It had been two days since discovering the mangled corpse in an abandoned warehouse near Cherry Beach, which led Kira down the rabbit hole of Reddit involving the Ghost Woman.
And boy lordy… there was a lot.
Like a lot.
She honestly didn’t know where to even start. Given how the men were killed, several people on the police force speculate that it is indeed a potential serial killer. Some even speculated that one might have been Cadavre Exquis, but that idea was tossed out since it was well-known that that particular serial killer never copies anyone. The body was smashed to hell and back but was never missing anything, aside from some teeth or nails from the torture.
Their eyes weren’t even taken. They had been gouged and crushed.
On top of that, Cathryn Davenport was currently on her way for questioning while the police currently searched the Davenport household. Now, Kira was in the process of doing paperwork for the recent mangled body that was found while waiting for Cathryn to arrive to be interrogated. She also was waiting to speak with the kids who discovered the body.
Kira couldn’t understand why kids would be so interested in exploring abandoned places. Didn’t they know how dangerous it was? Did they even care for their safety?
Just what was the appeal of such things? Still, they found a body. Some may or may not see that as a stroke of luck.
The body itself was of little surprise to Kira, like the others she had heard about in the form of the Ghost Woman. The body was of a man named Thomas Gram, a man with charges of sexual assault on both his partner and his partner’s child, a little girl, the bastard. From the examination, Thomas has his legs, feet and pelvis broken, genitalia smashed, and hands mangled beyond recognition. His eyes were covered in duck tape so that they couldn’t see a thing as he was being tortured.
God, I’m so fucking tired. She thought with a tired breath, she had been through three cups of coffee already, but it hadn’t managed to take the edge off. This exhaustion, mixed with her growing agitation about the current pileup of cases, made her mind murky with fatigue.
“Detective?” a police officer drew her attention. “The children and their parents are here about the body that was found in the warehouse.”
“Alright, thank you, officer.”
She and Fredrick then began to question the five youths, two girls and three boys, all of which seemed to just get into exploration because of interest in what they could see of the past that was slowly falling to ruin. Though one, the last of the five they spoke to, seemed slightly different from the others.
Morrigan Wolf. A seventeen-year-old Caucasian with white skin, striking blue eyes and brown hair that grew past her shoulders, the girl had a relatively thin build but looked somewhat top-heavy, even though she was only five foot two. Though she didn’t seem to be self-conscious about her abundance of where her genetics caused the most or minor changes given, she wore a red tank top that showed her cleavage and a long flowing tan and black skirt and black sandals.
She was the one that Kira was interested in the most, given what the officer told her when they inspected the body.
What interested Kira the most was that Morrigan wasn’t from Toronto but Oakville, the town adjacent to the city, so a teen who wasn’t even local left a few questions in Kira’s mind.
“I’m sorry to have you come down here,” Kira told Morrigan and of her mother, a tall blonde woman who looked a bit older than the average parent and dressed in a suit as her blue eyes looked at both detectives with stern wariness as her face remained impassive. “I hope it wasn’t a long drive.”
“We have plans in Toronto,” the mother said. “So, it’s fine, but why did you wish to speak to my daughter again? The police already questioned her along with the others when they found the body.”
“I know, but since the department has been stretched thin, we’ve been asked to take over this case, at least for the time being,” Freddie said before looking at the girl. “Morrigan, that’s a rather different name. It’s pretty.”
“Thanks,” Morrigan responded.
“Do you mind if I ask where that name comes from?”
Morrigan looked to her mother, who shrugged. The question was innocent enough. “My name means Great Queen in Irish, my parents named me that because we were born three months premature, doctors didn’t think I’d make it, but I came out with my eyes open. Scared a doctor, so that’s my claim to fame for my start on this earth.”
“She’s always been a fighter right from the start,” her mother added.
That brought Freddie to ask. “What did you mean by “we”? You have a sibling?”
