"Adalet, I just don't get why Vanessa would send you a message on a beer coaster, of all things," Amy says as she looked at the coaster, "she talks about dark secrets and she drew a tombstone with a note saying "Tonight, 10 PM" . . ."

"And since there's a tombstone on it, Vanessa must mean the cemetery!" Adalet reasoned, "she sure as heck chose the right place to reveal dark secrets . . ."

"Looks like this story's gonna take a dark turn, so you should stay behind, Amy: it could be dangerous!" Frank says, "Adalet, you ready to head to the cemetery and learn about Vanessa's secrets?"

"Ready as I'll ever be!" she answered.

"Then let's go!"

"Well Adalet, I don't see Vanessa. Either we're early or she's hiding . . ." Frank said as he checked the time, "huh, why couldn't she just speak to you on the phone instead of all this secrecy?"

Adalet clicked on a flashlight, "then we'll just have to go find her!"

"Do we really need to go looking for her, Adalet?" he asked taking a torch from the glove compartment, "I mean I'm a bit too old for playing hide and seek . . . Alright, fine, let's get it over with . . ."

Frank went left while Adalet went right, they would regroup later. Adalet and the dogs searched the foggy cemetery and walked along the bumpy road call out Vanessa's name. There was no response and just as she was about to call it quits, she saw something that made her blood run cold.

"Frank!" Adalet yelled over her shoulder, "get over here! Quick!"

As Adalet listened to her partner scramble over the hills to where she was, she took a close look at the scene before her. What looked like a life-sized voodoo doll of Vanessa way lying on the ground near the graveyard's pond, the skin cold and lifeless. Near the body, Adalet found a faded map of the forest and a torn document.

"Wow, this has got to be the biggest voodoo doll we've seen so far, Adalet!" Frank remarks as he climbed down the hill to join her, "besides, I thought we were meant to be looking for Vanessa . . ."

"Ahh, Frank?" Adalet felt the "doll", "I think this is Vanessa!"

"What?! You're telling me this voodoo doll is Vanessa?! Why didn't you say so earlier?!" he asked in the same tone she used, "I guess we're too late to hear her secret . . ."

She pulled out her phone, "let's see if Roxie can get her talking again."

"Now, what's this you picked up, Adalet? A torn document?" he put the pieces back down, "I'll let you piece it back together, I know you like showing off your skills."

She picked up the map while she waited for Roxie to answer, "and look at this message: "Vanessa, hide here and you'll be safe" . . . But there's something else on this but it's faded!"

"Do you think you can recover the faded ink, so we can see what this is all about, Adalet?" he inquired.

She nodded as Roxie picked up the phone. After the coroner had gotten the information he needed about the body, Adalet said her goodbyes and put her phone away. She picked up the torn document and her tape and repaired the document to see what it was about.

"It's getting irritating, Adalet," Frank smirked, "you're too damned skilled: it makes me look bad. And this document you pieced back together looks an awful lot like a conspiracy document."

"It says these three girls are missing, and there are a lot of scribbled notes around them: "same age", "same place" . . ." Adalet read.

"What's all this about?" he wonders.

"We should send this mystery to the lab," she replied.

He nodded in agreement, "I'm sure the lab rat will enjoy solving this for us!"

After Frank had taken the document from her, Adalet grabbed the map and her brush. She began dusting the faded annotations on the page as Roxie arrived to come to collect the body. Once the body had been taken away, Adalet finished with the map and called Frank back over.

"Good job recovering that map, Adalet. Now we know where Vanessa went to hide . . . with the promise she'd be safe," Frank frowns as he saw the note written on the map, "well, since Vanessa ended up dead, we all know that's a lie. But what is this place? It looks like a hut stuck in a tree . . ."

"This tree hut shouldn't be too hard to find in the swamps," Adalet says trailing her finger along the path.

"So what d'ya say we go see where Vanessa was hiding out?" he asks.

"Let's go!"

Adalet read the map as Frank took over driving the car, the man couldn't find his way out of a paper bag with a map so it would be hopeless to give it to him. She called out the directions for him and in no time they were parked just a few yards from the hut.

The cops got out of the car and walked the rest of the way to the treehouse to look for any traces of their victim, or her killer, being there. Adalet and the dogs looked around the ground of the tree and found a trophy mount, a fish trap, and a photo of Vanessa with strange drawings surrounding her head.

