Chapter 4

10 years ago, a boy confessed to me.

He said we had been friends for way too long and that at some point he started seeing me as something more.

He said he knew how things had been hard for me since my dad died, but he wanted to be the one by my side. Though he couldn't do anything to make things better, he wanted to be the one I could lean and count on.

He wanted to be the one to make me smile on my bad days and be the first person I think of on good days.

But unfortunately for him, I already had someone.

And now standing in front of me in the meeting room was that brown-eyed boy with his black hair overgrown and covering his eyebrows like they always had.

It had been 10 years since I last saw Tyler Beckett after we graduated.

"Hi, Susan... been a long time, huh?"

"You know each other?" said Dave

"Ah...yeah...childhood friends...", I replied.

"Oh, that's nice. No need for a long introductory then. Settle in team and hurry!" said Dave.

After everyone took their place, the nervousness took its time creeping up on my neck. This was the moment I had been waiting for, for the past 11 years.

I was finally going to find out the truth today.

Throughout these years I had been doing my own search after being accepted into the force. But the access I had to certain files and documents was limited. That was also why I gave it my all to make it into this team. But if dad's death had anything to do with this case, did that mean my search was pointless all along?

"So this is Tyler, and he will be joining us temporarily for this case. As you all know, we have analyzed whatever evidence and data we could get our hands on for this case. But with Katy's murder being similar to the past ones, the chief is not happy with how little progress we have made.

We need to start looking from a new angle and start from square one.

Tyler will be working as our profiler and he will join Susan and Max for the time being. Tyler, Chico, can you walk us through the suspect's profiling?"

Tyler walked up to the front and switched on the presentation. He had clearly worked on this in detail.

On the first slide of the presentation was a summary of all the victims we had encountered so far.

"As you can see, all the victims are females within their 20s and 30s. They were all murdered in places close to them like their home or workplace and were quite ordinary people. But when you study the murder patterns, whoever this killer is, has some sort of strong grudge or anger against them.

Katy was murdered with an axe that smashed her skull and Amanda was pushed from a 20 story building. And her case is especially different from the others because it has been framed to look like a suicide."

Tyler then shifted to the next slide with a close up image of the killer's signature that we were all too familiar with.

It always got me thinking about why this dude would go through all the trouble to make those imprints.

Like I get it, he's marking his kill or whatever and enjoying the pain, but seriously why?

"Based on the reports, these were imprints that were left before the victim died. He burnt them with a traditional tobacco cigarette that is most likely from a common brand. And he would've done this to remove any suspicion from himself. It also helps that he can discard the cigarette or its box easily without it seeming strange.

If you take a look at these prints, you can see that to reach this particular colour, it takes about 5-10 minutes. So he was clearly enjoying their pain during the process," said Tyler, pointing at the burns that had formed a perfectly circular imprint on the victim's fingers.

Though I hadn't encountered such burns, I could imagine how horribly painful it would've been. I also remembered a case that Charlie was once working on where a stepfather had constantly abused his stepson by burning him with anything that he got his hand on.

"Another thing to note is the fact that he chose the fingertips instead of any other body part. When I spoke to the doctor who did the autopsies of the victims, he said that the fingertips are one of the most painful parts in the human body. And that is probably why the killer selected this body part over any other.

Oh, and the killer we are dealing with is probably a male in his late 20s to early 30s given that the victims are all females and weighed between 99 - 132 pounds. The murder weapons are also evidence for this. He would have either known the victims personally or approached them with an ulterior motive. The murder patterns also show that a past memory clearly triggered him. Whatever that is, he has so much hatred and anger towards it that he is reliving it through each victim...".

As Tyler ended his presentation and the lights came on again, my mind was rushing with all sorts of thoughts, trying to make sense of everything that I just heard.

The scale of this case was growing by each minute.

Every time we felt like we had some idea about the killer, there was always a twist to it.

"What do you think the motive is for his murders?", I asked Tyler.

"It is most likely that he is either enjoying the murders, because with each one it keeps getting gorier, or he is killing one person multiple times".

"One person multiple times? Does that mean he's schizophrenic?" asked Max.

"There is a possibility. But considering how he is detailed about the murder scene and hardly leaves any evidence, he can be struggling from other mental conditions too."

