Chapter 2
It was colder by the lake than expected.
The wet ground immediately started clinging to the soles of their shoes, boots sank into the softened mud, and the air hung heavy with the smell of damp leaves, algae, and something metallic that only made the unease inside him worse.
Police cars flashed blue and red between the trees, pulling pieces of the forest out of the darkness — the yellow barrier tape and the tense faces of people moving along the shoreline. Some spoke in low voices, others hurried past carrying folders and equipment, but even through all the activity, it was obvious that something truly bad had happened.
Rick shivered involuntarily and shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket.
Aaron killed the engine and immediately looked at him.
“Stay here,” he said flatly. “Don't touch anything.”
Rick let out a quiet breath through his nose.
“Okay.”
But Lake kept looking at him. That look made it painfully obvious that he didn't believe him for a second.
“Seriously,” Rick added a little more quietly, catching that silent distrust. “I'll just stay by the car.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, as though mentally weighing how realistic that promise actually was in Rick's case. Then he rolled his eyes briefly and got out of the car.
“That was very rude, by the way,” Rick muttered after him.
Lake didn't react. He simply turned up the collar of his jacket and ducked beneath the yellow tape, heading toward the shore.
Rick watched him for a long moment.
Even from here, Aaron was impossible to miss — tall, composed, and far too calm amid all the nervous commotion around him. People moved aside for him almost automatically.
Rick didn't even realize when he started looking farther, beyond the police perimeter, but at some point he clearly saw the bodies.
His heart gave an unpleasant jolt.
Right at the water's edge, among the wet stones and fallen leaves, lay two young women. Pale and bloated, with water-darkened hair stuck to their faces. Crime scene technicians were already working around them, people were speaking quietly to one another, but even from a distance the entire scene felt deeply disturbing.
Rick slowly straightened, feeling a growing unease tightening beneath his ribs. But the worst part was that alongside it, that strange, almost painful need to understand what had happened here was already beginning to awaken inside him.
He got out of the car after all.
The soaked ground squelched unpleasantly beneath his boots as he took a few steps forward and stopped a short distance from the barrier, trying not to get in the way.
Not far away, a tall woman in a jacket marked «SHERIFF» was speaking sharply to a young red-haired man who looked as though he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.
“Why aren't you working yet?” she asked irritably.
“I... I didn't get started.”
“I can see that. What's the problem?”
The young man swallowed nervously and looked away.
“I left the camera back at the station...”
The woman let out a heavy breath and pinched the bridge of her nose for a second.
Rick's gaze drifted automatically back to the crime scene.
The crime scene technicians were already working by the water. Some were talking among themselves, others were examining the shoreline, but there were indeed no camera flashes. And for some reason, that fact suddenly began to irritate Rick himself.
Because he understood that the crime scene was changing right now.
Tracks were being smeared by mud. People were walking through the area. And time was slipping away mercilessly.
“That's bad, isn't it?” he asked quietly, more to himself than to anyone in particular.
The sheriff looked sharply at him when she heard it.
“What?”
Rick hesitated slightly, but nodded toward the shore.
“Well... if a crime scene isn't photographed properly right away, you can't fully reconstruct it later, can you?”
She stared at him in silence for several seconds, as though she had only just noticed he was there at all.
“And who are you?”
“Richard Parker,” he introduced himself automatically. “I came here with Detective Lake.”
After those words, the woman unexpectedly fell silent.
Her gaze grew sharper, more attentive, as though she was rapidly piecing together conclusions in her head.
Somewhere behind her, Aaron's tall silhouette flashed briefly into view, and the sheriff let out a short breath through her nose.
“With Lake, huh...”
It sounded strange — not like a question, but more like a thought spoken aloud.
She considered something for a few more seconds before finally looking at Rick again.
“You a photographer?”
“Not exactly,” Rick said, hesitating slightly. “But I do some photography work now and then.”
The sheriff dragged a hand sharply across her face, clearly trying to hold on to the last remnants of her composure.
Behind her, someone shouted for the patrol officers. One of the reporters had slipped past the barrier by the lake. And the red-haired young man beside her looked as though he was seconds away from passing out.
Hayes turned to him irritably.
“Do you have any idea what this looks like?” she hissed. “In half an hour, every news outlet in the state will be here. I've got two bodies, an uncontrollable crowd of reporters, and my crime scene photographer shows up without a camera.”
