Assassin X

Alex

Three Years Later

There was no worse way to start a work week than with the police station's brown water which was passed off as coffee. On a drizzling, grey morning, where the city buildings looked bleak and the working commuters were wet and weary, Alex had no intentions of making Monday worse with bad coffee. The coffee shop down the block was a warm escape from the dampness of the day, with the sweet smell of sticky buns hanging thick in the air. The vanilla lattes they made him held just the right amount of frothy foam and was worth being a few minutes late to work.

Alex shook a few raindrops off of his heavy black jacket and walked up to the counter.

"Good morning, can I help you?” the girl behind the register asked.

"I'd like a large vanilla latte,” he told her and handed her his bank card.

While she rang up his order and swiped his card, Alex watched her. He stopped in often enough that he knew most of the morning staff. But he didn't recognize her and was sure he would have.

The girl had sleek jet black hair, cut short with tight angles and magenta streaks that framed her face. A little nose ring studded a thin nose and she had plump glossed lips. When she looked up at Alex to hand back his card, he couldn't help but notice that her eyes looked like amber.

"Wow, your eyes are amazing,” he blurted without thinking. He wanted to kick himself for his abrupt and awkward pick-up line until he saw a little blush creep into her cheeks and she bit her lip making her look even more attractive than she had been a moment ago.

"Thanks,” she answered simply.

He wasn't sure why, but Alex had a feeling that this girl didn't get compliments like that often.

"Are you new here?” he asked.

There was a feint awareness that someone had walked through the door and was waiting in line but Alex didn't care. He was interested in what the girl had to say, the guy could wait for his coffee.

I'm new to the morning shift. I used to work the afternoon lunch.”

That explained why he didn't know her.

"I'm Alex,” he introduced himself. “I stop in here often for my latte, but I may have to stop in more often if you're going to be here.”

Just as he hoped, she blushed again at his compliment. He didn't know this girl at all but already he was struck by her and especially this feeling she gave off that she was shy and vulnerable but when she bit her lip she looked like a little s*x kitten. This new girl definitely had him intrigued.

"Vanilla latte to go!” Jenny, the morning barista, called out.

Alex knew he had to go, he was already late for work and a longer line was forming behind him.

"Are you going to tell me your name or should I hold up the line all day?” he teased.

Something flashed in those gorgeous amber eyes that he couldn't read and she offered him a smile.

"I'm Raven,” she answered.

Raven. That name seemed to fit her perfectly. Satisfied he gave her a nod. “I'll see you tomorrow Raven,” he answered, liking the sound of her name.

Alex took his latte from where it sat cooling on the counter and headed toward the front door. It was a certainty that he was going to be in trouble for being late to the precinct, but as he looked back at Raven who was already busy with a new customer, he knew it was worth it.

Walking through the doors of the precinct, his mood having been greatly lifted due to his morning stop, he expected the usual Monday morning affairs to be taking place. Some detectives would be milling about, discussing their weekends and procrastinating on getting to their work piled on their desk. Others would already be at their metal desks which were lined up in neat rows as if the detectives were still school children, already working through the stacks of files. Alex had hoped that he'd be able to slip in quietly enough that Captain Henry wouldn't notice that he was late…again.

But when Alex walked in through the large double doors, there was a flurry of commotion and no one even looked at him at all. More curious than he was concerned about being in trouble, Alex stopped his friend Jason to ask what had happened.

"If you could come in on time you wouldn't miss it when Captain calls a big meeting. It looks like there is a serial killer on the loose.”

"What? I haven't heard anything about that.”

Serial killers weren't an everyday thing and Alex found it hard to believe that he hadn't even heard a whisper about it. More importantly the media hadn't picked up on the idea of a serial killer and those hounds never missed anything.

Jason shrugged. “That's why Captain is having a meeting. They didn't know there was one until today.”

He walked away and Alex headed to his desk, his Monday getting more interesting as the minutes were passing. After he hung his coat on the back of the desk chair, Alex grabbed a scribbled on yellow notepad and pen and made his way to the conference room.

Jason was already seated and Alex sat down in the metal folding chair next to him.

"You're lucky that Captain didn't see you come in late.”

Alex held his coffee cup in the air as a mock toast this luck and lateness.

"I couldn't start the day without a good latte today.”

Jason rolled his eyes; always conscientious and on time, he would never think of showing up late, especially not for coffee. But as Alex took another sweet sip and Raven's eyes flashed through his mind, he knew he didn't regret it.

Captain Henry, a man who seemed to be the very image of what one expected when he thought of a Captain in the police force with his perfectly trimmed mustache, small pot belly from years of overseeing paperwork, and a permanent crinkle between his brow from the disappointing frown of what humans will do to each other. Alex had known Captain his whole life, had grown up with his as if he was an uncle, rather than his dad's partner in the force.