“I have brothers. We’re the same age, all be it a minute and two apart.” When she said nothing else, Freddie frowned, as did Kira trying to get what the girl just said.
“So, you’re a… twin?”
“A triplet,” Morrigan clarified. “I’m the youngest out of the three.”
“Oh. Still, that’s pretty impressive. Do you and your brothers look at all alike?”
“We’re fraternal, so we don’t look identical if that’s what you mean, but people often confuse my brothers, thinking they’re identical twins and I’m just their little or big sister even though they look nothing alike. Besides, I’m used to people messing that up all the time, that and other things.”
“Like exploring abandoned places, you shouldn’t be in and finding a dead body being one of those other things?” Kira asked.
Morrigan’s striking blue eyes shot to Kira. “You do know that land you’re talking about is in limbo, right? Not owned by anyone, there is nothing illegal in what I’m doing, I don’t take anything; I just record what I see.”
“But you must have at some point, I mean, you’re a kid, and it’s an abandoned building, who’s going to know, right?”
“Song,” Freddie spoke with a harsh warning tone.
“Excuse me,” Morrigan’s mother glared at Kira. “I thought you were going to be asking her about what she saw and or found, not interrogate my daughter about what she does as a hobby.”
“It’s a strange one,” Kira said. “You let your kid explore abandoned places, and for what? It’s not like she gets anything from it like a regular hobby.”
The kid scoffed. “Oh, and what’s next? Are you going to say that anime and video games are weird for girls to have as hobbies? I came down here willingly, detectives. Nothing is stopping me from getting up and leaving. I hope you’re aware of that, so instead of insinuating something you know nothing about in my personal life, ask me a question about what I saw, or we’re done because I don’t want to waste your time or mine and my mother’s.”
Kira clenched her teeth to keep herself from lashing out. What the hell was she doing? “I’m… sorry.” She took a breath before standing. “Louds, I’ll be back.” She then left the room and headed down the hall to lean against the wall. “Fuck…” She then opened her eyes to see Fredrick come out shortly after and make a beeline for her.
“The hell was that Song?”
“Me being a total dumbass,” she said in a flat tone of voice before letting out a sigh. “I know I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You think? What that young lady does for the hell of it, as long as it’s not illegal, is none of our damn business. Especially if it’s just to break the ice to get them relaxed to talk more openly, you know this.” He then looked at her hard. “When was the last time you slept? And I don’t mean a cat nap. I mean a solid eight hours of sleep.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Probably the night before we got the call about the Karen inside a tree that was in a burning house.”
His eyes went wide at her statement. “Kira, that was almost three weeks ago. Jesus woman! That can kill you.”
Kira didn’t say anything about it. “Please don’t tell the boss, let me just…” she took a breath. “Let me go and apologies and continue with Miss Wolf, then with Mrs. Davenport when she arrives. Then I’ll go home and sleep.”
Freddie eyed her again. He always had that kind of stare, the “Dad Stare” at least that’s what Kira called it, whenever Fredrick would look at her to see if she meant it or not.
He pointed at her. “You better, you don’t, I’m telling our boss. It’s not to bring you down because of your work but for your physical health. You know better than I do that if your mother saw you right now, you’d be screwed.”
She rubbed the crease between her brows with her index and middle fingers from her right hand. “Don’t remind me,” then, with a reluctant breath, she headed back to the room. “Okay, let’s make me less of a dick to this kid, or at least try.” When she opened the door, she saw that Morrigan was speaking with her mother, and she had her laptop on the table but chose to ignore it for the moment. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier, about your hobby. That was wrong of me.”
“Given that your partner mentioned you’ve been stretched thin these past few cases. That, and the bags under your eyes, I kind of figured. Not that I’m any better…”
When Kira frowned, Morrigan’s mother clarified. “Her father, my husband, suffered a stroke a little while ago. He’s in a coma. No one’s sure if he’ll wake up. We’re going to go visit him today.”
