Disclaimer: Characters within do not belong to me. Plotline does, though…steal and die.
Summary: A/U: Kagome Higurashi, one of L.A.'s top detectives, is called on to take on one of her toughest murder cases yet…but the murderer is no ordinary murderer.
Author's Notes: My first InuYasha fanfic. This mostly came from a dream I recently had and I've been thinking about it lately. It wouldn't go away until it formed into this. Hehehe, be kind on reviews please…I haven't posted anything like this since I was twelve. It WILL be a lemon at some point and I will warn you ahead of time when that comes. The lemon chapter will NOT be posted of but will be posted on and Enjoy the first chapter!
In The Crosshairs
By: Nikolaren
Chapter 1: Assignment
The alarm clock went off at seven in the morning, as usual, and the music of WARR 103.4 echoed throughout the bedroom with the even beat of a rock song. This caused the sleeping woman in the bed to groan and lift a hand, fumbling to hit the snooze button so she could get at least another seven minutes of sleep. Her fingers succeeded in their mission finding the damned button after several moments of groggy searching and the song abruptly cut off to plunge the room into silence once more, save for the sounds of early morning traffic outside her apartment window.
The thick heat from the desert was already settling over the city and caused her fifth floor apartment, even with its many opened windows, to feel stuffy and nearly oven-like. The slight breeze coming through the open with the aid of her fan was a slight form of relief however and made the bedroom fairly comfortable, save for the overly-cheery early morning sun pouring in through the pulled blinds.
Detective Kagome Higurashi sighed as she let the inevitable take place, burying her head in the pillow that was held in her arms and cursing the sun; her job; the horns from the asshole drivers outside; her alarm clock. She was not a morning person. Laying there for several minutes, she let herself wake up as much as possible without a cup of coffee and grumbled incoherently when her alarm clock went off again.
"I hate Monday mornings." She grumbled, pushing off her coverlet and sheets to reach over to shut off her alarm clock. She swung her long legs over the side of her bed and stretched as her bare feet touched the floor, waiting to wake up a little more before setting about her morning routine. She was dressed in a simple white tank top and a pair of dark blue running shorts, her ebony hair mussed and sleep tossed. Standing, Kagome tossed her bed in order before walking out of her room to head for her first stop of the day: her coffee pot. Every morning she worshipped whoever had made coffee pot timers, they were an ingenious invention.
Her apartment was small, quaint and in decent shape. There weren't many pictures hanging on the walls, but the ones that were there had her family in them as did the picture frames spread in various places across her apartment. She had a few keepsakes and decorations throughout the apartment, like her high school diploma and her police academy diploma as well. The walls had a soft beige paint on them that changed with the time of day and the sun's position, which she found comforting because it reminded her a great deal of her living room back on the east coast with her family. New Jersey was an entirely different place than L.A.
The living room was a roomy and organized with a small couch with a coffee table in front of it, the television positioned against the wall and facing said couch. Her work desk, cluttered with papers and case files, was next to a window over looking the cityscape and streets below. The desk had a lap top and a reading lamp on it, as well as her work brief case and an empty coffee mug.
Padding into the kitchen with her bare feet, Kagome poured herself that much need cup of coffee and sipped the hot liquid with a content sigh. She started rummaging through the cabinets, searching out some pop tarts or a milk-n-cereal bar. Anything in her stomach to get her through until lunch time would be a plus, considering her lunch probably wouldn't be until nearly one-thirty this afternoon. Finally finding a granola bar, she opened it and took a bite before taking that and her coffee to the living room.
Sitting down on her worn couch, she turned on the television and glanced at the clock on her wall. Her shift didn't start until eight-thirty, so she had time to watch a half hour of news before taking her morning shower and then walk the two blocks to work. She enjoyed the challenge of being a detective, the mystery and the thrill of the chase was what she lived for although the grueling hours and the many cold leads did put a damper on those. However, for a single woman, she had nothing to worry about tying her down in her personal life save for her cat, Buuyo.
Turning on the television, she relaxed back into her couch and propped her feet up on the coffee table and sipped her coffee, closing her eyes to savor the vanilla flavoring in it. Straight black, vanilla bean coffee fresh out of the pot, oh the perks of life. The weather report came on, another scorching hot day in Sin City with the highs in the upper 90s; nothing surprising there. The news report went on to describe stories within the government and the war overseas, as well as local news.
She sat there and watched for a little while longer, glancing at the clock for a moment before standing and shutting off the television. She downed the rest of her coffee, sighing as she stripped off her tank top and headed for the bathroom. She tossed the shirt into the hamper, turning on the shower to just under blood heat and finished undressing. Brushing her teeth while the water warmed, she looked at her reflection. At twenty-three, she should really be going clubbing or other things people her age did. Instead, she worked her ass off at a job to catch and condemn criminals with little to no sleep. The dark circles under her dove gray eyes were enough proof of that.
Kagome rinsed her mouth out of the tooth paste before shutting off the sink and stepping into the shower, bracing her arms against the wall and letting her head hang between them. Water sluiced down her slender, wiry muscled body and her ebony locks stuck to tanned skin. She sighed, closing her eyes as she let the constant knot of tension between her shoulders relax, although it never truly disappeared. She had never considered herself truly beautiful; pretty, maybe, but beautiful no. She had faded scars on her delicate-looking body; everything from bullet grazes to knife wounds…a hazard of her job, if you will. In the end, it never really mattered to Kagome how she looked but if she got her job done. That was something she always made sure she accomplished; she hated leaving business unfinished.
