Rapture (Working Title)

Part One

Big cities offered anonymity. The kind of faceless, nameless interaction that she craved and then later hated herself for indulging in.

Agnes Kelly-Elliott looked down at the list of nearby churches that she had hastily jotted down out of the phonebook before leaving her hotel room. She would have use of a confessional before getting back on a plane to Ft. Worth in the morning. She knew it was unavailing to confess to her repeated sin; she knew it was forever within her and would never be purged by a series of penitent prayers, but the call of the pleasure and release was far too great to ignore. She feared what would happen if her family or co-workers ever found out about her secret weekends away. She could only imagine the mayhem that would cause in her life. Agnes would rely on what solace her church could offer and try to be the good Catholic she was raised to be, with just one vice that was too hard to ignore.

Now she stood on the sidewalk in front of a woman's bar in the humid air of Houston. The half-lit neon sign flickered the name Sophie's Choice. She had visited the bar the evening before and found it perfect for what she required. It had been six weeks since she last fed her need, not a record period of abstinence, but certainly a stretch. Her work sometimes did not permit her to pursue personal wants. She shoved the list of churches into her jeans pocket and entered the bar's dark interior.

The smell of perfume, cologne, and alcohol assaulted her immediately, her blood raced at the thought of what was to come. Guilt ate at her conscience as she made her way deeper into the darkness. She ignored the regulars and their surmising comments as she walked confidently to the bar and ordered a Cosmo. She pulled a twenty dollar bill from her shirt pocket and placed it on the bar before turning and taking in the scene behind her. Sophie's was a small space, intimate, and obviously well loved by its regular customers who had already returned to their conversations in little clicks at round tables and U-shaped booths. There were a few singles like herself scattered about; these were Agnes' possible conquests for the evening. Women, who like herself, might be available for a one night encounter.

The juke box played a nostalgic k.d. lang song to which couples swayed on the small dance floor. Agnes found herself moving ever so slightly to the tune.

"Would you like to dance?"

Agnes nearly jumped when the woman's voice came from directly next to her; she hadn't even realized that someone had gotten that close to her in the darkness. She forced a smile onto her face and turned toward the woman. The forced smile turned into something closer to genuine as she found the owner of the voice a very attractive woman with light blue eyes that even in the darkness of the bar took her breath away. The woman wore simple black trousers and a white shirt, cut in the western style.

"I just ordered." Agnes pointed to the twenty dollar bill on the bar.

"It'll be ready when we get back." The woman offered as she leaned against the bar, her long black hair was straight and shiny and had been pushed behind her shoulders, giving Agnes an unfettered view of the her face. Dark skin, light eyes, chiseled cheek bones and full lips made a very attractive package.

Agnes wasn't very comfortable with being picked up. She usually did the picking, but there was something alluring about the woman next to her. "One dance." She committed and stepped away from the bar. She was offered an upturned hand. Agnes allowed her eyes to travel along that tanned, outstretched arm and upward to take in the full height of her dance partner. If she had to guess she would put her at just under six feet. She suddenly felt short even though she was a moderate five foot eight herself.

Agnes placed her hand in the woman's upturned palm and found long elegant fingers wrapped around her hand and gently guided to the dance floor where she let herself be led to the music.

"May I know your name?"

"Depends," Agnes answered as she found herself pulled closer to the tall woman, finding their height difference had some advantages as her head easily fell to her cotton covered shoulder.

"Depends upon what?"

Agnes was slipping into the pleasurable haze that she loved so much as her body warmed against her dance partner. She let her hand that was wrapped behind a very broad shoulder drop to land against a slightly rounded hip. "There're some requirements." Agnes knew that she was rushing, but if she could just take control of the situation she might have found the perfect partner for the evening.

"Do you think I can fulfill these requirements?"

The question was whispered directly into her ear causing her to shiver and pull closer to the warm body that was quickly becoming her anchor to reality. Her own body reacted as she shifted her arms causing the woman to counter her movements, and now she was leading the slow dance Agnes tilted her head up slightly to judge the woman's reaction at having the tables turned on her. "If you follow me." Agnes pressed forward and up a bit and placed a soft, lingering kiss on slightly parted lips. She eased back and moved away from the woman and went back to the bar where she collected her change and drank her cocktail. She felt the woman come up beside her and turned just enough to speak to her, "I'm not looking for more than tonight."

"That works for me."

Agnes smiled and downed the rest of her drink. She tipped the bartender, and then smiled at the patiently waiting woman. "My hotel's not far. Care to join me for a walk?"

"In this neighborhood?"

"I promise to protect you." Agnes reached out and wrapped her hand around a rock hard bicep. "Although it seems you are well equipped to take care of yourself."

The woman smiled with straight white teeth that showed starkly against her dark complexion. "I do alright."

"I'd just bet you do."

"A walk sounds fine."

Agnes smiled and held her hand out to the woman who took it without hesitance. Things were working out just as she had planned. The humid Houston air settled on her as soon as she stepped out the door. She let go of the woman's hand after just a few steps, a totally unwarranted move that made her wish she had a bit more nerve in public. After all she was several hundred miles away from her home, the chances of anyone knowing her in Houston were minimal. She looked apologetically at her date who had already plunged her hands into her own pant pockets and didn't seem to question the friendly departure at all.

They walked in silence the five blocks to the hotel where Agnes was staying. The neighborhood changed drastically in the short distance between the bar and their destination. It was often a dichotomy to Agnes, that the haves and the have-nots could live in such proximity to one another.

"What are you in town for?"

Agnes hated questions, and she hated to lie, but she wouldn't give anything away. She made a mental note for the confessional in the morning. "Business." She answered sharply with more than a touch of annoyance.

"So no questions is on the requirement list?"

"The less you know; the better for me." Agnes explained as she smiled at the man who she had come to recognize as the night porter for the hotel. He opened the wide glass door for her and her date to enter the brass and marble foyer of the lobby.

The elevator was polished steel on the inside allowing for Agnes to take a look at them standing together. Her date was dark and tall. Agnes appeared light and short next to her. Agnes had strawberry blonde hair and green eyes that were as bright as her date's piercing blue orbs, which were currently looking directly at her in the reflection. Agnes smiled and blushed as she looked away. She hated being caught.

Her room was well appointed and comfortable. She had splurged this trip. Usually a simple motel would do for her purpose, but she treated herself this time. Perhaps a mention of selfishness would make the growing list of sins. She motioned toward the king size bed. "Please, make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to drink?"

The woman looked at the bed then back at Agnes. "Right to business then?"

"I thought we established that questions were unnecessary." Agnes smiled thinly as she kicked off her shoes and pulled her blouse out of her jeans.

"That was not a personal question."

"If you don't want anything to drink then yes, it's right to business." Agnes began to unbutton her blouse, raising a fine eyebrow at the woman.

"Fine with me." The woman began to unbutton her own shirt pulling it from her black trousers as she went. She unfastened her large gold belt buckle, then unbuttoned and unzipped her pants before sitting on the bed to pull off her boots.

Agnes could feel the thrill of the pending carnal act flow over her. "What's your name?"

"You can call me Cochise," the woman said on a powerful tug that ended with a thud as one boot hit the thickly carpeted floor.

"Like the Apache War Chief?"

The other boot hit the floor with an equal thud to the first. "Yes."

"Interesting." Agnes unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them down her hips.

"And I may call you?"

Agnes gave her standard answer, "Kelly."

Cochise stood and pulled her shirt off, laying it neatly over the tops of her boots. "Irish?"

"Mostly." Agnes left her panties and bra on as she crossed the room to stand in front of Cochise. "Apache?" Agnes asked as she looked closely at Cochise's face, she could clearly see the classic native features now.

"Mostly," came the reply.

Agnes chuckled and ran a single finger from the top of Cochise's white sports bra to the waist of her pants. "Take everything off and lay in the middle of the bed please."

"You're very bossy in a polite way."

"Yes. I am." Agnes waited for Cochise to get situated on the bed before joining her. She made a few adjustments to the tall woman's position before sitting astride Cochise's abdomen. Agnes felt the wonderful thrill of the conquest as she looked down at the woman under her. Cochise was a natural beauty. Agnes took her time and explored every inch of flesh she could reach, her pale hand standing out in contrast to Cochise's much darker skin. "Put your hands above your head, please."

"Why?" There was blatant mistrust in Cochise's voice.

Agnes took each of Cochise's wrists and forcefully pinned them above the prone woman's head, "Because I wish it." Agnes smiled. "I like to be in control, Cochise. I want to be in control of you for my pleasure." Agnes watched the play of emotions cross the woman's face. "I'll allow you a safe word, and I'll stop immediately if you say it."

"You'll allow?" Cochise asked incredulously.

Agnes' smile remained as she waited for a decision. She lowered her chest to Cochise's and gave a subtle rub forward and back, eliciting a soft moan from the woman under her.

"Ford," Cochise rasped raggedly.

Agnes settled fully on top of Cochise and reached above her head for the two straps she had placed there earlier in the day. They connected to the bed frame and she had never known the Velcro closures that were wrapped around the frame to fail. She secured each softly lined leather cuff, at the end of each strap, to Cochise's wrists; she noticed the dark hands had balled into fists. She gently took each fist into her smaller hands and massaged them. "I promise I will not hurt you." She looked into Cochise's blue eyes and repeated, "I promise."

"I… I don't even know you," came the nearly panicked reply. "I can't do this." Cochise pulled hard at the restraints causing the leather cuffs to creek. She was still able to flip Agnes off of her since her ankles had not yet been secured. "FORD!"

Agnes immediately scrambled to unfasten the wrist restraints. It took some doing because Cochise had become so tense and agitated. The situation had rapidly deteriorated. Gone was her arousal and in place was fear that Cochise might hurt her. The buckle on the second cuff finally relented and she hurriedly moved away as Cochise sat up on the opposite side of the bed. "I apologize." Agnes said softly, "I misjudged you and the situation."

"Misjudged?" Cochise rose and walked around the neat pile of clothes she had discarded a few minutes prior. "You need a handout or something lady. A disclaimer." Cochise began to dress, finally sitting on the edge of the bed to pull her boots on. "What exactly is your problem anyway?"

"I don't have a problem." Agnes said evenly, "It's just how I like it."

Cochise pulled on her second boot and let her foot fall heavily against the floor then looked Agnes. "You wanna know what I think? I think you're some closeted freak that objectifies women so you can deal with your sexuality. That's why you can only get off by tying women up!"

"What are you some kind of shrink?" Agnes asked angrily.

"No. It doesn't take a psychiatrist to figure this one out." Cochise stood and zipped her pants and buckled her belt. "I hope you never run into someone who turns the tables on you."

Agnes wanted to correct the woman, but the truth was she had pegged her. "Look. I'm sorry, okay?"

Cochise had already made it to the door but stopped and turned just enough to look at Agnes. "What's your real name?"

Agnes sat silently on the edge of the bed; she wasn't about to divulge a thing.

