A Perfect Match

I climb back onto his dick, and resume right where I left off.

"Ready for a second round?" I ask. He then rolls me to my back and starts hammering me.

Shane stops for a second to ask, "Are you?"

-

Sunday - May 17, 2026

-Lauren Hill-

The scammer refused a direct deposit payment method - no surprise there - so we had to improvise. The Western Union payment will be wired to a different Western Union across town where Frank is posted in wait. I wire the funds and leave, sending a message to the scammer that the money was sent. I then send a message to Frank letting him know too. We had already prearranged with the management of the business that we would be here. You wouldn't know who we were, but we were there. They only asked we arrest the person somewhere else.

I get into my car and get there as fast as I can. In route, Frank calls and says he's following the person who picked up the money. I reroute when he sends me an address. In park next to him and jump cars.

"What do we got?" I ask.

"Adult male, appearing early twenties, dark complexion," he says.

"Is that code for black?" I ask.

"Nope. Sounded Indian. India Indian. Accented English," he says and ask him to point out the building. "That one."

He directs my attention to a two-story building, the first floor showing signs for an electronics repair shop.

"Run the plate?" I ask, and he presses the space bar to wake up the computer. "Yosh Patel. Legal resident alien, H1B1 visa that expired last year. You call ICE?"

"About to," he says, and watches the building a little longer.

"We going in?" I ask.

"Your bust, your call," he says. I can't tell if he's avoiding being held responsible for a fuck up, or is letting me take the lead for experience.

"We don't know how many people are in there. Let's get a few more units here, then we'll move," I say, and he nods.

"Good call. If you said we were marching in their alone I would have called you dumb," Frank says and calls in for any nearby units not on any other priority to come here. Sirens off so as not to spook them. Thirty seconds later three men leave, looking around suspiciously. "Mother fuckers have a police scanner."

"We moving?" I ask, and they make eye contact with us from across the street. Then they start running.

"White shirt! Fuck the rest of them!" Frank says and exits the vehicle quickly. I get out fast and sprint down the street after them. "Don't split up! Stay on target!"

"Police, you are under arrest!" I shout as we chase him. One of them cuts into an alley, hoping to split us up, but we stay on the white shirt. The third takes off across the street and plays frogger with traffic but we stay laser focused on our guy.

"You are under arrest!" I shout again. He looks over his shoulder, and doesn't see an old lady on a scooter. She stops just in time, but he clips the front of her scooter and in the process of trying to stay on his feet, slams face first into a car waiting for a light.

"What the fuck?" the driver says, leaning out of his window. The man wobbles to his feet, only for Frank who is much faster than he looks to tackle him onto the hood. "Dude, what the fuck! I just washed this shit!"

"Stay in your car sir!" Frank shouts, pulling the man off the hood and pinning him to the street. Cell phones are out filming the interaction, and I just can't wait to be in the news later today. Sarcasm.

"Police brutality, let the man go," an onlooker says while approaching us.

"Sir, official police business, keep back," I say with my hand up, and he tries to slap it away. Oh fuck no. "If you take another aggressive motion toward me, I will arrest you. I am only going to tell you one more time, stay back."

"What is he being arrested for?" the man asks. Fucking hood lawyer.

"You are not involved in this incident. I do not need to disclose that to you. Keep your distance," I say.

"Yo man, film this shit. Cops busting a brown man for nothing!" he shouts.

"Go ahead and film, that is your right, but you do it in a manner not obstructing with a lawful arrest," I say, but he keeps going.

"Look at this white bitch, telling me what to do. That badge make you feel powerful!?" he screams to the crowd forming. "Bitch, do something." He takes a step forward then puts his hands on me, so I taser him until he pisses himself. I cuff him on the ground and leave him there.

"Police brutality!" he shouts from the ground. I'm not even touching him.

"I'll get the big guy," Blanchard says and pulls the asshole off the ground and starts escorting him to the car down the street. I get who I assume is Mr. Patel.

"This is unlawful," he says to me.

"I'm sure your IRS credentials will check out," I say, and he shuts right the fuck up.

Other units have arrived by the time we do, and we tell them to stand by the business and give a general description of the other men who fled. We put the two men in separate cars, and I do an on the spot interview with Patel.

