Bo drove down the street as fast as she could. The roads were almost empty, being late in the evening hours, and the trip was quick, but still took longer than Bo would have liked. She kept telling herself to drive faster while keeping Lauren on the phone.

"Lauren, are you ok?" She asked when she finally pulled off the road into the parking garage.

No answer.

Bo had a sudden shiver of uneasiness, she stiffened, her eyes alert and worried. "Lauren?" She repeated, using a louder tone.

After several moments of quiet, Lauren's low voice came through the phone. "I thought I heard something." As soon as she heard Lauren's voice some of her anxieties eased.

She parked in front of the building, shortly after. She was engrossed in the task at hand and before getting out she reached into her glove compartment and withdrew her gun.

"I'm here," She whispered into the phone, and quickly emerged from the car and silently crept toward the large building doors. "Where are you?"

"In the lab," Lauren answered promptly.

"Well, stay there. I'll come and get you." Bo headed straight for the heavy glass doors. When she neared the door, she saw the faint movement of a dark figure moving inside. It was quick, but Bo sensed it was a person.

She extracted her gun from her waistband and hunched down slightly, and peered into the lobby through the glass. Breath hissed in her throat when she caught another glimpse of the dark figure. Her heart dropped into her stomach. "Someone is inside. Is anyone else working late?"

She glanced around the parking lot over her shoulder and briefly wondered why backup didn't get there first. Waiting for Lauren to answer, her mind flew, working through a list of strategies.

"It's a large building, Bo. I don't know." Bo heard a tremor in Lauren's voice, and she wished she were there to comfort her.

Bo pulled open the door and took a moment to survey the space. Off the main lobby, there was a desk and many hallways leading to other rooms. She swept her head side-to-side trying to get a handle on the situation. Immediately, with assertive, determined steps, she marched along toward Lauren's lab.

At the same time, Lauren knelt behind her lab station, with her phone pressed to her ear and her mace drawn. Suddenly, a click ahead of her indicated the door was opening. She went rigid and hid further behind the large table. An intuitive quiver of fear coursed through her stomach. She hunched immobile, eyes alert, and her phone clutched to her ear. She could hear heavy steps walking over the hard floor.

The blood drained from her face when she heard the hoarse whisper of a man's voice. "Lauren, come out now."

The voice was familiar, but she was stunned with alarm and couldn't place it. She resisted the urge to call out to Bo. She didn't want to reveal her location. A clear head was needed if she wanted to remain safe, so she tried to prevent her fear from claiming her. Any panicky actions could lead to mistakes.

"I have to do this, Lauren. For my brother." The voice came out devastatingly calm and flat. And again it sounded both foreign and faintly familiar to her.

Lauren kept her head down, and held her breath, afraid of breathing too loudly. Time seemed to freeze, and the events moved in slow motion as she waited for what came next.

Outside the room, Bo took quiet steps, slowly, carefully, listening for the slightest sound coming from around her. But she heard and saw nothing.

Chad continued forward but stopped abruptly when he heard footsteps reverberating off the hard floor outside the lab, he spun around and fired his gun at the glass doors behind him.

Before Bo realized what was happening, the shot rang out and shattered the glass of the door in front of her. She, instantly, jumped back and hunched down, pointing her gun in front of her, her phone crashing to the ground.

The shot was an explosive force and Bo forced herself to focus, through her ringing ears, on what was before her and how she was going to save Lauren.

Her brain kicked into high alert when she peered into the lab with her gun in her outstretched arm. She saw a man standing in the middle of the room staring back at her with his gun pointed at her. She caught a glimpse of his face and the shadows from the lights, hollowed his face, adding to the menacing effect of the moment.

"Drop your weapon," Bo called out, he didn't move, and neither did his weapon as she climbed through the broken door into the room.

Grimacing, Lauren stiffened hearing Bo's voice, and her eyes whirled around, but she remained hidden behind the workstation.

In the middle of the room, Chad and Bo stood firm, gazing at each other with their guns aimed directly at each other. Bo looked squarely into his expressionless, cold eyes.

"Drop your weapon," Bo repeated in a commanding tone, her eyes dropped to the gun pointed at her.

The situation terrified Lauren, and she knew she needed to get his attention off Bo. Her mouth had gone completely dry, as her mind raced for a solution.

