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"So what exactly does this mean?" Megan asks. She's looking from Jim to me, and I can see that she's trying to sort it all out in her head but so far she isn't sure if we have all the pieces yet.
"Well, for starters, it means that every one of the victims was, at one time or another, sharing a bed with Thomas Walters."
"Is he the killer?" Megan asks.
I shrug as Jim answers from where he's still examining the body parts. "Maybe. Maybe not. Whoever it is seriously disturbed."
I turn around to look at him. "You're one with the understatement there, Big Guy."
Jim grins at me for a moment there's light in his eyes that I have trouble identifying. But then he looks down to the table again, and his expression goes serious.
I walk over to where Megan is standing a few feet away, to give Jim some room to do his thing, but not too far away that I can't help if he needs it.
"Did you tell Simon? About our new evidence?" I ask quietly.
Megan looks away for a second and when she looks back, she's got this amused look on her face. "Yep. He didn't seem too pleased though." She shakes her head at some memory. "He did say though that he would run interference with the Mayor until we've got something we can use."
I nod and am about to comment when I hear a fierce growl come from behind me. When I turn around to look, I'm almost surprised to not to find some wild animal in the lab with us.
"Jim?" I take a step back over to the table he's hunched over. "What is it?"
Jim picks up one of the bags and sniffs it. Then again, this time taking a longer time to sort out whatever it is he's smelling. Before I can ask him again what it is he's found, another growl erupts from his chest.
I place a calming hand on his shoulder and his head snaps around to look at me, almost as if he didn't know I was there. His eyes lock with mine, and I see something feral there.
Just like it was the other night.
I don't move my eyes from his as I speak. "Megan, can you leave us alone for a few?"
I don't hear her answer but I know as soon as she's done as I asked. I do however hear the lock to the door we're in slip in place, but I don't have time to wonder why it is Megan locked the room.
Jim places his hands on my shoulders and walks me backwards towards another one of the lab tables. I'm not fighting him. In fact it doesn't even occur to me that I should.
He's taking possession of me again, body and mind. He has my soul as well, but I'm not sure if he wants anything more than my body. I know later, that will depress me, but right now, right this minute, nothing matters. Except Jim, and his needs and what he's doing to me.
I want him, as I have always wanted him. He means everything to me, and probably always has. The way he touches me fires my soul as well as my body. His lips trailing along my skin as his hands prepare me take me to a place I didn't know I was capable of venturing to, again.
I don't know what started this, what has driven him to me, this time. But I know that it's just another instinct he can't ignore. Something else that requires him to mold himself to me in a way that I had never believed possible until the other night.
And I know that this will happen again. As long as he needs me, I will be here. But I'm not sure how much longer I can do this knowing that it doesn' t mean the same thing to him that it does to me.
*****
When I come back to myself, I am almost surprised to find myself on the cold floor of the lab. I move my head slightly and open my eyes. I'm sitting underneath one of the steel tables, only half dressed.
It takes me a minute to remember how exactly I got into this position. When I do, I am both pleased and appalled. Pleased because I can't find it in myself to be upset about anything that concerns me getting naked with my Guide. Appalled because I can not believe that I had no control of myself. I didn't even realize what it was I was doing, not really. I just had this *need* to take possession of him again, as if showing someone or something that he is mine, and they couldn't have him.
I don't know who or what I was trying to prove this to, only that it somehow seemed necessary.
When I sit up and begin to dress myself enough to look like I *didn't* just have sex in a lab at the police station, I look around for Blair. He's sitting on the floor several feet away, completely dressed, staring at me. I can't read the look on his face, but I don't like it. It's not a good look.
"This can't keep happening, Jim." His voice is soft but it's filled with a pain I don't even want to name much less acknowledge that I had anything to do with putting it there.
I stand up and walk towards him.
"Don't." His voice is still soft, still filled with pain, but now it's also filled with an edge that I know I should beware of. But I just can't.
"Stop what?" I ask as I step closer. "Stop wanting you? Stop loving you? I'm sorry, Blair, but I just can't do that."
He looks up at me, sharply. "Loving me? Is that what you think this is? Then you're in more denial than I am." He stands up and although he's definitely shorter than me he seems to *loom* over me.
"This isn't about love. This is about possession and control, and you're need to lay claim to me, as your Guide." He pauses for a second but continues before I have a chance to interrupt.
