ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S NOTE: Just thought I'd mention at this point that Det. Kristeva's been (unintentionally) dropping little hints about his personal history throughout the entire story so far, but I don't know if anyone's reading closely enough to notice them, or if anyone's even reading at all, and pointing them out would make a lot of things too obvious.
This part starts to make some things more obvious itself, though.
Nothing's been omitted or cut out yet, BTW, though at some future time I may smuttify the space in between this and the previous part, because that's just what I do.
Kristeva's eye cracked open a sliver and he blinked blearily a few times, finding himself staring at the edge of a pillow. He attempted taking a breath, then grimaced at the sticky feeling pooling around his nose and ended up breathing through his mouth instead. He slowly pushed himself up and pressed his fingers to his nose; they came back wet and red, and he grumbled and swung his legs off the bed, making another face at the sting of pain that shot through him before shakily getting to his feet.
He blinked a few times more--at least it was his own bedroom, even if he didn't clearly remember how he came to be there. A backward glance at the bed showed him the bloodstain on the pillow; he picked it up and took it with him to the bathroom, tossing it in the hamper. He did the same with the washcloth he used to clean off his face, and stood waiting a moment for the nosebleed to stop, though it seemed to have mostly run itself out during his sleep. The dull throbbing behind his eye didn't seem to want to go away any time soon, though.
Scattered memories of the previous night started filtering back then, and he scowled at his haggard reflection in the mirror. For some reason the recollection was like watching a grainy film, something that had happened to someone else, but like the headaches and nosebleeds this was nothing new, and at least in this case, he was grateful for the sense of distance. Though his skin prickled again when he reached the part of the mental film where he was sitting on the edge of a different bed and then felt a hand trail across his back, stopping on his right shoulderblade. His film-image's shoulders hunched, and he glanced over his shoulder, eyes dark.
"Mind getting your hand the fuck off of me?"
Buchanan--lying on the bed behind him--withdrew his hand and held both up in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry...just wondering where you got your tattoo. Looks like the same thing on your necklace."
"In a tattoo parlor." Film-image Kristeva leaned forward to retrieve his clothes, then stood and started putting them on. The necklace in question--a little silver mandala that glinted in the dim light coming from the hallway--swung forward and he had to brush it aside and out of the way as he dressed.
Buchanan was silent for a moment, likely realizing that any attempts at conversation wouldn't go over very well. "You're free to stay a while," he ventured, anyway. "Or to use the shower, at least."
"No thanks." Film-image Kristeva didn't even bother phrasing it to sound like No, thank you. "You'll get the records back in a week," he said instead, and exited the room without another glance.
The mental film cut out around then. Retrieving the file folders, the drive home, getting into bed, all of that was a blank. No loss. Kristeva blinked at himself in the mirror, and his gaze fell on the little silver mandala necklace. He was so used to wearing it all the time that often it went forgotten until somebody pointed it out. He paused, then turned somewhat sideways, and caught a glimpse of his right shoulderblade. The same mandala image was tattooed there. He felt a vague sense of deja vu, a similar occasion years ago, before he'd joined the police force, when he'd come to after a period he no longer remembered and had first looked at the brand-new tattoo on his shoulder, no recollection of how or where or why he'd gotten it. He didn't drink much, wasn't typically prone to blackouts, but had decided not to question it too much. The fact that what had seemed like one missing night had in fact been about two missing weeks was more troubling.
He turned his shoulder away from the mirror and again looked at the necklace. His sister had gotten him that as a gift, after sneaking away one of the multiple doodles he'd made of the design and taking it to a jeweler.* Now that he carried the design around his neck and on his shoulder, he didn't have as much incentive to draw it when his mind was on other things, though there were times when he would've preferred it didn't draw so many questions about its significance. He had no idea what it was about.
He pushed open the glass sliding door of the shower--the urge to wash away the previous night had grown from niggling to overwhelming--then frowned and touched the showerhead as soon as he saw droplets on the walls and water pooled around the drain. Obviously, he'd already been in here, probably as soon as he'd gotten home, but that was yet another scene that was missing from the mental film. This knowledge didn't diminish the urge to clean himself off, however, and he turned on the water, twisting the knob as far to HOT as he possibly could, then stepping in and sliding the door shut behind himself. Steam started pluming around him almost instantly.
He stood for a long while staring at his distorted reflection in the chrome-plated* mount of the showerhead, then shut his eyes and stood for a longer while with the scalding hot water pouring over him. It was a while before he bothered starting to wash himself, though when he did, he scrubbed until his skin was nearly raw, grinding his teeth and fighting the urge to put his fist through the glass door the entire time.
A half hour later, hair still dripping, he spread the folders out on the unused dining room table and looked them over. He suspected he'd already gotten the gist of the Singer case by now. It was just rather strange what lengths the department had gone to to quiet things down. Sure, suspected cult activity always drew mixed reactions from everybody, ranging from delusional belief to outright denial, mostly centering somewhere on the belief that Minot just had more than its share of kooks to deal with. He knew this from experience, what with all the weird looks his own research of the animal killings had drawn. But that was all that most people blamed--kooks, not cults. Still, the presence of an actual cult wouldn't be such a difficult thing to believe, especially if it was merely used as a cover for criminal activity, like this one seemed to have done. So why cover it up?
And why would Singer's disappearance--which was almost certainly connected to this criminal group, and not just to some affair--warrant even further secrecy and not a demand for further investigation?
At this moment his eye fell on one of the other folders he hadn't looked at yet. He hadn't paid the individual folders much attention before now, as they were identical, aside from the sequential numbers following the case number--a part one, a part two, a part three. Only now did he notice that this other folder's case number was significantly different; the first part was the same, but the second part was mismatched, and there was no sequential number following it. In addition, the date was off. It wasn't even the same year as the other folders.
Kristeva's heart did a thud when he realized the significance of the year. He pulled the folder forward, sitting down at the same time, and flipped it open. Here was a page similar to that in the other folder he'd looked through, with start and end dates, case number, and name of the primary investigating officer. Only instead of the expected DET. WESLEY SINGER, this page read, SGT. MARK KINCAID.
Further down the page, in the notes section, was the number of Singer's case, along with the word FOLLOWUP.
There had never been two different cases at all. Sgt. Kincaid had merely been following up on Det. Singer's case--following Singer's disappearance. The undercover work, and the raid, had been focused on the same criminal group. An apparent cult.
And one primary investigating officer was missing, and the other was dead.
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