Monstrous

Epilouge

Valentia

I'm sitting on my couch-it's tan, worn cushions are pulling me in comfortably, like a faithful old friend. I need to get rid of this thing, it's too old. Standing up, I pace around and pull my cell phone to my ear once more."Hi, this is Rayne. Leave a message after the tone and I'll call you back later. Bye!" I groaned. BEEP. "Goddamn it, Rayne! Please pick up the phone. It's been forever! I'm worried about you. No one has seen or heard from you. Could you...could you just..." BEEP.

She's been MIA for two weeks. I've called her boss, she hasn't been in work. I've called her best friend, she hasn't seen her. I've called her brother, no answer either. What is going on? I throw my phone onto that stupid couch and press the heels of my palms into my eyes.

I'm about to freak out, but my phone rings. Diving for it, I answer without looking at the screen. "Rayne?" I ask hopefully. "Um, no. It's Gardner. Sorry, Perez."

"Ugh! Whatever. What do you need?"

"Well...I need you to come down to the station when you can. We found something and...well, you're not going to like it."

I laugh dryly, my voice becomes hard as I answer. "Oh great. Just what I need. I'll be there in twenty minutes." With that, I hang up and walk into my bedroom to get changed.

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When I walk into the station, everyone gets quiet. People avoid looking me in the eyes and scurry by. Jesus, I think to myself, what do I have on me? A fuck off sign? Rolling my eyes, I head to my desk, a cold, metal contraption that holds a bunch of nonsense and cases I don't feel like looking into.

Gardner walks over to me from his spot at the coffee machine and lets out a puff of air. "Hey, Perez." I nod my head at him and wait for him to tell me whatever was so important that he had to make me leave my house.

"We got a call about a fire in a storage unit in a shady part of town." I arch my brow and Gardner rubs the back of his neck nervously.

"Well, go check it out, doing the normal rounds and everything but..."

"Look, Gardner, you're obviously stalling. Just let it out."

"I think it'd be easier if you came with me to see it for yourself."

"Fine. Whatever, let's go. I'm too tired to do any of this crap."

The two of us grab our things and head out towards Gardner's car. I stare out the window while we drove, trees pass and my patience starts to diminish. "Are we almost there yet? This better be quick, i'm exhausted."

He looks at me from corner of his eye and grimaces. "Yeah, we'll be there soon. Listen, Perez, you are going to see some things that you weren't expecting-things that no one was expecting." I furrow my brows, but decline to answer.

We pull into the parking lot and stop in front of an old, decrepit looking storage unit. The two of us get out of the car and walk over to the door. Gardner opens the padlock and the door slides up to show us the inside.

At first, everything is dark, but a moment later, a light pops on.

The small cubed room is covered in newspaper clippings, photos, and debris was spread all around. I walk around, confused as to why there could possibly be newspapers of...Rayne's brother's death?

The faces of the victims of the McAlister case and McAlister himself stare back at my partner and I. There were multiple pictures of each of them tacked to the wall.