An Abyss

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/53236525.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: F/M
Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV)
Relationship: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Characters: Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, Original Jon Snow/Sansa Stark Child(ren), Ghost
| Jon Snow's Direwolf, Lady | Sansa Stark's Direwolf, Jaime Lannister,
Tormund Giantsbane, Various Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police,
Murder Mystery, Married Life, Parent-Child Relationship, Religion
Language: English
Series: Part 22 of Crime
Stats: Published: 2024-01-23 Updated: 2024-02-14 Words: 10,869 Chapters:
3/?
 An Abyss
by Kit_Kat21

Summary

“Does that ever get conflicting?” Another student asked. “Being married to a man who, as
you just said, is about stats and you being such an advocate for sex workers.”

“No,” Sansa answered honestly with a shake of her head. She didn’t say anything further
though. These were her students and she was their professor. Discussing her marriage to them
wasn’t exactly professional. And besides, even if she gushed and said that her detective
husband was different and always did his best to solve a crime no matter the victim, Sansa
knew that these students probably wouldn’t believe her.
 The Cold
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

One.

“Detective?”

The word was able to break through his mind. He turned towards where it had come from and
it took another second for the rest of him to return to the present moment. He smiled at
Melisandre van Houten. It was January and frigid that particular morning but still, the woman
did not wear a coat. Instead, she had donned a heavy cloak with a hood brought up over her
dark red hair. With her pale skin and the way she moved in near silence against the snow
covered woods, the woman truly did live up to the rumors of witchery running deep in her
blood.

Jon Snow smiled. “Good morning, Ms. van Houten.”

She smiled politely. “I think we’re more on a first-name basis with one another after all this
time, wouldn’t you agree?”

His smile remained as he gave a single nod. “I might have to agree with you on that. I hope
you don’t mind. I couldn’t sleep and I started taking a walk. Wound up out here.”

“This is quite a hike from your home,” she noted. Melisandre came to stand at his side and
together, they looked back to the stone house. “Would you like to go inside?” She offered.

“God, no,” Jon spoke before he could think of answering that perhaps in a different way. “I
see it enough times in my dreams.” He didn’t have to go inside this house ever again. He
didn’t ask her but he had a feeling that Melisandre had done her best to get rid of the burn
marks from the floor and the walls but no matter how much a person tried to erase it, there
would still be evidence of what had happened inside of that stone house. The charred body,
still smoking in some parts, woke him up some nights and he could smell it in the air around
him.

“I’ll be relieved when it’s all said and done,” Melisandre said after another moment of
silence.

“I heard you’re on the ADA’s witness list,” Jon commented.

“Yes.” Her answer was brisk and Jon easily picked up on her not wanting to talk further about
it. Not that he blamed her. This wasn’t exactly his favorite topic of conversation either. “Why
couldn’t they had just taken a plea?” Melisandre then asked but she did so in a quiet voice
that wasn’t exactly meant to be answered.

“Why haven’t you just torn this house down?” He had to wonder. It wasn’t just because
Marianne Vance was burned to death inside of this house. It was broken into at least twice a
month by teenagers looking to smoke some pot, get drunk or get laid. As quickly as
Melisandre fixed and replaced the locks, someone else took it upon themselves to find a way
back inside.

Melisandre gave Jon a slight smile and without a word, she stepped forward and beckoned
for him to follow. He did. Around the back of the house, Melisandre crouched down in a
specific spot near the single window on this side and swept away the snow from the stone
wall. Jon leaned forward to read what had been carved into the stone. Van Houten. 1701.

“This was my family’s first home in this area,” Melisandre explained as she stood up again,
brushing the snow from her gloved hands. “One just doesn’t erase their history because there
are some horrible parts to it.”

Jon looked at the stone house and the carved words for a moment before looking at the
woods that surrounded them. It was seemingly silent that morning. Not even the birds were
looking to sing their songs in this frigidness. They had gotten a fresh blanket of snow
overnight on top of the couple of inches already on the ground. When Jon had left the house,
the sun had just started to turn the sky pink. Sansa and Ros were both still fast asleep and Jon
disturbed neither of them as he got himself dressed. As he told Melisandre, he hadn’t been
able to sleep and he hadn’t known what else to do except go outside and start walking. This
part of the woods was technically owned by the van Houten estate but everyone knew that
they could walk here. From the angle Jon had taken from his home to here, cutting across
woods and fields in the early dawn, he had gone about two miles, he figured. Sansa was
probably awake by now. He had left a note on a pad in the kitchen with a simple be back so
she would know he hadn’t been abducted during the night. Ghost and Lady had wanted to
come with him, of course, but he told both dogs to stay with Sansa and Ros and he promised
them that he would be back soon.

“I’ve had a lot of cases,” Jon broke the silence after a moment. “You solve it and move on.
This one…” he didn’t finish his thought and he got the feeling that Melisandre didn’t need
him to for her to know what he was thinking.

He didn’t believe that Melisandre van Houten was an actual witch though the majority of
those within their town, and outside of it, absolutely believed just that. Melisandre certainly
didn’t do anything to disparage anyone in thinking that of her family. Hell, Jon thought that
she actually encouraged the stories and practical legends surrounding the name. There were
stories about the van Houten family dating all the way back to Salem and practicing
witchcraft in this country even earlier than that. No historical, factual, evidence necessary. It
was pretty funny how cool everyone was about everyone in the van Houten family being
witches. It was almost as if they were proud of it. Just one of those things about living in a
small town that Jon had learned.

“How’s Lily?” Jon asked as they began to walk away from the house. Lily – Lilith – was
Melisandre’s daughter, and a senior in high school. Lily had no father. Well, of course, she
had a father but he had never been in the picture as far as Jon knew. Some went so far as to
say that the devil himself had a hand in getting Melisandre pregnant. Jon had a feeling that
Melisandre had been with a married man and besides Lily, the relationship hadn’t ended
happily. Just an inkling he had from speaking with all sorts of people over the years. Again,
absolutely none of his business but he didn’t think the devil had much of anything to do with
it. (Even if Lily’s name, Lilith, came from a supposed demon.)