"And that's okay. Or I convinced myself that it was. And it is. to a point. But, God, Jim, I love you, and I can't keep doing this, knowing this is nothing but some primal instinct for you. I just.can't."
He must have run out of steam because he sort of backs up and sags against the wall. I'm about to open my mouth and tell him how wrong he is. How this isn't about Sentinels and Guides or primal instincts, or my need to possess, except that it is, on some level. But it's so much more than that. I love him. The fact that he doesn't know that saddens me more than I can express and I realize that all the things I'm bad at, all the talking and the relationship stuff, I would do them all, with pleasure, if he would only accept what I'm offering.
I'm about to tell him this when there's a knock at the door and I remember where we are.
"Sandy? You and Jimbo okay in there?" Megan Connor's accented voice sounds from the other side of the door.
"Yeah, we'll be out in a second." Blair calls out.
"Good. We've got a new lead."
Blair turns away from the door and faces me. "Let's go." He tells me.
I nod. "This isn't over." I whisper, just loud enough for him to hear me. His head moves slightly and I'm not sure if its an affirmation or a denial, but either way, I need make sure he understands what he means to me.
But first, we have a killer to catch.
****
"This is where Thomas Walters lives?" I asked a bit disbelieveingly.
The place was. well not what I expected. It was small. Really small. More like a cottage than a house, which was to be expected considering how far out they had to go to get here. I was expecting something, more. ritzy I guess. He's mother is the mayor, and he's quite the social butterfly, if the media is to be believed. To find him here, in this small. cottage is a bit surprising.
"Not his house, no. But this is where we'll find him." Megan is confident, and I found that slightly disconcerting.
"What do you know that we don't?" I asked suspiciously.
Megan waved her arms around our surrounds. "Sandy, a man like you, you'd think you'd know a love shack when you see one."
Jim snorts at this. "You'd think." He says.
I turn around to scowl at him, secretly pleased that despite our recent problems he can still make jokes. He can at least *appear* to be unfazed.
I start to move forward towards the front door. "Is anyone home?" I ask Jim.
Jim stops for a second and I can tell he's extending his hearing. After a second he shakes his head.
"I don't hear a heartbeat." Jim's voice has a strange tone to it and it alarms me.
"What is it, Jim?" I ask and move closer to him, placing my hand on his arm.
"I don't know. There's. something. a sound, or a smell maybe. I'm not really sure."
Megan moves forward and opens the door without even knocking, and I stop to think how illegal that is, but for some reason it doesn't really bother me. Maybe it should, but it doesn't.
"Shit."
Both Jim and I hear the exclamation and it takes us about two seconds to follow her into the house.
Jim winces at something that he senses. I think it might be olfactory, but I'm not sure.
"This is. not good." I comment as I stare at the sight before us.
"This is Thomas Walters?" Megan asks as she inches closer to the body. The victim's dead eyes are staring off at some point on the ceiling.
I nod, my throat suddenly too dry for sound to escape. At the back of my mind I muster a small show of relief that his body is still in one piece, but I can't seem to find anything else good about this situation.
"How'd he die?" I ask no one in particular.
Jim's already examining the room for clues, which only he can see. It's several minutes before he answers.
"Chemical poisoning."
*****
I stand here, staring at the dead body of the only solid suspect we seemed to have. There's something odd going on here. I know that sounds obvious given the situation and the bizarre evidence in this case.
But there's something here I'm missing. Some fact, which wants to be known, is niggling at the back of my brain. I just can't get a grip on it.
And Jim, the way he's acting isn't helping matters. I know he feels threatened for some reason I don't understand. He needs to claim what he sees as his. And he isn't wrong. I am his, despite how lonely it makes me feel sometimes.
But I've recently realized that Jim's strange behavior and this case may be related. He's always been a bit possessive, but recently he's gone beyond what's normal, for him.
I can't help but think that something about this case is setting him off. I'm not sure if it's a reaction to something he's sensing and doesn't even realize it, or if it some sort of chemical reaction to the chemical poison which effects each victim.
Either way, there's a clue to finding the answer here somewhere.
I turn to look at Jim. He's examining the body still. Megan called Simon so he and the forensics people should be here at any moment. I hope that there's some clue here that wasn't at the other scenes.
"She was in a hurry." Jim's voice is quiet, just loud enough for me to pick up on it.
I also pick up on something else. "She? You know it's a woman? What do you smell?" I ask him, remembering how often his olfactory senses seem to be working on this case.
