Halfway across town, a lone figure worked with great speed. A stick of dynamite, wrapped in C-4, connected to a remote transmitter, then each precious package carefully placed inside a burlap bag filled with coffee grounds and potpourri. He smiled to himself as he worked. [One bomb would be easy for them to find, but forty-two? They'll never know what hit them.]

The walls of his workspace were plastered with newspaper clippings, paying homage to those who came before: The Mad Bomber, The Unabomber, Oklahoma City. And in the center, his personal favorite-the Olympic Park Bomber. It was, in his eyes, the greatest unsolved disaster in history. So much attention paid to this one event, and yet those who did it were never caught.

[Just wait 'til they see what I can do,] he thought, [it'll make that guy look like he was playing with firecrackers on the Fourth of July. Those newspapermen will write about me all over the world. That is,] he snickered to himself, [those that are left.]

As he continued the assembly-line process, he smiled gleefully as visions of his great and glorious future. With a voice that was confident and strong, he started to quietly sing, "I'm going down in a Blaze of Glory..."

Jim sighed contentedly as he finished his lunch. "Sharon, that was delicious. You keep feeding us like that, I'm not going to be able to fit into whatever costume I have to wear to this thing. Speaking of which, what _do_ I have to wear to this thing?"

Sharon sized up the two men sitting at her kitchen table and grinned wickedly, "The contest rules stipulate that the individual vocalist competition nights are black tie events. I have a feeling those black tuxes are going to make the two of you _very_ popular."

Inwardly Jim winced. He hated having to get into that tux hanging waaay back in his closet.

Sharon continued, "During the closed-panel judgings, though, it's dress casual. You'd do fine in what you have on now."

At that, Jim breathed a sigh of relief. [Maybe we can close this case before the night of the finals,] he thought. [Then I can get out of this quickly.]

Sharon continued to work on putting together her Tex-Mex Chicken and Wild Rice Soup as she reviewed how the session went with Jim. [He's definitely talented, I'll give him that,] she thought, [now if we can get him to feel somewhat comfortable on a live stage, we'll be all set.] She then began to voice her thoughts out loud in order to get input from Blair and Jim. "Jim, I think you have more singing talent than you realize. I'm pretty confident we can have you ready for the competition end of your job by opening night." She was fully aware that there was an entire task force of people looking for this guy, but somehow she had a gut feeling that if anyone was going to catch this guy, it was the men sitting at her kitchen table drinking coffee.

She continued, "I'm not so much worried about your voice or your ear - they're both pretty strong as it is. I'm more concerned about your stage fright."

Blair repeated her last two words, just to make sure he was hearing them clearly. "Stage fright?"

Sharon nodded. "Your friend has a classic case of it. Just the thought of getting on stage in front of people makes him nervous. I don't think it has to do so much with the performance itself as the memories of that audition. Jim, you even said it yourself, once you got the part, you had no problem going through with the rest of the show, right?"

Jim nodded, "right."

Sharon continued, "I think that that audition, and the feeling of being 'different', of having to expose a very vulnerable, personal part of yourself to a very unforgiving audience was traumatic for you. And the fear of having to do exactly the same thing, again-that's what you're afraid of now."

Blair thought about it briefly, and, impressed, agreed with her. [Pretty astute observations for someone who's devoted her life to music,] he thought. Out loud, he asked, smiling, "can I ask you a question?"

Sharon replied, "Shoot."

Blair asked, "What's your degree in?"

Sharon tensed up slightly as she was cutting mushrooms and looked over at Blair. If his face or his voice had shown to be in any way threatening, it would take all of her self-control not to use the rather large knife she was holding in her hand. But he showed none of that type of statement at all. In fact, he looked impressed, surprised, amazed, appreciative and grateful all at once - like he would have thought of it himself if he could only wheedle the information out of his partner. She relaxed, smiled broadly and replied, "actually I have a Masters in psychology. I minored in music as an undergrad, and I'm going for my second Masters in music right now."

