Echoes of Resilience

16

"Have we checked his visitors list? Whoever smuggled in the phone had to have signed in! It shouldn't be this difficult to figure out." Officer Taylor asked her partner with a groan.

"Only one person has been to visit him and they signed in as Christopher Shepherd, which is a fake name considering that was the name of Derek's father who was murdered when Derek was a child. The jail's security cameras also malfunctioned that day so we can't check the footage either. This was planned and executed brittantly. If we gather some suspects then we can question the guards to see if anyone looks familiar, but until then we have nothing. I think the best course of action is to work backwards and see if any current Seattle Grace employees have a connection to Louisiana, see if we can connect someone to the murder there." Officer Jacobs says while flipping through paperwork.

"Do you realize how many people are employed at Seattle Grace? It'll take far too long to go through everyone's history. We can probably go ahead and rule out any interns as they wouldn't have been there at the time of Rose's murder, but that still leaves far too many people." Officer Taylor gets up and pours her and Jacobs more coffee. "We've been at this for two days straight. We know for a fact that Shepherd was involved in five murders plus Meredith's abduction, we also have reason to believe that he killed two others as well as being involved in the disappearance of Aria Thomas who went missing without a trace fourteen months ago. Her abduction is nearly identical to Meredith's. Every victim was a medical student with the same physical characteristics as Meredith as well. Does he have something against blonde doctors or something? It makes no sense!"

"Each case he follows the same MO. Every single victim was last seen in a bar, they were all raped, beaten, mutilated, strangled, deep ligature marks on the wrists and ankles, and had their necks broken post mortem. Which is what really gets me, they all died from blood loss so why is he breaking their necks?" Officer Jacobs questions as she sips her coffee. "Because Rose's body follows Shepherd's MO and there's only one other body with the second set of DNA we can't establish if the second killer even has an MO to look for more victims. I hate to say it, but we've hit a dead end." She sighs as Officer Taylor nods in agreement.

"Richard, we need to talk about Izzie Stevens! She's brainless, I don't understand how she made it through medical school! She should have stuck to modeling!" Preston Burke exclaims with fire in his eyes.

"Preston you cannot blame Stevens for you losing your patient, you knew they didn't have the best chances and so did they. You did your best, all you can do is move on to the next patient." Richard tries to calm him down, exhaustion dripping into his voice. Preston sighs and nods in agreement.

"You're right, she's just an intern and I'm an attending. It's my job to teach her, not to yell at her for letting a clamp slip. Even if the clamp didn't slip I probably would have had the same outcome. When is Addison supposed to come back? Stevens shines in neonatal, she just doesn't seem to have an interest in cardio and having her on my service when I know that is a disservice to her and anyone who is interested in cardio."

"You mean Yang? She's the only one who has expressed an interest in cardio, you have to give the other interns a chance to explore and see if they like it. It's not typical for interns to declare a specialty this early. As for Addison, I have no clue when she'll be back. I've thought about hiring someone else to take over her service for the time being, but we don't get a lot of cases that can't be handled by just an OB or even peds. If we start getting more cases that require her skill then I'll have to look for someone." Richard explains as Preston paces back and forth.

"Is it fair though to make Yang round on other specialties when she's already set on cardio?"

"Is it fair to take away other interns' opportunities just because they're unsure? We've had this discussion before Preston, it'll be good for Yang to see other cases up close, even if she does go with cardio in the end. We have to provide a well rounded education to all of the interns." Richard declares running out of patience.