Chapter 1

"Lieutenant Colonel Ellie! The body of Fleur Rains has been found!" someone yelled.

I got up from my chair in my office and rushed to the caller. "Where was she found?"

"In an alley close to the intersection of Baker Street and Grandeur Road. She was left in the open, where she could easily be spotted. She is in the same state as other victims."

I sighed, this was the seventh girl that had gone missing and shown up dead. I heard the phone next to me ring and picked it up.

"Hello, this is Lieutenant Colonel Smith speaking. What's your problem?" I spoke. I always answered the phone like that. Just a habit I picked up over my life. It came in handy though, everyone respected me on the other end.

"Hi, I would like to report a missing person."

I fumbled for a pen and a piece of paper on the desk that I was currently standing in front of and got ready to write. "Who's missing?"

"My friend. She disappeared two nights ago. We were drinking and she walked home because she doesn't live too far from me. Anyway, she promised to give me a text when she got home but she still hasn't texted yet and she isn't answering her phone!"

"What's her name?"

"Daisy Madison. She has blonde hair that goes to the small of her back, she's tall, about 5''7. She's skinny and has pale skin," she answered.

"Can you remember what clothes she was wearing when she left your house?" I asked.

"She was wearing a dark purple strapless dress that went mid-thigh and black round-toe platforms. She had a black cardigan. She had her hair in a milkmaid braid. She had a cream coloured purse."

I nodded to myself. We could get the public to look for Daisy, but I had a suspicion that she was the next victim of the serial killer. "Thankyou. We'll let you know if we find her. Please tell your friends and family to keep on the look-out for her." I hung up. There was an extremely high chance that she was not going to be found alive.

I walked back to my office, handing my notes to Riley Fiel, the officer that had called me over. I grabbed my cap, camera and gathered some evidence bags. I guestured for Jocelyne Holst and her partner, Vico Bellamy, to go to the crime scene with me. They quickly grabbed their caps and cameras. I waited for them at the elevator before explaining that Fleur Rains had been found. We went to the crime scene in different cars. I got their first and I had to put up the tape and dispel the crowds. By the time Jocelyne and Vico had got there, the crowd had mostly disappeared. We worked quickly, and Hanji pulled up right on time. I helped her put Fleur's body into a body bag. Jocelyne and Vico collected anything that might be connected and took a few more pictures. I drove my car back to the station and gave my camera to Tobin Daubney. I stopped at my office to see a stack of new paperwork to fill out. I quickly flicked through it until I heard a knock on my office door. I looked up and saw Commissioner Erwin Smith, my dad. I walked to the door and let him in. He went inside and a smaller man, a newbie, followed him inside.

"Ellie, this is Levi Ackerman. He just graduated and is top of his class," Erwin introduced.

I looked Levi up and down, sizing him up. He was short, about 5''3, and had a muscular build.

"He's my new partner, isn't he?" I asked, my gaze shifting to my dad.

"Yes, he is, so be nice." Erwin walked out of the room, leaving me no room to argue.

"So, Ellie, is it? All of the instructors that I had talked about you. I see that you fit their descriptions," Levi said.

I looked him straight in the eye. He had the nerve to call me by my name. No one did that. "Listen, I'd prefer it if you called me Lieutenant Colonel Ellie. Now follow me." I walked out of the room.

Everyone in Riley's bullpen looked at us, and I just glared at them. They quickly looked away. I stopped at a door, two doors down from my office. I opened the door and gestured for Levi to step in. "This is your office. It better be kept clean."

Levi scoffed. I turned to look at him, my eyes narrowed slightly. He still had a grumpy expression on his face. I turned back around, I hadn't even known him for two minutes and I was already sick of him. I walked to a door at the back of the office. I opened it and revealed the private bathroom to Levi. He stepped in and had a look. He stopped when he caught sight of a washing machine and dryer.