"Who owns the shop?" I ask, and he remains silent. "Fine, talk to ICE when they get here."

"Because I'm brown you're gonna call ICE?" he asks.

"No. I'm going to call ICE, because your visa is expired, smartass. Go ahead and play little race fuck fuck games with me. Worked for him, didn't it?" I say, gesturing toward the other car where he was still complaining that he pissed himself.

"I ain't talking without a lawyer," he says, and I walk away from the car and toward Frank.

"He talking?"

"Probably not, and I expect an ACLU lawyer at the station later," I say, and he shakes his head.

"Good luck fuck wad," Frank says and looks at the building. "The scope of our surveillance warrant is pretty broad. Includes structures we have reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed in."

"Good enough for me," I say, and rally a few officers to search the place.

Immediately after the front door, it looks just like a basic electronics and repair store. Several stations for component level repair, several shelves with part and component inventory, and a door hallway through likely leading to the stairs.

"How much you wanna bet some of this shit is illegal?" Frank asks.

"I guarantee it," I say and keep my head on a swivel. "Why an IRS scam here?"

"Second floor," Frank says and jiggles the doorknob. It is unlocked, and we start going up the stairs, but halfway up we hear movement. Frank stops and aims his gun up the stairs. "Police! Anyone up there, identify yourself immediately!"

"Don't shoot!" a voice shouts back.

"How many people are up there!" I shout.

"Myself, and four others!"

"Go to the bottom of the stairs, face the entrance to keep your eyes on them. We're going to corral them out nice and slow," Frank says to me, and I nod to him and take position. "I'm coming to the top of the stairs, back away from the door now! Do you understand this order?"

"...Yes!"

"I'm coming up!"

In a tense few minutes the five people on the second floor all slowly vacate the building and are all handcuffed and placed on the curb. While Frank is running that scene, I search the second floor with another officer and see what looks like a makeshift call center. Two rows of three cubicles with phones and a laptop at each. I put a glove on my hand and wiggle a mouse to wake the computer up. On the screen is a word document with a script for an IRS scam that I received, only mine I received via an email phishing expedition.

"Frank," I say into my radio, and wait for his reply. "It's a call center."

"One of them is talking," Frank says, and I let him know I'm going downstairs.

"Detective," one of the uniformed officers says to me when I get to the first floor.

"You got something?" I ask.

"I know what some of this stuff is," he says.

"Well don't touch it," I say, and he says he hasn't. "What is it?"

"It's a skimmer," he says, and I walk over and look at it myself. Son of a bitch, this building is a goddamn goldmine. "Look at this one, it's a shell you put over a card reader at like a, gas station, or a grocery store. Looks just like the real thing, only it's stealing your credit card info."

"I bet you one of these computers could tell us everywhere they have one of these things set up," I say, and he nods in agreement.

"Hill, get the hell out here," Frank says over the radio.

"Calm down, moving," I say, then look at the officer. "Keep it secure, CSI will be here soon."

I exit the building where the handcuffed men are starting to get sorted out. Frank has isolated the talker and I make sure the car with Yosh is gone before we start the interview.

"You had something to say?" I ask the man with Frank. He is East-Asian, Indian or Pakistani, and appears young, late teens to early thirties. "Let's start with name."

"Tedman Potuhera," he says.

"You go by Teddy?" I ask, and he shrugs.

"Ted," he replies.

"Alright Ted, where you from?"

"Here, but originally Sri Lanka," he replies. I was in the ballpark. His English is good. He has an accent, but not one I can't understand.

"You work here?" I ask, pointing to the building.

"Depends on what you mean by work," he says.

"Ted, this is not the moment to be smart with me," I say, and he apologizes.

"They helped me immigrate here," he says, and I stop him.

"What do you mean by immigrate?" I say.

"I have a visa, still valid. Just, they have it," he says, and I look at Frank, then back to Ted. "Until I pay off the travel expense, they are withholding my visa from me."

"You do know, that's illegal?" I say, and he nods.

"I do now, but I didn't know at the time. That's why I replied to you," he says.

"Wait, what?" I ask. "You replied to me?"

"Yes. You sent the reply with a reverse IP tracer? Right?" he asks, and I look at Frank again.

