1 Chapter 1 The Heiress

"Welcome to the force, Detective Barnes," Captain Butler said as he handed me my badge.

I swiped it from his hand and stared at it. After so long of waiting for this moment, it was finally here. I was finally a detective, a homicide detective. I worked so hard to get this promotion. From the street cop I was for the past three years to studying for the tests to become a detective.

"Thank you so much, Captain!" I said breathlessly. "I won't let you down."

"I hope not, Barnes," Captain Butler said. "Now, you are going to be given a partner to show you the ropes. And also because my boss wants all detectives to work in pairs until further notice. So you're partner is going to be a veteran of the force. He's been on this force longer than you've been alive."

"Oh wow!" I said. "He can teach me so much. Can I go meet him? Can you introduce me to him, now?"

"Yeah let's go," Captain Butler said, gesturing towards the door to his office. I exited the door and waited for him to show me the way to go.

Captain Butler left his office after me and lead me over to a very tall, very muscular black man with a shaved head and a grey goatee sitting at a desk. He was reading a newspaper with a mug of coffee besides him. An empty desk sat face to face with his.

"Jones," Captain Butler called out as we approached him. The detective looked up from his paper to see the Captain. His blank face didn't change as he looked looked up at the Captain. He shut his newspaper and set it on his desk.

"Captain," Jones said as he stood up to greet the Captain. "What can I help you with?"

"I'd like you to meet your new partner, Anastasia Barnes. She's brand new to all of this. So show her the ropes. Don't run her out on the first day." Captain gestured to me as he spoke and I waved at my new partner. Jones remained neutral as he looked over at me. The Captain looked back at me and said. "That's your desk. Get yourself settled in before you get a call."

"Thanks, Cap," I said with a smile. He gave me a look that screamed, What did you just call me? I quickly recovered by asking, "Can I call you, Cap? Or I can call you sir, or Captain. I just like Cap. It's short and easy."

"You can call me Cap as long as I'm not yelling at you," Captain Butler said with a laugh. "Don't look like someone pissed in your cereal, Jones. Give the new kid a smile."

And just like that, he walked away. I turned to Jones to give him a smile but he already had the newspaper back in front of his face. I took my seat at my desk and looked around. It was bigger than the last desk I had, since my last desk was my squad car. I would need to get my pictures and décor from my locker to make the desk feel more like mine.

"Why you smilin' like that, Kid?" Jones asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, I didn't notice I was smiling," I said nervously. "I'm Anastasia Barnes. Most people call me Ana or Barnes."

I reached my hand over the desks for him to shake. Instead of taking my hand, he glanced at it with a scowl before picking up his newspaper to return to reading.

"I think I'll stick with Kid. How old are ya?" Jones asked.

"Twenty-four. I graduated the police academy three years ago, top of my class. It's always been my dream to be a detective. So I moved up the ranks as quick as possible," I explained. "And now I'm finally here. What should I call you?"

"Jones."

"What about your first name?"

"Hank, but call me Jones."

"How long have you been a detective, Jones?"

"Is this Twenty Questions? This ain't a sleepover, Kid. I'm trying to enjoy the Morning Paper before we get called into action. Get your things together before we get called out."

I pouted before going out to my locker to get my box of things for my desk. I pulled out all my office supplies, arranging them into a drawer neatly. Then I took out a picture of my dog, an Affenpinscher named Murphy, and a picture of my family. I placed the pictures around my computer so I could see them as I worked.

I smiled looking at the picture of my family on the beach, happily spending time together when we were younger and together. The picture had me, my mom and dad, and my two brothers all surrounding the huge sandcastle we made that day.

Two weeks after this photo was taken, my mom was killed while on a job. She was a homicide detective, like I am. She got too close to some bad guys' business and they killed her in cold blood in order to protect themselves from being apprehended. They have never caught, even after all this time.

