Ten minutes before the 7.30 am shift began, Kelsey raced through the door, a blur of dark brown skin, curly hair, and colourful clothes. She tossed apologies over her shoulder when she pushed past some uniformed officers coming off the night shift, but didn't slow down until she'd reached her destination.

Skidding to a stop outside Michael's door, she straightened her red sweater and the black backpack on her shoulders, then ran her hands through her curly hair hoping it didn't look as unruly as it felt. She briefly considered using the head-wrap she had in her bag but she was late enough already so she knocked and fidgeted with her hair again, waiting for a response.

"Come in," Michael called out in a tone that made her want to turn right back around and go hide under her bed, but with one last deep breath, she opened the door and entered his office.

"Good morning, Chief," she said in as steady a voice as she could manage.

Michael nodded in response, eyes still focused on the pile of papers in front of him.

Unsure what to do, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking around the office. Her eyes landed on pictures of some of Michael's predecessors. Their stern expressions and well-groomed appearances made them look like they belonged in a museum. It was quite a contrast compared to Michael who was dressed in a black short-sleeve shirt, with his badge hanging from a chain around his neck. She barely remembered ever seeing him in uniform.

"Take a seat, Harris," he said, snapping her back to the present. He continued writing in silence once she'd sat down and against her better judgement, she decided to fill in the silence.

"Did you have a good night?" she asked. "I mean other than the whole dead body thing," she added hastily, already regretting opening her mouth.

Michael arched a brow at her rambling but still didn't respond or look up from his papers.

"Am I fired? Is that why you're giving me the silent treatment? Those are my termination papers, aren't they? Don't I get a second chance or a written warning first or—"

"Would it kill you to sit quietly for 5 minutes?" Michael interrupted her rant, finally glancing up at her.

"Sorry. I'm just really nervous and I usually talk a lot to ease my nerves, so I hope you—"

He gave her a stern look that immediately shut her up. "Can you tell me what a criminal profiler does?" he finally asked, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded over his chest. 

She stared at him a while, surprised at the question until he repeated it. "A criminal profiler works with law enforcement during investigations of crimes and works out a profile based on evidence from the crime scene, witness statements, and victims' testimonies," she eventually replied, feeling like she'd just walked into a trap.

Michael let the silence stretch between them until she started fidgeting in her seat, then he slid a paper over to her.

Dreading the contents, she picked it up and scanned quickly through what was written.
"Well, I'm glad it's not a termination notice or something," she said, eyes still glued to the paper. "Wait, what is this?"

"Are you trying to tell me you're illiterate as well?"

She glared at him but his face remained unexpressive. "Training Program?" she read off the paper and looked back at him.

He nodded. "That's your training schedule and if you don't stick to it to the letter, you can find another police department to work with."

"But...but there are hours of taking calls with Dispatch—"

"So we won't have a repeat of yesterday's code mix-ups."

"And the tip line?" Kelsey asked incredulously, as she scrolled further down the page. "How the hell is that supposed to help me with anything?"

"It'll help you learn to separate the truth from the lies when it comes to information you get from people. That's very important in your line of work."

She glanced back up at him, meeting his hard stare. "Okay. Are you just going to calmly sit there and throw valid points at all my arguments?"

"What would you prefer, Harris?"

"I don't know, yell at me or something. Your calmness and printed training programs are freaking me out." She rolled her eyes and looked down at the paper again.

Michael's lips twitched, but the smile that almost broke out disappeared when Kelsey stood abruptly, backing away from the paper.

"No. No way. I'm not doing any training," she said, shaking her head vehemently.

His stern look returned. "It's just self-defence. You need to know how to protect yourself in case something goes wrong, and it usually does."

She pointed a shaky finger at the paper. "But this says I have to train with you!"

"Because I'm tired of you talking your way out of doing things with everyone else, so if I want to make sure you do this, I'll have to train you myself."

She was still shaking her head when Michael unfolded his arms, leaning forward on the desk between them. "As the Chief-of-Police, I'm responsible for this entire police force and because you're working with us, I'm responsible for you too."

"Thanks?"

"The last thing I need is to deal with avoidable blunders from you or to be held accountable if anything happens to you. If I had my way, you'd do full training to be a cop first before you try this criminal profiling thing."

Kelsey's jaw dropped open.

