Natural Law

Mac swore, viciously, as he knelt over the body.

Suarez stared down at the victim. "Might as well get a cookie cutter, the way she picks out exactly the same type of guy."

"Yeah." Only Edward Turner hadn't been a cookie cutout to his family, Mac thought.

"She moved on this one fast," Suarez observed. "They must have broken through that trust barrier fast."

It could happen that way. It was something about which Mac couldn't have claimed firsthand knowledge only a handspan of days before. But he knew he would trust Violet with his life.

"Which may mean they had a prior association, or a mutual friend. Someone will remember her. She's getting bloodthirsty, and that means she's getting careless. Or she's playing more than one at a time."

"She's also getting bolder." Consuela squatted next to him. "She wanted to see the parent arrive on the scene this time. Body was still warm when we got here."

"You seal off the block?"

"Instantly, but you know she's too smart for that. We're doing a door to door, but my guess and my gut tell me she slipped right between arrivals. Laughing her ass off, probably." She made a disgusted face.

"No, not laughing." Mac studied the body, his eyes marking every detail, evaluating its significance or lack of import to the crime. "This one snapped quickly. I think she's been carrying around her psychosis for quite a while. But something happened a couple months ago that manifested it. Suddenly, it was all clear to her. She could ease the ache with the kill. And now she's like a junkie needing the fix, it's rushing up so hard and fast in her. She's got a lifetime of pain to get rid of. Killing them wasn't enough. Seeing the parent find him tonight, she thought that might help, but it won't. She was in the house when he was discovered, I'd bet on it. Probably left out a back door while they were still standing over him in shock. She's going to keep varying her MO until she figures out what works for her, and nothing's going to work. She's starting not to care about being smart. Getting rid of the pain is what matters.

"Turner's on The Zone member list." Connie noted. "She's sticking to that, at least."

Suarez shook his head, looked like he would have spit if they hadn't been where they were. "She's got a pool to choose from. Seems like there's a rash of guys lining up to have a woman beat on them these days. Got dealers in school yards handing out coke patches to six-year-olds, and we're having to waste time with this freak who was begging to get iced."

Mac used his pen to lift the chin of Edward Turner, looked into the lifeless gray eyes. "Suarez, that was your daughter that came through the station the other day, wasn't it? The Britney Spears wannabe in hip huggers and crop top?"

"Yeah. She's into that stuff now. You know how teenagers are. Smart about some things, but hormones get in the way of good sense." Mac nodded. "Even so, I guess if someone jumped her on the way home, raped her and left her dead in a ditch, we'd probably bend over her and say the same thing. I mean, with that outfit, she's got to be asking for it, a twelve-year-old dressed up in an outfit a hooker'd blush to wear?"

"Crime scene," Consuela snapped as Suarez surged forward a step, into her slapped palm. "Crime scene," she repeated. "Don't do this, guys."

"Look around the room, Suarez," Mac said, his voice deadly and low. "What is it that says freak to you? The picture of his family on the dresser? The TV Guide with his favorite sports shows circled? The suit he'd laid out in the bathroom to wear to work tomorrow?

"Did you notice the display cabinet in the front hallway? This guy was the United Way fundraiser chair at his office, raised fucking fifty thousand this year. In the laundry room there's a dry-cleaned and wrapped set of suits he was planning to have the men's shelter pick up to help some down-on-their-luck guys get jobs." Mac's voice was raised now, and he was vaguely aware of the uniforms just outside the door, frozen in shock at the outburst, but there was something boiling inside him, a fire he had to unleash or it would consume him.

"But you know what? That doesn't matter. Even if he'd been a selfish yuppie prick who'd made less of a mark on the world than a twelve-year-old not old enough to make her mark on anything yet except her daddy's heart, he'd deserve our help. Less than twelve hours ago, someone stood in this room and played God. I don't need a repeat performance from an asshole like you. Get out of my crime scene and go find another one that you feel deserves your special touch more."

"C'mon, Suarez." Consuela tugged on his arm, giving Mac a quelling look. "Let's take it outside. Walk it off."

It took a full moment for him to recall himself, take a deep breath, realize with grim amusement that the cops on the scene were tiptoeing around outside the door, unsettled by the outburst from their usually stoic Oak.

