Bobby POV

"Okay, who went to see some guy named Enzo Lettiere?"

I looked up from my desk to see Wyatt standing up, doing a visual scan of the squad room while he was waiting for a response to his shouted question.

"We did," I said as I got up from my chair. "Why?"

Logan got up, too, and together we walked over to Wyatt.

"Does the captain know? Because she's taking heat for it."

He pointed to his computer screen, where he was getting a live feed of the press conference.

"Channel 7 is saying she's in bed with Toscano," he continued.

"What?" Logan yelled, and then he looked at me. "Who even knows about this? We haven't started poking around yet."

"Good question," I said thoughtfully. I held Logan's inquiring stare for a moment and then turned back to Wyatt. "She knows. We'll take care of it."

"Okay, because you know the commissioner isn't going to like this."

"I know, Wyatt."

"And there's that meeting this morning…"

"I know."

As if I've been able to think of much else.

And I know…Wyatt doesn't know that Alex and I were up in the middle of the night because she couldn't sleep, worrying about this damn meeting.

So I appreciate that he's worried about her.

But no one's more worried than me, especially if it's because of me that things might go south.

"I'd like to have a chat with Channel 7," Logan mumbled to me as we headed back towards our desks.

"Uh huh. I want to know where she got her information."

"Seriously, Bobby, who could know? We talked about it at Pete's last night, and that's it."

"So it's the five of us, and the people we saw at the 7th."

"And probably Traci. Maas went to see her when he left us."

"She's on our side. She already filed the slander suit."

"But what do we really know about her?"

"Okay," I said with a nod. "We need to keep an open mind. Which also means we need to talk to Coleman. And Lipscomb. They both know why we were at their precinct yesterday."

"Why would one of them say something?"

"Why would anybody? And for it to have gotten to a reporter so fast…it can't be coincidental. Somebody's trying to make Alex look bad."

"You mean somebody other than Ross?"

"He'd be at the top of my list for this, but I just don't see how he'd know."

"Okay, so…where do you want to start?"

Logan waited for me to decide, watching me expectantly, but I wasn't sure of the best course of action.

Should we try to clear up the business with Enzo as quickly as possible?

Or should we hand it off to someone trustworthy, someone in another precinct, effectively removing the case from Alex's backyard?

Or should we go back to trolling the Facebook pages of our victims so that we could concentrate on the FBK and not worry about Enzo at all right now?

"Hey, Goren! It's Frederick from the 3-4 on line two!" a detective called out to me.

"You know him?" Logan asked me as I reached for the phone.

"Nope," I said, and then I answered, "Detective Goren."

"Goren, Detective Frederick. I saw the sheet about your FBK. You might want to come check out my scene."

"You've got a murdered girl?"

"Yeah, but it's not just her. You're going to have to see it to believe it, but I think it might make your day."

I got the location of the crime scene and then hung up and relayed the information to Logan.

"I guess that helps us make up our minds about what to do with Enzo," I said as we headed for the elevator. "He's going to have to wait."

Half an hour later, Logan and I entered an alley in the Flatiron District.

"Meet David Locatelli," Frederick said once we badged the uni and made our way inside of the yellow tape.

"Is this what I think it is?" Logan asked.

"I'm thinking he's your FBK," Frederick said with a nod.

I immediately felt a great deal of respect for the detective because this case was on the front page of every newspaper in the tri-state area, and he could've easily tried to turn himself into an instant hero by keeping the collar for himself.

Although maybe collar isn't the right word.

Because Locatelli was definitely dead.

And of course, if Frederick had tried to take the credit, he might've ended up looking like an idiot, since there are actually multiple killers, but still…this was a huge break, and he was handing it to us.

"We appreciate the call," Logan said, his words echoing my thoughts. He knelt down next to the body and said, "So…three to the back?"

"Uh huh. And CSU found one in the front of that dumpster and another one embedded in the doorway of that restaurant over there," he explained as he pointed out the two designations. Then he turned around and gestured towards the other body in the alley and added, "And there's one in her."

