When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she’s built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O’Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he’s not the killer’s first target. As bodies pile up and the theater’s reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she’s willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who’s stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

The response came immediately.

Agios Clinics. Ring a bell?

Bunny’s thumb flew across the screen.

Oh, yes, absolutely. Right next to my favorite supplement company and that one weird juice bar that claims to cure mortality. Of course that doesn’t ring a bell!

She sent it, then immediately regretted the snark. Her phone buzzed again before she could type an apology.

???

Sorry. I’m sorry. That was rude. Cashler really got under my skin. What’s Agios Clinics?

Forgiven, She couldn’t help but smile at her phone, Meet me at my office. There are some things you need to see.

Bunny stared at the screen, the fluorescent lights of the building cloaking each shadow in institutional despair. Her hands were still shaking slightly from the conversation with Cashler, and now Dash wanted her to look at more evidence, more threads, more pieces of a puzzle that seemed to grow more complex every time they thought they were close to understanding it.

She typed back quickly.

How soon?

Now would be good.

Bunny pocketed her phone and the seed packet together, feeling their combined weight like a talisman against whatever was coming next. The elevator ride down felt longer than it should have, each floor passing with agonizing slowness as her mind replayed Cashler’s words. By the time she reached Dusty in the parking lot, she’d already run through everything she could imagine about what Dash might have found. No conclusion was good. She gunned the engine harder than necessary, tires squealing slightly as she pulled out onto the main road. The city rolled past her windows. Familiar streets that suddenly felt foreign, ordinary buildings that might contain extraordinary secrets.

Her phone rang through the car’s speakers. Dash’s name lit up the screen.

“I’m five minutes away,” She said by way of greeting, “What’s Agios Clinics?”

“It’s better if I show you.”

His voice carried a tension she recognized from the night they’d broken into Glen’s mansion. The sound of someone who’d uncovered something they wished they hadn’t.

“Dash—”

“Five minutes, Bunny. Just get here.”

The line went dead. She pressed harder on the accelerator, running a yellow light that was closer to red than she’d admit.

O’Neill Investigations looked exactly as worn and ordinary as it always did, but now Bunny saw it differently. Saw how unremarkable it was, how easily overlooked. The perfect place for someone who needed to disappear into the background of the city’s daily commerce. She took the stairs two at a time, her heels clicking against the concrete in a rhythm that matched her racing pulse.

Dash’s office door stood open. He sat at his desk, surrounded by papers spread across every available surface: printouts, photographs, what looked like medical records with certain passages highlighted in yellow. His laptop screen glowed with a document she couldn’t quite make out from the doorway. He looked up as she entered, and the expression on his face made her stomach drop.

“Tell me,” She said, closing the door behind her, “Whatever it is, just tell me.”

​“Something isn’t quite right with our little ‘trustworthy’ friend,” He said without preamble.

​Bunny felt the exhaustion of a million years descend on her shoulders.

​“I know. I just came from seeing her and… God, I feel like an idiot. She was so nice at first, showing me her plants, talking about gardening like we were two people having coffee. And I bought it. All of it.”

​She moved to the chair across from his desk, sinking into it.

​“I trusted her just because she had a medical degree and seemed professional. Because she was helpful…” Her shoulders slumped, “I thought that meant something.”

​“Don’t beat yourself up too much,” Dash said, though his voice remained grim, “She’s had a lot of practice making people trust her. That’s how cons work. They find what you want to believe, and they show it to you.”

​He gestured to the papers spread across his desk.

​“After you left this morning, something kept niggling at me. Call it instinct, but I didn’t buy the whole ‘good cop/bad cop’ thing she had going on with Lancaster. You know, she was all reasonable, the one who got nuance, while Lancaster bulldozed through. Which isn’t wrong, necessarily. Lancaster busts balls. But,” He paused, “It just felt too practiced. Too smooth.”

​“So you went digging.”

​“I went digging. And I found something,” He picked up a printout and handed it to her, “Agios Clinics. Registered as a pain management facility. Opened four years ago in a medical plaza on the east side. Small operation—just a couple of exam rooms, a receptionist, basic setup. Nothing fancy.”

​Bunny scanned the document. Incorporation papers with Dr. Elaine Cashler’s name listed as the primary physician and owner.

​“Cashler has a private practice? That’s not unusual. Tons of medical examiners do consulting work on the side.”

​“It would be fine,” Dash agreed, “If that’s what she was actually doing.”

​He pulled up something on his laptop, turned the screen so she could see rows and rows of patient names, prescription numbers, dates.

​“I have a contact who works in pharmaceutical fraud investigation. He’s been tracking pill mill operations in the Southeast for the past five years. Agios Clinics has been on their radar for three years.”

​Bunny’s eyes scanned the spreadsheet, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

​“Pill mill?”

​“A sham clinic that exists primarily to write prescriptions for opioids. Patients pay cash, usually a couple hundred dollars, see the doctor for maybe five minutes, walk out with a script for OxyContin or fentanyl. Then they either use it themselves or sell it on the street.”

​He scrolled down, showing her page after page of prescriptions written by Dr. Elaine Cashler. The sheer volume of them made Bunny’s stomach turn.

​“Jesus. How many?”

​“Thousands. Over the course of three years, she wrote prescriptions for over forty thousand pills. Most of them to patients who saw her multiple times a month, every month. Like clockwork.”

​Bunny looked at the names. John Smith. Jane Allen. Michael Johnson. Mary Williams. Generic, forgettable, probably fake.

​“Why hasn’t she been arrested?”

​“Because she’s careful. Really careful,” Dash pulled up another document, “Look at the pattern. She never writes scripts that are quite high enough to trigger automatic flags. She spreads the prescriptions across multiple pharmacies. She varies the dosages just enough to make it look legitimate. And most importantly—” He tapped the screen, “She only takes cash. No insurance billing. No paper trail connecting her to Medicare fraud. Just patients paying out of pocket for ‘pain management consultations.’”

​“But someone must have noticed? The DEA, the medical board, someone?” The desperation in her voice thinly veiled a twinge of fear. Rising panic in Bunny’s throat that felt as sharp as a dagger.

​“They did. Three years ago, the state medical board opened an investigation,” Dash handed her another printout, “But before it could go anywhere, Agios Clinics closed. Cashler claimed financial difficulties, dissolved the corporation, and moved all the medical records to a storage facility that conveniently flooded six months later. Everything destroyed. No evidence.”

​Bunny stared at the papers in her hands, pieces clicking together with sickening clarity.

​“So she got away with it.”

​“She got away with it,” Dash’s tone was stark, “And then a year later, Glen Valentino and his associates started dying from belladonna poisoning. Which brings me to the interesting part.”

​He pulled out another document.

​“Guess who was one of Cashler’s most frequent visitors at Agios Clinics?”

​Bunny already knew. She could feel it in the way the air had changed, in the way Dash was looking at her.

​“Glen Valentino.”

​“Not just Glen. Maurice Katz. Catherine Winters. Harold Finch,” Dash tapped each name on the screen, “But they weren’t coming as patients.”

​Bunny rolled her tongue in her mouth, searching for clues somewhere in Dash’s face.

​“They were coming as…?”

​“As investors.”

​Investors? Bunny thought, leaning closer to the screen.

​“Small stakes, initially. Cashler pitched Agios as a legitimate pain management clinic serving an underserved community. Glen brought in his usual circle: his lawyers, his CFO, his business partner. They each put in fifty thousand, enough to get the operation off the ground.”

​He pulled up another document, this one showing a corporate structure chart.

​“For the first year, everything looked legitimate on paper. The clinic showed modest profits, reasonable patient volume. I can’t be sure about it since the guy is dead, but my bets are on Glen asking too many questions. I mean, it makes sense, right?”

Dash took one look at Bunny’s consternation and pushed forward.

“His pharmaceutical background meant he understood prescribing patterns, what normal looked like versus what didn’t.”

She raised her eyebrows in concession.

“And so he figured out what she was really doing.”

“More than that. He started documenting it,” He gestured at the mess of papers around him, “Katz helped him, pulling together evidence from the financial records, patient logs, everything they could access as investors.”

He pulled the laptop closer, scrolling through pages of notes.

“Winters discovered financial irregularities first. Look.”

He pointed at a scanned PDF document with sharp scribbles in the margin.

“It’s kind of hard to read—”

“You’re telling me.”

Dash looked up at her, cracking a wry smile before fixing his features into the severity she’d become accustomed to.

How is he allowed to be handsome under these conditions?

“It says that the money coming in didn’t match the declared patient visits. Cash deposits that were too regular, too large.”

“So they were going to expose her.”

“They were. Katz had already drafted a formal complaint to the medical board. Winters had flagged the financial records for an audit. And Finch. Fucking Finch,” The PI sighed jadedly, “Here, lemme just show you.”

Dash pulled up an email chain that made Bunny’s stomach twist into tighter knots.

“Harold was scheduled to go on discovery once Glen’s lawyers filed the case and served papers. He was going to lay out everything they’d gathered about the ‘clinic,’” He cupped the last word in air quotes, “But he was also already two-timing Glen with the federal investigation. Finch had a real axe to grind. He was an easy target, and everybody already kind of hated him.”

“For trying to do the right thing.” Bunny’s voice rose in protestation, but it sounded feeble even to her own ears.

“Yeah, that doesn’t seem to get you very far in these circles,” Dash countered, twirling a pen around his middle finger, “Snitches still get stiches.”

The office felt smaller suddenly, the walls pressing in. Bunny set down the papers, her hands shaking slightly.

“She killed all of them. Everyone who knew.”

“Everyone who could testify. Everyone who had enough evidence to destroy her.”

Bunny stood, needing to move, needing to do something with the energy cracking through her body.

“But why would she risk it? She’s the medical examiner. She’s the one doing the autopsies. Wouldn’t killing people just draw attention to herself?”

“Kind of. That’s the part I can’t figure out,” Dash continued, and Bunny could feel the wall of frustration that he was bucking up against, “Technically, it could shield her if she feigned genuine ignorance of the circumstances. Maybe she thought her position would shield her. That no one would question the medical examiner’s findings. But it’s still risky. She’s smart. Too smart.”

“Or too arrogant.” Bunny offered. Dash shrugged.

“Yeah, or that.”

Bunny paced to the window again, her mind racing through possibilities. Then she turned back to face him, ready to pivot.

“What about Fenelope? We still haven’t figured out how she fits into all of this. The paint at Glen’s house, her access to the mansion, the way she’s been acting—”

She stopped mid-sentence.

The mask.

The memory hit her like a punch in the stomach. Mickey on stage at the gala, his voice booming across the Egyptian Room: “For the art lovers, our first item is a miniature sized replica of the Mask of Pakal. A stunning hand-crafted mask made of genuine jadeite jade.”

And then, much later, standing in Glen’s gallery with Lancaster, staring at the empty alcove. The pedestal where something had been removed. Something heavy enough to crack a skull. Something valuable enough to display but small enough to conceal.

“Oh my God.”

Dash straightened immediately, recognizing the shift in her voice.

“What? What is it?”

“The mask. At the gala. The first auction item was a jade mask. Small, heavy. Made of jadeite,” The words came faster now, tumbling over each other as the pieces clicked into place, “And at Glen’s house, in the gallery, right where we found the blood, remember? There was an empty alcove. The only empty one in the entire gallery.”

Dash’s brow furrowed.

“Okay. So… Glen somehow had a jade mask that went missing. What does that—”

“No, listen. What if it wasn’t just decorative? What if that’s how Cashler was moving the pills?” Bunny could hear how crazy it sounded even as she said it, but the pieces were falling together too perfectly to ignore.

“A jade mask—hollow inside. Heavy enough that a little extra weight wouldn’t be noticeable. Valuable enough to pass through customs, through security, without anyone questioning it too closely. You said she was careful, right? That she spread prescriptions across multiple pharmacies?”

“Yeah, but—”

“But she still needed a way to move large quantities without raising red flags. Cash payments, fake patients, that only works if she’s also got a distribution network. And what better way to transport pills than in an art piece?”

Bunny grabbed his arm.

“Think about it. Glen was an investor. He probably provided the mask as part of the operation. Something from his personal collection that could be used for transport. And when he figured out what they were really doing, when he threatened to expose them—”

“They had to get rid of the evidence,” Dash was following her logic now, even though skepticism still clung to his expression, “The mask ties Cashler directly to the operation.”

“And to Glen’s death. If we can prove the mask was used for smuggling. I-if there’s any trace of the pills inside it—”

“That’s a lot of ifs, Bunny,” He ran a hand over his head, “You’re talking about a pretty elaborate smuggling operation based on an empty alcove and a coincidental auction item.”

“I know how it sounds. But everything else about this case has been elaborate and careful and calculated. Why would the mask be different?”

She could feel the urgency thrumming through her veins.

“Dash, we’re running out of time. Cashler knows I was asking questions. If she realizes we’re getting close, she’ll disappear. The mask might be our only physical evidence.”

Dash stared at her for a long moment, clearly weighing the odds of this wild theory against the very real possibility that they were wasting precious time chasing shadows.

“The auction records.” He said finally.

“Would be at the Fox. In the event files.”

They stared at each other for a split second, the weight of the revelation settling between them. Dash grabbed his jacket and Bunny snatched her purse from where she’d dropped it.

“This is a crazy hunch.” He said, already at the door.

“I know.”

“If you’re wrong—”

“Then we figure something else out. But if I’m right…”

He shoved his hands in his pocket and shook his head, throwing her another smile.

“If you’re right, you might as well take my badge and license, Ms. Beaudoin.”

They hit the stairs at a run, Bunny’s heels clattering against concrete as they descended. The afternoon had shifted toward evening, the light outside going golden and long. Dash’s Ford sat in the small lot behind the building, and the two barely paused as they slid into the front seats. The engine roared to life as Dash pulled into traffic with enough force to make Bunny grip the door handle. The Fox was eight minutes away.

He made it in five.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

The service entrance stood in the shadow, the evening dusk taking over what little light was left in the day. Dash killed the engine and they sat for a moment.

“Ready?” He asked.

Bunny looked at the theater. Her theater, the place she’d dedicated years of her life to preserving and protecting. The place where Harold Finch had died. Where a killer had walked among the donors and champagne and beautiful things, hiding in plain sight.

“Let’s go.”

The heavy door swung open to reveal the familiar service corridor, but transformed by absence. No contractors shouting measurements. No staff rushing past with clipboards. Just the hum of the building’s mechanical systems and the hollow echo of their footsteps against linoleum.

“Administrative offices are on the second floor.” Bunny whispered, though there was no one to hear them.

They moved through the corridor, past the closed doors of the staff break rooms and storage closets. The emergency exit signs glowed a sickly green, turning the wood paneling cold and alien. Bunny had been in the Fox after hours before, but never like this. Never with the weight of what they were looking for pressing down on her shoulders.

The service stairs opened onto the second floor hallway, darker than the one below. The windows here faced east, away from the setting sun, and the administrative offices had been designed for function rather than the grand aesthetic of the public spaces. They passed Carol’s empty desk, her computer monitor dark, a half-finished cup of coffee sitting beside her keyboard like she’d just stepped away for a moment and would be right back.

“Here.”

Bunny stopped at a door marked EVENT COORDINATION. She tried the handle.

Locked.

Dash pulled something from his pocket. A slim leather case she recognized from their break-in at Glen’s mansion. He selected two picks and went to work on the lock with practiced efficiency. The click seemed impossibly loud in the empty hallway. Inside, the office was exactly as lifeless as the rest of the building. Two desks, filing cabinets, a printer that blinked with some error message in the darkness. Bunny moved to the nearest cabinet, trying drawer after drawer until she found one labeled “Annual Gala – Current Year.”

“Got it.”

She pulled out a thick folder, brought it to one of the desks where a window let in just enough twilight to see by. Dash positioned himself near the filing cabinets, hid back to the door, pulling out his phone to provide additional light. The building settled around them with creaks and groans. Old bones adjusting to the shift from day to night. Somewhere far below, the HVAC system kicked on with a mechanical wheeze.

Bunny’s fingers flew through the folder. Vendor contracts. Catering invoices. Seating charts she’d labored over for weeks. And finally, auction records. Her eyes scanned the pages, looking for lot number one.

“Mask of Pakal replica. Starting bid two thousand,” She read quietly, tracing her finger down to the final sale, “Sold for eight thousand five hundred—”

The name made her breath catch.

“Dash.”

He moved closer, leaning over her shoulder to see better in the dim light. They stared at the buyer’s name, the implications spreading outward like cracks in ice.

Then, a sound echoed from somewhere in the building. Footsteps, maybe. Or just the old theater settling into the evening.

Bunny’s hands stilled on the paper.

“Did you hear that?”

Another sound. Closer now. Definitely footsteps, coming up the service stairs they’d just used.

“Someone’s here.” Dash whispered.

The footsteps grew louder, methodical, unhurried. Moving down the hallway toward them. Bunny and Dash stood frozen at the desk, the auction records still spread before them, their backs to the door. The folder suddenly felt like evidence, like guilt made tangible.

The footsteps stopped.

Right outside the office.

Bunny’s breath caught in her throat. The silence stretched, broken only by the mechanical hum of the building and the rush of blood in her ears. Through the darkness, she could feel Dash tense beside her, could sense him calculating distances, exits, possibilities.

Shit.

The door was still open. They’d left it open.

A shadow fell across the threshold, someone standing just beyond the frame. Waiting. Listening. Bunny’s fingers gripped the edge of the desk, her whole body rigid with the effort of staying perfectly still. Maybe if they didn’t move, didn’t breathe, whoever it was would—

Click.

A different sound than that of a lock opening.

The distinct metallic click of a gun being cocked shattered the silence.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she’s built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O’Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he’s not the killer’s first target. As bodies pile up and the theater’s reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she’s willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who’s stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Bunny woke to the sensation of Dash’s fingers tracing the curve of her spine, each touch deliberate as a signature. Morning light cut through the gaps in his bedroom blinds, striping the rumpled sheets in bands of gold and shadow. She’d slept better than she had in weeks. The weight of evidence they’d gathered, the clarity of purpose, the man whose bed she’d fallen asleep in after hours of talking and touching and falling apart. All of it had granted her something like peace. She rolled over to find him propped on one elbow, watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite name. His other hand continued its path along her shoulder blade, thumb pressing gently against each vertebra as though counting them.

“You’re staring.” She said, her voice still husky with sleep.

“I’m observing.” He corrected, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

“There’s a difference?”

“One makes me sound like a creep. The other, a consummate professional.”

She laughed, a sound that surprised her with its ease, its lack of armor. When had she last laughed like that—unguarded, genuine, with someone who’d seen her at her worst and hadn’t flinched?

“How long have you been awake?” She asked.

“Long enough to think.”

“About?”

“About how we’re gonna do this.” His hand stilled against her skin, the absence of its motion a sudden chill.

The real world rushed back in with finality. Bunny rolled over and sat up, lazy as a lioness stretching in the savannah sun, pulling the sheet with her. Dash’s bedroom smelled like coffee—he must have already been up once. A mug sat on his nightstand, steam still rising.

“I was hoping we could have five more minutes before this.” She mumbled, her eyes scanning the stark lines of his bedroom.

“We can have five more minutes,” He reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers, his grip firm and solid, “But we need to figure this out. Together.”

Together. The word settled something in her chest that had been loose and rattling for too long. She squeezed his hand.

“Fox board meeting,” She said, “Wednesday afternoon. Fenelope will be there for the operations review.

“You want to confront her in front of the board?”

“No,” Bunny shook her head, “But I want her to think it’s just another meeting. If we tell her we need to talk privately, she’ll know something’s up. She’ll prepare. But if we pull her aside during a break, when she’s already in work mode, when she’s not expecting it…”

She trailed off, watching his eyes, the curved edges of his mouth. He reached for his coffee, took a sip, offered it to her.

“It might work,” He started as she accepted the mug, the heat a grounding, intimate gesture, “But it’ll be something subtle that gives her away. I highly doubt she’d start talking that easy.”

Bunny took a hesitant sip, a small grimace reaching her lips.

“I can’t believe you take this stuff black- isn’t it more likely for psychopaths to like black coffee?”

He smiled, slow and sleepily but didn’t answer her. She returned the mug to his side table, reaching over, her bare chest brushing against the heat of him.

“Lancaster will want to know what we’re planning.” He said, settling back into the pillows, one arm under his head.

“Then we tell her. She gets to monitor from nearby—maybe in my office or Carol’s. She can listen in, step in if things go south,” Bunny paused, “It’s the only way she’ll agree to let us do this instead of just arresting Fenelope outright.”

“We should probably loop Cashler in,” Dash responded, “About what we found at the mansion.”

The suggestion hung between them.

“I agree,” Bunny said thoughtfully, “She’s been pretty helpful from the start. And if there was blood evidence at Glen’s house that Lancaster missed, Cashler should know about it. It might change her findings.”

“You want to tell her before we confront Fenelope?”

“I-I think I should. If we go into that board meeting without giving Cashler all the information, and something we say contradicts her reports—” Bunny stopped her thought short, suddenly self-conscious.

“You don’t want to blindside her.” Dash finished for her and Bunny threw a small, grateful smile his way.

“Yeah. She’s been good to us.”

“Fair point.” He traced a line down her arm, from her shoulder to her wrist. The simple caress sent a shiver through her that was entirely at odds with their grim discussion.

“What are you going to say?”

“Just that Lancaster took me through Glen’s gallery during the official walk-through, and I noticed some things. Blood under paint on the baseboards. Nothing that contradicts her autopsy findings.”

“You’re not going to mention that we broke in later?”

“God, no.” Bunny turned on her side to face him fully, the sheet dipping dangerously low. She saw his gaze flicker down for a half-second before snapping back to her eyes.

“But I can say I saw things during the walk- things that need to be discussed privately. Medical examiner to concerned citizen. That’s not lying.”

“It’s not exactly the truth either.” He said softly, his gaze holding no scorn.

“It’s close enough.”

Dash studied her face for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

“You trust her.” He said finally. It wasn’t a question.

“I do.”

“Okay,” He nodded, “Then yeah, give her a heads up. She deserves that.” She leaned forward then and kissed him, tasting the dark roast coffee and the clean scent of him. It was a kiss of gratitude, of partnership, but it quickly deepened into something that felt like the strange thrill of standing on the edge of everything falling apart. When she pulled back, his eyes had gone dark.

“When are you going to see her?” He asked, his voice lower now, a rough edge to it.

“Today. This morning, if I can arrange it.”

“Want me to come with you?”

Bunny shook her head, acutely aware of the scant inches and the single sheet separating them.

“I think she’ll be more open if it’s just me. Woman to woman.”

He moved with a sudden, fluid grace that stole her breath. His hands found her hips and he pulled her across the sheets, onto his lap, her legs straddling his waist. The sheet was lost somewhere between them. The morning air was cool on her bare skin, a stark contrast to the heat of him through his cotton boxers.

“Then I suppose,” He murmured, his hands splayed on the small of her back, holding her firmly in place, his thumbs making slow, deliberate circles on her skin, “This is our five more minutes.”

She could feel the ridge of him beneath her, the promise of what last night’s exhaustion

had postponed. Her breath hitched. She braced her hands on his shoulders, the solid muscle there tense under her palms.

“Dash..”

“I thought you said just five minutes, Bunny,” He said, his voice a low, teasing thrum that vibrated through her entire body. One hand slid up her spine, his palm hot and sure against her bare skin, “We’ve earned that much.”

His other hand came up to cup the nape of her neck, his thumb stroking the sensitive spot just behind her ear. He didn’t kiss her. He just held her there, his eyes locked on hers, the intensity in them a silent question. The world outside with its killers and its deadlines, shrank to the space of this bed, to the weight of his hands on her body, to the agonizing, delicious tension of what was to come.

“What are we doing with our five minutes?” She whispered, her own voice unfamiliar to her.

A slow, wolfish smile spread across his face.

“Whatever we want.”

🀙🀚🀛🀜

The City of Magnolia Heights Medical Examiner’s Office looked exactly as uninviting in the late morning as it had at dawn. Bunny pulled into the parking lot and killed Dusty’s engine, then sat for a moment gathering her nerve. She’d called ahead. Dr. Cashler could see her at eleven. No questions asked about why Bunny wanted to meet, just a calm agreement and directions to her office, in case Bunny needed a reminder. She’d had to stop the nausea from rising back up when she remembered the blur of those first few weeks after this whole mess.

That easy compliance should have reassured her.

Instead, it made her stomach tight with something she couldn’t name.

Inside, the building smelled like industrial cleaner. The smell of death made procedural, rendered safe through paperwork and bureaucracy. She took the stairs rather than wait for the elevator, her heels clicking against the linoleum with a rhythm that sounded too loud in the empty stairwell. A janitor nodded to her on the landing. Two women in scrubs passed going the opposite direction, deep in conversation about someone’s upcoming wedding. Normal.

Everything was devastatingly normal.

The coroner’s office was at the end of a long hallway painted a color that wasn’t quite white and wasn’t quite tan. The door stood open, as though she’d been expected all along. Bunny knocked anyway, a courtesy that felt absurd given what she was here to discuss.

“Ms. Beaudoin,” Cashler looked up from her desk, removing a pair of slender reading glasses, “Come in. Please.

Dr. Cashler stood to greet her. She was tall— taller than Bunny remembered, or maybe she’d been sitting the first time they met. Her black hair, shot through with silver, was pulled into a low bun that showed off the architecture of her face. Strong bones, strong features, the kind of face that aged well because it had been built well to begin with. She wore simple charcoal slacks and a cream blouse, simple but elegant. The efficiency of someone who’d decided what worked and stuck with it. Her handshake was warm, her smile genuine enough that Bunny almost forgot this woman spent her days with corpses.

“Thank you for seeing me on short notice.” Bunny said semi-apologetically.

“Not at all,” Cashler gestured to one of the chairs, “Please, sit. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

“Water would be great.”

The office was larger than Bunny recalled. Brighter too. Afternoon light poured through two tall windows, illuminating walls lined with medical textbooks whose spines showed the wear of actual use and framed degrees. The same desk that she and Fenelope had sat at all those weeks ago. The same chairs positioned for conversation rather than interrogation, way more comfortable than the plastic traps in the waiting room.

And plants. Everywhere, plants. More than she remembered.

A massive pothos cascaded from a shelf near the ceiling, its vines thick as rope and long enough to reach the floor if Cashler ever let them. The leaves were the deep, waxy green of something that never wanted for water. Succulents clustered on the windowsill in a collection that must have taken years to build—jade plants with trunks gone woody over time, echeveria forming perfect geometric rosettes, haworthia striped like tiny zebras. A peace lilly bloomed white near the desk, its flowers the color of surrender. African violets crowded a bookshelf, their purple flowers improbable and perfect.

Bunny found herself charmed by it. The life in this place, the care evident in every healthy leaf, every plant positioned exactly where it would thrive. It was the office of someone who understood that living things needed tending, someone who paid attention to the small necessities that kept something breathing. Cashler moved to a small table where a glass pitcher sat among more succulents. She poured water into two glasses, handed one to Bunny, then settled into the chair across from her rather than returning to her desk. The gesture felt deliberately informal. Welcoming.

“I have to say,” Bunny began, glancing around, “Your office is not what I expected. It’s so… alive.”

Cashler laughed, a genuine sound that filled the space.

“You should see people’s faces when they come in here for the first time. They expect, I don’t know, steel and formaldehyde. Instead, they get a botanical garden.”

“How long have you been collecting them?”

“Oh, years. Decades, really,” Cashler’s whole demeanor brightened, “That pothos up there? I’ve had her since residency. She was just a cutting then. Maybe six inches. Now look at her. I have to prune her back twice a year or she’d take over the whole building.”

“She?”

“All my plants are women,” Cashler said this matter-of-factly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, “They deserve the recognition. They’re the ones doing all the work, after all—photosynthesis, oxygen production, making this place bearable.”

Bunny found herself smiling.

“I’ve never been able to keep anything alive. Even those supposedly indestructible snake plants.”

“Oh God, those are the worst,” Cashler groaned, “Everyone thinks they’re indestructible, so they either ignore them completely or drown them with attention. The trick with plants is the same as with people—you have to pay attention to what they actually need, not what you think they need.”

Bunny’s gaze moved across the collection.

“What about that one?” She pointed to a trailing, bright green plant with heart-shaped leaves edged in deep purple.

“Ah!” Cashler’s face lit up like someone had just asked about her favorite child. She crossed to the windowsill and lifted the white ceramic pot with obvious pride.

“This is my favorite. Sweet potato vine—Ipomoea batatas, if you want to be formal about it. Though I suppose you don’t strike me as someone who insists on formality.”

“I didn’t know you could grow sweet potatoes indoors.”

“You can’t. Not the actual tubers, at least,” Cashler held the pot up to the light, turning it so Bunny could see the way the leaves caught the sun, “The plant sends all its energy to the foliage instead of forming anything edible underground. You’d never get a harvest from something grown in a pot like this. But the vines—they do beautifully with the right care.”

She set the pot back on the sill with the precision of someone arranging an art piece.

“Most people think of them as outdoor plants. Aggressive spreaders that take over gardens, choke out everything else. But they’re surprisingly adaptable if you understand their needs.”

“What do they need?”

“Light. Water. Something to climb,” Cashler’s tone was casual, conversational, “Give them those three things and they’ll grow toward whatever you offer them. Train them properly and they’re beautiful—lush, contained, exactly what you want them to be.”

