It's been a long time, and for that reason, please accept my apologies if I have contradicted myself any. I have tried to make sure I've been consistent - but I might have missed small details! No spoilers for the current season! And I don't own any of the characters etc etc, but I do own the typos!! Swearing and some adult themes ahoy! but not enough to make it M in my opinion (rated 15!!)

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Chapter 13

Shadows Flicker

The city always stayed awake, a chosen insomnia perpetuating through its every night. Lindsay looked out of her bedroom window at the lights dancing on every street, every avenue and wished for the darkness of Montana. Back home there was a sense of day and night. People slept. Even as a teenager, they had been home and in bed by one am at the latest. But even in Montana there had been evil. Sleep did not stop the killers and rapists. She drew the heavy blackout curtains, blocking out the neon lights and flashing bulbs, and slid into bed trying to ignore a cry of passion which permeated the wall from her next door neighbour. She pulled the blankets over her head and closed her eyes, willing sleep, with its numbing powers, to arrive soon.

-&-

Flack sat in Brian Goddard's office chair and stared at the immaculately clean desk. He had reached a dead end. No one was talking because no one had anything to say; Brian Goddard was a nice man with only one enemy, David Rostow. There were no leads on David Rostow – the credit card that had been found had been cancelled eighteen months ago; the billing address had been for a house owned by Rostow's ex-wife in Middleton, Greater Manchester, England – although it might have been Mars for all the relevance it had. Two officers had spent the day trying to track down the money withdrawals from the accounts belonging to those people listed as missing and that had proved to be another dead end; the money was transferred to another account held by a Swiss back, and they transferred to another in the Channel Islands. By the time Officer Gary Knight had tried to explain it Flack's brain had seized up and he had dropped his BLT sandwich on the floor.

"Aneka Lebowitz wasn't there," Angell announced as she entered the room, her hair loosened from the clip she had put it in that morning. "Roommates haven't seen her since yesterday, think she's staying with a boyfriend and she hasn't turned up for her shift."

Flack spun round on the chair and nodded. "She's spooked."

Angell nodded. "I imagine she's gone to ground. Attendance records show she was about to be booted for not turning up to classes. Us showing up was probably the last straw."

"No ideas on where ground is?" Flack said. "Mac's cult theory is looking increasingly likely. If we can trace Lebovitz then I think we'll find whatever hideout is being used."

Angell looked thoughtful, sitting down on one of the chairs. There were no traces of the crime that had been committed there, although Flack had still been convinced that he was going to find one of Raimo's missing eyes when he had moved the chair away from the desk to sit on it. "We have a cult which is targeting rich, mainly female, students who then disappear but still continue to withdraw money and place it into some complex laundering system. We have an ex-soap star, with major debts, who has committed suicide and her husband – who may not have technically been her husband – has been murdered." She looked directly at Flack, her eyes determined. "Goddard and Raimo knew what was going on."

"I don't disagree with that," Flack said. "But if Goddard was killed to shut him up, why dump his body off at the local NYPD? That doesn't make sense."

"Unless you wanted it to be looked in to," Angell said, a smile creeping up the corners of her mouth. "There are members of cults who want to leave, but cannot do so because of the implications for themselves…"

"So Goddard was brought to the station by someone who wanted out, who knew where the primary crime scene was and was able to move him," Flack finished, looking victorious.

"We just need to find that primary crime scene, which I would bet you a burger to a salad sandwich was staged to look like a suicide," Angell said, standing up and brushing down her jacket. Flack regarded the movements closely.

"Goddard had no trace on him, it was like he'd been vacuumed," he said. "I've known murderers use a lint roller or a clothes brush, but they've never managed to get it completely clean. There's always been something, something to give us a lead."

"But on this there was nothing," Angell said.

Flack stood, pushing the chair back under the desk without thinking about lost eyes and took a step toward the exit. "The only people who can get things that clean are the people with the inside knowledge."

"This is a law school, Flack, there are kids here studying criminal law, they'll be well read on forensics…"

He shook his head as he upped his pace, leaving Goddard's study with Angell close behind him. "Why choose my station? It's not the closest to NYU."

"Mac's reputation…" Angell looked at him blankly, closing the door to the study. The lock clicked. "You think it's someone who works there."

"Why not? They knew when that delivery was going to be made, they would have known how the body would have been dealt with and they would have known how to keep themselves from under suspicion," Flack said, feeling blood circulate faster round his body, pushing adrenaline round his veins and making him feel alive. He loved moments like this, when realisation clicked two pieces of a jigsaw together.

They left Vanderbilt Hall and stepped out into the night, the noise of car engines and voices amplified by the stillness of the air. Flack felt his cell vibrate in his pocket and answered it out before it managed to ring. "Mac?" he greeted, knowing that Mac should have gone off shift several hours ago and also knowing that he should be surprised by the fact that Mac was still there.

