Click. An overturned file cabinet. Click. A broken lamp. Click?

Buzz.

Justice Rollings stopped taking pictures and checked her pager. The annoying tone and vibration had interrupted her processing of a robbery scene. There was no text for once, only a number to call. She frowned, blonde eyebrows furrowed at the interruption and unclipped her cell phone from her belt and punched in the number from the pager.

"This is Deputy Page."

"This is Jay Rollings of the Johnson County Crime Lab, you paged me?"

"Yes ma'am," he drawled in a typical Kansas twang. "We are a bit overwhelmed out here and called in help from the Johnson County Sheriff's Department. We need you to help us process a crime scene."

Green eyes blinked in confusion. "Where are you calling from?" There were only 3 area codes in all of Kansas. The area code on the phone number she dialed covered all of northern Kansas outside of the immediate Kansas City Area, which she worked in.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I'm calling from Douglas County Sheriff's Department. We have a particularly bad double homicide out here, and our crime tech is out sick with that flu that is going around. I'm not sure he could collect the evidence in this case anyway. This is way outside of our experience."

Jay could feel her blood run cold. Her job mainly consisted of processing robbery and accident scenes. On the rare occasion, she processed homicide and sometimes helped the more violent neighbor to the north, Wyandotte County, process one of their numerous crime scenes. Johnson County had more money than anyone else in the metro area, so the Crime Lab was constantly utilized by the other Counties in the area to help process forensics.

"I'm in the middle of processing a scene, let me call my supervisor to see if he can get someone else to cover this and I'll be right out." The Deputy agreed and reeled off an address of one of the larger apartment complexes in Lawrence, Kansas. Jay recognized it because one of her study partners from her time at the University of Kansas had lived there.

"There will be lots of lights and uniforms around, it won't be hard to miss." Page said as he ended the call.

Jay immediately called her supervisor, Jacob Fields. "Hey, I just got this call from a Deputy Page?" she started before she was cut off.

"I know. What have you done on the break-in so far so the next tech can come in after you?" Both of them knew that Jay would be the one to handle the homicides. Despite her age and experience, the petite blonde was Jacob's best investigator by far. Her meticulous process of each and every scene, from a simple break in to a domestic violence call gone horribly wrong had earned her a closure rate higher than anyone else in the county. Jacob would have bet the state, but some of the smaller CSIs probably had a 100% somewhere because their case load was smaller than Rollins's.

"I just started taking pictures. Nothing more."

"Ok, I need to you make all possible haste out there. The locals found the bodies a few hours ago, and you know how everyone has to come and look, so god only knows how contaminated the crime scene is by now. You have the van so no one will stop you from hauling ass down the turnpike, ok?"

Jay's mouth twitched briefly in a semblance of a grin. "Ok, warp speed in a forensics van coming up."

The van might not have matched the speed of her beloved Toyota Supra, but the V8 still had quite a bit of power in it as she barreled down I-70 at over 80 miles an hour. She took the turn off into downtown Lawrence, and flashes of memories assaulted her as she cruised the familiar streets of what was once her hometown. Her parents both still taught at the High School, and Jay remembered the endless teasing she had endured for her full first name. She winced in sympathy for her other sisters, who had the other six virtues for their names. For some odd reason, all the sisters had left Lawrence, shortened or changed their names and seemed to work in careers that matched their respective virtues. Justice was in law enforcement. Faith was married to a minister and together they managed a small church in the Topeka projects. Chastity was a counselor in a rape clinic. Temperance managed a small bar and grill and loved to work the bar when she could. Hope ran a bridal shop while Charity was a loan officer in a national bank. Patience was a kindergarten teacher in Kansas City and married with 4 children of her own. She and her husband had threatened to name their kids after the seven deadly sins, but when Justice pointed out how accurate the names were with the Rollins girls, Patty had sobered quickly.

The drive to the apartment complex was short, owing to the fact that Lawrence itself wasn't very big. Deputy Page was right; it was very easy to tell that something was wrong at the complex by the sheer number of EMS vehicles in the lot. It looked like all 5 of the Lawrence cop cars were there, along with an ambulance, two Kansas Highway Patrol cars and 3 Douglas County Sheriff cars. As she found a place to park, a tall man with sandy blond hair and typical farm boy looks in a Sheriff's uniform walked up to the car.

"Ms. Rollins? I'm Deputy Page. Thank you for coming so quickly."

