Where In The World Are The Killers?

A Team in Mourning

With Ingrid...

She had been with the Bureau for years, she was the member with the most seniority seconded only to Chief Ripley. Though Ingrid supposed, with Elizebeth gone she was now the oldest Bureau member. The older woman had given her an opportunity no one else would give her, Ingrid devoted herself to the Bureau and she failed to protect her Chief.

Ingrid looks over at the empty desk on the other half of the room. She had grown used to sharing an office with her boss, exchanging small talk throughout the day and getting to know each other beyond their work. Her Chief was someone Ingrid could confine in and now... Elizabeth was gone.

People always said Ingrid was coldhearted, the Ice Queen, she would hear other Bureau personnel whisper when they thought she couldn't hear them. It... Hurt to hear that. She hadn't always been so cold but no one wanted to try and see past the ice surrounding her heart. But Elizabeth...

Elizabeth slowly chipped away at the ice, taking the time to remind Ingrid that feeling emotions were normal and that she could let people in. So Ingrid did, she let her Chief into her heart and just as Ingrid was beginning to let others in as well, a blow-dart-sized hole developed in her heart after watching Elizabeth die.

Ingrid didn't want to feel that pain again, so up went the walls and the ice around her heart grew thicker and colder. She would lead this team with the grace and confidence Elizabeth had but she would not let anyone else into her heart. She needed to be strong for her team as they searched for the Chief's killer, Ingrid couldn't break no matter how badly she wanted to lock herself away and cry until she had no more tears left.

But she couldn't, not yet, not while they were flying to Morocco chasing after a killer and facing off against the unknown. But seeing the empty desk in her shared office...

'Well,' Ingrid thought as she moved to lock the office doors, 'these walls are soundproof... No one will ever know...'

Returning to her seat, Ingrid removed her headset and placed it on her desk before doing something she swore she'd never do again.

Cry over the loss of someone she loved.

With Jack...

When people first met Jack, they tended to think he was arrogant, vain, and full of himself. They're not wrong but there's more to the young agent than that but a lot of people can't see past that. But Chief Ripley did. She saw a smart young man willing to risk his life to protect others and who never backed down from a challenge.

Jack lay on his bed as he held a framed picture in his hand. It was taken a few years ago on his first day at the Bureau and it showed Chief Ripley presenting him with his new badge. He never thought that an organization like the Bureau would want a detective from LA like him, but life is full of surprises.

He remembers his first day with the Bureau, Chief Ripley had taken him out into the field to show him the ropes. While she had been hoping for it to be a quiet day, they ended up involved in a bank robbery just two hours into the day. Chief Ripley had tackled Jack out of the path of a bullet and got grazed in the process.

Watching his Chief getting patched up later that day by the paramedics, Jack decided right then and there that he wanted to become an agent like her. He wanted to be someone who wasn't afraid of danger and who lived every day like it could be the last...

Thinking about it now, Jack wondered if Ripley had any idea that yesterday was going to be her last day.

Jack couldn't let his Chief become another cold case. Growing up his grandfather had been a detective who solved some of the biggest cases in California's history, but some cases could never be solved. The Jameson kidnapping, the Angel murder, the lottery store robberies... His grandfather taught him how to be a detective but he could never teach his grandson how to deal with a case you couldn't solve.