"We've got another DB over at the Red Lion Hotel," Mac said.

"We're on our way," Flack replied, about to hang up.

"And Flack," he heard Mac's voice and placed the phone back to his ear. "It's been ID'd as Sam Burras."

"The morgue assistant?" Flack looked at Jess, the din around them becoming almost deafening.

-&-

Rachael sat in an all-night diner across the street from the Red Lion Hotel, sipping a large mocha and watching the fuss as yet another unmarked police car pulled up outside.

She was bored. Bored with the games David was meant to be playing, bored with seducing rich people, bored with not being able to spend their money. She pulled at a tendril of curly brown hair and checked for split ends. None. Helen was a good hairdresser, almost as good as the professional stylist Rachael used to visit back home. She wouldn't be recognised, either by that annoying police detective who had nearly caught her coming out of Goddard's house or by the man she had paid for an hour's use of the honeymoon suite at the Red Lion – a blonde wig had seen to that, as well as a prominent cleavage that Graeme hadn't been able to take his eyes away from.

Sam's job had never been an issue before. Only she'd known about it; helping him keep up his lies to David that he worked at an elementary school, when in fact he was a morgue assistant, but then, she'd been a beneficiary of Sam's wages and inheritance. Rachael sipped the coffee, savouring the taste.

It was her who had recruited Sam; he'd been one of her firsts and David had been pleased with her. Back then she'd been caught up in the dream and passionate about David; she'd been his slave in more ways than one, and then slowly, as his condition worsened, the roles had reversed. She had taken control of the group weeks ago, once David realised that killing had no effect on her.

"If they aren't going to believe in our cause then what use are they to us?" she had said the night before.

"We can ignore them," David had responded, his eyes fixed on her as she slowly undid the buttons of her blouse.

She'd taken a step back, out of his reach, as she'd peeled the material away from her skin, his eyes transfixed by her nakedness. "But this way it's more fun," she'd said, her own fingers caressing her breasts. She had heard him gasp and then reach for the brakes of his wheel chair.

"You don't believe in it, do you?" he'd said, moving closer.

She had turned her back and laughed. "No. I never have. You know that. All this shit about never having to sleep. Those books should be burnt. Maybe the Nazis were right – some stuff shouldn't be read." She felt his hands on her waist, his fingers creeping up her torso. Her own hands captured his and held them there. "You don't believe it either. You just like the money."

"And you just like the power."

She had laughed again and released his fingers, allowing them to move up to her breasts, knowing that he needed her far more than she needed anyone.

Sam had been the same. She had recruited him because of his weakness, and every time she felt he was faltering she would meet him at some run down motel where you could rent a room by the hour. Tonight he'd confessed as she'd suspected, and she knew then that he was surplus to requirements. She'd fucked him first, of course, then held chloroform to his nose and mouth. Once he was completely under her control, she injected him straight into the heart. Phenol. She'd learnt a lot from David. She bleached his body; every day bleach, kept in the grotty bathroom and probably never used and then she'd slipped down the fire exit.

Sam's body would have still been warm when Graeme went up to the room, wanting to charge them extra for staying over an hour. She imagined the sight and smiled, draining the last of her mocha.

Rachael stood up, taking a long look out of the window. A tall dark haired man got out of a car wearing a suit that looked too smart for a detective. He was attractive, a little like Maxwell maybe. Maybe he would be interested in having some fun too.

-&-

Angell glanced across the road and caught sight of a dark haired woman looking at them. It wasn't unusual; so many police cars would attract attention, but something about the woman wasn't quite right. She mentally photographed her before turning back to the motel.

Flack had already gone inside, followed by Sid who had arrived there shortly after them. The tension among the officers and CSI's was thick and palpable, very few words were being said; the severity of what had happened needed no confirmation.

The stairs to the second floor were carpeted in cheap red, the wallpaper peeling away in the corners. The room rate was cheap, and the décor showed. Angell cringed as she looked inside room 12. Sam Burras lay naked on the faded bedspread, his mouth slightly open and his stare fixed at the ceiling. Sid bent over the body, his face rigid with anger. Mac stood silently, watching as the pathologist made his first observations.

"I think he was involved with the cult," Flack said, breaking the silence. "That's how Brian Goddard got to the precinct. He would have known delivery times and have been able to work out how to get the body inside without drawing attention to himself."

"And bringing the body to us was a way of drawing our attention to what was going on," Mac said, his hands in his pockets. He nodded, directing his gaze onto Flack instead of Sam. "A cry for help."

"He's been dead less than an hour," Sid said, his voice quiet. "I would guess that cause of death is through an injection of some sort – there's a needle site in his chest."

