It had been a few days since Nate had been to the gas station. He hadn't missed it at all. Before he left the house with Farah to go and investigate, he had changed into about ninety percent of his uniform. For the most part, he would look like he was on the clock, but he could easily pretend that he wasn't.

Before he left his bedroom, he rummaged in his desk drawer for a USB stick. By having one, he would be able to make some copies of the video and find out what kinds of things they were looking for. He finally managed to find an old one from when he was in college, and he stuck it in his pocket before walking to the door.

Farah had been waiting patiently as he changed, looking around at some of the things in the house while Todd waited for Harper on the couch. When Nate exited his room and walked over to her, she immediately looked up from her observations. "Ready?" she asked him.

"Yeah. Let's go. We can take my car down there," Nate replied and exited the apartment with her. As the two of them made their way down the hall towards the stairs, he attempted to make some small talk, wanting to get to know his partner in this endeavor. "So, how did you get involved in all this?" he asked.

"Well, do you remember the Patrick Spring murder? And the Lydia Spring disappearance?" Farah asked of him. When Nate nodded, she sighed. "I was the family bodyguard. After Patrick died, and when Lydia went missing, I got involved in my own search, bumped into Dirk and Todd, and then I kind of got swept into this whole situation. Then I got hired by Stella to protect her after I no longer was employed by the Springs, and you know what comes next," she explained. "I could go into a whole lot more detail, but you'd be risking your life there."

"How would I be risking my life?" Nate inquired curiously, his eyebrow furrowed in confusion slightly.

"It's a long story. I'd rather not talk about it," Farah explained, her eyes focused forward as they reached the stairwell. She started down the stairs, followed by Nate, and then asked a question of her own. "Anyway, what about you? What got you into the gas station in the first place?"

"Well, when my sisters and I all got out of school, we moved to Seattle because we thought there would be some good opportunities for us to make it in the world," Nate elaborated. "Lou got her internship fairly quickly, so she was fine. Harper was waiting to find some places to use her acting skills, so she hasn't made any moves. But there wasn't much open for me in the field I wanted to go in. So, to pay the bills, I've been working at the gas station. It's been a few months now, and hopefully I'll have a new job by the time September rolls around."

"So, you ended up having the night shift there and being in the wrong place at the wrong time?" Farah then asked, just to make sure she had the story right in her head as well. When Nate nodded, she spoke up again. "So, what job were you looking into that you're struggling with so much?"

"Teaching. I have a degree in music education. But all the schools around here are going through budget cuts, so there are even fewer openings than there would be for other people with education degrees in other subjects." Nate pushed the door open and walked out of the apartment building, holding the door for her after he exited.

Farah thanked Nate quietly and walked out of the building as well. "I bet you'll find someplace. I heard that the music teacher at one of the nearby elementary schools is getting pretty old and thinking about retirement," Farah admitted, thinking about it as she spoke. She could have sworn she heard her neighbors talking about it at one point. "So, where's your car?"

"Just around this corner. There's a parking garage that residents are allowed to use, so I left it there last night," Nate explained and pointed it out for her. When she nodded, they made their way into the garage and up a flight of stairs to the floor where Nate's car was waiting. Silently, the two of them got into the car and buckled up before Nate drove off towards his workplace.

Along the way to the gas station, Farah and Nate socialized a little bit. They talked about interests and hobbies, just passing the time and getting to know one another. Movies, TV shows, bands, pretty much anything was discussed on the way.

When they finally arrived, however, that social chat immediately stopped. Nate parked the car in the same parking spot he always used, in the back of the station, and they both exited the car in silence. As he looked around at the surroundings, Nate took a deep breath. He was trying his absolute hardest to push the image of the murder out of his mind, knowing it would cause so many issues if he allowed that to rule his mind.

"You okay?" Farah asked, glancing over at him. "Do you need a minute before we go in, or should we just get to work?"

Nate hesitated for a minute before answering. "No, I, uh...I think I'm fine. Let's just go do this. I have a key to get in the back, so we can try that. Maybe we can get the security camera footage."

"Good thinking. Yeah, let's get going," Farah replied and closed the car door. "Lead the way. You know this place better than I do."

Nate nodded, took a deep breath, and shot a quick glance towards the front windows. From their location, he could see the police line wrapped around the section of the store where the bodies had been found, and the main door was closed off and wrapped with some tape of its own. It definitely kept away the regulars, and anybody else. He shook his head, took another deep breath, and then finally walked to the back of the building and the door.

