A/N: And another chapter, so you'll get an idea where this is headed...


The next day, Jane seriously regretted having agreed to that wine tasting with Maura. The detective sat slouched at her desk in the busy homicide squad room at Boston Police Headquarters and buried her throbbing head in her hands. She tried to remember when or how she had found her way to work this morning, but the rhythmic pain beating in her skull made it impossible to focus her thoughts. She rubbed her temples and involuntarily moaned. "Ow."

"Are you all right?" her partner, Detective Barry Frost, asked. She hadn't even noticed him arrive and take his seat opposite her desk.

Jane glanced up and immediately shielded her eyes from the morning light. "Never been better."

"Yeah, tell that to your face," Frost retorted. "What happened?"

"Maura forced me to join her for a little wine tasting session last night," Jane lamented, her voice even huskier than usual.

"I did not force you," Maura interjected from behind as she approached Jane's desk just in time to overhear the detective's complaint.

Jane wheeled around in her chair and faced the medical examiner, who looked as fresh and recuperated as ever.

"Okay, how can you look like… like this," Jane helplessly pointed at Maura's perfect appearance, "and I feel as if someone banged my head into one of your fancy wine barrels?"

"It's called a barrique," Maura corrected her. "And if you had listened to me and alternated between water and wine to compensate the diuretic effect of the copious amounts of ethanol you consumed, your head wouldn't be in a state of emergency right now."

"Another I-told-you-so and I swear you'll have me on your table before this day is over," Jane whimpered. She turned back to her desk and again adopted her hung-over version of The Thinker's pose.

Maura gave her a sympathetic look and couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. "Fine. Let's go downstairs to get you some aspirin." The medical examiner pulled the detective up. "Come on."

When they were about to leave, Frost gasped and stared at his monitor in confusion. "What the heck?!"

The two women turned around. "What is it?" Jane asked.

"I'm not sure," Frost admitted and frowned, his eyes still glued to the screen. "The front desk just forwarded me this e-mail they received this morning. There's no text, just three pictures. It's… look at this!"

Jane and Maura stepped closer as Frost rotated his monitor towards them.

The three Polaroid-style photos filling his screen showed a blonde, pale woman in business attire, crouched into a dusky corner of a barely furnished room, looking into the camera with wide open, fearful eyes. Her hands were tied with a pair of white zip cuffs, and her right temple was bruised and swollen. A dark reddish stain on her blouse indicated a bleeding wound to her abdomen.

The detectives and the medical examiner weren't sure what was more frightening: the woman's pleading face or the photos' brutally brief caption that simply read: SAVE ME.


As the man stood in the dusky room and watched the blonde woman drift back into unconsciousness, the rush of adrenaline running through his veins began to subside, only to be replaced by an even more captivating feeling of power and determination. He had known from the start that his plan would require him to tap into the darkest spheres of his emotions, but he hadn't anticipated the intensity and fierceness that his actions would unleash. And so, his thirst for revenge grew stronger with each of his breaths as his mind revisited the memories of the last few hours.

The drive from the convenience store's parking lot to his house had taken just over thirty minutes and given him enough time to go over the next steps of his plan. When the unconscious woman on the passenger seat had appeared to come around, he had calmly kept his left hand on the wheel to steer his car through the evening traffic and then decisively clutched her neck with his gloved right hand and squeezed her throat just long enough for her to be pulled back into her dark abyss.

Once they had arrived at his house, he had parked his silver sedan in the garage, hiding both the vehicle and his motionless passenger out of sight from any neighbors or walkers outside.

For several minutes, he had just sat there in the car with her, letting his eyes wander over her soft, innocent features. I could still stop this, he had thought. Just drop her off somewhere while she's still unconscious, and no one will ever know. But then, images of Darlene had found their way back into his mind. Images of her lying on the floor, of her bleeding to death. And as Darlene's blood had spread through his mind, it had also drowned his doubts and hesitation.

Having regained his determination, he had gotten out of the car, marched over to the passenger side, and opened the door. He had grabbed the woman, heaved her over his shoulder, and carried her through the creaky connecting door into the house, where the next crucial stage of his plan would begin.

Panting from his heavy burden, he had brought the woman into the dusky, barely furnished living room, where all shades had been pulled down and a tiny lamp and some candles would provide sufficient light for him to execute his most difficult task. He had laid her down in a corner and quickly tied her hands with those white zip cuffs that he had already obtained two days after his plan had first sprung up in his mind.

Then he had reached for the sharp carpet knife lying on the table nearby and slowly approached the woman. He had bent down, lifted up her white silk blouse, and touched the warm, golden skin of her abdomen with the cold, metallic blade of the knife. And then he had hesitated.

I can't do this, a repressed voice somewhere deep down inside of him had cried. Oh, Darlene, why do you make me do this? All I wanted was to be with you. My dear Darlene…

As the painful memories of Darlene had seized every fiber of his body, he had let the knife sink back down and dropped on his knees, silently weeping and staring at the unconscious woman in front of him.

Hours had gone by during which he had just sat there with her in the dark. At some point, he had eventually gotten up and briefly paced the room, but soon, he had cowered next to her again, still contemplating what to do.

No, it's too late, he had finally reprimanded himself. I cannot back down, now! She is here, and she is ready, and I must do what has to be done!

After one last breath of doubt, he had clutched the carpet knife in his right hand and carefully made a small incision in the tender flesh of the woman's skin near her right kidney.

When the pain from the cut had shot through the woman's body and her eyes had fluttered wide open, he had stoically pressed his left gloved hand over her mouth, held her hands down with his right, and pinned her against the cold wall behind. And then he had simply waited and watched as she had twitched and jerked, trying to break free, tears welling up in her eyes, panic spreading over her face.

After a while, her desperate struggle had cost her all the strength that had been left in her body, and her resistance had slowly ebbed away, giving him all the time he needed to take several pictures and send that e-mail to the police.

And as the man now stood over her, blood was still steadily seeping from her fresh wound, leaving a dark reddish stain on the white silk of her blouse and gathering in a small puddle on the ground next to her leg.

If his incision had been precise, the woman would now slowly bleed to death, with maybe seven or eight hours to live.

During those hours, he would send a few more e-mails to the police, all of them anonymized and redirected, and urge them to find the blonde woman, and save her, and make him forget that they hadn't saved Darlene.

And somehow, it all made sense to him, no matter how twisted his logic might seem.