Chapter 1

Sandra grasped the mutilated breast of the victim firmly in her rubber gloved hand.

The perverted creep that had visited this world of hurt on an innocent young girl needed to be brought to justice. She swabbed cautiously in the wrinkled creases of the dead girl's nipple. A smile crossed her intently focused face.

There was a faint residue of an unknown substance lingering on the surface. Almost too tiny to be seen with the naked eye. She prepared the slide with a practiced ease that spoke of a decade in forensic investigation. She was a little out of her bailiwick here with the operational forensics. This top grade lab was far better than the facility at her home base just outside of Washington, DC. No, her specialty was in the "connecting the dots" process. A process that took all the sources of data and derived a matrix of possibilities. The selection of avenues of investigation would follow and she generally never questioned the direction decided by those above her pay grade.

This was a special case.

The girl on the table was Josefina Rodriguez, better known to her friends as "Josie". Josie was a young 21 year old Hispanic girl. Just one of the many millions of young people lacking the proper "documentation" to be a first class citizen.

Only 6 short months earlier...

Sandra had first met Josie when the young Latina had been picked up in a sweep of prostitutes on 15th Street in the District.

She had been tasked with interrogating the girl because they were shorthanded at the center and she spoke excellent Spanish. After only a few minutes, she discovered the girl spoke better English than she spoke Spanish and their conversation reverted to Sandra's native tongue

Josie was a dark, sultry beauty. She was short and compact with luscious curves and fully rounded breasts. Her ruby red lips enticed and moved with seductive attraction. During the interrogation, Sandra noticed Josie would nervously lick her lips with a sexy wet tongue. At those moments, she had difficulty in meeting Sandra's eyes. It is a dead giveaway tell. Sandra was easily able to determine which answers were out and out lies.

The pattern of the lies told Sandra that the well-organized Central American gang she had been researching had moved into the flesh trade in the District big time and were also pushing the meth business with the whores as a distribution back up. These girls with no clout and no motivation to talk were the unpaid workers of a sex and drug operation that saturated the entire District of Columbia and reached into both Virginia and Maryland.

The nervous young girl was pulling her hair now and squirming in her chair.

"Can I go to the little girl's room, ma am? I got to go real bad!"

Sandra made sure the handcuffs were in place and led the girl to the ladies room. The place was empty. Not unusual for this time of night. Now she had a dilemma. Should she take off the cuffs or help Josie to pull her panties down in the small stall. She opted to safety and left the cuffs on.

"OK, Josie. Turn around. I am going to pull up your skirt. Good! Now, let's get these undies down. Spread your legs a bit. Good. Now turn around and sit. Good! Lean forward so it all goes into the bowl and not on my leg."

The girl looked up at her with a helpless naive look and said,

"Oh, Miss Sandra, I would never do anything like that to you. You treated me nice when I was so frightened."

The tinkling sound sounded like a waterfall. The young Hispanic girl had held it for a long time. Now it was time to wipe. Sandra was really embarrassed as she reached in between the Josie's knees and patted her damp little bush.

Josie whimpered at the soft touch and unconsciously moved her legs together, trapping Sandra's hand inside. Quickly, she parted her legs and apologized to Sandra. Sandra could see it was not intentional.

When they released Josie and most of the other girls a few hours later, Sandra pressed her cell phone number into Josie's hand and told her to call her if she had a bad problem. She was not quite sure why she did that and forgot about it almost immediately.

Unfortunately, that cell phone number is probably what put Josie on the cold metal slab in the lab.

Back in the lab, Sandra was studying her results.

Derek, the hunky young Technician who was giving her free run of his lab space, came in with two Starbucks coffees in his hands.