yeah, well, Fugitive Recovery kicked me out pretty early on," she admitted. "Anyway, from what I can tell, even though the crimes are different, the profile I have still stands. Our guy is methodical, organized – he enjoys the power he has over his victims. To him, this is probably one big game. What I don't know is how he expects to win; his motivation could be any one of a number of things."

"What about Charlie's theory? A grudge, maybe?"

Liz shrugged and stood. "It's worth checking out. I'll get David and get a list of people that might have filed complaints, sued the Bureau…" She looked around, confused momentarily. "Where is Charlie?"

"Downstairs with the tech guys. I couldn't stop him working, but he wasn't exactly helping up here," answered Megan, pulling from her coat pocket her notepad. Flipping open to a page, she scanned a few lines of scribbled notes. "Don's car was found in a park ten miles down the road; we did manage to get a hold of that as evidence. The tech guys are trying to revive the on-board navigation system, but since the on-board navigation system went through a tree, they're having a little trouble."

"Great," sighed Colby, letting his shoulders sag. "We have a classic grab and run and no leads."

"Not yet," said Liz, heading out the door for her cubicle and only stopping to hold it open for David.

"Well, when we can get Fugitive Recovery to release the evidence, we can run secretion and fiber DNA," Megan said, fooling with her hair for a minute.

"Guys, you'd better look at this," David, interrupted, setting down an open laptop on the table and plugging it in to the projector. "I was doing a phone and finance dump on Anderson and found this." He highlighted a line of text on what looked to be a bank statement. "Six weeks ago, Jason Anderson deposited fifty thousand dollars into his savings account."

Colby whistled. "Either our guy won the lottery, or he's involved."

"So I got the paperwork to search his e-mail. There was an address that, as of six weeks ago, has popped up five times."

Megan stood. "Five times, five victims. That's gotta be our guy."

"Can you trace it?" asked Colby.

"Not yet to an individual," David replied forlornly. "Tech guys are busy with the navigations system."

"This should get priority," Megan said, squinting to read the address. "Whoever this 'M.a.D.man' at Yahoo is, he's the key to all of this."

"YOU'VE GOT MAIL!" bleated the computer cheerfully, making them all jump. Indeed, a new message appeared on the screen.

"It's from M.a.D.man," said Megan with confusion in her voice. "But why would he send Anderson an e-mail if he knew he was dead?"

"Let's see," David said, clicking up the e-mail, which Megan read off with a voice that slowly infiltrated by a note of fear:

Hey Andyboy,

I thought in our little chat, I made the consequences clear, but apparently, things needed to be spelled out for you. After what you've done, I was disappointed you didn't last longer, but at least I can sleep easy knowing that you'll roast in hell.

M.a.D.man : )

P.S. – To the FBI agents reading this, I know better than anyone you like to look out for your own, but give up. Pop up some popcorn and watch this.

Below the note was a link to a website, which David scrolled down to. One click, and suddenly the projector screen was filled with an image that put everyone's heart in their throats.

Don was not looking well. He looked especially pale under the harsh lights, and his eyes held no comforting glint of thought or strategy; his hands lay limp on the arms of the cheap chair to which he was tied. He looked almost sleepy, except people usually didn't go to bed with that much blood on their face. Behind him, something moved, and from the shadows emerged a figure, leaning over Don's shoulder.

"Who is that?" Colby asked, but Megan shushed him as the mystery man began to speak; his words made them all freeze in their tracks.

"Tell me about Katherine, Eppsie. Tell me about the woman you killed."