Disarmed

Impossible Year

   Agent Wiles has entered the precinct everyday for the past year thinking that no amount of coffee would be able to rouse her from her drowsy state. Everyday for the past year she has been proven wrong by her body. Somewhere around the magical fourth cup she actually gets up to the plate and manages to work for the day. Then at home she reviews the same files over and over, it's been the same thing everyday for one impossibly long year. Wake up. Coffee. Work. Home. Case. Rinse and Repeat.

   Therefore, January 3 of the new year is Wiles' turning point. Determination had faded around August but now having renewed it she is almost obsessed with the Reeves case.

   Reeves started her breaking and entering spree on the third of the first month last year, she cracked the safe to New York's biggest and most protected bank. Making herself known in a short amount of time after that she hit Hawaii, Chicago, Washington D.C., Denver and multiple other high-end banking establishments as if she had grown up breaking into multimillion dollar holding safes.

   Even California's small banks had been targeted after Arizona got the Intel that Wiles, an FBI agent working out of the state, had been tasked with her case. Learning that the woman was on her case seemed to excite Reeves even further, for after she heard of Wiles the younger woman had stated to leave notes behind.

   Reeves leaves more than notes behind though, she leaves all the money as well. Teasing American citizens, just showing off that there is always somebody who can get to their money but never taking any of it. Their office is in a flourish and the press is knocking down their door, the one year anniversary of the start of the elusive criminals illegal journey.

   Almost as if expecting it a phone call came to her desk, Wiles knew it would be another robbery. A big one, to start the year off with a bang. "JP Morgan Chase & Co., we just got the call." the grainy dispatch groans out, this case has exhausted them all since it began. Wiles packed up her badge and gun, running out with her partner and their probationary agent. The office would be waiting and watching the news to receive updates on their positions, holding their breath in the edges of their seats and pretending to do work.  

   Papers and press had also managed to get grimy hands on the criminals latest escapade as well and they forced themselves through the dense line of hollering voices all trying to get the better shot than the other. As usual there were no hostages, no injured, no evidence whatsoever, just an immaculately placed card with graceful, feminine handwriting caressing the paper like a lover's hand. There was something slightly atypical about this time though, Reeves left a fresh violet in-between the two end of the folded card.

   Wiles took the stationary between two fingers and flicked it open, familiar writing greeted her eyes.

   "Salem, I have had a spectacular year with you, I hope you don't mind the violet. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to flatter you, remember this bank? It's the exact same one as the one a year ago, exactly down to the minute I started cracking it. I beat my time though, I've improved my profession by about three minutes.

   Hopefully you aren't entirely comprised of coffee, you should really stop consuming so much. It definitely doesn't help your health, plus the coffee at your office is black sludge. I hope you don't drink that, I wouldn't want you checking out early on me. I'd attend your funeral if you did though, you're too special to me to not visit. - Love, Reeves" it always surprised Wiles how many words the criminal could fit in one index card sized piece of paper.

Salem found herself once again yearning to know Reeves' first name. They had spent nearly a month pouring over every Reeves in all of the banks that she had hit but to no avail, the criminal had most likely used an alias on either the bank or in her notes to Agent Wiles.

Their trio puts the violet and the note into seperate evidence bags and Wiles watches the probationary agent's face contort into three different facial expressions before finally speaking.

   "Violets were, um, used by...lesbian women in the 1920's 30's and 40's to woo other women with their 'Sapphic' desires. Could Reeves be attracted to Agent Wiles and that's why she's getting closer to the criminal than anybody else ever has?" Salem feels her face blush hotly, and her stomach flips. She spends the best second trying to calm her nervous stomach and discern whether she had just felt butterflies or anxiety, she has a sneaking suspicion it's the former.