"Hey, Lassie, you're back to the old grind!"

Carlton only glanced up at Spencer and resumed reading through the case file. He had only taken yesterday off, for his father's memorial service, and had come straight home from the cliffside. He and Marlowe had eaten takeout Chinese and watched Wives & Daughters on DVD. He had actually enjoyed the British costume drama, and added Roger Hamley's marriage proposal to his list of possible scenarios of how he might ask Marlowe such a question. The idea that he was thinking of asking her that question left him quaking with terror and high as a kite.

After a bit of sleepy but very friendly wrestling in bed, Marlowe had konked out and he had laid on his back until the sky outside started lightening. His orderly mind went through innumerable strategies on how to set the trap for the killer of all those innocent girls, and by dawn one idea in particular had taken shape and didn't seem too outlandish. Know your enemy, he thought. Think the way he thinks, go where he goes, do what he does, see what he sees. What is his comfort zone? Where does he feel safe? Where does he hunt?

By the time he got to the station, he was more than halfway sure that the strategy could work. When Spencer came up and started yammering at him, he was almost one-hundred percent sure, and knew what tack he wanted to take now. It would require some discussion, a bit of persuading, and possibly – hopefully – putting an end to this whole horrific mess. He slapped the folder closed and stood up, focusing on the task at hand and while he wasn't actually trying to be rude to Spencer, he had no time for pleasantries now.

"Somebody told me your dad died…" Shawn said, blocking Carlton's path as he made his way toward Vick's office. The taller man was a lot more agile than Spencer really expected though – Carlton dodged him like a seasoned cow pony and headed toward the chief's door. Spencer followed him nonetheless, eager to know what had put that intent expression on Carlton's face.

Two quick knocks were answered with a distracted "Come in" and Carlton went in, banging the door shut in Spencer's face.

"…and I figured I should express my sympathies…" Spencer muttered, knowing he wasn't going to get in there without possibly getting shot. Or at least shot at. "So…um…I hope the wake was fun."

"What is it?" Karen asked, sitting back in her chair.

"We have a total of sixteen dead girls now, Karen. Sixteen. It's time to take some real action, instead of sitting around on our asses, swatting at flies. So I have an idea. A means of either proving our first suspect is the killer or completely eliminating him, which would please the mayor."

She unfolded her hands and raised an eyebrow. "And that idea would be…?"

"Santa Barbara has, what, nine malls and outlet centers, right?"

"Yes…"

"The killer has not operated outside this county, to our knowledge. My own theory is that he knows that if he does, he doesn't get protection from certain people."

He caught her look, and returned the look with one that indicated righteous determination before continuing.

"We've found victims near all nine of the malls in this county. What I'm thinking is that we should have a strong police presence at seven of those malls, and have plainclothes cops at the other two." He unfolded a map of Santa Barbara County and pointed the eraser of his pencil at the two malls in question: Carriage Crossing and Oceanfront. "Here and here."

"Carlton…" She looked at the map, and the bold circles he had made around the two malls, both fairly far away from the Little Zagreb region of the city. "I have to admit, it's a good idea." She smoothed the map on the table and studied it carefully.

He nodded, looking rather pleased. "I know. It is a good idea. He won't feel safe to hunt at seven places, even if they're closer to Little Zagreb, but he will at two. He's got to slip up sooner or later."

"We can only hope so," she said, glancing out her window to his board, where photos of all sixteen girls were displayed. Not just crime scene photos, but photos of the girls when they had been alive, as a reminder to every cop in the station of just who they were all fighting for. She nodded to Carlton. "Get to work, Detective."

Juliet watched her partner, amazed to see how relaxed he was. He had virtually every uniformed officer in Santa Barbara standing around the station, jammed into alcoves, shoved against the copy machine and the coffee maker, and almost hanging from the light fixtures. They were all eager to take part in this operation, and had come to the station in droves, many even on their day off. Carlton wasn't preening or straightening his tie or checking his hair. Instead, he was leaning back against his desk, arms crossed, issuing orders like General freaking Patton, while not giving a damn how he looked or if anybody liked him – in situations like this, his social awkwardness was actually in his favor. She caught him looking at the photographs of those sixteen innocent girls, and he cleared his throat.

