Having stopped temporarily at the very bohemian coffee shop next door to my new apartment building, I made my way to the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building and up the elevator to the office of my very grumpy new partner, hoping to make a caffeinated offering to appease his surly mood. I knocked once on the glass doors etched boastfully with the Federal Bureau of Investigations seal and the name Special Agent Jake Parker. He glanced up from his desk and waved off the young suited man in front of him in dismissal. The boy passed me on the way out, nodding and smiling nervously in my direction. He was young, very young, likely a Junior Agent if his heightened anxiety and blind obedience were any indication. Though blind obedience was a common factor in law enforcement if my own observations were to be believed.

I entered the office without being invited as Special Agent Parker flipped through the case file the boy had just given him. It didn't seem that he had any intention of greeting me. I approached and set the second coffee cup onto the desk in front of him. Finally, he glanced up.

"Good morning, Agent Parker," I addressed him cheerfully. He watched me for a moment as if he could discern my entire personality from that narrowed gaze. I waited, wondering if he could.

"Special Agent Parker," he corrected finally and not for the first time. I restrained the urge to smile as he stood up suddenly and began sliding his suit jacket over his standard white button up shirt and black tie. Then he grabbed the case file and the coffee and headed for the door without another word. I followed, keeping up easily with his long strides as he headed back toward the elevator from which I had just come. "We've got a case."

He shoved the case file into my chest as he leaned forward to press the elevator button. I took it and flipped through but, with one hand busy holding my coffee, it was virtually impossible. Finally, I gave up, and held it closed in the crook of my arm. He knew enough to tell me himself but he wasn't going to offer up the information without some prodding.

"Where?" I asked.

"Body found in the Potomac," he told me as the elevator arrived. "This coffee is crap, by the way. Where did you get it?"

He tossed the full cup of coffee into the garbage bin beside the elevator before hopping on. I joined him.

"Are you always in such a cantankerous mood, Agent Parker?" I questioned, curiously.

"No, no, no," he said with the waggle of a finger. "Don't do that."

"Don't do what?"

"That psychoanalysis crap. Not on me, okay? The last thing I need is my partner analyzing every move I make, looking for some sort of deeper meaning. Let me save you some time, Doc. I don't hate my mother, I wasn't bullied as a kid, and no one ever hit me, okay? At least, no one I couldn't hit back."

"I'm sensing some hostility towards the practice of psychology."

"Oh, are you?" he snapped. I raised a brow but otherwise remained silent, choosing to sip my crappy coffee instead. He was right. It was terrible. But I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of that now. "Look, I'm not sure how a therapist managed to get a badge and a gun but-"

"I'm not a therapist," I defended as the elevator reached the lobby and we headed toward the exit of the building. "I'm an academic researcher in the fields of Psychology as well as Chemistry with a focus on the forensic aspects of each. I've consulted for several government organizations on multiple confidential assignments and I've written many published articles on the applications of-"

He raised his brows as he opened the door for me to exit. I noted the chivalry despite his annoyance and imagined that would have earned him some points if I were keeping score. Regardless, I could tell I was losing him with my explanation of my credentials so I changed course.

"I am thoroughly trained in martial arts, have received accommodations on my shooting accuracy, and underwent extensive combat training in order to volunteer in South Sudan," I explained as he, again, went to the passenger's side of the vehicle, a classic government issued black SUV with deeply tinted windows, and opened the door for me. I climbed in and continued talking as he got into the driver's seat. "Cumulatively, my skills equate to equal or greater than the training that average agents receive in the academy. So they moved me straight to field work. Technically, I'm still on the job training but with the level of danger involved in our work, they believed it best that I was issued a gun to protect myself and a badge to-"

"But why?" he asked as he pulled out of his reserved spot and merged onto the road. "Why assign you to me?"

"It's part of a program to partner an experienced special agent with an expert in a pertinent field. Your previous partner retired, you're one of the best agents in your department, so they seemed to think you were capable of complimenting my-"

"Best agents in the department?" he was looking over at me now, giving the first expression outside of irritable that I had seen thus far. I could practically see his head inflating as I looked back at him.

