Tags: @the-shewxlf, @megant22, @sexywolfsfordays, @houseofrahl, @sterek-basically, @kittycatgirlmaddie, @misshinehou, @unbreakablevoices, @champagneblues, @mixed-up-fangirl, @juliaspnlover, @cineyou, @lipstickstainsandwerewolfchains, @fallenangel-13x, @urwarriorangel, @bless-my-demons, @lunaskyhunter, @arkhamirwin, @fangirlnerd101, @m-a-t-91, @meanwhilesmiley, @edithambroreigns, @from2016
Author’s note: I cannot begin to say how really incredibly sorry I am. I want to apologise for abandoning this blog for such a long time. Thankfully, I had a lot to do, which at least kept me focused on something else than Him. I could write odes about what has been happening to me during these months, but I’m planning to do that somewhere else. Namely, on another blog, so that I can hopefully help others who are in a situation they think can’t solve, or one that’s taking over their life.
Warnings: none (mentions of corpses, but nothing explicit)
Betas: I didn’t send this over to my Pack because I wanted to post this asap, but the list of them is here nonetheless: @i-am-a-misguided-misfit, @lipstickstainsandwerewolfchains, @mixed-up-fangirl, @kittycatgirlmaddie, @fallenangel-13x, @the-shewxlf, @b-chocolatelover, @from2016, @safiac, @random-fandom-fangirl2112
Your name: submit What is this? // <![CDATA[ document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', myHandler); function myHandler() { var v = document.body.innerHTML; var input = document.getElementById("inputTxt").value; v = v.replace(/\by\/n\b|\(y\/n\)/ig, input); document.body.innerHTML = v; } // ]]>
The judge was wrong – what he believed to be a mere intuitive leap was a conclusion based on careful observation. Also, I am in the position to announce that the bullet was indeed fired from a Sig Sauer X-5, for having had the opportunity to take a glance at the corpse myself. Therefore, the murder weapon was rightfully named in the court. The police should be looking for it instead of wasting their time engaging in the mind game the murderer set up for them to play.
It weren’t until my partner, Stiles, informed me about this blog. Turned out, it has been following quite a bit of our cases – the worst part however, was the fact that whoever launched this blog was able to pinpoint the important facts and come to the solution days, or sometimes even weeks, before we did.
This is the first post that I had the fortune to come across, and after reading these short, yet pithy lines, I gave myself some time in my office to skim through the rest. Then, following the instructions given to us, we searched for the pistol, only to later catch the killer, too. The case was solved within a week, thanks to that blog.
After then, I made it a habit to always check what was written there, and it never ceased to help me get to the end of my cases faster than I could initially do. The only mystery was this person’s method to always know about all of the evidences first-hand. I had no idea how he was doing it, and I’m still clueless to this day.
My current issue involves a man who has managed to outsmart everyone so far. Among his favourite habits are golf, taking photos, painting, reading, leaving a sign at the scenes of his homicides, chess, and poker.
The latter is the reason why Stiles and I are attending an annual celebration of one of the casinos in Los Angeles. There are more people here than usual, and our profiling colleague, Lydia, said that our man would never let down such an opportunity to shine his talent. Hence, me and Stiles are to play cards, all the while looking for clues as to who could be the interpreter.
After about two hours of poker and Black Jack, I opt to get a drink before continuing the subtle investigation. I spot Stiles at table 29, seeing how much he’s focusing on the game. I scan the room – I can immediately choose from the abundance of seats when a collective shout and a round of applause are paid to one of the players at table 47. Without a second thought, I race to get one of the two vacant seats with masked excitement.
To my biggest surprise, the person everyone applauded was a woman, presumably in her mid thirties; she’s wearing an outfit that reminds me of fifties’ fashion, and with her short blonde hair, blazing red lipstick, long lashes and perfect eyeliner, she looks like Marilyn Monroe herself. Only the trademark mole is missing from her face.
Upon noticing that I’m watching her, she sends a crooked smile in my way, before asking, “Are you here to play or to stalk?”
The people around chuckle at her remark; unconsciously, the corner of my mouth twitches as well, and I request for cards. It doesn’t take me long to realise how good she is. It’s no hardship for her to collect nearly all of the money from the table – after approximately an hour, only three of us dare to still play with her; two men, whose names I learnt to be Jason and Chad, and me. Jason is very good at poker, but not nearly as good as Jane, the woman who resembles Monroe.
Then something clicks in my brain as Alice is shuffling the deck for another round; our killer is exceptionally good at poker. In my mind, I automatically start planning the scene of arresting her and taking her with me to the interrogation room. I was too biased until now to do so much as even contemplating the idea of the murderer not even being a ‘he’, but a ‘she’. Under the table, I warn Stiles with my phone via an SMS, then act as though I did nothing and just keep playing.