"Every mall and outlet center in Santa Barbara County, except two, will have a uniformed police presence, around the clock, seven days a week," he told the officers. "At these malls, you will not be in the least bit subtle or discreet. You will make your presence known to everyone there. Any time you see a man accost a young woman, under any circumstances, you will question him…get his name, his ID, and ask him his business with her. If he gripes, he can take it up with me. Your job is to protect and serve, right?"

The uniformed officers nodded as one, all glancing at the photographs on the board.

"You will not be polite, you will not be nice, you will not be subtle or tactful. You will not be anything other than intrusive and extremely irritating. We want this monster to see you, and know you're there. You will be placed at every entrance to every large department store in that mall, and at all the outside entrances as well, and you will take hourly rounds through those malls. Am I understood?"

Shawn sidled up next to Juliet and nudged her. "What's this about?"

"It's Carlton catching a monster," Juliet said softly. "He's finally found his can of whup-ass."

"As for the two other malls, I will need round-the-clock plainclothes presence there, too. I need the best of the best for this job, because you will have to be subtle, but the same rule applies: anyone who approaches a young woman will also have to be stopped and questioned." He folded his arms across his chest, and Juliet couldn't keep from grinning. "Are any of you going to allow any more young girls to be murdered?"

"No, sir," was the collective answer. Juliet heard more than a few of them mutter "Hell, no" under their breath before they began signing up for the operation. Vick had already given it a name: Operation Tact, which she thought sounded excellent.

"Good," Carlton nodded, straightening and looking over a detective's shoulder at Juliet. "Then let's catch this bastard. Think of those girls as your own daughters. What do you to do a bastard who hurts your daughter?"

"We're cops, so we can't kill him ourselves. So we catch him, convict him and hope to God he gets the gas chamber," one of the officers said gruffly, staring at the photographs. "And damn right we'll do it, sir."

The next week and a half was fairly uneventful. No further bodies were found. Uniformed police officers haunted seven of Santa Barbara's shopping centers and saw nothing of note happening. Only a few men were even questioned, and all proved innocent of any wrongdoing. The plainclothes police at the two other malls also noted nothing unusual. When Shawn asked if he could be part of the operation, Carlton agreed with a vague shrug of the shoulders, stating blandly that another two sets of eyes couldn't hurt. They were, however, ordered to report anything to the plainclothes cops and to not engage any suspects themselves or he would kick their asses from Santa Barbara to Miami.

The days that passed were tense. Carlton had trouble sleeping, and Marlowe gave up on trying to make him do just that, so they would sit up until the wee hours, playing cards, talking, watching movies. She tried to distract him from his worry, from his doubts, and in most cases ended up just as worried, albeit never in doubt about him. She tried to persuade him to take the weekend off, but he told her he couldn't – he was going to spend Friday evening at the Oceanfront mall. She told him she understood and decided it would be best to stay at her own house and attend a Renaissance fair with her roommates. Carlton couldn't help feeling a standard-sized frisson of fear when she left. What if she was leaving for good? Not even her assurances that she would see him Monday and that she knew he would catch the killer made that knot leave his stomach. In a matter of just six days, he had lost ten pounds he couldn't spare and Juliet noted a haunted, haggard look in his eyes.

Friday night, Shawn and Gus sat near the Orange Julius at the Oceanfront mall, watching the crowds and getting seriously bored. Still, they were both determined to stay alert, and neither was doing much besides eating and watching every person that went by. Jokes had been deemed inappropriate, and every time they saw a man with a young girl they got on their cell phones and put in an alert to the plainclothes cops nearby and told them where the couple were headed and to keep an eye on them.

Still, nothing much was happening. All the men with young girls were the fathers, brothers, friends or boyfriends of the girls.

