7th of June

Catherine made sure Lindsay got home last night. I'm not sure exactly when we'll see either of them again, it would be understandable that Lindsay would need some time, and no matter how much Catherine would want to be with her fiancée in this time of uncertainty she isn't going to let her friend be alone in this.

The door opens up and Catherine steps in. It also seems that I should stop pretending that I know anything.

"Cat..." Robert gets up. "Where's Lindsay? Is everything alright?"
Lindsay follows her in when she's cleared the doorway.

"Catch me up," she says and takes off her jacket.

"Lind, are you sure you're up for..." Robert starts before being interrupted by a displeased Lindsay.

"Catch me up," she demands in a tone that doesn't afford contradiction.

"We have a possible list of 11,22,33 victims," John says, shuffling through the papers. "Local police departments asked around the streets for us, looking for any missing Roberts." He hands her a list of names.

"Have you looked into the first one?" She demands. I suppose before a victim was taken a killer had to be found.

"That's where it got really tricky, we don't know which one that was, we have no timeline for her recruitments, and the few missings we have found don't match the victim timeline. It seems they collected the victims beforehand - either that or our homeless theory is wrong."

"How far back did you go?"

"As far back as we could, which in most cases wasn't far."

"We're considering illegal immigrants as well now, but it's going to be even more difficult to get information from them."

"So we data mine," Catherine pushes some papers out of her way, takes a seat and opens up her laptop. "Cross-referencing birth certificates with death certificates should give us a list of all living Roberts, eliminating any with a known address should narrow it down to possible targets and provide us with information like age, birthplace, where they were last seen, maybe even a picture. We get that, then we start looking for connections." She's already typing by the time she finishes the sentence.

"Do you have a list of all the missing homeless?" Lindsay requests. John already has the papers in hand. She too takes a seat and starts working. I guess the whole deal with Michelle never happened. The men look at each other, clearly thinking the same as I am.

I take to the kitchen to make them all some breakfast. Remembering that Lindsay thoroughly enjoyed the buns I brought to the office that one time, I have no trouble deciding what to cook for once. I throw in some soft boiled eggs as well, just for good measure.

As always when they eat, they do so with one hand and most of their attention of the papers in front of them. I sit at the table with them, making sure they all eat at least a little bit, but otherwise just staring at the white walls.

Karl gets up and starts collecting the plates after about an hour. I hurry to get up too, I haven't cleaned up his kitchen yet.

"Could you do me a favor?" he asks, putting down the dirty plates.

"I'll get this cleaned up, don't worry..."

"There's a spare bedroom over there, could you make the bed for Lindsay, put out some towels for her - everything is in the closet."

He leaves the kitchen again. It's the 7th today, the string will stop on the 9th. Even if we do manage to stop the string, which I'm doubting less and less now, Robert and Catherine still deserve the chance to spend some time together.

Come to think of it I don't actually know what Robert has done while Catherine was with Lindsay, it seems pretty irresponsible for him to be alone. I guess maybe they put the guards back now that the string is active.

I clean up the kitchen and go to make the bed as requested. The room is bare and plain, containing nothing but a closet and a bed. It also looks like it's been out of use for a while. I go back to the kitchen and get a cloth to wipe down the dust, a vacuum would be audible through, and I guess Karl wants it to seem like as little trouble as possible to have her here; maybe even that he was expecting her and made preparations ahead of time.

I open the closet to find the linen. There's a mirror on the inside of the closet door, and in the corner is taped a picture of a boy about 10 years old and his parents. It's the traditional family holiday picture, but I've never seen Karl smile the way he does looking down at the dark-haired boy who's smiling eyes matches the light blue walls behind them.

I take the linen and get to work.

"They take donations and everything," Lindsay says in disgust as I bring in the puff pastry covered chickens for dinner.

"I can find no certificate of Incorporation, Business license or anything else," Catherine remarks as I bring in the potatoes. "All they have is a website."

"And some flyers," Lindsay adds. "And a few of the witness statements mention them."

