Jill Valentine, gathered her photo evidence she took home and ran to her car. This marked the third time this week she was late. It's not like she gave a shit about punctuality or this case, or Raccoon for that matter.
"Hi Jill" she heard from her 9-year-old neighbor, McKenzie Barnes.
"Hey McKenzie" Jill said as she fished her car keys out of her pocket.
"My teacher showed us a real a new dance today, want to see?" she asked.
"Maybe later, sweetie, I'm in a rush" Jill said as she unlocked her door and entered her car starting it immediately.
"Are you gonna fight bad guys?" she asked.
"Sure am" Jill said.
"You have such a cool job" McKenzie said leaning against the driver's side window.
"Yeah, step back sweetie" Jill said and once McKenzie stepped back a significant distance, Jill backed out of her driveway and drove to the station which was just about a mile ahead.
McKenzie idolizes her and wished she could live up to her standards, but the truth was the police force isn't what it appears to be. Sure there's the daily press conference to keep up appearance, but behind the scenes there was more corruption and politics all lead by the head politician himself chief Brian Irons. The RPD didn't stand for truth and Justice, not anymore at least. The town itself is owned by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella and it's no secret they believe they're above the law. I guess they are.
They are the biggest tax payers in town and pay your salary more or less.
Umbrella contributed to 95% of the town's resources and ran the entire town, not to mention the the mayor's office. They were above the law, but she wasn't going to be manipulated anymore. She was a street kid and sure it sucked, but at least she was free. Now she just can't seem to shake this certainty that she is being manipulated by Umbrella. Every action she or the STARS took was because Umbrella allowed it and that did not sit well with her.
After the meeting, Chris grabbed a can of soda from the vending machine and thought about what little progress was made in the meeting. It didn't uncover anything him and the other STARS weren't aware of. These were completely random attacks happening at all hours of the day, and neither victim had any kind of connection. They had no leads or suspects.
They all sitting on their asses and all he could think about was his old friend and that startling late night phone call. Lately he hasn't been able to take his mind off that fateful night. He played it over and over in his mind trying to make some sense of it all.
"Chris, is that you?" he heard Billy's hysterical voice on the other end of the line.
"Billy?" Chris said barely awake.
"Yeah, Chris, listen I'm in real trouble man" he heard him practically crying on the other end. Somehow this didn't surprise him. Billy is always getting himself in trouble, Chris had to pull a few strings to get him out of jail a few times, but never was he this hysterical.
"What did you do now?" Chris asked sitting up from his bed.
"It's Umbrella, it's worse than I thought man, it's worse than I thought" This time he actually heard him sobbing on the other end.
"What's wrong? What happened?" Chris asked trying to keep calm. It took a lot to get Billy to the point of hysteria, this was definitely something serious.
"I can't talk right now, they could be listening to our conversation right now, Just promise me you'll meet me J's Bar on the end of town in thirty minutes"
That was the last he's ever heard of him. Billy never showed up at J's Bar and Chris never found out what made him so spooked.
"Chris?" He heard then turn and to see Billy's sister Mia walking towards him.
"Mia, what are you doing here?" Chris asked.
"I was wondering, if there were any leads on Billy's disappearance" she said.
"My captain won't let me investigate" Chris said.
"Did you look into his disappearance?" she asked.
"Everything came up empty" Chris answered.
"What about Umbrella?" she asked a little too loudly.
"Shhh" Chris said pulling he to a quiet corner of the station "How do you know about Umbrella's involvement?"
"Billy told me he was investigating Umbrella right before he disappeared. He told me he was on to something big, something that will destroy the Umbrella corporation, you can't tell me that's not a coincidence" Mia
"Keep it down, if the chief finds out I'm investigating Umbrella, he'll have my head"
"What am I supposed to do, just sit around and wait for answers, it's too hard not knowing" she said trying to hold back tears.
"I know, but he tried it his way, and look where that got him, now you have to let me take care of this. Okay?" Chris said.