“Do you have a garden at home too?” Bunny asked, relaxing into the conversation. She could feel her shoulders drop from their defensive arch.

“I do, actually,” The medical examiner said, taking a sip of her water, “Nothing fancy—just a little plot in my backyard. Tomatoes mostly. Some herbs.”

Cashler’s smile was warm, unguarded.

“My neighbors love me in August. I leave bags of tomatoes on their doorsteps like some kind of vegetable burglar. You can only make so much sauce before you run out of freezer space.”

The peace lily caught Bunny’s eye; white flowers standing pristine against dark leaves.

“That one’s beautiful.”

“Peace lilies are interesting,” Cashler followed her gaze, “They’re marketed as symbols of tranquility, but they’re actually quite dramatic. They droop when they need water, wilt completely if you ignore them too long. But give them what they need and they bounce back within hours. Very resilient. Very communicative about their needs, if you pay attention.”

“Unlike people.”

“Exactly unlike people,” Cashler’s smile turned wry, “People will suffer in silence for years before they tell you something’s wrong. Plants are more honest. They show you exactly what they need, if you’re willing to look.”

Bunny set down her water glass. The ease of the conversation had loosened something in her chest, made what she came here to say feel less dangerous somehow. But it was time. She couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Dr. Cashler,” She began, her voice careful, “I wanted to let you know about something I noticed during the walk-through at Glen Valentino’s mansion.”

Something shifted in Cashler’s expression, a recalibration like shutters closing behind the eyes. Cashler’s hands stilled on her water glass. The change was subtle—just a pause in movement, a barely perceptible change in her breathing. She didn’t say anything right away, just waited. The silence felt different than the comfortable pauses in their plant conversation. This one had weight.

“The walk-through,” Cashler said finally. Her voice remained pleasant, conversational even, but something underneath had changed. Like the same words spoken in a different key, “With Chief Lancaster?”

“Yes. She took me through the gallery,” Bunny brushed a stray curl away from her face, trying to maintain the warmth they’d established, “And I noticed something odd about the baseboards.”

Cashler set down her water glass with gentle precision. Her expression didn’t change. She didn’t frown or stiffen or do any of the obvious things someone might do when hearing unexpected information. She just looked at Bunny, her face perfectly neutral. Somehow that was worse than any visible reaction would have been.

“The baseboards.” She repeated the words slowly, as though testing their weight.

“The paint looked fresh in one section. Different finish than the rest,” Bunny pressed on, keeping her voice factual, careful, “It made me curious, so I looked closer. The edge was lifting slightly, and underneath… I could see something dark. Reddish-brown.”

Silence filled the office. Outside, someone walked past in the hallway, their footsteps fading into the distance. A phone rang somewhere far away, then stopped. The peace lily near the desk seemed to lean toward them, its white flowers stark against the darkening mood. Cashler folded her hands in her lap—a gesture that seemed casual but transformed her posture from relaxed to formal in an instant. Her gaze on Bunny had changed—still attentive, but sharper now.

Like she was no longer looking at a friendly visitor but at something that required closer examination.

Assessing.

“You’re suggesting there was blood under the paint.” Her tone made it a statement, not a question.

“I think so, yes,” Bunny shifted in her chair, suddenly aware of how carefully Cashler was watching her, “Given the belladonna in his system, and the questions around the legitimacy of the suicide, it seemed like something you should know. That maybe the scene in the study wasn’t where Glen actually died.”

Cashler was quiet for a moment. She reached up and touched her bun, adjusting a pin that didn’t need adjusting. The gesture seemed thoughtful, meditative even. But her eyes never left Bunny’s face.

“Chief Lancaster mentioned that you accompanied her to the scene,” She started slowly. Each word felt measured, deliberate, “But she didn’t mention any blood evidence. Certainly nothing about painted-over baseboards in the gallery.”

Bunny’s mouth had gone dry. The friendly woman who’d just been showing off her plants with such enthusiasm had gone somewhere Bunny couldn’t reach. In her place sat someone clinical, someone who spent her days cutting open bodies to find the truth hidden inside them.

“It—it was subtle,” Bunny stammered, “Easy to miss.”

“Was it.” Cashler’s eyes had gone hard. A gimlet eye if there ever was one, piercing, seeing straight through the lie before Bunny even finished telling it.

“That’s very observant of you. And quite unusual for a civilian to notice something like that during a walk-through. Most people are too overwhelmed by the idea of being in a room where someone died to pay attention to baseboards.”

The pleasant warmth had evaporated entirely. Cashler leaned forward slightly, her gaze never leaving Bunny’s face.

“Chief Lancaster is many things, Ms. Beaudoin, but careless isn’t one of them. If there was blood under fresh paint in Glen Valentino’s gallery, she would have documented it. She would have called me immediately to examine it. She would have had her forensics team tear up that baseboard to confirm what was underneath.”

She paused, letting the words settle- thick as fog- between them.

“Which means one of two things. Either you saw this evidence during an official walk-through and Lancaster inexplicably failed to document it—which I find highly unlikely, given her reputation. Or…” She tilted her head slightly, “You saw it some other time. Some other way.”

Bunny’s throat felt tight.

“I’m not sure what you’re implying.” Her voice sounded tinny and distant in her own ears.

“I’m not implying anything,” Cashler picked up her water glass but didn’t drink from it, just held it between her hands like she was considering its weight, “You know, in my line of work, inconsistencies are often the most revealing details. A body that’s positioned just slightly wrong. A wound that doesn’t quite match the story. Evidence that appears or disappears depending on who’s looking.”

The silence stretched between them, longer than the passing shadows underneath Cashler’s door. The pothos vine rustled slightly in some unfelt air current. Bunny could hear her own heartbeat, too loud in her ears.

“So let me ask you directly, Ms. Beaudoin,” The medical examiner’s eyes locked on Bunny’s, “Were you at Glen Valentino’s home after hours?”

“No,” The lie tasted like copper, “I was there with Lancaster. That’s all.”

Cashler regarded her for a long moment. Not believing her, Bunny realized. Not even pretending to believe her. Just deciding what to do with the information.

“Hmm,” She said finally, setting down her glass, “Well, I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. Though I must say, if there’s blood evidence at the scene that Lancaster hasn’t documented, that’s quite troubling. I’ll have to follow up with her about it.”

The threat in those words was delicate but unmistakable.

“Of course, if it turns out that someone accessed that crime scene without authorization, that would be a different matter entirely. Tampering with evidence is a serious offense. Chain of custody issues could compromise the entire investigation.”

She stood, moving back to the windowsill. Her fingers found the sweet potato vine, adjusting its position with the same care she’d shown earlier. But now the gesture felt different. A demonstration of power over something that couldn’t resist. Bizarrely, a memory cropped into Bunny’s mind, entirely unprovoked. Her childhood home’s front porch, the roof painted haint blue, the trellis holding hanging pots of lime green heart-shaped leaves. The plants billowing against an impossibly clear sky, spilling abundantly over the edge of their pots. The smell of tea cakes wafting from the kitchen- grandma’s recipe- as Bunny rocked back and forth on the porch swing, watching the sweet potato vine twirl and twirl in the mild breeze.

Then, her mother’s voice, soft and kind as she settled next to little Bunny, the wood creaking under both of their weights.

Sunshine, baby, lots of sunshine. That’s what them vines need. They can’t be trapped indoors, day in and day out. They need full sun.

“You know,” Cashler said conversationally though her back was to Bunny, her voice cutting through the reverie like a knife,“Most people over-tend their plants. They worry too much, water too often, can’t resist the urge to interfere. But sometimes the kindest thing you can do for something is to leave it be. To leave well enough alone.”

She turned to face Bunny, her expression pleasant but her eyes cold.

“Or not, as the case may be.”

Bunny stood, desperate to get out of this office, out of this wretched building entirely.

“I should go,” She nearly knocked over the chair in her rush to leave, “T-thank you for your time, Dr. Cashler.”

“Of course.” Cashler’s voice had taken on a dreamy, far-away quality, like she had receded back into herself. She turned away from Bunny, as if dismissing her.

Bunny delicately nudged her way towards the door.

“Wait just a moment.”

The medical examiner crossed to her desk, stopping Bunny in her tracks, and opened a drawer. Bunny resisted the urge to flinch. Cashler removed a small packet that looked worn, like she’d been carrying it around waiting for the right person to give it to. When she returned, she pressed it into Bunny’s hand, her fingers cool and dry against Bunny’s palm.

“Tomato seeds,” Cashler said, “For your garden.”

“I don’t have a garden.”

“Then maybe this will inspire you to start,” Cashler’s smile was warm again, and Bunny wondered if she’d imagined the glint in her eyes, “They’re easy to grow. Very forgiving for beginners. You could grow them on a balcony, even a sunny windowsill if that’s all you have. They don’t need much. Just light, water, something to grow in. The basics.”

“Thank you.” Bunny’s fingers closed around the packet, its sharp edges cutting grooves into her palms.

“Just be warned—tomatoes are tricky,” Cashler laughed, a sound that seemed genuine but somehow didn’t reach all the way to her eyes, leaning against the doorframe. Then, her face straightened. Serious and severe and strangely serene.

Beautiful.

Cruelly so.

“They multiply, you see,” She paused, her gaze holding Bunny, “That’s what tomatoes do. One plant becomes a whole crop if you’re not careful. More fruit than you ever wanted. More than you can handle, even if you thought you knew what you were getting into when you planted that first seed. Even if you thought you only wanted enough for yourself.”

Cashler’s dark eyes flickered for a moment, like deep water where you couldn’t see the bottom. Couldn’t tell what might be swimming beneath the surface.

“Enjoy the seeds.” She said finally, then closed the door softly between them.

Bunny stood in the empty hallway for a long moment, the seed packet heavy in her hand like a stone. Around her, the building hummed with its usual activity—phones ringing somewhere down the corridor, footsteps echoing in the stairwell, the low murmur of conversations about death rendered routine through repetition.

She thought about the plants thriving in that office.

About the sweet potato vine growing where it shouldn’t, trained into something decorative and contained.

About tomatoes multiplying beyond control, one plant becoming more fruit than you ever wanted or could handle.

About a woman who worked with death all day and went home to water her plants.

Bunny pulled out her phone and typed a message to Dash.

We need to talk. Now.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she’s built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O’Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he’s not the killer’s first target. As bodies pile up and the theater’s reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she’s willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who’s stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

News vans clustered along 14th Street like carrion birds, their satellite dishes reaching toward an indifferent October sky. Bunny counted seven of them from two blocks away, their white bodies gleaming against the Fox Theater’s weathered stone facade. The morning air carried the electric hum of equipment and the sharp voices of reporters practicing their lead-ins, each syllable cutting through the autumn stillness.

She guided Dusty around to the service entrance, the familiar alley suddenly foreign under the weight of what she’d discovered in Glen’s mansion. Her body moved with residual awareness, muscles that remembered the press of Dash’s hands, skin that still held the ghost impression of his mouth against her throat. The taste of bourbon lingered beneath her morning coffee, metallic and rich. Even her clothes felt different, the cotton of her blouse whispering against skin that had learned new languages in the dark.

The Fox’s service door opened to reveal the institutional scent of old wood and fresh paint, anchoring her to the present. But underneath lay a darker truth – the coppery awareness that blood had been spilled in these halls, that death had walked through rooms she’d thought sacred. The corridor amplified sound like a cathedral, carrying the desperate pitch of journalists who smelled blood in marble halls. Microphones jutted forward with surgical precision, each silver grill a small mouth hungry for confession. Camera flashes strobed like lightning, freezing moments of panic into tomorrow’s front pages.

The questions came in staccato bursts that ricocheted off art deco walls:

“Can you confirm that Glen Valentino’s death is being investigated as a homicide?”

“What security measures does the Fox have in place to protect patrons?”

“Is it true that Mr. Valentino was poisoned at your gala?”

Tommy Sweat stood marooned at the eye of this media hurricane, his calloused hands moving in small, futile gestures of surrender. Sixty-three years of honest labor had not prepared him for this particular performance. The morning light, filtered through the Fox’s soaring windows, caught the silver threading his temples and the deep lines that mapped decades of outdoor work across his weathered face. He shifted his weight like a man standing on unstable ground, his usual easy confidence replaced by the rigid posture of someone who understood, perhaps for the first time, that words could be weapons.

“Now look here folks,” Tommy’s distinctive drawl carried across the marble expanse, each word measured like lumber cut to fit, “I’m just here to restore this pretty lady to her former glory.”

He placed a protective palm against the wall with the tenderness of a man gentling a spooked horse.

“I don’t know nothing about murders or poisonings or any such business as that.”

But the reporters circled closer, sensing weakness in his discomfort. A woman with aggressive highlights and veneers thrust her Channel 5 microphone toward him like a sword point.

“But you were working here the night of the gala. Did you see anything suspicious?”

Tommy’s laugh emerged rough as sandpaper against hardwood.

“Honey, the only suspicious thing I witnessed was how much them rich folks paid for that fancy wine. But I knocked off around five that evening. Went home to my Lorraine, watched Wheel of Fortune, same as I do every night God sends.”

The pack pressed forward, emboldened by the scent of a story. Another voice cut through: “What about the recent renovations? Have you discovered anything unusual during construction?”

Something shifted in Tommy’s posture then; a subtle tightening around his eyes that spoke of a man who’d spent his life reading the grain of wood and the integrity of foundations, who understood that some truths were load-bearing and others would bring the whole structure down. His gaze flickered across the crowd with new wariness.

“Just old pipes and electrical work that should’ve been updated decades back,” He said carefully, words chosen like stepping stones across dangerous water, “Nothing more exciting than copper and conduit.”

From her vantage point in the corridor’s shadows, Bunny conducted her own inventory of absence. During every crisis that had punctured the Fox’s careful dignity, Fenelope had materialized like avenging grace. She possessed an almost supernatural ability to transform chaos into narrative, to bend crisis toward opportunity with surgical precision. Her presence alone could silence rooms, reshape stories, make grown philanthropists apologize for inconveniencing her with their emergencies.

But today, the Fox’s marble halls echoed with her absence.

In Fenelope’s place stood Teena Kay behind the reception desk, her usual cherubic confidence cracking like paint in winter. The young woman’s hands fluttered over her phone, her computer keyboard, a stack of business cards. Touching everything and accomplishing nothing. Beside her, Mindy Harcourt clutched her tablet with tight-knuckled desperation, as if the device might shield her from the feeding frenzy of journalists.

“We really can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” Teena was saying, the phrase worn smooth from repetition. Her voice carried the particular strain of someone performing beyond their training.

“If you could just–”

“When will Ms. Wilde be available for comment?” The interruption came sharp as a blade, severing Teena’s attempt at diplomatic deflection.

Teena’s composure fractured visibly, uncertainty bleeding across her features like watercolor on wet paper.

“I– I’m not sure. She’s in meetings–”

“All day?” The reporter’s voice carried the hunger of someone recognizing vulnerability when they smelled it, “This is a major story. The public has a right to know–”

“The public has a right to let these nice ladies do their jobs without harassment,” Tommy interjected, his Southern gallantry overriding self-preservation, “Y’all are making a fine mess of their morning.”

It was then that salvation arrived in Tommy’s peripheral vision: Bunny lurking in the corridor’s shadow. His weathered features brightened with visible relief.

“Well, would you look at that,” He announced, “There’s Ms. Beaudoin from development. She knows a sight more about this place than I ever will. Y’all should be talking to her instead of pestering an old construction worker.”

The media pack turned as one organism toward Bunny, cameras swiveling like gun turrets. Her stomach did an award-winning double axel.

“Oh, hell no.” She breathed, the words barely escaping between clenched teeth as she retreated deeper into the corridor’s protective embrace.

Tommy abandoned his position at ground zero of the media storm and navigated toward her with the purposeful stride of a man fleeing a collapsing scaffold. Behind him, the pack descended upon Teena and Mindy with renewed vigor, leaving the two young women to face the onslaught.

“Ms. Beaudoin,” Tommy called as he reached her sanctuary, “These folks have been pecking at me since dawn, asking questions that ain’t got answers from a simple construction man.”

The familiar weight of responsibility settled across Bunny’s shoulders.

“Tommy,” She said quietly, her voice barely rising above the distant carnival of journalism, “I need to get to Fenelope’s office without those reporters heckling me. Can you run interference?”

He arranged his weathered features conspiratorially.

“‘Course I can. These reporter folks are like wasps at a church picnic: persistent and annoying, but easy enough to swat away if you know their habits.”

They moved through the Fox’s arterial corridors swiftly, Tommy maintaining a steady patter about restoration work while Bunny’s mind raced ahead to the confrontation awaiting her. His voice served as camouflage, familiar and reassuring—measurements and materials, deadlines and dust control, the mundane poetry of honest labor.

“Never seen anything quite like this circus.” Tommy was saying as they climbed the service stairs, each step carrying them further from the mess below. He spoke with the unease of a world suddenly expanding beyond its usual comfortable boundaries of sawdust and restoring crown moulding.

“Been working construction for decades, and I ain’t never had reporters asking me about murders and such dark business.”

They’d nearly reached the executive floor when Carol materialized at the stair’s summit, moving with kinetic urgency. Her usual composure showed hairline cracks. Mascara slightly smudged, blouse wrinkled from nervous fidgeting, that particular strain that came from fighting battles beyond her pay grade.

“You made it,” Carol said and her shoulders dropped from their defensive hunch, “Tommy, thank God you extracted her from those vultures.”

“Happy to help, ladies,” Tommy tipped an imaginary hat with old-world courtesy that seemed almost quaint against the morning’s harsh realities, “Y’all need me again, you just holler. I’ll be manning my crew upstairs if anyone needs me.”

As Tommy’s footsteps faded down the corridor, Carol seized Bunny’s arm with fingers that trembled slightly, pulling her into an alcove where morning light couldn’t reach and secrets felt safer to share.

“We need to talk,” Carol started, “About Fenelope.”

The question that had been building pressure in Bunny’s chest finally found release: “Where is she?” The words emerged sharp with frustration and growing suspicion.

Carol’s expression shifted to uncertainty. She glanced down the corridor as if expecting their conversation to materialize eavesdroppers from the shadows.

“That’s exactly what I need to tell you,” She said, voice dropping to barely above a whisper, “She’s been… different. More controlling than usual, which I didn’t think was humanly possible.”

Bunny raised an eyebrow, invitation for elaboration written in the arch of bone above her eye. She’d been so consumed by the investigation that she’d hardly had time to meet with or notice any changes about her boss. If she were honest, it’d been a bit of a relief. For weeks, she’d received zero late night phone calls asking her to reach out to the hundredth lapsed donor. There’d been no nagging about unsubmitted grants. It really had been a relief, until she realized that Fenelope’s silence might have been that of a crouching tiger waiting in the reeds.

“She’s been micromanaging everything. Every email dissected, every phone call monitored. Yesterday, she said that all press inquiries must be redirected to her personally. But then this morning, when those journalists arrived, she barricaded herself in her office and hasn’t come out since.

The contradiction struck Bunny like a discordant note in familiar music.

“That doesn’t sound like her at all.”

“It’s even weirder than that,” Carol continued, worrying the hem of her cardigan as she spoke a mile a minute, “She’s been restricting staff access to files, limiting who can attend meetings. At first, I thought a bunch of us were going to be laid off or something, but then she stopped including the department heads in certain meetings. The big guys up top. Cut everyone out except…”

She stopped mid-sentence, nervously glancing at Bunny.

“Except who, Carol?”

“E-except me,” She admitted, almost sheepishly, “And even I’m receiving info in pieces.”

Bunny felt familiar ice crystallize in her veins.

“What kinds of files has she restricted?” The question was cloaked with practiced indifference, even as her mind raced toward terrible conclusions.

“Donor records from the past five years, event planning documents from the gala, staff schedules from that night,” Carol explained on thin fingers that betrayed the tremor of accumulated stress, “She even asked for the guest list from general circulation and locked it in her personal safe like it contained state secrets.”

“The guest list?” Bunny’s voice climbed toward incredulity. In her years at the Fox, guest lists were treated with reverence but not paranoia.

Carol nodded with grim emphasis.

“Last week, she had me pull employment records for everyone who worked the gala. Not just event crew, but maintenance, security, even Tommy’s contractors for the renovations. Every person who set foot in the Fox that night.”

The pieces jumbled around Bunny’s head like a messed-up game of dominos.

“Did she explain herself at all?”

“Said it was for the police investigation, you know, to provide background information for their inquiries. But then she told me to deliver the files directly to her instead of to Lancaster or that other detective, um, Ramirez?”

Bunny pursed her lips, then sighed deeply.

“Change of plans,” She said, guiding them away from the direction of Fenelope’s office, “I can’t meet with her. Not yet. Not like this.”

“But Bunny—”

Bunny whipped around, eyes darting to every dark corner of the corridor.

“I’m not trying to compromise your position, Carol, but I think Fenelope might be involved in Glen’s death,” She said quietly, sternly, “And if I’m right, then everyone at the Fox—even you—could be in danger.”

“That’s insane,” Carol whispered, but her wide-eyed expression suggested she wasn’t entirely dismissing the possibility, “Fenelope’s intense, but she’s not a killer.”

Bunny shrugged at this.

“Three weeks ago I would have agreed with you. But I-I’ve been in contact with someone,” She paused, assessing how much she was willing to share, “A private investigator. He’s really helped me figure out some things about Glen. And… and so much more.”

Carol’s eyebrows rose at the mention of Dash.

“He?”

Bunny rolled her eyes.

“It’s not like that.” She lied, strangling down a wry smile despite herself.

“So that’s why you’ve been dodging that coffee date with me.” Carol’s nervousness transformed into a crooked grin despite the tension in the hushed corridor of the old theater.

“And I’ll keep dodging it, too, if you keep being in grown folks’ business.” Bunny cracked back, which earned an honest laugh from Carol.

“Alright, alright,” The executive assistant rose her hands in faux protest “I’ll stay out of it. I’ll stick to worrying about Fenelope.”

The easy warmth between them condensed into quiet reflection, the two women standing in silence for a hair’s breadth. Both returning to the gravity of the moment.

“What do you need me to do?” Carol finally asked, the words emerging reluctant but resolute. Bunny smiled tiredly at the young woman, impressed at her tenacity in the face of such uncertainty in spite of her shaking hands.

“I just need you to start watching our boss a little carefully, you know what I mean?” Carol nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears– a nervous habit.

“Phone calls, meetings, anything that might help you determine who she’s contacting. Watch for that.”

“And where will you be?”

Bunny’s gaze shifted toward the direction of her own office, visible at the corridor’s end.

“I’ve got some research to do.”

“Bunny,” Carol caught her arm as she began to move away, her grip conveying both concern and warning, “Be careful. If you’re right about this, about any of it…”

“I know,” Bunny said softly, the weight of accumulated secrets pressing against her shoulders, “But I can’t ignore it anymore. Too many people are dead. Too many questions that need answers.”

She made her way to her office, mind racing. The door closed behind her with the soft finality of a confessional booth, sealing her into a silence broken only by the whisper of her computer awakening from sleep. The morning light carved her workspace into alternating bands of illumination and shadow. She settled into her desk chair and opened her laptop, the screen’s blue glow reflecting off her face.

Glen Valentino associates deceased.

Maurice Katz Catherine Winters Harold Finch connections.

Pharmaceutical industry federal investigation timeline.

The searches yielded familiar results at first—obituaries, news articles, the surface-level narrative that she’d helped construct all those weeks ago. But now she read them with different eyes, eyes that had seen blood beneath fresh paint, that understood how death could be staged and stories reshaped. As she worked, one thought echoed through her mind with increasing certainty: all this time, she’d been looking for an external enemy. But what if the killer had been inside the Fox all along, moving through familiar corridors with the confidence of someone who belonged, who knew exactly where the security cameras couldn’t see and which staff members could be trusted to look the other way?

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

“Turning here.” Dash announced to no one in particular, his voice rough from their sprint across shadowed lawns.

Bunny nodded absentmindedly next to him, lost in her thoughts as he guided them through empty streets until they reached a modest neighborhood she didn't recognize. He pulled into the driveway of a duplex.

“Your place?” She asked as they sat in his idling Ford, neither moving to get out.

“Yeah,” His hands rested on the steering wheel, fingers still trembling slightly, “We should probably debrief what we found before I drop you o–”

“I can’t go home yet,” Bunny interrupted, surprising herself with the admission, “I’m too wound up.”

Dash studied her in the dim glow of the streetlight. He was slightly disheveled from their tree climbing, a scratch along his forehead from where a branch had caught him. He looked dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with criminal activity and everything to do with the heat in his eyes when he watched her.

“Come up,” He said, “I’ve got bourbon that’s better than what we found at Glen’s place.”

They climbed out of the Bronco, the night scented with intrigue and the silence shattered by singing cicadas in the canopied backyards. He led her across the walkway, punching in a code in the keypad of the duplex door. It opened with a protesting shriek, and he stepped aside to let her in as the gate noisily creaked shut behind them. She tried to ignore the heat of him as she passed, the size of him next to her. They walked up a flight of wooden steps, the distinctive wood paneling harkening back to an older time in Magnolia Heights’ history. They bounded to the door of his apartment, a silver knocker on the front. He reached into his shirt, pulling his signature chain from around his neck. On the end, a singular key dangled.

The inside of his apartment surprised her. She’d expected something spartan, temporary– the kind of place a man lived when he was between better options. Instead, she found warm wood floors, built-in bookshelves crammed with everything from mystery novels to philosophy texts, and furniture that looked chosen rather than inherited. A record player sat on a side table, Miles Davis still spinning from earlier in the evening. She stepped in and looked around with unabashed curiosity.

“Make yourself comfortable.” He said as he pulled his jacket and gloves off, tossing the key onto the sidecar with a clatter.

“Nice,” She said as she walked through his apartment and to the bookshelves, running her fingers along the spine of a worn copy of Raymond Chandler, “Very noir detective meets weekend academic.”

“Thanks,” Dash moved to the kitchen, pulling down two glasses and a crystal tumbler from the bar, “Though I’d argue Chandler’s more hardboiled than noir.”

“Literary distinctions while we’re still coming down from breaking and entering,” Bunny accepted the bourbon he offered, the amber liquid catching the lamplight, “Very you.”

The first sip burned, but the heat spread through her chest, grounding her after the night’s chaos. She wandered to his windows, which faced a small courtyard where someone had strung lights between the trees.

“Do you do this often?” She asked, “The unauthorized investigation thing?”

“More than I should. Less than you’d think.”

He joined her at the window.

“Tonight was different though.”

“How?”

“Usually I work alone.” He responded, voice low and tempered with the inexplicable.

Bunny turned to face him. His eyes dropped to her mouth for just a moment before returning to meet her gaze.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” She said, “Any of it. The investigating, the breaking and entering.”

She took another sip of bourbon, feeling it kindle something wild in her chest.

“I spent my whole career being the responsible one. The one who followed rules and– and never made waves.”

“And how does it feel?” His voice was even quieter now, intimate in the way that only happened in small spaces after midnight.

“Terrifying,” She set her glass on the windowsill, “And incredible. Like I’ve been holding my breath for years and finally remembered how to exhale.”

She’d built her entire identity around competence and reliability. But standing here in Dash’s apartment, her clothes still smelling like night air and grass, she felt like someone entirely different.

“There are probably seven different ethics violations happening right now.”

“Probably eight or nine.” He agreed, but he didn’t step back.

“I should go home. Get some sleep. Process what we found tonight like a rational adult.”

“You should.” He stepped closer, his knee brushing hers.

“I don’t want to.”

The admission surprised her with its frankness. She’d spent so many years doing what she should do, what was expected, what was appropriate. But the woman who’d climbed through windows tonight felt done with shoulds.

“What do you want?” Dash asked, and his hand came up to trace the line of her jaw.

The touch sent electricity straight through her, a need that felt urgent and necessary. His thumb brushed across her lower lip, pupils dilating. The bourbon still burned in her throat, but it was nothing compared to the heat building low in her belly. She answered him simply by pressing closer, eliminating the last inches between them. His mouth found hers with the same focus he brought to everything else, and Bunny discovered that competent Bunny, responsible Bunny, had been holding back more than she’d realized. Her hands fisted against his shirt and he responded by pushing her gently against the window, her palms flat against his chest. He breathed against her mouth, and she could feel the smile on his lips, on his teeth. She could taste the bourbon on his tongue.

She kissed him harder, months of careful professionalism dissolving into desperate need. Her fingers found the buttons of his shirt, working them open with the determination she’d used to climb that tree. When her hands met the warm skin of his chest, he made a sound low in his throat that went straight to her core. He pressed her back flush against the cool glass of the window. The contrast between the cold surface and the heat of his body made her gasp, arching into him. She could feel him grow rigid against her.

“Bedroom.” She managed, though she made no move to stop kissing him.

They made it three steps before he pressed her against the wall, his mouth on her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive spot just below the ear. His kisses came languidly, his breath heavy against her neck, against the curve of her ear. Bunny reached down to feel him through his jeans, her careful control finally, completely shattered as gooseflesh prickled her skin.

His hands found the hem of her sweater, fingers warm against her stomach, pulling it over her head and letting it fall to the floor. She’d worn her plainest bra tonight— black cotton, practical rather than seductive— but the way Dash looked at her made her feel like she was wearing the finest lingerie. His gaze traveled over her exposed skin. His hands followed the path of his eyes, tracing the curve of her collarbone, the line of her ribs, the soft skin above her waistband.

