The fluorescent lights of the investigation room buzzed faintly, cold and clinical against the warm, chaotic night they'd left behind. Evidence bags lined the counters, each one holding a fragment of the shed: splintered wood, smudged blood swabs, a bent nail.
Bulvok leaned against the edge of the table, rolling a cigarette between his fingers. He lit it, inhaled deeply, and let the smoke drift lazily toward the ceiling. His eyes were sharp, scanning the room, scanning the evidence, scanning the two officers working quietly at their stations.
"Robert Edmundo—24 years old—reported missing 1 month ago by his mother and friends, studying his last year at Technical and Economic Adrien University, no debt, no personal grudges or any drugs exchanging," she read the information out loud, her eyes never leaving boxes of evidence.
"Completely a normal person living a life full of dream in future." She close the file on her hands, her eyes glazed with focus, but glinting with deep sorrow.
"He too young for this," she tracing the photos—Luminol photos, bent nails. None fingerprints being found at the scene, even footprints—this time, they doubting themselves.
"Do you think is the same person this time, Chief?". She glanced at Bulvok , still sitting with his cigarette in his left hand, his eyes staring at a golden mockingbird figure in his right hand. His thumb tracing the wings of it, holding it up and down to feel the weight of real gold quality.
"Well," she whispered. Then keep focusing on those evidences in front of of her eyes.
"How long did you start to work under my team, Ms. Evelyn?" His question hung in the air, cutting through the quiet hum of fluorescent lights.
Evelyn's eyes flicked upward, grounding herself in the harsh glow, measuring her words. "Could be… seven months and a half, Chief. March," she said slowly, voice steady despite the weight of the room. Her mind traced back to the first day she had stepped into the chaos of Bulvok's investigations, a time when every case felt like a storm waiting to break.
She suddenly giggling, thinking back the day he threatened her if she can't deal with her chemical allergy while working in lab. She should quit this job. Well, at that time, he also want to let someone else take over this serial case. But those victims, still and have so much dreams to continue. He thinking about his child. His family.
"Well," he stopped, letting the words hang in the air. "I have a daughter—20 years old, just been admitted to ENS Paris. Her dream." He let out a bitter laugh, but the corner of his mouth curved in a grin that carried both pride and a touch of sorrow.
"She doesn't want to follow my career," he continued, voice softer now, almost lost in thought. "No corpses, no puzzles of death. She wants to live in light… while I have to chase shadows, figure out why people die, and who decides they should."
"Must be this moment, while her father sitting here with dead peoples belongings, she already sleep peacefully in her small bed at home without thinking what to eat tomorrow…"
Evelyn and he let out a low, almost reluctant chuckle together, the sound cutting through the tension like a small relief. Bulvok's eyes lingered on her, noting the contrast: just a few years older than his daughter, yet carrying enough courage to step into this world of shadows, corpses, and relentless investigations.
"How about you?" he asked, voice softer now, genuinely curious. "Your mother and father?"
Evelyn paused, glancing down at the folder in her hands, then back at him. There was a quiet strength in her eyes, tempered with a trace of sorrow. "They're… well. My mother passed away a few years ago, unexpectedly. Father… he's far away, busy with his work, lives a life I barely know anymore." She gave a small shrug, almost apologetic, but her tone carried resilience. "I suppose that's why I threw myself into this job. Maybe I feel closer to something I can control."
"His eyes met hers, steady and deliberate, as if passing down a piece of hard-won truth. "Think about it. You work in a company—you control numbers, charts, data. You work as a lawyer—you control how much your clients will lose. But here…" He gestured to the evidence, the glowing Luminol photos, the blood-streaked plank on the table. "You can't control your target. You can't control when, where, or who they'll strike. You only respond. You chase. You try to anticipate—but it's never enough. Not truly."
Evelyn nodded slowly, absorbing the weight in his words. She could feel the truth in it, the relentlessness of the hunt he lived every day. "And we keep going"
They smiled together, a silent hanging between them. Evelyn eyes drifted down to the mockingbird figure. "So, what do you have in mind now, Chief?"
He looked back at the figure in his hand. "I have someone in my mind..,".
Evelyn pushed herself up, standing straight , her eyes widening in excitement. "Any suspects?."
He remembering back the scene when he stepped into the old root cellar where that young man lead them too. A horrifying scene that he ever witnessed—if someone watching Silent of the Lamb—this must be doctor Hannibal Lecter's huge fan—or it even himself—or someone try to make him alive—more cold blooded, more calculating.
He remembered stepping down, boots scraping against loose stones, the flashlight slicing a thin cone of light through the darkness. And then—the bodies, not body, but bodies.
Not Robert this time, but another scene, more bodies , more blood. That would haunt him: blood smeared across the floor in unnatural arcs, objects overturned as if in a struggle, and an unsettling order to the chaos that made his stomach tighten. Every detail screamed precision, cruelty, and an intelligence behind the violence that chilled him deeper than any sight he'd encountered before.
This mockingbird- he found it in one victim's eyes socket, his eyes beung found in a nearby fridge — that fucking hella fridge—is more than any words can describe—meat and organs.
"This isn't random," he muttered under his breath. "This… this is method. Signature. Someone who's clever, organized… and hungry for control, that people chose targets n an arrangement that hardly to explain."
Evelyn stepped forward, a stack of neatly organized files cradled in her arms. The top folder's label caught Bulvok's eye: "Spring 2021: Mockingbird."
She placed the stack carefully on the table, spreading them out. "Chief, these are all the victims connected to the… pattern we've been tracking," she said, voice steady despite the weight of the contents. "Names, ages, last known locations, everything we've been able to confirm so far."
"These teenagers," Bulvok began, his voice tight with incredulity, "all of them have the same common factor—they studied abroad in Moscow. And especially… this sounds crazy—but when they returned…" He paused, spreading the files across the table, flicking through pages, and marking key details with a red marker.
"They all weighed under fifty kilograms." He slammed the marker down on the table, shaking his head as disbelief contorted his features.
"Am I crazy? I don't know what the hell those universities did to them—but they lose part, or even more than half of their weight. Am I supposed to ask about their study methods now?" He rubbed his temple, doubting himself, questioning whether he was overthinking.
Evelyn tilted her head, trying to process it. "Well… don't say they were running on treadmills while studying their lessons?" she said softly, a hint of dry humor in her tone. "Kinda… understandable."
Bulvok shot her a look, half amused, half exasperated. "Understandable? Fifty kilograms? No. This is deliberate. Something happened to them there."
He leaned back, eyes scanning the files again. "They all attended private or suburban schools in Moscow—especially students with Canadian nationality. I contacted investigators in Canada—they confirmed that over the past few months, students from these private schools have been reported missing… or, in some cases, have officially left the country through passport controls. But no one knows why, or where they've gone?"
The room fell silent, the files spread out like a roadmap of darkness, each number and mark a whisper of a methodical predator. Outside, the city slept unaware—but inside this investigation room, the storm was already gathering.
Evelyn looked at him. "And, the one you said you have in mind?"
He flickered his cigarette on the tray one last time, put the mockingbird figure on the table.
"Well, I hope she already being "Miss Marple" in her dreams, or at least Veronica Mars.." he trailing off. "She on her ways"