"It's not like I was going to get a ticket. Seems like everyone is here instead of out catching the bad guys." She grinned to soften the criticism. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

The Deputy took a deep breath. "Mrs. Ellen Procter called dispatch because she hadn't heard from her daughters for several days. Unlike most college students, her daughters Karol and Karen check in at least every other day. They lived here, in Jayhawker Place instead of on campus because the dorms were too noisy. Dispatch sent me out to investigate. I arrived at the apartment and there was no response to my knocking. The door was locked, I looked for the apartment manager and couldn't find him, so I gained entry to the apartment by breaking a window and crawling in. When I broke the window, I could smell that there was something very wrong in the apartment." The Deputy blanched at the memory, but after taking a deep breath, continued on. "Upon entering the apartment, I started to check for the source of the smell and discovered a young woman's naked body in the master bedroom. She was covered with blood and her arms and legs were spread out with her arms positioned over her head." The Deputy stopped and pulled out a box of cigarettes. As he pulled one out, Jay noticed that his hands were shaking badly. He silently offered one to Jay, and put them away after she shook her head no. It took him 4 tries to get the lighter lit, and Jay had to help him steady his hands to light his cigarette. "Thanks." He blew out a stream of smoke. "I found the second body in the kitchen. She had multiple stab wounds to the abdomen and it looked like the freak had posed her. I called for back up and sealed the crime scene." He looked up and met Jay's eyes. "No one but me has been in that apartment since the killer left. I know how important it is to not contaminate the crime scene." He grinned weakly. "I watch CSI."

Jay grinned. "You do realize that I have no where near the super tech powers of the CSI people on that show, right?

The Deputy smiled back weakly. "Gee, and I was hoping you would get this solved in an hour for me. Your boss said you were the best."

The blonde walked around to the back of her van and opened the doors. "I'm the best," she said, an underlying hint of steel in her voice made the statement ring true. Jay had no need for false modesty. She pulled out her kit and grabbed extra gloves. "But I am afraid that real world lab techs cannot get DNA test results back in 20 minutes. But I still like the show."

Jay followed the Deputy up to the apartment. As she passed, the other police and EMTs stopped their conversations as she walked by. It was disconcerting, but Jay had learned to live with the slight awkwardness of her profession. As she passed, a tall brunette in an EMT jumpsuit met her eyes. The blonde almost dropped her kit as the EMT's clear blue eyes caught hers. The world seemed to fade out around her for a minute. As she came back to the here and now, she stumbled at little at the shock of what one glance had done to her. She quickly came to her senses before she ran into the back of Deputy Page.

"This is the place, "he said, waving at the entrance that was guarded by another deputy.

"Would you mind assisting me in collecting the evidence?" asked Jay.

The deputy positively paled. "Thank you Ms. Rollins, but I would rather not step foot back in that place. I will if you truly need me to, but I'm going to have nightmares as it is."

"I really need you to at least take notes. I'm going to have my hands full."

"Then I guess that I can concentrate real hard on the notepad while you work."

"Please call me Jay. When you call me Ms. Rollins I start looking around for my mother. And here, use this notebook while I process this scene." Jay handed over an official crime scene notebook to the not so eager deputy.

The two methodically processed the crime scene. First by taking pictures of the bodies, the point of entry of the deputy, the trails of blood and the evidence left in the bathroom where the killer obviously cleaned up. Next, Jay dusted every possible surface for prints, while Page made arrangements for the EMTs to transport the bodies to the Johnson County Crime Lab. Jay lifted several prints, which would have to be compared to the two sisters to see if any of the fingerprints belonged to their killer. Both bodies had been posed grotesquely after death, so Jay would have to find out where the origin of the crimes were and how they happened.

Having no more use of the bodies onsite, she signaled to the EMTs that they could come get the bodies of the two young girls. Jay supervised the loading of the girls into the body bags, noticing that both paramedics were shaken up. The brunette from earlier had unchecked tears rolling down her face as she gently placed the first girl into the body bag. She looked up to find Jay watching her.

"Does it get any easier?" she asked softly.

The blonde shook her head, deep sadness showing in her eyes. "No, it doesn't. You just learn to push it aside until your job is done. If it does become easy, that's when I know to find a different job."

The brunette nodded in understanding as she wheeled the first body out to the ambulance. As the crew loaded up the second body under Jay's watchful eye, she called Jacob on her cell phone.

