Chapter 85 Chapter 55
"Hey, Chief, I got the subpoena to check—"
He was cut off abruptly. "I thought I told you this was futile?"
"No... I mean yes, but we have to keep trying and—"
"Drop the case."
"Drop the case?" Marcus asked, his brows raised in bewilderment. He was not sure if the Chief was being sarcastic or not. "You're kidding, right?"
Connolly, the Chief of Investigations, sighed, running his hand through his hair. He gave Marcus a deadpan stare. "Do I look like I am?"
"We have three dead women and a missing body from the morgue, and we should drop the case?"
"Yes!" Connolly answered, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "What do you want me to do? Our killer is a ghost. We've burned more resources than we should have, and yet, nothing. Camera feeds, DNA analysis, polygraph, psych eval— let's not forget this department narrowly avoided a lawsuit when those high school kids got involved!"
"Connolly, you—"
"I mean it, Marcus... I mean, what's in it for you? Do you not want to move on like everybody else?"
"That girl has a family... So did the journalist, so did the cleaner. More people will die, and what? We give up because we have no leads?"
"Yes. Now go home."
Marcus nodded, fighting back the bitter laugh that threatened to spill out from him. He turned towards the door, back to his office, and then opened his laptop. The subpoena was sitting on his desk, screaming at him to do something.
Go home, Connolly had said. But the last time he went home, a high school student, another blonde girl, had turned up dead.
Taking in a deep breath, he reduced the brightness and opened his emails, wondering where to start. Involuntarily, he clicked on the first file, not bothering to read through the title.
Most of them were notes he had seen before on her phone. He was not sure what to even expect, but something gnawed at him.
Ivanna had to have found out something.
He scrolled, then clicked on the deleted files, one immediately catching his attention.
Ethan x Riverbend
Riverbend? That was where the first serial killing had taken place. Who the hell was Ethan? The killer?
He opened it up.
Ethan was cleared of drugs, meaning vampire rumors could either be false or real. Boss says to drop the Ethan Moreau case and gave a new one about a cleaning staff drained of blood.
Footage is corrupted, no guest in the room for three weeks, but Ethan Moreau key holder I saw on a TikTok video was found in the room.
The TikTok video was from last week, so it means he didn’t lose the key holder until recently.
Cases are probably connected and draining her of blood confirms the suspicion around vampire rumors.
Marcus almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Other than the fact that the note was very much disjointed... Vampires?
He shook his head and sighed, exiting it to look at other things she wrote down and deleted, but nothing stood out to him.
Sighing, he moved on to her deleted browsing history. There was nothing out of the ordinary, only about vampires, which was the last thing he was interested in. How had the existence of paranormal humans made sense to someone as intelligent as Ivanna?
He sighed, almost shutting off his laptop until the timestamps caught his eye.
The files were deleted between 10:57 and 11:05 p.m., when Ivanna was already dying.
Why would anyone have deleted something as ridiculous as that?
His hands shook as he went back to the notes to check the timestamp.
10:56 p.m.
Fear wrapped its fingers around his spine. With shaky fingers, he closed the tab and then opened Chrome, typing in vampires— his eyes scanning, and his mind drinking in every single information.
Drinking of blood through the wrists and neck, immortality, speed— that had to explain Ethan Moreau. But what business did USA's star athlete have to do with Ivanna and serial killings.
He was a teenager...
The thought died in his mind.
If Ethan was a vampire, he was anything but a teenager. He just looked like one because he almost never aged.
He swallowed hard, continuing his reading, and one detail stuck out to him...
Compulsion.
He visited the notes again, and then checked the timestamp; it was deleted.
He had been the one to question Ethan Moreau when Yvette had died. Of course, he had to try to make a connection to see if he was also responsible for Ivanna and the cleaner, but he had a solid alibi for all the cases. And the boy seemed... Truthful?
Could he be innocent? Or did he have an accomplice? Did he find out what Ivanna knew about Riverbend and kill her? But how? How could he have known? If he was innocent, who else would have been responsible?
Who was close enough to Ivanna to know what she knew and then delete the text?
"Eureka!" He whispered, standing up abruptly. He unplugged his laptop hastily and ran with it to the evidence room, dropping it on the ground to approach a drawer.
He opened Ivanna's phone immediately and scrolled through her texts with Dylan while comparing every single one of the timestamps.
The date she had written out the note, she went out with Dylan for dinner.
Could they have discussed it over dinner?
He checked more timestamps.
When she had texted Dylan good night. But she hadn't opened the notes after that and he knew Ivanna. When she had a lead, she never dropped it.
Compulsion...
Did he compel her? Was he also a vampire?
The next time she opened it was the day after that. From the timestamp, it was clear that it was at work, just an hour before the press conference they held about the case.
The same thing repeated itself. They texted about dinner, and she didn't open the notes again or the research she was doing about vampires.
But the third day she opened it again, continued her vampire research, and had dinner with him.
Then she died.
Dylan has told them they had an argument and she stormed off. Everything in his story checked out, including the footage before the footage went static.
