Overkill

Three

It was the end of a long day, after visiting both crime scenes, Mark and Sarah moved their investigation to an adjacent building strictly for special crimes unit. Detective Grey, Jackson's working detective stated he wanted the police department and special crimes unit close by but separated, if possible. He was unaware the CIU would be called in, so he never had the evidence moved over. Mark and Sarah didn't care where they worked, they just wanted to get their nose into the files and learn all of the facts and information they could.

They spent hours poring over the evidence boxes, photographs of the bodies and crime scenes, and reading the reports and notes in each file.

"Finding anything that can link the two?" Mark asked.

Sarah looked up with wide eyes, shocked to hear the question. "You're kidding, right? Everything about these two cases scream it's the same perp." She stood and walked around the table to where he was sitting, setting pictures in front of him from both cases, she began pointing, "Look at these, tell me which case these go to."

Mark seemed to get nervous with the sudden closeness between the two. He glanced over the photos, studying each of the details, wounds, and restraints. After a few minutes, he shook his head and shrugged, "They look the same to me, if I didn't know this was two different victims, I'd think these were pictures from the same body."

Sarah nodded with a smile, "Right, and for some reason these Jackson cops are too thick headed to put this together," she grabbed the photos, walked back to her seat, and began putting them in their respective files.

"Or," Mark started, causing Sarah to glance up, "They just don't care," he shrugged.

Eyebrows raised in surprise, "You thinking it's a cover up?"

"No. I'm thinking this is Jackson and there is so much crime in this area that the police just stopped caring."

Sarah's lips slowly formed into a frown as her eyes softened with sudden sadness. "You're telling me people are dying and they aren't working to find out how or why? Or who's killing them?"

Mark shared her sad expression and shrugged, "Now do you understand why Chief didn't want you here alone?"

"Scott just likes making my life hell," she waved him off dismissively as she rolled her eyes.

"No, he'd have done this with any of our agents. He wants everyone to be as safe as possible, in the field or not."

She didn't know what to say. She didn't want to say the wrong thing and make her feelings obvious, but she also didn't want to seem careless. So, she just smiled.

"Listen, it's no secret that the two of you have a past, whether that is work history or something else, it's evident he cares about you. All of the agents saw it back at the office your first day here, but this isn't a thing he's doing just to annoy or 'make your life hell', as you put it. He would be like this with any of our agents coming out this way. There's a reason he doesn't send us to this area."

Narrowing her eyes before raising an eyebrow out of annoyance, she crossed her arms, "Him not sending you guys here is most likely the reason I was sent here." she deadpanned.

He was quiet, didn't respond to her statement simply because he wasn't sure what to say. He just looked at her, seemingly studying her before he gave a curt nod and looked back over the case files. She stared at him for a moment longer and did the same, opening another file and began studying its contents.

"It's just," looking back up at Sarah, "I gotta know," he spoke suddenly, "Is there anything between the two of you?"

Sarah's brows pulled in as she straightened her back, "What gave you that impression?" she asked, maybe a little too quickly. She began tapping then pen she was using to take notes on the table.