Yours Deadly

Chapter 3

"I'm not little."

"You're little to me," he pats my head and smirks.

I swipe his hand away. "Where am I going to sit?

"Here." he gestures to an empty cubicle next to Oliver. "Sit."

I pull out the black chair and plop down as Nate sits on my desk. 

"Hey!"

"Hey what?" he looks at me innocently.

I narrow my eyes. "Get off my desk."

"Correction, you didn't buy this desk so it's not yours. You're just borrowing it. I knew asking to work with someone isn't going to end well," he adds under his breath.

"What did you say?" I make sure my eyes are into slits.

He ignores me. "I'm going to cut to the chase and tell you basically what we think. Some details will be left out because there's just too much and we're all already neck-deep in this case, so when the time comes necessary, we'll tell you. I just hope you can keep this all locked up and sealed."

My stomach drops a little. This is going to be a very long day, I can tell. "Fine. I'll write stuff down."

"You can, but you don't have to. See these two boards?" He gestures to two whitewashed boards taped to the wall on my left hand side. They are filled with pictures of victims, suspects and markings everywhere. "It's easier to solve a case when everything's laid out."

"Wow." I scan through the markings. There are plently of arrows linking each picture and the name Haven Tavern appears a lot. Then I realize all the arrows point to a blank space in the middle of the two boards. "What's that then?"

"That's the killer. I'll start from the beginning. At first, it didn't make any sense, but gradually we found a connection, which lead to a lot more connections. Every murder takes place two days after the other. It's linked and all, but when Stephanie was was killed, it was right after Kathryn Nevin, without its usual two days' spacing, so we think she's the last one and the killer was just trying to get rid of them all as quick as possible."

"Well, if he did then why didn't he kill them one after another? Why wait? And who's Kathryn?"

"That's what we don't understand," Nate admits. "Kathryn's the name of the girl who died in the coffee shop a day before Stephanie died."

"Okay."

"And here's what we got so far. All the victims were girls between the age of 19 to 25, except for your mother. Oliver said they all work at Haven Tavern. Name sounds familiar to you, right?"

I nod. "My mom works there."

"It's a prostitute club."

"Yeah, but my mom isn't a prostitute. She just serves the drinks, that's all."

"And has she told you anything about a robbery?"

"Yes, about two weeks ago. She came home from the police station looking so shocked and worried and all...you think that has something to do with the murders?"

"Not think. We do know that for sure. That night, the news was reporting about the death of Tanya Kelsey, who died because of a shot to the chest."

"My mom turned as pale as a piece of puff pastry after that."

Nate frowns. "And why?"

"I don't know," I shrug. "It doesn't mean anything important though. Whenever she sees news of someone being killed, she goes pale like that. It's normal." I feel a sharp pang of nostalgia. Oh, how I wish my mom were still here. I miss her so much.