..........  I believe that killing has perhaps always been in my blood. Once out the womb I was forever drawn to the fascination of death. As a kid I'd tend to **** bugs, which turned into birds and other rodents around my yard. My mom thought it was disgusting but could never get me to stop. On the other hand, my dad figured it was just a boy thing and it was good that i enjoyed being outdoors.
      My father was always an outdoors type himself. He enjoyed taking me fishing on the weekends. As well as the gun range to practice my shot for when hunting season rolled around. Now that was heaven on earth to me. I'd never miss any shot i took and my dad was glad to be carrying a legacy down to me.
      It still haunts me to this day that my parents were murdered in my own home. Why wasn't I there to save them? Why couldn't it had been me? So many questions and very little answers. There was only one answer I could ever think of.. Revenge.
       Asking around only made the people suspicious of me. Being an 18 year old kid trying to solve my parents ****** seemed stupid at the time. So i joined the military to learn all the aspects of war. ******* the enemy, traitors, even fellow soldiers left for dead. If i ever had a soul it was gone by now.
   Returning back to my home town was nostalgic. Twenty years older and I had one mission on my mind. My old house was sold in auction to a bank but based on the gruesome murders nobody had yet to occupy it. Perfect chance for me to scope out for clues. Any evidence I could find that could help in the search would be worth it.
     Lucky for me, nothing was touched in that house since that day. Felt off that it wasn't cleaned up and labeled for sale. The realtors had visited the house and left nothing disturbed. Was the bank covering something up?
        It was easy for me to find blood that had never been cleaned up but testing old blood was rather tough. Fingerprints were numerously left by the detectives, my family, the realtors and me. After a few weeks of searching over and over i came across a dusty old bandana. Why it was never in the hands of the cops , puzzled me.
     A few hours later i had found a partial fingerprint from the corner of the coffee table. I picked it up with a piece of tape and put it away. Something about  finding those two things together after weeks of nothing sounded rather fishy. I figured i'd give it to my old friend in the force but I wondered if he was someone I could still trust.  Could it have been a setup to throw me off my vendetta?

     Over the phone I had asked my old buddy from the force to meet me at the Moonlight Diner. From there I had asked if he could return an old favor. I was able to get his troubled son a job at the base and that shaped him up pretty quick.
         " Hey Dan, long time no see, how's it been?"
         " Hell of a lifetime ago, thought you forgot about me."
         " Nah, i'd never. I just got into town and been getting stuff together y'know how it is."
          " Excuses," he says and points to the table to sit.
Our waitress than approaches us with menus and asks us about our drinks.
          " Mm, some sweet tea would be lovely, you Dan?"
          " Sweet tea? Hell nah my diabetes would wake up and **** me. I'll just have a coffee. Black."
  He readjusts his hat and looks back at me.
         " So, what caused you to want to meet up this late at night?"
         " Well, i'm here to call in that favor you owe me."
         " Favor? ****, well what is it?"
          " Well, I've been looking into my parents ******..," and i stare at him awhile to see if he budges. " and anyways i'm pretty sure i found some evidence."
          " Evidence? You must be a **** fool, now you know its been decades since that happened. You need to learn to let that go. I understand it's still tough after all these years but the only thing you're going to find is dead rats and a bunch of dust in that place."
         " This bandana wasn't here a few weeks ago when I searched. Isn't that fishy? And look, I found this fingerprint. Maybe if you can test this on the low we can find a match."
       " The military done got into your head didn't it? You think I can just run evidence like nothing? Even if it was real, someone would catch me."
        " Look, it could probably be nothing. For my own sake Dan, this is all I got to go on."
        " I can't just reopen a case because you are feeling desperate."
        " You don't have to reopen it. I just want some tests , that's all. If nothing comes up I will personally back off and you won't hear about it again."
  He looks at me with discomfort. Shuffles around a bit, and after a long pause opens his mouth.
       Sigh. " I guess I can try and tell  the nerd geeks to take a look. I know they'll keep things hush hush if I offer them some food. Those suckers never stop eating. Got **** endless pits."
      " That's all I ask," and I hand him the plastic bag and the fingerprint entrapped in tape. " Please, guard these with your life."
       " I will," he says. He stands up and grabs a few bucks out of his wallet, tips his hat off to me and walks off.