The game is far from over when Stiles arrives and stands behind my chair. Jane takes a glance at him, and they exchange a long look with each other – suddenly, she announces it has been enough for her and she proceeds to leave, swiping her chips from the table before standing hastily. As she swiftly disappears behind the crowd, I throw in my cards too, and we follow her with Stiles.
We barely manage to catch her at the entrance. Out of mere chivalry, I refrain from clicking handcuffs on her tiny wrists in front of all these people, but instead I do hold on to her arm with a firm grip. As we lead her to our car, she tsks at me, “You got the wrong person, agent.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask while masking my surprise. How on Earth could she know we’re detectives? She couldn’t have seen either of our guns nor our IDs or cuffs. So how...
“You two are clearly from the police. Add the fact that your current subject is an avid poker player and you get a supervised party in the casino. Wasn’t a difficult leap,” she explains. It sounds logical, but I can still not grasp how she figured out our true identities, nor why she left the party so suddenly. Asking her, I get the following response, “You’re an idiot for a detective,” she says. “Your stance says everything. Then there’s the fact that your bust holster is available from under your suit – not obviously, but if someone knows what to look for, it’s clear.”
“And you apparently know what to look for,” I interject, only to get a disapproving look from her as she twirls around, halting in front the car, facing me.
“If you’re not interested in my inductions, you could might as well let me go,” she retorts. Submissively, I shake my head to sign her I’m not intend to do that until she explained everything to me. A short pause follows, but she goes on nonetheless. “Next, your hands; the skin is calloused where your gun puts pressure on it, and your index finger is flat because you always pull the trigger with that. You approached the table that allured you with the most solid potential of finding the murderer. Conclusion: you’re a right-handed cop who’s gone undercover to catch the poker player killer.”
“Not as stupid as it would make you think at first glance, huh,” Stiles speaks up, shaking me out of my sudden stupor after being unveiled. Her perfect red lips pull up in a smug smirk as she comments, “Paramount mistake to be biased by societal rules.” Jane turns to me then. “Can I go now? Obviously I’m not the killer you’re looking for. Furthermore, you’ve just granted him the perfect opportunity to escape, plus you’ve just told him you’re chasing him.”
I have never felt so stupid in my life as I’m watching her stride away in her high-heels.
The next scene of murder I’m directed to occurred at a hotel near a golf paradise. While Stiles converses with the CSI members, I take the testimonies of some of the people around here – namely the manager of the hotel, a maid who noticed the tragedy first, and the brother of the dead.
From the manager, I get the list of all of the suspicious men who rented a room. Stiles joins me, the brother and the maid, saying, “The CSI is certain it was our man.” The maid snorts under her breath, albeit she does that so quietly that I’m not sure if it was only me or she really did laugh just a moment ago. Looking at her innocent face – the short ginger hair curled into adorable locks, the huge green eyes, the smattering of freckles, the pouting lips – I abandon the idea of her making fun of the situation.
Later that day, I find a new post on the blog.
The police suspects the Poker Killer, even though it is clear as the Sun that it was committed by the victim’s brother. The Poker Killer is a showman, therefore he would never allow himself to ruin a scene by allowing people to see the corpse first, then his signature – he always shows us the signature first, then the body. Always. There hasn’t been an exception, so why would there be now? Also, the brother was more invested in what was going on the TV, and he had a smudged red spot on the back of his neck that he apparently didn’t notice whilst changing clothes and removing the most telling evidence.
Again, the blogger was right.
I’m still clueless about his methods, and I have no idea how he knew about the scene or where did he get so close to the brother to notice that tiny red spot on his nape. At first, I thought it was someone from the CSI group, but I haven’t seen any of them before in my previous cases.
So who is the mysterious genius, then?
Two months later, we find a major suspect, and we visit the jury to get an order to look around in his flat. Stiles shows the paper to the landlady, while I’m already on my way to the room of our supposed murderer. In front of the door, I hear faint noises of puttering inside, so I grab my gun before raiding inside. The noises are switched by a pair of high-heels clicking towards me, and within seconds, a young woman appears.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, lowering my weapon to which she didn’t even seem to bat an eye. I tuck the pistol back into my holster, giving further questions, “Why are you here? Who are you?”
“Natasha Karenina,” she answers with a mild Russian accent. She approaches me, only to hand me her business card. I roll my eyes.
“An investigative journalist?” The deceiving tone cannot be disguised in my voice. Natasha is opening her mouth to add something to the conversation, but Stiles appears, and her attention zeroes in on his figure. For the time being, I survey her; she has long black hair that she’s wearing in a perfect pony tail, her royal blue eyes are raking over Stiles, and she’s wearing a light grey skirt suit with a white button-up.
“Why are you here?” I ask again, earning her undivided focus once more.
