“Mwah!”
The little girl pressed a heavy, wet kiss against Nick’s cheek, her tiny hands clutching his shoulders.
“Thank you, Detective Burkhart.”
The instant her lips touched his skin, a warm, tangible surge of energy flooded into Nick’s chest.
The sudden sensation was so pronounced that his practiced professional smile froze for a fraction of a second.
He quickly suppressed the shock rising within him, gently stroking her soft blonde hair to maintain his reassuring demeanor.
“You’re very welcome, sweetie.
Remember to listen to your mother from now on, alright?
No shortcutting through the woods like Little Red Riding Hood.
Stick to the main road.”
Little Robin nodded solemnly, leaned in to press a second kiss against his other cheek, then turned and scrambled into her mother’s tearful embrace.
Hank stood nearby with his arms crossed over his chest.
The lingering anxiety from their violent encounter had completely evaporated, replaced by a fond, doting grin as he watched the reunion.
Portland Police Bureau backup had flooded the area in force.
The swift response was the result of a double trigger: Hank’s officer-in-distress call to dispatch and the earlier anonymous 911 tip Monroe had phoned in from a payphone.
Nick’s two-track strategy had paid off cleanly.
Had their initial consensual knock-and-talk failed to yield probable cause, the anonymous report of a child screaming in the woods would have provided the exigent circumstances needed to breach the perimeter anyway.
The quiet clearing around the cabin was now packed with marked patrol cruisers, their emergency lights painting the dark fir trees in rhythmic pulses of red and blue.
Crime scene technicians and medical examiner assistants were already moving back and forth across the property with forensic kits.
“I still don’t fully get how you mapped out this location,” Hank said, stepping up beside Nick and attempting to throw a casual arm around his shoulder.
“But damn it, partner, you pulled it off.”
Before Hank could finish his sentence, Nick’s expression shifted into a look of absolute, icy gravity.
Hank froze, lowering his arm.
“What’s wrong?”
Nick didn’t answer.
Instead, he turned on his heel, walked back up the wooden steps, and headed straight for the kitchen.
Nick walked past him, stopping directly in front of the ceiling hooks where several links of cured meat were suspended alongside a heavy-duty stainless steel sausage grinder.
He stared at the display, his jaw set in a hard line.
“Collect all of this for immediate laboratory DNA sequencing,” Nick said, his voice low and deliberate.
“Including the grinding apparatus and the sausage casings.”
The forensics tech paused, looking up in confusion.
Hank, who had followed Nick into the kitchen, started to brush the instruction off—until the full weight of the implication hit him.
The color drained from Hank’s face.
“Nick…
wait, you don’t think…
I mean, Jesus Christ!” Hank stammered, stepping back.
Every instinct wanted to reject the gruesome deduction, but the physical evidence in the cabin pointed toward a dark, systematic pattern.
Nick didn’t waste time arguing.
He left the kitchen, crossed the living room, and descended the wooden ladder into the basement a second time.
Hank followed closely behind.
When his boots hit the dirt floor of the cellar, he found two crime scene techs carefully cataloging the area near the cot.
Nick pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from a box on the workbench, walked to the far side of the room, and pulled open a tall wooden wardrobe.
Hanging neatly inside was a row of girls’ outerwear—each item a distinct shade of bright red.
Hank’s eyelids twitched.
He counted them silently: setting aside the smallest coat, which belonged to Robin, there were four larger red jackets hanging in chronological order.
Nick turned, placing a gloved hand firmly on Hank’s shoulder.
“You just took down a serial predator and a cannibal.
Excellent shooting, partner.”
With the discovery of the physical evidence, the operational protocol shifted instantly.
Captain Renard arrived on scene shortly after midnight.
After receiving a brief from Nick and reviewing the preliminary findings, the Captain’s face turned thunderous.
Suppressing his rage, he issued an immediate, strict media blackout on all details regarding the cabin’s interior.
The nature of the crimes was horrific.
The department needed to manage the narrative carefully, securing the scene before the District Attorney’s office and city officials were briefed.
In this era, Portland still traded heavily on its national reputation as a livable, pristine Pacific Northwest hub—boasting strong public safety records, vibrant neighborhoods, and low violent crime statistics.
Despite his fury over the situation, Renard recognized the caliber of the collar.
He greeted both detectives with a controlled, professional composure, personally ensuring Hank was loaded safely into an transport vehicle for medical evaluation before granting Nick a mandatory three-day administrative leave.
The long-term processing of the site was handed over to a joint PPB-FBI Task Force.
Jurisdiction over active serial murders and child abductions naturally involved federal oversight, and neither detective minded letting federal agents handle the exhausting forensic breakdown.
Two field agents from the Portland FBI office approached Nick on scene, shaking his hand and commending the rapid resolution.
In an era of advanced forensic tracking, resolving a cold abduction within forty-eight hours while recovering the victim alive was an exceptionally rare outcome.
The federal definition of a serial killer required three or more distinct events separated by cooling-off periods—a pattern that made such offenders notoriously difficult to profile and interdict before multiple casualties occurred.
While the official report listed the resolution as the result of routine canvassing and a sudden, violent assault by the suspect during a consensual interview—supported by Hank’s fractured ribs—the outcome was an indisputable success for the precinct.
Hank was transported to the local medical center, where tests confirmed two fractured ribs requiring stabilization and a overnight stay.
Nick remained at the hospital until Hank was settled in a recovery room, turning down the polite offers from the nursing staff for a ride before hailing a taxi back to his house.
The sun was rising over the Portland skyline by the time Nick unlocked his front door.
Despite having worked straight through the night, he felt no fatigue.
The moment the front door clicked shut, he stepped into his quiet living room and raised his right hand, palm upward.
A faint, golden light materialized above his skin, condensing into a sleek, metallic card that hovered silently in the air.
Nick’s breathing tightened.
It had been two years since he last accessed the system interface.
Based on its previous passive recharge rate, he had estimated it would take another decade before he generated enough energy to initiate another world transition.
Yet the moment Little Robin had kissed his cheek in gratitude, a concentrated, pure form of energy had surged into his baseline reservoir, fully priming the system’s core mechanism.
So that’s how the charge functions, Nick thought, a dry smile touching his lips.
It’s tied to active resolution, protection, and genuine human gratitude.
He let the golden card dissolve back into his sub-space storage, rubbed his cheek where the child had kissed him, and stood in the quiet room for a moment.
Then, pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he navigated to his contact list and selected a saved number.
The line rang three times before an older, familiar voice answered on the line.
“Nick?”
“Hey, Aunt Marie,” Nick said smoothly, his voice calm and steady.
“How are you feeling lately?”