At the mention of her daughter, Melisandre smiled like most parents did when thinking of
their pride and joy. “She’s wonderful. She got accepted into Sarah Lawrence. No surprise
there. The van Houten family has a long relationship with Sarah Lawrence. She also got a full
scholarship to State for volleyball and knowing Lilith…” Melisandre sighed and shook her
head. “I think I have many more volleyball games in my future.” Jon’s lips twitched in a
smile. She sighed again. “I shouldn’t complain though. At least Lilith is still…” It was her
turn to not finish her thought and Jon didn’t need her to.
 …

Sansa had let Ghost and Lady outside and as soon as Jon stepped from the woods that were
on their property and crossed the field to come into their backyard, both dogs began barking
and running, telling him to hurry up. Jon smiled as he finally stepped onto the grass, past the
invisible fence, and both dogs were able to properly pounce on him in greeting. Looking to
the back of the house, he saw the lights on in the kitchen through the windows. He could also
smell that clean dryer scent in the air coming from the back vent and he wondered how long
Sansa had been awake already to be doing laundry. How long had he been gone?

Ghost and Lady followed him across the yard to the house. In the screened-in back porch, Jon
unlaced his boots and left them out there before opening the back door. Inside, Sansa was
sitting at the table, sipping a cup of coffee and reading emails on her laptop. She was already
dressed and had taken a shower, her hair still a little damp. Jon peeled off his heavy winter
coat and his gloves and scarf, tossing everything over the back of one of the table chairs.
Sansa smiled at him and Jon returned it. He bent down and kissed the top of her head as he
passed on the way to get himself a cup of coffee.

She didn’t ask where he had gone. He sometimes went on walks to clear his mind. He
sometimes didn’t want to necessarily talk about why and Sansa knew that.

“Perfect timing. You can go and wake Ros up,” Sansa smiled.

“Damn it,” Jon muttered but was smiling as he did and he heard Sansa laugh quietly. He left
the kitchen, headed down the hallway and up the stairs, sipping from his coffee cup as he did.
Their six-year-old daughter was a morning person just like her parents but like most people,
on frigid winter mornings like this, Ros liked to stay tucked into her nice, warm bed. So he
was surprised when he came into Ros’s bedroom and saw that not only was she already
awake but she was halfway dressed, too. “It’s going to be too cold for that,” Jon noted. She
must have smelled the coffee downstairs and had woken up herself, knowing that it was the
start of a new day. Their daughter had a hell of a nose and she could be in the deepest sleep
but still wake up with a jolt if she smelled something from downstairs in the kitchen.

Ros looked down to the navy blue long-sleeved tee she was wearing from the university’s
anthropology department where Sansa taught. Silently, she nodded her head and went back to
her closet. It was a little walk-in and Jon stood outside, sipping his coffee and watching her as
she studied her clothes and made a decision. Sansa used to always pick out her clothes for her
but Ros declared that she was too old for that. She still needed occasional help though. She
picked a pink fleece hooded sweatshirt and yanked it on over her head. She then turned back
to Jon.

“Good,” he smiled.

Ros, still not saying a word, left the closet and moved past him. At her dresser, in the top
drawer, Ros got herself a pair of white socks with pink polka dots and held them up for Jon to
see.

“Good,” he said again, still smiling. He took another sip of coffee as Ros plopped down on
the carpeted floor to tug them on. His daughter was usually quiet in the morning. Just because
she was a morning person didn’t mean that she was completely ready to function. But his
parental instincts were tingling that this was something more than just not wanting to talk yet.
“Did you sleep alright last night?” He eased into it.

Ros nodded her head. She finished pulling her socks on but she remained sitting on the floor.
Jon set his coffee cup on the dresser and lowered himself to sit in front of her.

“What is it, Ros?” His voice was quiet. Gentle.

She lifted her eyes and looked at him with a sad frown. Everyone thought she was a mini
Sansa and she was. She definitely was. But her eyes were all him. Serious and observant and
when she was happy, they danced. But right now, they definitely weren’t dancing.

“Do I have to go to school today?” She asked.

Jon immediately reached out and felt her forehead. “Do you not feel well?” He asked. She
felt normal but maybe he should go get the thermometer anyway.
“Everyone got an iPad for Christmas and I didn’t. And some even got iPhones. Ms. Cady
takes them all at the beginning of school but they can play with them at recess. I don’t know
what they’re talking about most of the time because I don’t have one.” Her frown grew
heavier.

When Ros was born – and before – Sansa read all about the “iPad generation” and watched
all sorts of videos on YouTube. She was horrified. She and Jon agreed that they would not
have their child be raised the same way. Parents just shoved screens in their children’s faces
and expected those screens to do all of the raising. Kids from this particular generation
weren’t doing particularly well in school and had no desire to. They struggled with reading
and the basics. Sansa made a point to read to Ros every night and have Ros practice her
reading to her. They knew this day would come eventually. Ros would want to be like all of
the other kids with their gadgets and their technology and their social media but unfortunately
for Ros, this was one thing her parents were never going to budge on.

“Everyone got one? Did Hannah?” Jon asked.

Hannah Ford was Ros’s best friend and was being raised by her grandmother, Olivia. It
wasn’t just because she was an older woman raising a child in this day and age. Olivia didn’t
believe in all of that “tech” nonsense. She knew that this was the world Hannah was growing
up in and she would need it but she already said that Hannah wouldn’t get a phone or her own
laptop until she was older. And six was definitely not old enough.

Ros shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

“Then you two can play and use your imaginations and have fun together while everyone else
turns their minds to mush,” Jon said. “And did anyone else get a guinea pig for Christmas?”

Ros began to smile now and she tilted her head up, looking at Sweet Potato in his cage on top
of her dresser. “No,” she said a little louder this time.

“Well, I think a guinea pig is so much cooler than a stupid screen, don’t you? Those kids can
just watch videos on guinea pigs but you have an actual live one you can actually play with.”
“I do love Sweet Potato,” Ros smiled now.

“Rosie! Jon!” Sansa called up the stairs. “Time for breakfast!”

Ros popped up to her feet and standing on her tip toes, she opened Sweet Potato’s cage and
picked the little fur ball up. She kissed his head before slipping him into the front pouch of
her hooded sweatshirt. Jon got to his feet as well and picked up his coffee cup again, taking a
sip. It had cooled considerably but his daughter had needed to talk and that obviously took
precedence. He smiled when Sweet Potato popped his head out from the pouch, wiggling his
nose.

“What are you doing on Thursday?” Jon asked Jaime as they sat in his office – Jon behind his
desk and Jaime lounging in one of the chairs across from him, his feet propped up on the
chair opposite him. They were drinking coffee and Jaime was scarfing down a bagel he had
bought from the coffee shop in town on the way to the Sheriff’s Station.