"It's nicely done though," Catherine remarks. "All the links work, detailed descriptions, pictures - this would be enough to fool any concerned loved one who doesn't know what to look for."

"'Shut down due to lack of funding'" Lindsay reads. "Right around the end of last year." Or just around the time they stopped practicing.

"The address is bogus," Catherine informs us.

"How many?" Karl inquires.

"Seven mentions so far," Lindsay says. "But it's the biggest commonality we've found."

"Catherine, who pays for that domain? John, get the flyer out to every police officer, get them back out on the streets, see if they can link anyone else to this place," Karl orders. Catherine starts typing and John starts calling. "Any Roberts on your list?" he asks Lindsay.

"One Robert and one Bob."

"Cross-reference with Catherine's, see if you can get a full name." Robert starts dishing up and handing out plates.

"Hank Bennet," Catherine says after a few minutes. "Owns a small hotel, the kind that takes welfare checks."

"Get me anything you can on him, John and I will go see him tomorrow."

"The page was set up five years ago," Catherine tells us.

"Five?" John asks. I look up too. Five years is a long time - I thought she was too easily distracted for that.

"Well, we knew she'd been at it for a while," Robert reminds him, but his brows are furrowed and his hand stopped midway across the table. Five years of practice? 

"What if...." John starts out but hesitates. "She starts up the fake homeless shelter, takes in random people, finds a likeminded person in her stock of practice victims, she decides decoys wouldn't be the worst idea, so she lets him in on the plan. Now she has an extra set of hands but also needs more victims, and 11,22,33 victims are difficult to come by. So they can either scour the country for unmissable victims or create their own. Doesn't numerology often involve name changes?" he asks me.

"Well, it was mentioned on one of the sites," I answer reluctantly. "But wouldn't that be cheating?" 

"Couldn't that also be said for reusing a name and hiding the bodies?" he argues

"Well, the site does mention 'a new beginning' as their motto," Lindsay says hesitantly. "That could mean a whole new identity." But she doesn't look convinced herself.

"How would she get them to choose the right name though? Force?"

"Or manipulation - good associations with the name Robert, make it stand out, make it appear everywhere."

"A name change would require a court appearance," Karl reminds us.

"A legal name change, yes," Catherine says, siding with John.

"Robert, list of people who've changed their name to Robert within the last five years," Karl orders.

"Guys," I say softly, not quite sure I want them to hear me or pay attention to me. John looks up at me expectantly.

"Five years practice," I say. "3 months of killings carried out as planned, and now..."

"I know," Lindsay says and refuses to look up. "There was no escalation in the killings, no change in the cooling-off period because it's not about killing. Killing people is just another way to move pieces around the chessboard, the means to an end. But the game is boring her now. She was bored when she decided to pull Nicaa in, and then she played her trump card and put Robert in check, but none of that gave her the satisfaction she craved, so she gave away her hand and started over with new cards, just for the challenge of it."

"Which is why she went after Michelle," I continue for her. "Problem is, I don't think that will have been enough, she burned that card too fast." Silence falls over all of them. John is looking at me like I'm sort of freak. Lindsay is looking at me like the answer to a riddle is written on my forehead. Robert is looking worried. I go back to looking at Lindsay.

"Suggestions?" she asks.

"It takes two to make a game fun," I reply.

"We tried engaging her already," John reminds us. "It didn't work."

"We tried playing her game," I correct. "But her game doesn't have set rules."

"What exactly are you thinking of doing?" John demands rather forcefully. I ignore him and continue looking at Lindsay.

"We've been reacting to her all along. Five years ago something happened that made her want to go to extremes, made her willing to kill. She started out meticulous and well planned, everything was thought out. Then, at some point, she started pulling in more people, more variables, but everything was still posed and controlled."

"Then something else happened," Lindsay replies. "A second trigger, that made her stop practicing and start performing."

"And she started that performance with a bang," I say. "She killed the sister of an FBI agent, a sure fire way to get the attention of the FBI."

