49 Truth will out

Old Man Kennedy is called home from work by Mrs. Kennedy.  Something bad has happened, something very, very bad.  The Girl doesn’t go to school that day, or the next day, or the next.  She doesn’t return calls to Alyssa or Cookie or Harrison.

Two weeks later, the Kennedy family suddenly transfers to another city.

The Girl grows up there, in this other city, as normally as she can.  The Girl doesn’t allow herself to miss her friends or anything about Kensington.  Especially Cookie.

The Girl grows up, graduates, and moves on from high school straight to Police Academy.  She does very well, even though her mom passes away the fall of her Junior Year.  The Girl becomes a detective, and she is extremely good.  She has the brains and the balls for this line of work.  She is a prodigy in fact. Her trick is that she teaches herself to know how they think.  She has at her disposal the T.A.P.S. National security database, and, of course, her gut.

The Girl is the pride of the City.  Other towns even call her in to consult.  The Girl catches lots of Bad Guys, but, unfortunately, a lot of Bad Guys go free. 

One day, by chance, the Girl finds herself alone with a Bad Guy.  The Bad Guy – foolishly – assaults the Girl.  The Girl assaults him back.  . .  and in the process kills him very, very dead.  No files are charged.  The Girl begins to learn something about Justice.

Old Man Kennedy passes away and the Girl moves back to her hometown.  Everything has changed.  The people and places she loved have all but disappeared.

The Girl retires from catching Bad Guys, at least the really Bad Ones, the Creeps.  The Girl figures out how to figure out what the Bad Guys want – because they are so very easy.  9 times out of 10, just pretend you have a penis.  This makes getting in to a Creep’s head embarrassingly easy.  They just aren’t complex creatures, she finds, at least 9 times out of 10.

The Girl becomes what they want:  a tart from the East Side, a defenseless co-ed, a single girl with more money than discretion.  Let them come to her, the Girl figures, let them do all the hard work – and they always do.

And so the Girl becomes a flirty tramp in Catholic school-girl drag.  And so Donnie Gomez follows her home, through the arts district, and lets himself in to Old Man Kennedy’s house, in hopes of having his base, Neanderthal way with her.  And so the Girl subdues him and beats him severely and professionally without leaving any marks.  And so the Girl takes the Creep to the chapel at Sacred Heart and executes him with a makeshift gallows. 

But The Girl knows that she has only found the more stupid and less original of the two killers. 

What the true Alpha wants escapes the Girl.  She can’t seem to get into Alpha’s head, but she doesn’t know why.  Alpha is that 1 in 10.

But the Girl is fortunate in that she has a very good friend who appears inexplicably out of her past and, unbeknownst to him, helps to construct the design by which the killer, Alpha, will be ensnared.

What the Girl does not realize, however, is that the truth of the killer’s identity will break her heart.