“I could ask the same,” she answers, moving her sight up and down on me, “but it’s obvious. You’re here because you think it’s the Poker Killer’s flat, aren’t you.” She put it in a questioning phrase, but I have a feeling she wasn’t actually asking anything. She was stating.
“How did you–” starts Stiles, but she cuts him off fast.
“Never mind. The fact of importance here is that this isn’t where our murderer lives.” I assume she noticed the confusion on both of our faces, because without us having to urge her, she goes on, “It’s enough to take a glance at his bookshelves. We know our killer loves to read, but here, you can only see dust covering all of the thick books that are here in the living-room.” While speaking, she gestures towards said room, and enters it. Stiles and I follow. “There’s also some random stuff put in front of the books. Thus, this man wants to look smart, but would never take the time to actually sit down and start any of these prints. However, if you take a look at his bedroom,” she says, once again going to the place she’s talking about with us hot on her heels.
“You can see on his nightstand that there is a thin book about parenting. There are framed photos of his daughter and him, but the only piece in which the entire family can be seen was taken at least two years ago. What does this say to us?” She turns around to look at us, giving us a chance to add something to the story, but we both remain silent. Natasha rolls her eyes at us before going on, “That he and his ex-wife divorced within the last two years. There are no toys, albeit the girl’s age tells us that she would still require such things. A playing room is also absent; hence the girl lives with her mother.
“Our killer doesn’t have a family, he’s intelligent, loves photography and art, however, there are no signs here of any of them; there’s no dark room, no objectives, just one single camera that usually amateurs choose – not quite the taste of our man, is it? Then the painting hobby: there aren’t any brushes, sheets... nothing. I can’t even smell paint in the air. He doesn’t have a separate room where he could work on his pictures. If this man were to be as bright as the Poker Killer, his thick books wouldn’t be eaten away by layers of dust.”
“Amazing,” Stiles blurts, clearly astonished by the girl. I’m not less impressed, but at the same time, something is crawling around in my mind that I can’t shake off. Something that tells me I’ve seen this before, something like...
“You,” I say before I could stop. Natasha looks at me, and that’s the final evidence that I needed to be sure about my theory. “You’re Jane.”
“Jane?” she asks, trying to act nonchalant and puzzled by the name, but I caught sight of her nerve twitching under her cheek.
“You know what I’m talking about,” I declare confidently, enjoying that for the first time, I have the upper hand, and not her. “I know that sight – you looked at me with the same eyes that night, when I joined your table at the poker party. Then you asked if I was just going to gawk at you or actually play.” I have to admit that her ability to disguise herself is also worth of a generous applause, not only her poker skills, but I would never let her know this.
As soon as she inhales a long breath, I know I got her.
“So what?” she barks at me, dropping the accent and clearly annoyed at having been uncovered. Stiles is blinking at us, eyes commuting between her and I. “I’m after this guy, of course I follow him wherever he goes.”
“You looked older back then,” I point out, only to earn another eyeroll from her.
“Of course. You couldn’t expect me to show up in front of a murderer without any disguise protecting me, could you?” Driven by a sudden idea that pops up in my mind for a second, I can’t resist asking,
“Have you heard about the crime blogger?” I hope she could help me find whoever is running that site. Her answer comes with the same tightness from before.
She knows about the blog, more so, knows who the author is. And now I know the answer, too. I can get her admittance to my being right with just one single, simple question. “How come someone as good as you is ignorant to such an infamous blog?”
Natasha blows out a long breath, apparently giving to me.
“So, who are you really?” I ask.
Not a week later, we catch the Poker Killer.
Stiles and I elected to involve her in the case instantly after meeting her for the third time, as she later informed us. She told us that her real name is (Y/N) Holmes – it made me question whether she changed her name at some point in her life to a really fitting one, or it was a great coincidence by life that a woman, who possesses the observational skills of Sherlock Holmes also bears the same name as him.
In her real appearance, (Y/N) let us know that she was the maid where the fake killing occurred, from which I concluded how she was able to always get her evidence directly from the crime scene; she always wore a disguise, that’s why no one ever noticed her.
One evening, in the office, after only two or three colleagues are present with us, I approach her – she’s standing in front of the window, eyes raking over the street, particularly paying attention to the people walking by. The ‘Visitor’ tag is hanging on her button-up, the jacket of her skirt suit is neatly spread on her arm, while in her other hand, she’s holding a cup of steaming tea.
Without paying a glance at me, she says, “I know what you want to ask me.”
“Then I guess it’s unnecessary for me to request you to join us as a consulting detective.”
She snickers, sips the last drops of her tea, then shakes her head mildly.
“I wasn’t talking about that,” she says. “I meant the other thing. And the answer’s yes. I want to go on a date with you, Derek Hale.”
As she looks into my eyes, I can’t help the grin that finds its way to my face. I hold my arm out to her, which she accepts, then allows me to lead her out of the HQ of the FBI.
