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"Took your time." Gunn remarked through the open window. "Here I was thinking you'd forgotten about me." Grinning as he watched his partner get into the car.

"With all your honking, not bloody likely." Spike quipped back, slamming the car door shut.

"How's your old man?"

"He's fine. Tell me you found something?"

By his partners tone and posture, Gunn saw it was clear Spike didn't want to talk further on the matter of his father or on the morning he'd had. Spike was a man of action and purpose, always to the point and straight down to the business of things. Gunn nodded and pulled away from the curb, navigating his way through the mid-morning traffic as he spoke.

"The first place was a bust. It was a little family owned veterinarian clinic. The husband and wife have been running the business for nearly twenty years and they were more than happy to show me around the premises and quite willing for me to run through their stock count with them. Nothing was missing, all the ketamine was accounted for." Gunn reached into the center console of the vehicle and pulled out his tablet that had a page open on it, ready for Spike to read. "They said they used it for knocking out or calming animals when they came in, called it a dissociative. It's all in there." He passed Spike the tablet. "Something about impeding the brain's sensory connection to the body."

"Sounds like bloody dangerous stuff."

"In the wrong hands, definitely."

Spike starred out the open window of the car as they drove through the streets of Sunnydale and watched the world flash by. Images started to blur together until he was standing back in the lounge room of the crime scene earlier that morning. He saw the young murdered couple on the couch in front of him and a shiver rushed through his body. No one deserved to go out like that.

"Anne said that you being in danger has got to do with the particular case that you're working on at the moment."

"It's a ghost."

Buffy's words flooded his mind and for a few moments he let himself get caught up in them. He was starting to believe that ghosts did indeed exist and Buffy sure as hell could see them, but what he wasn't so sure about was that a ghost was going around murdering people. He needed solid evidence. Like who the woman was that had left her DNA at the latest crime scene.

"We're here."

Lost in his own thoughts, Spike didn't hear his partner speak until the car had come to a stop and Gunn stepped out from the vehicle and onto the small parking they had pulled into. Sunnydale Vet's bright yellow sign was plastered above the entryway to the building, yellow and harsh against the blue brickwork. The building itself was small, run down and looked as if it needed to be condemned rather than be left open for business.

"Sure as hell has seen better days I'd imagine."

Gunn nodded his agreement, both unfastening the safety locks covering their weapons that sat concealed on their chest holsters underneath their jackets. The front door was open and together they walked inside, noticing the lack of customers and their pets. It looked like any other veterinarian clinic to Spike, with its sterile floors and white painted walls. A few chairs lined one wall that was opposite the reception desk, where no receptionist sat.

"Can I help you gentlemen?"

The owner of the voice was a man in his fifties, thin and dressed in a pair of jeans and yellow Sunnydale Veterinarians uniform shirt.

"I'm Detective Giles and this is Detective Gunn. We'd like to ask you a few questions."

"What is it regarding?"

"Just a few questions, sir." Gunn smiled, the man seemed a bit jumpy and on edge.

Spike took note and stayed silent, knowing his partner was as observant as him and wouldn't push too hard in his questioning. Any wrong word could spook a suspect into running, or worse. The man nodded and folded his arms across his chest. A defense mechanism.

"How long have you worked here, Mr?" Gunn asked the questions while Spike took notes in the small notepad he carried.

"Ethan Rayne and going on two years now."

"Business good?" Gunn smiled again, glancing around at the empty and run down floors and walls, his tone suggesting the opposite.

"It's been a slow few months." Ethan gritted out, eyebrow raised.

"We're investigating a series of recent murders here in Sunnydale and need to look over your stock levels of all the drugs you carry on the premises."

"Do you have a warrant to search my practice?"

"No."

"Then until you do, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Rayne."

With a tight nod and a raised eyebrow, Spike slapped shut his notepad before turning to Gunn and motioning for the door. Before they stepped out onto the parking lot, Spike had his phone out and was dialing the station.

"H-hello Detective Giles, sir."

"Jonathan, I need you to pull up everything there is to know about a man called Ethan Rayne."

"Ok, bu-"

Spike had already closed his phone and slipped into the car again.

"He just made the top of my list of people involved in this murder case." Gunn took a few moments to stare back towards the building with narrowed eyes. Ethan was standing still with his arms crossed, scowling at them through the glass windows.

"Something definitely wasn' right about him."

"Let's check out the last place on Fred's list and then head back to the office."

........................................................................

The last place on Fred's list was just like the first establishment Gunn had checked out. Another family run veterinarian clinic with all its stock accounted for. They drove back to the station in silence, Spike staring down at his notepad at the information they had discovered and the observations he had made during their very brief interview with Ethan Rayne.