"Huh, it's not every day you see a hut-like that perched in a tree . . ." Frank remarks as he looked up at the hut, "so this is where Vanessa was hiding out, hey?"

"And she brought some stuff with her!" Adalet says as she brought over her items from the grounds.

"And so you found a trophy mount, Adalet? Hahaha, don't tell me you wanna hang this trashy decoration up in your home!" he laughed.

She rolled her eyes, "it would be more fitting in yours! But I grabbed it because of the faded inscription."

"Oh right, good call Adalet, I didn't see the faded inscription on it! Well, recovering the text can go two ways: watch me make a mess of it, or have you ace it in seconds," he smirked.

"Well, while I do all the work, get a load of this!" she said handing him the picture.

"Dang, that's true! This is a photo of our victim, but look at the drawing on it: we've seen enough of these by now to know it's a voodoo spell!" he says setting it down on the ground.

"That doesn't narrow down much, Frank" she pondered out loud.

"You've got a good point Adalet: everybody seems to practice voodoo around these parts, so let's start by identifying the spell before we go around pointing fingers," he suggested, "and you wanna search through that fish trap? Fine by me, just watch out for any water snakes hiding in there. I'd hate to be given a new partner."

Adalet rolled her eyes at the bad joke. She tipped the fish trap upside down and everything inside the netting fell out onto the ground below. She sorted through everything in the pile and found a strip of pink fabric speckled with blood.

"Sorry Adalet, if you were fishing for compliments, you ain't gonna get none: you picked out the most uninteresting thing in that fish trap . . ." Frank snickered as she held up the necklace.

Adalet smirks, "oh, did I? This looks just like the necklace Vanessa used to always wear . . ."

"You think this is the necklace our victim used to wear, Adalet? Alright, I guess it's not such a bad find after all!" he chuckled.

She looked at the pink fabric, "we should collect some of that blood."

Adalet swabbed the bloodstains on the necklace and got a good-sized sample. She smeared it onto a micro slide to send over to the lab for analyses.

"Frank, send my sample to the lab!" Adalet says dramatically holding out the slide sandwich.

"You want to send this blood you collected from the victim's necklace over to the lab, Adalet?" Frank said taking the sample, "that means less work for us, so I'm all for it!"

Once the blood sample was out of her hands, Adalet picked up the trophy mount and her powder kit. After dipping the ends of her brush in the black dust, she brushed it across the plaque to recover the missing message.

"Hm, not bad I guess," Frank snorted, "so you managed to recover that message on the trophy mount, Adalet."

"It reads: Don't you get it, Vanessa?? You're the prey!" And it's signed Betty-Lou!" Adalet read off to him.

He scratched the back of his head, "I'm kind of relieved she's mean to everybody, not just to me."

"Don't forget the head," she reminded.

"You're right Adalet, just previously a head turned up in Betty-Lou's bar . . ." he recalled, "and now it sounds like Betty-Lou's threatening to stick Vanessa's head on a trophy mount! I agree, we need to talk to her!"

Setting the trophy mount aside Adalet picked up the photo of the victim. She used her tablet to search up the images in the database and found a name for the spell and who it belonged to.

"You've become pretty knowledgeable in all things voodoo, Adalet!" Frank comments, "so you identified this spell cast on Vanessa's photo?"

"We've actually seen this voodoo signature before," Adalet tells him, "and it belongs to none other than Erikah Mabayo!"

"Ugh, why am I not surprised?" he groans, "you know, for someone who works in the shadows, Erikah ain't very good at staying in them! But then again, I ain't complaining . . ."

"But it seems this was a protection spell . . ." she skimmed the spell's description, "what was Erikah trying to protect Vanessa from?"

"Let's just go see this sorceress and ask her directly!" he responds.

After dropping the blood sample of at the station, Adalet and frank drove out to the Mad Cow. they entered the grimy bar and looked around the mostly empty room for the owner. Betty-Lou was behind the bar as always wiping down the glasses from the day shift.

"Betty-Lou, Capt. Adalet found the threat you so sweetly carved out for Vanessa, stating that she was the prey. What did you mean by that?" Frank asks for his partner.

