Chapter 1

Present Day

She was a seemingly normal girl. Lily estimated she was in her early twenties, probably with twenty three being the maximum age mark. She had jet black hair that fell past her graceful slender shoulders but the bangs were kept out of her face by a single silver snap clip at the top of her head. One of her colleagues passed in front of the young girl and her hair magically became shorter, her thin face and eyes displaying a more naïve expression. A second later the girl's hair was two years longer and her eyes were faded and worn out. She gave a friendly smile as Lily sat down on the edge of the desk and Jeffries pulled up a chair beside her. "I'm Detective Lily Rush and this is Detective Jeffries. Can we help you with something?"

"Well, my name's Allison. Allison Channing." The girl replied quietly. "I um, my boyfriend's name is Joshua…Joshua Phillips. He was convicted of killing a girl last year."

"Victoria Huang, his classmate" Jeffries replied. "I know that story. I have a nephew that went to the Philadelphia State University."

"Right." Allison agreed. "That's what everyone else thought, though that story has never sat well with me. I knew Josh; he was the kind of guy that everyone loved. He would have never had the guts to hurt a fly, let alone kill another human being." She dug into the black handbag that sat on her lap and pulled out a rumpled newspaper article and handed it to Lily. "I'm sure everyone still remembers this shocker story."

"It certainly was a shocker story." Jeffries replied as Lily showed him the article. "Philadelphia State hasn't had any kind of death for the past three decades and suddenly four homicides show up in two years, the last three having been committed by serial killer Thomas Jefferson Granger."

"I remember him." Lily replied as her eyes scanned over the familiar article. "Killed two girls and a guy, all University students and all because they wore those rubber wristbands showing their support for various causes. They're still the rage nowadays."

"But not just any wristband." Allison pointed out. "It was those bright orange ones that called for the prevention of suicide. Lord knows what ticked Thomas Jefferson Granger off about those particular ones. I…uh…it didn't really click with me, until I came across this picture a few days ago….I made a copy of it…" Another dig into the black bag and Allison showed Lily and Jeffries a slightly crumpled picture.

Lily took the portrait from her.

"It's a picture of Josh and Victoria on the last day of class at the beginning April." Allison explained. "They met in one English class at the beginning of the school year and found they had signed up for another one together when the new term came in January. That's how Josh was…he always liked taking pictures of people he met as memory just in case he never saw them again."

Lily and Jeffries smiled at the two young adults smiling back at them, arms casually slung around each other's shoulders looking like the best of friends. Josh was blonde haired, blue eyed, tall and slender paired with a million watt smile that would have made a million girls faint. Victoria was a bit shorter and a little more heavily built with her black hair tied back in a tight ponytail, her brown eyes sparkling behind a pair of glasses and a smile on her own face. In essence it was a picture of two kids excited at what their future would hold. By the date on the picture, it was only a few weeks before both of their lives were changed forever.

"What caught my eye was what Victoria was wearing on her right arm."

Both Lily and Jeffries took a second look. There, hanging very loosely around Victoria's skinny wrist was a bright orange band.

"I didn't go to the University myself, but Josh told me they handed those out for free one day in the libraries back before the December exams." Allison almost smiled to herself from the memory. "And Lord knows why, but Victoria never took hers off though not that many people wore those at the time."

"The first of the serial killings happened in June of that year." Jeffries recalled. "Put the whole campus back into a panic."

"So you're thinking that maybe Victoria was the unknown first victim?" Lily asked, still peering at the picture. "That somehow Granger saw the bracelet she wore and that ticked him off?"

Allison nodded. "And somehow Josh ended up in the crossfire and was blamed for everything."

Lily and Jeffries exchanged glances. As far as they knew the Victoria Huang case was closed, the mystery was solved, her killer was behind bars and justice was served. Joshua Phillips had been tried, convicted and found guilty of murdering his classmate and possibly one of his good friends.

"You do realize that we usually try to put the guilty person in jail." Lily said slowly and carefully. "Very rarely do we end up getting someone out."

Allison noticed the looks that had been exchanged between the two detectives. "Have you ever had a gut feeling Det. Rush, that the person you had committed was really innocent? But there was not a damn thing you could do about that because all the evidence somehow pointed towards them?"

Lily and Jeffries exchanged another look.

"I know the chances of a miracle are slim." Allison confessed. "But I know Josh and I still love him. He would have never done anything like this. All I'm asking for…is another look at this case."

"We'll try." Lily assured her. "But that's all that we can promise."

Disclaimer: Usual stuff. Don't own any CC characters, they belong to CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer.

Author's Note: Thank you to my first reviewer, Mysterious Meli, hopefully this chapter will help make more sense as to how the story can be continued? I also hope it's another good chapter for you. I don't know of Jeffries has an actual nephew of that age, and yes, the orange band does actually exist…that's one of my points of inspiration. Thank you.