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Chapter 3

"We now have 47 hours to revisit every one of the crimes scenes in the Gerard Cullen case and prove he didn't kill those girls."

"Mac, we went over every inch of those scenes. If we could have found evidence to say it wasn't Cullen then we would have done then. It was him, no doubt about it." Danny said.

"But why would he admit to raping them if he didn't kill them?" Adam asked.

"Because he knows we have him on the rapes, his DNA was inside every one of them girls." Mac said.

"Cullen has killed before. His DNA links him to the deaths of three other women, all brutally raped and then murdered. So why not kill these girls? It doesn't make any sense." Lindsay said.

"The deaths of those women couldn't be pinned on him. We knew he raped them but they were all killed days after they were raped, and found days after they were killed." Mac said.

"So why not kill the girls? It just doesn't make sense to me." Lindsay said again.

"So he took Jo just to use her to make us reopen the case." Hawkes said.

"Jo is his bargaining tool. He knew we'd do anything he wants to get her back." Mac said.

"So he set up the explosion. But I still don't get how he sent those messages from your phone Mac." Lindsay said.

"Actually I think I may have worked that one out." Adam said as he pulled out his iphone. "It's an app." he said as he showed them all.

"Clone phone?" Lindsay asked.

"You type in the number you want to send the message to and you type in the number that you want it to have come from and voilà." Adam said as he demonstrated it. Danny looked down as his phone suddenly beeped in his pocket. He took it out and saw that he had a message, sent from Mac who hadn't touched his phone. "See." Adam said. "If he has an iphone he probably has this app."

"We don't have time for playing with apps on phones." Mac said.

"No, but this app isn't free so if he has it he would have had to pay for it using a phone credit account he set up. If we can get the details from that then we might be able to pull an address. It's worth a shot, Mac." Adam said.

"Then get too it. The rest of you are with me. We're going back to the first scene." he told them, "We may have been given 48 hours but I want Jo back here safe before that."

~0~0~0~0~

Jo felt terrible. Her whole body was shivering from the pain she was in. She sat up as best she could and pulled her shirt up a little so she could look at the wound on her stomach. She had been using torn pieces of her bed-sheet to pack the wound, up until now it had stopped the bleeding some. She pulled the blood soaked rag from the wound, wincing in pain. She grabbed another rag from next to her mattress, ones she had prepared earlier, and carefully pressed it into the wound; whimpering in pain.

She flopped back down and thought about how bleak a situation she was in. However, the thought quickly brought tears to her eyes so she pushed it aside and sat up as much as she could again to check the wound.

She was a little worried to see the rag was already soaked with blood, blood that had nowhere to go but dribble down her flank. She grabbed another piece of rag and tried packing that into the wound but it did nothing but cause her to yelp in pain. She closed her eyes for only a few second but when she opened them she saw that rag was already soaked. This was bad.

Somehow she managed to push herself onto her feet. It took some time but she did it. She wandered over to the intercom and pressed the button with a shaky and blood stained finger. She tried to speak but pain took her breath away and the sound of her gasping was all her captor heard.

She placed her hand over the wound and tried to press down, tried to slow the bleeding but she could feel her blood seeping through her fingers. She tried to breathe through the throbbing almost blinding pain.

"What?" she heard.

"I'm bleeding." she told him. "My stomach….I can't stop the blood anymore." she said, her voice dripping with pain. She could barely hold back her tears.

She got no reply and what seemed like hours passed where nothing happened. She was about to let her tears fall freely when the door slid open. She saw her captor standing there but he began to sway, or she did, she wasn't sure. She reached out and grabbed hold of the wall, unable to stand on her own.

She didn't know she had collapsed to the floor until she felt herself get scooped up off it. She was in no way able to do anything about it. She could feel herself slipping into blackness, into unconsciousness.

~0~0~0~0~

Mac and the team were at the first scene still. It was a deserted spot in central park. The recent rainy weather had completely destroyed the scene. They weren't finding anything else and he doubted they were going to.