"So maybe they struggled for the gun," I said. "One hit her before she managed to get it away from him. He took off running…she emptied the magazine and then bled out before she could get help."

"That's what I came up with."

"What makes you think it's our guy?" Logan asked as he and I moved towards the young woman who was mostly covered with a sheet.

"The fingertips," Frederick explained. "The sheet said the killer was using acid on the fingers, right? And smashing up the teeth?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

I knelt down and pulled back the sheet to look at the girl and then glanced up to catch Logan's eye.

"He did it pre-mortem," he stated in disgust. "And she still fought back."

"You have an ID on her?" I asked.

"No, but this guy's car is locked up tight around the corner. I figured you two would want to be the first to go through it. I looked in the window and there's a woman's purse on the backseat."

"Good," I said with a nod, my focus still on the girl. "Thanks."

"What's that in her hand?" Logan mumbled as he gloved up and reached for the girl's hand. She was clutching something, and it wasn't the gun because that was on the ground next to her, a cheap three-eighty.

I watched as Logan carefully turned her hand over and eased her fingers apart.

"Cell phone."

"Not hers," I said. "No way would she have it on her."

"So she managed to get his gun and his cell phone?"

He pushed a button and then turned the phone over and fiddled with the back of it.

"The battery was jarred loose," he stated. He slipped the piece back into place and then powered it on.

"Locatelli must have dropped it, maybe when they were fighting over the gun."

"She shoots him, then drops the gun and picks up the cell to call for help, but she can't get it to work."

"And by that point, she was probably in so much pain that she couldn't think straight," I added quietly.

"Goren, get a load of this," Logan said. I stood up and walked around the girl so that I could see what he was looking at. "The son of a bitch took a picture while she was dying."

He held out the phone and I glanced at the screen.

Our victim was lying on her back with a gunshot to the abdomen. Her hands were a bloody mess and so was her face.

"He was getting proof," I posed. "For the contest. He needed evidence to show that he's the one who did it."

Logan glanced back at Locatelli's lifeless body and said, "I'd say the fact that she killed him is pretty good proof."

"He must have thought she was almost dead."

"Or maybe she played dead so that he wouldn't shoot her again."

"He stood too close while he was taking a picture…"

"She kicked him or something, got back to her feet…he dropped the cell and she grabbed the gun…"

"We need to shut this thing down," Logan said in frustration.

"I wonder what he was going to do with the picture," I said as I focused again on the phone. "Send it in a text? An email? He must have the address or number in here."

"Or he was going to post it."

"Yeah, but where? And we didn't find any pictures on Jared's phone. Or Phillip's, either."

"So they send it somewhere and then delete it."

"We've had CCS focusing on the computers, but maybe they need to spend more time on the phones. I wonder if they can recover deleted files from these things."

Two hours later, I had my answer.

"Of course," Scott told us as we stood in the messy little hole he called a workspace. "Nothing is ever really gone."

"So all that porn on my laptop…" Logan joked.

"Uh huh," Scott said with a nod and a grin. "You may as well just smash the hard drive because otherwise, it's never going away."

"And phones are the same?" I asked.

"This is what I found on Jared's phone," he answered as he brought up an image on his computer screen.

It was a photo of Kaleigh Marquez and it was nearly identical to the ones on file taken by the ME at the scene.

"Guess we didn't really need the confession," Logan remarked.

"You didn't need one from Phillip Downey either," Scott told us as he switched screens and showed us the picture of Samantha Wright.

"Okay, so the photos were taken and then deleted," I said. "But do we know what they did with them?"

"We compared the LUDs," Logan reminded me. "There weren't any common numbers."

"So they uploaded it somewhere."

"I haven't found anything yet," Scott said. "Give me some more time and I'll see what I can find. And leave me the latest phone."

So we left him alone to do his research and we went back to the squad room.

I saw that Alex's office door was still closed, but now the light was on.

"Should we…um…give the captain an update?" Logan suggested, obviously noticing the same thing as me.

