Being a freelance detective isn't easy. Especially for a woman. But Janice Cooper has made a name for herself ever since the murder of the rich French baron case she solved the year before.
But as fall shakes the leaves from the trees, chilling murd...
The sound of shrill ringing roused Janice from her sleep. Groaning, she fumbled her hand over her nightstand until her fingers found the cool, rectangular object that was her phone. Opening one eye, she squinted at the number and once she saw who was calling her, she was immediately wide awake.
"Commissioner Alistair," she said, sitting upright. "There's been another murder."
Janice knew this was a fact. Commissioner Alistair wouldn't have called Janice unless there had been another murder. Now that she was on this case, he couldn't leave her out.
Commissioner Alistair grunted gruffly in confirmation. "The call just came in thirty minutes ago. I'll text you the address, be here in twenty."
Janice hung up, then hopped out of bed, heading to the bathroom to brush her teeth and try to tame her hair as quickly as humanly possible.
As she was coming out of the bathroom—tying up her hair because she couldn't tame it this quickly and a bun seemed like the best way to go—her phone dinged, alerting her of the message from Commissioner Alistair.
Janice picked up her phone, staring at the address in horrified disbelief. She knew that address. She knew it all too well.
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Janice pulled up to Club Rose de sang with feelings of intense suspicion and wariness. She could hardly believe that someone had been killed at the club she had been in the night before. She had probably seen the killer, probably looked right at him.
Her hands tightened on the wheel as she parked her car.
Or maybe it was Aiden. Maybe he somehow knew a way to kill these girls without getting caught. Janice had seen it happen before. The rich killed just as often as the rest of the world did. The only difference between people with deep pockets and the rest of the world was that the rich could afford all the necessary resources to make their murders disappear.
Janice stepped out of the car, already aware of the dozen of reporters that were arriving just as she was. This time when the officers—who were standing in front of the yellow tape to block the on-lookers—raised the tape immediately for Janice.
Janice looked around at the nightclub, surprised to see how different it looked in the daytime. The air of...something other she had felt last night was gone, replaced by some strange sense of calm. It was like whatever had caused the menacing air last night had evaporated and was gone.
Commissioner Alistair was standing at the right side of the bar, talking to an annoyingly familiar face.
Warily, Janice made her way over to them, eyeing Aiden the way a gazelle might eye a lion. He looked even better in the daylight. Rays of sunlight streamed in through the windows and shone on his hair, making it look almost blonde. His skin was paler than Janice remembered noticing last night, the deep shadows under his eyes were more pronounced, almost like being awake right now was draining him. Probably, it was because he had been up all night with his cult of women and hadn't been able to sleep.