"Amy, what happened to the statement of the lady who found the axe?", asked Dave.

"Well for one she was traumatized that's for sure. Apparently, she had taken her son to the park, and he was the one who first saw it. She lives a few blocks away from the place so even if she wanted, she wouldn't have seen anything the night before...She basically didn't have much to say, Cap".

"Jay were you able to unlock Katy's phone?" asked Dave.

"Yup! I did. And like every typical girl it was filled with selfies, food pictures, some with Ned and her friends..."

"So nothing?"

"I didn't say that. Patience Dave, I'm getting to it. Anyway, there was one picture that looked like it was taken by mistake because it was really blurred. But she had added it to her favourite list, and that seemed strange... so I entered it into a program, and this is what I found..."

Once Jay connected his laptop to the projector, the only thing visible in the picture was brown and black. But the next one that he had run through the program showed a reflection of a guy in a glass cupboard and a girl next to him.

It was still just as blurred, but the silhouettes were clearer than before.

"The girl is most likely Katy, and this must've been taken in a hurry or it was shook while being captured...Also based on the table and chair you can see they were either at a restaurant or some other place you would go on a date."

"If that was it, then this would've been Ned, stupid!" said Amy.

"Hey! Excuse me, but did you find anything?"

"Nothing's better than a pointless blurred image."

"Who said it was pointless! My point is that there are so many images of Ned on her phone and all of them are perfect, but none of them are under her favourite list. This was the only image that was there. So there has to be something behind it!" he argued.

Amy and Jay were always fighting with each other like Tom and Jerry. Both smart in their own ways and both dumb too.

But this time I have to agree with Jay. There had to be a reason behind this image.

"Dave I think we need to keep our options open. Like Jay said, this could mean something. I mean for a girl who was obsessed over perfect images, this is strange," I replied.

"See what I mean. Plus, she has over 10 editing apps. There's Candy Cam, Snap Seed, Good Cam, Cam X and what's this, Beauty Thousand? This explains the 100K followers on Instagram! Maybe I should've downloaded a few. All I have is 10, including my mom—", said Jay.

"You can cry over your lack of followers later, Chico tonto. Now is not the time to mess around."

The sudden change in Dave's tone made me do a double-take. His eyes were cold, and he looked nothing like the happy-go person we knew.

When serious Dave made an appearance, it was always bad news. I wonder what it was this time?

Had he discovered new evidence?

WAS THERE ANOTHER MURDER?!

"I have something else to share with you guys…"

He was looking straight at me.

I looked around, wondering if he was looking at something behind me. But other than the steel cupboard on the side, there was nothing else. He seemed nervous, but at the same time he seemed like he was gathering every last bit of his courage.

"First of all…ah…Susanna…"

Susanna?

Dave never really used my full name before…

"What? What is it? Stop stalling and just—"

"You might have to drop off this case..."

What the hell?! This was nothing that I was expecting!

Drop off the case?

"You're kidding right?"

Dave didn't reply. Instead, he kept swallowing nervously.

The uneasiness that had been eating at my confidence throughout this entire meeting turned into a fire the next minute. I reached a level of anger that I couldn't begin to explain.

After everything that I had done, being kicked out felt like a slap in the face.

There was no way I'd let anyone push me out of this. Not even if it was Dave!

"WHAT?! What do you mean to drop out! Do you know how much I have been working on this case? There is no way I'm dropping out. Did you forget that this is a serial murder we are dealing with! But you want me to drop out? WHY?"

With my burst of anger, Dave looked scared. His eyes kept avoiding mine. And he constantly kept wiping his hands down on his pants.

"Nina, you have the right to be mad right now. But you need to understand that I'm doing this for you."

"Don't give me that nonsense. That's the lies we tell the victim's families. 'You have the right to be mad' , 'We're doing our best',…I know better than anyone else that it means the complete opposite."

"Stop twisting my words and listen. I truly mean it."

"Why should I?"

"Jeff Wilson, my partner 9 years ago and your papa...was also a victim of this case...."I froze and stared blankly at Dave.

This time he was not avoiding my eyes and I could see pain and fear reflecting in them.

Suddenly I couldn't breathe. My legs gave out, and I fell back down into my seat.

Dad was a what?