"Now," Bo shouted and took a minuscule step forward, holding her gun firmly targeted at him.

In the seconds that past, Bo continued to inch forward and sweat suddenly glistened on Chad's face. He looked nervous, but his hand clenched tightly around his gun. The tension grew dreadfully thick around them.

In those painfully long seconds, Lauren pushed down all her fear and crawled further under the table, as quietly and carefully as she could. Bracing her body and with one quick motion, she used her back and with an excruciating effort she toppled over the heavy table, sending it crashing to the floor.

Chad spun around, and a shot exploded from his gun, shattering glass behind Lauren. As the bullet hit the beakers, shards of glass rain down, and she covered her head with her hands.

Startled briefly, Bo refocused, and the distraction allowed her the opportunity to throw herself into Chad's body. His gun slid from his hand as they both hit the ground. Bo collapsed sideways, and she flung out her leg, connecting with his gun and sending it flying across the room.

"Bitch!" Chad shouted as he crawled toward Bo.

Bo wasted no time scurrying on top of him and leveled her gun directly at his head. His forehead was bloodied from the fall, and he stared at Bo with disdain but made no movements.

Somewhere in the distance Bo heard the approaching quick footsteps of her backup, as they climbed through the broken door into the room.

When they came into her view, she stood back while two young officers knelt beside Chad and took over to secure him.

For a few seconds, she watched them put the handcuffs on and stumbled backward, breathing heavy. Her eyes traveled around the room and found Lauren standing behind the toppled over the table.

They stared at each other, beyond words, and Bo was flooded with alleviation that almost made her keel over. A flashing montage of the events replayed in her mind while she silently gazed into Lauren's eyes.

With lightning movement they, in unison rushed forward in silence into each other's arms. Overwhelmed with relief, they sank into each other's bodies and kissed fervently while the officers dragged Chad from the room.

XXXX

Chad, the chef, sat at a table in the interrogation room, his eyes wide, sweat dripping from his forehead.

"Let's go over this from the beginning, shall we?" Hale's voice bounced off the walls of the room.

Chad's lawyer, a well-dressed, thin-faced woman, said quickly. "Don't make assumptions about what my client intends to say, Lieutenant."

Hale stared at her, for a moment, and changed his line of questioning. "Why did you go after Lauren Lewis?"

"I'd advise you not to answer any questions," Chad's lawyer said promptly.

Chad stared blankly and didn't seem to hear her. "I met Lauren weeks ago, at the hospital, where I was having lab work done. My brother, Ched…"

"The other suspect we have in custody?" Hale interrupted, raising his head from his note taking.

"Yes." Chad slowly sipped his water as if stalling for time. "My brother's dying, you see. And I was being tested to be a donor for him." His head dropped, and his shoulders slumped. "Sadly, I wasn't a match. He's still dying."

Hale waited for him to continue, when he didn't, he prompted. "So, when exactly did you and your brother decide to kill all those people?"

"I'd advise you not to continue." The lawyer repeated with emphasis.

Chad shrugged, still ignoring his lawyer. "My brother and I decided to have some fun before he died. He thought if he's going to die he should take a few people with him."

Hale snorted. "Disgusting. If you're going for an insanity defensive, it won't work." He spat out. "Leaving that symbol at the scene is proof enough you were fully in control of your actions." He slid the crime scene photos in front of him. "Why did you leave those marks?"

"My brother wanted to be able to take credit for our hard work, so we needed something to tie them together," Chad said while looking longingly at the photos.

Hale followed his gaze and pulled the photos away. "Why go after Lauren, though? What's she got to do with this?"

"As I said, I met Lauren, and we began conversing about various topics, mainly her interest in cooking. I wanted her as our next victim, of course. Beautiful, doctor would have been perfect." Chad explained nonchalantly, and Hale almost lunged at him. Instead, he focused on writing down Chad's words.

Chad cleared his throat. "At one point, I ran into her at a restaurant I was working at, and she was with her girlfriend. Small world, I suppose, that girlfriend turned out to be a detective."

Hale glanced up briefly then continued to write his confession.

Chad continued. "Later, I recognized the cop girlfriend as the detective my brother shot at our house. The one that discovered us." He paused and annoyingly cleared his dry throat again. "You know from the news when she got her medal. Once my brother was arrested, I decided to go after Lauren to get to the cop that arrested him. As revenge." He looked limp and defeated as he pressed on. "It was my brother's idea to kill those people. I didn't want to. I had no choice, but to go along with what he wanted." He added unexpectedly. "He's very controlling, you see."