“And sue the shit out of the other hospital that allowed it to happen. Because of their negligence, my Dad could have died. He still could.”
“Possibly sue. What the hospital did in our town was negligible, so we’ll be looking into it.” Her mother ran a hand through her daughter’s hair. “Could we finish this up, detective? I’d like for us to go see my husband.”
“Sure,” Kira sat back down across from them. “But what’s with the laptop?”
“For this,” Morrigan turned the screen to face the detectives. “It’s the video I had been recording exploring the building.”
“We already have the recording,” Freddie said. The video of the kids exploring and discovering the body like they said they had, with the end being that the man who was tortured asking for help in his final breath before dying. Freaking the teens out and panicking about what to do where Morrigan called the police, what the kid said next made Kira a bit concerned.
“No, you only have one. From Henry? Henry Townshend, the police said that they didn’t need the rest because we were all together, but after the police let us go, I asked them to send me their files, the backups they had because something about it was bugging me.”
“You had backups?” Kira asked, a bit skeptical.
“Of course, we do,” Morrigan said. “We explore abandoned places. You never know what you’re going to see or hear. And because of that, I caught this.” She hit play.
The video then showed part of the warehouse, and then they heard a sound followed by Morrigan saying. “What was that?” then the sound came again as Morrigan ducked down. “Shit… that doesn’t sound good. Whatever that is, it sounds like a person.” Only for then to be of someone running off as the sound stopped. Morrigan turned, seeing a young man and called out to him in a whispered shout. “Jacob! Jacob, where’s Henry?”
He responded in a whisper as he crept closer, muffling his footsteps as best as he could with what he was carrying. “He’s in another room. What’s going on?”
“I heard something; I think someone might be hurt. Is Iris with you?”
“She’s with Henry and Tom.”
“Fuck,” she pulled out her phone. “I’m calling the police.” Which she proceeds to do with her free hand as Jacob heads with caution into the blacked-out room. “Jacob, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to see what it is. You said someone might be hurt. It could be a homeless guy. Some dick could have decided to hurt someone for shits and giggles again.”
“Yeah, but…” then a scream from two people. “Shit, that’s Iris and Henry!”
“Come on!” then two rushed off, the sounds of their feet hitting hard on concrete before coming to an abrupt stop. Where the victim of the attack was still in the chair, bleeding profusely and alive. “What the hell?”
“We just found him like this,” the youth named Henry said. “At first, we thought it was a prop, but then he groaned and…”
“Henry! Henry! He’s not breathing!” another girl cried. “What do we do? What do we do? I don’t know CPR. Does anyone?”
The one named Tom responded with. “No, fuck…”
Henry shook his head.
Jacob moved closer as if intending to do so but stopped. “I… think he’s gone guys… his heart’s not beating…”
“911, what is your emergency?” a woman’s voice from Morrigan’s phone could be heard before she then stopped the recording.
“The biggest regret wasn’t trying CPR on him, at least. The officers told us it probably wouldn’t have done any good. Still, it’s not something that can just go away.”
“Even if you had, it wouldn’t have helped,” Kira told her. The victims’ internal organs were damaged. One of his ribs punctured a lung and filled with blood. But she wasn’t about to tell all that to a kid. “I’m sorry.”
Morrigan’s mother drew her into her side. “It wasn’t your fault, sweetie,”
But the expression on the girl didn’t show that. She must have blamed herself. All those kids had for not trying something. Kira hoped that it wouldn’t destroy the friend group.
“Anyway, you saw mine and heard something. In Jacob’s, you can see someone, though it’s tough to make out who it is given how dark it is.” she then turned the screen back to her and scrolled through before showing it back to the two detectives. It was the image of a person, but it was hard to make out. Then she turned it away again and brought up another video. “This was Iris’s video. In the beginning, her video caught something none of us had. She turned the screen back and pressed play.