Mia went to leave, shoulders slumped and defeated. Chris let out a sigh. "Hey Mia" Chris called out and saw Mia looking back at him with her clear blue eyes. "If you can find me anything that Billy was working on around the time he disappeared maybe I can help you"
"Like what?" she asked
"Anything, he was really good at keeping records and I find it too hard to believe he had no record on Umbrella"
"I'll take another look at his things" she said before walking away.
Billy must have kept records on Umbrella. He was able to take down every company who had the misfortune to come across him with all the information he gathered on them. Billy would have never called him that night if he hadn't had incriminating evidence against umbrella, as a matter of fact he was sure of it.
Jill walked towards the police station and saw no one there. She saw Chris standing by the vending machine looking troubled.
"Hey partner" she greeted him.
"Jill, hey how it going" Chris said taking a sip of his root beer.
"Hanging in there, is the meeting over?" Jill asked.
"Oh yeah, you didn't miss much, believe me"
"Great, chief is gonna have my ass" Jill said with a sigh.
"I think I may have pissed him off enough already, so I took the bullet for you partner" Chris said with a cheeky smile. He has no issue pissing of his superiors, actually he might even get off on it.
"What do I owe you?" Jill asked jokingly.
"Valentine" Jill heard captain Wesker call from behind her and let out another sigh.
"Good luck partner" Chris said.
"Thanks" Jill said and walked towards Captain Wesker. She couldn't tell if he was angry or not. His expression beneath those dark shades which quite frankly she's never seen off him.
"Where were you?" Wesker said folding his arms, expression still unreadable.
"I was going over the case last night and I must've over slept" Jill answered which only warranted a slight nod from Wesker.
"What did you come up with?"
"Nothing that hasn't already been discussed already"
"So you missed a briefing and have nothing to show for it. You know what that says? It says you don't take any of this seriously" Wesker said.
"Maybe I don't" Jill said.
"Jill, you were a street kid, S.T.A.R.S gave you a second chance" Wesker said.
"Well I didn't ask for it" she said and with a sigh said "I'm resigning this week"
"Are you sure about this?" Wesker asked.
"I'm filling out the paperwork. I'll be done by this time next week"
"Okay. I suppose your minds already made up. For now, let's work on the case" Wesker said then turned his attention to Chris across the hall. "Chris!"
"Yeah?" Chris turned to face them.
"You and Jill head to the Morgue, Eileen has something she wants to discuss with you guys"
"Yeah, okay"
Chris walked with Jill to the morgue that was conveniently located right below the RPD. The walls dominated by freezers where the cadavers were held, the room was filled with body bags and in the center of the room was the latest victim, Molly Carter. Jill was hunched over making her own assessment. He thought about saying something, just to break this eerie silence in this morgue, but decided he should let her investigate.
Chris couldn't even lie, there was something incredibly creepy about being in this room. It just gave away an ominous presence. Dark, windowless, and completely empty of any life.
"Chris, Jill, I'm glad you guys can drop by" Eileen said as she walked in breaking the silence.
"Yeah, Captain Wesker said you wanted to show us something" Chris said.
"I ran the DNA from under the victims fingernails" Eileen said
"Great, did we get a hit?" Chris asked.
"The flesh under her fingernails is not your perp's" she said sounding a hundred percent confident about
that. Chris raised a questioning brow at her.
"How could you tell?" Jill asked looking just as confused as he was.
"I found a slight decomposition in the flesh that remained. If this was your perp, he's been dead for months" she said.
Jill looked at her with pure disgust. Chris, however, was still in the confusion state.
"So they wear their victims" Jill said as much of statement than a question
"We got ourselves a modern day Ed Gien on our hands" Chris said.
"Chris, what the Hell kind of a case we're dealing with here?" Jill asked with a hint of concern on her soft features. He wished he had some kind of answer to ease her mind, but truth was he didn't even know what they were dealing with. This was something the STARS never had any experience with. This was a group of people attacking at random and eating their victims, but who they were, he couldn't say.