Chp 1
I woke up to a usual morning at my apartment. I dressed up and ready for work. I have two cars – an Audi and a Camarro with a turbo installed. I chose the latter; an FBI with an Audi would raise a lot of questions, though sometimes, secretly I would take my Audi and went drifting. So far, no one caught me. I drove my Camarro to the FBI Academic Building. I walked towards one of the lecture halls and found Will dismissing the class with Jack Crawford approaching him.
When I walked towards them, Jack was saying something about Will being social. "Well, I'm just talking at them, not listening to them. It's not social", said Will. He saw me and waved. Jack Crawford saw me and gave me a smile. "So, this is Maria Graham. I heard a lot about the 'FBI's Sherlock Holmes'", said Jack.
"I will take it as a complement. Thank you. You're from the Behavioural Science Unit, right?", I asked.
"That's true", said Jack, "But here I am, today, I would like to borrow the two of you, especially Will's imagination".
Will looked at me and all I could do was shrugged. "Sure, why not?", I said.
So, the three of us took a walk. As we walked, Jack gave us an insight of the case, "Eight girls have been abducted from eight different Minnesota campuses, all from the last eight months".
"I thought there were seven", said Will.
"There were", said Jack.
"When did the attack on the eighth occurred?", I asked.
"Around three minutes before I walked into Will's class", said Jack.
We walked into the main building – the HQ. "You're calling them abduction because you don't have any bodies", said Will.
"No bodies, no parts of bodies, nothing comes out from the bodies; nothing", said Jack, "Where were they taken from?".
"I don't know. Someplace else", said Will.
"Miss Graham?", Jack asked me.
"Give me the evidence, then I'll tell you", I said.
As we entered his office, Jack said they were all abducted on Friday, so no one would notice until Monday. However, he's covering his tracks. Jack said the killer needed the weekend to do it. Jack handed Will the photograph of the eighth girl. She fitted the descriptions as the previous seven did. "Elise Nichols", said Jack. Like all the victims, she disappeared on Friday. "She was supposed to house sit for the weekends, feed the cat, but she never made it home", said Jack.
"He's not keeping all of them around. Every time, he'll get a new one", I said.
"So, we'll focus on Elise Nichols", said Jack. Will sighed and said, "They're all from various part of America".
"But they have the same hair colour, same eye colour, roughly the same age, same height and weight, so what is it about all these girls?", said Jack.
"It's not all about these girls; it's about one of them. It's like Willy Wonka – every girl he takes is like a candy bar, hidden in amongst all the candy bars is the one true intended victim, which if we follow through a metaphor, is your golden ticket", said Will. To many normal people, that probably didn't make any sense, but thankfully, Jack understood it.
"So is he warming up for his golden ticket or just reliving whatever he did to her?", said Jack.
"His golden ticket wouldn't be the first take and it wouldn't be the last", said Will.
"He would've regarded how special she was. I mean, anyone would, wouldn't you?", I said.
"I want the two of you to look at this", said Jack, but Will was beginning to give excuses – saying that a lot of experts can do what he could.
"That's not exactly true now, is it?", said Jack, "You and Maria have a very specific way of thinking about things".
I snorted and said, "There's been a lot of discussion on how the way we think". I don't want Will to get sicker after the whole Rio incident and London adventure. I mean Vince's death took a huge toll on Will.
"You make jumps that you can explain with", said Jack.
"No, no, the evidences explain", said Will.
"Then help me find some evidence", said Jack.
Will sighed and said, "That may require me to be sociable". Will and I agreed to go the Elise's house to examine the evidences.
I drove and on the way, Elena called Will, wondering if he's ok since she's departing with Hobbs to Canada to capture a wanted fugitive suspected on a huge meth trafficking. "Elena, I'll be fine. Maria's here", said Will.
"Are you sure?", asked Elena.
"El, I'm my brother's keeper. Everything will be alright…, unless I decide to push him into the lake", I said, jokingly.
"Haha", said Elena, sarcastically, "Very funny Maria. Alright, I gotta go. We're about to leave".
"Have a safe trip", I said.
"Love you", said Will.
"Love you too", said Elena before hanging up.
"You two need to get married", I said.
"Soon…, I want her to be comfortable here first", said Will. He was afraid she would leave him because of his…, illness and since Elena lost her first husband to one of Reyes's people – she was afraid if she died in the line of duty, my brother will be even sicker.
"Elena loves you so much. She'll say yes", I said.
We arrived at the house. Will and I looked around. My eyes darted everywhere and my brain began to process everything. I didn't focus much on what Elise's parents said since I was busy looking at smaller things around the house, though I heard bits and pieces like trains and pressure living at the dorm. Then, I asked, "How's the cat? Elise was supposed to feed it. Was the cat weird when you came home? It must've been hungry because it didn't eat all weekend".
The husband looked at the wife and said, "I didn't notice". Will looked at me then, he looked at Jack. Jack nodded and excused us.
We stepped away so the Nichols wouldn't hear a thing. "She was taken from here", I whispered.
"She got on a train, came home, fed the cat and he took her", Will whispered. Jack made a phone call and requested back up, since the house is now a crime scene.
