Blood Lust

Two women attempt to escape from a cellar where they’re being held captive. Untying their bonds, they reach a trapdoor in the ceiling and one emerges into the daylight, only to see her fellow escapee pulled back below by their returning captive. By the time the police have arrived at the property, the second woman is dead and with one of her fingernails wrenched off.

Natalia and Ryan interview the surviving woman, Michelle Baldwin, but she’s suffering from shock and her husband, Dennis, insists on taking her home. A carved wooden box containing a ‘kill kit’ was found in the cellar and it contains a butterfly wing from a Miami Blue, a species only found in Fort Sherman State Park. The remains of several other women are found buried there, each missing a fingernail. Horatio’s team are dealing with a serial killer!

The property in which the women were imprisoned was being foreclosed and the estate agent in charge is Hugh Parker. He and his assistant Kayla are brought in for questioning and Natalia pays a visit to Michelle Baldwin to see if she recognises Parker.

Then another woman, Wendy Gibson, is kidnapped. She had dropped her keys in the abduction, which had traces of fake grass trodden into the keyring. Could this have come from the kidnapper’s shoes? Locating a foreclosed property with fake grass, Horatio and Walter find Wendy bound but alive. But her kidnappers had only just left – the killer can’t be Parker.

Ryan finds a long hair in the ropes binding Wendy’s hands and gets a DNA match – to Michelle Baldwin! Natalia’s in trouble!

Meanwhile, Dennis Baldwin snatches Natalia’s gun and Michelle explains that she’s the mastermind behind the killings. She’d made husband Dennis abduct and kill any woman she felt was trying to seduce him. She pretends to escape with them as she likes to see hope in her victims’ eyes before it’s snatched away from them.

Suddenly, Horatio bursts in, shooting Dennis dead and rescuing Natalia. The Baldwins’ killing spree is over.