Sunlight seeped through the parted blue curtains. As she lay in her bed, Jenn thought about the dinner she had with Ray yesterday. Ray seemed extremely interested in her life overseas. Fortunately, she managed to evade most of his questions by distracting him with witty remarks and occasional flirting. As for her own questions, she did succeed in digging up something interesting about the case.

According to Ray, all the victims attended parties around town before they went missing. He would not tell her how he knew about this, but Jenn saw no sign of deception in him, so she decided to believe him. Perhaps someone had made him promise not to tell.

It was totally unexpected for her to have obtained this piece of information. Although Ray did not elaborate any more about the murders, Jenn was sure that he knew more than he let on. However, she did not push him any further; she did not want to raise suspicions, and he seemed very uncomfortable talking about it.

It did strike her as odd that Ray would hold key information about the case, but it was a small town after all. News and rumours usually spread like wildfire in a small place like this. What was really odd was Ray's demeanour while they talked about the case. She remembered observing the sudden change in his gaze as his eyes glazed over when she breached the topic. A vacant, almost hollow look had filled his baby blue eyes, as if he had been there watching when the murders took place.

Of course, he went back to normal when they moved on to a new topic. It made her wonder how much he did actually know about the murders of those poor souls. Perhaps he knew one of the victims personally. That would explain his interest in these murders.

Her reverie was broken by the sound of her cell phone ringing. Uttering a groan, she silently prayed that the caller would not be who she thought it was. She got out of bed and fished her cell phone out of her backpack. Relief filled her chest when she saw that it wasn't him. But the feeling faded away when she realised that it was General Warner instead.

She greeted him, wondering the reason behind this phone call at this time of the day.

"Good morning, Agent Nelson." He spoke smoothly. "Did I wake you up?"

"No," she replied. "I was just doing some analysing about the case. Why did you call?"

"I just wanted to check on you." She could picture General Warner shrugging as he said this. "So tell me, how are you doing?"

The general wasn't usually like this, she thought. Lately, he had been much softer than before. She had asked herself before what had caused this change in his behaviour, but she couldn't come up with any logical explanation. However, it could be because of the return of his ...

She shook her head suddenly, dismissing her train of thought. Turning her attention back to the conversation, she said, "I'm doing fine. I'll be heading to the local PD today."

"I thought you would have done it yesterday." There was not a hint of surprise in his tone, just mild curiosity.

"I'm not really off to a good start here. The information gathered by the previous case agents of this investigation is merely enough to give a public statement," she said bluntly. "So I thought that I ought to make my own baseline of this investigation before speaking to the agents in charge."

"I think that you'll do a great job in whipping them into shape." The general chuckled. "All right, I'll leave you to your work." They exchanged goodbyes and ended the call. Then she started to get ready for the day.

Today Jenn was going to speak to the agents in charge of these homicide cases. And she was going to do it with style.

~

As Jenn strode into the police department, all eyes turned to her. She maintained a confident gait as she flashed her badge at them and asked to see Agent Turner and Agent Potts.

"That would be us." Two men in suits came forward to greet her. Her brown eyes flickered to the cheap power suits that they had on and then to the arrogant looks on their faces. Jenn mentally shook her head. No wonder they couldn't even get a single case closed in three years.

"I'm Agent Turner and this is Agent Potts, my partner," the tall blond guy said, gesturing to his lookalike, who was slightly shorter than he was. "You're Jumping Spider," he added with a know-it-all smirk.

She regarded them with a cool, calculating gaze and then spoke without missing a beat. "If you want to impress me, you will have to try harder than that. Now, is there anywhere we can talk in private?" If she was going to work with them, she would have to take them down a notch or two.

Agent Turner gave her a flirtatious smile. "Don't be like that."

Jenn ignored him and turned to his partner. "Perhaps you would know the way around here, Agent Potts."