Cochise gave a bitter laugh as she opened the door. "Have a nice evening, Kelly."

Agnes sat on the bed in silence for a long while. She looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was still fairly early. She sighed and got dressed. She wasn't about to waste a weekend off without reaching her objective. Fully dressed once again, she straightened the bedding and reloaded her cash into her shirt pocket. She gave the room one last check before leaving; there was someone out there waiting for her. She would hate to disappoint them.

Five months later…

Ft. Worth would always play second to Dallas. It wasn't as big, it wasn't as shiny, and it certainly wasn't as rich.

Agnes Kelly-Elliott was born in Ft. Worth; went to college in Ft. Worth; got married in Ft. Worth; raised her children in Ft. Worth; got divorced in Ft. Worth, and worked in Ft. Worth. She would probably die in Ft. Worth. She was loyal to the city, giving nearly twenty years of service to the police department. Her ex-husband, Griffin Elliott, was also a police officer, a beat cop. Griff was forth generation Ft. Worth police. His family was well known in the department as loyal and dependable cops. It had been a perfect marriage for the first eight years, and then Griff decided he was in love with another woman. The fact that this decision came on the heels of Agnes' promotion to Detective didn't go unnoticed. Shortly after her divorce was final, Agnes had her first encounter with a woman and had not gone back to men since. She was a classic closeted lesbian. She went out of her way to leave the city she worked and lived in to pursue her conquest.

Agnes stood straight and tall in her dress uniform. The medals on her chest had been hard-earned in a man's world and she wore them proudly as a testament to her ambition. The Chief of Police was rambling on about something to do with civic pride as her eyes tracked the audience before her. She spotted her son and daughter in the front row beside her parents. She smiled and winked at her daughter who gave her a little finger wave. Agnes took a deep breath as she tried to focus on what the Chief was saying. A figure at the back of the room caught her attention and she gave a small nod to Griff, who leaned casually against the rear wall. His dark blue uniform was slightly crumpled from riding in a car all day, but he'd always had a "don't fuck with me" air about him, no matter how he was dressed. Griff nodded back and gave her a thumbs up. It would be the only form of congratulations she would receive from him or his family. They didn't trust anyone above the rank of Sergeant, and here she was being pinned with Lieutenant's bars. She didn't see her relationship with the Elliotts improving any time soon.

The moment came to receive her promotion and she stepped forward. The silver bars were neatly pinned in place of her Sergeant chevrons. The Chief shook her hand and moved down the line to the next officer. She was glad it was over.

After dinner with her parents and children she retired to her house alone. Her kids were both at university, choosing to stay on their perspective campuses rather than at home with their mother. The three bedroom house seemed empty and she felt lonely most nights. She looked forward to her little weekends away, even if it was just over to a club in Dallas, twenty-eight miles was a short distance to go for companionship and release.

Agnes took care to hang her dress uniform. She would drop it off at the dry cleaners in the morning. She never knew when she would be called to wear it next, so it was better to be prepared. A hot cup of tea and the Star-Telegram would keep her company until she fell asleep. She had just settled into her bed when the phone rang. She glanced at the clock; green glowing numbers announced it was just after eleven p.m. Good news never came after ten.

The Stockyards of Ft. Worth was just north of the city's center. It was an historic district for the city and popular with locals and visitors alike.

It wasn't hard to find the crime scene to which she had been called. The blue and red flashing lights of police cars and an ambulance lit up the night, creating an easy beacon to follow. Agnes pulled her beige, unmarked car up behind the last police cruiser. It was now near midnight. The last eighteen hours was weighing heavy on her. She wished she could just crawl back into bed.

The cool January air filled her lungs and helped clear her head as she weaved her way through the officers and technicians who were already hard at work collecting evidence. Then she saw it-the white sheet with a formless lump under it. In her ten years working homicide she could never seem to get comfortable with seeing a lifeless body. Agnes reached into her coat pocket and retrieved her small notebook and pen before crouching down next to the covered body.

"Hey Elliott!"

Agnes looked up and acknowledged the man coming toward her across a set of railroad tracks. "Hey, Jeff. What do you know?" Agnes lifted the edge of the sheet just enough to get a quick look of the body underneath.

Jeff Roberts was still young and fresh. He made detective just six months ago and was still very much the crusader for the dead. He opened his own note book and began to read facts off, "White female, about twenty-five, blonde, blue, and built."

Agnes let the sheet drop as she stood and pulled out a pair of latex gloves from her jeans pocket. "Witnesses?" She jammed the notebook and pen under her arm then pulled the gloves on. She lifted the sheet from the body in one swift motion.

"Nope," Jeff answered as he flipped the page of his notebook. "A mounted patrol officer checking the tracks found her around ten-thirty."

"So we have a body and no witnesses."

"And no evidence, unless you want to count the three crack pipes, two ancient condoms, and forty-three cigarette butts we found in the immediate area," Jeff added with a cynical smile.

"Make sure it all gets bagged. I'll need a minute here." Jeff nodded and walked away to give her some space. Agnes opened her notebook and started to write. The dead woman was naked and laying on her back. Her head was facing due west and her arms were tied across her chest, with her hands tucked together as if she were praying. Agnes drew a little map and a small sketch of the body with her notes. She pulled a small digital camera from her coat pocket and took some pictures. As she reviewed them on the small screen she noticed the ligature marks on the woman's ankles and the wide banded marks on the woman's wrists that bordered the thin cord that tied her hands in place. Agnes was familiar with such marks. She looked back down at the body and made a note of the bruising on the woman's thighs. She leaned closer to the marks and took a few more pictures. She could clearly see the outline of a hand; she placed her own hand in the print for comparison. It wasn't particularly big, but obviously the owner of the hand was powerful.

"My pictures are never good enough for you, are they Elliott?"

Agnes shrugged and turned off her camera before placing it back in her pocket. "It's not that I don't like your pictures Donny. It's just that I have to wait days for them sometimes."

Donny Nielson started shooting pictures of the body as the coroners arrived to remove it. "Can I help it if I'm overworked? Congrats on the bars by the way, you deserve them."

Agnes tapped Donny on the shoulder as he finished his shots. "Do me a favor and take some of the watchers." She pointed to a group of people that had congregated behind the thin strip of police tape about a hundred yards away.

"Sure thing." Donny quickly changed lenses and adjusted his camera for the low light. He zoomed in on the crowd and clicked off a dozen shots. "I'll have them for you tomorrow afternoon." He started to break down his equipment.

"I won't hold my breath," Agnes said mostly to herself as she headed over to join Jeff who was talking to the mounted police officer. Jeff smiled at her as she came to a stop next to him.

"Lt. Kelly-Elliott, this is Sgt. Macks; he found the body earlier this evening."

Agnes reached out and shook the man's gloved hand. She looked up at the officer's horse which stood patiently beside his rider. "Beautiful animal." She started conversationally. She found that even veteran police officers could become spooked by the sight of a body lying lifeless. "How long have you been with the mounted force?"

"Six months, ma'am," he said with pride.

"I rode with them for a year just after joining the department." Agnes remembered the time fondly and smiled. "Is this your regular patrol?"

"Yes ma'am. I check the tracks every night between ten and eleven. There was a big to do at the White Elephant Saloon and sometimes they wander down here for other activities."

Activities that require crack pipes, condoms, and after coitus cigarettes, Agnes thought to herself. "Do me a favor and write it all down tonight. I know you're already an hour over your shift so we won't keep you any longer."

The officer tipped his hat to her politely. "Thank you, Lieutenant. I'll have a report for you in the morning."

"Afternoon will be fine, I'm not due in until after eleven tomorrow." Agnes shook the man's hand again and watched as he mounted his horse and rode off. "I don't like this Jeff. It's too clean and neat."

"Creepy for sure." Jeff yawned.

"Are you done here?" Agnes asked with concern.

"I want to take a quick look at the crowd, then I'm headed home. I'll see you tomorrow, right?"

Agnes looked at her watch. "Yeah, I want to take a look around here for a minute or two, then I'll be headed home myself." Agnes turned and headed back toward the tracks. She looked around with a critical eye. It was a slightly risky place to dump a body, especially since it was routinely patrolled. The killer might not have known that Officer Macks made it his business to check out the tracks regularly. Then again maybe the killer knew perfectly well when and where Macks made his sweep and wanted the body to be found.

Agnes had a very bad feeling.

Nearly three hundred miles south…

Cocheta Lovejoy pulled her Bronco into her assigned parking space at Company D's field office in San Antonio, Texas. It was just five a.m, and she felt slightly cheated of sleep. It would be a rough day for fools and idiots that crossed her path. She hauled out her tanned leather brief case as she slid off the seat to the pavement below. She stamped her feet in her well worn cowboy boots to settle her jeans over them before turning back to the truck and retrieving her white Stetson hat that she promptly placed on her head.

The office was nearly deserted as she made her way to her own little corner. The soft sided briefcase landed with a thud on her desk top as she pushed the power button on her PC monitor. There was a thick pile of messages on top of her keyboard that she picked up and shuffled through. None of them seemed immediately important so she tossed them into the top tray of her in box along with her hat.

The screen of the monitor came to life and she pulled her chair underneath herself, entered her password, and started to access her email. There were over fifty messages, but she was only interested in the last one she'd received. She opened it and sat back in her chair as it loaded.

"You're in early."

Cocheta didn't even look up from the information that was materializing in front of her as she answered. "Another body was found, this time in Ft. Worth."

George Cantrell came around to look over Cocheta's shoulder. "One of yours?"

"Sounds like it," Cocheta scrolled through the information, "definitely." She pushed back away from the desk causing her friend and fellow Ranger to step out of the way.

"Are you going up there?"

"I'll contact someone at Company B and see if they have a contact for me over in Ft. Worth. I'll probably drive up there later this week." Cocheta ran her fingers through her dark hair.

George propped himself up against the wall and crossed his arms. "You still think your killer is a woman?"

"I know she is." Cocheta spun in her chair to look at the array of photos on the back wall of her office. "She hates her own kind." The only thing that connected all the victims socially was the fact that they were lesbian. Cocheta had spent hours making that one connection by thoroughly investigating each and every victim.

The photos represented fourteen bodies that had been found all over the state of Texas. There was hardly a metropolitan area that had not fallen victim to the killer's rampage. The first six bodies were found in and around San Antonio, in five different counties. The situation fell onto Cocheta's desk after a long battle between local law enforcement agencies for jurisdiction rights. The Governor had finally put an end to the bickering by handing the investigation over to the Rangers, who had state-wide jurisdiction. This was Cocheta's first task force and she was determined to catch the Rapture Killer.

