"Come on, Braeden, we got another one!" Bailey called out as he headed for the door.

I grabbed my jacket that was thrown over the back of my chair and hurried to catch up to Tom. "What have we got?"

"Female. Mid to late twenties. Throat torn apart. Matches the previous vics." Tom said as we got into one of the department's unmarked cars.

"Damn, that makes four now. Sarge must be losing his mind."

"You ain't kidding."

Over the last month and a half, there have been three other murders. All the same profile. Female victim, mid to late twenties, with their throats ravaged. The other three bodies also had a disturbing similarity...they were almost completely drained of blood. The wounds to the neck just screamed animal attack. But animals would tear at other parts of the body too. There are usually signs of gnawing or eating. These just had wounds to the neck. Also, animals don't usually drain the blood from their prey. I mean, these victims didn't bleed out onto the ground. The blood was gone, taken. To what purpose, we'd yet to figure out.

"So. Scene in the same area?"

Tom glanced in his rear view mirror as he changed lanes for a left turn. "Yeah. Out in the club district. Found in an alley behind Blue 22. Guy taking some garbage out to the dumpster found her."

As we pulled up to the scene, I could see that news vans were already on sight. Uniforms were trying to keep the reporters and cameras back. Saw horses and police tape were being put up. We smiled to a couple of the uniforms and they let us through.

The victim was tucked in the corner formed by the side of the dumpster and the wall of the building. She looked like she just collapsed, her legs tucked under her. She appeared to be about 26 or 27 years of age, light brown, shoulder length hair; wearing a shimmery dress. She probably had been out clubbing.

Tom nodded a greeting to the CSI guys that were on scene. "How's it looking, Grady?"

Grady looked up from the cotton swab he was dabbing into a puddle of something. "Same as the others, blood drained. No prints."

The only set of prints we'd been able to pick up at a previous scene had belonged to someone who had died 8 years previously. Not sure about that one. I think Grady messed something up while lifting the print. Accidents do happen.

"So, once again, we'll have nothing to send back to Amber at the lab?"

"Well," Grady held up his cotton swab, "we'll have this drop of blood that was here near the body. It probably belongs to the vic, but ya never know."

I sighed and headed back to the police line to observe the onlookers. Sometimes the suspect has an unhealthy fascination with their own work. They hang around, acting like a spectator, reveling in the chaos, the media, the sorrow. I held a notepad and pen in my hands, acting like I was taking notes, and slowly scanned along the line of people at the barricades. For the most part, they were your typical group. You had those who hounded the media, hoping to get on camera...those who were simply just curious...those trying to take pictures and video to upload to the internet, hoping for their 15 seconds of fame...and then there was the girl at the end.

She stood alone amid the crowd. She was crying, holding her hands cupped up around her mouth, mascara running down her cheeks. She was looking but not, at the same time. If I were to wave my hand in front of her face, I'm not sure she would have noticed. I walked over, introduced myself, and asked if I could have a word with her. She simply nodded blankly at me. I touched her arm and guided her away from the crowd.

"You seem very upset. Do you know what happened?" I asked as gently as I could.

"I...she..." She tried to answer but the tears were getting in the way.

"Why don't we start with your name?"

"Becca. My name is Becca"

"Okay, Becca, take a moment. Try to calm down and tell me about it."

She took a steadying breath, her voice hitching. "Stacey, me, and Rae came out to Blue 22 for Stacey's birthday. It was just supposed to be drinks, some dancing, that's it! There were these guys..."

"These guys...how many?" I interrupted.

"Huh? Oh, um four. Four guys. They started hitting on us, dancing with us. We were all just having a good time, ya know? Then they were all trying to get us to go home with them. Stacey and Rae were all for it. Party it up, ya know? But I wasn't. I mean I was, but I had an early work day tomorrow. They were off and could party all night if they wanted, ya know?"

Her 'ya know's were beginning to irritate, but I knew that she was just nervous. "So did they leave with the four men?"

"I went to the bathroom, telling them I was going to head home after and when I came out they were all gone, Stacey, Rae and the guys. I'm just really scared that the dead person is one of my friends, ya know? They aren't answering my texts and they never do that."

I thought about it for a minute and then decided to see if she could ID the body since the lab guys had found nothing with her. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take you down and see if you can identify her. There's no ID or purse..."

She looked up at me nervously. I could see in her eyes that she wanted to but was terrified of the thought at the same time. "Stay here a minute, I'll be right back." I went back to Tom and told him what was up. We had Grady cover the body, including the neck wound with a drape from his truck, to make it a little less traumatic and then I went back to fetch Becca.

I led her down the alley and could feel her noticeably slowing down as we got closer. Once we were within view, she broke down.

"Oh God! That's Stacey! Oh Stacey, what happened?" She started sobbing even harder. I gently grabbed her arm and started leading her away. "Where's Rae? Rae! Where is she? Where is she?!" She was getting hysterical. I passed her off to one of our female officers to calm her down and get the rest of her statement for the record.

Returning to Tom I asked, "So, where is Rae?"

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AN: Hope I've drawn you into another adventure with Ben. Hoping to see a bit more of him and Amber in this story. I never thought I'd write any more after Ghosts, but I've surprised myself. PLEASE leave your reviews and let me know what you think! Thanks!