"Well, sh*t. This place looks like a f*cking mess."

Detective Thomas Richards had arrived at the murder scene a half an hour after his partner and, still, he hadn't even bothered with an apology. Not that she really ever expected one. In all of their years of being partnered together, he had never once said he was sorry. Not even when he had decided to just not show up for their third date.

Some things just never changed.

"Nice of you to finally drop in." Detective Maeve O"Brien had already done her initial sweep of the scene while she had waited for Richards to get his nice, tight butt up out of bed and now stood, leaning, with her back pressed against the wall next to the only exit, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

"Hey, you try getting out of bed with only two hours of sleep," he said, going right over to the rookie cop stuck with the job of getting everyone else their caffeine fix, taking the biggest cup off his hands.

"I did," she shot back at him, fiery blue eyes alight with silent accusation. She hadn't gotten any sleep because she was up working on one of the five cases they still had open. He hadn't gotten any sleep because there had been a brunette rolling around in his bed. Not that she knew that for certain. She just had a nagging feeling about it. It sickened her, really, the fact that she actually cared. It was bad enough to make her scowl.

"Jesus," Richards said, finally turning around to take a proper look at the gruesome scene before them. "This is....What a f*cking mess!" Maeve sent him a deadpan stare. "What?" He shrugged defensively. "It is!" This time her eyes rolled.

"It looks like our vic had been here for awhile," she said, biting back all of those little remarks she so dearly wanted to lash out and pushing herself away from the wall, starting toward the doorway leading into the other, smaller room. "Two weeks, at the least. He had her chained up in there, doesn't look like he let her go anywhere else. Looks like he did most of his work in there, too, from what we can tell. No prints or anything, aside from what came from the vic. We're hoping to get a match, maybe get us an ID."

"So there was none on her"," Richards asked, stepping up beside his partner to look into the room. She pretended not to notice his disgusted expression. Instead she just shook her head.

"She didn't have a thing on her. Nothing in the rooms, either. He must have taken her somewhere else first, or else just got rid of it all once they got here." She paused, staring down at the contorted and mostly melted corpse curled up in a fetal position on the floor. The stench of urine, seared flesh and corrosive acid was playing punching bag with her nose, assaulting it with all of their horrific senses and making her want to gag. She refused to. "We figure that he mutilated her first, then dumped the acid on her when he was done." Her lips pursed for a moment. "We also think that she was alive when all of it had happened."

"Huh." That's all he had to say in response to that. It wasn't much longer until he finally spotted the red-painted message scrawled on the opposite wall. Slowly, he turned his head so that he could look at his partner. After a full minute of doing nothing but staring, he asked "Do you....think that it's him?" Maeve frowned but didn't answer him right away. Finally, she shook her head.

"I think that whoever it is has done this all before, yes. I think that whoever this is enjoys what he does, thinks that he's like God and wants us to follow him. But do I think that it's the actual Game Master?" Again, she shook her head. This time, though, her answer was a little too slow. "...I don't know." As much as she had wanted to sound strong, sure of herself and free of worry, her voice just couldn't quite make it. The tone was too low, the accent too unhidden, the words too unsure of themselves. But most of all, it was in her eyes. Behind all of that hardness, the toughness and ruthless determination, there was still a sense of panic, a look of distress and fear that she had worked so hard to bury and yet just couldn't seem to be totally rid of. Richards, for all of his obliviousness, caught it.

"Hey," he said, turning toward her and bringing his voice down low. "You okay?" When all he got was a quick, sharp glance, he still kept on going. "You know, we don't have to take this one. We can hand it off on Phillips and Burns. They've got room." He ventured far enough as to reach out a hand, resting it gently on one of her shoulders. "You don't have to go through this again, Mae."

Even though his touch was warm, making her want to simply melt and curl up safe in his arms, she knew that wasn't the answer. It wasn't even a possibility, hadn't been for nearly two years. It was a fact that, even after so long, stung. The use of her nickname only made it worse. "I can't," she said, finally turning her head to look at him. Her eyes had already started to get back their hardness, reverting back into those near-steel colored shields. With her lips pressed tightly together, she grinned. "I can handle this." With that, she handed him her coffee and, alone, stepped into the small room, all the while silently telling herself...

It's not the same room. It's not the same room. It's not the same room?

"He was testing her." The words tasted like vinegar on her tongue and, this time, she didn't hide her grimace. "He wanted to see what she'd do to keep herself alive." She folded her arms underneath her chest, staring down at the macabre display of what little remained of the woman and the mortician trying with all of his skills to not disrupt any of the evidence. Eventually she looked up, finding her partner standing in the doorway. "If it is the same guy as before, he's gotten worse." Before Richards could say anything or, God forbid, reach out for her again, Mae walked toward the phrase scrawled on the wall. "This," she said, pointing to it, 'does look like his handwriting. And the word "again?....It all makes me thinks that, at least, he knows a lot about the other cases." Turning back to Richards, she tucked her hand back under the fold of her arm. "Did he watch it?" When he motioned with his head over his shoulder, Mae took it as the perfect excuse to get out of the room. The memories of her own kidnapping, although almost a year old, were starting to bubble back up to the surface and the last thing she wanted right now was to appear weak.

