Love in the Line of Crime

Cross Your Heart

A private detective. An exiled royal. A missing woman. Can Dt. Rose crack the case... without getting to close to her suspect?

"Hhhhh!" Ellen's eylids fluttered open in a dark room, somewhere underground. Memories swam before her eyes... She remembered a gala at the Calloway Museum... A conversation with a friend... But then, it all got fuzzy...

"Hello? Anyone?" Her voice was weak, her head throbbed. She tried to sit up and a sharp jolt of pain shooted through her wrists. She glanced down only to see cold metal handcuffs tethered her to a stone slab!

"What the..." Ellen's heart thundered... And that was when she noticed a figure veiled in the shadow, standing in the opposite of her at the end of the room, his back to her.

Panicked she started looking for the key. She lifted her head, scanning her surroundings. Nearby, on a surgery tray, the key to her cuffs sat unattended. She reached for it but she couldn't get to it. She streched and reached and finally got hold of it with the tips of two fingers. She unlocked her handcuffs and quietly sliped off the table while the figure whispered something low and repetitive to himself.

Ellen started walking towards the door... Then noticed her purse sitting on a workbench. Her phone glimmered inside. She sneaked to her purse, carefully, one step at a time. The figure didn't notice as she crossed the room, grabbed her phone and headed for the door!

Outside of the room, Ellen found herself at the bottom of a long stairwell. She hurried up the stairs quick and quiet, but as reached the second flight, she heard the door slammed open below her! Footsteps pounded up the first flight of stairs.

"Get back here!"

As she rushed up the stairs, she fumbled with her phone and frantically dialed 911. Blood pounded in her ears as there was no reception and the footsteps thundered after her. She reached the top of the stairs and pushed into...

"The Calloway hedge maze? I'm... I'm still at the museum?"

In the distance, warm light spilled out from the gala that was still underway inside. Ellen could see the guests chatting, mingling, behind the glass of an ornate window. She fleed toward the sound people sprinting across the wet grass. Branches ripped her clothes. Only fifteen feet away... Ten... Five...

"Help! I need help out here!" She screamed and pounded on the pane... But no one heard her. The glass was too thick, the music inside too loud, the guests too distracted.

"NO! COME ON! PLEASE!"

"Got you" A voice said angrily. Something stabbed into her back, deep. A horrifying pain flared through her, weaked her knees, set her vision red.

"No..." She collapsed weak, bleeding. The attacker loomed over her and as she looked up to his mask Ellen realised...

"It's... Y... You" 

He grabbed her by her legs and dragged her back, into the maze. Into the darkness. The only light was her phone in her hand. She glanced at its glowing screen, and with a burst of energy, she pressed a button to make a call. Not because she expected anyone to answer, but to leave a clue... To whoever found her.

I was sitting outside a coffee shop in the Financial District, idly sipping a cappuccino as well-dressed professionals bustled about. Right on cue, my phone buzzed. I opended it to a text from my boss, Samantha Wigmore, head of the Wigmore Private Detective Agency. The most famous in New York.

She wanted to know if I was waiting outside Mammon Financials and when I answered that I was and asked what my job was, she sent me a text telling me about classic pin on the tail on the cheating hubby. I huffed in irony.