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Dean Walker
Katarine hovered outside the kitchen doorway, sensing the man in the other room. The smell of raw bloody meat was enough to make anybody pass out and she did her best to try to breath as little as possible. When she heard the man get up from the table and turn his back on her she made her move, entering the kitchen silently. She slipped behind him and the second he turned around she aimed a sharp kick to his knee. He gasped in surprise, and then pain, crumbling down, using the small kitchen sink to brace himself as he fell. She didn't give him time to gain his footing, choosing instead to pull the man up and slam him down in one of the kitchen chairs. The next moment she swiftly cuffed him to the table and stepped back, watching as he struggled against the cufs, his brain trying to process what had just happened so quickly in his own kitchen.
"Who the frak are you?"
"None to trifle with, that's all you ever need know." She ignored his struggling and started searching his kitchen, noting that the foul steak was still on the counter, untouched. She opened his fridge unit and felt her stomach turn at the contents inside, though kept her eyes sharp enough to notice that nothing in here had been eaten either. She closed the fridge before the smell got to her and let her deep green eyes fall instead on the man now cuffed to the table. She walked over to the table, picking up a piece of mail and reading the name on it as she did so.
"Interesting choice of foods. The local grocery go out of business?"
He went scarlet red and didn't meet her eyes.
"It's none of your business what I eat."
"You mean don't eat? You haven't touched any of this stuff."
"So?"
"So I think someone has convinced you to try a cuisine you don't truly have the appetite for, and I want to know why."
She pulled a chair over and sat in front of the man. He just stared at her and continued to fiddle with the cuffs holding him in place. As her deep green eyes continued to bore into him he eventually shrugged at her and stopped struggling. She decided to press on with the interrogation.
"That woman in your basement was beaten and half starved to death. "
"I don't know nothing bout that."
"Yes you do. You did it. What concerns me is why?"
"What do you mean?"
She glanced back at the mail in her hands, reading the name again.
"You see Kale, farmers don't beat and starve their cattle. You know why?"
He looked like he didn't want to answer for for a while and then eventually he said lowly, not looking at her,
"It's bad for the meat."
"Exactly. You are a garden variety sadist who gets off on abusing his victims... but the man I'm hunting... the one you are trying so hard to copy... he's a different type of monster. He'd never let his dinner rot in a cell down there. So what I want to know is... why are you trying to copy someone so badly who has an MO that does not interest you in the slightest? Whose put you up to this?"
For the first time Kale looked nervous. He was sweating and shaking slightly. Katarine sat there, watching, intending to let the man sweat until he talked but she couldn't help notice the shaking was getting worse. Soon Kale was gasping for air and Katarine was releasing him to administer CPR. She pounded his chest over and over but it was no use. After a minute or two Kale lay completely still. He was dead.
She stopped and rubbed the sweat off her forehead, just as she heard the kitchen comm unit ring. She got up, her white boots flying to the comm, thinking it might be Dean. She didn't have time to say anything when she switched the unit on. A voice she recognized started speaking immediately.
"Hello Katarine."
"Doctor Wells" she whispered, instinctively looking around for some sign of the man.
"Don't bother with a trace. I wont be on long enough. I just wanted to let you know there was nothing you could have done to save him Katarine. The antidote to the poison was in that steak he ordered. All he had to do was eat it."
She held the comm unit close as she stepped by the window, carefully edging beside it to be out of the line of fire for a sniper.
"I see. I still think he should see a doctor. Would you make a house call?"
The doctor chuckled on the other end of the line as Katarine peered carefully out of the window.
"I'm not in the area I'm afraid."
"Well tell me where you are. I'll come to you."
"You know I wont do that Katarine. I must say Agent Walker is an interesting choice for a partner. You'll have to be careful around him. Ta Ta Katarine."
She heard the other line go dead and cursed under her breath, throwing the comm unit against the wall. She pulled out her own datapad to text Dean, her heart racing.
Are you okay? Meet me back at our room Mr. Smith.
She cursed inwardly at herself and started for the door. She'd call in the body on the way to find Dean. She couldn't believe she had gotten Dean mixed up in this. Now he was on the radar of some psychopath and it was all Kat's fault!
