“So, what do we got in here?” Iris asked while scanning the papers neatly piled up on Max’s table.
“Well, we got an on-going case right now, this is uh..” Max trailed off in his sentence as he flicks the papers trying to find the total cases of Nightcrawlers. Iris is watching him with amusement in her face.
“..case 13” Max clicked his tongue from frustration. “I’m sorry you had to deal with a difficult case for your first job.”
Iris snapped from daydreaming. “Oh, I don’t mind, I actually love being thrilled,” she said and lets out a fake laugh.
“Really? You must be good then, the Chief does not just put anyone in this case, you know, conflict of interests plus the level of danger, but he said that you were recommended to him by his friend from another department.”
“Well, yeah, I...that’s true.” Iris was cursing William in her head, he did not briefed her about how he got her the job.
Iris was thankful Max did not pushed further into the topic.
“Another victim of the Nightcrawlers, that’s the name for a notorious syndicate we have been running after for months now. They are a gang which recruits people to smuggle drugs and weapons for them, worst job description is assassination,” Max explained, Iris was not really listening as she can even tell the detective about their other businesses.
“And yesterday’s victim was him.” He handed Iris a picture stapled on a paper containing the crime report.
“John Mallow, 23, an out-of-school youth, he was shot to death three times on his chest and no evidences were found useful, except for boattail bullets, which means the murderer shot him from afar. From the other cases, mostly used were knives or by choking." Iris felt like a student learning from her teacher but the difference is, she have graduated five times in the same course.
"And of course, the mark of the Nightcrawlers.” Max pointed at the picture.
The dead man has a stamp of a rat on his forehead. Iris scoffed, she is embarrassed by William’s choice of branding their gang. Clearly, she was not included in the meeting when they decided for their symbol.
He could have chosen a snake or dragon at least. I’m too great to be a rat!
“All the other victims are mostly males, age ranges from 15 to 40, crime scenes often filled with high class bullets and empty bullet cartridges, and of course, substances of drugs. But it’s really crazy that we can’t find any prints, these guys are on a high level.”
“Wow, this is a clean and nice work tho,” she mindlessly blurt out looking at the picture, when she realized what she just said she looked at Max who was also looking at her, confused.
“I-I mean, oh my gosh they must be professional killers, this is so sad and evil,” she said trying to sound and look sad with the best she can.
Max just let out a chuckle. “Yeah, they are actually professionals, I don’t know if that profession is something to be proud of tho,”
“But, good news is that we actually found the last person he talked to before he died, we traced the last phone call on his cellphone, the number belongs to a man named Mr. Boller who owns a convenience store down at Hellin’s street. Our poor boy used to work for him. We are going there today,” Max explained and quickly grabbed his car keys and jacket hanged on his swivel chair.
Iris secretly smiled. Perfect, let’s get to work.
The two detectives arrived at the convenience store, when Iris stepped out of the car she immediately scanned the surrounding to check for any Nightcrawler lurking. Max nudged her to get her attention before entering the store.
Stupid gangsters, they are not even aware that there’s a loose end from their job.
Iris sighed, she feels tired already thinking that she might be the one to clean up their mess from now on.
The bell on the door rung when they pulled the door open, signaling that there’s a customer.
“Welcome!” Max and Iris followed the voice came from behind the counter. It was from a boy with his back facing them organizing the cigarettes on the shelves, he is wearing a shirt with the store name printed on it.
“Excuse me?” Max knocked on the counter. The boy faced them, Max showed his badge and the boy’s face immediately went pale like he have seen a ghost. He gulped and turned his gaze away from the detectives.
Max quickly noticed something is wrong, and that the boy knows something.
“I-I don’t know anything!” the boy defended himself even without questions being asked.
“We are not here to harm you, we will just be asking a few questions, Kid.”
“He quit a long time ago! I have not heard anything from him since then..please leave now. I don’t have anything to say to you!” the boy turned away again, refusing to talk to them anymore.
Iris was just standing beside Max. The boy knows her, she is the reason why he is scared and won’t cooperate. This boy is a friend of John. He saw her when she once went here to see the dead boy that worked from them as a drug mule and delivers the drugs to his boss.
Max sighed and turned to Iris who quickly wore her innocent face.
“We can’t force him to talk.”
“I’ll handle this,” Iris said and sweetly smiled on Max. He was confused on what she is planning to do and was about to stop her.
“Hey!” Iris called the boy, when the boy heard her voice he quickly faced her, it made Iris smile. “This is your boss’s number, right?” Iris placed the report of the phone calls on the counter.
The boy seemed confused, but he nodded right away, scared of Iris.