Jim stands up and turns to me. "I'm not sure. Something familiar. a scent in the air. It was at the last two scenes as well."
*****
"What the hell is going on here?" Simon demands from a few feet away from where the forensic team was taking evidence.
"Meet Thomas Walters." Megan offers and I'm not positive, but I think she's amused.
Simon groans. I can sympathize with him. This case has been hell on Blair and I, but *we* don't have to deal with the mayor. She's been a bug up our collective asses on this case from the beginning, and now with her son being found dead, it can only get worse.
I look around the room again, taking in the surroundings. Blair is taking some notes off to one side. He must have found something new.
"Was it the same killer? Same MO?" Simon asks as Blair joins us.
"Yes." I tell him.
"No." Blair disagrees at the same time.
Simon looks from me to my partner. "Which is it?"
"Both." Blair states with a level of assurety that shocks me.
Everyone turns to stare at him, me included.
"I have a theory." Blair turns to me, a serious expression on his face, but his eyes are shining in a way that tells me that he might be on to something. At least he believes he is. And when it comes to good ideas, he 's rarely wrong.
*****
"So what's you're theory, Einstein?" Simon stares at me and despite the tone of voice I can tell he is hopeful.
"I believe Thomas Walters was our first victim." I begin handing out some files I just threw together while I waited for Dan to finish his examination.
"What?" Simon chomps down on his cigar and begins to look through the paperwork.
I nod enthusiastically when I'm sure I have everyone's attention. "See, he was killed quickly, unlike the others. Almost like a crime of passion." I turn the page in my own file and pull out a photograph of the victim. "His skin was covered in the chemical, saturated in it, here, and here." I point to a spot along his neck and on his forearms.
"I think she threw it at him, maybe during an argument. It wasn't until later she realized how dangerous it was." I pull out another photograph, this one a close up of one of the affected areas of skin. "I don't think that was supposed to happen."
Megan picks up the picture and looks at it, shaking her head at the image. "Is that bone?" She asks as she examines it more closely. "I didn't notice that when we were there."
"That's because it wasn't there." I pull out yet another piece of paper from the file and pass it around. "This is Dan's report along with the report the forensics people gave me.
"This chemical, the one that killed him, it ate through his skin like acid. But once inside, it stopped eating its way through, and sort of, evolved into something else."
"Evolved?" Jim asks looking at me like I've grown another head. "Darwin, this isn't science class."
I turn to look at him and smile slightly, despite the gruesome subject matter. "Actually, it is. This chemical, it's altered somehow my our bodies natural chemistry. I think it's partially responsible for the dismemberment's, and completely responsible for the odd fluid we always find."
"What a minute, Sandy." Megan's shaking her head at me and she has this look on her face. I can tell she does understand what I'm suggesting and doesn't like it.
I can't say as I blame her. I don't like it much myself.
"What you're suggesting," Megan continues, her head still shaking at me, "Is that this. woman, carves these people up, so she can *see* what her poison is doing to them?"
I nod grimly.
"What?" Simon asks incredulously. He's been examining the full file as we spoke. "According to your report, all of the previous victims were having an affair with Mr. Walters. So, did he, or didn't he kill them, and if not, who did?"
"He didn't kill them." Jim speaks up, his eyes focused on one particular portion of the report. "Sandburg's right. Walters was the first to die. The other's came later. "The wife, if I were to guess."
"The wife?" Simon looks from my partner to me and back again. "Jim, the wife, Belinda Walters was the last victim." When neither of us say anything he turns his dark eyes to Megan. "Wasn't she?"
"No, sir. We don't think so." Megan offers helpfully.
Simon sighs and runs a hand over his eyes, under his glasses. "No. Of course not. This is an Ellison-Sandburg case. Of course it can't be simple." He mumbles to himself. Finally he looks up at us. "So, if it wasn't the wife, who was it, and why were her fingerprints all over some woman's hand?"
"Well, uh." I begin, inching slightly away from the desk. "It was Belinda Walters hand. Just not the rest of her body."
****
I know the minute the words leave Blair's lips that Simon's about to have a coronary. I stand up and watch in amusement as Blair hedges towards the door.
"Bottom line, Captain, is we have five dead women, and the reason for their connection, Thomas Walters, seems to be the catalyst. He is what connects all the other victims, and he seems to be the first to die. We don't know how, exactly, or why. We don't know if the wife is dead or alive, only that it wasn't her body that was found, just her hand, and that she's the most likely suspect. The sooner we find her, the sooner we'll have some answers."
