I went and sat at the desk that was given to me in the open bullpen, and I almost believed that there was smoke coming out of my ears, just like in cartoons. I groaned; I really should have kicked him where it hurt the most and the sun never shone.

"Hey, I heard you and Hunt got assigned together." Ava's voice cut my thoughts off. "Rumors transfer fast around here," she explained when she noticed that my eyebrows were tangled in a confused frown.

I sighed. "Yeah, but apparently, he isn't very enthusiastic about it." Understatement of the year.

She chuckled. "He's actually one of the best agents around here, so I guess the idea of having a partner might have hurt his ego."

I was about to retort, but I clasped my lips shut when I noticed Hunt approaching us.

He stopped at my desk and looked at me with a blank face. "We just received our first case. We need to leave. Now." He gave me his back the second the last word left his mouth and started walking toward the elevator.

My eyes squinted at his attitude, but he didn't see me. Ava sent me a smile that I sensed was both apologetic and supportive. I sighed before I stood up and followed Hunt.

"We will take my car," he said once I joined him in the elevator.

Something inside of me snapped. "Listen, you don't get to treat me that way or order me around by any means. We're partners; you're not my boss."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "I'm not giving you an order, but can you think about it for a second? Why the hell are we going to use two cars when we are going to the same destination?"

Well, he had a point, but I rolled my eyes at him, anyway. I decided to walk silently next to him until we reached his car, which was a Ford Explorer. We both got in and he started driving toward the crime scene.

The drive was full of awkward silence until I finally decided to break it after I realized that he hadn't even briefed me about the case. "So, what's this case about?"

"It's a homicide," he answered coldly, maintaining his gaze on the road.

"Oh, thank you. I have no idea what I'd have done without your super helpful enlightenment." I rolled my eyes, sarcasm dripping off my tone.

He fixed me with a hard glare. "Oh, look at that; I think you have a good sense of humor."

"At least one of us does." I gave him a side look, wanting to get on his nerves.

I swear I could see him smile a little, but he covered it quickly. "A woman in her late thirties was murdered in her house. One neighbor discovered the body and called the police and they asked for our help due to the heinous nature of the crime."

I nodded before turning to look at him. I sighed. "Look, we have to work together whether we like it or not. The least we can do is act like we tolerate each other. Is that okay with you, Agent Hunt?"

"Liam," he muttered, still focusing his eyes on the road.

"What?" I raised an eyebrow.

"My name is Liam," he said, looking at me. "We're going to be stuck with each other for a while, and it's better if we're on a first-name basis, Alexandra."

I smiled a little. "In that case, please call me Alex." I always preferred people around me to call me Alex instead of Alexandra.

"Alright, Alex," he said with the slightest of smiles before he returned his gaze to the road.

"Are you naturally this much of a pain, or do you try?" I turned to look at him with a smirk.

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "And aren't you just full of sarcasm?"

"Oh, I know. Isn't it great?" I shrugged with a grin. "It's one of the many perks of being in my company."

He narrowed his eyes at me but said nothing. I laughed under my breath and decided to take pity on him. I concentrated my gaze out the window for the rest of the ride.

A while later, we reached a suburban neighborhood on the Upper East Side. Liam gestured to one of the houses. "That's our house."

He put the car in park, and we both got out and headed toward the house. Two officers were standing in front of it; we showed them our badges and they let us in.

"Agent Hunt, good to have you here," one of the police officers said as he shook hands with Liam.

"Officer Jones, this is Agent Ryan," Liam said, looking at me. He threw me a look before he continued. "My partner."

I narrowed my eyes at him before I shook hands with the officer. After that, Officer Jones led us to the living room where the body was found.

A woman was lying on the floor with her eyes wide open and a pool of her own blood surrounding her. My eyes immediately traveled to the wounds on her head—the ones that ended her life. I had to admit that the scene was gruesome. Someone had struck this poor woman with a hard object on her head with extreme force more than once. Her skull was broken, and small parts of her brain had fallen out of it and were lying on the floor next to her.

Swallowing hard, I pushed down the lump that had formed in my throat.

