The Season of Antlers

5

My hand slips off of the steering wheel, and I imagine my ribcage collapsing due to the impact of the oak tree. But my car is not in motion, I am parked in front of a family house with no family. With a sigh I rest my keys in my coat pocket while I step out of my car, observing the well trimmed bushes and freshly mowed lawn of the property. I try to ignore the several cop cars and the ambulance, ready to collect the dead.

I am called to the house like a scavenger is to a corpse, I emotionally find no reason to go, but I am hungry. The front door is already opened, and the clusters of investigators crowd. The living room is the first room of the house, and is the final resting place of this family. Taking a deep breath, I walk onto the carpet of the floor. 

Will Graham stands with his arm's crossed at Jimmy's side, where I have stood for the past two years. Not long, I must admit, but it has become a regular for me. And, I hate change. My finger nails drive into my palm as I approach my unit, though Jack Crawford is no where in sight.

In family photo that I looked over at the office doesn't compare to the row of bodies before me, one is missing. The mother is planted by the younger daughter, with the father at least a foot away from the two, distanced. In between the daughter and father, is supposed to be the older son. Which, has no place in this room.

I walk up to the opposite side of Jimmy of where Will stands, and give a quick smile to Beverley who snaps a quick picture of the mothers stomach puncture wounds. "Was the son's body found separately from the family?" I ask, examining the stress lines on Jimmy's forehead. Usually a couple inches taller than me, I look down on his kneeled form. 

He writes something down on his note pad, and looks up at me. "No, the son was abducted."

The messiness of the crime, how fast it occurred. I see it play out in my head. The daughters throat was neatly slit, while the parents were slaughtered like useless animals. "If you look at the puncture wounds, they're messy. The object that was used hasn't been found yet, right? The eleven year old boy wouldn't know to take the evidence without an influence, the person who took him." My eyes stare hard on the missing piece between the bodies. 

I feel brown eyes on me, watching me think. Say something if you're thinking it, Will. You stand broad in my shoes but lay silent when I approach? If you want to take my place, learn how to talk god dammit!

"Are you saying the son killed his family?" Jimmy tilts his head, running through the possibilities. 

"Yes, I am." I say, holding eye contact with him. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Will Graham open his mouth. "I didn't see it that way before, but now that you say it...all of our current evidence points to it."  He finishes his words with a shrug, and the quick glance to me. 

Feeling an itch in the back of my throat, I raise my elbow up and cough into it while turning away. 

"It's cold season, y/n, you should go home and rest." and of course when I turn back to face my colleagues, it is Will's lips that these words in my ears have come from.