Play dead

SIXTY-THREE

They referred to it as the wire. It was flexible, malleable, need not run in a straight line. In fact, it most often did not. It could snake beneath things, coil itself around other things, bury itself beneath a wide variety of surfaces. It was not tangible, but it was felt.

For all the homicides that had ever been committed, from the moment Cain raised his hand to Abel, there had been a wire. A time, a place, a weapon, a motive, a killer. It wasn't always obvious-indeed, all too often it was never discovered-but it was always there.

As detectives Jessica Balzano and Kevin Byrne stood in the duty room of the homicide unit, the wire revealed itself. Jessica held one end. She spoke first.

She spoke of her meeting with Jimmy Valentine. She spoke of her growing obsession with Eve Galvez. Not just Eve's case, but the woman herself. She spoke of visiting Enrique Galvez, and her admittedly insane visit to the Badlands the night before. She spoke of Eve's diary, and her own tears.

Byrne listened. He did not judge her. He held the other end of the wire.

"Did you read all the files?" he asked.

"No."

"Do you have the flash drive with you?"

"Yes."

Moments later Jessica had the drive hooked up to a laptop. She navigated to the folder containing the scanned files. "How many of these have you read?" "Less than half," Jessica said. "I couldn't take much more." "These are all her files?" "Yes." "Open the last two." Jessica clicked on the next to last file.