CHAPTER 10- An Inscription

CHAPTER 10

Rachael's POV

The next day, I had woken up really early, even earlier than Christan.

I was excited and nervous to know what Dolores had found out yesterday.

"You know you can take your time, right?" Christian smiled as I hurriedly buttoned my shirt.

"Honestly Chris, I don't think I can. Who knows? Someone else might die today, I'm just too nervous."  

The thought of hearing news of another death case today was too disturbing.

"Hey….." He walked toward me.

"The love of my life is smart and unbeatable. I know right now, it might seem like that killer….. whoever he is, is hard to get. But I know you're going to bring him to the light of the law, my love. I've seen you work before and I know you're going to end this with that killer behind bars, paying for Tina's death and anyone else he might have killed. Just take your time, okay? Don't over work yourself." He kissed me at the end of his speech.

"I've not really worked on anything like this before, but thanks. You're the best." I smiled, kissing him back.

"And you're the hottest." If there was anything Christian knew how to do, it was lighten the mood.

"You're crazy." I pushed him away, making my way to his croissants.

I could never get tired of them.

"But you love me anyway!" He yelled sweetly, going into the room.

I looked out the streets continuously as I drove to the station, like I was suddenly going to see the killer.

He might be in the next car or walking freely in the street right now probably on his way to kill his next target.

"Ugh! This is frustrating." I rested my head on the steering for a while, trying not to overthink the situation.

I would look into the pictures of the victims again, I had this strong gut feeling that I would find something tangible I could use in building the Killer's profile.

And if Dolores had found something good too, we could have a better chance of saving the next death target and catching this killer.

Eventually, the traffic moved and I was at the station in no time.

My anxiety increased when I saw Dolores'car parked outside.

She was here already.

Wondering what she might have found out, I ran into the station once again, leaving my croissants behind.

I headed straight to her office, barely responding to the other officers who greeted me.

I had risen my hand to the door but before I would knock, it went wide open.

We stared at each other, surprised.

"Good morning Rachael." She greeted, pushing the door open so that I could go in, which I did.

"Good morning Dolores." I responded to her greeting with a wavering voice.

"I was just heading to your office to see if you had arrived." She returned to sit behind her desk.

"I came in a little late today, my apologies." I bowed a little.

"It's a good thing the Sergeant is absent." She commented.

Speaking of the Sergeant, he had been absent ever since the day of the second victim's death.

I knew the sudden call had scared him but hiding wasn't the best option right now.

Remind me again how he became Sergeant of Hagni Police department?

"Did you finding anything?" I asked her immediately.

"I might have." She smiled a little.

"Might have?" I repeated.

"Well, it's the Spring Break so the school was closed….." Dolores began her explanation.

Oh…. I hadn't thought of that.

Schools went on Spring Breaks and renovated the school during the break, usually.

"There was a renovation going on so my chances of getting anything out of there was zero." I saw that coming.

My shoulders slacked as she told me about the renovation.

I was really looking forward to something, anything.

"But….." I directed my attention back to her immediately.

".....I was able to meet Principal Wemster. She's the principal of Brooklyn high and she told me the exact same thing about the Blue angels as Mr Steve said. Even though she said a lot of good things about them, her expression and reaction to the questions I asked gave off something totally different." She explained.

"What do you mean?" Could the Principal possibly have a hand in this?

"She looked scared and shocked to hear of a death case in Hagni being traced down to Brooklyn. And when I asked for the complete list of all the cheer groups the school had ever had, she only provided Blue angels….."

"What if that was the only cheer group the school had ever had? I mean, there could be a possibility that Blue angels had existed even before Tina and Brittany." I interrupted her.

"That's next to impossible. If that had been the case, Mr Steven would have said something about that. Apparently, Tina, Brittany and the other girls, founded that particular cheer group." Dolores was right.

Mr Steven would have definitely said something about their predecessor if they had any.

But as Christian had said last night, I shouldn't work with basic theories.

I was going to have Estella look into that.

"Anything else?" I asked her.

"Yeah, I asked for the file record of every member of the cheer group but because of the renovation, it might take a little while getting it." 

How was getting a file record so difficult?

"I know what you're thinking, but Brooklyn high only went digital this Spring." Dolores explained, twirling on her chair.

"What?! But the school is so old! How are they still using paper records?!" This was so unbelievable.

"It's unbelievable but then, it's the truth. I'll be returning in a few days to get all the records." She assured me.

"What if someone died within that time slot? It's been three days since the last death, I'm worried that we're only getting closer to the news of another death case." I signed loudly, sitting.

"I also feel the same way. Maybe the killer is waiting for us to go to him before he made his next move. Maybe he's just waiting for the perfect time, you know, the time when his target must have equally lost his mind." 

"Or…. maybe he's just not found the third target!" I suddenly exclaimed.

"What do you mean?" Obviously, Dolores hadn't realized what I just realized.

"If we're indeed right about the blue Angels, which I for one think we are, then the killer must also be having a hard time locating the third victim." I explained what I had realized.

Seeing that she had spread out the pictures of the victim just like I had done, I rushed to her interrogation board.

"We're not sure where all the Blue angels are. Like we had discussed earlier, just because Tina was found in Hagni didn't completely prove that they had all relocated to Hagni. Moreover, after hearing news about Tina's death, a few of the rest must have fled. Do you have any idea what this means?!" 

Before she would respond, I shouted the answer excitedly, "We have the killer routed to one spot! Although, just for the time being. We don't know how long he's going to take before tracking his next target but we do know that this is enough time for us to save the third person!"

Dolores' face lit up in excitement too.

"This is good news!" We rejoiced.

I hoped it took him a lot of time to catch this one.

"I'll have Zack……" As Dolores spoke, her voice trailed off in my head.

My attention had left what made us excited and was now drawn to the picture on the board.

"Rachael? Are you listening to me?" She moved closer to me, scanning the board with her eyes as she tried to find what I was staring at.

"Rachael?" She touched my shoulder when she could not find what I was staring at.

"Look at that." I whispered, pointing at one of the many pictures on the board.

It was a picture of Tina's neck and there was a tiny almost unrecognizable inscription there.

I took out the picture to take a closer look and I still saw the inscription.

"Let me have it." Dolores said, taking the picture and rushing over to her table.

Taking out a magnifying glass, she took a closer look at the picture and the shocked look in her eyes proved that there was truly an inscription there and I was not hallucinating.

I moved to the board again and searched for the picture of the other victim.

Using Dolores magnifying glass, we checked the picture for a similar inscription.

On Tina's neck, there was an inscription like the letter C but written backward.

It was like someone had drawn a B but some part had been cut off, leaving just the upper part of the B.

The other victim had the lower part of the letter B.

I pushed the pictures together and took out a pen.

When I drew a vertical line before the pictures, it was a complete B.

"You've got to be kidding me." Dolores gasped.