Simon waves his hand at us. "Fine, fine. Go. I want this case closed."
The three of us leave the office and after deciding that we're too exhausted to do much good tonight, we decide to go home and get some sleep, and start fresh in the morning.
I for one am seriously exhausted. It seems like I haven't gotten any sleep since this case began. Between the bizarre murders, the strange sensory spikes, and the changes in my relationship with Blair, I'm not sure which end is up. I'm not sure he does either.
The ride to the loft is done in silence and I know without a doubt that if I let him, he'll barricade himself in his room, and forget that we need to talk. Strange considering that he's usually the one pushing the conversations in this relationship.
But not this time. This time he wants to forget. This time he doesn't want to deal with me and what he thinks are Sentinel-induced primal urges. This time he's wrong.
"Chief." I grab his arm before we're even fully through the front door. "We need to talk."
"Not now, Jim. I'm tired." He sounds weary, but I'm not giving up. Not that easily. Probably not ever.
Blair slumps slightly, almost as if his legs won't hold him up anymore. I move him over to the couch and sit down next to him, never letting him go.
"You're wrong." I whisper, the words hard to get out.
"About what?" He asks, just as quietly.
"About me. About you. About *us*."
"Am I?" He turns to look at me, my sentinel sight allowing me to see the pain in his eyes, even in the darkness.
"Yeah." I whisper and take his lips in a fierce kiss, trying to show him all I'm feeling through the contact. I want him, no I *need* him to understand that this is about much more than primal urges. I need to show him that. But I'm prepared to tell him with words too.
When I pull away from his mouth, his eyes are glazed, and almost black, the pupil nearly obliterating the blue.
"I'm not out of control now. I'm not trying to possess you now." My voice is soft, hoping he understands.
"You're not?" He asks quietly, and I can see a small sliver of hope in those eyes.
"No, in fact." I kiss him again, this time letting him control the kiss, letting his tongue devour me.
"In fact?" He asks hoarsely as he pulls away.
"In fact, I need." I trail off, suddenly unsure if he's ready to give me what I need.
"You need what, Jim?" He asks, his voice growing soft.
"I need. to *be* possessed." I whisper. "Will you take me?"
I hold my breath as I wait for his answer.
***** I freeze. I didn't just hear what I think I heard. Did I? I look deeply into his eyes and despite the darkness of the room, I know what I see in his eyes is real. He wants me. He needs *me*. And not for the reasons I thought before.
Suddenly I see everything clearly. Everything I was refusing to see before. It all makes a kind of strange bizarre sense.
"You want me?" I ask him quietly, my voice slightly husky as I turns to face him more fully. "You need me?"
"Yes." His answer is nothing more than a choked whisper and in the darkness of the living room I can see the raw need in the strong planes of his face.
I stand up and for a second fear flashes in his eyes and I can see the moment he forces it away and decides to accept whatever it is I will give him. The complete need and surrender required for such an act makes me love him all the more.
It also reinforces my recent realization that I was all wrong about what I thought our relationship was about.
I reach out a hand and pull him to his feet. He seems a bit unsteady, but that's okay. He can lean on me, like he always does. He can depend on me to guide him, just like I depend on him to show me the way in so many things.
Our relationship is so much more symbiotic than even I realized. We are the different pieces that make up one whole. One being, one entity, which is lost without all that it is.
We are about to become one once again. And this time, there will be no mistaking why.
****
I feel complete in a way I never knew before. Not even the two times this happened before. I'm not sure why that is exactly, except maybe now we're on the same wavelength. Now he understands. I understand. We *both* understand.
We are nothing without each other. No amount of serial killers, falling elevators, crazy psycho Sentinels, dissertation disasters or anything else the world will throw at us can separate us.
We are all that matters.
We are all that is.
He's showing that to me as he undresses me. His touch is tender, but electric. The feel of his strong hands as they glide along my sensitive skin. The texture of his tongue as it tastes me. The love as it radiates from his body and pours into mine.
These are things I could never find anywhere else, with anyone but him.
I close my eyes and just feel what it is he is doing to me. How he is changing me with his touch. Molding me with his love. His fingers trail seductively along my body, coming closer to the place I so desperately want him to touch.
He works his fingers, slippery with lube inside my body with a tenderness I know I didn't use with him. How he has so much control I'll never know. I can feel him tremble with the need. The need to take me, to possess me, as I have possessed him.
