Happy endings are for children.

A body was found floating in the harbor this morning. Jane Doe, badly beaten and waterlogged. Cause of death is probably the knife that was broken off between her ribs, but forensics needs to get paid so I'm standing back and sipping on a cheap cup of coffee while they deduce the obvious.

My name is Yang Xiao Long. I'm a detective.

I was young when I joined the force. I'm not young anymore. Too many crimes, too many bodies, too many lies. Too much booze. Too much...

I take another sip of coffee and wish it had a little something to take the edge off but my flask is empty and the liquor stores don't open 'till noon. It's still early morning, though you can hardly see the sun through the overcast gray. The wind off the bay is cool and wet and carries on it the stink of salt, engine oil, and dead fish. This is where the city's garbage gets dumped.

There's a flash of light and I turn my head just in time to take the second flash full in the face.

"Lie!" I shout, trying to blink the spots out of my eyes. "Get your ass back behind that police line right now!"

Lie Ren is a photographer at the Juniper, a paper known for gory pictures and exploitative articles. It's trash, but I keep my subscription up to date. Ren's a tall glass of water, and about as interesting. I don't dislike the man, but if he can string two sentences together I haven't heard him do it.

"Aw, come on, chief," a voice sings out. Lie Ren's partner, Nora Valkyrie, a lightning bolt in a pink dress. Full of energy and pep. A journalist, though I use the term loosely. I've caught her humming to herself while writing up notes on a double murder-suicide. She seems completely unphased by the horrors her job entails. Probably why she's so happy.

"You know this isn't the scene of the murder," Nora lilts, as if explaining to a toddler. "So we can't really disturb it that much, can we?" She flutters her baby blue eyes at me in a mimicry of flirting. "Besides," she chirps, rocking back on her heels, "it's not good business for you to cut out the Juniper, is it?"

"You shouldn't be so confident when you're pressing your luck," I growl, but I still shout out to the others to let Ren take his pictures. Nora's not wrong, it's not good business to make enemies, not when you can help it. The Juniper may not bury you in dirt like some people in this town, but they'll bury you in ink. And for a cop looking forward to retirement, that can be just as bad. Besides, they can be useful sometimes.

Nora stands next to me and we watch Ren do his work, the flash of his camera shooting off like a machine gun. Nora sighs wistfully. "Isn't he dreamy?"

I take in the scene. A man with unkempt hair in a green suit taking pictures over a broken girl and being fawned over by a woman who looks like she's on her way to a sock hop. Dreamy isn't the word I'd use.

I don't answer her question, instead I ask, "Why are you always dressed up like you're on your way to a party?"

She looks at me with a twinkle in her eye. "I am the party," she says playfully before turning back to the murder at hand. "So the girl, she was stabbed?" When I nodded she continued. "I can keep that out of the article."

I must have shown my surprise because she laughs at me. "You want to keep the details light, right? Makes it easier to confirm the suspect when you get him. The Juniper is prepared to do everything it can to help the VPD." She trails off and mutters "At least on this case" under her breath.

"What's so special about this case?" I ask, eyeing her sideways.

"What?" she asks. "Oh, nothing." She stops and tilts her head. "Well, I guess there could be, but I don't know." Nora lowers her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "And if we can identify her, we'll let you know before the next edition."

"Alright, what's your game, Nora?" This was beyond strange. Holding back details was one thing, but leaking information? Nobody at the Juniper played that game unless they wanted something and wanted it badly.

"Well," she draws out the word as if it were a fuse on a bomb she wanted to be nice and far away when it went off. "You're getting a new partner."

"Yeah, and?" My old partner had retired. He was my first partner, I was his last. It was a big deal for me. I'd come onto the force wide-eyed and bushy tailed and he'd taught me the ugly truth of the job. It's dirty, he'd said, and you can't do it without getting dirty yourself. I'd learned a lot from him but didn't rue his departure, save for the apprehension of having to train some green rookie.

"And I want an exclusive interview from the two of you," Nora answers.

Ren had finished his shutterbuggery and was walking back towards us. "Why would you want that?" I ask. I'm not anything special, just another detective in an underfunded prescient. Who wants to read about me?

"Oh, it's gonna be a great story," Nora says, staring off into the distance with a twinkle in her eyes and a near-maniacal grin gripping her face. Seeing my confusion she continues, her smile slipping into slyness. "You don't know who it is yet, do you?" When I shake my head she practically squeals. "Detective Ruby Rose, newly transferred from Patch."

The flash goes off in my face but I barely register having my picture taken. Detective Ruby Rose, newly transferred from Patch.

My sister.

Suddenly a dead body isn't the hardest part of my day to get through.