Tensions were high. This many murders in such a short time frame meant a lot of pressure on the squad to solve it, and Mac could feel it, see it in the face of every uniform present. He felt it crawling in his own gut as he stared down at another dead kid. He'd spent the past two days at The Zone without Violet, risking the wrath of his pixie, but she was on a twelve-hour shift for the next several days and he wasn't going to wear her out. He'd turned down several offers to play, evaluating those who offered and knowing they weren't whom he sought, knowing he was out of the age range anyway. Three FemDoms had brought in twenty-somethings, and he'd had them tailed, but he suspected Violet was right, that whoever their killer was kept them away from The Zone, so the connection was never made. So he watched the FemDoms that trawled, or sat in the shadows watching, and came up with nothing.

"The neighbor remembers a gray Grand Am in the driveway." Consuela had returned. "Lost plate tag. My guess is we'll get a stolen vehicle report later from one of the downtown neighborhoods, find it stripped and the inside trashed, just like the last two times. I've also got some info on the gym connection, a list for you down at the station, if you think you can pull that railroad tie out of your ass long enough to listen to another cop."

"Don't start, Connie. He was out of line."

"Suarez'll do his best on this case, like he does all of them. We're all frustrated, Mac.

He was just blowing it off. He didn't want this kid to die. I don't understand this lifestyle choice anymore than he does. Most people don't. It doesn't mean we won't do our jobs."

"I know." Mac ran a hand over his face, the back of his neck. "I'll say I'm sorry.

Even buy his daughter the latest Britney CD."

"Well, let's not go crazy." Consuela allowed him a small smile, her sharp eyes studying him. "You may need a vacation after this one yourself. That wasn't like you, you know. You're looking a little ragged around the edges."

"He's looking worse." He nodded at Edward Turner. "Are the parents still here?"

"The father. Mother died when Turner was in his teens. The dad is with the victim's sister, in the next door neighbor's kitchen."

Ten or fifteen minutes of wading through the initial flurry of questions and confused anger of the father, patiently probing through that for anything that might have unconsciously been knowledge of his son's killer, resulted in very little. Just like the two victims before him, Turner had kept this an aspect of his life his family never suspected existed.

"Why...what kind of person...she didn't just kill him, she humiliated him." Mr.

Turner was a spare man, tall and lean. Mac suspected his leanness came not from an ascetic appetite, but as a permanent physical brand left from the death of his wife. He'd seen enough death and the way it affected those left behind to know some always carried it visibly, either through irreparable stress lines around their eyes, a nervous twitch, or a gauntness like this man had. His son had been a strapping kid with wide shoulders, and he didn't think Edward had gotten that from his mother.

Mac nodded. "Mr. Turner, I need you to think carefully about any friends your son has, and give that contact information to the officer I'll leave you with when you and I are done talking. That includes any names he might have just mentioned in passing, his regular hangouts, that type of thing. Any very close friends of his will be important, any confidantes to whom he might have told something about more private details of his sexual life."

"You think...someone he knew did this? That wasn't Edward in there. He wasn't...like that."

This was the hard part, and Mac kept his eyes steady, his voice calm. "If it fits with the pattern of the two prior murders we're investigating, he would have been having a relationship with this woman. It's not likely he would have brought her to meet you, even mentioned her. Your son was a sexual submissive, a very discreet one." Mr. Turner flushed red. "That's a lie."

"I have no reason to lie to you, sir. He had an active membership at several fetish clubs in Tampa, high-priced, very discreet. He was very careful not to mix this part of his life with the rest of it, to protect his family and career, I'm sure, but I'm thinking there might have been someone to whom he told - " Mac had lost him, he could tell from the panicked movement of Mr. Turner's eyes, as a vicious flood of possibilities scattered like bowling pins what little composure the man had been able to collect.

He had to shatter their fragile illusion that the submissive posture and props were the act of only one mind. It was the worst aspect of this case, but it had to be done, to be sure his murderess had not been a peripheral part of Edward Turner's life that had come in contact with the family. The sister sat pale and silent, her hand on her father's arm, that touch staying with him even as he jerked with impatient, grief-ravaged movements. She was so still that Mac was afraid she might be in shock, and made a mental note to have the EMTs look at her as soon as he and Mr. Turner were done.

