A/N: Here you go chapter 21. Read and enjoy. Read the A/N in the end of this chapter for more information.
"I know this ring." Flack blurted out.
Mac Hawkes and Danny looked him. Don raised his left hand and in his ring finger there was a ring, with the same Celtic symbol. He took the bag, with the ring from Mac's hand.
"When we were seventeen – Me, Patrick, Colin, Camille, Melody and Lauren – gave an eternal friendship vow and we let a jeweler make us friendship rings. Every ring was engraved with the owners' name." he turned the bag so that everyone could read the name Lauren.
"Then it's Colin," concluded Danny, "he dated Lauren and they exchanged the rings."
Flack became deathly pale, "You're wrong Danny!" he ran to the car; others followed him.
"Explain." Mac demanded when he had landed on the passenger seat and the car started moving. He had never seen Don so scared.
"When we got the rings, we put them into a hat," Flack breathed deeply, to calm himself, he didn't need to have accident trying to save people he loved, "Everyone pulled out a ring, if you got your own you put it back. I got Colin's ring, Colin got Camille's ring, Lauren got my ring, Melody got Patrick's ring, Camille got Melody's ring and Patrick got Lauren's."
"Patrick!" Danny and Mac proclaimed in unison.
"Let me get this strait, the murderer, maniac, raper; is your sister's husband, your niece's and nephew's father and one of your best friends?" Sheldon asked from the back seat.
"It seems like that."
"But why?"
"That's what I'm going to find out." Flack put the blinkers on and speeded under the red light.
"Why are you doing this, Patrick?" Lindsay looked at one of Flack's best friends.
"You'll find out, when Flack gets here." Patrick smiled with satisfaction.
"He'll never come."
"Oh, yes he will. He would do everything for you, even kill, Angel."
"Don't call me that!"
"Flack, calls you that."
"You're not Flack!"
"But I'm your death, I should have some privileges."
"Go to hell,"
"Oh I will, but first I need to send Flack there."
"I don't understand Patrick, why you're doing this"
Patrick turned around like maniac, "Why!" He pointed the gun at Lindsay. Then he froze, lowered the gun and breathed deeply, "Like I said I will tell you when Donny-boy gets here." He smirked and Lindsay felt cold sweet running down her back, she finally understood that not just hers but also Flacks' life was on the line.
"So you hope Camille has some answers?" Danny asked when he recognized the street they were on.
"Yes, he left next clue with Camille, because he knows, that Camille would be the first one who I would confront." Flack parked the car in front Patrick's and Camille's house.
"Don what about April and Sean. If their in there, you can't talk to Camille." Mac grabbed Don's arm.
"They're at my parents place."
"How do you know?" Hawkes stepped out of the car.
"Camille told me when April was with me last time." The men walked up the walkway and rang bell.
Camille was surprised seeing all of them standing at her door, "Donny, Mac, Hawkes, Danny, what are you doing here?" she stepped back from the door so they could step in.
"We need to talk." Flack said and headed to the living room. Everyone else followed; when Camille stepped in she saw that her brother was looking out from the window, when they were children that had meant that Don was upset or angry. When he had joined NYPD he had trained it out but at times when the world was too heavy it kicked in again.
"Donny, what is going on?" she sat into the armchair.
"You lied to me," Flack turned around and pierced his eyes into her sisters, "and you lied to the police."
"What are you talking about?" But she had vague idea.
"You gave Patrick an alibi, the nights when Melody was killed. Why did you lie?" He stepped closer. The CSI's stayed back, they let Flack handle it, but they were ready to take over if it got too much for him.
"How did you figure it out?" Camille looked at his brother, something was wrong very wrong.
"Talk to me, Cam."
"I thought he had an affair and I didn't want April to know, you know how she is. And I didn't want to embarrass you and our parents."
"Where is he now, Camille?"
"He needed to get to work, we were going to have a nice quiet day at home, but he got an e-mail and out he went."
"Camille, can you tell me if Patrick was home on those nights when Olivia and Samantha were murdered?" Mac asked from the couch.
Camille thought a little, "No, he wasn't. Donny, tell me please what is going on!"
