Disclaimer: Crossing Jordan does not belong to me…as much as I wish it does.

Author's Note: It's short, I know. But it's something. After you read, you MUST review. Constructive criticism is all right, but no flames, pweez…By the way, I HATE doing this to you guys before I leave for six weeks, but this ends in a cliffhanger. I'm just warning you, and I will be gone for six weeks so I will be leaving ya'll hanging for a month and a half. Saweez… Review anywayz…

Just Another Case

Chapter 3: You be the Victim, I'll be the Killer

By: Nimmireth

"Well, at least she wasn't a junkie; her tox screens are completely void of drugs," Nigel told Jordan.

Before Jordan could respond, Woody banged her office door open and scolded her. "Why did you go talking to a witness?"

"Umm…What are talking about?" she asked, completely bewildered.

"You, talking to Collin Moon about the case. I suppose you asked him for DNA without a warrant, am I correct?"

Jordan held up her hands in defense. "Let me explain. I was pursuing a suspect."

"Oh, you were pursuing a suspect?" he asked in a sarcastic, cheerful voice. "There's just one small problem, Jordan: he's not a suspect! As much as you think he is, he isn't. He has nothing to do with Allison's death. Period."

"Then explain the chalk that was found on Allison's body," she demanded.

He sighed. "She was…I don't know! It wasn't him and you know it. We all know it. He was just an innocent passerby who happened to find her body."

"What about the scratch on his arm?"

"I don't know…His cat got a little overenthusiastic when they were playing fetch!"

"Cats don't play fetch!" Jordan yelled.

Woody took a deep breath. "Jordan, there is nothing against him. I suggest that you just leave this alone and let me do my job. O.K?" He didn't even wait for an answer; he just walked right out of the office.

Jordan turned to Nigel. "What makes him think I'm going to do that?"

"Well, he is right about one thing; you have nothing against him," Nigel told her.

Jordan sighed. "I know."

JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ

"Something on your mind, Jah-dan?" Max asked his daughter later that evening at the Pogue.

Jordan sat at the outer rim of the bar, Guinness in hand. "It's just this case that's been on my mind."

She explained every detail to him. "Brutal, but it makes no sense. Why now?" He asked.

They both looked at each other and knew what the other was saying in their minds. "I'll be Allison," Jordan said.

Max nodded. "I'm Collin."

Jordan began. "It's late. I'm out walking on the beach—"

"Why?"

"I don't know; but whatever it is, there is a reason. Something important, something about the beach that helps me," she finished.

Max continued. "I come up behind you, and I hit you in the back of the head—"

"Wait!" Jordan interrupted. "She had defensive wounds. She fought…hard."

"Alright…let's try this again. I come up behind you, but you hear me."

Jordan began her bit. "I turn around. I remember you from college."

"I go up to attack you—"

"But I expected something. You scared me in college. I knew that one day you would see me again…so, I fought back."

"I didn't expect this. You surprised me… You scratch my arm—"

"But it's not good enough. When I'm down you tell me what you did to Mrs. Hydlow. You rape me. You stab me. Then you hit me in the head with something hard enough to kill me—"

"What? What did I use to hit you?"

"I don't know, but what ever it was it was hard enough to cut my skull…and I bleed to death."

"Is there any way you can tell what she was hit with by the way the wound looked?" Max asked, bringing them out of their roles as Allison and Collin.

Jordan thought, trying to picture it in her head. She remembered Allison's wound; two, claw-like marks ran horizontally across the back of her head. "Two marks ran across her head, almost like scratch marks, wider than the claws of any animal."

Then she saw it, sitting there as if it was just waiting for her to see it. A possibility for a murder weapon: a hammer. She pointed at it. "Can I see that hammer?" He gave it to her willingly. She turned it over so that she was looking at the back with the two points. She looked up at her father and nodded. "…A hammer."

He, too, nodded. "I take it that it wasn't found."

She sighed. "Nothing was found…only traces of semen on her underwear. And the cops searched high and low." But then she began thinking; what if they missed something? What if there was something there? What if the hammer was there? "You know what?" She began. "I'm going to go back there to see if they missed something. I'll see you later, Dad." She grabbed her keys and her purse and ran out to her car as fast as remotely possible.

It took only ten minutes to arrive at the beach. She left her stuff in the car and walked up to the crime scene, trying to picture it all in her head. She leaned over the rocks where Allison was found and began pulling them off of each other.

That's when she heard the sifting of sand and someone whistling to the tune of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by the Beatles. She stopped and began to panic. She put down the rock that she was holding and slowly turned around.

Collin Moon was standing yards away from her.