The Curse Of Eden

"Is it always this crowded in fairs?" Collette asked as she looked around her at the vast area of play games, food stalls, tents and people.

The sun was setting, leaving its orange residue in the sky, the night soon to take over.

She insisted on coming with Adam to the fair despite his constant rejection to the idea and while he was here on work, she decided to take the chance and have a little fun. "Come on, I'll get you some fair food. You'll like it." Adam smiled kindly at her as he grabbed her hand, pulling her through the crowd.

They stopped at a sweet potato stall just as Adam's phones started ringing.

"Woods." He replied formally as he took a step out the line, leaving Collette to save their place.

"Everything's ready boss." Ken answered from the other side.

"We already have Elliot stationed at the control room, he'll inform us once they see something suspicious. Alex and Avery are positioned at the back."

"Great, I'll be keeping my eyes out." Adam replied and hung up.

He took Collette's nagging about wanting to come to their advantage and go undercover inside the fair, searching every inch of it without drawing attention, in case E was having outside help.

By the time Adam got back to Collette, it was already their time to order. They both got themselves a sweet potato with a whole load of stuffings and toppings.

It was Collette's first time having something as crowded as that but she enjoyed every bite of it.

Her eyes were scanning her surrounding, trying to take in everything before they left. She didn't know if there will be any chance like this for her to come attend a fair again. One thing life has taught her was to live the moment to its fullest as it can be a real traitor. One day you're a happy ten year old playing with your toys with no care in the world then a second after, you're being beaten to death for playing with those same toys.

'Cleanse yourselves.'

She shook the thoughts out of her head and decided to just enjoy her day, even if she was just helping Adam go undercover.

The place was very crowded that they couldn't make a straight path anywhere without having to shift right and left and it was normal that you passed random people's line of sight. But the tingle Collette felt in her back was not normal. The feeling of someone watching her with determined eyes. The same feeling she got when she was taking a calming walk in the street the other night.

Right before she notice that someone was following her.

She looked behind her yet she saw nothing worthy to worry about. People were going about in their business, enjoying themselves, talking, laughing, eating. No one seemed to really be paying attention to them.

She shrugged it off as paranoia and went back to finishing her sweet potato.

"Let's go check the haunted house out." Adam suggested. He was concentrated on seeking out possible places that the next victim might be, while Collette had nothing on her mind but wanting to shake off the comfortable feeling she was having poking at her back.

They were already done with their food as they reached the makeshift haunted place.

Its exterior was crowded with skulls, zombie figures and a tall, grumpy Frankenstein near the door.

Shivers crawled up and down Collette's spine from the dark aura. Luckily for her though, Adam's phone rang in his pocket, halting their approach.

"Tell me Ken." He answered, waiting to hear what his partner had to say, yet the words coming from the other line weren't expected.

"What? Already?" He voices was laced with pure shock. "Okay, we're on our way. Call for forensics."

Adam sighed as he turned to look at his wife.

"They found him. Our next victim. Let's go."

The scene was a great contrast to the joyful mood that was supposed to be created by the fair.

Yellow police tape framed the crime scene and police men stood around, trying to prevent onlookers from crossing the line.

"It seems that E was well aware of the risk of actually being here. It appears that the victim was already laid here for a while now. He's been here all night." Alex informed Adam as they stood by the corpse. Doctor Newman and his assistant Miles Hemingway were crouched down by the body, performing their initial autopsy.

"He was hidden behind storage boxes in this tent here." Doctor Newman added as he carefully inspected the body.

"He wasn't meant to be found early into the day from the looks of it but luckily for us, the owner of this tent had lost her notebook and was searching for it when she found the body. Her name's Ally Decker." Ken spoke. Adam turned around to look at the weeping woman standing behind him. She was talking to a dispatch officer while another lady stood by her side, placing an arm around her shoulders.

"Any prints or DNA traces we can work with?" He asked hopefully as he turned his attention towards the doctor.

"We actually found a hair on the victim's clothes." Hemingway happily answered as he held up a hair strand nested inside a plastic evidence bag.

"Great. Get it tested and give pass for the body to get relocated to autopsy."

He left the team and started making his way towards the teary faced woman.

"Evening Ms. Decker. I'm detective Adam Woods." He greeted. He gestured for the officer that it was okay for him to go and the officer was immediately following orders.

"Yes, evening Detective." Decker replied with a constrained voice.

"You own this tent right?" He asked what he already know.

"Yes. We come every year selling hand-knitted merchandise. They vary from scarves to beanies to even bags and purses."

"And can you tell me exactly what happened following up to your discovery of the body?"

Upon the mention of the deceased, Decker let out a whimper at the memory.

"We already told everything to the officer." The woman standing by Decker's side spoke.

