Logan POV

"Twelve."

"Yes, ma'am."

"How did we not know this?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe the others happened in Jersey. Or Connecticut. Hell, it could be anywhere."

The three of us stood in the conference room that Bobby and I had commandeered so that we could spread out the evidence.

It was Monday afternoon and Alex had just returned from a visit to the 7th precinct.

"Did he get around to telling you about the knife?" she asked us when she first got back.

"No. Lipscomb didn't really appreciate us talking to him."

"He doesn't normally carry it on him. And we know that. He didn't have one that night in the warehouse."

"Which means he leaves it at home. Who has access?"

"The cheating girlfriend, Angela."

"So he thinks she killed her lover and set him up for it? Why would she do that?"

"I don't know. Maybe there's a third lover and this was her way of getting rid of the first two."

"You want us to go talk to her?"

"No, you two have your hands full with this case. Yuille and Wyatt are done with Schuler. I'll let them go. I've already asked Liz to take a look at the ME's report."

"What's Lipscomb going to say about that?"

"I don't really care. If he'd done his job, then we wouldn't have to do it for him. And I let Paulson know we were going to ask a few follow-up questions. He's on board."

"What about the leak? You think it's Lipscomb?"

"No," she replied, and then she looked at me with concern. "I think it's Coleman."

"Michelle? What could she possibly have against you?"

"Nothing. I think her intent was to get you into trouble. But the deal that Gino got has already been brought up at a previous press conference, so when Coleman called Theresa and mentioned that a Major Case detective was sniffing around Enzo, Theresa ran with it and put the focus on me."

"Are you sure about that, Boss?"

"No, I'm not. But Paulson agreed to pull his precinct's LUDs. Of course, the call could've come from a cell, but I'm betting not. A cell phone would definitively tie an individual to a specific call. Using a squad room phone would give the guilty party room to cast doubt that anyone could've used that line."

"True. So how are you going to pin it to her, even if Channel 7's number shows up?"

"I'm not sure. But if it does, then Paulson won't be able to deny that he's got a leak, and I'll get his complete support."

I was having a hard time believing that Michelle would do something like that.

Not that I really know her all that well.

Because honestly, I guess I don't.

Having seen her naked doesn't give me any great insight into her psyche.

But she's been coming on to me…she supposedly wanted to hook up with me again.

So why would she try to trash my reputation?

"Anyone, anywhere," Alex agreed, bringing my focus back to the present.

"That's the beauty of the internet," Bobby mumbled as he picked up one report after another, skimming each one's contents.

Alex stared at the bulletin board that was chock full of photos of dead girls, the pictures that Scott had found in a private file on a program called Automator.

"The deputy chief thought of this?" Scott had asked after we suggested Drop Box. "I guess he's more than just a paper-pusher, huh?"

"So it's a viable consideration?"

"It's genius. Give me some time. I'll find it."

And like I said, it turned out to be Automator instead of Drop Box, but it's essentially the same thing.

And Scott had turned up eleven pictures when we were only expecting six. The twelfth was that of Janie Barbour, the girl who'd managed to kill her attacker before he'd been able to upload her photo.

"Or it's in the city and detectives aren't paying attention to the sheets," Alex posed.

"That's a possibility," Bobby replied. "Especially if the other ones happened before we got our hands on it. Because you know, if we hadn't taken the case from Decker, we wouldn't have known about Kaleigh Marquez. He was ready to toss her file in the trash."

She nodded thoughtfully, her gaze still on the pictures.

"What can Scott tell us about where the uploads came from?"

"He's working on it. He thinks he can track the URLs used to upload the jpegs."

"Better yet, can he track the one that set up the account?"

"He's working on that, too."

"So do we know anything at all about these other girls?"

"Not yet, but we've gotten the word out to every precinct in the tri-state area. Hopefully some calls will start coming in."

"And until then?"

"I might have something," Bobby said.

