8.
Telling Lieutenant Coulter about the recent development in the case as well her personal connection with a potential suspect was and asking to be pulled off the case was like pulling teeth. He was definitely not making it easy, since he didn't really see what the big fuss was about and probably thought that she was being prickly for not good reason. However Tris was not in the mood to explain her personal history with her 'boss' and certainly not when she thought he was already an ass. So she raised her arms in the air and said exasperated, "I'm telling you that I can't be on this case if this person has a significant role in the case."
"Nothing has yet proven to support you theory that he is involved, so I don't see why I'm going to take you off the case," Lieutenant Coulter said annoyed, while he continued to do paper work and took short glances now and then at her. He had the bored and irritated expression on his face, and she could almost guess how much he wanted her to disappear from his office. However if he wanted to be difficult then she could be just as difficult and possibly worse.
"But I'm certain that he is connected to the victim, because according to a handwritten note I found in the victim's belongings they had an appointment last night. So he might be the last person to see her alive and possible a suspect," Tris exclaimed. She ran an annoyed hand through her hair. "And if he is the victim's murderer and the case goes to trial, then I would be a liability on the stand due to my personal relationship with him. So unless you want this case to go down the drain, then please take me off the case at least till he is off the suspect list."
Eric didn't make any expression that he was going to change his mind about it, which made Tris almost want to scream over how bullheaded a person could be. Well, if common sense would change his mind, then she was going to use other resources.
"Okay, if you don't see my view on this then I have another reason for you to pull me off the case," Tris said with this confident grin on her face. It was obvious that whatever she was thinking was sneaky and probably too irresistible for Lieutenant Coulter to refuse her request. "I'm pretty sure that you don't like the fact I'm hired here and going to the higher ups with my resume, which will cause you to be skeptical over my worth. So how about this if you pull me off the case and give me another case, then I will prove I can do this job without help from Four or anyone else on his team other than Uriah. That way you can see I'm good for it and if I fail then you have a reason to fire me, which I'm sure nothing would please you more than seeing me gone."
She tilted with her head, giving him an innocent yet fake smile like the ones she used to give back in Abnegation whenever she had to force herself to be selfless around people. Of course she didn't think of herself as selfless when she forced herself to smile and be helpful towards beggars on the street, but she at least knew that even if someone pointed out to her how her act was lacking nobody could comment on it. After all there was usually no proof of such and it would be considered a human error at most. So the lieutenant couldn't do much about it and her offer was almost too good to reject if she had read him properly. Something she was confident she had done perfectly. The lieutenant leaned back in his chair, keeping a thoughtful expression on his face until he finally made up his decision and responded by giving her a condescending and almost amused smirk.
"All right," Lieutenant Coulter said. "You are off the case. There is another murder downtown here at Dauntless, near one of the college nightclubs. You and Uriah go down there and solve this case, prove to me that you are as good as everybody says you are and then I might consider you worth working here at Dauntless PD. But if you fail to do such, you are out. Is that understood?"
Tris nodded determined before he handed over the information about the case and she left his office. She had a few things to do before she and Uriah could leave the precinct and go down town. So she started by first updating Uriah by the recent change of plans before she began calling Zeke about the recent development in the case as well as how she and Uriah were currently off the case, without going into the major details to why they were out. Before she hung up the phone she gave him one piece of advice in case they were going to follow the note evidence, and said heedfully, "If you plan to see him, promise me you will do exactly this. You go in and talk about the case, nothing else. Don't mention anything about me or the fact that I'm working with the Dauntless PD or that you guys have a personal connection with me, but probably more importantly make sure Four doesn't mention his former relationship with me once he figure out who this person is."
"Okay, why?" Zeke asked confused.
"Because I'm worried that if this person knows then he will try and hurt Four, and I'm sure that altercation would end up with him hurt rather than Four getting hurt," Tris explained. She looked up from her desk and saw Uriah standing by the doorframe, waiting for her to get moving. "Look I got to go, but please Zeke. Make sure those two don't do anything and cause more trouble than what its worth."
Then she hung up the phone, grabbed her jacket and followed Uriah to the parking lot. Shortly after that they drove to the crime scene in comfortable silence, but as she sat there in passenger seat all she could think about was how Four was going to react when he was going to meet the only person left in her family, who absolutely despised cops and wasn't afraid to be blunt about his opinion either.