"Alisson Clark; thirty-nine. Judging by the stiffness of the body, the expected time of death is between 8 and 10 AM," Officer Jones began. "One of her neighbors came to check on her saying that she heard loud screams. She found the door wide open, so she went inside and found the body. Also, we have looked everywhere, but the murder weapon was nowhere to be found here or in the surrounding area."

I wouldn't lie. I felt a little uneasy; this was my first case, after all. Liam put on a pair of gloves before stepping in to examine the body. I took a deep breath before I did the same.

"What's the cause of death?" Liam asked.

I stepped forward. "Judging by the injuries on her head, it's probably a severe fracture to the base of the skull that damaged the tissues of the brain due to blunt force trauma, causing instant death. Or she may have lost consciousness and died from bleeding out after a short time. Well, the autopsy results will reveal that after all," I said, looking at the body thoroughly. However, my money was on the former because the trauma to the head was pretty ugly. Blood and brains were splattered across the floor. "But there are over six different injuries. The culprit had to hit her more than once to make sure she was dead. I think some of the blows were even inflicted post-mortem."

Liam looked at me with a raised eyebrow for a few seconds before he added. "There are no signs of struggle visible on her, but yes, we have to wait for the autopsy results to make sure."

"But this could mean that she knew her killer," I suggested. "I don't believe that this might be something like a burglary that went wrong."

"Was there anything missing from the house?" Liam asked the detective.

"We don't know yet," Officer Jones answered. "There are no signs of breaking and entering, and there's no mess anywhere in the house. Anyway, we are waiting for the husband to confirm that."

"Did someone call him?" I asked, referring to the victim's husband.

"Yeah, he's on his way here," Officer Jones replied.

Liam rose to his feet. "Agent Ryan and I will look through the house until he arrives."

I rose to my feet and looked at him. "Where to start?"

"Let's start with the main bedroom," he replied, and I nodded in agreement.

We went to the bedroom and started looking everywhere for something unusual, but everything was in place, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I started searching the nightstands and my hands fell on some medications.

"Are those sleeping pills?" Liam asked, pointing at the bottles in my hand.

"No, I think they're meant to be taken after abortions or miscarriages," I answered, then I met Liam's gaze. "She had recently lost a baby."

He nodded before letting out a huff. "I found nothing."

I was about to say me too, but we heard loud voices coming from downstairs, so we went to check out what was happening.

"No, Alisson. She can't be gone!" a man shouted in disbelief.

"This is the husband," Officer Jones whispered to us.

"Mr. Clark, I'm Agent Hunt, and this is Agent Ryan. We're with the FBI," Liam introduced us. "I'm terribly sorry for your loss, but you have to cooperate with us, so we can find whoever did that to your wife."

Mr. Clark nodded slowly; signs of shock were still visible on him.

"We would like you to check if anything is missing from the house, but you can do that later. First, we need to ask you some questions," Liam started. "Did your wife have any kind of foes or someone who would want to hurt her?"

"No, Alisson was kind to everyone. I can't think of anyone who would want to do that to her," Mr. Clark answered, his voice breaking a little.

"Okay, can you please tell me your whereabouts today between 8 and 10 AM?"

"Why?" Mr. Clark asked, his tone rising. "Do you think that I might have done that to her?"

"It's not like that, sir. We just want to make sure of everything and put our records straight," I said, trying to reassure him.

The man looked between the both of us and sighed. "I left the house at 7 and arrived at work at 8 AM. I didn't leave un—until they called and told me about what happened to Alisson." His voice broke again. "You can check with my co-workers."

Liam ordered someone to check if that was true.

"Sir, could you tell me about your wife's mental health after losing the baby?" I asked. "Were there any changes in her routine or attitude?" I thought that maybe the loss of her baby triggered her to do something impulsive that might have gained her enemies.

I watched as Mr. Clark's face fell. "What baby?" he questioned, giving me a bewildered look.

I swallowed hard, sensing that things would soon take an even more drastic turn. "Sir, did you know if your wife was on any medications?"

The man shook his head. Liam and I shared a nervous look.