"Lassie's idea is pretty good," Shawn admitted, in spite of the lack of leads it had brought up so far.

"Yeah," Gus nodded.

"I think it'll flush this whackjob out," he nodded. "It has to. I mean…seriously, sixteen dead girls. Sixteen." He felt sick to this stomach to even think about it. Yin and Yang had been horrifying in their own aspect, but this guy…he had those two beat by a mile.

Guster frowned as he saw a man with a leather bag walk by. He straightened in his seat – it was the guy Lassiter had interrogated only a few months ago. He nudged Shawn, who sat up straight and watched him walk by. Both young men got up and began trailing him, Shawn taking in smudges of dirt on the knees of his pants and his shoes. In spite of that, they weren't allowed to go near him. Nonetheless, they kept following him, across the length of the mall and into Sears, where the man looked at some power tools and riding lawnmowers before heading out into the parking lot. They stood inside the doors, watching as he got into his car and drove away.

"What was his name again?" Gus asked.

"It sounded like Seevitovich…?" Shawn nodded. "C'mon, we gotta go tell one of the cops on duty."

"He didn't actually speak to anyone?"

"No," Shawn shook his head. "He was just carrying a bag, like the one from last time and he was dirty. Had dirt on his knees and shoes, and I think the front of his shirt was dirty, too, but he was wearing a coat, so I couldn't see it very clearly."

Lassiter rubbed his forehead and flipped through the notes Shawn had taken. "Cvitković."

"That sounds like the name," Shawn nodded, getting excited. "That was him."

Carlton dug through his files and found the photograph. "You saw him?"

Shawn peered at the picture. "Yep. That was him. A few pounds heavier now."

They sat down in the chairs beside Lassiter's and Juliet's desks and leaned forward, elbows on their knees, watching with keen interest as the head detective brought up Cvitković's information on his computer. He was just getting to the man's address when his phone rang. He snatched up the receiver and barked "Lassiter." He handed the file to Spencer, who began reading through it quickly, his hands starting to shake.

"You're kidding me."

Shawn and Gus looked up at Lassiter, whose face had gone white. White.

"We'll be right there." Carlton hung up and pressed his fingers to his forehead for a moment before jumping to his feet, an expression of mayhem on his face.

"What? What?" Shawn said, standing up. "What is it?"

"They found another body. In a…damn…damn it…" He was grabbing his suit jacket and stalking out of the station, Shawn and Gus on his heels, both feeling sick to their stomachs and knowing now that it was going to be a long night. "Damn it!"

A drainage ditch.

Shawn had already thrown up everything he had eaten that day, and was leaning against a tree, trying to catch his breath. The remains of the girl were barely even that – she had been ripped open, her entrails spread out around her, like something out of the Whitechapel Murders of the late 19th century. Someone with the CSU had said something about teeth marks on her neck and face. Shawn seriously doubted he'd be able to eat anything for the next few months. That image was going to stay with him forever, and his knees buckled again as his stomach lurched and he brought up what little remained in his stomach.

Gus was in a cruiser, just wanting to be away from the scene. Lassiter and O'Hara were standing at the edge of the ditch, looking down at what was left of the girl, who was not yet identified. Much of her blood had already drained out and was mixed with the dirty water spilling into the culvert. Lassiter looked up at the mall sign – Oceanfront. The body was less than four city blocks, distance-wise, from the entrance to the Macy's. He had come into the mall after killing this girl and had passed Spencer and Guster on his way through to the other side and out of Sears, where he had parked his car. It wasn't clear, yet, if he had gone in there find another victim, or if he had found her in that mall or not.

Shawn felt someone touch his shoulder, and turned around to see Lassiter standing there, his face still a little pale, but otherwise collected. It was not for the first time that Shawn wondered how Lassiter could handle it so well.

"It's not your fault, Spencer." He looked rather eerie in the lights from the news vans and police cruisers. Shawn glimpsed the ME's van pulling up and parking, and swallowed when the group of men started down into the ditch to collect the girl's remains, all carrying black bags.

