~~Carson's POV~~
I burst in through the door, whipping two pairs of eyes to myself. Griffin and Sawyer were already engaged with the investigation board, adding new info to it.
"It's a good thing you're here, captain. Could this be another serial killer? No matter how I look at it, I can't think of anything else." Griffin asked when I stopped short at the door, flitting my eyes between both of them. Sawyer looked just as curious as he was, waiting eagerly for my response.
Heaving a shallow sigh and taking two steps forward, I shut the door behind me before trotting to the investigation board.
"What's that?" Sawyer asked when I took out the picture and was trying to pin it on the board. "Huh?! Isn't that Makayla?" asked Sawyer, impulsively nudging me aside for a clearer view.
"So I thought – " I breathed. Was still trying to catch my breath from all the running. "Until Ashley said otherwise."
"Was that why you were running like a cat on hot bricks?" Griffin posed, taking slow impulsive steps toward the board with eyes glued to the photo.
"Precisely."
"If it isn't Makayla, who then is she?" he asked, shifting focus mid-question.
"Jacklyn," I mentioned and Sawyer veered to me as well.
'Jacklyn?' their befuddled stare posed simultaneously.
To clear the fog, I grabbed the marker pen from the table behind me and started scribbling some names on the board. Beside the victims' names, I wrote their death dates. And then attached to Louisiana's, I added a couple of other details like the few stab wounds, battered face, broken mirror, and not to forget, the near-lifeless man we'd found in her bathtub.
"Riley?" Sawyer mumbled from beside me when I added the name last.
Clicking the pen shut, I inclined to stand with my side to the board.
"In conclusion?" Griffin asked with a hint of sarcasm as I just stood silently and wouldn't talk after suspending time briefly. "Is it the same serial killer or no?"
"The photo says it all," I said, mildly tapping the head of the marker against it. "A common ground."
"I can see that much."
"And the M.O.?" Sawyer chirped on additionally. "They're two different ballgames altogether."
"Or is the sicko learning to use batons now?"
"'Batons?" I reechoed, surprised. That was news to me.
"Apparently. George, the guy found in the bathtub had his head caved in with a baton," he explained.
Squinting, I visualized the list of evidence from the scene, skimming through for 'baton.'
"That was the analysis report from the doctors. But unfortunately, the weapon wasn't found," he detailed, seeing through my expression.
"And now?"
"Still missing," he confirmed.
"Why? Was it intentional?" I mused aloud.
"Maybe? I mean, why else would he hide it if it wouldn't implicate him?" Sawyer theorized. "One thousand percent sure he got his D.N.A. on it."
"Okay, I can understand him getting his DNA on the knife as it could've easily cut him. But the BATON? Could George have managed to bash his head with it?" Griffin stated, hinting at disbelief brewing inside of him. "I doubt," he finally said.
"While they were fighting, yeah?" He nodded. Yeah, he was right. "If he got his head bashed, his blood should've been found in the scene. But there was nothing. Only Louisiana's and George's were found. And if he used his bare hands to hold on to it, could've easily gotten his fingerprints on the victim as well."
"What if he lost it instead?" asked Sawyer, tabling yet another possibility.
Heaving a sigh, I birthed silence. We had a trailer-load of clues that'd easily make it seem like we were finally heading somewhere. Yet not.
"And Riley?" Griffin snapped the silence suddenly. "Who's she? The next victim?"
"On the contrary, she was the first victim."
"The first victim?" they resounded in sync.
"Technically," I added.
"Okay, are you gonna spill the beans already?" Griffin almost snapped. "What the hell is going on?!"
"Jacklyn, Anna, Louisiana," I started, pointing at their faces and automatically drawing their attention to the note. I skipped the fourth name, going to the next, "And Mia. They were all friends in the same major before this semester. All of a sudden, they all dispersed to different majors. Except Jacklyn who relocated a week to Makayla's death."
"Are they twins?" Sawyer asked.
"Cousins," I corrected.
"Why the relocation? Did it have anything to do with the said Riley?"
"EVERYTHING to do with it. It happened around the time Riley died. My best guess is that – "
"They had a hand in it?" Sawyer guessed, completing the sentence.
"Most likely."
"And Makayla? Did the psycho mistake the duo?" Griff asked.
"While I cannot say for sure, that possibility cannot be ruled out."
"So what? It's a revenge spree?" he asked rhetorically.
A deep sigh erupted in the room, impregnating the air around us with silence. Griffin took the marker pen from me to scribble something on the board. He wrote the items we needed to find – the baton, knife, and Louisiana's mystery friend. The one who had meant to be there on that night.
"This guy is sick," I mumbled, peeve spiced with irritation crawling to my tone.
"If only we knew when he strikes. Could make our job a ton easier."
"How many weeks interval is there between the first two deaths?" Sawyer asked out of the blue, planting a writhe between my brows.
"Why?" I mumbled, exchanging stares with Griffin.
He didn't answer to that. Rather, he quickly snatched the marker pen I was holding and trotted to the calendar we usually used to mark dates vital for our investigations, hung on the wall. He circled October 3rd – Louisiana's death date and flipped through to July and August. We on the other hand just observed silently, trying to figure out what exactly he was up to.
While he took out his phone, stared at the screen for some seconds, raised his eyes back at the calendar, repeating the cycle occasionally, I and Griffin exchanged puzzled stares.
Then abruptly, he drifted to the board. We were still watching. He drew two double-headed arrows – one between 'Makayla' and 'Anna,' and the other between 'Anna' and 'Louisiana.' Then just above the arrows respectively, he wrote '6 weeks' and '5 weeks.' He stopped and turned around to us.
Now the stares we all exchanged were overflowing with shock.
Striking all of us like lightning, we simultaneously asked, "Is he counting down?!"