"And then she made sure to cross state lines so it became a federal jurisdiction," Lindsay adds.

"And for three months she happily played cat and mouse with you, watching as you tried to hone in on her."

"Watching us grasp at straws," Robert remarks.

"And when that got too boring, too stale, she pulled you in," Lindsay says.

"And that lasted like what, two weeks, then she dropped the Robert card," I continue.

"Which made her content for about a month, then she went to the press," she adds.

"Then 20 days later, she starts playing publicly with Michelle," I say, not caring about the looks the others send me asking me to be more sensitive. Lindsay doesn't need me to sugar coat this. Her sister is the plaything of a lunatic murderer, there is no sugar coat big enough to cover that.

"But, at the same time she also pulled in four new strings, and the 11,22,33 string is active," Lindsay says.

"She has too much going on at once, and none of it is satisfying her," I conclude.

"Well, too much going at once means she's bound to slip up, she's too distracted," John says.

"But as long as she isn't getting the satisfaction she craves she will just keep adding more stuff," Lindsay insists. "More killing strings, more taunts, more of our loved ones in peril."

"So we make sure to satisfy her," I say. "We give her something she wants."

"Well, she wants you and Robert," John buds in. "Are you suggesting we just hand you over?" There's an anger in his voice, a distaste for our conversation and how easily and calmly we are discussing it. Well, easily and calmly in the sense that the subject matter doesn't bother us, less calmly in the sense that we are both excited at this new idea.

"Not at all," I reply. "Well, not like you are thinking at least."

"The common denominator is people," Lindsay continues the thought.

"Manipulating the other killers to do things her way, manipulating John specifically to be on this case, positioning me here like a puppet..."

"And Robert and Michelle as well, it's all about moving people around the way she wants them to move."

"And we've been giving her that, we've reacted to everything she's done, and it doesn't feel as good as she had expected."

"She wants more than just puppets now."

"We have to stop reacting and start acting," I say boldly.

"How, specifically?" Karl inquires, cutting in on our two-person show. I keep my eyes on Lindsay. Act, not react, and challenge, don't follow.

"We call her out," I say plainly. "We call her out on her rule changes, tell her we see that she's incapable of sticking to rules or agreements, that we see her weakness."

"It would have to be something different from last time, we can't use the papers again. Repetition is boring her."

"Agreed. What about an interview?"

"An interview? That might work..."

"Are you two utterly insane?" John demands, getting out of his chair and looking down on us.

"Well," I start. "The alternative would be that she gets so bored she rage quits the game."

"She could never go back to living in obscurity after this," Lindsay agrees. "And she can't keep living like this either."

"So we agree?" I ask her, ignoring the others.

"Yes, suicide bomb is her most likely exit."

"And we have to stop her getting bored enough to do that," I tell John. "Keep her entertained long enough to catch her."

"This is insane," he assures us.

"Calm down John," Karl requests. "This is just talking, no one is doing anything yet." But it doesn't stay at just talking. Before long Lindsay has them all convinced that letting me do an interview will be the most beneficial step to take, even Agent Johnson signs off on it. John refuses to even look at me for the rest of the night, and he doesn't speak on the ride back to his apartment either.

"John," I try when we are back at his place. He ignores me. "John, come on." He walks off into his bedroom and throws the door shut behind him. I sit down on the couch. Well, isn't this just grand. I throw myself down and stare up at the ceiling.

Am I really upset about John Lucas? Am I actually concerned that he doesn't like something I want to do, that he is against it? What kind of messed up reality is this? But his confessions about our childhood swim back to me. It has always been easy to blame him for Liv's death, he was gone, and his actions had seemed odd at the time. Still seem odd, to be fair. And I have always known none of it was his fault, logically speaking and all, but it was easier to blame him. Easier to blame than to deal. I get up again, and I walk through the kitchen and open his bedroom door without knocking. He lifts his head from his hands in surprise. He's sitting on the bed, his elbows resting on his knees, and his hands cupped to fit his forehead. I close the door behind me and take a seat on the floor next to it.