Blair was truly impressed. Everything she said fits in not only with the story Jim had told earlier, but also with his very private personality. [I'll bet she's amazing at parties,] he thought appreciatively.

Jim looked at the two of them and decided to bring the conversation back to work before things got out of hand. There would be time for the two of them to small talk later. He addressed the group, "so how do you think I can get past this?"

Sharon grinned excitedly as she threw the last of the mushrooms, garlic and cilantro into the soup pot and set the pot to simmer. She put down the cutting board and darted over to the living room, declaring, "the first step is one we're going to do this afternoon. I think you'll enjoy it." Blair and Jim followed in her wake as she led them over to an extensive CD collection. "Jim, one way to build your confidence when you're singing is to have great confidence in what you're singing. You're going to need at least five songs for the competition: one for each of the first three rounds, one should you be picked to go to the finals, and one for the 'celebration' show the last night of the festival, but we can worry about that one if you decide to perform in that show later on. The rules state that the three songs in the preliminary rounds should reflect a 'wide range of musical styles' - in other words, no one can do all ballads, no one can do all classical, no one can do all rock 'n roll; it's not allowed. I figure today we can go through these CDs and pick your songs for the competition. That way, we can spend the rest of the time we have getting you as comfortable with singing them as possible."

The two men gawked at the wall, which was covered top to bottom with what must have been 1,000 CDs of every genre: classical, jazz, modern and alternative rock, classic rock, pop music, oldies, Broadway and movie soundtracks, a few groups that even Blair didn't recognize. Joking, Blair commented, "what did you do, knock over a record store or something?"

"Not exactly. I got a lot of these from record clubs, some from friends. Just picked things up as they struck my fancy. Eventually one year my brother, as a Christmas present, built this case for them. You should see the cases he's made for his own collection - he would make a fortune if he ever mass produced them. They're incredible."

Jim knew he needed some sort of example to go on before he could even narrow down to a list of songs. He asked Sharon, "have you picked out your songs yet?"

Sharon smiled broadly. "Oh yeah. For the preliminaries I'm doing 'Any Man of Mine', 'All Fired Up' and a new version of 'Someone to Watch Over Me' that a friend of mine was kind enough to write me an arrangement for."

Blair rattled off the artists in his head. [Shania Twain, Pat Benetar and Gershwin? Wow. If she wanted to show range, that would do it all right.] He asked Sharon, "And what are you going to do for the finals?"

If it was possible, Sharon smiled even more brightly. Her eyes lit up as she replied, " 'Vision of Love' by Mariah Carey. The only other songs that I know that would show that strong a vocal range are operatic arias, and I thought it would be better to do a song that would get the crowd on my side."

Jim appreciated the logic in the way she chose her songs. Already his mind was going, and he had picked out a few CDs he wanted to take a look at.

Several hours and far too many CDs later, Jim was getting a major headache. They had listened to more music than he ever wanted to hear, and they had only found songs that Sharon could deem worthy enough for Jim to sing in the preliminary rounds. He had never met someone who was so unbelievably picky about a song. But half the time he found something he thought was good, she would take one look at him, and either say, "it's a possibility, we'll put it down on the list" or "no-you don't seem that thrilled with the song. Let's find something else." Even with all the noise from the music, Blair had fallen asleep a half- hour ago, and Jim was beginning to think he had the right idea. He glanced over at Sharon, and noticed that she seemed to be getting frustrated too. Confused, he asked her, "if this is driving you so crazy, then why are you being so picky about this?"

Sharon went over to the CD wall and replied, "Jim, trust me on this. The finals, should you get there, is going to be the biggest test for you. The song we pick for you has to be a 'signature' song. You need to be so confident singing this song that you can still sing it even if two words don't come out of your mouth otherwise." As Jim thought about how much that sounded like something Blair would say, Sharon found what she was looking for and popped it into the CD player. She then whispered, "Okay, what about this one?"

