The journey to the newest crime scene passed in a dark silence.
The night seemed oppressively dark as Tori guided the cruiser along a forgotten road that clawed at them with skeletal branches from blackened trees. The wildfires had left behind an apocalyptic silence in their wake, and now she and Javi were about to step into a remnant of the world before the flames.
"Looks like nobody's set foot here for ages," Javi murmured, his voice barely above a whisper, as if the dark itself demanded their reverence.
"Exactly why it's perfect," Tori replied, her gaze fixed on the structure that materialized from the darkness like a specter. “It was vacant even before the fires.”
The building's silhouette was jagged against the starless sky, windows hollowed out—empty eye sockets in a skull, wind weaving through its gaping maw like a mournful dirge.
They parked at a cautious distance, plunging into the cloak of night armed only with flashlights and a tenacity honed by too many cases where time meant the difference between life and death. As they drew closer, the building's decrepitude became painfully evident; walls marred by time, roof sagging like a weary back.
Two cops stood by a car off the road, keeping an eye on the scene, but they hadn’t entered it yet. The main portion of the forensics team was still en route.
Tori led the way, stepping over debris that littered the threshold. Once inside, the beams from their flashlights danced across peeling paint and shattered glass, throwing sinister shadows that flickered like grotesque pantomimes.
"Creepy," Javi muttered, swiveling his light to pierce the corners of the desolate hall they found themselves in.
Tori nodded, feeling the weight of isolation this place carried. It was an island surrounded by a sea of char and ash. Her breath felt heavy in her lungs, each exhale stirring up dust motes that floated ghost-like in the beams of their lights.
"Quiet as a grave," she said, though her mind raced with the possibility of what secrets this place might be cradling. The air was thick with a history untold, a narrative paused mid-sentence and waiting for someone like her to finish it.
Javi's light swept across the wall, catching on something—an old portrait, its edges singed, the faces within smiling obliviously at a future they could never have predicted. Tori felt the familiar twinge of determination tighten her jaw. Someone had wanted this place forgotten, but in its eerie solitude, it screamed of things that needed to be uncovered.
"Let's keep moving," she instructed, her voice low but firm. There was work to be done, and Tori knew that every second in this place was a second closer to the truth—or a second closer to becoming part of its enigmatic desolation. She wouldn't let the latter happen, not on her watch.
Tori's beam illuminated the grim discovery first—a human form, still and charred, sprawled grotesquely on the peeling linoleum. The flashlight’s halo trembled slightly in her hand as she took a step closer, Javi's light joining hers to cast an eerie pall over the scene.
"Damn," Javi muttered under his breath, but Tori was silent, her gaze fixed on the remains. The body was burned, yet the inferno had been selective, leaving behind enough of a visage to tease at recognition. The woman's face, though marred by the cruel kiss of flame, bore features that tugged at the edges of Tori's memory—an arched brow, the curve of a cheekbone, a chin defiant even in death.
"Get me Forensics," Tori said, her voice steady despite the adrenaline that tightened her veins like piano wire. "We need facial rec on this one."
"Already on it," Javi replied, tapping at his phone with practiced urgency. He took photos of the woman’s face and sent them to the lab tech on call with him.
Tori didn't move her eyes from the body; there was something about this woman, something that set her apart from the unfortunate anonymity of most burn victims. Her skin whispered stories that begged to be heard, and Tori felt a fierce resolve bloom within her.
"Who are you?" she whispered, not expecting an answer, but needing to ask the question.
The silence hung heavy for a moment before Javi broke it. "Tech's on their way," he said, his tone professional but not quite masking the underlying tension.
"Good," Tori responded, her mind already racing ahead, piecing together the scant clues, weaving them into the beginnings of a theory. Three women. Three locations. Each different, unique in their own ways. But what linked them? What was the story connecting them together in the killer’s mind?
Tori's phone vibrated, and she snatched it up. The screen illuminated with an incoming message from the forensics team.
"Got a hit," she announced, twisting the phone to gesture to her partner.
