Elizabeth felt fresh and well-rested when she arrived at the BPD. Her restful sleep last night had almost surprised her because the day and evening before, she had had serious doubts about whether the plan with young Melanie was right.

Mrs. Mcbride, unlike her daughter, had been anything but enthusiastic about the BPD staff's proposal - but Elizabeth's daughter Nikki had expected no less.

"I don't know if I agree," Mrs. Mcbride had said to Nikki. "My husband and I lost our son to that monster. And now you want our daughter near that monster --"

"This time, it's different," Nikki had replied, according to her statement. "This time, it's not one of the children who is the victim; this time, he is the victim. You and your daughter can help put this maniac out of circulation once and for all and prevent any more horrible murders!"

Katherine had then assured Mrs. Mcbride several times that Melanie would never come into direct contact with the murderer - which was true - and that she would never see an actual corpse - which was not entirely true.

In the end, Mrs. Mcbride had calmed down a little when Nikki had shaken her hand in farewell. "If we do this," Nikki had said, "we'll take very good care of Melanie."

"I'll do that personally," Katherine had said, "because I'm a mom too. I have a son."

"That," Mrs. Mcbride had said, "is probably why I trust you."

That evening, Elizabeth talked with Maggie for a long time in the living room after she put little Ben to bed. There were a lot of disadvantages, of course, but that was one of the advantages of being a married couple working in the same job. With many couples she knew, one part didn't want to hear about the gruesome details of the other's job. This was one of the reasons why Nikki's first serious relationship had failed. Elizabeth always remembered a scene from the movie 'Heat,' when Al Pacino, as investigator Vincent Hanna, said that you couldn't make things like that better by sharing them. He said to his wife: "I had this junkie today who stuffed his baby in the microwave because the screaming was getting on his nerves. And I want to share that with you now. And by sharing, we can somehow get rid of it. Right? Wrong!

But with her and Maggie, it was the other way around. They shared the cruelty because each of them experienced it, and as a result, they felt the cruelty was only half as cruel. Perhaps it was also Maggie's analytical logic that inserted an order, albeit maybe only illusory, into all the chaos because the horror was always there. Living out a job like this, closing the office door and leaving behind all the victims, all the violated, mutilated, and all the dead, was not only complicated, it was simply impossible. Little Ben had recently fallen on his chin so hard that the laceration needed two stitches. And Elizabeth couldn't help but think of little dead boys she'd seen on the autopsy table, their stomachs and chest cavities sewn shut with twenty stitches.

As far as Melanie was concerned, Elizabeth had thought until recently that Melanie would be fine.

The shoot might even be good for Melanie. Elizabeth had followed Katherine's logic.

"Good for her?" Maggie had asked after pouring herself a glass of red wine.

"Yes, it might even do her a lot of good. Look at it this way, Mags: Melanie's brother Noah was passive; the God of Blood ordered him around and made him compliant with embarrassing videos, like an object. Melanie takes the reins of action into her own hands. She is the sovereign subject that her brother will never be again. As the ancient Greeks called it, it's a kind of soul healing, a catharsis.

"She does something bad, and it makes it better?" Maggie had argued, taking a sip of her wine.

"That," Elizabeth had replied precociously after taking a bottle of beer from the fridge and opening it, "is almost the textbook definition of catharsis. Evoking the positive through the negative."

Elizabeth's reasoning had somehow convinced her, so despite her nascent doubts, she had slept extremely well and arrived at the BPD fresh and full of energy.

What should the video look like, she asked herself. On the one hand, it was so gruesome that the God of Blood would bite, but on the other hand, in such a way that Melanie wouldn't be harmed. She had barely sat down at her desk when her cell phone rang. It was Jane's number.

"Load and unlock," Jane said. "Come to my office, Liz. There's something to celebrate!"

"Your early retirement?" asked Elizabeth with a smirk.

"Don't make jokes; just make sure you get here."

xxx

An actual summit occurred in Jane's office as Elizabeth walked through the outer office into the main office. Katherine was already there, as were Nick, Maggie, and Nikki, who had also made an effort to get to this floor. And then there was another man Elizabeth had seen at some point.

"Mike Fisher," Jane introduced the man: wavy brown hair, sports jacket with tie and dimpled chin. The George Clooney type, the lieutenant thought. But I don't care; I'm a lesbian and married. But let's see what he tells us. "He used to be the BPD press officer and now has his advertising agency."

Nikki furrowed her eyebrows. "An advertising agency?" she asked. "For what?"

Mike Fisher grinned a little smarmily. "For self-positioning, i.e., personal storytelling," he replied.

Elizabeth pursed her lips and cleared her throat.

Nikki ignored her mother. "Personal storytelling? For whom?"

Fisher laughed briefly. "I do it for companies, managers, and even politicians. But in our case, for Melanie."

Nikki made a face. "Why?"

"For her application video for the God of Blood!" Jane said emphatically.

It was all going too fast for Nikki. "Is she in?"

"Well, I always knew she would be in," muttered Katherine.