"You set it up, to get them busted?" Frank ask, and he nods.

"Yes, I did. They lied to me, and are stealing money from people. What do you want to know?" he asks, and Frank and look at each other again. Frank gestures for him to stay and for me to follow.

"Does this ever happen?" I ask.

"Like, never. This is the property crime bust of the century, with a competent witness, who is a reforming victim. Prosecution will salivate," he says, and I look at Ted and walk back.

"What do you know about the skimmers?" I ask point blank.

"Which kinds? They use three versions," he says, and I nearly faint.

"The check-out ones," I say.

"They placed them over the top of legitimate ones all over the city. At least twenty. They use the credit info to buy gift cards, they could then convert to crypto, then to cash. We called and emailed people all over the US and Canada off a call list they bought online," he explains. He's credible and articulate.

"The other ones?" I ask.

"One of the other tricks is putting it on the inside of a gas station pump," he says.

"How do they get in?" I ask.

"Oh, that's the easiest part. There's a master key that opens almost any of them," he says. "They have about a dozen of those."

"We'll talk more at the station," I say, and Ted nods. Frank uncuffs him and put him into a squad car to get him back. He gives a word to the officer to be gentle and we stay behind to wait for CSI.

-

Monday - May 18, 2026

-William Kaiser-

The warrant for Kimberly's phone finally came through because I had to wait for the judge, who isn't in on Sundays. I was sure to add in the fine print legal language pertaining to home security surveillance applications. If you forget that detail, you'll get a vague record of calls and texts, and then tough shit. Judges don't like when you come back crying because you didn't file the paperwork correctly.

While I was waiting, I did more homework and tried to find Jerome Alberts, but he's in the wind. His last listed address has a different family living there. What I can gleam from the evidence and his history is that he is a professional fraudster who likely just graduated to murder. I sent out a few requests for information to neighboring states to see if he was somehow rolled up by them.

I'm not ruling out Kimberly as an accomplice, so I did my due diligence and visited her place of work with a search warrant of their chemical inventory. It all checked out. Nothing missing, and the nail polish remover they used was not acetone based. The killer didn't get the chemical from the salon. As far as I can tell, Kimberly is likely in the clear. I still want to see her security footage before she has more time to destroy evidence. I would put in a request with the company who manufactures the cameras, if we had anything other than a burned-up piece of plastic to go off. Even the one above the front door didn't survive.

I've called the upstairs neighbors multiple times and haven't received a response yet. I would have sent Midge and Graham to go talk to them, but I can't.

"What do you have on the Xavier murder?" I hear Leo say from his office. I look over my shoulder and see him standing at his office doorway.

"Lot of questions, not as many answers," I say, and spin my chair around to him. "I could be farther if you didn't send my partner away on a case I can't know about."

"That came straight from Queen, don't look at me. I don't even know about it," Leo says with his hands up in his defense.

"Can I get a loaner?" I ask. A term meaning a detective who isn't too busy to assist with ongoing cases in different departments.

"Who you got in mind?" Leo asks.

"Chase?"

"I can't touch SI unless it's his additional duty, you know that," he says. Worth a shot. "And not your girlfriend, it has to be an equal grade swap." That narrows the field.

"Hill?"

"She's balls deep in a big case," he says. Since when does property crime have big cases?

"Samson?" I ask. He's in narcotics.

"On loan with the DEA," he replies.

"Well, I'll just go back to fucking myself," I say and turn to my desk.

"I'm not that busy, what do you need me to do?" Leo asks. I haven't seen him not push paper for a good minute.

"I'm supposed to compare notes with the insurance investigator in about three hours," I say.

"Forward me the contact info, I'll take care of it," Leo says, and I say I will, and thank him for doing it. That's one less thing to worry about. My email pings, and I see it's a reply from the Illinois State Police. Mother fucker.

Jerome Alberts was arrest two days before the murder by Illinois state troopers. They pulled him over for changing lanes without a signal and took him into custody because he had an outstanding arrest warrant for a separate fraud. He is still in custody.

"You have to be shitting me," I say, and bang my head on my desk.

"What's up?" Leo asks.

"My primary suspect just alibied," I say.

"Detective?" I hear a voice say.