They stumbled down the hallway together, shedding clothes and inhibitions with equal enthusiasm. His shirt joined her sweater on the floor, and Bunny’s stomach tightened as she watched where the lusty cut of tattooed muscles met the waistband of his pants. Her leggings quickly followed, kicked aside with breathless laughter when they tangled around her ankles. Then his. Bunny didn’t realize that she’d been biting her lip as she reached down to take him in her hand until his mouth caught hers in another urgent kiss. She stroked him slowly, moaning softly into his mouth. His voice broke, still rough and low, but tinged with the vulnerability of a man undone.

By the time they reached his bedroom, Bunny felt drunk on possibility and the taste of his skin and the way he said her name. The responsible development director who never mixed business with pleasure had been left somewhere in the wisteria, buried beneath bark and adrenaline and the intoxicating realization that she was capable of so much more than she’d ever allowed herself to imagine.

When Dash’s hands mapped the curves of her body with careful attention— calloused fingertips tracing the valley between her breasts, palms spanning her waist, thumbs brushing the sensitive skin of her inner thighs– she discovered muscles she’d forgotten she had, every nerve ending alive and singing under his touch. His mouth followed where his hands had been, lips pressing kisses to the curve of her shoulder, the hollow of her throat, the soft underside of her breast. Devilishly, he pushed the cups of her bra down and underneath her breasts, gathering them in his hands to kiss them gently. His hands, warm and large, the same hands she’d noticed during their first meeting alone, worked around the front clasp. With quick expertise, the bra was on the floor. When his tongue found her nipple, circling and teasing until it peaked against his mouth, she arched deeper beneath him with a filthy mewl that she didn’t recognize as her own.

He took his time with her, as methodical in pleasure as he was in investigation, learning what made her gasp, what made her hips rise to meet his touch, what made her fingers grip the back of his head and moan. When his mouth traveled lower, kissing a path down her sternum, across the plane of her stomach, she felt herself trembling with anticipation and need. His beard scraped deliciously against her inner thighs as he settled between legs– between her slick wetness that could not hide her dizzying want– and when his tongue first touched her most sensitive flesh, she cried out, her back bowing off the bed.

When he worshipped her with his mouth, tongue finding the place that made her arch and gasp, teeth grazing sensitive flesh until she forgot her own name and could only moan his, she understood what it meant to be completely present in her skin, to exist only in the cascade of sensation he was building inside her. His fingers joined his mouth, sliding inside the silken heat while his tongue worked that perfect spot that made stars burst behind her closed eyelids. She was dimly aware of the sounds she was making, breathless pleas and broken syllables, but she was beyond caring about dignity. She was coming— hard—- in his mouth, on his tongue, her walls pulsing around his thick fingers.

When he finally moved up her body, settling between her thighs, she was already reaching for him, guiding him to where she needed him most– but then, he smiled at her slowly, wolfishly, dragging himself lazily. Down to where her thighs met, and back up again. Holding back.

Bastard.

She looked up into those eyes- so brown that they were almost black, containing an entire universe– and thought of how she was looking into the stars, into the galaxy, and whimpered. The first slow slide of him inside her made them both groan; her at the delicious stretch, him at the tight heat enveloping him. For a moment, they stayed perfectly still, foreheads touching, breathing hard, adjusting to the feel of sinking in deep. Then he began to move, and Bunny discovered that everything before this had been prelude. He moved inside her with a rhythm that matched the frantic beating of her heart, her blushing emptiness wantonly spreading to accommodate him. Impossible heat and desperate friction. He gripped the backs of her thighs, positioning himself deeper. And then she could feel everything. Every inch. Their bodies found a perfect synchronization, building toward something that felt inevitable and earth-shattering all at once.

His mouth found hers again, swallowing her moans as the tension coiled tighter and tighter inside her. She could taste herself on his lips, could feel the strain in his muscles as he held himself in check, waiting for her. Somehow, the restraint made him even more beautiful. She could feel how silken she was around him, hear the sounds of herself with each movement. It was too good, too much, too fucking perfect. Golden heat behind her eyes. Pants and gasps and the slick sweat of him dripping onto her body. Nothing but him filling her, her mind, her body. Nothing else but him.

She came apart completely, twitching around him, pleasure crashing through her in rolling waves. White-hot pleasure that left her gasping his name into the hollow of his throat, But he didn’t stop, didn’t give her time to recover, pistoning in and out of her until she was sobbing with oversensitivity and desperation. His own release followed with a growl that vibrated through his chest into hers, body shuddering as he spilled himself inside her. She felt herself clutch against him, quaking with the aftershocks that radiated through her.

It was only then that she finally understood.

Some boundaries were meant to be crossed.

Some rules were meant to be broken, especially if they changed everything.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Afterwards, as they lay tangled in his sheets, her head on his chest and his fingers tracing lazy patterns on her shoulder, Bunny felt the adrenaline finally begin to ebb. Their legs brushed against each other softly. She noticed that he kept a tin can of yellow marigolds in the window sill– something that she hadn’t noticed previously. An emergency vehicle drove past the duplex, its wailing siren haunting against the silence of the night.

“We should probably talk about what we found tonight.” Dash said, his voice drowsy but still alert.

“We should.” She agreed, pressing a kiss to his collarbone.

“Tomorrow,” He murmured, tightening his arms around her, “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

Bunny closed her eyes and let herself sink into the unfamiliar luxury of not having a plan, not knowing what came next, not being the responsible one for once in her carefully constructed life. Tomorrow she’d have to face Lancaster and Fenelope and the consequences of every rule she’d broken tonight. But for now, she let herself be exactly who she’d discovered she could be. A woman who took risks, who followed instincts, who wasn’t afraid to want something, someone.

A woman she thought she might like being.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Morning arrived not with gentle sunlight but with the jarring shriek of Bunny’s phone vibrating against Dash’s nightstand like an angry wasp. She surfaced from sleep slowly, consciousness returning in disorienting waves. The unfamiliar ceiling. The weight of an arm across her waist. The scent of cedar and skin that wasn’t her own.

Dash.

The memories crashed back all at once: the break-in, the blood beneath the paint, the urgent press of his mouth against hers. Her body bore the tender evidence of their night together– a delicious soreness between her thighs. She stretched languidly, a smile tugging at her lips as she registered the solid warmth of him spooned behind her.

“Your phone,” Dash mumbled against her shoulder, his voice thick with sleep, “It’s been going off for five minutes.”

Bunny reached across him to grab the device, her bare breast brushing against his chest. The contact sent a fresh wave of heat through her, and she felt him respond even in his half-awake state, his hand finding the curve of her hip.

“Probably Carol,” She said, squinting at the bright screen, “She always gets to the office before–”

The time display made her stomach drop.

9:47 AM.

“Shit.” She bolted upright, the sheet falling away from her, “Shit, shit, shit!”

Dash pushed himself up on his elbow, instantly alert the way only someone with military training could manage.

“I’m supposed to be at work. I’m never late. Never.” Her voice climbed toward panic as she scrambled for her clothes, scattered across the bedroom floor like evidence of their abandon.

“Fenelope is going to murder me. Actually murder me. With her bare hands.”

Dash watched her frantic movements with a look between amusement and concern, the sheet riding low on his hips in a way that might have been distracting under any other circumstances.

“Bunny, breathe. It’s not even ten–”

Her phone erupted into its full ringtone, Carol’s name flashing on the screen. Bunny jabbed the answer button while simultaneously trying to pull on her underwear.

“Carol, I know, I know, I’m so sorry–”

“Thank God you’re alive,” Carol’s voice crackled through the speaker, sharp with worry, “I’ve been calling you for an hour. Where are you?”

“I’m… I was…” Bunny glanced at Dash, who had propped himself against the headboard. The sight of him sent an unwelcome flutter through her stomach, “I overslept. My alarm didn’t go off.”

“Your alarm didn’t–” Carol’s voice rose in disbelief, “Bunny, you told me yourself that you sent like seventeen alarms. You said your phone sounds like a fire station every morning.”

“I know, I know, it’s completely unlike me–”

“Are you okay? You sound weird. Kind of breathless.”

Bunny caught Dash’s grin and shot him a warning look as she hopped on one foot, trying to work her legs into her leggings.

“I’m fine. Just rushing. Is Fenelope looking for me?”

There was a pause that lasted several heartbeats too long.

“Bunny…” Carol’s voice shifted, taking on that tone she used when delivering bad news, “We need to talk. In person. How fast can you get here?”

“Twenty minutes. Fifteen if I break several traffic laws.”

She finally managed to get her leggings up, though the sweater proved more challenging with her hands shaking from anxiety.

“Carol, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

“Just… get here. And Bunny? Maybe come through the back entrance. The main lobby is kind of active this morning.”

The line went dead, leaving Bunny staring at her phone with growing dread.

“That didn’t sound good.” Dash observed, sliding out of bed with unselfconscious grace. The morning light streaming through his windows highlighted the lines of his body, the intricate tattoos that wound around his arms, the evidence of their night together marked in faint scratches across his shoulders.

“No, it didn’t,” Bunny forced herself to look away from him and focus on finding her other shoe, “Active lobby. That’s never good. Active usually means reporters or angry board members or–”

“Or police.” Dash finished quietly.

They stared at each other across the rumpled bed, the pleasant afterglow of their night together rapidly dissolving into cold reality.

“You don’t think anyone saw us last night?” Bunny asked, though even as the words left her mouth, she knew how naive they sounded.

“I don’t know,” Dash had found his boxers and was pulling them on with efficient movements, “But if someone did, if there’s any connection drawn between us and Glen’s house…”

“Lancaster will know I was there. She’ll know I lied to her,” Bunny sank onto the edge of the bed, the full weight of her situation finally hitting her, “She’ll arrest me. She’ll end my arrangement with the police. She’ll probably tell Fenelope everything.”

Dash moved to sit beside her, his hand finding hers.

“Hey. Look at me,” When she did, his eyes were steady, determined, “Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out. You’re not in this alone.”

“I have a career, Dash. A reputation. The Fox is everything to me,” Her voice cracked slightly, “I can’t lose it because I wanted to be some superhero.”

“You won’t lose it,” His thumb traced across her knuckles, “I promise you, whatever fallout there is from last night, I’ll take it. All of it.”

“You can’t promise that. I can’t make you do that.”

“Let me try,” He leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to her temple, “Please.”

Bunny closed her eyes for a moment, letting herself absorb the warmth of his touch, the steadiness of his presence. When she opened them again, she felt marginally more capable of facing whatever waited for her at the Fox.

“I should go.” She said, though she made no immediate move to stand.

“Yeah.” He agreed, but his hand remained firmly clasped around hers.’

She turned to face him fully, taking in the stubble that had left its mark on her skin, the concerned furrow between his brows.

“Last night,” She began, then stopped, unsure how to finish the thought.

“Was incredible,” He said simply, “And complicated.”

“Very complicated,” She smiled despite everything, “I don’t usually do complicated.”

“I don’t usually do partners,” He replied, “But I'm finding I like it.”

Before she could lose her nerve or overthink the impulse, Bunny leaned forward and kissed him. It was meant to be quick, a simple goodbye, but the moment their lips met, she remembered exactly why she’d lost track of time and alarm clocks. When his hand came up to cup the back of her neck, she forgot for a moment about Carol’s worried voice and active lobbies and the career that was probably imploding as they sat there.

When they finally broke apart, both were breathing harder.

“I really have to go.” She whispered against his lips.

“I know,” His forehead rested against her, “Call me when you know what’s happening. Whatever it is, we’ll handle it.”

“Together?”

“Together.”

She forced herself to stand, to gather her purse, to walk toward his front door despite every instinct telling her to crawl back into his bed and pretend the outside world didn’t exist.

“Bunny.” He called when she reached the doorway.

She turned back to find him standing in the middle of his bedroom, still gloriously underdressed, watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.

“For what it’s worth,” He said, “I think you’re better at this investigative thing than you give yourself credit for. Don’t let them convince you otherwise.”

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Midnight transformed Lantern Hill Drive from an affluent showcase into a sinister playground. The grand homes, so impressive by day, loomed like mausoleums in the darkness, their manicured lawns rendered in shades of blue-black under the quarter moon. Security lights created pools of harsh brightness, separated by stretches of absolute darkness where shadows seemed to breathe. Bunny arrived fifteen minutes early, parking Dusty three blocks away and walking the rest of the distance with her heart hammering against her ribs. She’d traded her usual vibrant work attire for black leggings, a charcoal sweater, and running shoes that whispered rather than clicked against the pavement. The small flashlight in her pocket bumped reassuringly against her thigh with each step.

At the designated corner, she pressed herself into the shadow of an ancient oak tree, feeling utterly conspicuous despite her dark clothing. Every passing car seemed to slow suspiciously, every distant dog bark an alert to her presence. The neighborhood was quiet in that particular way of places where wealth insulated residents from the noisy indignities of ordinary life.

“You’re early.”

The voice, soft but unmistakably Dash’s, came from directly behind her. Bunny nearly jumped out of her skin, barely suppressing a yelp as she whirled around.

“Jesus Christ,” She hissed, “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Dash materialized from the darkness, dressed in similar dark clothing but somehow looking like he belonged in the shadows, while she felt like an imposter. His face was difficult to read in the dim light, but she could detect the ghost of amusement in his expression.

“Sorry. Habit.”

“What? Terrorizing unsuspecting people?”

“Moving quietly.” He corrected, his voice low.

“The security system at number forty-seven will go offline in exactly seven minutes. We’ll have a two-hour window.”

Reality crashed over Bunny like ice water. They were actually doing this. Breaking into a dead man’s home. Committing a felony. Risking her career, her reputation, possibly her freedom.

“I’m having second thoughts,” She admitted, “Maybe even third and fourth ones.”

“That’s normal,” Dash replied, checking his watch, “But we’ve come this far.”

He had her there.

“Fine,” She said, squaring her shoulders, “But if we get arrested, I’m telling everyone this was your idea.” Her past words of solidarity were seemingly forgotten.

“Noted.”

They moved through the neighborhood swiftly, keeping to the darkest patches between streetlights. Dash led them through a neighbor’s yard, ducking beneath perfectly trimmed hedges, until they reached the back of Glen Valentino’s property. A wrought iron fence presented the first obstacle.

“I was afraid of that.” Bunny whispered, eyeing the sharp finials atop each iron post.

“Here,” Dash said, moving to where a large magnolia tree grew close to the fence, “Nature provides.”

He hoisted himself up with surprising agility, using the tree’s lower branches to swing himself over the fence, landing with a soft thud on the other side. He made it look effortless. Bunny, on the other hand, had flashbacks to junior high gym class as she struggled up the tree, her sweater catching on bark, twigs snapping beneath her weight with what seemed like thunderous cracks in the quiet night.

“You’re doing great.” Dash encouraged from below, which only irritated her more.

When she finally dropped to the ground beside him, leaves stuck in her hair and a fresh tear in her leggings, she shot him a glare that dared him to comment on her less-than-graceful descent.

“Made it,” She breathed, plucking a twig from her sweater, “Now what?”

“Service entrance,” He said, already moving across the perfectly manicured lawn toward the back of the mansion, “Less visible and the locks are typically simpler.”

The house loomed above them, a dark monolith against the night sky. Its many windows stared down like vacant eyes. Earlier that week, with Lancaster beside her and sunlight streaming through those windows, the mansion had seemed merely excessive. Now, in darkness, it exuded a palpable menace.

“This feels like the part in the horror movie where the audience starts screaming ‘Don’t go in there!’” Bunny whispered as they approached the service door.

Dash pulled something from his pocket– a slim leather case that contained several odd-looking tools. He selected two and inserted them into the lock with practiced precision.

“If it helps, the monsters in horror movies are rarely dead pharmaceutical executives.”

“No, they’re just the vengeful spirits of said executives,” She countered, nervously scanning the yard, “Coming back to haunt the idiots who broke into their homes.”

The lock clicked softly, and Dash turned the handle, pushing the door open with excruciating slowness to minimize any creaking hinges. The security pad on the wall remained dark, confirming that his mysterious “contacts” had indeed disabled the system.

“After you.” He whispered, gesturing to the darkened hallway beyond.

“Oh no. Definitely you first.”

He slipped inside, and she followed, closing the door gently behind them. The service corridor was pitch black, the air stale and undisturbed. Bunny pulled out her flashlight, clicking it on and aiming the narrow beam at the floor. They moved through the service area, past the laundry room and break room, toward the door that connected to the main house. Everything looked different in the darkness. The mundane walls now seemed ominous, the practical vinyl flooring too quiet beneath their careful steps. Emerging into the main hallway, the transition was jarring. Here, the luxury that had been impressive by day turned oppressive by night. The massive gilt-framed mirrors reflected their flashlight beams in disorienting flashes. The oil paintings’ subjects seemed to follow their movements with painted eyes.

“Let’s head to the study first,” Dash suggested, “Where Glen’s body was found. Then check out that gallery with the alcoves.”

The grand foyer’s black and white tiles created a disorienting checkerboard effect under their flashlight beams. Bunny felt like she was walking across a surreal game board where the stakes were far too high. The marble staircase, so elegant in daylight, now resembled the bleached spine of some enormous creature. Glen’s study appeared mostly unchanged, except for the ghostly shroud that darkness laid over everything. The high-backed leather chair where his body had been discovered sat empty behind the massive desk, silently accusing. Dash moved methodically around the space, examining surfaces without touching, his flashlight beam lingering on the side table where the gun had been found, then the chair, then the drinking glass that had held the poisoned liquor.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Bunny asked, hovering near the doorway, feeling like an intruder despite having been officially invited earlier that day.

“Inconsistencies,” Dash replied, crouching to examine the area of carpet beside the chair, “Lancaster was dismissive of your observations because they didn’t fit her theory. I want to see what else might not fit.”

He paused at the desk, studying its arrangement with focused intensity.

“Tell me again how Valentino was found.”

“Slumped in the chair,” Bunny recalled, “Gunshot wound to the temple. The gun was found on that side table. Lancaster said his fingerprints were the only ones on it.”

“And they’re sure it was suicide?”

“Cashler seemed uncertain, but apparently the evidence pointed that way. Gunshot wound, his gun, his fingerprints, no signs of struggle.”

Dash frowned, playing his flashlight slowly across the desk’s surface.

“What if the body was moved? Positioned to look like suicide after he was already incapacitated by the poison?”

The suggestion sent a chill through Bunny. She’d been imagining Glen taking his own life as the belladonna began to affect him– a desperate final act. The idea that someone had arranged his corpse, placed the gun in his hand, staged the scene… that was more calculated, more cold-blooded.

“It’s possible,” She admitted, “But how would we even tell?”

“We probably can’t, not definitively. But let’s check the gallery. That paint can is bothering me more, the more I think about it.”

They moved back through the foyer and into the long corridor gallery that Lancaster had walked her through. In darkness, the art took on an eerie quality. The Renaissance angels looked demonic rather than beatific, the landscapes apocalyptic rather than pastoral. The stone sculptures in their alcoves seemed poised to step from their platforms. Working by flashlight, they moved slowly along the walls, Dash paying particular attention to the baseboards– the white trim that ran along the bottom of the walls throughout the gallery.

“Look,” He murmured after a few minutes, “The baseboards are painted white. Federal White, I’d guess.”

“So the paint can did match something in the house.” Bunny said, feeling oddly disappointed. Had she been making mountains out of molehills?

“Yes, but look at this.”

Dash had stopped before one of the alcoves housing a headless Greek statue. He ran his light along the baseboards where it met the wall, then along the adjoining sections.

“The paint here is different. Slightly less matte. Can you see it?”

Bunny knelt beside him, squinting at where his light illuminated the white baseboard. At first, she saw nothing unusual, but then– yes— there it was. A subtle difference in the finish, as if this section had been painted more recently than the surrounding trim.

“I see it,” She confirmed, excitement bubbling up despite her anxiety, “It looks newer. And with a different finish.”

“Exactly. I need something to scrape with.”

“Are you fucking crazy?!” Bunny whispered harshly but was only met with a cocked eyebrow.

“Don’t be so dramatic. There’s obviously been some choice renovations. This could be the lead we’ve been looking for all along.”

She tried to mask her panic under the guise of anger, but the anticipation was killing her. And time was certainly not on their side.

“There were paint scrapers in the supply closet,” She whispered reticently, conceding to Dash’s request, “I saw them when I was with Lancaster. But don’t get too crazy, Bob the Builder.”

He ignored her last comment, already bounding to the closet. They retraced their steps through the darkened house in the service corridor, finding the supply closet exactly as Bunny had seen it earlier. The paint can with its slightly ajar lid still sat on the shelf. Dash selected a small metal scraper from a nearby tool caddy. Back in at the alcove, Dash knelt again, positioning the scraper at the edge of the baseboard with the different finish.

“This feels wrong,” Bunny glanced nervously toward the enormous windows that lined the gallery, “We’re damaging property now.”

“No. Shooting a guy and staging his death as a suicide is what’s wrong. I’ll be careful,” Dash assured her, “Just a small section. If there’s nothing underneath, we’ll never know otherwise.”

He began to scrape gently, removing a thin layer of the white paint. Bunny held her flashlight steady, illuminating his work while constantly glancing over her shoulder, convinced that at any moment police lights would flash through the windows.

“Look.” Dash said after a minute of careful scraping.

Beneath the white paint, a different color began to emerge. Not the natural wood tone Bunny had expected, but something darker.

Something red.

“Is that–”

“Blood,” Dash confirmed darkly, scraping a larger patch to reveal more of the dark crimson stain beneath, “Someone bled out here, and someone else tried to cover it up.”

Bunny stared at the revealed patch of baseboard, the reality of what they were seeing sinking in with horrible clarity. Not paint touch-ups. Not routine maintenance. Someone had died against this wall– violently enough to leave a substantial bloodstain— and someone had meticulously covered the evidence with fresh white paint.

“Glen didn’t die in his study,” She whispered, “He died here, in the gallery.”

“And someone moved his body, staged the scene, and repainted the baseboard to hide what really happened.” Dash added, rising to his feet.

The mansion suddenly felt even more threatening, its shadows deeper, its silence more ominous. Bunny fought the urge to run for the door, to put as much distance as possible between herself and this house of secrets.

As they stood there, flashlights illuminating the damning evidence beneath the fresh paint, Bunny couldn’t shake the feeling that the house itself was watching them, measuring their discovery, calculating its response. They stared at the crimson stain revealed beneath the white paint, the implications sinking in like a stone dropped in still water.

“So he was killed here,” Bunny whispered, her voice barely audible despite the empty house, “Then moved to the study.”

Dash nodded grimly, his flashlight beam illuminating more of the baseboard.

“Poisoned with belladonna, shot, and then arranged in his study to look like a suicide.”

“But would anyone be strong enough to move a body that far?” Bunny asked, mentally tracing the path from the gallery to the study.

“Not to mention a body that must have been covered in blood. There haven’t been any reports of blood traces anywhere else in the house,” She leaned in closer to the stain, “Someone cleaned up very thoroughly.”

“Lancaster’s team would have checked for blood residue with luminol. They’re thorough, even when they’re wrong,” Dash said, rising from his crouched position, his expression thoughtful, “What about security cameras? The CCTV?”

“I asked Lancaster the same thing. Apparently the system was down for maintenance that day,” Bunny frowned, “Convenient timing.”

“Too convenient. Someone with connections to the security company could have arranged that.”

Bunny shot him a doubtful look.

“Not everyone has your dubious talents for disabling security systems. Do you really think someone else has those kinds of connections?”

“I can’t rule it out,” Dash admitted, “ But maybe they didn’t need to come through the front door at all.”

He directed his flashlight across the gallery, the beam sweeping the elegantly papered walls.

“They might—” Dash’s words cut off abruptly as Bunny grabbed his arm.

“Wait,” She whispered, “Look at this alcove.”

Her fingers wrapped around the solid warmth of his forearm, feeling the muscle tense beneath her grip. Dash went perfectly still beneath her touch, his gaze darting to her hand then back to her face. For a moment, neither of them spoke, the air between them charged. Then, Bunny cleared her throat softly, releasing his arm and breaking the silence.

“It’s empty.” She gestured to the space in the wall.

Dash followed her gaze. The recessed space in the wall was bare, the pedestal vacant.

“That’s odd,” She continued, sweeping her flashlight beam across the gallery, “Every other alcove has some kind of sculpture or art piece. This is the only empty one.”

“And it happens to be right where we found the blood stain,” Dash stepped closer to the vacant pedestal, examining it carefully, standing near enough that she could feel the heat from his body in the cool air of the mansion, “Something was removed from here, and recently.”

“Why would anyone take a piece of art?”

“It could be evidence,” Dash said, running his fingers lightly across the pedestal, “Or the murder weapon itself.”

Bunny shivered, imagining a heavy sculpture becoming a deadly instrument.

“So someone killed him here, shot him to make it look like suicide, moved him to the study, and painted over the blood evidence.”

“Exactly. And they needed to be strong enough to move a grown man’s body through the house without leaving a trace.”

A distant sound cut through the silence. Car tires on gravel. Headlights swept across the windows at the front of the house, illuminating the gallery in stark relief before plunging it back into darkness.

“Someone’s here,” Dash hissed, instantly dousing his flashlight, “We need to go. Now.”

Bunny’s heart hammered against her ribs as she killed her own light.

“The paint. We can’t leave it like this.”

Dash moved swiftly to the supply closet and returned with the paint can and a small brush. With practiced efficiency, he covered their discovery with fresh white paint, the evidence disappearing beneath each careful stroke.

“Will it dry in time?” Bunny whispered frantically, her eyes darting toward the foyer where a car door slammed shut.

“It doesn’t need to be perfect, just enough to avoid immediate notice,” Dash replied, making a final pass with the brush, “There. Let’s go.”

They replaced the supplies exactly as they’d found them and retraced their steps through the service corridor, moving quickly but carefully to avoid making noise. The back door beckoned like salvation, but as Dash reached for the handle, voices drifted from the driveway. Multiple voices.

“Security patrol,” He breathed against her ear, his body tense beside hers, “Change of plans. Side window in the laundry room.”

The window was smaller than Bunny would have preferred, but fear made her agile. Dash helped boost her through first, his hands steady at her waist, then followed with the silent grace that still amazed her. They crouched beneath the magnolia tree, listening as footsteps circled the house, flashlight beams cutting through the darkness.

“The tree. Same way we came in.” Dash whispered, gesturing toward the branches overhead.

This time, Bunny climbed with desperate determination, ignoring the scratches of bark against her palms. She maneuvered across the branch that extended over the fence, Dash close behind her. The drop to freedom on the other side seemed miles below.

“I’ll go first,” Dash offered, “then catch you.”

Before she could protest, he swung down and dropped to the ground with minimal sound. He looked up at her, arms outstretched.

“Trust me.”

Taking a deep breath, Bunny released her grip on the branch and fell, the moment of weightlessness terrifying and exhilarating. Dash caught her, his arms strong around her waist, absorbing the impact. For an instant, they stood frozen, bodies pressed together, the night air electric between them.

“We should go.” She whispered, though she made no move to step away.

“We should.” He agreed, his voice low, but his arms remained around her for a heartbeat longer before releasing her.

They moved swiftly through the neighboring yards, keeping to the shadows until they reached the street where Dash’s Ford Bronco waited three blocks away. The adrenaline refused to fade. Even after they’d put miles between themselves and Glen’s mansion, Bunny’s pulse hammered against her throat, her skin electric with memory. She’d never broken into anywhere before tonight. The woman who’d spent her entire career following protocols and maintaining donor relationships had just committed a felony. And the strangest part was how alive it made her feel.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Onions sizzled in olive oil, the scent filling Bunny’s kitchen as evening sunshine filtered through the roman blinds. Sleepy shadows grew long across the hardwood floors. A jewel green bottle of Chianti lay open on the counter. The generously filled crystal glass sat next to it, casting ruby splinters across the marble. The deep red liquid caught the light as Bunny took another sip.

“You know what Mr. Darcy?” She addressed the golden retriever sprawled across the kitchen floor, his chin resting on his paws as he watched her cook patiently.

“Men are trash,” Another sip, “Present company excluded, obviously.”

Mr. Darcy’s tail thumped once against the floor, a diplomatic response. She added the ground beef to the pan, the meat hitting the hot oil with an aggressive hiss that matched her mood. The wooden spoon in her hand became a weapon as she broke apart the meat, imagining it was a certain someone’s smug, handsome face.

“I mean, who does that? Who lets someone think they’re partners when really they’re just being used for information?” She took another sip of wine, larger this time.

“And the worst part– the absolute worst part– is that I actually started to like him.”

Mr. Darcy lifted his head, brown eyes regarding her steadily.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking. ‘Bunny, you should have seen the red flags. Bunny, mysterious men who show up at morgues are obviously trouble.’ But you know what? He was charming! And smart! And he had those stupid eyes that made me forget I have a functioning brain!”

She added crushed tomatoes to the pan, red sauce splattering across her grey Holy Oaks alumni hoodie. The stain bloomed across the cotton like a Rorschach test, and she stared at it with the intensity of someone trying to divine meaning from chaos.

“And now I’m talking to you like some kind of…” She gestured vaguely with her wine glass, searching for the right comparison, “Like some kind of crazy cat lady, except with a dog and better wine.”

