The three cops all turned pale. Payne was already pale, so her face almost matched her shirt, or the streak in her hair.
"Sold? Mrs. Carter, please calm down! Who sold you your daughter's heart? Where is it?" Jones asked as the mourning mother wiped her tears away.
"And when?" Payne finished.
"It was this morning. I was already wearing these clothes. Such dark colours. It's like I knew deep down that something terrible had happened and so I dressed in mourning clothes. I went shopping not long before Officer Ramirez told me about Jenny. It was just the groceries, so I bought meat..."
Vanessa took a shuddering breath and continued, "When I looked at what I bought a short while ago... There was a heart, and I never picked it up! I never buy hearts, and that's when I remembered the Officer Ramirez telling me that my baby girl didn't have her heart. I don't need to be a genius to realise it: they sold me my daughter's heart... SO I WOULD EAT IT!"
"Mrs. Carter, are those groceries still in your home? Detective Payne and I can look!" Jones reassured the woman.
"Ramirez, please monitor Mrs Carter. She's under a lot of stress because of the killer's sick actions," Payne ordered the officer while leading the older woman to a sofa.
"My older daughter Anna and my husband Jim are still inside. They haven't looked at... at... They'll let you in the house. Thank you..." Vanessa hiccupped again as more tears streamed down her face. Ramirez quickly searched for tissues as the detectives shared a determined look and headed for the house on Pearl Avenue.
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Anna let the pair in, looking as if she hadn't fully processed the fact that her sister's heart was in the kitchen. The girl did heavily resemble her late younger sister, except she was rounder and wore glasses. Her hair was brown and her eyes were blue. Anna wore a green cardigan and white t-shirt along with a black pleated skirt and black shoes. Jim was sitting on the sofa, staring blankly at the television. The man had receding brown hair and green eyes. He was wearing a pair of blue pyjamas underneath a black fluffy dressing gown.
"I hope dad's well enough for the trial," the young woman said, "He wants to stare the killer in the face. He wants to know why someone would do this to Jenny. But his lungs... They're not doing too good."
"Detectives, please hurry. I can't bear to imagine that my daughter's heart... Isn't with the rest of her," the man coughed.
The pair nodded and hurried into the kitchen, though they were hurrying to escape the house, which had the smell of smoke everywhere.
"Ok, a grocery bag! Where is-" Jones stopped himself, watching Polaris sniff a grocery bag that was on the floor and back away, "Ok... You look in there, Payne. I think I saw something interesting... Over here..."
Jones stepped away from the woman and dog, bracing himself.
"Good boy, Polaris," Payne gave the dog a treat and put on a pair of gloves, "Come on, give me a bloody heart...!"
She rifled through the bag for a moment and then pulled it out. The organ, about the size of her fist, sat in a plastic container. Payne frowned while her partner looked like he was going to lose his cookies again.
"Oh God, is that...?! Let's get it Grace quickly before I throw up again!" the shorter detective cringed, while throwing an evidence bag at the younger detective.
"If this is Jennifer's, then this is probably high on the list of 'Fucked up cases that I've been involved in'."
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YOU ARE READING
A Bloody Grim Payne
Hayran Kurgu[Discontinued, sorry.] Nicola Payne has been a homicide detective for years, finding bodies, finding killers, looking for her own answers to decade-long questions. The trail has led her to a city called Grimsborough, which is nothing like her previo...
