IT WAS RAINING.

The earthy stench of crumpled leaves and wet dirt swarmed across the atmosphere. Robin cared little about the gloomy weather. It was becoming agitating that whenever she had to get outside the house, she'd have to wear layers of clothing and hold an umbrella that was seconds away from being ripped off by the wind.

Her eyes narrowed when she heard Christina taking a loud sip from her mug, and she shot her a glare.

"Ah-" Christina sighed contently- "Love this."

Robin took a deep breath, not even trying to conceal her annoyance. She turned away from the window to face her friend. Her red hair cascaded around her, perfectly straightened. Her body was cocooned on the couch, rolled inside the covers with tea enclosed between her palm and her laptop on her thighs. She crossed her arms against her stomach.

"Getting in the mood to write your gory article?"

"Hilarious." Christina gave a dry smile. "What's up your ass this morning?"

A lot was up her ass if she was being honest. Her brain didn't quieten last night, constantly haunted by images she desperately tried to block from her consciousness. Violet's body. Blooded carpet. Bright blue eyes. The sharp gleam of knives. Bruised knuckles. That damned piece of bread. She had awoken to the sound of sirens of the ambulance rushing right outside their building. It had cost her precious hours of sleep she desperately needed. She currently felt like she got run over by a truck and no amount of coffee could mend the headache pulsating through her skull.

"What do you have?" She asked, knowing very well she was going to regret asking, but it was Sunday and she had nothing better to do. As a first-year resident, she had to complete 48 hours per week. She got to take one day off, per Fairford's regulations. If she was able to cram one day's worth of shift on the other days, she could take an additional day off. But there was no need to overwork herself, she wasn't desperate for a day off. She would feel uneasy, jittery, and restless.

She could use a distraction, really.

"For what?" Christina didn't look up from her MacBook as she typed with one hand.

"For your stupid article. What do you have?"

"I'll tell you when you ask nicely."

"I could simply not get you that report. How would you like that?"

She earned silence and a purse in her mouth. Robin's lips stretched into a tight smile. Christina rolled her eyes, heaving a sigh, she put her tea down and straightened.

"Alright. Let's see." She pushed her gold-rimmed glasses farther up the bridge of her nose. "I only started working on it yesterday, so it's only a draft. I'll just tell you the bullet points."

Robin shrugged. Christina went on. "I need the autopsy result because I want to see if there are more details they did not disclose."

"Such as?"

"Such as-" She held her finger up- "Injuries; did she fight? Was it brutal? Are there any wounds other than the fatal blow? I want to know what wounds and where and the amount of force caused. I know that the report contains details of reenactment of the crime, I want to read it, see if I can get anything out of it, maybe get a sense of the gender, height, age category."

Robin's corner of her lips sunk down, and she nodded her head, eyebrows shot up. "Makes sense. Go on." She couldn't believe she was intrigued.

"Great. Then, I need security cameras. Were they put up or not? That's the first thing I wanted to check, but then I remembered Ms. Alby emailed about putting them up months before Violet's death. So, I have to get a tape of that night."

"Oh, yeah," Robin remembered the notice because she had thought that it would be funny to get a tape of all the compilations of Spencer jumping up when Christina caught her blowing a joint out in the hallway. "We'll find a way. That one's easy."

Christina nodded. "Yup. She loves me. I'll just bring some cookies down and talk about her for thirty minutes and we'll be in."

Robin visibly cringed. Socializing with Ms. Alby was a trip she didn't want to be sucked into.

"Third, and that's a tricky one." She inhaled a deep breath and exhaled forcefully. "it's the murder weapon."

Robin blinked.

Flashes of that night rushed through her brain. She remembered Violet's body, lying in a pool of thick blood, her head angled away, eyes distant and empty. She remembered the way her body was angled; legs bent in an awkward shape, hands on her stomach where the wound was gushing out blood.

But there was no weapon.

"I assumed it's a knife." Robin frowned.

"Exactly." Christina's eyes brightened. "It could be something else. And we don't even know where it is."

"The murderer could've thrown it away."

"Yes, but it wouldn't hurt to look. You never know, we might actually find it hidden somewhere in the building, or the trash chute, or even right outside the corner."

"After all this time? I doubt."

"Alright... and last, the live location."

Robin froze. Her conversation with detective Crane came to her like a cold whiplash. "So you had it." She straightened, feeling a tight clutch around her heart, an uneasy knot in her stomach.

Christina nodded. "Yeah, I had it. I gave it to detective Crane. It wasn't turned off."

"And? What's in it?"

"Actually, it ended a few hours before we found her. At six. So, I had a different location than our current one. She could've gone somewhere else before coming here too, I can't know. Also, get this, once the live location ends, you can't know the coordinates of the location. So, I put it on satellite option, zoomed, and here's the pin."