Mr. Darcy’s tail wagged more enthusiastically, either at the mention of his species or perhaps sensing that dinner preparations were progressing favorably. Bunny added herbs to the sauce; basil, oregano, a bay leaf that she crushed between her fingers with vindictive satisfaction. The kitchen filled with the rich, comforting smell of home cooking, the kind of meal that promised to fill the hollow spaces that disappointment left behind.

“The thing is,” She continued, swirling the wine in her glass and noting with mild alarm that she’d consumed more than intended, “I actually thought we had something. Not romantically. Like we were a team.”

She laughed, the sharp sound incongruent in the cozy kitchen air.

“Team. Right. More like Batman and Robin, except Robin didn’t know she was Robin and Batman was using her to get information about the Joker.”

The analogy collapsed under its own complexity, but Mr. Darcy seemed to understand the general sentiment. He padded over to his water bowl, lapping delicately before returning to his post near the stove.

“You’re right,” Bunny told him, stirring the sauce as it began to simmer, “I should just focus on my actual job. Raise money for the theater. Schmooze with donors who think culture is what you get between the aperitif and the caviar.”

She set the heat to low and covered the pan, then leaned against the counter, wine glass cradled in both hands.

“But I was good at it, Darcy. The investigation, I mean. I actually helped, even if Mr. Perfect Private Eye couldn’t be bothered to treat me like an equal partner.”

The timer on her phone chimed, reminding her to start the pasta water. She filled a large pot, added salt with the precision of a woman who’d made this exact meal hundreds of times, and set it on the stove to boil.

“And now Lancaster probably thinks I’m an idiot too. ‘Oh, that development director who got played by the PI.’ Great for my reputation,” She took another sip and raised the glass, “At least I still have you. You’ve never lied to me about having secret clients or hidden agendas.”

Mr. Darcy’s tail wagged unrelentingly, eager to be an astute conversation partner. The pasta water began to bubble, and she added the noodles, watching it soften in the rolling water. Steam fogged up in front of the tiled backsplash and the rich smell of garlic and tomatoes wafted to each corner.

“Maybe this is better,” She mused, testing a strand of pasta with her fork, “Maybe I’m not cut out for investigation. Maybe I should stick to what I know.”

But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. The past few weeks had awakened something in her. A hunger for answers, for clarity, for justice. For the satisfaction that came from uncovering truth hidden beneath layers of deception. She’d felt more alive during those conversations with witnesses and suspects than she had in months of budget reviews. The pasta finished cooking, and she drained it, the steam rising from the colander in aromatic clouds. She tossed everything together until each strand was coated in the rich, red sauce.

“Dinner is served, Monsieur Darcy,” She announced in an affected French accent, though she made no move to serve herself. Instead, she stood at the stove, twirling pasta around her fork and eating directly from the pan while her dog watched with the hopeful expression of someone who’d been promised table scraps.

“Don’t judge me,” She told him around a mouthful of linguine, “It’s been a rough week.”

The wine had made her philosophical, or perhaps just maudlin.

“You know what really gets me? I started to trust him. When’s the last time I trusted a man who wasn’t related to me or you? But nooooo,” She continued, waving her fork dramatically, “Can’t have nice things. Can’t have a mystery man who turns out to be honest and forthright.”

She polished off the rest of the wine in her glass, lifted up the bottle and frowned at its lightness.

“I’m talking to my dog,” She announced to the kitchen at large, “I’m standing in my kitchen, eating pasta from the pan, drinking wine alone, and having a full conversation with my dog about my feelings.”

Mr. Darcy’s tail wagged encouragingly.

“This is not rock bottom,” She told him firmly, “Rock bottom would be if I started expecting you to answer back.”

She cleaned up the kitchen, the dishes finding their way into the dishwasher, the sauce pot soaking into the sink, and the empty wine bottle sinking into the recycling bin with a final flourish.

“Time for our evening programming!” She announced to Mr. Darcy, who had learned to associate this phrase with the couch, blankets, and an unauthorized snack or two.

Her living room was a study in comfortable contradictions. The couch was expensive and re-upholstered—a gift to herself when she'd gotten the job at the Fox—and was covered in throw pillows she'd collected from various clearance sales. The coffee table was a designer piece she'd found at an estate sale, but it was currently buried under a stack of magazines, books, and a half-finished crossword puzzle. She settled into her corner of the couch, Mr. Darcy claiming his usual spot beside her, his head resting on her thigh with the casual assumption of a golden who'd never been told he was too big to be a lap dog.

The remote felt heavier than usual in her wine-loosened grip as she scrolled through her streaming options. Nothing seemed appealing. Romantic comedies would just remind her of her own romantic disappointments. Crime dramas would make her think about the case she was no longer part of. Even cooking shows seemed problematic, given that she'd just spent an hour having a therapy session with her pasta sauce. She settled on a nature documentary about arctic foxes, reasoning that there was nothing threatening or emotionally complicated about small, fluffy animals surviving in harsh climates.

“See, Mr. Darcy?” She said, scratching behind his ears as the narrator’s soothing British accent filled the room, “These foxes have the right idea. They don’t trust anyone. They just focus on survival and finding food.”

Mr. Darcy sighed contentedly, his warm weight against her leg grounding her in the moment. The wine had settled into a pleasant buzz, the kind that made her feel soupy and warm. The documentary was exactly mindless enough to let her thoughts wander without dwelling on any single disappointment. All of the faces, the names, the details of her life blurred around the edges into a warm, golden mist that drifted up and up and up until she couldn’t see them anymore. Couldn’t feel them anymore.

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, her phone was buzzing with a notification from her security system. She blinked groggily, noting that the TV had moved on to a documentary about penguins, and Mr. Darcy was now sprawled across her lap, suggesting that he'd been asleep for a while. The security notification showed motion at her front door. She frowned, checking the time. 9:47 PM. Late for unexpected visitors. She opened the app and nearly dropped her phone.

Dashiell O'Neill stood on her front steps, holding what appeared to be a white bakery box tied with string. And to make matters worse, he'd clearly made an effort. His hair looked like he’d just gotten out of the barbershop. He wore a crisp button-down shirt and dark jeans, and he held himself like a man with a plan. She looked down at herself— black flared leggings with a small hole near the knee, hair twisted into the suggestion of a top bun. Her face was probably puffy from the wine, and she was fairly certain she still had tomato sauce on the grey hoodie.

“Oh, you've got to be kidding me.” She muttered, causing Mr. Darcy to lift his head and look at her with sleepy confusion.

She watched Dash move side to side, adjusting his grip on the box. He looked nervous, which was so unlike the composed investigator she'd come to know that she found herself staring at the screen with fascination. He glanced around her quiet neighborhood, then back at the door, clearly debating his next move. On the security screen, Dash checked his watch, then looked directly at the camera.

“Dammit.” She swore under her breath, sinking into the couch as if that would ensure he couldn’t see her.

Mr. Darcy stretched and yawned, offering no judgment about her appearance or her sailor mouth. Her first instinct was to turn off all the lights and pretend she wasn't home. She could wait him out, let him stand there until he got the message and left. But then she remembered that her car was parked in the driveway rather than the garage.

“Dammit all to hell.” She swore again, pulling at the strings of her hoodie.

Maybe he’ll think I’m on vacation? She thought to herself unconvincingly. And then, a moment of clarion lucidity struck her. What was she doing? She was a grown woman. In her own home.

Hiding like she was in the wrong place.

“Fuck it,” She said suddenly, startling Mr. Darcy into full alertness, “At least I can give him another earful.”

She padded to the front door in her bare feet, Mr. Darcy trailing loyally behind. She could see Dash's silhouette through the frosted glass panels, could hear him shifting his weight on the wooden porch. She took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and unlocked the deadbolt. The door swung open, and Bunny stood in the entrance like a sentinel guarding her territory. The evening air was cooler than she'd expected, and she became acutely aware of how thin her hoodie was, how exposed she felt in her comfortable clothes.

Dash looked exactly as good as the security camera had suggested. Tall, handsome, freshly showered and dressed like he actually cared about making a good impression. The contrast between his appearance and her current state of casual disarray made her feel both defensive and irritated.

“How did you find my address?” She asked without preamble, her voice colder than the evening air.

He looked at her blankly, face a mask of nonchalance despite his previous nervousness.

“It’s kind of my job. Finding people is basically 99% of what I do.” He replied, cool as a cucumber.

“Right,” She crossed her arms, blocking the doorway more completely, “And what exactly do you want?”

He held up the bakery box, and she caught the sweet scent of vanilla and butter carried on the cool air.

“Could I come in? The tea cakes are getting cold and–” He dug in his pocket, pulling out a twenty, “I came to give you this back. From the other day.”

Bunny blinked, her carefully constructed anger faltering for just a moment.

“You bake?” The incredulity in her voice was so complete that Dash's expression cracked into what approached a smile.

“Among my many hidden talents,” He said, “Along with generally screwing up promising partnerships with smart, capable women.”

The self-deprecation caught her off guard. She'd been prepared for explanations, excuses, maybe even arguments. She hadn't been prepared for remorse wrapped in homemade pastry. Despite every rational thought telling her to send him away, she found herself stepping back from the doorway.

“Fine,” She said, though her tone remained carefully neutral, “But only because of these alleged tea cakes. And you're staying in the kitchen. This isn't a social call.”

“Understood.” Dash said, stepping across her threshold with careful movements.

Mr. Darcy, who’d been watching this exchange with keen interest, bounded forward to investigate the newcomer. Dash knelt automatically, letting the dog sniff his free hand before scratching behind his ears.

“Sweet dog,” He said, and Bunny hated how genuine he sounded, “Golden retriever?”

“Mr. Darcy,” She replied shortly, “And yes.”

“Pride and Prejudice?”

“Obviously.”

She led him toward the kitchen, acutely aware of how her home must look to his investigator’s eyes. The living room was tidy but lived-in. The kitchen still smelled faintly of tomato sauce, basil, and garlic, evidence of her solo dinner and subsequent whining. If he thought anything of it, he didn’t say anything or show it.

“Nice place,” Dash nodded towards the floor-to-ceiling shelves lining the sides of her living room, “Very you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She mumbled, looking for condescension in his tone that did not come. Instead, he held up his hands as a peace offering.

“Woah, woah– I don’t mean anything by it. Just that it’s comfortable. Intentional,” He looked around, taking in the details, “Like someone who actually lives here, not just poses for pictures.”

She found herself both flattered and annoyed by his assessment, but conceded. She was too tired to fight. Bunny watched as Dash walked around to the island in the kitchen, untying the string around the bakery box. It opened to reveal a dozen small, round cookies, almost wafer thin and browned at the edges. They looked professional if humble, like something from a bakery rather than a home kitchen.

“You actually made these?” She asked again, her stomach growling despite the hefty bowl of pasta.

He pulled one from the box and held it out to her.

“Tea cakes.”

Against her better judgment, Bunny took the offered cookie and nibbled at it. It was still warm to the touch, buttery, like a drop of sunshine. It reminded her of holidays, of big kitchens, of her grandmother’s veranda.

But she’d never tell him that.

“It’s good.” She admitted reluctantly, taking a bigger bite and smiling in spite of herself.

“Don’t sound so surprised.” He replied with a wry smile.

“I’m trying to stay angry at you,” She said around another bite of tea cake, “The baking thing is not helping.”

“That’s… actually why I’m here,” His expression grew drawn and serious, “To explain.”

Bunny couldn’t help the eye-roll, her irritation returning swiftly.

“There’s nothing to explain,” She said though she reached for another tea cake, “You lied to me, case closed.”

“I didn’t lie, Bunny. I just… eased into it.”

“Eased into it?” She scoffed, her voice dripping with disbelief, “Do you even hear yourself right now? You don’t ease into telling the truth. You either tell it, or you don’t. And guess what? You didn’t.”

Dash was quiet for a moment, his hands resting on the counter between them.

“You’re right,” He said finally, “I should have handled it differently.”

His admission deflated some of her anger, the cool undercurrent of sadness threatening to dampen her righteous fury entirely.

“Don’t do that.” She said quietly, turning away from him.

“Do what?”

“Be reasonable. Take responsibility. It’s easier to stay mad at you when you’re being defensive.”

“Would you rather I argue with you?”

“Honestly?” She shrugged, “Yes. It would make this whole situation much simpler.”

Dash laughed, a short, genuine sound.

“I can accommodate that if you’d like. I’ve got plenty of material for a good argument.”

“Oh, yeah? Such as?” She shifted, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Such as the fact that you’re being deliberately stubborn about this. That you’re so focused on the fact that I didn’t tell you about Glen being my client that you’re ignoring everything else we discovered together.”

Bunny raised an eyebrow.

“Everything you discovered using me as an unwitting research assistant, you mean.”

“Everything we discovered working as partners, even if I was an idiot.”

He moved closer, close enough that she could feel the heat radiate off of him, close enough that she could see the glint of gold under his shirt.

“Not just an idiot, but also a chump.” She mumbled under her breath. He scoffed but held her gaze.

“You want to know the truth about why I didn’t tell you? The whole truth?” He asked.

She shrugged again.

“I’m listening.” She took a step back, crossing her arms in front of her, barricading herself once more.

“I was afraid that once you knew Glen hired me, you’d think that’s all this was. A job.”

The silence that settled between them felt suffocating. She swallowed and looked down. Looked anywhere but at Dash.

“Wasn’t it?” She asked, voice small.

“Not after the first day. Not after I saw how much you actually cared about finding the truth.”

Bunny finally looked up again, studying his face. Looking for signs of manipulation, of calculation. But all she saw was exhaustion.

“That still doesn’t excuse the lying.”

“No, it doesn’t,” He ran a hand over his head, “I’ve spent so many years building walls between my personal and professional life that I forgot how to tear them down when it mattered.”

“And it mattered?”

“You mattered,” The words came out slightly broken– like they’d lingered in his head too long, like he hadn’t quite tried them on for size yet, “You matter. This matters.”

Bunny felt a shift in her chest, a loosening of the tight anger she’d been carrying since their confrontation in the restaurant parking lot.

“I still don’t trust you,” She said, though with less conviction than before.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” He paused, “But I’d like the chance to earn your trust back.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the best partner I’ve had in years–”

“You mean, the only partner.” She couldn’t help but blurt out, which earned a crooked smile from him. He rubbed the back of his neck, and she noticed the slight dimple in his left cheek.

“I—I like who I am when I’m working with you,” He admitted, his voice quieter now, almost shy, “I’m better at this job when you’re asking questions I wouldn’t think to ask.”

She stiffened, the sincerity in his tone catching her off guard. Damn him. She wasn’t supposed to feel anything for him anymore. Not after everything. But there he was, standing in her kitchen, looking at her like she held the answers to every question he’d ever had.

His next words cut through her defenses like a blade.

“I need you, Bunny. This case needs both of us.”

For a moment, neither of them moved. Even Mr. Darcy seemed to sense the tension, resting his chin on the floor with a hopeful expression, his tail thumping softly against the wood.

“At least someone in this house has their priorities straight.” Bunny muttered, turning away from Dash to open the treat drawer and hopefully dissipate her nerves.

She pulled out a peanut butter bite and tossed it to the golden retriever, who caught it mid-air with a satisfied crunch.

Dash watched her intently as she hoisted herself onto the quartz kitchen island, her legs swinging idly over the edge. The silence stretched again, but this time it felt heavier, charged with that which neither of them was willing to name.

“Is that a yes?” He asked finally.

She took her time answering, letting the quiet linger.

“It’s a maybe,” She said at last, her tone careful, measured, “I’m still mad at you.”

“Understandable.”

So predictable, she thought, but there was no malice in it.

“You should have told me.” She added, her voice softer now, almost gentle.

“I know.”

Another pause, longer this time, as they both absorbed the weight of what they were rebuilding. Bunny exhaled slowly, her fingers tracing the edge of the counter.

“But if we keep working together, no more secrets. I mean it, Dash. I need to know everything.”

He nodded, relief washing over his features like a wave breaking onshore.

“Everything. I promise.”

She studied him for a long moment, searching for any hint of deceit.

Before she could stop herself, she slid off the counter and stepped closer, closing the distance between them in two strides. Her hand reached up almost instinctively. She placed it on his broad chest. His breath faltered, his body tensing under her touch.

“You owe me.” She murmured, pressing an index finger gently against his skin, as if she were accusing his very heart of betrayal.

“I know.” He whispered back, his eyes darkening as they locked onto hers.

Her fingers lingered on his chest for a heartbeat longer than she intended, and then she pulled away abruptly, as if burned.

“Good. Don’t make me regret this.”

Dash didn’t respond, didn’t move. He just stood there, watching her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. She turned away, busying herself with refilling Mr. Darcy’s water bowl, but she could feel his gaze on her back like a physical touch. When she finally straightened and turned around again, he was still there, still watching her with that same unreadable expression.

“What?” She snapped, though her voice lacked its usual edge.

He took a step closer, his movements slow and deliberate.

“Are you sure about this?”

Her heart stuttered in her chest, but she forced herself to meet his gaze head-on.

“Sure about what?”

“Us. Working together again.” His voice was steady, but there was a vulnerability in his eyes that made her stomach twist.

She hesitated, then shrugged one shoulder in a gesture that was meant to be indifferent but came off as anything but.

“Do you want me to say it again? It’s a maybe, Dash. Don’t push your luck.”

“Bunny,” He said softly, her name barely more than a whisper on his lips.

Her breath caught, and for a moment, she couldn’t think, couldn’t move. All she could do was stand there, her pulse thrumming loudly in her ears as she waited for him to—

The sound of Mr. Darcy’s tail thumping against the cabinet broke the spell. Bunny blinked, stepping back quickly as though waking from a dream.

“We should… we should get to work.” She said, her voice uneven.

She turned toward the living room, but not before catching the way Dash’s jaw tightened, the way his hands clenched at his sides before he followed her without a word.

The living room was bathed in soft lamplight, casting long shadows across the couch and the scattered books on the coffee table. Bunny perched on the edge of the couch, her fingers absently tracing the felted edge. Dash stood by the window, his silhouette sharp against the city lights filtering through the blinds. The air between them was thick with unspoken words.

“So, about that paint can.”

“Yes,” Bunny said, refocusing on the case, “Federal White. Empty. Out of place in a meticulously ordered home. It was the only thing in the entire mansion that seemed off. Everything else was perfectly aligned, organized, controlled.”

“Could it have been used for something else? Art project? Furniture?”

“Maybe, but then why keep an empty can? And why store it improperly? Everything else in that supply closet was arranged like a military operation.”

Dash’s eyes had taken on that focused look she recognized, the one that meant his mind was connecting dots invisible to others.

“We need to get back into that house.” He said.

“Lancaster would never allow it,” Bunny pointed out, “Especially not with you.”

“Not through official channels, no. But there are other… ways to access a property under investigation.”

Bunny raised an eyebrow.

“Are you suggesting we break into a crime scene? Because that sounds like exactly the kind of thing Lancaster warned me not to do.”

“Not breaking in,” Dash corrected, “Just returning after hours for a more thorough examination.”

“So, breaking in.”

“I prefer ‘unauthorized secondary investigation.’”

Despite everything, Bunny found herself smiling.

“That’s just breaking in with more syllables.”

“I have contacts at the security company that monitors that neighborhood. I can arrange a window where the system would be temporarily offline for maintenance. I’ve also been in contact with Glen’s legal rep since this whole thing happened- I bet I can get permission from her to enter the property,” He glanced at Bunny and she could have sworn she saw the slightest glint of mischief, “Without triggering the Lancaster bat signal.”

“This is insane,” Bunny said, though even to her own ears, she didn’t sound entirely opposed to the idea, “If Lancaster finds out—”

“She won’t. Not if we’re careful.”

“Let’s say I’m even considering this monumentally stupid idea,” She began cautiously, “How would it work?”

“Tomorrow night. After midnight. I’ll handle the security system. We go in, focus on the service areas, look for anything connected to that paint can, and get out. Two hours max.”

“And if we get caught?”

“We won’t.”

“But if we do?”

Dash’s expression turned serious.

“Then I take full responsibility. I say I manipulated you, used your access to the house from the official visit to plan a break-in, spoke to Glen’s lawyer behind your back, and you knew nothing about it.”

“That’s gallant but stupid. I’m a grown woman making my own terrible decisions.”

“True, but you also have a lot to lose.”

Bunny thought about the Fox, about Fenelope’s trust, about the years she’d spent building her reputation in the arts community. Not to mention, her lack of a PI license that could blunt the force of the worst repercussions. Dash was right. She really did have a lot to lose. But so did whoever killed Harold Finch right in front of her.

“Okay,” She said finally, “I’m in. But we’re only looking for evidence related to the paint can, not rifling through his underwear drawer or anything creepy.”

“Agreed.”

“And if we don’t find anything in two hours, we leave and never speak of this again.”

“Deal.”

Dash turned to face her directly, extending his hand.

Bunny hesitated for just a moment before taking it. His palm was warm against hers, the grip firm but not overwhelming. There was a steadiness to him that she found herself relying on more than she cared to admit.

“Meet me at the corner of Lantern Hill and Oak Ridge at 12:30,” He said, releasing her hand, “Wear dark colors, comfortable shoes, and bring a small flashlight if you have one.”

She leaned back against the couch.

“Fine. I’ll be there,” She bit the inside of her cheek pensively, “But Dash?”

He cocked an eyebrow, and slipped his hands into his pockets.

“Next time you make tea cakes, you're bringing them before we have a fight, not after."

He smiled, wide and lazily. She felt her stomach flip.

“Deal. Though I should probably mention that I also make excellent apple pie.”

Bunny reached up and gently pushed him in jest, but she found herself smiling. They stood there for a moment, the weight of their agreement settling between them. The plan was insane, potentially career-ending, and almost certainly illegal. But as she watched Dash gather the empty bakery box and prepare to leave, Bunny felt something she hadn't experienced in weeks: purpose.

“One more thing.” She said as he reached the front door.

He turned back, eyebrows raised.

“If we're doing this, we're doing it right. No more half-truths, no more protecting me from information you think I can't handle.

“I already promised—”

“I'm not finished,” She stepped closer, “If this goes sideways, if Lancaster finds out, we face the consequences together. No falling on swords, no taking sole responsibility. We're partners, which means we succeed together or fail together.”

Dash studied her face for a long moment, something shifting in his expression.

“Partners.” He agreed quietly.

After he left, Bunny stood in her doorway watching his taillights disappear around the corner. Mr. Darcy pressed against her leg, sensing her mood.

“Well, boy,” She said, scratching behind his ears, “Looks like we're about to find out if I'm as good at this detective thing as I think I am.”

She closed and locked the door, then moved through her apartment turning off lights. But instead of heading to bed, she found herself in her study, pulling out a legal pad and a pen. If they were going to do this, she wanted to be prepared.

At the top of the page, she wrote: Questions about Glen Valentino's death.

Below that: Federal White paint - why keep empty can? What was painted? Where?

Then: Who had access to the house? Staff? Visitors? Service people?

As she wrote, her mind began to race with possibilities. The paint could be a red herring, a coincidence. Her phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number:

Sleep well. Tomorrow night changes everything. -D

She stared at the message for a long moment before deleting it and turning off her phone. Whatever tomorrow night brought, there was no turning back now. Outside her window, Magnolia Heights settled into its quiet suburban slumber, unaware that somewhere in its manicured streets, a killer was sleeping peacefully, confident that their secrets would remain buried.

They were about to discover how wrong they were.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Dash stared at his reflection in the men’s room mirror, gripping the edges of the porcelain sink. The fluorescent lighting made his exhaustion even more apparent. Every line. Every shadow. Every indication that he was running on fumes. He’d come in here to splash cold water on his face and compose himself before facing the truth. Instead, he found himself thinking about his father.

His father had been in the Security Forces for thirty years. He was the kind of military cop who genuinely believed in justice, who’d never taken a bribe or planted evidence or looked the other way when any one else on the base crossed lines. An honest man in a profession that didn’t always reward honesty. He’d died with his integrity intact, an honorable discharge, and a pension that barely covered his medical bills.

“Private investigators are just cops who couldn’t hack it,” He’d said when Dash left the force, “Or cops who liked money more than duty.”

Dash had proven him wrong, eventually. Built a reputation for thorough investigations and ethical practices. His father had even admitted, near the end, that he was proud of the work Dash was doing. Private investigators had a reputation for being sleazy, for bending rules and exploiting people’s secrets for money. Real scumbags, some of them were. But he’d spent his career trying to operate with integrity, to be the kind of PI who helped people rather than preying on them. Clean cases, honest billing. Professional boundaries.

The bathroom door opened and another customer entered. Dash turned on the faucet and splashed water on his face, buying time. The water was shockingly cold against his skin, sharp enough to cut through the fog of exhaustion for a moment. When the customer left, he was alone again with his reflection and guilt. He sniffed, scratched the shadow darkening his chin despite his best efforts to keep it at bay, and ripped the paper towel from the automatic dispenser with more force than necessary.

No matter what he told himself about ethics, integrity, justice, he felt exactly like the stereotype. He was a man who’d pursued his own agenda while letting someone believe they were partners. The realization that he’d been compartmentalizing the woman seated at a table a few steps away made him slightly queasy. He’d learned to divide his life into neat, separate boxes, but this case had scrambled all his organizational systems. Dash dried his hands on the paper towel and straightened his shirt. He’d been putting this conversation off for days, telling himself he was waiting for the right moment, the right setting.

But the truth was, really, much simpler.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

The man who slid into the chair opposite Bunny looked like he’d been through a war. His short-sleeved polo was wrinkled, no tie affixed to his neck, the gold chain glinting but skewed against his deep skin. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw, and his eyes— those eyes that always seemed to see more than they should — were bloodshot and underscored by bruise-like circles. Despite his dishevelment, there was still something undeniably handsome about him, like a classic movie star at the end of a particularly grueling shoot.

“Jesus,” Bunny blurted, “You look terrible.”

“Such flattery.” He murmured, managing a tired smile as he reached for the water pitcher.

“Seriously, are you okay? You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“I haven't, really,” He poured himself water, his hand less steady than usual, “Coffee’s been standing in for sleep, not very successfully.”

The server appeared to take his order. Dash requested an espresso, “double shot, no sugar,” in the tone of a man requesting lifesaving medicine.

“Tell me about this paint can.” He said after the server departed, cutting through all formalities or niceties, but noticeably avoiding eye contact.

Bunny crossed her arms.

“No way,” She replied bluntly, “You don’t get to disappear for days on end and then start asking the questions. First you tell me what’s going on with you. Why Lancaster suddenly didn’t want me talking to you, why you vanished after Mickey’s house, why you look like you’ve been on a three-day bender.”

He was silent for a while, his face the ashen wash of a boy being scolded by a school teacher.

“It’s complicated.” He finally offered, not so much as an answer but as a placation.

“Well, then… uncomplicate it,” She prodded, nervously flicking a crumpled up straw wrapper back and forth across the table.

Dash sighed, the sound heavy. He leaned back in his chair, briefly closing his eyes.

“I wasn’t completely honest with you about how I got involved in this case,” He began, his eyes now fixed on the water glass he rotated slowly between his fingers, “I told you I was hired to look into Katz’s death six months ago.”

“Right, which led you to the pattern with Catherine Winters and then Harold Finch.” Bunny prompted, unraveling the wrapper only to crumple it again in her palm. The hum of the restaurant seemed to lower, cocooning the two of them into the quiet corner.

“What I didn’t tell you was who hired me.”

A cold emptiness settled in her chest.

“Who?” Bunny’s voice came out as a near whisper.

Dash looked up, meeting her eyes directly for the first time since entering the restaurant.

“Glen Valentino.”

She went very still, a blankness crossing her face. For a moment, he thought she might not have heard him correctly, might ask him to repeat it. Then her expression shifted, and he watched her mentally reorganize everything they’d discussed.

“Glen hired you.” She repeated, and her voice had gone flat, carefully neutral.

She was drumming her fingers against the table again, that nervous habit that seemed to help her think. Dash found himself cataloging details: the way she straightened in her chair, putting physical distance between them. The way her eyes sharpened.

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think this was something I should know?” Her voice rose slightly, anger rising to the surface of a falsely placid lake.

“You let me theorize that Glen might be behind everything, or that Carissa was protecting him, and you just… went along with it?”

He stayed silent, which only served to make Bunny angrier.

“Not to mention that you lied to me outside the coroner’s office. You said you were between clients!” She hissed, crossing her arms as if to protect herself.

“I signed a non-disclosure agreement,” Dash said, his own voice remaining frustratingly level even as he leaned closer, “Client confidentiality is—”

“Oh, spare me the fucking lecture.” Bunny snapped, pulling further away and glancing around again, conscious of her volume in the near-empty restaurant.

“Your client is dead. He was my donor. And now I find out you’ve been what— playing me? Using me to gather information while having this massive conflict of interest?”

“I wasn’t using you, and technically, I didn’t lie,” Dash insisted, mirroring her posture, “Valentino wanted me to find out what happened to his first two associates. But when I hadn’t figured out who was behind Katz or Winter’s deaths, he wanted me off the case.”

He leaned back into the seat.

“The man wasn’t exactly a picture of patience, Bunny. So he fired me. When I first approached you outside the coroner’s office, I really was in between clients. But after we spoke to Mickey, I–I had a hunch about something. And I wanted to get back in contact with Glen about it, but he…”

“Ended up dead too.” Bunny finished.