"But as it is, I'm all for compromise so I'm going easy on you. A very simple training program or you leave my office and never set foot in this station again. What will it be?"

"Wow," she said, shaking her head as she slumped back into the chair. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

Michael shrugged.

She ran her hands through her curls and let out an exaggerated sigh. "Okay then. Your wish is my command."

"Briefing starts in 10 minutes in the briefing room," Michael said dismissively. "That's the fifth door on your left from reception."

"I know where the briefing room is."

"I've never seen you in it so I figured you probably didn't know it even existed," Michael said, eyes back on his pile of papers.

She swallowed down a snippy reply and asked something else. "Why did you ask me that question?"

He looked up at her with a questioning look.

"About criminal profiling," she clarified.

"It was a test."

"Did I pass?"

"You wouldn't be standing there if you hadn't."

***

Everyone was already in the briefing room by the time Kelsey entered and plopped down with a sigh in the seat next to Naomi.

"Rough night?" she asked, looking up from her phone.

"And morning. I just came from the Chief's office."

"Well, since you're here I'm guessing you weren't fired?"

"Not yet."

Before she could give any more details, Michael walked into the room with some files in his hands which he set down on the wooden podium set at the front.

"Good morning," he said, then waited a second for people in the room to murmur their responses back before getting down to business. 

"Last night, the body of a young woman was discovered in a sewage pond. The forensic pathologist estimated her age to be between 28 and 32 years and she's yet to confirm how long she's been dead and her identity. In the meantime, I'd like us to look into these two women who went missing a couple of weeks ago. Because of the state of the body, we can't compare by just physical traits to see if the body matches any of the missing women. But based on estimated age, this will be a good place to start, so these missing person's cases are taking first priority."

"Detective Naomi Jenkins will be the primary on Andrea Raisenbower's case." He glanced at her. "Choose 2 detectives and 3 uniformed officers to be on your team."

Naomi nodded, already looking around the room to see who she could pick.

"Evelyn Haines' case will be led by Detective Zachary Oswald. Same drill." He paused but his eyes never left the file in front of him, then he slowly glanced past Kelsey and said, "Detective Daniel Kaufman, will lead the group working on the crime scene. Take as many people as you need, you have a large space to cover. Everyone check back with—"

"Wait. So I'm going to be walking through miles of woods while the rookies work on something more tangible?" Daniel spoke up.

"You'll be working on what I assigned you," Michael replied evenly.

"But I would be more valuable on a missing person's case. I'm sure the rookies can handle a wild goose chase through the woods."

"It's not a wild goose search. They—and you—will be checking for clues and leads. I want a thorough sweep of the place so make sure you get enough people. And take Harris with you," he added, glancing briefly at her. "She'll be shadowing you first."

"This is about the siren, isn't it?" Daniel asked.

Kelsey shrank in her seat as Michael's icy glare flitted over to her again before going back to Daniel.

"I was under the impression that as an officer of the law, you know you have a duty towards the citizens of the city you serve."

"I do, but—"

"All these assignments—yours included—are aimed at achieving one goal. Finding a murderer. Your assignment is to look for clues or evidence that could lead us to the killer. Naomi and Zac will be working towards identifying the victim so they can start working out who might have wanted to kill her. All three assignments have equal rank, so instead of wasting my time with unnecessary arguments, get in the damn boat and row."

Silence followed, thick and heavy and Kelsey prayed silently that Daniel would let it go before Michael got even angrier and decided to fire her for being the cause of drama. Luckily, he backed down and remained quiet until the end of the meeting.

"If I'd known the briefings have this much drama, I'd have made more of an effort to attend," Kelsey said, as she watched Michael walk out of the room followed by a couple of others in uniforms. She swivelled around to face Daniel. "I'm so sorry about the siren."

"Don't worry about that. He's just being a pain in the neck."

"For what it's worth, I don't think he's punishing you," Naomi piped up, leaning over the back of her chair. "You've been in charge of the uniformed officers before so he knows you can handle them better than all the other detectives."

"In that case, I should be the Chief. We've got the same exact level of qualifications—none."

Kelsey laughed. "At least you wouldn't be a complete—"

"Harris."

She froze at the sound of the voice then slowly turned around, panic in her gaze.
Michael was standing behind her, face void of any emotion. From his face alone she couldn't tell if he'd heard their conversation or not.