"Mac, this scene is months old. The weathers washed everything away. We're not gonna find anything." Danny said, having walked over to Mac.

Mac nodded, he knew he was right and hoped they would have better look revisiting the second scene, that one was an alley down town. It too had been released by now and so he knew any evidence they found there could be contaminated, but he knew they had to try. "Come on, we're going to the Shelly Murrin's crime scene!" he yelled.

~0~0~0~0~

Jo had regained consciousness only to find herself lying on a bed. She had some sort of gag in her mouth that left a disgusting taste in her mouth that made her want to throw up. She knew from the stiff pain in her shoulders that her arms were tied up, stretched up above her head, but she had to look to be sure. She sighed when the full force of the predicament she was in came to her. She was tied to a bed because of a convicted rapist, a violent one at that.

She sat up as best she could and took a look at herself. She was happy to see her clothes still covered her body. She knew that happiness could be short lived, even shorter as she heard footsteps approaching.

She looked over to the door and felt like crying when she saw Ged walk into the room carrying a brown paper bag. She watched as he walked right over to the bed she was lying on and sat down next to her. He tipped the brown bag upside down, letting its contents fall out next to Jo.

She had to look at what it was. She saw a pack of bandages, a pack of sterilized cloth, some gauze, a bottle of anti-septic ointment, a pair of rubber gloves, a roll of fishing-line and a sewing needle. "You're no good to me if you bleed to death." Ged told her as he pulled the gag from her mouth.

"What are you going to do with all that?" she asked, dreading the answer she had a feeling she was going to get.

"Stitch you up before you bleed all over my house, more than you already have." he said as he pulled the gloves on.

Jo didn't have time to even think about it before Ged poured the antiseptic ointment over her wound. It was like rubbing salt in a wound and she had to grit her teeth to stop herself muttering all the cuss words in the world at him. He used the sterilized cloth to roughly wipe her wound. She couldn't hold in gasp of pain. She knew the wound had to be cleaned out but he wasn't even trying to be gentle, not that she was expecting him to be.

She was thankful when she heard him drop the blood stained cloth into the brown paper bag, her moment free of pain came to an end when he poured more antiseptic ointment on her wound. "Son-of-a-bitch!" she muttered through gritted teeth, unable to hold it in.

Ged just laughed and picked up the roll of fishing line. "You think that hurts, wait till I start to stitch you up."

"The wound has to be properly sterilized and stitched, preferably by a professional not a convicted rapist."

"Hence the antiseptic ointment..." Ged said as he poured the remainder of the bottle over her wound. Jo groaned in pain and wished she could hit him with the damn bottle. "And for your information, I am a professional. I was in the military for 6 years. I was taught how to do stiches in my first month. You just never know when a skill like that might come in handy." he said as he threaded the fishing line through the needle. "This is sort of a DIY attempt at it though."

Jo felt like her heart was going to fall out of her ass. She had only had stitches a few times in her life but each time she had been given something to numb the area and it had still hurt like hell. She quickly realised she was getting nothing for the pain as Ged leant over her and prepared to make the first stitch.

She lay back and tried to think of something else, something but the pain she knew she was about to be in. "You might want to bite down on something because this is really going to hurt." he told her.

Jo ignored him and just continued trying to think of anything else. She tried thinking of her children but the moment she felt the needle pierce into her skin she could think of nothing but the pain. She gripped the pillow by her hand as best she could and squeezed it tight.

She tried to breathe through the pain but seven stiches later and she was in burning, blinding pain. "Please just stop for a minute, please!" she begged him.

"Almost done, suck it up." he told her.

"Please stop!" she cried out.

He was really jabbing the needle into her and pulling it tight, she knew he was purposely trying to cause her more pain than necessary. "Get off me! Get away from me!" she yelled at him.

He reached up and pulled the gag back up into her mouth. She closed her eyes and bit down on the gag, trying not to throw up from the awful taste.

