Edward

I answer my ringing phone without a greeting. "You couldn't wait, could you?"

He reads my tone immediately and doesn't hesitate to laugh loudly in my ear. "I tried," Jasper Whitlock replies once he's finished laughing at my expense. "But Williamson wanted it on his desk before morning."

While I've never met the man myself, I've heard about Jasper's boss down at The Seattle Times and know the more sensational the front page is, the better.

At least in his world. Not necessarily in mine. It's no surprise to me to see Jasper's coverage of the murder makes front page of the paper this morning.

I shake my head, rubbing a hand over my tired eyes. It's late at night and I'm still here at the office, combing through a thousand different ideas swimming in my head. "Yeah, I figured."

I hear what sounds like a car door shut on the other end of the line. "How're you holding up? Shit has to be crazy down there for you all."

"The hardest part right now is keeping the press off our backs," I answer. "You guys are savages, you know that?"

"I've been told," Jasper chuckles. "Sorry, man."

"Part of the job."

While Jasper and I have an understanding on how sometimes professionally we'll always be on the other end of the spectrum, somehow we've managed to maintain a close friendship throughout the years.

He whistles before saying, "Off the record, this is pretty wild. I mean, Seattle isn't exactly the city with the lowest crime rate but this feels a little different."

"Hopefully it'll pass over soon. Maybe another headline will take their focus off my body in the park?" I goad him jokingly, already knowing he's working on multiple stories at once.

"I'm working on it," he laughs. "I'm assuming this case will keep you out of Jenk's this weekend?"

"I could definitely go for a drink right now," I say, thinking of our favorite bar and exhaling loudly. I toss my pen onto my legal pad on my desk. It's full of sloppy handwriting and unfinished thoughts, and it makes no more sense to me now than it did hours ago when I wrote it down.

"Call me when you need the break and I'll meet you there," he offers. Jenks is located between the station and Jasper's office here in downtown Seattle, and has been our place to unwind over the years whenever time allows. Emmett usually joins us as well, the three of us forgetting all of the stresses from work for a few hours behind a game of darts or poker. Sadly, it has been far too long since I've been able to enjoy a drink there and this weekend isn't looking very promising.

"Will do," I say, ending the call a few minutes later, leaving me in silence again in my office. Most people on my floor, if not all, have already left and now that Jasper and I have hung up, I am completely uninterrupted with my thoughts again.

Some of the thoughts aren't only my own.

It's a dump site.

He was either in a hurry, wanted the body discovered quickly, or wanted somewhere he could revisit to relive the murder.

There are a few young women missing from small communities north of here.

Turns out the detective I had watched at the crime scene the other morning, Swan, was thinking the same things I had been. My notebook is filled with similar words, almost identical questions rising amongst the two of us even though we had surveyed the scenes separately.

Per protocol, we have several officers located near the dump site tonight on the chance the perpetrator feels the need to revisit the crime scene, as most of them do. I send a quick prayer that we catch this one off his own stupidity.

His own stupidity. Possibly her, though the statistics don't support that theory. Regardless, I don't have enough evidence or information to form a profile. It pisses me off to even think of it, but there's a high chance I'll have jack shit on this case until I hear back from Carmen regarding the evidence she can gather from our victim.

For my own sanity, and for the sake of the others anywhere near my vicinity, I hope it's fast.

I don't think this is his first kill.

Another one of Detective Swan's thoughts shoots into my head again, reminding me how astute she had been earlier today for a case she was never assigned to. I know she had gotten a warning from Captain about her showing up to the crime scene yesterday, but I have no complaints about her being there. For a moment, her take on the crime scene, the way it matched my own, made me feel somewhat grounded. Like having similar ideas convinced me I'm on the right path.

Sighing and refocused once more, I reach for my notes and triple check to make sure I wrote that one down as well. When I find it already scrawled in my signature black ink, I shake my head and stand up from my desk, realizing I'm just spinning in circles at this point.

If I'm going to drive myself crazy, I might as well do it in the comfort of my own home.