"Boss, this place is a mess. Can you spare someone else to help me? I need to run string to find out what exactly happened."

"Can I send you a rookie? That's about all I can spare right now."

"Depends on who it is you send me." The blonde grimaced. One of their new techs couldn't find his ass with both hands and continually made inappropriate advances towards her whenever they worked a scene. JT Bisel seemed to think that watching all the shows on Court TV, the Discovery Channel and the new CSI shows made him an expert on all things forensic. Jay preferred to get her knowledge from books and articles in scientific journals and occasionally watched the same shows for pure entertainment value. Besides, Marge Helgenburger was hot.

"You can have Rodger."

Jay sighed in relief. Rodger Barnes was eager to work with any of the more experienced techs. He absorbed information like a sponge and had no problems asking questions to make sure he was following procedure for collecting evidence. The blonde knew he was going to make an outstanding tech once he had more experience. "Tell Rodger to bring the string and his laptop. Oh, and if he can snag some of those lasers out of storage?."

"I'll authorize anything you need." There was a moment of silence while Jacob tried to find an easy way to ask the question. He finally just blurted it out. "What happened?"

Jay pinched her nose using that small amount of pain to focus her thoughts "As near as I can tell, a bad guy entered this place, killed both sisters, posed them, ate and took a shower. I hope we turn up his fingerprints and get a name before he does this again."

Jacob was silent a moment. "Do you think he'll kill again?"

"Honestly," she paused reflecting on the visual evidence on hand. " I don't think this guy is done. I don't think he'll stop until we stop him."

"God. You need anything, you ask for it. We are pulling all the stops out for this one. Do you think we'll have to call in the state police or the Kansas Bureau of Investigation?"

"No, I think with our help, the Douglas County Sheriff's department can handle it. This guy is pretty dissociated already. He's left all kinds of clues all over the place. This is not some Hannibal Lector we are talking about here."

"They caught Son of Sam by chance," warned Jacob.

"Yeah, but that was in New York City. This is Lawrence. Someone like Dave Berkowitz would not go unnoticed out here."

Jacob laughed at the comparison. "True, I'll send Rodger right out."

Jay hung up and without thought detached herself so she could go back to collecting evidence. She got her toolbox from the van and started disconnecting plumbing in the bathroom. First was the trap under the sink. She cleaned out all the debris from the trap and bagged it before moving on to the drain in the shower. If the killer took the time to shower before leaving the apartment, it was obvious that he was trying to hide his crime. Rodger found her bent over the shower drain, trying unsuccessfully to remove the grate.

"Hey sweet cheeks!" he announced his presence, causing Jay to squeak in surprise and jump. Her professional detachment ruined she attempted to glare at Rodger

"Rodger you ass, I'm working here."

"Oh baby, you are working it!" Rodger started his flaming queen routine. Both Jay and Rodger had set off each other's gaydar and Rodger loved to work with Jay because it was the only time he felt safe playing with a co-worker.

Jay turned around, put her hands on her hips and glared at her co-worker. Rodger stood at 5'8, three inches taller than Jay and his hair was the same color blonde. His eyes were a light gray, where Jay's were a vibrant green. Other than that, they looked liked long lost siblings. In fact, if it weren't for her parent's religious convictions, Jay would have bribed Gary, the DNA tech to run a few extra tests for her.

"Look, we need to run string to find out what happened. I expect we'll be here until late tonight." She sighed. "This one is awful. These two girls were 19 if they were a day and this freak just went to town. The poor Deputy who was helping me lost his cookies while I was taking DNA samples from the one on the bed."

Rodger looked shocked. "You had someone helping you?"

"Yeah, this is going to be an ugly case. I thought it was best to leave no one alone with the evidence collection and pictures. That way, when called to testify, we can support each other's statements."

"You think we'll catch this guy."

Jay looked bleak. "I think this may be the beginning of a serial killer's run. It's not a question of if he strikes again, but if he'll give us enough time to interpret the clues so we can catch him before he strikes again." They stared at the crime scene around them.
"And with that note, time for the time honored tradition of the string spatter analysis." Jay said trying to lighten the humongous task in front of them.

"Damn, girl, when are we going to join the rest of the world and get that high tech shit? Most Crime Labs now use that software program developed by Carleton University in Ottawa. I feel like a little kid using string." Rodger grumped.