“Great, where is he now?” she asked, Max approached her with his frowned face, puzzled by why the boy is responsive to her.
“H-he is in his house, n-not far from here,” the boy stuttered and grabbed a notepad and a pen, he wrote the address and quickly handed it to Iris.
“Thank you, have a great day.” She winked at the boy and faced Max.
“How..?”
“Perks of being pretty, I think” she answered with a wry smile.
They went over to the address the boy gave them, it was along a street not far from their station and when Iris realized, the address is just two buildings far from the motel of their hideout, and just across her place.
Outside the car window just before the car passes by the motel, Iris spotted one of their gang members, he also saw Iris and his eyes widened. She saw him running back to the motel. Iris rolled her eyes.
“Why do you look so pissed?” Max asked, Iris did not noticed he was watching her.
“Oh sorry, do I? Maybe I was just hungry, I was not able to eat breakfast earlier,” she answered and lets out a nervous laugh.
Max found it cute. “Okay well then, let’s just eat before going back to the station.”
“Your girlfriend would be upset to see you eating with a pretty girl.”
Max scoffed. “I’d love to have someone to be upset then.”
“So are you asking me out on a date?”
“Yeah yeah, if that’s how you want to see it.” Iris was surprised because she actually thought of Max as aromantic after seeing how dedicated he is with his work.
Max parked the car just outside of an old two-storey building.
“Pretty much strange for a convenience store owner to live in such shabby place, don’t you think?” He noted as he unbuckles his seat belt.
Not strange for someone who spends all of his dime on drugs, Detective.
When they entered the building, an old man was sitting on the front desk, he seemed to be the owner of the building.
“Excuse me, we are looking for Mr. Boller, we believe he’s one of your tenants.”
The man slowly looked at the detectives, his moves are constrained by his old age. Max flashed his badge to him.
“Room 012,” he answered and gone back to what he’s been reading.
“Thank you.” They went for the stairs, going up to the second floor. The dark hallway with flickering lights welcomed them, the white paint of the walls barely giving life and the dirty red carpet on the aisle made the hallway all gloomy.
“I can’t believe someone can live here,” Iris commented.
“The rent must be cheap, all the more reason to be suspicious of Mr. Boller, right?”
When they got in front of the door that has 012 numbers engraved on it, Max pulled Iris to his back, he reached for his gun at the back of his pants and lift his other hand to knock on the door.
Three knocks.
“SVPD!” Max yelled at the door.
Another three knocks.
Nothing.
“He must be asleep,” Iris said, getting impatient with Max. She wants to just kick the door and get it over with. They waited for another 10 seconds, Max was pressing his ears to the door trying to hear some sounds.
Iris sighed, she got tired of waiting. She looked at the doorknob and with her mind, she yanked it off the door. The blasting sound of the doorknob when it flew across the hallway made Max surprised, he quickly jolt away from the door.
“No no no!” Max tried to stop Iris from entering but she already did. The room was pitch black, Iris searched the wall for the light switch and clicked it.
“Shit,” Max uttered under his breath. He quickly fumbled on his phone.
“Detective Carter, we need an ambulance and a backup now!”
At the center of the cold and messy room, Mr. Boller’s eyes are wide open, on his neck was a rope squeezed so tight, and his lifeless body is hanging up in the air with a rat tattooed on his forehead.
