The distance (original)

Murders left and right.

I FINALLY CALL my friends, hitting my head into the desk as soon as they come on screen.

"Hey Kati.... what's wrong?" Echo asks.

"There are too many of them! Young, old, white, black, poor, rich, popular, not... I cannot see any reason for these murders and the only thing in common is the bloody tongue thing!" I say.

"Then there must be something to it....," AJ says.

"I seriously can't understand why they—," I say.

AJ hits her hands on her desk.

"It's proof!" AJ says.

"AJ, you're an absolute genius!" Echo yells.

"I'm sorry I haven't slept more than two hours this week between cases and research and meeting people and interviewing people and apologising to people.... can you explain?" I ask.

"You know how some people higher up in the industry want to get proof of the fact someone has in fact been taken care of?" Echo asks.

"Oooooooh," I let out.

"Yeah! AJ, you are absolute genius! But then these were deliberate!" Echo says.

"But they have nothing in common!" I say.

"Let's see. Sarah, James, Jamie, Alexander, Heather, Evan, Samantha, Shawn.... is there anything in common with these people?" AJ asks.

I shake my head.

"Nothing really," I say.

"Let's put our best options. James was involved with druggies, that's a possible reason. But it wouldn't fit with most of the others," Echo says.

"Do we know political views?" AJ asks.

"We do, they are opposing on many fronts," I say.

"Many fronts.... is there a certain front they don't disagree on?" Echo asks.

"Not that I saw, they were pretty opposites," I say.

"Oh so that doesn't work," AJ says.

She looks down, seemingly thinking.

"Yeah. What about their histories with mental illness or illness as a whole?" AJ asks.

"Few had depression and some other illnesses were there but none where they'd have diagnosis's that are recognisably alike," I say.

AJ nods.

"Any addictions?" AJ asks.

"As far as I could see, Sarah was going to get out of rehab soon. I don't know what it was for, as sad as it is," I say.

"Nobody else?" AJ asks.

"Most of them never have come forth as addicts... other than Sarah that is," I say.

"Drugs maybe?" AJ asks.

"I mean I doubt it's possible. Echo, what do you think?" I ask.

"I think we are having a case and that I want to die. I don't know about anything else, I'm not exactly a genius," Echo says.

"Echo we are not doing this again," I say,

Echo falls silent, nodding. They then start going on their computer, probably looking through some shit about the victims.

"So Jamie and James were involved with each other. Was Jamie a bad person like his mom said a lot of people around James were?" AJ asks.

"I wouldn't say bad but druggie for certain," Echo says, scrolling through something on their computer.