“Exactly.”

Bunny pushed her water glass away, suddenly needing something stronger.

“I have to get out of here.” She rose abruptly, throwing down a twenty dollar bill and pulling her purse over her shoulder.

Dash caught up with her halfway across the restaurant’s dining room, his chair scraping against the floor as he bolted after her. The server looked up from wiping down tables, eyebrows raised at the sudden drama unfolding in his quiet afternoon shift.

“Bunny, wait–”

But she was already pushing through the heavy glass door, the afternoon heat hitting her like a slap after the restaurant’s air conditioning. The parking lot stretched before her, a field of sun-baked asphalt that shimmered in the heat. Her car sat under the sparse shade of a scraggly oak tree, its blue paint looking dull and tired in the harsh light. She fumbled for her keys, hands shaking slightly from adrenaline and anger. Behind her, she heard Dash’s footsteps on the gravel.

“Bunny, please. Just let me explain.”

She whirled around, keys jangling.

“Explain what, exactly? How you’ve been playing me for weeks? How you sat there and listened to me spin theories about your dead client and said nothing?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?” She took a step toward him, close enough to see the exhaustion etched in the lines around his eyes.

“Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you used me to get information you couldn’t access on your own. Lancaster shut you out, so you found yourself a convenient insider.”

Dash ran a hand through his hair, a ripple of muscle catching Bunny’s eyes. She felt shame creep up her neck as her stomach clenched involuntarily, a gentle zephyr of guilt and want roiling against the blunt wall of anger.

“You think I planned this? You think I engineered our meeting outside the coroner’s office?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” The words came out sharper than she’d intended, “Maybe you’ve been working this case longer than you told me. Maybe you knew exactly who I was before we ever spoke.”

“That’s not–” He stopped, mouth opening and closing like he was trying to find words that wouldn't make things worse, “I didn’t know you existed until Lancaster mentioned you had discovered Finch’s body.”

“So you researched me.”

“Of course I researched you. That’s what investigators do,” His voice rose, matching her intensity, “But I didn’t approach you because I had some master plan. I approached you because you were there, and you’d seen something, and I thought you might want answers.”

Bunny laughed, a bitter sound that echoed off the restaurant’s brick facade.

“Right. And it had nothing to do with the fact that I had access to crime scenes you couldn’t get near.”

“Maybe initially,” The admission seemed to cost him something, “But after Mickey’s house–”

“After Mickey’s house, what? You decided I was useful enough to keep around?” She turned back toward her car, key extended to the lock.

“Well, congratulations. Mission accomplished. I found you a fucking paint can.”

“Bunny,” His voice was softer now, almost pleading, “You have every right to be angry. But if you leave now, if we don’t work together on this–”

“Work together?” She spun around again, and he had to take a step back.

“We were never working together, Dash. You were working your case, and I was apparently working for you without knowing it.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” The word came out as a shout. An elderly couple walking to their car twenty feet away turned to stare. Bunny lowered her voice but not her intensity.

“You want to talk about fair? Fair would have been telling me from the beginning that Glen was your client. Fair would have been letting me decide whether I wanted to help investigate the murder of someone I knew.”

“I couldn’t tell you about Glen. The NDA–”

“The NDA is bullshit and you know it,” She was standing close enough now to see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, the black rim around them seemingly lighting them from within, close enough to smell coffee on his breath, “You could have told me you had a conflict of interest. You could have told me you were personally invested in this case for reasons you couldn’t discuss. Instead, you let me trust you.”

Something flickered across his face at the word ‘trust.’ Regret, maybe, or recognition of how badly he’d miscalculated.

“I never meant for it to go this far.” He said quietly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean I never thought…” He trailed off, looking past her toward the street where traffic hummed in the distance, “I told myself I was protecting you from information that might compromise your position with Lancaster. But that wasn’t the whole truth.”

“Then what was?”

He met her eyes again, and for a moment his professional facade cracked completely.

“I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”

The honesty in his voice caught her off guard, deflating some of her anger. But not enough.

“So you lied to protect your own feelings?”

“I omitted information to maintain security,” The words sounded rehearsed, like something he’d told himself repeatedly, “At least, that’s what I told myself.”

“And now?”

“Now I think I was just being a coward.”

They stood facing each other in the parking lot, heat radiating up from the asphalt around them. Bunny could feel sweat gathering at the base of her neck, could see a similar sheen on Dash’s forehead. The silence stretched between them, filled with the distant sound of traffic and the mechanical noise of the restaurant’s air conditioning unit.

“I trusted you,” She said finally, her voice quieter now, “I broke Lancaster’s rules for you. I lied to my boss for you.”

“We can still–”

“No,” She held up a hand, “Whatever this was, whatever partnership you think we had, it’s over. I can’t work with someone who treats me like a useful idiot.”

“Bunny, please. Four people are dead. Whoever killed them is still out there.”

“Then maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to play games with the one person who was actually willing to help you.”

She turned back to her car, finally managing to get the key into the lock. The metal was hot enough to burn her fingers, but she barely noticed.

“What about the paint? What you found at Glen’s house?” Dash called after her.

Bunny paused with her hand on the car door, back still turned to him. For a moment, she considered telling him about the basement workshop, about the way that half-empty can had seemed so deliberately placed.

Instead she got into her car and slammed the door.

Through the windshield, she could see Dash standing in the parking lot, hands hanging at his sides, watching her with an expression that might have been remorse or calculation. She couldn’t tell anymore, and that was the problem. She started the engine and pulled out of the parking space without looking back, leaving him standing alone in the shimmering heat.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

“Your honor, I’d like to enter into evidence that you are absolutely cheating.” Bunny declared, pointing an accusatory finger at Violet across the vintage mahjong table between them.

The balcony of Violet Havendish’s apartment was an urban oasis that defied its modest square footage. The apartment itself bore the fingerprints of someone who collected experiences. A vintage film projector sat beside stacks of Criterion Collection DVDs, their spines creating a rainbow of cinema history across the bookshelf. The kitchen counter held three different coffee makers: a French press for contemplative mornings, an espresso machine for her husband’s cocktails, and a battered drip coffee maker that had survived two moves and countless late-night grading sessions.

Fairy lights wound around the wrought iron railing, casting a gentle golden glow that blurred the edges of the surrounding Almond Court buildings. Potted herbs and flowering vines created the illusion of a secret garden suspended three stories above the bustling neighborhood. The Sunday evening air carried a promise of summer; warm enough to sit outside comfortably, yet with enough spring coolness to make the lightweight throw blankets draped over the backs of the chairs a thoughtful precaution rather than a necessity.

“How can I possibly be cheating when you’ve won the last three games?” Violet countered, tucking a strand of jet-black hair behind her ear, “Besides, this is a game of skill, not luck.”

Violet had inherited her grandmother’s mahjong set the same year she’d started teaching. Twenty-six and terrified, standing in front of her first classroom of bored eighteen-year-olds, she’d kept the ivory tiles in her desk drawer like a talisman. Her grandmother had been the only adult who had ever asked what Violet thought about things. Not what she wanted to be or what she planned to do, but what she actually thought. The old woman would shuffle the tiles between her fingers while Violet talked, the clicking rhythm becoming the soundtrack to Violet’s childhood confessions. Its ornately carved legs supported a playing surface inlaid with mother-of-pearl designs that caught the lights from above. Now the set lived on her coffee table. The ivory-and-bamboo tiles clicked satisfyingly as Violet arranged her hand.

“Which is exactly my point!” Bunny exclaimed.

“No one develops this level of skill without some kind of bargain with the mahjong gods.” She harumphed, looking at her tragic but beautiful losing hand.

Violet laughed, the sound mingling with the distant bass line drifting from the wine bar around the corner. She wore relaxation like a favorite sweater, comfortable and uncomplicated. It was a stark contrast to the buttoned-up film studies professor persona she maintained at the women’s college. Her hunter-green robe was printed with large white cranes and banana leaves, the velvet catching the breeze as she reached for her drink. Monday through Friday, Violet Havendish was a carefully constructed performance. She wore blazers with elbow patches not because she liked them, but because they made her look older than her thirty-four years. She spoke in measured sentences, referenced obscure European directors, and never let her students see her eat anything messier than an apple.

The performance had become so natural that she sometimes forgot it was a performance. She’d catch herself using her professor voice at the grocery store, explaining the semiotics of cereal box design to the teenager at the checkout. Riley claimed it was sexy, the way she could shift into academic mode, but Violet knew better. It was armor, plain and simple. Her grandmother– who’d made it up to the twelfth grade – would have hated it.

“All that education,” She used to say, “And they’re teaching you to talk like you’ve got a stick up your behind.”

But her grandmother had never stood in front of a room full of nineteen-year-olds who were paying forty thousand dollars a year to judge your every word.

“May I remind you that my grandma taught me to play when I was eight? I have a slight experience advantage.” Violet shot back gently, the memories of her family matriarch swimming in between tipsy joy and the evening warmth.

Their cocktails, a spring concoction Violet had dubbed the “Equinox Elixir,” glowed an improbable shade of pink in a plastic pineapple cup that could have come straight from a tiki bar. An edible flower and a tiny cocktail umbrella floated atop each one.

“God, these are ridiculous,” Bunny said, taking a long sip through a straw, “And dangerously delicious. What’s in them again?”

“Vodka, elderflower liqueur, dragon fruit, lime, and a splash of prosecco,” Violet recited, arranging her tiles with practiced precision, “Riley’s latest obsession is mixology videos on YouTube. I’m his willing test subject.”

“Lucky you.”

“Lucky me indeed. And lucky you,” Violet gestured toward the living room visible through the sliding glass doors, “Getting me all to yourself on a Sunday night. I love our little writing group, but sometimes I miss it just being us.”

“Same,” Bunny agreed, “Between work drama and, you know, playing at being a detective, I’ve been a terrible friend lately.”

“Nonsense. You’re investigating murder. I think that earns you a friendship sabbatical,” Violet reached for a tile, “Besides, you’re here now. And based on your thousand-yard stare when everyone else left, you’ve got some processing to do.”

Bunny sighed, leaning back in her chair and watching the fairy lights reflect in the windows of the building across the street. The writing group had been Violet’s idea, born from the loneliness of sabbatical and too many evenings spent grading papers while Netflix played unwatched in the background. She’d posted a notice on the community board at the bookstore. ‘Writers seeking writers for mutual suffering and wine,’ it read. She’d been surprised when seven people showed up to her apartment that first Tuesday.

Most had drifted away within months, intimidated by Violet’s polished prose. But a core group remained: Bunny, obviously. Blake Turner, an advertising copywriter with literary aspirations. And Margo Williams, a triage nurse who wrote poignant horror stories. They met monthly now, less about writing than about maintaining the fiction that they were all working toward something larger than their daily lives. But Bunny had been there before the group, before Riley, before Violet had learned to make her loneliness look like a choice.

“Lancaster met with me a few days ago,” Bunny began, her voice taking on the careful neutrality she’d perfected for delivering bad donor news, “Glen Valentino is dead.”

Violet’s hand froze over her tiles, her expression shifting from relaxed to alert in an instant.

“Dead as in… murdered?”

Bunny took another long sip of her cocktail before responding.

“Official ruling is pending, but Lancaster said it looks like he was poisoned first, then either someone shot him or he shot himself before the poison could finish the job.”

“Jesus,” Violet breathed, “That’s…”

“Yeah,” Bunny sighed, a flicker of defeat crossing her features, “That’s where my vocabulary fails me too.”

Bunny recounted the details Lancaster had shared: Glen’s housekeeper finding him in his office, the preliminary toxicology report confirming the same poisonous compound found in Harold Finch, the investigation suddenly accelerated by the death of one of Magnolia Heights’ most prominent citizens.

“So Carissa couldn’t have done it,” Violet concluded, connecting the dots with a quickness, “She’s still out of the country.”

“Exactly. And that’s not the only thing ruling her out,” Bunny leaned forward, abandoning her mahjong tiles entirely, “I talked to Mickey on the same day that Lancaster called me to meet. He told me that Donnatal, the medication we thought was in those tablets, doesn’t fizz in water. It doesn’t dissolve at all.”

Violet’s eyebrows shot up.

“But you saw the tablets dissolve?”

“Right in front of me,” Bunny confirmed, “Whatever Harold took, whatever actually killed him, isn’t what we thought it was.”

“So… someone switched the pills,” Violet mused, absently rearranging her tiles, “Or doctored some of them. Or–”

“Or a hundred other possibilities,” Bunny finished, “Bottom line: we’re back to square one. Carissa’s alibi is ironclad for Glen’s death, the pill theory is shot, and Lancaster is in full crisis mode because one of the city’s wealthiest residents just died under extremely suspicious circumstances.”

She picked up a tile without looking at it, then immediately discarded it.

“Meanwhile, Dash disappeared shortly after our interview with Mickey. He texted that something urgent came up, but went radio silent after that. Lancaster pulled me aside and told me not to talk to him until she’d cleared some things up.”

“Cleared what up?” Violet asked, frowning.

“She wouldn’t say. Just that there were ‘concerning developments’ regarding his involvement that needed verification.”

A breeze stirred the fairy lights, sending shadows dancing across the table. Somewhere below, a car alarm chirped twice as someone unlocked their vehicle.

“So where does that leave you?” Violet asked, claiming the tile Bunny had discarded.

“Honestly?” She sighed, unable to stop the frustrated welling in her eyes. She dabbed at them with the back of her palm, embarrassed and angry with herself for reacting so childishly.

“Vi, I have no idea,” She began, her voice cracking, “I’m not a cop or a PI. I’m in way over my head.”

“You’re selling yourself short.” Violet said, handing Bunny a napkin and fixing her with the intense gaze that had intimidated generations of film students.

Bunny looked away, ignoring the painful lump in her throat, unable to match the intensity in her friend’s eyes without triggering water works.

“It’s noble, Bun. I get it. You love the theater. You love your work and find what you do meaningful,” Violet continued, “You’re very fortunate because not that many people can say the same about their jobs. But you can’t keep setting yourself on fire to keep them warm.”

“But–”

Violet cut her off with a raised hand.

“You’ve uncovered more in a few days than the police did in weeks.”

“Only because people talk to me,” Bunny demurred, “And now I don’t even know if I trust one of the two people I’ve been investigating with.”

Violet set down her cocktail, her expression serious but kind.

“Let me channel my inner film professor for a moment.” She adopted a slightly deeper, more authoritative tone that Bunny recognized from the guest lecture she’d once seen Violet deliver.

“What’s the one thing every great detective in classic cinema has that the police don’t?”

Bunny considered this, playing along despite her tears.

“Quirky personality traits, a tortured back story, and substance abuse problems?”

“Besides that,” Violet rolled her eyes, “They have perspective. They see patterns because they’re not bound by departmental procedures or professional myopia, like your good friend Lancaster.”

Bunny considered this for a long moment, absentmindedly twirling her cocktail straw as the painful lump in her throat subsided. Film analysis had ruined Violet for real life in some ways. She couldn’t watch a movie without dissecting its structure, couldn’t have a conversation without noting the subtext. But it had also taught her to see things others missed. The way people’s stories changed in the retelling, the significance of what they chose not to mention. Her students thought she was psychic because she could predict plot twists, but it was just training. Years of studying how narratives worked, how directors misdirected attention, how the most important information was often hidden in plain sight. She’d been doing the same thing with Bunny’s theater crisis for weeks, watching her friend circle around something she couldn’t quite name. The investigation had given Bunny purpose, but Violet suspected it was also giving her an excuse to avoid dealing with whatever was really wrong at work.

Or whoever.

“By the way,” Violet’s voice cut through the comfortable silence as she casually laid down her final combination of tiles, “Mahjong.”

“Unbelievable,” Bunny groaned, throwing her hands up in mock despair, “I demand a rematch and another one of these preposterous cocktails.”

“Your terms are acceptable.” Violet replied with a grin, already gathering the tiles for another round.

The two women played two more rounds of mahjong before deciding to call it. After Bunny left in a flurry of apologies for her tears, Violet sat on her balcony finishing her cocktail and thinking about friendship. She’d read somewhere that most people’s social circles peaked in their twenties, then gradually contracted as careers and families took precedence. At thirty-four, she was supposed to be settling into a smaller, more selective circle of intimates. Instead, she felt like she was still auditioning for the role of someone worth knowing. Riley’s affection felt earned through cocktails and film recommendations. The writing group tolerated her because she provided wine and intelligent feedback. Even her students’ respect was contingent on her performance as Professor Havendish.

But with Bunny, she could just exist. They could argue about movies, share the kind of mundane observations that no one else would find interesting. Bunny had seen her cry over bad reviews, had helped her move apartments twice, had never once made her feel like she needed to be more interesting or less intense or anything other than exactly who she was. Which was why, as she gathered the tiles and carried their empty glasses inside, Violet made a mental note to be more direct next time. Bunny was drowning, and all the Hitchcock metaphors in the world wouldn’t help if Violet was too afraid of seeming pushy to throw her a rope. The friendship was strong enough for honesty.

It always had been.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

The pale glow of her laptop screen cast ghostly shadows across Bunny's living room as she drafted and redrafted her email to Lancaster. Mr. Darcy snored softly from his spot on the couch, blissfully unaware of his owner’s midnight wrestling match with professional boundaries and murder investigations.

“How exactly does one phrase ‘I’d like to snoop around a dead man’s mansion’ in a way that sounds reasonable?” She muttered, deleting another sentence.

She settled on directness:

Chief Lancaster,

Given my professional relationship with Glen Valentino and my familiarity with donor patterns, I think I might notice things in his home that could be helpful. Rich people arrange their spaces in ways that tell you a lot about them. I see it all the time during home visits for major gifts.

Not saying that I know more than your team! Just offering an extra set of eyes from someone who knew him in a different context.

I’m free whenever works for you.

Sincerely,

Bunny Beaudoin

She pressed send before she could second-guess herself again, then immediately regretted it. Too forward? Too presumptuous? Too obviously a thinly veiled attempt to stick her nose where it didn’t belong? Her phone buzzed almost immediately, making her jump. Lancaster’s name flashed on the screen.

“Do police chiefs ever sleep?” She wondered aloud, answering with trepidation before picking up.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Beaudoin,” Lancaster’s voice was crisper than midnight air, “I was just about to call you.”

“Wait, what? You were?” Bunny blinked back in surprise.

“Elaine— Dr. Cashler suggested it might be… helpful… to have someone familiar with the victim present during our secondary sweep. Your angle about donor habits isn’t completely ridiculous.”

The backhanded compliment was delivered with such precision that Bunny almost missed the fact that she’d gotten exactly what she wanted.

“Thanks, I guess. What time should I—”

“Nine AM. The address is 47 Lantern Hill Drive. And Ms. Beaudoin? Come alone.”

The line went dead before Bunny could respond.

She set her phone down slowly, processing the unexpected turn of events. Mr. Darcy lifted his head, giving her a look that somehow managed to convey both sympathy and judgement.

“Now don’t you go judging me too, young man,” She told the dog, “It’s not like I woke up one day and thought, ‘You know what would spice up my fundraising career? A murder investigation!’”

Mr. Darcy harrumphed skeptically before settling back to sleep. Bunny found herself oddly unable to follow his example. She paced her small living room, mind racing with possibilities of what she might find tomorrow. Glen Valentino’s home, his private sanctuary, could reveal sides of the man she’d never truly known. Or it might just confirm what everyone already knew: that he was a rich jerk with expensive taste who pissed off the wrong person. What she needed was a plan.

What should she even look for beyond the obvious? She grabbed a notepad and started jotting down random thoughts about Glen, his relationships, and how the heck she’d gone from writing donor thank-you notes to being invited to a murder scene by the chief of police. Sleep eventually claimed her somewhere around 3 AM, her notepad filled with scribbles and question marks, and a growing sense that she was way out of her depth.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Lantern Hill Drive wound through the most exclusive neighborhood in Magnolia Heights like a lazy river of privilege. Homes here weren’t merely houses but statements; architectural declarations of having arrived at a level of wealth where taste was optional but square footage was mandatory. Bunny parked Dusty between a police cruiser and a sleek black Lexus SUV, feeling like she’d brought a water pistol to a tank battle. As she stepped out, the morning air carried the scent of freshly mowed grass and old money.

Number 47 stood apart even in this rarefied company. A sprawling Greek Revival mansion with imposing columns and perfectly symmetrical wings extending from its central structure. The kind of home that seemed purpose-built for charity galas and passive-aggressive dinner parties, not crime scenes. Lancaster waited on the front steps, arms crossed.

“You’re early.” She observed as Bunny approached.

“Hello to you too,” Bunny deadpanned, “It’s an occupational hazard, an old habit. When you’re late to a donor meeting, you might as well set their check on fire in front of them.”

Lancaster’s expression didn’t change, but something that might have been a microscopic hint of amusement flickered briefly in her eyes.

“We have approximately two hours before Valentino’s lawyer arrives with the executor of the estate. Let’s not waste time.”

She turned without waiting for a response, leading Bunny up the marble steps and through the massive oak doors into the foyer.

“The body was found in the study,” Lancaster said, her voice dropping slightly as they entered the house, “We’ll start there and work our way through the main living spaces.”

“What exactly am I looking for?” Bunny asked, trying not to sound too eager.

Lancaster paused at the foot of the grand staircase, turning to face her.

“Sometimes people who aren’t cops see things differently. You knew Valentino in a specific way. Maybe you’ll notice something we missed.”

Still pretending like this was all your idea, huh? Bunny thought. It wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence, but she would take it.

They moved through the mansion with methodical steps, Lancaster providing matter-of-fact descriptions of the scene as it had been discovered three days earlier. The study was surprisingly modest compared to the rest of the home, just a walnut-paneled sanctuary that felt more lived-in than showroom-perfect.

“The gun was found here,” Lancaster indicated a side table next to a high-backed leather chair, “It’s registered to Valentino. His fingerprints were the only ones on it.”

“So that points to suicide.” Bunny said.

“On paper, yes. But suicide doesn’t typically follow belladonna poisoning.”

Bunny moved carefully around the room, taking in the details. Bookcases with books that looked actually read. A collection of old-timey medical instruments in a glass case. A single framed photograph of a younger Glen standing proudly outside what looked like his first office building. They moved through the house room by room, from the huge dining room set for one, through the spotless kitchen that looked like staff used it but Glen rarely did, to the hallway filled with expensive-looking art.

“He had good taste, I’ll give him that,” Bunny observed, pausing before a small ballet painting that looked out of place among the bigger, showier pieces, “Though it feels kind of like he bought them because he was supposed to, not because he loved them.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, see how all the most expensive-looking pieces are where guests would see them first? It’s like when donors put their name on buildings. It’s not about the art, it’s about what owning it says about them.”

They worked their way upstairs, through bedrooms and guest rooms that were impressive but boring. The walk-in closet in the master suite had enough fancy suits to dress every board member Bunny had ever met, all organized with crazy precision.

“He was really anal about organization,” Lancaster observed, “Everything in its place.”

As they headed back downstairs, Bunny noticed a door slightly ajar off the back hallway.

“What’s through there?”

“Service areas. Staff quarters, laundry, storage.”

Bunny pushed the door open wider, revealing a hallway that looked nothing like the rest of the house. Here, the walls were painted boring beige, the floors covered in practical vinyl instead of fancy rugs.

“Mind if I take a peek?”

Lancaster gestured for her to go ahead, following close behind. The hallway split off into different rooms: a big laundry room, a small staff break area with a coffee maker and mini-fridge, and at the end, a door labeled simply “Supplies.” Bunny pushed it open to reveal a large storage closet. Shelves lined the walls, stocked with cleaning supplies, light bulbs, and maintenance supplies. One corner held paint cans, stacked neatly by color, and beside them, drop cloths and brushes.

Something caught her eye. One of the paint cans wasn’t fully closed, its lid slightly off-center. She moved closer, looking but not touching.

“That’s strange,” She said, pointing to the can, “Kinda off.”

Lancaster followed her gaze.

“Housekeeping oversight?”

“Yeah, but in a house where the guy color-coded his socks? Where his books are alphabetized?”

“I suppose.” But in spite of her doubt, Lancaster stepped forward, pulling out a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, snapping them on. She carefully lifted the lid of the paint can.

“Not completely empty, but it’s been used,” She said, peering inside, “And it doesn’t smell like it was used recently.”

“Can I see the label?” Bunny asked.

Lancaster turned the can so she could read it.

“Federal White,” Bunny said, “Huh. I don’t remember seeing any white walls, do you?”

“Probably kept for touch-ups.”

“But there’s no white paint anywhere we’ve seen. Everything’s either wallpapered, beige, or painted in those dark colors.”

Lancaster set the can down, making another note in her small notepad.

“I’ll have the team check it for fingerprints, but it’s probably nothing. Maybe the housekeepers were planning to paint something.”

They finished looking through the rest of the service areas without finding anything else interesting, eventually ending up back in the grand foyer where they’d started. Bunny felt frustrated. She’d been so sure that seeing Glen’s home would give her some kind of insight or clue. Instead, she just had more questions.

“Thank you for your time, Ms. Beaudoin,” Lancaster said, in a tone that clearly meant ‘we’re done here.’

“That has the cadence of friendly conversation, but the machinations of a trap. I didn’t do anything to help, did I?” Bunny asked.

“Your observations about Valentino’s habits may be helpful.”

The faint praise felt pretty dismissive.

“That paint can is bugging me,” Bunny said, unable to let it go, “It just feels like the one thing that doesn’t fit.”

“We’ll check it,” Lancaster replied, not quite rolling her eyes but close, “Sometimes a paint can is just a paint can.”

Bunny couldn’t help the obvious look of disappointment on her face. She’d gotten the rare chance to see a murder scene and had nothing to show for it except some vague thoughts about a guy she already knew was controlling and image-obsessed.

“Will you guys be doing more searches?” She asked as they reached their cars.

“The investigation is ongoing,” Lancaster replied, in that way cops do when they’re not really answering, “Thanks for your help today.”

“If I think of anything else—”

“You have my number.” Lancaster finished for her, clearly done with the conversation.

Bunny watched the chief’s Lexus pull away before getting into Dusty. She sat there for several minutes, replaying everything she’d seen, trying to make sense of it all. That paint kept nagging at her, like a popcorn kernel stuck in her teeth. Federal White. No matching walls. Empty can. Slightly ajar in a house where everything else was pristine.

She started Dusty’s engine, pulling away from the mansion. The huge house grew smaller in her rearview mirror, still keeping its secrets despite her best efforts. As she drove, her phone felt heavy in her pocket. Lancaster’s warning about talking to Dash echoed in her mind, but so did the feeling that she was stuck. Carissa had an alibi for Glen’s death, the fizzing pills were still a mystery, and now Glen’s mansion had given her nothing except a weird empty paint can. At a red light, she made her decision.

She could not do this alone.

Found paint can. Doesn’t match. Thoughts?

She sent the cryptic text to Dash before she could chicken out, then immediately felt both guilty and relieved. His response came almost immediately:

Don’t text details. Need to talk in person.

Bunny stared at the message, her mind racing. Where could they meet that would be safe? The costume storage room was too isolated, too suspicious if they were caught. She needed somewhere public enough to seem innocent, but private enough for a real conversation. She toyed with her phone quickly as the light turned green:

Restaurant Overture? During slow time between lunch and dinner. 3pm?

The reply came seconds later:

Perfect. See you there.

Bunny put her phone away, her heart racing. This was nothing but a gamble. She’d just have to hope that a little paint was worth the risk.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Immaculate black and white marble tiles stretched across the grand foyer like an enormous chess board beneath the soaring ceiling. Afternoon light spilled through towering Palladian windows, casting long geometric shadows across the space. At the base of the sweeping double staircase stood an enormous round table of polished ebony, its surface adorned with artfully arranged coffee table books on Renaissance architecture and French impressionism. An extravagant floral arrangement erupted from the center chinoiserie vase; cascading wisteria and white orchids weepily hanging below the crystal chandelier above, their perfume hanging heavy in the air.

The twin staircases curved upward in graceful symmetry, their mahogany banisters gleaming under the chandelier’s refracted light. A portrait of the mansion’s owner, painted in oils with the kind of reverent brushwork usually reserved for royalty, watched over the entrance with a self-satisfied smile that seemed to follow visitors as they moved through the space. Beyond the foyer, through a wide archway, stretched a corridor lined with recessed lighting. A private gallery worthy of a small museum. Original pieces from contemporary masters hung at carefully measured intervals, each with its own dedicated lighting. Stone sculptures occupied alcoves between the paintings: a headless Greek figure here, a distinctive bronze statue with a hazy patina there. Each alcove was subtly lit from above, creating dramatic shadows that gave the figures an unsettling suggestion of movement.

The gallery opened into a wide office where everything changed abruptly. Bright yellow crime scene tape formed a makeshift barrier, beyond which figures in latex gloves and booties moved with efficiency. Voices dropped to the professional murmur of people doing the difficult work of death. The home office beyond the tape was a shrine to success: walnut paneling, leather furniture, bookcases filled with volumes that suggested serious intellectual ambition, whether fulfilled or not. At the center of this careful tableau of wealth stood an incongruous intrusion.

A body, donned in a terry cloth bathrobe and white boxers, slumped in a high-backed executive chair.

A forensic photographer circled methodically, the flash of her camera casting stark bursts of light across the scene. Each flash caught the glint of the dull metallic reflection of the watch still on the victim’s wrist.

