The dawn barely broke, and Marcus already made it back to the 17th Precinct. The first thing he did was to check on the status of the slim man he brought back from the not-so-successful drug raid. The system was slow, and even when the perp was being cooperative, they still had to jump through all the hoops to arrange a trade deal involving protective custody. Thus he would still be at the precinct’s holding room, with only a few night shift officers and Kevin Loo the forensic technician to keep him company.

When Marcus got to the holding room, he found that the slim man had already fallen asleep on the bench inside, drooling and snoring, and Kevin Loo, looking slightly tired and holding a big coffee mug shaped like a skull, was standing just outside the fences. “You’re here!” Kevin smiled and greeted him.

“Yeah, here to check on him. ” Marcus pointed at the slim man: “What’s new?”

“First thing is that he’s alive, and fell asleep around 3 or 4 A.M last night.” Kevin yawned: “And I took a look at some of the evidence you brought back. I will categorize them and send a few things to the lab later. And - I know you’re not really a believer, but I gotta tell you, our friend here has reasons to be afraid. I did some quick check on him and he even let us draw some blood - no sign of hallucinogens or any known drugs. The paper talismans he had with him - though terribly drawn and were wet - did show some signs of, you know, coming into contact with entities.”

“Okay.” Marcus nodded, not acknowledging or dismissing Kevn’s theories : “What have you found in his blood? What are your theories?”

“Not just blood, I took some samples of his saliva and stomach liquid as well.” Kevin handed Marcus a thin report: “Some preliminary stuff, nothing too suspicious as of now. I just sent all the samples to the lab, and we should hear back in a few days. That said, the scientific hypothesis is that he’s under severe stress or suffers from some kind of hallucination; and the other theory, just keep an open mind, which I know you will, is that he might be actually right and telling the truth.”

“Understood.” Marcus scratched his jaw: “Stress I get, if he’s new to the gang then he’d be handling the tougher spots and have limited resources and help. And the other theory - if that is true, IF, he told me he didn’t know how ‘she’ found him, do you have any theories on that?”

“My best guess would be something in his spots and general turf. Which I plotted out for you in the map if you ever want to check it out. ” Kevin tapped the report he gave to Marcus and smiled: “I’ll do a search on the crimes and urban legends in that area, but the power kinda went out last night and I had to turn off a bunch of things to keep the lab equipments running.”

“So our precinct’s affected as well? That’s a little bit too - wide spread, don’t you think?” Marcus frowned.

“I heard some rich kid was speeding on the road and banged into a roadside sub-station.” Kevin shrugged: “I wonder why one substation can have that much impact, it seemed multiple blocks suffered from low power and even outage at the same time.”

“Interesting …” Before Marcus could say anything, the ringing from the office phone on Detective Shrevas Pahaik’s desk interrupted his thoughts. Since Detective Pahaik was not here yet, he just rushed over and picked it up. The first thing he heard was an officer on the other end of the line babbling to him with an annoyed voice: “Hello Detective Pahaik, sorry to ring you so early, but we kinda have a situation here.”

“Sorry, but Detective Pahaik is not here at the moment, this is Detective Marcus Cai, can I take a message?”

“Yeah, sure! This is about the accident last night, the kid who drove into the substation. Just about one hour and a half ago, they found the body of a young woman at a spot on the other side of the substation. It appeared that she might have been thrown out of the car when it crashed. The kid is still missing, and his father is demanding that he speak to Detective Pahaik, directly.”

“Okay, have you tried his cell?” Marcus asked.

“He’s not answering.”

“Then he might be on his way over - I’ll let him know when he gets here.” Marcus nodded, being the most senior detective from this precinct, Detective Pahaik was one stickler for rules, and driving while texting or answering phone calls was something he was known to actively avoid: “While we’re on that, do we know who this rich kid and the young woman are?”

“We’re still verifying the young woman’s identity, but the driver is clearly Carl Benson, and his father’s name is Rick Benson.”

“Rick Benson? Why does this name sound familiar?”

Detective Pahaik arrived at his desk about 15 minutes later, complaining about the traffic. And he seemed quite surprised when he heard from Marcus that some rich kid’s father wanted to talk to him.

“Rick Benson? Fuck.” Detective Pahaik shook his head and sighed after hearing the name

“Who’s that?” Marcus laid down Kevin’s report onto his desk.

