CLOVER

Prologue

"Red looks really delightful on you."-he whispered at her ear. She smiled gently, knowing that one step of her plan was being accomplished. They made their way to the dance floor. Everyone was masked. It was a masquerade ball organized by the mayor for his son's elections. Some of the guests were dancing while the others were passing a biscuit from one hand to another.  With the mask on, she was unrecognizable. Her green velvet dress fell down her ankles, and black satin gloves were hugging her arms tightly. Maybe he could not see the whole face hidden behind her mask, but her clover green eyes were enough to mesmerize him and lure him into her dark trap. Her plan was simple but yet so sophisticated .

Step 1: Find a wealthy man from a well-known family. (If his family or name isn't known to the ton, it will make her plan easier, but still, who doesn't like a little bit of adventure?)

Step 2: Impress the man. (This requires lots of beautiful, meaningless words and a huge garderobe of beautiful dresses. Sometimes, well, most of the time, wigs are required, too.)

Step 3: Kill the man. (No knives, pistols, or poison required, well poison yes, but in a form that no one can detect.)

"Melting Waltz" started playing by the orchestra. He asked for her hand, allowing him to take her for a dance. She accepted. Of course she did.  After all, that was one way closer to completing the next step of the plan. The dance floor was filled with love, lust, luck, and lies. She looked through his eyes, but not just any kind of look. It was a hypnotizing one. As hypnotizing as it was, he smoothly took her from the dancing floor to the balcony's entrance. Now it was the time. He gently took her face between his hands, and he looked deep into her rose tinted lips. They kissed, and shortly after that, he fell on the floor. The clocks around shouted midnight, and then, she mysteriously disappeared. 

May 10. The streets of Cherry Hinton were filled with people drowning into the newspapers since early in the morning. The headline scripted it perfectly; "Sir James Henderson mysteriously murdered the night before the elections. Red kiss mark found on his lips." She was grinning somewhere in the crowd. She liked when people gossiped about her murders, mostly when they got afraid of her. The newspapers made all their way to the station. There he was, smoking another cigarette. William Trenor. The ton's most talked about detective. As incredible as he might be known, he tried for 2 years to solve the Clover case, but each year, he failed miserably. Clover, the nickname she went by. It described perfectly how lucky she was to not get caught. That's how William always described it, as luck. Clover always managed to get away seconds before William arrived at the scene. Her tactics were insanely perfect, so much so that no one believes she is a woman. Even William himself could not find a way to admit it. It was very rare for him to lose against an enemy over and over again. He solved many mysteries of all kinds, but this one was very hard even if he didn't want to admit it. He took one newspaper and read it carefully as if he were trying to catch a clue out of the words. He knew it was one of Clover's doings because of the lipstick. Clover's victims are always men, and the corpses are always found with a red kiss mark placed carefully on their lips. Since none of the bodies have any sign of bullets or deep cuts, William assumed that it is the lipstick that kills them because in every scene the face of every men starts to blur into a black poisonous color. The only question that he had on his mind was, what kind of antidote did she take to survive the poison ? After that question, another one popped into his head. When was Clover going to steal James body? No one knew why Clover always took the victim's body, but most important of all, no one knew where she kept them hidden. Some assumed it was not to leave any clues behind. Other assumed that she was a maniac who liked keeping the corpses as a sign of her victory against the police forces, but so far, none of the assumptions made any sense to William. Clover did not have a hiding place. She moved out a lot, and that is why neither William nor the officers have any proof of Clover in their hands. Where would she hide the bodies? After a lot of thought, William stated that Clover doesn't work alone. She needs help with all the masking and lipstick supplies. He saw her only one time in these 2 years, but he did not see much to help him. He only saw enough to confirm that she was a woman, and that fact troubled him. Clover worked only on midnights. Well, her plan took a long time to be fulfilled, but all the 48 men that have died because of her were killed exactly at midnight. The agency was slowly losing faith in William and not only them but the town too. After all, everyone has their downfall one day. William knew what everyone thought of him now. Sons and husbands were being killed while he was waiting for his "perfect time to strike." The ton was scared, disappointed mostly. He knew what everyone thought of him, and that's how he also knew that he got to accept the agency's offer for a partner. He couldn't work alone on this case anymore if he wanted it to be solved. 

May 19. A week and 2 days have passed since Clover's last murderer. The ton was whispering. The intense whispers about Clover never seem to have an end. She never was this late with her missions. Clover always left clues for the police about when her next murderer would take action, and still no one managed to catch her in action. The ton did  not know if they should start to be happy or more afraid. The whispers kept spreading like wings of a crow, and they flew all over the ton.

"Clover gave up?"Maybe she has  been caught!"Clover has run out of plans!" "Was James the last one?". William was hearing all of them, but he could not agree with anyone so far. Clover was too smart of a lady to give up like this. His eyes widened as if he saw a ghost when he looked at her 'Wanted' posters and thought of the most random assumption   
"Has she died?"- he finally spoke and grabbed his collar tightly.