"Intracardic phenol injection would be my guess, although you'll have to wait for tox to comfirm," Mac said. "Used by the Nazis in concentration camps when they realised it was the most effective way of disposing of prisoners. Whoever is carrying out these murders is escalating."

"David Rostow?" Angell said. She shook her head. "This is a woman. Why else is he undressed? I would say he was lured here for sex."

Flack nodded. "People certainly don't come here for the décor and comfort," he looked away from the bed, his expression pained, then his eyes turned to Angell and they softened. "You need to go home, Jess, you've been on shift for sixteen hours."

The use of her first name in front of the others jolted her. For an instant all she wanted to do was put her head on his shoulder and weep, and that feeling shocked her. She had never needed protecting, or felt that urge to be part of someone else. She took a deep breath and pushed the image to one side. "So have you," she gave him her best tough look.

He nodded. "I won't be long. I need to brief my men. There will be eyewitnesses – they will have been seen together."

"I'll wait for you in the car," she said, realising that neither Mac nor Sid were reading anything into their familiarity. Flack nodded, and she left the room. Tiredness lurked behind her eyelids and she felt her body calling for sleep. They dealt with shit, she knew, she knew what it would be like before joining the academy, but this seemed different. Two people linked with her had been murdered, and there was no sign of it stopping.

Jess got into the passenger seat and rested her head back, her eyes still watching what was going on around her, angling the rear view mirror so she could see behind. She noticed the brunette; the same woman who had been across the street earlier and for a brief moment they made eye contact before the woman began to move away, almost disappearing into the crowds. Jess scrambled out of the car and walked quickly to catch up with her. The woman waited, smiling as Jess approached.

"Detective Jessica Angell," Jess showed her ID. Did you happen to see a man and woman enter the Red Lion approximately ninety minutes ago?"

The woman shook her head and Jess realised how beautiful she was. "Sorry, I was just wondering what all the commotion was about while I was having a coffee over there," she gestured to the diner facing the motel. Jess wondered why a woman dressed the way she was had stopped at such an eatery. "Just being nosy, I guess."

"You work local?" Jess asked as the woman began to step away. She looked at the oversized bag on her shoulder and wondered what was in it.

"I'm a mystery shopper," the woman said. "I was at the McDonalds about an hour ago, but the coffee there stinks. I needed something to get the taste out of my mouth. I'm sorry, I can't help you." She smiled then looked abruptly toward a yellow cab, gesturing for it to stop.

Jess watched as she got into the taxi, brown curls bobbing up and down with the woman's movements. She didn't smile back.

Flack was waiting at the car when she returned. She briefly filled him in, wondering if her suspicions were due to tiredness and reading too much into things, or if her cop's instinct was simply doing its job.

"Get a picture drawn up or an e-fit done tomorrow," Flack said, starting up the car and then driving away from the still-bustling scene. He slowed as they approached a red light. "Your place or mine?"

She let the question hang in the air momentarily, breathing in the connotations it contained and recalling her need for him.

He glanced at her as the lights changed, looking unsure. "Jess? Or I can just drop you off – I thought…"

"Yours. It's closer," she said.

The car remained quiet for the rest of the journey, although she could tell that Flack wanted to talk. Occasional smatters of words came over the police radio that hadn't been turned off, neither wanting to sever their connection with the events that had occurred, neither knowing what else could possibly unfold.

He pulled up in a space outside his building, a useful find. Generally, Jess knew, he had to park a block or so away, only a short distance, but given how drained she felt, she wasn't sure if she could make it to the elevator.

Flack paced quickly round to her, before she could even close the car door. He shut it for her, then put an arm around her waist and pulled her in to him. "There's no one to be professional in front of," he said, his voice low. "Usually, I come home from days like this and it's a choice of football or hockey replays. Or having a beer with Danny."

"So I'm option number three then," she said, smiling up at him. She saw his grin as he purposely looked away from her and she knew what it meant.

-&-

She watched as he wheeled himself about the large room, barely making eye contact with her when he spoke. Night time peered in at the window and she marvelled at it, how it no longer controlled her body, how it was just her in charge.

"You're special, Jen," he said. "Special to us all."

"We're all special," she responded, taking her gaze away from the window and looking down at her feet. "You taught us that."

"But," he said, moving nearer to her. "You are special because you have been chosen."

She looked into his eyes, eyes like she had never seen before with enough depth to drown in them.

"What do you want me to do?" she said, smiling.

He smiled back, his eyes twinkling.

Thank you to everone who has reviewed so far - I hope you like this installment - I'll try to get another up soon. Also, thank you to everyone over at LJ who nominated me in the CSI fanfic awards; it meant a lot, especially as I haven't been very prolific for a while!

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