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<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#0059b3">“Do you believe in destiny?”</span> </i>​</div><br/>Born and raised outside New Orleans, her mother was a politician and her father was a history professor. She was the youngest of three, had been active in sports and community service in high school, and had graduated a year early at the top of her class. She hadn’t been sure if it was the best decision at the time to go to college so soon, but her parents had been thrilled, her sister had insisted, and her brother had bet she couldn’t make it through her first year of college before she’d come crying home to their mother. So she had. And not only that, she’d graduated from her university a year early as well. School came naturally, learning was exciting, and she had gone on to get her masters a couple years later.<br/><br/>It was to pursue her Doctorate in Psycholinguistics that allowed the University of Oregon to steal her from The Big Easy. Coincidentally, her brother had landed a job as an announcer for the Trail Blazers, so they decided to take the plunge together. Weston spent his days watching and describing basketball; she slaved through her doctoral classes at the University of Oregon and eventually began her thesis. For two years she lived with the biggest slob she’d ever known, marveled they shared the same DNA, then had thanked every god she could think of when West got engaged. It was at that time she tried to convince her sister to move to Seattle with her when she landed a job, but her sister had already landed in Chicago and seemed content there. She’d moved into a one-bedroom apartment, only to meet her would-be husband a couple months later. She often teased he had come along just so she didn’t have to suffer living alone. She came from a boisterous family and while she was definitely the quietest one, she had grown up with the sound and bustle. Silence was strange to her.<br/><br/>So James had come into her life and given her something other than academia and her family to love. He was the polar opposite to her; he was loud, he was enigmatic, he was basically a carbon copy of her sister. And just like her sister, he could be lazy and mercurial. Even her mornings were different from his; she was religious in waking up at 5 a.m. to go for a run whereas he tumbled from bed ten minutes before he had to leave for work. It drove her crazy, but more than anything, she was jealous he didn’t have her female routine of doing her hair and makeup. In all honesty though, she did as little as she had to in that department. She’d had her vigorously curly dark brown hair chemically straightened and kept it cut into a sleek bob that barely brushed her ears so the convenience was there. And she so rarely wore eye-catching makeup. She much preferred the natural look, instead framing her hazel eyes with simple mascara. Every once in a while, she added a demure shade of lipstick.<br/><br/>She always dressed professionally; she became an associate professor after moving to Seattle, after all. Skirt suits, pantsuits, all the suits. She loved them, loved how they made her feel powerful and confident. Her family teased her for it, her brother even going so far as to say she always looked ready for a funeral, but James sweetly insisted he found them sexy, then offered to help her iron them on washdays. That was true love; she knew it. There were days she had trouble with them however, mostly when the weather or inside temperatures didn’t cooperate. And it was what had her shrugging off the navy suit jacket she wore and tossing it onto the stool behind the podium. It left her in a silky cream blouse that was tucked into her pencil skirt, showing subtle curves toned by her morning fitness regime. Long legs, tanned mostly due to the fact her mother was Turkish, ended in feet encased in sensible black pumps that clicked against the hardwood floor as she made her way back to the whiteboard she’d been using.<br/><br/>“As I was saying,” she picked up the Expo marker and turned back to address the lecture hall with about a hundred students inhabiting the seats, “We need to delve deeper into the copula behind different languages.” She turned back to write the word on the board so the students knew how to spell it. She was old-school. No Power Points or lecture outlines from her; she personally thought her students learned more from listening. Besides, she was teaching Introduction to Linguistics. Should they not be using their skills to interpret her own words?<br/><br/>“Uh, Dr. Fontenot?”<br/><br/>“Yes, Lynn,” she replied patiently while she added a brief description to the word along with its roots. She taught roots to all of the vocabulary she gave her students. She felt it gave them a better understanding of the word if they knew how they were built.<br/><br/>“Could you please provide a couple examples of copula?”