Beeep. Beeep. Beeep.

I sit up in bed and fumble my hand along the wall for the light switch. Scrunching up my eyes against the sudden brightness, I reach for my pager. I barely have time to read the message when my cell phone rings.

"Bonasera."

"It's Flack. You get my page?"

"Just now." I yawn. "Not my night for call-out. Has Danny already got a scene?"

"No, I called you on purpose."

"This had better be good, Don. It's half three in the morning and not my call-out, as I said."

"Trust me. You're the primary on Mac's case." His tone is serious.

"What – has something happened?" I ask in sudden horror. Mac.

"Nah, nothing like that," he says hurriedly. "But I've got a scene here. I think it might be linked."

"Ok, I'll be right there. Where's the scene?"

He gives me the address. I hang up.

- - - - -

The roses are red. Red as blood, I think, and that's the literal truth. The redness pools in the folds between the petals, slides slowly down the stem in globules which hang poised to fall from the points of the thorns. It's hard to tell where the redness of the petals ends and the redness of the blood begins. The bouquet is tied with a red silk ribbon.

As I watch, another drop of blood breaks free and falls down through the air, to be absorbed by the fabric beneath which used to be white, but is now as red as the roses. "Whose blood is it?" I ask.

"Well, not from our bride here," Flack replies. "No other ideas yet."

The bride seems unaffected by the attention she's receiving. Her plastic features stare into the distance as the bunch of roses she holds continues to ruin her beautiful dress. Her maids of honour on either side of her in the shop window are similarly unconcerned.

"So what makes you think this is connected? It could just be simple vandalism, some sort of threat to the shopkeeper. The blood might not even be human."

"Blood's already been tested, and it's human. Anyway, you think I'd dare call you in the middle of the night if this wasn't serious?"

"Just tell me why you're so sure this is the same guy here."

"Coming to that. Follow me." He leads the way out of the window display. I follow him down the main aisle to the back of the shop, towards a tall blonde man who's talking animatedly to the uniformed officer with him. Mac's there too, listening. I catch his eye and he excuses himself and joins us a little way away.

"Aren't you on the body in the park?" I ask, a little sharply.

"Not any more, I've transferred Danny to it instead."

"He know that yet?"

"He will tomorrow. He gets a full night's sleep, so he can be grateful."

I'm not entirely sure that Danny'll be getting a full night's sleep, and judging by Flack's wink at me, he isn't either. "You know what I think of you."

"As always, Stella. I haven't started processing yet, I was waiting for you."

"I'll go see if Mr Harris over there's finished making his official statement yet," Flack says, and we head in opposite directions.

"Flack says the blood on the roses has already been tested?"

"Yes, I did that when I got here. Nothing else has been touched yet. According to the shopkeeper, the roses were a part of the display, but the blood obviously wasn't."

I rest my kit on the floor and open it, lifting out my camera. Mac moves out of the way as I take a few wide angle shots. The shop door's nearby and he moves over to that and bends to examine it. "Is that how the perp got in?"

"Yes. There's another door at the back, one that's used for deliveries, but it's chained and padlocked from the inside, so this is the only way in."

"Any sign of forced entry?"

"No. The lock's not broken at all." He pulls the door inwards, setting the bell jingling, and examines the other side. "But it's not a very complicated lock. It could be picked quite easily. Either that or he had a copy of the original key."

I take some close-up pictures of the flowers, and then the stems, turning my back on him. "Neither of you has explained to me yet just why it is you're so certain this is the guy we're after who's done this."

Mac pulls a brush and a bottle of coloured powder from his kit and begins dusting the door. "Mr Harris, the shopkeeper, got a call at home, maybe an hour ago. Flack'll give you the details in a bit, but the gist of it was that someone had been murdered in his shop. Harris didn't want to call the police out on a hoax – apparently that's happened before – so he came down here to have a look and sees the window display. Then he called 911, and helpfully he waited on the sidewalk until NYPD got here. Flack called me."

"You haven't actually answered my question," I point out. He's not improving my temper. "What did the guy say on the phone that makes you so sure this is connected?"

Mac looks up at me. "He said, 'Give my regards to Mac and Stella, and thank them for the loan of those papers.' Harris didn't know what it meant, but he passed it on to the officer who arrived."

"Oh." I pause to let this sink in, although I was suspecting something of the sort. Mac and Stella. So it is personal then. I don't ask Mac any of the things I want to, remembering last time I tried that. "Can you give me a hand here?"

I gently lift the roses from the bride's folded hands, and place them in the evidence bag which Mac holds open for me. As I hold a measuring square against the drip pattern on her dress, he says quietly, "I'm sorry."

"What for?" I ask, knowing perfectly well, or hoping that I do, but needing to hear it from him anyway.

"For earlier. Well, yesterday now." He's stumbling slightly, as if he's nervous of what my reaction will be. "I was avoiding you, and I wouldn't let you ask me anything. I'm sorry."

I consider it. It's an easy choice. I can never be angry with Mac for very long. "Forgiven. But you know you can always talk to me, ok, so do it more often please?"

"I know. Thank you. For being such a good friend. And for taking me home, before, and letting me take your bed. I should have said before. I don't know why I didn't." He puts his hand gently on my arm and lets it rest there. "Just… thank you."

I smile, a proper smile this time. "We're partners, Mac. We take care of each other. We always will."

"You said that to me before. In similar circumstances."

"I'll say it again if I have to, although I hope I don't. It's true." We break apart and he hands me the bag of roses for me to label, seeing that I'm finished with photographing for the time being. As he continues printing the door I begin to undo the back of the wedding dress. "Have you got anything there?" I ask.

"No prints at all. The door's been wiped clean on both sides."

"He stood on the street long enough to polish down the door?" I say incredulously. "Anyone could have seen him. Just like when he dumped the body by the river. This guy's arrogant."

"I agree. But he's also very clever, and very dangerous."

"Should you maybe think about getting protection?" I ask cautiously.

"No, I don't think so. If he's after me he's had plenty of opportunity already, and judging by what he's managed to do so far, I don't think a uniform sitting outside my apartment block would be any help whatsoever."

Well, I think, as I carefully fold the dress into another paper evidence bag, at least I tried. I seal it with tape and label it with the black marker pen.

"Stell?" I look up and Mac seems to have disappeared. I turn and can see him beckoning me from the other side of the window. I join him on the sidewalk. It isn't long until sunrise now.

"Have you found something?"

"Yeah. I think it's a trail, look." My gaze follows his pointing finger and I see a red petal lying on the concrete slab a few feet away. There's another splash of colour about ten yards beyond that.

"I'm guessing you don't think it's a coincidence?"

For answer he crouches down and lifts the first petal partially with the tip of his gloved finger and thumb. It leaves a faded imprint of itself behind, red against the grey. "Grab a stack of evidence markers. Let's see where this trail leads."

A/N: Well, here you are, sorry for the wait. The next chapter'll be up in a couple of days as usual. Blue x