The local press had coined the name "Rapture Killer" because of the way the bodies were found. Heads pointing west, feet pointing east, eyes wide open, waiting for the coming of Christ. Their hands were always pressed together in prayer. That was the extent of the press' knowledge. Cocheta refused to let other details go. All she needed was a copy cat killer on the

Cocheta had worked with an FBI profiler in order to get an idea of with who she was dealing. As time went by it became clearer and more defined that their killer was a woman whose victims were all young lesbians. The method of the killing still sent a shiver down Cocheta's spine. She was certain she herself narrowly escaped the killer months prior in Houston. The woman who called herself Kelly had tried to restrain her for a sexual encounter, but had relented and set her free. Cocheta had gone to the Ranger's Forensic Artist and had a sketch done from her recollection of the woman. It sat in the middle of the pictures of dead bodies. She knew exactly for whom she was looking.

Exactly three days after the first body was found a second body was discovered by a group of children who were on a field trip exploring the Tarantula Train.

The day was cold, wet, and miserable. Agnes was not in a good mood as she stepped from her car into the dismal weather. She pulled her police jacket tighter around her as the wind gusted, sending sharp bits of sleet against her skin. She hated the cold more and more as she got older, and her family was cursed with arthritis. It seemed it was her turn to suffer. Agnes bit back a groan as she climbed up and over two connected train cars to get to the crime scene on the other side. She made a mental note to make a doctor's appointment as soon as possible. Surely there was some pill she could take for some relief.

The body was shielded from prying eyes by an ambulance and a fire truck that had tarps fastened between them so prying eyes could not see. There was always a bigger crowd in light of day. Agnes angled into the makeshift tent and bumped into Jeff. "Aren't you just Johnny-on-the-spot," she said to the young detective as she pulled on her latex gloves.

"They call. I come." Jeff shrugged. He pointed to the body on the ground between the two emergency vehicles, "Looks familiar huh?"

"Damn it." Agnes growled as she took in the form's position and the arrangement of the woman's limbs. "We have a serial killer"

"Two bodies does not a serial killer make, Elliott," Jeff protested.

Agnes groped her note book in her jacket pocket. "I bet you twenty we have another one of these in a couple days."

Jeff considered the bet. "Fifty bucks."

"You're on." Agnes accepted his wager as she crouched next to the body. "Same ligature marks on the wrists and ankles, same positioning of the hands, the head is facing west. Looks consistent to me."

"Could be some whack job that picked up two girls and took his time killing them, and now he's got it out of his system," Jeff surmised.

Agnes looked up at him "Do you really think that?"

"Could be."

Agnes shook her head. Jeff was always a bit optimistic. She turned back to the body. The woman was in her early twenties with dark brown hair and brown eyes that stared lifelessly at the blue tarp above. Agnes pulled her camera out and started taking pictures. The investigation of the first woman turned up little. They hadn't even been able to find a name yet and had labeled the case Jane Doe #3. She hoped that they had better luck with this one. She zoomed her camera in on a tattoo on the woman's arm. "She's gay."

Jeff crouched next to Agnes and lifted the body gently to get a better look at the rainbow-colored Chinese character. "What is that?"

"It means woman."

"And you know this how?" Jeff questioned as he lowered the woman's shoulder back to the gravel.

"I am one." Agnes answered hoping to end the line of questioning.

"Fair enough."

They worked silently for several minutes inventorying the body before checking with the CSI unit who was walking the immediate area looking for additional evidence. Agnes finally closed her notebook three hours after arriving on the scene and headed back to the station. She hoped there would be a message waiting for her from the coroner's office. Agnes was not good at waiting.

The next day found Agnes entering the Tarrant County Medical Examiners office. Autopsies were not Agnes' favorite thing to attend. The coroner's office had an indescribable smell-something between clean and bile-the kind of smell that hangs on for days. Then there were the people, quirky, geeky, people. The kind of people who got off on finding worms in dead people's skulls. She smiled as best she could at the woman in white lab coat with a protective plastic shield over her face and a small buzzing saw in her hand. The woman gave her a friendly smile and a nod before going to work with the saw on a body lying on the table in front of her. Creepy, Agnes thought as she moved onto another table where Jane Doe #3 lay with a white sheet covering her from ankles to neck. The man standing next to the table looked up and greeted her.

"Elliott."

"Hey, Pete." If Agnes had to name her favorite coroner it had to be Pete Winsfield, he was about fifty years old and cranky. He hated everyone and everything, but when it came down to business he was the very best. "Can you enlighten me?"

"Female, about twenty-five, we're running her prints so if she's been in the system or a state employee we should get a hit. She's healthy besides being dead."

Agnes tsked Pete for being glib but he just continued on with his report.

Pete pulled the sheet away from the body. "Cause of death, suffocation. She struggled against her bonds while it happened causing some trauma to the tissues on her wrists and ankles. We found leather of two grades imbedded in the wounds on the wrists. We think the damage was done by a wide cuff common to the practice of bondage."

Agnes could feel herself flush and was thankful that Pete was preoccupied with the report he was giving. She tried to settle down and focus on what the medical examiner was saying.

"Her hands were posed post mortem, and she was thoroughly washed. We didn't find any foreign DNA, not even a trace."

"Just my luck, a neat freak," Agnes groused.

Pete pulled a lit magnifying glass around and settled it over the woman's wide open eyes. "This is a little weird also." He focused the magnifier and motioned for Agnes to come closer. "It's hard to see, but her eyelids have been pinned open."

Agnes had to really look for the tiny silver head of the straight pin that held the flap of flesh in place. "Why forced open?" Agnes thought aloud. "What about the next one?"

Pete crossed to the very next table and drew back the sheet. "She's about the same age, maybe younger. Ligature marks are the same. Eyelids are pinned the same. Same cause of death."

"This has to be the same guy."

Pete laid the sheet back over the body of Jane Doe #4. "We've printed her also. I can't promise any thing. I have photos for you though, and at least we know that this one might have some connections to the gay community; it's a start for you anyway."

Agnes accepted the two photos of the victims. "We'll do our best."

"You always do." Pete smiled at her before turning back to his work.

Agnes sat in her car for a long while, looking at her notes and adding information as she went. There was something eerily familiar about the positioning of the bodies. She could almost put a name to it. Maybe she would run it all by Jeff. He was good at filling in the spaces she missed.

Cocheta pulled her Stetson down to shade her eyes from the bright sun that bounced off of glass skyscrapers in downtown Ft. Worth. It was a chilly forty-five degrees outside her warm and toasty Bronco's interior. There was a hastily folded map on her knee at which she glanced frequently as she navigated the unfamiliar streets.

She had been nearly two hours late to a meeting with the lead investigator that had been assigned to the recent murder victims. When she arrived at the office she found that the detective had been called away to yet another body that was discovered on the banks of the Trinity River. Three bodies in eight days was an escalation of behavior.

A long sigh of relief flowed from Cocheta as she rounded a corner and saw the throng of police cars parked along a stretch of green river bank. She looked down at the piece of paper that was clipped to the map with the detective's name on it. She hoped that Lt. Elliott wasn't an asshole. She didn't have the greatest people skills and assholes really put her to the test.

She slid from her truck and zipped up her coat as she approached the yellow crime scene tape. She pulled her badge and ID wallet from her back pocket and showed it to one of the uniformed officers keeping the crowd at bay. He waved her under the tape and she asked where she might find Detective Elliott, and was sent down the river bank to look for a red headed terror. Cocheta knew she found the place when an angry voice could be clearly heard dressing down a visibly shaking officer.

"…just in what manual did you learn that you should lay your ungloved hands on a dead body!"

"I'm sorry Lieutenant. I wasn't thinking…"

"Get the fuck out of my sight! Get away from my crime scene!"

Cocheta watched the young officer sulk off, and then looked back at the woman who had been telling him off. Her heart nearly stopped in her chest. "Kelly."

Agnes looked up at the sound of her maiden name. The only people who called her Kelly mistook her hyphenated name for a first and last combination, or the women with whom she had the opportunity to interact on a more personal level. She was shocked to recognize the woman who had spoken as Cochise.

"Hey Elliott!" Donny Nielson called from closer down by the river where he was taking pictures of various pieces of evidence before it was collected by technicians.

Agnes pulled her eyes away from Cochise to look at the photographer. "What!" she yelled.

"How far do you want me to go?" Donny waved his hands out from his sides like a little kid waiting for directions.

Agnes closed her eyes and shook her head then looked back at the man. "Just shoot the entire area, a hundred yards on each side and all the way to the street!" She carefully stepped around the dead woman on the grass to come to a halt in front of Cochise. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I am Sgt. Cocheta Lovejoy of the Texas Rangers. Now…what is your name?" Cocheta hissed between clenched teeth.

Agnes was caught. After ten years she was caught dead and there wasn't a thing she could do but answer the question. "Lt. Agnes Kelly-Elliott of the Ft. Worth P.D."

Cocheta was at a loss, here before her was the number one suspect for thirty-seven murders, and she was a cop. "Convenient," she muttered to herself as she turned away from the detective to look at the river.

"Why are you here?" Agnes asked from behind her.

"Your three victims are of special interest to me," Cocheta said as she watched the river flow by.

"How?"

The question seemed genuine. Cocheta couldn't believe the gall of the woman asking it. But she decided to play the game until she had the evidence she needed to pull Agnes in for questioning. She turned around and looked directly into those bright green eyes she remembered so well. "You have three bodies. I have another fourteen." She paid close attention to Agnes' reaction. There was a hint of suppressed surprise.

"Fourteen." Agnes ran her hands through her hair and bit her lower lip. She knew she was facing a serial killer, but she had no idea how prolific. "Over how long?"

"Are you serious?" Cocheta asked with a scoff.

"Is it some kind of protected Ranger information or something? How long?"

"Five months. Since about the time we met." Cocheta watched Agnes closely for any reaction.

Agnes walked about ten paces away from the body on the ground, away from the accusatory eyes of Ranger Lovejoy. She understood perfectly at what the Ranger was hinting, and it was almost plausible. She turned around angrily. "You're wrong. You know that right?"

Cocheta shook her head. "No, I don't know that. In fact I think I'm looking at my killer right now. I might have to dig up a bit more evidence but I'll have you in an interview room within a week."

"Fuck you!" Agnes walked away, up the river bank toward her car. The whole thing had just become ridiculously absurd. She suddenly stopped and held her head in her hands. If Cocheta Lovejoy carried out her threat her secret would be out; her life would be forever changed. She looked back at the Ranger standing next to the sheet-covered body of yet another murdered woman. On top of everything else this personal vendetta that Cocheta Lovejoy seemed bent on investigating her would allow a serial killer to continue his spree. She needed time to think, time to… what? Cover my tracts? Make witnesses disappear? Make those women disappear? Agnes thought as she turned back toward the street and made for her car. She had never felt quite so hopeless and desperate in her life.

Cocheta watched as the detective walked away. She made a quick decision to follow Agnes to wherever she was going and jogged up the hill to her truck. She ended up five cars behind Agnes' car and had to run a couple of red lights to keep up. The impromptu chase ended at a church in the heart of downtown Ft. Worth. Cocheta parked in an empty metered space and watched as Agnes Kelly-Elliott entered St. Patrick's Cathedral. It seemed like an odd choice of places to run off to for a serial killer, and then she thought about the body positioning and the arranging of the hands to look like they were praying. The images played in her head, as did her recollection of the killer's profile. They knew that the killer might be some kind of religious fanatic because of their propensity of laying out the victims with their feet facing east, the direction the risen Christ would come from when he returned to collect his flock. She wished she knew more about Catholics now, and if they had a firm belief of how the dead should be laid to rest.