She put her phone up, and Robin stepped closer, bending down to see. All she could see were blurred places and roads, nothing that caught her eye.

"Not really clear."

"Right, but-" Christina turned back to her phone and zoomed out, twisting the phone back so Robin could see. "-we actually know the place when I zoom out. See the river? That's across it. That's Darwin." Her eyes hardened, and Robin slowly blinked. "So, I opened up google earth to follow the path and look where it got me." She opened her photo library to show a screenshot she took. It was a picture of a bar, the light emitted from the logo was a soft golden hue compared to the surrounding atmosphere.

THE RABBIT HOLE.

Robin's face cleared. "Isn't that where Joe works?"

"Yes." Christina's features were sharp. "I called, but there's no answer. I suppose people there don't bother with phone calls. I don't know how they live. But I asked a few people from work, and apparently, this bar gets packed around nine. They don't think it opens before eight."

Robin arched an eyebrow. "You want us to go there at nine?"

"Not necessarily, we can be there at eight. I know it's risky, and probably stupid, but anything can be of use."

"So, you're suggesting we go to Darwin, at night when it's dark, to a bar, no less?"

"Yeah."

There was a beat of silence before Robin shrugged. "Alright, if you're willing to pay for a bodyguard."

"I don't need a bodyguard if I have you."

Robin offered a tight fuck-you smile, and Christina grinned.

The duo made their way to the first floor with Christina holding a plate full of store-bought Nestlé cookies that she intended to pretend she made herself, and Robin's resting bitch face she insisted was a way to warm up her loveable side. 'The later I put on the smile, the more I can maintain it,' she had argued.

Once the elevator arrived, they stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of the man who emerged from Ms. Alby's apartment, the woman seeing him off with a grim smile on her face. Robin's eyes narrowed, slowly stepping outside the elevator as she studied him carefully. He looked so different from his usually neat self; his eyes looked bloodshot red, the dark circles under them prominent, mixed with hues of violet. His hair was messy, a little longer than usual. And he looked like he lost some weight.

Her top lip slightly curled up at the sight. Disgusting.

He noticed a brunette and a redhead in his peripheral vision and stopped, a combo he was all too familiar with as they had always been side by side whenever he came across them. His eyes skipped between them, the knob in his throat bobbing as he swallowed. Christina moved to stand closer to Robin.

"Christina," he said in a poor attempt at greeting.

"James." Christina nodded once. James's eyes skipped to meet Robin's.

"Robin." He nodded his head. Robin's features remained impassive, but the intensity in her eyes didn't fade. He squirmed, walking the few feet left to the exit door and choosing the stairs to leave.

"He looks like shit," Christina commented. "His dad and his girlfriend dying in the same year... must be rough," she said it with a voice void of sympathy.

They both wondered what he was doing at Ms. Alby's. He didn't even live here.

"Add him to your list of suspects," Robin dryly suggested.

Christina scoffed. "Already done."

They had met James Hunter through Violet when she had announced they had been dating for a few months a few years back. It was safe to say the reaction she got from the two women wasn't a pleasant one. Christina had looked shocked when she had recognized him, and she hadn't hidden it very well. Violet should've been thankful she hadn't spat in his face right then.

The mayor's son. What was she thinking?

And Robin, well, she frankly couldn't care less about that. It was her gut that churned at the sight of his sneer and his cold, deceitful eyes.

She could smell it when someone was rotten, and that guy had reeked.

When Violet had first introduced him, she was forced to at least nod as a form of acknowledgment. Then, he tried to force himself on her once at Violet and her's graduation. Granted, he had been drunk when he did, probably thought she was Violet too, but she had managed to get in a few bruises to ruin his face and a kick in his dick before she was restrained by two security guards while Paul had interjected to help her wriggle free. She had told Violet about it, and it had been tense between them ever since. Robin had been relieved Christina didn't try to mend the relationship - fewer people to interact with.

Christina had commented that her social life was a replication of Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None' if the island had been Fairford and the killings were just her cutting all ties to the people in her life. If it were really the case, Robin was impatiently waiting to reach the end.

"Girls! What a lovely surprise," Ms. Alby waved, still standing by the door. She was old, probably in her late seventies, with round glasses resting on her nose and chain pearls dangling from her ears around her neck. Christina always had a soft spot for her old-fashioned style and her sweet-honey voice. Robin didn't really care for it.

"Hello, Ms. Alby!" Christina chirped, shaking the sight of James's pathetic figure off her mind. Her plan took precedence above all else. "We brought you cookies." She swayed the plate excitedly. The amount of energy she could exude impressed Robin. It was her talent, she had to admit.

"Oh, sweetheart, you didn't have to. Come on in!"

It took Christina exactly twenty minutes of back-and-forth talk before she put her plan into action, and it was precisely when Ms. Alby asked: "So, how are you girls doing after..." Ms. Alby straightened her lips, her neck tight as she avoided naming the accident.

