It was just before 3 pm when the door opened. Nikki and Katherine hadn't parked their car in front of the Mcbrides' house and had just rang the doorbell. Mrs. Mcbride looked even worse than last time. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes red, as if she hadn't eaten or slept for days.

She was about to lead them into the living room when Nikki stopped and raised her hand.

"Noah," the officer said, "did he leave with your husband?"

"They left at 2:30 pm." Mrs. Mcbride nodded slowly. "Melanie's upstairs and doesn't know about your visit yet." She looked at Nikki scrutinizingly. "What do you want to talk to my daughter about?"

Nikki looked at the woman for a long time and breathed deeply. "That would have to remain between us, Melanie, myself, and Dr. Isles."

"But she's not involved in this?"

Nikki shook her head vigorously. "Not at all, Mrs. Mcbride. But Melanie can help us."

Mrs. Mcbride's features hardened. "If it helps us find this monster who turned my son into a murderer, that's fine by me. Come with me." She led Nikki and Katherine up the stairs. There was muffled music coming from a room down the hall. Mrs. Mcbride knocked on the door, then turned the doorknob. The door was locked.

"I'm doing homework," Melanie's voice could be heard from the other side of the door.

"It's the Boston Police Department," her mother explained. "That's right," she whispered in Nikki's direction. "Or should I have said something else?"

Nikki took a deep breath and shook her head. "No, absolutely right."

"The BPD?" asked the voice behind the door. "You're kidding me, right?"

"Melanie, it's the BPD. Officer O'Laighin and Dr. Isles."

"Really? Just a minute." You could hear a desk chair move back on the floor inside the room. Then the door was unlocked. Melanie opened the door and stared curiously at the visitors. "Am I under arrest?"

Katherine had to grin. "No, why would you be?"

"But surely it's about Noah?" Melanie wasn't stupid.

"It is. But it's especially about the one who put your brother up to this terrible deed."

"I see," said Melanie. "But I don't know him; I've had no contact with him."

Not yet, Nikki thought. "Nobody's saying that either. Listen, Melanie, we're here --"

"...the two investigators need your help," Mrs. Mcbride interjected.

"You want me to help Homicide?" Melanie's eyes lit up.

Katherine cleared her throat. "Yes, possibly. You want to be an ME. Think of it like an internship."

Nikki glared at her aunt. What kind of flea was the psychiatrist putting in the child's ear here? The idea of instrumentalizing a sixteen-year-old for such a cause had become increasingly creepy to her over the hours. And now Katherine was trying to bait Melanie with an 'internship'. But she could hardly bully Katherine about it in front of Melanie. "It's not quite an internship," she began, "but we need to talk to you. We have something you could help us with. It's not easy, though."

Mrs. Mcbride's eyebrows drew together in alarm.

But Melanie seemed fired up. "Sure, I'll help the BPD!"

Nikki took a deep breath. "Look, we'll explain everything to you in peace. Can we talk to you alone in your room for a few minutes?"

"Sure," Melanie repeated, pulling Nikki and Katherine into her room and slamming the door in her mother's face.

Nikki sat down on Melanie's bed as she and Katherine explained the plan to Melanie.

"Wow," Melanie groaned as Nikki and Katherine finished. "That's an awesome idea! That sounds super shocking! That'll blow this God of Blood's mind! I'll do it!"

Nikki frowned deeply. "Are you sure?"

"Dead sure! Besides, I want to work for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts someday; you can't be afraid of blood and death." She thought for a moment. "And this is being filmed in Boston?"

"Yes."

"Can I get a nice hotel room there?"

"I think so."

"Wow."

"It all sounds so easy," Nikki said, gritting her teeth, "but it's not going to be that easy."

"Well, what's easy in life? Especially if you want to work for Maggie Ross one day, right?" Melanie looked at Katherine, who she saw as an ally.

Katherine just nodded.

"And the body?" asked Melanie. "Is it real then?"

Nikki thought for a moment. But what was the point of telling Melanie any lies? She would soon find out during the shoot that the body was natural, if only because of the smell. "Yes, it will be a real corpse."

"Cool!"

"Even dismembered," Katherine said, raising her hand, forefinger, and thumb together as if praising a dish. Nikki would have liked to kick her for that gesture.

"Awesome!"

"But you won't have anything to do with the body," said the officer, "we'll film through and the body separately."

"Well, then it's no big deal," Melanie replied.

"No," Katherine confirmed, "it'll be interesting but not bad."

Nikki nodded as well. But her mind rumbled. Was it right to involve a sixteen-year-old girl in something like this? Wasn't that also a form of abuse? Wasn't this turning them into the monsters that hunted them, that turned other people into objects for their ends?

Katherine frowned a little. "So, you're really in?"

"You're welcome to have it in writing," Melanie replied.

"We'll have to discuss it with your parents first," Nikki replied.

"But I've already said yes."

"But we still have to discuss it with your parents first. You're not yet of age, so it's ultimately up to your parents to decide."

"I'll talk to them and then --," Melanie began.

"Thank you very much, but we'll do that." Nikki looked towards the door. "We'll go down to your mom's right now, and she'll talk to your dad when he gets back." She glanced at the computer screen on Melanie's desk. The screen was black. "Did you just do your homework?"

Melanie nodded briefly. "Yes. I need the computer for that. And Wikipedia. My parents suddenly don't like it anymore."

