Nikki sat in the patrol car and reviewed her notes. She checked the basic rules of being a rookie BPD officer that her instructor Hays had been preaching to her all day before going out to dinner with other officers. At the same time, she had to remain seated in the patrol car to listen to the police radio.

The young woman took a deep breath and watched the traffic and pedestrians while nothing happened. This was not how she had imagined her first day as a cop; after all, she knew the side of the job where you were constantly in the crosshairs.

The radio crackled, and the young woman looked at it with furrowed brows, wondering if her mother and grandmother Jane had sat in a patrol car just like her and been bored out of their minds.

She winced when her cell phone suddenly started ringing. It took her a second before she started laughing. It was most likely Elizabeth, Jane, or Maggie, asking if she had already died of boredom and if she wouldn't start working for Maura at the DA's office instead.

She looked at the display and drew her eyebrows together. It wasn't Maggie or Elizabeth. It was Dispatch. "Yeah," she said, clearing her throat when the caller went silent. "I mean, O'Laighin." She listened intently to the officer on the other end of the line, covering her free ear, and after a few seconds, her eyes widened. Then she pushed open her door and ran to the diner, rushing in and looking at her instructor with wide eyes. "Sarge --," was all she said.

Hays looked at her for a long time and realized something extraordinary must have happened. He got up from his stool and left his cup of coffee untouched.

xxx

Dispatch had not exaggerated. Twenty minutes later, Hays and Nikki were standing in the train compartment.

A massacre had taken place here.

It was terrible, evil.

Nikki walked through the train compartment with her flashlight drawn and frowned deeply, then squinted and felt a bead of sweat run down her temple. Then she saw the symbol. It was smeared in blood on the windshield. And on the seats. And on the victim.

Had the perpetrators done this to the victim, she wondered, rolling her eyes. Of course, it had been the perpetrators. Who else?

One of her colleagues held a handkerchief over his mouth and nose. Anyone who was a hunter knew that broken-open animals stank terribly. Unfortunately, it was no different with humans.

Hays gagged a few times. "I hear you're interested in ritual murders," he croaked.

Nikki couldn't avert her gaze even if she wanted to. "No, not really," she mumbled, pulling out her cell phone and taking some pictures of the body. And then she started a video call. "But I know someone --"

xxx

Elizabeth had gone straight to the break room on the third floor of the BPD building, as she did every morning. Next to the old, rumbling and hissing coffee machine, which had most likely been bought by her mother Jane when she had been a homicide detective, there was now a coffee machine with a touchscreen. Elizabeth poured herself a coffee from the old machine anyway. She thought the old-fashioned coffee tasted better.

She smiled a little when she heard heavy footsteps in the hallway, which she recognized immediately.

Jane came into the room and groaned loudly. "I need a proper coffee."

Elizabeth grinned broadly and nodded once. "Sure thing."

Jane went to the coffee machine and poured a cup of coffee. "Do you know what the capitals with the highest murder rates in the world all have in common?"

Elizabeth followed her mother with her eyes and frowned a little. "Hmm, let's see. That's El Salvador, Caracas --"

Jane nodded in agreement as she poured herself a cup of coffee. "Mexico City, Bogotá, exactly ... What do all these cities have in common?"

Elizabeth furrowed her brows and lifted her cup to her lips. "It's hot everywhere?" she mumbled into the vessel.

Jane groaned and slumped her shoulders. "That's right. And the hotter it gets, the more violence. It's already starting here, too. The war between two gangs recently flared up again in Chicago. Do you know why?"

Elizabeth was starting to feel like she was on a quiz show. "Why?"

Jane opened the window and took a deep breath. "One reason is the summer heat, which brings us back to the topic. The other reason is social media. There's more trouble and more gangs than on the American streets."

Elizabeth grinned broadly. "Cynics say that solves a problem."

"It's not just cynics who say that; I say that too. There are also rumors that the CPD is stirring up hatred through fake posts specifically to decimate the number of gangsters through internal warfare."

