My god it was hot, the mercury was tipping the scales at 92 degrees, and it was only nine o’clock in the morning. My name is Detective Sergeant James Sambien. I am a detective in the Ponte Vedra Police Department here in St. John’s County Florida.

I had come to St. John’s County about eighteen months ago after spending five long years as a homicide detective in Miami. I had gotten tired of the constant flow of body bags that the city provided. The steady flow of crime in the city made a police officer feel like they could never make a difference, no matter how many hours you put in. Soon you started to work yourself to death just to make a dent in the pile of files in front of you. Each one represented a life lost, and others ruined.

This is reason why I made the move to Ponte Vedra Beach in the first place, to get away from all those files. The only thing these people ever killed out here was gophers on the PGA golf course. I had some extended family that lived here, and they used to boast about how quiet the city was. I came to visit from time to time, and when I decided to leave Miami, I thought here was the perfect place. Yet, here I am now, staring at another body, and this was a nightmare even compared to the horrific scenes in Miami. Moreover, this meant another open file.

I could feel a constant line of sweat running down the back of my neck. Despite the washcloth in my hand, I made no move to wipe it away. My focus was on the body in front of me. I stood above a small female child, about ten to twelve years old. The pale body was slightly bloated, caused from lying in the swampy marsh behind the middle school. The child had been stripped naked, and executed. She had been shot in the side of the head with a small caliber bullet. There were also, what appeared to be whip marks all over her pale body. Like someone really wanted to hurt this little girl. Thinking about this small child being tortured made a lump rise in my throat.