Crisis Of Desire

< XXXVII >

Celine Eloise Dufort:

I walk through the halls of Rio's house and look at the pile of papers in my hands. All of this information, at least a hundred pages, filled with information about the crimes in England.  

If the police are going to ignore all the signs, someone is certainly paying them off. Meaning we have another criminal to worry about. Someone unknown. 

I knock on the door and don't wait for him to tell me to come in. He requires to know this. 

'Cel, what are you doing up so early?' He asks as he takes a sip from his scotch. It's barely six in the morning and he's already drinking. 'I didn't sleep because I was working on this all night.' 

I throw the stack of papers onto his desk and walk over to him. 'What is this?' 

'There's something fishy going on in England. Someone keeps killing people and the police don't connect the dots.' I grab all the pictures and spread them out, enabling him to see all the red circles I drew on them. 

They all highlight the different skulls carved into someone's skin, somewhere on their body. 

'Skulls?' I nod and grab the police report, covering most of the linkings they ignored. 'And then there's this.' 

He scans the paper and furrows his brows. 'All of them-' 'Have the same remarkable traits. Skulls and bashed-up faces.' 

'And the police didn't link any of it yet?' I shrug and search for the news article I printed out. 'Here it says that the police don't think it's something to worry about.' Even though they killed at least over two hundred people. 

'Someone's obviously silencing them, but I don't know who it is and whose side they're on.' 

He scavenges through the other papers and pours himself another drink. 'Who was the last victim?' 

'Micheal Navaro. He was shot twice with a 45 ACP. Once in the head and another one in the chest. Police found his body near a river, just outside of London. They ignored the burned skull and simply didn't write it down.' 

'Any links?' I search for the picture of the red-haired girl. 'Vanessa Dimitrov-' 'Dimitrov?' He mumbles as he pulls the paper out of my hands.  'What does she have to do with this?' 

'We know her?' He looks at me as if it's the most idiotic thing he has ever heard, but I seriously didn't know her before he gave me this case. 'She's Ivanov's granddaughter.' 

'Dima Ivanov?' He nods and throws Vanessa's picture back onto the pile. 'But there was nothing in her medical file that linked her to Dima, how could she-' 'They gave her up for adoption because it wasn't safe or something, I don't care. What does she have to do with this?'

Noted. 'She's Navaro's ex-lover.' His eyes widen for a second as he stores the information in his head. 'Wasn't he married?' 'That's why I said lover, not fiance or wife. He was married indeed.' 

'Sofia Hernandez, right?' I nod since that's the name of Navaro's wife. 'She's still in Londen. The police took her and their son in, trying to keep them safe. Which I still don't understand.' 

'Why not?' 

'If they don't see a threat, what do they need to keep her safe from?' He turns back to the papers and scans through a bunch of them. Mostly pictures of the skulls imprinted in people's skin. 

'And no one has said a thing?' He mumbles, looking at the pictures again. I think he's trying to see if he recognizes any of the victims, but nothing pops up. 'No one. Not that I know of at least.'