Cocheta exited her truck and crossed the street. She pushed open the heavy wooden door and entered the quiet interior. There were several people sitting in the pews and it took her a moment to locate Kelly-Elliott. She flipped open her cell phone and made a quick phone call before slipping into a pew a few rows back from the kneeling woman and waited.

Agnes ran to the only place she knew where it would be quiet and she would be left alone to think. She needed to calm down and try to figure a way out of the situation in which she was fast becoming engulfed. Her heart was beating heavily in her chest and her breathing had become labored. She closed her eyes and began calming herself. As her heart slowed she began reviewing her options.

There weren't very many to consider. She was going to be outed. It was not something she was ready to face; there was too much to lose, and she had no doubt that she would be losing a lot. Then there was the matter of being a murder suspect. She knew she was innocent, but there could be circumstantial evidence that would make it look otherwise. She knew she could lose her job, her family, and her friends if they found out her secret. Her hands balled into fists and she felt the first tears fall down her cheeks.

If God never gave more than one could handle he certainly was pushing the limits with this mess. Agnes thought as she sniffled and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands.

Cocheta sat for nearly an hour watching as her suspect knelt steadily, only moving to wipe her eyes or nose. It was obvious the woman was at a near breaking point. That was good news for the Ranger. It would mean less work in the box. A tap on her shoulder startled her and she looked up into the familiar face of Lou Chapman, her counterpart with the local Ranger Company B. She stood and walked with him back to the church's foyer where they could talk a little more openly but still keep an eye on her target.

She quickly filled Lou in on the current situation, she asked the Sergeant to keep an eye on Kelly-Elliott while she went ahead to have a serious discussion with the detective's superior officer. It was time to put an end to the killings.

Agnes finally sat back into the pew when her feet started to tingle from the continuous kneeling. She still had no idea what she was going to do. She knew she had to talk to her captain as soon as possible. There would be some major fallout for the department if she were prosecuted as a serial killer. Agnes looked down at her watch. She had been in the church for almost two hours. She couldn't think of a time in her life that hours had passed by so quickly. She stood shakily and walked down the long carpeted isle toward the back of the church. The air had turned colder outside and the wind dried the moisture clinging to her face. If she had looked behind her she would have seen the tall man following her to the parking lot, and then rush to another car to follow her.

She drove to the police station and parked in her newly assigned place. It was quickly becoming dark. The graying sky matched her somber mood as she walked into her bleak future through the double glass doors. The desk Sgt. picked up his phone as soon as he saw her. There was no friendly wave, no comfortable banter between comrades as she passed. Her stomach turned and she had to duck into the women's bathroom to throw up. She knew that it was already starting. She knelt in front of the toilet bowl for several minutes as she vomited the lunch she had taken with Jeff around noon. The dry heaves continued after that for an eternity. She thought her head would split in two before she regained control of her rebelling body.

She stumbled to the sink where she rinsed her mouth and washed her face. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and thought she hardly recognized the pathetic stranger staring back at her. The door opening made her flinch.

"Lt. Kelly-Elliott?" a young female officer in a crisp blue uniform asked.

Agnes addressed the woman through the mirror's reflection. "Ye… yes?"

"Captain Gonzales is waiting for you in Interview Two."

"I'll be right there."

The woman looked apologetic. "I'm supposed to make sure you get there."

Agnes turned and faced the woman. She was a new cop, shiny new. She remembered being that new, that eager. "I suppose they want you to deliver me without my gun, also." Agnes reached into her shoulder holster and began to pull the weapon free when the shiny new cop beat her to the draw. She stared down the barrel of a nine millimeter automatic pistol and considered pressing the issue, dead might be better than what was to come. But suicide was a sin that couldn't be forgiven, so she raised her hands and looked expectantly at the woman who had her under the gun. She waited for the officer to remove her revolver from her holster before dropping her hands to her sides.

"After you, Lieutenant."

Agnes found herself ushered quite effectively out of the bathroom and through the maze of hallways to a small room labeled Interview Two. She was walked through the door and made to sit in a plastic chair facing across a table from three people.

Jeff Roberts, Captain Michael Gonzales, and Ranger Cocheta Lovejoy.

The officer that had escorted her to the room handed her gun to the Captain then left.

"Do I need an attorney?" Agnes asked as she rested her arms on the table top. She interlaced her fingers and looked pointedly at her captain. Her panic left her only to be replaced by an eerie poise that she had no idea she could muster at this point.

"Are you guilty?" Gonzales asked as he removed the bullets from the revolver.

"Of what exactly?" Agnes countered.

Jeff leaned forward. "Elliott, you're in serious shit here."

Agnes looked at him for a long silent moment before looking back at her Captain. "What exactly are the charges against me?"

"Nothing has been filed yet."

"Then I'm going back to work, because there's a killer on the loose." Agnes jumped in her chair as Cocheta Lovejoy's hand came crashing down on the table top with a sharp bang.

"You're not going anywhere!"

Gonzales put a restraining hand on the Ranger's shoulder. "Look, Agnes, why don't we just talk about this for a bit, see if we can understand what's going on with you."

Agnes took a deep breath and exhaled, she repeated the action several times to quell her churning stomach. "What exactly do you want to know?" She looked directly at Captain Gonzales, who couldn't maintain eye contact with her and turned away.

"Is she right about you?" Jeff asked.

"That depends, I'm sure Ranger Lovejoy had a few things she's told you about me. Am I a lesbian, yes. Do I have a bondage fetish? It's a slight deviation I assure you. Am I multiple killer? No." Agnes' head tilted to one side. "I would really like to speak to my Union rep at least."

"I already have a search warrant for your house, Elliott. Do you think the union will back you when we come up with your little bag of tricks?" Lovejoy asked and stood. "I'll tell you what, we'll give your union a call, see if they're interested in sending someone over. You won't mind waiting will you?"

Agnes closed her eyes and looked away from the three of them as they rose and exited the room. She knew well that they could hold her without charges for up to seventy-two hours. She knew how they would work her, play with her. She knew because she had done it herself. She sat silently, and relaxed as much as she could in the straight back chair. Agnes was not about to give into the tactics she wielded as expertly as any other detective.

She stared straight ahead at the one way mirrored wall. She knew they were behind it, talking about her, strategizing, divvying up tactics.

Time passed agonizingly slowly. She sat alone for nearly three hours before the door opened again.

"God damn it, Agnes. What the hell have you gotten yourself into?"

She waited for Griff to sit opposite her before even looking at him. "I haven't done anything illegal."

"They're saying you're queer." Griff scrunched up his face. "Were you fucking women while we were married?"

"No, I left that up to you Griff." Agnes said angrily. "Why the fuck are you here?"

"Jeff called me, said you were in trouble, I couldn't believe it so I had to hear it from you."

"Being a lesbian is not against the law, Griff."

"Tying up women and smothering them is, Agnes!" Griff pounded the table top. "They have a pile of shit from the house, kinky shit Agnes." He shook his head and looked at the scarred table surface.

"I want you to look at me Griff. Look me in the eyes." She waited for him to make the direct eye contact she needed to convey her truth to him. "I did not kill anyone."

Griff held her gaze steadily. "But the other stuff?"

"There's nothing I can do about that to make you or anyone, including myself, feel better about it, Griff. If you can't handle it, I don't know what to say."

"What do I tell the kids? And how about your folks?" Griff leaned forward resting his arms on the table top. "What the hell am I going to tell them?"

"Whatever you want, or let them find out when the newspapers and news come out with it in the morning. I don't care," Agnes said defeated, there was no way out of the situation. She was going to be outed to her friends and family.

Griff sat back in his chair and ran his hands through his thick black hair. "This is fucked up Agnes." He stood and moved toward the door.

"Griff," Agnes called softly and was relieved when he stopped with his hand on the doorknob, he turned back toward her and waited to hear what she would say. "I didn't kill those women. You have to believe me."

Griff pressed his lips into a thin line and then nodded. "I believe you. Hang in there. Don't give the bastards a thing."

Agnes felt the tears well up in her eyes. "I won't." She watched him go. It would be another five hours before someone else came into the room to see if she needed the restroom. Agnes was escorted to the bathroom and back to the interview room. She dared not to look at any of her fellow officers during the trip; she knew she wouldn't be able to bear the judgment she would see in their faces. All too soon she was back in Interview Room Two. Her three interrogators where back in their seats, whispering amongst themselves. She quietly retook her seat and waited. It had been almost eight hours since her questioning had begun.

"Do you need something to drink?" Captain Gonzales asked.

Agnes contemplated the offer. It could be quite a while before they let her return to the restroom. "No thank you."

"Do you want to make a statement before we make the announcement?" Lovejoy asked.

Agnes looked perplexed about the question.

"To the press," The Ranger clarified.

Agnes shook her head. "You don't have any proof, Ranger Lovejoy. Wouldn't it be a little premature?"

The interview room's door swung open and a man that wasn't familiar to Agnes dropped a thick pile of paper on the table in front of Ranger Lovejoy. He gave Agnes a look of pure disgust before he exited.

Agnes sat back in her chair while the Ranger looked over the pages in front of her.

"San Antonio, September fourteenth." Cocheta looked up at Agnes "How long did you stay at the Marriott?"

Agnes took a deep breath, before saying "Two days. I suppose you have all my credit card records there? Were you able to get my cell phone records as well on such short notice?"

In answer the Ranger flipped through the thick stack of paper and triumphantly held up the documents, waving them slightly at Agnes.

"We found your first victim on the sixteenth."

"I didn't kill anyone," Agnes said emotionlessly.

"San Antonio, September twenty-first."

"Three days," Agnes answered the unasked question.

"Victims three and five."

"How do you account for two and four?" Agnes asked analytically.

"Maybe you didn't always spend the night."

"This is ridiculous," Agnes said angrily.

"October," Cocheta continued.

"I want a lawyer."

Cocheta sat back in her chair. "I'll tell you what you can have while you wait for your attorney. You can have a cell at county until I work out all this evidence." She tapped the sheaf of paper.

Agnes paled. "You can't send me to county. I'm a cop!"

"Not anymore," Cocheta said with a contemptuous smile. The Ranger turned to Captain Gonzales. "I want her charged with the three recent ones, and then I'll add the rest as I confirm the information."

