The old lady stared at me in despair, crying and sobbing like a child. Her short white hair awfully contrasted with her cherry red lipstick, which was slowly smudging as she wiped her nose and mouth.

"...I-I can't believe this is happening to me, we were so in love..." She stammered. "He promised he'd take me to Bora Bora as soon as he'd finish his job and...and..."

She burst into tears as I rolled my eyes and handed her her third tissue box of the day. Gee, she's only been here for an hour and she's already consumed my entire stock.

Her tearful gaze encountered mine, while I was reviewing the information written down on my notepad.

"D-do you think you can do something? Do you know why he left me?"

I sighed.

"Look, ma'am..." I replied, moving uncomfortably on my chair. "I don't want to hurt you, but...I am no private detective. I am only responsible for the psychological analysis of your, uh...ex-boyfriend. And if you're not willing to help me, then...I don't know what I can do for you."

She frowned and looked at me in the most snobbish way possible.

"What do you mean, psychological analysis?" She said in her posh accent. "My beloved Charles is totally sane. He definitely does not need to be watched by a little brat of your kind that doesn't even know how to do her job."

I clenched my jaw, doing my best to stay calm.

Breathe, (y/n) , breathe. She's not worth your anger, don't let your feelings ―

"Brat?! (Y/N)-chan is the best forensic psychologist you'll find in the Kanto region! M-Maybe even in the whole Japan! Don't you dare ―"

"Matsuda!" I gave him a deadly stare. "Sit back down, would you? Don't you see she's in shock?"

He looked at me, then at the old woman's face, and sat back on his chair while mumbling incomprehensible words.

I sighed again.

"Listen, Ms. Watanabe. I know it can be hard to understand, but we need your help more than we need the police for now." I made a pause, making sure she was listening to me. "You do realize he killed four people, right?"

She looked away and kept staring at the wall for a few minutes.

I huffed and stood up.

"Alright, fine. Whenever you feel like you have something to tell me, you know where to find me." I grabbed my tumbler and my handbag and headed to the door. "In the meantime, I would like you not to try to keep in touch or contact him. He's a dangerous man. We'll make sure some officers guard your house for a few days. By then, goodbye."

I gave a head sign to Matsuda and he quickly took his coffee goblet, got up and followed me out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"I can't believe it." He said. "How can you be so patient with these people?! They keep treating you like crap and you don't even care?"

"Matsu" I chuckled. "The people I deal with are mostly in shock, or in a state where what they stay doesn't really concord with what they think. I don't see why I'd get mad at someone who hasn't fully recovered from an...unfortunate event."

He rubbed his neck, letting out an embarrassed laugh.

"Yeah, but...still..." He took a sip of his coffee. "By the way, do you have any idea what could've happened to her 'beloved Charles'?" What's wrong with that guy? I've never heard of that case before. You said he killed four people?"

I laughed, then shook my head.

"It'd be too hard to explain for now, but I got my little idea." He raised an eyebrow and I smiled. "Well, since it's the end of the day, would you want to, uh, go out? I know a pretty cool Italian fast food near my place."

His face brightened.

"Y-Yeah! Sure! I would love t―"

"Matsuda."

We both turned to face the deputy chief Yagami. We bowed, blushing, knowing that in-work relationships were strictly forbidden to all employees, officers, investigators or even the poor lonely forensic psychologist that I was.

"Sir, that's-that's not what you think it is..."Matsuda stammered.

"We have some work to do tonight. I would prefer you stay here and help me with..." He glanced at me and coughed. "...business."

Matsuda froze, then nodded.

"Uh...I'll, uh, I'll see you later this week then." He waved and left with the chief.

I looked at the chief, then at Matsuda, and I understood something I didn't know was going on. I knew they were working on the Kira case, but to take such precautions not to talk about it in front of me...

Either they weren't trusting me, or they had something to hide.

In any case, it was none of my business, and all I did was politely nod, then leave the room without question.

As soon as I arrived home, I turned the TV on and looked for the news channel. As always, hundreds of pro-Kira militants were walking down the streets of God-knows-what-city, placards in hand, claiming their fidelity to that so-saying entity they were stupidly worshiping because of its deadly powers.

I sighed for the umpteenth time of the day.

It reminded me of the Nazi effect: the fear of getting killed pushed Germans to simply follow their leader's orders, no matter how cruel they were.

Pretty much the same thing was happening with Kira.

Kira, however, seemed to be everywhere. Which in my opinion was way more scary.

As I was about to change channel, my home phone rang.

Weird, I thought. The only person who'd call me as such an hour would be...Mom?

As soon as I heard my mother's voice in the phone handset, I knew something had happened. She was sobbing and crying, and my father had to take the phone from her hands to explain me what was going on. Judging by his voice, even my father was destroyed. That was not a good sign.

"It's...it's your brother...(There was an incomprehensible part of sobbing)...He...he..."

I frowned. It was getting scary.

"What?! What happened to him?"

A moment of silence. Then, my father took a deep breath and replied.

"He just got killed by Kira."