Disclaimer: I do not own CSI:NY nor any of its characters.

A/N: SORRY! It took me quite a while to go on, hope you still feel like reading the finale of my story.

December the 16th

During the last two days there had been a real temperature drop and that night especially it was tremendously cold. There was no hint of wind though, the pure, cold air was stagnant, the whole world around her appeared like frozen in time. Lindsay was looking out of the cab's window, and kept thinking about what the weather might be like right now in Montana.

She remembered walking to school as a kid every morning in winter. Runny nose, glowing, rosy cheeks, wrapped up in ten layers of clothes by her mum. Her little feet would carry her along the country roads covered in snow. Trudging through the snow would produce a peculiar crinkly noise and she would breath heavily, trying to catch up with her two older brothers. Out of a spontaneous mood Lindsay decided to walk the last bit of the way.

'Could you maybe drop me at the next corner?,' she asked and already pulled up her collar.

'Well, it's a damn cold and frosty night!,' the driver replied.

She smiled. 'Right, I don't wanna miss it.'

The moment Lindsay got out of the car she took a long and deep breath. It seemed like she hadn't breathed such clean and fresh air for ages. She felt the freezing air flowing down her windpipe and then reaching her lungs.

It was that special time of the day, when the sun's bright light was exchanged with New York's typically artificial lights, street lamps, shop windows, illuminated advertising ...

Surrounded by light at night.

She laughed at the thought and the fact that she was in high spirits just because of it amused her even more. This was the right moment to get her thoughts straight, to work out a way how to proceed. She would play by his rules, she wouldn't make the mistake of dragging somebody else into this.

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When he saw her get off the cab, observing her from a safe distance, he knew it was the perfect day, the perfect moment. He couldn't even have imagined it better.

It was similar to that night years ago, a cold winter evening. One by one the streetlamps were illuminated. Now, although many parts of the sleepless city were probably lighter and busier than at daytime, here and there dark shadows started creeping out from wherever they used to hide during the day.

She looked overwhelming. Maybe she was even thinking about him in that very moment? About the still unknown stranger who had bothered to dig out a dead body and lay it right to her feet?

It was possible that he had become part of her life as much she had become part of his. The idea that she might be thinking about him just that moment excited him. Their lives, their minds were connected.

'Soon you'll know who I am,' he murmured to himself, and pronouncing this thought he felt melancholy as the invisible bond between the two of them would finally be broken.

However, he had to remind himself of keeping cool and not losing control again.

It was the perfect time, and he was ready.

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Guilt? The ominous feeling that had been chasing her for years, now displayed out in front of her. The DNA analysis had made it clear: They had made a mistake, a simple mistake that had cost the life of an innocent person. At that time years ago the procedure of analysing DNA had just been invented, and hardly any lab disposed of either the proper devices or the required methods to do it. The simple fact that Jason Parker's fingerprint resembled the one of the killer, that a mistake had been made, had cost an innocent man's life.

And she had testified against him, she as well as the whole team had relied on the results from the lab in Texas, everything had seemed obvious and on top of that there had finally been a culprit to be presented to the public.

Look, we got him, the killer of seven people.

She had had a careful look into the case, but looking back now she had to confess to herself that she, too, had been afflicted by the sudden enthusiasm that had escalated the second they had learned that a suspect had been convicted. After years of having forced to watch the killer, passively, helplessly and without the slightest hint they felt so relieved to have found the killer, to be able to arrest him and prevent any further harm.

Still, one thing had unsettled her. Jason Parker had wrote to her and called her several times during the court case.

The clear and meticulous handwriting in his letters. His low, hoarsely voice on the phone, urgently pleading her to help him. His talking at her about the day of the murder, the investigation's discrepancies, the cops jumping to illogical conclusions. The small scarf behind his left ear, his penetrative blue eyes, the small tattoo of a Chinese sign on his left wrist.

He had tried so hard to get in contact with her, to convince her of his innocence. And indeed she had investigated the evidence over and over again, his clothes, the protocols from the interrogations, the record that proved that as a truck driver he had been in all these places, in the depicted time periods. She had processed everything, except the fingerprints.

'They did that down in Texas, and besides, it all matches perfectly. Don't rack your brain, Linds, that guys just trying to arouse your compassion cause you're the only female among the summoned witnesses. Don't allow all this to affect you in any way.' Her boss had been trying to calm her, and she had willingly given in. The last thing she had wanted was to get emotionally involved with the case. Sure she was one of very few women in her field of work, but that goaded her even more to stay tough and rely on the evidence rather than on her intuition.

And apart from that it was about Thomas. Somehow everything she had done since his death had always been about him. Unlikely to her other colleagues, she had forced herself not to become obsessed with chasing his killer. She was well aware that if she let tracking down her fiancé's killer become the main goal in her life, she would be devastated if she didn't find him. She wanted to focus on life, rather than on what happened in that night, when Thomas had offered to accompany her in her shift. It was a coincidence, she knew that had she been standing there, in close to the entrance of the building they were investigating, she would have been killed and not him. She hadn't seen it, just heard the shot and then found Thomas, lying on the ground, a bullet wound in his head.

She had to leave it all back behind in order to survive.

