Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve:

Cutting it Close

Emily swallowed the fear that had begun to rise in her throat. She could hear Marshall entering the house. She knew she had seconds maybe minutes if she was lucky to come up with some sort of plan. As she heard the key being put into the cellar door, the light bulb in her head went off.

***Flashback...Six years ago in Phoenix***

    "Ok, Kyle tell me about your fourth victim, Leslie Parker" A much younger Emily asked.
    Kyle leaned back in his chair, he smiled and eerily replied "what is to tell? Each bitch is the same"
    "Fine, than tell me about the rapes, you've already told me that you took these women to cleanse their soul, why rape them?" Emily asked
    "Because the sex was my favorite part. You want me to tell you a secret" he said with an evil smirk, he leaned in and whispered to Emily "Each time we had sex, I made sure they were awake, I wanted to watch their soul leave their eyes. It might not happen the first time or even the second time, but usually by the third time I knew that I was winning when I got that glazed look in their eyes. But Leslie she was a stubborn little thing, it took at least till the tenth time for that light to leave her eyes." And with that he sat back in his chair still wearing the same smirk.

***End if Flashback***

"That's it" Emily thought, she figured as long as she pretended to be unconscious due to her injury, Marshall wouldn't touch her. After all his victims had to have their eyes open. She heard Marshall open the door and head down the stairs, Emily closed her eyes and said a silent pray that he would leave her alone.

Matt was reading over the files from the original case that had came from the Phoenix office. The letters were becoming jumbled and his vision was blurred. He was exhausted but determined to find something, anything that would lead to Emily. He yawned and he knew that if he didn't get a few minutes of sleep he would be useless to everyone. So he closed his eyes, he must have just drifted off to sleep when he heard someone calling his name "Matt get up, CSU has something from Emily's car" Frank called as he stuck his head in the conference room where Matt was working. Matt jumped up and followed Frank downstairs to find out what CSU had come up with.

Duff had return from getting coffee and was once again sitting in Lia's room holding her hand. Cheryl was still sat on the edge of Lia's bed, Duff could see that her eyes were blood shot, he assume that she had been crying. Lia's parents plane was due to arrive at the airport any minute now and when they got to the hospital, the decision would have to be made to turn off the life support or not. He sniffed trying to hold back the tears. How could he lose her now? It just wasn't fair, none of it was.

Meanwhile back in the lab, the lab tech Skyla had ran every test she could think of on the coffee and she was still coming up with nothing. She had eliminated the possibility of it being a powder or solid, therefore whatever was poisoning Lia Mathers had to be a liquid. Nothing else made sense. "What could it be?' she asked out loud as she stared at the coffee sample, hoping the answer would somehow just come to her, she was aware that she was working on borrowed time. If she didn't figure it out soon, it would be too late. Finally Skyla took the sample she was staring at, there was one more thing she knew to try, she would dilute the coffee and put a sample in the ion trap mobility spectrometer and separate the properties of the sample. Maybe that way she could get the structures formula and be able to identify the poison that was killing Lia.

Marshall came down the stairs, Emily closed her eyes, she was determine to not let Marshall see that she had awoken. He ignored for a little while, he went in the back room, she could hear him moving things around and it sounded like he was washing things down. He walked back out and headed towards the wall furthest from Emily. Emily was sure that Marshall had his back turned to her so she opened her eyes to take a quick glance at what he was doing. She saw him tape up a picture of Julia on the wall, and it had a red heart drawn around her face. He was starting a new serial wall. She quickly closed her eyes again before Marshall could turn around. He walked back towards Emily, stopped right next to her "still out, Princess, oh well I'll wait for a little while" He said to her. He carefully lifted Emily up so she was no longer hanging and carried her into the back room, he placed her on the bed "I'm going to have you one way or another" he said caressing her cheek and bending down and giving her a kiss. Emily wanted to fight back but she knew she had to stick to her plan so she kept her eyes tightly closed as Marshall deepened the kiss. He was satisfied with that for the moment and lid back on the bed putting his arms around Emily "I'm the one that truly loves you and I have been waiting for this moment for the past six years " he whispered in her ear.

Lia's parents had arrived at the hospital, the doctors gave them the news about their only daughter and now they had to make a decision.

Skyla had worked on the coffee with a craze, she was now just waiting for the results to come in, she knew it was a long shot, the odds of her being able to identify the poison by its properties were not great but it was the last thing she could think of. The printer shot out a piece of paper, Skyla couldn't believe her eyes, it was a miracle, it had the formula wrote on it HOCH₂CH₂CH₂CH₂OH, Skyla knew exactly what it was.....1,4 butanediol, it was fatal if not treated and because it was colorless and odorless it was very hard to identify but completely treatable with strong antibodies. Skyla got up and quickly dialed the number that Cheryl had left her.

Given what the doctors had told them, Mrs. and Mr. Mathers decided it was time to stop Lia's suffering. They were going to turn off the machines that were breathing for her, they knew Lia wouldn't want to live like that, and things were not getting any better, her body was tired of fighting, she had three more seizures since they had arrive. Lia's parents, Duff and Cheryl all sat around Lia as the doctor turned off the machine. He flipped one button, than another and was about to flipped the last switch when Cheryl's cell rang.