Karen Rose - Have You Seen Her?

"Oh, I do. And I made a stop on my way home." He thumbed over his shoulder and her eyes widened at the sight of the three big boxes of condoms on his bed. "Think it will be enough?"

"Well, we'll just have to see, Special Agent Thatcher."

He kissed her gently. "And feel. And taste."

"Umm. Maybe you do know about this sex thing after all."

Tuesday, October 11, 8:00 A.M.

"We got a response." Steven tossed copies of his latest note from the killer on the conference-room table. "Special delivery to Special Agent in Charge Steven Thatcher."

Liz picked up a copy and studied it. "He promoted you."

"Yeah, don't tell Lennie." Steven sat down and rubbed his temples. "Harry, you'll need to get started at the search scene. I'll join you when I'm finished with the assembly at Roosevelt."

Meg stared at the page, a stricken look on her face. "I knew this would force his hand, but…"

"He was going to kill her regardless of what we did, Meg," Steven said wearily. "I've arranged for another chopper to take aerial shots of the coordinates in the note. He gave us a more specific range this time. We should be able to find Alev faster than we found Samantha."

"And once we have?" Harry asked.

Steven looked at the note that had no fingerprints. Not a single identifying factor. "Then we hope we've forced him to move more quickly than he'd planned and that he's made a mistake."

Tuesday, October 11, 7:30 P.M.

Steven pushed his front door shut, the desire to see Jenna's face the only thing that kept him on his feet. Shortly after leaving the Roosevelt High School assembly this morning he'd received word from Harry that they'd found Alev Rahrooh's body. Just where the killer's note said she'd be.

What he hadn't been prepared for was the scene that awaited him. Meg had thought the killer would either stop or kick it up a notch.

It had been the second one.

And Harry wasn't the only one to lose his breakfast this time, either. Steven still wasn't sure he could eat a bite, ten long hours later. But the worst part wasn't the body in the clearing. The worst part was having to pay the visit to the Rahroohs to tell them their daughter was dead. To try to prepare them for what they'd see when they arrived at the morgue to identify their daughter's body. That the beast had not only raped and murdered their precious child, but that he'd dismembered her.

Harry had not stumbled on one sign this time, but six. Head, Arm One, Arm Two, Torso, Leg One, and Leg Two. Lorraine Rush had not been the most horrific scene Steven had ever witnessed, but Alev Rahrooh… He could honestly say she was the worst in his career.

And to know he'd pushed the killer to commit such a vile act. Meg reminded him this evening of his own words from that morning, that the animal would have killed Alev regardless of what they'd done. But the words had been easier to believe before he'd seen that young girl's body. He sagged against his front door, emotionally drained. He closed his eyes when he heard Jenna's voice from his office, tried to rewrite her face over the carnage that seemed branded on his very soul.

"Now you remember our bet," she was saying. 'Tell me what that says."

"Walla Walla, Washington," Nicky read in a grumpy voice. "You win."

"So where will you sleep?"

"In my own bed," he heard his son say morosely.

"So get to it," Jenna ordered crisply. "Go brush your teeth and I'll tuck you in."

"And we'll play the story game?"

"Sure, why not?"

They appeared and Steven forced himself to smile even though all he wanted was to drag her in his arms and bury his body in hers and pretend for just a little while that the world didn't exist.

That they were normal people.

That she didn't wear on her throat the evidence of some sick teenage band of thugs and that he hadn't seen an innocent life brutally ended, ravaged even after death.

"Hey, Nicky, how's my boy?" he asked, injecting a happy note into his voice, instantly seeing his son wasn't buying any of it. Nicky looked up at him, then looked up at Jenna, who'd sobered as soon as she'd seen him standing there. She tapped the end of Nicky's freckled nose.

"I think your dad's had a bad day. Maybe when he's had a chance to unwind he can come up and help us with our story. You go on up to bed and brush your teeth. I'll be there in a minute or two." When Nicky was upstairs Jenna turned to Steven and opened her arms.

Without a word he pulled her to him and buried his face in her hair. "You always smell like beaches and coconuts to me," he whispered.

She kissed his shoulder through the layers of his clothing. "You found her. The third girl."

He shuddered and her arms tightened around his waist.

"I'm so sorry, Steven," she murmured, lifting her face. "I'm so sorry."

He searched her face, looking for something he hadn't yet defined, but finding it in her eyes. He kissed her, taking from her whatever comfort she could provide, finding the well more than deep enough. His kiss grew desperate until she slid her hands into his hair and pulled his head back.

"Steven, what happened?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I can't, Jenna. I just can't." Can't talk about it. Can't stop thinking about it. Can't stop blaming myself .

She pulled him close for a softer kiss. "Then stay here. I'll put Nicky to bed, then I'll be back."

As he watched her go up the stairs he realized more than anything in the world he wanted to hear about kissing llamas and any other silly tale Jenna and Nicky could concoct. He followed her up and waited outside Nicky's bedroom door.

"What if I wake up in the night and decide I don't want to be in bed?" Nicky was asking.

Steven peeked around the corner to see Jenna pulling the blanket over Nicky's small frame.

"Then you get out of bed and sleep in your sleeping bag," she said simply.

Nicky snuggled into the pillow and closed his eyes. "Once there was a man who lived in Kalamazoo." He opened one eye. "Aunt Helen has a friend there. It's in Michigan, y'know."

Jenna sat down on the edge of Nicky's bed and smoothed her hand over his hair. "I know. And this man had a kangaroo."

Nicky didn't say anything for a long time, so long Jenna whispered, "Are you asleep already?"

Nicky shook his head. "No. Jenna, I'm ready to get out of bed now."

Steven wanted to sigh, but Jenna just stood up and pulled his blanket back. "Okay."

He squinted up at her. "You're not mad?"

She shook her head. "No, you kept your end of the bargain. So into the bag." Nicky crawled into the sleeping bag and Jenna sat next to him, cross-legged on the floor. "So we have a kangaroo."

"From Kalamazoo."

"Whose shoes were new."

"Who liked to eat glue."

Jenna's lips twitched. "Until he got the flu."

"He had to stay in bed with the flu," Nicky said, abandoning the rhyme. "But one day a bad hunter came and stole him from his bed."

Jenna went still. "This isn't about the kangaroo from Kalamazoo anymore, is it, Nicky?"

Nicky lay motionless. Then he shook his head.

Jenna rubbed his back, making her touch soft against his small back. "Sunday night, when that man came into my apartment, I was so scared," she whispered. "I wasn't sure if I'd live or die. If I'd ever see you and your dad again. If I'd ever see Jim or Jean-Luc again."

Nicky didn't open his eyes. "But they'll be okay, won't they? Jim and Jean-Luc?"

She kept rubbing his back, keeping her strokes gentle. "I hope so. The vet says they ate a lot of poison then and Jean-Luc got stabbed." Her voice faltered and she steadied it. "For me."

"There was a lady who got hurt for me," Nicky offered in a whisper. "Her name was Caroline."

Jenna remembered reading the story in the newspaper six months earlier. Steven had been leading the investigation into a murder, only to find the victim had really escaped her abusive spouse. The woman had bravely started a new life with her young son, but he'd been found and dragged away by her husband. Her husband, who for God only knew what reason, decided taking little Nicky as a hostage would make Steven back off. "The lady was running away, wasn't she?"