February 2, 2027

Outskirts of Los Angeles

The sun had already set by the time the detective arrived on that stretch of lonely backwater road several miles from the city border. He parked his car just outside the cluster of police cars, their lights still flashing. But tonight, those lights were drowned out by the fiery blaze several feet ahead.

From the car, a man in a brown leather jacket stepped out from the driver's seat. The tips of his honey-brown hair reflected orange in the light of the roaring fire that his shocked eyes were fixated on. With a quick shove, Detective Ethan Tache slammed the car door shut and hurried forward. As he neared the police cars, an officer quickly stopped him.

"Keep your distance, sir. The fire department's en route." To prove the officer's point, distant sirens screamed. "Until the fire is contained, nobody can approach."

"Is anyone in the car?" Detective Tache demanded.

"The driver might still be in there, but we can't get close enough to confirm."

Shortly after Detective Tache's brief exchange with the officer, the fire truck pulled up by the police cars. Firemen diligently poured onto the scene and worked to contain the blaze. When the car was finally reduced to a smoking wreckage, paramedics rushed in to look for survivors.

They only found one body. Detective Tache stood aside with his fellow officers and watched with a grimace as they pulled it from the driver's seat. It was charred beyond any form of visual identification. The only thing Detective Tache could perceive from its blackened shape was that it had indeed been a human. For now, they could only call it their John Doe.

The smell was awful. Even weeks later, Detective Tache could still remember that pungent stench. And though he had spent the following days working his ass off, he never could identify his John Doe. Any form of DNA or fingerprint identification had been scorched away in the blaze.

The overwhelming verdict was that the incident had been nothing but a tragic car accident. Detective Tache had always suspected that the chief of police had pushed for that conclusion just to close the case–after all, there were more promising murder cases that the chief wanted to redirect their resources to. But something had always rubbed the detective the wrong way about this supposed 'accident.' All he had to go on was an unexplainable gut feeling.

With the case coming to its close, Detective Tache found himself working to the bone in a last ditch attempt to find any new leads to present to the chief. In that week, his home rarely saw a glimpse of him. And admittedly, the detective didn't realize how badly he was overworking himself until he witnessed something unexplainable at the morgue one night.

March 25, 2027

LAPD–Morgue Wing

It was nothing short of a miracle that his sergeant had approved Detective Tache's request for a post-mortem CT scan to be done on the burned body. Anyone who handled the case had been so certain that no foul play had been involved that no autopsy had been done–anyone except the detective, of course. That, and the body was so badly burnt that a traditional autopsy simply was not practical.

The radiologist had performed the scan while Detective Tache had met with the forensic mechanic on the burning car, so the detective didn't have a chance to see the results right away. He was notified that the results had been filed away at the coroner's records room.

Meanwhile, the mechanic only corroborated what Tache's superiors believed–that the car had caught on fire as a result of an accident. The detective was guided through the play-by-play of the crash and how the impact had smashed and loosened several components of the engine. Those loosened parts, coupled with heat, ignited into the blaze they had seen that night.

The detective still wasn't satisfied. He asked about the other thing that had been itching him–the license plates. The rear plate was conveniently missing, although the mechanic speculated that it could have fallen off. But Tache had gotten his men to scour the road for miles on both ends. No one had been able to recover the missing plate.

The other plate was present. But its lettering was unreadable, having been scorched and warped beyond recognition. Detective Tache sighed. The forensic mechanic had done his due diligence, but there were no battles to be won here.

It was already dark when the detective was finally able to go down into the morgue. The coroner had agreed to give Detective Tache access to the records room and read the results on the burned John Doe. It was late at night–he and a medical examiner were the only ones in the building. Detective Tache pulled up the results of the post-mortem CT scan and began reading.

As his eyes moved over the text, they widened.

The radiologist had taken images of the body's skeletal structure–the only part of the corpse that sustained the least amount of damage. Based on examination of the pelvis, this John Doe had actually been a Jane Doe.

And to make things worse, the CT scans revealed something else about her. Based on the size of the fetus, the radiologist estimated that Jane Doe had been between her first and second trimester.

Detective Tache closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He took a deep breath as he pressed both hands over his face, then ran them up through his hair. He took a moment to collect himself, and then continued reading.

The last noteworthy thing that the radiologist identified was a small fracture on the skull. It was located on the left side of the forehead. It was surmised that when the car crashed, Jane Doe had hit her head on the steering wheel. Detective Tache recalled that when the paramedics went to recover the body, they had found it slumped against the wheel.

The detective leaned his elbows on the desk. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. Though the scan had revealed several findings about his Jane Doe, there still wasn't any indication of foul play. Tache began wondering whether this gut feeling was simply just paranoia.

