"...So we have two homicides with a similar MO, close together in both time and location. Sounds like Fusco's right to have his Spidey-sense tingling," said Joss. She took a sip of her coffee. "No prints on the purse?"
"Just the owner's," said Reese.
"Huh. If your perp had wiped it down there would be no prints at all. So maybe he was wearing gloves – have they swabbed it for fibers?"
Reese made a mental note to follow that one up.
"Get your unis out looking for gloves," she advised. "How about the ME's report on your first vic? What were her injuries like?"
"She died of head trauma from a blunt instrument," said Reese. "Hyoid bone was broken, nothing under her nails. The ME had a theory that she was grabbed from behind, half throttled and then kicked about the head when she was on the ground."
"Hmm. Broken hyoid's pretty much indicative of strangling in some form. Your ME's probably right. They see 'em all down there." She took another sip of coffee. "Shame there was no material under her nails. A nice DNA match, or even some scratch marks on a suspect, would be useful." Reese grunted agreement.
"The kicking, now," she went on. "That's what sets it apart from a robbery gone wrong. A mugger takes the purse and makes himself scarce once she's on the ground. He doesn't stick around to rough her up some more."
Reese leaned back on the couch and interlaced his fingers behind his head. "We're waiting on the ME's report on the second victim," he said. "Patti Sloane. But from what I saw of her file it'll be pretty similar. Really the only major difference between the two is that Veronica was coming off the evening shift from Manhattan General, about midnight, but Patti was on her way to work at about six in the morning."
"Mmm." Carter took another sip. "Time will tell. Except time's the one thing there's never enough of when you've got someone out there looking to do harm."
Reese nodded agreement. "So did you go into your office after I left?" he asked.
"Yeah, they all thought I was incredibly dedicated coming in on Friday afternoon to 'pick up some files'. But with the weekend coming up I really did need them. They keep promising us a paperless office, everything digital, but until they come up with the money I'm still stuck hauling files around if I want to get anything done over the weekend." She sighed, and put down her coffee mug. "To change the subject completely, John," she said, "there was something Finch said this afternoon which got me thinking."
Reese looked a question at her.
Carter examined her fingernails. "He said that with this fix he's putting in, the one which has me supposedly working some of your narcotics cases, that 'we would have no need to hide our relationship', or some such phrase." She looked up at him. "John, what is our relationship?"
He looked up at the ceiling. He had been enjoying this evening, sitting on her sofa with his sock-clad feet stuck out, drinking coffee and chatting. Granted, he was fairly sure most couples didn't discuss the technical aspects of homicide investigations, but still, it had been a marked contrast from most evenings of his experience. "I think this is whatever you want it to be," he said after a moment.
"Friends with benefits? Like with Zoe?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "If that's what you want, yes." But then he blurted, "but I hope...I hope it could...in time, I mean... become more." He turned his head to look at her. She was looking at her fingernails again. She lifted her head and returned his gaze.
"You know, John, witness protection was an eight-month-long nightmare," she said quietly. "I talked to Mom most days, she kept me up with what Taylor was doing. But having to watch from a distance...I hated what I was putting him through. I hurt him, John. I hurt him so badly..." Her eyes glittered. "But next to Taylor, it was you I worried about. When I couldn't contact you, I thought I'd killed you."
He was silent a moment. "It was a bad time," he admitted. "But I got by."
"So where do we go from here?"
He couldn't answer that immediately. She took his silence for something else. "I'm so sorry, John. I'm so sorry. I should never have done what I did, I should have just left it all alone. I should have stood up to Mom, I should have tried harder to find you..." She was crying openly now.
He gathered her into his arms. "Shhh...shhh...It's okay, Joss. You're alive, and so am I. We all made it through."
"Despite Simmons," she said softly.
He smiled. "Despite Simmons, Quinn, HR – all of 'em."
