Chapter 1 Prologue
Crime Inspector James Locker was lying awake in his bed, sweating profusely. He had stopped taking his anti-depressants, which was necessary to feel anything at all and live a healthy life. James Locker was thinking about her, and he still could not comprehend what had happened that fateful day seven months ago. James and Emily Luong had been in a massive fight. Why had they fought? His memory was so blurry so that he, in retrospect, could not understand it. She had left with $ 20,000 of their savings and a day later he had received a text message stating that she despised him and that she never wanted to see him again. Of course, he could have filed a police report with the stolen property department as she had stolen his money. But he never did as money was not an issue for him, and his primary concern was to understand what had happened so he could avoid it happening again. James had loved Emily too much to report her to his colleagues and have her deported. He thought about calling her, but he did not.
Ironically, James’ career had improved a lot during the seven months that had passed. He had been able to solve some high-profile cases through his intelligence and dedication to his work. Walking in an emotional desert was apparently a good thing when it came to solving murder cases, and James had been promoted to the rank of police inspector a few months earlier and seemed to be in line to further promotions if the legendary Crime Detective Michael Fuller was to resign. That wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon, as Michael Fuller was nine years away from retirement, and Michael was a man who was living for his work. In this way, James had become very similar to Michael in the last year.
James Locker’s nightstand clock showed 3 AM, and it was five hours to go before he and his colleagues and best friends Thomas Anderson and Adam Smith were bound to head to the airport for a month of travelling in Asia. Adam and Thomas had persuaded him to join them for a crazy month of travels, adventures, boozing, and banging.
Adam Smith had put it like this: “Hey look, James, I know it’s been tough for you with this Emily thing, but it’s time to man up and meet some other girls. Let’s go to Asia, and hook you up with at least ten girls to build your self-esteem again”. James smiled realising that his friends would probably pay some local talent to pretend to be genuinely interested in him and then sleep with him to build up his self-esteem.
James decided to play along with his friends’ plan, as he believed that it could work better than psychologist sessions he had attended. If his friends, however, did not intend to pull this off, he would not visit prostitutes on his own. Not because he had any strong moral objections to paid sexual services, but merely because he was not very turned on by the concept. James Locker took a shower, made himself some breakfast and enjoyed it in front of the TV while waiting for his friends. Despite his insomnia, he felt relaxed knowing that he would probably fall asleep on the plane and thus have more energy than his friends once they reached the destination. The date was the 17th of July 2013.
