Vices: A Race **Chapter 004**

A week, she realized.

They had a week to finish it.

If they were indeed connected and the same killer was quietly searching for his next, unfortunate victim…then they had a whole week to finish the case. And she hated the thought of it, working against the clock. 

Time pressure was never good.

“You look troubled,” Peters commented. She casted a weary look.

“We have a whole week to solve this,” she muttered. “A freaking week. With each day that comes, the bastard just looks for another person to stalk and kill…it could be one of us. Which is why we have to get a move on.” Touta was about to speak up when his phone rang, he fumbling for it and answering the call.

“Ack, sorry – hello?”

“Touta!”  Macmillan’s voice rang out in the silence of the office, “I have it. I have the studies on the third victim – it’s as silent as death over there. Are you sure you’re working?”

“Nice to hear you too, Thomas,” A grumbled.

“Is that Ice Cold – er, I mean Maxwell? Anyway, I’ve got the information right in my hands. Come over to the office and I’ll tell what I’ve got here. Can’t say it now because these assholes are too goddamned noisy and I had to sneak to the men’s room just to get a good signal.”

“Alright, alright – I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You better. See you.”

Upon ending the call, Touta stood up and slid on his coat. “Both of you stay – I’ll make this quick, then we can continue on the investigation. Can both of you try to find any commonalities among the three?”

“We’ll do our best,” she reassured him, glancing back at the files. When the door closed, A heaved a heavy sigh and folded her arms over her chest. “Theorizing. This is always the hard part,” she told Peters, who was leafing through the third victim’s profile. “Do you have any good theories? Screw that – any theories at all? Guesses?”

“Obviously, they aren’t family related. I wouldn’t think that they even know each other. Perhaps the drug addict and the prostitute, maybe, but the businessman? Not even close. He has a wife, why would he need…”

“So it goes into a much deeper thing.” She closed her eyes and leaned back on the chair, “Something not clearly seen by the human eye.”

“Does it say anything else?”

“Aside from the essentials? Not really. Crime scenes aren’t really of help either, come to think of it…there’s nothing else to investigate aside from the evidence left behind. When Touta come back, though, we’ll be able to find out what that thing was.”

He pondered on that for a moment.

“Glass shards. Too little to assemble a beer bottle, I heavily doubt that it was a mirror. It must have been some kind of container for something.”

“Do you think that the shards…they comprise of something bigger, and that the killer took the bigger pieces away?”

“And risk leaving fingerprint evidence? Not likely, no. He might have been more careful about this since two weeks ago.”

“Point taken.” She sighed. “Bloody hell.” Her green eyes gazed out the window, Peters following suit and both of them quietly looking into the Tokyo city view.

Cars honked and people were bustling about, many of them dressed in thick wear. The weather was getting colder and he could see the smoke leaving his lips whenever he spoke, the goose bumps on his skin raising even if he was accustomed to such weather. Touta, with the car set in neutral, tried not to roll down the window and curse.

Traffic was horrendous. He tried to keep a positive attitude about it and turned on the radio, a rock song playing in the background with the lively speaker going on and on much after. All of this was a routine, events playing over and over.

Kill, investigate, arrest, jail. Repeat. In rare cases, they weren’t solved and the killer was found either dead or had escaped to another country and then suspected there. It made him feel rather disappointed if that happened – how could he let it slip through his fingers so easily?

His phone gave a ring –

I can see the traffic from here.

Touta glanced at the building, minutes away. It wasn’t as high as HQ, but it had some height to it – for a fact, he knew that Macmillan’s station was located on the fifth floor.

And another ring.

Goddamn. Something must have happened.

Touta rolled down the window of his car, seeing an irritated man in the car next to him. “Sir!” he called, and the man looked at him, startled. “Would you know the cause of this traffic? I have somewhere to get to.”

“Wish I knew,” the other complained. “Got a damned meeting and this happens. Hope it clears up before I walk to the office myself.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle, “I’m tempted to walk out myself. Thank you, anyway.” His brown eyes scanned the area and he groaned out loud.

It was either going to take much longer, or a miracle would happen.

There was no in between.

In the other car, the man huffed angrily, the man driving chuckling sympathetically. “Damn, Kenichi. You’re really going to bring down the thunder on the traffic…”

“I – we – have a meeting! I won’t get Sakahibara if I miss that–”

On and on the businessman ranted, the man in front itching for a smoke. His hand twitched towards his pocket but he stopped, not wanting the car to smell (again) and to have his superior bark at him (again). Glancing wearily at him through the mirror, he ran a hand through his ginger hair and picked up his phone, sending a quick text.

Impossible traffic down here. Don’t go down if I were you.

“Christ, this makes me want to move the meeting all together.”

“Don’t be like that. All the inches we’ve moved will be for nothing,” the other deadpanned. “Jesus – hold on – we’re moving,” he reassured Kenichi, shifting the car into drive and slowly making their way across the road.

In the other car, Touta felt immense relief once the traffic cleared up. As he reached the place where Macmillan worked, he could already make out a mass of brown hair making its way to him, Touta immediately parking and getting out.

“Watched the traffic! There was nearly a crash, the drives nearly had a scuffle before police got in the way. Anyway,” Macmillan showed him the single shard inside a car, “You’ve got this, which is pissing me the fuck off because I can’t figure it out. Lucky for us, I was able to get my hands on the medical reports and shit about the third.”

“So what was it?”

“Among the first, second and third? This’ll sound freaky.”

“Just spit it out–”

“Touta, Med was almost freaking. It was a heart attack.”

Macmillan understood why Med would freak.

A freaking heart attack causing three deaths.

It was like the killer was begging them to panic.

By the look in Touta’s eyes, he could tell that he couldn’t believe it as well.