"Well we don't have access to the program so we have to do it the old fashioned way, with pieces of string." Jay said already getting lost in the mathematics and physics involved with the seemingly random drops of blood. However, nothing about the spatters of blood was random. The tiny drops could tell Jay and law enforcement quite a lot. They mapped the crime from the front door, where the killer had forced his way in. In her mind using the angles mapped out by the string Jay created a 3-D map, reality moved in three dimensions not two and she moved the spatters on a X, Y, and Z axis. Force, angle, and speed came together giving directions. They could see where the crime started, where it moved to, and the order in which things happened. The killer quickly dispatched the first victim, who was the sister in the kitchen. He took more time with the second victim, who was found in the master bedroom. Finally the killer took time to eat, pose the bodies, and shower to clean up. After eight painstaking hours, eyes blurry and brains fatigued Jay and Rodger had a pretty good picture of what had happened in the apartment. They finished their preliminary reports of the scene and started packing up Jay's van. Since Rodger was not a primary tech, he didn't have the luxury of having access to one of the County vehicles yet.
Just as they had placed the last toolbox in the van, a Lawrence Police officer came running up to them. "Glad I caught you." He puffed. "There's been another one."

The officer led the two techs to another wing of the same complex. Once again, the flashing lights of multiple Emergency Service Vehicles clued Jay to where the crime scene was. Only this time, the press were out in force as well. Looking at the vans with satellite antennas on them, Jay could see representatives from Lawrence, Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita. The Lawrence Police force was out in numbers trying to keep the media hounds at bay. A man with more shiny metal bits than any other police officer Jay had ever seen approached the two techs.

"Justice Rollins?" the man questioned as he got within speaking distance.

Jay winced and then nodded. "Yes sir. We just finished processing the other scene. What's going on here?"

"We have a civilian clerk that works the night shift for the Lawrence Police Department. She failed to show up for work this evening, so her colleges went looking for her after realizing that she was in the same apartment complex as the earlier victims. No one has been inside yet. We sealed the scene and waited for you."

Jay looked at all of the confusion going on around her. "So what's with the media circus?"

"The call came out over the scanner. Our officers used the radio instead of a land line, and the media was already hovering around because of the scene you just processed. The media actually beat almost everyone else here." The Chief looked furious at the breach of protocol.

"You keep the vultures off my neck and we'll process the scene, Chief." Jay grabbed Rodger who was looking horrified at the pack of rabid reporters, screaming questions at anything that moved behind the police barricade.

"Jay?" he started nervously, obviously not wanting to go any closer to the scene.

"Come on Rodger, we have a job to do." Said Jay, not letting go of his jacket sleeve.

"I don't wanna." He whined unsuccessfully as the smaller blonde drug him towards the excitement.

"Tough. Now smile and wave at the reporters." She muttered through clenched teeth. Anyone who seemed to enjoy this type of thing must be nuts.

On her way in, she passed the same brunette EMT that had worked the earlier scene. She stopped and raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't you guys get to go home?" she asked.

The brunette blushed. "I pulled a double. I just happen to swap out the wrong days it seems. Honest, I'm not a groupie." She winked at Jay. Jay just stared back in surprise at the woman's actions and her ability to find a joke in a very bad day. Until Rodger gave her a shove from behind to get her moving towards the apartment again.

"Girlfriend, you know you are going to tell me all about what just happened, right?" he whispered.

The two approached the door to the apartment that was being guarded by two Lawrence police officers. The Sheriff's office was stepping back out of respect for the loss of one of Lawrence's officers.

All business Jay asked "Who discovered the body?"

"I did," a female officer stepped forward. "When Cheryl didn't come in for work, her supervisor tried calling the house and got no answer. Cheryl has never missed a day or come in late without calling. When it was learned that she lived in the same complex as the other victims from today, dispatch called me to go check on her. I didn't get an answer to my knocking, so I went around back to peek through her window. There was a small gap between the sill and the blind. I saw her through that." The officer swallowed noisily, obviously trying to keep from throwing up.

"How did you know something was wrong?" asked Rodger.

"Because I could see her sitting on the bed naked, missing her head." The officer was a slight shade of green and steadily getting greener. Jay signaled for one of the EMTs to come over.

"Do you think you could check Officer," Jay read the officer's nametag. "Officer Johnson for possible shock?" green eyes locked with blue. "I know that Officer Johnson is more along the lines of what you are used to than what we are going to find in that apartment."

The brunette nodded and started to lead the officer away. "What's your name?" she blurted, then blushed.

