Juliet Shadows: a touch of velvet

Chapter 2

1:00 am
Blue and red lights blinded me as I drove up to the crime scene. It was outside The Bella Mcgate Theatre, which for the evening had been converted to host some sort of fashion event. There was a lot of crying going on. I assumed the victim was very loved and close friends had come to see if the horrible news was true, but as it turned out, it was only the women that found the body. She was sitting in the back of an ambulance, taking deep breaths from what looked like an asthma inhaler and she was crying and what I think was a carefully made-up hairstyle now was a frizz bomb and wet. She was leaning against some thing. Something black. It blended so well I thought it was a lamppost until I looked up. 'It' was in fact a tall broad-shouldered man with sweaty black hair that was slightly gelled back, slightly falling in his face. The way he was looking at her, I could tell that he thought this a completely normal and reasonable way to react to the event. Maybe it was.

I slung my car next to police van on the other side where there was no doors. I was very considerate when I wanted to be. Also, blocking a government vehicle was kind of like speeding, or so I'm told.

When I got out, about a thousand people came running at me. I nearly got back in the car but then he came up to me. I straightened my glasses (I don't usually wear glasses, I wear contacts, but even though I had a hunch that someone was murdered, I didn't expect to be called out) and I pulled my sleeves over my fists as a way of comfort because I hated looking a fresh dead body.

"Shadows." He said in his deep but silky voice. If a Yorkie bar could speak, I think it would sound like Daniel Timeless.
"Mr. Timeless." I replied crossing my arms.
"You got here fast. Do you have a life apart from solving crimes? Even that you don't do very well." Daniel had a nerve. I guess it comes from having the power to have people dragged out by their ear if they so much as breathe vaguely in your direction. He knows I am one of his best agents.
"Oh no sir. I just sit next my mobile and wait to here your soothing voice down the phone." I said.
"Enough of the flattery Shadows. You have a job to do." Timeless said before disappearing in the complete opposite direction and was swallowed up in tsunami of eager reporters.

Slightly confused by my sudden dismissal, I go to check out the murder scene.
"Ok, I want you," I said pointing a shaking apprentice with glasses too big for his freckled head.  As I gestured at him, he jumped and raised his notebook to his face in some from of pathetic form of defence. "I want you to get my a hot chocolate with all the trimmings: whipped cream, grated chocolate and mini marshmallows. And tell them to be generous." I thrust tenner at him. "Get yourself something as well."
"Yes miss." He said in the squeakiest voice ever recorded.
"It's Shadows. Juliet Shadows." I said with smile, a vain attempt to calm the shivering dweeb.
"Yes Miss Shadows." He said as he ran off. The boy kind of amused the weird and slightly wonderful addicted side of me. Why on earth was a kid that be any older then twelve been at a crime scene?

The thought quickly escaped me when I saw the body. Dear goodness, I thought now this is a shame. Lying all soaking wet and the skin on her neck dyed red, was a girl in her late teens, early twenties dressed in one of the most expensive brand of fashion known to the earth. I looked to her feet to see if she had the matching shoes from the collection but no. And when I say no, I mean no shoes at all.

"So who is she?" I asked.
"One very pretty model." Ryan said glancing at some documents pinned to a clipboard. He had a point. This lady was gorgeous.
"No, I mean who is she?" I repeated.
"Well, who did you say she was?" Ryan said looking at the women sitting in the ambulance.
"Clover Velvet." The women gasped before crying again and leaning against the tall man again who was now sitting next to her.

I gasped because I knew that name. Oh no, not her. I sat down next to the crying woman. "How do you know who she is?" I said, struggling for air.
"I am in the same walk and have modeled in the same collections as her for the past two years." She whispered huskily.

What's the time now?"
"Quarter past one in the morning." Ryan said coolly. My mothers voice about getting early nights or I shall wrinkles by the age of twenty-six. But this is my third all-nighter in a row. 
"What's the approximate time of death?" before Ryan answered me the strange boy came back with my hot chocolate exactly how I asked. I told he would make a great secretary. I hadn't meant it rudely but the kid seemed upset. i ignored this fact because I needed the facts. The boy went away.
"Time of death?" I repeated.
"About half past eleven."
Great. This is just great. Now I have guilt. I don't know why because I couldn't have prevented her death anyway, could I? I just cant believe I was having dinner with a friend while this nearly common household name was taking her last breathe. I knew someone was going to murdered tonight. Sometimes I hate when I'm right.