Captionem Mortis

A rush against the clock ends very badly.

**Captionem Mortis** is the 39th case in The Origins, the second to the last case in the season, as well as the 4th case to occur in the West Central Region.

## ***Plot***

After the team's tech expert, Imogen Caulfield, was kidnapped, a note was left on the late Sebastian Ralph's desk. The note said to rush to the coordinates in Helena, Montana. We also bring Bill Wise, the vice president of the U.S.A. who also happens to lead the resistance. Everyone splits up into small groups, and Max Snowcone goes with the player to investigate. The only people that are going alone are Bill and Lily Hall, the team's profiler. Max and the player then hear a bang, fearing the worst. The duo then rushes downstairs, only to find Bill shot in the forehead. We look around and find Esfir Volkova, a Russian hitwoman arrested for murdering a CDRA agent, frozen in shock. We then find Hunter Hondo, the team's informant, and we get him to bring Esfir back to the team's custody. Max and the player then return to base after Hunter safely gets Esfir back into a cell. Esfir tells us that she's thankful we rescued her as Sophia planned to kill her in order to start the war and get revenge for her father. She then told us Imogen was kept in another room in order for the two of them to not interact. We rush over to the other room and we find Imogen trying to break out of the house. We bring her back to our custody and tell her the news about Bill. She acts shocked and says it's probably Sophia's doing. We then rush back to find and arrest the mastermind of it all, Duchess Sophia Bartlett, once and for all, but she draws her gun and asks if we want to see the late Ronda Warner again. We immediately leave and search for an accomplice of hers, Rostya Pushkin. We find him holding Lily at gunpoint, about to shoot. Max immediately shoots Rostya's hand, immediately making him drop his gun. We then grab Lily and run back to base. We ask her to tell us everything that happened, and she tells the duo she was searching around and heard a scream, she ran towards that room but a fat man with a Russian accent and a gun grabbed her and held her at gunpoint. Lily tried to defend herself but he wouldn't let go. We told Lily to stay at the base, and she agreed. We took her to the lab chief, Sandra Davis's office, where she took care of her. We then investigate the attic once again for clues, and we find red paint and a specific cream. We send the cream to Sandra, who tells Max and the player that the cream was for moles. Sandra also said it had some of Bill's DNA on it. We realize that Bill does not have moles, but we do know someone who has two, Sophia. Sophia tells the duo that she dropped her mole cream and couldn't find it, and that Bill must have gotten to it. We ask her if it was a trap to kill Bill, and she denies any involvement. We tell her that we'll keep a close eye on her, and she pulls out her gun and says "I don't think so." We find out that the red paint is face paint, and that Esfir must need it to draw the Russian flag on her face. We ask Esfir about the paint, and she said that Bill tried to free her but almost killed her in the process. We then find a stepped on note in the house's exterior, which says "Listen, I'm sorry for what I did." We analyze the note through Lily's samples, and we find out that the handwriting belongs to Bill. We then find some of Lily's DNA on it as well as shoeprints that matched her shoes. We grill Lily about the note, and she told the team that when her father, the late Aaron Hall, joined the North American Traveling Squad, she wanted to do something productive and heroic too, so she joined Bill's resistance group. Unfortunately for her, Bill constantly flirted with her. After Aaron died, Lily realized that she could be her own independent person and left the group. When they met again, Bill gave her that note, but she didn't forgive him.

## ***Killer And Motives***

The killer turned out to be Imogen.

Upon admitting to the murder, Imogen told Max and the player that the kidnapping was a trap once again, but this time, it was fatal. Imogen was with Sophia all along. She only joined the team to be a built-in man of Sophia, as she thinks the war would be benefitial for them in taking control over the country. She never got that life when she was younger, and she thinks she suffered enough, now it's time for the lazy riches to do so. Even her brother, Blake Caulfield, didn't know about anything. She took part of the kidnapping twice to make us trust her 100%. Imogen also mentioned being the one who threatened Blake into killing Sebastian Ralph, as he found their base.

## ***Preparing For War (4/5)***

After she confesses, she shoots at us, hitting Max in the chest, and Ursula in the shoulder. We escape from them and rush the injured to the hospital. Ursula is fine, but the hospital doctor, Fekla Gryaznova, said that Max bled out on the way back and couldn't make it. Since we don't have any time to attend the funeral, we will have to delay it until we deal with Sophia. National TV announces that Sophia is starting the broadcast in 3 hours so we have no time to loose. Sandra tells us that Imogen actually knew about the coordinates of Sophia's hideout, the note on her desk was a fake one, but we planted a tracking device on her journal when we confronted her. The live feed will be broadcasted from St. Paul, Minnesota. We gear up and rush to the scene.

## ***Suspects***

***Esfir Volkova (Traits: 1, 3, 4)Imogen Caulfield (Traits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)Duchess Sophia Bartlett (Traits: 1, 2, 3, 4)Rostya Pushkin (Traits: 2)Lily Hall (Traits: 1, 2, 4, 5)***
## ***Quasi-Suspects***

***Max SnowconeFekla GryaznovaUrsula Gemini***