Prologue
"Stupid locksmith…"
Curses drifted upward into the bleak sky above, where early morning sunlight was struggling to break through the dense layer of clouds. The meager rays pushed at the grey mass, but to no avail. The metropolis, like a great beast, slumbered.
Slowly, the beast lurched to life, stretching and groaning in the biting cold. Lights flickered on and engines roared as the city's inhabitants bean their routine under layer upon layer to fight the chill.
One such inhabitant had begun her day with a temper as dark as the sky above her. Late, as usual, she sat huddled on her doorstep, waiting for the locksmith. Her short, dark hair whipped across her pale, freckled face as the wind picked up. Eventually, after checking her watch repeatedly, she decided to retrieve her keys by herself. She swore again as she pulled on the handle of her front door. In her haste, she had neglected to grab her keys when she went flying out the door, realizing her mistake seconds too late as the lock clicked behind her.
"He's probably taking his bloody time," she muttered. "Well, some of us have places to be, and sadly, cars do not start without keys."
She laughed as she glanced over at the heap of metal parked outside her apartment, dented and rusting, one of the hubcaps missing, license plate askew.
The passenger seat window may be permanently shut, she thought fondly, but it runs.
A sudden, fierce gust of wind brought on another bout of swearing, and she hurried around to the side of the building. Her apartment was on the bottom floor in the back corner. The cramped space used to bother her, but she had been spending less and less time there. Its only function was that of a sleeping space, four walls and a door to keep out the chill and the thieves. As the years had gone by, though, she had come to realize that if someone really wanted to get in, four cracked walls were just a minor inconvenience.
Balancing precariously atop a dented box, she shoved at the small window set high in the wall above her. The bulging, cardboard box beneath her wobbled as she wrestled with the window. Suddenly, the frail latch inside snapped and the window shot upwards. The girl was pitched to the ground as the box collapsed under her, spilling its contents around her. She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the dirt that now clung to her. By making a pile out of the various articles of clothing and debris, she was able to grab the window ledge and pull herself through the tight space. With a yell, she tumbled down onto the threadbare carpet, its worn layers unable to soften the blow of the concrete floor beneath. A glance at the old clock on the wall was enough to propel her to her feet. Precious minutes were wasted as she rummaged about before emerging triumphantly, keys in hand. She squeezed the keys in her hand as if to make sure they were still there as she raced out the front door.
She paused as she passed the window, staring at the broken pieces of the lock on the floor.
It's not like there's anything worth stealing anyway, she thought bitterly, but it was a very small consolation.
The girl's foul mood intensified as she wrenched open the car door and slid into the front seat; although she had closed the window, to her it looked like a beacon, drawing thieves like moths to a flame.
The engine roared to life on the fourth try, and the girl pulled onto the street quickly. The clock set in the dashboard seemed to be moving too rapidly; how did it get to be so late? The glowing green numbers flickered as the ancient car bounced over the bumpy road. They read 8:56 as the girl screeched around a corner and pulled up short behind a row of police tape stretching across a small, grimy parking lot. She leapt out of the car and slammed the door behind her. The frigid air wormed its way down the collar of her jacket even as she pulled it more tightly about her slim frame, shivering.
Having spotted a small group of people in the far corner of the lot, she ducked under the tape and started jogging toward them. A young policeman seemed to appear out of nowhere, overly agitated and babbling a mile a minute.
"You! You there! Excuse me, little girl, but this is a crime scene!" he spluttered. The girl stared at him for a few seconds before rolling her eyes and digging into an inside pocket in her jacket. After she found her wallet, she flipped it open and waved her badge in the policeman's face.
"Happy now?" she asked, continuing on her way.
"No!" he replied, indignant. "This is not in keeping with protocol at all! Who called you out here? Who are you? Why has your department been involved with this particular incident?"
The reached the crime scene, where the girl stood with her hands on her hips, trying to drown out the rookie cop, who was still muttering behind her.
