Beth smoothed the wavy tendrils of her hair a third time, feeling giddy with nervousness and excitement as she checked her appearance again in the mirror, the ticking of the clock marking a countdown to a night she'd never forget. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail with a fancy jeweled clip, the newest dress she had hanging demurely over her slim figure, and her blue eyes shining brightly, rimmed with the barest amount of liner and mascara.

She and John had talked for weeks, the latter contacting her shortly after she finally took the plunge and signed up for one of those dating apps. A pretty girl, she should have no problem finding a suitor, but she was new to the area, transferring to the local college to finally gain some independence from her family. They babied her, especially her sister, ever since mom died, and at twenty, she needed to spread her wings and find her place.

So far, all she'd done was work at the diner that was just steps from her meager apartment and go to school, nights spent hunched over the chipped wood table doing her assignments. The place was small, but the rent was good, and she finally had a place of her own.

John was older, self-employed as a contractor, and he had a fancy website with his smiling face smack in the middle of the page. She was no dummy, and made sure to research him before agreeing to meet in person. A quick web search had turned up a few articles about some of his projects, and one twitter account that posted a few funny pictures every now and again.

Her cheeks turned pink as she thought of the last conversation they'd had over the phone, when he told her that she was beautiful, the kind of girl whose eyes he could get lost in, ever the gentleman, and she'd plucked up the courage to ask him over for dinner. He'd hesitated for a moment, and Beth thought about dismissing it as a joke, but he told her he'd be honored, but only for dinner, he told her in a teasing voice.

"We should take it slow," he'd said, "and get to know each other. How about I bring over some Chinese on Friday?"

At his insistence, she'd texted her sister Maggie to tell her about the date, giving her his name and phone number in case of an emergency. Now, he was due at any minute, and her heart was full. They were finally going to meet.

Her ancient clock had just clicked over to six o'clock exactly when there was a soft rap on her door. Smoothing her hair one more time, she fidgeted with her dress as she peered through the peephole, her body flushing with heat when she saw that it was him. It was really him, live and in the flesh. It wasn't a trick, it wasn't a joke, and it wasn't one of those awful Catfishing deals that she'd heard Jill Johnson talk about in Econ class.

With shaking fingers, she unlatched the sliding lock, opening the door shyly as John held up a still steaming bag of Chinese food.

The foreplay always bored him. No, that wasn't true. The foreplay before the foreplay is what bored him. The sitting and discussing banal pleasantries, the 'where were you born's' and the 'where do you see yourself in ten years' bullshit sort of questions. It never really told you what you needed to know about someone. Their facial expressions did. The way they would shift their legs. When they're turned towards you it's a sign they're interested. Same with arms. Crossing them is a signal that you're closing yourself off from someone.

In fact, the entire body was an open book, just waiting to be devoured. Sweet, juicy lips and pretty eyes, whether they were brown, green, hazel, or blue. Blue eyes were his favorite, at least for now. And her blue eyes were exquisite as they peered up at him, telling him everything he needed to know, pleading for release.

They always begged for release, a sweet conclusion to the way he played their bodies like an instrument, with dexterous fingers and a skilled mouth. They way they'd writhe underneath him, bucking and seizing.

And he'd never deny them. It would be cruel to deny them that release, so after he had enough, felt that he'd played with them sufficiently, he'd grant it to them. Release.

But before he did, he leaned down one more time, smelling her hair as her blue eyes begged him silently, soaking up the sweet scent of peaches.

Please. I need the release.

He liked her. Beth was one of his favorites.

Andie treasured her weekends. They were her chance to rest and recharge, especially when the week had been rough. This one wasn't so bad, as far as work weeks go, a bit on the mundane side, giving her plenty of time to catch up on paperwork, her least favorite thing in the universe.

But Saturday mornings were for sleeping in and lazing in her bed. The laundry, bills and the million other errands that needed to be done could wait. She'd spent a shit-ton of money on a top of the line mattress, foam that you could melt into, silk sheets and a goose-down comforter that had put a serious dent into her savings, and it was totally worth it as she rolled over, curling up into a ball with a satisfied sound.

She was just falling into a deep slumber when her phone beeped and vibrated, forcing her eyes back open.

"Someone better be dead," she mumbled, cursing herself when she saw the message.

10-35

Be there in twenty.

Fuck.

She set the phone down after checking the time, finding it much earlier than she thought. It was only five after five in the morning, and she stretched before getting up and pulling out a suit from her closet, throwing a white blouse on top of it as she stepped into the bathroom to brush her teeth and pin her hair into a bun.

Exactly thirteen minutes later, Andie was standing in front of her coffee maker, brewing up some Arabian roast, filling first a blue thermos and then a black one, locking her door as she tried not to spill it all over herself. Someday, she'd have to get better ones, but they'd do for now.

Sipping at the blue one, she watched as a black Taurus turned onto her street, passing the other condos and apartments before stopping in front of hers, a face as tired as hers staring back at her.

Abraham Ford was big, burly, and the loudest partner she'd ever had, and he had her back like no other. His girlfriend Sasha was also a detective, and one of her friends, so his protectiveness was ingrained in him, though she thought he tried too hard to shield her sometimes, especially from the other guys in their division. She could take whatever they dished out at her, and she ribbed him endlessly about it.

But there was no teasing today as he took the black cup wordlessly, staring ahead as she tossed her bag into the backseat, buckling her seatbelt before he drove off. It was their weekend on call, and she waited for him to give her the details, but he seemed abnormally subdued.

"What are we walking into, Ford?" she prompted him, setting her own coffee in the holder as he grunted.

