Chapter 1

The First Crime Scene (that they know of)

Ella Fox woke to the sound of her phone going off. She rolled over to see that it was
three in the morning and rolled her eyes before she slid the bar across the screen to
answer.
“Ranger Fox?” she answered, her voice showing she’d been asleep.
She woke almost immediately at the sound of John Walt’s voice, “Hey Partner,” he
began, “sorry to wake you so early. We’ve got a homicide on our hands. Someone left a
pretty mutilated body on the beach,” he shared.
Ella inhaled, hoping to capture the sleepiness in her voice, before she replied, “I’ll be
right there,” she shared as she hung up the phone and got out of bed.
She moved to her closet where she pulled on a pair of jeans and a button down before
grabbing her badge and gun to meet John at the crime scene.
Ella drove to the location John sent a ping to on her phone and found herself on the
beach before the sun was even planning to begin to rise.
“What do we have?” she asked, making her presence known.
John moved aside to allow Ella to view the body. There were cuts all across the poor
woman’s frame, none all the way through.
She crouched down to get a closer look, scanning the body for anything that might jump
out as the cause of death before she spoke with the ME.
After she evaluated the body, she stood and turned to Walt, “Has the ME ruled on the
probable cause of death?” she asked as she had an idea of what it was, from her own
examination. “Do we have an ID on the vic?” she added.
John passed Ella the vic’s license, “Her name was Amelia Baxter and the ME hasn’t
ruled on a cause of death yet. Any ideas?” he asked, well aware of his partner’s ability
to pinpoint small details of a case without anyone’s help.
Ella nodded as she crouched back down beside the body and pointed at two small
puncture wounds on the neck, “I think the killer did all this slicing and dicing to distract
us from the real cause of death which was a bite from a venomous snake. I’m not sure
which type of snake the killer used,” she explained.
John sank down to meet her at her leve, “What makes you so sure the snake venom
was the cause of death and not blood loss from any of these other cuts on her body?”
Ella pointed to the plant left at the scene, “That’s a sansevieria plant, known as the
snake plant to most. I think the killer left that as their calling card. Everything about this
crime scene is meant to be a distraction except for that plant and these two bite marks,
but I’m willing to wait until the ME’s report confirms my findings,” she added, causing
John to look down to hide his smirk.
His first attraction to her came from her uncanny ability to identify a cause of death
without any aid from anyone and this crime scene was no different.
“I’ll share your thoughts with the ME,” he responded, attempting to hide the pride he felt
from her work at the crime scene.
Ella nodded as she stood back up and began writing notes down in her notepad. Walt
knew she was taking those notes to compare with unsolved crime scenes because not
many Rangers would have pinpointed the snake connection in the death of Ms. Amelia
Baxter. The key was going to be finding out why someone wanted Ms. Baxter dead and
what her connection to other possible victims might be. That’s where John came in.
He took off his cowboy hat as he stepped over to speak to the ME on their case, Chloe
Santos.
“Amy thoughts. Santos?” Walt asked as he flipped to a blank page in his notebook.
Chloe brushed her hair out of her face before she replied, “Initially, I thought the cause
of death was blood loss from the multiple cuts across the body,” Ella moved to join them
as Chloe explained her thoughts. Chloe continued, “After further examination, though, I
found two bite marks on the neck and that leads me to believe the true cause of death
came from a venom of some sort,” she shared.
John nodded, “That aligns with Ranger Fox’s findings,” he agreed before adding,
“However, she narrowed the cause of death to be some kind of snake venom because
the plant found at the scene,” he pointed at the sansevieria, catching a prideful smile
from Ella.
Chloe attempted to hide her huff as she surveyed the scene and, in the end, agreed
with Ella’s findings. “I’ll run a tox screen on the victim to see what kind of snake was
used to poison this poor woman,” she shared, conceding to Ella’s superiority.
“Looks like we’ve uncovered everything we can for the time being,” Walt announced,
“Everyone should go get a little bit more sleep before we meet at the station tomorrow
to look deeper into this case.”
Ella smiled as she pretended to say goodbye to her team members but instead went
back to the station to start looking for previously unsolved homicides where a plant was
left at the scene.