Chapter 5: CIERRA

This was my secret, a little kernel of truth that had come to me during the darkness of night, one long ago night. I'd still been a young, impressionable girl; still the lost child, who was alone in the world. I stayed up nights, afraid to close my eyes, afraid of what the darkness would hold. Not because of the boogeyman no, my nightmare had been of a different nature. It was at night that I realized I couldn't remember their faces. Gradually they were fading away from my memory.

I'd had no mementos left, no keepsakes. In the chaos of being spirited away in the dead of night, from the home of the friend I'd been staying over with that night, no one had thought to even ask. Then as the weeks went by, when it wasn't certain who had been the target of the massacre and if I was still in danger, all thought of such things got lost in the shuffle.

So it was, that while others my age, were out having fun and doing the growing pains thing, going to parties with friends, enjoying the normal teenage proclivities, I'd been studying human behaviors. I taught myself to look beyond the expected, to push my mind harder. It was as though I went to a different plane of existence, where everything became clearer.

It was almost like pieces to a puzzle, that had been scattered about haphazardly; and I had to painstakingly put it all back together. When I first noticed that nine times out of ten I'd been on point, I decided to use that as my passport into the bureau. From that first compulsion, I made it my mission to hone my skills. I ate, slept and lived anything to do with crime solving.

I had no idea then, what a profiler was, had no idea where I would fit. I just knew I needed to be here, where I had access to the information that might come in handy, and so I'd pushed myself in every way. That's why today I'm being touted as the best new brain to hit the farm in decades. Some were even saying I was the best ever, and I guess there was some truth to it, since I was offered a position that usually took years of hard work to achieve. I didn't let accolades go to my head though, that's not why I was here; my purpose had never changed, not once in all these years.

So I've stayed true to myself and focused on my goals. I'm not in this for praise and recognition; truth be known if I could be left alone to do what I do, with no one looking over my shoulder, or critiquing, I would be happy. But that's not the way it works. I've been vetted, studied, interrogated, all but put under hypnosis to extract my secrets. One enterprising scientist even joked that he'd like to get a look inside my brain; too bad I'd have to be dead for that happy occurrence to take place.

The others were getting restless waiting for my answer. They'd learned by now, that I wasn't one to be rushed, but that didn't stop them moaning and groaning. I looked up and around the table at the faces gathered there, a sea of male faces; some of them I knew, resented my presence here. Some saw it as unfair that I'd been moved ahead, there'd even been rumors of me sleeping my way here, which had all been quelled when my skills were made evident in exercise after exercise.

***

"It's not him." I'd known the answer for quite some time now, I'd gone over the case relentlessly and every time I came back to the same thing. Yes he fit the profile, too perfectly and as I've said before, profiles can be wrong. They're compiled by human beings after all, and contrary to what the movies portray, no one is right a hundred percent of the time; not unless he's also capable of walking on water.

"Aww come on Stone; we got the guy dead to rights. He fits the profile to a T. All roads point to him. We even found his DNA at the last scene."

"Stodgy DNA at best, and we know he knew the victim, so even that could've been explained; but what of the others? He had no known association with any of the other women that we could find, not a scrap of evidence puts him anywhere in their vicinity, either at the time the crimes were carried out, or at any other time."

"Come on stone; we all know you're supposed to have a superhuman brain or some shit, but you're wrong this time; this is our guy, I feel it in my gut." Thompson, one of my staunchest adversaries, was quick to shoot down my answer. Nothing new there, there was no love lost between us. He was a chauvinistic asshole, who'd thought it would be easy getting me into his bed, because apparently the women back in his hometown of bum fuck USA thought he was hot shit. I'd been brutally honest in my rejection, he hadn't been too appreciative of my candidness and has been a pain in my ass ever since.

I didn't let the slur bother me. Though it was a well-known tactic some used to throw people off their guard. I'm not that easily led and what others thought, didn't necessarily have the desired effect on me. That's probably why I'd gained the reputation of a stone cold bitch.

Whatever! Nothing deterred me from my purpose, nothing; not even the brief affair I'd had in college. When things had become too serious with Paul, and it had looked like I might be taken off track, I dropped the guy like a hot coal. That was my one and only foray into the shark infested waters called relationships. Somehow the other person always seemed to expect you to give up who you were, to please them.

With Paul, things had started out well enough. The physical side of things were ok, nothing earth shattering like I'd heard bragged about, but then he'd started to become controlling and wanting more and more of my time. Instead I'd given him his walking papers and severed all ties.

Some considered me heartless in the way I did things, the way I was so completely focused on getting ahead in my chosen field to the point that nothing else mattered in the least; that may be true. I do know a part of my heart died with my family that long ago day, and if I had to be a heartless loner to find the one who ended them, and brought this sorrow into my life, then so be it. It has been my only reason for living all these years later and I won't quit until I found him.