Thanks to katinki who is awesome and read my outline for this entire story (novella) and still said she liked the idea.

Title: Carpe Aestatem

Summary: Special Agent Edward Masen is assigned to solve four seemingly unrelated murders. He finds himself in a race to protect a possible fifth victim as June 9th looms closer.

May 6, 2012

"Here's another one for ya, Seth."

Detective Seth Clearwater opened the new file that landed on his desk. Working in the cold case division at the Detroit Metropolitan Police Department could get depressing for any officer, but for Seth, it was his ideal career choice and his cases-solved ratio proved it.

He was the final stop for all Detroit area unsolved murders. Working out of the main headquarters in downtown Detroit, at the very same desk his father used to sit, was something he was proud of. If he couldn't find a lose string worth pulling or a needle in the haystack, then the cases were simply unsolvable.

Most came to him after 11 months of dead ends. When the detectives frustratingly handed them over and it gave Seth one month to make something of it, or send it to the basement where it would be filed, and most like forgotten.

Logging into the national crime database, Seth typed in specifics noted by the lead detective. Every file he worked started this way. Physical descriptions of the victim, suspects, aliases, weapons, modus operandi or habits in schedules; anything the detectives put in the file, Seth put into the database.

At a few minutes before six, Seth shut down his computer and locked up the files still on his desk. He was going to meet his girl for dinner; so the unsolved case of one Mr. Emmett McCarty would just have to wait until tomorrow.

Taking another swig from his coffee, Seth flipped through the print out of pages again. Something was there. He knew it was. He just wasn't seeing it. He took another bite of his bagel and wiped the crumbs from the papers scattered over his desktop.

Under one of his queries, Seth had requested just about every variable of the crime he could: age range, male, single, Caucasian, exact cause of death, distinguishing marks. The list went on and on. The computer added case numbers to columns and then highlighting those that repeated in every row.

It was the last column that caught Seth's attention. Along with Emmett McCarty, three other cases had similar dates of interest. He noticed the date for each victim was June 9th. The years varied, but it was the start he needed.

Playing a hunch, Seth stacked all of his papers and set them to the side. He turned to his computer and requested the three other cases from the Police National Computer Database.

He walked to the printer and loosened his tie as the scanned information for each case printed out. Feeling the tingly excitement he sometimes got, Seth pulled a new manila folder from the cabinet and scooped up the pages. He spent another two hours reviewing each one.

Nothing concrete fit at first. There were enough holes to make the details seem insignificant; but, there were enough similarities that Seth just knew. Moving to the DMV computer, he pulled up the driver's license records for each of the four victims and found that two of them were licensed drivers in Texas for the same four year period.

Seth was now bouncing his knee as he dug into other records for each of the men murdered. Two were born in the same city. A city so small that it hardly could allow coincidence.

One of the deceased had a speeding ticket issued in the same town.

He glanced at the clock and selected a contact from his cell phone, "Hey, Sam. It's me Seth. You busy?"

In the 90s, Sam Uley was Seth's college roommate at the University of Michigan. Today, Special Agent Samuel Uley of the FBI answered Seth's call and listened as all four cases were presented.

"So, I know this isn't necessarily your field, but do you have a contact I can send this over to? It'd mean opening up some cases that are out of my state and jurisdiction."

Sam was getting ready to assure Seth that someone would look at the files if he sent them over. He wanted to make sure that he realized it was probably a dead end, but he didn't want to hurt his friend's feelings either. Damn. He figured he could always give it to that hot little rookie that just graduated. What was her name again...?

But then he looked out of the window of his office as the bane of his existence sauntered through the secretaries maze of desks and into the Deputy Director's Office - carrying golf clubs over his shoulder no less.

"You know. I think I just might have the guy," he answered. "Overnight me everything you have and I'll see if Agent Masen can take it on."

Seth let out a breath of relief, "Thanks, Sam. I owe ya one. And, hey, if I'm right? He has less than a month before this guy strikes again."