A/N: Okay, so, the killer's motive and all that made total sense in my head.. if it doesn't make sense in yours, it probably means that one of us is crazy... :-D
When Jane arrived at the scene in Charlestown, she and Frost stopped their sedans almost simultaneously in front of the multi-story apartment building that had been identified as their killer's primary seat of residence. Both detectives jumped out of their cars, wearing bullet-proof vests and subconsciously tickling their guns with their fingers, and hurried over to Korsak and a few more cops, who had already gathered behind a corner that offered them protection and invisibility from the eyes of whoever might be watching them from inside the apartments.
"Well, look who's driving slower than my grandmother today…," Korsak teasingly greeted Frost.
"Is he in there?" Jane asked tensely before the younger detective could retort back at the sergeant.
"We're not sure yet, but a neighbor saw him come in last night." Korsak handed her a printout with a photo and a brief description of the man they had been chasing all week. "Jarrod Dansari," he informed her. "We traced back some of the payments he's received from the photo studio. That guy sure knows how to hide his tracks. He's got more fake names and identities than WITSEC."
As Jane stared at the photo of the bearded man who had almost killed her best friend, her face instinctively darkened and every fiber of her body itched to rush inside and just beat the hell out of Jarrod Dansari.
"And he's got several restraining orders issued against him in different states for stalking various women," Frost added and held up his tablet PC with a copy of Dansari's record. "We sent his fingerprints on file to the lab, and they matched them to some of those found in the house on Stratford Street."
"And what exactly is his connection to the Christles?" Jane asked.
"Well, Azarov says Jarrod Dansari participated in some of his workshops shortly before he hired him to design his website," Frost explained. "And supposedly, Darlene Christle also attended those workshops. Maybe that's how Dansari met her…"
"… and fell for her," the brunette finished her partner's thought.
"Yeah, but why kill her?" Frost wondered.
"Maybe she rejected him and he just snapped," Jane shrugged. "He stalks her just like he did with those other women, visits her at her house, gets too pushy, so she tries to defend herself with the knife and ends up dead. And then he made that incoherent emergency call on the night of the supposed burglary."
"Could be," Korsak agreed. "And then he tried to recreate the scenario with our three victims because he wants to change the outcome. I've seen it before in other cases — people do all kinds of crazy things when they cannot accept the loss of someone they loved…"
"… or were obsessed with," Jane added.
Before they could elaborate further on the killer's precise motive, one of the other cops tapped Korsak on his shoulder. "We're ready to go in."
The sergeant nodded at the cop, then turned back to Jane. "His apartment's on the top floor. You ready to lock him up?"
"Hell, yeah," the brunette declared and determinedly followed the other cops towards the apartment building's entrance.
Once inside the apartment complex, which was organized into two wings to the left and right of the lobby, the whole team strategically split up and began to secure every staircase, every elevator, and every exit of the building before cautiously advancing to the next higher floor. Most of the hallways lay silent and dark, since it was still rather early in the morning and most residents were either sound asleep or already on their way to work and completely unaware of the action unfolding around their homes. And the few who happened to leave their apartments and bumped into the police squad darting down the hallways were quickly shoved back inside and told to remain quiet until further notice.
When Jane, Frost, and Korsak as well as two more cops reached the top floor via the main stairwell, the three BPD detectives opted for the wing on their left and signaled the other two officers to secure the one on the right.
"Apartment 42b," Frost whispered as they briefly paused in front of a floor plan on the wall before purposefully hurrying towards the apartment with that very number at the end of the hallway.
Just ten feet away from their destination, the trio's mission was suddenly interrupted when a door to their right opened and a young mother with two toddlers stepped outside. While the woman's little girl curiously eyed the tall strangers looking back at her with equally surprised eyes, her brother excitedly jumped up and down and squealed. "Look, Mommy, they have guns!"
"Shhh, shhh, shhh," Korsak instantly tried to calm him down and gently pushed him towards his mother. "Be quiet—"
"What's going on?" the mother inquired with a mix of curiosity and fear.
"We need you to go back inside," the sergeant informed her and tried to prevent the little boy from reaching for his weapon. Noticing Jane's and Frost's impatient glare, Korsak lifted the toddler up and carried him back into his home, followed by his utterly confused mother and sister.
