Chapter 22

She woke to a beam of sunlight tickling her nose. She was warm and comfortable and she moved just enough to get away from that nagging beam. She felt his arm come around her waist, pull her back into his body, and smiled. What a way to wake up.

She kept her breathing even, wanting to savor this feeling. She felt safe and loved, needed. Wanted. His hand moved up her stomach and cupped one of her breasts, just stayed there, not moving.

"Hmmm, you feel good." His voice was husky and gravelly from sleep. "How about we just stay here today and forget about work and the rest of the world?"

"You'd get hungry," she said smirking. He could stay in bed all day like she could stay out of this investigation.

He growled. "You're right." He bit down on her neck and listened to her shriek. "But then again, you taste pretty good." He growled again and attacked her, tickling and rubbing his stubbly face over her body. He ended up between her legs and all thoughts of food were forgotten for a long time.

When they finally managed to make it out of bed, him laughing at the razor burn on her stomach, her throwing her brush at him with deadly aim, smacking him right in the bare butt cheeks, they got cleaned up and into the serious business of food.

"Michelle, you can't really want to put yourself in that kind of dangerous a situation." He was cutting up cheese to put in an omelet. He pointed the knife at her to make his point. "You could end up dead, or worse."

"It wouldn't happen, Nicky. You'd be there to make sure of it." She wrapped her arms around his waist, breathing in the clean scent of him. "I'd be wired, eyes on me from different locations. If he is watching me, then he might take a chance and try and take me. Why go for the substitutes when you can get the real thing?" She rubbed her cheek against the soft material of his dress shirt.

"I don't know, Chelle. If something happened... If I couldn't get to you in time and..." he turned in her arms, wrapping his own around her. "I don't know if you understand this, but you're pretty important to me." He kissed her on the forehead, then the nose. Finally on her mouth, a quick hard kiss that turned into a leisurely exploration.

When he pulled back, she was breathless, her cheeks rosy. She stood on tip toe, her mouth brushing his ear, "I have faith in you. Oh," she looked over his shoulder. "Your omelet is burning."

He grabbed the pan off the burner, rescuing the omelet, adding cheese and ham and then expertly folding it over. The toast popped out, and she buttered it while he split the omelet in two and put it on plates.

She stared at the food, realizing she was famished, she couldn't remember the last time she had eaten. She carried her plate and cup of coffee in the dining room, relishing the fact that this homey act felt good with him.

Their discussion ranged through different topics, none, by mutual unspoken consent, involving the case that was always foremost on their minds. She was helping him with the dishes when she brought the subject up again. "Can we just run it past the Sheriff? With the right set up, it could work, and I would be perfectly safe."

He sighed and wiped the last plate dry, putting it back in the cupboard. "Let me think on it Chelle. I promise, I will give it due consideration." He kissed her on the nose. "Anyone ever tell you that you have a one track mind? Cuz they should have."

Now what the hell did that mean? But before she could ask, he switched subjects.

He folded the towel, hanging it off the handle to the refrigerator. "Oh, damn. I forgot to tell you. We brought that newsie in and I let Jimmy sweat him a little. That man is a whiz in interrogation. The guy finally told Jimmy that it was a man who called him. He didn't get a name, only the information. He said the man's voice sounded a little funny, like he'd been sucking on helium or something."

"So it might still be a woman," she mused. "I noticed that Lisha wasn't invited to the party last night. I wouldn't want to be around when she gets told she's off the case." She could imagine that scene and didn't want to be anywhere around that cat and her wickedly sharp claws.

"Yep, one track mind." Nick stopped her as she walked by him, pulling her back in his arms. "This is the last time I get to kiss you until tonight," he said before kissing her silly. "Now that might hold me off for a while." He let her go and walked away, trying not to laugh as she just stood there stunned. "Come on, hot shot, we got bad guys to catch."

They left in his car, hers was still at the station. He parked next to her yellow rental. "God, do you think you could have gotten a worse color?"

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me. I want to run that salesman. He was a scumbag, I think he needs a little police persuasion to not think women are dumb as dirt and easy marks." She smiled evilly as she thought of making that man's life miserable.

"Wow, remind me not to get on your bad side."

"You've already been on my bad side, Nicky. You survived. Barely."

"That's just cuz you couldn't stand the thought of hurting me, then who would stud for you in bed." He ducked the punch she threw at him and got out of his car.

They were walking past the rental when Nick saw the envelope that had been stuck under her wiper blade. "Uh-oh," he handed her the keys to his car and asked her to get him a couple of latex gloves.

It was the same kind of envelope, same kind of letters. But this time, it was addressed to her. He didn't like that, he didn't like that at all.

