Phoenix walked out of the detention center. He sighed deeply and rubbed the back of his neck. "I've had more successful questionings…"

"Yeah!" Maya pouted. "Usually when we come to defend someone they actually tell us stuff!"

"I'm sorry…" Colin groaned. "Tori can be stubborn." Maya and Phoenix stare at Colin. "Okay, she can be really stubborn. It's her defense mechanism. You just have to drag her into the harsh reality."

"So do you know anything about the murder?" Maya asked. "Since your sister isn't going to be any help."

"I only know what she told me when she called me right after they took her to the detention center. She said that she went over to Roy's apartment and found her dead."

"Roy?" Phoenix asked. "I thought the victim was a girl."

"Oh, she is." Colin said. "Her name is Royal Biv, but everyone calls her Roy. See, Roy Biv and my sister were competing for some scholarship or something. Her apartment is right up here."

Colin led Phoenix and Maya towards the apartment. There were several cop cars parked outside in the parking lot, but it appeared that all of the detectives where inside. Colin led the two up the stairs to the third floor.

Colin didn't really know which room was Roy's, but he didn't have to look hard to find out. Yellow crime scene tape marked the doorway. Phoenix looked inside, but there was no sign of anyone.

"Where is everybody?" Colin wondered. "I thought this was the scene of a murder. Isn't there supposed to be cops everywhere?"

Maya stepped under the yellow tape and walked into the room.

"Hey!" Colin said in alarm "We can't go in there! It's a crime scene!"

"No one is here, they won't know. Besides, it's only bad if you get caught. C'mon!" She grabbed Colin and Phoenix's arms and dragged them into the room.

Phoenix pulled his arm out of Maya's grasp once he was in the room. He quickly scanned over the room. He had to find some sort of evidence proving Tori was at the crime scene or they weren't going to get much further in the case.

"How are we going to find anything in this mess?" Maya groaned.

The apartment was a disaster. The floor was covered in papers. He bent over to pick one up and look at it. On the paper were quick sketches of a page from a comic book. In one panel there was a rough outline of a handsome boy talking to a blushing schoolgirl. The rest was mostly unidentifiable shapes and figures with some word of dialogue scrawled in the speech bubbles.

"These are all comic book drawings." Phoenix said handing Maya the page.

"Of course Roy is a comic book artist, or well, she was trying to be." Colin said.

"Hey!" Maya picked up a clear packet off the floor. She unwound the string that held the packet closed, and more drawings fell out into her hands. "Nick, these are different than the others. And why are they in a packet? Are they special?"

"I don't know…" Phoenix scratched the back of his head.

"Maybe," Maya said, "they're the finished project! And Roy put them in this packet to take to a publisher!"

"Nope." Colin said as he took one of the pages from Maya. "These drawings are in a different style. And I-"

Colin was interrupted by the sounds of shuffling feet, and the scruffy Detective Gumshoe scrambled into the room.

"Hey, pal! You can't be in here! We're conducting an investigation here!"

Phoenix stepped back from Maya and Colin. Colin quickly and quietly slipped the packet into the bag he was carrying. He nodded silently to Phoenix. Maya gave a giggle, which was returned with a quizzical look from Gumshoe.

"You!" Gumshoe turned his gaze to Phoenix. "I knew it had to be you, pal! Always snooping around."

"Nice to see you to Detective." Phoenix said sarcastically.

"Detective," Maya stepped up to Gumshoe. "Do you have any information about the murder?"

"I can tell you one thing, pal. And that's that with Mister Edgeworth on the case there's no way you sister is going to be found innocent. We got a witness and everything."

"A witness?" Colin spoke up. " I didn't hear anything about that."

"That's because that girl didn't see her."

" So the witness was in the apartment…" Phoenix said to himself. "That's right. She's the victim's room mate, Ann Kert."

" Well, where is she?" Maya said looking around the room and glimpsing at the closed doors, some how hoping that if see stared at them long enough Ann would come parading out of them.

"She isn't here anymore. Mister Edgeworth told her to stay at her job at the supermarket down the road until the court summoned her for the trial."

"Supermarket down the street… Got it. Thanks, Detective." Phoenix said as he turned around to leave.

"Are we going to check out Ann Kert, Nick?" Maya asked as the three stepped into the elevator.

"We will, Maya, but first we have to get Tori to talk…"

Sorry if there has been such a long gap between updates, this chapter has been giving me lots of headaches, and I don't like it very much. Anyways, I'm sorry if Colin is too Mary Sue-ish, but I'm working on it.

See what I did with the victim's name? Roy Biv? Artist? Colors? I thought it was clever. I'm waaay to lazy to change Roy to a boy, but I should since I thought of his/her/it's name after writing the first chapter…