Mayday, mayday, the ship is slowly sinking
They think I'm crazy but they don't know the feeling
They're all around me, circling like vultures
They wanna break me and wash away my colors
Starset — My Demons
It didn't matter how many steaming hot showers Isabella took, she couldn't get the residue of the Motor Inn off her pale skin or the batter-like feeling of Alan Bosenko's blood off her hands through the latex gloves. There was something different about this case and she didn't know what it was. Something in it set off her intuition, like she needed to tread carefully and double-check everything. Danny had called her paranoid. Flack had a similar feeling.
Instead of dwelling, she threw the blue bouncy ball against the thick glass wall of her office and caught it in an outstretched hand. One foot propped up on the opposite chair to help her keep her balance. Thud. Smack. Thud. Slap. It was an asynchronous rhythm, depending on how pissed Isabella felt with each curve of her wrist to throw the ball. It varied from mildly irritated to wishing the glass partition would shatter. A knock on her door broke her concentration and she turned, fingers still curled around said ball to see Adam flinching.
Isabella lowered her foot from her opposite chair to sit up and set the ball back into her desk drawer. "Sorry," she murmured, kicking the drawer shut and tucking a lock of chestnut hair behind an ear. Adam visibly relaxed, seemingly almost relieved she hadn't thrown the ball at him. He had become less jumpy once he relaxed into his role, but Isabella did her best to ease some of his inner turmoil. "I hit a dead end with Alan Bosenko's cards. He had partially digested oysters but it's damn near impossible to find out when he ate them. Sid hit a dead end, too. It's not your fault. And whoever killed him erased his phone history and destroyed his laptop."
Judge Reinhart was dragging his feet on his subpoena for his work computer. There was normally tons of stuff on work computers, including (hopefully) a clue on how he met his killer. Isabella had dealt with some demented women in her time, but she'd never dealt with a serial killer who played with in their victims' blood since Henry Darius. Until more surfaced, she only had a gut instinct that this was a female serial killer.
"We were able to isolate a kind of exclusive wine Bosenko drank from a place called Jean Georges in the Upper East Side. Their head chef never creates the same menu twice but Alan Bosenko paid in cash," Adam reported, flipping the tablet around to show Isabella. She strode to the other side of the room to get a better look. Jean Georges.
"The finest wining and dining of all the wines and dines in the big city," she remarked with a quirk of her well-groomed eyebrow. "Looks like Flack and I are gonna have to take a stroll in Snob Hill."
Blue eyes lifted to see the petite, willowy form of Kendra Wilson lingering in the doorway. She looked more like a model than a cop, with her long, natural jet-black hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her dark, cat-like eyes were framed with naturally long eyelashes and a flawless olive complexion. She often looked more like a woman in her late teens instead of late twenties with very little makeup adorning her feminine features. Kendra didn't try to infiltrate the boys' club and instead focused on her job. With how many of the women on the police force, it was refreshing to see someone who wanted to do her job instead of worrying what other people thought of her. Isabella respected her for doing her job without truly caring what other people thought.
The NYPD badge hung around Kendra's neck and her body language radiated irritation. Clearly she had been hassled prior to her arrival. "Judge Reinhart approved the subpoena for Alan Bosenko's work computer. I tried to call you, but you're lousy at picking up your phone," she informed her, nodding to the smartphone perched on Isabella's desk. Isabella glanced to see the delayed green light blinking on the upper left corner. In her anger and annoyance, the fact she'd turned it on silent had slipped her mind. "It's a good thing no one found another body."
"Better you came than Flack. I wouldn't hear the end of it," Isabella muttered under her breath as she grabbed her jacket to sling over her arm. As her thumb moved to turn up her volume wheel, Lindsay's number flashed on to the screen. She hit 'accept' and held the phone to her ear. "What's up, Linds?"
"I'm at WizCorp where our victim, Alan Bosenko worked. We got a problem, Iz. Just after the subpoena was approved, there was a mass virus and it wiped all the computers in the company clean."
It was almost too easy to sweep all remnants of her presence from the hard drives and watch the confusion on the cop's face when Glenn from IT told her about the mass virus. She quickly tapped at the keyboard to wipe hers and stood up from her borrowed desk to stride towards the elevator. Cops were easy to spot. While women were now becoming a more average presence on the force, she could spot one a mile away. All trace of her was erased from Alan Bosenko's hard drive and it was time to move on. She needed another target. As she stood on the elevator, she tucked her hat down more to shield her face from the camera installed inside. Right corner. It was hidden, but it was there.
She needed to make sure she didn't feel too comfortable in her little game; one slip of the wrist and she was done for.
Her thoughts broke when someone brushed past her and a quick glance down at his hand showed the slim yellow gold band on his finger. Blue eyes flickered upwards to catch his steely, gunmetal grey ones. Either new or bored, she didn't miss how they traveled down her athletic figure through the material of her navy sheath dress.
"My apologies, ma'am," he murmured and she covered her hand with his.
"No worries, sugar," she assured him, her voice smoothing into a silky purr. She had a knack for catching when someone undressed her with their eyes and he practically took her in the street. "How about you buy me a drink later to make it up to me?"
"I'm Jack. Jack Collins."
"Linda."