To say that Agent Turner looked surprised was an understatement. As for Agent Potts, he appeared to be stunned into silence. So this guy wasn't used to being addressed when his high-and-mighty partner was around, Jenn concluded when she observed their reactions. After a few moments, he finally managed to react. "Th-this way, please," he stuttered, turning around to lead the way.

Agent Turner was silent as he fell into step beside his partner. Jenn followed them, observing them closely. The agents led her to what seemed like a meeting room. It was carefully furnished and had been tidied up just recently, she observed as she did a quick inspection of her surroundings, noting the unorganised stacks of case files on the table and the stains of marker on the hastily erased whiteboard. Closing the door, Agent Turner, who seemed to have recovered from his shock earlier, turned to her and said, "So how can we be of your assistance?" There was a hint of mockery in his voice.

Jenn simply gave him a sardonic smile and placed the files she had brought along with her on the table. She pushed the time-worn file towards the agents. Agent Turner took a fleeting look at the files while his partner faded into the background.

"Why do you want me to go through my own file? I do remember what's in it, okay?" He said impatiently.

Jenn pushed the other file, a newer one, to him. He picked it up and went through it. Then he slammed it on the table. "Where did this come from? You have someone in the department working for you?" he demanded, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Calm down, Agent," Jenn said, her voice unruffled. First conversation they had and he was already showing such poor trust in his own department. Impressive, she thought with a sigh, very impressive.

"Don't tell me what to do," Agent Turner snapped. He scowled at her, his ears turning red. "Am I supposed to be happy that someone else is trying to take my case away from me?"

"No one is trying to steal your case here, Agent." Jenn wanted to point out how impulsive and unprofessional he was acting, but she decided against it, thinking that now was actually the best time to test his limits.

He scoffed. "Oh, really? Then where did this file come from? The only people working on this case are me and Agent Potts. It's obvious that the second file came from someone who wants us humiliated and fired."

She wanted to laugh at his words. Did that egotistical fool realise that he was indirectly admitting that she did a far better job than he did with the case file? "Trust me, Agent, after seeing that elephantine ego you possess, I do wish to have you humiliated, but to get you fired? I wouldn't go that far." She looked at him with a mixture of amusement and contempt.

"What?" Agent Turner stared at her, his anger replaced with disbelief. Talk about mood swings. "You mean you did this?" he asked, jabbing his finger at the new file. "But ... but that's not possible. Where did all that information come from?"

"Hard work, Agent. Hard. Work," she replied, emphasising every word. "If it makes you feel any better, it actually took me a whole day to gather all this information."

"What?" He gawked.

"I'm not a huge fan of weeds, you know," she continued, knowing that he most likely wouldn't understand her comment. He stared at her blankly, unable to comprehend her words.

She had to stop herself from sighing at his dumbfounded expression. "'Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.' It's an ingenious quote of Gordon B. Hinckley," she explained swiftly. "When you want to get things done, you do them properly. That's the trick. If you had put some effort into this case, I would not have had to go through all that trouble to dig up whatever information that you didn't even bother to look at. In fact, I might not even need to be here."

"No, I don't believe you." Agent Turner slowly shook his head. "You must be in this department to have access to all this information."

"I beg to differ. I just arrived here yesterday and look what I've found." She gestured towards her file. "And I got all that just by asking around in town. The people know things, you see," she muttered.

"And you believed what they said that easily?" he retorted, opening her file. "Let's take this as an example. How can you be sure that all victims attended parties the night before they were killed?"

She gave him a tight smile. "I have a reliable informant, not from your department, of course." Then she added, "And I did some homework too last night. This information isn't exactly classified, so it could have been easily accessed with a simple tool called the Internet. The photos of them at the parties can easily be found on online. Young people love to share their life experiences on social websites these days. I thought you would have known that." She ended her speech with a raised brow.

"I-I do know that," he mumbled, seeming ashamed of himself for not figuring that out himself. But then he brushed it off. "I see what you're trying to do here. You want to belittle me and my partner, don't you?"