"You aren't going to rub that filthy accusation all over my son's name. My lawyer - "

"Mr. Turner." Mac deliberately lowered his voice, made sure the man met his gaze, saw the patience and understanding, the lack of threat. "No one is accusing your son of anything. He's the victim, a very good man, his life taken away long before it should have happened. We're trying to find and stop his killer."

"But he didn't ask for this."

"No more than any man who takes a lover home to his bed does," Mac agreed. "Mr.

Turner, I know this is very difficult, but your understanding of your son's lifestyle may make you remember things that can help us."

"Lifestyle." Turner surged up from his chair, knocking it over. The sister flinched, but her fingers had curled into his sweater sleeve and clung to her father's arm, even as his movements half-yanked her out of the chair. "My son was not some twisted weak pervert who liked having a woman...beat on him. He was a junior varsity quarterback, and a wrestler. He took care of his sister for four years when my wife died and I had to work two shifts, put off college when he was an honor student with scholarships to go anywhere he wanted to go." The man had tears running down his face now and Mac was sure he wasn't aware of it. "Saved her from a mugger one night, when there were no cops to be found. Knocked the bastard's lights out. He wasn't weak."

"No, he wasn't," Mac ignored the lead weight that had settled in his stomach, effectively compressing all his vital organs. "He was a conscientious man who lived a good life and kept his sexual preferences in the bedroom, a place he thought was safe."

"You're supposed to help. I'm calling my attorney, and if one word of this preposterous story gets out, I swear to God --"

"You do what you have to do, Mr. Turner," Mac took out a card, laid it on the table.

"But remember I'm out there looking for the killer, before she does it to somebody else's son. If you think of something, you call me."

After the shocked numbness and the furious denials died away, if the man loved his son, Mac knew he would think it through, try to skirt around the edge of what he couldn't accept to find a killer's footsteps.

The man swept up the card, flung it at Mac's face. It was a distraction that he should have seen coming. Turner's knuckles slammed into his jaw, and then Mac was trying to fend off the man, trying not to strike back and cause him more pain. Several uniforms came to assist, along with the police counselor. The sister sat at the table, her head bowed, her chin pressed to her chest, her shoulders shaking with a grief hard enough to shatter. Mac stood back from the uniforms trying to calm Turner down. As if Turner's sister was on a separate stage, he watched her fight the pain that, up until this moment, could have been assuaged in the arms of her father or brother.

Every sub thought of this scenario, or something like it. That's why most never took the play outside of a club, not ever. To have one's sexual preference exposed, one that ninety-five percent of the world considered deviant, to embarrass one's family, a spouse...it was unthinkable.

But when it was a part of a person that couldn't be denied, it manifested itself one way or another. For most of them, the desire eventually overrode caution. Like most, Mac just hoped never to do anything stupid enough to have something like this happen. But Edward Turner had not been a stupid man.

The police counselor gestured, the subtle movement clear. Mac left the room, knowing his value to the family lay elsewhere, out of their sight. Even if he caught the killer, delivered her head to Mr. Turner and his daughter, they would never welcome the sight of him again, a man associated not just with their son's death, but a truth they never wanted to know.

He stepped outside onto the front porch and found his sergeant waiting for him there, leaning against a column.

"Good punch for a guy twice your age." Darla straightened, reached up, touched his face. "I've got a pissed off Suarez in the dining room of the murder scene, Detective.

You going to take care of that?"

"I clean up my messes. Is that why you're here on my crime scene, Sarge? To play daycare manager?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Careful, Detective. Maybe if the primary could keep his temper under control he wouldn't be thinking that's why I'm here. And I'll remind you," her countenance was hard and aloof, telling him he'd definitely stepped over her line, "that every crime scene that falls in our jurisdiction is my crime scene, as much as yours."

"I know. Jesus, Sergeant, I'm sorry." And he meant it.