"What?" he demands loudly.

"You clearly have something to say," I reply evenly. "Say it." He laughs once, a throaty and sarcastic laugh.

"And what, you'll listen to me?"

"I'll listen," I assure him. He looks down and folds his hands, but he remains quiet. I wait, watching him, but keeping quiet.

"You don't take this seriously," he says eventually. "You walk around like it's all just some game like the stakes aren't real. Ever since you talked to Robert. Swords and interviews don't belong here, and getting rid of the guards was insane." He looks over at me. "This is your actual life at stake, and you only get one of those. It isn't a game." I wait, before answering, making sure he's done talking.

"You found the sword," I say quietly.

"Yes, I bloody well found it, it's a giant medieval sword under my couch!"

"I didn't mean for you to see that," I admit. He laughs hollowly. "No, John, I wanted..." I didn't want him to think I didn't trust him to be up to the job of keeping me safe, not after everything with Elena, I just wanted... I just wanted one little thing that I had control over, one little part of my home field with me. "I've been fencing for more than 10 years now, pretty much ever since I left Hill Lake. You guys all carry around guns with you 24/7, and I hate guns. I don't like what they symbolize, the ability to kill someone and never even have to look them in the eye or be close enough to feel the warmth of their skin. I hate their efficiency, I think they're cold and cowardly.

"And I know why you have them, I'm not saying I'm against that in any way, I just... I haven't had much say in anything over these last few months, I haven't been..." I take a deep breath to avoid getting off track. "I just wanted one little thing from my world, one thing I knew how to use. And I know a sword is stupid, and I know it'll be useless against 1,8,11, it just felt better to have it than not to have it. Like if it came down to it, maybe I would actually be able to do some damage, that way even if she did manage to get me, despite everything, she wouldn't win over me. I would lose, yes, but she wouldn't win. That was all I wanted, just the ability to have some small part of my fate in my own hands.

"As for the interview... Well, I think it might actually make me safer, like, you don't throw out an interesting toy." He doesn't reply, he doesn't even look at me. Silence spreads between us, but it's the wrong kind of silence, the kind where no one is saying what they want to say out of fear of what the other one will reply.

"John," I start again, unwilling to let silence win over me. "It isn't on you. I wasn't on you to save Elena, it isn't on you to keep me safe, and it isn't on you to stop 1,8,11. Responsibility doesn't work like that, it's not..."

"How about you then?" he interrupts. "Was Liv your responsibility? Was Zoe your fault? And Mark and Elle, did they die because of you? You can't tell me not to blame myself for Elena when you blame yourself for them. You can't have it both ways." I know he's right, of course, but... Well, truth be told there is no but, there is no difference I can argue.

I stand up, and I walk over and take his hand.

"I am still warm, my heart still beats, and I am telling you right now, whatever happens to me, however this turns out, it is not your fault. I forbid you from blaming yourself if I die." If I die. It wouldn't be so bad, would it? Death cannot be all bad. Might even be peaceful. "If you want responsibility you can have Charlotte," I tell him. "My life insurance should cover her for a good long while, but someone needs to manage it for her." He pulls his hand back as if I electrocuted him. "I was joking," I defend myself.

"This is no joke," he cries. I know it isn't, of course, I know it's not a joke. "You're careless," he says, his voice calmer now. Well, not calm, just still, like a tight bowstring. "You take chances, and you don't think about the consequences they will have on others." Of course, I think about it!

"I know the consequences," I assure him angrily. "I know..."

