A/N: I do not own any of these characters; they belong to their respected writers. I am merely a dreamer with a wide vocabulary and enough time on their hands to throw this together. Note: Tate Langdon is more than a school shooter in this piece of fiction - he is also a serial killer. Hence why this is an AU we're being thrust into. Enjoy.
Chapter 1 – A Web
"We have a case for you," his deep voice said over the other side of the phone. Lisbeth took a drag of her cigarette, the smoke filling her lungs, holding it in, letting it stream out between her lips. She said nothing. "It's in America, in Los Angeles. It's an old case, but American police are still not giving up on it. Are you in?" Inhaling the last of the tobacco, Lisbeth stubbed out her dead cigarette.
"I'll be on the first flight tomorrow afternoon," she said, running her fingers along the glass rim of her ashtray. Armansky breathed a deep sigh of relief on the other line. "Excellent. I'll let them know you're on your way. I'll fax over some information that you should look over before tomorrow as well as your travel information. Good luck, Lisbeth." She pressed her thumb against the red button on her small silver phone and threw it on the counter. She moved over to her fridge, pulling out a can of Coke and cracking it open as she listened to the rattle of her fax machine begin to run.
Throwing herself on her chair, she opened up her web browser and snatched the first piece of paper that slid out from the fax's slot. 'Westfield High School Massacre', it read. She rolled her eyes, typing in the title into the search engine. Her eyes scanned over the blue links, stumbling upon one that seemed legitimate. Why was Armansky making her work on a case about some fucked up teenager? Lisbeth began her reading, noting how the killer showed up at the school with a shotgun, ending the lives of over five students and handicapping a teacher. His school photo appeared on her screen – light skin, dark brown eyes, and curly blond hair – his vacant expression burning a hole into the LED monitor. She studied his face, memorized the lines and contours, and began printing out the information.
"What else did you do, boy?" she whispered, as she went back to the main page of the search engine and scrolled through the results. They were the same outdated articles, re-telling the same story of the lonely child that arrived at his high school and took the lives of innocent students. This was nothing but an open and shut case, so why was Armansky claiming that there was more? Exiting out of the browser, she collected the freshly printed documents Armansky had faxed over. She began to rifle through them, looking at the black text strewn across the white pages.
Everything looked the same as the searches on the web did: articles about the teenage killer and little to no facts about him in general. Lisbeth threw the sheets of paper onto her desk, folding her thin arms across her chest, her upper lip playing with the ring protruding out of her bottom one. With the documents scattered neatly across her laptop's keyboard, a single sheet removed itself from the rest that looked different than the others. Lisbeth reached for it, snatching it from the group of other documents and raised it towards her level of vision.
Sydney Cooper, aged sixteen, was found dead on I-5 headed towards Santa Ana. Through further investigation, the autopsy stated that Cooper was raped with a metal object after being penetrated by a male. There were rope marks around her wrists and ankles as well as her throat having been severely burned by what doctors are noting as sodium hypochlorite, or household cleaning bleach. Cooper was a start athlete on her school's volleyball team as well as a cherished member of the drama club. No leads on a suspect as of yet.
Lisbeth's eyes bore in the black and white photo of Sydney Cooper – gray skin, gray eyes, dark gray hair; that's all she was now: a black and white photo on a faxed sheet of paper. Suddenly Lisbeth understood why Armansky had sent her on this case; Sydney Cooper was not the only teenage girl to be found on I-5 – there had been others.
Slamming down the rest of her drink, Lisbeth stood and made her way over to her bedroom, opening up her drawers and throwing clothes onto her unmade bed. She made her way over to her closet and pulled out a black rolling suitcase and started stuffing her clothes in, making her way into the bathroom and gathering together her toilettes before throwing them in as well. She was unsure of how long she would be staying in the States, but it was better to be over prepared than under. Grabbing her favorite backpack, she threw in a flashlight, her digital camera, her video recorder, and the security cameras she had used in Hedestad only winters ago.
Lisbeth stuffed her laptop and it's accessories into her backpack and sealed her bag and suitcase shut; she was ready for tomorrow's journey. Grabbing another can of Coke from her fridge, she grabbed the documents relating to the Cooper's murder as well as the school shooter's tragically dull story and slumped herself down on the couch. She threw Sydney's story onto the coffee table, and taking a swig of her drink, started reading through the school shooter's tale once again.
"Tate Langdon," she whispered, as her eyes glued themselves to the black, 12-point sized print of his name. She bit her bottom lip, the metal from her ring coating the tip of her tongue, and she read through the remaining documents. The shooting occurred in the early 90's, as did the death of Sydney Cooper; did the police believe Langdon was also Cooper's killer? She threw his documents on top of Sydney's and rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger, closing her eyes as a dull pain began to settle.
It seemed like a simple case, but Lisbeth knew that if American police were contacting Armansky for help here in Sweden that things must not be going the way they had planned, especially if it had been dragged on for eighteen years. Grabbing her pack of cigarettes from the coffee table, she placed one between her lips, she lit it and inhaled sharply, the nicotine filling her lungs and making the pain in her head subside.
The flight would be long – she would have time to look over the papers on the plane. She grabbed the documents and placed them in her backpack, turning off the fax machine as she passed it. It was there that she noticed that she had forgotten a piece of paper, and she swiped it from the tray. It was a black and white photo of a house; large, upscale, definitely from the Victorian era. Underneath, written in Armansky's untidy scrawl, was the phrase: "Killer's home = where you'll be staying." Lisbeth's eyes drew themselves over the extravagant home that Tate Langdon had once resided and raised her eyebrows in satisfaction.
She wouldn't mind staying somewhere that looked like home for a while.