Simon merely lowered his head guiltily.
The sheriff let out a long breath through her nose and looked back at Rick.
For a long, weary moment, as though she was trying to decide which of all the available options would be the least awful.
Finally, she exhaled in irritation.
“Where's your camera?”
“In the car.”
The woman closed her eyes for a second, clearly calculating something quickly in her head, then shifted her gaze again to where Lake's tall figure was already moving among the personnel.
And that, apparently, pushed her to a decision.
“Fine,” she said sharply. “Go get your camera and start shooting before this place gets trampled to hell.”
Rick blinked in confusion. For a second, he genuinely thought he had misheard her.
“Wait...” He frowned involuntarily. “I'm not a crime scene photographer.”
The sheriff had already started turning back toward the shore, but she stopped.
“I've never photographed bodies,” Rick continued honestly, feeling the anxiety rising unpleasantly inside him again. “Concerts, weddings, love stories, that kind of crap — sure. This is a little... different.”
On the last words, he couldn't help glancing toward the shore. The sight of the bodies alone made something tighten unpleasantly inside him again.
Hayes studied him silently for several seconds, then jerked her head over her shoulder.
“If Detective Lake brought you here, then you're not just anybody,” she said firmly. “That man's judgment about people is better than mine. And he definitely wouldn't drag some random idiot onto a crime scene.”
Rick fell silent despite himself. Something inside him shifted strangely at those words.
Meanwhile, the sheriff turned sharply toward Simon.
“As for you, it seems you've decided to find out exactly how many problems one person can create before noon.”
“Chief, I told you —”
“You forgot your camera at the scene of a double homicide, Simon,” she cut in coldly. “Honestly, I don't know how you manage to set a new record every single time.”
The young man went even paler and looked away guiltily.
Hayes let out a heavy breath, clearly struggling to contain her irritation, then looked back at Rick.
“Either you go get that camera right now, or in twenty minutes this place will be trampled by reporters, patrol officers, and half my department. Pick quickly.”
Rick stood motionless beneath the light drizzle, feeling everything inside him tighten into a knot.
This was a bad idea.
A very bad idea.
He wasn't supposed to be standing here at all — among police lights, mud, the smell of damp earth, and two dead girls.
And he definitely wasn't supposed to catch himself automatically noticing details.
The tracks near the shore.
The softened ground.
The broken branches near the path.
But something inside him was already beginning to wake up against his will.
That same feeling that had made Rick stick his nose where it didn't belong his entire life.
And that frightened him more than anything.
Hayes called out irritably to one of the officers.
“Hey! Somebody get him a temporary pass before the patrol officers throw him the hell out of here.”
One of the policemen immediately handed Rick a plastic badge on a lanyard.
He caught it automatically, still looking as though he didn't entirely understand how he'd ended up in the middle of all this chaos.
“And Parker,” the sheriff added, glancing back at him over her shoulder. “Try not to regret getting out of that car today.”
Rick only let out a strained breath, gripping the pass in his fingers while people, radios, and flashing police lights continued moving all around him.
And on the other side of the barrier tape, right at the water's edge, Lake had already crouched beside the bodies. The air was heavy with the smell of dampness, algae, and active decomposition, but he had learned long ago not to notice either it or death itself.
He looked silently at the bodies, feeling the familiar disgust — not toward the dead, but toward how calmly he was able to do this work again.
“Smith, got a spare pair?” he asked dryly, without looking up.
“For you? Always, Detective,” Smith replied cheerfully, holding out a pair of latex gloves.
Aaron pulled them on while the medical examiner continued.
“The girls are young. Around sixteen, both of them. Preliminary cause of death — asphyxiation. They've both been in the water for at least a week, though the first one was definitely there longer. I'd say no more than a day or two apart. Johnson will give you a more precise answer after the autopsy — the bodies have already started to bloat.”
Seven days.
Someone had spent an entire week living alongside this. Walking the streets. Drinking coffee. Talking to people. And all the while knowing exactly what they'd done.
Meanwhile, Smith kept talking.
“Most likely somebody physically strong. A trucker, maybe. A laborer. A drunken fight, jealousy, something along those lines.”
Aaron pulled on the second glove and looked up at him.
“Too clean for a drunken fight.”
“Why not? Maybe he's just neat,” Smith said with a shrug. “Killed the first one, realized he got away with it. Then snapped again. Happens more often than you'd think.”