He listened as the soothing voice of Eric Clapton cranked out of the stereo, and he couldn't help but smile. Memories flooded back to him, particularly one night after the HTA case when he danced with a certain arson inspector...

Sharon watched the smile creep over Jim's face. "I take it you like the song?"

Jim leaned back against the sofa and stretched. "Yeah. Reminds me of someone. I sang it in her ear once while we were dancing. Made for a _very_ interesting evening."

Sharon grinned, and popped the CD out of the stereo. As she handed it to Jim, she directed him, "I think we're done for the day. See you tomorrow at 9?"

Jim looked at her, confused. Before he could ask the question, Sharon answered, "Jim, that is most _definitely_ your signature song. Any song that can bring up the type of memories I saw playing across _your_face_ while it was playing is a song that you could sing in your sleep. And speaking of sleep," she nodded over to Blair, who had made himself quite comfortable by this point, "it seems like that is exactly what Blair needs right now. What, did he stay up all night grading papers or something last night?"

"Actually, he was writing a paper."

"Then, as much as I'd like to keep him here, [WHAT!? WHY DID YOU SAY THAT?] go home and get some rest. I happen to know that the Commissioner made Simon reassign all your cases until after the Festival, so I _know_ you don't have anything to do tonight. Unless you can find that lady friend to practice singing to."

Jim almost blushed at that comment. "To be honest, I haven't talked to her in months. It was a rough time for her, and just after that dinner we had together, she left town for a while. She said she needed to get away from here-too many memories."

Sharon nodded understanding, and for a moment, her eyes darkened, as if she was fighting off her own demons. After an uncomfortably tense moment, Jim nudged his sleeping partner, trying gently to bring him to consciousness. Blair woke up with a start, as he always does when Jim has to wake him, then relaxed slightly when he realized where he was. "Wha? Oh, hi Jim."

"C'mon Chief, it's time to go."

"You finished getting your songs together?"

Sharon nodded, smiling. "We did. He's going to do great. I have a feeling that the singing is going to be the least of your worries on this case."

"Oh. Good." It was pretty clear that even though Blair was awake, he was still in a bit of a daze. Jim just laughed. "Sharon was right, chief. You do need to go home and get some rest. Let's go." He directed his partner to the elevator, carefully helped him into his coat, waved his good-byes to Sharon, and they left.

"...ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!"

The lone figure counted each bag out loud. He had finished the packages way ahead of schedule. Better still, he had more than twice the number than he needed for his 'Grande finale'. [Maybe,] he thought, [I should put these extras to good use, do a few test runs.]

"After all, practice does make perfect, isn't that right, Socks?" The black pit bull with white paws howled his approval at the statement as his master stuffed twenty-nine small pouches into each of two pillowcases.

"Now, now, my friend, where shall we begin?..." He thought for a minute as he looked over a map of Cascade. As he caught a glimpse of the newspaper underneath, a smile lit up his face as he said, "Of course! Come Socks, we must away! We have an audience to entertain!" He laughed loudly as Socks followed him out the door and down the street.

So far, the audience had been loud and lively at it's approval of the movie. It wasn't often that you get a good crowd for a movie so old, but with the premier of "Speed 2" tomorrow, this free midnight screening of "Speed" drew quite an enthusiastic crowd. Marc never grew tired of movies - maybe that was why he bought his own theater. It was definitely why he was sitting in the back of said theater, listening to a hyperactive group of teenagers squeal at Keanu Reeves and roar whenever something violent happened on the screen. His wife had warned him that if he went to too many of these loud screenings, he would probably lose his hearing.

His last thought before he lost consciousness was that maybe she was right.