"No! You don't. You imagine everyone to be so removed from you, so distant... You imagine your mother would only need financial aid and then she would be fine without you. Maybe she would, I have never known her well enough to judge that. But you assume everyone else thinks the same about you, thinks of you as nothing more than simply there, and that I know isn't true." He stares down, and I watch him, unable to speak, unable to form a coherent thought. Does he mean...? Or? But... "You have an effect on people, you make them like you. You make them want to always have you around, because you are there for them, you make them feel seen, you understand them. Losing you wouldn't just... Your students too, the team... Everyone would be affected if we lost you, and none of us would ever be the same. And it's not just a matter of blame, or of consequences, it's a matter of loss, and you don't seem to get that." He looks up at me, actually meeting my eyes. "You don't seem to get that people care about you." I want to look away, to break eye contact, but I can't. I can't look away, and he won't, so we just stare at each other until I can feel tears in my eyes. He throws the bedsheets away and walks out of the room. I hear him rummage in the kitchen for a brief moment, but then it goes quiet and he doesn't come back. I stay still, unsure of what to do. The bedroom is separated from the living room by the kitchen, so I can't go back to the couch without walking past him.

After a while, he comes back, and I still haven't figured out how to move. He holds out a mug for me.

"My mother used to make us this when we were young, Elena found the recopy in some old boxes not long ago." I take the mug. Hot chocolate. Imagine that, having a mother to make you hot chocolate, having family recopies. I take a hesitant sip, unsure how hot it will be. It's the perfect temperature, and it's thick and strong. It's perfect.

"Thank you," I mumble.

"Nicaa," he says hesitantly. "I know you're not Elena. I know I have no real responsibility for you, but you should know too, you are not alone anymore, you have a family. An odd-looking one with no blood ties, but... Robert likes taking in strays, and, well, he took you in, you have no way out now." He pauses, then nods at the floor as if agreeing with himself that he has said all he needs to say, and then he turns his back to me, putting his own mug on the nightstand next to his gun. I take the offered opportunity to retreat to the couch.

8th of June

Next morning neither of us says anything about it, we just continue the routine like every other day. I'm thankful for it, honestly, the awkwardness can be thick here.

The next day goes up in phone calls, paper shuffling and a whole lot of research. Agent Johnson comes by to inform us Michelle Evans gave them directions to the old farm. A team is at work digging up the graves they found. Since we suspect a lot of them might be homeless it's going to be hard to get identifications - it'll most likely be up the ME and luck to find matching dental records. Catherine and Robert are busy with each of their list of names, searching for matches in homeless people who've had a name change.

"Lindsay, do you have a Robert Stein mentioned in your papers?" Catherine demands around noon.

"No, sorry, why?"

"He was homeless five years ago, but it seems he got back on his feet."

"So he's still alive? Does that mean... are you looking for victims or suspects?"

"Connections," she evades simply.

"So why did he catch your eye?"

"Well, he was part of our victim's pool at the very beginning, but he's clearly alive and well, only I'm not sure how he got back on his feet."

"Look into that," Karl orders. She spends the next five hours doing just that, but she finds no explanation as to why he's suddenly living well in Alabama.

Agents Johnson stops by again to let us know Hank Bennet said he'd set up the website for a provocatively dressed blond woman - he assumed it was for an escort service. In return, we give him the none-info on Robert Stein and he promises to go check him out.

He comes back two hours later with a woman by his side.

"Agent Freeman," he presents. Besides not looking their best they seem unharmed.

"Did everything go okay?" Catherine askes worriedly.
"I think we might have the right guy," Agent Freeman informs us

"Then what is it?" One kill still unfinished in this string, and it stops here? Sounds too good to be true.

"When we pulled up in front of the hotel he came to meet us." Agent Freeman takes my seat at the table looking exhausted.

"Just like Rolaan Summers," Catherine moves slightly in her seat.

"Except Rolaan Summers came quietly, he didn't pull a gun," Agent Freeman says. A gun? That's not... did anyone...

"He's with the ME now," Agent Johnson addresses the elephant in the room. "CSU is going over the scene. So far they found a bag containing a stone bowl, an obsidian knife, curare injections as well as a hammer. We can't say for sure yet, but it does seem like we have 11,22,33 in our morgue." Every eye turns to Robert. Is he really safe now? Could it be that... but none of this was easy, it took hard work, and a long time, and it seems like he wasn't willing to go, like he didn't have orders to surrender peacefully. Maybe it could actually be true, Robert could be safe now.