The next generation: Chasing a serial killer (Book 2)

She hears the phone ring in the middle of the night and sticks her hand out to grab it from her bed stand. Detective Gemma Paterson has been on standby for two weeks, and it seems as if the entire world decided to die during this time. “Paterson, yes, give me half an hour.” She climbs out of bed, ties her hair into a ponytail, and jumps into a pair of jeans, grabbing the first top and jacket she can find. She puts on some roll-on to make sure she doesn’t stink too much and puts on her boots because she doesn’t know what terrain she might be facing. Grabbing her service pistol, she hates more than anything, she clips it onto her belt and hangs her police identification around her neck before grabbing her keys and leaving her apartment. She double-checks the address she wrote down on the piece of paper; types it in on her GPS on her phone and makes her way there in the unmarked car. Before she arrives, she sticks her blue light on her roof and the police sign in her window to show that she belongs there, and they let her vehicle through to the front of the scene where she climbs out. Grabbing some Vicks, she rubs a little underneath her nose before stuffing her hands in a pair of blue gloves. This is going to be a fun night. She can see from the looks of the scene that she will have to climb down a water drain and is saying a silent prayer that she is wearing her boots. The victim has been here for a couple of days, and the ones that have been in water are usually the juiciest of them all. She makes her way underneath the yellow police tape and down the embankment. The officer on the scene explains what they found, and she checks the body for herself before making a couple of notes and then letting the coroner know they can take it. There is no handbag or any other form of identification around. She is still fully dressed, so it hopefully isn’t what they usually suspect, but only the autopsy will tell. “So, what are we thinking?” Another detective steps closer. “There isn’t much to go on, I guess, but it sure seems to be the same M.O. as the others.” He nods in agreement before they discuss the details of the photos they want to take and the possible evidence that has been found around the scene. It seems officers have taken care of most of it, and she rolls her eyes on her way back to her car. This week is shaping up to be a doozy! The case number will only be available in the morning, and if she’s lucky, she should be able to get two hours of sleep before she has to be at the office this morning. She doesn’t have the energy to get undressed when she gets home and just falls on the top of her bed. She knows she smells like death, but she has been working such long hours for the past two weeks that she could care less. She will have time off from the day after tomorrow, then she can worry about laundry and cleaning up her place, and perhaps trying to catch up on a little bit of sleep. It feels as if she’s just closed her eyes when the alarm shouts next to her ear, and she has to get up and at least take a shower and put on some clean clothes before reporting for the morning debrief. The water rushing over her skin, washing away the smell makes her wish she did it before she even slept. How is it possible that it can pull into one’s skin?! How did she ever think finding killers would be exciting! She lathers herself up with soap for a second time, finally feeling the horrible smell dissipate. When she gets dressed, she takes some fresh clean clothes out of her cupboard, and they smell of washing soap. Clean, she finally smells clean! She still ties her wet hair up in a ponytail and puts on her boots before grabbing her keys and jumping into her car. Something has to be done so she can get some time off. Being the only one of two people working these hours is just too much! She is going to burn out in no time! When she walks into the busy police station, she is greeted by the shift people who all started two hours ago and already look tired. Gemma used to live in a small town and worked with Captain Christa Bradley, who was her mentor and teacher and saw great things in her that were meant for more than their little town. She wrote Gemma a recommendation, and here she is in the big city working for one of the most notorious stations in the city with a reputation that probably precedes her! It’s also probably the busiest station in the city. Captain Bradley used to work here and she was one of their best. She was known as Bada*s in her squad, but Gemma can’t picture a straight-shooting Captain that way. People can change, but surely they can’t change that much! She’s a great cop, she’s fair and nothing like what Gemma’s heard from the people at the station! They pretty much cleaned up the streets then, but unfortunately, things don’t always stay cleaned up. What has, however, stayed the same are some of the guys' Captain Bradley used to work with. Cappie the station commander, Tank his right-hand man, and Bulldog. They were good friends with her mentor. Still, are… They took her under their wing when she started here and have been looking after her as if they were her big brothers. She grabs the docket and starts working on possible leads. Trying to find out who the victim was and how she could have been connected to the previous ones. If she is dealing with a serial killer, she needs to be able to tell Cappie, and soon. *** The report on the autopsy is going to take a while to come back, but she is going to the morgue to witness it in the meantime to give her an idea of what she is working with. She hates the morgue. Especially after the weekend. It’s nothing as they show on television! Walking into the room, she greets the pathologist and opens her notebook. The cause of death is strangulation, and the wounds on the body are the same as the others. Bruises near the kidneys and defensive wounds on her arms and hands. The pathologist takes fingerprints and an imprint of the victim’s teeth and checks the body for any possible birthmarks or tattoos that can identify her. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have any replaced body parts that might have serial numbers they can trace. All they can say at the moment is that she is probably a strawberry-blond woman with green eyes. Another poor woman whose family won’t know what happened to her. Gemma has to catch this killer! “Have you found any leads yet?’ “No, and it’s not funny anymore!” She slams her head on her desk. “I don’t think it was ever funny.” Four women in four weeks, and those are only the ones they found. When her office phone rings, she answers it without even thinking. “Paterson.” “Ah, the lovely Detective Gemma Paterson. I have to admit that I’m disappointed. I have left you so many clues, yet nobody has found a single thing. Two of the poor ladies still have to be found. Tsk, tsk, tsk.” “Who is this?” She sits upright and frowns. “Yes, that is sad. Not even the papers have caught onto the story. I would have thought they would have given me a name by now. Ah well, C’est la vie, I guess. Have a lovely day, beautiful Gemma Paterson.” The line dies, and she feels the cold adrenaline rush through her body. Two more women that they haven’t found! Is this a damn joke? Was that the killer on the phone? She gets on the phone with the pathologist to find out if there was anything strange about the bodies that weren’t meant to be there or even something that was missing. Hoping that something could be in common, she could find the other two this caller was referring to. “Paterson, let’s talk.” Bulldog pops his head around the door, and she grabs the file before following him to Cappie’s office. She knew the moment there was more, they were going to call her in, and if they think they are going to take this case away from her, they have another thing coming. She doesn’t care how tired she is! This is still her case. *** Throwing her keys into the bowl when she gets back home, she takes off her jacket and drops it onto her couch before pouring herself a drink. She thought she would join the police, and it would be this amazing adventurous job where she would be the hero, saving people from villains. This was not what she thought it was going to be, but here she is.