I feel bereft for a moment as his fingers are removed from my body, but then he's back, and pushing inside of me. He's trying to be gentle, but I am just too far-gone to care.
I push back against him and hear his moan, delighting in the sound. His hands move to my hips and just as I'm about to protest the lack of movement, he thrusts deep inside of me.
We're moving together now, like one being. Each striving for completion we can only get together. I can feel his pulse as he moves inside me and know its moving at the same tempo as my own. My body is moving in complete harmony with his. Despite the need and desperation of our mating, it's our love that comes through every minute movement.
I can feel myself losing my tenuous control as my climax comes closer. He moves one of his hands from my hip and wraps it around my cock, pumping it in time with his thrusts.
I tumble over the edge, screaming his name, knowing I will be taking him with me into oblivion.
****
"Jim?" I rub my hand against his sweat slicked back. "Come back to me, babe."
I feel him twitch under my palm and continue to rub him soothingly.
"Wow." Jim whispers as he turns over slightly.
I pull him into my arms. "Yeah. Wow. That was. wow." I agree.
"I love you." He whispers.
My heart skips several beats and I know he hears it. I'm afraid to say anything and break the spell.
"I do." He tells me. I try to nod but I can't seem to move. "It's you, Blair. Not the Cop you, or the Guide you, but just you-you."
I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with oxygen because I know how true that is. I finally realize that he does love me. And it isn't about the Sentinel-Guide thing, or about some primal mating urge. He loves me.
"I love you too." I answer.
I am about to continue when the phone rings. I can feel his groan more than hear it as he's still pressed against my body. He extricates himself and moves off of the bed and down the stairs.
I can't hear him but I know he's answered the phone because it's stopped ringing. I wait patiently for him to return to me, but after several long, silent minutes, my curiosity gets the better of me.
Pulling on my jeans, which are hanging over the railing to the loft bedroom, I make my way downstairs. I look around the living room and kitchen, and find them both empty.
"Jim?" I ask quietly, knowing that he'll be able to hear me no matter where he is. "Where are you?"
Still no answer.
I move towards my bedroom, knowing that's the only place I haven't checked. I get this sudden chill running down my spine as I stand in front of my closed bedroom door.
I push it open, suddenly afraid of what I'll find.
Jim's in there, sitting on my bed, with one of my flannels in his hand, frozen.
I know instantly it's a zone. But not the usual variety. It's like the one he had in Simon's office. And I'm not sure if I can pull him out.
****
I can hear Blair talking to me. His voice sounds distant and close all at once. The feel of his hand on my skin as he rubs my bare arm brings reality back into focus. I blink and inhale deeply, replenishing the oxygen, which doesn't seem to be reaching my brain.
That's when I smell it. The scent. At once alien and familiar.
"Jim? What is it?" Blair's voice is caressing my ear and I turn to look into his concerned blue eyes.
I open my mouth but no sound wants to come out. My fist clenches around the garment in my hand. I shake the flannel, in lieu of actual words.
"Jim?" Blair places his hand over mine. "Are you okay?"
I shake my head, frustrated that my mouth doesn't seem to want to work.
"What's wrong?" He asks me, taking the flannel out of my hand. "This is my shirt." He stares at it for a second and I know the moment he's made the connection. "This is the shirt I was wearing." He trails off. I nod.
Blair stands up and backs away slightly, taking the offending garment with him. "I told you. Nothing happened."
I open my mouth again and move my lips to try to explain, but still no sound is coming out. At least none that I can hear.
Blair drops the shirt on the floor and comes to kneel in front of me. He puts his hands on my shoulders and rubs them.
"Jim. Look at me. Forget everything else. Just me. The sound of my voice. The feel of my hands along your skin."
"Blair." The word sounds choked off to me but he's got this wide grin on his face. "How long?" I ask, needing to know how long I've been out of it.
"What happened?" He asks me, ignoring my own question.
I move my eyes away from his face and look at the flannel still sitting on the floor where he dropped it.
"You smelled something?" He asks me. "Kassy?"
I start to nod and then shake my head. I'm not really sure what it was I smelled. "I... I don't know." I tell him. "It's familiar. From the crime scene."
His eyes grow wide and he stands up and retrieves the shirt and then walks out of the small bedroom.
I stand up and follow him. He puts the garment in a plastic bag and sets it on the table while he finishes getting dressed. I stand frozen, and more than a little confused.
"Don't just stand there, Jim. Get dressed. We have work to do."
