Chapter 3

"Okay, and then you just attach the other wing like the first one." Dani instructed as Malcolm carefully finished changing Isabella's diaper.

"Kind of like Velcro sneakers" Malcolm considered as he fixed Isabella's clothing and helped her sit up.

Dani chuckled, "I don't think that's a comparison I've heard someone make but sure."

"Hoo! Hoo!" Isabella exclaimed as she started flapping her arms. Dani and Malcolm raised an eyebrow at each other as the baby girl exclaimed again, "Hoo! Hoo!"

"Does she not know who we are?"

Isabella flapped her arms again, "Hoo! Hoo!"

Malcolm's eyes widened as he let out a laugh, "Oh!"

"What is it?" Dani asked.

"I think she wants her owl." Malcolm went over to the stroller and found the pink owl left in the seat. He picked it up and Isabella's squeals got louder as she flapped her arms harder the closer he got with her stuffed animal, "Isabella? What's this?"

Isabella giggled, "Hoo! Hoo!"

"That's right." Malcolm grinned when Isabella immediately wrapped her arms around the plush. "You really love your owl, huh?"

She giggled again, "Hoo! Hoo!"

The two adults smiled at the child as she started trying to chew on her stuffed animal's head. "I think she's hungry." Dani remarked.

"You're right, I'll get her some formula ready and she can snack on that while I get the high chair set up."

"I can help with that."

Malcolm smiled, "Thanks but you've already helped a lot, you're probably kind of tired."

"I don't mind Bright. Really." She then smirked, "Besides you need to get at least a few hours of sleep so we can take shifts."

He smirked back, "In case you haven't noticed, I thrive on lack of sleep."

Before he started setting up the highchair, Malcolm did make a bottle for Isabella as promised. As he set up the furniture, Dani took over the duty of feeding the little girl. Malcolm had been distracted with building the high chair and didn't notice Dani looking at him with an amused expression as she lightly bounced the baby on her hip.

Isabella pointed in Malcolm's direction as Dani helped her hold her bottle steady. The detective chuckled silently as Isabella kept staring at him, "Yeah, I get what you're doing." She whispered, "It's not easy to get a good read off of him." Isabella just smiled and let out a tiny giggle as she continued to drink her milk. Dani noticed Malcolm drop the screwdriver on his foot and silently curse. She smiled as Isabella giggled again, "Yeah, Bright's kind of funny, huh?" Isabella began to grab at Dani's shirt collar and tug on it. "I haven't known him for that long but... he's a good person. He might not be able to see it but he means well and most of the time, he does well. When he says he'll help... he helps." Her expression softened as she looked down at the little girl who still seemed so unaware of losing her mother. "And don't worry, we're going to make sure you'll be just fine."

Malcolm didn't hear any of what Dani had been saying to Isabella but when his eye caught the detective holding the infant girl, he couldn't help but smile. He definitely didn't know what he was doing but he was glad that he had a friend like Dani to help.

(~**~) (~**~) (~**~) (~**~)

Malcolm wondered to the roof of his building. He didn't understand what drew him there but what he saw when he got there horrified him. Dani was laying on the edge of the roof, unmoving and clearly unconscious and next to her was one face he never thought or wished he would see in his home.

"Malcolm, my boy."

"Dr. Whitly..." Malcolm's eyes moved from his father to Dani then back to his father, "What are you- How did you-"

"I wonder..." Martin questioned to himself as he loosened his grip ever so slightly, "What would happen if a person fell with nothing but a cold hard pavement to catch them at the bottom?" He loosened his grip again, "Could the fall itself kill them first or the landing? Or would they just slowly lose themselves to the sweet release of death?"

"Dr. Whitly. Don't do this. You've already taken twenty-three lives."

Martin chuckled, "Well, why not make it an even two dozen?"

Malcolm tried to reason with the man he once considered his father, "You don't have to do this."

"Give me one good reason." Malcolm hesitated but it gave Martin all he needed to know, "Oh, Malcolm, my boy..." The Surgeon gave a grin, the one that now made chills run down Malcolm's spine. "You care about her, don't you?"

"Yes." Malcolm said without hesitation, "She's my friend. Of course I care about her."

"My boy... don't you know by now?" Malcolm paused at his father's words, "If you don't have their complete and utter devotion... love is simply a weakness." With those final words, he pushed the unconscious Dani off of the balcony.

"No!" He ran but Martin held him back, "No! Let me go! "

"Calm down my boy..."

"Let me go! No! No! NO! NO!" He finally broke free from his father and ran the ledge and saw what had become of Dani.

"NO!" Malcolm jumped up as his eyes shot open and his arms tugged at his restraints. He gasped heavily as he spat out his mouth guard.

He didn't even hear Dani run over and check on him. "Bright?" He didn't notice she was there until she sat by him. "Bright?" He continued to breath heavily which prompted Dani to place her hands on his shoulders, "Hey. Bright? Look at me." Malcolm's slightly wild gaze met her calm one. The light from the sunrise hitting her face as it made her brown eyes turn amber. His head was still shaking so her hands move to gently grip his face, "It was just a bad dream. It's fine. Everything's okay."

He began to calm down, "You're okay." It was more of a statement than a question.

Dani was slightly confused but indulged him, "Yeah, I'm okay, I'm fine... and you're fine. You just had a bad dream." She gave him a sympathetic look as she removed her hands from his face, "I'm sorry, I meant to wake you up, I must have dozed off."

Malcolm slightly shook his head as he leaned back and rested against the headboard, "It's not your fault." He gave a defeated chuckle, "I would have had a nightmare at some point."

She gave him an incredulous smile making him smile back.

