Chapter Three
Maurelle
I stood outside the bar, looking through the window for my next prey. It had been days since Oliver passed away and the detectives had finally stopped following me around all day. I knew I still had to be careful, but as long as I stayed inside these clubs, I knew the cops couldn’t follow.
I entered the bar area and took a seat at the end of the bar, closest to his table. I’d had days to discover what Colby James was into and where he liked to go when he had time for himself. It felt like I’d known him forever already.
“What’ll it be?” the bar attendant asked.
I looked up at him, noticing how young he was. When had it started? That I looked at people and noticed their youth?
“French Martini,” I told him.
He set out to make my drink as I looked down at my phone, pretending that I had something to look at as I waved my cocktail serviette, ensuring the perfume I’d purchased wafted over to him.
The drink was placed in front of me and I took a quick sip I felt him approach before I saw him sidle up to the bar, and turn to face me.
He had a cocky grin on his face, the one that I knew probably won over his former wives, and possibly his many mistresses that ended those marriages. I knew his type. I’d married a few of them.
“You know,” he started. “That perfume you’re wearing is unique. It’s the one my ex-wife wears.”
I pasted my sweet as sin smile on my face. “She must have made quite the impression for you to recall the scent of her perfume from a meer whiff.”
“Oh you’ve no idea, darlin’,” he said. “I’ve not seen you around here before. Are you new to the area?”
“I’ve been around, but not for a while. My husband didn’t like to attend these clubs much.”
His smile died down. “Oh?”
“No need to fear, he’s no longer in the picture.”
His smile began to teeter again. “Well now, how could anyone let you go?”
“Who says it was he who let me go?” I countered the question to avoid the topic of death.
“Well now, I like that,” he said. He motioned to my empty drink. “Can I get you another?”
I nodded. “I think I’d like that.”
“The name’s Colby,” he told me. “And you are?”
“Pleased to meet you, Colby, Marnie Picquette.”
He chuckled as he took my extended hand and laid a kiss on the back of it. This was getting almost too easy the more I did this. Soon, I’ll find them all and make them pay for what they did to me, and what they still do to all those girls they preyed on.
Colby was charming, and for a brief moment, I wondered if I’d been right.
Could this be the man on the list? He seemed so sweet and lovely, but I knew they hid that side of themselves from the world.
It was why they all seemed to get away with it.
It was why I started attacking them from the inside.
It was the only way.
It helped that I felt nothing for anyone. My life had been forfeit the day I’d been born.
Until the day I breathed my last, I would do what I had to do.
And no detective, no matter how charming he was to look at, would stop me.
Kane
She stood opposite the man in the foyer of the country club, a smile on her face as if she hadn’t just lost her last husband a few days ago in the most tragic of circumstances. We had nothing on our investigation, and my captain had already told me to drop it, push it off to the cold case team.
I refused.
Now, I sat here on my day off, watching her start to win over her next husband.
My phone rang and I saw one of the research tech’s name pop up.
“Yeah?”
“That’s how you answer the phone?” I heard Petra ask.
“Why did you call on my day off?”
“Oh please,” she tsked. “We both know you’re always working.”
“What did you find?”
“Jeez, touchy,” she sighed. “Okay, so I’ve looked into that house you asked about, but it doesn’t belong to your suspect.”
“The house on Mulberry?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t belong to the husband either.”
“Who the hell does it belong to?” I asked.
I could hear the tapping on the keyboard as Petra hummed along with whatever pop song was popular at the moment. She may be different to most in the field, but she knew how to get the information we needed and quickly.
“It says the house belongs to Camille Delaponte.”
“Who is she?”
“It’s weird, there’s nothing here about Camille. She’s a person, sure, but she’s not connected to the suspect or victim at all.”
“There has to be a connection somewhere.”
“I’ll keep looking but so far, she’s clean.”
“No one can be that clean,” I told her. “Not if she is connected to this woman. Dig deep, Petra.”
I hung up the phone and followed her as she drove away, keeping a good distance so she didn’t catch on. She headed back to the house owned by this Camille woman and went inside.
There was just something not adding up.
And I hated puzzles.
I opened my phone and pulled up Tommy’s number.
GARRICK
Bring her in. It’s time we spoke to her about her husband.
TOMMY
On it.
I took off down the street, heading back to my apartment.
I needed a clear head with this one. She wasn’t going to make this easy on us, and if Stanley’s research was accurate, this wouldn’t be her first rodeo.
She would know how to fool detectives, she would know how to pull us into the direction she wanted us in.
Suddenly, I felt more alive than I had in a long time.
This may just be the case that brought me out of the darkness.
Or…maybe, it’ll be the one that dragged me further into the abyss.