Jeff rose and produced a pair of cuffs as the door swung open again. Two uniformed officers and the man who had brought the papers to the Ranger crowded into the room. Agnes' badge and ID was stripped from her along with her shoulder holster. She was pushed against a wall and searched. Her pockets were turned inside out and she heard her money clip, loose change, and rosary hit the table top behind her. They took her watch and her one and only ring, a gift from her grandmother. She was cuffed while Jeff read her the Miranda Rights from a small card he carried in his wallet. She had done this countless times to thousands of people. Stripping them of their property, their individuality, and sending them to a cell to await justice. Now that the table had been turned on her, she felt a certain empathy for those people that she never had before.

She had awakened that morning to another day of serve and protect and now she was facing a fight for her life.

Cocheta sat quietly as she watched the Ft. Worth officers arrest one of their own. She felt nothing but elation as the cuffs clicked into place. Agnes Kelly-Elliott was spun to face her one last time before being taken away for booking. Cocheta didn't believe she had ever seen such a look of utter despair in her entire life. She reached out and picked up the rosary that was lying in the small pile of personal effects that had been stripped from the detective. "I think your God has abandoned you."

"I think you may be right," Agnes answered with a piercing gaze. "Why don't you keep it Ranger Lovejoy, a memento? Perhaps it'll bring you comfort when you look down on the next victim." Agnes was pushed from behind and out the room.

Captain Gonzales had enough for one day and stood. He pointed to the empty chair on the other side of the table, "That woman is a fine cop, and one of the best detectives I've ever had. If you're wrong about this…"

"Then I'll be the first to kiss her ass," Cocheta said as she stood. "But I'm right, there's too much corroborating evidence and I'll have her confessing in less than a week. She won't do well in general population at county."

Gonzales shook his head sadly. There was no way he would believe that Agnes was guilty until the evidence was overwhelming. He silently picked up the rest of Agnes' personal effects and walked out of the room without another word or look toward the Ranger.

Six days passed and Cocheta was entrenched at a makeshift desk in Company B's office. Lou Chapman had placed a piece of plywood over two file cabinets and pilfered a chair from one of the interview rooms for her. She had three piles of paper in front of her and a laptop computer opened and running on the end of the board. She had made a total of twenty-three solid connections between Agnes Kelly-Elliott's travels and the appearance of victims. A search of the woman's house had produced the bondage kit she used on her trips out of town. It appeared that the cuffs matched the ligature marks on the victims' wrists and ankles. She had a long list of women to interview thanks to a state-wide information campaign. Kelly-Elliott had been a busy woman over the last eight to ten years.

Cocheta "Cochise" Lovejoy was being haled by civic leaders across the state as a hero of the people. It was the biggest case she had handled to date and it certainly was the biggest case she had ever solved.

"Your girl got into some trouble in jail," Lou said as he dropped the Dallas Morning News over Cocheta's head and onto the desk in front of her.

"What kind of trouble?" she asked picking up the paper and reading where Lou pointed. It seemed as though the most despised woman in Texas had gotten a little jail-house justice in the form of a beating. "I'm all broken up," Cocheta said flatly as she tossed the paper in an ever growing stack next to her chair. The press had been gleefully relentless in their pursuit of information about Agnes Kelly-Elliott. There hadn't been a single bit of Agnes' life left in the shadows causing quite a reaction from family and friends. Kelly-Elliott was pretty much alone in the world.

"Gonzales called and wanted you to authorize her to be moved to solitary."

"Has she asked to talk with me?" Cocheta questioned over her shoulder to Lou who was perched on the windowsill behind her.

"No. And she's been pushing for her arraignment hearing. They've mocked released her twice now." Lou referred to the practice of releasing a person of interest from jail only to re-arrest them immediately on the same charge. "The Police Union has declined to represent her, and she doesn't have the money for someone private, so she's asked for a public defender. I don't know how you continue to manipulate this thing."

Cocheta chuckled. "Can I help it if judges love me? She's been off the street for almost a week and we don't have a new body. I call that a success. Besides, these loopholes in the system should work in our favor sometimes too."

"You know, Cochise, I'm not sure I like this side of you." Lou straightened and left without another word.

Cocheta huffed and returned to her work but something gnawed at her and she angrily pushed herself away from the improvised desk. "Damn it all." She stood and grabbed her hat and coat.

It took her nearly an hour in rush hour traffic to make it to the Tarrant County Jail. She was escorted to the facilities infirmary where Kelly-Elliott laid face down on an old hospital bed. The woman's back was covered with gauze bandages that had several spots of blood soaked through from the hidden wounds beneath. "You know you can end all this and be sent to a nice secure cell on Death Row if you just confess."

Agnes turned her head toward the Ranger and blankly blinked her green eyes at her. "I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't rape anyone, and I didn't kill anyone."

Cocheta pointed a long finger at the prone woman. "It's just that kind of attitude that gets one carved up at breakfast."

"Fuck off, Ranger Lovejoy." Agnes turned her head away.

Cocheta walked up next to the bed and leaned over so she could whisper into Agnes' ear. "You'll be begging me to take you to Gainesville in another week." She then placed a soft kiss on Agnes' ear. "A memento for you, Agnes." Cocheta stood. "Have the warden call me when you're ready to talk." She thought she might have heard a sob come from Agnes, but dismissed it. The woman did not disserve her consideration in any form.

Agnes listened as the Ranger left the infirmary. It had been the most difficult six days of her life. She had been in survival mode since she'd arrived at the county jail. The latest attack was well organized and particularly brutal. She would never be rid of the scars on her back that spelled out the word 'rapist'. There was a moment during the assault that she wished they would just kill her, but her natural instincts of self preservation kicked in and she was able to subdue three of the five women that had taken it upon themselves to punish her for her supposed crimes. The jail's guards had arrived to break up the scuffle long moments later, but the damage had been done to her back and the guards had been less than sympathetic.

Agnes knew she wasn't safe anywhere. All she could do was to hold on until the killer struck again. Even then she doubted the Ranger would relent. But it was all she had to hold on to now.

Twenty-one days passed slowly for Cocheta as she waited for Agnes to give up. The Ft. Worth police continued to stretch out Agnes' wait with underhanded and less than honorable tactics to keep her in jail. Cocheta had to block a request by Kelly-Elliott to have herself charged federally, knowing that she would receive better treatment from the FBI than she was from her own department. The Ranger refused to let her prisoner slip into the hands of the Feds.

Cocheta had to suffer through three visits from Captain Michael Gonzales who had the nerve to demand that his Lieutenant Kelly-Elliott be moved to solitary for her protection. Gonzales seemed to be the only human on the planet willing to stand up for Agnes and it grated Cocheta's very being that he couldn't see the truth.

She received a call from the jail early in the week to report that her favorite prisoner had been stabbed six times in the exercise yard before guards could break up the altercation. For a moment Cocheta was concerned that Agnes would escape trial by dying, but the warden assured her that most of the wounds were superficial and that the two that were more serious had been attended to and Ms. Elliott would be at her arraignment that week.

Cocheta put on her best suit for the occasion. The black flannel frock coat with matching vest and pants was contrasted by a stark white shirt and her best white Stetson hat. A thin black and silver bolo completed her look along with her western style holster hanging low on her hips and tied around her thigh. Her silver Ranger badge sat squarely over her left breast. The news cameras flashed and whirred at her as she walked up the courthouse steps.

She stopped for a couple of questions from reporters for the local news stations before entering the rotunda. She showed her ID to the bailiff at the metal detector and bypassed it with her gun firmly in place. The courtroom was crowded with more reporters and a few select press photographers. It was an historic day; the world's most prolific female serial killer was about to be officially charged.

Agnes Kelly-Elliott was walked into the room between two men that outweighed her by at least three hundred pounds. A woman corrections officer was right behind them. Cocheta saw that Agnes had lost a considerable amount of weight and that she looked pale and withdrawn. The prisoner's wrists were shackled together, and then a chain held them close to her body as it wrapped around the thin waist. Agnes had to shuffle her feet as she walked due to the additional shackles around her ankles. A young woman who looked to be barely out of law school stepped forward and conversed quickly with Agnes before the court clerk called the case.

"The State of Texas versus Agnes Mary Kelly-Elliott!" the court clerk announced and the room hushed.

"How does the defendant plea?" the judge asked.

"Not guilty," came Agnes' quiet reply.

The cameras snapped and whirred; the gavel hit wood over and over as the crowd in the room erupted in clamor. Cocheta recognized several family members of some of the victims attending and they were angry with the plea. She couldn't blame them. No one wanted a long drawn out trial.

The District Attorney himself was overseeing the case and stood to speak. "The state wishes the defendant be held without bail, your honor. The nature of the crimes are heinous and she has little support of her family. We're afraid she will flee the state and even the country."

"I remand you back to county, without bail, until your trial." The judge's gavel gave a final solid hit to the well-worn wood block on the bench.

Cocheta watched as Agnes was led back through the side door. Perhaps she could change the woman's mind about the not guilty plea. She turned and scooted out the near by back door brushing closely by a woman leaving at the same time. She excused her self and made her way to the prisoner holding area of the courthouse.

In the back of the courtroom sat the one person in all of Texas that knew Agnes Kelly-Elliott was innocent. She stood up gracefully and exited the courtroom brushing past the well dressed Ranger who reverently held a white Stetson cowboy hat with both hands in front of her.

"Pardon," the Ranger had said with a flashing smile that sent vibrations of pleasure to her center of her very being.

She merely smiled in response and continued through the door. It wouldn't do to spend too much time with the famous Cocheta Lovejoy. Even though she had a tiny bone to pick with the gorgeous woman, it would have to wait.

Marcella Salvatore had a more pressing problem. Her own salvation.

She had been in Abilene when Agnes Kelly-Elliot had been arrested. A client with an emergency required her personal attention. She had the opportunity to pick up a soul for God while she was attending to business and had just arrived back at her hotel room when the news broke. It was like God had provided to her the opportunity to walk away from her perverse life, and she did try to refrain from initiating any contact with a subject that would inflame her passion. But soon it became clear that she couldn't deny herself any longer. It was simply stupefying to Marcella that God would curse her so. The only way she could think to deal with her unnatural urges was to cut down what caused them.

No one understood. The priests urged Marcella to turn herself in, she had been livid the first time one of them had pushed her to confess to a mere mortal man. Couldn't they see that God had given her this plight in order to cut out a malignancy? She was God's instrument.

She walked the half block to her car and opened the trunk. Inside was the bound and gagged woman that had sparked her interest at Sister's Delight last night. "I just have one more stop to make, and then we can finish up," she said a bit too sweetly to the girl. She slammed the trunk closed on the muffled pleas. It had bothered her the first few times, the begging…, but she knew she had to be strong, not just for herself, but for them, too. She believed her intervention was their only ticket to heaven. It was a hard thing to do, killing another person, but this was more like a mercy killing. These women needed to die. They were wired wrong. So she would release their souls back to God's care and perhaps if they were worthy they would be born again into a healthy normal body.

Marcella slipped behind the wheel of her car. She decided her celibate days were over; she had taken enough time off from her mission. There would be another repentant soul delivered to God by morning.

