Ring! Riiiiiiinnnggg! Ring! Riiiiiiinnnggg!

Red numbers greeted tired eyes. 2:52 in the am, while the sound of the bed side tabled clamming off the hook drew her out of a deep dreamless sleep. Nights with out memories going off in her head like movie reels on the silver screen were so rare to be woken out of a moment of peace was maddening. Face turned down in to soft downy pillow with a grown while a hand slapped around on the night stand reaching for the nosy bitch of a phone. Took three try's to find it and plenty of fighting with the cord to get it pressed to the side of her head in order to hear. rolling her head to the side, thick deep red almost black tangled strains of hair covered her face. Supple lips moved only on one side, she was just so tired.

"oh this better be good, someone better be dead, its almost three in the morning."

The voice was rich, seductively sweet with the roll of his English accent. Josh Bennit, Captian Josh Bennit... or as Kota liked to call him, Boddy Josh Bennit had a voice that could sooth a raging lion in to a docile kitten. Yes he was a real ladies man and the one man she would mix business and pleasure for. The grouchiness eased away just hearing him say hello. Did she have a crush on handsome Bobby Josh Bennit? Yes, and it was a blessing and a curse.

"Sorry to wake you ducky. I know it's late"

When a woman is in bed getting a call from a man like Josh she moved as if he was in the bed next to her. Sleepy hand fussing to get her hair out of her face, rolling over so her features did not look mushed.

"salright Captain, what's happened?"

"Ducky.... Dakota, there been another murder. I need you to come down to Kensington, Imperial Collage I am sending a car for you right now. You have about 20 minutest to get dressed."

She regretted what she had said now when she answered the phone. Pushing the covers back before he could even finish what he was saying Kota was out of bed and fishing a pair of jeans out of her unpacked suit case.

"All right I'll be in the lobby waiting."

The line went dead and it was a rush to get herself dressed and presentable. For over a year Law enforcement in London had no leads in an on going investigation in a rash of murders. four collage students and one professor had already been taken. The four students, all women had been mutilated, there was little an animator could have done to help them answer any questions. Catching a break when Dr. Ellen Weston had been killed in her class room, the killer had been disturbed by janitorial staff coming in hearing what they thought was a woman's scream. By the time they got to her, she was dead. The crime scene photos had been the worse Dakota had ever seen. Still why was she in London in 2004 working with the authorities there. Josh Bennit had been a speaker at NYCU when Kota had been in collage. They had hit it off, spent a few days together while he was in NY. After he left that had become great Pen Pals. Her reputation proceeded her, he knew what she could do and wanted someone he could trust on this.

As a favor she was on lone so to say, giving temporary credentials in London while working on this case under Josh's direct care and supervision. Miss Weston had been striped of her cloths and laid out ritualistically on her desk, tied down spread eagle and tortured. It was a scene right out of the dark ages or the inquisition. Her stomach had been ripped open, intestines laying on the white tiles floor in slimy, smelly bloody piles. Her kidneys had been surgically removed and placed in to specimen jars. Her eyes had been removed so she would never see her killers face before her killer could be caught, her heart had been ripped from her cheats... not cut out but ripped from her body. Tt was the one piece of her they never found. Kota had been called in to raise Miss Weston and ask her if she had seen who did this to her. But there was nothing, all she had seen was the tall shadow against the wall and the sound of something hissing.

Kota was due to leave two days after questioning Miss Weston, and only a day after the professors murder another student was taken it seemed. Trotting down in to the lobby one moment, then the next Kota was standing in the door way to one of the Imperial Collage dorm rooms. Josh Bennit standing behind her helping her keep her feet. It was horrid! The girl could not have been but 20 years old, blood, very pretty.

"I'm sorry Ducky. I hate to ask this of you."

"I'm OK. I'm OK. I'm OK"

She repeated it to herself feeling his hands rub up her back reaching just to the base of her skull and down again. She was strung up! It was the only way to describe it. Metal hooks had been screwed in to the ceiling to hold up a hammock chair, right in to the support beams. The hammock had been cut down and the roped used to hoist the girl off the floor. Meat hooks pierced her body just under the shoulder blades puncturing though her ribs to support her weight. Skin had been pealed away, down her arms like she was taking off a glove. Finger tips pined to the each wall by thumb tacks She had been gutted like a deer, and skinned! Eyes removed and left hanging from the sockets..

Things jumped again, one moment she stood thee gawking at the vision of death the neck she was watching the girl being lowered on to a gurney and wheeled out of the door room. Josh wanted to know every thing he could, as did the parents who had already given consent for their daughter to be raised before being taken to the morgue.

"Why did you ask me here. The coroner has not even examined the body. You could of waited till tomorrow for me to do any thing."

Her respect for Josh had been so high, but right now she hated him. Her crush on Josh ended at the moment.

"I need you to see what happened to her Dakota. You refused to do it with Dr. Weston. I need you to do this!"

He had asked her to see what happened to Dr Weston, though her eyes, get in to her head and suffer the pain, fear and sorrow of the woman's death. Kota refused, flat and walked away threatening to go back to the states if he asked her to do it again. Just seeing the photographs had not been enough, But seeing this girl... Bobby Josh Bennit knew she would not say no.

Every thing was so jumpy! Why was it so jumpy! the following evening had come, what happened to every thing that happened that afternoon? Whit room, deep shadows along the walls, stainless steal for her bed. Kimberly Hyde lay stretched out under a blue sheet. Josh, a few of his mean, and a camera man holding a video camera watched Kota walk up to the examining table. Scalpel lay in wait, and would never be touched. The butterfly knife was drawn from her back pocket and run across her for arm. Pressing it to the girls lips, she whispered, drew the dead up from its sleep. But no questions where asked. Kota pressed a hand to the back of dear Kimmy's head and suffered with the girl. Every thing she saw, felt, the fear, and pain. Gut wrenching agony brought Kota to her knees reliving broken images of the victims death!

Bolting up in Bed the nightmare faded, Kota was in a hotel room in Salem staring at a white washed wall of some cheaply done water color of a vase of flowers. Cold sweat poured off her soaking the sheets, tears rolled down her face. That had been years ago, but some times still she still walked in the past while she slept. Kicking the covers off. the bedding was stripped and tossed on the floor so house keeping would get it changed out for her. A shower would make it all better, and a run... She would run till there was not even a shred of the nightmare left in her thoughts.