If you asked Four if he was angry, then he would simply deny it or just be quiet and keep his opinions to himself. But when he found out that Tris had once again gone behind his back and gotten herself kicked out of the case, he wasn't angry. No, he was furious. It was obvious how furious he was because Zeke kept a distance from him and had stayed quiet since he notified the recent change in the case. And while he was angry with Tris for several reasons just today and wanted nothing more than confronting her, he decided to wait and instead keep focused on the case.
Based on what Zeke told him Tris and Uriah had been assigned to another case, so they were on their own, which right now was probably a good thing too. So Zeke continued on telling him about Christina's latest findings, and that according to her the victim's cause of death was massive blood loss from where the killer had stabbed her multiple times. And though she couldn't give a complete and exact description of the murder weapon, she managed to clue them in that the weapon had a sharp point with a narrow blade. She estimated that the murder weapon was most likely a boning knife, which was a type of kitchen knife. That didn't narrow the search, but along with what Tris and Uriah found out before they were pulled away it might be a start.
However Four noticed that Zeke was keeping something from him when they was heading to the last known place she was before she was attacked and killed. According to a note Tris found in the victim's belongings, the victim had a scheduled meeting with a professor last night hours before she was killed. So they were heading over there right now, to see if the victim showed up last night.
Once they arrived to the faculty building, Zeke asked quietly for the direction of the professor's office. Four's eyebrow rose in suspicion over why Zeke was overly cautious the whole time they walked to the professor's office, but he didn't question about it until they stopped in front of the dark brown door. Four looked to see the name of the professor that was hanging on the door since Zeke had not been very forthcoming about that piece of information, and was slightly taken back that the professor shared the same surname as Tris. But he didn't look more into to it, thinking that it was probably someone who just shared the same last name. So after Zeke carefully knocked on the door, they waited outside until a male voice replied and allowed them in.
They opened the door and entered a nice lit room, filled with bookshelves around the room. On one end of the room was a desk with a computer, a phone, a photo frame and a few pieces of paper lying around. However that wasn't what interested Four at the moment, it was rather the person standing behind the desk holding a book in his hands, reading without looking up at them.
"I assume you are here to talk about Miss. Morris. Such a tragedy," Professor Prior said lightly. "I'm Professor Caleb Prior. Please sit down."
Professor Prior closed his book and sat down on the chair, while Zeke sat down on the chair across from him meanwhile Four continued to stand, feeling slightly guarded being around this man who was probably one or two years younger than him. He had dark hair that was well groomed, a hooked nose and green eyes. And when he gave off a polite smile, you could see dimples appear making him seem trustworthy, but Four wasn't easily fooled. There was something about this guy he didn't like and he was pretty sure the feeling was mutual because the guy had not directly looked at him or Zeke since they had entered the room.
"You were Geena Morris professor correct?" Four asked. He crossed his arms over his chest.
Professor Prior nodded, still not fully looking at him. "What exactly do you teach?"
"I'm a guest lecturer here, teaching students about forensic science," Professor Prior explained. "I excel mostly in forensic toxicology, but I have other areas of expertise."
"Can you explain to me why the victim would be here after hour last night?" Four said suspicious.
"Geena Morris was one of the chemistry students who was interested in my lectures and wanted a closer lecture, since she was considering getting involved with the forensic science program," Professor Prior answered lightly. "However the last couple of days she had been missing classes and was about to lose her place in my class, so I suggested that she would meet me after hours and I could help her back on track."
"Was she here last night?" Zeke asked, interrupting what seemed like a competition between the two.
"No, she told me that she had something to do and couldn't make it. So we rescheduled and that was the last I heard from here until this morning," Professor Prior replied easily. Four's eyes darkened. Something wasn't right. It was obvious that he knew more than what he was letting on, but unless he had any evidence to support this theory he couldn't do anything. But that didn't stop him from trying to bait him into answering.
"What exactly was you relationship with the victim?" Four asked with arrogance. The professor finally looked up and stared at him with what one would assume was infuriated expression on his face.
"I know what you are insinuating, but you are wrong," Professor Prior said with hidden anger. "My relationship with Geena Morris was strictly professional, so don't dare assume otherwise. And this exactly why I hate detectives, almost jumping and accusing everyone without any proof."
