The Profiler Arrives
321 Words
The body of Michael Tanner was discovered at 5:32 a.m. by a janitor unlocking the school. The man screamed so loudly it triggered a police response in under three minutes. The crime scene was secured by six.
At 6:41 a.m., Detective Ray Bennett arrived — trench coat, coffee, unreadable expression. And the moment his eyes fell on the corpse, something in him stirred.
It wasn’t just the killing. It was the message.
The photo pinned to the chest.
The lack of blood.
The precision.
It wasn’t rage. It wasn’t messy. It was… surgical.
Ray crouched next to the corpse and studied the photograph. A teenage girl. Dead-eyed. Not smiling.
“She was real,” he muttered.
No one answered.
He stared at the bruising around the neck. Ligature marks. No hesitation wounds. Whoever did this had done it before. And whoever they were… they were getting bolder.
This wasn’t a warning.
This was a statement.
He stood up and scanned the car’s interior. No fingerprints. No signs of forced entry. No DNA. Nothing.
Almost too clean.
Which made him smile — just a little.
Because perfection is a mistake, too.
As he turned to leave, something on the ground caught his eye. Tucked under the tire — a candy wrapper. Strawberry-flavored. Torn in half. Fresh.
Ray knelt, picked it up with tweezers, and bagged it.
Back at the station, he pinned the photo to the board. Below it, he scrawled a name:
"Strawberry Killer?"
Too soft.
Too personal.
He crossed it out.
"Vigilante?"
Closer.
He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know her face.
But something in his gut told him this wasn’t the first.
And it wouldn’t be the last.
He poured another cup of coffee and stared at the board.
“Let’s find out who you are,” he whispered.
And from the shadows of her apartment, across town, she felt it.
That someone new had entered the game.
- Writer