Her stop was pure business. She needed to wrap up a sale for her mortal job. The selling of physical fitness equipment paid the bills and kept her on the move. God had surely granted her the freedom her job gave her to carry out his will. God had a reason for everything. She parked a good distance from the gym building at she would be conducting her business. She didn't want to have any sudden thumping from the trunk attract any attention.

Marcella was good at her job. She was good at it because she believed the scripture to be true. The body was a temple of God and should be treated as thus. She worked out every day and was quite proficient at demonstrating the machines she sold. Her day-planner was full of satisfied customers and she made a comfortable living. Again she gave praise to God for making it so. She spent only fifteen minutes getting a new contract signed for servicing of current machines and a purchase order for three new sets that would net her a tidy sum of money. She was soon off again to do the Lords work. This time there would be a little extra hardship on her part, she had dreamt of blood the previous night, so blood there would be.

After a short discussion with the detail handling Kelly-Elliott, she was shown to a small holding cell. "You don't look so good Agnes."

"You should try this side of the line Ranger. It's a real eye opener." Agnes said flatly.

Cocheta let the invitation pass. "Why do you want to put these families through a trial, why not just confess?"

Agnes lifted nearly lifeless eyes and looked directly at Cocheta, "I'm not guilty. Your girl has moved on to somewhere else for a bit, but she'll be back. I wonder how you will feel, Cochise, how will you feel when you look down on the next dead girl?"

Cocheta banged her hand against the bars of the cell, "Not happening Agnes! You've been inside a month, and not even a hangnail has been reported. I can make things very difficult for you. You'll think the last month has been a day at Six Flags by the time I get done with you!" Cocheta turned and stormed away.

Jeff Roberts stood just inside a motel's room door. The manager of the motel had called earlier in the morning about a room that had been vandalized. When the uniformed officers had arrived and gotten a look at the room they quickly realized that something more than vandalism had gone on in the small room.

The Texas Star Motel could be described as modest. The rooms were clean, but not necessarily comfortable.

The coppery sent of blood wafted into him from the room. He hated his job some days. There was a lot of blood in the small confines. Puddles of it. He was waiting for a technician to bring him some booties for his shoes so he could enter the room without contaminating the scene with anything on his shoes. In return he wouldn't have to throw out the comfortable loafers because of blood soaking the supple leather.

He turned at the sound of someone heaving to witness one of the uniformed officers that had arrived on the scene first emptied his stomach of its contents. He didn't fault the man, what was visible in the room was truly grotesque. He wished Agnes was with him. He still found it hard to believe that his mentor was a killer, but then again, maybe that was why she was so good at her job.

Jeff slipped on the covers provided to him by a weary CSI tech and stepped fully into the room. He had to swallow back bile that lurched up in his throat as he got a good close look at the bed. There was so much blood that it had congealed into sloppy, blackish-red pools. Somewhere there was a body with no blood.

Jeff had just started to write down the crime scene details when his cell phone rang. He let it ring until the voice mail kicked in. He seldom answered his phone during an investigation. When it rang again immediately he knew this was one of those rare occasions that her needed to stop what he was doing and answer the phone.

Cocheta had been informed mid-morning that they had found a body that was consistent with her case against Kelly-Elliott, and she might want to check it out. She acknowledged Jeff Roberts with a tip of her hat as she bent and pulled the sheet off the victim. While at first glance the body appeared to resemble the other thirty-seven victims she noticed one prevailing deviation. Two large lacerations across the victim's torso. Cuts so deep that Cocheta could see into the interior of the abdomen and chest where bone and organs had been bisected with a ghastly slash of what she assumed was a chainsaw. The two lacerations formed a near perfect cross. The trademark folded arms were still neatly tied together and the hands were pressed into a praying configuration. Cocheta had not seen anything quite so ghastly. "When was she found?"

"About an hour ago." Jeff replied, "I have a fairly good idea where she was killed."

Cocheta had a problem. She might have some freak who decided to pick up where Kelly-Elliott had left off. This killer was a little different though. "Trying to make a name for themselves," she said too quietly.

"Pardon Ranger?" Jeff hadn't quite caught what the Ranger had muttered.

"I think we have a copycat." Cocheta let the sheet fall back down to cover the dead woman.

Jeff wondered if that might be the case, especially since Agnes had been pinned with the other killings. It had been a month without a body anywhere in the state. It did seem that they had the right person in jail. But some things about the previous bodies had not been released to the press, and this killer had somehow reproduced the staging of the body right down to which way the hands were folded together. "If you take away the slashes you have Agnes' work to a tee."

Cocheta saw it too; this was very close to the original killings. She paced away from the body and back again in thought. She stopped and pushed her hat back on her head. "What if she had a partner?" The thought sent a shiver through her spine, two predators working together would explain some of the victims she couldn't connect directly to Kelly-Elliott.

Jeff shook his head. "No. I don't buy that one Ranger. Either you have the wrong woman in jail, or someone has leaked details about the case and we have a second killer who likes to wallow in blood." He shivered at the thought of the motel room where he was certain the young woman under the sheet had been killed.

Cocheta covered her face with her hands. "I hate this shit!" She peeked out through her fingers at the body on the ground. "Okay, take me to the killing room."

Jeff did as asked, driving to the motel and ushering Ranger Lovejoy to the room where the blood painted everything inside.

"Shit," Cocheta whispered upon first seeing the room. "I want pictures of everything. I'm going to have a talk with Agnes in the morning. Maybe she can give us some insight."

"I'll get Donny on it." Jeff said then looked pointedly at the Ranger, "I think you might be wrong about Agnes. I think you've pissed someone off, Ranger Lovejoy."

"Why don't you leave the thinking to me Roberts? Just get those pictures to me by nine a.m."

"Yes, ma'am." Jeff mock saluted the Ranger and turned away.

Cocheta shook her head. She couldn't understand why Agnes still held loyalty among some of her friends. Hadn't she proven her case? Haven't I? She asked herself as she made her way back to her truck. "Absolutely," she confirmed for herself. "I've got my woman. This is a new killer."

Abilene, Texas sits in the middle of The Big Country of Texas. One hundred and fifteen thousand people call it home. Local police detective Taylor Betts was looking down on the badly decomposing body of a woman found earlier that day by a passing cyclist who was riding one of the more popular trails. This particular part of the trail had been closed because of some flooding early in the year and just recently reopened. The Assistant Coroner was currently leaning over the body. "How long has she been out here?" Betts asked barely holding his stomach in check.

"Three or four weeks. Long enough for the local wild life to have a bite or two." The coroner pointed to some torn ragged flesh along the inner thigh and right side of the torso. "No other significant injuries that I can see besides the bruising around the wrists and ankles. I'll no more when I get a good look at her back at the morgue."

"Wasn't there some memo about this…" He motioned to the displayed body, "… something about some women killed down in San Antonio or Houston?"

The coroner stripped off his latex glove and scratched the side of his neck as he thought. "I think so. Do you think this is related?"

"I'll ask my Lieutenant when I get back to the station who we contact. I sure hope the creep was just passing through." Betts turned and walked back to his car. If there was one thing he didn't need, it was a serial killer running around town.

Agnes had been pulled from her lunch and pushed into a small interview room at the county jail. She was firmly shackled to the table and chair. Just in case I develop some kind of super power to drop six stories to the pavement below and escape. She thought drolly. She wasn't surprised when Ranger Lovejoy appeared through the door in front of her.

"Sorry to pull you away from your lunch." Cocheta smiled, timing was everything.

Agnes sat looking straight ahead. She didn't have anything to say to the Ranger.

"You've lost some of your humor in here I guess, huh?" Cocheta opened the folder she carried with her and spread the photos of the motel room and the body out in front of Agnes on the table. "I want you to tell me about your friend."

"I don't have any friends." Agnes didn't want to look at the pictures. She knew for what she was wishing had finally happened and she was sorry for it.

"I've been having a problem matching you up with all the victims. I think maybe you were working with someone else, and now that you're out of the picture they're having a little fun of their own." Cocheta tapped one of the photos. "They're more creative than you."

Agnes' eyes fell to the photo on which the Ranger held a finger. She felt physically ill as she took in the image. "My God," she whispered.

"Who is she, Agnes? A protégé perhaps? Someone as closeted as you that has a little more anger toward the women they use?"

Agnes swallowed hard as she looked up at Cocheta. "There's nothing I can say that you'll believe. I've maintained my innocence and I'll continue to."

"How do you like your lawyer?" Cocheta asked knowing that the young woman who was representing Agnes was trying her first criminal case ever.

Agnes leaned forward and looked at the horrifying pictures. "She's escalating her behavior. Your monster is spreading her wings a little isn't she?" Agnes looked up.

"How does it feel?"

"How does what feel?" Cocheta asked leaning back in her chair. She wanted to keep Agnes talking.

"To be wrong."

Cocheta laughed out loud. "About you? I'm not wrong. I have all the proof I need."

"Proof that I traveled out of town for a bit of kink? Proof of my lesbianism? Proof that I'm ashamed of it?" Agnes issued the questions without emotion.

"Proof that you had motive and opportunity." Cocheta started to collect the photos.

"I can say the same about you couldn't I? Why were you in Houston? Sight seeing?"

"No. I was getting laid, or I thought I was until some freak tried to kill me."

Agnes rolled her eyes. "You outweigh me by what? Seventy pounds? By your own admittance you said you were capable of taking care of yourself. And just how did I threaten to kill you? At what point did you think I was about to take your life?"

Cocheta had to stop and think. She didn't like the line of questioning Agnes was dishing out. "We both know what happened in that hotel room."

"Do we?" Agnes rolled her shoulders and sat back as far as the manacles would allow her to. "I was there trying to get my jollies with a gorgeous, tall woman who called herself Cochise. You were the one who got cold feet."

"You tied me up." Cocheta countered with an accusatory finger that jabbed the air in Agnes' direction.

"A fact that I stated clearly before I did it, and a situation you accepted by choosing a safe word. Ford, wasn't it? I recall you calling it out rather quickly." Agnes smiled humorlessly.

Cocheta stood, knocking her chair back against the door with a loud bang. She was about to lunge across the table when her rational mind kicked in. "You're bating me."

"Isn't everyone? Isn't your new killer, if she's new at all? You're an easy target. You believe it's all about you." Agnes looked up at the camera in the corner of the room. "I'm done." It took only a couple of seconds before the door behind her opened and three guards came in. Agnes took one final look at Cocheta before leaving. "Be careful Ranger. I might not survive this and then you'll have one more body on that list of yours."

Agnes quietly left through the door leaving Cocheta standing all alone in the small room. For the first time in six months, Ranger Cocheta Lovejoy had doubt about the total guilt of Agnes Kelly-Elliott, and it pissed her off.

Tom Boiz was a seemingly innocuous club set in the center of Arlington, Texas. It was the kind of place you would wander into without thinking and find you were in the midst of women who preferred the sole company of other women. It was the kind of place that Marcella Salvatore abhorred and craved all at the same time. It had been four days since she last freed the soul of a retched pervert to the care of God.