<br/><br/>A faint smile tugged at her lips at the request. She did not know all of her students’ names, but Lynn stuck out. She was perhaps not the brightest student right away, but she was definitely hardworking and dedicated. Naturally the students that put forth the effort to truly learn linguistics stuck out. It was a class that could be considered an elective, after all. She was under no illusion many of the students there sat in their seats because their degree plans demanded it. Even so, there were future linguists in her midst. She would do her damnedest to give them the education they needed to further their careers.<br/><br/>“They’re basically linking verbs. Let me show you,” Devin Fontenot answered, turning to write down three simple sentences on the board:<i>I don’t have no Twinkies. I haven’t any Twinkies. I have no Twinkies.</i>“This is why every single word in a sentence is important,” Devin stated to her class, “We can see here that we have three different dialects of the English language, simply because of small connecting words in a sentence, or the copula. We can generalize a region from how someone speaks or writes. We can look into their background, their psyche, from the way they use their words. None of these phrases are wrong or right because it depends on where you are and to whom you’re speaking.<i>That</i>is the power of linguistics.”<br/><br/>A hand went up, she nodded, and the question was raised, “Wasn’t linguistics used to crack the Zodiac Killer’s code?”<br/><br/>Impressed, Devin crossed her arms beneath her breasts and nodded, “Yes. The FBI couldn’t figure it out, made the killer’s messages public, and two professors figured it out. Sometimes the federal government doesn’t have all the answers.” It was said wryly and a couple chuckles sounded through the room.<br/><br/>“Didn’t you interview the Green River killer?”<br/><br/>Devin looked up into the rows of students watching her so intently, trying to figure out who had asked the question so they could be addressed. It was difficult in such a large classroom, so she instead nodded and looked out at the class as a whole, “Yes, several years ago. Gary Ridgway, for those of you whom do not know, murdered dozens of women and dumped their bodies in the Green River. He was apprehended in 2001 and has been imprisoned ever since. He started writing in prison, articles and books, and the FBI realized this was a good opportunity to perhaps pick up on some clues of psychopathic writing.” She paused, reached up to push her dark hair behind her ear, then continued, “I was contacted as an expert in my field to interview and read Ridgway’s works. They wanted someone well-trained in psycholinguistics, but not forensically or with a serial killer background. They wanted as pure of a documentation as they could get, so I spent three days interviewing him before I wrote up my report.” She could still remember being asked by the FBI, would probably never forget the two agents that had flanked her every move during her time at that prison.<br/><br/>“What was he like?”<br/><br/>It was the question everyone asked when Devin spoke of her time interviewing a serial killer. She shrugged like she always did, then offered them an apologetic smile, “I’m afraid you want me to describe someone outwardly villainous and I cannot. Gary Ridgway appeared normal, which is perhaps the scariest type of killer out there.” He had been friendly enough, but she had seen it in his eyes. Had known in his writing and the way he spoke of women that the man had no respect for them or her.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center"><i><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#0059b3">“…that even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose?”</span></i>​</div><br/>The goal for the rest of the day had been to work on her ongoing research. No sooner than she’d walked into her small office did her cell phone ring. Her brother. It’d brought a smile to her face instantly. She loved both of her siblings dearly; they’d grown up rather close to each other. She was definitely closest to her sister, but her older brother had a special little spot in her heart. She’d grown up equally protected and tormented by him, only for them to become friends in adulthood. As she’d lived with West for a couple years, Devin knew West well enough to know he had to be in his car for him to call her. He only called her when he was driving, hence her demand he have wireless phone calling when he got his newest car.