A/N: So, how about we find us a new victim? I might be enjoying writing from the killer's perspective a tad too much though.. whoopsee.. :-)) Anyhoo, more Jane/Maura scenes coming up, too.. Has anybody had problems seeing all chapters, btw? Those site stats are a bit confusing but it looks as if Chapter 5 didn't show up for some.. lemme know if there's any prob. Now, back to business. Another chapter coming up later today.


In the very early hours of the next morning, the man stood in the pouring rain outside a 7-Eleven at the far end of Beacon Street in Newton and sipped on a lukewarm coffee. His brown jacket was soaked, and a steady succession of raindrops kept rolling down the side of his Red Sox baseball cap. With bloodshot eyes, he stared into the distance, his mind already fully focused on the second iteration of his plan. This time, they will find her and save her. This time, it will work. After another sip of his coffee, he carelessly threw the plastic cup away and trudged towards his silver sedan parked a few feet away on the small lot in front of the store. He snuffled, spat out a small lump of phlegm, and got into his car.

The man took off his cap and tossed it onto the passenger seat, where it landed between his laptop and a half-empty bag of Doritos. He turned the ignition key, pulled out of the parking lot, and merged with all the other poor souls who were either just returning home from a seemingly endless graveyard shift or who were already on their way back to work at this ungodly hour.

As he drove back eastwards, munching away on his snack and humming off-key to an old country song blaring from the radio, he felt the first wave of adrenaline tickle his veins in anticipation of his next move. And while his initial attempt on the day before had still frightened him, the thought of getting a second chance today brought a creepy smirk to his face.

Less than two miles and ten minutes later, he turned into a quiet residential neighborhood in Chestnut Hill — that area in the southwest of Boston that he had become so strangely familiar with over the past few months. He circled halfway round the Reservoir, passed by the Boston College alumni stadium, and then silently slid past the dark homes between Hammond Street and Suffolk Road.

Once he found the single-story wooden house he had been looking for, he parked on the roadside and turned off the lights. Almost simultaneously, a light came on in the kitchen of Brenda Williams. You look so much like Darlene, the man thought as he watched from outside how her silhouette kept bustling around behind the windows.

He reached for his laptop and turned it back on, making sure to keep the screen's backlight to a minimum in order not to be spotted in his car. He gulped down another handful of Doritos and studied the files filling the computer's screen. His next victim, who was still completely unaware of the man silently observing her through the kitchen windows, was as blonde and successful as Karen Newman and currently held a professorship of economics at Boston College. The man clicked her faculty profile away and opened a folder of photos showing Brenda Williams at various college events and activities — lectures, graduation ceremonies, charity races. People are so credulous these days, he thought. If they only knew that their whole lives are just a few mouse clicks away for everyone to see… at least if you know where to look. And he sure did know.

The man held out for approximately twenty more minutes until the lights in the house were turned off and Brenda Williams stepped outside through the front door, dressed in black spandex pants and a red BC sweater. He observed with arched eyebrows how the blonde stretched and warmed up, plugged the headphones of an MP3 player into her ears, and then jogged away without paying any attention to his car opposite her house. He checked his watch. 7:30 a.m. Her first class today starts at 9 a.m. Perfect.

He shut down his laptop and opened the glove compartment to reveal another pair of white zip cuffs, a screwdriver and an utility knife, and his dark leather gloves. He put on the gloves and his baseball cap, then hid the cuffs and the tools in the inside pocket of his jacket.

As soon as he had assured himself that there wasn't another soul in sight, he got out of his car and darted towards Brenda Williams' house. Using the darkness of the still early morning as his ally, he snuck to the front door and fished the screwdriver out of his pocket. He had already brought it into position when he routinely turned the door knob and realized that it was unlocked. Oh, Brenda. Always the optimist, aren't you? He quickly let himself in and closed the door. Once his eyes had adjusted to the dusky interior and the stylishly decorated living room with its white couch, a piano in the corner, and an exotic variety of orchids, he walked over to the kitchen and checked out the contents of Brenda Williams' fridge. Having lacked any interest in vegetables since his early childhood days, he opted for a chocolate bar and a small bottle of strawberry milk. He thought of the blonde woman. A little reward for your early morning run, eh? Too bad you won't be able to enjoy it today. He closed the fridge and ripped off a trash bag from a dispenser at the wall so he would be able to dispose of the bottle later and not leave any easy evidence behind.

For a while, he just stood there in the kitchen, taking small bites from the chocolate and washing them down with large swigs of the milk, while a clock on the wall audibly counted down the seconds until Brenda Williams' last moments in her own home. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

At 8 a.m. sharp, the man walked back into the living room, stuffed the remains of his snack into the trash bag, and hid the small bundle in his inside pocket. Without touching anything else, he became one with the dusky corner behind the front door, tightened his gloves and jacket, and then just stood there and waited.

A few minutes later, the sound of Brenda Williams' breathlessly humming one of Mozart's sonatas announced her arrival back at her house.

The man stiffened, took a deep breath, and waited for the front door to open. As soon as the blonde woman had entered and closed the door behind her, still humming and completely unaware of the man's presence, he jumped out of his corner and smashed his fist into her right temple, just like he had done with Karen Newman. And similar to his previous victim, Brenda Williams immediately slumped down and landed in the man's open arms.