Since I was a child, I always wanted to be like my mom; brave, selfless, honorable, compassionate. After she was killed, I wanted to be like her even more. Her death affected my entire family as well. Dad never remarried and became a helicopter Dad, always overprotective and looking out for my brothers and I. My eldest brother, Lancelot, wanted to help kids who go through the same thing he did and became a therapist. The middle child, Elmer George (EG), became a lawyer to make sure the bad people who go to jail stay there. And then, there was me.

"Ah, Jones, this your new partner?" a pair of men walked over to us. The one who spoke was Latino with messily styled black hair. He had a thick beard and mustache had a large smile on his face. He looked to be in his early thirties. The man behind him looked a few years older than me. He was very tall and scrawny and had ginger hair with green eyes. An array of freckles was spread across all the surfaces of skin I could see. He looked at me with a flirty smirk on his face.

"Yup," Jones muttered not taking his eyes from the newspaper.

"She's young," the ginger man said.

"What's your name, beautiful?" the Latino man asked.

"Anastasia Barnes," I said. I stood up and stuck my hand out for them to shake. "And you are?"

"Ruben Sanchez," the first man said as he shook my hand.

"Kyle Richmond," the second man said. He took my hand and instead of shaking it, he kissed the back of it. I scrunched my nose up at his action. "But you can call me anything you want, gorgeous."

"Sure," I laughed as I slipped my hand from his hold. "I think I'll call you Richmond."

"She doesn't want you, Richmond," Sanchez laughed, slapping a hand on Richmond's back. "You're smart, Barnes. Don't fall for his little games."

"Hey, don't tell her that," Richmond said. "Is it so bad to flirt with a pretty girl?"

"As many girls as you flirt with, yes," Jones said. " 'Specially the girls you meet here."

Richmond went to counter back but Sanchez spoke before he could get a word out.

"Well we sit behind you, Barnes. If you need help with anything. We'll be right here."

The pair walked behind us to their desks and I went back to decorating mine. As I was taking my favorite mug (my mom's favorite as well) out of the box, Jones' phone rang. He picked it up before the first ring finished. After a few seconds of listening, he wrote something down on a notepad before hanging up.

"Come on, Kid. We got a body," Jones said, grabbing his car keys. I couldn't stop as my face lit up with a smile. "Don't look so happy. It's a dead body, not a new puppy."

"Right. Dead body," I said to myself as I put a serious look on my face. But it was my first dead body. My first case, I couldn't help but celebrate on the inside.

///

"Wow, big house," I muttered as we pulled up to the mansion. There were dozens of police cars in front with neighbors and news reporters standing behind the police tape that stretched across the road.

"Just means more headaches for us," Jones groaned as he drove under the police tape being held up for us. "The family and the press is going to be down our necks to get this one solved. Rich white family in the suburbs, I hate these kind of cases."

"Well it's my first case. I'm going to solve this case to start my perfect track record," I said.

"Your positive attitude is going to get annoying," Jones muttered as he parked the car behind a CSI van.

We stepped out of his car. And began walking into the house with officers and CSI everywhere.

"Ah, Jones. I'm glad we got you," an officer said as we walked in the house. "Who's the girl?"

"New partner," Jones grumbled.

"I'm Tanners, Officer Tanners," he said.

"Anastasia Barnes," I said as I held out my hand, which he shook. "Nice to meet you. So where's our victim?"

"This way," the Officer Tanners said. He lead us into the house as he spoke. "Vic's name is Jessica Cullson. Old family money. Lives here with her sister who's in Costa Rica on vacation. Their maid found the body when she came into work this morning. She also saw Jessica last night before she went out clubbing. Maid left a few minutes after her. My guess, brought home some guy who wanted sex or money and when he couldn't get it from her, killed her."

By the time Tanners was finished talking we were at the murder scene. It was in the entrance to what I'm guessing was her bedroom on the second floor. Jessica laid in a pool of blood on the tile floor. Her blonde hair was sprawled around her head. Her blank, green eyes were wide open as they stared at nothing. She had a switchblade held tightly in her right hand. I walked up to her body taking some gloves from a CSI bag near her.