One thing that Jeannie had accepted a long time ago about working in the Mayor's office was that there would be nights she had to work until all hours. To her, it was just another part of the job. Her boss wasn't a tyrant, though, thank God. Working until 12:30 typing up that budget referendum undoubtedly meant that she would get the next day off. As she dreamed of what she would do with eight uninterrupted hours of peace, the phone rang. Cursing the fact that those eight hours hadn't started yet, she let the phone ring and continued her 'office-closing' ritual: turning off the copier, cleaning out the coffee pot, shutting down the computer. She had one rule in the office: after 7 p.m., the answering machine became her personal receptionist. It was turned up so she could screen the calls in case of emergency, but most of the time the calls that came in were from workaholic bureaucrats whose problems could wait until the next day anyway. Besides, Commissioner McPherson had wanted them to tape any incoming calls in case that psycho bomber called in again. She had no problem with that - that guy was creepy.

At the fourth ring, the machine picked up.

"Ah, joys of youth..."

Jeannie's face went white. It was him again.

"Young love, dating, movies - well, maybe not movies anymore..." His sinister laugh chilled her to the bone. She wasn't sure whether she should pick up or let the machine run in case the police needed the tape. She let it run, mostly because her fear of the man on the line rooted her where she stood as he went on.

"I can just picture what they're going to say tomorrow: 'Why? They were so young! They had so much to live for! It's all so senseless!' Maybe that's the point - the senselessness of it. Life is senseless, folks - only those 15 minutes are what really matter. And I'll get mine soon enough!" He started to hang up the phone, then picked up the receiver again and finished, "Oh, and just so you know that I mean what I say, check out the corner of 12th and Prospect tomorrow. Ciao darlings, kiss kiss! Let's do lunch!" *Click*

It took Jeannie a couple of minutes of listening to dial tone to compose herself enough to call the Commissioner. As the phone rang, she absentmindedly wondered what was on the corner of 12th and Prospect.

[One thing you think I would have learned by now,] thought Diane, as the phone rang, [whenever I think I'm going to get a good night's sleep for once, I should just assume that _something_ is going to wake me up.] As she picked up the phone, she was about to snap at the person on the other line when she heard that woman crying. Recognizing Jeannie immediately, she sat up, now fully alert. As reassuringly as she could, she soothed, "Jeannie, Jeannie, shhhh. Calm down, tell me what happened."

As always, Jeannie tried to be as polite and respectful as possible. "Sorry to wake you Commissioner, but he called again."

There was no point in elaborating on who 'he' was. Both women already knew.

"Did you get it on tape?"

"Yes."

"Can I hear it?" She quickly flipped on her personal phone recorder as Jeannie fumbled with the answering machine tape.

After the tape had finished, Diane asked, "Jeannie, can you put this in a safe place?"

"Sure. There's a safe in the mayor's office."

"Good. I'll have one of my men get it in the morning. Now, go home. Try and get some rest. Remember, it's not you he's after, you know."

"I know. Good night, Commissioner. And thank you."

"We'll find him, Jeannie. I promise." [If I have to die trying.]

"I know. Good night."

Just as Diane hung up the phone, it rang again. She picked it up, and before she could tell Jeannie again to go home, she recognized the male voice on the line. "What's up, Chief?"

"Commissioner, we got a big problem here."

"What kind of problem?"

"Explosion at a movie theater. Place was packed to the gills. Fifty kids are dead, almost a hundred on their way to the hospital. Inspector Reeves thinks is was a bomb. A _big_ bomb."

As she pulled herself out of bed and pulled her gun from the night table, she asked, "Where?"

"Corner of 12th & Prospect."

[12th & Prospect? Dear God.] "I assume Taggert and his crew are already out there?"

"There's on their way ma'am."

"Get Ellison & Banks from Major Crimes out there ASAP. I'll join you as soon as I can."

"Yes ma'am." *click*

She hung up the phone and silently cursed. Fifty kids? This guy was going to pay if it took her fifty years to track him down. She would be at the crime scene, all right. But first, she needed to make another phone call. She needed someone to look inside this guy's head.