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After working with Captain Black for as many years as I have, I know when he gives a directive it is meant to be followed. Everyone else in the precinct and surrounding areas knows it, too. Hard work and determination has helped him build a solid reputation for himself with respect demanded and granted wherever he goes. Needless to say, when he told me the night before to meet him in his office the following morning, we all made sure we were walking in there with a solid plan.
After Detective Swan and I had made it back into the building last night, we all got right back to work, the possibility of a rising body count making us more anxious than most of us have felt in a long time. Of course there has always been a steady stream of work bringing us to the point of exhaustion, but this is different. In this case, it is literal life and death.
And death is seemingly poised directly over all of our shoulders.
At least it feels like it as we file into Captain Black's office. We each find a place in the room; Detectives Jared Cameron and Ben Cheney take the back wall. Detectives Tyler Crowley and Embry Call lean against the tall and narrow bookcases in the right corner. I lean against the door once I close it behind us, and I catch sight of Detective Swan as she settles herself next to Call. We're silent as we look over our notes and wait for Captain Black to address us. Glancing around the room, I note the highly decorated walls brought forward from a successful career. Captain Billy Black, a perpetual frown on his tanned skin, leans on the front of his desk with his legs crossed at the ankles and his hands deep into his pockets. He waits with his head bowed slightly against his chest, as if soaking in the calm before the storm. Even though we all know the storm has already arrived, we can feel it is only a matter of time before it gains the momentum it needs to become catastrophic.
"What do we know so far?" Captain Black speaks to the room on an exhale. He runs a hand down his face. "I want the facts, and the facts, only."
Clearing my throat, I give a slight nod to the rest of my team. It's go time.
"Two bodies, as of this morning." I hand him the files even though I know he has already looked them over himself and memorized every detail. "The first one in Puget Park and the latest one under West Seattle Bridge."
"Both female. Unidentified as of now," Detective Call reiterates.
"No one reported missing?"
"Nothing matching the description," I answer. "At least off the one body. The other is unidentifiable beyond dental records."
"Possible runaways," Captain Black says under his breath but we all hear it and acknowledge it with a nod. He looks around the room. "Who's assigned to Aurora Ave?"
"Crowley and Cheney," Crowley responds on behalf of both of them. "We spoke to some of the girls last night."
"We're heading back down there after we finish here, Captain," Cheney confirms.
"Okay," Captain Black says with an appreciative nod of his head. "Anything good yet?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary," Crowley says. "But we haven't spoken to all of the girls yet."
With the amount of women, young, old and all ages between, working the area of Aurora Avenue, it'll take a solid week by the time we have the chance to talk to all of them. Like Captain Black, most of them have reputations of their own, as well. While most are cooperative, some will always hold their resentment towards us and try to make our jobs that much harder than it already is.
"The bridge," Captain Black asks, shifting gears to another area of concentration. "How's the surveillance? Still looks like a dumping location?"
"Looking like it, Captain," I sigh. "Surveillance in the area is shit, but we're going through what we have and are interviewing houses and establishments for other possible angles of the scene to see what we can find."
"Press?"
"Salivating. Waiting for word."
With a strong shake of his head, Captain Black moves from the front of his desk and walks around to the window, no doubt looking to see which outlets have already arrived. "Not a word until we reconvene. They'll hear from me when you all start doing your jobs." With that, he turns and levels us all with a look that has us all grabbing our things to get the day started. Moving from my place on the wall, the captain's voice cuts into the room as I'm beginning to go over my agenda in my head. "Cullen. Stay."
Without a word, I close the door behind the rest of them as they leave and head back over to the chair in front of the desk, plopping into it as I prepare to get my ass handed to me.
I count down the seconds in my head. Three, two, one..
"Swan?"
And there it is.
"Yes, Swan." I reply, steadfast in my decision. "Say what you want, but she knows what she's doing."
Even before I had followed her last night into the parking garage, I knew my decision to place her on my task force would be one I would have to defend. I had walked into the meeting today prepared to do exactly that.
"I'm not saying she doesn't," he says, his eyes not leaving the window as he watches the parking lot slowly fill with more cars. "But is this what you want on a high profile case? Once they get word you have a rookie detective assigned to the investigation, even more eyes will be on us. And if we are dealing with the same guy here, that would be exactly what he would want. Him turning on the news at night and seeing live footage of us botching this case is only going to urge him to keep killing."
"We don't know that yet, Captain. We don't know if these murders are from the same guy or isolated events." I try to convince myself that what I say is true, but I let out an exasperated sigh and shake my head. "It's only a matter of time before he kills again." I say, contradicting myself. "I can feel it."
He doesn't answer me, just leaves the window with a solemn sigh and sits down behind his desk in a chair much bigger than the one I sit in. For the first time since I walked into his office this morning, he looks at me and I see it on his face. "That makes two of us."