Left on their own for now, Jane and Frost finally reached Dansari's apartment and raised their guns. Without further ado, Frost kicked in the door, and the two detectives stormed inside.
Once they had passed through a small entrance area with an empty bathroom and a walk-in closet, they found themselves standing in the apartment's sparsely furnished great room and instantly knew that they had found the right place. The walls were adorned with enlarged photos depicting different blonde women in various scenes of everyday life, and there was little doubt that these pictures had been snapped without their consent.
Wondering whether they had just been thrust right into a museum with a creepy special exhibition on blondes, Jane and Frost grimaced at each other before wordlessly agreeing on their next moves. Since two hallways in opposite directions led away from the great room, the brunette signaled her partner to take the one to his left, while she herself tiptoed towards the one to her right. When one of the other cops followed them into the great room and squinted in disgust at the photos on the wall, Jane firmly waved at him to stay right there in case the apartment's resident would suddenly jump out from behind a corner and try to escape through the front door.
With tense muscles and a fresh wave of adrenaline surging in her veins, Jane advanced down the hallway, turned around a corner, and suddenly froze when a faint whimpering from the last room on the left reached her ears. Clutching her gun until her knuckles turned white, the detective approached the door that had been left ajar, took a deep breath, then kicked it open.
There he was. In a room crammed with computers, racks full of gadgets, and numerous cables lying around, Jarrod Dansari was crouched into an office swivel chair next to the window, his right side towards Jane, and staring at a three-monitor setup on his desk in front of him. As if in a daze, he seemed completely oblivious to her presence and unwaveringly kept his eyes glued to his screens. The brunette cautiously stepped into the room, her gun aimed straight at his face, which was marked by a long scratch on his cheek.
"It's about time we met, Jarrod," she said sardonically.
When Dansari still didn't move, Jane took three steps to the left to get a better view of the three displays and instantly understood the reason for the man's fixation. The screens on the left and the right were filled with videos of the blonde women who had recently died in that house on Stratford Street, whereas the larger screen in the middle was reserved for a video of Darlene Christle crouched in that same dark corner, her body bleeding and jerking until it fell limp and slumped down. As the man winced at the scene and stroked the dead woman's body on his screen, Jane frowned and her fingers instinctively hugged the trigger of her gun. Just give me a reason to shoot you! Come on!
"Why isn't she coming back?" the man cried, his bloodshot eyes still locked at Darlene's body. "Why is she still gone?"
"Because you killed her," Jane said unemotionally and peeked towards the door hoping to see Frost or another cop.
"No… I… I didn't… no…," he stuttered.
"You went to her house on that December night, didn't you?" the detective seized her chance to finally find out the truth.
"I just… just wanted to talk to her… I wanted… Her husband, he wasn't good for her…," the man clenched his fist in anger.
"But you were?" Jane pushed a little further.
"Yes! I would have loved her," Dansari declared without hesitation before his voice filled with hate. "Not like her husband… That ungrateful bastard cheated on her, you know that?"
"And what happened when you arrived at her house, Jarrod?"
"I… I told her I loved her… and… and that she should leave that asshole… but… she… she wanted to send me away."
Jane nervously tightened her grip on her gun. "So you killed her?"
"No!" Dansari exclaimed insistently. "But… she wanted to go back to her husband! Can you believe that? I… I couldn't let her do that! I just wanted her to understand that she couldn't do that! Someone needed to save her from him! And… and suddenly she had this knife… and she wouldn't let me talk to her…" The man shook his head in despair. "I… I didn't wanna hurt her… She just fell… It… it wasn't my fault…"
"And then you called the police from that phone near her house?" Jane gradually put the pieces of the puzzle together.
"Yes…," the man said and suddenly spun around and reproachfully glared at the detective. "And you could have saved her! Why didn't you save her?"
For a brief moment, a deep and profound sadness flashed over Dansari's face and overshadowed the blazes of madness in his eyes. And despite everything he had done and all the worries he had caused, somewhere deep down inside, Jane couldn't help but feel sorry for the man. Maybe he was crazy and dangerous and unable to tell right from wrong, but it had been the loss of someone he loved that had finally sent him over the edge. And as she remembered her own fury and desperation at the thought of losing Maura, she wondered whether despite all their differences, she and Dansari weren't that different after all.