I nodded and kept my eyes on her office door as the two of us crossed the room.

I had a knot in my stomach as I reached out to knock on the door.

What if this is it?

What if this is her last week in Major Case?

Our last week in Major Case.

Although I hadn't received any text messages from her, so maybe she doesn't know anything yet.

Surely the meeting was over by now, but it was possible that word hadn't trickled down.

And maybe it was a good sign that Ross wasn't anywhere to be found.

I finally knocked and the door immediately opened, and I was surprised to find Maas standing just inside. He must have been getting ready to leave.

"Detectives," he said in an even tone. I tried to get a read on him, but his face was inscrutable. "Progress on the FBK?"

"Yes, sir," Logan answered. "We're just about ready to give the captain an update."

"Stick around, Captain," Alex spoke up.

I turned to look at Alex and found her with a shell-shocked expression on her face.

"So…what happened?" I asked.

"Nothing," Alex said.

"Nothing at all?" Logan questioned.

"We had the meeting," Maas confirmed.

"And?"

"And apparently someone had the brilliant idea that everyone in the department should resign if I get transferred," Alex stated.

Logan looked at Maas uneasily and said, "Oh, you told her about that, huh?"

"Did you think I wouldn't find out? The mayor was set to put Ross in this office. He probably already hired a Ryder truck, and then today he suddenly changes his mind?" she asked, and I couldn't decide for sure if she was angry or touched.

But I'm leaning towards angry.

Slightly.

"So it worked?" I asked hopefully.

"For now," Maas answered. And then he grinned and said, "And you should've seen the look on Zaring's face when the chief handed him that stack. He was probably trying to calculate how long it would take him to fill thirty-three spots."

"Wait, thirty-three?" Alex asked, echoing my thoughts.

Because Major Case has twenty-four detectives and six assistants.

"That's right," Maas replied. "Thirty from here, plus me and Denise."

"Makes thirty-two."

"And the chief."

"Moran turned his in, too?" I asked in surprise. "Are you kidding me?"

Maas didn't surprise me.

Hell, even Denise didn't really, not since I knew she was on Alex's side.

But Moran?

"I didn't even ask him," Maas said. "But he'd added his to the pile by the time I got to work, and he let me come into the meeting…and I almost solved all of our problems by punching out Ross."

"Come on now, Stanley. If there's going to be hitting going on, you have to let me do it," Logan remarked.

"I held back. Barely."

"Okay, so what next?"

"Holt's going to have another meeting on Friday. He says he'll announce his decision."

"This thing with the Italians," Logan said. "It's hurting us, isn't it?"

"It's not helping," Maas said with a nod. "But we anticipated this."

"Sort of," I replied. "Not this fast. Logan and I haven't even started asking around yet."

"So who tipped off Channel 7?"

"I don't know, but we'll find out as soon as we can. We just got back from another scene."

"Another FBK victim?"

"Victim and killer. We got them both."

Logan and I filled in Maas and Alex on the latest details and then we all headed for the doorway.

"Put Enzo on the backburner," Alex instructed. "I can take the questions about the Italians. I'm not doing anything wrong."

"Doesn't always matter," Logan pointed out.

"Still…see if this new information can give you a bump."

"Drop box," Maas said suddenly.

"What?" I asked.

"Drop box. It's a program for file access," he explained. Logan and I looked at each other and he started nodding as Maas added, "It's something that can be accessed from anywhere, with the right password."

"Uh huh. I'm liking the sound of that," Logan commented.

"And the program could've been removed. Scott hasn't been looking for programs, only data," I added.

"Get on it," Alex said firmly. "If it's something like that, he can track it down and once we have access, then we'll find the other killers, assuming they've all turned in their photos."

"Yes, ma'am," Logan said quickly, and I could feel the excitement in the air.

This might be the break we've been waiting for.

I paused in the doorway and looked back at Alex.

"Um…what about Enzo and Channel 7?"

She held my gaze and I felt a nearly overpowering wave of love as she gave me a confident smile.

"Leave them to me."

TBC...