"Twenty-year-old girl found in her apartment by her sister. Strangled, assaulted and mutilated."

"Jesus Christ."

Andie and Ford had seen their fair share of upsetting murder scenes, but nothing as brutal as what he just laid out for her. Domestic issues, gang violence, they had it all in their town, but something like this was unheard of, and as he drove he turned on the sirens when they got on the main road, the cars in front of them peeling off to the side to allow them through.

Ford drove them downtown, slowing to a crawl as they neared the plethora of cops, coroners, and bystanders that were crowded around Bleeker Street, just down from a popular diner called Jerry's. As they pulled up, people both official and eager for information surrounded them, one of them being a local beat cop that they dealt with often.

"Simon," Andie nodded as he tipped his head towards her before running his hand over his mustache, waving the crowd back so that they could get into the run-down two-story building that sat in the middle of the block.

"Porter's already here from the coroner's office," he told them, leading them inside a white door with cracked paint, the narrow hallway filled with fellow cops. Up the steps and around the banister was a door that already had tape across it, and two of Simon's men were ushering the neighbors back into their apartments, trying to keep the area as clear as possible. Ford asked him to start taking statements, and Simon assured them he was already on it.

Standing in the corner near a window that looked out over the sidewalk was a young woman with brown hair, being consoled by Sasha, who'd heard the call over the radio and had come to assist, no doubt. She gave Andie and Ford a cautious look, and Andie assumed it was the sister, nodding back before setting her bag down and pulling out everything that she needed.

As Sasha tried to shield the sister from the movements of the detectives, Andie and Ford put on their booties, gowns, and gloves, each of them attaching a belt around their waists that held their supplies, and Andie noted that there was no sign of forced entry before stepping inside under the yellow tape.

The other officers had been ordered to stay outside until the area was cleared, except for the coroner, Eugene Porter, who was also scribbling down some notes as he stood over the body. The apartment was small, just a tiny kitchenette and an abbreviated sitting area along with a bathroom and a bedroom. A typical apartment for a young girl, and Andie scanned it briefly, nothing seeming out of place except for the tragedy on the worn yellow carpet.

"Twenty-year-old decedent," Eugene said in his robotic voice, not looking up from his notes. "Time of death between ten o'clock and two o'clock this morning. COD most likely manual strangulation as noted by the marks on her neck."

Ford bent down, growling low in his voice as he took in the carnage.

"But definitely not the fact that her chest is cut open, huh?"

The sarcasm went right over Eugene's head, as he continued to write down information.

"That is correct. The lack of blood suggests that the mutilation probably occurred after death, as well as the significant petechiae along the cheeks and eyes."

Indeed, the young girl's face was littered with red spots, and the whites of her eyes were almost completely obscured by broken blood vessels.

Andie had seen bodies in all states since she transferred to homicide, and she was always able to turn her emotions off while she worked, moving and thinking in a robotic, intellectual fashion, but this time it was a struggle. The victim, Beth Greene was just a kid, and she'd been terrorized and gutted by a monster. This wasn't a crime of passion, and Ford knew it as well as he took pictures of her body, his hands holding the camera so tightly that she thought he was going to shatter it.

"Victim was sexually assaulted as well, judging by the tearing along the vaginal canal," Porter said, though it was much softer and with an actual inflection of emotion, "though the autopsy will confirm."

He stepped out of the room after declaring the official death of one Elizabeth Greene, allowing Andie and Ford to do their jobs. There was a protocol involved in each and every call they or any other of their brethren took, and they followed it to the letter. They secured the scene, took evidence as carefully as they could from the young girl's body and logged everything into the official record before she was taken to the morgue.

Less than an hour after they arrived at the scene, Captain Rick Grimes joined them, his face grave as he gowned up, stepping inside the spartan area, watching silently as Andie checked the table for fingerprints, finding a small, round drop of something brown. She carefully took a sample, labeling it and handing it to Ford who added it to the evidence bag.

Beth's sister Maggie had been taken to the station for an official statement by Sasha, and Rick silently held out his hand for Andie's notes, reading through them with his lips pressed firmly together. The apartment was spotless, with not a hair out of place, not even garbage in the can. There had been no defensive wounds on the girl's arms which suggested that there was no struggle, although she appeared to have been restrained somehow, as there were ligature marks on her wrists.

"What are we thinking?" Rick asked quietly as they formed a small triangle. Andie knew that he was professional and by the book, but with the crinkling of the corners of his eyes, he was on the verge of a major eruption. "The sister said she was supposed to have a date last night."

"Did she have any information about the guy?" Abraham rolled his neck, sore from hunching over for a long time. "Name? Phone number?"

"She showed us a text from the girl with his name and number, but it's been disconnected. Said Beth always checks in before bed, and when she didn't hear from her by midnight, she made the trip here to check on her."

"Poor girl," Andie murmured, "finding her sister like that."

"This doesn't feel like a date gone wrong," Rick mused, his eyes drifting down to the small puddle of blood that remained on the yellow rug. "Whatever happened here, we need to find this guy yesterday."

"We'll finish up and meet you in the office," Andie told him, turning back to the kitchen to bag a few more things before moving onto the girl's bedroom.

She left Ford to deal with the captain, her mind already working overtime as she went over the apartment with a fine-tooth comb. Rick's words were bouncing around in her head over and over. This definitely wasn't a date gone wrong, and she had a bad feeling in her gut that whoever did this was going to do it again.

He slowly drove by the apartment a few hours later, smiling slightly as he watched the cops milling around on the sidewalk, taking note of a pretty woman in the window of Beth's apartment, watching the scene below.

Yes, Beth was one of his favorites.