~0~0~0~0~

The team were working over the second scene. They had been there for hours and every one of them hours had been a waste of time that they knew Jo didn't have. "This is pathetic!" Mac cried. "These scenes are too old to find anything now!"

The others could hear the frustration in his voice and they too felt it. They all wished there was something they could find but they knew Mac was right.

"Look, let's split up. Danny and Hawkes you go to the third scene. Lindsay, you and I will take the fourth. Let's go, we only have 38 hours left."

They all headed off to their cars. Hawkes was riding along with Danny due to still having to be on crutches even though his leg felt much better. His mind was too concerned with the safe return of his friend to be worried about pain.

Mac had just climbed back into his car, ready to head to the next scene, when his phone rang. Knowing who it would be he picked up his cell and answered. "Mac Taylor." he said.

"That's no way to answer. You say 'Yes Gamekeeper?" said Gerard.

"Yes Gamekeeper?" Mac said through gritted teeth.

"How are you doing?" Gerard asked.

"We've found nothing at the first or second scenes. It's been too long. Any evidence has been washed away in last week's rain and anything we could find now could potentially be contaminated anyway."

"And there's me thinking you wanted to get Jo back."

"I do!"

"Then work harder!" Ged spat at him.

"If there's no evidence then there's no evidence. I can't just magic it up out of thin air!" Mac yelled.

Ged stood there looking at Jo who was still tied to the bed, the gag over her mouth. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a recording device. Jo had watched him playing about with it earlier, until he had found the right spot. He held the recorder up to the phone and hit play.

Mac sat in his car and closed his eyes as he heard Jo, heard the pain in her voice. "Please stop! Get off me! Get away from me!"

Mac's mind began to race with horrible thoughts, horrible images flashed before his eyes.

"I suggest you start learning magic tricks, Mac. If you don't start finding some evidence soon…well I'll kiss Alabama here goodbye for you..."

Mac glared out of the front window, the phone still up by his ear even though the line had now gone dead. He threw the phone onto the passenger's seat and let his head flop back and his eyes close as he thought about Jo and a conversation they had had a few weeks back.

Mac was sat in his office, in the comfy chairs as opposed to his usual spot behind his desk. The current case was getting to him. Another young girl had been raped and killed and they had DNA telling them who had done it but had not found him yet, and Mac knew this guy was going to keep on raping and killing until he was caught.

He looked up when he heard a knock. He watched Jo step into his office and walk over to the chair next to him. He didn't pay much attention to the paper bag she put down next to her. She sat right next to him and gave him a playful nudge. Finally he managed a small smile. "What's up doc?" she asked, jokingly.

"How many more victims is Gerard going to leave for us to find?" Mac thought out loud.

Jo shook her head, "I don't know. All I do know is we are going to do all we can to find and stop him."

"We should have already found him by now."

"Is that why you're beating yourself up in here?" Jo asked.

Mac nodded and frowned.

"Mac, all we can do is our best. Just because we haven't found Gerard yet does not mean that you aren't doing your job."

Mac looked at her and although he knew she was right he couldn't bring himself to cheer up any. Jo playfully nudged him again and then reached down beside her and grabbed the paper bag. She placed it down in his lap and said, "I haven't seen you eat a thing all day."

Mac laughed as he opened up the bag and looked inside. He reached in and pulled out a sandwich, then an apple, followed by a chocolate bar and a bottle of water. He turned to look at Jo and with a smile said, "Thank you."

"Someone has to look after you." Jo said.

"Why is it always you?" he asked, happy it was always her.

"I guess it's because I care about you." she said as she reached up and stroked his face.

Mac just looked back at her, finding himself, as usual, getting lost in her chocolate brown eyes that he loved so much.

He opened his eyes and pushed the thought away. He reached forward and started up the engine to his car and pulled out. He was off to the next crime scene. He needed Jo back. He had to tell her he cared about her too, more than he should.

TBC

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