PUZZLE

Cassandra Elisse Rivera is the Los Angeles' best detective. Growing up, Rivera always wanted to follow her late father's footsteps. Little Rivera always has an eye when it comes to solving whether it's a math question or mystery solving, she's up for it. You can say, she is pretty smart. She's practically Belle; beauty and brains but without the beast.

After her dad passed away, she swore to herself to continue what her dad had done to this city. To be a detective. Her mom may not like the idea of her following her father's footsteps, but she agreed

On the other hand, Paolo Lorence Catacutan is just the same as Miss Rivera, an interest when it comes to mystery solving.

Catacutan moved to Los Angeles from Indiana to pursue his passion. This Filipino-American man is quite dashing as I do say so myself.

When he was transferred to Rivera's place of work, they don't seem to be able to cross each other's paths. Whether Cassandra is on a case somewhere, Catacutan is working on a different case and vice versa.

But fate had an idea for these two. What is that idea possibly be?

END OF PROLOGUE

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Cassie's POV

I woke up to the morning sun striking at my face which means it's time to get up and get ready for work.

Being a detective is a full on responsibility. People keep asking me; Why'd you pick this? This job isn't for you. You're a girl, you don't fit in here.

And yet they were right. I don't belong here, I should have taken a job like being an HR or something but I am not saying those jobs are bad. It's just doesn't feel right for me.

The reason why I took up this course or job it's because of my dad, Officer Charles Rivera; The finest detective there is.

Watching him growing up doing those stuffs, inspired me to do it. There is no night of him not telling me what happened in his day. My dad was a great and loving man but until his life was taken away.

That was in my senior year of college when someone shot my dad. I was devastated and angry. I wanted revenge, I wanted to give my dad justice but 3 days later after he got shot, the killer was arrested.

But it doesn't stop there, I'm not stopping there. I ain't just going to let anyone experience what I have experienced so I studied hard, trained hard, I did everything in my will just to make my father proud.

"Earth to Cassie? HELLO?!" I snapped back into reality when someone snapped their fingers in front of my face.

"Uh? Oh! Hi, Mika!" I said and she rolled her eyes at me.

"Oh, come on! Don't roll your eyes at me." I chuckled. That was Mikaella, Mika for short. She's a forensic scientist and also my best friend.

"Who do we have right here?" I asked her and I squatted down to see the dead body.

"This is Clifford Jones, 56 years old, a doctor and apparently he owns a clinic 40 blocks away from here." She said.

"What happened?"

"Well, Mr. Jones got shot from behind while he was opening the door to his house." Then she showed the ziploc bag with a bullet in it.

"Apparently, poor Mr. Jones was shot with a 9mm bullet and the murder weapon is here." She showed another ziploc bag but this time the gun was in it.

"Where did you guys find it so quickly and why would the killer leave it behind?" I asked.

"I don't know and we found it near that tree over there. It means the killer didn't mean to kill Mr, Jones-" I cut her off.

"The killer must have been aiming for someone else." I said.

"Bingo!" Mikaella said.

"Is there any witnesses?" I asked.

"His daughter, Joanna Jones. She's talking to Detective Catacutan over there." Detective Catacutan?

I went up to the daughter and she is indeed talking to this Detective Catacutan, Who is this guy? Why is he on my case?

"Hi, Joanna Jones. I'm sorry for your loss, I'm Detective Rivera." I said and this Detective looks really dashing.

"Thank you." She said.

"Did you see anyone coming at your father, Ms. Jones?" I asked her.

"No, please. Just call me Juna."

"Okay. Juna, did you see anything?"

"I was on my way home from work when I saw my dad's body on the ground and that's why I called you guys." Then she started crying.

"Everything's going to be all right, Juna. We will get to the bottom of this. Does your dad have any enemies?" I asked.

"I don't know but one of his colleagues hates his guts." She said.

"Great, that's a good head start. Can we know who this colleague is?" The dashing detective suddenly said.

"His name is William Harnolds." She said and we said our goodbyes.

As I walked back to Mika, the dashingly handsome detective called my name.

"Detective Rivera, we haven't met yet but I am Detective Catacutan Nice to meet you." He introduced himself and offered his hand.

"Nice to meet you too, Detective Catacutan. But I have to go back to the station." I said and nodded at him goodbye.

"I see you have talked to the new detective. Like him yet?" Mika said with a smirk on her face.

"I'm not denying the fact that he has good looks but not my type." I said.

"You always say that Cassie." She rolled her eyes and laughed at me.

*********

I was working on the case of Mr. Jones when a feel a presence of man standing before me.

I looked up from all of the paper works and there he was, Detective Catacutan. I don't know if I'm seeing things but I think this man is glowing as if he was a celestial creature.

"Detective Rivera." He said and my name never sounded that great. Wait, what the fuck?

"Catacutan " I nodded and went back to I was doing but then he put his hand on the paper.

"No need to be rude and not to be that person, Detective Catacutan but you are being unprofessional right now. If you don't have something to tell me about the case, will you please go back to your table and do some digging?" I said with pride.

"Feisty, I like that." He said and he this creepy smirk on his face.

"Excuse me?"

"I just wondering if you want to go on a date with me?" He asked and I scoffed.

"Thank you for the offer, Catacutan but the answer is no and please just get out of my face." I rolled my eyes at him but he doesn't seem to get the hint.

