"Back to business then. Which of you killed the girl?" Rosanne said to the whole room, but no one responded. Even Rick's amused smirk fell to only an upturned defiant curl of his lips. "None of you? This girl was twenty-three and brutalized coming home from her place of employment. Then she was relieved of parts of her appendages and her eyes, chopped up, and tossed into the river under the old bridge."

"You do know that you have an active crime syndicate in the city, don't you? People are murdered all the time." Allen spoke, surprising Nathan. "Are you knocking on the Moceris' door and asking them too? Or is it just the LC Penitentiary? Do you even have something that might indicate that it was someone here or are you grasping at straws?"

"We need no reason to conduct a thorough investigation," Rosanne snapped. "But this girl had no ties to the Moceris. Yes, we fish out bodies too often with the Moceris, but most can be traced back to something about them."

"So you have nothing but your bias then. What do you hope to gain here?" Allen was speaking for them, which was strange to Nathan. So far, Maggie had been the forefront of their defense, but she was silent and allowing Allen to direct this.

Nathan found his mind dipping back to the woman who was photographed in pieces on the table. Ian wouldn't let him look at them. If Nathan's chin even tilted away from him, Ian turned it back into his shirt.

Twenty-three. The poor girl was in college most like, maybe she had a boyfriend, maybe she didn't. Had she been thinking about what she would spend her money on she had left over from bills? Maybe she'd had friends she'd planned to go out with, but they'd never heard from her again.

The images were hard to get out of his mind. It wasn't something he'd ever wanted to look at. It reminded him of his mother when she was younger–working jobs with awkward hours and always walking into sketchy parts of town just to make ends meet.

The woman on the table could be his mother. When was the last time he had spoken to his mother? Nathan trembled in Ian's arms, and Ian squeezed him tighter. All Nathan wanted to do was hide from this, but there was nowhere to go.

"None of the men here would commit a crime that atrocious." Maggie's tone was hard, drawing Nathan back into their conversation.

"You can provide concrete details and proof for their alibis from noon until seven pm of this past Monday?" The woman asked.

"Some, not all."

The woman tapped the armrest in anger with her fingers, and the men on either side of her stiffened. The way they were dressed and carried themselves made them look like the secret service from the movies. Nathan guessed they all had firearms and would wipe everyone out in the room if they appeared hostile.

"Why not all? Do you not keep track of them?" It was an accusation at Maggie.

"I entered the camera guarded and gated home of Oliver Moceri at around eleven am and was there until six pm when I departed." Tanner spoke. "You'll be able to see me arrive and depart, and Maggie can account for me afterwards. I was here in only the time it would take to get home. I wouldn't have had the time to brutally murder anyone."

"I see you keep questionable company," Rosanne said pointedly, but Tanner ignored her. "I'm sure he'll provide the tapes freely?"

"Yes," Tanner answered but did not look at the woman.

"I took the car to the shop early Monday morning and was there until around one, when I returned home," Ian said, though his tone was still indicative of wanting to throttle the woman. "Maggie can account for me for the afternoon, and the men at the auto place will alibi me if asked. I'm pretty sure they have cameras there and I never left."

"I was at The Rouge, Grill and Bar until two thirty when I headed over to the basketball court down the street from here." Donovan came back out of the kitchen and leaned against the wall. "I met a group of boys there that I play basketball with, and they will be more than enough to prove I was there. Nathan was in the house all morning and joined me there directly after at three thirty. We came straight home after."

"Rick was here all day," Julian said with a downward frown at the woman. "I was up in my room, locked in, and it's hard to miss how vulgar he is. I think he and Maggie were replacing some of the cabinet doors in the kitchen."

"Yes, we were," Maggie said, rubbing her temple. "He broke my old ones in half for fun, got a splinter, and then was surprised when we had to rip it out and bandage his hand."

"Splinters hurt," Rick grumbled, touching his hand that was visibly bandaged.

"You have an unexplained cut?" Rosanne immediately narrowed her sight on him. To which, Rick ripped off his bandage and shoved it closer to her. The woman recoiled back and Rick laughed.

"It's a hole from a piece of wood, you crazy bitch. You can fucking swab it to match to the old cupboards if you want. I'm personally offended that you think some fucking tiny thing like that would be able to injure me. I'd snap a twig like that in half before she touched me." Rick retracted his hand to his side, and almost everyone was staring daggers at him. If he was trying to make himself look guilty, he was doing a good job.

"If you're so innocent, then you won't mind telling that to us," Rosanne snapped her fingers and two man picked up a box and pulled something out, setting it on the table.

Nathan had no idea what it was. There was a computer but there were also cords and straps rolled up into neat circles on the table. It looked like they were hooking up a surround sound stereo system.

"I don't have to consent to that," Maggie said immediately, crunching her eyebrows down. Noticing Nathan's inquisitive look, she elaborated. "A polygraph or lie detector. They are seriously flawed and nothing she finds would be admissible in court. It's just a reason for her to fish around here more if she gets results that she favors."

