Pretty Things Bleed

Two

HANNA POV

Three days later, I had a team.

Not the one I wanted, but the one Gomez gave me.

“This is Marcus Webb,” Gomez said, gesturing to a tall Black man in his mid-forties with grey at his temples. “Former detective. Twenty years homicide. He knows the old cases inside out.”

Marcus nodded. Didn’t smile. I liked that. Am not a lover of fake pleasantries.

“This is Sarah Chen,” Gomez continued, pointing to a woman maybe five years younger than me, with sharp eyes and sharper cheekbones. “Behavioral analyst. MIT grad. Best in the field.”

Sarah extended her hand. I didn’t take it. She dropped it after a second, unbothered.

“And you know Logan.”

I did know Logan. He was in the corner, holding coffee like it was his lifeline. He always looked like he needed caffeine to function.

“They’re your team now,” Gomez said. “Your investigation. Your rules.”

I looked at each of them.

Marcus watched me like he was trying to read me. Good luck with that.

Sarah was already pulling out a folder. Working. I could respect that.

Logan just looked nervous.

“When do we start?” I asked.

“Now,” Gomez said. “The files are in your new office.”

I didn’t ask where it was. I just walked out because I knew where I had demanded he put my office.

The office was on the 19th floor. Not the basement where I used to work. Not surrounded by filing cabinets and dust.

It was clean. Bright. Too bright for my liking but I could manage it.

There was a desk. A chair that probably cost more than my rent. And boxes. Stacks and stacks of case files.

“Jesus,” Logan breathed behind me. “Look at all this.”

“Close the door,” I said.

He did.

I moved to the files and started pulling them out. One at a time. Reading names. Dates. Victim photos.

Seven victims over nine years.

All women. All young.

All found in different parts of the city.

The first victim was in 2008. A college student named Jennifer Mills. Found in an alley behind a warehouse. Throat cut. No witnesses. No suspects.

The second was two years later. A nurse named Lisa Rodriguez. Same M.O. Found behind a parking garage.

Then the pattern broke. Nothing for three years. Then two victims in 2015. Both waitresses. Both killed in different locations.

Then silence again.

Then 2019. A photographer named Claire Winters. Found in an abandoned building.

And finally, 2021. The last one. Amy Brooks. Found in a park.

After that, nothing.

Either the killer stopped.

Or he was careful enough that they never found the bodies.

“What are you thinking?” Sarah asked from the doorway. She’d been so quiet I hadn’t heard her come in.

“That no one looked at these the same way,” I said, not looking at her. “Everyone was chasing different angles. Different theories. This why this son of a b***h got away.”

“And you think you can fix it?” Sarah asked.

I finally looked at her.

“I think I can see what they missed,” I said. “But I need the witness statements. All of them. The ones who saw him. The ones who saw something.”

Sarah nodded and left.

Marcus came in instead, carrying a box labeled “WITNESS INTERVIEWS.”

“Interviews spanning the whole nine years,” he said, setting it down carefully. “Some of them are old. Paper. But they’re all there.”

“Why wasn’t this case closed?” I asked him.

Marcus leaned against the wall. Thinking.

“Pressure from the families,” he said finally. “And because the detective who worked it first, a guy named Reeves, he couldn’t let it go. He kept pushing for more investigations even after the department moved on.”

“Where’s Reeves now?”

“Dead,” Marcus said flatly. “Suicide. Five years ago.”

A detective so obsessed with a case that it killed him. That meant something. That meant the case had teeth.

“Anything else I should know?” I asked.

Marcus pushed off from the wall.

“Yeah,” he said. “Two of the detectives who worked the case originally are still with the department. They’re not going to like you coming in and questioning their work.”

“ Good.” I said.

Because I didn’t care if they liked me.

It was past midnight when I finally left the office. It's been a very hectic and stressful day trying to make sense of this case yet the more I read the more I know nothing

I took the subway home. And in the next one hour and thirty minutes I was in front of my apartment.

My apartment was small. A studio in a neighborhood no one cared about. But the rent was not cheap and the neighbors didn't bother me which was all I needed.

I threw my jacket on the couch and went straight to my easel.

I’d set it up years ago. Right by the window. It was where I did my personal work. The drawings that weren’t for cases. The drawings that were just for me.

I’d been drawing the same man since I was fourteen.

The same face. The same blue eyes stared back at me. Enough that I could draw him in my sleep.

I sat down and picked up a pencil.

His eyes came first. They always did. Blue and searching . Like he wanted to say something then.. Yet nothing.

Then the mouth. Thin lips. No expression.

I was halfway through when my phone buzzed.

A text from an unknown number.

*“Hello, Hanna. Been a long time.”*

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I deleted it.

The same text message I got every night once it's 8pm and I was never curious to find out who it was.