Ten minutes.They were late for just ten minutes, and the Nightcrawlers managed to keep Mr. Boller’s mouth shut, forever.“Hey,” Iris nudged Max who was staring outside Mr. Boller’s window. The police came in after they received his call and the forensics have already moved Mr. Boller’s body out of the building.“You okay?” Iris asked, trying hard to sound worried. Max faced her and gave a forced smile.“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m sorry, you must have been scared.”“Don’t get me started,” Iris responded, resting her back against the wall beside the window.“If only,” Max’s voice was full of frustration. “If only we came earlier, we could have saved him and catch those bastards.” He sighed sharply.Sorr
“Are you okay?” Iris dropped her hands, and smiled at Max who’s frowning at her. “Yeah, why? What is it?” Max looked down on her hands and squinted his eyes. “What were you trying to put over the cabinet? Let me do it for you,” he said and stepped closer reaching out his hand. Iris stepped back, she was cursing inside her head while struggling to form an excuse. “Detective Carter!” The both of them looked back when a police yelled for Max’s name. He quickly ran towards him forgetting all about Iris. She sighed in relief and let the tiny camera float up to the cabinet, positioning it where it will give a view of the entire office. She was looking at Max and the police officer discussing over a paper when she successfully planted the camera. “What happened?” Selene ran immediately to Max after she succeeded with her age
“There are three possibilities behind this photo,” the Chief’s voice echoed on his whole office. Several officers, Max and Iris sat on the couch, all attention gathered to the Chief who was walking back and forth in front of his desk. “First, this woman in the photo did kill the Westons.” The Chief stopped in front of his desk eyes unfocused and deep in his thoughts. He put both of his hands over the table, leaning to support his balance. “Second, the killer possibly came after her and killed the Westons. And lastly,” the Chief shot a look to Max. “She is an accomplice to the murder.” Max looked at the bulletin board where they pinned the printed picture of Mr. Weston and the killer. The woman, unfortunately, was standing with her back facing the camera. They could only see her hand with a nude nail polish, a coat covering her body figure, and her dark mid-length hair tied in a ponytail. Sh
Iris Dane scoffed which slowly turned into a laugh. She cannot believe what the secretary just said. Ms. Roxanne and Max turned to her when they heard her suppressing her laughter. “Detective Anderson?” Max called her out, his eyes talking to her to stop her inappropriate action. Iris cleared her throat, her eyes glistening with tears as she tried to hold her laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said and paused to concentrate on her breathing. “But isn’t funny, that we actually blamed Mr. Weston for having an affair with this woman but it turns out, she was the one having an affair!” she said with so much amusement. The people near the lounge glanced on their way with the sudden raise on her voice. “Sorry, what??” Ms. Roxanne asked, bewildered by Iris’s statement. Her eyes went back and forth from Max and Iris who’s finding the situation hilarious. Max frowned at his co-detec
“Iris!” Iris looked at Max who was running towards her, his eyes roaming around the place.“Did you find Ms. Roxanne?” he asked, catching his breath as he stopped from his little marathon, his eyes were angry. He reached for his phone at his back pocket and called someone, Iris was just staring at him blankly.“Hello? She got away! Surround the area and search for every cars within the vicinity now!” he exclaimed through the phone. He looked back again to Iris.“The killer…” he said, exhaling sharply. “Is Ms. Roxanne! I’m such an idiot!” Iris frowned at him, confused of what he said. Max brought out the picture of Mr. Weston and Roxanne and handed it to Iris.“We had the killer right under our noses! And the proof was freaking staring at me the whole time!” he hissed angrily.
Iris eyed William from afar, he had taken Max away from her. He led him to the stage where a line of lustful women gnawing at Max as he ask them about Victoria. Minutes passed, she jumped off from the bar stool when she saw Max finally walking back to her, face exasperated.“Victoria’s not working here tonight. Apparently, she hadn’t come at work for a week now. But a lot of them attested that the car was an old one and they never saw her use that car for a long time now,” he said, letting out a deep sigh.“So? What are we going to do next?”“The owner,” Max whispered and turned to William who was still at the stage, conversing on the ladies. “He handed me her address, he said to keep it a secret because they don’t disclose information of their employees.”Iris snorted. “And what makes yo
Max’s eyes flew open and he immediately jerked himself up. Iris lowered down the newspaper she was reading when she heard the couch creak, shooting a look at the disarrayed man who just woke up from his deep sleep. Max was blinking at her and squinting his eyes. “What the fart!! Iri-” Max’s scream was cut off and a flying pillow came slamming his face back to the couch. “Why the hell are you screaming?!” she hissed, glaring at Max. It was only 6:00 in the morning and the sun hasn’t come up yet to take the sleepiness on Iris’ eyes. She stayed up all night fighting the urge to kill Max and throw his body out of their building so she could lay herself at the couch. Max pulled himself up again and brushed his face aggressively with his hands. “Iris? What the hell are you doing at my house?!” he yelled and yanked himself off the couch. When he tried to walk, his weak knees wobbled at the we
“Let’s go. Anderson” Max tapped Iris’ shoulder. She looked up on him with a questioning face. “We’re going back to Victoria,” he said as he flips the sleeves of his jacket to its right side. Iris sighed and stood up, she looked on her peace lily wondering if William already got rid of Victoria. When two of their members came in last night, she ordered them to bring her body to their hideout. And since there has been no signal for her to hunt and deliver Victoria, she’s assuming that she has been taken care of. “Get yourself ready, I’m gonna go tell Claire we’re leaving, okay?” “What?” Max was startled with Iris’ tone of irritation, he turned to her with his eyebrows furrowed. “I mean, she’s coming with us?” Iris said trying to hide her annoyance. “Yeah, she needs to. She’s part of this case now too,” Max answered, still weirded out. Iris just bit her lowe