Elizabeth gave her mother a long look and shook her head skeptically. "What about the heat now? You started the heat."

Jane took a sip from her cup and made a face. "Drugs and heat make people a lot crazier."

Elizabeth took a deep breath and sighed. "I'm afraid I can only agree with you on that."

The chief smiled and looked at her daughter for a long moment. "Have you settled into your office yet?"

"Well --," Elizabeth began and paused, frowning profoundly and avoiding looking her mother in the eye. "Well ... to be honest --"

"Liz, being a lieutenant doesn't just mean having a bigger desk; it means having your own office, and it always will, even if you and I are long retired."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. Two years had passed again, and the upper echelon of the BPD had seen fit to promote her to lieutenant. A pay rise was also on the cards, but this also meant the obligatory staff shortage again as she could no longer be in the field too often, as Elizabeth was also tied to administrative procedures due to her promotion. "Due to my promotion, we are again understaffed in the field. My team is missing at least one investigator due to my time at my desk."

Jane raised her eyebrows a little. "There's more than one candidate for Homicide, longer. And more than one capable candidate for your task force."

Elizabeth nodded slowly, pressing her lips together and hanging her head a little.

Jane looked at her daughter for a long time and took a deep breath, setting her coffee cup down. She could well understand that Elizabeth was struggling with her promotion. Still, it was only logical for the city of Boston, and the Senate that the BPD's homicide unit and the particular unit Elizabeth had been a part of could no longer remain leaderless. And no one but Elizabeth seemed better suited for the lieutenant's job and the leadership of both units. "I'll make you a deal, Liz," the chief said, and Elizabeth raised her eyes a little. "We'll go to your new office together and go through the applicants' files together."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and nodded slowly. "Fine by me," she murmured.

Jane grinned and nodded, wanting to leave the break room with the newly minted lieutenant. She tucked her chin as she almost ran into Nick. "Nick!" she said in surprise, her eyebrows furrowing when she saw his wide eyes. "What's wrong?"

Nick breathed heavily and looked at the two women. "You should come to BRIC with me. Now!"

xxx

Jane and Elizabeth entered BRIC with Nick, and the lieutenant slowed her steps when she saw Nikki's face on the monitor wall.

Katherine was standing behind one of the desks, her brow furrowed and her arms crossed. She seemed to be thinking already.

"Hey, Ma," Nikki said, holding the cell phone so that most of her sweaty face was visible, but in the background, it was clear that officers were working with flashlights. "I think we should keep this short. We're at a very unusual crime scene here and could use your help. I've already told Kate and Nick."

Elizabeth sat on the edge of a desk and frowned as she fingered her wedding ring. "Why don't you tell us what it's all about?"

Nikki pursed her lips and nodded slowly. "A young girl was chopped up on a train from New York to Boston."

Jane's eyebrows shot up. "Chopped up?"

Nikki paused for a moment, thinking, then made a face. "Yeah, I think that verb sums it up best. I'll send you the pictures I took with my cell phone in a minute. They cut her throat and then did a few more things to the dead body."

Elizabeth ran her teeth over her bottom lip. "What exactly happened, Nikki?"

"The perp --"

Katherine's eyebrows drew together. "The culprit?" she asked, tilting her head. "Are you sure it was a single perpetrator? Couldn't it have been more than one?"

Nikki hesitated, looked briefly over her shoulder, and began to stammer. "I ... um ... That ... We have yet to find out. Hays... my instructor ... um... my sergeant --" She closed her eyes momentarily. "Sergeant Hays is looking at the camera analysis of all the stations the train stopped at. Shall I go into the details yet?"

Jane thought for a moment and arched a brow. "Sure," she said, and both Katherine and Elizabeth looked at her with wide eyes and open mouths. Jane decided to ignore her two daughters. "As you know, we've seen and heard a lot and need to know everything we can to assess the case properly."