"You don't have to use those. I only use them because I get sent on undercover missions and other gorey missions. I don't expect you to use them. And yes, that door on the other side does lead to my office. Under no circumstances are you to enter my office using that door, unless you can't get out of your office due to a fire. Am I clear?" I explain.

"Extremely clear."

I nodded and walked out of Levi's office. I went straight to the elevator and I only had to wait for about a minute for it. Levi stepped in after me and I pressed the button for Hanji's lab. I stepped out of the elevator first and led the way to the autopsy room. Hanji had already started and I started to help her. I knew what I was doing, I had studied the science side of police work in my spare time with Hanji. Erwin knew that I often helped Hanji but he didn't care, as long as we got the job done.

"Same markings as the other victims, just in different areas," Hanji stated and I nodded my head.

It was sickening knowing that people would do this to other people. I opened Fleur's mouth and sniffed it. It didn't smell unusual.

"It's all the same. Whoever is doing this knows what they're doing," I agreed.

"Well, Ellie. I'll tell you if I find anything different." Then she said in an undertone, "I know you want to find your mum's killer, but please, focus on this case."

I looked at her in shock. Erwin didn't know about that and he was my dad. I don't understand how she found out. I walked out of the office, ignoring Levi's look of slight confusion. I take the elevator back to the main floor and stop outside of Riley's bullpen.

"Have you printed the pictures yet?" I asked.

Riley nodded and handed me all of the pictures that Jocelyne, Vico and I had taken. I thanked him and set them down on a spare bench in my office. I started putting the pictures up and writing small comments about them. I grabbed a bunch of thumb tacks from a draw and set them down next to the pictures before opening a different draw and grabbed some different coloured string. Levi was staring at me and I knew that it was because I hadn't told him what I was doing. I started pinning the pictures up and using green string, began connecting different pictures of small things to where they fit with the picture of Fleur's corpse. I turned to Levi.

"See anything peculiar?"

Levi started at the board for a few moments, studying each picture and small note that I had just pinned up. "Nothing in particular, but it seems that she wasn't killed there. Her body was dumped."

"That's right. Every girl that has gone missing for the past few months all had similar cases. They disappeared, showed up a few days or weeks later dead. But they all were dumped, none were killed in the spots that they were found. Every girl has the same markings on her body but in different places, which was what Hanji and I were talking about before."

"How many girls have been killed so far?"

"Seven in total, but another was reported missing just before I checked this out. It isn't a coincidence either. Nothing about this is a coincidence."

Levi stared at me. I shrugged. I had been living around Erwin for my entire life and I had been a cop for five years. Everything happened for a reason and none of it was coincidental. I noticed Levi staring at the board again. I waited or him to ask a question.

"Look at her neck. That's too weirdly shaped to be a bruise, isn't it?"

I looked to where he was pointing. It wasn't a bruise, Hanji and I knew that for certain but I didn't expect Levi to ask that. "I know. Hanji and I figured that it wasn't a bruise when the second girl showed up dead. It was about a week and a half after the first girl was dumped. We compared the bodies and those marks around the neck vanished. We don't know why." I explained.

Levi kept staring at the picture showing the entirety of the crime scene. I studied him closely, he seemed alert and I knew that his mind was working overtime trying to find a clue or something that seemed out of place but he couldn't. I heard commotion outside and saw that some people were leaving. I looked at the wall clock above the door. 6'o'clock.

"You can go if you want. You have nothing else to do here, unless you want to sit and look at the board all night," I said.

Levi looked at me, and then at the clock, before walking towards the door. He stopped when his hand touched the doorknob and looked back at me. "Bye."

"See you later." I saw Levi's confusion but he quickly recovered. Once he was out of sight, I smirked. He had no idea of what I was going to do that night. I remember when Mike did it to me when I had just graduated. I logged on to my computer and pulled up the database. I typed in Levi Ackerman and saw his address. He was going to kill me but it was going to be worth it.