Authors Note: Thanks to everyone who has been so patient and waiting. I am so sorry it's taken so long but there won't be that long of a wait again, at least I hope not, LOL. Anyway i have been battling illnesses and had multiple surgeries and then just as i was getting things together again, a good friend of mine passed away... anyway i think I have my mojo back and hopefully everything will work out just fine..

Kris

Chapter 44

JJ was sitting back and wondering what she had missed, what she could have done differently or seen that might have caught this guy, it was the same thing she tortured herself with every single time he tortured and murdered and innocent young woman. JJ knew without a doubt that this time was different, and the note left at the scene told her she was right, he was through playing around and he had found the method he loved the best, so he was ready to go after his true target, whoever that was. JJ wondered if she was his target, or if it was Nick or someone else within the department, and that had every single cop or CSI on full alert. No one was allowed to work alone or be alone, single cops were asked not to go home alone or stay alone, and so there were a lot of people set to have sleepover nights for awhile. JJ knew that this couldn't continue like this though, there was no way they could keep uprooting the lives of adult cops or CSI's because of psychotic killer, they needed to catch him and make sure he didn't attempt to hurt a fellow officer, they needed to take him down and soon.

JJ was going through everything, her request to be pulled off the case had been denied. They knew she was too close, that was why they had multiple other eyes on the case, those were the fresh eyes that were looking at things, but having someone who had seen so much more of this guys work was also a benefit they felt. They also pointed out that catching him and making sure he couldn't kill again was the best way that she could protect her daughter, the best way to make sure that they could be a family and maybe one day give her little girl a sibling and let them all just be a happy and loving family. JJ was still wondering why their old friend in Texas hadn't fought back and why he had been so badly mutilated, why use his DNA at the scene? She didn't know why this killer truly felt like he needed to frame an old friend of hers and Nick for all of this, it made no sense to her.

"There has to be something that we missed about our childhood." JJ muttered to herself as she looked at all the photo's, including the ones of the crime scene in Texas of their old friend. She had made sure they put a rush on double checking their samples but it was confirmed, which meant that their killer had been planting the fingerprints and DNA of a dead man at all his crime scenes, making all the cops believe that they might have a chance when they were really putting warrants out for someone who was already deceased. "There has to be a reason why you went after him, why did you go after him?" she asked as she looked over everything as she sat at a table in one of the conference rooms that she had put some boards together with everything and then also spread some pictures out across the table, she was alone in the room and trying to work through something as fast as she could, she knew she was on a time limit.

He was pacing as he tried to figure out what he really wanted to do and when he wanted to do it at. He already knew his target, and he was pretty sure he knew what he wanted to do to them, it was just about when he wanted to do it. He was hoping that it would be something that would come easy to him, but a part of him was feeling a little nostalgic about the whole thing, he wasn't sure whether he would need to or want to kill again after he finally took out the reason behind his entire spree that had him practicing and learning new ways to do things. He hated the thought of just disappearing and not seeing his old friends and pals again, of not being able to see how they grew their families or how they reacted to some of his twisted letters and demands. He was especially depressed over the fact that he wouldn't be able to see how his little matchmaking would turn out in the long run. He was curious about whether or not JJ and Nick would have more babies together or whether their little princess, their precious little girl, would be it for them. He wondered if the stress of this case not being solved would tear them apart or if they would simply move on with disappointment in themselves for not being able to put away a serial killer who had killed so many people.

"Oh the questions and the things you need to think about." He said to himself as he sighed. He knew since he wasn't identified and no one knew who he was or who to look for, that he could always become friends with JJ and Nick, get close to all the cops and everyone else, wouldn't that be the ultimate slap in the face without them even knowing it. He grinned in sick glee as he realized he could still play his sick and twisted game with the officers without them even knowing he was doing it, he could even send them a letter every once in a while to make sure that they knew he was still around without them knowing who he was and where he was still around at, he wouldn't let them know he was still in Vegas of course, but he would let them know he had gotten away with so many deaths and there wasn't anything they could do about it. "The closure of taking out the person who deserves to suffer might not have to be the end of a fun game with so many of my new friends."

