Sirens ~Nika Mühl

Chapter 6

Sweat dripped down Cue's forehead and into her right eye as she relentlessly pummeled the heavy bag in front of her. Sharp, quick breaths of air left her lungs every time her fists struck their soft target. She couldn't stop, it's as if every hit to the bag gave her the oxygen needed to breathe. It was almost as addicting as cigarettes.

She needed a way to work her frustrations out, something she hadn't done in a long, long time. So here she was at six in the morning at the local gym beating the absolute shit out of a punching bag.

Zeke who was pressing his weight against the punching bag so that it would not swing every time Cue landed a hit, looked uneasy. The concern in his green eyes was starting to seriously piss Cue off. She hated when people looked at her as if she were some delicate, easily breakable object, it was one of her biggest pet peeves.

She threw one final punch at the bag, Zeke groaned softly at the impact of it. Cue glared at her best friend, "Why the fuck are you looking at me like a I'm a kicked puppy?"

Cue stormed away from the bag and sat down on a nearby bench, using a towel to wipe the excess sweat off of her. She put it over her shoulder and began taking off the tape around her fists, she felt accomplished when she saw small amounts of blood oozing from her knuckles.

Zeke sat next her, he ran his ran over his buzzed head, sighing as he did. "I'm just worried about you Jonesy."

His concern was valid, Cue had been acting erratically the past few days. Her only focus was finding the serial killer, who now had a nickname 'The Husky Slasher' given to them by the media. Cue felt as if the walls were closing in on her, especially after the third body was found. She now had everyone breathing down her neck and putting immense amounts of pressure on her.

"I'm fine Zeke," she mumbled. The stuffy gym was starting to feel claustrophobic.

Zeke glanced at her, disbelief written all over his features. "Okay Cue, if you say so." He got up, patting her bare shoulder as he did. "Come on we got a lot of shit to do today." While Zeke wasn't a detective like Cue was, she requested that he be assigned to work under her on this case, making them somewhat partners again.

The shit they had to included going through all of the CCTV footage from all the days the bodies had been found as well as interviewing almost everyone who lives in Nika's apartment building. The last thing on their to do list was the main reason Cue even got out of bed this morning.

UConn women's basketball had their first exhibition game today in Gampel Pavillion against a small division two school from New Haven. As a precaution Cue and Zeke were going to meet with the team before the game and stay there to ensure nothing suspicious went on and that the team was safe.

After a quick trip home, Cue was back at the station with Zeke, both sets of eyes carefully trained on the laptop in front of them. They had to meticulously comb through every single frame to guarantee that nothing was amiss.

As they looked through the frames, Cue started to notice small inconsistencies. She sat up in her chair and took the cigarette out of her mouth. She technically wasn't supposed to smoke in the station, but no one cared enough to reprimand her.

"Zeke rewind that clip," She nudged Zeke, who was zoned out, mindlessly clicking through the footage.

"Huh?" Zeke questioned, clearly not registering what Cue asked him to do.

Cue rolled her eyes and snatched the laptop from him. She carefully rewatched the clips, paying extra attention to the time stamps.

Her eyes widened as she realized someone was editing and stealing parts of the CCTV footage to cover their tracks.