Just then, high pitched screams were heard coming from Isabella's crib. Dani shot up and ran over to the crib as Malcolm quickly uncuffed himself from his restraints. Isabella had kicked her blanket to the side and flailed her little arms. Dani carefully picked her up and let the little girl cry into her shoulder and gently started shushing her.

Sunshine chirped loudly, getting Malcolm's attention. "Don't worry Sunshine. I think she just got scared because she woke up somewhere she didn't recognize." Sunshine chirped again, getting Isabella's attention. The little girl sniffed as her tears started to slow down and she turned her head, pointed in the direction of the bird's cage and let out a squeal. Dani gave Malcolm a look before handing Isabella off to him. He brought her closer to the cage as the baby looked at the yellow parakeet in wonder. He smiled, "Isabella, this is Sunshine."

"Hoo?"

Malcolm chuckled, "No, Sunshine's not an owl, she's a parakeet." Isabella didn't respond, instead she just looked at Sunshine with furrowed brows and a puzzled gaze. Malcolm thought for a moment, "Sunshine doesn't hoo, she chirps. You know? Chirp, chirp?"

Sunshine chirped again, flapping her bright wings. Isabella's furrowed brows slowly began to separate and her tiny mouth began to form a smile before she kicked her legs and started giggling again. Her sweet laughter only made Sunshine want to chirp more.

Malcolm smiled at the little girl in his arms as she seemed to be feeling better. He turned his head to Dani and mouthed, "Thank you."

She gave him a smile and just as she opened her mouth to reply, her phone rang.

Dani answered her phone, "Powell." She paused, "Alright, we'll be there ASAP." She turned back to Malcolm and Isabella, "That was Gil. He said Edrisa says she discovered that there's something off after completing the post-mortem."

"Then we should head over." As Malcolm was about to place Isabella back in her crib, he paused, "Wait.. what about Isabella? I'm no baby expert but I'm pretty sure morgues are not the best outings for infants."

Dani thought for a while before letting out a sigh, "We might have to get creative."

(~**~) (~**~) (~**~) (~**~)

"You brought the baby here?" Gil exclaimed.

"Well, obviously, we couldn't leave her alone and the precinct doesn't have a daycare... plus this roof thing of her stroller is on so she's not gonna see anything, she's napping right now and I got her one of those stuffed animals that smell like strawberries to sort of... mask the smell of the morgue." Malcolm quickly replied with a sheepish grin as he stood in front of the stroller.

The older man sighed, "Bright-"

"It was my idea." Dani interjected.

"Powell?"

"Bright was worried about what to do with Isabella seeing as there's not really anyone we can just hand her off to."

"That's true..."

"Look, I know. It's not ideal but we do need to keep an eye on the baby and... Bright's good at taking care of her." Malcolm's eyebrows shot up slightly at Dani's compliment. At least... he was pretty sure that it was a compliment.

Gil shook his head and turned to Edrisa, "You said that something's off about the victim?"

Edrisa nodded, "While the heart-shaped scars were carved post-mortem, after my examination, I realized that I was wrong. The major stab wound we thought was the cause of death was also created post-mortem. Like literally directly after being killed which explains the major blood loss."

Malcolm furrowed his brows, "What?"

"Wait. So if the stab wound isn't what killed her and she was already dead when the carvings were made, what did kill her?" Dani inquired.

"She was suffocated." The coroner replied.

"But there isn't any bruising around her neck." JT noted.

"Nice catch. There's no bruising on the neck and there were no fibers of any kind in her mouth or throat to suggest that something was stuffed in there. She was definitely suffocated in an unconventional way." Edrisa said as she lifted the sheet, "I didn't notice this at first because of the carvings but upon completing my post-mortem, I noticed that she has almost a perfect hourglass figure."

Gil furrowed his brows, "So?"

"At first I thought, 'Wow, good genes' considering she had also given birth within the past year but when I finished my examination, I realized her figure has been trained to become like this but not as if she had been training with an intense exercise regime."

"Then with what?" Malcolm asked.

"An old fashioned trick; corsets."

Dani raised an eyebrow, "Corsets? Like waist-trainers?"

Edrisa shook her head, "Yes and no, I'm thinking more Victorian and less Kardashian." She placed the white sheet back over the body, "There's bruising on her ribs that had developed over time but they're also very recently broken. Somehow whatever corset she was wearing last had been tightened to a point where she suffocated within minutes after putting it on."

"So the major stab wound-"

"Was created almost immediately after death, almost as if to throw us off but it was suffocation that killed her."

"But she wasn't wearing a corset when we found her." JT remarked with confusion.

"No, but I did find fibers in the stab wound that did not match the clothing Arianna was already wearing."

"So you're saying that someone suffocated Arianna until she was dead with her own corset then proceeded to stab her and then removed the corset?" Gil asked.

"That's what makes the most sense right now."

Gil noticed the way Malcolm was staring intently at the sheet-covered body, "Bright?"

"This killing didn't go to plan." Malcolm said as he stared intently at the covered body, "It was messy, almost as if every move was thought of in the moment."

"What does that mean for us?"

"The killer wanted us to think that this death was connected to the other killings but made a lot of mistakes."

"So this is a completely different killer than the one we've been looking for?" Dani asked as she crossed her arms.

"The profile I have is similar with a few key differences. For Arianna's killer, we're most likely looking for a male. White –big surprise however he's probably, at the very least, someone she trusted."

Dani furrowed her brows, "How did this killer know about the torture method then?"

"That... I don't know quite yet."

"A different killer would explain why the carvings on her body are different than the other victims." Edrisa nodded.

"The questions now are why did Arianna wear corsets and what does it have to do with her murder?"

Now I know what you're thinking... would they even be allowed to bring a baby into the morgue? I... honestly have no idea. Probably not but... this is my story :3

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, hope I came up with a good little twist for the case.

Please let me know what you guys thought and if you have any theories of what's to come. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Have a great day!