Is It In The Blood?

2

"So, you're saying the cause of death wasn't the stabbing and knife work?" Austin asked, looking over the body.

"It's strange, but this killer has more than just rape and stabbing. The cause of death is always drowning." The doctor said, showing Austin the labs that prove that water was, in fact, in every victim's lungs. An excessive amount of water.

"How in the hell are they alive after all of the torture?" Austin asked, more to himself, but out loud anyway. The doctor only shrugged, just as confused. She's seen crazy, but nothing like this.

"I hope you guys find who did this. It's the worst I've seen in my career." The mortician said, a frown on her face as she looked between the victim and Austin.

"And how long have you been doing this?" Austin asked.

"Counting school and practice? Fifteen years."

To a normal person, that wouldn't seem too bad, but it really is. Fifteen years. Not days. Not months. Years. Fifteen rounds of three hundreds and sixty five days. And not seeing anything like what they have in front of them? That's rare. Morticians would normally see everything come through the doors.

"Thank you. Please call if you find anything else." Austin said, smiling as he shook her hand.

The two of them went over it all one last time before Austin left to get back to his team.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Brown! What'd you find out?" Chance asked as Austin walked back into the police station.

The redhead went over everything that he found out. His team was left confused, just as much as he was. And the mortician. This case was one for the books, that's for sure.

"He drowns them before he stabs them?" Tim asked, rubbing his face with one hand. Adam placed a comforting hand on Tim's arm, trying to keep the man calm.

"She couldn't tell. She's going to call when she finds out." Austin explained, sighing as he looked at the bulletin board.

Tim followed his friend's gaze, sighing as well. Mutilated women, no evidence to bring them any closer to catching the guy, and now this discovery of drowning. Would it get any less confusing? Tim figured it wouldn't.

Since when do the FBI get easy cases? The answer is never. Not when it comes to killers.

"I could always talk to the families again. These girls are bound to have something in common, Foust." Sami said, frowning as she stared at the crime scene photos that were hanging up. She loved her job, but just not the part of people losing lives. Even if that was the whole reason her job existed in the first place.

"See if there were any recent boyfriends. If so, get descriptions, sketch artist, anything. We may have just started, but I wanna lock this son of a bitch up." Tim said and Sami nodded, writing it all down. She informed her boss that she'd call with any information before grabbing Chance's arm and leaving the station.

"I just don't understand the drowning. Only the last two victims were found in streams, yet they all drowned." Olena said, looking at everything in the room.

"That's the worst part about cases like this. Way too many mysteries to solve." Rob said, sighing. Everyone seemed to have their attention on the board. Almost like they were waiting for the answer to just jump out at them.

The rest of the day was spent like that, the remaining team members and the sheriff all staring the board down, trying to come up with something. Austin, being the smartest, was even at a loss.

He'd normally at least have a clue of some kind by now!

"What do we do? How do we catch this guy?" Olena asked, causing the entire team to sigh. "What? Something I said?"