"Single gunshot wound?" Jones asked.

"Yup," Tanners said. "Entrance and exit wound. The bullet lodged itself in the vanity behind her. Must have been a high powered gun."

"There's no blood on the blade," I noted. "She didn't have time to defend herself before she was shot."

"How do you know?" Tanners asked.

"With how she's holding the blade, she didn't grip it so it would be easier to stab someone. So she was either threatening someone by showing the blade, or she didn't have time to maneuver the blade so if she were to bring her arm up and swing down, to make it easier to stab someone. So she probably grabbed the switchblade, flicked it out, then was shot as she was threatening whoever it was," I explained.

"She's good," Tanners said to Jones. Jones glared at the man.

"How tall would our assailant have to be to shoot Cullson in the chest and have it hit the vanity behind her?" Jones asked. He was already looking at the vanity, noticing the strange angle the bullet was lodged in at.

"Ask CSI," Tanners shrugged. "And if you want to talk to the maid, she's in the kitchen downstairs. The family is being informed but her parents live in northern California and like I said, sister's on vacation. She's is trying to get a flight back as soon as possible. We'll be able to question her when she gets in town."

"Let's go talk to the maid," Jones said already walking to the stairs to get to the kitchen. I followed behind him quickly. He was a good foot taller than me, at least. And his legs were the longest part about him.

"Jones, how tall are you?" I asked.

"Six foot three," Jones said. "And I don't care how short you are. You can just run everywhere."

Jones was almost a whole foot taller than me. I was five foot, four and two-thirds inches. Jones was right, if I wanted to keep up with him, I would have to jog.

Once to the kitchen, it was oblivious who we were looking for. A sobbing middle-aged Latina woman was sitting on a bar stool next to a woman officer tried to consul her.

"Hello, ma'am. My name is Detective Hank Jones with Towson Police Department, this is my partner . . ." he trailed off. Did he want me to introduce myself?

"Anastasia Barnes," I spoke up. "We're just going to ask you a few questions. Are you okay with that?"

The woman nodded, wiping her face of any remaining tears.

"So ma'am, did Jessica have any enemies?" Jones asked.

"No, sir. Miss Jess was a nice girl. She didn't do anything wrong," the maid said through her tears. "I don't understand why someone would want to kill her."

"Does this place have security cameras?" I asked.

"Yes," the maid said. "But I looked at the system. The cameras were turned off when Jess came home from clubbing last night along with the security system. But I don't know why she would do that. She would never do that if she was staying alone."

"What club did she go to last night?" I asked.

"She always went to the same one, The Galaxy Illusion," the maid said. "It's very close to the lake."

"I know the place!" I cheered.

"You do?" Jones asked.

"When I was a beat cop I used to patrol down that way. I know the head security guard at The Galaxy Illusion," I said. "We can see if she left with anyone last night."

"We can go after we ask a few more questions," Jones said. "Ma'am, what time did you leave last night?"

"I left at around 10:30. Miss Jess left at 10:15," the maid said. "I got here this morning at nine. I went to go see if Miss Jess was awake when I found her."

"Did you touch anything when you arrived?" Jones asked.

"Just the front door and the stair railing," the maid said. "I didn't touch her, or anything in her room."

"Thank you, ma'am," Jones said. "We'll find who did this to her. We promise."

"Thank you," the maid said. "Miss Jess didn't deserve this."

"We understand, ma'am. We'll do all that's in our power to find whoever did this," I promised.

"Come on, kid. Let's go to that nightclub," Jones said. "I'm going to need you to do most of the talking. If you know the guy."

"Sure thing," I smiled.

"Don't look to happy, Kid. It'll just be easier for you to talk to him than me," Jones said before going to walk out of the mansion.

"I'll take it," I said following him to the car with a skip in my step.