"The best revenge is living well." She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
"So let's live well, then." He covered her mouth with his.
xxxxxxx
His phone rang insistently. Damn. Forgot to take the battery out. He groped across the night stand, found it and answered. "We have a number, Mr Reese," said Finch without preamble. He sounded even more clipped and urgent than usual. "Her name is Karen Smith, she's a nurse at Manhattan General, and she goes on shift in approximately three hours." He was instantly awake, swiping a hand across the unfamiliar wall for a light switch. "I'm on it, Finch. Do you have her home address? I'll get straight over there and pick her up when she leaves for work."
"I've already dispatched Ms Shaw, John. You might be best to head to the hospital area instead, and call Detective Fusco. I'm working out her possible routes to work and I'll send you those."
He was grabbing clothes from off the floor as Joss sat up, fully awake by now. "Someone needing a hero?" She was blinking, pushing disheveled hair off her face.
"A nurse from Manhattan General is about to be involved in a bad situation," he said, pulling socks on. "Care to guess what it might be?"
"I'll come too," she said, throwing back the bedclothes.
"No, you should stay here," he said, pausing as he buttoned his shirt.
"I can be back-up, John. I can't run but I can drive the car and I'm still a pretty good shot."
"Joss, I would prefer it if you stayed here," he said carefully.
"I'm coming, John. That's final." She was pulling on jeans and prodding under the bed with her foot for her shoes as she spoke.
He considered his options as he shrugged his suit jacket on. Short of handcuffing her to the bed – an alluring thought in any other context – he couldn't think of any way to prevent her from coming. "Alright, but I want you to stay in the car. With the doors locked," he said, sounding like the father of a teenage daughter even in his own ears. Carter evidently felt the same way. "Yes, Daddy," she said meekly.
xxxxxxx
It was a cold early autumn night as they left Joss's building. As Joss drove, Reese pulled out his cell phone and hit Fusco's number. It rang for a long time before Fusco answered with an incoherent mumble. "Fusco? Finch's source has come through with a lead on our perp. Get down to Manhattan General as fast as you can."
This apparently jolted Fusco awake. "I'm on my way, John," he said much more crisply.
Finch came onto the line over his ear piece. "Ms Shaw is now at Mrs Smith's apartment, John. I believe Mrs Smith will walk to the subway stop closest to her home and then get off at the hospital station. She then has a five minute walk to the north entrance of the hospital campus. There are two camera blind spots on the route, I'm sending you the locations now."
xxxxxxxx
A trickle of early morning commuters came up the stairs from the subway station. Reese glanced rapidly from face to face. Which was Karen Smith? Finch hadn't sent an image yet. He tapped his ear piece. "What does she look like, Finch? Got a picture for me?"
"Not at this point, Mr Reese," said Finch apologetically.
"Doesn't matter, I've got eyes on her," came Shaw's voice. "Black woman, five four, one-twenty, black tote bag, red coat."
Reese fell into step thirty feet behind her, a discreet tail. No point scaring off their quarry, though a part of him hated using this woman as bait. Still, he was confident that he could keep her safe - with Shaw, Fusco and himself surrounding her, plus Carter as wheel man, surely the risk was minimal? Shaw was only a few yards away, hair tucked up under a baseball cap. She looked like a fast food worker coming in for the breakfast shift. Together they followed the nurse along the street, at first well lit, but then changing quite abruptly as they turned down a side street. There was less street lighting here, and it was a much more utilitarian space, just a convenient route from one place to another, devoid of shops or cafes to encourage people to linger, even if it had been daylight.
Their hastily-concocted plan called for Reese and Shaw to follow Karen Smith from the subway station to the hospital entrance, where Fusco and Carter waited, hopefully trapping their target in between. But they were approaching the first camera blind spot and Reese could see no sign of the killer. Was he even there? They walked on. Shaw fell back a little, the better to maintain the illusion of three random workers heading for three different destinations.