His answer certainly got Four attention, wondering if this professor had previous altercations with the police. If that was the case, then the question was why?
"Why do you say that?" Four asked, meanwhile Zeke turned to look at him with a warning glare. He wanted him to stop badgering, but Four was too curious and determined to notice the glare.
"Because the one and only time my sister and I asked for detectives to do their job, they failed to do such when my parents got murdered and couldn't catch whoever had done it," Professor Prior replied in anger. "Leaving me and my sister alone to fend for ourselves. She became a cop to find out who had killed our parents, but in the end it killed her very soul."
Four's eyes widen in shock. This couldn't be her; she would have told him about having a brother, but no matter how much he tried to deny it he knew that it was true. The clues was adding up, the man in front of him was no other than Tris's older brother and her only family left.
"What do we got?" Tris asked when they arrived at crime scene. They were standing in a dark alley behind one of the many popular nightclubs in town, where a young woman was lying on the ground, with her back against the pavement and with stab would to the chest. She had long dark hair, light brown skin and dark eyes. The woman appears to be from Mexican descendant, but based on how she was dressed she obviously came from a well-off family. That would mean that the victim had someone in her family who missed her and pretty sure wanted to know what happened to the girl.
"Estimated time of death was late last night, probably around midnight. The victim was stabbed multiple times in the chest. No defensive wounds, so nothing indicates that she fought back, but I need to take her back to the morgue for further analysis," Christina replied as she examined the body carefully. "Poor girl, she shouldn't have been here."
"Any sign of sexual assault?" Tris asked. Dark alleys were perfect places to attack and rape someone. The killer had the advantage with the scene; bad light hiding the killing and the location was perfect to slip in and out of without anyone noticing.
"There are bruising on her vaginal area," Christina replied sadly. "I will check for semen once I get back at the lab. However I found something on her thigh, some kind of fabric, but I have to send it to the lab to confirm what it is."
Tris nodded and ran a tired hand through her hair, there were similarities with Four's on-going case, but the crime scene seemed different. Four's victim was killed in fury, meanwhile this victim seemed to have been in cold blood based on how he left her for display like she was just worthless human being.
"Got any ID?" Tris looked at Uriah, who was squatting on the ground looking through the purse that was lying next to the body.
"Raven Ramirez, twenty-two based on her drivers license," Uriah replied before he handed her the drivers license. "Her money and phone are still in the purse, so I guess we can rule out robbery. I'm going to check her phone to see what it was used for the last couple of hours."
"Okay, let CSU continue gather up evidence and we will head back to the precinct," Tris decided. "To notify next of kin and get our investigation started etc."
Christina ordered two of her assistants to pack the body in a body bag, meanwhile Uriah and Tris headed back to the car. Once they got inside Uriah asked the question that has been on his mind since they were assigned to this particular case.
"So tell me, why did you want to get reassigned to this case?" Uriah asked with comforting smile. He started the engine and started to reverse the car out of the parking lot.
"Other than the obvious reasons?" Tris replied. Uriah nodded his head and she could almost see the dying curiosity in his eyes, impatiently waiting for her to explanation. She sighed. She never had any reasons for mentioning Caleb and more importantly why their relationship was pretty much estranged at this point despite having lived together for a year, the same year when she quit the force in the first place. Their living arrangement and relationship was stable for while, but in the end they were too different and almost unbearable to spend more time together than necessary. "My relationship with my brother is very complicated. We love each other obviously, but we are very different. After a certain incident when we were younger, Caleb grew to be very cynical about the law enforcement meanwhile I admired what they did and decided to join them, which ultimately ended with us clashing. Even though he tolerated it for a while, at least in the beginning, he finally snapped when he found out that I was dating a detective back at my old precinct. I never told him who the guy was nor did I ever bring him home to introduce him, mostly because I was afraid Caleb would be the one who ended up hurt instead of my ex-boyfriend. Anyways before I moved here and we had gotten into another fight, probably the biggest fight ever, which ended with me cutting contact with him and I haven't seen or heard from him since."