She got a little thrill as she recalled the events of her last endeavor. It had been messy. The woman didn't last much past the first violent cut. She had wondered why God would send her dreams of blood only to find out in the middle of the act of killing how pleasurable the warmth of life's very essence felt against her naked flesh. Now she had a new craving and she would not end the evening without securing a sinner for punishment.

Marcella watched the club's patrons carefully. She had her standards. She never picked up anyone who was with a group. She didn't need those kinds of witnesses. She didn't pick anyone who seemed overly confidant. She did that once and almost wasn't able to complete her task because the woman had turned out to be a fighter. Her deep brown eyes considered the possibilities until she focused in on a tiny blonde drinking at the bar all alone. She was small and manageable, a definite plus. She didn't appear to be with anyone, a fact that she took time to confirm by sitting patiently and watching. Marcella knew she would have to test the waters a little and moved to stand a few feet down the bar from her target. The blonde was a pretty girl, the kind of girl that made Marcella weak in the knees. Her heart quickened its pace as she edged a bit closer until she could smell the woman's perfume. She overheard the woman tell the bartender she was new to the area. Marcella waved the bartender over and ordered a martini then turned and smiled at the young woman. "I couldn't help but overhear that you're new to Arlington." Everything couldn't be more perfect, Marcella thought as the woman turned and smiled at her.

Something was eating at Cocheta Lovejoy. The softly droning TV couldn't stop the conversation she had with Agnes from sitting like a thorn in her conscience. Somewhere along the way she had developed this sinister twist to her failed evening with Agnes in Houston six months earlier. What Agnes had said in the interview room at the jail had been far closer to the truth than she wanted to admit. But the fact was she had panicked when Agnes had slipped the cuffs on her. She had consented, but was unable to carry through. She now recalled the speed in which Agnes had removed the cuffs after she had called out her chosen safe word.

Had she ruined an innocent woman's life over a skewed point of view?

Cocheta threw the hotel's TV remote across the room in frustration at the whole situation. She had evidence that pointed to Agnes having both opportunity and motive. She had compiled a witness list of women who had not only had sex with Agnes while being tied up in a similar fashion to the victims, but she had a few who said they had felt as if their lives were in danger at the time of the encounters. Then there was Agnes' closeted lifestyle. The woman was obviously embarrassed about her sexual orientation. Agnes went to great lengths to keep that part of her life secret. Add to that the propensity for a bit of bondage and it all looked very bad.

But now Cocheta wasn't so convinced. The newest body was too similar to the originals to ignore and she really doubted that Agnes had a partner and the former detective was right about one thing. If this were the same killer, she was definitely escalating in behavior, a classic serial killer shift.

"Another body was found today in Arlington."

Cocheta rushed to the TV and manually turned up the volume.

"Police wouldn't confirm or deny that the woman had been another victim of the Rapture Killer. Recent speculation has been focused on the fact that killings have continued even with the suspect Agnes Kelly-Elliott behind bars."

Cocheta turned off the TV and grabbed her hat. She needed to see the body in Arlington.

Lou Chapman tossed a plain manila envelope on Cocheta's desk startling the female ranger. "This arrived for you from Abilene, via San Antonio."

Cocheta rocked back in her chair and picked up the envelope. She opened it and pulled out the neat stack of papers and photos from inside. "Abilene?"

Lou peered over her shoulder and grimaced as she shuffled through the six photos on top.

"When were these taken?" She sat the photos aside and began to read the report with them. "This doesn't make any sense." She pulled out her calendar and flipped back three weeks. "Kelly-Elliott was in jail and the copy cat hadn't struck yet. Is this another killer?"

Lou plucked the report from Cocheta's hand and flipped through it until he reached the coroner's report. "What's the one detail no one knows about except us?"

"The pins in the eyelids," Cocheta answered. The report was placed in front of her and Lou's right index finger pointed to one line on the paper. "Fuck me."

"She was at a crime scene, then a church under close surveillance, then in an interview room for over eight hours. How do we explain her being one hundred and eighty miles west of Ft. Worth?"

Cocheta shook her head, "No. She has to have a partner or something."

"I don't think so. I think you have the wrong person in jail. There's too much missing from your case, even if you can put her at over fifty percent of the crime scenes, it adds up to nothing more than coincidence. You've got a problem Ranger Lovejoy."

Agnes was tired. Her life consisted of little sleep and constant vigilance. She had lost nearly thirty pounds since entering jail. She had endured beatings, stabbings, rapes, and maiming. She was nearly to the point of breaking down and confessing to what ever Cocheta Lovejoy wanted her to just for a peaceful night's sleep and a day without confrontation. She was now sitting in the jail's library reading the most recent headlines on one of six newspapers that were provided for the entire jail population. She kept her head down and her senses high as she read about the latest victim.

"Elliott!"

Agnes jumped and glared at the guard who had just yelled her name.

"Come on. You have a visitor." The guard dangled a set of manacles from his fingers.

Agnes shook her head. "I'm not interested in seeing anyone."

A female guard appeared next to the hulking man. "It's not optional. Come on. I don't want to use the taser on you." She tapped the item in its holster at her hip.

Agnes sighed and stood she turned to the wall and placed her hands flat against it. The two corrections officers efficiently shackled her and led her from the library. She walked between the two guards in silence as they spoke about their lives on the outside. Family, children, what they had for dinner last night…it made Agnes want to throttle the pair of them. She had a theory that the Sheriff's office trained the guards to be particularly cruel.

They stopped her at a door to a room she didn't see labeled as anything other than 503. "What's this about?"

"We were told to get you and bring you here. That's all we know," the man answered as he knocked on the door.

Agnes was a little surprised to see her former captain sitting in a heavy leather chair as she entered. "I've already received my release from office," she flatly said to the man who had risen and approached her.

Michael Gonzales looked at the guards behind Agnes. "Take off her chains and get out."

Both guards looked at the third person in the room and received a deep nod to do as the police captain had requested.

Agnes looked at the other man seated behind an efficient steel desk. She recognized him as the jail's administrator. Agnes had the opportunity to talk to him on three occasions. Each time was after some kind of attack on her person, and each conversation hinted at further reprisals if she didn't cooperate with Ranger Lovejoy's request of a confession.

The shackles were removed from her wrists and waist. Agnes stood in her jail jumpsuit and slip on sneakers. She looked from the administrator to Captain Gonzales. "What's going on?"

"You're out of here as soon as you go into that bathroom and change into your street clothes." Gonzales handed a heavy plastic bag to Agnes.

"Right." Agnes pushed the bag back at the captain.

"Come on Elliott, go change and let's get out of here," Gonzales tried again.

"I want to see the release order," Agnes said refusing to fall prey to some sick game.

Captain Gonzales walked over to the desk and yanked a paper out from under the administrator's hands. He held it out to Agnes.

Agnes took the paper and reviewed it. "I don't get it."

"You're free to go, Agnes. It's over."

"You caught the killer?" Agnes asked excitedly.

"Not yet," Gonzales said sadly. "But you're no longer a suspect. All the charges against you have been dropped. You've been cleared."

"Cleared by whom?"

Gonzales' head dropped. "Lovejoy."

Agnes laughed. "You're kidding me!" She looked at the Ranger's crony behind the desk for conformation. "Is it true?"

The man sat back in his chair and rocked back and forth. "She talked with a judge this morning."

Agnes grabbed the bag out of the captain's hand. It didn't take her but five minutes to dress. Her clothes hung off her like they belonged to someone else. She had a lot of catching up to do. She gathered her jail clothes and left the bathroom. Agnes came to a halt in front of the administrator's desk where she dumped the wad of clothes in her hands. "You're an asshole sir," she said seriously then turned to Captain Gonzales. "Do you think you could give me a ride, Captain Gonzales?"

Michael Gonzales sighed, "I have to ask you to sign some papers, Agnes." He held up a folded document. "The city…"

"Can kiss my ass!" Agnes hissed. "Do you really think I'll just sign on a line and everything will be hunky dory?"

"I have to ask, you understand…"

Agnes grabbed the papers from Michael's hand and unfolded them. She sank into the chair the police Captain had occupied earlier and read the offer. "My pension? They'll give me my pension?" She looked up at Michael. "You've got to be kidding me! Do they think I've been at fucking Disney Land?" She tossed the document on the floor, "Let me tell you what it'll take Captain: I want my life back! My job, the respect of my fellow officers, my family and friends, and I want Lovejoy's ass on a fucking border patrol! Now if you won't be able to give me a ride, may I borrow a phone so I can call a God damn cab."

Michael bent and picked up the document from the floor. "I'd be happy to drive you anywhere you want to go.

Bodies twenty and twenty-one were found just a day apart in Waco. Cocheta was nearly ready to tear her hair out as she stood looking at body twenty-two.

It had been two weeks since the charges were dropped against Kelly-Elliott. It was done quietly and without any press coverage. Cocheta had fully anticipated the newly freed woman to come after her with a vengeance, but nothing happened. She didn't even get a nasty phone call from Agnes. She did receive a severe warning from Captain Michael Gonzales to leave Elliott alone. There was an up front threat of harassment charges if she didn't abide by his wishes. Cocheta wasn't about to cross a police captain this late in her career. Her record was impeccable.

Cocheta found herself at square one. She had no suspects. Agnes had been eliminated from the possibilities by popular demand from higher-ups in the Department of Public Safety. Cocheta wasn't one hundred percent sure of the woman's innocence. She still believed that perhaps Agnes had a partner. There just didn't seem to be any way to prove it. Unfortunately, when it comes to some things, smoke does not always mean fire.

Lou Chapman came to a stop next to her and whistled. "Your girl is getting better with her chain saw."

Cocheta gave a sad nod as an answer.

"Any word on the other one?" Lou asked as he peered down at the body.

Cocheta knew he referred to Kelly-Elliott "Haven't a clue where she's gotten off to," she admitted and walked away from the body toward her truck with Lou following her.

"I've got feelers out. I'll let you know if we find anything," Lou offered.

"I'm not sure I should contact her. I've been warned off," Cocheta said as she jerked her truck door open.

"Since when has that stopped you?" Lou gave Cocheta a knowing look. "Go on. Get out of here. Go get some sleep; you look like hell."

"I can't sleep." She waved toward the body being bagged by the local coroner. "I see them when I sleep." She climbed into her truck and headed back to her hotel for the night. Tomorrow she would begin work on the newest victim. She wondered how many more there would be before the killer made a mistake.

Jeff Roberts drove carefully along a gravel road in the rolling hills of Oklahoma's side of the Red River Valley. He had hand-written directions clipped to his visor, to a lake side cabin where he hoped to find Agnes. He would have missed the little blue reflector indicating the drive to the private hermitage if he hadn't been instructed to look for it, at or about, the four mile mark after leaving the main road. The drive was gravel as well, and he had no doubt that if Agnes was at the cabin she would hear him coming from a long way off.

