Makima retracted her gaze and said nothing more.
Makima opened an accident brief from Texas.
This was an ordinary file automatically marked as [Class D] by the system.
[Case Number: TX-9021]
[Location: San Antonio, Texas, Interstate 10]
[Description: An unidentified heavy-duty motorcycle caused road damage late at night. According to the on-site road administration report, approximately three hundred meters of asphalt pavement showed abnormal softening and scorch marks.]
[Police Conclusion: The vehicle involved is suspected of having illegally modified, low-quality chemical fuel boosters, constituting extreme street racing.]
Makima's finger paused on the words "scorch marks."
Without alerting anyone, she continued to use her authority to retrieve other "unrelated" cases from nearby cities in the preceding days.
Soon, two seemingly unrelated cases converged on her screen.
The first was the "Bad Bones" Bar murder case in Houston.
The victims were three core members of the local biker gang, the "Hounds of Hell."
Photos from the scene showed that the three individuals died horrific deaths.
Their bodies looked as if they had been thrown into a steel smelting furnace, turning into black powder that crumbled upon touch.
S.H.I.E.L.D. intelligence analysts speculated: "This appears to be a typical gang vendetta. It is presumed the killer attempted to destroy the bodies by arson. The case has been handed over to local police."
However, Sumire keenly noticed a small, overlooked flaw.
Although the victims' leather jackets and metal accessories showed signs of high-temperature scorching, they were not completely destroyed.
How was this achieved?
Did the killer strip the victims naked before starting the fire?
And after burning them, thoughtfully re-dressed the unrecognizable corpses?
That clearly doesn't make sense.
Then there were several 911 call records marked as "Invalid Information."
The caller incoherently claimed that a burning motorcycle had overtaken his car in the middle of the night.
But the operator completely ignored the call, assuming the caller was high, and didn't even dispatch police.
Sumire's heart tightened. Piecing all the information together, she suddenly thought of one person!
This person was definitely a true big fish... The Texas wilderness seemed endless, the air thick with the smell of dry dust.
This was a roadside bar with half its sign missing, its dim yellow light looking particularly murky in the night.
A middle-aged man was huddled in the darkest corner of the bar.
He looked terrible.
His once relatively thick, dark brown hair was now plastered messily to his scalp, and his hairline had receded slightly.
Beneath his deep-set eyes were two dark circles that no amount of sleep could erase.
He wore a badly worn leather jacket, and his entire demeanor suggested a nervous tension.
Although he was in a bar, he barely drank, instead pulling out a few colored jelly beans from his pocket.
He chewed them one after another, making a "crunching" sound.
He was trying to use the cheap sweetness to suppress the churning, burning sensation in his stomach.
"Be quiet... Please, just don't come out tonight..."
He muttered to the air, his fingers uncontrollably tapping a chaotic rhythm on the tabletop.
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