She came back with the gloves and he snapped them on, pulling the envelope from under the wiper, holding it carefully by one corner. The flap wasn't licked and he flipped it open pulling out a single page of white paper. When he opened it, something fell out. He bent and picked it up. It was a driver's license. The last victim's driver's license.

The note was brutal and to the point.

"Her blood is on your hands."

"Sooner, M."

There was a pink heart glued to the bottom of the page.

Michelle managed to control her horror, but just barely. She stared at the driver's license Nick held. The girl, Dana Lee Ridge, had only been twenty two years old and looked remarkably like Michelle. She lived in town, in the apartments behind one of the local grocery stores. Her picture, unlike most driver's license pictures, had been a good one. She sparkled with life, her eyes dancing and her cheeks flushed. She had been smiling into the camera with a look as if she had a secret in her eyes. And now she was very dead. And her killer was blaming her death on Michelle.

"Michelle," Nick's voice was urgent. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice yet.

"This isn't about you," he insisted. "You can't take blame for what some psychopath decides to do."

She knew his words were true, she'd been hearing them a lot just lately. But just seeing that message, seeing the pretty face of their fourth victim, made it so much harder to believe. "He's making this pretty God damn personal, Nicky. And he's been watching me, he knew this was my rental." She kicked the tire of the car. "That makes it creepy and personal." Her voice cracked, whether with anger or frustration, she didn't know.

"He's getting cocky, Chelle. He's going to make mistakes and then we'll get him." She looked so pale. And five minutes before, she had been joking with him, half an hour ago, they had been making out like a couple of teenagers. He felt his hatred of their unknown subject growing.

"Okay, we have to get people knocking on doors, go to her apartment, check on possible links to the previous victims." Her voice was unsteady but she was thinking. "Umm, the letter to the lab with last night's letter. What am I forgetting?" She looked up at Nick, begging him silently to help her back to a normal point where she could go on without these thoughts in her head.

"We'll take care of this, update the Sheriff, and head over to her apartment. Let's work the case, Michelle." He put the letter and the driver's license back into the envelope and they walked into the station.

Sheriff Williams was pissed. How the hell had the man come onto county property, taken enough time to put the envelope under her wiper and no one had seen the subject? He called every single uniform and detective from third shift, quizzing them over the phone. He ordered all security videos to be gone over. The only problem, they didn't have cameras in the parking lot. The one closest to her car would have been in the entrance of the station. Her car couldn't be seen from that angle.

The letter was sent to the lab, along with the one from last night. Nick had tried to keep the contents of that note from Michelle, knowing it would probably creep her out, it certainly had him. It was a longer letter for their subject.

"Isn't she pretty, Nick? She reminds me of someone, does she you?"

"Soon, M."

He was working up to something, he was making his intentions known with his signature. Soon, sooner. Nick had a bad feeling that he knew what. He was going to keep Michelle next to him and safe if it killed her. And it might kill him.

Nick made some phone calls from his office, apprising the task force of what was going on. He sent Stephanie and Chip out to see if they could hunt down the supplier where the uniform had come from. He sent the city attorney's flunky, Scott, out to round up some people to help answer phones Since the hotline number had been made public, they were ringing constantly and the task force couldn't keep up with them. Jimmy, Brandon and Carter got the fun job of knocking on doors, two blocks in either direction of the apartment. They would do the rounds this morning and then again this evening to pick up the people who were at work the first time.

Nick and Michelle would be going to the apartment. Nick called the apartment manager and made arrangements to meet him at the apartment. He grabbed Michelle from where she was pouring over lab reports and they took off.

The manager wasn't at his apartment/office. When he finally did arrive, he was angry and uncooperative. The man hadn't showered, at least for today, he wore an old gray tee shirt that had sweat stains under the arms. His work pants were old and covered with paint splatter, and were barely held up over his bony hip bones. He complained about being called, about having to come back here from his job. He didn't want to let them into the apartment without a search warrant.

So Nicky got on the phone again, found a judge and got the warrant faxed to the manager's office.

After two hours of dicking around with red tape, they finally were being let into the apartment. Nick went in first and stopped dead as the smell, coppery rich, slapped him in the face. Michelle bumped into him from behind, before she too caught the smell. "We need crime scene here, now."

Michelle looked over his shoulder and into a nightmare. There was blood everywhere, on the walls, on the furniture and the carpeting, puddled on the linoleum. She reached into her pocket and snagged out her cell phone, dialing the number for the county lab and requested the techs immediately. She took two steps into the room behind Nick and turned to look at the other walls. There was one pristine spot on the walls, a large circle of white. In the center was a message written in blood.