The cabin appeared as he came out of a sharp turn. Agnes was standing on the porch, a coffee cup in one hand; the other hand was resting on her hip. She sipped from the cup and waited for him to come to a stop before stepping off the porch and into the drive to meet him. He rolled his window down and spoke to her, "Are you accepting visitors?"

"If I said no, would you leave?" Agnes tossed what remained in her cup on the gravel drive and then looked expectantly at Robert.

"Well, you could at least let me use your john before sending me away. It's a four hour drive up here." He shut the car off but remained behind the wheel as he waited for an invitation.

"It only takes four hours if you get lost." Agnes looked up at the low purple clouds rolling by overhead. "If you leave now you might be able to make it down to Paris and get a room for the night." Agnes looked back at the young detective who looked like he was about to pout. "Oh for Christ's sake, come in then." She turned and walked back to the cabin and disappeared inside.

Jeff smiled and exited his car, grabbing his small travel bag from the passenger seat.

Agnes walked to the sink and rinsed her cup. She really didn't feel up to company, but it was obvious that Jeff had come to stay, at least for the night. Her innate Southern hospitality dictated that she at least give the man a meal for making the drive. She crossed to her small fridge and took a look inside at what she could make. She heard Jeff enter and drop his bag on the floor. She pointed to a door almost directly in front of him. "Bathroom is through there."

Jeff nodded and helped himself to the facilities. He soon reappeared, standing against the kitchen wall watching her as she contemplated the contents of the fridge. "I hope you don't mind the couch. There's just the one bedroom and it's mine."

"Griff said as much." In fact Griff had said quite a lot. He was concerned about Agnes and was glad that Jeff had the where-with-all to make the trip to see what was up with his ex-wife.

Agnes looked over the fridge's door. "Griff has just moved to the top of my list." Chicken shit Griff, she thought as she pulled a chicken out and plopped it into the sink. She had planned boiling the hen the next day. It was still a little frozen, but it wouldn't take long to finish thawing. "Did you draw the short straw or something?" she asked leaning against the counter and crossing her arms.

Jeff shrugged. "Someone had to come up here and check on you. I had some time off coming to me. Have you been keeping up with the case?"

Agnes shook her head. "No TV, radio, or internet up here. I haven't even turned on my cell phone."

"Griff said you might not."

Agnes walked over to Jeff and gestured to the couch in the little living room. "What else did Griff have to say?"

"He said to tell you to get your ass off your pity pot."

Agnes blinked. "Griff is an ass." She sat down at one end of the long couch while Jeff respected her space and sat at the other end. "I'm not on my pity pot. I'm just trying to get my head back in the world," she said quietly.

Jeff instantly felt like an ass. "Sorry…"

Agnes waved her hand in the air dismissing his apology. "Its okay. I just need some time." She settled back onto the couch. "So tell me what's new?" She really didn't want to know. She didn't want to care, but there was that part of her that wanted to have every detail, that cop in her. The brilliant detective.

"She's getting bolder, if that's possible." Jeff walked over to his bag and pulled out a thick file. "I snagged this on my way out this morning." He held up the thick volume of information.

Agnes held her hand out. "I think that's against department policies, Detective Roberts."

"Who's gonna tell?"

"I wouldn't dare." Agnes smiled as she hefted the file into her lap. It had nearly doubled in size since she had last seen it, nearly two months ago. "She's been busy."

"Twenty-two was found last week in a gravel pit for a concrete company. The place runs twenty-four, seven. I can't figure how she got in and out without anyone seeing her."

Agnes had been thinking about the locations the bodies had been dumped. They all were very public, like the killer wanted to be sure that someone found her work. "She's self-indulgent."

Jeff sat silently as Agnes poured over the material.

"I see she's still carving them up." Agnes cringed as she viewed the new pictures.

"Let's just say it's not hard to find the killing rooms. She's not a neat freak when it comes to blood, but she certainly is good at not leaving any evidence behind." Jeff moved closer to Agnes and flipped the pictures until he came to the first bloody motel room. "She picks rooms on the end. She doesn't register. She just picks an empty one and helps herself. There's plenty of DNA strewn about, but it's all the victim's. We found a couple hairs, but they could belong to anyone who ever stayed in the room."

Agnes studied the room photos, and read the CSI reports. "Maybe she's smooth, you know… hairless, bald."

"Wouldn't that take a lot of upkeep?" Jeff asked trying to think how hard it would be for himself to remain hairless.

"It could be a ritual of hers. She has a reason not to leave evidence behind." Agnes set the room photos aside and picked up Jeff's interview list.

"I'll bring that up during the next task meeting."

"You made the task force? I'm impressed," Agnes teased.

"Hey! I have skills." Jeff grinned.

Agnes smiled and looked at the list of names in front of her. "How have the interviews been going?"

"I'm a regular at every lesbian bar and club in North Texas." Jeff looked at Agnes to judge any reaction.

"Then you're one up on me," Agnes said dismally.

"You know that I don't care right?" Jeff asked. He had wanted to be clear about his feelings on the matter of Agnes' lesbianism. His brother was gay and he knew how hard it could be to deal with people abandoning someone for something that was as normal as blonde hair.

Agnes looked up from the file. "I could have heard that while I was in jail. It would have made a difference knowing I had at least one friend."

"I didn't think…"

"That associating with a suspected lesbian serial killer wouldn't be good for your career?" Agnes said angrily. Jeff looked duly admonished causing her to regret losing her temper. "Never mind, okay. I understand choosing one's job over everything else."

"Griff seems cool about it," Jeff stated with a tilt of his head.

"I'm sure he is. He now can blame a failed marriage on his ex-wife the dyke instead of him cheating with his daughter's fifth grade teacher." Agnes rose and walked to the kitchen sink where she poked the chicken. "I'm going to start this. It won't be fancy."

Jeff decided to stick with the change of conversation. "I don't need fancy."

Agnes smiled slowly. "Dinner will be served in about two hours then."

Marcella Salvatore worked her body against the woman beneath her. She was close, so very close to that faultless nirvana. The woman whimpered against the gag in her mouth. It was distracting and Marcella had to level a glare at the struggling woman. "You must remain quiet, or I'll never finish." She smiled as the woman quieted considerably. Marcella once again started to grind her sex against a bruised thigh.

As she got closer to orgasm the self loathing began to set in. Along with it came the hatred and disgust for the woman beneath her. Marcella knew that she would soon be dispatching another soul. It would negate everything that had transpired thus far.

The first tingle of her pending release began to build and she increased her speed, reaching for that perfect moment. As it came she shuddered and collapsed against her victim. It was never easy to stop her body's quest for pleasure. If it was really up to her she knew she could just stand up and walk away, but the devil surely had a hold on her in the moments just after release, because she craved the strongest then to seek out another orgasm against the flesh below her. She said a silent prayer for God to intervene to quell her unnatural desires.

Marcella pushed away from the broken form beneath her with a growl. "It's not fair!" she yelled and then look down at the bound woman quietly whimpering. "I don't like to do this either you know? If you weren't desirable I wouldn't have to, but God is calling you to him." This was when she had to be the strongest. A moment of indecision here could ruin everything. She made sure her clothes were secure in the big plastic bag, and placed it in the shower of the motel room. She had to settle for an abandoned building this time. It had taken her extra time to make the room safe from prying eyes with the use of heavy curtains and duct tape. In the end it looked like most of the other empty rooms in the long strip of rooms that sat off a Ft. Worth boulevard that had seen better days. Of course since there was no electricity for her small quiet saw, so she had to seek inspiration from God for a replacement method.

The answer turned out to be something far simpler and easier to clean, but still provided the sacrifice of blood. Marcella checked the knife's grip to make sure the sports tape she had wrapped around it was still stuck down. She knew she was going to need the grip to stay intact. "This is going to be messy." She smiled as she once again straddled the woman, this time settling her naked body across her hips. "I'm worried that those who went before you might not have been recognizable to God, so I'm going to try something new." She ran the thin blade of the fillet knife down the woman's cheek, she watched in wonder as a thin line of blood chased after the silver tip. It wasn't even close to the thick wash of blood that would bathe her with the chain saw, but it was still oddly satisfying. The woman started to thrash below her, so she made a shushing noise. "Now hush, we've only started." Marcella smiled and began another cut.

Ranger Lovejoy was bent in two, vomiting her dinner at the base of a well groomed crepe myrtle. Detective Roberts stood behind her facing away, giving her a moment to gather herself into something resembling the seasoned investigator he knew she was. He was only marginally holding his own churning stomach in check. Jeff doused a bunch of paper towels with water from a bottle; he kept a handy supply in his car trunk. He never knew what he might have to wipe off his hands and clothing. Crime scenes could be filthy places. Jeff turned around as the retching sounds subsided. He waited for the Ranger to straighten to her full height and then offered her the damp towels. "Are you alright?"

"Just ducky." Cocheta wiped her face with the cold, wet towel then pointed to the bottle of water in Jeff's hand. "May I have some of that?"

Jeff held the bottle out. "Sure."

Cocheta rinsed her mouth out three times then took a big drink of the water to soothe the burn in the back of her throat. She capped the bottle and offered it back to the detective who waved her off with a mumbled, "keep it". She tucked the bottle under her arm as she walked back up the gently sloped hill that surrounded a television antenna for the local CBS affiliate. The body had been displayed on the east facing hill side. The flesh had been meticulously sliced down to the bone. Most of the skin and muscle hung like lose grotesque ribbons from every surface of the body. "What kind of animal does something like this?"

Jeff couldn't look at the body for more than a second or two. He could only hope that the photographs would lessen the horror of the display. "A closeted lesbian with religious issues and one hell of a way to deal with it?" He shrunk away a little as the Ranger gave him a level glare.

Cocheta stepped into Jeff's personal space and spoke low and even to him. "I hear you misplaced your field file. You wouldn't want to make a guess where you left it, would you?"

Jeff blinked a few times then shook his head. "I really can't recall Sgt. Lovejoy."

"I just bet you can't. Follow me." Cocheta turned and walked to her truck where she dropped the back tailgate. She rummaged in the back of the Bronco until she found a well used map. she unfolded it and laid it open. She looked into Jeff Roberts' eyes and commanded, "Point."

Jeff took a deep breath and peered at the map for a moment then looked back up at the Ranger. "I don't understand."

Cocheta crooked her finger at the young detective and when he leaned in closer to her she grabbed his gray silk tie and pulled. "I want you to point to where she is."

"Who?" Jeff croaked.

"Where is Agnes Kelly-Elliott?"

Jeff looked back down at the map. He licked his lips and sighed as he extended his finger and pointed to a small lake on the other side of the Red River.

Cocheta grabbed the map and pushed Jeff backwards away from her. She slammed shut the tailgate. "I'll be back in a couple of days."

Jeff worked his fingers under his much too tight tie. "What if we find another body?"

"Take notes!" Cocheta slammed the truck door and started the engine. Perhaps what she really needed to break this case was the perspective of a "closeted lesbian with religious issues and one hell of a way to deal with it".