Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
It’s what I expected based on what I heard happened.
What is missing, though, is police activity. No one is around to make sure the crime scene remains undisturbed. There’s the yellow tape, of course, but anyone can cross it. It’s not as if alarm bells will start blaring if we do. I scan the surroundings. No cameras or security of any kind.
It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Maybe whoever did this is hoping we’ll disturb the crime scene.
Thea and I duck around the yellow tape—I half expect an alarm to blare, but it doesn’t—and look around.
My head hurts. I don’t know what to think anymore.
I lean down to the chalk outline. Dried blood cakes the pavement. My stomach churns. I put on a strong front, but I don’t like blood. I don’t like gore. Those gross-out horror movies aren’t for me. I’ll walk out every time and go watch some Disney shit.
Poor Kin. If he was drugging my clientele—even if he did so under duress from his brother—he deserved to be punished. But he didn’t deserve to be crushed to death. I can’t imagine a worse way to go.
I crane my neck toward the tractor. Maybe there’s something there.
“Aus, don’t.”
“Don’t what, babe?”
“Don’t mess with the tractor.” She gestures to the placard. “It’s not allowed.”
I chuckle. “We’re not supposed to be here at all.”
“But we really shouldn’t move anything. We have to preserve the crime scene. If someone sees what we’re doing, that’ll be all the more damning.”
“Every single object within this tape has had photos taken of it from every possible angle. They probably have some AI bullshit running an algorithm to make a three-dimensional model. It’s already been combed for clues.” He jumps onto the tractor. “We’re just checking things out. Seeing what was missed—unintentionally or otherwise.”
She swallows. “Be careful. Have you ever operated a tractor before?”
“No, but I’m not going to operate it. I’m just looking around.”
“Okay. Just… Just be careful.”
“Of course, sugar.” I scan the area. It’s what I expected to see. Gear shift. Display. Dash. The lever that lifts giant rocks that are then dropped on construction sites and my employees.
I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight under the seat. The light bounces off something shiny.
Odd. A few pebbles are scattered down here, but most of them wouldn’t catch my light like this.
I reach in and pull out a handful of pebbles. Most of them are brown, black, tan. But our culprit—the rock that shone—is red.
A gemstone kind of red.
My heart starts pounding in my throat.
The red gemstone I’m holding in my hand.
Most people would think it’s a ruby.
They’d be wrong.
It’s a diamond. A red diamond.
I associate red diamonds with one person only.
A woman I used to know who wore dozens of them on her neck, wrist, and ears.
And she’s been in the ground for nearly a year.
33
THEA
“Aus?” I ask. “Did you find anything?”
“Um… Yes. No.” His mouth forms a straight line. “Maybe.”
“What is it?”
“A red diamond.”
I get to my feet. “A what?”
“A red diamond. A diamond that’s red.”
“I know what you meant.” I cross over to the tractor. “But what on earth is a precious stone doing at the scene of a murder?”
“It’s not the strangest thing you could find.” Aus is speaking slowly, as if he’s holding on to a secret he doesn’t want to divulge.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” He sighs. “There are certain people I associate with red diamonds who would have no problem crushing a man with a giant rock.”
My heart skips a beat. Do we finally have something that could prove me innocent? “Oh my God. Who?”
“Don’t get too excited.” He climbs down from the tractor and walks me over to a nearby bench. “Does the name Rouge Montrose mean anything to you?”
The name is familiar. You can hardly forget a name like that. Rouge Montrose. A great name for a high-end stripper.
I close my eyes and try to remember where I’ve heard the name.
Then it comes crashing to me.
“Breaking news from the heart of one of Chicago’s oldest clubs,” Tip Sanderson declares from the news desk. “Aces Underground, the exclusive club frequented by some of Chicago’s brightest stars, has come under fire for association with an illegal organ-harvesting operation headed by the club’s frontwoman, the mysterious Rouge Montrose.”
“That’s right, Tip,” Micaela adds. “Montrose was found deceased in her home in the Chicago Gold Hills neighborhood along with three of her male employees, also deceased. The investigation has concluded and it has been determined Montrose’s wounds were self-inflicted, while the three male employees were killed in self-defense.”
“Montrose’s sister, Bianca, was at the condo when the death occurred. She was joined by surgeon Harrison O’Rourke and two of Montrose’s other employees, Vanya Dimitriev and Chester ‘Chet’ Tabbit, the latter of whom fled the scene before investigators could question him. Tabbit is still at large.”