“Time of death approximately 1:36 PM,” The coroner’s assistant droned, checking the notes on her clipboard, “Gun was found in his right hand, consistent with self-infliction. Preliminary ruling is suicide, pending full investigation.”

An evidence technician gingerly lifted a handgun from a side table with gloved hands. The weapon– a Colt 1911, engraved and custom-gripped– slid into an evidence bag that crinkled loudly in the hushed room.

“Expensive way to check out.” The technician muttered, sealing the bag with practiced movements.

Dr. Cashler moved closer to the body, her eyes narrowing as she studied the positioning, the angle of the bullet’s entry, the lack of disruption in the room. Something wasn’t sitting right with her. Her gaze dropped to a half-empty tumbler of amber liquid on the desk.

“I want a rush on toxicology.” She said, her voice carrying a quiet authority that made folks jump to attention.

“For a GSW to the head?” The assistant looked up, confusion evident, “That’s pretty clearly cause of–”

“Humor me,” Cashler interrupted, her eyes still on the glass, “Pull blood for a preliminary screening before we move him. Priority analysis.”

“Is there something specific you’re looking for?”

Cashler’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“Given recent events, I’d like to rule out any… assistance… he might have had.”

The request rippled through the room, staff exchanging glances. The assistant made a call, and thirty minutes later, a toxicologist in full protective gear was finishing up his initial testing.

“Dr. Cashler,” He said, approaching with obvious reluctance, a manila folder clutched in his hands, “I need to emphasize that these are extremely preliminary results. We’ll need comprehensive lab analysis for confirmation, which could take weeks–”

“Just tell me what you found, Mercer.” She interrupted, patience wearing thin.

The toxicologist glanced down at the manila folder, then back up, his discomfort evident.

“Initial screening indicates the presence of alkaloids consistent with atropa belladonna in his system. Concentration levels pending, but they appear significant.”

He handed the folder to Cashler who promptly pulled out the report from its folds. A heavy silence fell over the room. One of the crime scene technicians whispered something to her colleague, who nodded grimly. Cashler moved to the body, finally looking directly at the face of the deceased. Grey eyes stared back with the vacant expression of the newly dead, a small, nearly bloodless hole in his right temple. His skin had the waxy pallor that sets in after several hours, but even in death, his features retained a distinctive arrogance.

“Suicide, huh?” Cashler’s voice was barely audible as she shook her head.

She turned to address the room at large.

“I want this scene processed with the assumption of homicide. Full protocol. Every surface, every fiber, every fingerprint. I want the contents of that glass analyzed, and I want to know everyone who entered this house in the past twenty-four hours.”

She pulled out her phone, scrolled through contacts, and paused on a name: ‘Lancaster - Chief of Police.’

“And get me everything we have on Harold Finch’s case.” She added, walking toward the door as she raised the phone to her ear.

“I need to speak with the chief. Immediately,” As Cashler stepped into the hallway, her voice faded from the rustle of sudden action, “Marjorie? It’s Elaine. We’ve got another one. Same poison signature. But this time, he put a bullet in his head before it could finish the job.”

Behind her, the photographer took one final shot of the body– a man who had believed himself untouchable– the flash illuminating the face of Glen Valentino.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Avondale Estates looked like someone had transplanted an English village into the Georgia suburbs, complete with mock-Tudor facades and pristinely maintained gardens that seemed to flourish regardless of season. The neighborhood had been designed in the 1920s to evoke a romanticized vision of the English countryside, all leafy lanes and quaint architecture. As Dash’s Ford rumbled down streets lined with towering oaks, the contrast between his weathered vehicle and the manicured surroundings couldn’t have been more stark.

“Third house on the right,” Bunny directed, gesturing toward a particularly impressive Tudor-Revival home set back from the road, “The one that looks like it was airlifted directly from Stratford-upon-Avon.”

Mickey Alden’s residence managed to stand out even in a neighborhood defined by architectural pretension. Two-story with steeply pitched roofs, half-timbering, and a chimney that twisted skyward like a barber pole, the house announced its owner’s theatrical sensibilities before you even reached the front door.

“Auctioneering must pay better than I thought.” Dash observed dryly as he pulled into the circular driveway.

“Mickey has three revenue streams,” Bunny said, checking her reflection in the visor mirror and reapplying her lipstick with practiced precision, “Charity auctions, estate sales for the obscenely wealthy, and– according to rumors that he neither confirms nor denies– some very lucrative investments made in the early days of Apple.”

“And the Fox pays for his services?”

“Every penny. Fenelope says he’s worth his weight in gold.”

Bunny dropped her lipstick back into her purse.

“Speaking of which, I stopped by the liquor store this morning.”

She reached into her tote bag and produced a bottle of amber liquid in an elegantly understated bottle. Dash raised an eyebrow.

“Macallan 18. Impressive.”

“Put it on my credit card as a ‘donor cultivation expense,’” Bunny admitted with a wink, “Development directors are nothing if not creative accountants.”

The walk to Mickey’s front door took them along a herringbone brick path bordered by boxwood hedges trimmed with military precision. Before they could ring the bell, the heavy oak door swung open, revealing Mickey Alden in a silk smoking jacket the color of burgundy wine, complete with black velvet lapels. His black hair was perfectly coiffed, its shape withstanding the noon-day Georgia humidity, and his eyes– bright and assessing– immediately fell on the bottle in Bunny’s hand.

“My darling Bunny!” He exclaimed, his voice carrying the practiced projection of someone accustomed to commanding rooms of hundreds.

“Either you’ve developed a drinking problem, or you want something desperately. Perhaps both?”

“Hello Mickey,” Bunny leaned into a light side-hug, “This is–”

“Dashiell O’Neill,” Mickey finished for her, extending a manicured hand toward Dash, “The PI who’s been asking questions all over our town about our little gala disaster.”

Dash accepted the handshake with a slight nod.

“Word travels fast.”

“Magnolia Heights is a small pond, Mr. O’Neill, and I make it my business to know all the fish,” Mickey’s smile remained firmly in place as he stepped back from the doorway, “Especially the curious ones.”

The interior of Mickey’s home was a study in theatrical masculinity– all mahogany paneling, leather-bound books, and strategically placed antiques that managed to convey wealth without tipping into ostentation. The entryway opened up to a two-story great room dominated by a stone fireplace large enough to roast a small animal. Despite the mild spring afternoon, a fire crackled merrily in the hearth, casting dancing shadows across the space.

“I assume this isn’t a social call,” Mickey said, leading them toward a seating area near the fireplace, “Not after Harold’s unfortunate exit.”

He gestured toward a leather chesterfield sofa that looked both incredibly expensive and perfectly broken in.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable. I’ll fetch the glasses.”

As Mickey disappeared through an arched doorway, Bunny and Dash exchanged glances. The entire home smelled faintly of sandalwood and bourbon, as if the very walls had absorbed decades of fine spirits.

“He knows we’re coming to ask about the gala.” Bunny whispered.

“Good,” Dash replied, taking in the room with a detective’s practiced eye, “That means he’s had time to decide what he’s willing to tell us.”

Mickey returned carrying a silver tray with three crystal tumblers that caught the firelight as he set them on the coffee table. Without a word, Bunny handed him the bottle. His eyebrows lifted in appreciation.

“Macallan 18. You must want something very badly indeed.” He broke the seal and poured generous measures into each glass.

“Though I admit, I’m intrigued. It’s not every day a development director and a private investigator show up on my doorstep bearing liquid bribes.”

He handed them each a glass before settling into a leather wingback chair that seemed designed specifically for him– or perhaps he had designed himself specifically for it. Either way, the effect was one of a monarch granting an audience.

“To Harold,” Mickey said, raising his glass, “May he rest in peace, preferably without haunting my auctions.”

Bunny sipped her scotch, allowing the warmth to spread through her chest before speaking.

“Mickey, we need to talk about what happened that night.”

“Which part? The part where you seated Glen Valentino next to his ex-wife, or the part where Harold Finch face-planted into eternity after a spirited auction?” Huh. So he was ready to spar.

“Both, actually,” Dash interjected, “Particularly your role in changing the auction order. The Tuscan villa lot wasn’t supposed to come up when it did.”

Mickey’s eyes narrowed slightly, though his smile remained fixed. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, watching the play of light through the crystal.

“Ah, you’ve been doing your homework. Yes, there was a last-minute adjustment to the running order.”

“At Fenelope’s request.” Bunny added.

“Indeed,” Mickey took another sip, savoring it before continuing, “Ms. Wilde thought the energy in the room called for a showstopper earlier than planned. Who am I to argue? She signs the checks.”

“And it had nothing to do with creating tension between Glen and Carissa?” Dash asked.

Mickey’s laugh was sudden and rich, filling the cavernous space.

“Mr. O’Neill, creating tension is precisely what an auction is about! You don’t get six-figure bids without a healthy dose of competition, ego, and deeply repressed emotions bubbling to the surface.”

He leaned back, crossing one silk-clad leg over the other.

“But if you’re asking whether I conspired to create a scenario that would end with Harold Finch sprawled on the marble, the answer is an emphatic no. I’m in the business of separating the wealthy from their money, not from their mortal coil.”

Bunny studied Mickey’s face. Unlike many of the Fox’s contractors, Mickey had been a fixture for over a decade, his flamboyant persona and razor-sharp wit making him as much a part of the institution as the building itself.

“Mickey, we think there’s more to Harold’s death than just an unfortunate accident,” She said carefully, “And we believe it might be connected to Glen Valentino.”

Something flickered in Mickey’s eyes– caution, perhaps, or recognition. He took another deliberate sip before responding.

“You think our pharmaceutical magnate had something to do with Harold’s untimely demise?” He asked, his tone deceptively casual.

“That would certainly add drama to your next gala. ‘Join us for an evening of fine dining, charitable giving, and possibly murder!”

“This isn’t a joke,” Dash said, his voice hardening slightly, “Harold Finch had belladonna in his system. He was poisoned.”

“And he’s not the first of Glen’s associates to die under suspicious circumstances.” Bunny added.

Mickey’s playful demeanor receded like the tide, revealing something harder beneath. He set his glass down with care.

“I see. And you’ve come to me because…?”

“Because you know everyone,” Bunny said simply, “You’ve been working these events for years. You see things others don’t.”

“Flattery and scotch,” Mickey murmured, “You really are pulling out all the stops, aren’t you?”

He stared into the fire for a long moment, watching the flames dance. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its performative quality, becoming something more genuine.

“To understand what happened to Harold, you need to understand Glen,” He said finally, “And to understand Glen, you need to go back to the Emerald Evening.”

“The Fox’s Christmas party?” Bunny frowned. “What– three years ago?”

She recalled a flash film photograph she’d seen on Fenelope’s desk during her interview for the job: Fenelope dressed to the nines in a sparkly gown with black ostrich feathers lining the sleeves– champagne glass in hand– as she stood next to the mustachioed Conductor Berenstein; croquembouche towers placed on tables all around them. It was everything that the Fox stood for- a celebration of the arts that did not shy away from pageantry. Fenelope had looked unapproachable, unkind, and absolutely fabulous. That photograph had solidified Bunny’s decision to work for the ice queen herself.

Mickey nodded, reaching for the Macallen and refilling his glass with a steadier hand than his earlier consumption would suggest.

“That, my dear, was the night everything changed, though most people didn’t realize it at the time. It was the night the cracks began to show in Glen’s carefully constructed empire.”

“What happened?” Dash asked.

Mickey settled deeper into his chair, like a storyteller preparing for a lengthy tale.

“The Emerald Evening was supposed to be the crowning glory of the Fox’s winter season. Three hundred guests, each paying a thousand dollars for the privilege of being seen in their holiday finery. Glen was the headline sponsor– had been for five years running. His company logo was everywhere: the programs, the auction paddles, the ice sculpture, for God’s sake.”

He paused, as if mentally transporting himself back to that night.

“Harold was still Glen’s right-hand man then. This was before their falling out over the price-fixing scandal. The two of them arrived together, Glen in a tuxedo that probably cost more than most people’s monthly salary, Harold trailing behind like an eager shadow.”

“They were close?” Dash asked, producing a small notebook from his pocket.

“Like brothers. Or so everyone thought,” Mickey’s expression turned contemplative, “But there was tension even then. Harold had begun to question some of Glen’s business practices. Nothing overt, mind you, but those of us who’d been watching them for years could see the strain.”

“But that wasn’t the main event of the evening,” He waved a hand dismissively, “No, the real drama came when Glen announced, completely unplanned and utterly shocking to everyone including Fenelope, that he was pulling his annual donation.”

Bunny straightened.

“What? I never heard about this.”

“Of course not,” Mickey scoffed, “It was handled with the discretion of a state secret. But I was there, watching from the stage as Glen hijacked my auction to make his little speech. Standing there in his bespoke tuxedo announcing that after ‘careful consideration,’ he’d decided to ‘redirect his philanthropic efforts’ towards causes with ‘greater measurable impact.’”

Mickey’s impression of Glen was uncanny; the slight nasal quality, the practiced pauses, the corporate jargon barely disguising pure self-interest.

“You can imagine the reaction,” He continued, “Fenelope looked like she’d been slapped. The board members present were practically having synchronized coronaries. And the staff– oh,”
He placed a sympathetic hand on his chest, “The staff felt it worst of all.”

“How so?” Dash prompted.

“Outside of ticket sales, the Fox runs on a shoestring budget, Mr. O’Neill. Glen’s annual contribution funded the youth outreach program, the summer internships, and a significant portion of the staff’s holiday bonuses. When he pulled his funding, all of that vanished overnight.”

Mickey glanced at Bunny who shrugged in concession. It was true, and it was one of the reasons Fenelope hesitated to press the eject button on her position whenever Bunny got on her nerves. She was good at raising money for the theater.

“This was before your time, of course. Fenelope made sure the story that reached the public was controlled. Official line was that Glen was ‘restructuring his giving,’ not abandoning the Fox entirely.”

“Why would he do that?” Bunny asked, “The Fox was his flagship charitable cause.”

“Ah, now that’s where it gets interesting,” Mickey leaned forward, voice dropping clandestinely, “Harold Finch opposed the decision vehemently. Right there, in front of everyone, he tried to talk Glen out of it. Said it would damage their reputation and betray the community’s trust.”

A smile devoid of humor stretched across Mickey’s face.

“Glen dismissed him. Like swatting away an annoying insect. And that, my friends, was the beginning of the end of their partnership.”

“So Glen publicly humiliated Harold.” Dash noted, writing in his notebook.

“And Fenelope,” Mickey added, “And every staff member who depended on those bonuses. Jasmine, the Fox’s chef? Her mother was in the hospital. That bonus was going to cover medical bills. Evan, the events coordinator? Had planned to use his to put a down payment on a condo, get out of his roach-infested rental. All gone because Glen decided the Fox wasn’t ‘impactful’ enough anymore.”

Mickey drained his glass, the firelight catching the angles of his face. The darkness of his hair, a sign of youth and virility, was betrayed by the lines across his forehead that deepened as he frowned.

“The real question, I think,” He continued, “is why Glen changed his mind. Why announce it in such a public forum, knowing the damage it would cause? That wasn’t just business. It was personal.”

“What’s your theory?” Bunny asked, entranced by this previous unknown chapter in the Fox’s history.

Mickey’s eyes, slightly glassy from the scotch but no less sharp, fixed on her.

“Fenelope Wilde had rejected him.”

“Rejected him?” Dash repeated.

“They were involved?”

“Not exactly,” Mickey smiled thinly, “Glen had been pursuing her for months. Subtle at first, then increasingly obvious. Dinner invitations, private box seats to performances, little gifts appearing on her desk. Fenelope rebuffed him consistently but politely. After all, he was their biggest donor.”

He leaned back in his chair.

“Until the Emerald Evening. Something happened between them right before the event began. I don’t know what exactly– they were alone in her office– but when they emerged, Fenelope looked like ice and Glen like fire. Two hours later, he was announcing his withdrawal of support.”

“Spite,” Bunny said softly, “He pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars out of spite.”

“Men like Glen Valentino don’t handle rejection well,” Mickey said with a shrug, “They’re used to getting what they want, whether it’s a company, a woman, or immunity from legal consequences.”

Dash tapped his pen against his notebook.

“And where was Carissa during all this?”

“Already divorced from Glen by then, though still moving in the same social circles. She wasn’t at the Emerald Evening. Probably spending Christmas somewhere tropical with cabana boys half her age.” Mickey’s tone was dismissive, but Bunny detected something else beneath it– a personal dislike perhaps.

“After Glen’s announcement, what happened?” Dash pressed.

“Chaos, darling. Absolute chaos, but the polite kind where everyone pretends nothing is wrong while frantically texting their financial advisors.”

Mickey refilled his glass once more.

“Fenelope somehow salvaged the evening, rallying the other donors to increase their pledges. She’s nothing if not resourceful in a crisis.”

“And the staff?” Bunny asked, already knowing the answer but needing to hear it confirmed.

“Devastated. Some left for other venues– those who could. Others stayed, tightening their belts and smiling through gritted teeth.”

Mickey’s gaze turned distant.

“The Fox Theater family, resilient as always, but with newly planted seeds of resentment toward the man who had abandoned them on a whim.”

He fixed his eyes on Dash.

“You’re looking for motives, Mr. O’Niell? That night created dozens. Every staff member who lost their bonus, every program that had to be scaled back, every artist who lost an opportunity because funding dried up. All of them had reason to resent Glen Valentino.”

“But killing Harold Finch doesn’t hurt Glen,” Bunny pointed out, “If anything, it removes a witness who could testify against him in the federal case.”

Mickey tilted his head, regarding her with something like pride.

“Very good, Ms. Beaudoin. Now you’re asking the right questions.”

He stood suddenly, moving with surprising grace for a man who’d consumed the better part of a very expensive bottle of scotch before evening. Crossing to a built-in bookshelf, he removed what appeared to be a leather-bound photo album.

“After Harold and Glen’s public disagreement at the Emerald Evening, something changed in their dynamic,” Mickey said, returning to his seat and opening the album, “Harold began distancing himself from Glen’s business practices. Rumors circulated that he was gathering evidence, preparing to come forward about price-fixing and other unsavory activities at Valentino Pharmaceuticals.”

He turned the album toward them, revealing a photograph from what appeared to be another charity event. Glen and Harold stood side by side, smiles fixed but eyes cold, body language screaming discomfort.

“This was taken at the Symphony Gala six months after the Emerald Evening,” Mickey explained, “Their last public appearance together before Harold left the company. Look at their faces. That’s not a business partnership anymore. It’s a hostage situation.”

Bunny studied the photograph. Glen looked exactly as she remembered him from the Fox Gala: imposing, impeccably dressed, radiating the entitled confidence of the obscenely wealthy. Harold appeared smaller somehow, his smile strained, eyes darting sideways toward Glen as if watching for sudden movements.

“Harold knew something.” Dash said, more statement than question.

“Harold knew everything,” Mickey corrected, “Fifteen years as Glen’s right hand meant he had dirt on every questionable decision, every ethical shortcut, every regulatory line crossed. When he finally broke away, Glen was terrified– though he’d never admit it.”

“So Glen had motive to want Harold silenced.” Bunny concluded.

“Absolutely,” Mickey nodded, “But so did anyone else who might go down with Glen if the full truth came out. And believe me, a man like Glen doesn’t get where he is without creating a network of complicity.”

He flipped to another page in the album, revealing a group photo from what appeared to be a Fox Theater donor reception. Bunny recognized several prominent Magnolia Heights residents, including Fenelope, standing regally at the center of the frame.

“The theater world runs on relationships, connection, favors exchanged,” Mickey said, tracing a finger over the photograph, “Glen’s tentacles reached into every major institution in this city. When he withdrew from the Fox, it wasn’t just a financial blow. It was a warning to others. Cross me, and I’ll abandon you too.”

Dash leaned back, processing this information.

“And after the Emerald Evening, how did Fenelope handle the situation?”

A smile played at the corner of Mickey’s mouth.

“With the ice-cold precision of a woman who’s spent decades navigating the egos of wealthy men. She never spoke ill of Glen publicly, never let on how devastating the loss was. Insead, she simply… recalibrated.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning she found new donors, restructured programs, and moved forward as if Glen Valentino had never mattered in the first place.” Mickey’s admiration was evident in his tone.

“It was masterful, really. The ultimate revenge for a man like Glen, making him irrelevant.”

“Until the gala,” Bunny said quietly, “When he suddenly received a last-minute invitation.”

Mickey’s eyes gleamed.

“Exactly. After two years of exile, suddenly Glen was back at the Fox, seated prominently at a table near the stage– though unfortunately next to his ex-wife.”

“Do you think Fenelope planned that?” Dash asked, “The seating arrangement, I mean.”

“Fenelope Wilde doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes,” Mickey said enigmatically, “Everything she does is deliberate, even when it appears accidental.”

He closed the photo album with a definitive snap.

“The question you should be asking isn’t just who poisoned Harold Finch, but why Harold was there in the first place. Why, after two years of being persona non grata by association with Glen, was he suddenly invited back into the Fox’s inner circle?”

Bunny frowned.

“I assumed it was because he’d broken ties with Glen, become acceptable again.”

“Perhaps,’” Mickey conceded, “Or perhaps he was invited specifically because he posed a threat to Glen. A reminder, if you will, that the Fox Theater has a long memory.”

The implication hung in the air, disturbing as smoke in a crowded room.

“Are you suggesting Fenelope set this up?” Bunny asked, unable to keep the disbelief from her voice, “That’s–”

“I’m not suggesting anything, darling,” Mickey interrupted smoothly, “I’m merely providing context. What you do with it is entirely up to you.”

He glanced at the ornate clock on the mantelpiece.

“Now, as delightful as this trip down memory lane has been, I have an estate auction to prepare for this evening. The recently deceased Mrs. Harrington had an impressive collection of Fabergé eggs that her children are eager to convert into more liquid assets.”

Standing, he straightened his smoking jacket with a practiced flourish.

“Do feel free to take the remainder of the Macallan. Consider it my contribution to your investigation.”

As they rose to leave, Dash stopped for a minute, a soft look crossing his face that Bunny could not place.

“What happened to the staff after the Emerald Evening? The ones who lost their bonuses. Did they ever recover?” He asked.

Mickey paused at the door, his expression turning thoughtful.

“Some did. Others carried a grudge. Jasmine had to move her mother to a cheaper care facility. Evan still lives in that roach motel. Life goes on, Mr. O’Neill, but some wounds never fully heal. They just become part of the landscape of who we are.”

The three stood in contemplative silence as if grappling with the unfairness of life. But there was still one more thing that was bothering Bunny. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, worried that she would disclose too much about the case. The gesture did not go unnoticed by Mickey.

“What is it, Bunny?” The auctioneer asked, smoothing down his smoking jacket as if it were an army suit ready for the sergeants’ inspection.

“It’s– it’s just this one thing that’s been bugging me, well, us.” She hesitated, shooting Dash a nervous look. He nodded imperceptibly, giving her implicit permission to go on.

“Those tablets Carissa gave Harold that night. Our theory is that they were Donnatal. They dissolved in water, fizzing like…. Alka-Seltzer or something.”

Mickey’s eyebrows rose with interest.

“Ah, well there’s your problem, darling,” He said rather incredulously, “Donnatal doesn’t fizz. Doesn’t dissolve at all, actually. It’s a solid pill.”

He gave Bunny the same look that someone would give a small child trying to figure out a Lego set.

“A solid pill you swallow whole.” He finished, waiting for her to grasp his meaning. The implication was not lost on her.

“H-how do you know that?” She stammered dumbly, shifting her gaze between the two men.

“My dear mother- Gwennie- takes it for her, er,” He placed his hand aside his mouth as if he didn’t want anyone but Bunny to hear and lowered his voice to a stage whisper, “Irritable bowel syndrome.”

Dash nodded sagely like a guru of digestive tracts, but Bunny felt moments closer to hurling the mantle piece at him. How did you not know this, Mr. Brilliant Detective?! She wanted to scream, but clamped her mouth shut instead as Micky surreptitiously began herding them towards the door. At the threshold, he placed a hand lightly on Bunny’s arm.

“The Fox holds many secrets in its shadows, and not all of them are meant to see the light of day,” His eyes, suddenly clear despite the alcohol, held a warning, “And watch Fenelope closely. She plays a longer game than any of us realize.”

With that cryptic parting shot, he ushered them out onto the herringbone brick path, the heavy oak door closing behind them with the finality of a theater curtain dropping after the final act. In the car, neither spoke immediately, both processing the information Mickey had shared. The Emerald Evening had created a web of resentment and revenge that extended far beyond what they’d initially imagined. Staff members with personal grudges, Harold with damaging knowledge, Fenelope with a score to settle, and Glen at the center of it all.

“What do you think?” Bunny finally asked as Dash started the engine.

He considered for a moment, hands resting on the steering wheel.

“I think we need to talk to the staff Mickey mentioned. Jasmine, Evan– anyone who was present for both the Emerald Evening and the gala.”

“And Fenelope?” Bunny asked quietly, the implications of Mickey’s insinuations weighing heavily on her. Dash’s expression was grim.

“She’s on the list. But we approach carefully. If Mickey’s right about her playing a long game…”

“Then we need to make sure we’re not just pawns on her board.” Bunny finished.

As they pulled away from Mickey’s Tudor fantasy, the clouds that had been threatening all morning finally made good on their promise, releasing a gentle spring rain that blurred the edges of the pristine suburb. But soon enough, the clouds broke open in earnest and the rain came down in mean, angry sheets, pounding against the Bronco like open-palm slaps. Bunny stared out of the window, watching droplets race down the glass in silvery rivulets.

“Where to next?” She asked, mentally preparing a list of staff members to interview at the Fox.

Dash checked his watch, his expression shifting, eyes darkening.

“I need to make a stop at my office first. Something I need to check.”

Bunny turned to him, catching the subtle change in his demeanor.

“Something about the case?”

“Maybe.” His response was uncharacteristically terse.

“I had some information come in this morning that I need to verify.”

“What kind of information?”

“It’s probably nothing,” Dash said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, knuckles tightening slightly against the steering wheel, “Just a loose thread I want to pull before we go any further.”

Bunny studied his profile, noting the tight set of his jaw, the careful neutrality in his voice that hadn’t been there minutes earlier. Something about Mickey’s story had triggered a connection for him. Something he wasn’t ready to share.

“You could just drop me at the Fox,” She suggested, turning her gaze to the road, “I can start talking to Jasmine and Evan while you do whatever it is you’re not telling me about.”

Dash shot her a quick glance, a flicker of something– guilt? Concern? – crossing his features before his professional mask settled back into place.

“I’ll pick you up in a couple hours,” He said, nodding, “Just be careful what you ask and who you ask it of. After what Mickey told us, we don’t know who might have a stake in keeping the past buried.”

“You’re worried about me now?” Bunny attempted a light tone, though a kernel of unease had taken root in her stomach, “That’s new.”

“Professional courtesy.” He replied, echoing their earlier conversation with Lancaster, but the humor fell flat.

As they approached downtown Magnolia Heights, the rain drummed against the roof of the car, the only sound cutting through the silence. Bunny couldn’t shake the feeling that Dash was holding back something significant.

“Here’s good.” She said as they neared the Fox’s side entrance.

Dash pulled over, sloshing into a pool of water collecting against the curb.

“Two hours. Call if anything comes up before then.”

As Bunny stepped out into the rain, an umbrella hastily deployed, she glanced back to see Dash already on his phone, dialing a number with focused urgency, his expression set in lines she hadn’t seen before. Whatever he was pursuing, he clearly felt it couldn’t wait. And equally clearly was the fact that he did not want her involved. She watched the Ford merge back into traffic, receding into the gray curtain of spring rain, and wondered exactly what piece of the puzzle Dash had spotted that she had missed. Suddenly, her phone rang sharply, Lancaster’s name flashing on the screen. She quickly answered, still processing Mickey’s not-so-little revelation.

“Ms. Beaudoin,” Lancaster’s voice came through, tense and clipped, “Where are you right now?”

“At the Fox,” Bunny replied, sudden unease creeping up her spine at the chief’s tone, “Why? What’s happened?”

“Stay there,” Lancaster ordered, “I’m on my way. And if O’Neill contacts you, don’t tell him where you are.”

“What? Why wouldn’t I–”

“Just do as I say,” Lancaster cut her off, “We have a situation developing. I’ll explain when I get there.”

The line went dead, leaving Bunny staring at her phone in confusion. Instinctively, the hair at the nape of her neck stood to attention and she fought the impulse to check over her shoulder, to look for an escape somewhere in between 14th and West Peachtree, to dodge behind the cars parked along the side of the theater, to run. Instead, she took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was at the Fox- her territory, her workplace, her responsibility. But as she waited, watching the minute hand of her wristwatch tick forward with excruciating slowness, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had missed something crucial.

Something that had been right in front of her all along.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

“Let me make sure I understand correctly,” Lancaster said, her voice carrying the controlled patience of someone explaining basic arithmetic to a particularly dense child, “You had a Zoom call with our primary suspect— a call that was meant to build our case— and you came away convinced she’s innocent?”

