Monday 11 a.m. Benedicta woke sloppy and bruised, after a night of nightmares that this time she remembered all too well. Most of them were related to the case she was after, but there were fire, smoke, scream of agony and pain too. She woke twice to run in her toilet and vomit.
The women-only weekend ended in some can of beer of too much and the hangover wastyrannizing her.
Initially she thought about call a day off work, but when she took her bipping pager, it showed ten messages from Oda that asked her presence as soon as possible.

The reason he would explain when she will arrive.

Ordinarily she hated how the man used to be enigmatic, but this time, since the press was making fun of them in public, she was gratefull of his wariness.

By the way there was the other side of the coin too. If Oda was being a charade this meant only troubles. Damn.

She raised from the bed and blamed herself for believe she was still some teenager she wasn't since many years ago. Martha was still trashed on the sofa hugging her blanket when Benedicta had to leave home. Dying of envy she left her a note and flew away. Not for the first time since she was back to KC, she drove well beyond the speed limit.

The tension in the office was palpable, once again noone dared to speak theyr thoughts but Benedicta, frustraded in a way she could not handle, mad at the view of the dossier in her hands. All this time chasing down a mole, when there was no mole of sorta, just a stupid freelance with the fucking craze of being a private investigator.

The man, some Ivan Diaz, sent them all his evidences with a letter.

"My name is Ivan Diaz, I am a freelance, i work in cooperation with the Krimson post.If you receive this dossier it means i've decided to follow my itch and go stick my nose around Elk River Village and the big villain found me. When you'll receive this dossier i'll be probably dead. I.D."

This was a "Stupid fucking idiot!" Benedicta spat.

They now had a new missing person, probably dead by now, but no new tracks.

The "evidences"provided by the man were mere pictures of the Elk River villagers acting suspiciously, but more likely about a weed traffic. There were notes scribled here and there on the articles published about the previous killings and records with theyr own voices, while speaking of the investigation in theyr office, but other than this nothing.
The psychopath was still around. Not changing his M.O., but not using a scheme, not leaving a single trace of himself.

Kidman snorted, she almost felt relieved that such a imbecile was out of the games, probably by now the press would have not been so informate about facts.

"Something stinks here" Sebastian said.

"I agree with Seb. If these are all the evidences Diaz gathered, there's no way that the press could have been so updated with the case. It seems he have a mic on our office, but the newspaper came out before we knew about the last killing. There's something wrong." Said a more than usual talkative Joseph Oda.

Benedicta glared at her rotten pc humming. As background she used to put the faces of the missing people, want for some form of respect or to not forget about them or both. A light turned up in her mind as she saw Valerio Jimenez's face.

"I feel for once to agree with both of you. I have a idea, but before say something i want to think about it." She said. She wrote something on a sheet and showed it to them:

"call me paranoid, but i think we must clean home from bugs before we speak again"

"We have time for a coffee out?" she said.

Sebastian nodded smirking.

The four of them were soon out for a private conversation on a Beacon Mental Hospital cafetteria table.

"Why we came till here?" Joseph asked fixing his glasses on his nose with disappointment.

Benedicta took a look around before to speak, when she saw no eyes pointing at them she breathed and started to talk almost under her voice.

"I am sorry, i don't want to steal your job of detectives, but i've made the mistake to say we have no clues instead we have a full track to follow."she said.

"I don't understand, what track?" Kidman asked

"The freelance,Diaz, was investigating Elk River right? Well, even if we can't recognize the first victim, the other three were all from there."

"this mean nothing"Sebastian stated

"Well, this mean nothing, unless you don't take in consideration the missing people,if we consider them, we find out that most of them are from Elk River too and that they had relations with both the Elk River Hospice, major donor of the funds for the Goddes's creed, and the Church of Cedar Hill. The last missing person not counting Diaz, it was Valerio Jimenez the owner of the hospice. The last corpse we found was between Cedar hill and Elk River. It's an hazard, but it's also a good reason for make a snooping freelance desappear." Benedicta answered.