I say goodbye to the night crew on my way out, none of them surprised to see me this late at night. If they had a dollar for every time they've watched me walk out of here with my arms full of files and my head full of cobwebs, well, they could easily start planning their retirement.

By the time I walk in the door to my apartment it's close to midnight; another hour passes before I fall asleep in bed with my notes sprawled on my chest.

Four hours after that is when I get the call.

"Another body's been called in," Captain Black says, a collected hurriedness in his voice. "West Seattle Bridge."

"Fuck," I grumble, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I throw the covers off me. I glance at the clock and see it's a little after five in the morning and plant my feet on the floor with a thump. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

After taking a quick rinse in the shower, I throw on a pair of slacks and button down and grab a coffee on the way out from the small cafe in the lobby of my building. I've become an expert over the years at juggling hot coffee in the car, and today is no exception. At a traffic light, I reach into my glove compartment and grab a spare tie, something my father taught me to always have handy when I was younger in Chicago.

His advice has proven to be right time and time again, and amidst the chaos this morning has already turned into, the thought of my father calms me just enough for me to be able to focus on the day ahead.

Nightmare ahead, I should say. This morning I feel like I'm tying a noose around my neck instead of my standard black tie.

Two days. Another murder. One was enough to shock the town. But two? Two is enough to instill fear. Two is enough for even someone as stone-cold as me to keep a watchful eye over my shoulder. I'm surprised Captain Black hasn't lost his fucking mind yet.

My coffee is still hot as I pull behind a patrol car, the sky a light gray as the sun begins to come up around us. I finish my last two sips and leave the empty styrofoam cup to throw away later before getting out of the car. Various members of the CSI team are arriving at the same time as I am while a patrolman is speaking with a man on the other side of a cement wall. Judging by the way he looks, he's the one who stumbled upon today's body.

Similar to Shelly Cope, the runner who found our Jane Doe, the man talking to the patrolman is white-faced with shock. I make my way over to them slowly, taking in my surroundings as I walk.

Beneath the West Seattle Bridge, abandoned lots and overgrown grass have become the perfect dumping ground for crimes like these. It's been a while since I've had to come here, and I don't feel like my being here is something to celebrate, especially when I hear the man talking to the officer.

"Sometimes I meet one of my guys down here," the man says between drags of his cigarette. He scratches at his neck. "Not very often, but sometimes I have no choice, ya know?"

Judging by the quick movements and state of the man standing in front of me, I know all too well exactly what he's talking about. Junkie or not, I need any information I can get. I'll decide later if the information is credible.

"Was your guy here when you arrived?" I ask, putting my hand out for him to shake. "Detective Cullen."

"Jimmy Hunter," he shivers, and it's not from the weather. "Yeah. Met him over there."

He points to an area directly under the shadows of the bridge, close to a grassy hill leading to a sidewalk. It's ideal for the kind of exchanges that bring people like Jimmy here in the first place.

Also ideal for someone to dump a body.

"Who's your guy?"

"I don't know his name," Jimmy answers honestly, and I nod in understanding. Even if he did know his name, chances are it wasn't a real one, anyway.

"What time did you meet him?"

"Four; four-thirty. Sometime around then."

"Were you here long?"

"Nah," Jimmy brings his cigarette up to his mouth again. "Just got my shit, had a smoke, and then he left."

"And you didn't see anyone else with him?"

"He always comes alone. Sometimes there'll be girls workin' in some of the cars down here, but not this time. The only thing different about tonight was when I turned to leave and saw a fucking foot sticking out from behind that wall." He points over to one of the concrete walls to where the foot in question juts out from behind the rest of the wall, lying in an odd position against the rough pavement.

"Thanks for calling it in," I say, handing him my card in the event he remembers something else later. "Call me if you need me for anything else."

He nods, turning back to the patrolman as I head over to the body. Carmen is already there, standing next to the victim and surveying the scene when I approach, a somewhat hopeful expression on her face. Some may find it odd to find any sense of hope at a crime scene, but hope means something, as dismal as it seems, could work in our favor.

I nod towards her. "Bad news first."