“Who are you setting me up with this time?” Jaime asked. He took an annoyingly loud
crunchy bite of his bagel, keeping his eyes on Jon. Anytime Jon asked a question like that,
Jaime knew what was coming. Jon and Sansa had made three previous attempts and Jaime
had more than reached the point where he wanted to tell them to fuck off – kindly.

“You’ll like this one. It’s a woman Sansa knows and says is perfect for you. She’s a doctor
from the anthropology department at the university.”

Jaime had to chuckle at that. “What about me do you think that I’d mesh with an
anthropology doctor?” He wondered.

“You get along with Sansa,” Jon shrugged.

Jaime shook his head and took another bite of bagel. He wiped the cream cheese from his
mouth with one of the brown napkins that had been tossed into the bag. He wouldn’t dare say
this out loud to Jon and he respected Sansa way too damn much to put voice to the thought
but of course he got along with Sansa because he wasn’t trying to sleep with her. He liked her
and respected her and considered Sansa to be one of his closest friends. But that didn’t mean
that he wanted to date a woman exactly like her.

“I’m kind of already seeing someone,” Jaime decided there was no harm in letting him know.
Especially since they were trying to set him up with other women.

“Oh, yeah?” Jon was instantly curious. Jaime didn’t “see” women. He hooked up and a guy
as good looking as Jaime, he certainly didn’t hurt in that department.

“Nothing serious,” Jaime made sure Jon knew that. “She’s married so it can’t be serious.”

“Oh, Christ,” Jon muttered. He sat up in his chair and leaned towards his computer, moving
the mouse and waking the screen back up.

“And she won’t divorce her husband so it can’t be serious,” Jaime continued as if Jon hadn’t
voiced any kind of opinion about this. “She loves him and I’m not telling her to divorce the
guy. She just wants sex and her husband isn’t really in any kind of mood for it.”

“Does he know about you?” Jon asked.

“God, no. And neither of us are looking to make this public.”

“What’s her name?”

“What did I just say?” Jaime frowned at him. “So tell Sansa thanks, but at the moment, I have
more than enough of sneaking and sleeping around and I’m not looking to add a girlfriend to
my already busy schedule.”
“Oh my God,” Jon muttered to himself while shaking his head. His cell phone began to ring
then and he was more than happy to answer it. “Detective Snow. Yeah.” He grabbed a pen
and started writing something down on the nearest piece of paper he could find. “Yeah.”
Pause. “Yeah. We’re coming.”

As soon as Jon said that, Jaime stood up, shoving the rest of the bagel into his mouth. He then
left the office to go get his coat from his desk. Jon came out of his office a few seconds later,
also putting his coat on and heading towards the door without waiting for Jaime, knowing
that he was right behind him.

“What do we got?” Jaime asked as they stepped outside. Fuck, it was cold. It was hard to
breathe when it was this cold.

“A woman. The patrolman was having a hard time telling me things.” Jon shook his head. “I
have a feeling that it’s not good.”

“Now, we can’t completely blame police departments,” Sansa said to her late morning class.
“If you understand how these departments work, they work by numbers. Stats. They live
according to these stats and none of us are naïve. There is a large amount of crime out there.
Now, imagine that you’re a detective. You are pressured to solve a large percentage of crimes
that come across your desk. They see a woman who is over 21-years-old and who is missing
and who is a sex worker. Most people, not just detectives, immediately think that that person
lives a risky life anyway. Then other cases come up that they have a better chance of
solving.”

She smiled to herself as the students were taking notes, furiously typing on their laptops. As
she spoke, she walked back and forth along the front of the room.

“That’s awful,” a girl sitting near the middle of the room spoke out.
 “Of course it is,” Sansa nodded. “But you also have to remember that sex work is illegal in
this country so while police take an oath to help absolutely everyone, at the same time, sex
workers break the law every single day just by doing what they do and as I mentioned, police
are already so busy with so many other crimes. As always, sex workers just fall to the bottom
of the pile. That’s why you get our serial killers. They know all of this and they know that
they can have the pick of any woman out there and who will care? Who will notice?”

“You married a police detective,” another student said. “In your book about Ros Wallace and
the three other women, in your epilogue, you mentioned that you married the detective from
the case.”

“I did,” Sansa smiled.

“Does that ever get conflicting?” Another student asked. “Being married to a man who, as
you just said, is about stats and you being such an advocate for sex workers.”

“No,” Sansa answered honestly with a shake of her head. She didn’t say anything further
though. These were her students and she was their professor. Discussing her marriage to them
wasn’t exactly professional. And besides, even if she gushed and said that her detective
husband was different and always did his best to solve a crime no matter the victim, Sansa
knew that these students probably wouldn’t believe her. “Now, another problem. Because
they know what they are doing is illegal, if something happens to them, such as assault, sex
workers rarely report those crimes because they don’t want to put themselves in the path of
police. So when a sex worker goes missing, who of the other sex workers, is going to report
that?”

Chapter End Notes

THANK YOU so much for reading! A new crime to get into and the crime scene will be
in the next chapter.

Also, I am 10 years late, but I finally watched the first season of True Detective. I have
now watched the first season three times in one week so my brain is consumed and I'm
ready to write.
To those who are following this series along, this takes place right after Steve the serial
killer is caught so it's still winter, after Christmas and now, it's the new year. This also
means that Sansa has not gone to Peru yet. And just in case you missed it, this is the
house I am using for the Snow family from now on. (I had picked one but then, I wasn't
exactly happy and picked another lol)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52914691/chapters/134001922
 The Passage
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Two.

Jaime parked the car behind one of the cruisers already there and a deputy was waiting to
take them to the body. The man began to walk into the woods and both detectives followed
his path. Jon began taking note of everything. It was remote. No houses or people around for
a few miles. With a spot like this, it could go either way. Either the person dumping the body
had chosen this spot completely at random in hopes that no one would find it or the person
dumping the body had known how out in the middle of nowhere this was and had known that
no one would find it. He studied the ground. No footprints. The snow from last night had
covered anything like that. He figured they walked for about a mile from the road to the
scene where the body was and out there, with the snow above the ankles, that would be a Hell
of a walk for anyone to do while carrying a dead body.

Crime scene tape had already been up around the perimeter, the photographer had already
been called to take pictures, and there were three more deputies, keeping watch.

“Who the Hell called this in?” Jaime asked. This spot wouldn’t be on someone’s morning
walk.