"Mr. Clark, we found some medications in your room. We believe it belonged to your wife," Liam explained, sounding a little uneasy. "It's used after abortions or miscarriages."

The man narrowed his eyes to a squint and started talking between gritted teeth. "Alisson and I kept trying so hard to get pregnant for almost ten years. We didn't check with any doctors. I didn't want her to feel bad if she was the infertile one, so I examined myself without telling her." He paused for a moment. "And I found out that I was sterile, but I hadn't had enough courage to tell her."

My eyes widened as the realization hit me, but I covered it quickly.

I noticed a vein popping on Mr. Clark's neck, and his tone increased as he continued to talk. "So, you can't be telling me that my wife was pregnant, as this can't be possible. Alisson couldn't have had a baby unless—" He paused as if he was trying to grasp the idea, then he shook his head before looking at us with eyes full of both doubt and agony. "There must be a mistake because if it's true, it would mean..." He looked between me and Liam in disbelief. "No, Alisson would never cheat on me." Tears were gathering in his eyes as he finished.

"Sir, it's possible that there might be some kind of misunderstanding. We need to wait for the medical examiner's report to make sure," I said, trying to give him some reassurance.

The man nodded, but I could see that his eyes were still full of doubt.

"While we wait, could you tell us about the people who were close to your wife? Any close friends or relatives with whom she might have kept secrets?" Liam asked, getting a notebook and a pen out of his pocket.

"Yeah, her best friend's name is Audrey Matthews, but she's currently out of the state," the man said in disappointment, but then he seemed as if he remembered something. "She used to keep a diary; it's in our room. I never looked inside of it as I knew it was very private to her, but now I think that I really should have done that." He scoffed at the last part.

"That's really helpful, sir," I told him. "Maybe you could wait here with the officers and try to look around the house to check if there's anything unusual or missing, and we will let you know if we find anything."

Mr. Clark nodded and walked away with some officers.

"That was quite awkward," Liam said, letting out a sigh.

"Tell me about it." I sighed, shaking my head.

"Now let's go find that journal and dig into Mrs. Clark's mysterious, and apparently, very eventful life." He started walking up the stairs toward the bedroom and I followed him.

We searched the room all over again, but we were having a hard time finding the diary. I decided to look through her wardrobe again, more thoroughly this time.

"I found it!" I exclaimed once I found hidden inside a secret drawer that was behind some of her clothes.

"Okay, let's see if it has anything useful," Liam said.

Opening the journal, I started scanning through it in a quick pattern. I stopped when I reached some pages that were written almost three months ago.

"Well, it looks like we won't need to wait for the medical examiner's report, after all," I said before I handed the journal to Liam.

"Wow, that's pretty detailed," Liam said, his blue eyes widening a little as he looked through the journal.

I had to agree with that. "She was writing about someone called Nick."

"Yeah, but no last name, though," Liam said in disappointment as he closed the journal.

"Yeah." I sighed. "But we should ask Mr. Clark if he knows any Nicks."

Liam nodded. "I really pity that man. This is a lot to grasp."

I nodded. I couldn't agree more. Receiving two blows in the head at once got to hurt pretty badly, for sure.

We went downstairs and informed Mr. Clark about what we found. To say that the man was hurt was an understatement, and I was really feeling sorry for him. He went through so many agonies of a lifetime in only a few hours.

However, when we asked him about knowing anybody with the name Nick, all that hurt turned into fury, and he seemed like he was ready to kill someone.

"That son of a bitch!" he barked, walking back and forth, fuming.

"Sir, do you know who that is?" I asked in measured tones.

"He is my best friend. The fucking bastard is my best friend." Mr. Clark scoffed, a vein popping on his neck. "Three months ago, I had to travel outside of the country for work and I asked him to take care of my wife while I was gone." He laughed bitterly. "Well, he definitely took care of her, after all."

"Mr. Clark, do you know where he lives?" Liam asked.

"Yes," Mr. Clark answered with clenched teeth.

"Good, because I believe we have to pay him a visit," Liam decided, sharing a look with me...