He hesitated for a second, then pulled the key out from his pocket. Silently, he unlocked the door, which opened with a slight creak. After sharing a glance with Farah, the two of them entered in silence, looking around in the dark back room of the gas station. Everything was practically the same as it looked when Nate had come in early that fateful morning. Everything was pretty much in the same place, maybe moved half a centimeter at most.

"Where's the security footage? Let's start there," Farah told Nate quietly, and she made her way through the back room to a computer monitor. "Here we go," she mumbled, then carefully booted up the hard drive. The screen lit up and showed a security screen, asking for a password. "Uh, got any ideas, Nate?" she asked him, wanting to see what he may think the password could be.

"Actually, I think I do," Nate replied and motioned for her to move aside just slightly so he had access to the keyboard. Once she complied, he moved into position and spoke up. "The owner of the place, he's got a parakeet for a pet, and it's named Bartholomew. I would bet money that it was right," he explained and typed it in, including the capital letter at the beginning of the word. After pressing enter, he and Farah both held their breath, and they easily exhaled as soon as the screen changed to actual security camera footage. "Jackpot." Sheepishly, he turned to look at Farah. "That was the biggest guess I could make."

"You didn't even...okay, fine. Let's just find the tape." Farah shook her head before grabbing hold of the mouse. "You brought a USB, right? Plug it in," she suggested, and he rummaged through his pocket before pulling it out. As he plugged it in, Farah searched for the feed from the night of the murder. She zoomed through the footage on the screen, catching a midnight customer, but nothing special there. He did drop something outside the door by mistake, but he didn't notice it. Plus, that was at midnight, so there was a solid hour between then and the crime.

Finally, Farah landed on the feed from around 1 am that fateful morning. "Got it," she murmured and turned up the volume. "So, let's see what we've got here."

On the black and white screen, the four employees were clearly visible. Amelia, the manager on duty, was at the counter, working in silence. The other three were wandering around, tidying up some of the shelves in the back. They were all so calm, so oblivious to the fact that their lives would be ending sooner than they all thought.

"Okay, we should be seeing someone coming in any minute now," Nate murmured, his eyes trained on the screen. But, no figure ever became visible. In fact, the bell on the door rang, and it was clearly audible on the tape. Yet, no person ever became fully visible.

But, a glint of a knife was visible. A large steak knife did become visible, floating towards the counter. It was as if it came out of nowhere, slowly slipping through a hole in space. All of the blade became visible, just as Farah and Nate stared at the screen in complete confusion. "How in the hell?" Farah murmured.

"That's impossible, completely impossible," Nate commented. But, nevertheless, they were watching actual recorded footage of the murder. They watched as the floating knife approached Amelia from behind, her being completely oblivious. The poor woman. "Here, copy the video onto the flashdrive. I just can't watch my co-workers die," he told Farah, who nodded in compliance before doing as he asked.

Nate turned around and watched the door they had come through, waiting patiently. He heard the sound of a slice and a crack, then a thump from the screen. Amelia was dead, he knew that. A scream resounded from some other person who was working that night, whoever it was, he didn't know. It was a female scream, so that was one thing, but he had never learned the other woman's name before her death.

He crossed his arms and rubbed them, feeling a chill thanks to the singular sounds he heard from the screen. But, he didn't have to listen for very long. The sounds shut off and he heard the sound of the flashdrive being retrieved from the slot in the computer. "I've got it all, and I added ten minutes extra on either side just in case. We can go now, if you'd like," Farah told him as she walked around to the other side to face him.

"Yeah, let's just go. I think we got all the information we need," Nate replied. "With a culprit who's invisible, I doubt we'd be able to find much information here on him anyway," he replied with a sigh.

Farah nodded and held out the USB stick, pressing it down into his palm. "Put this in your pocket for safekeeping. I'll text the group while you drive out, tell them what we found on the tape," she explained softly, and turned to walk out once Nate nodded.

They walked through the back part of the station towards the door they had come from, both of them silent. Once Farah pushed the door open and the sun hit her face, she spoke up again. "How could somebody murder four people while being completely invisible?"

"I don't know. I didn't think it was possible, to be honest," Nate said. "So, we're dealing with an invisible murderer, not to mention everything else that could be connected." They reached the car and he let out a sigh. "This is going to be a wild ride."

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Hi everyone! Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I'm proud to announce that I have enough chapters of this story backed up, so I will be able to update regularly. This story will be updated on Saturdays unless otherwise stated through some other message.

If you're interested in something else to read while I'm working on the last few chapters of this, I have recently posted a new one shot in my book Life's Soundtrack, which is also taking song requests. I'd love it if you checked it out.

Thanks so much for reading this, and I'll see you next week! Keep dreaming!