"He has Lindsay." Flack sank next to Mac on the couch, buried his head into his hands.
Camille turned wan her hands started to shake, "Donno, please tell me that it's some cruel joke you playing on me."
Flack couldn't answer he looked devastated, he started to say something but no words came out.
Mac took over, "I'm sorry Camille. Today we got a call from the murderer from Lindsay's phone, he had her. We traced the call in an alley beside a shop in Manhattan, where we found the phone and this." He took the bag with the ring from his pocket and gave it to Camille.
She looked the ring closer thru the bag, seeing the name in it all the color on her face was gone. "He has never taken the ring off from his finger."
"He killed Melody, Olive and Samantha, Cam. Please try to remember something that could help us."
Tears started running down Camille's cheeks. Her husband for last nine years, the man who she loved more than her own life; the father of her children had killed one of their childhood friends. She needed to take herself together. She was a daughter of a cop; she could do it, even if the man who she was giving up was her own husband. She though about everything Patrick had done in the last months. "No, nothing comes up."
Disappointed sights came from the men. Flack had hoped, he really read Patrick wrong, but it couldn't be, suddenly he had a thought, "Cam, did Patrick say something before he left."
Camille remembered suddenly, "Yes he told me to tell you, if you should come here, that we were at our parent's house yesterday and he had with an amused half-smile, "Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock" I thought it was some kind of a joke like you sometimes play."
All men shoot up from their sitting places, Danny turned to Flack, "He left the next clue to your parent's house, Don."
"I know. Cam we have to hurry, I know you want to be with April and Sean, but we can't take you with us. But we will have some policemen here soon and they'll take you there."
"Thank you, Donny, but hurry now, I have a bad feeling." With that the guys where out.
Camille stood at the door and watched them speeding away, "Why, Patrick, why?" the tears started running again.
Lindsay's head was spinning again; Patrick had injected something into her that had put her to sleep for some time. She thanked God that it hadn't been cocaine, it seemed that Patrick really had different plans for her then he had had with Melody, Olivia and Samantha.
"Oh, you're wake again," Patrick voice came somewhere from the darkness, "You were out for an hour, Flack is closer, I can feel it."
"You're a sick man, do you know that." Lindsay spat.
"I know, Lindsay dear, if I wasn't do you think that you would be here." A sneer crossed his face.
"Did you ever stop and think what your doing to Camille, April and Sean?"
"Don't talk about my family."
There was the opening what Lindsay needed. "Why not? Haven't you thought what it will become of them?"
"I don't care. They deserve everything what happens them."
"What!?" The one who was talking couldn't be Patrick Douglas, Lindsay had seen him with his family the man loved his wife and children. Had it all been an act? No, no man could act so well, to love his family, like Patrick had. Usually you could see from eyes if the love was true or just an act. Patrick's eyes had showed love for his family.
"Everyone, related to Flack, deserves what they get." came a nasty reply.
"You're a bastard, you know that?" that man wasn't sane, that was clear.
"Yeah, I have heard that before."
Lindsay couldn't stop herself, she needed to draw a picture of what his actions will bring to his family, "Why are you ready to ruin your family's life? Are you really ready to know your children's future? April will lose herself, knowing that her dad killed her uncle who she adores. Sean will never understand – he is too young to remember you or Don – why his father killed his uncle, why her sister hates everyone and why her mother is miserable."
"What, are you children's therapist now?" Patrick yelled.
"No, I just have seen it before."
"Shut up, shut the hell up already. Or do I need to nock you out again?"
Lindsay closed her eyes; she needed her mind clear and the drug that Patrick had given her before had made her groggy, so she stopped talking. Only one thing Monroe could think was to hope that Flack would hurry up.
Flack kept his foot on the gas pedal and thanked God that his parents lived only few streets down from Camille's and Patrick's home.
"I don't understand why Lindsay went Christmas shopping alone?" Hawkes asked from the back seat with puzzlement.
Flack chuckled, "You know her, she couldn't stay put even if her life depended on it." The laughter that had appeared on his face for a moment vanished quickly.
"Flack! Stop thinking and drive. We'll get her back, believe me." said Mac
A few seconds later Don turned into his parent's driveway.
