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...
Janice and the Commissioner eventually left Club Rose de Sang not too long after watching the security camera footage. Janice had talked to the man who had found the body, listening to him recall wondering if the woman had fallen into a drunken sleep in the men's room and going to wake her only to realize she was laying in a pool of her own blood. He shakily recalled how he had stumbled out of the bathroom, drunk and nauseous—whether it was because of the alcohol or because he had found a dead body, he had been unsure—and screamed for help. Everyone had ignored him, figuring he was high on something and was hallucinating. It took him a while before he stumbled across Aiden himself and told him what he'd seen.
Aiden had shut the club down immediately after.
The Commissioner wanted to interview the girl's family and was planning on sending a couple of officers's over to take statements. Janice figured that would be her perfect opportunity to go as well, telling Commissioner Alistair to make sure his officers touched nothing until she got there. She wanted to see this girl's home in its natural state before it was touched and things were picked up and taken in for evidence.
"Fine," Commissioner Alistair had said. "Go see if you can find anything else. Lewis and Smith could use a fresh set of eyes anyway." Janice frowned slightly as she remembered her last, unpleasant encounter with the two detectives who were studying this case. "They've been looking at this too long. Nothing will be touched. See what you can dig up."
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It was as Janice was on the road that it first happened. A car—sleek, black but still somehow inconspicious—began to follow her. Janice's eyes narrowed as she watched the car from her review mirror. The car was sure to stay a couple of cars behind her, trying to maintain its cover but Janice had done this long enough to know when she was being tailed.
Eventually, she pulled into the house of the victim, her eyes still on the review mirror. She watched the car drive by slowly. She couldn't see anything through the tinted windows but as the car crept by, she could feel eyes on her skin.
And those eyes made her skin crawl, her instincts screaming bloody murder. It reminded her a lot of the way her body had reacted when she'd first met Aiden but this was worse. So much worse.
When the car was finally gone, Janice stepped out of her own car. Her legs oddly shaky as a feeling of dread rose in the pit of her stomach. She felt a lot like she had stared death in the face and barely escaped with her life. She wanted so badly to turn tail and run. But again, she imagined the smiling face of a happy, beautiful woman. And they she imagined her corpse. Cold, lifeless, drained completely of blood.
Janice sucked in a deep breath, staring at the scene in front of her as a distraction from the ominous feeling that had formed in her gut. The house was warded off with police tape, of course. A few curious neighbors were openly gawking at the house, no doubt wondering what happened. She saw a few officers talking to the neighbors, no doubt asking questions. What had they seen? Had they noticed that the victim had any enemies? Blah, blah, blah. Janice would have to be sure to ask Commissioner Alistair to send her those reports later.