"It wasn't a threat, it's just the way I talk," Betty-Lou replied, "I wanted her to leave the bayou for good, is all before something bad happened to her."

"It still sounds like a threat, Betty-Lou! Were you mad at Vanessa because you discovered she was a prostitute?" Adalet asked.

She scoffs, "what do I care what she did? She was a pretty one alright, and dolls like her just end up getting ruined in the bayou. I didn't envy her for that."

"Pretty dolls like her"?" Frank frowned, "that's a poor choice of words, Betty-Lou! You know Vanessa's killer turned her into a human voodoo doll?!"

"Heck, don't look at me!" Betty-Lou yelled back, "if I was gonna kill someone, I'd just blast them with my shotgun and feed 'em to the gators. Quick and easy. Just ask my ex-husband!"

Adalet and Frank decided to end the conversation and leave the bar. Well, Adalet did, she had to drag Frank out of the bar before he could drink it dry! They left the Mad Cow and headed into the heart of the forest to talk to Erikah about her spell on the victim's photo.

"Erikah," Frank greeted the voodoo priestess, "Capt. Adalet discovered that you placed a protection spell on Vanessa Kimmel. And sorry to break it to you, but the spell didn't work."

"How dare you question my powers, you mere mortal! My spells always work!" Erikah spat.

"Well, she's been murdered . . ." Adalet argued, "so no, they don't really work."

"That protection spell was to help Vanessa! She was scared of something so I used my magic and begged her to go talk to you immediately!" Erikah explains, "but it seems that I failed her. I will try and speak to her spirit in the shadow world and ask for forgiveness . . ."

"Yeah yeah," Frank rolls his eyes, "why don't you just save us some time and ask Vanessa who killed her, would ya?"

"That's quite a body you sent over, Adalet: a human-made to look like a voodoo doll, that's pretty cool!" Roxie remarks as she slid Vanessa's body into storage.

"I think the victim would disagree, Roxie," Frank snorted.

"Well, she's got her lips sewn shut so she can't say much anyway. And the freaky thing is, her eyes are missing underneath those buttons!" she says closing the door.

"Ah great," he grunted sarcastically, "we're obviously dealing with a complete psycho here!"

"All I can tell you for now is that she was strangled to death . . ." she gave a one-shoulder shrug, "and I'm guessing the killer used the tools they had at hand for the stitching because it was done with a fishhook and fishing line!"

"So that means our killer fishes!" Adalet deduced.

"Huh," Frank said, "it's meant to be a calming activity, not a "let's go and rip some poor girl's eyes out" kind of thing."

They left Roxie alone with the bodies in her morgue and headed out to find Yann.

"I analyzed the blood you found on the victim's necklace, Adalet . . ." Yann tells her as they entered the lab, ". . . and it's a mix of your victim's blood . . . and chilli powder!"

"Oh!" Adalet hummed, "someone likes spicy food!"

"As the chilli powder was on the blood and not in her bloodstream, it obviously means it got deposited on the necklace after the murder by your killer!" he continued grabbing his coffee mug, "and thanks to this, I can tell you that your killer enjoys spicy food!"

"Ha-ha, it sounds like you're reading from the killer's online dating profile, Yann: enjoys spicy food, long walks on the beach and watching sunsets . . ." Frank laughed at his joke.

Adalet narrowed her eyes, "Frank, I think you're missing the point!"

He sweats profusely as he jumped to a salute, "you're right Adalet, I should be grateful now that we're one step closer to catching our chilli-loving killer!"

They left the forensics lab and headed into the tech lab to visit Hannah and the document.

"I looked into that document you found, Adalet. I had Russell check out the handwriting, and he's positive it belonged to your victim," Hannah informed.

"Hm," Adalet hums, "first Vanessa starts investigating the disappearance of these girls . . . and then she turns up dead! Could you or Russell find anything out about it?"

"For one, they all went missing in the bayou over the years. And get this: they all died at the age of 24, just like your victim!" she explained, "and the similarities don't end there: all these girls were prostitutes. Again, just like your victim!"

"What do you think, Adalet?" Frank wonders, "are all these cases linked . . . and does that mean we're dealing with a serial killer?!"

"That's a difficult one to answer because the cop investigating these girls, Harvey Fitchner, never solved the case," Hannah says pointing to the man's picture on her monitor.