He seemed like a smart man, knowing his rights as a citizen and very defensive when they asked to check his stock levels. Spike knew it was going to be difficult to get a judge to sign off on a warrant when they clearly had no hard evidence linking Ethan directly to any of the crime scenes. All they had were traces of Ketamine in each of the victims bodies and a woman's DNA. Ketamine which anyone could have easily broken into Sunnydale Vet's and stolen. The place didn't look like it could afford much in the way of proper security.

It took them nearly an hour to drive back to the station with roadworks slowing their drive. Spike took the time to catch a few minutes of sleep, his eyes becoming heavy and weary as the hours he had been awake for stacked up. The crime scene flashed in his mind as they often did, reviewing the scenes in his sleep. Spike walked the rooms in a time lapse, trying to remember the smallest of details that he may have missed. For someone like him, a man married to his work, it was very hard to leave the job behind. It followed him everywhere.

Even in his sleep.

Spike had no longer been in his office for five minutes when Jonathan, his tech guru, rushed in all flustered with his hands full of papers.

"H-here's the files you asked for, sir."

"Thanks." Spike shot him an appreciative look, watching as he scuttled from his office before sinking back into his chair. Gunn walked in and sat down opposite him, laying a sandwich and fresh coffee on the desk.

"Courtesy of your favourite receptionist."

"Don' start." Spike could hear the grin in his partners voice and shot him a glare, snatching up the coffee.

"Wasn't trying to." Gunn grinned, picking up half of his partners sandwich and taking a huge bite.

Spike opened the file Jonathan had given him and divided half of it to give to Gunn to read over while they ate and recharged. In Spike's pile of documents was Ethan Raynes CRB, to which Spike raised one eyebrow at and took a large sip of coffee and sat up in his chair.

"Ethan Rayne, age fifty-three-" Spike tisked and flicked his wrist to straighten the bending papers in his hand, eyes lighting ever so slightly at the information that he read. "Someone was busy in London."

"What do you mean?" Gunn sat up in his own chair, munching away on his half of the sandwich, his pile of papers yet to be touched.

"Rayne's criminal records check has a few priors and arrests from when he lived in London. No conviction or jail time, but says here he was a subcontractor for a rather powerful gang family in the UK and turned snitch."

"Interesting." Gunn took the last bite of his sandwich and sifted through his own pile of papers.

"Standard background information here," Gunn's eyes scanned the pages. "No brothers or sisters and parents long gone. Man studied medical science at university, with a degree in veterinarian science. Oh here we go!"

Spike downed the rest of his coffee and waited for Gunn to continue.

"Ethan Rayne married Sarah Winters in the summer of 1975-"

"Winters?"

"Yeah." He paused. "Sarah Winters, age twenty-three-"

"Sarah Winters, daughter of Shaun Winters." Spike's eyes scanned over his files and found where the name Winters was printed. A black line was marked through it where it had been redacted in the file and changed to Rayne.

"Who is she?"

"Only one of the biggest bloody crime families in London in the seventies. Christ! Says here after Rayne turned snitch for the British NCA they had enough dirt on Senior Winters to lock him away. Man got sentenced to life imprisonment."

"No wonder Rayne came stateside then. I'd want to escape that family drama too."

Both men sat reading the files Jonathan had brought them, the room silent. Spike's half of the sandwich lie forgotten on the center of the desk, empty coffee mug the only evidence that he had refueled.

"At the end of 1975, Rayne and Winters arrived stateside and one year later had a daughter."

"Interesting." It was Spike's turn to sit back and wait for Gunn to continue, his stomach rumbled and he picked up the discarded sandwich on the desk and took a bite.

"Sarah Winters died in 1976 giving birth to their daughter Drusilla Rayne."

Spike sat back, dropping the sandwich back on the desk, chewing his bite and pondering all the information they'd just uncovered.

Gunn continued to read.

"Ethan opened up Sunnydale Vet's in the early nineties after Drusilla finished high school and his file looks pretty cut and dry after that boss. Something about him though," Gunn shuddered and discarded his papers. "dude just rubs me the wrong way."

"Mmm."

"Do you think a court will sign off on a warrant?"

"Not enough evidence."

"Worth a shot though-"

"What happened to the daughter?"

"Drusilla?"

"Yeah." Spike sat up and sifted through the papers looking for her name. "Where is she now? Rayne was clearly hiding something and Fred did say the DNA she found was a woman's."

Gunn wheeled his chair around the desk next to Spike's to gain access to his computer. He turned the monitor on and logged into their departments database. His fingers typed away until he found what he was searching for.

"This could all be connected."

"There's no way she could have done it, boss."

"Why the bloody hell not? This could be the break in the case we're looking for."

"Well for starters she's dead."





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