I shrug and follow his direction, like always.
****
I pace around the lab, waiting impatiently for the results of the test on my shirt. When Jim told me he recognized the scent on my flannel as one he smelled at the crime scenes I knew that there was some sort of connection.
I'm not sure what the connection is, or even if having the shirt analyzed will tell us, but I have to try. The sooner we get this case solved, the better.
Jim told me that the phone call was from Megan and they'd dug up some more information on Walter's missing wife. He had gone into my room to grab the case files I'd left on my desk. The only thing I can figure is that the scent must have been pretty strong in my room, as closed off as it is.
I'm still not sure what exactly it is he's been smelling though. He can't really identify it as more than a familiar scent from the last two crime scenes. At first I thought it was me he was reacting to.
I was at both crime scenes and it is my shirt. But he assures me it isn't me. Then I thought it might be that anthropology student I was tutoring. Kassandra Weatherly. I was wearing that particular flannel the day I saw her last. And he had a decidedly odd reaction to the scent of her on me.
But if that were the case, how would the smell be at the crime scenes. And why?
"All done." The lab tech smiles at me as she hands over the report on my shirt.
"Thanks." I take the file and head back up to the bullpen.
By the time I reach Major Crimes, I've had a chance to skim the report and am even more confused than before. According to the analysis, there's a thin layer of a compound very similar to the one responsible for the deaths of our victims. But in this form, it doesn't seem to be lethal.
That explains how Jim recognized the scent, but not how it ended up on my clothes.
****
"It says here that in this form, the chemical has a sweet kind of odor." Blair notes as he examines the report carefully.
I nod my agreement. My head's still a little fuzzy and I'm not entirely certain that this information is going to bring us any closer to solving this case.
"Ah ha!" Megan's shriek startles both Blair and I as she enters the conference room.
"What?" I ask warily. Her eyes are all excited, and that's never a good sign.
"Look what I found." She passes around a couple of files.
I look through them but don't really see anything noteworthy. It's just some background information on Belinda Walters. She was married to Thomas Walters nearly twenty years ago, and disappeared a few years after that.
She came from a broken home. No family to speak of. Except for a younger sister.
My eyes narrow a bit as I continue reading. All the information regarding the sister stops about ten years ago.
Blair sucks in a deep breath and I turn to look at him. His blue eyes are wide in shock and I wonder what he sees. His head snaps up and looks at our Australian colleague.
"This is. this can't be right." He shakes his head. "Kassandra Weatherly? How is this possible?"
Megan's expression softens in the face of Blair's confusion. "According to our background check. She was only ten when Belinda disappeared. She was married briefly at age eighteen to a. Sean Weatherly. He was some sort of scientific genius, specializing in alchemy, chemical ecology and toxicology, and its use in the modern world."
I raise my eyebrows at this news. It sounds like someone who would know exactly how to make our elusive killer. Before I can say so, Megan shakes her head at me.
"Sean Weatherly died over a decade ago. He and Kassandra were only married for nine months."
"But she could have learned about chemicals from him." I grin at the possible end to this insane case. "Do we know where she is now?"
Megan frowns. "No, but we're looking into it."
"Don't bother. I know where she lives." Blair's voice is firm, business like, but I can detect some pain in it.
Megan looks surprised. I am too.
"You do?" I ask, wondering how it is he knows where she lives when none of the rest of us do. Suddenly, my brain starts to catch up with itself. "She 's your student? The one you were tutoring?"
Blair nods. "Yeah. It must have been her that set you off the other day. And then again in the lab.and at home."
He doesn't look happy, but slightly relieved at maybe finding the answer to all the weirdness of the past few days.
"Come on." Blair stands up and leaves the conference room.
****
I feel like a real idiot. All this time, I've known the killer. She's been right there, within my reach, and I never knew. How could I have been so stupid?
I don't tell Jim what I'm thinking. He'd only tell him that there is no way I could have known. But there was.
I should have known that there was something off about the girl. She had come to me asking for help. She was scheduled to go on an anthropological expedition and was having trouble with some of the physical requirements.
She had wanted me to help her with some meditation techniques as well as some general self-defense. But from the beginning there seemed to be something off about her. Like she hadn't been being completely honest.
Sometimes she would say things that didn't quite jive with other things she had said. What I don't understand is if she's the killer, then why?
Why murder your sister's husband, and women he had apparently been involved with, and maybe your sister herself? Why poison and dismember them?
