The city never slept, but he desperately needed to. Detective Lamar McDonnel slouched in his stiff leather chair, a cigarette smoldering in his hand, the smoke curling into the dim light. The weight of the last year pressed down on him, as heavy as the bags beneath his tired eyes. Two murder cases sat cold on his desk, haunting him every night as he replayed each detail in his mind, each failure and dead-end gnawing at his resolve. And now, with another body—another nightmare to add to the growing pile—the weight was nearly unbearable.
The details had just been passed to him that morning. The victim was a professor, forty-five, last seen on her way home after a late seminar at NYU. This wasn't just another faceless case. She had lived, breathed, walked the same streets he did. He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing her face from the faded photograph clipped to her file. He wondered if her smile had masked an inkling of fear, a sense that she was being watched, hunted.
When Lamar finally dragged himself back home, his younger brother, Lucas, was sitting at the kitchen table, textbooks spread out, eyes focused. Lucas's right eye, the good one, flicked up from the pages, recognizing Lamar's familiar hunched posture, the tension in his jaw that only ever spelled bad news.
"Long night?" Lucas asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
Lamar forced a half-smile. "The usual," he replied, although both of them knew the answer was anything but.
Lucas was a contradiction in Lamar's life—painfully quiet, yet his mere presence filled the room. A blind left eye and a scar that cut down his cheek, Lucas was still the sharpest person Lamar knew. The accident that had taken their parents had also left Lucas with the scar and a blindness that neither of them talked about. And yet, despite the loss and the scar, Lucas had made something of himself, an NYU engineering student, holding onto an honors streak that gave Lamar a quiet sense of pride.
"Something came in today," Lamar said, hesitating. He wanted to keep Lucas away from the horrors he dealt with daily, but their lives were too intertwined.
Lucas nodded, his face expressionless but his good eye intent. "Another one?"
"Yeah. Similar method, but…it's worse." Lamar took a deep breath. "A woman this time. Professor from your school. They…they nailed her to a board. Tent pins, dozens of them. She bled out."
Lucas's hands tightened around the pen he was holding. "A professor? Was she…important?"
"Important to somebody, I suppose. But not in any public way. Nobody's come forward saying she had any enemies. Her students adored her."
It was the third murder with eerie similarities to the other two. The patterns were all there—the same drugs found in the victim's system, the same distinct signature of overkill that suggested a killer with a personal vendetta, a need for control. And yet, every lead felt like a cruel dead-end, as if the killer was toying with him, just out of reach.
The evening wore on, and Lamar busied himself with scribbling notes, circling around the facts again and again, looking for a thread he might have missed. Hours passed, and Lucas stayed in the kitchen, lost in his work, occasionally stealing glances at his brother's worn face. Despite everything, they had an unspoken agreement to look after each other, especially since no one else would.
Finally, unable to take it any longer, Lucas asked, "You think it's the same person?"
"Everything points that way," Lamar replied, his voice heavy. "The way she was killed… Whoever did it wanted it to be brutal. Made her suffer. It's just like the others."
He pushed a file across the table to Lucas. Inside was a copy of the scene photograph, something that made even seasoned officers cringe. But Lucas didn't flinch. He examined the picture, his one good eye sharp and steady.
"There's…order here," Lucas said slowly, a strange calmness in his voice. "The way she was pinned—each tent pin evenly spaced, no room for chaos. He's careful. Meticulous. Does that fit with the other two?"
Lamar nodded, surprised. Lucas had never shown this level of interest in his work before, but maybe this case hit closer to home. The victim was a professor from his own university, after all.
"There's a pattern here, Lamar," Lucas continued, his voice barely above a whisper. "It's like…he's leaving you a message."
Lamar clenched his fists, the sense of helplessness burning hotter. "Then he's doing a damn good job. Because every message he's left so far has been meaningless. A setup. We think we're close, then we find nothing. No prints, no witnesses, no connections between the victims."
Lucas's fingers traced the edges of the scar on his cheek. It was an old habit, a comfort in moments of deep thought. "Sometimes…sometimes a pattern isn't about what you see, but what you don't. Maybe there's something about the victims—something hidden in plain sight."
Lamar's mind raced. He had combed through the victims' backgrounds countless times, looking for links, similarities, anything that would give him a clue. But what if Lucas was onto something? What if the link wasn't obvious? A hidden thread woven into their lives?
The idea gave him a strange jolt of energy, a spark he hadn't felt in months. He pulled out a pen, his fingers tingling with newfound purpose. He began jotting down ideas, cross-referencing timelines and locations, hoping to find some trace of connection.
They sat there, brother and brother, in a silence thick with focus, each engrossed in the puzzle before them. Lamar felt a pang of guilt as he realized just how much he relied on Lucas, how much he needed him in his life, especially in moments like this.
As the sun began to rise, casting a dim glow over the city that refused to sleep, Lamar finally set down his pen. The exhaustion had seeped into his bones, but he felt a tiny sliver of hope. Maybe this was the break he'd been waiting for.
Or maybe, he feared, it was just another false start, leading them nowhere.