Her anger defused as rapidly as his own, and she inclined her head. "You're pushing this one too hard, Mac. It's getting under your skin. But I'm not telling you anything you don't know. I should have given you some down time. You brought down that serial killer less than a handful of months ago and you haven't had a vacation since - "

"I'm fine." He waved that away. "I'm old enough to baby-sit myself, Sarge, don't worry. When we close this case, I'll cheerfully abandon the lot of you for a couple weeks in the Keys. Even if there's a major prison break and the streets of Tampa are swarming with death row inmates."

"I'll hold you to it," she responded. "I guess this one hits pretty close to home, hmm? Hearing everyone say he asked for it."

From her expression, he could tell she wondered the same thing herself, and what his position on it was. If it had been someone else, someone like Consuela or Suarez, he would have brushed it off, changed the topic. He'd never had any interest in being a salesman for his personal life, but she had gone out on a limb for him, and he owed her at least the answer to her curiosity. "It gets tedious," he admitted. "He asked for it as much as anyone asks for it who opens himself up to another person, hoping to find a connection."

Mac glanced back at the door, behind which Mr. Turner and his recriminations lay.

"But my father would have felt the same as him. I was varsity, myself. Was offered a scholarship based on my football skills. I went into law enforcement instead. Most people I know feel like this about D/s. That's why you always hope to find someone with whom you can finally be who you are. Isn't that what we all want?" He said it lightly, wanting to shrug it off, but her eyes told him she wasn't buying it. Cops never did, but they also knew when to respect the boundaries and back off. He didn't want to do this now, not with the stench of blood in his nostrils.

"Why are you here, Sarge?"

"Connie called me before we located you. She felt I needed to see one of the pieces of evidence on the body and talk about it with you directly. She pulled it off before you arrived on scene, handed it over to me when I got here just now." Her face unreadable, she lifted the plastic evidence bag that she'd been holding under her arm.

It was a folded sheet of paper, standard ruled notebook stock. His murderess was smart enough not to personalize herself with perfumed stationary. In small block letters, only taking up one line in the center of the page, was her message.

You're next.

Mac's brow furrowed. When he shifted, he could see through the kitchen window, where Mr. Turner sat at the table, alone now, face hidden by his hands, shoulders shaking in that harsh way that men who rarely cried did, as if each tear had jagged edges. "The killer wanted to threaten whoever found the body? That's new."

"No, Mac." Darla's hands closed over his, made him turn the bag over to read the back of the page, the name of the person to whom the message had been addressed.

Detective Mac Nighthorse.

"She's made you, Mac. She knows you're looking for her, and she's made it personal." Darla Rowe was one hundred percent business now, and Mac knew that look on her face.

"Damn right she has, and she's going to be sorry for it."

"You want to know what our shrink says about her leaving you a note?"

"I have a feeling you're going to tell me."

"Says she's gunning for you specifically now. She doesn't care about being caught.

In fact she's probably hoping it's going to happen soon, because with this many kills under her belt so quickly, she's got the pain of a rabid dog driving her. So she doesn't care if she takes you down right under our noses. In short, Psych says she's at her most dangerous now. You've drawn her out, and she's pissed as well as challenged. We need to put a man in on the inside with the security team. I know you said you didn't want that, that you have privacy issues, but now I'm more concerned about keeping you alive."

He faced her. "I told you, that wouldn't work."

"She knows who you are now, Mac. You could bring the whole squad in there, and it wouldn't matter."

"Yes, it would. Because she still has sense, and it might make her back off me and take another couple of victims to distract us for awhile. It's a double-edged sword. If she knows me this well, she knows I'm the genuine article, even if I am a cop. It's male subs that get her off, rouse the bloodlust. I'm a double treasure to her." He waved the bag. "With this, she's looking for a one-on-one gunfight.

"And we're supposed to give her that gunfight?"

"We're supposed to make her think we're giving her that." Mac hesitated, then made the decision he hadn't wanted to make. He had to accept Violet's offer, and overcome his desire to protect her. He didn't like her being involved, but she was a cop, had taken the oath just as he had, to protect and serve. It would be an insult to her not to allow her to help. Even more important, it would be a disservice to the three dead men. Whatever resources offered to him, he had to use them. For them.

Even so, it was an effort to hand over the card, not snatch it back when Darla reached for it. "She's my back up."

