Chapter One: Investigation

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    It seems like my life has been on a never ending loop for the last few years

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It seems like my life has been on a never ending loop for the last few years. Everyday is exactly the same. I lived in a small apartment by myself in the same small town I grew up in. I wake up and eat the same breakfast of eggs and toast. I'd make the hour long commute from the quiet town of New Hope to the bustling city of Portland where I worked for my step uncle, Mike, much to my dad's dismay.

My dad remarried when I was eight. It all happened so fast, one moment it was just dad and I against the world and then wham! Isabella and her nine year-old son were in our lives. They moved in within weeks of them first meeting and were married before they hit the one year mark. I couldn't complain. Though Isabell and I hated each other, despite my dad's best efforts, my new step brother Alex and I became the best of friends.

Isabella had a brother, Mike, who became my step uncle. He was a strange cat. Always smiling, was both charismatic and shy at the same time and was always giving me gifts saying he wanted to make a good impression and solidify himself as the 'cool uncle'.

My dad was the owner of a shipping company, Ocean State Shipping. It wasn't anything special, mainly dealing with shipping and receiving up and down the East Coast. It wasn't until he made a deal with Uncle Mike that the business really took off. Mike owned a high end car dealership so he employed my dad to handle the shipment of cars from Europe.

No matter how much money my dad made with the deal with Mike, he still hated him. It's not that I liked him, but when I moved out he offered me a job as a receptionist at the dealership and I wasn't about to say no. I had planed to only work there until I managed to figure out where I wanted to go to college and what for. But, four years later and here I am.

Aside from missing my first and second alarm and getting out of my apartment later than usual, my day was off to the same start. I'm the first one here. I already have the computers booting up at everyones desks, the iPads have been taken from the charging terminal and are sitting on their respective desks. The coffee machine is gurgling out the last drops of coffee and I'm sitting behind the front desk with my first cup of coffee for the day.

The dark storm clouds that hung in the sky, threatening to break open for most of my drive into the city had finally opened up. Within seconds the light drizzle turned into a downpour. I sipped my coffee in silence, watching the rain pelting against the glass doors in front of me. A gentle rumble of thunder added to the ambiance of this cold, gloomy October morning. I loved fall thunderstorms, no matter how basic that made me.

I'm sure the salesmen will be elated. No one comes here on rainy days which means the guys will be pacing the showroom floor complaining about how this is going to hit their projected commission checks for the month. I'd much rather listen to them quote Leonardo DiCaprio's speeches from Wolf of Wall Street, which they do every morning and in between sales, than them complaining about their paychecks.

When my computer is finally on, I pull up the internet browser and scroll through the headlines on the news page. Per usual, it was all the familiar headlines of homicides, rape, drug related crimes, all illustrating how corrupt and dangerous Portland is. It was named one of the most dangerous cities on the East coast and for valid reasons.

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