"Got enough caffeine there, sweetheart?" a voice teased from behind me. I rolled my eyes.
"I'm not a sweetheart," I muttered in a quiet voice. The man behind me, Trevor, didn't hear me and instead grabbed a packet of low-cal sweetener and brushed his fingers against my side in what I assumed was an attempt to tickle me. Ugh. I really could do without this. It wasn't a special occurrence, either. Trevor McCowsky flirted with every single female in the office.
I stirred a spoonful of honey into my tea, which was, ironically, caffeine-free. I pursed my lips together as I did this, knowing I had a huge stack of paperwork to do over yesterday's work. So much writing…but I didn't have anything better to do. I sighed softly as I walked over to my desk, sitting down and staring at the huge stack of files and manilla envelopes and glossy photographs.
My desk was probably the most out of place in the whole office, mostly because it was the oldest one there. It had several unidentifiable stains and the top left drawer didn't open quite right and if I wanted to write on a completely level surface, I had to hook my foot over the little bar at the bottom and force the desk to sit flat on the ground. It was also littered with various personal effects, such as photos of my family, and one drawer had a smattering of fast food receipts shoved in between files.
"Hey, Lev. Whatcha got there?" a soft voice asked with a little smile. I looked up to find a friendly face. My friend Nora smiled at me, flashing her little dimples that came along with her smile. She was an intensely pretty woman and I often wondered how she wasn't married with a little one yet. However, Nora liked being married to her work and I was drawn to that, so we became friends quickly. Other men in the office had noticed her looks as well. It was hard not to, with her blonde curls and big brown eyes.
"Oh, paperwork. Nothing that special," I replied with a sigh. I gestured to the fat stacks of stuff that probably used half a forest of trees. Nora winced in sympathy.
"Yikes. Was that the arsonist or the paranoid personality guy?" she questioned
"Oh, both. He was a bit of an unusual bird," I sighed with a little shake of my head.
"How's the family of the—" Nora's sentence was cut off by the call of the leader, Sanchez. That was his last name, of course, but that's what we all called him. Calling him by anything else would not end well.
"Everyone, I need you in the meeting room. We've got another one," he called in that gravelly voice that simultaneously could put me to sleep and put me on edge. Nora and I both sighed in unison, causing me to laugh softly. Ray could be a bit pushy sometimes, but it was part of being a good leader. He had a very domineering personality and it tended to annoy others around him, but we all respected him too much to really comment on it…while he was around, anyways.
"Less work for you, huh?" she tried, but I shook my head.
"No, this paperwork is postponed until I get more paperwork." I playfully rolled my eyes at her. Nora chuckled and nodded.
"The life of a profiler. Come on," she tugged on my sleeve. I reluctantly stood up and followed her into the meeting room. The place was clean and mostly bare. A few whiteboards stood in the corners, waiting to be written on. I sat down near the end, next to Nora, and looked over at the other faces of the team. Ray, Trevor, Nora, and two others called Corrina and Burt. I didn't interact much with either of them. To tell the truth, I didn't interact with much of anyone. The curse of shyness plagued my days since preschool.
"We got a tip-off. Apparently, there's been a murder down in New York City," Ray began, but of course, Trevor interrupted.
"Yeah, so? Why do we care?" he scoffed and Ray shot him one of his cold hard stares that could always tear a confession from even the most hardened criminals.
"First of all, we care because that's a human being. Second of all, we care because it's apparently the fifth like it. I received a phone call detailing the murders of five women," he continued. I furrowed my brow in concentration.
"That…sounds like your standard serial killer," Corrina noted, apparently not impressed with this job. She had always liked the challenging cases.
"It does, doesn't it? Except for the fact that these women were all killed at different times and in different places. They don't even attend the same college. They live nowhere near to each other. The only thing that connects them is the cause of death…beheading,"as Ray said this, a collective silence fell over the group. I wrinkled my nose in pure disgust.
"Can we know anything without more victims?" Nora asked.
"That's what we're here to find out. We're taking a plane over to New York. First assignments: They said the death in the tunnel seems the most open and shut…there's not a lot of chance of being seen. Cliff, you're our best on motive. Take that one first and see what you can find. The rest of us will split up. One group to police and one group to look around the houses of victims," he ordered and I nodded my head.
"Next stop, New York," I sighed in agreement.