The silence fall between them, both lost in theyr thoughts untill Oda opened his mouth again.

"Still, why we'rehere?"

"Marcelo Jimenez direct this hospital, happends to be both a member of the Church and Doctor Valerio Jimenez brother, if someone knows something, it should be him."

"Someone did homeworks between one beer and the other? Am proud of you. You're being a noteworthy addition to our team." Sebastian said "It's not much, but at least we have a start point".

xxx

Thrilled by her sudden stroke of genius that night Benedicta decided to go run. Fuck off the headache and the tiredness, she needed to rid off of the exceeding energy.

She found herself jog around the park that at the sunset resulted to be a less idyllic place. Homeless along every kind of junkies and drunk people were sat on the bench that was her destination for a break. She took her phone and called Martha praying for her to be free to talk just in order to not feel alone in middle of the scum of the society, and keep her awake while she ran around there. Also she wanted to check up her conditions. Benedicta remembered her drink as much as she drank and she felt a crap the whole day.

After a lecture, some joke and one hour of jogging Benedicta felt drained and couldn't wait to be home and rest.

Once again she was unaware of a white shadow following her from a safe distance.

She was showering when someone knocked soundly at her door. Putting up her bathrobe she ran to the window to see noone in front of it. Immediatly she thought about some neighbour complaining about the mess she and her friend for sure made in the weekend, maybe some official comunication from the admin in her pillar box. She decided to check it out.

Giggling she reached for her daily room, said giggling died in her throat as she saw a man sit on a chair at her kitchen table. More precisely a white coated bandaged man.

"What the hell are you doing here? And how you entered? I always close the door"Benedicta spat, her voice decibels higher than usual.

Ruben showed his best cocky grinn waving slowly a hand.

"You should remind to secure your windows too sometimes"

"Look Ruben, you've already scared the hell out of me once. Actually this is the second,do you plan to make a third or, you can cut it off?"

From behind his back he pulled out a bottle of fine wine and smiling said, almost whispering

"I am here to offer my sincerest apologizes, my dear. "

"Yes, yes, i forgive you, but let me go put some cloth on" Benedicta replied sighing and she went for her room.

She wore the first thing she found in her cabin, that happened to be a long black skirt and a red tank top with sunflowers on it, she stopped in front of her mirror and glanced at her dumbfounded espression. How could she take this? A date? A joke? It was weird, after what happened between them she knew that at least they had to have a talk, but she wasn't expecting him show up a random night on her apartment kitchen, as it was his own, while she was taking a shower.

First of all she passed the last twentyseven years thinking he was dead. Second it was twentyseven years they didn't meet.

They were almost stranger for one another.

She decided she left him alone long enough and moved back in her living room.

Ruben was pacing barefeet on her carpet, gazing here and there, his shoes tadily set near the main doorframe. Benedicta watched him for a while behind the corner of her corridor, he was now looking at her pictures on the walls, then staring at her computer equipment.

"Seems that you still have the bad habit to spy me, you can come here with me, i will not desappear from your sight if you get closer." Ruben said using for once a normal tone, not a whisper, not a growl, just this deep voice that was far way too pleasurable into her ears.

She smiled and paced toward the showcase to take two glasses.

"I think that old habits dies hard. Its not a news me spying you behind a corner"Benedicta said after a while.

"Or above a tree, or inside a sheaf of hay, or in front my bedroom window" He laughed.

"yeah yeah i got it,pack it in!" She blushed.

He took from her hands the glasses, opened the bottle and poured the wine, then with an elegant gesture handled her her glasses.

"prosit"

They drank, they spoke,s o many time there was the word "sorry" between them. Then the bitter-sweet tale of theyr last almost thirty years: all he had to endure after the fire, all he the pain to heal after his parents death, all he had to do to become the man he was now: a scientist, a researcher. Benedicta tried to hide her failed life, but words ended to slip out of her mouth as the wine combined with the weariness took the best of her. She introduced herself as Informatic and hacker for the KCPD and that was all. They laughed, but it was clear that grief was in the air.