"I should have…"

"He killed her before you saw him," Lassiter said calmly. "I've got sixteen others on my conscience. Why'dya think I ended up getting shipped off to that rest home or whatever it was?"

Spencer swallowed and nodded, still unable to look directly at the other man. "Yeah. So…now what?"

"We go get him, that's what."

"It's all circumstantial, though, isn't it?" Shawn questioned.

Carlton nodded. "We'll figure it out. Go home, Spencer. You look like you're about to toss up a boot."

"I think I already did."

Cvitković was taking a stroll through the park near his house, and stopped at a newspaper stand, where he purchased a Croatian-language paper before starting back toward home. He barely even glanced over when a young man stepped up beside him and asked for a light.

"I am sorry, I do not smoke," he said politely.

"Just keep walking, sir," the young man said. Another young man suddenly was at his other side, walking abreast, turning his head to smile congenially at him.

"Keep walking, sir," the young man said pleasantly. "We don't want to cause a scene, and I'm sure you don't want to, either."

"What…?" He looked around and noticed that several men, all wearing ordinary street clothes, were around him, none looking hurried or agitated at all. In fact, by all appearances, they were just out for a pleasant stroll.

A police cruiser and two other unmarked cars were stopped at the curb, and Cvitković was guided to the cruiser. The first young man gently urged him in, reminding him to avoid bumping his head, and suddenly he was seated beside a uniformed policeman, and another uniformed officer got in as well, so that he was pushed into the middle. A very tall, innocent-faced young man was driving, and beside him in the passenger seat was the tall, blue-eyed detective who had interrogated him a few months ago. The detective only glanced back at him before saying, "Let's go, McNab." With that, the car pulled out into traffic and headed toward the police station. The entire operation had taken less than three minutes, with no fuss.

Two young girls walked by where the cruiser had been parked, speaking their native tongue and laughing together, unaware of anything but their eagerness to get to the mall to do a bit of shopping.

Carlton didn't really expect to see that Cvitković had a family, even though Whitestone had been right about practically everything else. Nonetheless, he stood in the living room of Cvitković's comfortable-looking home, watching his wife and two children in amazement. The wife was a hollow-eyed, bitter-looking woman of perhaps fifty, spare and cold, thin arms and knees crossed as she sat in her chair, glaring at them as they searched her house. She had said she knew nothing about his leather bag or what was in it, then she had spewed out hateful invective against her husband: his inadequacy, his nothingness, his lack of ambition. It was only when she started in, right in front of her kids, for God's sake, about his impotence that Lassiter had told her to stop talking.

The two children – two boys in their mid-teens – were both bewildered, angry and scared, and would soon require counseling from CPS. The CSU detectives were meticulously searching the house, and it wasn't long before the leather bag was found in an armoire upstairs. Melissa Hardwicke came downstairs, holding the bag, and opened it for Carlton to look inside.

"Three knives," she said quietly. "We're looking for others. He was something of a collector."

"Yeah, I'll bet he was," Carlton muttered.

The phone was ringing, and a CSU picked it up. "Yes, this is the Cvitković home. Who is calling?" A pause. "Really? The mayor's office? This is Detective Mullins, from the SBPD crime scene unit, and Mr Cvitković is under arrest as of this morning. If you'll please direct your call to the Santa Barbara police department, I'm sure they'll be happy to answer your questions. Yes. Thank you." He hung up. "Detective Lassiter?"

"Yeah, I know," Carlton answered, looking at Juliet, who handed him another bag. He looked inside and saw two more knives. "It's only just beginning."

A doctor had been called to the station, to examine Cvitković, who had several wounds on his hands and arms, which he claimed were from garden work. A more thorough physical exam revealed other interesting abrasions on the man's body, which the doctor noted on the report before handing it over to Carlton, who read through it before handing it over to Whitestone, who started typing away and making phone calls.

