"The Red Rose Rapist strikes again! This time in an alley nowhere near his other victims have been."
Inspector Rose Garza breathed heavy sigh, "That's the third time in two weeks. He's getting bolder. Ok, victim's name?"
"Rose Red."
"Hm, like in the poem roses are red?"
"Oh, no sorry read it wrong. Reid is how you say it. How funny you share a first name huh?"
"No, that's just creepy. I assume she's at the hospital being examined by the doctors?"
"Yes but she's groggy from..."
"Chloroform" they both said together.
Rose sighed another long, painful sigh. "She'll be knocked out until morning."
"If only we can find something in common with all the victims! Maybe we'd be able to figure out where he's gonna go next!"
"Well whatever they have in common we're sure not finding it. Perhaps we should try asking the citizens if they can report people missing for strange periods of time...like at night when all the rapes occur."
"Rose, we've been over this. The best thing to do is let other people come to us. If we go to the people we'll get tons of bogus reports and we can't chase all of em."
"And we don't have any suspects. Sure, it was a great idea to check DNA against all known sex offenders but none matched!"
"You seem tense and frustrated. This case is starting to wear you down a bit too much. Go home early. Relax. You and Bentley will go and interview Miss Rose tomorrow morning."
"Thanks Boss," Rose said with a smile.
As she drove home her mind attempted to form connections, anything, to the series of rapes that continued to leave Scotland Yard stumped. As usual, her mind came up blank. Her boss was right, she was focusing too hard. But how can you help it when it's so close to home? Rose forced herself to start thinking about other things. She was saddened about the onset of her period this week. A baby is one of the things Rose wanted more than anything in the world. It didn't matter if her boyfriend Jim would be in or out of the baby's life, she just wanted a kid badly but didn't want marriage to tie her down. Married life scared her more than raising a kid by herself.
She was home now. A simple two bedroom apartment on the ground floor of a moderately good neighborhood. Her hands reached for the keys inside her purse. She unlocked and opened the door. With a flick of a switch light illuminated the living room. Her eyes grew as big as saucers when she saw a single red rose lying on the living room table...
Oh yes, there's still more to come. Much more, muahaha!
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