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Edward

This isn't the first time Captain Black has called me in the early morning, his voice sometimes being the first I hear as the sun rises.

It won't be the last, either.

Grabbing my typical work gear off the counter in the kitchen, I make my way to the lobby of my apartment building after an excruciatingly slow elevator ride. I try to use the time to my advantage, knowing whatever awaits me at Puget Park will invade my life like a poison over time.

It's never up to me how fast it takes over.

Since the call came in early today, it takes a quick forty minutes to get to the crime scene from my apartment, but unfortunately it's the perfect amount of time for my thoughts to go into overdrive.

I should savor these forty minutes; God knows when I'll have any free time to myself once I arrive and see what lies ahead for us all. For the precinct. For the families involved.

For me.

Newton, a fresh out of the academy patrolman, was the first on the scene this morning, and as requested, he sends me his pinned location when I'm ten minutes away from the park. Familiar with the area, it doesn't take long for me to find them once I park my car next to the other official police vehicles.

I've been here before on mornings like these. The kind when you question if it's Spring like they say it is. It's cold, but not bitter or painful. The wind blows the trees slightly as I join the rest of my unit on the path ahead, my head down with my chin almost touching my chest. My footsteps echo the sound of a man walking to inevitable doom.

Because that's exactly what it is.

I've seen my share of bodies over the course of my career, and the first sight of a new scene is always full of trepidation and separation.

It's key to enter these situations with my boundaries in check. I can't take my work home with me anymore. I need to recognize the importance of separating my work from my life, but I've learned the hard way that it's a balancing act I just don't fucking know how to do.

As I'm approaching the small group of officials in front of me, Newton retreats from the group, nodding at my presence before handing me his notes.

"Witness still here?" I ask, not looking up from Mike's childlike scrawl on the pages of his notebook. His notes are decent, basic now as we try to gather whatever early information we can.

These beginning hours are crucial.

"Yorkie has her over on the bench." Newton points down the path towards a lone bench. "Pretty shaken up."

"It's not everyday you find a dead body," I answer calmly, handing his notes back over to him. "Did you notify the Park Rangers?"

"On their way," Newton nods in satisfaction, pleased to give me an answer he knows I'll want to hear.

"Good."

With a quick nod of dismissal, I clear my throat and walk towards the woman who reported the body. Eric Yorkie, another patrolman like Mike Newton, nods in my direction when he sees me approach them on the bench.

"Detective Cullen," he says in greeting, rising off the bench. "This is Shelly Cope. She reported the body this morning."

The witness follows his lead and rises so she stands next to Yorkie.

"I'm sorry you had to see what you saw, Ms. Cope," I say to her, offering her a shake of my hand. She nods in agreement, her hand trembling slightly. Appearing in her late sixties, she's wearing a light jacket and an outside exercise suit, paired perfectly with the temperature, but it doesn't offer much in terms of keeping out the chill from what she saw this morning.

"I come here to jog all the time," she says in disbelief. It's unfortunate that one single day, one single event like this, has robbed her of one of her favorite pastimes. I doubt she'll come back here again, and if she does, it won't be without remembering what she saw today.

I motion for her to step aside so we can speak privately. "Do you mind running through your morning with me? You may hear that a lot today, I'm afraid."

Ms. Cope shakes her head. "No, it's fine. If it helps you in any way, then I don't mind sharing it again."

"Thank you," I offer her a small smile to try to put her at ease. "Officially, can you state your name please?"

"Shelly Cope." She pauses for a moment, her eyes wandering up and down the path that is now sectioned off with caution tape. "I've jogged these paths for the last twenty years."

"Not a bad choice of exercise," I say, thinking back to those days when a morning jog was part of my daily routine. I wonder if starting up again would help with my growing fatigue.

"It's beautiful out here. Quiet. Calm. Peaceful," Ms. Cope adds. "I can see why whoever did this would think it would go undisturbed."

Taking a moment, I let my eyes take in our surroundings. Tall, heavy trees of green, rich in dark soil and plentiful foliage. Leaves rustle gently against the slight wind, and birds sing their morning songs. It's beautiful despite the horror that lies several hundred feet away from me.

"Everything is a possibility at this point, Ms. Cope," I say with a sigh. "What time this morning did you discover the body?"

"Early. A little before six," she replies, pointing down the path we're standing on now. "I was walking along the path like I always do, about to finish up and head home to get ready for work. I didn't notice it when I started, but on my way back when I passed those trees, that's when I smelled it."

"The body?"

She nods, staring off into the distance. "I've never smelled anything like that before." She lets her voice trail off, coming back to our conversation when she realizes she has zoned off. With a shake of her head, she adds, "Anyway, it made me stop and look around. Didn't have to look too far."

