The Missing Link

014. Hematomystery

Detective Inspector George Ferrer pulled a bundle of photographs from his blue, long-sleeved shirt, the bunch was sealed in cellophane. He laid them out on the table, and Raine and Zane leaned in, taking their usual seats.

The images revealed the victim—the man identified as the suspect in his wife’s murder. One photograph displayed his ID card, retrieved from a black leather wallet. Another, a grainy still from a security camera, captured him mere hours before his death. A third image showed the silencer lying on the floor, discovered during the police search of the house. There was also a picture of their beige-coloured home. The remaining five images detailed the grim specifics of the crime scene.

“Another!” gasped Zane.

“Yes, and like the others, his heart was taken,” replied DI Ferrer.

“Another man, the second since the first, the fifth victim,” Zane added. “What does the killer want with them anyway? What does he do with the victims' hearts?”

“Tell us what you’ve found out, Inspector,” Raine said, her fingers clasped, two index fingers pushed toward each other while the others remained down, directing her hand towards him.

As DI Ferrer spoke, the room shifted in Raine’s mind, transforming into the scene from one of the photographs—the victim’s modest, one-storey home. With each detail the inspector revealed, the atmosphere morphed, as though they were witnessing the events unfold in real time.

In the bedroom one early morning on August 13, the couple clashed, their voices raised in a heated quarrel. “We will never come back here, you demon!” shouted the wife, Andrea Rivera, a large black bag slung over her shoulder.

“I told you I’m not cheating on you!” protested the husband, thirty-five-year-old Salvador ‘Val’ Rivera. “I love you, Andrea! That’s not a lie, and you know it! I would never cheat on you!”

“Then why is there a woman in your bed this morning? Don’t call me a liar!” Andrea shouted. “Why were you sleeping in the same bed in your boss’s guest room?”

As anger surged within him, Val slapped his wife's cheeks, leaving them pink. “You’ve really changed!” she retorted, and at that moment, Val snapped.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, but Andrea, tears streaming down her face, turned and walked away. “Andrea, I didn’t cheat! Don’t you trust me?”

Raine snapped her fingers, and suddenly, the two figures she had conjured paused. “When did this fighting happen? Does it occur often?”

“Neighbours say Mrs. Rivera often stays away from her husband ever since he was promoted from gardener to driver for a wealthy family in the city,” DI Ferrer replied. “The fight I’m referring to was the last one before Mrs. Rivera's friend arrived to check on her, only to find Val inside their house, drinking beer.”

“This woman Mrs. Rivera mentioned—who is she? Have you interviewed her?” Raine asked. “What was her statement?”

“It turns out she was related to one of the women who came to the morgue for the first victim of the serial killer,” DI Ferrer explained. “She stated that both Val and she got drunk at a party hosted by the family he worked for during a debut celebration. They didn’t realize they had slept in the same room but claimed nothing happened. Mrs. Rivera found them asleep in the guest room when she looked for her husband, who hadn’t come home.”

“Now, what is her relationship with the first victim?” Zane inquired. “It was Gabriel Chavez, right?”

“The woman who fell asleep with Val was actually having a secret affair with Mr. Chavez,” the inspector replied.