The Watcher
^{A Story}
Chapter 3 - Contact
by Saless
 

The more Marvin dug into Sarah's background, the stranger her sudden transformation seemed. Many people seemed to think she'd always been a girl, while others seemed oblivious to how much she'd changed, even though they knew she had been a man! Between that and the strange death of John Green, Marvin decided that she was going to be the focus of his investigation for the time being. He rented an apartment on the top floor of the building across from hers and set up his equipment to record everything that happened there. Once it was set up he started it up and went out to find out more about Sarah Kinsley.

He also got information on her three friends. Michael Levins was a martial arts instructor at his mother's gym. He had gone to school with Sarah, then Sean, and been friends ever since. Jill Robertson was Michael's girlfriend. They'd met in college and had been living together for two years. She was an artist and lived off of the sales of her paintings, which were becoming quite popular. And Erica Keller was Sarah's girlfriend, who was about to begin her last semester at Harvard Law. None of them had any criminal record or any other questionable affiliations.

There was some suspicion that one of Sarah's coworkers had killed Mr. Green, so Marvin got pictures of all of them. There were too many to get in-depth information on quickly, but he could at least recognize them if they made contact with Sarah or her friends.

The most interesting information was from the lab. John Green's ashes weren't ashes at all! In fact, there was no trace of human DNA in it. The lab had been unable to identify the material so far, but were very interested. Marvin had to wonder what could have killed Mr. Green and reduced him to a pile of unidentifiable dust. He'd certainly never heard of anything that could do that!

He returned to his temporary home and went through the recordings he'd gotten so far. He was interested to see that the same shadowy figure he'd noticed before was hanging around again. In fact, it looked like they were inside the apartment at that very moment! He grabbed his laptop and headed downstairs. He found a bench and sat down to watch the feed from his laptop. Before long the door opened again and that same shadowy figure came out. Once out of sight of the apartment the shadows seemed to melt away, revealing one of Sarah's coworkers! This could be the person who killed Mr. Green! he thought as he dropped his computer off in his car and hurried over to intercept her.

He managed to get to her car before she could and 'invited' her to get a drink at the Starbucks around the corner. She was very reluctant to cooperate, so he had to resort to threats. He was sure she was holding back, but she did mention something that he'd noticed himself; the fact that everyone seemed to accept Sarah's transformation remarkably easily. He didn't ask her about Mr. Green just yet, since he could use her to get more information on Sarah. Besides, other than the strange way he died, he didn't really have any cause to arrest her for that. It was clearly a case of her defending Sarah and no jury in the world would convict her.

She did drop one bit of information, probably without realizing its importance. Sarah had missed a day at work right before her sudden transformation! He already knew that she went to school as a girl the following day, so whatever happened had to have happened after work that Thursday, or sometime during the Friday that she didn't go to work. He still couldn't see how she could have changed so much in such a short time, and was beginning to think she wasn't really Sean Kinsley at all, but had somehow taken his place.

Marvin sent Tiffany back to spy on Sarah, knowing full well she'd resist him every step of the way. Still, she might give something away, and he would be recording everything he could. He retrieved his laptop and returned it to his room. The recordings showed Tiffany, little more than a shadow as usual, going into Sarah's apartment. A little while later Sarah and Erica left with Tiffany close behind. She ended up stuck outside the apartment of Michael and Jill, but managed to get inside somehow. He wondered if she'd try to talk to them, but he was able to get a fairly good look inside the window from where he was. He could only see two of the people inside, but there was no indication that they knew Tiffany had entered, so he relaxed.

He went over all the information he'd gathered so far while occasionally glancing at his laptop screen. There was no evidence of any kind of explosives used at the site outside of town. The area was so rocky that they couldn't get any good tire tracks or foot prints, either. That place was a complete dead end. Still, John Green's death was very strange, and happening when it did, and where it did, he couldn't ignore it.

He glanced back at the screen again and saw that Tiffany was going back to Michael and Jill's apartment. He went back to his reading for a moment and then swung back around. Wasn't she just in Michael and Jill's apartment?! What's going on here? he thought. He opened a second video window and went back over the recording, but there was no sign of Tiffany ever leaving their apartment. Yet here she was, going back to it from Sarah's!

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