Dr. Juniper Rice

Juniper was anxious. Could the unsub really be Xina? And was the name just a coincidence, or was it the Xina she knew?

Juniper didn’t like it. This was way too close to her personal life. And if it really was the Xina, well, Juniper didn’t know if she was going to be able to stop her.

“Well, we do have a Xina.” Milo said. It was midday, and Juniper, Milo, and Corey were eating lunch. Juniper didn’t know where the kids were. “Xina Pike.”

Juniper recognized that name. Xina Pike. She remembered at school when teachers would say, Ms. Pike, would you like to answer this question? And Xina would stop snoring immediately and answer without even looking at the board. Her teachers hated her because of that.

“Where’s her room?” Juniper asked.

Corey looked up from his tomato soup. He seemed to see right through Juniper.

“Uh, it’s room 809.” Milo said. “She’s on a different floor.”

“Duh.” Juniper said, smiling.

Milo scowled.

“I’m going to go and pay Xina Pike a visit.” Juniper said.

“I’ll go with you.” Corey said. He started to stand up.

“Uh, no.” Juniper said. “I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”

“But what if Pike is the unsub?” Corey asked. “What if you get hurt?”

“Oh, excuse me?” Juniper said. “I didn’t hear that correctly. Are you saying that I can’t defend myself?”

“Uh, no, that’s not what I, no - “

Juniper put her hand on Corey’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine.” She said. “If I don’t come back in an hour, then you can be concerned.”

Juniper took a deep breath and knocked on Xina Pike’s door. She rocked her feet back and forth, waiting for the door to open. She was about to knock again when the door cracked open.

“Xina?” Juniper asked. “Hi. It-it’s Juniper.”

Xina opened the door all the way, and Juniper saw her long lost friend. She looked the same from when she had left Detroit all those years ago. She had her jet-black hair in a bob haircut, with bright pink highlights. She wore black T-shirt and grey sweatpants.

Juniper felt herself smile. “Hi.” She said again. “Where have you been all of these years?”

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“Hey.” Xina said.

Juniper noticed that Xina didn’t reply to her question. “Well, can I come in?”

Corey Byrd

“Oh, look.” Juniper said. “I survived.”

Corey sighed. He should have expected this to come up. “Look, I’m sorry, all right?”

“Yeah, I know.” Juniper said. “Don’t worry, I was just joking.”

“And you came back after multiple hours.” Milo added. “It’s 6:00 PM.”

“Ah, let’s just overlook that part.”

“Wait, so can you guys fill us in?” Liberty asked. She and Octavio had just shown up.

“So, we have a Xina on the ship.” Milo said. “Xina Pike.”

“I went to her room and talked to her.” Juniper said. “She didn’t even know about the murders.”

“How’s that possible?” Liberty asked.

“We’ve been pretty strict on not telling a whole lot of people.” Corey said. “She was on floor eight, and floor 11 is pretty much the only floor who knows about it.”

Octavio nodded. “So, she’s not the, uh, you know?” He didn’t say the word unsub or killer because there were a couple of little kids nearby.

“Even if she said she didn’t know, that could be a trick.” Milo said.

Corey looked at Juniper. “Did she seem interested in the case in any way?” He asked. “Did she come back to one topic?”

Juniper shook her head. “No.”

“What were you guys talking about, then?” Octavio asked.

“Uh, we were talking about other stuff.” Juniper said. Corey could tell that something was bothering her. Juniper seemed to notice Corey looking at her. She sent him a silent message. Cut it out.

“Do you know Xina?” Milo asked. Oh, there it is, Corey thought.

Juniper slowly nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

“Then that makes you biased.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Juniper said. Corey coughed into his fist. Juniper glared at him. “Okay, I guess it does, just a tiny bit.”

“And that means that you will not be able to do this at your full, I don’t know, brain strength.” Milo said.

“What?” Juniper asked. “Just saying, my brain strength is much better than yours.”

“Oh, really?” Milo said. “You want to bet on that?”

“Yeah, it’s on.” Juniper said.

“Uh, I think that we’re getting a bit off topic.” Octavio said.

“Yeah.” Corey agreed.

“Fine.” Juniper rolled her eyes.

“I think that we should keep our eyes on Xina.” Milo said. “She screams potential suspect.”

Corey agreed, but he didn’t say so in front of Juniper.

“But, you can’t just say that out of nowhere.” Juniper said.

“It’s not out of nowhere.” Octavio said. “Her name was the anagram.”

“Which wasn’t even her real last name.” Juniper said.

“No matter what, she’s still our prime suspect.” Milo said.

“Our prime suspect from an educated guess.” Juniper said. “Which I made!”

“I’m still going to have our technical analyst run a background check on her.” Milo said. “End of discussion.”

Juniper didn’t say anything, though Corey could tell that she was biting back a retort.

“So, what do we do now?” Liberty asked.

“We don’t know if the unsub is Xina yet, and we need the background check to help us with that.” Corey said. “So, we could wait, or we could look at more possibilities – “

“Which could get us confused.” Milo interrupted. “Or biased.” He looked at Juniper. She glared at Milo.