He'd picked up a report a moment ago and I watched him as he scanned through it with purpose.

"Liz said that urine was actually cat urine, right?"

"The sample from one of the girl's fingers?" Alex questioned.

"Yeah, Sally O'Hara," I confirmed.

"This guy…Justin Delaney. He's on her friend list, and he works at an animal shelter."

"That's a stretch, don't you think?"

"J.D.," I said with a nod. "Erin had a date with a guy named J.D."

"So he knew both girls? Do you think he killed them both? What substance did Erin have on her?"

I snagged the report from the table, although in all honesty, I know it by heart.

But this was too important to go from memory, so I wanted to see it in black and white.

"Lemon juice," I stated.

"Commonly used to eliminate cat box odor," Bobby commented.

"And Albert the perv said Erin had a dog, but we haven't found any dog," I added.

"A normal killer wouldn't care about the animal, but maybe this guy took it to the shelter," Bobby suggested, and I started nodding, but Alex furrowed her brow and tilted her head, looking back and forth between us.

"So he cares enough not to leave a dog abandoned but he brutally murders two girls?"

"I'm not saying it makes sense, Boss. But this guy's on Sally's friend list, and he has the same initials as Erin's date…he'd be around cat pee at work…"

I trailed off and just watched as Alex stared at Bobby for a minute and then she said, "Okay. Bring him in."

I grabbed my jacket and left the conference room with Bobby hot on my heels.

"You really think this is our guy?" I asked him as we stopped at our desks so that we could pull up the information on our suspect.

"Good chance," he replied, his eyes on the computer screen. "Here we go. 55 Liberty Street."

"Lower Manhattan. Same neighborhood as Sally," I remarked.

"And near where Sally's body was dumped. But Erin lived in SoHo."

"And died there," I added. "But we know Sally had been to Erin's apartment in the week prior to her death. Maybe he followed her there."

"And he killed Erin instead of Sally because she was more of a stranger?"

"So then why go back and kill Sally?"

"Maybe he liked it. You know, the repeat dump site in Corlears…"

Our last Jane Doe, from Thursday afternoon.

We still couldn't ID her, but Bobby had a point about it being suspicious that random killers would use the same dump site.

"Maybe he really liked it," I suggested.

"We can't check her friend list because we don't know who she is, but we can reverse check his friend list."

"And what? Make sure every girl on there is still alive?"

"If we can't get him to talk, then yeah."

"I vote for getting him to talk," I said. "Let's go."

So we headed for Lower Manhattan and since we were going into her territory, I couldn't help but let my mind drift back to Michelle.

And then, because I felt guilty for thinking about her, even though I was only thinking about her in the sense of what the hell is she up to, I pulled out my phone as soon as I was at a stoplight so that I could type a quick text to Liz.

If we can both get off this weekend, let's go away somewhere.

I put my phone back in my pocket as the light turned green, so I stepped on the gas and thought about where I wanted to take her.

Somewhere nice.

And relaxing.

With no dead bodies and no Ross and no interruptions.

And an endless supply of chocolate.

My phone buzzed with her response, so I pulled it out and read her message.

Hershey, Pennsylvania?

I barked out a laugh and ignored Bobby's inquisitive look while I drove one-handed and typed in a reply.

"You shouldn't text and drive," he remarked.

"I know," I said as I finished typing YES! and then I promised, "Won't happen again. So did Alex say anything more about the resignation letters?"

"She's honored. And surprised. And ticked."

"Ticked?"

"You know her. She doesn't want other people fighting her battles."

"This is different."

"That's what I said. And she's fine, really. I think she's actually pretty touched that so many people are behind her."

"Well, Stanley seemed to get a kick out of it. And what about Moran? I never thought for a second that he'd throw his into the mix."

"She doesn't take any shit from him. He likes that. Ross always acted like a lapdog, agreeing with everything he said."

"I wonder what he's up to today. I guess he disappeared after the meeting."

"If he's smart, he's working on his resume."

