He sat in his ancient leather armchair, a half empty bottle of cheap whiskey in his hand. His old eyes were closed, his haunted mind lost in deep thoughts. He was so exhausted. Another heartbreaking and mind shattering nightmare had woken him up, drenched in sweat, another countless night's sleep ruined.

He hated that time of year. Spring. So many memories he would sell his soul to be without.

A part of him wished he never had responded to the call that night. What if he just hadn't picked up the phone? What if he just had passed it on to another detective? But oh no... that wasn't his style. He was loyal and precise... and he always found the killer-- but not that one.

Twenty years. Twenty fucking years... and still at square one.

He had retired eight years ago, but the memories of Jacqueline still haunted him. In his sleep. When he was awake. All the time. Everywhere he went he saw her face... the so badly beaten, yet so beautiful face.

He just couldn't believe that he killed her. No, it just didn't fit. The way they looked together in the pictures. That was love... pure love. He was sure of it. Many tried to tell him that that beast was incapable of loving, but he waved them off. He refused to add another murder to that man's record.

Sometimes he wondered where that man that so many people saw as a beast had gone. Not a single human being had seen him in the last twenty years. He had disappeared. Vanished from the face of the worlds.

Then there was the baby. The autopsy had confirmed it for him. She had had a baby not so long before she was murdered. But where the fuck was the baby? He feared the worst then... and still did. Dead? Alive and miserable? Alive... maybe happy?

He was so lost in his memories and endless theories, that he didn't hear his door being opened. The man that stepped inside. The footsteps that stalked towards him over the old wooden floor. He didn't react until the intruder had a knife to his throat, pressed into his skin, causing him to drop the bottle in his hand. A voice gritty with anger and darkness growled into his ear, as the blade cut into his skin.

"I found your killer... are you willing to listen and make him pay YOUR way? Or die and let him pay MY way?"

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Chapter: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 (Incomplete)