Two hours later…

Four figures intensely poured over the FBI files and photos that Diana had brought with her. Bowls of ice cream were strewn about, forgotten and melting as each person had become more and more absorbed by the project at hand. Diana had brought them up to speed on her investigation and they had explained to Diana what their plan had been.

One person was missing – Lana had gone to Lois's bedroom to take a call from Victor and hadn't emerged since. They suspected it was because she couldn't handle looking at the pictures of the girls. Lois didn't blame her.

"I just don't get it!" Lois threw a pen down on her coffee table in frustration.

Chloe looked up from the laptop she'd been typing into madly, a pencil stuck between her teeth. She removed the pencil and asked, "What don't you get?"

"This… all of it! It's horrible – how could a person do this to another human?" Lois gestured towards the photographs and files that covered her coffee table and carpet.

Diana glanced up from the file she'd been reading. "I know, it's hard to take, isn't it? We've been searching for this guy for so long that I sometimes tune it out. But it is horrific."

"We have to find this guy and stop him." Clark said grimly, rubbing his eyes in a tired manner. He'd only gotten two hours of sleep in over 48 hours and it was beginning to take a toll.

Lois picked up the file on Maddie, studying the picture of the smiling, bubbly girl. It had obviously been taken in high school, since Maddie was wearing a cheerleader uniform and looked younger. She flipped to the next picture and shuddered. It was a shot that had just been taken last week when the body was found. The girl in the picture bore no resemblance to the smiling girl in the previous photo. Lois let out a deep sigh.

"There has to be some connection, people. What are we missing?" Lois declared, setting the file back down.

"We've gone through these files, Lois. The only connection we could find was that all of these girls are from small towns in Kansas. Every girl was born in that town and lived there until she came to Metropolis to go to college." Diana shook her head and took off her glasses. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I don't what else there could be. That's it."

"There's gotta be something more, Diana. We're obviously missing a bigger piece of the puzzle here. Tons of girls in Metropolis were born and raised in small towns and go to school here." Lois pointed out. "I mean, look – right here we have both Chloe and Lana that fit that description. What made this maniac choose these four girls specifically? We need to figure that out and then we'll know who he'll choose next."

"Really?" Diana raised a brow, her lips lifted in a half smirk. "That's how it works? Thanks, Lois – because I hadn't thought of that method at all. What would I have done without you?"

"Don't get touchy with me, Princess," Lois shot back. "I'm trying to help you solve an investigation you should have figured out months ago. We're helping you, remember?"

"I remember that the only reason I had to involve a bunch of college kids was because some people couldn't keep their big --."

"Okay, okay, enough!" Clark yelled, raising one hand to signal them to be quiet. "Enough already! This is hard enough without you two going off on each other." The two women stared at him amazement and he continued in a quieter tone. "We need to focus. We have to do this. Diana, stop baiting Lois. And Lois – stop calling Diana 'princess'. Do you have to give a nickname to everybody?"

Lois rolled her eyes. "Her last name is Prince – she acts like she's royalty… c'mon, Smallville, you have to admit the name's begging to be used."

Her blue eyes glinted with amusement at the irony and Diana gave Clark a sardonic grin. "It's fine, Clark. Personally, I prefer 'her royal highness' but I'll take what I can get."

"Okay, you're right. I'll stop calling her that—it's just making her more arrogant." Lois turned to Clark, who was still glaring at her.

"Chloe," Clark turned to his friend, who was trying not to laugh at the exchange that had just taken place. "Do you have the list that I e-mailed you? Of the guys in the fraternity?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm working on right now. I'm cross referencing the list against Met U's student records."

"What is that going to do?" Clark asked.

"It's hopefully going to tell me everything about them – where they went to high school and what they're doing now."

"How many guys are on your list, Clark?" Diana asked, pulling her own laptop closer to her chair.

"Unfortunately, only three." Clark sighed. "When they asked me to join, there were two guys there – Nick and Charlie. And they mentioned a third guy – Rob. They said there are about ten guys in the group and I was replacing one of them."

