Sorry it's taking me so long between updates. I'm trying to sort out my story arches and once I've done that it should go faster again.

Thank you to everyone reading this - and especially to those commenting. I thrive on feedback :D

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CHAPTER 10

Ashley slammed the door of her room shut behind her. What the hell had just happened? Since when did she resort to violence? She shook her head slowly to clear it, then she stared at her reflection in the mirror. As she leaned closer, she gripped the sides of her wooden dresser to keep from losing her balance.

But her light grey eyes stared back at her without being able to provide any answers. Then she saw it. At first she wasn't certain if she had imagined it. She shut her eyes tightly and counted to ten before opening them again. Ashley brought her right hand to her face, but it didn't change the fact that this time she was sure her reflection was flickering, becoming transparent and coming back in rapid succession.

She felt her heart beat faster and faster seemingly mimicking the flickering in the mirror. And then her reflection vanished completely. Her heart almost skipped a beat as she stared at the mirror in terror.

Ashley pushed back from the dresser, clasping her other hand over her mouth to stifle the scream that escaped her throat. Her eyes were still fixed on the mirror even though she wanted nothing more than to look away.

---

Kate let herself fall onto the couch with a sigh of contentment. She had a great book to read and still some of yesterday's lasagna in the fridge to finish off later. Kate loved lazy Sundays and she felt she'd earned this one especially.

The paperwork to finally seal the case of the barkeeper-gone-serial-killer had taken up so much of her time during the past week that she hadn't had much energy left in the evenings to read. But this afternoon was hers alone.

Kate hadn't even really settled into the story yet when the phone rang. At first, she was determined to just let it ring. But the caller obviously was a patient man as the ringing just didn't stop. Thinking that she'd better answer and get rid of whoever it was fast then, she lifted the receiver with a sigh of defeat.

"Lockley."

"Ross here. We need you to come in today." The apologetic voice of Detective Laurence Ross made Kate's skin tingle with a dark sense of foreboding. If Ross was calling her in on a Sunday, it had to be bad.

Her suspicions were confirmed as her colleague continued: "A man was found in an alley, his head chopped off by something very sharp." He gave her the address and she promised to be there as fast as she could.

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When Kate arrived at the scene a considerable crowd had gathered. They were held at bay by yellow crime scene tape and a few uniformed officers. She flashed her badge at one of them and ducked under the tape.

Careful not to ruin any trace evidence that a team of forensic specialists were gathering, she approached Ross. He was standing at a dumpster talking to the coroner. The headless body lay on the floor behind them, thankfully shielded from the crowd's view by the dumpster.

"Any leads so far?" Kate asked the two men, her eyes searching the area for the head. She spotted it a few feet away.

"The head was severed with a very sharp object as I told you earlier," Ross filled her in while the coroner acknowledged Kate's presence with a sharp nod and went back to examining the body. Kate crouched down next to him, noting how clean the cut was.

"According to his wallet, the victim's name was Kent Aldridge. He's 34 years old and judging by the address on his license and his clothes, not the kind of person to wander dark alleys." Ross pointed at the body. While casually dressed, the clothes looked expensive.

"His death was sometime between 11pm and 2am last night," the coroner interjected.

"If he'd been stabbed, I'd say it was a mugging, but this..." Kate shrugged, letting the sentence hang between them. "What else was on him?"

"The wallet contained almost thirty dollars, a key card for one of the big office buildings downtown, his driver's license and a few calling cards," Ross was shuffling through them as he gave Kate the lowdown, "one realtor and quite a few doctors. Oh and this must be his own... he was a lawyer specialising in medical law suits. That explains that then.

"Other than his wallet, he just had car keys on him."

"Any idea why he was in this area?" Kate stood again, observing the forensic team lifting fingerprints off the dumpster and collecting god knows what into evidence bags.

"We think he may have been at one of the pubs or bars in the area," Ross shrugged. "But we haven't found the car yet, so we can't be sure."

Kate glanced around thoughtfully, taking in the scene, trying to see what they were missing. The alley looked like any other back alley, just a narrow passage between two houses, fire exits blocking the view from the few windows. Not that anyone here would be interested in looking out for their neighbours, Kate thought bitterly. "Who called it in?" she asked, realizing at least one person must've looked after all.

"Valerie Johnson," Ross read from his note pad. She lives in that building," he jerked a thumb at it, "She was a wreck and we sent her to the precinct with the counsellor. He'll try to get her to give us a coherent statement," Ross sighed, betraying that he didn't think that she'd be able to tell them much even if she actually gave a statement. Kate looked at him directly, her gaze probing him.

"She was freaked out," Ross shrugged. "Finding a headless body will do that to you. Plus she found him only an hour ago, there's no way she could've seen anything."

"The interesting thing - well, besides the headless body itself - are those scorch marks forensics found," Ross stepped behind the body and showed Kate several blackened spots on the wall and even the metal railings of the fire exit. "We've got no idea what could've caused these."

Kate approached the nearest black stain and peered at it closely. They reminded her of the stains you get when a candle burns too close to a wall. But what would anyone do with a candle out here? Never mind a dozen.

"And then there's the two broken windows up there," again Ross pointed to show her.

Kate looked around puzzled, as there was no glass on the ground. However, now that she knew where to look she could see the two windows in question behind the metal fire exit had no glass in them.

"What makes you so sure this is related? It's not exactly the nicest neighbourhood after all," she remarked.

"Well, we've found the glass that used to be in them inside the respective apartments. As if the windows had been broken from the outside..."

"So? Someone used the fire exit to break in," Kate shrugged, wondering if her colleague would get to the point sometime today.

"Our officers have been knocking on doors, starting with the two apartments in question," Ross took his time with the explanation. "One of the residents wasn't home during the night, but the other claimed the window shattered because of a thunderstorm at around 1.30am last night."

Kate looked at him incredulously. "A thunderstorm?"

Ross nodded. "Martin Freemore is an elderly guy whose bedroom is behind that window. He said he woke up shortly before the window broke because he heard strange sounds from the alley which he described as," Ross looked at his notepad, "'metallic, clanging sounds'. Before he could get out of bed to take a look, he saw lightning through the window. He claims one lightning bolt hit it and blasted it inward." Ross shook his head mimicking Kate.

"I have a hard time believing that, too," Ross ensured her, "but I spoke to him myself and old as he may be, he didn't seem lucid or crazy or anything." Ross shrugged as if to say it wasn't his fault that this case was so damn weird.

"Lightning might explain the scorch marks," Kate speculated, but immediately dismissed the thought. Just like a dozen candles were unlikely as the source, so were a dozen localized lightning strikes, especially in LA where the sky had been clear for days.

"He probably had a nightmare or something," Kate concluded weakly. Turning to go, she said: "If there's nothing else, I'll be at the office, trying to find out more about our victim."