Dreams of a Dark Fairytale

Chapter 1

The girl who knocked.

If you asked me, I’d say she laughed like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. She practiced law like Atticus Finch. She doted on her family like Mary Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life. She consumed literature like Anne Elliot in Jane Austin’s Persuasion. She had legs like Sandra Bullock in everything.

She was the girl of my dreams, Ronnie Summers, and she knocked and walked into my office and said, “Hello gorgeous.”

I remained silent, though titivated. She looked at me and I shook my head.

“Fine,” she said. “Hello Mackenzie.”

“Hello Ronnie.”

“I don’t understand why I cannot call you gorgeous.”

“That’s like the pot calling the coffee creamer black,” I said.

“That’s nonsensical.”

“But if you think about it.”

Ronnie wore Jimmy Choo heels so high she looked ready for takeoff.

A warm, neutral blue skirt so short that other professional women grumbled about it, saying not even in college.

A cream, spaghetti-strap top that showed off her physique.

Her shoulders and arms weren’t as muscular as her legs, because she spent less time on them, but they were contoured and strong.

Her twenties left far behind, she still bloomed like a young woman who—

“Mackenzie. For the moment, can you focus on me instead of my legs?”

“I doubt it.”

“How hectic is your workload?”

“At the moment, I’m hoping you’ll sit in my lap.”

“Are you doing anything else?”

It had been a slow month. I’d carved out some time to track down a runaway teenager but I found her the first day.

I carved out more time to film a fraudulent plaintiff in an insurance lawsuit but the plaintiff fell and broke his knee, now in a cast, so I had nothing to surveil.

Which was nice because it was hot out, unseasonably so for mid-November.

Virginia drifted through a drought, weeks without rain.

The lawns looked brittle and Smith Mountain Lake sank four feet lower than average, many of the boats dry-docked.

The arid heat was dropping leaves off the trees a week or two early, shortening autumnal glory.

Ronnie’s outfit was colored in subdued tones, as befitted the fall season.

I said, “Did you know the Nationals had the highest runs-per-game average in the majors last year and we’re not losing anyone to free agency?”

“Yippee,” she said. “I’ll take that as a no. I would like to hire you.”

“You hired me before,” I said. “To investigate your father’s illegitimate enterprise and find his snitch. It got thorny.”

“This could also get thorny. How much do you charge?”

I told her.

She said, “Pfffah. You’re worth double.”

“Well.”

“Here’s the case,” she said. “I killed someone.”

“Jiminy Christmas.”

“In Italy.”

“Oh,” I said. “That.”

“Yes.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“It’s not okay. Her name was Emile Chambers.”

She was referencing the time her ex-fiancé abducted and entered me into an international fight-to-the-death tournament in Naples, the underworld’s Super Bowl, millions wagered.

She’d snuck in to facilitate my escape and it’d been a whole thing.

Gunfire, rockets, a riot, the entire coliseum-style hotel burned down.

Not a pleasant memory and I still bore the KING tattoo across my back.

“That was a shootout,” I said. “You are allowed.”

“I killed a woman. I put the gun under her jaw and pulled the trigger. Twice,” she said.

“Emile Chambers was a murderer and sexual predator, preying on your favorite guy. She rigged up a sex room with restraints in case I survived the game. She and her husband were criminals of the worst kind. If you hadn’t shot her, she would’ve shot you.”

“Emile was destructive, and terrible, but she was under the impression we were friends. She wasn’t holding a weapon.

She’d been telling me about her plans to tie you up after the fight, and I told her I didn’t handle competition well and I killed her out of rage.

Maybe it was justice but I’m neither judge nor executioner, and now I’m paying for it.

I’ve hidden the pain from you, because. .

. I don’t know why. Embarrassment? I cannot sleep.

I wake up with her. Emile is dead and I’m not.

I cannot outrun the consequence and it’s eating my insides. ”

“Okay.” I nodded. “I’ll stop being glib.”

“I doubt you can. But thank you.”

“How can I help?” I said.

“I would like to discover a way to make reparations. Not that it’ll help Emile, but it’s something.”

“It would help you?”

“It would help soothe the guilt, yes, but Emile and I both need closure. I need to shut this book as best I can, and also it’s still the right thing to do,” she said.

A student of Ronnie, I could see the emotion she fought down, the lump in her throat.

“Emile had parents who might not know what happened to their daughter. Maybe a sister who searched for answers but never found them. Did you see Emile nude?”

“Who can remember,” I said.

“Mackenzie.”

“Yes I saw her nude.”

“Did her body look like she’d born children?”

“No,” I said. “I told her she could be a poster for liposuction. Then I head-butted her.”

“You did not.”

“I did. Maybe I should make reparations too,” I said.

“That’s not funny. Well. A little. Please discover whatever you can about Emile and her surviving family or estate. I’ll process it and go from there. Is that okay?”

“I can do it. Pro bono.”

“No fee? Are you sure? Because I wanted to sit in your lap as a retainer.”

“Plus daily expenses?”

She smiled and set her shoulder bag onto my chair. “A bargain, Mackenzie, and I’d like to make a deposit now.”

“You’re terrible at negotiation.”

She came around the desk. “Only with you. With everyone else, my hourly fee is astronomical.”

“How much?”

“A girl never tells,” she said.