This is the next-to-last chapter...*yikes!* I shall be wrapping this up soon, with some more blood, and guts, and death, and M/K romance! I hope you like this chapter, and I must apologize for taking so long to update this story. You readers have been wonderful, and I must say, I love every single one of my reviews! :] enjoy!
Just as Megan and Peter got back to the lab, Megan received a phone call from Kate. "Dr. Hunt here", Megan said as she answered. "Megan, hi its Kate. Listen, I am going to need you two to turn back around and head about two blocks south from where our last crime scene was. We have another case on our hands. This one is apparently the same motive, and our killer is now escalating. There are signs of sexual assault, and…he has kidnapped their little girl."
Megan hung up the phone, her jaw almost hitting her seat. Peter had just pulled the keys out of the ignition and asked, "What's wrong Megan?"
"Put the keys back in the ignition and start the car. We have another case." She replied, not a spot of emotion in her voice. On their way to the next crime scene, Megan and Peter got into a debate, on serial killers, kidnappers, and somehow politics. "All I am saying is that…Oh hi Kate! All I am saying is the stimulus bill was a benefit for our country! Well, more or less…" Megan trailed off her statement as she walked into the garage of the other home. Their conversation came to a screeching halt when she saw the husband, one part of his body laying near an electric saw, with his head on the opposite side of the saw…
Megan bent over the wife, who was lying face down, and Megan could have sworn she heard the slightest of sounds, so she checked the woman's carotid pulse. It was weak, but it was there, so she quickly turned the woman over, who was trying to open her eyes, so Megan hurriedly shouted, "Quick! Somebody call me an ambulance! STAT! This woman's alive!" The wife had been bleeding fairly profusely from her leg, and if Megan hadn't heard her, she may not have been able to save the woman. While waiting on the ambulance, Megan did the best she could to make a tourniquet out of the first thing she could find…a broken extension cord.
The ambulance finally arrived, and the woman was carried to the hospital, everyone watching and listening to the shrill noise of the ambulance's siren.
"Good work Megan." Kate said, going to shake Megan's hand. Megan took off her gloves and shook the other woman's hand, while looking her dead in the eye and thinking, "I am so going to get laid after this is all over."
Later that day, Megan was going over the case file with Curtis and Ethan, wondering what the hell was going on with these two cases. "I found 3 cases back from '95 too, Megan, same motive and everything. The first was the captain of a cheerleading squad, the second was a high school math teacher and her son, and the third was a John Doe who was just running in the park one day." Ethan told Megan, handing her the other case files. "Oh I remember those" Curtis added, "They got down to two suspects, but they could never determine if the killer was male or female, and both suspects seemed to have an alibi for the murders."
Megan sat and thought for a while, leaning back in her chair, about different things. Why was this guy just NOW escalating after so many years of staying in hiding? What really WAS his motive for killing? And, was this killer male…or female?
"I have an idea" Megan stated, wanting to go back to the Richland part of their case. It seemed to be the most similar to the very first murder. "Bring me a cheerleader, Peter, Ethan I'll need you, and Kate." Megan suddenly got a mischievous look on her face. She then turned to Curtis, stating, "Curtis, bring me four lab coats, two knives, and 9 millimeter. Oh, and about two…lets make it three pints of blood."
Two hours later, Megan was conducting an experiment, comparing the spatter patterns on the cheerleader with the ones on the Mrs. Richland. She stood the young rookie next to Kate, who was to be Mrs. Richland, and flung blood (using the knife) onto each of their lab coats in a specific pattern. She then pointed the muzzle of the gun into Ethan's lower back after firing it once into a target. She hoped it would leave a stamp on his lab coat (which it did), and compared it with the husband Richland's wounds.
In the conclusion of her experiment, Megan had Peter use the same gun to shoot a ballistics gel model at three different angles, so that she could figure out if the brother helped or hindered the shooter in any way.
After the experiment, Megan asked to see Kate in her office, because she wanted to discuss something rather important.
While leaning against her desk, Megan kicked off her stilettos for a moment and stared at her panty-hoes clad toes. Kate walked into Megan's office, a wide smile on her face. "Do I smell spaghetti sauce?" Megan began, attempting to sniff the scent on Kate's blouse. "Yeah, Ethan was trying to come up with a solution for the mixture of spaghetti sauce and blood. All he really got was an explosion, and I came in for the aftermath." Megan came inches from Kate's clavicle, and was rather tempted to lick the above exposed flesh of the woman's neck, but the smell of spaghetti reverted attention back to the case.
Megan stepped around Kate in a circle, taking in every inch of her, going from her height, to her curvature, and even paused a moment to capture a good look at the woman's facial features. She then went back to the front of her desk, and leaned up against it.
Kate looked at Megan, confused as ever, and asked: "What are you playing at?" Megan smiled and replied, "I believe that our killer…is a man."
"And how did you come to that conclusion might I add?" Kate asked, lifting her chin up as if to add some authority and certainty to her question. "My first clue was the first victim, the cheerleader. Almost all male killers have a first victim that is female. Next was the math teacher. I figured maybe our killer had this teacher previously in high school, and men are notoriously worse in math than women. Just ask the guy who tried to cheat off my calculus exam in 11th grade. The last couple of clues were of course the sexual assault of the wife from our most previous crime scene, and Dr. Richland's brother in law."
"What does Jonathan have anything to do with the killer being a man?" Kate asked, somewhat irritated now in Megan's reasoning. "Jonathan was a former army drill sergeant, and we both know he wasn't going to go down without a fight, hence the defensive wounds on his knuckles and forearms. I believe the killer was after him, and Dr. Richland and her husband were just…in the way. I guarantee you that woman found the first thing she could to get rid of the killer, and that was spaghetti sauce. With burns like that, the man could have fired his gun anywhere, and I will bet you a bottle of tequila that he was blinded, just shot at wherever he thought Dr. Richland was."
Kate nodded her head, in approval, and then added something in an almost joking manner, "Tequila? Really? Well Dr. Hunt, your reasoning sounds great. Speak with Ethan and Curtis on this matter, and we may have…YOU may have cracked this case as wide open as the Grand Canyon. Oh, and you and I have a date tomorrow night at eight; my place."
Kate left Megan's office, proud of Megan for figuring out everything she had. She had hoped to put the '95 cases to rest sooner, but now was a better time than never.