Nikki, at the objections that her mother and aunt might raise, pulled the corners of her mouth down when they failed to appear and took the psychiatrist, the lieutenant, the chief, and Nick through a first pass of the crime scene with her cell phone. "Okay. So, the perpetrator or perpetrators put the girl on one of the seats and pulled her intestines out of her body. They stapled the intestines to the upholstery parallel to her legs with a stapler."

Elizabeth saw what her daughter saw on the scene as Nikki panned her cell phone camera across the seat and was surprised at her extraordinary calm. She remembered her crime scene, where, for the very first time, she smelled sweat mixed with urine, feces, blood, and unspeakable fear and saw the entrails of a human being outside the body. She also remembered throwing up so violently afterward that she thought she was going to die.

Nikki looked pretty pale, but she seemed to hold her nerve otherwise. "It looks like a ... bizarre skirt."

"What does the wound on the abdominal wall look like?" Katherine asked suddenly.

Nikki pressed her lips together. "We can't tell for sure on the spot."

"What?" the psychiatrist asked, straightening up. "You can show us the cut-open abdominal wall and describe the edges of the wound in more detail. Maybe we can tell from the edges of the wound what weapon was used. Maybe it's something exotic, and we --"

Nikki looked more closely at the cell phone camera. "I don't think you quite understand, Kate. The abdominal wall is intact."

Elizabeth stood up from the edge of the desk and furrowed her eyebrows. "But then, how were her organs removed?"

This time, Nikki seemed to find it harder to talk about, and she left the train compartment and exited the train. She licked her lips several times and shook her head. "The perpetrator ripped her guts out through her vagina."

Elizabeth closed her eyes, biting her lower lip. This was not how she had imagined her daughter's first day at the BPD. And she was sure that Nikki had had a different idea, too. But the newly minted lieutenant was proud of her daughter at the same time because anyone else ... any conventional BPD rookie wouldn't have known what to do at that moment. Nikki had remained so clear-headed despite the gruesome crime scene that she had turned directly to Nick and, therefore, to her.

Jane continued to look at the screen and tilted her head a little. "How long has she been dead?"

"I don't know, a medical examiner hasn't been here yet."

"Can't you tell me roughly?"

Nikki's eyes suddenly darted back and forth restlessly. "I ... Uh --"

Now, Elizabeth stepped in and looked at her mother with wide eyes. "It's all right," she said without taking her eyes off Jane. "Maggie will send one of her people to you."

Nikki breathed a sigh of relief and furrowed her brow. "Do you want me to send you the pictures?"

Jane closed her eyes and shook her head. But then she looked at her granddaughter on the monitor wall. "Yes, send us the pictures," she said as she typed on her cell phone. Her cell phone answered immediately, and she slumped her shoulders. "Holy shit."

Elizabeth looked at the chief in astonishment. "What?"

Jane gave her a long, penetrating look. "The FBI wants to take the case and asks for your assistance. Marion Bullock is in charge."

Nikki blinked a few times. "Hays made some calls earlier. I'm guessing he called in the FBI unknowingly."

Katherine pressed her lips together and nodded. "The FBI suspects a ritual murder? Because of the entrails?"

Elizabeth closed her eyes and shook her head. She didn't think it was just about the FBI and BPD's powers. She knew Marion Bullock from the police academy and wasn't her biggest fan. "How old was that girl anyway?"

Nikki pressed her lips together. "According to her student ID, she was nineteen. She went to Columbia University."

Elizabeth made a face and closed her eyes one more time. The victim was the same age as her daughter. "My God! Nineteen!"

Nikki cleared her throat. "And there's something else. A symbol."

Jane straightened up instantly and took another step towards the monitor wall. "Show me the symbol."

"Um... okay," the young woman said, awkwardly turning the cell phone camera.

Elizabeth looked wide-eyed at the wall and was already making her way out of BRIC. "We're on our way, Nikki."