The time passed and in the end the bottle of wine emptied. Yet he was on the door wearing his loafers. She raised skidding from the couch to accompany him to the door. He softly passed a hand over her shoulder and gave her a sweet kiss on her forehead. She hugged him loosing herself in his cologne and let a light kiss on his neck smiling.

"Goodnight my reckless Bee"

She nodded, let him go reluctantly, closed the door and reached the bedroom. This time she secured all the windows.

She dreamed.

The roof of the barn was high enough to give him dizziness, who had the idea to jump on that giant pillow of hay under it to see if it was soft as it seemed?Ruben was sulking refusing to jump down. It was a stupid idea from the start.

"She just done it Ruben! C'mon jump! I swear i'll be here to catch you" Laura said laughing slightly and tending her arms to her brother.

"Not my fault if she's so reckless to not care if she breaks her bones doing idiocies like this,I mean, what if I break my hands? One day I'll be a great surgeon, I need my hands you know?" Ruben answered. In his eyes was easy to find fear and embarass, but anger and pride took the bestof him. If the girlish moron was capable to make it, he would have done it surely better. He was the man here.

"Jump, jump mr "am so superior to the whole humanity" Benedicta said showing off her tongue.

"Right my honey - added Laura - jump or pay!"

"Dearest sister you do know you're in any position to make me pay..."

"Not even if I tell her what you told me tonight?" Laura said giggling.

So Ruben snorted infrustration and jumped. His face deep red as he watched with deadly, but still loving eyes, his sister.

"What? What? I wanna know now." Benedicta asked, too curious about Ruben's reaction.

"Mind your own business will you?"

"I will, I don't think I want to know it anymore, I don't care, not even if you'll want to tell me! Anyway my time to go home has come, thank you for fun, see you tomorrow!" Benedicta replied running away. She new better than run home. She instead hid herself in a sheaf of hay and spyed.

"Ruben please, I didn't meant to embarass you so much. Are you mad at me my little one?" Laura said sweetly offering a conforting hug.

"I should, but I can't. Why did you say it?"

"Because I really think you should tell her"

Tell me what? Benedicta thought

"I dont want, she might just laugh at me. I don't want to become an imbecile like that guy sticking too much around you, sister"

" ' Mind your own business ' kid! Anyway, it's just... it's so nice to see you get so good along her." Laura said poking her brother's cheeks.

"Ok then, now! How am supposed to tell her?" Ruben replied just to cut her off.

"You should...hm, I don't know. Make her a gift, tell her the same things you said to me. Just don't approach her always so bitterly."

TELL ME WHAT?  Benedicta screamed in her head

"You're not helping me at all. I can't just go to her with some kind of gift and tell her that I think I fall in love for her, I starve to stay as much as I can with her and am mad, because she's on my thoughts whenever I don't pay attention, so my study goes slow. Seems just something a low brained cretin would do and I am not."

Benedicta didn't knew what a couple did in theyr intimacy, nor what libido was, for all she knew mom and dad met one day, became friends and she arrived out of blue to make of them a family, but in that moment her whole body was a burning storm of butterfly and she was happy.

Ruben loved her.

xxx

Marcelo Jimenez was pacing nervously on the middle nave of the church, muttering by himself. The Goddess seemed to watch his every move, he felt overly unconfortable. The Pastor Graciano calling for one of his parishioners was a rare event, call for him was more than rare, since it was uncommon that scientists were allowed to affiliate the cult.
When a nun showed him the way to the priest's private room he started to sweat and nervous tics made his hands shake, he hid them in his pockets and walked in.

xxx

Benedicta was alone in her office, Kidman called a day out, Sebastian and Joseph were sedating a episode of domestic violence, probably playing at the good and bad cops. The good one was often Seb and Jo-Jo-cute was the bad one. She laughed soundly at the thought.