"Harvey was leading the investigation?!" he gasped, "I didn't expect to talk to that old wreck again so soon, but you're right Adalet, we need to see him."

"Heya Harvey," Frank smiled at his old partner, "Adalet is looking into a murder which has similarities to those missing girls you were investigating. What can you tell us about it?"

"Go away, the lot of 'ya," Harvey orders swinging his rum bottle, "I don't wanna talk about that blasted case!"

"Come on, Harvey," Adalet pleads, "lives are at risk here! There's a serial killer on the loose!"

"That case haunts me day and night, alright? It was my first assignment on reaching the bayou," he chugged back some of the liquor, "I tried my best, but my best wasn't enough and the case was never solved.

"So you turned to drinking instead?!" Frank shouted.

"You'd do the same, Frank!" Harvey shot back, "I know you too well. What happened to the girls was a nightmare . . . and the drink keeps those memories at bay! Now leave me alone!"

Adalet quickly grabbed Frank's arm and dragged him away before he could do something he would regret later.

"Huh, now I kind of understand why Harvey drinks so much, Adalet," Frank mumbles under his breath, "I suddenly feel bad for the poor guy . . ."

"But just think, Frank," Adalet smiled, "there's a good chance that catching this serial killer might help Harvey put a few demons to rest. At least I hope so . . ."

"Adalet, if we've got a serial killer on our hands, things are going to get a whole lot more complicated around here!" Andrea sighed as she paced the floor, "this investigation has already destroyed one of my officers' lives, and I don't want the same thing happening to you, so be careful. And Frank, given that Harvey is now a suspect, it would be best if you were taken off this case."

"Phew, that's kind of a relief, Chief," Frank admitted, "I don't know if I could investigate my old mentor for murder. And don't worry Adalet, I know you'll ace it!"

Once Frank had exited the office, Andrea turned back to her captain.

"Adalet, I'll have Amy come round and I'll let you brief her," she says as the blonde approached the office, "this is going to be her first big case, so I'm happy she gets to do it with you."

"Reporting for duty, Capt. Adalet," Amy salutes, "and ready to catch this serial killer! So what have you got so far?"

"Well, Betty-Lou sent Vanessa a death threat, but insisted it was actually just a friendly note to tell her to leave the bayou," Adalet started.

She blinked, "okay then . . ."

"And Erikah Mabayo wanted to protect the victim . . ." she added as they left the Chief's office, "yet the style of murder strongly suggests the killer dabbles in voodoo."

"That's interesting . . ." she says as she wrote it all down into her notebook.

"Hey Adalet, you've got to listen to this! I pinpointed the locations where those girls went missing and triangulated the coordinates," Hannah rambled as she pulled up a map on her tablet, "it led me to a colonial mansion, buried deep in the swamp. What's weird is that for such a secluded place, a lot of young attractive women seem to gather there."

"Really?" Adalet questions.

"Adalet, you previously discovered Vanessa was featured in a book about prostitutes, right?" a nod of confirmation, "well, I think we've just found the brothel she worked at!"

"Wow, a voodoo murder, a serial killer and now a hidden brothel!" Amy remarked, "we need to check it out asap!"

"Oh no, Adalet." Amy cried, "we've finally found the brothel Vanessa worked at . . . But it's on fire!"

"The killer must have known we were coming," Adalet shielded her eyes from the intense light, "I mean they burnt down this brothel before we could even get here!"

"But this proves Hannah was right: Vanessa and those missing girls worked in this brothel!" she says happily.

"Amy, we have a fire on our hands!" she reminds.

"Ahem, you're right," she coughed, "I better stop talking before the fire destroys everything! Are you ready to brave the flames, Adalet?"

She pulled up her hijab to cover her mouth, "call the fire department, I'm going in!"

Adalet held her hijab over her mouth and nose with one hand as she rushed inside the burning building. The heat of the flames hit her in full force and she looked around quickly for anything she could salvage. She pulled a glass tip jar off of a bookshelf, a broken painting that had fallen off the wall, and an ultrasound image off a table.

She ran out of the brothel and could hear the sound of fire trucks in the distance drawing nearer. Amy took the items for her and checked to make sure Adalet wasn't on fire.