We finally made it to Liberty Street, and I found a place to park near Justin's building.

"Eighth floor this time," he commented as we got out. "I'm guessing this guy won't try to jump out the window."

"Unless we're lucky," I joked.

But we weren't.

Lucky, I mean.

And I don't mean about whether or not our suspect tried to off himself by jumping from an eight-story window.

We were standing in the lobby, waiting for the elevator, when the front door opened and in walked Justin Delaney.

"How're you doing, Justin?" I asked when his steps faltered as he easily made us.

My hand gravitated to my weapon, and I'm sure Bobby's did the same, but I didn't bother to look.

Instead, I stayed focused on our suspect as he stood stock still just inside of the building. We were a good fifteen feet away from him, and I really didn't want this thing to turn into a foot race.

He took one step backwards and that's when Bobby and I both drew our guns.

"Stop right there," he instructed. "NYPD. We just want to talk to you."

Justin paused for another second and then he turned and shoved his way through the door and took off down the sidewalk.

"Shit," I muttered as we both took off after him, through the doors, out onto the sidewalk.

"Over there!" Bobby shouted, pointing to the fleeing figure on the other side of the street.

"You go! I'll try to get in front!"

So Bobby sprinted across the street, nearly getting run over by two different cars, while I went straight up the sidewalk, hoping to get slightly ahead and maybe cut him off.

Foot traffic was heavy and running was a challenge. New Yorkers don't really care if they're blocking a police pursuit and I slammed into several people before I heard Bobby call out.

"Logan!"

I paused and looked across the street just as Bobby turned down an alley, so then I ran out into traffic, causing a cacophony of car horns and cursing. A taxi skidded to a halt about half a second too late, and his bumper rammed into my leg, but I kept going because I couldn't see Bobby anymore.

I still had my gun out, but as I approached the alley, I brought it up and slowed my pace as I made my way down the trash-filled deserted space.

"You don't want to do that," I heard Bobby say. "Just put it down."

I slipped through the chain link fence at the back of the alley and found Bobby and Justin in a stand-off. I hadn't expected him to be carrying a piece, but he was pointing a big forty-five right at Bobby's chest.

I leveled my weapon at Justin's head as I stepped up next to my partner and I reiterated his statement.

"You heard the man. Put it down, Justin."

"But I'm winning," he insisted. "I can't quit now."

"What are you winning?" Bobby asked him in a calm voice. "What's the prize?"

Justin smiled at him and said, "A million dollars, man. And it's mine in two more days."

"Because the competition ends? There was a time limit?"

"Three weeks."

"So which one did it for you?"

"Huh?"

"Erin? Or Sally? Which one is going to make you the million bucks?"

"Or maybe it's neither," Bobby added. "Maybe it's the other one, that last one."

"You don't even know her name."

"Neither do you, I bet," Bobby taunted. "What's the matter, did you screw something up with the first two, so you had to try for a third?"

"I didn't screw anything up."

"Well, you're about to, if you don't put down the gun. I'd hate to have to shoot you when you're about ready to come into some money," I told him.

"Oh, like I'm going to get to keep it if I'm in jail. I'm sure there are laws about profiting from a crime, right?"

"So you're not as dumb as you look," Bobby stated. "Good. Then don't be dumb now. Put down the gun."

Justin lowered his gun slightly and Bobby eased his weapon into his holster as he took a step closer to the suspect, with his hand outstretched.

"Good," he coaxed while I maintained my aim. "That's right. We just want to talk to you."

"Can't do it," Justin said at the last second, and he brought his weapon back up, aimed again at Bobby's chest.

"Get down!" I shouted, and I squeezed off two rounds just as Justin pulled the trigger.

Bobby dropped like a rock, but whether it was from my command or from Justin's bullets, I wasn't sure, and my heart was in my throat as I quickly glanced at the suspect to confirm that he was dead and then I dropped to my knees next to my partner.

TBC...