My sister was killed 5 years ago on September 5th 2006. Only two days before her 7th birthday. I remember everything. It was around midnight and everyone was asleep, everyone except me. I could sense a sort of uneasiness, but I didn’t do anything about it, I just stared at the dark ceiling listening to Samantha’s snoring in the bed that was only a few feet away. My eyes got heavier and heavier until they finally shut and dreams started rushing through my head. Until I heard a crash. I opened my eyes but didn’t dare to move. My heart was racing faster than it ever had in my entire life. I listened to each piece of fractured glass hit the floor. I thought it was a dream, but the terror in Samantha’s eyes proved to me that it was all real. I peeked over at the window that was across the room that was now letting in gusts of cold air. I saw a large black figure making its way into the room. I watched its shadow move swiftly across the wall until it vanished. Thinking the intruder had left I sat up and scanned the room, at that same moment I felt a large cold hand squeeze my arm and then instantly throw me in the air and onto my feet. I started kicking and screaming as loud as I could hoping my parents would hear. The man dragged me over to my sister’s bed where she was hiding under the covers. I could hear her crying. He reached down with his free hand and pulled the covers off of Samantha, and ripped her from her safety just as he’d done to me. Only being ten I got tired very quickly and didn’t have the strength to fight anymore, this was until I saw the shiny black gun strapped to the side of his leg. I knew if I didn’t get out I would be killed. I grabbed the railing of the bed with my legs and hand. He yanked on my arm but not hard enough to tear me from the rail. Through the shattered window I could hear sirens and so could the man. He looked at me. His face was covered with a mask and all I could see were his eyes. I’ll never forget his eyes. They were cold gray unforgiving eyes that looked right through me. He released his grip on my wrist and I gave a sigh of relief until I heard my sister scream, as I was getting to my feet to try and save her I felt a hard boney knuckle dig into the side of my forehead and my body fell hard to the floor. Before I blacked out I saw the man leaving the same way he had come except this time he had my sister. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and I looked back at her and kept the picture of her in my head until everything went black.
I woke up a hospital bed to the sound of my mom’s cries, and I immediately knew my sister was gone. Sure enough when I flipped on the TV only an hour later it was all over the news. Her body had been found in a ditch just a few miles from our house, she’d been raped and beaten to death, her murderer was never found.
My entire life fell apart before my eyes. My mom went crazy after quitting her job and becoming an alcoholic. My dad had an affair with another woman which eventually led to their divorce and after that I never saw my dad again. I had to get a job at fourteen to support my mom and I. Then when I was sixteen my mom couldn’t handle the pain anymore so she committed suicide. Since I wasn’t old enough to live on my own child services put me in an orphanage. I lived in multiple families over the course of a year and as soon as I turned seventeen I got my own apartment. Ever since then I’ve devoted my life to searching for the man who killed my sister and destroyed my entire life.        

Chapter 1
The cold frigid air felt like millions of needles piercing my skin as I opened the door, and as I walked to my car the temperature only seemed to drop further. I through my bag in the passenger seat and slid the keys in the ignition.
I always get lost in my thoughts on my way to work, the same hopeless thoughts. What if I never find him? Am I just wasting my time? Should I give up? But even with my doubts something keeps bringing me back to the same work I’ve been focused on for the past three years, and if it wasn’t for Thomas I wouldn’t be nearly as far as I am. I’d probably still be stuck working at the car wash if he hadn’t given me my job. He had hired me as a homicide detective even though I didn’t have a college degree. He turned into my own personal professor and taught me everything I know.
My work days were normally spent trying to match suspects DNA samples with DNA samples from the crimes scenes, scanning through criminal profiles, going through medical records, and watching questioning sessions on tape. All attempts at finding clues to solve the mystery.
I pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car. I sat for a minute watching little kids run into the elementary school across the street. I watched two little girls skip along the sidewalk laughing. I wondered what it would have been like to have a friend as a kid. Suddenly I was ripped from my thoughts when Jason knocked on my window. I jumped a little and he laughed. I stepped out of my car and punched him in the shoulder. “I should have expected that from you,” I said as I reached for my bag.
“You were staring off at nothing so I jumped at the opportunity.” He smirked and started walking into the building. I slammed the door shut and followed him to the building. I’d been working with him for two years and he never seemed to never change. He was always silly and outspoken even when things were at their worst.
“What should we start with?” He asked, turning to look at me for an answer.
“I don’t know,” I sighed, “Do you ever feel like just giving up.”
He stared at me blankly for a moment, then jumped in a chair and rolled his way over to my desk plopping his feet up on the surface.
“You mean, forgetting about the case altogether and moving on.”
“Yeah.”
He stood up and got some DNA samples from the freezer. “No.”
“How?” I uttered, “What makes you keep coming back to this case? You could easily find a new investigation to work on that might actually get solved but you don’t?”
“Because,” he put the samples down and turned to face me, “you never know how close we could be. For all we know today could be the day we find answers or maybe tomorrow, or maybe thirty years from now. We don’t know. That’s why we have to keep going, because we’ll never know what’s around the corner.”
We stood in silence for a moment. Listening to the sound of our own breath.
“And besides,” he said turning back to his work, “I know how important finding this guy is to you.”
I stared at him, waiting for some witty remark, but he didn’t say anything more.
Thomas walked in carrying some bags of new supplies, which he proceeded to drop on the floor next to the counter.
“Find anything new?” he asked
“Why would we have found anything, it’s only been three years,” I muttered sarcastically.
“It takes time.” He looked at me with his shiny brown eyes. “You have to look in places you wouldn’t normally think to look.”
I rolled my eyes and went back to my work. He always says things that made no sense. I’ve looked everywhere I could possibly look, it’s useless.