Special Chapter: Michael's POV

Two Years Ago

Sinclair was cupping her chin with one hand, her right elbow propped up with her left forearm on my desk. The smooth surface between her eyebrows were pleated slightly as she absorbed the photographs of the dead body. It was past her curfew, but that didn’t stop her from sneaking out of her house unbidden by her parents, and spend the evening contemplating on a killer’s profile.

"A penny for your thoughts?" I asked as I walked back inside my office, wondering what was running through her mind. Her approach to criminal investigation has always been peculiar in my views.

Looking up from the folders on the Helvian Case, her face that had been deadly solemn a few seconds ago broke into a beautiful smile. “How about a grand?” she responded, her eyes sparkling with humor.

I ignored the jest. Instead, I hung my coat over the wood hanger attached to the wall and moved to sit beside her.

“You’ve been silent for a long period of time. It’s unlike you.” It was so difficult to look into her beautiful face while trying to sound neutral, masking any hint of concern in my voice. “What are you thinking?”

Sinclair raised an inquisitive brow. “You’ve been watching me by the door, weren’t you?”

“It’s hard not to.” Before I could stop myself, the words had flown out of my lips. Fortunately, she was too naive to understand my implication.

“Ole man, you should make yourself useful,” she answered playfully. “Don’t think you can procure results out of thin air.”

On the desk, her dainty fingers picked up photocopies of the three notes we found from the body of the victim.

“I want copies of these,” she told me, holding up the notes containing gibberish scrawls. They looked as if they were written by a toddler, but that could have been done purposely to assume irrelevance as do some ciphers.

“Claude is already working on it, along with the entire Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit. Besides, releasing more copies without the…” My voice slowly trailed off when I saw her expression.

Sinclair was giving me a sad look. Her lips formed into a pout and her delicate brows creased slightly, pleading me to grant her request using her baby blue eyes.

I bit the inside of my cheek, inwardly cursing myself for being so vulnerable to her antics. She could break my will easily like breaking a toothpick.

“Fine,” I relented, my voice strained as I watched her smile grow. “I’ll get you copies.”

“Thank you, Mikee! I promise I have a perfectly good reason for this.” Returning to the neatly sorted out files, she took the folder containing the autopsy report.

Sinclair began to review its contents, leafing through the pages languidly. “It says here in his clinical history that he had 22 stab wounds across his neck, and chest area using a utility knife. However, he had no defensive wounds and they were dubbed as superficial hesitation wounds due to the shallowness of the inflictions which suggests the case of a suicide. Am I getting this right?”

“Yes, but the idea of a suicide was refuted by his wife,” I told her, knowing she wanted me to give her updates on the case.

“Obviously, the idea is out of the question. He wasn’t depressed. He was healthy, rich, had a beautiful wife and two children. So, why should he commit suicide?” I watched as the sharp glint of immense concentration returned to her blue eyes. “What else have you found out?”

“When we hacked into his phone and laptop, we found out that he had a profile on a dating website and a charge card that his wife didn’t know he had.”

“Ah, the possibility of infidelity.” Sinclair went silent again, eyes going over the files she had meticulously arranged herself when she crashed into my office an hour ago. She tapped a delicate finger against the hard wood of my desk, her look akin to a woman about to orchestrate a gambit.

As a young, unlicensed detective, solving crimes came naturally for her. My years of study and training paled in comparison to her raw ingenuity. Even without a bachelor’s degree on criminal justice, she makes my job look so effortless.

Sinclair was a bizarre cause for distraction on my part, but she was the queen to my chess pieces. I needed her more than I could dare to admit.

For a moment, I was willing to steal the stars if it meant I could catch a glimpse of her thoughts. But not only was that impossible, it would also be a crime.

Suddenly, Sinclair jumped to her feet, catching me by surprise. Her steps had a skip to them and her face was back to a playful grin.

“I think I have to go shopping early tomorrow,” she casually spoke out loud. “Would you like to come with, detective?”

Sinclair’s expression was casual enough, but knowing her for the past four years, I knew that a typical teenage shopping spree wasn’t really what she had in mind. And the invitation she extended to me meant that she needed me as a willing participant in her scheme. She needed not to worry, for I was willing to play along.

“I’ll go, if you need me,” I simply said, wondering what she was planning. She never tells though, never before the big finale.