Standing in front of the single piece of furniture in the larger of the two rooms, Mae couldn't help but start to put herself into the shoes of the other woman. All of the terror, all of the anxiety and fear of what was going on, of what was going to happen to her. All of the unavoidable doubt that, no matter how hard she tried, she was never going to get out of that room alive. That no one was ever going to know what happened to her. That no one was ever going to find her.

Suddenly, Mae shook her head. Now wasn't the time to be revisiting old nightmares. Right now was the time to hunt down this sick killer. Looking from left to right, she saw nothing but mildew-covered cement walls, broken only by that single chair sitting just underneath the tiny window. Nothing. Nothing at all. Just like all the other times. Giving a frustrated sigh, Mae started to turn.

But then something caught her eye, something out of the ordinary. Narrowing her eyes, she stepped forward, leaning in until her nose was barely inches away from the window. "There's something here," she said, motioning up behind her. Richards was there in a heartbeat, a CSI agent the next. "There," she said, pointing to the small smear of ash on the sill. "He smokes." Without knowing exactly why, she found that she was grinning. Her blue eyes flicked up, looking out through the window. "C"mon, Richards," she said, already turning around and making for the exit. "Let's go see if that store sells cigarettes."

Mae groaned. "You know, I always told my mother to let me take Spanish instead of French. She said it was in case I ever transferred to Paris." She looked to Richards with a wry smirk. "It was only because she wanted to visit." Letting out a long sigh, she turned toward the rest of the small store and, since they had plenty of time to waste, started walking through its tiny aisles. Aspirin, condoms, beer, sliced bread....All of the things you'd expect to find at a neighborhood grocer's store, including a modest arrangement of fruits and vegetables. Picking up an under-ripe lemon from a basket, she studied the yellowish fruit as she turned it slowly between her fingers.

"Ask her if she's sold any of these to anyone lately," she said when the Spanish-fluent cop finally showed up, tossing the lemon to him. With a furrowed brow, he asked the clerk and when the meek little woman nodded her head, Mae looked back to the cop. "To a smoker?" Again, the clerk nodded. Mae was just able to hold back a wild grin. "Tell her we're going to need all of the security tapes they have for the past two weeks and have them sent directly to the department. I'll go over them myself so let me know first-thing when they get there." The cop, somewhat dumbfounded, simply nodded and, again, Mae was already going right out the door.

"Hey!," Richards called out to her, jogging up from behind to catch up. "Before we went in there, Timmons showed me something." Mae didn't stop, so he kept on going. "It was left on my windshield. A tape recorder wrapped up in a bag." She had made it to her car, opening the door and sliding down into the driver's seat without even a glance his way. "It's being taken to the lab right now."

Finally she looked up and, surprisingly, gave him a little smile. "Then that's where we're going." She slammed the door shut, started the car and left Richards standing there, cursing in the rain. She couldn't help but grin as she watched him in her rear-view mirror, running to his own car and getting in to follow her. It was the little things that made her feel better, including knowing that he was going to be right there behind her.

The instant that voice was in the air, Mae felt her stomach seize. She had taken a seat next to Richards, one panted leg crossed over the other and arms folded tightly across her middle. But still, somehow, she felt vulnerable and alone. She did everything she could not to shift in her chair, holding herself on a tight rein, refusing to fidget or budge.

She listened to the recording with no expression whatsoever, simply staring down at the tape recorder with carefully blank eyes. It wasn't until Richards" explosive outburst that she looked away from it, turning her gaze up to him. "Yeah, but not all of them have black hair. That at least cuts it down to less than twenty." Frustration had her blowing out a thin stream of air, making a strip of rebel blonde flitter in front of her face until it just simply plopped back down across forehead and cheek. "He said we have until Wednesday..." She wet her lips, in thought. "Maybe he already has this guy."

Pushing herself up out of her chair, she walked over to the intercom on the wall beside the door. "Jensen," she said, pushing one of the buttons.

"Yeah, "Tec, what?s up?"

"See about getting a list of all of the lawyers that work with our office, specifically those with dark hair. Start making phones calls - I don't care if you have to call their homes - and see if any of them are missing."

"Sure thing. You've got it."

Turning back to her partner, Mae walked back toward the table. Instead of retaking her chair, she opted for a half-seat atop of the table. "While they do that, let's see what we can get out of these," she said, picking up the TV remote and pressing "PLAY".

—-

Nearly four hours later, both Richards and Mae came out of the interview room with nothing more than a few scribbled notes of someone buying cigarettes nearly every single day and, once, a dozen lemons and a bag of salt at the same time. With only the clich' description of a man wearing a hood giving them any sort of lead, both of them felt like it had all been an entire waste.