A new set of questions spun in his mind.
Dylan said she didn't discuss work because of confidentiality but what if that was a lie?
What if he was a vampire?
Did he compel her those times and she only remembered because she stumbled upon her notes?
But why was Dylan so bothered about what she knew about the Riverbend case? What connection did he have to Ethan Moreau that he was protecting Ethan's crime?
The document of Dylan's statement flashed through his mind just then.
Dylan Moreau.
"Oh my God," he gasped, the phone clattering to the ground.
Everything was coming together now.
Dylan and Ethan were related and accomplices to the crime.
It did not make sense, but at the same time, it did. They were vampires and had compelled whoever knew about the crimes.
That had to explain it.
Alexa and Miranda suddenly having a memory blackout just a few minutes before Yvette died.
But why kill Yvette and spare the others if Dylan or Ethan was responsible for Yvette instead of compelling her?
His mind shifted back to Ivanna again. Dylan had compelled her twice from what he deduced from the timestamps, but the third time, he realized something was wrong and he killed her.
So whoever could not be compelled, he killed them?
Then, he remembered... Yvette was going on a blind date with a man.
She dated Ethan before and they ended things but were chill and friendly enough with each other until she died. They had even been lab partners in chemistry.
Definitely not who she was meeting on a blind date.
Except...
Ethan had absolutely no idea.
Dylan was cleaning up his messes.
From the motel to anyone else who knew what he was. So it meant Yvette was close enough to Ethan to know what he was, and Dylan knew, so he did it to protect whoever might expose Ethan.
He was going to confront Dylan, but how could he when the man could make him forget every single thing he just found out?
Who would know about vampires and how to not be compelled?
With a sigh, he sat on the floor of the evidence room and went on the dark web with one sole purpose.
++++
"I wonder how long those two are going to take," Zara snorted, her eyes scanning the crowd of students for Ethan and the new student, Jace.
"They're probably catching up," Prunella shrugged. Zara watched her intently as she picked around with her food but she noticed she never really ate.
Just like Saturday when they hung out.
Ethan's words rang in her mind.
"What?" Prunella lifted her brows, suddenly unnerved by the scrutiny.
"You guys have known each other for long?" Noah asked, taking a fry off Prunella's plate.
She nodded. "We kinda grew up together. Family friends and all."
"Explains it," commented Zara, but of course the sarcasm was missed. "You should eat more, Prunella."
"Huh? I uh... I'm eating," she smiled nervously.
"You're not."
Prunella rolled her eyes and then shoved some food in her mouth, swallowing it with a smile. "See?"
"A bite?"
Prunella laughed nervously and ate some more, feeling annoyed by Zara's prodding. But she couldn't dare complain. "Oh my God, fine." She took another bite, clearly annoyed but pretending to be okay with it.
She picked up her phone just then and glanced at the screen, frowning a little, then she stood up. "I’ll be back. It’s a call."
"Sure," Zara said, watching her go. She didn't believe it, but she decided not to argue.
The cafeteria noise was the only sound between her and Noah. He leaned back in his chair, tossing his empty juice box into the bin nearby.
"She’s weird about food," he said, half-smiling.
Zara shrugged. "Yeah. I noticed."
Noah turned his head toward the crowd, and his whole expression changed. Zara followed his gaze and saw Lia across the room, her hands in some guy’s hair as they kissed against the wall near the vending machine.
"Oh," Zara said quietly. "And... Oh again because I didn't think she was into P.D.A."
"Yeah," Noah muttered, trying to look away but failing. "I mean she's the sneaking around this cause of her reputation right?"
"I thought you two were like a thing?" Zara asked, lifting her brows.
"A thing? I wish," Noah snorted, his voice sounding bitter.
"I asked the other day but you never told me what's wrong."
He shrugged. "We were in class, duh."
"So?"
He rubbed his hand over his face. "Yeah. She was tutoring me in chemistry. We— I don’t even know what we were."
Zara lifted a brow.
"We kissed one of these days... We were at my house, in my room— I had a bad day... parents and shit. She was tutoring me, I couldn't focus. Somehow, I don't know, it happened. Then it kept happening and I asked," he paused, taking in a deep breath. His eyes appeared somewhat glassy. "Like what we're doing and she just kept like pushing it back, like... I don't know man, you feel me?"
"Uh, I guess?" Said Zara, not quite sure what to say.
"She wasn't giving me a clear answer, and uh, later she was like she likes how things are— and I was like, okay, cool. 'Cause I mean, what am I going to say? And guess what? We hooked up very recently, and now she has a boyfriend? Like I think she was dating him while we were still hooking up... So what was I for? Some guy she could just... Screw around with while she was interested in someone else? Like that? Of all people? Like is he more... I don't know..."
"I'm sorry." Zara squeezed his arm lightly. "She doesn't deserve you. I mean, look at you... You're what too many girls want... She's 'mid,' to be honest, and took advantage of you... Maybe to, I don't know, screw a hot guy?"
"Ew, stop flirting with me," Noah teased, grinning to mask his pain. "I might think you have the hots for me already."