"Sign me up." There was a wicked grin from Rick and he stretched his arms as if it was a work out. The movement startled the men at Rosanne's side and they reached for their belts defensively, but he flopped back into a relaxed position.

"Rick, you don't have to consent to a lie detector test, none of you do." Maggie turned to them.

"Please, Maggie. This fucking cunt thinks I offed her poor little working girl. I'd be more than happy to shove a bit of reality up her tight ass. It'll be fun." As normal, Rick worded it as disgustingly as humanly possible.

There was no taking back Rick's consenting to the polygraph, so a man crawled out from behind the other secret service goons to speak with Maggie. Instructing her on how to hook him up, they had to move Rick to the end of the couch and they ran straps around his chest, one thick one around his arm and then a couple on his fingers. After he was all hooked in, they connected him to a box that connected to the computer that the tech turned on. While it booted, Nathan's eyes wandered over to Rick.

It wasn't often he looked at him. The look in Rick's eyes always made him sick. There was a crazed desire in them for nothing but his own gratification, regardless of what caused it, and Nathan wouldn't put it past him to have killed the girl. While he was a hundred percent sure that no one else had killed her, he didn't know Rick, except that he was dangerous, violent, and volatile.

"We're going to ask some baseline questions to gauge your responses."

"I'll stop you there," Maggie said, and Rosanne and the tech turned to her. "Only questions pertaining to the events of that day and the incident. You won't be interrogating them on anything else or I will pull the plug." Maggie's tone was stern and the woman nodded, letting out a disgusted grunt.

"Go ahead, bitch." Rick laughed at her grimace and his vitals jumped until he calmed. Nathan could see the lines on the computer from where he was, and he assumed if they were in a normal pattern, then that was supposed to be truth.

They waited a moment until Rick calmed down and then started.

"Name."

"Richard Williams."

"Age."

"Thirty-one."

"Any living relatives."

"I have a younger sister."

Rick had a sister? That idea just made Nathan swallow awkwardly. What must she had to have gone through growing up with him.

"Favorite hobby?"

"Fucking."

Rick's vitals didn't jump in the slightest. Even a normal person would be embarrassed about saying that aloud. The look in Rick's eyes was lustful as he smirked, his teeth like a wolf that had just bared them to devour its prey. The woman gripped her clipboard a little harder.

"Where were you on the date and time in question?" Rosanne asked.

"With Maggie, like she said."

Nothing.

"Did you kill the woman in question?" A short silence and then Rick smiled, leaning forward so quickly toward Rosanne that she jumped back, and Rick's vitals hopped gently.

"Never touched her," Rick said, smooth as ice, and his vitals were calm on the screen. "I have never killed a woman, though I do knock a few out in bed. I get a certain pleasure from some rough activity, the kind without your pants on, if I must specify."

The damn machine didn't move at all, and the tech looked to Rosanne, and she just nodded to him, indicating for him to shut the computer.

"This won't be the last you hear of us," Rosanne said as Maggie unstrapped Rick and handed the tech back the cords.

They picked everything up in angry silence and then stormed out the door. It was a long procession of men and Rosanne gave them one last look of loathing before she headed out, tailed by half of her escort.

"Good riddance, bitch," Rick said after her, flopping on the couch with his normal laid back stare.

"Julian, please head back upstairs," Maggie said, and Julian hopped up and shuffled toward them, but stopped in front of him.

Ian smushed him against his chest so hard that Nathan could barely breathe, but Julian had already looked away toward Rick. The look didn't last long, and he headed back up the stairs to his room. Julian was so quiet as he ascended, and the only indication that he was in his room was the opening and shutting of his door, which was just a gentle tap that echoed in the silence.

"I'll do my best to keep her from coming here again, Maggie," Allen said, leaning off of the wall where he had been leaning.

"You do that." Rick snickered.

Allen pulled out his gun and pulled the trigger.

For the first time since coming here, Nathan saw Rick's smirk fall and his pallor fall to ash. There was a bullet hole in the wall right next to his head, and Allen leveled his gun at him in clear threat.

"Speak again and I'll shoot your fucking testicles off, you sick excuse for life. I should have let Maggie kill you. You can sit there and spit your disrespect in my face, in her face, but don't for a second think I don't know what happened. I'm not emotionally attached to you group of miscreants, so I won't hesitate to send every fucking one of you to the chopping block. You so much as sneeze too hard, Richard Williams, and I will put you in your grave." Allen holstered his gun and spun his back to them, leaving through the door without another word.

Sitting there in Ian's arms, Nathan's gaze left Rick's wide and terrified eyes to look over to Maggie. She looked tired with her eyes sunk to the table as if a ghost was crawling from it.

They hadn't taken the pictures.

Tanner stood and Nathan caught his expression as well. It wasn't his normal cold and indifferent stare. There was fear in his eyes, agony, and he headed up the stairs to his room. The stairs creaked under his weight and with each one, Nathan could feel the echo of his heartbeat.

Rick had killed that woman.

They all knew it.

And no one was doing anything.

Word count: 2107 -- Edited July 14th, 2020