As if on cue, Jane's eyes fell on one of the videos on the man's screens, and she gloomily recognized Maura's fragile body in that loathsome dusky corner. At the sight of her suffering friend, the detective instantly forgot her sympathetic feelings for the man, forcefully grabbed his right shoulder, and pinned him to the table.
"If it hadn't been for you, none of these women would have needed to be saved!" she hissed in his ear and pressed the barrel of her gun against his face.
The same moment, Frost finally appeared in the door frame and worriedly grasped the situation. "Jane, don't… He's not worth it…," he urged her and stepped towards the narrow space in Dansari's back so Jane wouldn't block his line of fire.
Still hoping for Dansari to give her a reason to blow away his face, the brunette locked eyes with Frost and hesitated, but eventually, she loosened her grip and approvingly nodded at her partner.
Frost lowered his gun, reached for his handcuffs, and stepped closer.
When she noticed that the harrowing images of Maura were still flickering over one of the screens, Jane resolutely reached for the power strip on the desk and turned off its main switch. All the monitors went black.
"The show is over," she said dryly.
What she hadn't expected though was how her interference with Dansari's video of Darlene Christle on the center screen would trigger his lurking lunacy. With the unbridled power of a maniac, the man roared and shoved her aside, then leaped to his feet and thereby sent his swivel chair flying backwards right into Frost's pelvis.
With both detectives momentarily out of balance, Dansari seized his chance, climbed through the window, and disappeared on the fire escape.
As soon as Jane had gotten back on her feet, she followed the man through the window, while Frost was desperately trying to untangle himself from the clutter of cables that he had stumbled into when trying to dodge the chair.
Once outside, Jane spotted Dansari on the ladder above, just a few steps ahead of her. You gotta be kidding me, she cursed to herself as she chased him towards the roof.
Sending her one last lunatic glare from his crazy eyes, the man heaved himself onto the roof and disappeared out of sight.
With the right mix of caution and zeal, Jane climbed the last few steps of the ladder and peeked over the edge of the roof. When she spotted Dansari already twenty feet away, she angrily leaped onto the roof and raised her gun.
"Stop!" she yelled habitually, even though she secretly hoped he wouldn't comply.
And indeed, Dansari ignored her call and ran on.
For a second, Jane paused and realized that this was the chance she had been yearning for. As soon as her fingers found the trigger of her gun, all those images of Maura bleeding on the floor flooded back into her mind. He deserves it. No one can blame me. If I don't stop him now, he'll kill again. I have to stop him! She thought about the dead women, about Maura, about the danger Dansari still posed, and about the sadness in his eyes.
She made her decision, aimed her gun, and pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The smoke and echo of the shot were still lingering in the air when Jarrod Dansari went down and hit the ground.
Still tensely clutching her gun, ready to fire again if required, Jane approached the man on the ground and watched indifferently as he clasped his bleeding calf and winced in pain.
The urge to just shoot him in the back had been strong. Very strong. But Jane's will to resist those darkest of all desires lurking deep inside her heart had been stronger. Even if she understood and maybe shared some of Jarrod Dansari's emotions, killing someone in cold blood would have flown in the face of everything she believed in.
With worry written all over his face, Frost appeared on the roof, closely followed by Korsak and another cop. Their anxious faces filled with relief when they saw Jane alive and Dansari nonresistant on the ground.
Once again, Frost reached for his handcuffs, knowingly smiled at Jane, and then tied up Dansari's hands. With the help of the other cop, he ruthlessly pulled the man onto his feet and ignored his whimpering.
As they dragged him away, Dansari turned to Jane. "I just wanted to save her… Don't you understand that?"
"I think I do," Jane admitted calmly and stepped closer. "And here's something I hope you will understand." With that, she rammed her left fist into Dansari's jaw and sent him back to the ground. "Stay away from Maura!"
Frost and Korsak gloatingly looked at Dansari, obviously quite impressed by the brunette's left hook and approving of her sentiment.
As soon as Frost and the cop had pulled the man up again and led him off, Jane grimaced and hopped from one foot to the other while shaking her hurting hand. "Owieee…"
Korsak shook his head in amusement. "You're gonna regret that tomorrow."
"Nah, it was totally worth it," Jane said and rubbed her burning knuckles.
The sergeant smiled and gave her a fatherly pat on the back as they strolled towards the fire escape ladder.