I leave his office a few minutes later, stopping for a cup of coffee before I make my way over to my desk. There is a hum in the room, a general buzz in the air, as everyone dives into their individualized tasks to beat a clock none of us are privy to. Every minute feels like borrowed time – the killer's time, not ours. Like I had told Captain Black, it hasn't been proven that the two bodies are related, but the timing is too convenient for us to rest assured we're overreacting. The best thing for us to do right now is to look at the situation we're in from all angles.
Wanting to get a head start on the day, I begin with a trip to Carmen, the medical examiner. We spend a large amount of time comparing what we can of the two bodies, noting any similarities and differences as we examine everything inch by inch. She has preliminary reports on both women, and even though we have to wait for toxicology results, she has determined the second body was killed by strangulation at approximately eleven thirty the night before she was found.
By the time I have a minute to myself, it's past eight in the evening and I look at my phone to see Jasper demanding I stop for a drink on the way home from work. With the heaviness of the last few days weighing on my shoulders, I find myself pulling my car into a spot in the back of the bar twenty minutes later. I'm curious to see if downing a couple of beers can somehow help clear my mind a bit.
Nodding towards the bartender, I make my way over to the booth in the back that has been dubbed ours for as long as I can remember. This booth, this bar, goes back to our early days on the force. Emmett and I would both find and forget all the answers to our problems here, relying on each other to remind ourselves we are more than just our jobs. It is so easy to forget that and lose yourself to a case, and after the day I had today, I'm sure this one will be no different than the rest. Not to my surprise, I see both Jasper and Emmett waiting for me in the booth.
"You need this more than I do, bro," Emmett says in greeting, sliding over an untouched beer across the table. He scoots over to make room for me as I sit next to him, an exhausted groan leaving my lips. Grabbing the neck of the bottle firmly in my hand, I nod my agreement and down the first sip like a man in the desert. It goes down easily, and so does the second when the bartender delivers it to our table a few minutes later.
"You find anything for Crowley?"
Emmett shakes his head, disappointment written all over his face. "He called me about a guy he interviewed at one of the stores a little up the road," he says, taking a large sip of his own beer. "Said the owner was a little off and wanted me to look into what I could."
"And?"
"Not much I could do without a court order or a search warrant," he answers, and I nod. "You guys really don't have much to go on yet, huh?"
"You know I can't answer that with this guy here," I say, motioning with my chin to Jasper. We look over at him to see him nodding in agreement with a buzzed smile on his face; our relationship with him working for the press and me investigating said stories has always been interesting and all in good fun. We're both professionals, and though he may not look like it to others, to me he has never crossed that line between us. "But off the record, no. Not much at all."
"It's early," Emmett reminds me. "Something will click."
We spend the next hour avoiding any talk of work. We shoot darts, order some appetizers, and enjoy the beer as the night progresses. Around eleven, not too long after I had told the guys I would be heading home, my phone buzzes in my pocket and I look up from my spot in the booth to answer it.
"Who is it?"
"One of my detectives," I say to Jasper a few minutes later. I put my phone back into my pocket. "She's stopping by to go over something about the case."
"She?" Jasper asks, looking around the bar. "Here?"
"I won't be long," I reply, finishing the last of my beer. "Then I'm out."
True to her word, Detective Swan walks into Jenk's twenty minutes later, her hair pulled away from her face into a messy pile on the top of her head. It's quiet here, not many people here now besides us and Jasper and Emmett. I had motioned for her to meet me at a table a few feet away from everyone, and when she slides into the seat across from me, I'm glad I had. Unlike me, she is still bright eyed and eager to dissect the details of the case. Her eyes dance in anticipation of what she has yet to find; mine are heavy and threatening to close under the years of intense pressure and utter exhaustion. While her brows are furrowed in concentration, mine droop at the thought of feeling hungover when I wake up in the morning. A small chuckle escapes my lips as she fills me in on what she has done during the day; she reminds me of myself when I was placed on my first homicide. The light in her eyes, the vibrancy in her expression and liveliness in her words makes me wonder if I've done the right thing assigning her to my task force.
It will be a sad day when the light inside Isabella Swan goes out like it did for me. Just like the victims, detectives eventually become shells of the people they once were. Secondary victims in every homicide throughout the years.
"Am I keeping you?" She asks, stopping in the middle of her rundown. I shake my head, urging her to continue.
"Not at all," I chuckle, knowing the only thing she is keeping me from is a harder hangover than what I'm prepared to have. I don't regret coming to the bar tonight. In fact, in not too long from now, none of us will have a single second to ourselves. Soon we'll be wishing for more minutes in the day. "What do you have?"
She hands me a notebook, and pauses to take a sip of her drink.
"You think they're connected." I state, looking at copies of pictures of the two missing girls she had mentioned a few days ago. Letting the notebook fall out of my hands and back onto the table, I run a hand through my hair. I'm glad she has brought it to my attention again.
"Not necessarily," she says, "but worth looking into."
"Can't hurt to look," I say. At that, our eyes meet across the table; a tired and dull green stands no chance against brown alit with the flame of justice behind them. "What do you have in mind?"
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