The Devil's House

Chapter 1

    "Hey, Saanvi! I got a new case you have to investigate," someone said, slamming a folder full of papers on her desk.

    Saanvi looked up from her computer to see the police chief leaning on her desk. He had one hand leaning on her desk and one on his hip. She looked down at the thick brown folder on her desk full of scattered papers.

    Saanvi opened up the folder and went through the pages. On the first page, she saw eight pictures of different men and women. There were five females and three men. At the top of the paper, written in red bold letters was “MISSING”. She scanned through the rest of the pages which explained each of the people in detail.

    Saanvi said, "Wow. That is a lot of missing cases," she said. "But why do I have to work on so many different ones?"

   "They're connected. All of these people,” the police chief said pointing to each of the photos of the people on the first page, “went missing on a vacation going to the same place... A mansion on Blueberry street."

    Saanvi replied, "Wow, ok. I'll go to work on this right away. I’ll go to the house and inspect it as well." She opened the folder to the first woman named Sarah Homes and started going through the details of her.

    As the police chief walked away, he said, "Oh, and you're gonna work with Ryder on this. He's good at solving missing people cases, and you could use some help.

    Saanvi immediately looked up from the brown folder and argued, "No way! I can not work with him! He is impossible to deal with!"

    The police chief stopped in front of his opened office door but didn't turn around. He said, "You are going to work with him. I am depending on you guys to solve this case, so I expect you to put your differences aside and work as a team. You two are the best detectives here... I would hate to lose you." The chief didn't wait for a reply and stepped into his office, closing the door behind him.

    Saanvi sighed and dropped her head on her desk. After a minute of that, she reluctantly walked over to Ryder's desk. He had his legs on his desk as he sipped coffee from his blue mug and read a newspaper.

    Ryder was 6'2, way taller than Saanvi who was 5'8. He had tanned skin with black curly hair. Ryder was very strong and muslcular, and he was weaing a white muscle shirt, showing the muscles and viens that popped out on his arm.

     "Hey," she said, standing in front of his desk. "We have to work on this case together." She lifted up the big brown folder for him to see.

    Ryder looked up from the newspaper. Saanvi had her smooth, long black hair kept in a low ponytail behind her shoulders. Her straight hair went down to her stomach. She wore a tie dye sweater with black leggings.

    Ryder stared at her for a moment then said, "No way. You must be insane if u think I'd ever work with you. Go work with someone else." He waved her away and went back to reading the paper in his hand.

    Saanvi sighed and said, "The chief said we have to."

    Ryder dramatically sighed and dropped his newspaper on his desk. He set his coffee mug down after a last sip and got up from his comfortable seat and started to walk to the police chief's office.

    “Where are you going?” Saanvi asked.

    Ryder turned around and walked backwards as he said, "I'll just talk to him and say you have to find a different partner to work with."

    Saanvi grabbed his arm as he turned back around. She said, "He said if we don't work together on this case, he might let us go."

    “What do you mean, ‘Let us go’?” Ryder asked, turning back around.

    “Wow, you are so stupid,” Saanvi said, rolling her eyes and letting go of his arm. “That means that he will fire us.”

    Ryder gasped and said, "What?! But we're the best detectives here!"

    She said, "You don't think I know that? This case must be pretty important if he's willing to fire us."

    Ryder walked back to his desk with his head hanging like a toddler who was told to go to a time out and slumped in his chair. He sighed and said, "Fine. What's the case about?"

    Saavni followed him back to his desk and stood in front of it. She opened the folder on his desk and turned it so he could read. As he went through the case, she explained, "There are eight missing people. We need to figure out what happened to them and where they are. All of these cases in this folder went missing on Blueberry street, in the same mansion.”

    After going through the folder, Ryder said, "Well, let's go take a look at the mansion."