“Hunter,” the deputy pointed to the only other man standing out there that wasn’t with the
department. A middle-aged man, he was wearing camouflage with a bright orange vest and
matching hat. His hunting shotgun was relaxed in his arms though the rest of him was stiff
and tense. He was standing sideways so he wasn’t completely turned away from the body but
he wasn’t actively gawking at it. Jon could tell he wanted to get the Hell out of here.

Both men stepped under the tape but Jon paused as soon as he saw the body. It was a woman.
A light blanket of snow covering her. Mid-twenties or so. She was completely naked and
now, her skin was blue from being out here. She had been laid out in a line. Her arms were
stretched above her head and her wrists had been tied. Same with her legs – stretched out and
tied together at the ankles. Jon reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pair of gloves,
snapping them onto his hands. He slowly circled the body. She was pale even before she
turned blue. Thin in a way where she never ate enough. Blonde hair that looked like it had
just been washed. He crouched down. There were bruises on her body. Little things so it
wasn’t like someone had beaten her but still visible to the naked eye. Bruises on her upper
arms. Faded ones on her neck that came from a person holding on. Bruises on her knees. He
bet she had bruises on her back, too. He lifted his eyes to Jaime, who was standing at her feet,
looking up her body from that direction. He saw something because he then crouched down
and touched the rope around her ankles. He moved it upwards so he could look at the skin
beneath. Following his train of thought, Jon did the same with the rope around her wrists.
The skin beneath wasn’t burned or irritated as if she had been fighting these ropes.

“After she died?” Jon guessed. “No signs of struggling.”

“Or she could have been into kink and thought there was no reason to struggle.”

Jon nodded at that. When there was rope involved, kink was always a possibility. It rarely
turned out to actually be that though in the end. Most people who were into that kind of sex
usually knew what they were doing and those who didn’t, they wouldn’t dispose of their
partner like this. This, with her wrists and ankles still bound, with no clothes on, with her
body laid down in a purposeful line like this, this was not someone who had had sex go
wrong.

“Help me,” Jon said and when he began to turn the body over, Jaime took hold of her
shoulder and arm, holding her up so Jon could see what he was looking for. Jon gave a nod
and Jaime returned the body flat on the ground. “Bruises on the back and knees. Thin body
like this. I’m pretty sure she was a sex worker.”

Jon thought about that for a moment and Jaime was quiet, too. He stood up and looked up at
the body from above. Jon remained crouching down. The bruises on her neck were too faded.
A week old, he would guess, so she hadn’t been strangled. There were no visible knife or gun
wounds or any other mark that would tell him how she had died. So how had she died?
Maybe she had been injected with something. The coroner would be able to tell them. A sex
worker all the way out here didn’t fit. Not in a rural random county like this and not with the
city so close where everyone knew to go if they were looking to buy that sort of thing. But
this woman was a sex worker. Neither Jon or Jaime doubted that. They knew one when they
saw one.
Jon stood up, his knees cracking. He didn’t write anything down. Jaime had a photographic
memory and they had been partners log enough for Jon to trust him. That and the
photographer was snapping all of the pictures Jon would need. Without asking Jaime if he
wanted to, Jon turned and slipped under the tape again to go to the hunter.

“Detective Snow.” He pulled his gloves off, pushing them back into his pocket, and now, he
pulled out his notepad.

“Tom March.” The man didn’t hold his hand to shake. He was still trying his hardest to not
look towards the body though his eyes would occasionally dart over to it as if his brain
couldn’t quite believe that this was how his morning was turning out to be.

“You come out here to hunt often?” Jon asked.

Tom nodded and pointed upwards, over Jon’s shoulder. Jon turned and saw the platform built
into the tree that hunters used when planning on being out here for hours. Jon nodded and
made note of that in his notepad.

“Jaime!” Jon called out. He pointed to the platform as well.

Jaime saw it and frowned. “Fuck me,” he muttered but headed towards the tree anyway. As
he began to climb, Jon turned back to Tom.

“Would you mind walking me through your morning, Mr. March?” Jon asked.

“I took the day off from work to… my wife told me our freezers were getting low so I took
the day off from work to come out here for a deer so we could refill them… I wouldn’t have
been out here to find…” the man swallowed. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” He shook his head rapidly in
an effort to clear his mind. “I want to say I left my house about eight o’clock and drove to
these woods so I got here about ten after. There’s an access road hunters use in these parts
and I wasn’t out here long before I…”
“Did you see anyone else out here?”

Tom shook his head. “It’s Tuesday morning. Kind of a random day to hunt. Even for retired
guys. I knew that ahead of time. I like to hunt when I know I don’t have to worry about
someone else blowing my head off.”

“Jon!” Jaime shouted from the platform.

“Could you please provide your contact information to this deputy, Mr. March, in case there’s
any further questions? Thank you.” Jon turned and headed towards the tree. He began
climbing up the little wooden planks that had been nailed into the tree and joined Jaime up on
the platform. From up here, they got a perfect view of the body below. And Jon immediately
saw what Jaime wanted him to see.

Someone had been up here. Perhaps to make sure the body was in the position they wanted it
to be. Platforms like this, one hunter would build it but it was open to be used by any other
hunter. It was a silent understanding. Keep it clean and maintained and it was there for all.
Jon doubted that some other hunter had left this up here. It was a laminated index card, nailed
into the tree trunk and both men just knew that it had something to do with the body below.

15:19

“Shit,” Jon swore before he could help it.

“What is that? Military time?” Jaime wondered.

Jon shook his head and called down to the photographer. “We’ll come down so you can come
up and I want pictures of everything up here especially this card in the trunk!”

…
Lyanna Snow was Catholic. Her parents had been Catholic. Her grandparents had been
Catholic. And on and on it went down the Snow family tree – no matter how small that tree
might have been. Kind of funny how after his mom died, Jon had had no other family
because if Catholics were known for one thing, it was having too much family. When Lyanna
had a baby, it was never a question as to how she would raise him. Jon was baptized, made
his first communion, was confirmed and even served as an altar boy. He went to religious ed.
class every Monday night and Lyanna was a member of the Woman’s Guild, who ran
different fundraisers for their church. Both Snows were active in the church and when Lyanna
was murdered, the congregation enveloped Jon in their arms and made sure he knew that he
wasn’t alone.