"Why is it now a crime scene?", asked Mr. Nichols.
"Can we see your daughter's room?", asked Will. Mr. Nichols led us there and we put on our gloves. The cat was trying to reach something from beneath the door.
Mr. Nichols was trying to open the door, but Will stopped him from doing so. "Please put your hands in your pockets and avoid touching anything", said Will.
"We've been in and out of here all day", said Mr. Nichols.
"You can hold the cat, if it's easier", I said. Mr. Nichols grabbed the cat as Will opened the door and lo and behold! Elise was lying in her bed. Mr. Nichols wanted to approach the bed, but Will and I grabbed in time and asked him to leave. He dropped the cat, accidentally and left.
Jack came up and said, "If you ready to talk, you talk. If you don't feel like it, I get it; you don't talk. We'll be downstairs and let me know if when you want us to come in". Jack left and closed the door. Will sat at the verandah and began to think – to reconstruct the crime scene while I stood at one corner, opposite of Will and my eyes and brain began to scan and try to figure how and what the killer did to her. I walked towards the bed and scanned the wounds as Will began to move from his position at the verandah. I saw that he tucked his victim like any father would've done to his children, she's in her nightgown and she had two punctured wounds on her abdomen. I saw something in the wounds and before I could get to it, a voice startled me suddenly. "You two are the Graham siblings", said a Chinese woman with jet black wavy hair.
"You're not supposed to be here", Will and I said together.
She said she found antler velvet in the wound. How the hell didn't I notice her? I must've gotten carried away with my thinking. "Are you a real FBI? I mean I know she is", said the woman.
"I'm a…, special investigator", said Will.
"Never been an FBI agent?", she asked again.
"He IS an FBI agent", I said.
"Strict screening procedures", said Will.
"They detect instability. Are you unstable?", she asked, ignoring me.
"You ask too many questions", I said and she gave me an annoyed look.
Jack came in and said she was not supposed to be in here. "I found antler velvet in her wounds, like she's been gorged with it. I was looking at the velvet near the wound, but I was interrupted", she said. Excuse me, YOU were the one to interrupt me! Then, two people came in and making deductions of their own.
"Antler velvet is rich in nutrients and it promotes healing. He may have put there on purpose", said Will.
"Well, looks like I'm not needed here after all", I said.
"We need all the people we can get in this case to catch the killer", said Jack.
"Not until some people didn't understand the meaning of 'do not disturb' and yes, they interrupted my scanning process. Since you have three version of me next to you, I won't be useful, right?", I said and walked out.
Yup, that's me, hot-headed and rebellious. My superior was at wits end with me. You can thank Vince for that. I waited in the car for Will to finish. From my point of view, Elise was put back unlike all victims. There must be something special about her. Will got out and jumped into the car. We drove back in silence until I break it, "Was that his golden ticket?".
"That was an apology", he said. He dug the glove compartment and found a bottle of aspirin, which I kept there for him.
As we drove back to his home, we saw a dog running and Will told me to stop. Will had this thing about dogs. When we first moved here, he kept bringing home stray dogs, which I really don't mind and so did Elena, but at first I think they kept him company when I'm not home back then. I stopped at the side and Will went out to get the dog. At first, it didn't want to go near him, but then it warmed up to Will when he used the dog food that we bought earlier. The dog hopped in and we drove back to Will's house.
I decided to stay for the night and helped Will gave it a bath. Will put the new dog, which he named Winston in a cage because he was afraid the others might hurt him since he's new. Will sat at his rocking chair while I sat on the floor with my black Alaskan Klee Kai dog, named Black hopping onto my lap. He whined and barked. "Black, be nice ok?", I said as I patted his head. Black whined again. "I miss you too", I said, kissing his nose. I slept at the couch with Black at the floor. Will was at his room with his pack.
The next day, I sat at my desk, hoping not to meet any of those three who interrupted me yesterday. I was typing my report when Will came. "Jack wants me in this case, but I've never seen this kind of psychopath. Hell, I've never even read about it!", said Will.
"Will, remember, don't push yourself, ok? If you don't want to do it, then don't do it", I said.
"The killer feels bad because he didn't honour her. Jack wanted to know what kind of crazy he is because psychopaths don't feel bad about what they do", said Will.
"What did you say then?", I asked.
"I told him that the killer couldn't show her he loved her, so he put her corpse back where he killed her, whatever crazy that is. He loves one of them and by some association; he had some form of love for the others. Of course, there was no semen or any indication of him raping them, but that's not how he loves them! He wouldn't disrespecting them that way!", said Will.
Everyone was looking at me and I gave them the 'I-Can-Handle-It' look. Everyone returned to their jobs and I told Will to sit and calm down. "He doesn't want them to suffer. He kills them quickly and…, with mercy", Will continued, "A sensitive psychopath is what Jack called him. He'll take another girl soon and he knows he is going to get caught, one way or the other".
"I'm not working on it. I hate it when I'm being interrupted", I said, crossing my arms as I lean on my cubicle wall.
"I know that, but you'll help, right? I mean, all this time, it's always the two of us", said Will.
"You know I would. You're my brother. 'Salute mi familia' remember?", I said. He smiled and sighed.