And come to see me? Did she know I was one of the investigating officers? She must have.
When she had first called me, it was only three days after the first victim had been found. I had never heard of her before but she said she knew me from my time at Rainier.
Thinking about all this is just making me feel more stupid.
This would never happen to Jim.
*****
I've graduated from confused and self-flagellating and into angry by the time we reach the address I have for Kassandra Weatherly. The house is huge, with a large lawn in front.
There are only two other houses on the small street, each just as large. Hers is the one at the end of the cul-de-sac. The small street is silent, the houses dark, and I wonder what we'll find once we go inside.
I turn to face my partner. He has his head cocked to the side and I can tell he has his hearing turned up.
"Anything?" I ask quietly while I put a grounding hand on his back.
"One heartbeat, but." Jim speaks lowly and he has a frown on his face.
"But?" I ask growing concerned.
"She's speaking. to someone. I think."
"Maybe she's on the phone." I suggest.
Jim shrugs and we move forward. Megan, and Detectives Rafe and Brown are behind us. The front door, oddly enough, is unlocked and Megan opens the door without knocking. She does that a lot. They must have different procedural rules in New South Wales.
Jim moves ahead of us and motions for us to split up. Rafe and Brown begin their search of the house upstairs. Megan goes down a hallway and searches the ground floor. I follow Jim down a staircase near the door.
I assume he's tracking the heartbeat he heard but I don't want to disturb him to ask. He stops at the foot of the stairs. There is a door which leads into the basement, I think. It's slightly opened. Not enough for me to see but I'm sure he has no problem hearing what's going on inside.
Jim pushes the door open slightly, enough for both of us to slip inside, unnoticed.
I can't see anything because Jim is still standing in front of me, but I can hear talking. It sounds like one end of a conversation because I don't hear any response. Jim seems frozen in place, so I place my hands on his arm and back and move him over gently.
Once I can see what he is staring at, I freeze in place myself.
There pacing around the room in obvious agitation, is Kassandra Weatherly. She's wearing a while lab coat and speaking frantically to something a couple of feet in front of her.
It's the object of the frantic accusations that freezes us.
In a large chest freezer sitting only a few feet away is a body.
****
I'm having a seriously hard time maintaining focus. The scents in this room alone are enough to drive me to zone. But the feel of Blair next to me, with his hand on my arm is grounding me.
Our perp, Kassandra Weatherly, hasn't noticed us. I'm not sure whether that 's because we're really good at hiding or because she's completely insane. Any doubts I may have had about her level of sanity before we arrived here, have now vanished.
She is pacing across her floor with a beaker in her hand screaming at a dead woman. I'm not sure if Blair recognizes the victim. But it's Belinda Walters. Minus a hand. The hand we no doubt found at the last scene.
I'm about to alert her to our presence and just arrest her and hopefully but an end to this crazy case when Blair holds up a hand to still my action. I turn to him and he nods his head towards the woman.
As I watch her pacing around the floor I start to listen to her actual words and realize that she may be insane but she's making a sort of strange twisted sense.
"This is all your fault, Bela." She tells the dead woman in her freezer. "You left and he was mine. Mine! I waited. I waited for years until I was old enough and pretty enough and everything that he thought you were. But then, when I finally get him to come here to see me, to see how successful I am, I tell him who I am, that I want him, that I *love* him. And what does he do?" She stops speaking and turns her eyes to the woman, almost as if she's expecting an answer.
Of course, she doesn't get one, so she continues ranting.
"He tells me he could never love me. That I am just a child. A *child*." She hisses that last word before going on. "Then he tells me you came back. That you were getting back together. I couldn't allow that. I know you understand."
Kassandra steps closer to the freezer and lowers her voice, but I can still hear her.
"I didn't mean to do it, really. He was standing over there," She points over to the other side of the room where there's some sort of laboratory table with beakers and flasks full of liquids I can't identify. She turns back to her dead sister. "Then he starts picking things up, telling me why he can never love me."
Her voice is really quiet now, almost sad although it's still laced with that insanity that laced it before. "I just lost it. All of a sudden I couldn't stand him touching my stuff. Touching things that I had touched. It just wasn't right. That's when it happened. I grabbed a beaker out of his hand." Kassandra held up the beaker in her own hand. "One just like this. Same chemicals, same toxin. Only I didn't know it was toxic then." Kassandra seemed to sag a little bit at this admission but then started moving excitedly as she continued her explanation.