"Yup," I say, and turn my head to a visitor with a green visitor badge. It's a man, early forties in a suit and tie with a shiny bald head.

"I'm the attorney for Ms. Kimberly Drew," he says, and I swallow down a groan and put my game face on.

"Where is your client?" I ask.

"I'm only here to drop off the information required from the warrant," he says, and placed a digital forensic examination of her phone, and lets me know he will send the video from her camera in a few hours. "I'm also here to relay any questions you have to her. They will be typed and will be received with a written response if answerable," he says. You perjury proof cocksucker.

"Give me a few minutes to type them up, and I'll get you on your way," I say, and turn back to my computer.

"No rush," he says. Of course he'd say that, he bills by the hour.

I make sure to ask about her security footage, and hand him the copy of the questions which he reads for a moment.

"Could you sign and date that document in blue pen?" he asks. He's dealt with some shady cops who tried to claim they asked different questions in court. He's not leaving me any wiggle room. Blue pen is a good touch, shows it's the original document and not photocopied. I comply and hand it back.

"Thank you for your time, I will get this back to you, hopefully this time tomorrow," he says, and politely leaves.

"Damn, that guy is good," Leo says from his door. She got a good enough lawyer to leave me with nothing.

I wasn't expecting anything of value today, but an hour after the lawyer left, my inbox alerted me of a new email. It was a series of videos provided from her security camera, with a message ensuring nothing was removed or left out going back two weeks as requested in the warrant. If this goes to trial, I'm sure discovery will prove that is bullshit.

I click a few randomly and see the manner Frankie described them is accurate. They're short, fifteen second clips after a motion sensor is tripped. Boring, innocuous things like people getting water or going to the one bathroom in the middle of the night. There are two cameras in the house, one in the living room that captures the bathroom door and the kid's room. The other likely above the front door pointing straight down the hall.

One video shows Kimberly's door open and her using the flashlight on the phone to find the light switch at the end of the hall. She was telling the truth after all. She stops, talks to her grandmother a little, then kisses her on the top of her head before going back to bed. The grandmother occasionally wakes the camera up when she shifts in her sleep on the chair. I see the camera activation times are consistent, roughly ten at night. Every night. Deactivation is similarly consistent at roughly six in the morning. Sometimes she forgets but turns it off after the alert buzzes her phone. Except the night of the fire. It was deactivated around one thirty in the morning. Roughly fifteen minutes before the fire started.

"Okay, what's going on here?" I ask myself and watch the final two videos.

The hallway and living room cameras are tripped by Jacob leaving his room and walking into his mothers. I lose him on the living room angle, but the hallway angle shows him enter his mother's room. Just before it cuts off, I watch him pick up his mother's phone.

"Oh my god," I say out loud. The kid turned off the cameras. How did he even know how to do that? How does he know his mother's code? I pull open the case file, and look at anything regarding Jacob, and look through the notes Lauren handed off to me. One part stood out. 'He spent the entire conversation on his mother's phone.'

I call Lauren and when she answers I ask. "Jacob Drew, did he know the passcode to his mother's phone?" I ask, and she's initially confused. "Did she need to unlock the phone before handing it to him, or did he know how?"

"He knew," she replies. "Why, what's up?"

"Not sure yet, but that clears a few things up," I say, and we exchange a few polite words before I hand up again. The kid knew how to use her phone. It's plausible he knew how to turn off the cameras. Why?

"What would Chase look for?" I ask and watch the video again. "What's out of place?"

I watch the fifteen second videos so many times an hour goes by. I rub my eyes and decide to walk to the window to get some air. I just need to not sit at my desk anymore. Then it hits me.

"The window," I say, jogging back to my computer watching the living room angle again. I watch Jacob leave his room and leave his door open. I can see it clear as day. The window is shut. Kimberly said the window was open when she escaped. Fifteen minutes before the fire started, it was closed.

Did someone come in through the window and forget to close it on their way out? Someone who could have left some fingerprints or distinguishing shoeprints? They could have torn a piece of fabric on accident during entry or departure. That isn't the most pressing detail. Before it happened, Jacob turned the cameras off for them. He had to have known this person to follow those instructions. Someone who already knew the house had cameras and how to disarm them.