"No! You can't do this! It's an outrage!" I fumed, slamming my case report on the oak table. Amanda looked up at me with raised eyebrows; most people wouldn't dare to talk to their department head like this, but then again, I wasn't most people.

"I'm in the homicide department, dammit! I don't waste my time on silly little thieves! For all we know, the jewellery could just have been lost."

"You knew what you were getting into when you solved the Kaileen Roller's murder last year," Amanda replied, calm as always. I had never heard Amanda speak in loud voice, or act impatient or mad or frustrated. Everyone always said that the day that Amanda raised her voice to you was the day you lost your job. As of yet, I had never heard her shout. "You knew that she was a figure in the spotlight; you knew by locking up one of her deranged fans your name would be thrust into every national newspaper. Now, people are begging you and Brooke to take on their cases, and a lot of the time I don't have the power to say no."

Kaileen Roller was Britain's sweetheart, the latest winner of Britain's Got Talent with a voice as clear as a bell and as sweet as honey. I had made a name for myself in the department - all my peers knew that me and Brooke were the best. We had merely proved it when we caught Kaileen's killer, a feat no other detectives had been able to manage, and of course people couldn't leave it there. But when it came to solving homicides, I didn't mind taking on people's requests. After all, it was what I did best. But this latest request was an indignity - to be called all the way up to godforsaken Scotland because some rich heiress had lost some jewellery?

"What do you mean you don't have the power to say no?" I demanded angrily. "You're head of homicide. Let's face it, we're the most revered department around here. Can't you just shove this off to someone who actually deals in theft? This is way below me and Brooke's status; it's like asking the Queen of England to come over and pour me tea."

"Amber, you need to calm down. This is a direct order from the head of the agency, something I can't ignore. I agree, you'd be better spending your time on murders, but Kristen McMahon is an extremely wealthy young lady, and she has decided that she wants you to come down and help her. If you do so, it's heavily hinted that she will become a generous benefactor of the agency, allowing us to recruit more detectives. So you and Brooke will be heading down to Scotland tomorrow morning, and that's final." She broke away from my stare and began reading through a report again, a clear signal that I had used up all my influence and I was to be sent away.

Whenever Amanda said that something was final, that meant that if you kept pursuing the matter you would be kicked out of there before you could say Kaileen Roller. And it wasn't just me that was at stake; Brooke had been my partner ever since I started in the homicide department, and I couldn't let her lose her job over me not backing down. With a humph of dissatisfaction, I strode out the door. I supposed I would have to take the case on, but I wasn't doing it for spoiled little rich kid Kristem McMahon who got everything she wanted. I was doing it for Brooke.

I dug my iPhone 7 out of my pocket, one of the perks of the job - getting all the latest technology for 'research' purposes.  It was more like a reward for all the hard work I'd been doing, a bonus that had nothing to do with Christmas. I hit Brooke's number, and continued my walk to our shared office. The phone rang twice before she picked up.

"Hello - "

"She's forcing us to take the case." I snapped. "This stupid, degrading case."

"What case? I haven't been in the office since filing that report."

That surprised me. I mean, I knew she hadn't been in our office, but usually she was somewhere in the department or if she was at home, getting all the paperwork sent straight to her. "Where have you been?"

"I kind of have a new boyfriend."

I rolled my eyes. "Brooke, I swear, if it's an alcoholic again -"

"For Christ's sake, that was one frickin' time!"

"Well what about the time with the homeless guy?" I countered. "Or the married one? Or the one who thought you were a prostitute? Or the -"

"Okay, okay I get your point." She grumbled. "I have a history for going after the wrong guys. But I swear, Amber, this time is completely, totally, and utterly different. He's cute, he's smart, he has a stable job."

"Sounds like a keeper."

"I'm serious, Amber, I honestly think this one is going to work out. Besides, I'm totally broke after dating that shopaholic, so I'm only dating guys that think it's their job to pay for the first date."

"A gentlemen too - really, you should just go ahead and marry him right now."

"Stop it! Anyways what was this case about?" Brooke asked curiously.

"We have to go to Scotland." I complained. "To this place called McMahon Mansion, because this really rich girl is accusing her servants of stealing her jewels. And the worst part is, there is only four servants there, so it'll be super boring!" There was a short silence, which I took to mean that she was as annoyed about it as I was.

"Have you tried getting out of it?"

"Is my name Amber Shields?"

"Dead lord, you're sarcastic today. Is Mother Nature making a visit?"

"Not everything is related to a girl's period!"

"So you are on it." She deduced smugly.

"Get your ass into work, Fielding. We're leaving first thing tomorrow morning, and I want to have as much information about Kristen McMahon and her servants as possible before we go." I ended the call.