“Hello, my beautiful viewers! It’s been a bit, but I, as well as some friends, are back with another video! At this old warehouse, it used to store ice cream, given that we’re near the peer, by the lake, it kind of makes sense!”
Morrigan stopped the video. “We came in a van, but the car that’s a bit away, wasn’t there when you arrived. And then finally, with Henry’s video, you got this.” She pressed play.
“Wo…man… he…lp…me…” the man gasped out. “Wo…man…” before he stopped, and nothing was heard before Jacob and Morrigan got close as the teens began to panic before she ended the video.
“If you have a USB, I can give you all the files that we have, not just Henry’s.”
“Freddie,”
“Yeah, I got it, be back in a second.” He then whispered to Kira. “Play nice.”
“May I take a look?” Kira asked when Freddie left; Morrigan pushed the laptop to her. As her frown returned in full force, what the hell was the Department doing, thinking only one video was enough? They should have gotten all of them. Still, this was very troubling. She understood the difficulties of being understaffed, but this was bloody ridiculous.
“I’m the only one with the files. The others pretty much wanted to forget what happened, not that I blame them, and plan to get a boatload of therapy to help as well.”
“Why didn’t they mention it when we talked with them?” Kira asked.
“Probably because they assumed you’d ask me when I brought it up. As I said, they deleted the files and completely scrubbed their hard drives of it. They want nothing to do with what happened. But even though I’ve been getting asked by people online, apparently one of your’s own leaked info that we were the ones who found the body and harass us nonstop. Though a friend of mine is making sure they can’t trace me and come to my home. Same with the others.”
“Which is also something I wanted to discuss,” Morrigan’s mother added. “I wanted to know what you plan to do with the officer who so carelessly did this. Their actions can have physical and legal repercussions. This officer endangered my daughter as well as her friends. If something isn’t done, then I will be requesting an investigation on both of your departments.”
“Are you a lawyer?” Kira asked the woman.
“I work for Labour Relations. However, given my job, I do have connections with several law firms.”
That made this even worse.
After a moment, she made a note and told them that they would look into this issue and bring it up with the higher-ups. Kira had a feeling she knew where the leak came from but would have to deal with it later, and she also wanted to be sure that she got everything about this from them.
“It’s fine. A friend plans to put that guy and the person who posted the article about us on blast. I get that people have to do what they need to for a paycheck, I’m not stupid, but this kind of thing was scummy.”
That brought Kira to pause. “Your friend?”
“Yeah, a friend of mine, we chat online pretty consistently. I mentioned what happened, and instead of like so many others asking me about the body, and what I saw, they asked if I was okay. Which kind of surprised me.”
“Why is that?”
She let out a breath. “Because this is someone who has been investigating the Ghost Woman. They aren’t a cop, but they’ve been looking into it for a while.”
This again brought Kira to pause. This was sounding way too familiar.
“Are you talking about the Reddit Forum?”
“Yeah, I mentioned this to my friend in a private chat, that I’d probably have to tell you about it, because, well, it kind of connects to the fact that my friends and I found a body and that it was similar in the same way that this Ghost Woman kills people?”
“We both talked about it,” her mother continued. “We agreed that it was something you should at least be aware of, given what’s happened.”
“You know what they’re talking about, Song?” Freddie asked.
“Yeah, I do.” She then looked back to Morrigan. “What’s your friend’s name?”
“I don’t know their actual name, just their username. Mainly because they’re a private person and rather keep it that way, so I don’t push.” She paused when opening her laptop before frowning and closing it. “On second thought, I should probably check with them if it’s okay to show our conversation. Mentioning them was fine, but I’m not sure about showing our chat log. Please don’t take it the wrong way. There are some things I’d rather not bring up, some personal stuff. I know it makes me look kind of sketchy, but I’d rather keep some aspects of my life not out in the open.”
“It’s fine,” Kira said. “We can talk about that later, but just answer me this. What’s your friend’s username? what do they go by?”
And without missing a beat, Morrigan said. “They go by F8.”