She straightened, her spine cracking a little as she did so, and she reached for the shampoo. As she washed her hair, she relaxed and let her mind get set into 'work mode', as she called it. The Daringle case was currently on her plate, a rape and murder that had happened outside of the Palms casino downtown. The victim had been found in an alleyway near by asphyxiated, raped, and beaten to the point when one could hardly identify her. It was a brutal scene.
Kagome rinsed her hair and began to wash her body, a headache already forming between her eyes. There were too many loose ends in that case, too many options and open ended questions. It had gotten to the point wear she couldn't figure anything out in the case. Hell, she still didn't have any suspects! Victoria Daringle was an orphan, her linage unknown and she had no friends to be found. 'A loner, typical,' Kagome thought as she rinsed her body off and turned off the shower.
She dried herself off and wrapped a towel around her hair, then one about her body and stepped out of the bathroom. She dressed in a simple pair of black slacks and a beige, button-up cotton blouse; it was just too damn hot for any other material today. She dried her hair and pinned it up in a loose bun, pausing to look at the mirror as she strapped on her holster and placed her gun in it.
"Time to get to work, Higurashi," She murmured as she looked at her reflection then grabbed her brief case to head for work.
"Well, Sango, mind telling me what the hell happened here?" Kagome asked as she ducked underneath the caution tape to walk on to the scene, accepting gloves from a crime scene investigator. She pulled them on, looking to her partner before glancing about the scene.
A murder, a man shot in broad day on the streets. Witnesses all around, many blood spattered and sitting with police or in one of three ambulances that had responded to the 911 call. The victim was laying in a crumpled heap partially on the side walk and partially in the street, traffic backed up on both sides with news reporters trying to get a snapshot or a comment from the officers and investigators working the scenes.
The twenty-five year old turned to her with a slight frown, breaking off from questioning a witness as she pointed to the body that lay on the ground. "Someone was shot and killed." She grinned a bit; to be in this business, you had to have a sick sense of humor or the job would drive you insane.
"No shit, Sherlock." Kagome rolled her eyes, it wasn't even noon yet and she had a headache. Thank God that the Commissioner transferred the Daringle to Kouga Okami, her former partner. He was much more capable of finding things that she didn't.
"What have we got here?" She walked to the body, kneeling down and pulled back the white sheet as Sango walked over to join her.
"Caucasian male, I'd guess around thirty-three. Apparently, from what the witnesses say, there was a loud bang and this poor guy's brains went flying everywhere." The elder woman explained, pointing to the entry and exit wounds. "Very clean shot; right through the left temple and out through the jaw joint on the other side. I'm surprised his head didn't pop." She smirked a bit as she looked to Kagome and pointed at a bullet that was buried deeply in the cement. "I'm going to have them send that over to ballistics as soon as we finish up here."
Kagome nodded slowly, standing and looking around. "Hmm," She frowned softly, looked about with her sharp eyes. "But the bullet couldn't have been fired at this level, not with a wound like that. Did any of the witnesses mention anything about a shooter?" She glanced to her partner then started scanning the building around her with her eyes, trying to find a possible place for a gunman.
Sango shook her head, her dark brown ponytail swishing from side to side and she, too, started to look around the area with her dark, coffee colored eyes. "No," She said, "however, if I'm guessing right, the bullet's path might have come from up there." She pointed upwards, towards a three story apartment building. "If my algebra isn't off, that has just the right slope and angle to the bullet wound."
"Nice find, let's take a look." Kagome looked to her, nodding before heading towards the building. "Motion for one or two men in uniforms to follow us just in case we need back up, alright? The murderer might still be there, but enough time has probably passed for them to make a get away since there was a great deal of chaos on the streets." She headed for the building and pulled off her gloves, tossing them into a near by trash can before opening the door and heading up the stairs to the roof.
Sango followed, two policemen following her with guns at the ready. They paused at the roof door, silent for a long moment before Kagome made the signal to move in. Sango jumped in first, kicking open the door and held her gun out, ready to shoot at the sign of danger and looked about. "Spread out!" She yelled, looking about and searching for a perpetrator.
"Clear over here, Detective Taijya!" Came one cop's voice and the second one followed the same suit. They had found no one up there.
"Kagome," Sango called, "did you find any one?" She turned to looked towards Kagome, frowning a little.
"I didn't find anyone, but I did find something." Kagome voice came from the other side of the roof, the part facing the crime scene. "Sango, come over here quickly!"
The detective turned, jogging towards her partner's voice and looking about. She blinked in surprise when she saw Kagome crouched near a brown jacket and a magnifying scope that resembled one that Special Forces gunmen used. "What the hell…?"
"Get the crew up here and get this packed up and dusted for print." Kagome said softly, standing and looking down at it. Something grew in the pit of her stomach; something cold and hard, much like a rock of dread. She had a feeling, a feeling that this wouldn't be the last case like this. "I've got a feeling that this is going to be a long assignment." She sighed, running a hand through her hair and looked around, stepping back to look at everything. This did not bode well.