"Whoa," Uriah said breathless. He had been quiet the whole time she explained her estranged relationship with her older brother, but she was glad that he didn't get too uncomfortable receiving the information. "Sorry, that's sounds tough. And here I thought Zeke was a pain, but at least he was supportive of me following his footsteps not that it would have mattered. I tend to do whatever I like, no matter what others think, however I guess it must have been hard to have a brother who despised what you do and probably never complimented you on your work."
Tris shrugged her shoulders. She was used to Caleb's ways and opinions, so she wasn't really too bothered by it anymore, but sometimes she could help missing the brother she used to have before her parents death. Back then he was sweet and supportive about what she wanted to do with her life, but she could understand how their parents murder affected him. After all it affected her as well and she still couldn't let go of it.
The topic was pretty much dropped after that and the conversation shifted towards the case. So the entire way back to the precinct the conversation was a mixture of seriousness, relaxed and comfortable. The dark thoughts about her brother was pushed back in her mind and instead focused on how she was going to find a killer and bring him to justice.
After the 'pleasant' meeting with Tris's brother, Four and Zeke returned back to the station. Four was anxious to hear more about Christina's findings, especially since any news was better than going through witness statements and notifying next of kin. He left those matters to Zeke while he headed over to the morgue. But as he walked down the corridor his thoughts returned on Tris and her actions. He was infuriated over how Tris went around, keeping secrets from him and didn't give him any warning before hand. Sure, they might not have the best relationship right now, but didn't they promise to work on in and not try and keep secrets from one another? Did their previous relationship mean so little to her?
He shook his head, confused over what to think about his old flame who he was still pretty much burning for and wanted start over with. Just thinking about the previous relationship made a small smile appear on his face. He could still remember one of many sweet and lovely moments they shared.
(Flashback)
They were lying in his bed, completely naked and only covered by the dark bed sheets. Tobias was lying on his back, while his arm was wrapped around Tris's waist. He was already awake and was not the least bit of tired. So he took the opportunity to admire the beautiful creature lying next to him. After the night's previous activities Tris was still peacefully asleep with her head and one hand against his bare chest. She was breathing evenly and at that moment he believed this was one of the few times he had ever seen her so happy and peaceful since he had met her and they began their romantic relationship.
He smiled over the lovely sight. He ran his fingers carefully up and down her back, which ultimately woke her up and turned to look at him with a soft smile on her face.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Tris asked softly.
"Admiring the most beautiful woman in my world, who is currently looking like an angel in my bed," Tobias replied with a grin. Tris only rolled her eyes in response, probably thinking he was being cocky. However he didn't care because he only told her the truth. He was madly in love with her and to prove it he leaned down and kissed her lips. The kiss was gentle and firm. When they finally pulled apart, they both had these sneaky grins on their faces.
"Are you on for another round?" Tobias asked. He caressed her cheek as she leaned in to feel his touch.
"You're on," Tris grinned before she pulled him back to kiss him. Then they began doing the night's previous activities and didn't plan on living the bed any time soon if they had any say in it.
That was one of many times Four knew that he loved Tris and he wasn't afraid to admit it, but right now he was unsure how much she cared about him when she sneaked around and hid important things from him, like having a brother she had not once mention since they started their former partnership and relationship or when they reunited a month ago. And though he probably should have known about her brother since he had worked on her parents' case, but his brother had never been mentioned in the police report so he couldn't have known about it. However he expected Tris to be honest with him, especially if they were going to work together. There was no room for sneaking around and keeping secrets when he expected her to have his back the same he had hers.
When he entered the morgue he found Christina hanging over another woman, probably the victim from Tris and Uriah's case. She looked up to see who entered the room and relaxed once she saw it was him walked over to the table where the victim from his case was lying.
"I guess you are here for an update on the case," Christina said. Four nodded and took his stand in front of the table, watching the clean yet lifeless body.
"What can you tell me about her?" Four asked, while his arms were crossed over his chest.
"Well, you already know about the cause of death and what the murder weapon might look like," Christina began explaining. "However I found something interesting with the victim. The injuries are consistent with the injuries from Tris and Uriah's victim, in other words you two are looking for the same murder weapon, possibly the same killer."
"How do you come to that conclusion?" Four asked, not seeing how the two murders were connected.
"I tested the blood from the stab wound to Tris's murder victim to see if I found any trace of the killer, but instead I found traces of blood from your victim inside the wound track. Indicating that the murder weapon transferred blood trace and the murders are connected. Besides the murders are similar to each other like cause of death and that both women was raped shortly before they were killed."