Suddenly, Detective Tache's eyes flew open. The hairs on his arms stood on end, and his skin prickled with goosebumps. Despite his exhaustion, he was well aware that the crying he heard outside the records room door shouldn't have been there.

Ignoring the dread bubbling in his chest, the detective rose to his feet and approached the door. The sound was horrendous–gurgling sobs interspersed between rattling, strained gasps. It was like whoever was outside was struggling to breath through a damaged throat.

Placing a hand on the holster of his weapon, Detective Tache grabbed the door and swung it open. He was confronted with nothing. The hallway outside was empty.

But the sobbing had not stopped. Instead, it seemed like the source of the noise had moved the instant he'd opened the door. Detective Tache looked down the hall… towards the morgue.

This shit was straight out of a horror movie. But the detective couldn't shirk his duties–if there was an intruder, he had to go confront them. Tache marched down the hallway towards the morgue. The sobbing grew louder. He reached the metal doors of the morgue and opened them with a sharp yank.

Light poured into the cold, dark room from the hall. It was enough to let Detective Tache see the figure standing at the far end of the morgue. Whoever it was seemed to be touching one of the lockers with outstretched hands. The sobs and gasps reverberated in the cold room.

Detective Tache saw the silhouette of the figure's head turn towards him. The dread that had been pounding in his heart spread through his entire body. His hand was squeezed over his firearm, but fear kept it locked in place. Then, adrenaline kicked him into action, and the detective quickly reached over and flipped the light switch on.

When light flooded the morgue, the detective found himself alone. The figure was gone. Tache blinked, already starting to doubt himself. Had it all just been in his head? Was it exhaustion playing tricks on him? But amidst the doubt, the detective spotted something across the morgue. He rushed over to take a look.

It had been the locker that he had seen the figure next to. The steel surface of the locker door was marred with inky black streaks–the detective recognized the telltale, five-fingered pattern of hand prints. These marks were black and dusty, almost like charcoal or… something burned. The detective's heart skipped a beat.

He quickly read the label on the locker door. However, this wasn't the locker holding the burned body. It was another John Doe–one that had been discovered back in December. Detective Tache read the case number: YT-26. He didn't know many details on this case given that it was assigned to a different detective, only that it was an unsolved murder case with no promising leads.

Without thinking, the detective reached out to open the locker door. Before his fingers reached the handles, he heard a voice.

"Detective! I don't think you're supposed to be in here!"

Detective Tache suddenly snapped to his senses. The medical examiner was standing at the morgue door, watching him with a concerned expression. "The coroner approved your access to the records, not the body. We really shouldn't be in here."

"I…" Detective Tache turned back towards the locker. To his shock, its surface was spotless–the black handprints were nowhere to be seen.

The sounds, the figure, and now these handprints–had he only imagined everything? Maybe his sleep deprivation was more severe than he realized. Detective Tache looked back at the medical examiner. "My apologies," he said, his slightly accented English a little shaky. "I thought… I thought I heard something."

The medical examiner gave him a faint smile. "The interns tell me that all the time," she told him. "The mind tends to wander when it's not used to being in a place like this."

"Right."

"Go home and get some rest, Detective."

Detective Tache did just that, having resolved to let the case reach its end. Even if he didn't like the chief of police's lack of interest in the accident, he couldn't help but agree that there was no shortage of murder cases that needed his attention.

And he didn't have to wait long for the next one. The next morning, the detective found himself called to a crime scene that had occurred at Pike's Peak–a popular park on the outskirts of the city. The body of a man with a gunshot wound had been discovered there.

Detective Tache met with the deputy chief at the park. "Tache, glad you're here. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

"Give me the good news. I could use a pick-me-up."

"The good news is that you're leading this case. I've told the boys that all reports and evidence go through you."

"Okay… and what's the bad news?"

He didn't like that look the deputy chief gave him. It was almost that of… pity? "Well, you could say that the prosecutor of this case is an 'old friend' of yours. I use the term 'friend' very loosely here."

Detective Tache immediately realized what the deputy chief was inferring. "I thought she was overseas?"

"Just flew in last night for a big prosecutor's conference next week. She reached out the second she caught a whiff of this case–apparently, in her words, she wanted a 'warm up' to refresh on the American court system."

Detective Tache scratched his temple. "Why do I get the feeling my assignment to the case has something to do with her?"

"Well, consider yourself lucky, Detective. She asked for you by name. Said she wanted 'the least incompetent fool' working with her." No sooner had the deputy chief finished his sentence did Detective Tache hear a sharp crack in the distance, followed by a yelp of pain.

"Uh huh… lucky."