He plucked a paper from the top of his files and handed it to her. "You forgot this in my office." Without another word, he turned and left the room again and she groaned, hitting her head softly on the desk.

***

In the light of day, the crime scene looked slightly less ominous. Or maybe it was the absence of a dead body that made it more bearable. The smell coming from the pond was even worse though, thanks to the heat, and even though Kelsey tied her headwrap over her nose and mouth, she could still smell it.

Daniel divided the 30 men with him into 5 groups of 6 each and assigned each group an area of the woods to check. Kelsey wandered off to the pool and crouched by the edge, trying not to remember the body that had been floating in there a few hours ago.

"Awful way to go," Daniel said, standing next to her.

"Every way is awful somehow."

"I suppose so," Daniel said with a small smile. "I'm going to check out the factory. Want to come with?"

Kelsey nodded, happy to get away from the smell. Their footsteps rang loud on the concrete floors as they made their way through the leather factory, marvelling at the size of the wooden tanning drums suspended on tall metal structures taking up most of the space. They followed the direction of large metal arrows on the walls between the drums, which they assumed indicated the sequence in which they were operated. They reached the end without finding anything of interest then went back outside and strolled around the vicinity of the plant.

"I was right about this being a massive waste of time," Daniel said, sounding annoyed as they rounded the corner to where several pits and tanks stood. This time, arrows were painted in black on the pipes connecting each pit and tank.

"I guess he just wanted to make sure all the bases are covered," Kelsey said, peeking into the first pit. It was empty and dry and a rusty looking pump was all she could see inside.

"You've switched sides on me, Harris," he teased.

She narrowed her eyes at him, moving on to the next pit. "Don't call me that. And no, I haven't switched sides. I just get where he's coming from."

The second pit was empty too, as well as the third. She moved on to the tanks.

"What exactly are you hoping to find?"

"Honestly, nothing. The chief is going to be grilling me when I get back to the station and I don't want to be called incompetent again," she replied, climbing the ladder on the side of one of the tanks. A wooden platform wide enough for 2 people to stand on stretched out at the top of the steps.

"I don't know if standing there is a good idea since this place hasn't been used since the Stone Age," Daniel called up from below the steps. "I don't want Michael to think I took you here and killed you over the siren misunderstanding."

"Har har," Kelsey said sarcastically. To her disappointment, the tank was empty too. She decided to stay up there a bit and enjoy the view. "You should get up here. The view is amazing."

"I'll take your word for it."

She turned away from the view of the plant, wrapping her arms around herself when a gust of wind beat at her. On one end, she could see some of the uniformed officers searching through the woods near the plant. She waved when one of them looked up and spotted her, then turned to another side.

This side had a wall built around the area and since it was similar to the one around the tannery, she felt certain it was an extension of it. A fairly large shed stood in one corner of the area and three shallow, rectangular pits were lined up on the corner closest to the main tannery. The pipes from the last tank connected to those pits as well.

Her gaze focused on one of the pits and she frowned then hastily made her way down the rickety steps, despite Daniel's objections. She ran to the small gate that separated the main plant from that area, only stopping momentarily to tell a confused looking Daniel to follow her.

"This is weird, right?" she said, pointing at the middle pit which contained a blue-grey substance similar to the one in which the body was found, but considerably more solid. "These pits and the ones back there are all connected which means anything that ends up in here has to come from there first."

"But all those other pits and tanks look like nothing's passed through them in years," Daniel said catching on.

Kelsey nodded excitedly. She looked around and finally picked up a stick, poking at the crusty surface of the substance before Daniel could stop her. The stick went through, breaking up a large section of the crust to reveal a watery substance below. Exactly like the one from the crime scene. The liquid bubbled, catching their attention and then something broke the surface, bobbing up and down.

"Is that..." Kelsey trailed off, stepping forward with her stick to poke it again, but this time Daniel pulled her back in time.

"Might be evidence. Best not tamper with it any more than we already have," he said. "I'll call the CSI."

She backed away but her eyes never left the object. A black plastic casing was still visible under the blue-grey grime that covered the object and a strap came into view when the object floated closer. The wind blew ripples in the water, making the object shift and the sun's rays bounced off a shiny surface she was almost sure was a camera lens.

***