Aaron grimaced.
Smith always talked about corpses too casually, as though he were discussing spoiled meat at a market.
“And the eyes?” Lake asked, raising an eyebrow.
“What about them?”
“They’re gone.”
Smith frowned in confusion, then shrugged.
“Animals. Crows, maybe.”
“Crows...” Aaron exhaled slowly. “Perfectly clean eye sockets? Seriously?”
Smith shrugged again.
“Hunger does things to you. Me, for example — when I'm hungry, I become a dangerous man too.”
Smith kept talking, but Aaron had already stopped listening.
He merely exhaled in irritation and swept the beam of his flashlight across the empty socket, over that darkness inside that was far too neat, almost clean.
Something was wrong.
He frowned slowly, looking back at the body.
Young girls and missing eyes?
For a second, the sound of a cold forest at night seemed to rush through his ears again.
A frightened girl's face flashed through his memory. The trembling beams of flashlights. Teenage laughter. And that stupid stunt they'd pulled back then just for fun.
Something dropped heavily inside his chest.
Aaron straightened abruptly, feeling a chill slowly run down his spine.
Ten years.
A full ten years, and he still sometimes dreamed about that forest, the screams, and that horrible feeling of helplessness when it was already too late to fix anything.
“Lake?”
Someone's voice yanked him back.
Smith was watching him cautiously, a slight frown on his face.
“Why'd you go pale?”
Aaron blinked and looked back at the bodies by the water. A bad feeling pricked somewhere deep inside him.
“Nothing... just déjà vu,” he replied quietly, and for some reason his own voice sounded unusually rough.
“You've seen something like this before?”
Aaron was silent for several seconds before giving the slightest nod.
“Yes.”
After that answer, a heavy silence settled between them again. Smith seemed to sense that this wasn't the time to ask questions and merely cleared his throat awkwardly before returning to work.
Meanwhile, Rick kept photographing the shoreline.
After taking a few more shots, he finally moved closer.
With every step, the outlines of the bodies became clearer.
The girls lay several yards apart, half-submerged in the water. Pale, swollen skin. Wet, tangled hair. Heads twisted at unnatural angles. Empty eye sockets that made something inside him grow cold just looking at them.
Rick's mouth went dry.
The heavy, sickly-sweet smell of decomposition hit him sharply, and his stomach immediately clenched.
It was one thing to see it in movies, photographs, or old police reports that could be closed at any moment. It was another thing entirely to stand here in wet mud beside real dead bodies.
Not long ago, these girls had been alive. Laughing. Texting someone. Making plans.
And now they were lying here.
Out of the corner of his eye, Aaron caught movement nearby and turned sharply.
His expression hardened instantly. Pulling off his gloves as he walked, he headed straight toward Rick.
“What are you doing here?” he asked quietly through clenched teeth.
“Working, actually.”
Rick jerked his chin toward the badge.
That seemed to irritate Lake even more.
“I told you to wait in the car.”
He took another step closer, completely blocking Rick's view of the bodies with his own.
“Who even let you in here?”
“Your boss,” Rick replied with an irritated exhale, meeting his eyes. “And honestly, she can be very persuasive.”
Aaron clenched his jaw so hard that the muscles stood out beneath his skin and slowly breathed out through his nose.
Meanwhile, Rick stepped around him and raised the camera again, focusing on the bodies.
The shutter clicked sharply.
And almost immediately, the world tilted.
The sound of voices began to drift away, turning into a dull, heavy hum, and the ground beneath his feet suddenly felt unreliable.
He froze, feeling his heart slam somewhere in his throat while his face went numb.
Shit.
The world swayed slightly. As if sensing it without even seeing him, Aaron was suddenly standing in front of him again, blocking the view once more.
“Parker.”
He had already lifted a hand, as though he intended to take hold of Rick's shoulder, but changed his mind at the last second and lowered it.
“Look at me,” he ordered, his voice low.
Rick tried to take a deeper breath, but the air still caught somewhere in his chest. His vision blurred unpleasantly.
“I'm fine,” he managed hoarsely.
“The hell you are.”
Aaron bent slightly lower, watching his face carefully, as though expecting him to collapse into the mud beside the bodies at any moment.
For some reason, that irritated him almost as much as his own weakness.
Rick turned away sharply, gripping the camera tighter. Nausea rose in his throat together with a burning sense of shame.
