Chapter 5 You Are Truly an Ominous Person

I didn't argue and just found another seat right away. Michael gave a cold snort, shot a glance at Isabella next to me, and fired up the projector without missing a beat, diving back into our case briefing.

He fiddled with the cigarette behind his ear, pointed at the slide with a laser pointer, and said, "For those of you who were late, I won't wait next time, especially James and Isabella!"

"Alright, next time I'll make sure to kick James awake!" Isabella shot back, flashing her pearly whites.

"So, what have you all dug up recently? Last night, we scoured the areas around Sophia's place and checked out a bunch of public spots, but no eyewitnesses. Anything from Sophia's phone records or online chats?"

"They were all in touch with a number before the incident, but turns out the guy was an old man who's already dead!" Isabella replied.

"The person using that number must be hiding something, otherwise, there'd be no need to..." Michael started, but I cut him off, "I got this yesterday."

I slapped a black-and-white photo on the conference table, and everyone leaned in. Michael, with his eagle eyes, was the first to spot what was in the photo. "Is this you and Aiden when you were kids?"

"Yeah, that's our hometown, Harmony Village!"

"How'd you get it?" Michael asked.

I laid it all out. The room got tense. Michael clenched his fist and slammed it on the desk. "This bastard is involved, maybe even the mastermind. Why else taunt us like this? James, what did you and Aiden do back then? Who did you piss off?"

"Michael, what are you getting at?" I asked.

Before I could finish, Isabella jumped in, "Yeah, Michael, what do you mean? Are you suspecting they..."

"It's pretty clear now. The killer's targeting them. Sophia was just the first, and there'll definitely be more!" Michael interrupted.

"Don't be so dramatic, Michael," Isabella said, skeptical.

But a sinking feeling settled in my gut. "Isabella, he might be right," I said, my voice heavy. "This guy wants to drag this out, make me relive it, force us to confront some buried truth. This is connected to Aiden. The boy who died twelve years ago… it wasn't him. I got the DNA results back. It matches me and my parents. Aiden died recently."

The weight of the revelation hung in the air. "This confirms the killer came back for him," I continued. "The threats, using Aiden's identity… he thinks Aiden did something all those years ago, something the cops missed. And now I'm paying the price."

Michael snorted and said, "James, you're really a jinx. After you joined the police department, your dad got fired, and then even your uncle..."

"Yeah, I don't know how you got in back then either."

"With the right connections, even a sloth could join our major crimes unit."

A bunch of officers started murmuring.

"Cut it out, this has nothing to do with James," Isabella shouted, gritting her teeth, clearly pissed off.

"Who knows? Now he's causing us trouble again, isn't he?" Michael said, and all the officers looked at me with disgust in their eyes.

I said, "For the sake of the case, we need to stay impartial, Michael. No matter what kind of person I was before or how I affected everyone, we have bigger things to worry about now!"

"Fine, I'll hand this case over to you entirely. If you can't solve it, I'll make sure you get kicked out of the major crimes unit!"

"And if I crack it?" I challenged.

"Then I'll hear you out. Every suggestion, every lead."

"Great, I agree," I replied. But Isabella kept nudging my shoes, biting her lip and whispering, "They haven't found any valuable clues, and we're just tech officers. And I've reviewed all the surveillance footage many times; there's no way to solve the case."

I didn't answer, just signaled her to stay calm with my eyes. Then we headed back to the tech department. A lot of people don't realize how crucial image forensics is in criminal investigations.

Sure, my arresting skills weren't as sharp as the detectives', my evidence handling wasn't as good as the forensic examiners', and my autopsy skills weren't as good as the medical examiners', but I was super confident in image forensics!

Focusing on all the movements of Sophia and Aiden before the incident, I first found the surveillance near their workplaces. After inputting some commands into the computer, I extracted all the usable footage from the surrounding streets!

Then I used triangulation to pinpoint the parking lots they frequented and connected all the dashcam footage from vehicles near their homes and workplaces!

Then I started screening them one by one!

Isabella was always by my side, and every time I gave her a task, she nailed it and even went above and beyond. Plus, a few tech officers were digging through the surveillance footage from public places near the crime scenes that the detectives had gathered.

Among the countless dashcam recordings, I noticed that one day after work, Aiden went to the parking lot downstairs and was about to get into his car when a woman following him from behind suddenly stunned him with a taser!

Aiden immediately went down, and the woman dragged him into another car. Even though she was careful, one of the dashcams caught her face when she bent down to pull Aiden!

It wasn't Sophia but another woman!