"Whether you like it or not, Detective Rivera. I am your partner in this case so basically we're going to be together until we solve this case." He winked at me and left.

I got up from my table and went to the Chief Inspector's office.

"Detective Perez, can you please tell me why I have a partner on this case and why him? I don't even know the guy. You could just have partnered me with Detective Ocampo!" I ranted.

"What seems to be the problem, Rivera?" He asked.

"Detective Catacutan?" I said with my arms crossed.

"Oh. He is from Indiana Police Department. He transferred here few months ago and it pretty seems he is great at what his doing. Don't get fooled by that face of his." He chuckled.

"Well, I'm not but why I haven't seen him anywhere?"

"Its because you have this cases all of the time and you didn't even get the chance to meet the guy. So I decided to partnered my best detectives."

"Thank you for the compliment, Sir but I already hate him."

"Just have patience, Rivera. Your father wouldn't like that." I sighed and went back to my table.

Out of all other detectives in the place, why on earth did I got partnered up with Detective Hot-Looking douche. Fuck my life.

End Of Chapter 1

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Cassie's POV

A day has passed and we still haven't solved the case. We are this close to closing this but I am not giving up yet. Like my dad always says "Don't you dare give up on things when you know it's not necessary."

I pray to the Lord that we will get something when Mika walked to my table.

"Cassie, Mr. William is finally in town and he is in the confession room now." I was shocked. It seems like He answered my prayer. He really does work in mysterious ways.

I got up from my sit and went to the room when instead of me getting ready to ask the questions, it was replaced with annoyance. Seeing Detective Catacutan in that room want me to hit that good looking face of his.

As I got inside, Sir Smirks alot did his signature smile at me.

"Okay, Mr. Harnolds. This is my partner Detective Rivera. We may now start." Woah, then he suddenly changed into a professional detective? Psh.

"Hi Mr. Harnolds. Detective Rivera." I offered my hand to shake his hand and sat down next to an empty chair beside Detective Hot Looking Douche.

"So, Mr Harnolds. Where we were you when the crime scene was occurred?" I asked with pride.

"I was in Florida meeting with different doctors." He said without any hesitation.

"Sir I was wonder-" I got cut off by Mister Smirks Alot.

"Let's cut to the chase, Mr. William Harnolds. Did you kill Mr. Jones?" Catacutan said strongly without breaking eye contact with Mr. Harnolds. Damn, that's attractive. Cassandra Elisse what the hell are you thinking?!

Then Mr. Harnolds chuckled.

"Yes, I do hate the guy but I never ever had the idea to kill him. It will ruin my reputation." He said and Catacutan just looked at him as if he was skinning him alive. "And plus I have an alibi. You can call the hospital in Florida that I was in and they can check for me."

**********

"Guess he is not the guy." Catacutan suddenly said.

"How do you say so?" I asked with my arms crossed.

"I can tell if someone is lying or not and in this case, he is not lying. Plus, his alibi was pretty solid. I checked out with my contacts in Florida." He said with confidence.

"Psh." I rolled my eyes at him and went back to my table and lucky me, he followed.

"What do you want, Catacutan?" I said with annoyance in my voice.

"Wow. You really hate me that much?" He laughed.

"Yeah. Just get out of my face." He was about to speak when Mika came like she was about to tell us something important.

"Guys. I found a fingerprint on the murder weapon." She said. "And it matches a guy named Louis Mendoza."

"Who's Louis Mendoza?" I asked.

"According to his records, he is Juna's ex-fiance."

"We have to tell her now." I said and we rushed to her house.

********

We arrived at her house but as we're about to knock on the door and to our surprise, it was open. Me and Catacutan went inside with both of our guns ready.

"LAPD! Is anyone here?!" I shouted then we heard a continuous gun shot.

"GET DOWN!" Catacutan shouted.

"LOUIS MENDOZA, STOP THIS MADNESS! WE KNOW ITS YOU!" I shouted again.

"I WILL NOT! THIS BITCH NEEDS TO DIE RIGHT AFTER WHAT SHE DID TO ME!" He referred to Juna.

I was about to stand up and shoot but Catacutan stopped me and stood up to shoot him. I wanted to get annoyed but instead it was replaced with a surprise expression. He shot the guy right on the shoulder, dropping the gun and that was my cue to get the gun which I did.

"Louis Mendoza, you're under arrest for the murder of Clifford Jones." I pointed the gun at him while he was on the floor.

The cops finally came and took Louis to the prison.

"So, Juna. Why was he attempting to kill you?" I have to ask her. She sighed.

"I said to him that I don't want to get married 3 months after he proposed. I wanted to pursue my writing career in France which I did. The day that my dad got killed was the exact day I was going home." She explained.

"It's okay, Juna. We promise that Louis will rot in jail." I said and said our goodbyes.

"So, Detective Rivera." Catacutan said.

"What do you want?"

"Woah. I just wanted to say a great work back there. We do make a great duo, don't we?" He said with that smirk on his face. Gosh I wanted to punch that awfully gorgeous face.

"I'm not denying that but this will be our first and last case together. Okay?" I was about to turn away when he said something that will haunt me for life.

"Well, Detective Lopez talked to me and he said we are partners now. Imagine all of the case that we'll solve. Like you're the peanut butter and I'm the jelly." He said and I thought I am going home relieved but instead it made me stressed.

I CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE I AM WORKING WITH THAT HOT SCUMBAG! God, just help me.

END OF CHAPTER 2

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