"Yes, but I'm just trying to go through all the details again. Sometimes new things pop up with repetition and I wanna make sure we don't miss out anything." Adam answered politely. "Excuse Ellen detective, my sister's just too protective of me, seeing as how we've only got each other." Ally said gently.

"I understand." Adam smiled kindly at the women. "Now, can you tell me exactly what happened?"

"Uhmm....Everything was going well actually like how it's supposed to. Even the sale was going extremely well." Her voice trailed out. "Anyways," she took a breath, "I went to get my notebook from my purse. It's where I write down everything from the day planning to the stock we have and almost every other thing we may need. But I couldn't find it anywhere and I thought maybe I dropped it by the boxes by chance. And that's when I found him lying behind them." "Can I know exactly when you piled your stock here?"

"I was the one who arranged them." The other Decker sister replied, her golden eyes confident. "I had them piled here last night. We usually have a lot of things to carry in the morning and we simply can't have all thsea things transported with us on the day of the fair. They permitted us access to the fair grounds beforehand but only until eight p.m."

"The tent is set up two weeks before the fair though." Ally generously added.

"And you guys never thought about checking the boxes at least once today?"

"Why should we? They were just stacked boxes of our products. You see them from afar and they're just how we put them. Since no thing's changed in their number or how they look, we don't really have anything to check." Ally Decker shrugged.

"So we didn't really realise that the boxes have been moved a little to the front. We didn't bother concentrating from how busy we were since the morning. All we had in mind was attending to the front sale and managing a good operation." Ellen chirped in.

"You didn't see anyone suspicious coming near the tent today or yesterday when your were arranging the boxes?" Adam asked.

The sisters looked at each other before shaking their heads.

"Okay, this is my card, if you remember anything else feel free to give me a call." He said, handing them his business card. Adam sighed to himself.

"So, what do you make of this Adam?" Ken voiced from behind Adam, standing in his signature posture with his arms folded across his chest.

Adam sighed again as he turned to look at his friend and partner. "The victim was disposed later than usual and kept hidden with is not normal for E. And it's getting me thinking. Maybe something had triggered the change in E's modus operandi or maybe it's not E all together."

"All signs show that it was E's doings. The slit wrists, the letter E on their arms. Maybe he knew that being here is too risky and that he needed to give himself more time." Ken suggested.

"More time for what?" Adam asked in exasperation. "The body was placed the night before. He had all the time he needed from when Ellen Decker left the tent till the time they made their arrival to it to escape." Adam spoke with frustration as he ran a hand through his hair.

Ken's phone dinged in his hand at the arrival of a new message.

"Boss, lab results on the hair came back."

Adam's eyes semi sparked, wanting to hear something that would make his day.

"They belong to a man named Donald Pires." Ken continued, the phone still connected. "But boss," Ken's tone was strained. "His recent data is not in the system."

Adam felt his mind go blank for a second. A mixture of confusion, and a couple of fibers of stupidity merged in his head.

'What?'

"Find anything on him asap. Do all you can to find him." Adam ordered, the wheels in his mind working again.

Ken nodded before talking back to whoever was on the other line.

He couldn't help shamelessly breath out in relief, even though he knows it's still not yet the time to relax. They still had to find that Donald guy but it was a lead. He turned to look at the dead man as he was being carried out on a stretcher, his body covered fully.

'Why in God's name was this one hidden?'

He couldn't keep the thought out of his head.

"We're pulling out everything we can to find him." Ken spoke once he hung up the phone yet Adam remained silent.

Unlike his normal quite self, Ken found himself wanting to speak his mind out. He too, was in deep shock and confusion that mocked his presumable intelligence.

"It this really some sort of in-cult rebellion. One of the members is going rogue on the others?" He voiced.

Adam shook his head, his eyes staring at the ground beneath them. "I don't know."

Silence vieled around them heavily before Adam broke it.

"It's no use dwelling over this now. We find Donald, we get out answers. Let's wrap around here and take everything we've got back to HQ if there's nothing more to do. I'll get Collette home then meet you there." Ken nodded his head and left back to the rest of the team.

Adam started making his way out the crime scene and towards his car where he left Collette. He didn't want her to experience the sight of a dead body once again. Especially not a victim of her father's killer.

A small smile grazed his lips as his eyes fell upon his sleeping wife.

Her head was rested back against the head rest, her mouth slightly opened and once he opened the car door, her snores echoed through the car.

Adam was about to wake her up when his phone started ringing.

"Yeah?"

"Are you still on fair grounds?" Ken asked through the line.

"Yeah what's up?" Adam asked in suspicion.

"I know why E hid the first body." Ken started. Adam was immediately out of his car on his feet, anticipation growing as to what he would hear. "There's another one."