"Did you find semen from both victims?" Four said. He was starting to like this case less and less based on how the killer raped and murdered both women just a few hours between each other.
"No, but I found some kind of fabric on Tris's victim that's already being analyzed as we speak, so hopefully we will get the results soon," Christina said. She walked away from the table and to the desk and handed him a file. He opened it and read the report on her autopsy, which wasn't far-fetched from what she had just told him. "Will you please find Tris and update her on the recent developments in the case?"
Four nodded and closed the file. He shifted his position awkwardly, not exactly trilled that he had to face her and work together to solve both of these cases. He still wasn't sure if he could trust her fully after she withheld information from him and didn't confront him about it.
"Did you know about why she wanted to get kick off my case?" Four asked suddenly, not really realizing that he spoke his mind.
"You mean about her brother," Christina replied, unsure what his exact question was. Luckily she nailed on first try, so he gave her a quiet yes. She sighed and nodded her head sadly. "Yeah, she told me when we got back from the crime scene. But before you go and accuse her for hiding this, she got herself reassigned to another case because she didn't want her personal relationship to cause trouble to the case."
"She could at least told me, I would have understood," Four argued, his tone starting to rise. "But instead she went to Eric and I was caught unguarded when I met her brother, who by the way is on my least favorite person list at the moment."
"Look, you need to talk to her about this," Christina sighed. She put a piece of her hair behind her ear. "However based on what I know about this, her relationship with her brother is pretty strained and haven't had much contact with him for a while. So I guess she didn't want to talk about it because it might be a sore subject to talk about."
Probably, anything concerning her family was a sore subject to Tris, Four thought to himself. Not that he couldn't say he understood why she didn't talk about her family, after all he never mentioned told her about his family problems and he didn't plan on mentioning it as long as he lived.
"Thanks, Christina," Four said instead, shaking away those heavy thoughts about his own messed-up family. "I'll go and talk to her. See you later."
Then he left the morgue and took the elevator up to the office. He had decided that their talk wasn't going to wait until the day was over, because based on how she had acted she would probably try and avoid talking about it all together. Something he wasn't about to allow her to do.
Tris was looking at the whiteboard where everything they had gathered up about the case hung. She tried to understand what exactly could be motive to kill this girl because based on her parents statements she didn't have any enemies as far as they knew. The victim's parents were owned a pharmaceutical company and were as suspected pretty well off, but when she asked if their social status could be a motive for their daughter to get killed, they denied it and said that their daughter was very private about her life and wouldn't go flaunting around who her parents were. Her friends told her pretty much the same thing and neither told her that there had been any altercation with anyone as far as they knew, so that was bust.
Tris went over the timeline on what exactly the victim was going for the last couple of hours. Everything seemed pretty ordinary, but the last couple of hours before her death are pretty much an empty window. No one knew where she had been or whom she had been with and there wasn't any forensic evidence that could lead her to a direction either.
"Tris, I need to talk to you," Four said exasperated, interrupting her train of thoughts. She turned to look at him and found him standing by the door. Crap, she thought irritated. She was in trouble now.
"I'm in the middle of a case, can't it wait?" Tris tried to argue. But he wasn't buying it and he wasn't letting her off the hook. So when she didn't move Four used his pissed off voice that held authority above anyone else's. "Now, Tris."
Tris groaned and followed him into one of the empty observation rooms. Then he closed the door behind her and locked door. And it was obvious that she was going to get out of this any time soon.
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Sorry for taking so long updating this, but after working almost non-stop on this and my other on-going story in March I needed to have a little break from writing, but I do have to say that I'm impressed on how many people seem to love this story. I have already gotten several comments weeks after my last update, asking me to hurry up and update the story. So I hope you guys will like this chapter.
I wanted to point out that if I don't update this story again this month then you might have to wait a while before my next update, since in last days of May I will be having my exams and I will probably use the entire month practicing for the exam. But I promise that once I'm done with my exams I will be updating again and probably more often giving the extra time I'm going to have.
Anyways thank you for the reviews, favorite and followings and please, and I mean please continue doing so. Hopefully I get to update this story soon, but if not then my message above explains why. But until then...
xXrebelgirl07Xx