Carlton stayed at his desk, Juliet usually at his elbow, as they worked over every set of crime scene photos and meticulous notes that they had both taken. Subordinates were called in to drag up boxes from the evidence room. Lunch was called in from a Chinese place. She felt exhausted by four o'clock, but Carlton got up and made a fresh pot of coffee and her engines were soon firing again, and they continued on, combing through every bit of information that tied Cvitković to each crime scene. His clothes were being brought in from his home, and were being combed through carefully. Every knife was being examined, and compared to every available stab wound. Woody's meticulous drawings were examined. Photographs were poured over.

Whitestone sat at his desk, usually doing his own bit of pawing through notes and photographs and his own profile of the killer, but he was occasionally caught watching the two detectives as they worked. It was as if they had their own private language, and even though there was no romantic light to their relationship at all, he couldn't help but think they were like a married couple. They finished each others' thoughts, knew what the other needed before the request was even made, and were able to laugh at each other and even compete without the slightest trace of rancor or bitterness. Lassiter clearly viewed O'Hara as a little sister he was determined to teach and protect, to the death, and she clearly loved and admired the older man, and was just as fiercely protective of him.

He shook his head, amazed, and slogged on, determined to make the case stick and finally end this nightmare.

Marlowe stood beside her car, watching with nervous interest as a crowd began forming outside the station. She couldn't understand what most of the people were saying, but from their ages and attitudes, she had little trouble deducing that they were the parents and families of the seventeen girls that had been murdered. They were initially quiet, and only stood in the parking lot and on the sidewalk, talking together, but it wasn't long before they began accosting policemen coming and going from the station, demanding to see the monster who had killed their children.

"Daj namčudovište, a mi ćemo se pobrinuti zanjega!" someone in the crowd yelled. Marlowe didn't know what that meant, but more of them started shouting as well, and she figured the phrase had something to do with getting a rope. Several were holding up photographs of the slain girls. The women were openly weeping, but the men looked like any typical father who had lost a beloved child: they looked furious. Marlowe looked at her watch – it was almost eight o'clock, and she wondered if Carlton would get out of there alive.

Finally, the doors of the station opened and she saw Carlton come out, Juliet and Whitestone beside him, with Guster and Spencer behind. The crowd rushed forward, shouting, and Marlowe gasped when she saw a man grab Carlton and begin shouting in his face. He flinched slightly, not prepared for such rage, but he didn't retaliate. In fact, he withstood it with remarkable calm.

"What's wrong with you?" she heard Spencer yell. "These are the people who caught the bastard! Let them through! Let them through, dammit!"

The shouting died down, and the crowds backed off. Then Marlowe heard someone start clapping. Soon, the entire crowd was applauding, few of them speaking, but all expressing their appreciation, some even reaching out to thump him, Whitestone and Juliet on their shoulders. Carlton threaded his way through, only nodding slightly to acknowledge their praise, and finally made his way across the parking lot, where he saw Marlowe and grinned at her.

"Hey. Ready to go home?" He glanced back and saw O'Hara and Whitestone making their way through the throng and heading toward his car, with Spencer and Guster tagging along. They were all going out for Mexican. Whitestone had become a Tex-Mex addict and wanted sopapillas.

"I certainly am. A good day?" she said, hugging him fiercely.

"Finally," he nodded. "Right in the nick of time, too. How was the Renaissance fair?"

"Silly, just as I expected. And you, my dear Carlton, have a lifetime of good days ahead of you," she told him, and kissed him soundly, her arms threading around his neck, sighing when he relaxed and hugged her, lifting her off her feet and spinning her around a couple of times.

"…not like it will be easy to get a confession…"

"…mayor's office is still squawking about this…"

"…is refusing to confess to anything besides having molested a girl back in Croatia…"

"…possible he may have killed at least two girls in Split…"

Every news outlet on the freaking planet seemed to be in the large room where the Serial Killer Unit met each Tuesday, and a special meeting had been called on Saturday morning. Carlton caught a brief glimpse of Milos Stanish, who raised his head and looked at him for only a second before ducking his head and returning to his notes. The mayor, chewing on his lower lip, wasn't saying much. The other city councilmen and task force members were also rather muted, but no one was denying that the killer had been caught and that a strong case was being built against him.

