Mr. Monk and the End of The Innocence

Prologue-Daniels Residence

Four Thirty Pm

29 Year old Emma Daniels was lying on her back on the plastic lawn chair in her backyard. She was dressed in a pair of white shorts and a matching white tank top with spaghetti shoulder straps. Her shoulder length chocolate brown hair was pulled up into a messy bun and fastened with a hair scrunchie. Over her hazel, coca colored brown eyes was a pair of sunglasses. Propped up on her abdomen was a newspaper and her eyes skimmed over each article as she flipped the pages. The sun was blazing down on her and she knew that she'd end up coming away with a good tan. She of course, didn't understand why these girls would lie out on their roofs topless and increase their chances of getting skin cancer.

In the front of the house, her husband, Alan, was fixing the roof. The shingles had come loose during the recent thunderstorm they'd had a few days ago. Propped up against the house was a ladder. She could hear him hammering away on the roof. Her dog, a German shepherd named Ryker, was lying on his stomach at her side, panting away. She smiled and reached down to scratch his ear affectionately. He looked up at her with his red tongue lolled out between his bottom canines and blissfully closed his eyes.

She returned her eyes onto the newspaper and began reading an article about a famous detective named Adrian Monk, who'd solves one of the most baffling cases yet. A picture of a average height man with tight, thick somewhat curly black hair in a tan wool jacket, tan slacks and a white pin striped shirt under that, was posing with two other detectives, an older man with grayish pepper colored hair and a matching mustache and a tall, thin, younger detective in a light grey suit. Her eyes landed on the names at the bottom:

Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, Adrian Monk and Lieutenant Randy Disher.

She had to give Adrian credit. It had been a case of a woman whom the police had suspected of over dosing on medication as she'd been Bi-Polar. But apparently, it turned out that her own son had poisoned her. Emma sighed and shook her head. Why anyone would want to kill their own mother she had no idea. But as she read on, she understood…it had been because of the life insurance.

"Isn't it always that reason?" she muttered aloud to herself.

Ryker looked up at her and continued to pant. Suddenly, she heard the screeching of tires and looked up from the newspaper. A car had spend off down the block. Shrugging and not thinking of it, she returned to the newspaper. But that's when she saw her husband stumbling toward her. Blood was all over the front of his grey tee shirt. She immediately dropped the newspaper and rushed to him.

"Alan!" she cried as he collapsed into her arms.

A good majority of Alan's blood was now smeared across the front of her tank top and it was even under her throat a little. Alan just collapsed to his side and didn't get up. Emma screamed.