Javi leaned over her shoulder, his breath a ghost on her ear as they both stared at the digital profile materializing before them. She knew if it were anyone else, the lack of personal space would be an immediate annoyance, but something about the earnest FBI agent’s posture and respectful, empathetic personality had quickly gotten her used to these sporadic moments of closeness. A part of her, she decided, even liked them.
"Nina Hartman," Tori read aloud, her tongue unfamiliar with the name but her mind already stitching it into their tapestry of leads. "Environmental activist."
"Grad student, too," Javi pointed out, scrolling through the data with a flick of his thumb. "Into all sorts of protests around these parts."
“Might’ve made some enemies," she muttered. Her gaze flitted back to the body—the now named Nina Hartman—lying irreverently amidst the ruin like a discarded marionette. Suddenly, Nina was no longer just another victim; she had beliefs, a cause, a life extinguished far too soon.
"Let's document everything," Tori commanded, switching to full detective mode as she retrieved her camera.
"Agreed." Javi's agreement was swift as he brought out his own equipment. They moved together with the practiced rhythm of countless crime scenes before, yet this one felt different, suffused with a silent scream for justice that neither could ignore.
Their flashlights danced over the walls, beams catching on the grotesque ballet of shadows. Click after click, Tori captured the discordant angles of debris, the way the char splayed across surfaces, and the haunting emptiness of spaces where life should have been. Each photo was a piece of the puzzle, each angle a potential witness to the unspeakable acts that transpired here.
"Her bag," Javi murmured, gesturing to a half-melted satchel near what used to be a desk. Tori approached, her movements deliberate, and snapped several photos before gingerly lifting the remains with gloved hands.
"Anything else?" she asked, scanning the perimeter.
"Nothing obvious," Javi replied with a frown. "We'll need to sift through the ash for anything smaller."
"Right." Tori slipped the camera strap over her head, freeing her hands as she knelt beside the charred remnants of furniture and personal effects. Every object was a testament to the heat's wrath, and yet, within the destruction, stories waited to be unearthed.
"Let's keep digging," she said, her expression set in stony determination. "Nina deserves that much."
Javi nodded, matching her resolve. Together, they worked beneath the weighty cloak of night, surrounded by silence save for the occasional crackle of cooling embers and the soft rustle of their methodical search. They were hunters in a forest of ash and sorrow, seeking the truth hidden within the remnants of a fire that had consumed more than just timber and brick.
Tori’s focus narrowed as her hands sifted through the detritus. A glint caught her eye—a foil strip reflecting a sliver of light from Javi’s flashlight. She reached for the anomaly, pulling it free from the ashy ground. Her fingers closed around a pack of cigarettes, their off-brand logo partially obscured by soot.
"Javi," she called out, her voice steady despite the undercurrent of tension vibrating through it. He was at her side in an instant, his gaze dropping to the object in her hand.
"Isn't that..." he began, but Tori was already nodding, her jaw setting with grim affirmation.
"Exactly like the ones we found near the last scene," she finished for him, her eyes never leaving the packet. It was too much of a coincidence—the same obscure brand that had been a calling card in Werner's case.
A cold gust whispered through the broken windows, swirling the ash around them, and Tori felt a shiver snake up her spine. It wasn't the chill of the night air that unsettled her; it was the realization that crept into her awareness like a shadow stretching over the ground at sunset.
She turned slowly, her eyes scanning the darkness beyond their beams of light. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as if touched by unseen fingers. The silence of the desolate building seemed to press against her eardrums with an intensity that screamed volumes.
“They were just sitting there, unopened,” Javi pointed out. “Like…”
“Like he wanted us to find them,” she completed for him.
“Shit. You really think so?”
"He knows we're here," she murmured, more to herself than to Javi. The notion that the killer might be observing them, possibly reveling in their discovery, set her heart pounding in a rhythmless cadence.
"Who? Werner?" Javi asked, his own alertness rising to match hers.
"No, not Werner. He's a decoy," she said, her tone laced with a growing rage. "The real killer is playing games with us."