Hale's face was firm with disgust. "Save that for the jury."

"I love my brother, and I wanted to make him happy, give him his dying wish, and he said those people deserved to die." He went on. "But officer Bo ruined everything, and we had to start everything over. We only returned to clean up loose ends; I guess that was our mistake."

The lawyer frowned disapprovingly and shifted in her chair. Her client was willfully burying himself, and he refused to listen to her.

"I can't live with this anymore. I'm too tired, and without my brother none of this matters anymore." Chad rested his head on the table and didn't speak again.

XXXX

Neither, Bo nor Lauren truly relaxed until they got back to the apartment. Lauren allowed Bo to lead her toward their bedroom. She wondered if maybe she was in shock, or too tired to really process what happened, or both.

Inside the bedroom, Bo immediately locked the door, and Lauren wandered off to the bathroom without a word.

At the sink, Lauren splashed water on her face and stared into the mirror. The past few hours seemed to be a blur in her mind. She glanced down at her hands and noticed, for the first time, they were trembling.

When Lauren finally emerged from the bathroom, Bo patted the empty spot on the bed beside her. Lauren crawled into the bed, and they laid face to face not speaking for a long moment, only looking at each other.

After several minutes had ticked away, Bo brushed a small kiss on her lips. "I'm not letting you go for a week…no better yet two weeks. I only want to hold the future Mrs. Dennis and do nothing else." She rested her hand lightly Lauren's slim waist and gave herself a moment to enjoy her warmth.

"Sounds like a plan." Lauren stroked her cheek and studied her face. Her heart ached thinking back to the events in the lab, those awful moments when Bo had a gun pointed at her.

They were both drained, severely mentally and physically exhausted but neither attempted sleep, the only comfort they sought was being close to each other.

Lauren stifled a yawn. "Wait." She propped herself up on her elbow and squinted her eyes at Bo. "Why wouldn't you take the Lewis name? Why do I have to change my name?"

Bo chuckled at the delayed reaction. "Bo Lewis? That sounds weird. Maybe we should flip a coin." The tension in her body eased a bit, and she was happy for a little light banter.

A slow smile widened on Lauren's face. "Perhaps, we should make all our life decisions that way."

"Deal." Bo fished out a coin from her pocket. "Heads we have sex, tails we go to sleep." She flipped the coin.

At the same time, Lauren rolled her eyes and snatched the coin from the air.

Bo laughed and nuzzled into her neck. "You know, that was pretty sexy, you distracting him for me."

Lauren let out a small laugh. "Only you would find a life or death situation sexy." She wiggled her body closer to Bo.

"That was quick thinking, Dr. Lewis. I'm impressed." Bo played with Lauren's hair and tried to keep her tone light. Part of her was worried she might break down crying if she didn't.

"Well someone told me, once, to trust my gut, so…"

Bo drew back and turned serious. "I can't believe you've been talking to a serial killer." She frowned with distress.

"It's pretty unbelievable. I'm just happy I never got those cooking lessons. I imagine he probably had something else in mind then actually teaching me to cook." Lauren swallowed after the words left her mouth.

"Damn it, I hate that. I hate thinking how close you were to danger. To a serial killer." Bo felt her eyes burn with tears but did her best to hold them back. It didn't work.

"Well, you put your life in danger every day." Lauren brushed a cascading tear off Bo's cheek before lightly kissing her cheek.

Bo paused to consider Lauren's statement. "That's different. I'm trained, and I carry a gun." She said, running a hand over Lauren's leg, blinking away her remaining tears.

Lauren stared into her eyes and smiled weakly, fighting against her own tears. "Still."

"Yeah, I know." Bo stared off at the wall, she can't deny the point Lauren was making.

Lauren brought Bo's eyes back to her and held it a moment. "I'm the happiest, luckiest woman in the world, to have you. I know you love your job, and I would never ask you to give that up. That's not what I was saying. I just worry about you, that's all."

"I know, and I love you." Bo kissed Lauren's forehead at her hairline and held her tight. "For always."

XXXXX

AN

Yay, the end is near, not sure how many more chapters but not very many.

Many thanks for reading, and to all those reviewers, you all the best.