“We went to high school together, we used to be kinda close.” Detective Pahaik answered with a wry smile: “Now he’s a big shot tech guy in the South-Western District.”

“Yeah, looks like he’s trying to pull something so that his son doesn’t go to jail for hit and run and negligent homicide.” Marcus shook his head and scoffed: “There was a young woman, dead. They’re trying to ID her, but it’s likely she’s thrown from the car when it hit the substation.”

“Rick has always been kind of a sleazebag.” Detective Pahaik threw his jacket on, which he put onto the back of his chair just moments prior: “Let’s check the scene out before he actually caught me.”

“Want me to come with?” Marcus asked.

“That'd be great, thanks.”

The scene of concern was actually not that far from the precinct, which was only half an hour’s drive with regular traffic. And it was somewhat less messy than Marcus expected - there was debris of the exterior of a luxury car scattered everywhere, and the car itself was half buried inside the ruins of the electric substation. The local electrical workers assured them that the power was already cut and there was no danger in stepping into the scene, yet Marcus still felt something tingling his senses as he got close to the orange convertible heavily scratched paint and an almost completely collapsed head.

“Where’s the body?” Detective Pahaik asked with a frown on his face: “The young woman’s.”

“Here, follow me.” An officer with a slightly shaken and disturbed facial expression came forward and said to Marcus and Detective Pahaik, then led them toward the direction in which the convertible was pointing: “But, be prepared - things are a little - a little strange, to say the least. I don’t know if you believe this kind of thing - but people are talking - well, you would know when you see her - ”

“Cause of death?” Staring at the body in a full red skin-tight nightgown, the wrinkles on Detective Pahaik’s forehead seemed like they would not go away for hours.

The body was still in its original place and position - there were no obvious signs of external injuries, nor were there any signs of blunt force trauma; the body froze with a wide smile, yet it was a smile of only the mouth and not the rest of her face; her eyes were wide open, and her eyeballs were crawling with dark, spider web-like veins.

The forensic scientist at the scene stood up and from where she was and pushed her sunglasses to above her forehead: “Shrevas, long time no see.”

“Ayer. ” Detective Pahaik seemed surprised: “What - what are you doing here?”

“I’ll try not to take offense to that.” The forensic scientist responded with a smile: “But yeah, semi-high profile case, so they called me here. And the, uh, cause of death is actually suffocation, caused by the vomit stuck in her throat. The subsequent blunt force trauma caused by being ejected from the vehicle and landing on the ground happened after her death, therefore not easily visible. And judging from the almost non-existent bruising, she was dead for quite a while before the accident actually happened. Strange thing though - the bruises seemed way too light even considering that. The other thing - you see her face? And her dress? Red, clean, no tears anywhere, almost in perfect condition. That’s what disturbed some of the locals.”

“Red dress huh?” Detective Pahaik scratched his jaw with a frown: “Anything else?”

“Skin fragments in her fingernails. We can run some DNA tests, but I am pretty sure it’s gonna be the driver’s.”

“Looks like Rick’s son’s gonna have a lot of explaining to do.” Marcus lifted some bushes and picked up a small piece of torn cloth from the ground, half buried under some dirt and sand.

“Nice, thank you detective.” Ayer came over and packed the piece of cloth in a plastic evidence bag and compared it with the content of another - both showed similar patterns and colors.

“Where is this found?” Detective Pahaik asked.

“Inside the girl’s hand.” Ayer sighed.

“Not that I am a frequent reader of fashion magazines or anything.” Marcus pulled up his phone, searched for a few keywords and showed both Detective Pahaik and Ayer a web page: “This is the latest style from Marvon Brown, a luxury men's clothing brand.”

“Alright, Marcus, good on you!” Detective Pahaik smiled as he looked at the phone screen and then the evidence bags: “... what the heck, why are you looking at this? Or are you actually a trust fund kid?”

“No, nothing like that.” Marcus grabbed his phone back: “My father is - was a fan. So I saved up a little and wanted to pick a birthday present for him. But it doesn’t matter, okay? This might just be the shirt he was wearing.”

“Yes, but the girl having a piece of it in her hand tells a whole ‘nother story.” Ayer looked Detective Pahaik in the eye: “You do what you’ve gotta do. I’ll share my report with Captain Ko. There are a couple of things I want to confirm through tests.”