        Daniel Castillo. Been a cop as long as I was in the military. He was friends with my father but back than he was just a young rookie learning the ropes. Originally, he was from Amarillo ,Texas. Born and raised a southern cowboy he ended up coming to college here in Colorado and ended up working the force straight after.
         He took me in for awhile after my parents died but once i left to the military, i became out of reach. Still, a phone call away, he was the only one I trusted at that god forsaken time. Even had offered for me to join the force once I got out but the law never seemed to agree with me.
         At the time, I was renting out this worn down apartment. It was just temporary so I wasn't worried about living expenses. Not everyone knew I was due back in town so it helped that i remained quiet. I had all my leads scattered over the counter, newspaper articles, names of suspects and police reports.
    Eventually I set them all up on the wall, some with yarn leaking to certain leads.Still, unanswered questions kept me up all night binging on coffee or energy drinks. Reading and re reading until i'd end up passing out. Until, one day I saw a glint of light shining through the curtains and conveniently landed onto a name.
       Charlie Rivers. Female. It had appeared to me that her name was Charlotte not Charlie. Why had i missed this before? Had I driven myself to overthink and overlook simple matters? And if this person was female, why was her prints discovered at my house?
      Pulling out my laptop i searched for a Charlotte Rivers here in town. There were three. One deceased, and one was literally born yesterday. The last one was a 26 year old girl who worked for none other than the famous Glass Industries. My parents never partook in that company so what was she doing at my house?
     I clicked on her name and seemed she was an assistant to none other than Alexander Glass. Clicking on his name gave me his profile.

        ' Alexander Yuri Glass. 35 years of age.
          CEO of Glass Industries.
          Mentored by Professor Luka Glass & Rose Glass.
          New York Times mentions how "innovative and forward thinking", this company is. Ascending to a billion dollars in a matter of 5 years, Alex is the youngest CEO to do so within his own company. Originally transcending from Germany, he set his sights on tackling USA and has done remarkably well.'

        Hmm, seemed he was quite the entrepreneur. Or he just got lucky when his parents handed down the company. Perfect spoiled brat came to make money living off US soil. How lovely. I assumed I'd try to get in more in touch with this Charlie girl so i searched more in depth and found her social profiles.
Seemed her favorite hangout was a local cafe about 15 miles north, so I set my sights on making that my second home.
      My approach was to appear romantically interested in her. It seems she was unmarried and had no trace of a boyfriend ( or girlfriend), so this was my one shot. Looking myself in the mirror i saw a train wreck of a hot mess staring back at me. She might end up thinking i'm homeless, i thought to myself. After a quick shave and haircut, I set out in a fitted suit and headed to town.
     Steuben's Diner was a retro style diner, seemed like an easy appeal. Although, I had come to the realization that i may have been overdressed in a suit. The setting was more casual style, crowded with families and young couples.  Quickly I settled down at the bar and ordered a club soda.
       I stayed doing this every day of the week coming around happy hour and sometimes even staying till closing. Even the waiters came to see me as a regular. After the third week, I had begun to give up putting my things away and turned to see her walking through the entrance.
     So eloquently beautiful. Luxurious blonde hair tucked behind her ear, reached down her back. She had pale skin and a small body frame, didn't look a day over 25. She sat at the corner of the cafe, opened a book , and later her waitress came back with some type of alcoholic drink. Casual drinker.
       I sat and watched for what seems like hours but merely 30 mins. had passed. Figuring out an approach was one thing , getting her to stay interested in the conversation was another. My waitress saw me staring at her.
" You should buy her a drink, and your in luck.. I know what she ordered."
I give her the nod to go ahead and try to adjust myself to seem more approachable.
       I see the waitress point at me and smile. I wonder if she's working me up. She then turns around and raises her glass at me and smiles.
      " If you don't talk to her you're going to regret it," the waitress said to me and left.