"Coming," I shouted, putting in an earring as I jogged to the front door of my apartment to meet whoever was knocking upon it. As I reached it, my phone began to ring as well. I pulled it out of my pocket and declined the call in a hurry while I wrenched open the door.

Kacey and Remy stood on the other side. Remy's face was red and puffy and she sniffled into a handkerchief as Kacey held her hand and gave me a meaningful look.

"What happened?" I asked, looking between them.

"She finally dumped that loser boyfriend of hers," Kacey answered.

"Oh," I replied and then moved aside. "Come in."

They did and, as they passed me to enter the living room, I noticed that Remy had a suitcase with her, rolling behind her as she entered. I led them over to the couch as my phone started ringing again. They took a seat while I declined another call and sat in the armchair across from them. I leaned forward and gripped Remy's hand.

"What happened?" I asked again.

"I came home after work last night," Remy started. "It was late. I had an important case that I had to stay late for. He knew that. But I finished up earlier than I thought I would and when I came back he- he wasn't alone."

I gave her hand a squeeze as Kacey wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leaned in for comfort.

"He cheated on me," she finished, looking down at the tissue in her hands to avoid eye contact. My gaze slid to Kacey for the rest of the story.

"She packed what she could and came to my place," Kacey explained. "She stayed with me last night but, Mads, my landlady has a strict maximum capacity for studio apartments policy. She's already left a not-so-kind note about how she hopes I'm not trying to sneak another tenant in without paying more rent."

I nodded, understanding. Kacey had a large, loft style apartment with no walls save for the bathroom. It was a beautiful apartment but, as it was still rent controlled, there were very strict rules she had to follow to keep the same payment and her landlady was not the sort to let any of them slide.

"Can she stay with you?" Kacey finished.

"I don't want to be a burden," Remy interjected, still sniffling. "Of course, I'll pay half the rent and I'll pitch in for groceries and utilities and-"

I cut her off with another squeeze of the hand just as my phone began to ring again.

"Of course," I told her, finally switching the phone off.

"Thanks Mads," Remy said with a sad smile. "I promise I'll make it up to you."

"That's not necessary, Remy. What are friends for?"

A loud pounding on my door suddenly interrupted our conversation and Remy and Kacey both looked over to it, perplexed. I sighed and stood.

"Excuse me," I said and walked to the door. I opened it to see a very irritated Special Agent Jake Parker. He gave me a look of annoyance.

"What's going on, Doc?" he asked, pushing right past me and into the apartment as always. "I've called you three times. I was starting to get worried. You don't-"

He stopped suddenly when he'd made it halfway into my living room and looked over to see Kacey and Remy watching him, open mouthed, surprised.

"Oh, I didn't know you had company," Parker said slowly before taking a few steps toward the couch. "Hi there. Special Agent Jake Parker. Sorry about that."

"What are you doing here, Parker?" I asked before the girls could make their introductions. He turned his full attention back to me, though Kacey and Remy still stared at him.

"Ah, see you might know that if you'd bothered to answer a single one of my calls," he chided. "We've got a case so, you know, we gotta go."

"Now?" I asked. He tossed a glance over his shoulder back at the staring girls and gave them a friendly smile.

"Yeah, Doc, now," he answered.

I sighed and then strode past him to Remy. I leaned down and looked into her eyes.

"Are you going to be okay here, alone for the day?" I asked, casting a glance to Kacey who I knew must be late for her own job as it was. Remy's eyes remained fully on the Special Agent behind me as she nodded. "Okay. I'll let you know when I'll be home. There's plenty of food in the fridge, guest room should be made up and ready, feel free to unpack however you want. There's a spare key under the cookie jar in case you have to leave. Just make yourself at home, okay?"

She nodded and I squeezed her hand one last time and gave Kacey one last meaningful look before heading to my bedroom and gathering my things as quickly as I could. When I reemerged, the room was as awkward as I'd left it.

"Ready?" Parker asked, hurriedly and I nodded. I waved to the girls once more before following him out of my apartment and toward the elevator. He didn't say a word until we had reached the street and were headed for his SUV. "Who were the girls?"

He held my door open and I slid inside, then waited for him to join me in the driver's seat before answering.

"My best friends," I told him. "Remy and Kacey. You may have seen them the night you berated me for disrupting your bomb scene."

"Oh yeah," he recalled as he pulled away from the curb. "Why were they staring at me like that?"

I shrugged before answering, "I don't know. Maybe they aren't used to seeing men in my apartment."

He looked over at me with a smirk.

"You never have men in your apartment?" he asked.

"That's not what I meant," I answered with a roll of my eyes. "I have men in my apartment. Just not ones that barge in demanding I leave with them."

He chuckled, "Fair enough."