And the worst part was that Lake could see all of it.
“Your first case always sucks,” Hong said quietly, appearing beside them out of nowhere. “I couldn't stop thinking about my first drowning victim for a month.”
Rick let out a short huff, still feeling the unpleasant weakness in his legs.
“That's encouraging.”
“I'm serious!” the young man said with a gentle smile. “After my first body, I threw up all over the sheriff's boots.”
“Hong,” Aaron called in a low voice, and Billy immediately straightened.
Lake wasn't even looking at him. He continued watching the crime scene technicians by the water.
“Why is the witness still alone?”
Billy blinked in confusion and only then turned toward the girl wrapped in a blanket.
“I... wanted to help here first.”
“You've already helped here,” Aaron said dryly.
Billy visibly shrank.
“Understood,” he nodded quickly and immediately headed toward the barrier.
Rick watched him go in silence for a few seconds.
“You should be a little gentler with him.”
Aaron let out a short breath through his nose.
“No. I shouldn't. This is work.”
“The kid's trying,” Rick said with a grimace, still pale from what he'd seen. “And all you do is scare him.”
At last, Lake turned his head toward him.
“Want to teach me how to do my job?”
“Don't flatter yourself.” Rick let out a quiet chuckle. “I'm just saying what I see.”
Aaron looked at him silently for several seconds before speaking with clear irritation.
“Then you should understand that nobody gets to stand around and slack off here.”
“Oh, is that what this is?” Rick looked him straight in the eye, unconsciously tightening his grip on the camera. “You're annoyed they brought me in?”
“The problem is that you have no idea what you've gotten yourself into,” Aaron replied flatly.
Something about those words scratched unpleasantly at something inside him.
Rick merely huffed and shrugged.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but you should've thought about that before you brought me here.”
Aaron didn't answer. He only turned his gaze back toward the lake, where the crime scene technicians were still moving around.
The fog over the water was growing thicker, gradually blurring the outlines of the trees and the flashes of police sirens. Red and blue light slid across the wet ground, the puddles, and Aaron's face, which had become almost unreadable again after their brief argument.
For some reason, that made everything feel even worse.
Rick looked away irritably and followed after him in silence.
The rain began picking up again. Wet clay clung to their boots. The barrier tape crackled softly in the wind. People continued moving all around them — crime scene technicians, patrol officers, medical examiners.
Lake slipped quickly back into his work rhythm.
Giving short instructions. Checking the shoreline. Exchanging brief comments with Smith. Seeming to keep track of everything happening around him at once.
Parker stayed a little behind, automatically photographing the crime scene.
Footprints by the water.
Blurred mud.
Tire tracks near the path.
A torn blue fragment of a label.
At one point, one of the younger patrol officers — Reeves, he thought someone had called him — carelessly caught the edge of the barrier with his boot and stepped directly into a softened footprint near the shore.
“Shit...” Reeves cursed, jerking back.
Lake turned immediately.
The irritation appeared on his face so quickly it was as though it had been waiting for an excuse all along.
“Are you even watching where you're —”
“Wait,” Rick interrupted calmly, lowering the camera. “I got pictures of everything before he stepped in it.”
For several seconds, Aaron simply looked at him.
Rain tapped softly against hoods and wet grass.
“Stay out of the way anyway,” he finally said. “It's too easy to ruin something here.”
Rick huffed quietly to himself and raised the camera again.
“If I'd stayed out of the way, you'd have already lost that footprint.”
Something flickered almost imperceptibly across Aaron's face, but he didn't respond.
He simply turned back toward the shoreline and resumed coordinating the work around him while the cold air was cut by the heavy sound of black body bags being zipped shut.
***
The next morning brought Parker back to the police station.
The street smelled of rain and wet asphalt. Rick stopped outside the entrance, automatically pulled out a cigarette, and flicked his lighter.
The bitter smoke burned his throat and slowly settled inside him with a heavy warmth. He took another drag and looked up at the familiar building.
Strange.
Yesterday, he'd been sure he would never come back here after the lake. And yet here he was again.
Standing outside a police station with a box of donuts in his hands as though he were about to film some famous crime drama.
The thought made him chuckle quietly.
Yeah. Now all he needed was to start introducing himself as Morgan.
After finishing the cigarette, he tossed the butt into a trash can and pushed open the station's heavy door.
Inside, work was already in full swing.
