Author's Note:

Hey i just wanted to say I am so sorry it's taken me so long to update... There has been a lot going on. I am going to try and update a lot more, I know I probably already have said that, but I do mean it. I am going out of town for a bout a week at the end of the month and won't be able to work on my stories, but I will work on stuff before i go and after I get back...

Thanx to the loyal readers. remember i love to get reviews, but please be nice, no MEAN reviews meant to be hurtful rather than helpful. I like critiscm, but only the kind meant to help me be better not the kind meant to be nasty or mean. Remember this is FANFICTION, meaning it's not always going to be right or perfect or even reflect the way the characters are written for the show, this is meant to be a fictional story made from my own imagination...

Thanx to all new readers, hope you enjoy and please review!

Kris

Chapter 43

He was watching the recorded feed from the camera's inside the Stokes home and he frowned as he saw JJ staring at the pictures and it seemed she thought she had figured something out that she had missed, that didn't matter. There were so many things that the team, and especially her, had missed that he didn't think he would ever have to worry about being caught. He had been planting evidence since the beginning, paying people off or planting people inside so many different investigations that there was no way they could tell what was real evidence for them and what wasn't. JJ was smart but he doubted she would be able to sort through anything and find the real evidence and the truth, he had made it nearly impossible for that to happen. JJ was good at what she did, but this wasn't going to be something she could figure out, he was a lot smarter than that entire team put together, he actually figured he was smarter than anyone else in the entire world, he knew he was walking away from this unscathed and no one, anywhere, would be able to figure this one out.

JJ was angry as she hung up the phone. The big lead she had about the kid that she and Nick had grown up with, was gone. It had to have been planted there or else she was just seeing what she wanted to see to find some answers.

"That didn't sound like it ended good at all." Nick said as he sat down next to her in one of the conference rooms at the station.

"Nope, we can rule out our childhood lead, our old buddy was found brutally murdered a few years back, but they had a hard time identifying his body, which was why we didn't know about it and were able to think it could have been him. Someone badly mutilated his body, using something to make sure his face was torn up to the point it was unrecognizable and his finger tips were cut off, making sure there were no prints. Dental records were also out because someone actually took the time to pull all his teeth and since there wasn't really much left of him, DNA was going to take a while. He was found in some really small area, an area that doesn't have the technology we do out here. They had to send out all their samples to a federal lab and that lab was so backed up that it took over a year before the body was identified, by that point it had been buried as a John Doe. They just dug it up upon identification and it will be given to the parents back home." JJ informed Nick and she could see how shocked and dismayed he was at hearing that. She knew part of it was that they were hoping that they had a name for their suspect and part of it was that someone they had grown up with had been brutalized.

"You think our guy did that to him?" Nick asked her softly.

"It's possible. Like I said there wasn't much left of the body there, part of it was decomposition and the other part was someone had pretty much tore it up. We have been finding DNA samples at the scenes, I bet they will all come back to our deceased friend. He was planting DNA evidence all along, trying to throw us off our game, and it worked. We need to tell everyone the DNA samples are mostly worthless, we need to run every sample we get in case he screwed up and left a sample of his own, but if they come back to…" JJ trailed off looking down as she felt the pain in her heart. This was something she had grown up with and now he was dead and part of her felt like it had to be her fault, she had to be the reason his life had been cut so short. "He had kids and a wife, Nick." JJ whispered as she told him what was really hurting her about the death. "Even worse, he was military. You tell me how someone could actually overpower him if he was military? There had to be some reason our friend didn't fight back, that he actually went along with this guy and thought he was safe."

"I still can't believe he was married with kids and in the military, that's not the friend I remember him being." Nick said with a skeptical look on his face.

"It's been a while since we have seen him and as I recall you didn't think it was possible for me to actually be a cop either. You don't know what people are like as they get older, you can't just rely on what you remember of us as kids." JJ pointed out softly. "Let's try and get a little bit more done so we can head to Catherine's. I want to give my baby girl a kiss and actually tuck her into bed tonight. Catherine invited us over for dinner." JJ said as she looked at everything in front of her. Things just weren't adding up, they weren't panning out the way they should be and that was really getting on her last nerve.

"Sounds like a plan to me. I miss seeing her." Nick said softly as he kissed JJ's temple and smiled at the thought of seeing his toddler daughter. He had missed so much of the first part of her life, well, even JJ had missed so much of the first part of her life, neither of them knowing they actually had a daughter, but they would make it up to her but first they had to make sure she was safe, they had to eliminate the threat to their family and to do that, they needed to find this killer and stop him.

