1 Chapter One

It was a mess. Blood was splattered everywhere and organs scattered around the room that the woman was in. In fact, the woman was the worst sight in the blood-and-gut covered room.She was hung up by her mouth on a hook, her jaw was missing, and you could see through her body. Her rib cage shape was still intact but you could clearly see that the marrow had been scraped out of them cleanly and the flesh that is supposed to be attached onto it had been peeled off. Emilia could feel the bile rush up her throat and heard the sounds of the newbies and her seniors puking up their lunches. Swallowing it down, she walked up to the body, and putting on a pair of gloves, felt around on the bones for a signature.

This wasn't the first murder that had happened. Bodies like this one had been popping up around town for quite some time now. The only one that seemed to be unphased by this gruesome sight was the police chief, Chief David Miranda. Many view him as a nice guy but everytime a body like this popped up, he seemed to have a smile on his face and the air of someone that was boasting about something they did. Emilia was suspicious of him but was afraid to lose the one thing she had left of her mother and father.

"It's here," she said, running her finger along the rough outline of two words 'Wolf Man'. "What do you think it means?" she asked one of the other officers whose name is Becky Gonzolez.

"I don't know, but it is getting on my goddamn nerves to throw up everytime I see another mutilated body. Would someone get this thing in a body-bag?" Gonzolez yelled walking over to the chief as three reluctant officers stepped unwillingly up to the body. "What do you think the motive was?"

"Do they have to have a motive?" he responded quietly, sniffing the air. Ever since he was little, he had a heightened sense of smell, earning himself the nickname 'Dog-Man'.

"Sir?" Gonzolez asked, not hearing him.

"I asked, do they have to have a motive?"

"No sir, not necessarily-"

"Not necessarily?" he asked, walking over to the doorway and peering around the outside of it. "Does she have off-white paint under her fingernails?"

"Y-yes sir, but what does-" a finger was pressed to her lips as David sniffed the air outside of the door and smelled the faint smell of steak and coffee.

"They knew them but tried to escape. You're smart, becky. Put 2 and 2 together."

"Sir-"

"Fine. Let me spell it out for you. You," he pointed at Emilia, whose heart leaped into her throat. "Follow me," he said, walking over to the dining room and she followed his tail, Gonzolez starting to follow behind her. "Becky, go knit a pair of socks for me, would you?" Gasps rang through the room. David never got angry at Gonzolez, of all people, so this was different.

Following close behind him, she saw him point to the kitchen, where there were three wine glasses. One was still halfway filled and the others were empty.

"What do you think?" he asked her, leaning on the doorway.

"W-well, s-sir-"

"No stuttering. Start over and have confidence in your voice. Go."

"Sir-"

"Forget our ranks. Go." The way he kept cutting her off was pissing Emilia off but she knew better than to piss him off.

"Well, Mr. Mir-"

"Call me David."

"Well, then, David, would you please stop cutting me off when I go to speak?"

"Of course, dumplin'."

"Dumplin'?" she mocked, forgetting all about seniority and respect. (A bit of a side story: back when she was in grade school, one of her nicknames was dumplin' by one of the college students that played basketball there with the middle and highschoolers. She never cared to remember his name and never saw him after that year ended.)

"Don't feel insulted. You just look so soft and squishy… Anyways, go."

"Fine. David, what we are looking at here is most likely a double murder. There is no guarantee that her killer needed someone to help him due to the fact the last ones were carried out by one person, as our evidence allows us to see. However," she said, placing a wine-filled vial in a bag and placing it on the counter, "If I am thinking correctly, there should be another body."

"What makes you think that?" he said, getting closer to her, turning the chair to face the door and sitting down.

"The residual wine that is in this glass... "she said, holding up the empty glass with lipstick on the rim, "... is not dry," she finished, tipping the glass to the side and watching as the wine that normally dries in the bottom of the glass dripped down the side of it. "Some poured this one out before we got here and probably before we got that tip that there was another body."

"Continue."

"If my judgement is correct, both were laced with some sort of roofie or poison like cyanide or arsenic."

"What if it was laced with rat poison?"

"They wouldn't have died so quickly. A healthy adult male would have to eat rat poison like a bowl of cereal and a healthy adult female would have to eat it like eating about 2 bowls of cereal," she chuckled. "The amount you would have to put in the wine would turn it to paste and it wouldn't look appetizing to the supposed drinker."

"Good answer. What about the food they had?"

"That's the tricky part," she said, grinning and turning toward the sink, pulling the plates out of the sink and onto the table where David sat. "There is no definite way to know what they ate or who had what. If we can figure out which part in that room is her stomach, we can check her blood stream and stomach enzymes for any foreign substances."

"What if her killer knew this information? What are we going to do then if he or she switches up their technique?"

"We won't have to do anything. The serial killer always signs their artwork," she said, walking towards him. Leaning down to his ear, she said, "Isn't that right, Wolf Man?" Her heart skipped a beat in fear she messed up where the evidence was pointing her to. At first, he seemed alarmingly calm then a sociopathic smile crept slowly but sexily across his face. Slinking upward like a snake, he stepped to the door in one big step and closed it. Emilia's breath hitched in her throat.