You're a male chauvinist pig, Mackenzie.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Buzz off, sugar," he muttered.

Darla gave him an odd look, took the card, looked it over. Did a double take. "You going outside the squad now, Mac?"

She's already on the inside with me," he said, keeping his gaze level with hers.

"She'll watch my back and she wanted you to have that as an alternate contact. I hope..." he cleared his throat. "You've respected my privacy, gone above and beyond, but this is my case, my job. She's volunteering for the duty. I'd hate to see it come back and bite her in the ass."

"She got the experience to cover you in something like this?"

"Four years with state, a couple years before that as a Marine MP. I think she'll do well enough. What she lacks in direct experience, she's got in grit."

"All right, then." She pointed to the bag, "But this makes me real itchy, Mac. Let's close this one. At the rate she's piling up a body count, we're going to have to move fast to keep the S&M angle out of the news. And the families have enough to deal with as it is."

"No argument there."

"Detective?"

Mac turned, cursed inwardly as he saw the young woman standing in the doorway.

The sister, pale but determined-looking.

"I'm Mara Turner, Edward's sister." She hesitated, then the words tumbled out of her, as if she were forcing them from herself rapidly so she'd get them all out at once before she could rethink the decision. "I needed to tell you...I knew about... Edward's preferences. When I was staying at his place once, I found a magazine. We talked and I was open to hearing about it." She colored at Mac's lifted brow. "No, I'm not into it or anything, not at all, but he was my brother, and I mean, it's the twenty-first century, you know? He was a good person with a good heart, and I trusted his judgment. He seemed glad to have someone... he trusted, to talk with it about, an open mind that linked him between that world and the one we knew him in. I just...I wanted to tell you that about three weeks ago he told me he'd been seeing someone really special. I think he was even a little in love with her. I told him he should introduce her to Dad, that this was just one aspect of his life. He didn't, I mean...I take boyfriends home to meet Dad, and we sure as hell don't talk about our sex life." She managed a ghost of a smile that trembled around the edges.

"He said no." Her attention drifted over to the house, to the bedroom window behind which her brother lay murdered. "He said she'd asked him herself, recently, if he was going to introduce her to Dad. Edward told me that he had said no, that he didn't want to mix that part of his life... he couldn't take the risk of integrating the two.

He was worried he'd hurt her, which is why I guess he called and talked to me about it, because it was bothering him. He cared. He didn't like hurting people. Then a couple days later when we talked he said she was fine with it, that they were going out this weekend."

"Did he describe her? Give a name?"

She shook her head, brushing away the tears that wouldn't stop running. With a nod of thanks, she accepted the Kleenex Darla handed her from her purse.

"No," she sniffled. "He never told me that, said he had to respect her privacy as carefully as he'd guarded his own. I wish..." her voice hitched and she turned away. "I wish that hadn't mattered so much to him. I wish he were alive." Darla moved to put an arm around the girl as she broke down completely again, sobbing. The sergeant murmured to her, cast Mac a quick glance before she guided her back into the house.

Mac turned and faced Edward Turner's home, his eyes hard and hot as fired steel.

"Your little bloodbath is over, sweetheart," he said between his teeth. "You come after me this time. You may take me down, but if I go, you're going down with me. So help me God, this is your last one."

He crushed the plastic evidence bag in his hand and headed back down the walkway, to start the painstaking process of going back over the room one more time for every possible clue.

"Mac, Mac!" Darla was hurrying after him, holding her radio.

"Sister okay?"

"Fine, fine. It's not that." She stopped at his side, taking a breath. "When you handed that card to me, I glossed over the name, just focused on the fact she was a trooper. But I know her name. You've been here, what? An hour?" He nodded, his brow furrowed. "What is it, Sarge?" The radio beeped and she raised a finger, responded. "I'm here, Roscoe."

"Yeah, Sergeant." The radio crackled in her hand. "I got it for you. The name of that trooper that got shot about a half hour ago."

Mac stared at Darla. Everything in him stopped. Blood, breath, heart. Darla's hand reached out, closed on his wrist as they waited three tense seconds for Roscoe to complete his message.

"Violet Siemanski. They've got her at Tampa General."