I let her go not long after, sending her home escorted by an officer whose name I don't remember. She's still shaken, rightfully so, but she takes my card and promises to call if there is anything else she remembers.

Sighing, I pause where I stood with Shelly Cope minutes ago, knowing once I take the steps over towards the body, I'll have another image to take with me for the rest of my days. Another weight dropped against my shoulders. Another set of questions I can only hope I'll get the answers to.

But this is what I do. This is what I can't stop doing.

No matter how much I complain about it, how much it wears on me, I'm damn good at it.

Knowing I can't stall any longer, I make my way towards the canopy the M.E. has placed in an effort to protect the crime scene from typical Seattle elements.

Though, I can tell by the time I'm staring directly at the body, that it won't be necessary.

We're too late.

"Fuck," I whisper under my breath, bending down to confirm what I had seen as I was walking up. The body may have been discovered today, but it is not the first morning it has seen here in Puget Park.

"How long ago was this dumped, do you think?" I ask when I see Carmen Denali, Seattle's head crime scene investigator, crouch down next to me on the cool grass and remaining dead leaves left behind from the cold. More of a professional than I'll ever be, Carmen peers at the body discarded beneath the trunk of a large evergreen, careful not to disturb anything around us.

"Just by looking at it, at least six months ago. Before winter."

"And the snow preserved it," I whistle. "Most of it."

"Lucky us."

We're silent as we make our own notes, the wildlife around us the only sound as we stare at our victim. It had been a hard winter this year, and the snow in this secluded section of Puget Park had gone untouched. It blanketed the ground with months worth of heavy accumulation, and spared nothing, including the girl dead in the woods.

Whether she had been dumped here with that purpose or not, it had led us all here on what was supposed to be a fun-filled Memorial Day Weekend. Instead of reminiscing with the guys at work about Dante's hot dogs with Emmett, I'm looking at a deceased naked female with matted dark hair and thick, black mud embedded into her skin.

Happy fucking Memorial Day to me.

"What can you tell?" I ask, standing up and looking around. More have joined us, and I nod silently in greeting as they do their own surveying of the scene.

"Hard to say," Carmen sighs. "I can't see any entry or exit wounds. I'll know more when I have her down at the lab. Snow can be both a help and a hinder."

"I know."

Whatever evidence may have been left behind has long been washed away. Through winter storms and now Spring storms, animals and strong winds, all we have left is the girl. The chances of us recovering anything else other than the body is almost nonexistent, but Carmen doesn't let those statistics stop her. I step away and let her do what she can to help us piece something, anything, together, while Newton and Yorkie do their best to direct any onlookers to anywhere other than here. I groan beneath my breath at the thought of the press getting wind of this; they chomp at the bit for these kinds of stories, and this is exactly the headline they would like to see over the holiday weekend.

If I know him as well as I think I do, I can almost guarantee Jasper Whitlock, a longtime friend of mine, is the one blowing up my phone as it rests in my pocket. Trusted friend or not, him being a reporter for The Seattle Times means he's not getting much from me.

I've worked with these vultures, with the exception of Jasper, for far too long, and I'm already composing a list in my head of some of the early details of this case I want to keep out of the papers. By the time rush hour comes, we've closed off all entrances to the park, despite the crowd of news vans that line the streets, waiting for their chance to enter. CSI snaps pictures of the girl as we stand and compare notes from both the scene in front of us and from Shelly Cope, each of us bringing different angles and scenarios as we wait for the body to finish processing and get ready for transfer.

"Animals got most of her toes and fingers," Carmen says with a shake of her head. "If she had put up a fight, we won't have her fingernails to know for sure."

"We won't know much until the examination," I say, looking around, pausing when I see a woman dressed in dark grey approach the body across the grass. Without taking my eyes off her, I watch her every move while I continue in conversation. "Which is exactly what we tell the press."

The woman squats down, her head tilting to the side as she stares at the dead girl. She doesn't take out a phone or a pad to record her findings, her features focused and determined. She takes her time, doesn't sway or falter as people scurry around her. I watch as she nods silently to the girl, standing up only to explore the rest of the large trees surrounding her.

"Have you heard from Captain?" Yorkie asks, his voice making me break my gaze from the woman. If it wasn't for the police badge around her neck and the gun at her hip, I would have assumed she was a young girl who had managed to slip through the barricades.

I nod at the small group of patrolman and detectives who have formed a circle around me. "He wants us at the station now," I answer. I motion towards them all. "You guys head over. Tell him I'll be there once things have wrapped up here."

They nod, knowing the directives I give them are to be followed. I've never had a problem leading; these men have turned into people I would trust with my life. I know them all, professionally and personally.

All except for one.

And she lingers behind the rest of us, even when the body is carefully covered and loaded into the back of the coroner's van.

I have a feeling I'll get to know her soon enough.

And the body from the prologue has been discovered.

It's officially on!

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