Tori's eyes, as stormy as the hair that framed her face, darted from shadow to shadow. Each dark recess seemed to taunt her, offering a potential hiding spot for the one responsible for the horror they were wading through. Her mind raced, piecing together the puzzle with fierce resolve. This was no random act of violence. It was calculated, a message sent with the most twisted of signatures.
"Let's secure the site," she said briskly, pocketing the cigarettes as evidence. "I don't want to give our watcher the satisfaction of seeing us rattled."
“You think he’s watching?”
Javi glanced around.
She shrugged. “Maybe not now. But he knows… he knew about Werner. The cigs. He’s playing with us.”
Javi nodded, though his eyes remained vigilant.
As they moved to secure the area, each creak of the compromised structure sounded like the chuckle of a hidden adversary.
As she glanced along the windows, searching for hidden cameras or concealed predators, her mind churned with this new information.
“An activist,” she murmured under her breath.
Tori crouched next to the blackened outline where Nina Hartman lay, the floorboards beneath her groaning in protest. She tilted her head, catching Javi’s gaze from across the scene—their silent conversation flowing as easily as if they were speaking aloud.
"Rachel Kim," she murmured, her voice barely a whisper, but enough for Javi to hear. "There’s a pattern here."
"Both active in their causes," Javi replied, stepping over a fallen beam with care. "Environmental activists, fighting against the same industrial threats."
"Too coincidental for my liking." Tori's fingers brushed away some soot near Nina's body, revealing a singed piece of fabric that clung to the charred remains—a vibrant thread defiant against the destruction. "They knew too much, perhaps? Or maybe they were just too loud."
"Silencing voices that rise against power..." Javi trailed off, pondering the implications. His flashlight swept across the room, highlighting the stark emptiness surrounding them.
"Exactly," Tori said, standing up. “We need to connect these dots, Javi. There's a message in their deaths, a signature move by someone who doesn’t want their secrets unearthed."
"Let's look into their last movements, check for overlaps—rallies, meetings, anything that might have put them on the radar." Javi pulled out his notepad, flipping back through previous notes.
"Right. We dig into the environmental groups they were part of, the projects they opposed." Tori's mind was racing, pulling her deeper into the mystery. "And we find out who stood to lose the most from their activism."
"Someone is using the wildfires as a smokescreen—literally," Javi added, his tone hardening.
"Then we'll turn their weapon against them," Tori vowed, her eyes sparking with a fierce intensity. "No more smoke and mirrors. It's time we cleared the air."
Tori's fingers danced with a practiced urgency, collecting evidence bags and securing camera equipment. Javi, equally swift, folded up their portable forensic kit with precise movements. Ash motes swirled in the beams of their flashlights, the only light in the suffocating darkness of the abandoned structure. The air was stale, heavy with the scent of char and decay, but there was a current underneath it all—a sense of impending revelation that charged their every move.
"Got everything?" Tori's voice cut through the silence, her tone sharp with anticipation. She slung the strap of the duffel bag over her shoulder, its weight a familiar comfort.
"Check," Javi affirmed as he snapped the case shut. Their eyes met for a moment, reflecting a shared understanding of the gravity of their finds.
They moved to the exit, stepping over debris that crunched underfoot. Once the coroner arrived, the scene would be processed, and they’d potentially learn more. But burn scenes were notoriously close-lipped when it came to telling tales, and the killer was moving quickly.
Which meant they had to match his pace.
Tori hastened away from the scene, pausing only a couple times to snap more pictures or pick up a stray piece of a splinter and an old coke can, but her hopes were low that they’d yield anything.
The killer had been watching them.
He was cleverer than she’d given him credit for, and time was running out. The old floorboards groaned in protest beneath them, echoing their departure through the hollow halls, and as they emerged into the cooler night air, Tori couldn't suppress a shiver, but it wasn’t the chill that unsettled her—it was the prickling at the back of her neck, the instinctual warning that they were not alone.
Her gaze swept the periphery, piercing the darkness, searching for the dissonance in the night's rhythm that would betray an observer, some sign of their voyeur. What would he see this time? And what mocking clue would he leave at his next victim to let them know he’d been watching?