"This girl," he panted, "is trespassing on a police investi-"
"HATCHETT!" The lead detective had just realized that someone had arrived, and not only that, but that he recognized her. "YOU-ARE-LATE!" he bellowed, spittle flying from his mouth. "An hour and a half late!"
"An hour and twenty-six minutes," she said, quietly.
"What was that?"
"Nothing sir. Merely an apology sir."
"Do you know what I think of apologies, Hatchett?"
"Yes sir," she said automatically, "apologies are-"
"Sir!" the policeman interjected. "I really cannot allow this to go on any longer, sir! She has not been formally requested at this specific crime scene and is therefore trespassing on a police investigation and-"
The detective turned toward the young policeman and shouted, "Last time I checked, it was up to me who belonged at my crime scene, and Ms. Hatchett here has all the clearance necessary."
"But sir, it isn't strictly necessary that her department be involved! The required forms have not been filled out and approved."
"Again, I thought I was up to me to decide what was necessary or not, and I say she stays. With her department involved, we can free up more officers in our department; we've been running short. But if you want to hamper the investigative activities of the police offices and reduce my task force, by all means, you go ahead and try!"
"Sir, I wasn't suggesting you reduce the task force, I was merely commenting on the appropriateness of the situation at present."
"Do I look like I are what you think?"
The man backed up as the detective advanced. "N-no sir, I mean, you look lovely sir, I mean-she shouldn't be here, sir!" he stammered.
The girl sighed and left the two of them to their argument. The crime scene lay spread before her, littered with garbage but with no apparent signs of a struggle. The body was pale and bruised, and rigor had started to set in. The state of the corpse coupled with the lack of evidence at the scene led the girl to believe that what they were looking at was the secondary crime scene. The preliminary was most likely at the murderer's house or somewhere near his home.
She turned as the detective's voice rose.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" he roared at the policeman, "Or do you enjoy interrupting my investigation? Hmm? Is that it?" The policeman was still retreating, shaking his head in wide-eyed fear. "STAY-AWAY-FROM-MY-CRIME-SCENE!" Every word was punctuated with a jab in the unfortunate man's chest. "Now get out of my sight before I have you fired!"
The policeman ran off without another word, and the detective whirled around to face the girl, his face red from exertion. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but he cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand. She smirked, bending to examine the body.
"You know, he really was just doing his job," she said pointedly. She paused, thinking, then grinned. "And I do believe those were tears in his eyes."
The detective grunted and tossed her the evidence report. "All right, lads," he said to the two men present, "now that Ms. Hatchett has finally decided to show her face, we can wrap this up."
One of the men extracted a body bag from his kit while the other carefully arranged the body for easier transport. The girl sifted through the file, picking out the important details. The body was a woman's, a prostitute, dumped in the back corner of the deserted lot. She had been strangled to death; circular bruises adorned her otherwise bare neck. A single bite mark had been found on the prostitute's shoulder, and the wound would be cross-referenced with dental records along with a fingerprint scan. Preliminary tox-screen was negative, no signs of self-defense. Just another homicide in the crime-infested city. The girl was about to close the file when she glanced at the upper corner. The information was commonplace, unrelated to the actual crime, but it caught her attention. She sighed; the prostitute was only seventeen.
She forced the man through the revolving door, careful to keep a tight grip on his bound wrists. He fidgeted, and she gave him another shove. At the front desk, two patrolmen were waiting to relieve her of her prisoner to bring him into the holding cell. She collected her fee from the smiling woman behind the desk and obligingly took the proffered stack of paperwork. Pocketing the check, she hurried off through various doors and hallways before finally arriving at her desk. Located in the back corner as she was, she was often left alone.
She tossed the papers down on the desk and slumped in her chair. Musing, she grasped the I.D. tags around her neck and turned them over and over in her hands. They read:
Faye Hatchett
Bounty Hunter