After sharing a couple of words regarding the case, I drove Sinclair back to her house. She asked me to stop just a couple of houses away from her house so that she could climb back to her room without any fear of discovery. She had been mumbling about a few nosy neighbors before getting out of the car.

I watched her climb the fence of her home with ease. I didn’t leave until I was sure she was back into her room. When she finally had her windows closed, I then drove to my house.

The first thing I did was take a hot shower to ease the strained muscles on my back before going to bed. But I found myself unable to fall asleep that night and when the clock on my wall struck twelve, I decided to get up and drink some cold beer.

I sat there in the living room, watching the dark, empty street through the glass window with a bottle of beer on one hand. It was then that my phone rang.

I fumbled for my phone in the pocket of my lounge pants and was not able to answer the call until its fourth ring. It was Claude.

For him to call this late, it must have been important.

I took the call and put it in loud speaker, placing it on top of the drawer beside the couch.

“Officer Claude, any news?”

“Yes,” he replied, almost out of breath. “I’m sorry to call this late detective, but there’s another report similar to the Borton’s homicide case. We found thde dead body fifteen miles from the last murder site. Dr. Martin inspected the dead body and I was just informed about the wound. He said he couldn’t find anything to match the murder weapon which he described as the flat end of a katana. You’ve worked on this case for seven years. I wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter.”

I straightened in my seat and took a long sip of the beer as I listened to his words. “There’s no pattern,” I told him. “It’s always been a random kill. No similarities, except for the murder weapon. No witnesses. I’ve held sixty suspects but none of them matched. The killer works clean and careful not to leave anything. He’s like a phantom.”

“Well… we have a witness now.”

I paused. “You have my full attention.”

“The killer is female,” he began. “She, according to the witness, wore a mask and had a real freaking katana strapped to her waist. The killer didn’t take off her mask, but the witness says he was sure of it based on her body figure and the grace of her movements. All this while, we thought it was a man. At least, Dr. Martin got the weapon right. A real bloody katana.” Sighing, he continued, “Plus, I think she’s off the grid. Probably a hitman or an assassin of some sort.”

“Why do you think that?” I leaned forward and let my elbows rest on my thighs.

“Like you said, the killer’s a phantom. The witness… he said something about the woman being able to blend into the shadows, and scale through walls silently in a matter of seconds.” Claude paused, allowing the information to sink in. “Sound believable to you?”

“Anything’s possible, Claude. I’ve dealt with weirder bullshit before.”

“This woman sounds dangerous, Mike. And based on how she operates, killing random people in random towns with no pattern whatsoever, she might just be a highly paid assassin.”

“The possibility that there could be a serial killer out there, wielding a Japanese katana as a murder weapon sounds peculiar. But if it’s a fact we are yet to verify, so we must stay open-minded.”

“Well, it’s still kind of hard to believe. I think I need some stiff drink tonight.”

“I have that covered,” I said before tipping up the bottle to my lips, swallowing a copious amount of alcohol.

I could hear Claude chuckling from the other line before exhaling loudly. “You might want to visit our department, detective. Currently, I’m working on this case. I just wanted to tell you that I’m also taking into account that dormant case you took seven years ago. I could really use your help.”

“Sure. I’ll pay a visit,” I answered.

Briefly, Claude had to hang up because of his wife complaining about the pipe in their house being broken. I was left alone again. The house was quiet as it has always been.

The silence was consuming me. I tried to look for some sort of entertainment or distraction to drown out the silence, anything to make the loneliness go away.

Bedding random women was always an option, so I half-heartedly scrolled down my contacts in search of an easy lay for the night. My long list of one night stand’s have occupied a third of my contacts that I couldn’t even remember most of the women I had slept with. It was by coincidence that I came across Sinclair’s number.

I paused, longer than I would have liked. I cursed under my breath and thought, ‘She’s not even legal yet.’

I could’ve stared at her mesmerizing profile for the entire night and not get tired of it. The phone rang again, and this time, the call was from Sinclair’s number. My heart skipped a beat. It was too sudden that I almost dropped my phone.

I slid the answer button and placed the phone to my ear. Clearing my throat, I spoke to her coolly, “Sinclair, you should be asleep by now.”

There was no answer from her, but there was a distinct sound of steady breathing coming from her line. It went on for a minute without any of us speaking, until I heard a different menacing voice say, “She’s mine now.”

The color instantly drained from my entire face and before I could respond, the speaker had hung up on me.