But when his mom died, Jon hadn’t been too interested in the church anymore and soon, he
stopped going altogether. He missed it at first but that passed. And if he sometimes did think
about going back, too much time had passed. He didn’t think there’d be a place for him
anymore.

He fell in love with a girl who grew up in the church, too. A different kind of church but a
church all the same. Sansa liked to joke that if they were in the “old” country, they never
would have married each other and would have probably hated each other since their
different religions had a particularly hate-filled history between them. Jon had absolutely no
issue with Sansa raising their daughter as Presbyterian and he had no issue with Sansa taking
Ros to church every week. Why the Hell would he have an issue? He remembered how much
he had liked it as a kid and he wanted his daughter to have the same kind of experience. And
he loved Sansa more than even he could tell her because she never pressured him to go back
to church. They had talked about things like that when they were first together and getting to
know everything about the other but Sansa wasn’t an idiot. She understood why her husband
wasn’t interested in God anymore and though she was a woman of faith, she knew that not
everyone thought the same.

It had been a long time since he cracked open any kind of religious book but Jon knew,
immediately, what he was looking at. He didn’t know the passage but he knew that it
probably wasn’t good. As if a murdered body put out on display like the one below wasn’t
bad enough, adding a killer who might possibly be using religion as a motive just made it a
whole lot worse.

Sansa taught her class every Tuesday and Thursday morning. She had office hours every
Thursday. On Wednesdays, she worked downtown at the Ros Wallace Center. And on
Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, she was at home. After class on Tuesdays, she
usually had lunch with Daario or Waymar Royce, another of her friends and fellow professors
within the Anthropology Department. And then, following that, Sansa left the city and drove
back home. Ros had a riding lesson every Tuesday at the Marianne Vance Riding School,
opened by her father after her murder. Ros had been a student at the school since she was
three and had first learned how to ride on and still trained on Cinnamon, a Shetland pony.
Dafyn Vance thought Ros would do well in competitions and though she had competed in a
few (very) small ones, competing in a larger circuit took money. Jon and Sansa were
comfortable in their finances. A homicide detective and a college professor with only one
child did have the money to do things but riding competitions would become a very
expensive sport and they were hesitant.

At three o’clock, Sansa was waiting at the end of the driveway as the school bus came to a
stop. Ros hopped down and came running to her as she always did. Sansa smiled and Ros ran
into her arms for a hug and kiss on the head.

“How was school?” Sansa asked as they began walking back up to the house. Ghost and
Lady were outside in the backyard and began to bark, able to hear and smell that Ros was
home. January was absolutely frigid and with two dogs who thrived in this kind of weather, it
was difficult for Jon and Sansa to get the two dogs back into the house after letting them out.
Sansa had let them out after getting home from the city and she still couldn’t get them inside.
Now that Ros was home, maybe they would now.

“Good,” Ros confirmed with a head nod. “Hannah, me, Simon and Ellis all played tag
together at recess because Ms. Cady gave everyone else back their iPads and they were
playing with those.”

Sansa put a hand on the back of Ros’s head and Ros looked up at her. Sansa gave her a smile.
“I would much rather play tag than stare at a screen.”

Ros was quiet at that but after a moment, she nodded her head again. Ros wouldn’t know it
now or understand it for years but Sansa and Jon were doing her a big favor for her brain’s
development. Running around and playing and having fun did much more for her than sitting
and staring at a screen. Sansa wasn’t judging anyone’s parenting because she, herself, felt like
she didn’t know what she was doing most days when it came to be Ros’s mom, but in this
particular situation, she would not waver. Ros was not going to have a phone or pad or social
media. Sansa saw some women she went to school with plaster their own children all over
TikTok and YouTube and it actually made Sansa very uncomfortable. Those kids didn’t have
a say in whether or not they wanted to be broadcasted to an audience and with Jon doing
what he did, it only added to her firm resolve. The world was an unsafe place filled with
things they didn’t want their daughter to learn about until she was of an appropriate age.

“Maybe this weekend, we could have Hannah, Ellis and Simon over and the four of you
could play tag in the backyard and climb your climbing dome you got for Christmas,” Sansa
suggested.

That got a gasp and beaming smile out of Ros. “Can we?”

“I’ll call their moms after we get home from your riding lesson and see if we can set
something up,” Sansa promised. “I’ll call Grandma Olivia, too.” She smiled when that put
Ros back into a usual Ros mood, the girl skipping ahead into the garage and up into the
laundry room. Sansa knew the two boys in Ros’s class – Simon and Ellis – but she didn’t
really know them or their moms. But if they were the other kids in Ros’s class without their
own iPads then they were definitely kids she wanted as her daughter’s friends.

They had to wait for the county coroner, Dr. Coleman, to do his thing. They also didn’t have
an ID yet and until they had those things, Jon and Jaime had to just wait. But one thing Jon
could do was look that up. 15:19. There were several passages in the bible that it could have
been referring to since whoever had left the card hadn’t specified which book. Jon made
printouts of each 15:19 and made copies to give to Jaime, too.

“Do you mind handling the paperwork from today?” Jaime asked, taking the papers from Jon.
He set them down so he could put his coat on. “I’ll handle tomorrow’s paperwork. I just have
somewhere I have to be.”

Jon didn’t want to know but he still couldn’t help but ask. “That woman you were telling me
about?”

“Her husband’s working late tonight so we’re getting dinner and some dessert.”
Jon sighed. It wasn’t any of his business. It really wasn’t. Jaime wasn’t just his partner but he
was also his friend and they had worked together for plenty of years and cases together now.
He knew how Jaime could be. Jaime liked women and sex and he always did what he wanted
when it came to both. Jon stayed out of it because it had nothing to do with him. Jaime was
an adult. But… Jaime could also be an idiot.

“It’s not the city, Jaime,” Jon said before he could tell himself to not say anything at all.

“What do you mean?”

“These little towns out here, they’re all small enough for someone to see you.”

Jaime finished zipping and bundling up and then took the papers Jon had printed off. “It’ll be
fine. Thanks for handling the paperwork. I promise I got tomorrow.”

After he left, Jon returned to his little office and sat behind his desk with a sigh. They had
spent a few hours in those woods, combing for evidence though there hadn’t been anything to
find. Whoever had put that woman’s body out there, they knew what they were doing. Maybe
this wasn’t even their first time doing something like this.

It was five o’clock when Jon finished up the day’s reports and his cell phone began to ring.

“Hey. I’m just finishing up,” Jon answered Sansa’s call on its second ring, putting her on
speaker. “How was the riding lesson today?”

