Chapter 1
“Please…help,” the lady screamed. Before she could scream out again he put his hand over her mouth to stop the sounds from coming out. He plunged the knife into her throat while still holding her mouth with one hand. She gurgled on her blood and the scream that wanted to come out stopped at once.
He looked down at the beautiful woman dressed in a baby blue lace dress that stopped at her thighs. She lay staring at him with wide eyes as blood dripped from her mouth. He was too high to recognize what he had done and it was too late to save the lady.
Roman
I make it home after a long day at work and all I want to see is my wife. “Lisa, honey I’m home.” There is no sound in the house which is odd because there is always sound when my wife is around. I walk to the kitchen to see a note saying, “Forgot something at the store, will be back soon.”
I decided to call her cell phone because she should be back by now. The phone kept ringing until it went to voicemail. I called multiple times but she still didn’t answer. I remembered that she installed the find my phone app on my device. She was always worried about where I am in my line of work.
The app says she is at the store but is not moving. I think of how odd that is so I decide to go to the store. As I pull in all I see are police cars everywhere. I immediately get nervous because this many police cars could only mean something bad has happened.
I walk up to the scene and show them my badge to get through. Once I’m let in I see a woman laid out covered in blood. “Another murder,” I mutter under my breath. I’m so tired of people getting murdered but it’s all in a day’s work on the job. As I get closer to the body I realize the woman looks familiar.
“Lisa, Lisa, Lissssaaaa!!!” I scream as tears start to roll down my cheeks. My wife is laying in a pool of blood lifeless. My partner comes running toward me trying to keep me away from the crime scene. “Roman, I promise we will find who did this. Come with me,” he says. I try to push him away and go back to her but he keeps pushing me further away from her. “If you get closer you may mess up the crime scene. Roman, please wait until we secure the scene first. I know this is hard and I’m sorry.”
A year later
Jay
My partner Roman hasn’t been the same since we found his wife murdered. We never caught the guy but that doesn’t mean we haven’t stopped looking. Well I know I haven’t stopped looking. But her case keeps getting pushed back now since we officially have a serial killer in our town.
A month ago, we realized that the killings that have been happening are all done by the same person. He leaves a signature mark on them. At first, we just thought it was a defensive wound on the victims but later we realized it was a mark that only people killed by the same person had. It was his signature mark, a number carved on their foot. So far, the number was eight but we only had seven bodies.
I looked over at my partner and saw the gloom on his face. It was coming around to his wife’s first death anniversary. I always thought she might have been the first victim but the coroner said she didn’t have a number on her foot. “Roman, Leslie has invited you to dinner with us tonight.” He nodded his head at me and agreed to come to dinner. Tonight would have been him and his wife’s fifth wedding anniversary, and my wife Leslie and I try to help him cope with it by having dinner with him on their anniversary. We don’t want him to be alone during this time.
The phone rang and it was the Chief telling us to come to his office. “Detectives, there has been another body. It is already in the morgue waiting for you,” he says as soon as we get to his office. We get in the patrol car and then make our way to the morgue. Once we get inside we are met by the medical examiner. She has cleaned the body already and immediately shows us the number 9 on the right foot of the victim.
The number is always written as a Roman Numeral. “She is a white female, aged 20 to 30, with blond hair and brown eyes. It looks like she tried to fight back but lost in the end. She looked to be choked to death; as always, the roman numeral is carved in the foot post-mortem. The cause of death is asphyxiation.” The examiner always tells us about the victim with no emotion.
We leave the morgue and go straight to the crime scene. We look around at all the numbers and clues to try and help us solve the case. We have been looking for this person for almost a year and it seems that each time they are able to clean up the scene so well that we get no clues. It always looks like a professional hit because the scene is always so clean but to me, that just seems odd. A professional hit wouldn’t hit the same town over and over.
After our long day out it’s time to head home. I remind Roman to be at my house no later than 7 and head home. I walk inside my house and see Leslie and Rita in the kitchen laughing and cooking. I love seeing them at home having fun with each other. Leslie notices me first and comes closer to kiss me. I hear Rita gag and then say, “Eww, you guys are too old to be kissing.” We laugh at her then I make my way to the room to shower before dinner.
