[center][h1][color=8882be]Ashley Gallagher[/color][/h1][/center]
[center][h2][color=8882be]Outside Club Carousel[/color][/h2][/center]

	As much as it itched at Ashley’s skin to leave a crime scene without a full evaluation, the urgency of protecting their only living witness, Emerald or otherwise, far outweighed whatever information this scene could offer them. “Are you suggesting we lie low and wait to see where he strikes next, hoping it’s not at us? That could prove as useless as this killing, plus an extra splash of blood on our hands.” Despite his protest, he could see the logic of the plan. As it was, the only progress they had made thus far were a few questionable sightings and the knowledge that anyone they spoke to had a giant target on their back.

	Something gnawed at him. “I’ve never seen this man in my life, you spoke to him?”

	Progress being made on the case without him set him on edge. His case.[i] Smith’s[/i] case. He searched within himself for the shame over how he’d conducted himself throughout this entire ordeal, and came up empty. His tactics thus far had been rife with unprofessionalism, outbursts, and worse, emotion. Having always been a straight-laced, by the book individual, he reckoned even just one of these words should horrify him, and yet… A deep sense of sickening satisfaction crept over his bones at this taste of freedom, of ugly and underhanded justice for Smith. Had his morals always been such dead weight?

	Regardless of the man’s reply, Ashley silently peered at Cal with a narrowed-eye gaze, imagining himself in the man’s shoes. A bringer of justice, by any means necessary. He looked down on Cal for it once, but was that not what he should be for someone like Smith? For someone as innocent as the poor, brutalized girl above the Carousel? 

	Deep within him, buried somewhere beneath his heart, something seemed to be rattling its chains, testing him.