As soon as I reached my rather large office, I opened my Apple Mac computer and delved into research. As soon as I typed 'Kristen McMahon' into Google, a flood of answers came up. She was as famous as Kaileen Roller in her own right, but for extremely different reasons.

Kristen McMahon was exactly as I had imagined - a spoiled brat of a woman, living off her enormous inheritance in McMahon Mansion, a phrase which she has actually trademarked. Seriously, she was as bad as Taylor Swift. She was twenty-eight and a half exactly, and she was ranked number seven on the list of Britain's best looking females. I clicked into the heavily weighted article, flicking past pictures of impossibly thin women in disturbingly tiny bikinis, I was faced with what I has to admit was an expertly taken photograph.

Kristen had dark brown hair swept up in a very long ponytail - not very spectacular looking, but her face more than made up for it. Her eyes were dark, an unusual oval shape, and glinting with anger. While all the other girls had simpered for the camera, her mouth was set in a hard line, her face turned to glare in the opposite direction. Her skin was tanned, but not in a fake orangey manner - she looked sort of Spanish. As a fellow female, I had to admire her outfit. I practically drooled over her gorgeous earrings and necklace, and she had chosen a royal blue beach dress with gold circles carved in to reveal slices of skin. It was V necked and left little to the imagination, but compared to some of the other photos on here she was practically a nun.

I clicked off the article - as interesting as it was, it had little relevance to the case. At any rate, the world considered Kristen to be a very beautiful woman, and that was often a dangerous combination with wealth. I then went onto her Wikipedia page which stated more of the same. She appeared to be an ice queen, never being in a serious relationship, brought up by her father as her mother died tragically in childbirth. Apparently she'd been raised in McMahon Mansion mainly by the servants, as her father had been away on business trips all of the time and compensated by giving her expensive gifts.

But this is where things got interesting. It read that her father died when she was seventeen, but for weeks beforehand it had been very public knowledge that the pair had been arguing incessantly. Her father had been trying to force her to go to university, while Kristen wanted nothing more than to be a socialite never thinking further than her next party. Then, a week before his death, he had woken the household in a frenzy telling everyone he had seen a ghost holding a knife over his bedside. The ghost was, he claimed, his deceased wife, wearing the hospital gown soaked in blood she'd died in. He claimed she was going to kill him. Of course, everyone dismissed his worries, telling him it was simply a nightmare. Over the next week he screamed the house down at exactly midnight each night, after 'seeing the ghost'. Then, one night, they found him lying in his bed with his mouth half-open in a scream and a dagger plunged through his heart.

Wikipedia said nothing more after, but clicking on a few newspaper articles filled in the blanks. They had all had a field day when Mr McMahon's personal servant at the time had came forward with the bone-chilling story, and they delighted in telling the world that the dagger had been tested for DNA and his dead wife's prints had been all over it. Meanwhile, Kristen McMahon seized control of her father's company, quickly selling it off to become a small branch in an even larger one in exchange for hard cash. She promptly sacked all the servants in the house and recruited new ones, just a lady's maid, butler, cook and waiter. Despite the fact it was the year 2017, she lived like someone from the 20th century. She took on the socialite lifestyle she'd always wanted, but understandably nobody ever visited her house. Most people were too creeped out.

It was all interesting, I thought. Exceptionally interesting. Obviously ghosts weren't real, but it would have been easy enough for someone working in the house to pretend there really was a ghost in order to cover their tracks. And DNA prints could have been transferred from something else if you had the right technology. The only person who stood to benefit from the death was Kristen, and if she looked like her late mother her father could maybe have mistaken her identity. Plus the fact that she fired all the servants could point to the fact that she was afraid one of them would stumble upon her secret - a smaller household would decrease the risk.

It seemed perfectly obvious to me that Kristen McMahon was a killer, and I didn't usually misread the signs. But if it was so easy for me to piece together from a few old newspaper articles, then how come no detectives at the time had apprehended her? Surely someone must have realised that ghosts couldn't exist, that someone in McMahon Mansion had murdered the owner?

I rapped my fingers across the desk, lost in thought. Maybe this case would be more interesting than I thought.

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I'm so excited for this novel! This first chapter is just a little sneak peak of what's to come. Thank you to PanicAtTheRealness for the amazing cover. Also, for anyone here who reads my other ongoing novel Sixth Street, don't worry, just because I've started this novel doesn't mean I've forgotten about it. Oh, and one last thing, I'll try to keep updates as regular as possible, I hope to have updates for you every weekend but if not, every other weekend. Thank you for reading, and please consider commenting or voting!