Acquiring a certain routine already, he quickly tied up her hands with the zip cuffs and then peeked through the front door. The distance to his car was significantly longer this time, but the trees in the front yard and the seclusion of the whole area would certainly compensate for that. Nevertheless, he decided not to take any risks and to bring his car closer to the house instead. Once he had made sure the woman was fully knocked out, he dashed back to his sedan, hopped inside, and strategically positioned the vehicle as close to the front yard as possible, with the trunk facing the house. Just in case…, he thought and remembered how Karen Newman had briefly come around on his passenger seat. This time, he would lock his victim in the trunk and avoid any complications right from the start.

Less than thirty seconds later, the man had carried the limp body of Brenda Williams out of the house, securely hidden her in the trunk of his sedan, and closed the front door to her home.

He got back into his car, whistling a tad too cheerfully, and drove off. Today is the day. Today, it will work.


At a quarter past eight, the autopsy of Karen Newman was already fully underway in the morgue at Boston Police Headquarters. Dressed in her standard black scrubs, hands hidden in blue nitrile gloves, Maura stood bent over the autopsy table and examined the dead bank manager's fingernails when the doors swung open and Jane strolled in. Though the dark rings under the detective's eyes told a slightly different story, she exuded much more optimism compared to the previous night. Obviously, the two styrofoam cups of coffee in her hands had something to do with that. She took a long, delightful sip from one of the cups and placed the other on a small rack next to the autopsy table.

"Thank you," the medical examiner said as she glanced up. "Did you know that the concept of banking goes back all the way to 2000BC when Mesopotamian temples were used as a safe place to store grain and other goods? And then the owners would make deposits and withdrawals and use these goods just like we use money today…"

Jane arched her eyebrows in confusion. "So, next time you go shoe shopping online, you want to pay with… grain?"

Maura cocked her head and smiled. "Of course not. I just think it's interesting that people back then used to pay with something of actual value to them."

"Well, trust me, a lot of people today find a suitcase full of cash valuable enough to kill for," Jane remarked with a hint of gloom resonating in her voice again.

The detective's subtle melancholy didn't go unnoticed by Maura, and she halted her analysis of Karen Newman's fingernails for a moment. She took off one of her gloves, reached for the cup of coffee waiting for her on the rack, and expectantly looked at Jane across the autopsy table.

"What?" the brunette asked, even though she already knew the answer. Over the past few weeks, she had tried her best to hide her worries from her best friend, but she was very much aware that Maura would find out sooner or later. In fact, she was surprised at how long Maura had managed not to bring it up.

"You'll have to talk about it at some point, Jane," the medical examiner pointed out.

"Talk about what?" Jane tried to uphold her facade a little longer.

"About whatever has been bothering you over the past weeks," Maura explained with concern etched over her face.

Jane took another sip from her coffee and averted her eyes. Part of her wanted to open up and spill out all those dark thoughts the way that bowels would sometimes spill out of a dead body on Maura's autopsy table. But something else deep down inside held her back. She trusted Maura more than anybody else, and they knew each other inside out, but the thought of revealing her innermost fears, of appearing vulnerable and weak, was like an invisible wall holding her back. And so far, Jane didn't know how to tear it down.

"So, did she bleed out?" the detective asked instead and pointed at the dead woman on the table between them.

Maura sighed, knowing quite well that it would be pointless to push any further right now. Hoping that solving the case at hand would help lift Jane's mood, she focused back on the victim. "Yes, she did. She also has various perimortem bruises on her neck, wrists, and arms." The medical examiner showed Jane the dark discolorations on the skin where the man had grabbed and strangled his victim. "And the bruising on her temple left her with a mild concussion. But ultimately, she bled out from this three-inch incision," Maura confirmed and traced the dry wound to the dead woman's abdomen with her fingers. "It has been caused by a sharp but rusty tool. I found iron-oxide and iron-oxide-hydroxide particles in the wound."

"And she hasn't been raped?" Jane asked, while her mind was already putting together the pieces and vividly reconstructing Karen Newman's death.

"No."

"So, he probably knocked her out and—"

"How do you know it's a 'he'?" Maura interrupted her.

"I just talked to Frost. They found foot prints at the crime scene. Shoe size 11, heavy boots… And they only found one set of prints, so he's apparently working alone," the detective explained and stared at the body in front of her. "So, he knocks her out on the parking lot, brings her to his hiding place, has a fight with her… And eventually, he makes that incision and lets her bleed to death while having the presence of mind to take a few memorable snapshots for us so we can all join in on the fun," Jane grunted.

Maura bit her lip and nodded, then held up the dead woman's left hand. "I also found tiny strands of cotton as well as a splint of wood under her fingernails."

"Probably from the wooden floor we saw in the photos and from his clothes," Jane mused.

"Maybe, but I doubt we'll get anything meaningful from that. There's nothing unique about these cotton fibers," Maura admitted. "Did you find anything in her car?"

Jane shook her head. "No. And it was still locked, so the killer probably never even touched it. Must have gotten to her on her way back from the store before she had a chance to unlock her car." She took one last sip from her coffee, then tossed the empty cup towards a trash bin next to the table. She missed it. "Of course," Jane commented wryly but didn't bother picking up the cup from the floor.

"So, what are you going to do now?" Maura inquired while resisting the urge to pick up the cup.

Before Jane could answer, her phone beeped. She checked the text message on its display and frowned, then gave the medical examiner a frustrated I-told-you-so look. "Great. Our killer wants to play again."