When they stepped into the living room Don Flack sr looked up from the chess board, "Don, guys, what are you doing here?" at that Ralf raised his head from the other side of the board.
"Where are Mom and the children?"
"They're at Sophia's. Why are you asking?"
"Because I don't want April to hear what I'm about to say."
"Donny, what happened?" Uncle Ralf stood up.
"Patrick has Lindsay."
"What to you mean, he has Lindsay?" Ralf didn't understand.
But Donald Flack's old cop instincts kicked in. "You mean Patrick is the murderer?"
"Yes, he is the one who killed Melody, Olivia and Samantha." Mac stated from the door.
"That bastardo." After that came a flow of Italian cursing of which Mac understood it little bit, not everything, he heard how Sheldon whispered to Danny, "That is anatomically impossible." and he had to smile in that grave situation.
"Uncle, I understand that you want to do all that to Patrick but the only thing I could do is shoot him, when we find him and call it self-defense." After that Don's father started cursing in Gaelic.
"And I thought my family life was a mess, when we spoke in two languages. Don's even worse, his got three." Danny muttered and Sheldon snickered at that.
"Dad stop, we don't have a time for cursing him to the seventh layer of hell. He left a clue to Camille, which led us here."
"What was the clue?"
"That he was here last night, nothing more, nothing less." Sheldon joined the discussion.
"Dad, try to remember where he was, what did he do!"
Donald, who had in some point stood up, sat behind the chessboard again. Now he knew how the witnesses felt every time he asked the same question. "When they came, we had dinner and then we came to the living room, Camille and Delanna where busy with children and I tried to coax him to have a game of chess but he declined and went to browse the books like he always does when he is bored." Mac, Sheldon and Danny went right to the bookcase and started looking.
"Guys stop." Everyone in the room looked Don, like he had gone crazy, "Don't look at me like that. Think about it, everything he has done so far is about me. So that means look thru my favorite books." Danny grabbed quickly "War and Peace" and Mac "Crime and Punishment." Donald and Ralf exchanged looks; it was good to know that Don's team knew him so well, which meant, his back is well protected.
Sheldon cocked his head at Flack, "I just noticed both your favorite authors are Russians."
"I may seem like an American kind of guy, but you know very well, that a person isn't always what he seems." Flack smiled.
"Flack, there isn't anything." Danny remarked and put the fat book back into its place, Mac agreed. Don frowned, if everything was about him then why wasn't the clue between those books? What Patrick wanted, to hurt and kill him, he wanted him to be there when he killed Lindsay. Lindsay! that was it, "It isn't between my favorite books; its Lindsay's, look thru "Pride and Prejudice."" Sheldon found it first, and there it was; a post-it note was put on the pages where Darcy's first proposal scene began.
"You got it so far, I'm impressed. Now for the next and final clue, go back to the beginning. PS: Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock." Was written with Patrick's neat handwriting.
"What does he mean, back to the beginning?" confusion was drawn all over Ralf's face.
"Back to your childhood?" Sheldon suggested.
"Back to Melody's murder?" Danny guessed.
"Or back to the beginning of the scavenger hunt." Mac said.
"Damnit, his playing games again." Don grabbed his pack of smokes and walked out of the door onto the back porch.
A/N: So mjels won the game she was only one who guessed, that the murderer is Patrick, she found the clue I gave you in the last chapter. Mjels think out the idea for the one-shot, what you want me to write and pm me.
Keira-House M.D. also found the clue from the chapter but mixed up two friends.
I think I have a little explaining to do. When I started writing this story I didn't know who the murderer was. When I mentioned Colin and Patrick first time I didn't mean to write one of them as murderer. After Olivia's murder I thought I make Colin the bad one and I started to create them. When I put them together in my head, I discovered I didn't like Patrick. I didn't know why, but something was off with him. I changed Patrick at least three times. I changed everything I didn't like about him, but it didn't help. Patrick had become the murderer in my head.
So I wrote the story so you could suspect Colin not Patrick, it seams it worked. I apologize to those who thought it to be Colin.
And I apologize to those who hate me right know for taking away April's and Sean's father.
Maradon.