"Because of the thing with Noah?" Nikki avoided even mentioning the name God of Blood.

"Yeah, ever since that guy got my brother so wrapped up online, suddenly every computer, smartphone, and everything else is evil."

"Evil is the one," Nikki replied, "who controlled all this." She stood up. "And that's why we want to catch him. And that's why we're talking to your mother now."

xxx

It hadn't escaped Katherine's notice that her niece had been unusually quiet on the drive to the Mcbrides and even more silent on the way back, her brow furrowing a little as she steered the unmarked car through the streets of Boston. She knew from Maggie that Lee had broken up with her niece last night. She also knew what it was like when first love dissolved into nothing.

She looked at the young woman and took a deep breath. "Are you okay?"

Nikki nodded slowly and gritted her teeth. "Yes, everything's fine. I didn't sleep very well."

The psychiatrist pursed her lips and nodded slowly, then decided on a frontal assault. "Maggie told me that Lee and you broke up."

"Of course she did," the young woman muttered, licking her lips. "Lee said that he'd even seen me a lot when I was still at the academy and that he didn't want to be with someone at work more than at home." She paused and raised her eyebrows. "Which is funny because we didn't live together."

"You've spent more time at Lee's than you have at home," Katherine replied, looking at her niece slowly.

The young woman took a deep breath and licked her lips. "It doesn't matter. He's decided that it's better if we end our relationship; I can deal with that."

Katherine glanced sideways at her niece and arched a brow. "Let's go for coffee and talk."

"Do you want to have a therapy session with me?"

"No, I want to talk like your aunt, not a psychologist."

Nikki licked her lips one more time and nodded slowly. "All right."

xxx

Katherine and Nikki sat in a small, cozy cafe, and the psychiatrist smiled at the waitress as she brought two cups of coffee, but then she looked at her niece long and hard with a frown. "How are you feeling, Nikki?"

Nikki sighed loudly and turned the cup between her hands, not looking directly at Katherine. "Honestly? Not good. Everything's coming together at the moment. This case, Lee, Ash. Which the breakup is just the lesser of two evils."

Katherine pressed her lips together and gritted her teeth. She knew exactly what the young woman was alluding to. "It's been a year and a half now." Exactly a year and a half ago, Ashlyn had moved in with Frankie and Nina in Denver, Colorado, at her request and urging. One day, Ashlyn sat down with Maggie and Elizabeth and begged the two women to move somewhere that wasn't as dangerous for the whole family as Boston. Still, neither Elizabeth nor Maggie had been willing to do so, as their entire lives were centered in and around Boston. This conversation ended in a big scandal. Ashlyn had locked herself in her room for weeks, only coming out for meals and school and not speaking to her parents.

Even Nikki had bounced off Ashlyn after she'd tried to reassure her little sister that Boston didn't just have a dark side but a sunny side, too. Boston was responsible for Sarah and Elizabeth meeting, falling in love, and starting a family.

Ashlyn, on the other hand, had argued that Boston was responsible for her birth mother killing herself and that the city had nearly killed her and Nikki several times, not to mention Maura, Jane, and Elizabeth. And that Nikki only didn't want to leave Boston so that she could follow in Elizabeth's footsteps and go to the police academy.

Nikki couldn't say anything rebutting that.

At one point, Elizabeth had asked Katherine to sit down with Ashlyn and talk to the teenager to understand why Ashlyn was acting so strangely.

Katherine complied with her sister's request and sat down with Ashlyn on a quiet afternoon, and the two talked for hours. Katherine had assured the girl beforehand that she only wanted to understand Ashlyn and not pass judgment and that she was not on either Elizabeth's or Ashlyn's side, that she was a neutral party. Ashlyn had then confided in her aunt.

Katherine had found it anything but easy to tell her sister that Elizabeth's youngest daughter had been severely traumatized over the years and that Ashlyn suffered from anxiety. And that it would be best if Ashlyn had a change of scenery with extensive therapy.

At first, Elizabeth had been reluctant to do this; she had argued that it was out of the question for her to leave Ashlyn in the care of Sarah's parents and that she didn't know anyone else who would take her daughter in, no questions asked.

Jane had yet to be keen on sending Ashlyn anywhere, but an idea came to her. She had suggested that Ashlyn could move in with Nina and Frankie until she was better. She had also confessed that she had already spoken to them about it and that her brother was more than willing to take the girl in.

At first, Elizabeth was furious, but she could see her younger daughter getting worse daily and had to realize that Frankie and Nina had been the best solution for Ashlyn before she lost her way for good.

Nikki pursed her lips and shook her head. "I don't know; Ash and I talk every other day, and it's still not the same."

"You realize that Denver isn't on another continent, right?" Katherine replied with a frown. She knew that Nikki and Ashlyn's relationship had changed after Ashlyn left. That's what had happened to her and Elizabeth after she'd moved to New York.

Nikki rolled her eyes and gritted her teeth. "I know it's only two thousand miles separating us. That's still quite a distance to drive."

Katherine furrowed her eyebrows. "Have you ever heard of airplanes?"

The officer rolled her eyes again.

The older woman grinned and raised her hand before her niece could say anything. "Ash is coming to Boston for a visit in a few days. Maybe you should tell your sister how you're doing with her absence."

Nikki opened her mouth to say something, then slumped her shoulders and sighed in resignation.