Grissom was staring at one of the crime scene pictures again, knowing that Sara was staring at him but he couldn't help it. The poor woman had suffered worse than any of the victims before her and he had no way of being able to explain why he had made it so bad for her. Grissom was so sorry that this woman had suffered so greatly, he had learned a lot about her and what she had been like, and it broke his heart that someone so sweet and gentle natured could be killed and wiped out, taken off this planet by a monster who really felt like this was something he really had to do. He had learned that the latest victim wasn't like some of the killers other victims, this one had, had a horrible childhood, had suffered from being bullied and abused by family members. The poor woman had pushed through it all to work her way through college after graduating high school two years early. She had worked three jobs to make sure she could pay her tuition and anything else she might need and pay her bills, while keeping her grades up and impressing so many other people at the school that they had gotten her a scholarship near the end of her college life.

The young woman had then gone on to start working in a hospital as an RN and loved being a nurse in an emergency room, she made such a difference and she had such a caring nature that she made sure to check on some of her patients after they were taken out of the hospital or after they were brutally turned away after given a quick treatment. Grissom had learned she sometimes volunteered at a clinic that operated not far from where she had apparently been grabbed, since her car was found abandoned in a parking lot area. Grissom felt his heart break that such a sweet young woman had been tortured so greatly. Some of the other women were innocent young women who had children and stuff, but this time he had strayed from his usual pattern.

"Why was she so different? What was it about this one that made you break your normal pattern to take her?" Grissom murmured as he looked through everything yet again. There had to be something they were all missing, there had to be something about this one that had gotten under his skin so much so that he had decided she had to be the one to suffer the worse.

JJ knew that she was missing something, that there was something she should be seeing that she just hadn't seen yet, so she slowly decided to go over everything and pretend that she was seeing it for the first time, like she didn't know what she was seeing or what she was about to deal with. There had to be something that was obvious, something that when it was finally found that she would want to smack herself for missing it for so long. JJ knew that there was something there, there was something that would help her, something that would help her find this person and make them pay for their crimes. Suddenly an idea popped into her head and she went to her bag where she had put all her stuff from Texas that she thought would help on this case, mainly because if one of their friends was killed and used to throw cops off the real trail, that there had to be some connection to Texas in there, some reason why someone who was in the military ended up dead and mutilated like he was, without any signs of him fighting back.

"How could you not know you were about to…" JJ's eyes widened as she looked through her old notes and the lists she made about some old friends, and then she realized she had made the wrong list, the list she had made was people that were close to her, but maybe the list she needed to make, was the list of people who wanted to be close to them but wasn't. "What if the reason he didn't fight back, was he wasn't threatened by the person in front of him?" JJ murmured to herself as she got out her cell phone and called an old friend back in Texas to follow up on a hunch, asking a few questions about their old friend who was killed, and when he answered her questions she had an idea on what might have happened to him, and how he had ended up dead without putting up any type of a fight.

He rolled his eyes as he continued sharpening his tools and checking on his equipment, wondering if there were things he needed to add to his tool box or if there was something he was out of and hadn't noticed yet. He sighed as he looked over at what he had left of the DNA he usually left at his scenes and knew it was stupid to even try it anymore, he had seen the notice that they had identified the body and that they knew he was deceased and he hadn't been the one that had killed all those people, it meant he no longer had anything to leave at his scenes to mess with the cops, but that didn't matter, he didn't need to leave them anything anyways. He walked over and grabbed what he had left of the idiot from Texas and put it all together, not bothering to be careful with it, he was getting rid of it all anyway, he could just mess with them and dump the rest of it all over his target or he could just kill someone for fun and dump it on them, he would just have to decide on that when it came time to.

JJ now had some idea of what had happened. She had an idea on a list of people she needed to look into, the list was a lot shorter than it had been before. She smiled because she knew she was closing in on this guy and she was going to make sure that he didn't get away with this. She just needed to be careful to make sure he had no idea she was closing in. "I am going to get you, and I am going to make sure you look me in the eye and know I was the one who took you down." She muttered as she stared at everything on the table and the list she now had. She was closing in and it was only a matter of time before she made sure he was taken care of and locked away forever.