"I was just so angry, you know. I grabbed the beaker out of his hand. He didn't want to let it go. Then poof, he spilled it. It was all over his arm and dripping onto the floor. It ate through his skin like acid. Acid. Can you imagine?"
She turns to face the dead woman and from my position I can see the glazed look in her eyes, and hear the rapid beat of her heart. I can tell she is still working up to something so we wait.
"After that, things seemed to go downhill. I didn't know what to do, so I brought his body back to that cottage you told me about. Then I found his address book. And all those women. They were laughing at me. Taunting me with what he gave them and would never give me."
"So you killed them." Blair's voice startles me, so intent was I on our suspect's speech.
It must have startled her as well because she shrieked and the beaker she was carrying slipped from her hands. Everything seemed to flow into slow motion as the beaker tumbles to the floor. Recalling her words, I realize how dangerous the liquid is. I move forward, hoping to move her out of the way in time.
"Jim! No!"
Blair's words reach my ears but it's too late. He is too late in his warning, and I am too late getting to our killer. By the time I reach her, the liquid has already spilled onto the front of her blouse. She seems to be frozen there, staring at it. It eats through her shirt and her skin starts to smoke.
Her mouth is moving but suddenly I can't hear what she is saying. It's like her lips are moving but nothing is coming out. And her heartbeat, I can 't hear that either.
I see the smoke as its tendrils reach my nose, but I can't smell anything. And I know it is happening again. I am going to that nowhere place. I feel the grayness descend upon me, and then there is nothing.
****
It is nearly an hour before Jim even shows the slightest bit of true consciousness. I am trying not to freak out too bad. But on one hand I'm kind of glad. Kassandra Weatherly did not die an easy death. I won't be forgetting it anytime soon.
After her skin started to smoke both she and Jim fell to the ground. She was shrieking like a banshee and I wanted to help her. I really did. But seeing Jim lying there, just inches away from a toxin that could literally dissolve a person, made me more interested in protecting my Sentinel that the crazy woman who had created it.
Her screams must have alerted the others because by the time I had moved Jim away from Kassandra, Megan was in the basement and calling for an ambulance and forensics and I was grateful for it.
Megan and Simon helped me convince the paramedics that Jim was all right and once they left us alone I worked on bringing him out of his bizarre zone. When he finally came around I wanted to kiss him but I didn't think he'd appreciate the gesture, considering Simon was standing only a couple of feet away.
Jim blinks and looks around us carefully. We are now outside of the house, off to the side, away from all the commotion.
"How long?" His voice rasps at me.
"Long enough, Big Guy." I reply.
"Jim, you okay?" Simon bends down and takes a good look at my partner.
Jim nods. "100 percent."
I can't help but smile at that response. Simon must be relived that Jim is coherent enough to answer because he just smiles and waves his hand at us.
"Sandburg, take him home. You can fill out the paperwork tomorrow."
You don't need to tell me twice. I take Jim home and put him to bed. I know there are things we should probably talk about. The case, our relationship, his weird zone outs, but now really isn't the time.
*****
It's been a week since we wrapped up the Weatherly case, and although we haven't really talked about our relationship much, Sandburg has had plenty of theories about everything else.
He says the new and highly disturbing zone-outs are a reaction to the chemical Kassandra Weatherly used to kill her victims, so he doesn't think we'll be seeing any more of those.
The chemical itself was something she created. From what we've determined, it was originally supposed to have some sort of cosmetic applications, but once it comes into contact with organic matter, it's structure is altered.
The department's psychiatrist, as well as my partner, believe it was a combination of realizing her new product was useless, and discovering that a man she had obsessed about for nearly twenty years didn't want her was what set her off.
Blair seems a bit subdued regarding Kassandra. I know he feels guilty for not figuring out it was her sooner. I want to help him realize there was nothing he could do. She sought him out, knowing who he was, so she was probably very careful in her conversations with him. But he still feels bad.
Personally, I'm glad the case is closed. The reports have been filed and the mayor seems to be pleased with the results. She wants to keep the story out of the press as much as possible. So far, we've been fairly successful.
Simon gave us a couple of weeks off to recuperate from the stress of this case.
Normally I would have refrained from taking the time, but I could really use some down time with my Guide.
We need to reconnect. Remind ourselves who we are to each other.
I know he's going to want to talk about us. Our lives and our future. Not a conversation I'm looking forward to, but for him, I'll do anything.
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