<br/><br/>They had spent some time chatting about the family; when would West get them all tickets to the Blazers again, why their father was even trying to give any sort of input into the vow renewal their mother was religiously planning, whether he would come to Seattle to visit soon, how long Alden’s feet would touch the States before leaving the country again. He bet a month, but Devin knew her sister. If Alden had her way, her feet would never touch the ground and she would constantly travel. It would be days before the woman was off again. Luckily her sister had found a job that demanded such desires. Weston went on to explain what his two children were up to, her little niece and nephew, and Devin hadn’t been able to stop the pleased smile on her face when he described their newest accomplishments. Children were definitely in the cards for her and James, at some point. Just the other day they’d discussed it; mostly since they were both thirty-two and his birthday was around the corner. Neither of them were getting any younger.<br/><br/>“So Abby decides if Wonder Woman can leap off tall buildings she can too,” West was saying as Devin crossed the parking lot to return to her car to go home, “I think we left her alone for maybe two minutes max and Sam finds her trying to climb up on the roof of her playhouse from…” Her brother’s voice died out in her mind and as an annoyingly familiar sense of dread began to fill her. Juggling her satchel and her phone to one side of her body, Devin reached out and plucked the origami tulip from its resting spot between the car door and the side mirror. Only touching the corner of the flower as little as possible, she held the phone in the crook of her neck while her brother went on about his daughter’s antics. Tossing her satchel on the hood of her sensible white sedan, Devin dug out a large plastic baggie and placed the flower inside.<br/><br/>“I got another one,” Devin called out once she breezed into her condo nearly an hour later, tossing her satchel down on the white marble counter in her kitchen. Without explaining what she meant, she dug out a pair of disposable gloves from beneath her sink, pushed her short hair behind her ears, and snapped the gloves on. Wanting to preserve the note as much as possible, she also withdrew a cookie sheet from a cabinet to work on and was carefully unfolding the tulip when her husband stepped into the room. Tall and light-complected, James wore an obnoxiously lime green Seahawks shirt with his red boxers, causing his wife to grimace slightly.<br/><br/>“Is that face because of my stunning fashion sense or your newest love letter?” He smirked, leaning over to press a smacking kiss to her cheek before heading to the fridge.<br/><br/>“Both,” Devin answered with a sigh, shaking her head and returning her attention to the note. She smoothed it out flat and leaned over the note, eyes running over the page. She knew immediately it was from the same book as always. Ripped out in the same way, without a care for the side of the page as long as the underlined words were not hindered. She read the sentence once, twice, then began from the top of the page and worked her way down. After carefully turning the paper over to check the back, Devin leaned both elbows on the countertop and sighed heavily, hazel eyes worried as she stared down at the page.<br/><br/>Light blue eyes studying the trim form of his wife bent over yet another creepy letter he had once dismissed as a student probably pissed they hadn’t gotten a good grade in one of her classes, James abandoned the beer he had pulled from the fridge. His front leaning against her back, he reached for her hand and guided it into turning the paper back over so he could read what passage her admirer had directed her attention to, then wrapped his arms around her waist protectively. He read the sentence in silence, his relaxed expression becoming more and more stony until James finally spoke, his hold on his wife tightening, “Cancel your 9 am class.”<br/><br/>“No, I’m not going to let this guy disrupt my stude—“<br/><br/>“Then go to the police before 9 am,” James answered abruptly, “Better yet, let’s go now.”<br/><br/>“I already have once,” Devin sighed, leaning into his embrace for comfort, for warmth. The notes always left her so chilled, “And the detectives aren’t usually there in the evenings.”<br/><br/>“Go back tomorrow. Take all the evidence you’ve collected and show them,” James paused, knowing what he would say would be turned down, but having to offer anyway, “I’ll go with you.”<br/><br/>“No,” Devin began to carefully place the note back into the baggie, making sure it laid flat so it would be readable and surrounded by protective plastic, “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” After pressing a reassuring kiss to her husband’s cheek, she pulled free and pulled open one of the kitchen drawers. After withdrawing a dull brown accordion folder, she placed the plastic baggie inside with nearly a dozen others.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center"><i><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#0059b3">“That the luckiest man who walks on this earth is the one who finds true love?”</span></i>​</div><br/><div style="text-align: center"><div class="bbCodeSpoiler">
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