Voiced fears and a lead!

“What was the cause of death?”

“There could have been several, the multiple stab wounds, about 18 on the body, 5 in her back, 13 in her chest. She also had asphyxia due to strangulation; the hyoid bone directly under the bruising was fractured. Your assumptions about this girl was correct, my guess is your suspect came into the house, tied our girl up to the bed post, raped her…then stabbed her, due to her thrashing about the rope or cloth around her neck was tightened therefore bruising and fracturing her…not a pleasant death, she has a ligature as well, either sexual ritual or premeditated murder…in your case…it seems like both.”

Lisa’s eyes widened a little as she went over everything in her mind. Hayden put a hand on her shoulder.

“What is it Lisa?”

“This is our same signature, same MO…but he raped and strangled the girl…Hayden our man is escalating!”

Hayden glanced into Lisa’s wide brown eyes, filled with worry and shock. Hayden raked a hand back through his hair.

“Lisa are you alright?”

Lisa shook her head.

“No, I have barely gotten any sleep; my last case took weeks on end of no sleep. I can’t deal with this Hayden. His old MO was sick enough. Is this what we’re going to continually find? Women raped and murdered in their own beds? gone without a trace?” she said nodding angrily in the direction of their victim lying, motionlessly on the examining table.

Hayden wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“Lisa, this guy is good but he’s not perfect. He is going to be caught. One of these days he’s going to slip up and one thing will lead to another and we’ll catch the S.O.B.”

“Yeah, one of these days, but what about until then...How many more rape tests will I have to conduct? How many murder scenes will I have to process? How many more women will we look at lying coldly on that table? I’m a woman too. Will the next woman be me?” she asked her voice tense and angry; voicing her fears aloud.

“Nothing’s going to happen to you, I swear Lisa,”

Hayden said looking tenderly into her eyes.

‘I would die first,’ he thought as he looked into her scared brown eyes; fighting to not reach out and run his knuckles down his cheeks to soothe her and whisper comforting words.

Lisa took a deep calming breath and nodded.

“I know, sorry Hayden. Come on let’s get back to the office. I have some tests to run.”

Hayden shook his head in sad amazement before following Lisa out to the car.

‘She’s too tough, she NEEDS a break!’ he thought as he turned the car around.

However instead of taking them back to the Crime scene Hayden drover her to his house once more.

“What the hell are we doing here?!” Lisa exclaimed once he stopped his car in front of her house.

Hayden walked around and opened her car door.

When she refused to get out he knelt in front of her and placed a hand on her knee.

“Listen Lisa, I am not blind. I got my job through my observant skills alright I can see you sitting across from me, physically and emotionally worn out. You yawned you cried the whole way over here and I’ll be damned if I allow this to continue. I know if I took you to your house you would hop in your car the moment I left. So I brought you here so you could take a nap, alright?” he said frustrated in an explanation to her.

Lisa yawned,

“Fine! One hour Hayden and then I want out of here,”

Hayden chuckled softly as he unlocked the house door and let them in.

“What are you laughing at?” she growled.

Hayden shook his head,

“you’re so…uptight it’s so funny, you argue me about everything,”

Lisa blushed and smiled faintly.

“You’re so damn bossy I have to comply,”

Hayden smirked.

“Okay you brought me here…”

Hayden smiled as she yawned.

“You brought me here to sleep so that’s what I’m going to do,” she finished and went to lie on the couch.

Hayden quickly stopped her and pointed to the bedroom.

“No, I’ll lie here Hayden, you should rest too and I don’t want to put you on the couch,” she protested.

“I’m not the one who NEEDS the sleep” he argued in his defense.

Lisa smiled,

“fine, we’ll both lie on the bed, it’s big enough,” she said and turned towards the bedroom.

Hayden swallowed hard once Lisa had her back turned to him. He would be able to experience what it would be like to lie beside her but he couldn’t touch her and he in turn would just torment himself. He knew if he didn’t comply with her wishes however he knew that she would argue him for an hour. Raking a hand back through his hair he walked into the room and pulled back the covers; climbing in beside her. Her hair was splayed over the pillow, her knees curled beneath her, her eyes closed. Her lips were parted faintly and he could hear her soft breathing. Closing his eyes he tried to focus on anything except her so that he would not take her into his arms. When he heard her steady, rhythmic breathing he rose up on his elbow and gazed down at her; brushing a loose strand of her hair back from her eyes. Running his knuckles down her silky cheek he let out a shaky breath.

“You’re so beautiful, so overworked, how can a woman your size carry so much weight. I would love to help you through it all…but I can’t. You chose Dustin never knowing how I felt…even I didn’t know how I felt. But I know now lis…I know now. I am falling in love with you and it’s too late for me to do anything about it but make sure you stay strong and are safe…as long as I’m with you I guess that’ll have to do. No matter how much it hurts being around you now, it hurts like hell” he murmured before he caught himself.

‘How ridiculous am I? Talking to a sleeping woman?!” he scolded himself.

Taking one last look at her he reluctantly pulled away and leaned back against his pillow, closed his eyes and fell asleep. When he awoke he drew in a sharp breath realizing their position. Her arm was draped over his chest, her head resting on his shoulder; so close he could kiss her. The idea was far too tempting at the moment so he quickly but quietly disentangled himself from her and laid on the couch. Just as he was about to drift off to sleep Lisa dragged herself into the living room and sat on the couch near Hayden.

“When did you move?” she asked through a yawn while rubbing her eyes sleepily.

“About 20 minutes ago, I don’t think you’d have liked out compromising position,” he teased as a shiver ran down his spine at the memory of her warm breath against his cheek.

Lisa blushed,

“whatever it was I’m sorry…I tend to move a lot in my sleep,”

“I didn’t care I didn’t think you’d enjoy waking up like that when you have Dustin now.”

Lisa smiled softly.

“Yeah…come on we should get back to work.”

Hayden sat up and nodded,

“come on, grab your coat and we’ll go drive through some place before returning to the crime scene.” He told her.

She wordlessly did as she was told and followed him out to the car. After they grabbed something to eat Hayden drove them back to the crime scene so that they could conduct another Trace search that they might have missed before. Once inside they turned off all the lights and grabbed their latex gloves and ultra-violet lights.

“I’ll take the living room, you take the bedroom,” Hayden told Lisa who merely nodded and went to work on the bedroom.

About an hour or so later Lisa walked into Hayden’s area,

“what color was the victim’s hair?” she asked biting her lip.

Hayden searched his memory before answering,

“Golden brown why?”

a wide grin spread upon Lisa’s features.

“This hair is Black…we may have a piece of evidence here”

“I told you he would mess up sooner or later,”

Hayden grinned and handed Lisa a bag to place the hair in. after the finished their search they grabbed the bag and headed for the forensic lab.

“Hey Susanna…I got a hair from the crime scene run a test on it and tell me what you get…” Lisa said as she and Hayden walked in; handing Susanna the bag.

Susanna smiled,

“great, I’ll run a test and see if it matches with any of the victims... if this IS the culprit then I’m going to need some DNA to try to match this with, hold on just a sec and I’ll quickly run this” Susanna said rising from her chair and went quickly about the lab.

“Well…this hair doesn’t belong to the victim, so you might just have something here, however I need another piece of evidence to scan it next to so I can get a match on a human’s DNA…also I got a lead for you. The bloody hand on the wall matches the blood stain near the window it belongs to a man named Richard Thompson. He just might be your man,”

“I’ll put the name into the office computer and see what comes up, I owe you one girl,”

Susanna smiled,

“just doing my job”