"Are you smiling?" I asked and it vanished that quickly as he cleared his throat and shook his head. Satisfied, I turned my attention to the case file on my lap now that a cup holder was available. "There isn't much here."

"Well, there hasn't been an investigation yet. That's where you and I come in."

I looked up and nodded.

"The coffee was crappy, by the way," I said and he looked back at me, the corners of his mouth pulling up only slightly.

"You weren't going to admit that, were you?"

"I was," I told him. "When you stopped being such a jerk."

The car came to a stop then and we exited the vehicle to find ourselves on the bank of the Potomac. It was already quite a scene. Crime Scene Unit Investigators were running to and fro, collecting samples and taking photos. The whole area was blocked off and officers were guarding the perimeters, keeping back the civilians who had gathered to see what all the fuss was about. Special Agent Parker showed his badge before I even had the chance to take mine out and lifted the crime scene tape for me to step under before following after me. It was pretty clear where the hub of the activity was centered. A CSU van had been driven right up against the river bank and several people were kneeling over what I could already tell, even from this distance, was a body.

I had seen my fair share of corpses. There were no shortage of them in the war torn world of South Sudan and that venture hadn't been my first. But I'd never seen one like this. Bloated from the water and mildly decomposed, half of the flesh gone from whatever fish nibbled on it as it floated down the river surrounded by trash and algae. I held it together because I felt Special Agent Parker watching me and chose instead to kneel down close to the remains for a better look.

"A teenager," I said as I looked at the remnants of the face. "A girl."

The Crime Scene tech nearest me nodded.

"Fifteen or sixteen by my estimation," she said. "But we will know for sure soon enough. We were able to pull some prints off of the one finger that wasn't eaten by the fish. If she's in the system, we'll know soon enough."

I nodded.

"You have cause of death?" Special Agent Parker asked from above me. The tech looked up and smiled at him.

"Nice to see you again, Special Agent Parker," she greeted flirtatiously. I watched the exchange between them with great interest. Maybe surly Agent Parker wasn't always as malicious as he seemed. "No cause of death yet. There are no clear outward signs. No stab wounds or bullet holes. No evidence of strangulation or even drowning."

"So... this might not even be a murder."

The tech moved down the body, toward the feet, and moved the small tarp that had been covering the lower portion of the victim. She pointed at the ankles.

"Ligature marks, there," she said and we both leaned forward to see that she was, indeed, correct. "She was tied up, tight, shortly before her death. I've never seen that deep of an impression on a case that didn't involve foul play."

I nodded, examining the marks as Special Agent Parker jotted down notes in his notepad. The tech had been correct. The impressions were set into a deep ring around each ankle and the skin surrounding them was purple. Bruising suggested that the victim was still alive when she was tied up.

"Erica Daniels," the tech said suddenly and I looked up to see she had removed her glove and was extending a hand. I smiled and shook it.

"Dr. Madeline McKinnon," I introduced myself. "It's nice to meet you."

"You're Parker's new partner?" she asked.

"I am."

She snorted.

"Good luck," she said, voice low enough that he could not hear her.

"Why?" I asked. "What do you-"

"How far did she float before she got to this point in the river?" Special Agent Parker interrupted and Miss Daniels smiled up at him.

"We aren't certain. We won't be until we can get her back to the lab and analyze current patterns, striations on the body, animal and plant secretion-"

"Right. There's a service road half a mile that way. Could she have floated that far?"

"It's possible."

"Erica!" someone else called and we looked up to find another tech coming toward us with a printout in his hands. He handed it to her. "Chelsea Lucas, sixteen, in the system for a drug possession charge she caught two months ago. Her address is right here on the report."

Special Agent Parker snatched the report out of the tech's hand before he could give it to his boss.

"Great, thanks Miss Daniels. Let us know what you find," Parker said, tucking the report into his suit pocket and heading back toward the SUV. I had no choice but to follow him.

"Now what?" I asked once I had caught up to him just past the crime scene tape.

He headed for the passenger door and opened it for me again before he answered, "Now, we notify the parents."