"Jay. Jay Rollins." Stammered Jay. Cool. Way to go slick.

"My name is Ashley. Ashley Tomas. My partner over there is James. Call us when you need us." The EMT hurried away.

Jay stood there blinking, while Rodger grinned broadly. "Way to go Justice!" he whistled. "And another one bites the dust." He started humming the Queen song under his breath. Jay smacked him across the stomach.

"Shut up. And what do you mean 'another one bites the dust?' My track record is about as good as the Royal's. Even with George Brett." The blonde grumbled.

"You have tons of admirers. Of both sexes," insisted Rodger. "You just? intimidate the hell out of them."

Jay stopped walking and stared at her co-worker. "What are you talking about?"

Rodger glanced around at everyone staring at them. "Could we discuss your love life at some other time? Like when we don't have every available police, sheriff and TV camera pointed at us?"

The smaller tech looked around and noticed that he was right in his assessment of the amount of attention they were gathering.

"Oh. Right." Jay mumbled slightly embarrassed at almost televising her love life or lack of one. The two techs started walking toward the apartment again. Another, more official looking police offer stepped up towards them after they passed the crime scene tape that had been strung up to keep out the masses of humanity that were drawn to tragedy.

"Officer Rollins?" asked the man, his shiny bits of medal were almost blinding in the TV spotlights. "I'm Lieutenant Glass. I am the liaison for the Lawrence PD."

"Yes, I am Jay Rollins." Jay hated being called an officer. In some way, the blonde figured that she was a law officer, but she preferred to think of herself as a scientist first, a law enforcement officer second, if at all. She felt it demeaned the hard working men and women who wore the badge and were out there everyday facing down bad guys.

"I need to talk to you about what you can say to the press." The man started.

"How about I refer them all to you." Suggested Jay, forestalling the lecture the man was about to give on leaks and official statements.

"Um, yes. That would be fine, but in case you do talk to the press?."

"I won't." interrupted Jay. "I don't talk to the press. I think they are blood sucking leeches and I wouldn't spit on one of them in a desert in case the moisture they absorb from my spit actually allows them to make it to a water source."

"Geez Jay, tell us how you really feel," muttered Rodger in her ear.

Lieutenant Glass stared at Jay. "Ok, then I guess I can trust that there will be no leaks from you. Now what can I do to assist you?"

"Keep the press away from me. If you can avoid it, don't tell them mine or my associates names so we won't have the press corps camped out on our doorsteps." Jay started walking towards the apartment door again, and then paused as a thought stuck her. "Oh, and you might want to talk to the apartment management about doing a door to door search of the apartment complex. That's 3 homicides in a relatively small area. If he felt comfortable enough to attack twice in the same complex, there might be more bodies."

The Lieutenant turned gray. "I'll see what I can do." He murmured, backing away from the apartment door.

Rodger looked around at the waiting police and sheriff officers. "What has got these guys all spooked?"

"Maybe finding 3 dead bodies in a town this size is a bit of a shock for them." Replied Jay.

"I guess that would do it." He put down his kits and pulled out the master key the police had gotten from the apartment manager. He put the key in the lock and turned the knob. As he opened the door, the smell of blood and death wafted out. "That is one smell I will never get used to."

"It gets easier," said Jay offhandedly, as she pushed her way past him. She eyed the entryway. There were no lights on, so she put down one of her toolboxes and pulled out a flashlight. "Rodger, get the camera out, would you?"

"Rodger get this. Rodger get that. What am I, a slave?" he asked.

"Yes," said Jay, absently as she shined her flashlight around the front room. The room appeared to be the living room, with a dinning area between it and the kitchen. In front of them, a hallway that appeared to lead to the bedroom and bathroom had dark smudges on the carpet. "Get some shots of those spots would you? I'm going to test for blood."

"Why don't we have a crime scene photographer? Isn't that a whole forensics field?" whined Rodger.

"It was. Now it's easier and cheaper to teach us to point and shoot. Talk to the budget people. I guess that they would rather have things like DNA labs and ballistics labs than forensic photographers. Now stop whining and we can finish and get out of here." Jay waited for Rodger to snap off some shots before proceeding down the hall. She eased open the door to the left and saw that it led into a bathroom. There were bloody footprints on the tile and the sink and tub showed signs that the killer had taken time to clean up. There was also something sitting on the toilet tank.

"Oh my God!" Rodger sounded like he was trying very hard not to scream those words out loud. "Is that a head?"

