Chapter 6: A Sick Fairy Tale
Samantha's POV
Don't let me down.
Harrison's words stuck to me like tar as Sarah and I gathered our gear. This wasn't just my first official case - it was my test. If I couldn't handle whatever was waiting for us in Fredericksburg, how could I ever hope to track down my own killer?
"You ready for this?" Sarah asked, jangling the car keys.
"As ready as anyone can be for their first murder scene."
Liar. You're scared shitless.
The hour-long drive gave me too much time to think. I'd memorized every detail in the case file twice over, but the clinical language couldn't capture what we were walking into.
A little girl was found dead in circumstances disturbing enough to rattle a twenty-year police veteran.
Sarah kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror. "You're doing that thing where you chew your lip. Nervous?"
"Just... focused."
The apartment building screamed money - clean brick, manicured landscaping. Police cars lined the street like a parade nobody wanted to attend.
A pack of reporters clustered behind the yellow tape, cameras ready to feed the news cycle. They looked hungry, eager to turn someone's worst day into entertainment.
A poor girl. She deserves better than becoming a headline.
Chief Richards was waiting on the sidewalk, and one look at his face told me everything about how terrifying this case was.
"Thank Christ you're here," he said, shaking our hands. His palm was sweaty. "Twenty years on the force, I've seen it all. Drug hits, domestic violence, gang shootings. But what's upstairs..." He jerked his head toward the building. "I ain't never seen anything like that."
"Can you give us the basics?" I pulled out my notepad, trying to look professional while my stomach did backflips. "Just so we know what to expect."
Richards let out a laugh that sounded like breaking glass. "Agent Thompson, there's no preparing for what you're about to see. Best I can tell you is it's like some sick fairy tale. Real sick."
Fairy tale? I exchanged looks with Sarah.
The elevator ride felt like descending into hell. Sarah fidgeted with her camera equipment. I focused on breathing steady, trying to ignore the way my hands wanted to shake.
Professional. Stay professional. You've trained for this.
The hallway was empty except for one uniform guarding apartment 3B. He nodded at us, his face carefully blank. Yellow tape crossed the doorway like a warning sign.
I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
The smell hit me first - expensive perfume trying to mask something metallic and wrong. Then I saw her.
The living room looked like someone had tried to recreate a fairy tale and failed horribly.
Red rose petals covered the floor in a neat circle. Too neat. Too perfect. White candles sat on every flat surface - the coffee table, the mantle, even the windowsills. The flames made everything flicker and move in ways that hurt to look at.
Emma Wilson sat in the middle of it all.
She wore a white ballet tutu that should have looked beautiful. Instead, it looked wrong. Her arms were posed like she was dancing, but the angles made my skin crawl. No one's joints bent that way naturally.
Then I saw her feet.
Glass slippers. Real ones, like from the fucking fairy tale. But they were way too small. Her toes were completely crushed inside them, bones obviously broken. Blood filled the clear glass, turning it dark red. Wire wrapped around her ankles, cutting deep into the skin to keep the shoes on.
Somebody had painted her toenails bright pink. The color looked sick against all that blood.
Holy shit.
I stumbled backward and hit the doorframe hard. My shoulder screamed, but I barely felt it. This wasn't just murder. Somebody had spent hours setting this up, getting every detail just right.
I bent over and retched. Nothing came up, but my stomach wouldn't stop cramping.
"Sammie?" Sarah's voice sounded like it was coming through water. "You okay?"
She watched me with concern, whispering reassuringly, "Relax, it's normal. The first time I saw a corpse, I threw up too."
I forced air into my lungs. Get it together. Do your job.
"I'm fine." I murmured.
But I wasn't fine. Looking at Emma's body, seeing how carefully she'd been arranged, I knew this wasn't random. Someone had spent time here, living out a fantasy. The pose, the costume, the attention to detail - it all screamed obsession.
Sarah had moved deeper into the apartment, her initial shock giving way to professional focus. She was photographing everything, documenting the scene with methodical precision.
"Sammie, you need to see this."
She was kneeling next to the body, pointing at something that made everything even worse. A kids' book lay open beside Emma's hand - Cinderella. The bright cartoon pictures looked fucked up next to all the blood and rose petals. Someone had gone through with a yellow highlighter, marking every mention of glass slippers.
"The book went down after she died," Sarah said. Her voice was steady, but I could hear the strain. "Look at the blood - it pooled around the book, not under it."
I forced myself to step closer, careful not to kick any candles. Emma's makeup was even more disturbing up close. Thick stage makeup, applied perfectly. Her lips were painted into a permanent smile that made me want to run. Bright pink circles on her cheeks, like an old-fashioned doll.
They turned her into a fucking doll.
"Her fingernails," I said, pointing. "There's something under them."
Even from here, I could see dark material lodged beneath several nails.
"She fought back. Got skin samples."
"Good catch," Sarah said, making notes. "What else?"
I studied the scene methodically, pushing down the horror threatening to overwhelm me. The apartment was expensive but tasteful - the kind of understated elegance that came from old money. Ballet photos lined the walls, showing Emma in various costumes and poses.
She was beautiful. Talented. Had everything to live for.
"There," Sarah said suddenly. "Under the coffee table."
I followed her gaze and saw it - a piece of paper that had been carefully placed but shifted when the body was discovered. I used tweezers to extract it.
The note was written in neat handwriting on expensive stationery:
"Midnight chimes will sound, and magic disappears. Eleven hours remain."
Sarah checked her watch. "It's 1:30. Eleven hours puts us at..."
"12:30 AM." My blood went cold. "Just after midnight."
We stared at each other, both understanding immediately. This wasn't about Emma Wilson. The note was a promise, a threat, a timeline.
There was going to be another one.