"Violet's death?" Robin finished her sentence, thinking she was doing a service, but earned a nudge from Christina.

"... yes."

"Oh, you know how it is, Ms. Alby." Christina's tone changed into something softer, and she shrugged, a sad smile stretching on her lips. Robin bobbed her head, a side character in her play. "It's been a year but really, it feels like it was just yesterday we would wait for each other at exactly ten p.m. and watch the news together. Time really flies."

Robin thought that if Christina really tried, she could let a tear slip.

"Aw, honey." Ms. Alby reached out and squeezed her upper arm. Robin peeked to check if that tear fell.

No. Just watery eyes.

"But it's actually a good thing you brought it up. We were wondering if after... that night, the police found good use of the hallway cameras."

"Hallway cameras?" Ms. Alby frowned, wrinkles folding on her forehead. The girls looked back at her expectantly, but the woman just shook her head once, the smile stretched on her lips slowly fading.

Christina blinked, sitting up straight. "There are no cameras in the hallways?"

At that moment, she looked like a ticking bomb ready to implode, and Robin wanted to be nowhere near the occurrence.

"No, dear. I'm afraid not."

Robin frowned. "Didn't you send a notice about setting up cameras a few months back before Violet's death?"

"We did, but we received a complaint and possible lawsuit about infringement of privacy. We had to take it down."

"Who in hell would care about privacy when people are randomly getting killed in their own homes?" Christina hissed, jaw set as anger flared through her veins. Robin had a feeling she was no longer acting.

"Do you remember who complained?" Robin asked, her hunch pushing her to pry.

Ms. Alby's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, white strands softly crowning her forehead. She started to zone out, mumbling to herself as she tried to recall. Christina's head angled Robin's way, eyes slightly widening as she took in the opportunity of the woman drifting out of focus.

"You think she's allowed to even tell us?" She whispered in a gush of air, a little thrown.

"Don't remind her," Robin hissed.

"I can't recall his name... I received an email a while back, I think. No, I'm sure, yes."

"We can ask her about them," Robin suggested lowly, taking advantage of the woman's distractedness. Christina's eyes widened, suddenly losing her confidence.

"I don't think she's allowed to-"

"Relax, she's not the government." Robin resisted the urge to smack sense into her. "You bust my ass each year to help with the cookies you actually bake to give her on Christmas. I want my hard work paid off."

Christina scoffed. "Fine," she hissed, turning to face her again. "Ms. Alby." Christina fixed a bright smile on her face, smooth and sweet, pulling her out of her mumbling. "Is it okay if you can find the email for us? We would really like to talk to the man. We're thinking adding the cameras is absolutely critical. It was very wise of you to suggest it in the first place."

Flattery. Robin's lips curled in a smirk, eyes shining with pride at the sight of her play. Christina's eyes skipped to meet her gaze, feeling her nerves relax when Robin nodded reassuringly.

"Right?" Ms. Alby gushed, then shook her head with a heavy, grim sigh. "It was a wise decision. I can look through the emails for you, but my daughter is not here. She's usually better at using the computer. That thing is too advanced for me-"

"Don't worry about it, Ms. Alby." Christina was quick to reassure. "We can help!"

"Oh, sure, sure. Come with me."

"Not bad." Robin nudged her as they walked side by side, following her as she led them to her desk, where a laptop lied right in the middle.

"See what happens when you do good to the community?"

"Good thing I have you for that."

Ms. Alby was talking; she was really a chatterbox just as Robin remembered. She had hoped that with old age, she would slowly lose the motivation to talk this much, or... her voice entirely. She was out of luck.

Until now.

"... I believe it was from a gentleman that was on the fifteenth floor." Robin's ears prickled, and she snapped out of her trail of thoughts to focus on what she was saying. "I remember because my daughter told me he works at a big tech company like Facebook and I thought ah that's funny of him to worry about privacy." Ms. Alby scowled.

Robin and Christina exchanged looks, the latter trying to sound nonchalant as she opened up her email and hurried to skim through the old ones.

"Could you pinpoint a date for us, Ms. Alby?" Christina asked. That wasn't the question Robin wanted to pose.

"Hm... Sorry dear, I'm sadly forgetting what I had for breakfast." She laughed in a self-deprecating manner, picking a plate of cookies from the table to put it on the kitchen island, shuffling around the house. Robin leaned forward to get a closer look as Christina scrolled and scrolled.

"Try Finn," she mumbled so only her friend could catch. Christina frowned, typing his name on the search bar anyway and waiting for it to load.

Sure enough, there was an email.

_________

Notes:

Thanks guys so much for the support!

I'll be updating every Saturday now that I got a few chapters in stock and I know where the plot is heading :)

Let me know what you think of the characters so far! Who's your favorite? Who's your least favorite? Drop a comment!

Jana