Diana typed in some notes into the computer. "So, that means we're looking for six more guys – seven if we include Rob. The killer could be any one of them."

"Did they say why they chose you, Smallville?" Lois asked curiously. "Tell us exactly what they said to you."

"Not much." Clark shrugged and looked apologetic. "Honestly, I wasn't paying really paying attention… but they said something like they noticed the change in me and thought that I would fit in well with their group. Something about how college was when everything was different and that's when people really noticed you. When you came into your own and you become you who you're meant to be."

"Smallville, that doesn't make any sense."

"I know – like I said I wasn't paying attention. Look, they kind of struck me as kind of nerdy, okay?" Clark flushed, feeling guilty that the red K had made him screw up such an important part of the plan. When he was on Red K he couldn't really be bothered by most people and these guys had been no exception. He'd been bored by them within two seconds.

"You thought they were nerdy?" Lois pursed her lips together to stop from laughing. "Smallville, there are so many thing I could say to that. But I won't, because we don't have the time." Lois turned to Chloe. "Remind me to say them all later, okay? It's too good to resist."

Chloe wasn't listening. She was too busy comparing the two files on the guys she'd looked up.

"You guys – according to this, Charlie went to Bakersfield High School and Nick went to Riverside High School."

"Wait, that sounds familiar." Lois started wading through the files.

Diana straightened. She had the files memorized and didn't need to look at them. "It is familiar – at least one of them. One of the victims was found in Bakersfield. Mona James –she was also born there and went to high school there."

Lois flipped through the files and got a tingling sense in her fingers. Pieces began to connect together in her head, but she still needed to figure things out before the full connection.

"Chloe…" Lois said slowly. "Check to see if anybody named Rob went to Cherry Hills High School… or Bakersfield, Clear Lake or Allensburg."

Chloe began typing and clicking away searching the data Lois requested while Clark shot her a curious look.

"What are you thinking, Lois?"

"I have an idea…." Lois looked towards Chloe and didn't elaborate any further.

"Jackpot… in a manner of speaking." Chloe rolled her eyes. "Each of those schools had at least one Rob graduate from there – that ended up coming to school here. A total of seven."

"How many Rob's didn't attend those schools?" Lois asked.

Chloe typed something in again. "About 300."

"The Rob we're looking for is one of those seven. He'll be at the party tonight, I'm sure of it." Lois said with conviction.

"Would you mind telling us where you're going with this?" Clark asked, a brow raised in question.

"I think I know." Diana interjected. "Lois is thinking that it's more than one guy involved in the killings. She thinks that there's a connection between where these guys went to high school and where the victims went to high school."

"That's exactly what I'm thinking. I think more than one guy is responsible for this." Lois didn't know whether to be happy that the FBI agent had made the same connection quickly or to be pissed off that Diana wasn't that far behind her.

"Well, that's all well and good, Lois. But I don't see how you're making that leap. We had the best forensic specialists analyze this case. They all judged that it was one man that committed all the acts. And to jump our potential killer list from one to twenty changes the case substantially."

"I'm making that leap because I saw a connection you didn't." Lois said smugly.

"And what is that, exactly?" Diana rolled her eyes. This woman was so annoying – such a little, know-it-all brat.

Lois grinned and cleared off the tabletop, leaving only four files on the surface. She flipped open each one, facing towards Diana. Diana stared down at the smiling, cheerful pictures of the four victims. Each girl looked so full of life and vibrant. None of them had suspected that they'd never live to see their full potential – get married, have kids, even graduate from college.

Diana's heart broke and she lifted her eyes to Lois. In an effort to contain the emotion in her voice, her tone was harsher than she'd intended. "What exactly am I looking at, Lois? I've seen these files before."

Lois's eyes softened with compassion. "I know you have. I'm sure you have them memorized inside and out by now. I think that's part of the reason you missed it."

"So, what are you seeing, Lois?" Clark asked, leaning forward to analyze the files spread out before them.