"I have better things to do than that." She waved her hand dismissively, giving him a look of absurdity. "What I'm trying to do here is merely let you see how your enormous ego and ignorant attitude could have ruined your career." Her tone became serious. "Six girls are dead now. There might be a seventh if you still fail to see the seriousness of the situation. You're just making a clown out of yourself if you keep this up."

"I'm not playing a fool in my job, if that's what you're saying. People do respect me for my service in the justice department." His voice was shaky.

"I just emphasised the death of six young girls and all you can think of is respect? And you even have the nerve to bring up justice." Her tone was filled with disgust and mockery. "Are you really that shallow?"

A corner of his eye twitched at her blunt words. Agent Turner balled his hands into fists as he struggled to contain his anger. He opened his mouth to make a retort, but Jenn gave him no chance for argument.

"You want to talk about respect? Fine." She stared at him blankly. "I noticed that your partner was silently choking with laughter a few times just now, and I'm sure that he wasn't laughing at me." She gave Agent Turner a pointed look. "Even your own partner doesn't want to back you up. What does that say about respect?"

The blond guy turned his head to give his lookalike a death glare. Agent Potts lowered his head and said nothing.

"Oh, don't try to put the blame on him, Agent Turner. You spend too much time on your high horse, which brings me to my next point: justice. If you're so immersed in yourself, it's no mystery why the case has not been brought to a close. Considering the fact that you and your team have failed to solve this series of murders after more than three years, what justice have you done to the six innocent lives that have been lost?" She sighed to herself, looking at her watch. "Why am I even talking about this?"

"If you're in a rush, please show yourself out. No one's stopping you," Agent Turner said, blatantly furious.

At this point, she laughed. "I'm not quite done yet." Jenn pressed her palms on the table, showing superiority. "I'm officially taking over this case, and I've requested for both of your assistance." This announcement once again earned her looks of surprise from the two agents.

Before Agent Turner could open his mouth to object, she continued. "I've spoken to your superiors about this, and my request has been approved, so there's no point in going against an order." Jenn gave him a knowing look. "I will contact you when I've come up with a complete list of suspects." Then she gathered the files and headed for the door.

"Wait." Agent Turner spoke suddenly, causing her to turn around to face him. "You've already made it clear that you don't respect me," he stated bitterly, "yet you're asking for my – or in this case, our – assistance. Why?"

Jenn smiled. "Because after wasting so much time fooling around, it's only fair for both of you to start contributing to the justice department. Don't you want a second chance to make it up to the families of the victims?"

"I ..." Agent Turner stared at her in wonder. "Yes."

"Me too," Agent Potts piped in. "Thank you. We'll try our best." He beamed, speaking up for both of them for the very first time.

Jenn nodded in approval. "Good. I'm counting on that."

~

In the afternoon, Jenn decided to visit all the crime scenes. She started from the latest one. She went to the address stated in the files and saw that it was an abandoned cabin. She searched the area thoroughly, but nothing came up. She proceeded to the next location but still didn't find anything useful. She continued on to the fourth, third, and second crime scene. No luck.

Finally, she arrived at the empty warehouse where this whole mystery began. Jenn was very much ready to return to the hotel at this point. But to her surprise, she did find something which seemed like a promising lead, though it would have been hardly noticeable without strict scrutiny.

In the middle of the warehouse stood an old wooden chair where the first victim was held when she was murdered. The victim's hand must have been tied to the arms of the chair because on one of the arms, the victim had managed to carve out a name. Jenn ran her fingers over the name before scratching her fingernail below the words, testing her theory. Indeed, the old wood was soft enough to be carved with her nails.

With the right amount of force, the victim could have easily carved the name onto the chair back then. But how did she get away with leaving such an important clue without being noticed by the killer? Jenn continued to study both arms of the chair, only to find deep rope marks at the sides and bottoms of the arms. So that was probably how the victim did it: She pretended to struggle forcefully whilst scratching her fingernail on the wood to leave this name behind.

Her eyes flashed back to the name and she took a photo of the evidence with her phone. The alphabets were scarcely visible but readable to her watchful eyes.

Ray.