“Good!” Ros called out from the backseat. “How was your day, daddy?”

Jon smiled. “It was busy,” he answered as truthfully as he could. No need to tell his six-year-
old daughter what he did for most of his day. “Are you two on your way home?” He asked.
He saved the report and then began straightening things up.
 “We’re actually stopping at the grocery store. Is fried chicken okay tonight for dinner?”
Sansa asked. Sansa was a huge advocate of home-cooked meals every night with the
occasional treat of takeout or eating at a restaurant but on Tuesdays, it was easier to just pick
something up.

“Oh my God, that sounds perfect,” Jon said before he could stop himself. He heard Ros
giggling and he could sense Sansa’s smile. “Mashed potatoes, too?”

“Obviously mashed potatoes, too, Jon,” Sansa teased. “We’ll pick it up and head straight
home. You’re on your way home, too?”

“On my way,” Jon promised.

But after his computer was shut down for the night and he was standing up to get his coat, his
eyes fell on the papers he had printed off. Romans. Corinthians. John. His eyes paused on the
John passage and read it over carefully. In his coat, he slowly sat down in his chair and read
the passage again.

“If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the
world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”

He needed to leave the office and go home for the night. He needed to see his wife and
daughter and have a delicious fried chicken dinner at home but he read that passage and then
reached for the crime photos in another folder on his desk. He looked at the woman’s body,
laid out and stretched like that in a perfect line and he looked back to the passage. Did this
woman’s body and this passage make sense together? Was it another one of the passages and
not out of John? Why, whoever left the index card, leave the numbers and not the book where
it could be found? Why did Jon already feel like this person was messing with him?

Chapter End Notes

THANK YOU for reading!! Some Snow family time - as well as Jon/Sansa time - in the
next chapter :)
 The Evening
Chapter Notes

I deleted the cannibal story in this universe because I have made a change to Jaime in
this story that no longer fit in with that particular story. I had a vivid dream about Jaime
in this story and I didn't know if I wanted to write it and I almost didn't but then I
figured that I would and just expect everyone to hate it lol

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Three.

After a dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and buttermilk biscuits – one of the best
dinners ever, in Ros’s opinion because buttermilk biscuits was one of her favorite foods in the
whole world – Sansa sent her upstairs to take a shower. “You smell like horses,” she said as
she always said on every other Tuesday and with a laugh, Ros rushed upstairs. There were a
couple of wings and one breast leftover and Jon was putting the bucket away in the
refrigerator when his cell phone on the counter began to ring. As soon as he saw that it was
Dr. Coleman from the morgue, he dove for it.

“Snow,” he answered after the first ring. He walked from the kitchen into the family room as
Sansa continued loading the dishwasher. She knew he had caught a new case but with Ros
underfoot, he hadn’t been able to actually tell her that. Sansa had just been married to this
man long enough and had been a wife to a homicide detective long enough to read his body
language. There was always the slightest tenseness in his shoulders when there was a new
murdered body.

“I can’t id her,” Coleman said without prelude. “Her fingerprints aren’t in the system and no
dental records either.”

Jon frowned immediately at that. “How is that possible?” Every sex worker had a record.
Solicitation, drug charges. It just came with what they did. A sex worker without having ever
been arrested just wasn’t normal in the least.

“She has no track marks on her skin, her teeth are still in good shape. My guess? She hadn’t
been at this line of work for long at all,” Coleman guessed.

“Great,” Jon muttered to himself. Poor girl. But this just made everything a Hell of a lot
harder. If no one reported her as missing, they might not ever be able to identify her and if
they couldn’t identify her, they wouldn’t be able to retrace her steps and this case would
already be ice cold before it could begin. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Cause
of death?” He asked.

“A little out of the usual, not going to lie,” Coleman answered and Jon already felt himself
growing tense. For a county coroner to say that, who had had a long career and had seen
plenty of things through the years, Jon braced himself but he knew he couldn’t be prepared.
“The girl was full of bleach. Bleach in her veins. Bleach in her stomach. And I’m going to
say that she didn’t ingest any of it voluntarily because her esophagus was torn up and most
people wouldn’t be able to sustain that kind of pain if they were doing it themselves. They
would stop.”

Jon’s brain took a moment to process that and his stomach felt heavy and then immediately
after, he thought of the bible passages he still had to read through and study. “Like someone
was cleaning her from the inside,” he said his thought out loud. Christ.

After hanging up with Coleman, Jon slowly turned back towards the kitchen. Sansa had
finished loading the dishwasher and was now wiping down the table. She heard that his
conversation had ended and she now felt his eyes on her. She turned her head and gave him a
small smile.

“Want me to brew some decaf?” She offered.

“Mama!” Ros shouted from upstairs. “Come check my hair for shampoo!”

“Coming!” Sansa called back. She tossed the paper towels into the garbage can and then went
to wash her hands. “Decaf?” She asked Jon again. “Or is it going to be a regular coffee kind
of night?” Another thing about Jon when he caught a new case. He could be called back into
the office at any minute if anything new developed. They had excellent coffee at the Sheriff’s
station, she knew, but making coffee for Jon on his way out the door was what she did. She
couldn’t always do much for him when he was trying to solve something but she could make
coffee for him.

Jon shook his head and managed to smile. “I think it’s going to be a chocolate milk night.”

“Whoa. Wild night,” she teased and Jon’s smile grew.

Sansa left to go upstairs and Jon went to the cabinet for a glass. He thought of the victim. No
id and no record but a sex worker all the same. Coleman agreed with Jon on that assessment.
Her bruises were typical for those in that kind of work and Coleman also confirmed that there
was evidence that there had been sexual activity the night she had died. After her body
thawed, he had concluded that she died sometime after one a.m. That would give the person
responsible plenty of time to carry her out into those woods. Whether they were from this
area or from the city, it would be possible. Did the killer live out here, go into the city and
pick this woman up, bring her back, do all of that bleach stuff and then bring her out in the
woods? Or did the killer live in the city and just choose this at random for his dumping
ground?

“Daddy, can we watch a movie?” Ros had come running down the stairs and rushed into the
kitchen. She was dressed in her pajamas and Sansa had dried her hair somewhat but the air
was going to dry the rest before bedtime.

“Of course we can,” Jon smiled. “Have you brushed your teeth yet?”

