"So here's what we know." Jack Hudson stood at the front of the room, a laser pointer in his hand, his back to a white board covered with photos and sketchy drawings. "We have a little tangle of webs. We have four victims," here he turned and pointed the laser beam at four pictures in turn but was careful not to speak until he had turned back around, "each of them a blonde woman, each of them killed a different way.

"Stacie Rodkins. Killed while out walking her dog. Looked to be strangulation. Melissa Harper. Disappeared after work, found the next day in a lake. Appeared to have drowned. Heather Campbell. We have a witness who says he saw her grabbed outside the library but the guy can't tell us any more than that. She was found later with a bullet hole between her eyes. And Beth Carter. No one knows when she was taken. Her body was found mutilated by a knife and her throat slashed."

Jack paused to let his fellow agents take in everything he had said, even though they'd heard this information over and over since the start of the case three days ago. He surveyed each one to ascertain their reactions.

His gaze traveled first to his best friend, Bobby Manning. The strong, robust Aussie's face was devoid of its usual telltale grin, instead he stared at the faces on the board, as if expecting to see the answer to the case in one of their eyes.

Then his look moved on to Myles Leland. A sometimes unapproachable and annoying man, there could be no denying that Myles took his job very seriously and could sometimes approach a problem from an unorthodox angle. Right now, Myles was chewing on the end of a pencil and had his eyes closed, apparently deep in thought.

Next he looked over to the unit's router, Lucy Dotson. Lucy was scanning anxiously through a folder, her dark face a mask of concentration. Jack knew that Lucy didn't like facing the realities of a case but that she preferred to work the paperwork end of it. He also knew that she could be counted on in a pinch to do anything the team needed.

Standing behind her was Dimitrius and that's who Jack looked at next. The only married man among them, D seemed to have a personal agenda in this one. Every woman who had been killed had been newlyweds and that seemed to hit close to home for him. Jack took D's rock-hard glare for the look that meant that the bad guys had better watch out.

Tara Williams was seated where she could always be found, behind her computer. She was poring over forensics reports, looking for the small, glossed over fact that could reveal the identity of the murderer. Tara believed that the answer was always available but it was just a matter of looking in the right places. Jack hoped she would be right.

And last, Jack's gaze traveled to the newest member of the team but one who had been with them for nearly three years, Sue Thomas. She was the reason that he never spoke when his back was turned. She was deaf and only understood what he was saying by reading his lips. As she would say, "I 

can't read the back of your head." But always having to look at her wasn't a problem for him…it gave him more opportunity to look at her, which was something he always liked. Not that he'd ever admit it.

"Hey, Sparky, you ok?" Bobby asked.

"What? Oh, yeah, sorry, just zoned out for a minute. What was the question?" Jack quickly tuned back in to the people around him.

Myles was the one who spoke up, "We were just wondering if there is anything in connection with the three murders, anything we don't know yet."

"No. The only connection we have is the killer's marking of the victims." Jack rubbed a hand across his brow.

Lucy looked up, surprised, "What marking? I haven't heard of this."

D answered her, making sure that Sue could see his lips, "Yeah, you weren't here. Each victim has been found with kiss marks all over their face. As if the killer put on lipstick and proceeded to kiss each woman repeatedly. We don't know what he may have done to them other than that. The lab is pretty sure from the autopsies that they weren't raped but…again, we don't know for sure."

"That's awful," Lucy sighed.

"Ok, Bobby, you and I are going to go follow up on Howie's lead. The rest of you keep working." Jack grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. Bobby picked up his gun, holstered it and followed.