O'Hara had been corralled by a reporter from Atlanta and he heard a brief snippet of her statement. "…Detective Lassiter's idea, not mine, so direct your questions to him, he deserves the credit…" He snickered to himself and went to his seat. Whitestone was already sitting there, his ever-present profile folder in his lap. Carlton wondered if he slept with that thing. He also wondered if he was sleeping with O'Hara, because when he had gone to pick her up earlier that morning, Whitestone's car had been parked in her driveway and he had come out of the house before Carlton had gotten out of the car.

He glanced back and scanned the room, finally catching sight of Spencer and Guster, both of whom were grandstanding for the reporters. Spencer never could resist airtime, but instead of feeling irritated, it just made him laugh a little. Spencer had spotted the killer at the mall. He wasn't going to deny the little whelp his day in the sun.

Carlton loosened his tie.

The mayor started banging a gavel on the table, and it still took a while for the crowd to quiet down. Carlton settled into a chair and faced the council. Vick got to her seat right on time. Juliet dropped into a chair beside him.

"We wish to congratulate the Santa Barbara Police Department for capturing the alleged killed, Andrej Cvitković."

Raucous applause began, mainly from a few victims' family members that had managed to stuff themselves into the room, but the mayor's gavel banging finally shushed it. The final meeting of the unit was called to order, and Carlton flinched a little as the cameras turned on him. Stanish kept his mouth shut, and the mayor cleared his throat. "Detective Lassiter, I believe you're here to inform us of a suspect?"

"Yes, sir. Andrej Cvitković, who emigrated to Santa Barbara five years ago from Split, Croatia, is our primary suspect now, and he is currently being held at the Santa Barbara County Jail, where he is going through preliminary questioning."

"And what evidence do you have against him?"

"Mud and grass stains on his pants match the mud and grass at the last crime scene, which was a drainage ditch near the Oceanside Mall. Six of his collection of ten knives match stab wounds on fourteen of the dead girls. Three of the girls' bodies were too decomposed to provide a positive match, but the CSI unit is still testing DNA and trace evidence on all the knives in his collection. We also found spots of blood on three of his shirts that match the blood of three of the girls, including several spatters of blood on the shirt he was wearing Friday night, which match the blood of the final victim, who has not yet been identified."

The mayor paled. He was married to the man's sister.

"Cvitković also had superficial cuts on his hands. DNA found under the last victim's fingernails match his DNA profile."

"I see," the mayor said softly, looking shell-shocked.

"I'm sorry, sir," Carlton said. "I know this will be very painful for your wife."

"The last victim fought for her life," Whitestone said, from beside Carlton, startling him. "His attack on her was…particularly savage as a result, I think." He glanced around at the reporters. "We'll save the details for the official report, sir. It's all kind of…awful."

"Right." The mayor rubbed his forehead. "Well. I think this meeting can convene now." He stood, gathering up his papers. He glanced at Lassiter and nodded to Stanish. "Milos, I think you've got something to say, don't you?"

Milos Stanish frowned, then finally steeled himself before speaking. "I wish to issue my…apology…to Detective Lassiter for my behavior earlier. It was…wrong of me."

Carlton only shrugged and stood up. He wasn't accustomed to being apologized to, anyway. O'Hara tapped his arm and he gave her a look. A sharp look from her in return made his shoulders sag and he looked at Stanish again. "No problem," he finally said. "But I still wouldn't vote for you."

Translation:

Croatian: Daj namčudovište, a mi ćemo se pobrinuti zanjega – 'Give us the monster. We will take care of him'

I highly recommend everyone watch Wives & Daughters, because it's wonderful and romantic and beautifully acted and I want to climb up Anthony Howell, turn out the lights, and kiss him all over...

(Wives & Daughters is Netflix online, by the way. Just saying. I'm watching it now.)