I watched as the young blonde stood and bolted for the door across the room, pretty certain he'd not even had time to turn on the light before his knees hit the floor. I listened, or rather tried my best not to listen, as the sounds of his wretching filled the hotel room. I often had to stop and remind myself during an investigation that victims were just that... victims. That most of them, before being thrust into whatever heinous situation they were facing... and this one was particularly heinous... had never seen the kinds of things we were presented with on a daily basis, and quite frankly, the scene in the room 1510 had been enough to turn even my, way more experienced stomach.

I'd gained a lot of insight in the past hour. I'd learned that the young man had not had the best childhood, that he'd had a disturbing talk with his mother the night before and that he'd suffered from insomnia. I had to take all of this information down, knowing that it would play into an investigation... with him as the suspect. Regardless of what the chief had said, every single person present in that building at the time of the murder, with the exception of the dead man... was a suspect. I knew that I would be leaving this room in a few more minutes, because I likely had all of the information I needed from him, and I would have to go down to the coffee shop and speak with the waitress to confirm his alibi. And then I would have to follow up on the individuals he spoke of... the woman with the red purse, the man at the front desk, the mother and son, the man on the elevator... because every single one of them could also be a suspect. I now knew that these individuals were present in the hotel and more importantly, moving around the hotel, at the time of the murders. I also knew from my earlier research that there were 806 rooms and 86 suites at the New York Palace Hotel and that left the potential for 1000's of possible suspects.

I winced as the sounds of more wretching filled the air. I felt horrible for him. I could only imagine... in fact I could not imagine going through the things these four young men had experienced that morning. I'd had to sit in the room with that body for nearly 45 minutes and then even longer after the body had been removed. I'd seen with my own eyes the horrors this individual... whoever it was... had done and these things disturbed me. I found myself hoping this was an inside job. Found myself praying that it was someone they knew, someone on their crew or at the very least, that it was someone targeting only them. And what a horrible thing to say, but when you've done what I've done for as long as I've done it and when you've worked on the cases you know are committed by a serial killer you cannot catch, you know what I mean when I say I hoped it was either an inside job or an targeted homicide.

The good news was I'd collected dozens of fingerprints, from both rooms. The bad news... it looked as if the fingerprints were those of the individuals who'd run to the rooms after the attacks. I'd believed in my heart that those prints would hold the key to the murderer... and maybe they still did. But now I wasn't so sure.

What I did know; With each passing second, minute, and hour our suspect had the potential of moving farther and farther away. Of widening the gap between being found and escaping for good. He or she also had the potential of killing again. I also new the statistics -- that out of the nearly 1700 homocides reported each year in New York City, 150 - 200 of those cases went unsolved, added to the nearly 10,000 cold cases kept on file. I didn't want this to be one of those.

I watched as he entered the room again, slowly, weakly. He walked over to the couch and sat back down, his face pale, sweat beads running down his forehead, his eyes bloodshot. I felt sorry for him. I tried not to feel anything... but it's always been hard for me not to be human.

"I think we're done," I said as he wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt and sighed, "Unless there's anything else you think I need to know."

He shook his head. "What do I do now?"

"Wait here and I'll come and let you know when you can go see your friends."

It felt awful not being able to say 'go now'... 'find them', but I couldn't. Not now. I had a job that still had to be done. He looked exhausted. I stood from my seat and he stood from the couch and we walked to the door together. He held it open for me and I looked back at him once more.

"You can try to sleep if you think you can," I said... though I didn't really know why.

He gave me a confused sort of glance and I sighed, "You mentioned you were tired... that's why you came back up to your room... you were so tired you were practically falling asleep at the table downstairs."

He looked at me again and shook his head slightly, "You remembered."

I nodded, "That's my job."

My job.

'I remember the tiny details,' I thought to myself as he shut the door and I walked away -- the phone call with his mother, insomnia, coffee. The woman with the purse, the man at the desk with an affinity for chewing his pen, the mother and son in his overalls and the man on the elevator with the red hat and the tan jacket. I remember the way he was so tired he had to go back to his room. I remember he'd heard his friends screams but he couldn't see them and then he'd heard her screams and he'd ran to the room and he'd opened the door... and he'd vomited.

I remember the scene in that room. The man lying on the floor. He was naked, his body was carved with intricate details... perverted messages. The blood, the guts... the gruesomeness of it all.

And maybe that's why I was good at what I did... I was cursed with the ability to remember it all.