As they came close to the second blind spot everything suddenly went completely black. Power had gone out to the entire block, Reese realized as he froze, listening. A rustle of clothing from up ahead, then a grunt and the sound of a struggle. Shaw had a flashlight on, picking out the shape of two people locked together just down the street. A man holding a struggling woman from behind, his arm across her throat. As Reese charged forward the woman went limp and began to slide to the ground. The man let his victim drop and dodged away from the light and into the shadows as he realized Reese was approaching; the wobbling beam of the flashlight picked up a brief glimpse of a white face, dark clothing and sneakers before he was past them and running back up the street. Reese spun and sprinted after the man, leaving Shaw to attend to the injured nurse. He drew his weapon as he ran, but it was too late. His quarry had dodged down some alley or side street - or maybe even into a doorway, it was so dark it didn't much matter. He tapped his ear piece. "He's gone, Shaw."
"Well." Shaw's voice sounded flat. "Crap."
xxxxxxxx
After the ambulance had arrived and the nurse was taken away, they fell back and regrouped at McDonald's. The brightly lit interior made no-one feel any better, but at least there was coffee, of a sort. The counter staff were uninterested in stray early morning customers and occupied themselves cleaning in the kitchen. Even better, the lone surveillance camera was out of action, dull and blank.
"What the hell happened?" asked Fusco as they seated themselves.
"The power went out to about a block and a half," said Reese. "He got away from us in the dark."
"That's awful convenient," said Carter.
"You can say that again," said Shaw. "Maybe he's got someone helping him."
"Anything's possible," said Carter. "But it seems unlikely. Serial killers are almost always loners. Could he have rigged some kind of cut-out himself? Like an emergency measure?"
"A get out of jail free card? Finch, what do you think?" Reese asked.
"I'll have a look at the possibility, Ms Carter, but it seems unlikely," replied Finch via the phone on the table in front of them.
"Yeah, well I'll tell you somethin' else weird," said Fusco. "Captain Moreno ordered an increase in foot patrols in the area of the hospital, but I ain't seen one single uni since I got here. This place oughta be crawling with cops. Where are they all?"
"Good question, Lionel. We need to find out." Reese felt tired and off balance. At least they had prevented a murder, but he had hoped they would have a killer in custody by now.
"Did you get a look at him?" Carter asked.
"Not really," said Shaw. "Male, five ten, maybe one sixty. White. Dark clothes."
"He was wearing pale coloured sneakers," Reese added.
"Not much to go on. Smith was grabbed from behind, just like the ME thought the others were. She won't be able to describe him." Carter yawned suddenly. "Thank God it's Saturday today. I think I need a day in bed."
Reese caught Shaw's eye before she could make any response; Fusco, missing this, yawned too and said, "I'm supposed to be taking Lee to a preseason hockey game tonight. I'm goin' home. Lemme know if anything else comes up, okay?" He slid out of the booth. Shaw followed him. As they left, Carter shot an amused glance at Reese.
"What?" he asked her.
"Is it true you kneecapped someone shooting into a crowd from on top of a bus?" she asked.
"Yeah."
She was shaking her head slowly.
"Have you been talking to Fusco?"
"Yes. There wasn't much to do at our end, so we got talking. You know you can't do things like that, John."
"So I was told at the time."
She eyed him skeptically.
"What, Carter?"
"I know that look. It's the one you get when you're not listening."
"Look, I haven't done it since," he said defensively.
She looked severe."You know what Fusco said to me? He said 'You gotta talk to him, Carter. You and Glasses are the only ones he listens to, and I ain't so sure about Glasses.'" Her imitation of Fusco's aggrieved tone was precise. "So consider yourself talked to."
Reese bridled at this. "I already got the lecture from Fusco. I don't make a habit of shooting people, but I'm not going to hold off if it's necessary. I'm trying to save lives, here." He didn't like the whiny tone his voice was taking on, but he couldn't understand why Fusco was going to Carter about this. He'd been fairly restrained of late, hadn't he?
"Don't worry, John." She grinned suddenly. "I told him you don't listen to me either."
He glared at her, then realized he'd been had. "Come on, Joss. Let's go home." He took her hand and they rose and went out onto the street. Dawn was breaking, and the early newspapers were out.
"Oh, no," said Joss. She was staring at the headline on the New York Journal. SERIAL KILLER STALKS MANHATTAN. "It's gonna really hit the fan now, John."
Reese could only nod dismayed agreement.