"So again," Nikki growled, looking closely at those present. "Do we have the parents' official approval yet?"

Jane sat down in her chair and looked closely at the young woman. "Yes. Melanie's in, and so are her parents. Melanie's father called me twenty minutes ago, and I told Mike immediately to discuss the next steps. He came to the BPD straight away. He's already signed the confidentiality agreement."

At least, Elizabeth thought. "That means," she turned to Mike Fisher, "you're writing a story for Melanie?"

"Right," replied Fisher, "the young lady is supposed to send a kind of application video to this God of Blood. She needs a good story and a crystal-clear positioning as a killer bride."

Killer bride thought Nikki and suppressed an eye roll; this is getting better and better. "Does Melanie know about her luck yet?"

Fisher nodded slowly. "Yes, her parents told her she could go to Boston. The best thing will be for you and Dr. Isles to pick her up directly from home."

"First things first," Nikki growled with lowered brows, "we've got Melanie. That's the perpetrator in the video. But we still need the body. Where are you with that?" The fact that Maggie was also in Jane's office suggested to the young woman that something had happened on that front, too.

Jane took a deep breath and frowned a little. "We've already got the body. The suicide, that's right! We've also got the consent form, of course. I've already clarified it with the parents or the dear Maggie Ross."

Nikki drew her eyebrows together and looked closely at her stepmother. "How is that? It's quite unusual for relatives to make a corpse available just like that."

Maggie looked anything but enthusiastic and licked her lips. "Absolutely, but I called them and asked. The relatives wanted to know what we needed the body for, and I told them about our plan."

Nikki looked at the redhead long and hard. "But not about Melanie."

"Of course not."

"So?"

The redhead licked her lips. "The parent couple are following the God of Blood case in the media. They like that we're coming up with unconventional ways to catch the God of Blood."

"Even if we use the remains of their son?"

Maggie cleared her throat. "I think the relationship was already pretty fractured. The father said that way, the good-for-nothing son would at least be good for one thing. They're thinking about going to the funeral at all."

"... which has to be postponed anyway," said Katherine, "the shooting has to take place first."

"Nasty," said Nick, "to say something like that about your son. I'd probably commit suicide with a father like that."

"Family relationships are none of our business," Maggie clarified, "and it doesn't matter to us. The main thing is that we have our body."

Nikki furrowed her brows and sorted her thoughts. "Fine. So next point: pick up Melanie and think about the video."

"And about Melanie's story," Fisher added. "She needs a very pointed dispatch story that makes her a credible murderer."

Nikki took a deep breath and turned to Jane. "Does Bell know that we're bringing in a PR expert?"

Jane pulled the corners of her mouth down and nodded. "Bell knows and appreciates Fisher. He probably thinks he'll have better control by bringing people he knows into the process."

"This is going to go thoroughly wrong," Katherine said with a grin.

"If I understand correctly --" Fisher straightened his tie, "... you want to turn said Melanie into a vicious murderess who not only applies for some employment with the God of Blood in the video but also saws up a corpse as a demonstration of her skills. A real corpse, right?"

Maggie licked her lips and nodded slowly. "Like I said, a real corpse. Only Melanie won't to have saw it up completely; our friends from the train company have already done most of that."

Nikki winced slightly at the statement. Maggie made it sound like the train driver had run over a hedgehog, not a person.

"It has to look," Elizabeth said, "like Melanie sawed the body apart. The body can't look like it's been in Maggie's freezer for five days."

"It's only been two days so far," Maggie muttered, looking at her wife. "And secondly, you don't need to worry. We'll sort it out. I've got some ideas."

"We need a good story," Fisher replied, "but we also need some special effects." He looked around the room. "How about that?"

Everyone looked at each other. Elizabeth nodded slowly. "I've already thought about it. Any ideas?"

"I suppose the guys and gals from Industrial Light & Magic are too expensive?" asked Nick.

Elizabeth thought of a man at that moment. Neither the name nor the appearance. Just the incident. Back then, she had worked on the first case with Katherine. "Kate," she said with furrowed brows, "we got that murder video from the Nameless One where he slit the young woman's throat."

Katherine narrowed her eyes. She, too, was thinking. "Yeah --"

"You brought in that horror movie producer to see if it was a special effect."

"Yes, and I'm afraid it wasn't," Katherine groaned, "it was a real murder. But yes, what was the man's name?" She stared at the ceiling. "Colin! Colin Lyons!"

Jane looked at the psychiatrist intently. "Does he still do that sort of thing?"

"Yes, of course," Katherine replied, "I should have thought of that myself. He's just finished shooting two new movies. Cannibal Island and Terror Desert. He can bring them to me then."

Nick rolled his eyes.

"Do you still have his contact details?" Elizabeth asked.

"I don't have them to hand, but I'll find them.

"Very good," said Fisher. "Then we have the main character, we have a body, we'll have a story soon, and we have a movie producer. Then all we need is what every movie needs."

Nikki looked at him for a long time. "A location?"

Fisher began to grin. "That's right."