The police chief’s office bore all the warmth and personality of a gulag. The walls were a shade of beige that even beige would find uninspiring, adorned with framed commendations and a single landscape photograph that looked like it had come with the frame. The morning light struggled through venetian blinds, cutting horizontal stripes across the office desk where Bunny and Dash sat side by side, a united front against the storm that was Marjorie Lancaster. As for the chief herself, she was perched on the edge of the desk rather than sitting behind it, a power move that Bunny recognized from her days of negotiating with reluctant donors.

Lancaster’s suit was perfectly pressed, her silver locks pulled into a severe ponytail that seemed to pull her features tight along with it. Twenty-seven years on the force had carved lines around her eyes that makeup couldn’t hide anymore. She’d stopped trying six months ago, around the time Richard started leaving real estate listings on her nightstand. Retirement communities in Arizona, he’d said over coffee last Tuesday, Think about it, Margie. No more midnight calls. No more dead bodies. She’d thrown the listings in the trash, but his words stuck like splinters under her skin. Sure, they could swing it. Over the years, she’d climbed up the ranks which afforded them a comfortable life in Magnolia Heights. Even the possibility of an early retirement. Having grown up in the rougher parts of Chatham County, neither of them were big spenders and they saved almost every penny that they could. But Richard had never really understood her work.

He’d been the artistic one in their marriage, painting in his shed and collecting old funk records, dreaming. Always dreaming. It was what she fell in love with, this sensitivity packaged in lanky limbs and a quiet voice and fiery eyes. He’d done most of the heavy lifting when Lancaster got pregnant with their daughters, taking to running the household like his greatest creative venture while she returned to work. He made her laugh. Took the edge off. Let her be unburdened once she left the precinct and entered the simple bungalow that the four of them had called home for almost three decades. He was a great husband, a great father, and while their daughters loved them both, the girls had always liked him more. He understood them in ways she couldn’t.

But he hadn’t understood her work. None of them did. She’d ensured that they never would.

“Not innocent,” Dash clarified, “Just not guilty of these particular murders.”

Lancaster’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. She’d heard variations of this conversation maybe a thousand times. The amateur detectives, the well-meaning civilians, the family members who couldn’t accept that sometimes the obvious answer was the right one. They all thought they saw something she’d missed, some crucial detail that would crack the case wide open.

“Based on what? Her saying ‘I didn’t do it’ with palm trees in the background?”

Ramirez shifted by the door, and Lancaster caught the movement in her peripheral vision. He’d been the one pushing for a broader investigation from the beginning, the one who kept asking questions about other suspects, other motives.

“Based on motive, timing, and behavioral indicators,” Dash countered, “Carissa Levinson had more to gain from Harold Finch’s testimony than from his death. She’s been pushing for Glen Valentino to face legal consequences for years.”

“Convenient narrative,” Lancaster sniffed, “And entirely self-reported.”

“She makes valid points,” Bunny interjected, sitting forward slightly, “If she wanted to protect Glen, why wait until now? The federal investigation has been brewing for over a year.”

Lancaster crossed her arms, the fabric of her jacket pulling slightly at the shoulders. She studied the woman across from her. Bunny Beaudoin had that particular brand of confidence that came from never having to knock on a door at three in the morning to tell someone their child wasn’t coming home.

“Ms. Beaudoin, no offense, but donor relations don’t exactly qualify you for criminal profiling.” The words came out harsher than she’d intended but Lancaster didn’t apologize.

“No, but observation does,” Bunny replied, refusing to be cowed, “Carissa was genuinely surprised by our theory that she was protecting Glen.”

“Sociopaths are excellent actors.” Lancaster argued.

“They’re also consistent,” Dash added, “The pattern doesn’t fit.”

“If Carissa is killing to protect Glen, why would she kill Maurice Katz months before the federal case gained traction? The timing is off.” He continued, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

They stared each other down with enough animosity to burn a hole through the wall. A muscle twitched in Lancaster’s jaw as she pushed off from the desk and circled behind it, creating physical distance as if retreating to more defensible ground. The desk had belonged to three chiefs before her. The scratches on the surface told the story of decades of cases, decades of decisions, decades of people sitting where Bunny and Dash sat now, convinced they had the answers.

“Ramirez,” She said, back turned from Bunny and Dash, “Please update our guests on what we found in Ms. Levinson’s financials.”

She could hear him shuffling papers, the nervous energy that still radiated from him during these briefings. Ramirez cleared his throat, flipping through his clipboard.

“Three separate wire transfers to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands over the past six months. Each followed one of the deaths by approximately two weeks.”

Bunny’s eyebrows shot up, and she exchanged a quick glance with Dash, whose expression remained impassive.

“What amounts?” He asked.

“Fifty thousand each time,” Ramirez replied, a hint of apology in his voice, “Always on the fifteenth of the month.”

“Which her firm pays quarterly — distributions on the fifteenth of each month,” Dash noted, “Standard practice for law firms her size.”

“Three deaths, three transfers,” Lancaster said flatly, “That’s not a coincidence.”

“It’s also not evidence,” Dash countered, “It’s correlation at best.”

“Which is why we need to build a stronger case.”

Lancaster strode around her desk again, this time planting herself directly in front of Dash.

“And we can’t do that with you two playing rogue detectives, chasing staff members and undermining our primary suspect theory.”

She’d dealt with private investigators before. They came in two varieties: the burned-out ex-cops who’d left the force for better pay and fewer rules, and the wannabe heroes who’d watched too many movies. Dash O’Neill fell somewhere in between. Competent enough to be useful, arrogant enough to be dangerous.

“We’re not undermining anything–”

“And we don’t have a primary suspect.” Dash interrupted Bunny, earning him murderous looks from both women.

“Sorry.” He muttered, leaning back into the seat and clamping his mouth shut.

“Like, I was saying,” Bunny continued, turning her gaze back to the police chief and switching to what Lancaster recognized as diplomacy, “We’re not undermining anything. We’re exploring additional avenues while you pursue Carissa. The staff at the Fox witnessed everything that night. Someone might have seen something crucial.”

Lancaster turned her attention to Bunny, something shifting in her expression. She searched the development director’s face, looking for tells she’d learned to recognize over the years. But Bunny seemed genuine, which somehow made it worse.

“Look, I understand you feel responsible. Your venue, your event, your seating chart. But this isn’t a mystery novel where the amateur sleuth saves the day with pluck and intuition. This is methodical police work.”

“With all due respect,” Bunny began, “Your methodical police work hasn’t made an arrest in three connected deaths.”

The room grew silent enough that Bunny could hear the clock on the wall ticking like a time bomb. Lancaster’s face tightened slightly at the temples.

“You don’t think I want to solve this?” The police chief’s voice dropped dangerously low, “Three people are dead on my watch. But I won’t throw charges at the wall to see what sticks. I need evidence that will hold up in court.”

“Then let us help,” Dash said, his tone suddenly conciliatory, “Like we’ve both said before, we can access people and places you can’t without warrants or badges. People talk differently to civilians than to cops.”

Lancaster looked between them, calculation evident in her eyes.

“Fine,” She finally said, the word as sharp as a paper cut, “Continue your inquiries. But everything, and I mean everything, comes back to me. No withholding, no editing, no ‘we’ll tell her when we have something concrete.’ And—” She pinched her fingers between the bridge of her nose, “— against my better judgement, Ramirez will be your point person.”

Ramirez straightened, surprise flickering across his face.

“Chief, I—”

“You’ve shown interest in other explanations, Detective.” Lancaster said, suddenly looking as tired as she sounded. Maybe Richard was right. Maybe it was time to step back, to let someone else carry the weight of all these unsolved cases, all these grieving families. She could use the fucking vacation for once.

“Here’s your chance to pursue them while maintaining a proper chain of evidence.”

She walked back around her desk, sitting down with a sigh. Bunny sensed the professional tightrope Ramirez was walking, given responsibility that was simultaneously an opportunity and a potential career pitfall.

“We’ll keep Detective Ramirez informed,” Bunny assured Lancaster, shooting Ramirez a sympathetic smile, “And we appreciate your flexibility.”

Lancaster looked at the younger detective, then down at the files on her desk.

Cancun, She thought absentmindedly, That’s where I’d go.

“Don’t mistake pragmatism for flexibility, Ms. Beaudoin,” Lancaster cautioned, lifting her eyes back to Bunny, “I’m giving you enough rope to either lasso a murderer or hang yourselves professionally. Use it wisely.”

As they gathered their notes and stood to leave, Lancaster held up a hand. They paused mid-air.

“One more thing. This investigation operates by my rulebook. That means no intimidation tactics, no breaking and entering, no tampering with witnesses,” She fixed her gaze on Dash, “Your PI license is a privilege. Not a shield.”

Dash’s smile was knife-thin.

“Always a pleasure, Marjorie.”

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Outside in the parking lot, the mid-morning sun cast shadows across the dewy grass, the last hints of winter giving way to green, new shoots of spring. Despite the rays of sunlight, Bunny could smell rain in the air.

“Well, that went about as well as a root canal without anesthesia.” She muttered, fishing her sunglasses from her purse.

“Actually, it went better than expected,” Dash replied, keys jingling in his hand, “Lancaster’s giving us official, if reluctant, blessings to continue. That’s practically a parade in our honor by her standards.”

Ramirez hurried out of the station behind them, his tie slightly askew.

“O’Neill,” He called, “A word?”

Dash paused, giving Bunny a small nod that she interpreted as ‘wait here.’ She moved toward Dusty but stayed within earshot, pretending to continue searching for her sunglasses while watching their reflections in her car window.

“Lancaster’s serious about keeping me in the loop,” Ramirez said quietly, “Not just as a babysitter. She’s hedging her bets.”

“Covering all bases,” Dash agreed, “Smart police work.”

“There’s something else.”

Ramirez glanced back at the station entrance.

“The wire transfers. There were actually four, not three.”

Bunny’s hand froze in her purse, even though they’d already landed on a pair of Celines.

“The first one was two weeks before Maurice Katz died, not after,” Ramirez continued, voice barely above a whisper, “That doesn’t fit Lancaster’s timeline. Payment comes after service rendered, not before.”

“Unless it wasn’t payment,” Dash mused, “Were they all the same account?”

Ramirez nodded.

“Why didn’t you mention this in there?” Dash asked.

The young detective’s expression darkened slightly.

“Lancaster said it was irrelevant to establishing a pattern. But I thought you should know.”

“Appreciate it,” Dash said, clapping him lightly on the shoulder, “We’ll be in touch.”

As Ramirez retreated to the building, Dash rejoined Bunny by her car.

“You heard?”

“Every word,” She confirmed, “Four transfers, first one before any murders.”

“Changes the calculus.” Dash said, glancing at his watch.

His Oxfords crunched on the gravel as they walked around to the Ford. Bunny chewed the inside of her cheek pensively.

“How do we find your auctioneer friend?” He asked.

“Mickey doesn’t work at the Fox regularly.” Bunny explained, tapping her phone screen to pull up her contacts.

“He’s a private contractor— strictly high-end charity events. The Fox pays him an obscene amount of money to swoop in, charm the wealthy, and extract maximum donations for minimum effort.”

“Sounds like a dream gig.” Dash remarked.

“It is. And he’s cornered the market, at least in Magnolia Heights. Our Gala Committee chair is green with envy.”

Bunny scrolled through her phone.

“He should be home. Rarely books events on weekday afternoons. Says it interferes with his ‘creative process,’ which I’m pretty sure is code for ‘sleeping off last night’s scotch.’”

“You think he’ll talk to us without warning?”

Bunny’s lips curved into a knowing smile.

“Mickey Alden has two weaknesses: expensive alcohol and an audience. Show up with a bottle of something aged and he’ll talk until your ears fall off. Besides,” She added, her expression growing more serious, “He was backstage immediately after Harold died, gathering with the staff. He knows something– I’m sure of it.”

“Then let’s go visit suburbia,” Dash said, jingling his keys again, “Your car or mine?”

“Yours,” Bunny decided, “Dusty’s a bit too recognizable in that part of town. Half of the neighborhood was at the gala.”

As they climbed into Dash’s weathered car, Bunny sent a quick text to Carol asking her to reschedule her afternoon meetings. The reply came back almost instantly:

Again? Must be nice to have a job where you can just disappear. Some of us have to answer phones. Coffee later?

Bunny smiled despite herself and sent back three laughing emojis.

Look, I’ve already done my time, kid. Coffee on me next time. I owe you one.

No matter what happened, the mundane machinery of the Fox continued to grind away. Donors to coddle, phone calls to return, coffee to consume in industrial quantities.

“Everything okay?” Dash asked, pulling into traffic.

“Just office politics,” Bunny replied, tucking her phone away, “The glamorous world of arts administration waits for no murder investigation.”

As they drove toward Avondale Estates, leaving downtown Magnolia Heights behind, the landscape gradually gave way to tree-lined streets and increasingly elaborate homes. The weight of Lancaster’s skepticism seemed to lift with each mile, replaced by fresh determination.

The theater held secrets in its shadows.

And Bunny was determined to bring them into the light.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read✨

Dash was beside her in an instant.

“What does it say?” He asked.

Bunny began to read aloud:

“Ms. Beaudoin, I understand you’ve been asking questions about me. Perhaps we should speak directly rather than through intermediaries. I’m available via the enclosed Zoom link tomorrow at 6:00 PM. I suggest you make time in your schedule. This conversation will be of mutual benefit.”

She looked up at Dash.

“There’s a Zoom link attached.”

“She knows we’re investigating her.” Dash said, his voice tight.

“But how? The only people who know are us and–” Bunny stopped.

“Lancaster.” They said in unison.

“The police might have contacted her about follow-up questions,” Dash reasoned, “But this is bold, reaching out directly.”

“What do I do?”

Dash’s expression turned grim.

“You accept the invitation. But don’t attend the call alone, and not unprepared.”

Bunny stared at the email, its formal language somehow more menacing than any overt threat. Despite the crowded room full of costumes from a hundred different stories, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being pulled into a script someone else had written. One where her role might be distressingly short-lived.

“I have to say,” She muttered, “This is not how I expected fundraising to ruin my life. I 100% thought it’d be tax fraud.”

“Look on the bright side,” Dash replied, his hand briefly touching her shoulder, “If we’re right about Carissa, at least your seating chart didn’t cause a murder. It just provided a convenient opportunity for one.”

“Wow,” Bunny’s voice dripped with mock gratitude, “You’re really great at this comforting thing. Ever considered a side hustle writing sympathy cards for serial killers?”

His lips quirked into a grin.

“I save my best material for special occasions.”

She looked down at her phone again, the Zoom invitation glowing like a beacon– or a trap.

“Lucky me.”

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Bunny arrived at Dash's office carrying takeout Thai food in greasy paper bags, the smell of pad thai and guilt competing for space in her chest. She'd spent the afternoon reorganizing her donor database, a mindless task that usually calmed her but today only amplified the restless energy that had been building since the day prior.

“You didn't have to feed me.” Dash said, clearing case files from his desk to make room for the containers.

“Consider it a business expense. We're about to potentially accuse someone of triple homicide via video call. Seemed like the kind of conversation that required carbohydrates.”

She watched him divide the food with the same methodical precision he brought to evidence analysis. Even opening a container of curry, he managed to make it look deliberate, controlled. Meanwhile, she was already picking at the spring rolls with her fingers, too nervous to wait for proper utensils.

“You always eat when you're anxious?” He asked, noting her restless nibbling.

“You always psychoanalyze your dinner companions?”

“Only the ones helping me interrogate murder suspects.”

Bunny paused, a piece of lettuce halfway to her mouth. The casual way he said it made the whole situation feel simultaneously more and less serious. They were partners now, she realized. Not just an employee who happened to witness a death and the investigator assigned to figure out what happened. They were actively working together, sharing theories, taking risks.

“What if we're wrong?” She asked, voicing the fear that had been gnawing at her all day. “What if she really is guilty and we just gave her the perfect opportunity to disappear completely?”

Dash set down his chopsticks, considering this. The desk lamp carved shadows under his cheekbones, making him look older, more tired.

“Then we learn something from how she responds. Guilty people and innocent people lie differently. They deflect differently.”

“And you can tell the difference?”

“Usually.”

The word hung between them, loaded with years of experience she couldn't imagine. How many liars had he sat across from? How many people had tried to manipulate him, charm him, convince him of their innocence?

“Must make trust complicated.” She said.

Something shifted in his expression, a brief vulnerability before the professional mask slid back into place.

“Everything's complicated.”

The windows of Dash’s office had transformed with the setting sun, becoming less portals to the outside world and more mirrors reflecting the desperate tableau within. Many visitors would describe Magnolia Heights as a collection of quaint neighborhoods strung together by a verdant canopy of pine, oak, and magnolia trees. But the town’s nightfall brought a different energy, one where secrets felt heavier and truths more elusive. It was five now. The clock on the wall ticked relentlessly toward six.

After hours, the office had that intimate feeling of a confessional booth; all amber desk lamp light and long shadows. The building around them had emptied hours ago, leaving them alone in their makeshift war room. He finally stopped fiddling with his laptop and moved to sit beside her on the couch, take-out box in hand.

“You know, you never told me how you ended up doing this,” Bunny said, needing to fill the nervous energy between them, “The whole… private eye thing.”

Dash leaned back, considering.

“Started in the Army. Military police. Thought I’d be career military like my old man, but,” He shrugged, “Turns out I was better at asking questions than following orders.”

“Shocking.” Bunny said dryly, earning a small grin.

“After my discharge, seemed natural to keep investigating things. Just traded fatigues for a cheap suit,” He glanced at her, “What about you? How does someone end up sweet-talking millionaires for a living?”

Bunny set down her take-out box, tucking one leg beneath her on the couch.

“My daddy owned the first Black staffing agency in Magnolia Heights. Built it from nothing. I watched him wine and dine clients, bend over backwards to prove he was just as good– no, better– than the other agencies.”

She picked at a loose thread on the couch cushion.

“My mother had been a teacher, but she gave it up when my brother was born. Then me. I knew she was happy, taken care of- my pops made sure that all of us were. And she was a damn good mother,” Bunny paused, realizing how quickly she was talking but unable to stop, “Always making us breakfast before school. At every PTA meeting, every school recital, every swim meet. But every now and again, she would go somewhere inside of herself where none of us could follow, you know?”

Bunny waited for the shame of oversharing to hit, waited for the awkward silence. But it didn’t come. Instead, Dash nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I know,” He said, and a tired smile lit up his eyes, “That why you work so hard? Proving something?”

“Maybe,” Bunny met his eyes, “Or maybe I just learned early that charm opens doors. That if you can make people like you, make them laugh, they’ll give you things they wouldn’t give someone else.”

Dash studied her momentarily.

“You’re good at it. Making people feel comfortable. Donors eating out of your hand.”

“Whereas you’d rather eat glass than work a room like that?”

His laugh was short, genuine.

“Glass might be preferable. I don’t… do well with all that. The small talk, the networking. Give me a case file over a cocktail party any day.”

“Dating must be a minefield,” Bunny said, then immediately wished she could take it back. Too personal. Too much like she was fishing.

But Dash’s expression remained neutral. Almost shy.

“This job doesn’t leave much room for that.”

“Come on. Mysterious and brooding detective? Women must throw themselves at you.”

“It’s not about lack of opportunity. Trust me,” He smirked, but the mirth didn’t truly reach his eyes, “It’s about what happens when they realize what the job actually means. The late nights. The dangerous people. The fact that I see the worst in everyone because that’s what I’m paid to find.”

His voice had fallen flat.

“Bad break up?”

He shrugged and ran a hand over his beard. She caught the glint of a gold necklace peeking under his shirt collar and fought the urge to touch the metal. Metal that would surely be warmed by his skin.

“Turns out most people don’t want to date someone who assumes everyone is lying. Who can’t turn off suspicion even at dinner.”

“That’s not fair,” She protested gently, “You can’t help being good at reading people.”

“Can’t I?” Dash’s jaw tightened.

He'd been a military cop for fifteen years before going private, and in all that time, he'd never brought work home. The job stayed at the base, locked away with his service weapon and his badge. But private cases lived in his apartment now, in his mind, spread across his kitchen table and his psyche like a cancer. Crime scene photos, witness statements, newspaper clippings. And at the center of it all, yellow legal pads covered in his handwriting, questions that multiplied faster than he could answer them.

“Last woman I dated said being with me was like being constantly cross-examined. That I treated our relationship like a case to be solved instead of…” He stopped, shaking his head.

“Instead of what?”

“Instead of just letting it be. Trusting,” He rubbed his face again, “Hard to trust when you spend your days documenting all the ways people betray each other.”

Bunny recognized the bone-deep weariness in his voice.

“I get it,” She said gently, “Different reasons, but I get it.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a beat, listening to the sounds of Magnolia Heights through the open windows. A light breeze carried the scent of honeysuckle and spring heat into the darkened room through the slightly opened windows.

“You know what made me cynical?” Bunny said, breaking the quiet, “Watching my father close a deal with Hutchinson Industries.”

Dash took a large bite of noodles, a slight smear of oil and sauce catching at the side of his lip. He wiped it away with a napkin, nodding in interest.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of them- construction, right?”

“Mmhm,” Bunny mumbled, popping a crab rangoon into her mouth, “Million-dollar contract. He’d worked on it for months.”

She tucked her other leg underneath the skirt of her dress, making herself smaller on the couch.

“The CEO made him wait in the lobby for three hours. When they finally met, he made my dad use the service elevator. Said the main one was for ‘client-facing staff.’ Dad smiled through it all. Shook that man’s hand. Thanked him for the opportunity.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“That was business,” Bunny’s voice carried years of accumulated bitterness, “I was sixteen, watching from the car. Saw my daddy come out that building looking smaller than when he went in. He got the contract, but,” She trailed off, “Money can make people cruel. Makes them think they own you just because they’re writing a check.”

Dash shifted slightly on the couch, angling his body toward hers.

“But… you still do it. Still work with them.”

Bunny couldn’t help but shrug at this, looking everywhere but next to her. It felt like she had been found out.

“Someone has to fund the arts,” She conceded finally, picking at her cuticles, “Might as well be someone who sees through their bullshit.”

She finally met his gaze.

“Besides, not everyone’s terrible. You just have to look harder for the good ones.”

“That’s what’s different between us,” Dash said, his voice lower now, “Even after everything you’ve seen, you still look for the good. You still see people as more than just tools or obstacles or suspects.”

“Is that what you think you do? See everyone as suspects?” She asked.

“It’s safer that way,” He was close enough now that she could see the thin rim of black that encircled his brown irises, “Fewer disappointments.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“It is.”

The admission hung between them, surprisingly honest. Surprisingly disarming.

Then, the laptop chimed sharply, making them both freeze. Dash glanced at his watch and pulled back, placing his half-eaten pad thai on the coffee table in front of them and away from the laptop which flashed with an unduly large meeting notification.

“Fifteen minutes,” He said, unceremoniously cutting through the curtain-thick silence, “We should–”

“Yeah,” Bunny straightened, shifting her legs down from under her, “We should get ready.”

“Lancaster’s on standby?” She asked, smoothing the wrinkles from the skirt of her dress.

“Said she’ll be listening in from her car,” Dash confirmed, “Somewhere with a solid connection but away from the station. Fewer ears that way.”

“And Carissa has no idea?” Bunny pressed.

“If she does, she’s got better sources in the department than I do.” He finally looked up, his expression softening fractionally.

“You ready for this?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” She responded meekly, patting her hair.

He gave her another nod, the look in his eyes almost unreadable. But there was something in it—hungry and conflicted— that seemed to match the sharp frisson of desire that softly, subtly, knowingly, pulsed through her.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

At precisely six o’clock, he clicked the Zoom link. The screen remained black for several excruciating seconds before flaring to life, revealing a scene that could have been lifted from a travel magazine. The deck of a beach house, framed by swaying palm trees, with the ocean a watercolor wash of purples and oranges in the distance. And there, in stark contrast to the paradisiacal backdrop, sat Carissa Levinson looking considerably less polished than she had at the gala. Her grey-blond hair, usually cropped short and swept into an immaculate layered blow-out, sat unstyled and windswept. She wore a white linen shirt rather than her customary power suit. But her eyes remained the same: sharp, assessing, missing nothing.

“Ms. Beaudoin,” She began, her voice crisp despite the thousands of miles between them, “And Mr. O’Neill. I wasn’t aware this would be a group call.”

“I hope that’s not a problem,” Bunny replied, channeling her most diplomatic fundraiser tone, “Mr. O’Neill has been assisting the Fox with some… security concerns following the recent incident.”

“By ‘incident,’ you mean Harold Finch’s murder at your gala,” Carissa’s directness was jarring, “Let’s not dress it up. We’re all adults here.”

Dash leaned forward slightly.

“Your email mentioned mutual benefit, Ms. Levinson. We’re interested in what you had in mind.”

Carissa’s eyes flicked to something off-camera before returning to them. The motion was brief but deliberate, like a chess player considering alternate moves.

“I understand you’ve been asking questions about me. About my relationship with Glen, about the medication I provided at the gala,” Her mouth tightened, “About my convenient vacation timing.”

“It’s standard procedure after unexpected deaths,” Dash replied smoothly, “Retracing events, understanding connections.”

“Bullshit,” The expletive was so unexpected from Carissa’s refined mouth that Bunny nearly flinched, “You’re building a case against me. That’s why I left the country.”

Carissa had always been meticulous about escape routes. Growing up with Glen had taught her that. Not the Glen from magazine covers and pharmaceutical conferences—that Glen was a performance, all strategic smiles and calculated charm. The real Glen, the one who threw crystal tumblers at walls when quarterly projections disappointed him, who screamed at assistants until they cried, who could switch from adoring husband to cold stranger in the space between one breath and the next.

She'd learned to read the signs early in their marriage. The particular way he held his shoulders when a board meeting went badly. The clipped rhythm of his footsteps in the hallway outside their bedroom. The silence that preceded his storms like the eerie calm before tornadoes. During those years, she'd always kept her passport current, her personal bank account separate, a bag packed in the back of her walk-in closet that Glen never bothered to explore. Fifteen years of marriage had felt like living in a house where someone else controlled the weather.

Now, sitting on the deck of this borrowed beach house in Nassau, ice cubes melting in her rum punch, Carissa couldn't shake the familiar weight in her chest. That crushing sensation of walls closing in, of being cornered by forces beyond her control. The same feeling she'd had during the divorce proceedings when Glen's lawyers tried to paint her as an unstable gold-digger. The same feeling she'd had at Harold's memorial service, watching Detective Lancaster's eyes follow her every movement.

The Bahamas had seemed like genius when she'd booked the flight three days after Harold's murder. Close enough to monitor the investigation through news reports and Glen's social media posts, far enough away to avoid becoming Lancaster's convenient scapegoat. She'd even chosen Nassau specifically—extradition treaties were complicated, but not impossible. If she'd really wanted to disappear, she would have gone somewhere more remote. Somewhere without reliable internet or functioning cell towers.

But she hadn't wanted to disappear. She'd wanted to survive.

“Most people would see fleeing to the Bahamas as an admission of guilt.” Bunny observed, keeping her tone casual with effort.

“Yeah, well, most people aren’t being framed for murder.” Carissa countered, leaning closer to the camera.

The sunset behind her deepened, casting her face in dramatic half-shadow.

“I left because I recognized the pattern. Three people connected to Glen, all dead under suspicious circumstances. I was the obvious next target.”

“Target?” Dash repeated, “Or suspect?”

“Both, possibly.”

A fissure appeared in Carissa’s composure. A flicker of genuine fear.

“Someone wants Glen’s associates silenced, and they’re setting me up to take the fall. That’s why I reached out to you, Ms. Beaudoin. You were there. You saw what happened.”

“I saw you give Harold Finch medication before he died,” Bunny said, watching Carissa’s reaction closely, “The same medication you offered Glen earlier.”

“Antacid tablets.” Carissa said without hesitation.

“Glen has had acid reflux for twenty years. During our marriage, I carried his medication because he’d always forget. The habit stuck, even after the divorce.”

She ran a hand through her hair, another uncharacteristic gesture of discomposure. The breeze off the water carried the salt-sweet smell of seaweed and sunscreen, sounds of children playing in the surf at the resort next door. Normal sounds. Safe sounds. Nothing like the oppressive silence of her Magnolia Heights apartment, where every creak of the building made her wonder if someone was coming for her.

She sipped her drink and tried to focus on the horizon line where ocean met sky, that endless blue that made problems feel smaller and more manageable. The sun was beginning its descent toward the water, painting the sky in shades of amber and rose. It touched the horizon, setting the ocean on fire.

“Harold complained about his stomach. I was being polite. The same tablets I’ve given to dozens of people at functions over the years.”

“Including Maurice Katz and Catherine Winters?” Dash asked.

If he’d hoped to catch her off guard, the strategy failed. Carissa’s expression shifted to one of frustrated recognition.

“So that’s the connection you’ve made. Yes, I knew them both. And yes, I probably offered Maurice antacids at some point. High pressure careers devoted to swindling people tend to give people constant stomach pain. But Catherine? No. We weren’t close.”

Bunny exchanged a quick glance with Dash before pressing forward.

“What about Glen’s legal troubles? The federal investigation into price-fixing at Valentino Pharmaceuticals?”

For the first time, Carissa appeared genuinely surprised. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed– a harsh, bitter sound that bounced off the tropical idyll behind her like a stone skipping across water.

“Is that your theory? That I’m eliminating witnesses to protect Glen?”

She shook her head, incredulity giving way to something darker.