Her pc was making a tantrum and she didn't had what she needed to fix it. She used the old school methods also known as an insane kick that would have fixed it or broken it totally.

Luckily the dying machine started to make its coughing sounds and loaded. There was a shit ton of reports to store and she was glad to do it since her thoughts were often absolutely non inherent with her job.

Though she wanted dig on the main case, her life changing its course was alienating her from the task. She could not stop to think about Ruben and couldn't wait to see him again, this time without the need to spy him.

Everything seemed to be too much brilliant, too much as she dreamed it would go and for once she didn't wanted to be so cinical to avoid to really feel good in case fate threw some other shit at her. She loved her house, she loved her best friend, she likely loved her job, she loved Ruben and she thought in some way he felt the same. Even if extort to that still prig kid a confession was unthinkable.

An alterated voice disturbed her chuckles, she ran out of her office to take a look to the situation and she went bewildered as she saw two agents trying to hold back a crazed nun.

"You don't understand, he's missing, he's missing, let me go"

She kept scream.

"Please, calm down, don't push us to..." the agent was interrupted before he could end his sentence.

"Agent Cardillo. I'm in charge of dealing with missing persons, please follow me."

She walked back to her office, showed a seat to the woman and handled her a glass of water to help the nun regain her composture, then she started to draft the report.

Another missing person. Another face on her desktop. Pastor Graciano. Cedar hill. Last seen in church with a parishioner the nun didn't recognized.

When the nun left, she followed short after.

It was late night, she couldn't sleep and so she was on her sofa reading a book, a swedish thriller about mass suicides. She was so captured that when the phone rang she almost fall on the floor.

"Hello?"

"Cardillo, we found another one." It was Sebastian. "I want you glued to your pc doing what you pretend to not do and find whatever you can about the Beacon Mental Hospital. The victim was wearing one of theyr straijackets"

Benedicta mumbled something and hang up. It would have been a long night.

First of all she found her way to the hystorical archive of the hospital then she hacked the log book of the reception, now she was looking for all the personal computers connected to the server. Till there it was a shooting fish in a barrel.

There where three main access, and after these a bilion of guests, separate all the smartphones and tablets of the visitors and the devices of the staff member was a burden, let alone find out password, but this was for another time.

While she let her software scanning the surroundings and separate the wheat from the chaff at her place, a more or less intresting story was infront of her. Not that she didn't regretted her book left alone on the sofa, calling for her attention.

The structure was made between the autumn of 1921 and the winter of the 1923 financed by private funds from all the wealthy family of Krimson City, included Ruben's family which actually was the main donor.

Supposed to be an orphanage and a refuge for the less well-off it turned out to be a mental healt facility in the 1936 till it closed for inhuman treatments in the 1959.

Abandoned till the 1964 the building has renovate by wish of Ernesto Victoriano and Elisabetta Graciano, which added new wings to the main project, one for internal pharmacy, one for researches plus a winter's gardenfor the wellness of the patients, making of the Beacon Mental Hospital the most renowned structure in the country, till now.

"Quite unlikely for what I saw, I must ask Ruben to do something about its creepyness" Benedicta said between herself chuckling.

The logbook was nothing unusual too. The names of the patients, the datas of the staff members, the admissions and the releases were arranged neatly, the the rapies clean.

All she had hoped to find should have been in the three private accesspoint, one was from the nurse staff chief, Tatiana Gutierrez, one ofthe director of the hospital, Marcelo Jimenez and one of researches staff chief Ruben Victoriano.

Tatiana Gutierrez pc was almost empty, it was clear that she had nothing to hide since her password was "password".

Same was for Ruben that used Laura's birthday.

Benedicta felt bad to snoop around Ruben documents, but there was really nothing compromissing. His mails were mostly scientific magazines and researches. A