2. prologue
prologue
. . .
ASPEN
I was a sucker for a sob story.
I’d been taken advantage of once or twice before because of it. But I’d gotten a lot better at recognizing when someone was fucking with me, and when someone was genuinely looking for answers.
Leigh Lee and her husband, Harold, fell into the latter category.
My private detective business was a one woman show, so I personally monitored all of my digital and physical mail correspondence. My office was a shitty little building in a borderline bad neighborhood of Denver, and I called the shitty little apartment above it home. Most of my time was spent on the road anyway, making it nothing more than a landing place between cases.
My last one was two months ago, and I’ve been itching to get back out there ever since.
When Mrs. Lee’s email came through, adrenaline shot through my veins.
I’d never heard of the Prom Night Arsonist, but in the two weeks since receiving that electronic missive, I’d done enough research to become well-versed—latching particularly onto the fact that the local police had barely any leads, much less a viable suspect.
This guy was a fucking ghost.
Even before I’d officially spoken with Mrs. Lee, I knew I wanted to tackle this case. The small town wasn’t flashy enough to attract national media attention, but the murders were devastating to the people who lived there. With a killer who had been active for decades, it was the kind of case I most enjoyed. There was a lot of meat on its bones, and I was ready to take a big bite.
Mrs. Lee’s voice held such…rawness and despair when I’d reached out that my heart damn near cracked in my chest. While I’d long since gotten good at marshaling my emotions and constructing a cage around my heart to protect myself from getting in too deep on my investigations, there was no shielding yourself from a mother still reeling from the loss of her child.
I understood that with stark, unending clarity.
The pain in her voice—it was the same I’d heard in my own mother’s for years.
For that alone, I’d find the fucker who’d done this to them.