He cleared his throat and all of the chatter from the officers halted immediately. Captain had that way about him, he could take command of a room with almost no effort. It was why he made such a perfect Captain and someone that everyone respected.

"There's been new information that we have confirmed today that links several deaths that we previously thought were not connected.”

Captain clicked on a slideshow onto a large projector screen at the front of the room and four bodies popped up, all dead but none in the same way. Alex had heard of these deaths but hadn't worked any of the crime scenes.

"Each of these deaths has been someone who was high-profile but all separated and without any connection. We have a politician, an embezzling non-profit owner, and an athlete. Because of how little they had in common and the distance between these deaths, we didn't suspect they were linked.”

Captain zoomed into the pictures and it was clear that there was a feint, small mark behind one ear on each of them. Alex squinted at the pictures but couldn't quite distinguish what the marks were.

"These are small tattoos, burned into the skin lightly, almost too light for us to notice. In fact, we didn't notice it right away but we have now.”

When he zoomed in further Alex could see a tattoo, so small and light that he didn't blame any investigator or mortician for missing it initially. But once you saw it, it couldn't be unseen. It was a small skull.

"We are officially considering that even though the means of death has been different for each victim that these crimes are connected and we have ruled that we have a serial killer on our hands.”

Low murmurs erupted through the groups of officers as some expressed their surprise while others immediately began tossing out theories. Alex just sat and listened to it all, too transfixed to tear his eyes away.

"We will be assigning a task force to this, it's going to be grueling and exhausting but we are going to be dedicated to taking this person down.”

A hand shot up in the front row. “Are there other murders?”

Captain took a deep breath. “Not that we are aware of yet but we are reexamining, to the best of our ability, many recent deaths to see if there have been any more. It still is very possible.”

"I'll be choosing the task team today and we will begin our investigation immediately. With that being said, whoever is chosen will drop every other project and take this on as their sole focus so we will all need to pick up the slack. We need to catch this killer before anything else happens.”

A voice piped up from the back of the room. “Are we alerting the media?”

"Absolutely not. We have kept it from them so far and we will continue to do so unless it is absolutely necessary. At this time it isn't. For now, let's all get to work and I'll be letting you know today if you will be working on this case.”

Captain stepped away from the front of the room and left the conference room while every officer began to stir. Whoever was chosen to work on this case would be a part of something big and Alex knew he wanted in. Of course, it was more likely that officers like Jason would be chosen, those that were responsible and came in on time but there was no way Alex was going to take a back-seat on this one.

Alex stood from his folding seat and pushed through the aisle of officers, he was going to talk to Captain immediately and made a beeline right for the office. Captain was already at his desk, head bent down looking over papers, when Alex knocked on the door.

"Captain, could we talk for a minute?”

The man sighed and sat back in his desk chair with a squeak. “Alex, how did I know that you'd be the first one to come see me?”

Alex gave a sheepish smile, one that he'd used ever since he was a child to get what he wanted.

Unfortunately, it was one that Captain knew all too well and Alex could see that it wasn't going to work.

He took a step into the office and shut the door behind him.

"Please Captain, I need to be on this case.”

Alex hated the begging in his own voice but he needed to be on this case. It was innate, internal and he was craving it.

Captain squinted hard at the boy. “Why should I give you this case? You haven't proven yourself yet Alex, you're just a boy who is getting his feet wet and barely passing at that. If you weren't basically family I'd have chewed you out plenty of times by now. But I haven't, and that's my fault for not pushing you to be a better officer and holding you accountable.”

"You can count on me for this, I won't screw up. I can promise you that.” Alex's heart was racing, if Captain said no he didn't know what he would do.

"Tell me why you want to do this so badly? It's going to be a lot of work and I'm not sure you're up to this yet.”

Alex knew why he needed to be on this case and Captain knew it too. But he was going to make him say it anyway.

"I want to finish what my dad couldn't.”

When Alex had only been a boy, his dad had been killed in the line of duty, chasing down his own serial killer. After the monster shot his dad, he had disappeared into thin air, never to be caught. There was never any justice for his death or the others from the murderous rampage. But if Alex could help catch a killer, a high profile killer, then maybe he would be one step closer to finding peace with what had happened.

Captain stared at him, eyeing Alex as if he could see right through him. He may have been immature and a little too carefree at times, but even Captain could see how serious he was about capturing this person.

"You have one shot Alex, just one. If you're late, if you mess up at all, you're off. There's going to be a lot of other officers that are going to be mad because they earned the spot I'm giving you. But I loved your father like a brother and I would love nothing more than if his son followed in his footsteps and became the officer that he was. And that he took down a killer.”

Alex wasn't going to stop the grin that split his face.

"Divvy up your files you're working on and meet back in the conference room in an hour.”

He turned to leave the office, and do as he was told.

"Alex,” Captain said.

Alex turned back towards him and saw the seriousness in his face.

"Don't make me regret this.”