Crosser

#3 Suspicious person

Sam knew it was just the beginning of a foul day. 

What do they say when you encounter a day like this? It was like she started with the left foot. Or she had a black cat appear right before her. Or simply put, she was jinxed. 

That dream, -no,  better call it a nightmare- started twenty-one years ago, when his father was murdered right in front of her.

That nightmare has hunted her down since that moment, when she was only eight, and all she could do was suffocating her sobs to avoid being detected by the murderer. A murderer that has yet to be caught by the police or at least by her.

Sam can remember every detail vividly; as if that night was happening every second of every moment of her life. 

Even though everyone told her multiple times that she did the best she could to stay alive, the guilt was eating her alive. 

Someone said that time heals all, and in her case, the nightmare was happening less and less as years passed. 

But Sam soon understood that, that nightmare was like a premonition: everytime she had that bad dream, something bad happened to her that same day. 

As she rummaged through her untidy room while searching for some fitting clothes and finally put them on, that were her thoughts. 

Finally, Sam wore a white oversized shirt, dark blue jeans and a pair of white sneakers. She put a piece of toast in her mouth and went out of her apartment.

Something told her that she would need to run today. And her hunches were usually right, even more so when she had THAT nightmare. 

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Sam arrived at the crime scene twenty minutes later. She could see a crowd of bystanders from afar. 

-Make way please, I'm with the police.

People started to make way for her, and she took off her badge and presented before the police that protected the area. 

-Sam, you sure took your time to arrive.-Someone said with a false condescending tone.

-Not that much really, detective.

That detective was Sam's supervisor, Julian Phoenix. He was a tall, broad man in her forties, with red hair and beard, green eyes that sometimes seemed yellowish. She wore a red and blue plaid shirt, brown trousers and brown boots. 

In a alley, right next to a broad street appears the familiar's white-sheet-covering-a-dead-body-scene and people of forensics taking turns to gradually discover a part and taking photos of it. 

Sometimes it was hard to cover the body when there were so many people near. 

-Sigh, you really lack humour sense. Not, perhaps you lack senses in general. 

-I'm fine thanks- Sam answered with a monotous tone and a indifferent facial expression. Since that incident took place more than twenty years ago, she became numb to most situations, almost like she had become a machine with no emotions. 

But that wasn't the truth. She felt emotions. At least guilt was present at all times in her life. And she felt other emotions too, but she decided to ignore them, at least until she found the culprit of her father's death.

-Fine, we have a fifty-one, Sandy Ling, a woman in her early thirties, she doesn't lack any objects so the motive was not a robbery even though she had an expensive brand bag and jewelry accessories. She didn't strugle and there aren't any suspicious marks in the body. We are currently looking for witnesses nearby while we look for more information about the victim in the meantime. 

-Then why do you say she has been murdered?

-You were listening. Well done. Right, there are no marks in the body but she wrote something. 

Julian moved next to the body, and signaled the ground near her hands. Sam looked over and discovered a word written with her fingers.

-Help.

-Yeah, why would anyone write on the ground of an alley? 

-She wanted to convey a message. She wanted to say she was murdered.

-Bingo. It seems I have a really good student Sam. 

-But this case it's a little weird, detective.

-It's a perfect crime at the moment. We haven't found any eyewitnesses, fingerprints or any other clues. If she hadn't written anyhing, anyone would have thought she just had a sudden death. 

Sam looked at the body. She was a young and beautiful woman with dark, shouder lenght hair,  of asian features. She had money too. She wore a red design long coat and lavender long dress and high heel shoes. Her jewelry and bag were Dior's. 

And as Julian had said there were no marks on the body, so no signals of drugs, poison or another injected substance. She was perfectly dressed and even her hairstyle was fine. She squatted next to the body and looked closer. Her nails were perfectly trimmed and painted. There weren't any clues in them. No skin or cloth remnants either. 

Sam looked up and saw a strange person in the crowd. Someone who looked directly at her. And when she looked at him back, he seemed surprised.

'Suspicious', she thought.

And as if that person could read her thoughts, he turned over and ran away.

-Wait!- She shouted and after quickly standing up she chased after him. 

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Thanks!