“Not yet,” Ros excitedly shook her head, knowing why he asked. Without a word, Jon took a
small plastic cup down from the cabinet and filled it with chocolate milk. He snapped the lid
onto it so she wouldn’t spill it. “Thank you, daddy!” She happily took the cup he handed her.

“Go and pick a movie for us,” he said and she went scampering into the family room.
Sansa came down the stairs a moment later and Jon was still in the kitchen, waiting for her.
She smiled when she saw him but it was small and almost hesitant. She didn’t ask him about
the case. She never did unless he started talking about it first. Sansa needed to keep herself
removed from what her husband did for her own sanity. She felt too much about everything.
She always did. And right now, Jon didn’t say anything. He leaned in and kissed her on the
lips softly.

“I love you,” he said quietly.

“I love you, too,” Sansa immediately responded.

“Daddy! Jumanji!” Ros shouted her decision.

“That sounds perfect,” Jon agreed with her as he headed into family room to join her.

Sansa began making herself a cup of tea that she made for herself every other night. Ros
stayed sitting on the floor, playing with her dollhouse that was set up on the carpet and the
family of rabbits who lived here. She had gotten a new furniture set for Christmas and now
she needed to find exactly the right arrangement in one of the rooms for it. Jon got himself
settled on the couch and Ghost immediately jumped up to lay down next to him, his head on
his thigh, and Jon rubbed behind his ear as he sipped his milk. Lady stretched out next to
Ros, flopping over onto her side and immediately going to sleep. And Sansa joined them all a
moment later with her tea, also sitting on the couch, on Jon’s other side. And once he made
sure that everyone was there, Jon hit the button and the movie began to play.

“We’re not doing anything wrong.” It had been quiet for about a half hour before Genna
broke the silence. She was on the bed, her back against the headboard and her legs stretched
out in front of her. A paperback was open between her hands. Jaime was next to her, his legs
stretched out next to hers, and his eyes focused on the television across from the them on the
dresser.
“Right now, no, we’re not doing anything wrong,” he agreed. They were both wearing their
pajamas and hanging out. It was actually pretty innocent.

She sighed. “So, telling Jon you’re with a married woman is better than telling him about
me?”

“Absolutely.” Genna elbowed him roughly into his side. Jaime moved his eyes away from the
television to look at her. “I’m old enough to be your dad.” This wasn’t the first time he
reminded her of that and it would far from being the last.

He liked being with Genna. He really liked being with her. But he always felt like a dirty
bastard when he went back home and could think with clarity about what he was doing.
Genna had just turned twenty-five and he was definitely not twenty-five. It happened
completely unplanned though. Jaime had known Genna. She was one of Sansa’s closest
friends and with himself being in the Snow circle, they were far from strangers. Maybe not
friends but more than acquaintances. The more they hung out, they more they talked and
despite the age difference, they found that they had things in common. And what they didn’t,
it was balanced. Genna was often called, by her friends, the happiest girl in the world and
Jaime wasn’t exactly mistaken for being a cheery kind of guy. (Line of work and all that
came with it.)

He had had that one time with Marei that still made absolutely no sense to him because he
had been working Vice at the time and could have been fired if he had been found out and she
had been so deep in her drug use, Jaime didn’t think she even remembered. She had gotten
clean since then and had lived out here for a few years and was assistant manager at a gas
station. He didn’t have any lingering feelings for her. Hell, there had never been feelings.
Like him and Genna, they were in the same circle and had become something of friends. She
was best friends with one of the vets in town, Ben, and he was the perfect guy for her to have
because he was out as asexual and Marei had already said, more than once, that she probably
never wanted to have sex again. If she ever felt the desire to do such a thing, she and Ben
would probably get married and have a lifelong marriage of content companionship.

Genna had recently moved out here from the city, now living with Marei and her German
Shepherd, Carl. She had passed her training and was now a certified phlebotomist who had
gotten a job at the van Houten Medical Center. The pair met at the Mermaid Lagoon Motel
(which was a somewhat ridiculous name considering it was nowhere near a body of water)
three or four times a week and it was far from being just about sex. Some nights, they didn’t
do it at all. Jaime always asked what she wanted to do because Genna had spent too long,
never being asked that question by anyone – especially men – and he wanted to make sure
that they would do anything that she wanted to do. Tonight, they hadn’t. Jaime arrived at the
motel room with pizza and both changed into their pajamas. Then, sitting on the bed, eating,
they talked about their days. Jaime didn’t go into too much detail about his. There were some
things Genna didn’t need to know. He liked hanging out with Genna. It was easy and it was
nice. He liked spending his evenings with someone and just feeling comfortable no matter
what they did.

But that didn’t stop him from going back home in the mornings and hating himself for what
he was doing. He knew what others would think, too. Mid-life crisis. Working his way
through a friend group. Taking advantage of a sweet girl who’s life had been shit for most of
it. Jon would hate it. Sansa would kill him. Having a fictitious affair with a married woman
was better for everyone.

“You make me feel safe,” Genna said and she looked back down to her book to continue
reading. He knew everything about her past and what she had done and he was still here. That
meant everything. But she didn’t tell him that. He should have already figured that out as far
as Genna was concerned. Jaime kept looking at her. “I’m not going to feel bad for feeling
that.”

His cell phone on the bedside table began to ring and he saw that it was Coleman from the
morgue. “Lannister,” he answered. He sat up and swung his legs around the side of the bed.

“I just got off the phone with your partner. This is what I got for you.”

“Jesus,” Jaime breathed out when Coleman was done telling him everything.

When the call ended, Jaime was quiet, thinking. Bleach consumption? Sure, he had had a
couple of cases where spouses tried to off the other by hiding bleach or other household
cleaning product poisons in their food or drink but this was far more sinister. Injecting it and
ingesting it? Whoever had done this to that woman was definitely trying to make a point. He
put his phone back onto the bedside table and on a whim, he opened the drawer. He almost
smiled. Thank you, Mermaid Lagoon Motel, he thought to himself as he pulled out the Bible
that was provided. 15:19. He honestly had no idea how to read one of these things but he’d
figure it out.

…
Ros was sleeping deeply and peacefully. She was lying on her side with her beloved stuffed
capybara in her arms. She slept without a care in the world and that was how it was supposed
to be. Jon sat on the edge of the bed, looking over her. He focused on her and not the terrible
thing he had seen that day or what the coroner had told him on the phone. When things got
like this in his professional life, he liked to focus on the good in his life. And his daughter
was the best thing to ever happen to him. He remembered what it had been like before Ros.
Before Sansa. When he was living by himself in a carriage house and every day and night, he
would deal with all of these things and have nothing waiting for him at the end of it.