He grinned as he looked over at the woman and he loved seeing the terror on her face. It was clear that she didn't know what this was about, but did any woman that was kidnapped. He was surprised she had been so easy to catch, I mean, it was all over the news about him and yet women still didn't think it could happen to them and so they were so careless and ignorant. He had felt a moment of panic when the cops and FBI had come onto the news stations and given tips for making sure they were safe from being taken and killed by him, he had thought he was never going to find his perfect woman and even if he did, he wouldn't be able to grab her and continue with his plan the way he needed to, but that had changed, big time, when he had realized that there were women who were naïve and truly believed that no one would dare hurt them.

He laid out all of his tools and put on the music had learned to love to listen to while he was working. He knew that the woman could tell she was about to suffer a lot of pain, but there was nothing she could do about it. He was trying to decide if this time he wanted to go over the top, show just how nasty and evil he really was. He looked at the tools he had laid out and then over at the other tools, the ones he didn't normally use for his other type of work and grinned, maybe it was time to switch up his killing routine, maybe this time he would make them all realize he was more than what they really thought he was.

JJ laid in bed with Nick later that night, feeling like her world was tearing apart. The suspect that they had all been so sure it was going to be, was really a victim who was a big part of the game this sick sadistic freak was playing. She knew that this had to be someone who had watched JJ struggle through this case, watched and listened to everything that she thought and everything that she felt. This guy would have needed to be close to her at all times and he would have found a way to make sure he was always right there with her, always able to hear what her next step would be and able to make sure she went in the wrong direction instead of the right one.

At the moment LVPD was stuck working this case with the FBI and FHI, her old agency that was making it clear they weren't going to leave this one alone. She was glad to have her old team around her, because they had been working hard on this case for a while. JJ remembered when they had first gotten word that a serial killer was traveling on the loose and that they would be secretly assigned to work the investigation, while most of the local PD's worked their solo cases, without realizing there was one killer and multiple cases all around. FHI always kept to themselves, and this wasn't the first case she worked with her team, she had already worked over twenty cases with the FHI before this case had fallen into their laps. She knew how that team worked, she knew how everyone thought and she knew she could count on them to always have her back in any emergency cases.

JJ was just worried that her close relationship with the FHI people had blinded all of them to what needed to happen. She should have been pulled off this case a long time ago, and FHI had refused to do it and now LVPD was doing the same thing. She realized that they were afraid to pull her off because of this killer, but she was way too close and her point of views on the case were getting them nowhere, as much as she wanted to continue on this case, she wanted to be the one protecting her daughter more. She had no choice but to ask to be pulled off the investigation, she hoped that it wouldn't anger the guy more, and that maybe, just maybe, this decision might actually throw him off his game. He thought she would be to obsessed with him to let this thing go, if she walked away and let others handle the case, he might actually make a mistake. Maybe by her leaving the investigation to others, it might actually make this guy leave them something that could identify him, and that was what they needed more than her on the case. With her decision made, JJ cuddled up close to her husband and fell into a dreamless sleep for the first time since she realized this guy was murdering because of her.

He positioned the body right where he wanted it, and he grinned. This was going to throw them off their game, this was going to make all of them see that nothing in the world would get to him, that he had no soul and he had no heart. He felt nothing, and he would never ever feel regret or remorse, he enjoyed what he did more than anything. He made the 911 call and made it clear that JJ better be at this scene or else someone close to her would die and soon. He found his new position to relax in and got ready to sit back and watch the show.

Yawning, JJ and Nick got out of the car and looked at the flashing lights and crime scene tape. JJ had made her decision but hadn't gotten around to actually sitting down and talking with the Captain and Grissom about it. As they walked up to the scene they were shocked, because it was quite clear this one was a lot more gruesome than all of the others. There was no way to identify this victim based on looking at them, and the next of kin wouldn't be allowed to view the body, there was practically no face left on the poor young woman, it almost looked like it had been sanded off or something. JJ almost didn't want to approach the body but Nick put his arm around her waist and slowly guided her towards where the body had been dumped.

"We have found an ID from the last victim here and we found a note telling us the games were over. I don't know what that's supposed to mean but it has everyone on edge and wondering if he has decided to get to his main and final goal. All CSI's and detectives are on alert." Greg said softly.

JJ wasn't a CSI, she didn't collect evidence but she did look at it, as one of the detectives working the case. She knew that the note itself would mean that whoever this guy's main target was, they were the ones who were next to be tormented. She could only hope that the level of pain he had inflicted on this one could mean he made a mistake and left something behind that they could use against him. "Please let him have made a mistake, we have to stop him." JJ whispered to herself.

He watched closely as the team worked the scene and he knew, he knew without a doubt that things were about to get better, because it was time to stop playing, to stop trying to let them see what this was about and just do what was necessary, it was time to kill the reason behind all of this pain and torture, it was time to take out his one true target and make sure that they suffered greatly. He had practiced on this victim, and now he knew what to do, he had used different methods throughout to find the one that would cause the most pain to the person he wanted to torment, and now he knew what would work best and it was only a matter of finding the right time to grab the right target, and soon this would all be over, at least here.