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She continued monitoring the video feed as the trace worked in the background. The man in the chair lifted his head slightly, as if listening to something outside of the camera’s view.
Heavy, echoing footsteps sounded from the stairwell. Roseline tensed, her breath catching. Beckner went still beside her.
A large figure appeared, slowly descending the stairs. Face obscured by a masquerade mask, thick arms crossed over a black jacket. Roseline’s heart pounded as the figure approached the captive man.
This was no prank.
The man in the chair began struggling against his bonds, pleas muffled by a gag as he writhed in desperation. Roseline gripped the edge of her desk, willing herself to remain calm and keep working.
“Anything on location?” Beckner asked tightly.
“Still searching databases... come on, come on,” Roseline muttered.
On-screen, the dark figure stopped behind the captive man. Roseline’s stomach dropped as she noticed the glint of a large hunting knife in its gloved hand.
“We’re going to lose him. We have to find this place!” she said urgently, still typing.
The figure on the screen raised the knife. The man in the chair thrashed in terror, screams barely audible through the gag.
“Roseline...” Beckner said in warning.
She didn’t want to watch but forced herself to keep the video feed open, praying for a detail that could reveal the location.
The knife slashed downward in a brutal, practiced arc.
Blood sprayed, splattering across the concrete floor. The man’s body convulsed, then went limp.
Roseline squeezed her eyes shut for a brief moment, pushing down the bile rising in her throat.
“There’s nothing here, Commander,” she said shakily. “Video was routed through endless proxy servers. Whoever set this up knew how to stay invisible.”
Beckner’s stony expression didn’t waver, but she noticed the tension in his shoulders. “Understood. We’ll have to pursue other leads to find this location. Good work, Fontenot. I know that wasn’t easy.”
Roseline nodded numbly as Beckner took back his phone, the video feed going dark. As he turned to go, she saw a crack in his calm facade. His jaw muscle ticked, a storm brewing in his dark eyes.
She released a long breath as the office door closed behind him, leaving her alone in the ringing silence. With trembling hands, she disconnected her computer and sat back heavily.
That image was seared into her mind. The knife slicing so easily through flesh and bone. The man’s last panicked moments, helpless. Who was he? Why was this done to him?
And where had that video come from in the first place?
CHAPTER TWO
Roseline could feel the exhaustion seeping into her bones as she sat hunched over her desk, eyes burning from staring at the computer screen for endless hours. She had barely left the office in over a week, consumed by the urgent task Commander Beckner had assigned her—tracing the origin of that horrifying live-streamed murder.
At first, she had been energized by the challenge, determined to track down the sick individual behind the brutal killing. But as the days wore on with little progress, frustration mounted. The video stream had been rerouted through endless servers and hidden corners of the dark web, meticulously obscured to prevent tracing. Whoever orchestrated this wanted the police to see it but didn’t want to get caught.
Rubbing her temples, Roseline squinted through dry, bleary eyes at the code scrolling across the screen. The complex network of relays was meticulously designed, but still, she searched for a weak link, some small opening she could wedge her way through. The killer had been clever, but nobody was perfect.
The coding language was second nature to her after so many years in the field, but deciphering the trail was painstaking. Hidden servers acted like a labyrinth, looping her from one dead end to another. She had managed to determine that the original video stream was live, not pre-recorded. That gave her a tiny sliver of hope that there may have been some interaction, some chatter that could provide clues.
But confirming her hunch proved impossible. The relays garbled and stripped away, identifying data, preventing her from intercepting any meaningful information. Anything the killer gave away was lost in transit by design.
After hours of fruitless searching, Roseline finally pushed back from the desk, every muscle stiff and sore. She couldn’t keep staring at the screen without her eyes crossing. Shuffling to the break room, she poured a cup of stale coffee and gulped it down. The hot liquid seared her throat, but the caffeine jolt was worth it. She had to stay sharp.
Roseline opened the video file for what felt like the hundredth time. She forced herself to watch the horrific murder again, searching in vain for some minor detail she may have overlooked. But there was nothing. Just a terrified man bound to a chair, whimpering and pleading, while a dark figure lurked menacingly behind him.
Roseline felt bile rise in his throat as the killer slid the knife across the victim’s neck. She quickly closed the video, swallowing hard. That poor guy. Roseline had to find whoever did this execution-style murder.
