THE HARBOUR [EDITING]

Don't Open Your Door.

Bateman and Pines stand outside the Glenfield residence processing what they'd just heard, "we have to talk to Daisy Strong," Bateman says. Alice nods her head in response, "looks like she's home," she says, pointing towards Ms Strong's Audi in her driveway.

The pair crosses the street over to Ms Strong's Lake House. Alice can't help but feel a tinge of excitement at their possible progress as she knocks loudly on Ms Strong's scarlet red hardwood door.



Daisy is slumped over her kitchen sink. She'd thrown up in it a while ago. She hears a knock at her door, and it makes her retch. It hasn't been long since her conversation with Cole, and she's still reeling from it. Opening the door to another possible shitstorm is the last thing she wants to do.

She hears the know once again, Daisy covers her ears with her hands and shuts her eyes tightly- breathing through her mouth. If I just ignore them, they'll go away. She thinks.

For a moment, the knocking stops, and relief washes over her as she thinks her unwanted guest has given up when she hears the blare of her elaborate doorbell. Daisy resists the urge to scream and hurl a chair at her door. "Go away," she whispers desperately.

"Ms Strong, we know you're home. If you ignore us, we will just come back another time," a voice behind her door she vaguely recognises says.

She would rather not speak to anyone right now, not in the state she's in. She needs some time to gather herself. Daisy entertains the thought of letting them knock to their hearts' content when a male voice speaks from behind her door "Ms Strong this is the police, please open your door." Her body stiffens and she decides against it letting them knock till they've had their fill of it.

Deal with it now, she thinks to herself.

Daisy walks over to her door-opening it on one impatient swing.
"What!" she says rapidly.



Alice's hand was drawn into a fist over her head. She was preparing to knock once more when the door violently swung open. "What!" The girl she recognised as Daisy Strong said.



Alice has known Daisy since she was a girl, granted she's not much older than her. They'd grown up in the same suburban neighbourhood. The same small town, and even played together occasionally. Well, as much as two girls with an eight-year age gap can. Daisy has always been pretty, smart, and thoughtful. Calculated, she mentally corrects.

She'd also always had a condescending air about her, an air of pretentious superiority, and she'd always made sure to remind everyone her family was the most important one in town. According to her, Alice thinks sourly. Granted, She'd never actually said it. But she'd always implied it. And Alice had always felt like she was beneath her.

Now, as she looks at the girl in front of her, the shockingly beautiful Daisy looks almost ghostly. Her fair skin- pale as a paper sheet. Her dark, almost black hair is tied into a messy-looking bun with loose tendrils sticking out. She looks hauntingly beautiful, but not in a way that draws you towards her, but one that makes you want to cringe away.
Alice feels an odd sense of satisfaction at that.



"I'm Detective Bateman, and this is my partner Alice Pines," a tall, grave-looking man flashes his badge at her. "We're investigating the death of Wesley Moretti, and we'd like to ask you a few questions," he says.