Jay swallowed hard and then started smiling. "Yes. Yes it is. Now use the camera or I'm going to beat you with it." She gave the man a poke. "Rodger! Do your job!"

"Why are you smiling? You look like Jack Nickleson in Batman." The blonde man was trying to focus on anything other than the horror that was the bathroom.

"I'm trying not to throw up. Smiling suppresses the gag reflex." Ground out Jay from behind her fixed smile.

"Oh." Rodger started taking pictures of the bathroom while Jay took samples of the blood on the floor. She checked to make sure it was human, though it looked pretty obvious that it was. She also took swabs of it for later testing and typing in the lab.

Jay and Rodger finished their preliminary investigation of the bathroom and approached the bedroom door. The door was shut, and Jay put on a fresh pair of gloves to make sure not to contaminate the surface with any of the blood from the bathroom. She took a deep breath and turned the knob, opening the door to the bedroom.

The door opened into a darkened room and Jay clicked on her flashlight. The beam swept across the room, highlighting a partially closed closet door, a dresser, and a figure sitting upright on the bed. Jay brought her flashlight back to the figure leaning up against the headboard, and it took her mind a few seconds to actually pin point what was wrong with the image it was trying to process. The body didn't have a head. She heard a thump behind her. Rodger had landed in a seated position and looked like he was having trouble focusing. Jay knelt next to her partner.

"Rodger." She patted his face. "Rodger!" she lightly slapped him. He finally focused in on her face. "I need you to go outside and tell the EMTs to get ready to come in and get the body. I don't want to process the scene in the dark when we are this tired, ok?" The blonde was giving him a graceful way out of the situation.

"Ok." He got shakily to his feet.

"Let me have the camera so I can finish, ok?" Jay looked him in the eyes. "Warn the EMTs, but don't let anyone else overhear you, ok?" Rodger nodded without looking at Jay. "Rodger." Jay grabbed his chin and gently forced him to look her in the eyes. "It's ok. Don't worry about it." Rodger nodded again and removed the camera from around his neck. He handed it over without a word and stumbled towards the apartment door.

Jay turned around and forced down her own nausea and mentally prepared herself for the worst. She stepped back into the room, and was able to distance herself from the crime scene with the camera. Most of the techs grumbled and complained about the taking of crime scene photos, but Jay actually thought she did better when she took her own pictures. It allowed her to focus in on the crime scene, yet still remain aloof from it. The camera acted as a filter, allowing her to do her job without having to experience the horror first hand. The blonde worked methodically around the room, taking pictures of everything and focusing in on things that caught her eye, like the bent slats of the cheap blinds on the bedroom window. She suspected that was how the police were able to peek in and see that something was horribly wrong in this apartment. The overturned nightstand and the general condition of the sheets indicated that the victim had put up a struggle and expired in this room. Jay focused in on the body, taking several shots of it from across the room and then up close. She noticed bruising around the neck, upper arms and breasts. As she took pictures of the breasts, she noticed something wrong with them. She hung the camera around her neck and pulled her flashlight out again. She slowly approached the body sweeping the light over it; flesh became highlighted in the small spotlight. Holding the light steady it became horrible clear what was wrong. The nipples had been removed. She swept the light around the bed and found one on the floor and one on the bed next to the victim. She quickly pulled out an evidence bag and collected them.

Jay backed out of the room, trying not to lose her composure and ran into a warm body. She let out a tiny scream as hands grabbed her to keep her from falling.

"Easy, easy. It's just me, Ashley." Soothed an alto voice in her ear. "Are you ready to release the body to us?"

Jay took a couple of deep breaths and tried to hide her shaking. "Yeah." She squeaked. She coughed and tried again. "Yes, you can take the body. The head is in the bathroom." She continued in a more normal tone. "I'm going to check out the rest of the apartment. Try not to let on to the media that the head is separated from the body, ok?" She had turned to face Ashley and realized that the woman had not removed her hands from Jay's shoulders yet. Ashley seemed to notice at the same time and quickly dropped her hands and looked down to hide her blush.

"Ok. I can do that." The brunette almost seemed to babble. Jay suppressed a grin and walked to the kitchen. She found a dirty plate on the table along with the makings of a sandwich on the counter. The rest of the apartment seemed very clean so the mess in the kitchen did not seem compatible with the rest of the house. Jay made a note to make sure and dust everything for prints. She pulled out the camera and took pictures of everything in the kitchen.

