Rowan has sitting down on the hill just outside of the police department, starring at the vast universe that was over head. He had been here for two hours, just thinking and not bothering to go anywhere else. The bushes rustled behind the detective, but he either didn't seem to notice, or he just didn't care. Ebony walked up to him from the direction of the noise. The she-cat sat beside him, her pelt touching his. "Are you all right?" she asked, concern highly noticeable through her voice.

"No, I'm not" Rowan responded harshly. "I'm never going to catch that blasted Bloody Rose. She's too smart for any of us. No one's ever going to catch her, and I just have to accept that. I'm giving up on my search—not because I have to, but because I want to." 

Ebony stared at the ginger tom in awe as to what he had just said. "Y-your giving up? You can't really be serious about this. You've been searching for her for may years, and now you are just giving up? Think of what will happen if you do end up finding her. You'll be a hero, but now since you're just giving up, you'll be known as that pathetic detective who just gives up whenever he can't figure one of his cases out. I know you don't want that to be you, and neither do I."

No response came from him, for she was right. Every word that had come out of her mouth was absolutely correct. Why was he really giving up. Did he really want to? Rowan knew the answer as soon as it had come into his head. No. He did want to find the Bloody Rose and be the local hero. And he did want show everyone that he was perfectly capable of finding her. The detective stood up on his paws and looked into the eyes of his partner. "You're right." he mewed, his voice cracking a little bit. "I don't want that."

A smile crept across Ebony's face as Rowan had said that. "Alright," she said, giving him a little nudge "Let's get back to the office. I'm sure something will come up later, but as of the moment, we can see what we have and try and get more clues."

As the two began to walk up the hill and back to their office, another cat was walking toward them with what seemed to be a sense of urgency. Rowan and Ebony stopped walking as the other cat walked toward them. "Good evening, Detective Rowan. Another case was just reported, and it seems fairly urgent."

"All right," the detective replied "We'll be there as soon as we can. Ready for another one, Ebony?"

"You bet I am," she replied, and the two of them walked off towards the building to get ready for yet another murder.

.  .  .

Red white, and blue lights flashed all around as the two detectives got out of their vehicle. Rowan ducked under the tape that ran across the police cars, and walked over to where a group of officers were huddled together. "Good evening," he said, trying to sound as professional as he could. "What are we here for today?"

One of the deputies turned around to face him with a slight smile "We are here for another death," he said very sarcastically "What else would we call you here for?"

Rowan chuckled a little bit at the other cat's joke, but he didn't really find it amusing. "But seriously," he said again "What  seems to have caused the death."

"A heart attack," said the deputy "but the family claims that it was something else. They said something about a viper, but we don't believe them. But they insisted that is was a bite, and we really wanted to just walk away from their nonsense, but we couldn't. So we sent the body into autopsy, which is where it is at right now."

"When did they say that they would be finished with the autopsy?" 

"Any moment now,"

"Okay thank you," Rowan walked over to where Ebony was sitting on their car, clearly thinking about something. As the ginger tom approached her, she turned to face him with an eager look on her face.

"So," she said with clear excitement "What happened?"

"They think that it was a heart attack, but the family says different, so the corpse is in autopsy right now."

Ebony looked at him thoughtfully and then soon responded, "What do you think it was? It could be that one serial killer that's been popping up in the papers recently. I think her name was 'Viper' if I'm correct, but I'm not really sure."

Rowan stood there for a minute, considering what Ebony had just said. "I guess that would make sense, if the family was talking about a viper," the tom meowed. But just as he was going to continue, the deputy walked back toward them.

"I think you might want to have a look at this." He held out a plastic baggie. Inside, a small vial of blue liquid sloshed as Rowan took it, eyes narrowing. "That's the test for Boomslang Viper venom."

"It's a positive," whispered Ebony. 

Rowan sucked in a breath and returned the baggie to the deputy. "I'm going to go look at the body," he meowed, pushing past the officers. Ebony rushed after him, giving an apologetic glance to the surprised cats.

They entered the autopsy room. "Take off the sheet," Rowan hissed at the coroner, who obeyed without question.

The body.

And along the stomach, Rowan couldn't help but spot a small scratch, only a whisker wide and a paw long. 

They were dealing with another serial killer.

Written by Blue and finished by Rio :)