"Well, what do we do now"," Richards asked, running a hand through his messy blonde hair while he poured both him and Mae a cup of stale coffee.

"Not much to do other than go through all of our notes from the scene and compare them to the ones from the old cases," she replied, taking the offered cup. "Until we hear back that one of our lawyer guys is missing-..."

?"Tec!" Both Mae and Richards turned to see an officer running toward them. It was Jensen. Mae prayed to God that he had hit on something for them. "We've got one of the lawyers missing. Jonathan Powers. Thirty-two, black hair. His wife says he's been gone since Saturday."

Mae turned to Richards, that unmistakable light sparking in her eyes "Wanna drive?"

He grinned, already having dug his keys out of his pocket and snapped them into his fist. "I thought you'd never ask.?

She had been sitting in the car silently up to that point, watching the buildings and cars zip by as Richards drove them to the lawyer's house. She had a million things going through her head, none of them very pleasant, and his question didn't help any.

"Do we really have to go over this right now, Richards"," she sighed, looking out her passenger window. The rain hadn't stopped falling. In fact, it was heavier now than it was before. The sky was dreary and the clouds were a sickly off-white, smeared with drabs of gloomy gray that did nothing to boost their color. She had used to love days like these, but now" They only made her somber.

"Just because it may be him doesn't give me the right to just run away and hide," she said after a long enough span of time to make it seem like she wasn't going to end up answering him at all. She turned her head, looking at him. "It's because of that woman back in the basement. It's because of all of the other women, all of the other men, this guy killed. He tortured them, made them go crazy trying to save their own lives. He didn't do it for them, even though he likes to think that way. He didn't do the world a service by letting them die. And just because someone survives, that doesn't make them "better"." Richards glanced at her but she couldn't hold his eyes. She looked back out the window. "None of them owe him anything."

—-

Mrs. Powers had been waiting for them, a cop having already arrived at the house, keeping a post in his car across the street. The residence was pristine; a beautiful modern two-level house attempting heavily to pass itself off as Victorian. The inside was no less beautiful, filled with brand new furniture, tasteful deco and walls covered in simulating works of art. Even the kitchen, where the three of them were now, was decorated to its limits.

"Mrs. Powers, you said that the last time you saw your husband was on Saturday night?" Richards had taken the offered seat at the table while Mae remained standing. It was easier for her to observe the location, being able to move around the room, looking things over, searching for minute details.

"Janet, please." Richards gave her a little smile. Janet Powers was a tall woman, though overly willowy and thin-boned. It made her oddly delicate-looking. Even her pale brown hair seemed to be fragile. "And yes, that's the last time I saw John. He was....Well, we were fighting. What couple doesn't after ten years?" She gave both of the detectives a little smile. Mae tried her hardest to give an honest one back.

"What were you two fighting about, Mrs. Powers"," Mae asked, finishing her quick scan of the kitchen counter, swinging her way back toward the table.

"Well, we were fighting about..." Janet bit her lip, nibbling at it like it was a sudden itch, one that just had to be scratched, and with ferocity. When she spotted Mae giving her expectant look, she continued, nervously. "We were fighting about his trips. When he wasn't working at his office or in the courthouse or out playing golf with his friends, he was always going off on some trip. Business, he called them. But everyone knows what that means," she said with more than a hint of disgust.

"Please," Mae said, ignoring the scrunched up nose and soured expression. Despite looking like she was about to throw up, Janet obliged.

"I accused him of seeing another woman," she said, setting down her never-touched cup of Earl Grey. "He'd come home from being gone all weekend and be exhausted. His clothes would smell like perfume, when he wasn't smart enough to get them cleaned, and I've found lipstick stains more than once on his collar. And elsewhere." Janet scowled. "I told him that if he was having an affair, I wanted a divorce. No questions, no arguments. Just a flat-out, no-contest divorce."

"I'm guessing he didn't take it very well," Richards piped in, taking the cue when Mae finally took the seat next to him. Janet snorted.

"Hardly. He threw a fit. Starting knocking things over and throwing things. Said that if I thought he was having affair, it was only fair that he think I was having one too."

"Are you?" Richards" bluntness even shocked Mae a bit, but she was much better at covering it than Janet was. The other woman stuttered, completely blindsided by the simple question. "We need to know all of the details, Mrs. Powers, whether or not anyone likes to hear them. Or tell them." That made Janet swallow hard and after a few minutes of looking down nervously into her own cup, she answered him.

"Yes."

Both Mae and Richards nodded.

"We're going to need to know where you think Mr. Powers may have went," Mae said, skipping right past the awkward point and onto her duties. "Any records or receipts he may have kept, anything he may have had from these trips. We'll need a record of your phone bill and his emails, too. And if we could have a look around in his office?" She didn't even have to finish before Janet was waving a hand, the sudden look of defeat weighing heavily on her shoulders.

"Go ahead and look wherever you like. Now that you know, it's not like I have anything to hide."