Soon later Jason's calls had stopped. He was convicted of manslaughter and put on death row. She knew that by no means would she have been able to prevent the verdict or to prove his innocence. Still, she hadn't really tried either.

The true killer was still out there, maybe even closer to her than she thought. Why had he dug out Parker's body and inflicted on him exactly the injuries also found on all the other victims?

Lindsay knew the fact that Jason Parker had been found not far from her apartment wasn't a coincidence. The killer intended to get her attention and show her that they had got the wrong guy, that he was still out there. But why her?

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On that day when he shot Detective Thomas Horne he had changed his plans. And he hated to change plans. Lindsay Monroe had been on his list, he had been observing her for several weeks, studying her daily routine, taking pictures of her. Like the one he had been caring around in his pocket up to know.

But that day, Thomas Horne was there, he was in the place where Lindsay Monroe had been supposed to be. It would have been easy for him to just leave and put it off for some time, but something made him change his plans and kill Thomas Horne instead of her.

In this moment he had shown weakness, for the first time in his life, and this blemish he had been suffering from ever since. Now it had to be erased. He had the chance to carry it out according to his original intentions, and hell no would he fail again.

By now she had got pretty close to the place where he was hiding, a few more seconds and she would walk by him, just a few metres away.

Focus, he ordered himself.

Focus and act. Don't think.

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Not that she hadn't thought about confiding it all to Danny, and to the rest of the team.

But, as irrational as it seemed, she couldn't. Was it the unspeakable fear that the killer would again hurt someone she loved? Obviously that guy, whoever he was, had a score to settle with her. So it was her who would face him, anytime. Maybe soon.

It was pretty dark already and Lindsay had to walk through a narrow side street. She wasn't one of those who were scared of the dark though, and she never had been. In case of … whatever, she could defend herself. In a few minutes she would be at home, turn the radiator on and then enjoy the evening, maybe listen to some jazz music and drink a cup of coffee, curled up under the cosy blanket.

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His calm, cold hand was clenched to the gun that was still in the pocket of his coat.

Now, now, now, now, now, he kept murmuring, and only after some time did his own words reach his mind. She was two, maybe three metres away now, and to see her again for the first time after years gave him a kind of comforting feeling. The brown curls, the tiny figure, the collar of her jacket pulled up, her hands folded. She seemed to somehow cling on to herself. Her image evoked memories of forgotten times, in which he had felt powerful and invincible.

Go now, he commanded to himself again.

Had he already missed the moment, had he messed up again, had he ….

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As a matter of fact, she knew it the moment she heard the sound of a step behind her. Just like you sometimes sense things, before they can even reach you consciousness. For some reason it was that usual sound of a footstep that reminded her of something. It was this wicked, hair-raising sound that first caught her attention and gave her the creeps.

When she turned around and looked into his face, she wasn't hysterical. Her face just showed a weird expression of not being surprised, as though she would think something like: 'I saw it coming anyway.'

It was him, who didn't move, who stood scared stiff, holding the gun in his vividly shaking hands, pointing at her.

All of a sudden she cleared her throat. 'You', she murmured.

It scared him to death to hear her voice pronounce the name she must given him, when talking to him in her mind, when imagining to ask him why he had killed the person she had loved. And it was also her voice, that reminded him, that time hadn't stopped. He felt a wild desire to tell her his name, who he was, just so that she'd know, but he could pull himself together soon enough.

'Yes', he replied. His breath went faster. This wasn't right. This wasn't how it usually worked. Normally he would keep getting calmer the closer the moment of pulling the trigger got. It was different now. He was scared.

Suddenly it started to rain. Millions of heavy rain drops produced a drumming noise on the top of a car parked close by and after seconds they were both drenched with rain. Lindsay realised that there was something really irritating about his face, was it the proportion of his eyes? She couldn't tell.

'So you are back,' she asked, and he nodded, not taking his gaze off her.

'And what now?,' she continued.

He managed to calm himself down a bit, to remember the words he had prepared.

'It was you I intended to kill,' he said and impatiently expected any sort of reaction. But there was no change in her facial expression.

'I wanted to kill you, I had planned to … all over these years I have waited to ….' His voice got loud and shrill.

He had envisioned how she would react, how she would break into tears, shout at him, sob loudly. But she didn't. She just stared back at him, motionless, expressionless but still her body language showed a confidence she wasn't supposed to have in this peculiar situation. This wasn't how a potential victim was supposed to look like in his eyes. So close to death, she should be shaken by fear.

'And what now?,' she repeated.

'Now …,' he said, and his brain was empty. What now? What now?

It was dark and the rain got heavier and there were drops running down her cheek and he running down his cheek and all he knew for sure was that she was not crying.

And all he could think was:

'This isn't how a victim looks like. This isn't how she is supposed to look like. This isn't how any of the other victims looked. This isn't how that Thomes Horne guy looked …'

He felt that he was getting nervous. And that made him angry.

He craved for doing it, and so he started to count.

10 … 9 … 8 …

He watched her closely, but although she must have heard him, she didn't show any reaction.

… 7 … 6 … 5 … 4 …

He closed his eyes.

… 3 … 2 … 1 …

And pulled the trigger.