Within minutes, we were pulling up to a section of busy city street that had been roped off and marked as a crime scene. Spectators were gathering at the tape, standing on tiptoes as police officers pushed them back, pleading for space for the investigators. Parker flashed his badge at the nearest cop and he raised the crime scene tape for us to walk under.

We passed through easily enough and I did not have to ask my partner for the reason we were here. About twenty feet away sat a luxury sedan parked on the side of the street. The entire roof was caved in, windshield and windows shattered, from the impact of what had fallen onto it. A body.

As we approached, I reached into my pocket and pulled on a pair of latex gloves I'd brought with me. Parker raised a brow at my preparation but I moved past him to Mr. Emerson who was collecting samples of the shattered glass littering the street below, some of the shards covered in blood.

Miss Daniels was a few feet away, ordering the other techs around the scene. When she saw us, she gave a little wave. Well, to Parker more than me. I had noticed her eagerness the first time. It hadn't diminished at all.

"Good morning, Mr. Emerson," I said to the lab tech hunched over on the ground, so engrossed in his work he hadn't heard our approach. His head snapped up at the address and he nodded up at me.

"Dr. McKinnon, Special Agent Parker," he said in greeting. "Dr. Warner is over there with Erica, examining some of the... er- parts that went flying upon impact. As you can probably see, our victim fell from a great height."

I backed away and looked up at the skyscraper hotel that we were right next to. It was a very expensive hotel. I had heard that they charged around five to six hundred dollars a night.

"How high?" I asked, turning my attention back to the bloody pulp in front of me that used to be a person.

"We aren't certain yet," he answered. "We're still figuring it out. But, according to Dr, Warner, our victim is a female. Early twenties."

"How can she tell?" Parker scoffed.

"Pelvis," I explained, reaching forward to lift a small piece of cartilage from the windshield. Parker made a sound of disgust as Mr. Emerson rushed forward with an evidence bag for me to place the discarded tissue into. "And bone density."

"Right. Any idea who she is yet?"

Mr. Emerson stared at him for a minute as if he was crazy.

"Do we know the identify of the bloody pulp of a human being we found twenty minutes ago," Mr. Emerson repeated slowly. "No."

"This might help," I said then, gently lifting the woman's left hand to show the sparkling, albeit somewhat bloody, diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist.

"Yeah," Mr. Emerson agreed, more eagerly. "I'll look for an inscription. Or at the very least, a jeweler."

"Perhaps there's more jewelry," I started, lifting the fingers to look for a ring.

"I'm sure they can handle that, Doc," Parker said, pulling me away from the body. "Why don't you and I go talk to the manager of the hotel, yeah?"

I reluctantly let go of the victim and pulled off my gloves as Parker gave me a push towards the building. I deposited them into a hazardous waste bag before we entered the lobby of the hotel.

"Wow," I uttered the moment the doors closed behind me. Despite the fact that a gruesome investigation was occurring just a few feet away, it was as if no one in the hotel were even aware of it. We approached the gold inlaid counter and the man at the desk looked up with a smile.

"Can I help you?" He asked.

"Special Agent Jake Parker," my partner said, flashing his badge and nodding in my direction. "This is my partner, Dr. Madeline McKinnon. We're investigating the death of the woman outside your building. Are you the manager?"

"I am," he answered, his voice much lower than before. "You said that was a woman?"

"It was. Are you aware of any female occupants who are unaccounted for?"

He thought for a minute and then slowly shook his head.

"No," he answered. "No one has been reported missing and we don't have anyone in the system who missed a check in or a check out."

"We're going to need a list of those staying at the hotel last night."

"You're going to need a warrant."

Parker raised a brow at the defiant manager.

"Really?" Parker asked. "There's a dead woman smashed to a pulp right outside your building and I need a warrant to see who she is?"

The manager shrugged his shoulders as if there was nothing to be done.

"She would have stayed on one of the upper floors in a room facing the street," I told him, trying to narrow down the pool as best as I could. "Most likely above the 15th floor."

He considered for a moment but then shook his head again.

"Sorry," he said. "I just don't know."

Parker opened his mouth to argue but I placed a hand on his forearm.

"Dr. Warner will be able to give us an ID faster than getting a warrant and ascertaining the status of hundreds of hotel guests," I told him and watched his jaw clench in irritation but he nodded in agreement anyway before turning and heading for the doors. I muttered a quick thanks to the manager and followed after him.

"Who is she?" Parker barked the moment we were outside again. Dr. Warner looked up, surprised, from where she, Miss Daniels, and Mr. Emerson had been loading the victim's body into the lab's van.

"We won't be able to identify her without further investigation, Jake," Dr. Warner explained politely. "But don't worry. We'll call you when we have an ID."

"No need," Parker said, pulling his keys from his pocket and flipping them into the air once before catching them. "We'll meet you at the lab."