As she was finishing up, Ashley walked up to her. "We loaded the head in a large evidence bag that Rodger gave us and put it in the body bag with the rest of the remains. Do you want to meet us at your crime lab?"

"Hmm, I wasn't aware that our pathologist was going to do the autopsy, but ok." The blonde shrugged.

"Our instructions are to turn over the bodies to the Johnson County Crime Lab, so I guess you are doing the autopsy." The EMT smiled at the smaller tech.

"Ok, then. I'm done for the night here. I'll meet you at the Lab and sign for the body." Stated Jay, gathering up her toolbox and taking off her gloves.

The two EMTs rolled the gurney with their grisly load out the apartment door, followed by Rodger and Jay. Jay locked the door and then sealed it with a crime lab seal. She turned to the Lieutenant who came hurrying up as she exited the apartment. "I need you to post a guard here, and probably at the back window. I have not finished processing the scene. I just removed the body and I will be back tomorrow to finish the scene. I need you to make sure it remains undisturbed. I would suggest that while your officers are canvassing the area to maybe instigate that door-to-door search that I suggested earlier. Both attacks appear, on the surface, to be the work of the same killer. I will know more once the lab processes the results."

The Lieutenant nodded and held out his hand. "I want to thank you for all of your hard work, Officer Rollins. I know this has been a long day for you."

Jay shook the Lieutenants hand. "I hope that I find something that can help you catch this guy quickly, sir."

Jay turned and started walking towards the parking lot where her van was. She caught up with Rodger, who had waited for her, just beyond the bright lights of where the TV crews had set up. "As I was saying, boss." Rodger grinned at her wince at the title. "I think Ashley likes you." He bumped her gently with his shoulder.

"Don't you think we should be talking about the case?" whined Jay, trying to distract Rodger from critiquing her love life.

"Nope, I want to think happy thoughts between now and when I go to bed. Maybe I won't wake up with nightmares." He looked sober for a minute then shook himself. "Now, about Ashley?"

"Stop right there. No playing matchmaker. You don't even know if she's family." Protested Jay, agreeing with Rodger that a change of subject was in order.

"She sets off my gaydar. " Rodger wiggled his eyebrows.

"Why is it that I can pick guys out at 100 yards, but women have to be wearing a sign for me to figure out if they are lesbians or not?"

"Don't know, don't care, but the Amazon was not only checking your butt out when you walked by, but she was very concerned that I left you in that place by yourself."

"Was she?" Jay felt herself grinning like a fool. "Wait a minute! We are not in high school. I am not passing notes or having you act as a go between." She looked over at Rodger who was snickering. "Was she really checking out my ass?" Rodger doubled over with laughter and had to stop walking. Jay just stood there and glared at him until he wound down.

"He he. He he, whoooo. Thanks girlfriend. I needed that. Whew. You lesbians are a trip, you know that? I swear, some butches just think whacking a pretty woman over the head and dragging her to the truck is romance. Maybe that's what you need?"

"What, a club or a helmet?" jibbed Jay.

"Both. Either. Girlfriend, you need to get laid. How long has it been?" Jay started digging in her pockets for the keys to the van to avoid answering. "Uh huh. Since Tiffany. That bitch was bad news. And she was ugly."

"Hey!" Jay found the keys and roughly inserted them into the lock. "I have never commented about Mr. Hairball!"

"Right, you bringing over the extra strength hair removing Drain-O wasn't saying anything." Rodger rolled his eyes as he packed up the boxes. "All I'm saying, sweetie, is that you can do better. Much better than Tiffany and Ashley is a hottie. She even made me look twice. And not having sex for so long, well that can't be healthy."

"I have sex," grumbled Jay.

"Using BOB's don't count, girlfriend. Sex is with more than one person. Masturbation is a solo act. And I know you've been flying solo for a while. If you aren't careful, you are going to wind up with carpal tunnel syndrome." Rodger made a rude pantomime with his hand. Jay busted up laughing.

"Ok, ok. You and Temp have been talking again, haven't you?"

Rodger gave her a quick hug. "You know we love you. Now go return the van and flirt with the nice EMT. Maybe you can get a date out of it." He swatted her lightly on her butt. "Now scoot!"

Jay gave him a salute and jumped in the van. She waiting until he got in his car and started it before driving off towards the Crime Lab. Visions of a long legged beauty with blue eyes dancing in her head.