Carmen sighs, crouching down to point at the victim's neck with a gloved hand. "She's dead. Ligature marks around her neck."

"Can't argue with that. The good news?"

"It didn't happen long ago. Within the last few days, I would guess. Time and weather haven't gotten to her yet."

"That is good news," I sigh, bending down like Carmen to get a better look. "I'll take it."

"Knew you'd like that," Carmen smiles. "We've already taken samples from under her fingernails to be sent over to the lab. We'll do a more thorough investigation once we've transported her out of here."

"Semen?"

"Hard to say from here," Carmen replies, "but her being left here naked and strangled to death makes me think some type of assault occurred at some point."

Just like Detective Swan's thoughts yesterday, I find myself thinking the same thing now with Carmen. I hum in agreement, my eyes scanning down the bare body of the now-deceased woman, taking in all of the scrapes and bruises left behind in the attack. Like Carmen, I pray somewhere on her is a piece of evidence we can use to bring her the justice she deserves. Glancing one last time, my eyes land on the indisputable tracks on her arms.

Drugs. Like Jimmy.

Sighing, I stand up and lower my eyes to the ground around her. Her frame is tall and slender, her hair dark and disheveled and full of knots. It covers a good majority of her face, and I hold off on touching anything until forensics have finished with the detailing. Instead, my eyes trail the pavement beneath her, looking no worse for the wear. There are no significant blood stains or patterns left around the body. There are no footprints or boot scuffs anywhere to be seen. From far away, one could assume the body laying down here is another addict sleeping one off. The lack of clothing would be a little different than the usual down here, but it wouldn't be too far fetched to be believed.

But the woman next to me on the ground isn't sleeping. She really is dead, and now I have two bodies on my hands without a single fucking lead. It's only a matter of time before shit starts to hit the fan, and I can already hear Captain Black's voice in the back of my head.

Exhaling, I turn from the body and look up to see if there are any surveillance cameras anywhere in the vicinity. To my disdain, I find none but make a note in my book to check the stores along the strip to see if they have any tapes that could show me something.

Because Detective Swan is right.

Just like the body in Puget Park, this girl wasn't killed here. I have another dump site on my hands, and I look over Swan's musings I had written down in my book once more.

With my own thoughts and theories running through my head, not to mention Carmen's from today and Swan's from yesterday, I can't help but look around and wonder if she'll turn up at my crime scene again, despite her orders to stay away.

I'm beginning to have too many questions without answers, and I tell Captain exactly that two hours later once I'm back at the station.

"I have nothing, Captain. Nothing. I've got a junkie and an elderly jogger as my only sources right now, a heavily-decayed corpse, and a fresh body who isn't going to be talking to me any time soon!" I shout, my voice raised in response to his question about why dead bodies keep showing up in his city.

"You also have a dozen news vans parked outside of our station right now. Don't forget those, Cullen."

"Other than another homicide being reported today, I have shit to tell them!"

"Okay," Captain Black sighs, sitting down in his chair behind his desk. "What do you need?"

I lean closer from my seat across from him, a finger pointed in his face. "I need to find out what kind, if any, surveillance footage is within the proximity of the body. Both bodies. I need forensics back on both of them. I need to see the reports, see the marks on their necks to see what kind of instrument was used to strangle them, if that's even what happened to the body in Puget Park. I need Shelly Cope and Jimmy Hunter down at the station for official statements. I need something to say to the fucking press. I need —"

"Cullen, stop. You know what you need to do." Captain Black says sternly. He steeples his fingers in front of his face, his elbows resting on his desk. "Put together a task force and make sure they're all in my office by eight tomorrow morning."

He motions with his head for me to get the fuck out of his office, and I do so without a moment's hesitation. His words echo in my head as I make my way down the hall.

Put together a task force.

My mind immediately shoots to one specific Detective, and for the first time in what feels like years, I feel a strong direction come alive inside me.

Your reviews are so engaging and thought provoking. We love to see the wheels turning in your head about who is doing this - and why!

This time tomorrow, 2/3 of the NerdyLilDarlins team will be together in Cleveland for TFMU!

We hope to see some of you there!