He and Sansa were always inviting Jaime over for dinner because Jon didn’t want him to be
alone. He knew some people truly wanted to be alone and were good at being alone but what
he and Jaime did and the things they saw, neither should be alone for too long in their own
minds.

Jon leaned over and kissed Ros on the head. The girl didn’t stir. The alien UFO nightlight on
top of her dresser was on, glowing a gentle blue, and Sweet Potato was also asleep, tucked
safely into his cage for the night. Jon left the bedroom, leaving the door open. Ros absolutely
hated her door being closed. Sansa joked that in a few years, Ros would be a teenage girl and
scream if her door was opened without her permission. Jon was going to revel in his daughter
being this age. Down the hallway in their bedroom, Sansa had changed into her pajamas. Her
teeth were brushed, her hair combed out, and she was now sitting on their bed, rubbing lotion
onto her hands and elbows. Lady was already flopped across the foot of the bed in her usual
spot. Ghost had a dog pillow under the window (technically his and Lady’s to share but he
always commandeered it for himself) and that’s where he had gotten himself comfortable.

Sansa smiled at Jon as he entered the bedroom and closed the door behind him. “She good?”
She asked as Jon began stripping off his clothes.

“Still out like a light,” Jon confirmed with a nod.

Once in his sweatpants and long-sleeved tee-shirt to sleep in, he took his clothes into the
bathroom to dump into the hamper. He took the time to empty his bladder, wash his hands
and then brush his teeth. When he came out of the bathroom again, Sansa was still sitting on
the bed, not under the covers. She was clearly waiting for him. Jon went to the door, opening
it again, and then he turned to look at her. He didn’t come to join her on the bed. Instead, he
stood there and looked at her.
“Is it a bad one?” Sansa guessed.

Jon immediately thought of the bleach. The cryptic bible verse. This young woman who had
started down a path but hadn’t been on it for too long. “I think it might be,” he answered.

He looked at Sansa. His wife was such an advocate for sex workers. She had dedicated her
entire professional life to them. Ever since she found Ros Wallace’s murdered body in the
park all those years ago, it changed the trajectory of everything for her. She tried to help as
many as she possibly could. She obviously didn’t know every sex worker in the city. That
would be absolutely impossible but his wife had a lot more contacts tapped into that world
than anyone Jon knew. Hell, he wouldn’t even waste his time with the Vice Department
downtown and their so-called contacts. That department was like any other department. Get
as many arrests as possible to appease the bosses with their ridiculous stats. The girls and the
johns and it was just one big numbers game. Arrest them and they get released in just a few
hours and everyone liked to think that they were making a change. Jon wasn’t judging the
cops who didn’t care about getting to know any of the girls. It was a high turnover, dangerous
kind of job to have and the cops wouldn’t see a point to getting to know them. If a girl was
gone one day, three more had taken her spot the next. It was almost impossible to keep track
of.

But his wife would never think that getting to know those girls was a waste of time.

“I need your help,” Jon said.

Sansa sat up straight. “Of course,” she didn’t hesitate.

“But I don’t know if I should bring you into this.”

She stood up from the bed and crossed to him. She took hold of his hands and looked into his
eyes. “I want to help if you think I can.” What kind of case had he caught today where he
would need her help? Sansa knew that there was only so much she could actually do for him.
“I’m going to show you a picture. It’s a crime scene photo from today but it’s not of the body
or the scene, I promise. It’s just of her face,” Jon told her and Sansa nodded, swallowing a
lump forming in the base of her throat. She wasn’t going to take it back though. She would
help him.

Holding onto one of her hands, Jon led her from the bedroom and down the stairs. They
heard both Ghost and Lady rush to follow after them. Downstairs, all of the lights were off
and all of the doors were locked. Out here, in the country, it was so dark and they had little
motion LED sensor lights in the hallway to help them find their way. At the desk in the
kitchen, it was a bit of a mess. It was their official “paying bills” station and Sansa swore that
there was a system to the madness of papers and envelopes but Jon had a hard time figuring it
out. When he got home, he had slipped the folder of pictures under a pile of junk magazines
they got in the mail where he knew Sansa and definitely Ros wouldn’t seek it out and see
something they really shouldn’t.

Now, Jon let go of her hand so he could pick the right picture. He turned on the small lamp
and hunched over, he looked through the stack. He didn’t want Sansa to see anything except
her face. Her eyes were closed and her skin was blue from exposure but her face was still
hers and someone who knew her would be able to identify her. He looked back to Sansa. She
stood there, waiting and not moving. Jon reached over and turned on a few more lights so
Sansa could get a good look at what he was about to show her.

“I need you to look at her face and let me know if you know her or if you know one of the
girls who might know her. She was a sex worker but she wasn’t at it for that long at all. She
has no record so we can’t id her. I don’t even know if she’s from the city but I need to start
somewhere. I need to find a place where I can even start.”

Sansa nodded and gave him the smallest smile of both understanding and support. “I can take
a look,” she said. She was scared and she knew that Jon knew that. He hesitated showing her
the picture but Sansa held out her hand. “I want to do this, Jon. And if I don’t know her, I can
take it to the center tomorrow if you want me to and I can ask some of the girls in the
neighborhood.”

“I don’t know if she’s from the downtown neighborhood,” Jon said quietly. He didn’t know
anything and what the Hell was he going to do if he couldn’t figure out that first step that
would put this investigation into motion?
 Sansa didn’t say anything further but kept holding her hand out. Finally, Jon handed over the
picture. She looked at the face. She studied the face. She didn’t allow herself to think of how
she had been murdered. She just looked at her face and tried to think if she knew her. Finally,
she lifted her eyes again to Jon and shook her head. “I don’t know who she is but see this?”
Jon instantly stepped in and looked closely at what she was pointing to. “That scar?” It was a
small scar – a straight vertical line – right at the corner of her right eye. There was absolutely
nothing special about it. “There’s a man who marks his girls like this so everyone on the
streets knows who they belong to.”

Jon’s heart stopped momentarily in his chest. Did her pimp do this? No. No pimp would take
the time to murder one of his girls like this. They didn’t put in this kind of effort. But this
man was definitely someone he and Jaime had to talk to.

Chapter End Notes

THANK YOU so, so much!! I am so happy with this chapter.

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!