“I’ve been waiting two years for that investigation to come to fruition. Harold Finch was the key witness who could finally bring Glen to justice. His testimony would have ensured a conviction.”

She leaned forward, her face filling the screen, eyes intent.

“Why would I kill the one person guaranteed to put my ex-husband behind bars where he belongs?”

The question hung in the digital space between them, undermining the theory they’d so carefully constructed. Bunny felt the solid ground beneath their case shift like sand at high tide.

“You wanted the divorce settlement reopened,” Dash suggested, recalibrating, “Glen facing prison would have given you leverage.”

“I wanted Glen to face consequences for once in his entitled life,” Carissa retorted, “Do you have any idea what it’s like being married to a man who believes rules are for other people? Who crushes anyone who stands in his way?”

She gestured to the beach behind her.

“I don’t need his money. I built my own career, my own life. What I needed was for him to finally answer for his actions.”

“Then why flee the country?” Bunny challenged, “Why not stay and help the investigation?”

“Because I recognized the pattern too late,” Carissa admitted, deflating slightly, “Maurice, then Catherine, then Harold. All connected to Glen’s case, all dead before they could testify. I realized I was either next on the kill list or being set up as the perpetrator.”

She picked up a glass of amber liquid, the ice cubes clinking against crystal.

“So I removed myself from the equation. Bought myself time.”

“Convenient.” Dash’s voice remained neutral, but Bunny could sense his frustration.

“If I were guilty, Mr. O’Neill, why would I contact you? Why call attention to myself at all?”

Why go to the Bahamas instead of some place where they wouldn’t ship you back to the States? Bunny thought, biting her cheek to keep from speaking out loud. Lancaster’s hard gaze flashed in her mind.

Carissa sipped her drink.

“I reached out because I need allies. People who can see the truth beyond the obvious setup.”

“And what is the truth, Ms. Levinson?” Bunny asked, increasingly uncertain.

Carissa’s gaze sharpened, calculating.

“Unlike your little theory, I have a different premonition.”

She put down the glass.

“Someone is systematically eliminating everyone connected to Glen’s case. But don’t mistake this for protection. Glen himself may be the ultimate target.”

She leaned forward, lowering her voice.

“Think about it. Maurice, Catherine, Harold– they’re not just witnesses, they’re stepping stones. Remove everyone who could implicate Glen in the federal case, then when he feels safe, when he thinks he’s untouchable…” She snapped her fingers, “The perfect revenge.”

“You’re suggesting a long game.” Dash said, skepticism evident in his tone.

“I’m suggesting exactly that.” Carissa’s eyes flashed with conviction.

“Glen has made enemies his entire career: people he’s stepped on, companies he’s destroyed, families he’s ruined with his price gouging. His Teflon reputation is just that– a reputation. Behind closed doors, the pharmaceutical industry loathes him. His own board has tried to oust him twice.”

As Carissa spoke, Bunny found herself cataloguing details with careful attention. The woman's body language, the studied casualness of her tropical setting, the way she held herself even in alleged exile. There was something theatrical about it all. The perfect beach house backdrop, the carefully windswept hair, even the way the sunset painted her in dramatic lighting. But theater wasn't necessarily deception. Bunny had organized enough fundraising galas to know that presentation was often just another form of truth-telling.

What struck her wasn't the staging. It was the exhaustion underneath it. The way Carissa's shoulders sagged when she thought they weren't looking, the brief moments when her composed facade cracked to reveal something rawer. Fear, maybe. Or the bone-deep weariness of someone who'd been running for too long. The expression of someone who'd built their entire life around managing other people's perceptions and was starting to forget who they actually were underneath all the performance.

“If what you’re saying is true,” Bunny started, “Why reach out to us? Why not warn Glen directly?”

Carissa let out a harsh laugh.

“Glen wouldn’t believe me if I told him the sun rises in the east. Our divorce wasn’t just contentious. It was nuclear. He’d assume I was manipulating him.”

She shook her head.

“Besides, I don’t owe him warnings. What I care about is stopping whoever’s doing this before more people die and before I get framed for it.”

“So we’re meant to be your allies, not your legal counsel.” Dash observed.

“Precisely. I don’t need anything from Glen. Our lives are mercifully separate now. What I need are people who can see the pattern without the police’s tunnel vision. People who might actually look beyond the obvious.”

She sipped her drink.

“Glen’s ruthless business practices have created a legion of enemies with motive. But only someone with inside knowledge would know who to eliminate and how to make it look like a protective conspiracy.”

“Do you have a name to offer?” Dash asked, a hint of urgency tinging his voice, almost betraying his lack of neutrality.

“Not yet. But I’m working on it.”

Carissa glanced off-camera again, this time with visible unease.

“I have to go. I’ve stayed in one location too long.”

“That sounds like paranoia, Ms. Levinson.” Dash said, face returned to a mask.

“Three people are dead, Mr. O’Neill,” Her voice hardened, “I don’t intend to be the fourth.”

She leaned closer, her face serious.

“Look beyond the obvious,” She paused, “And Ms. Beaudoin? Be careful who you trust at the Fox. No one is who they seem.”

The call ended abruptly, leaving Bunny and Dash staring at a black screen that reflected their own troubled expressions. The silence that followed Carissa's abrupt departure felt heavy, charged with everything they hadn't said. Bunny stared at her own reflection in the black laptop screen, noting how small she looked next to Dash in the pixelated mirror.

“Well,” She said finally, “That was more compelling than I expected.”

“Compelling isn't the same as truthful.”

But his voice lacked conviction. She could see it in the way he rubbed his jaw, the unconscious gesture he made when processing information that didn't fit his existing theories.

“You believe her.” Bunny said.

“I believe parts of her story make sense,” He closed the laptop with more force than necessary, “Which is different.”

“How different?”

He stood, pacing to the window that overlooked the street below. The city moved past in streams of headlights and illuminated windows, thousands of people going about their lives while they sat in this small office trying to untangle murder and motive.

“Different enough that we need to start looking at other possibilities.”

The admission seemed to cost him something. Bunny recognized the look—she'd worn it herself countless times when a donor she'd counted on pulled their funding at the last minute, or when a board member she'd trusted revealed themselves to be working against everything she'd built.

“You don't like being wrong.” She observed.

“Nobody likes being wrong.”

“No, but you really don't like it. It's not just professional pride. It's something else.”

He turned from the window, studying her with that intense focus that made her feel both seen and scrutinized.

“You think you know me well enough to make that assessment?”

“I think I know what it looks like when someone's entire identity is built around being the person who figures things out. Who sees what others miss,” She stood, moving closer, “And I think you're scared that if you're wrong about this, you might be wrong about other things too.”

The words hit their mark. She could see it in the way his expression tightened, the subtle shift in his posture, the way he sized her up.

“Maybe I am, Bunny Beaudoin,” He said quietly, “Maybe I am.”

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read✨

Bunny never made it to Inman Park.

She was three blocks away, rehearsing potential opening lines to Dash when the blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror. Not the black sedan she’d been paranoidly tracking for the last fifteen minutes, but an unmarked police car that had materialized behind her with the suddenness of a tax audit.

“Are you kidding me?” She muttered, pulling Dusty to the curb, “I wasn’t even speeding.”

The car behind her went dark, and a woman emerged: squat, broad-shouldered, with the ramrod posture of someone who’d spent significant time having their spine yelled into alignment. Her hair, delicately twisted into thin sister locks, was tied tightly into a militaristic bun. She approached with the methodical confidence of a predator who knew their prey wasn’t going anywhere. Bunny rolled down her window, summoning her most charming smile; the one she reserved for potential donors with questionable politics but unquestionable wealth.

“Good afternoon, Officer. Did I miss a stop sign or–”

“Ms. Beaudoin,” The woman cut her off, removing her dark Aviators with a practice flick, “Chief Marjorie Lancaster, Magnolia Heights PD. I’m going to need you to come with me.”

Bunny blinked, the smile freezing on her face.

“I’m sorry– what? Am I under arrest?” Her mind did a frantic inventory of recent activities. Technically, amateur sleuthing wasn’t illegal. Probably.

“Not yet,” Chief Lancaster replied, the ‘yet’ hanging in the air like a guillotine blade, “Just a conversation that’s best had at the station. You can follow me, or ride with me and have one of my officers bring your car.”

It wasn’t a request so much as a choice between slightly different flavors of compliance.

“I’ll follow you,” Bunny said, fingers tightening around the steering wheel, “My car’s – er – temperamental with strangers.”

Lancaster’s expression suggested she found this about as believable as a toddler’s explanation for crayon on the walls, but she nodded curtly.

“Station’s four blocks east. Don’t get creative with the route.”

Twenty minutes later, Bunny sat in an interrogation room that looked exactly like every interrogation room she’d ever seen on television, down to the suspiciously stained table and the two-way mirror that might as well have had “WE’RE WATCHING YOU” stenciled across it. The only missing element was the single swinging light bulb, though the fluorescent fixtures overhead did an admirable job of making everyone look like they were in the early stages of liver failure.

Her phone buzzed in her purse.

Dash, undoubtedly wondering where she was.

She reached for it, but the door swung open before she could check. Chief Lancaster entered, accompanied by a painfully young detective whose suit suggested it was purchased for a high school graduation and had been loyally serving ever since. Lancaster took the seat across from Bunny, placing a thin file on the table between them.

“Ms. Beaudoin,” She began, her voice carrying the tone of someone who’d mastered the art of making your name sound like an accusation, “Would you care to explain why you’re conducting a parallel investigation into the death of Harold Finch?”

Bunny’s stomach plummeted, but years of fundraising had taught her that visible panic was a luxury reserved for people who didn’t need to convince billionaires to fund youth theater programs.

“I wouldn’t call it an ‘investigation,’” She replied, injecting her voice with just enough indignation to sound reasonable, “I’m just checking on our donors after a traumatic event. It’s literally in my job description.”

“And your meeting with Private Investigator Dashiell O’Neill? Is that also part of your job description?”

Well, shit.

“Mr. O’Neill approached me with concerns about the incident at our gala. As the development director responsible for that event, I felt it appropriate to hear those concerns.”

Bunny leaned forward slightly.

“Professional courtesy. Nothing more.”

Lancaster’s laugh was brief and empty.

“Professional courtesy,” She echoed sardonically, “Interesting choice of words. What about your plans to meet him at Inman Park this afternoon? More ‘professional courtesy’?”

The young detective shifted uncomfortably, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else– possibly including active crime scenes. Bunny mentally dubbed him Detective Bambi.

“Chief Lancaster,” Bunny said, dropping the pretense, “What exactly am I being accused of? Last I checked, speaking with a licensed investigator isn’t a crime.”

“No, but interfering with an active police investigation is,” Lancaster tapped the file, “We’ve been tracking O’Neill’s movements. He’s been poking around three separate deaths, spinning conspiracy theories, and now he’s dragged you into his delusions.”

“They’re not delusions if all three victims had belladonna in their systems.” Bunny countered before she could stop herself.

Lancaster’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“And how exactly would you know that detail about the other two cases? That information wasn’t released to the public.

Double shit.

“Mr. O’Neill mentioned it,” Bunny admitted, “I assumed he had access to the reports through proper channels.”

“Mr. O’Neill has a habit of accessing things through decidedly improper channels.” Lancaster leaned back, studying Bunny with the interest of an entomologist examining a particularly problematic beetle.

“Let me be clear, Ms. Beaudoin. You are a fundraiser, not a detective. You are actively hampering our investigation by stirring up witnesses, alerting potential persons of interest, and generally making a mess of carefully laid groundwork.”

Detective Bambi shifted again, drawing Lancaster’s attention. She sighed.

“Detective Ramirez has something to add. Against my better judgement, I’m going to let him speak.”

Ramirez cleared his throat, straightening like a student unexpectedly called on in class.

“Ms. Beaudoin might actually have information that could be useful to the investigation.” He said nervously, looking as surprised by his own audacity as Lancaster appeared.

“Her conversation with Siobhan Reid this morning elicited details that our formal interview didn’t.”

Bunny didn’t bother hiding her surprise.

“You were following me?”

“We’ve been monitoring key witnesses,” Lancaster corrected, “You happened to visit one.”

“And what information did I supposedly uncover?” Bunny asked, curiosity temporarily overriding self-righteous indignation.

Ramirez glanced at Lancaster, who gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“Ms. Reid mentioned to you that Carissa Levinson canceled their lunch plans due to an unexpected trip to the Bahamas. This is the first indication we’ve had of her whereabouts. She’s been unresponsive to our attempts to schedule a follow-up interview.”

“Meaning she’s fled the jurisdiction.” Bunny concluded.

“Meaning,” Lancaster corrected sharply, “That she’s temporarily unavailable. People take vacations, Ms. Beaudoin. Not every trip to the Caribbean is an admission of guilt.”

“But the timing is suspicious.” Ramirez pressed, earning a glacial stare from his superior.

“Detective, would you excuse us for a moment?”

Ramirez hesitated, then nodded, disappearing through the door with the relieved expression of someone who’d narrowly avoided being thrown into a volcano. Once alone, Lancaster’s demeanor shifted subtly. She was still formidable, but with a new layer of calculation behind her eyes.

“Ms. Beaudoin, I understand the impulse to play detective. Especially given your personal connection to the case.”

“Personal connection?” Bunny echoed, genuinely confused.

Lancaster’s eyebrow raised a fraction.

“You seated the victim at a table with his former business partner and said partner’s ex–wife, creating circumstances that may have contributed to his death. That’s about as personal as it gets without holding the poison yourself.”

The words hit with surgical precision, finding the exact spot where Bunny’s guilt and anger lived. Lancaster, sensing the impact, continued.

“I have two options here. I can charge you with obstruction of justice and let you explain to Ms. Wilde why her development director is spending the night in holding… or you can agree to stand down and let us do our job.”

“And if I agree to ‘stand down,’ what guarantee do I have that your investigation will actually get results?” Bunny challenged, the heat rising in her voice.

Lancaster’s jaw tightened.

“Criminal investigations aren’t like your fundraising galas, Ms. Beaudoin. They don’t operate on convenient timelines with color-coded seating charts. We’re building a case that will stand up in court, not just make for interesting dinner conversations among your theater friends.”

“Speaking of courts,” Bunny said, inspiration striking, “Carissa Levinson is a partner at Hargrove & Bennett, one of the most prestigious law firms in the Southeast. If she is involved, you’re not just dealing with a murderer. You’re dealing with someone who knows exactly how to exploit every procedural loophole in the book.”

Something flickered in Lancaster’s eyes. Not acknowledgement, exactly, but a moment of consideration.

“Your concern is noted. Now I need your commitment to step back.”

Bunny hesitated, mind racing. Agreeing would buy her freedom from this fluorescent purgatory, but it would also mean abandoning the investigation just as it was gaining momentum. Dash would think she’d ghosted him, potential leads would grow cold, and Carissa would have even more time to cover her tracks. Or worse: disappear permanently.

“I have a counter-proposal.” She offered, channeling her most persuasive development director energy.

“I’ll share everything I learn, every conversation, every suspicion. In return, you keep me in the loop on the official investigation.”

Lancaster looked at her as if she’d suggested they solve the case via interpretive dance.

“That’s not how this works.”

“It could be,” Bunny continued, Dash’s previous words flooding her mind, “People talk to me. Donors, staff, the fundraising circuit. They say things they’d never tell a police officer. I have access and context you don’t.”

“And what happens when your amateur meddling tips off our suspects or compromises evidence?”

“What happens when your suspect disappears to a non-extradition country while you’re following proper procedure?” Bunny shot back, cocking an eyebrow.

“The clock is ticking, Chief Lancaster. Carissa’s already in the Bahamas. How long before she’s somewhere you can’t touch her?”

Lancaster was silent for a long moment, studying Bunny with an expression that suggested she was reconsidering several life choices that had led her to this conversation.

“I’ll make you a one-time offer,” She finally said, “You bring any information directly to me– not to Detective Ramirez, not to some random officer, to me personally. You do not take independent action. You do not confront suspects. You do not share details of the investigation with anyone, including your screenwriting club friends.”

Bunny blinked in surprise.

“How did you–”

“We’re the police, Ms. Beaudoin. It’s our job to know things.” Lancaster’s expression remained severe.

“Do we have an understanding?”

It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than being shut out completely or spending the night explaining to Fenelope why she needed bail money.

“We have an understanding.” Bunny agreed.

“Good. Now about Mr. O’Neill–”

“If I’m going to be your unofficial eyes and ears, I need him,” Bunny interrupted, “He has information on the previous deaths that you haven’t shared with me.”

Lancaster’s eyes narrowed.

“Fine. But he operates under the same restrictions. And if either of you steps out of line, I’ll have you both brought up on obstruction charges so fast your heads will spin. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.” Bunny said, fighting the urge to salute.

Lancaster stood, gathering her file.

“You’re free to go. And Ms. Beaudoin? Next time you arrange a clandestine meeting with your PI friend, try somewhere less obvious than Inman Park. The gazebo might as well have a sign that says ‘Suspicious Conversation In Progress.’”

As the door closed behind the chief, Bunny let out a long breath, slumping in her chair. Her phone buzzed again– three missed calls from Dash, and a text:

Where are you? Everything ok?

She stared at the screen, considering her response. The police were watching her, possibly listening to her calls. Carissa Levinson was in the Bahamas, potentially fleeing justice. And somewhere in between the islands and Magnolia Heights, a killer remained free, perhaps already selecting their next target.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, then began to type:

Had an unexpected meeting with the police chief. Will explain later. Meet me at the Fox tomorrow. Third floor, costume storage. No one ever goes there.

She hit send, gathered her purse, and stepped out into the hallway where Detective Ramirez waited to escort her out. As they walked toward the exit, he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“For what it’s worth, Ms. Beaudoin, I think the chief is wrong about O’Neill’s theories. The connections between these deaths are too specific to be coincidence.”

Bunny glanced at him, reasessing. Perhaps not Detective Bambi after all. More like Detective Underestimated.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Ramirez’s voice dropped to nearly a whisper.

“Because Harold Finch wasn’t just Glen Valentino’s former business partner. He was scheduled to testify next month in a federal investigation into price-fixing in the pharmaceutical industry. A case that would have implicated Valentino in multiple felonies.”

They reached the front doors of the station, and Ramirez stepped back, his expression returning to professional neutrality.

“Have a good day, Ms. Beaudoin.” He concluded, stepping back to let her pass, face an impassable mask once again.

She was stunned, but stepped out of the door without tripping over her own two feet.

As she walked to her car, Bunny felt a new sense of urgency. This wasn’t just about a murder at a gala anymore. It was bigger, potentially much bigger, than she’d imagined. And despite Chief Lancaster’s warnings, she was now more determined than ever to get to the truth. Dash would be waiting. And this time, she had a lot more to tell him than just Carissa’s convenient vacation plans.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

The Fox Theater’s costume storage room was a graveyard of theatrical ambitions past– racks of period dresses from forgotten productions, boxes of improbably sized hats, and mannequins frozen in various states of sartorial distress. The smell of mothballs hung in the air. Bunny leaned against a trunk marked “Elizabethan Ruffs– DO NOT FOLD,” watching dust motes dance in the shaft of light from the single window. Dash arrived six minutes late, slightly out of breath, the furrow between his brows deeper than it had been the last time that they spoke. But she had to admit, there was something about seeing him slightly undone– tied askew, a wrinkle in his shirt, the careful composure cracked just enough to reveal the man beneath– that was totally doing it for her.

“You stood me up.” He said gruffly by way of greeting.

“Technically, I was detained by law enforcement. Different thing entirely.” She quipped, unable to stop the small smile from creeping up on her face as she watched him roll up his sleeves again.

“Chief Lancaster?” He asked.

“The very same,” Bunny shifted, causing something inside the trunk to make an ominous crinkling sound, “How’d you know?”

“She’s had a hard-on for shutting down my investigation since victim number two.”

Dash’s eyes swept the room with professional assessment.

“Nice choice of location. Very ‘Phantom of the Opera’ meets ‘CSI.’”

“Thanks. I figured if we’re going to have clandestine meetings about murder, we might as well embrace the aesthetic.”

Bunny gestured to the threadbare velvet settee.

“Have a seat. The lady of the house insists.”

Dash remained standing, hands in pockets.

Rude.

“What did Lancaster want?” He prodded, ever the unshaken investigator.

“To scare me off. Accused me of interfering with their investigation, threatened obstruction charges,” She paused, “She’s been following me. Knew about our planned meeting at the park.”

“Not surprising. She’s thorough. I’ll give her that.”

He moved closer, his voice dropping.

“What did you tell her?”

“That I’d play nice and share what I learn.”

His eyebrows shot up.

“And she bought that?”

“I can be very convincing. It’s how I convinced a hedge fund manager that supporting children’s theater would absolve him of his sins against humanity.” He let out a laugh at that and Bunny crossed her arms, pleased with herself while also cringing at the self-indulgent pleasure of an attractive man finding her funny.

“Besides, it’s not entirely a lie. I will share what I learn… after we’ve figured out who’s murdering Glen Valentino’s inner circle.” She concluded.

“So you’re committed now? No more waffling about whether this is a good idea?”

“Three people are dead, and the police are one step behind whoever’s responsible.” She said, lifting her chin.

“Also, I ran into an unexpectedly helpful detective.”

“Ramirez,” Dash finished knowingly, “Good kid. Too smart for his own career prospects.”

“He told me something interesting. Harold Finch was scheduled to testify next month in a federal investigation into price-fixing at Valentino Pharmaceuticals.”

Dash’s eyes sharpened.

“That’s new information. Explains why someone might want him permanently silent.” He muttered.

He moved to the window, scanning the alley below before turning back to her.

“Tell me about the auction. The timing strikes me as convenient.”

“In what way?”

“The lot that triggered the bidding war. Was it always scheduled for that point in the evening?”

Bunny’s eyes widened slightly.

“No. It wasn’t. The Tuscan villa was supposed to be the grand finale. Mickey was going to use it as the big send-off to get everyone excited about the fund-a-need that followed.”

“But it came earlier?”

“Yes.”

She stood up suddenly, pacing between costume racks.

“Fenelope and Mickey had a conversation right before the auction started. I remember thinking it was odd because Fenelope usually lets Mickey run the auction his way– he’s got a system. But she was insistent about something.”

“The order of the lots.” Dash concluded.

“Must have been. Because suddenly the villa was up right after I returned to the room– I’d left to check something.” She explained.

And then, she stopped, her hand clutching a sequined sailor suit.

“How could I not have noticed that?” She asked, turning to look at the PI.

“It’s what I do for a living,” Dash said without a hint of smugness, “The sequence matters. Carissa gives Glen medication he doesn’t take. Fenelope moves up an auction lot, triggering a bidding war between exes. The tension escalates, Glen storms out taking his entourage with him, including a disoriented Harold Finch.”

“Creating the perfect opportunity for a fatal ‘accident,’” Bunny finished, “But that would mean Fenelope was involved.”

“Or manipulated,” Dash suggested, “Did anyone else speak to her before the auction?”

Bunny’s brow furrowed.

“I don’t know. I was busy playing traffic cop for the one percenters.”

“Okay– never mind that then.” Dash paused, pulling a notepad from his shirt pocket and scribbling quickly.

“It’s the pharmaceutical angle that interests me,” He continued in the silence, keeping his eyes glued on Bunny, “All three victims had inside knowledge of Valentino’s business practices.”

“Which means Glen is the logical suspect,” Bunny concluded, “Eliminating witnesses before they can testify.”

“Except he was nearly a victim himself,” Dash countered, “You saw Carissa give him the same pills she gave Harold.”

“But Glen didn’t take his. At least not that I saw.”

“Or they weren’t the same pills.”

Dash began pacing, his footsteps muffled by a fallen feather boa.

“What if someone’s protecting Glen, not targeting him?” He asked, flipping through his notebook with new found energy.

“Someone who knows enough about his business to identify threats. Someone with access to belladonna derivatives. Someone who might still care about him despite appearances to the contrary.”

They looked at each other, the same name hovering between them.

“His ex-wife.” Bunny said.

“Currently vacationing in the Bahamas.” Dash added.

“What do we know about her, besides the usual stuff?” Bunny asked, sinking back down onto the trunk and displacing a cloud of dust that danced in the late afternoon light.

Dash consulted his notes.

“Uh, let’s see– Carissa Levinson, 54, partner at Hargrove & Bennett, specializing in corporate litigation. Divorced Glen Valentino six years ago after fifteen years of marriage. No children,” His eyebrows rose slightly, “The divorce settlement was surprisingly modest given Valentino’s net worth. And she’s never gone back to ask for more spousal support.”

“So, hypothetically speaking, if she’s ‘protecting him’… maybe she’s doing it so that she can go back for the money,” Bunny thought aloud, rolling a stray costume bead between her fingers, “Maybe she wanted something to give her leverage?”

“Like what?”

“His freedom,” She said. The bead dropped from her fingers, rolling across the floor like an escaping thought, “His freedom in exchange for a larger settlement.”

Now it was Dash’s turn to furrow his brows.

“There has got to be a better way to get a bigger check from an ex-husband than poisoning.”

“No, but it might be useful to eliminate said ex-husband’s enemies,” Bunny stood, energy propelling her forward, “If I were her, I’d hold something like that over his head for years, especially if I got away with it.”

She ignored Dash’s concerned frown.

“I’m not a sociopath. Promise.”

“Convincing.” He mumbled, twirling the pen around his middle finger.

“Here’s a theory,” She continued, “Glen’s company is under federal investigation. Carissa, as a high-powered attorney, would understand exactly how much trouble he’s in. She might even have inside information.”

“Through her law firm,” Dash nodded slowly, conceding slightly, “Service firms talk. Papers get served. Rumors circulate.”

“Exactly. She knows he’s guilty–”

“ – And knows who can testify against him,” Dash’s eyes lit with realization,“Starting with Maurice Katz, his legal counsel who might have been preparing to turn state’s evidence for immunity.”

“Then Catherine Winters, the CFO who controlled financial records.”

“And finally, Harold Finch, former business partner with knowledge of the company’s early practices,” Dash continued, “All three were in positions to confirm Valentino’s involvement in the price-fixing scheme.”

“She wasn’t trying to hurt Glen with those pills at the gala,” Bunny said, the pieces falling into place, “She was maintaining her cover. She gives him harmless antacids regularly– a habit from her marriage. But gave Harold the deadly version.”

“And who would question an ex-wife performing a familiar gesture of concern? Especially when she’d already done the same for her former husband…” Dash trailed off, “It’s almost elegant.”

“During my conversation with Siobhan,” Bunny pressed, “She mentioned that her firm and Carissa’s use the same service vendors. What if the first victim– Maurice Katz– received his dose at a function Siobhan attended?”

Dash’s expression darkened.

“That’s worth checking,” He pulled out his phone, scrolling rapidly, “Let me run a quick skip trace. Siobhan Reid, Magnolia Heights area, legal functions in the six months prior to Katz’s death.”

His fingers moved efficiently across the screen, accessing databases Bunny was fairly certain weren’t open to the general public. After a moment, he looked up with newfound intensity.

“Three hits. Siobhan and Maurice Katz both attended the Georgia Bar Association's annual charity golf tournament in May, the Hargrove & Bennett summer associate reception in June, and– this is interesting– the Legal Aid fundraiser at the St. Regis in July.”

“The golf tournament is where Katz collapsed.” Bunny recalled.

“Yes, but the Legal Aid event is more relevant. Guess who else was there?”

“Carissa?”

“And Glen Valentino. He was a major donor.”

Dash’s face took on the alert concentration of a predator sensing movement.

“And Catherine Winters.”

“Victim number two,” Bunny whispered, “They were all there?”

“According to the event photos and attendance list.”

He turned his phone to show her a society page photo: Glen Valentino standing between Maurice Katz and Catherine Winters, champagne flutes raised, with Carissa visible in the background, watching them with an unreadable expression.

“Jesus,” Bunny breathed, “It’s like a preview of coming attractions, except everyone’s dying instead of getting Oscar nominations.”

“There’s more,” Dash continued scrolling, “Winters died a day after this event. ‘Allergic reaction’ at a pharmaceutical industry dinner.”

“Where Carissa wasn’t present?”

“No, but her firm was representing a client at the same event. She had access.”

“So she’s been planning this for months. Watching, waiting for opportunities. Eliminating threats to Glen one by one, at different events, through different methods but always with the same poison, But–” Bunny stood again, unable to contain the nervous energy, “ – Why the same poison? Seems risky.”

Dash shut off his phone, his expression thoughtful.

“It’s her signature. Some killers need that consistency, that… ritual. Like she’s playing a role she’s committed to,” He paused, looking directly at Bunny, “And she’s not done yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“If her motive is protecting Glen from legal consequences, there are likely other witnesses she’s targeted. People who could testify about the price-fixing.”

“People who might be at risk right now.” Bunny finished, a chill settling over her.

“Exactly.”

Dash stood, pocketing his recorder. Bunny shuddered.

“He never stood a chance, did he?” She asked

“Not if Carissa planned it this carefully,” Dash answered bleakly, tapping his pen against the page, “We need to find out who else knew about Glen’s activities. And we need to do it before Carissa does.”

Bunny nodded, feeling the weight of their discoveries settle on her shoulders like one of the heavy theatrical capes hanging nearby.

“And to think, I used to believe the most dangerous part of my job was the small talk at donor dinners.” She muttered.

“Small talk rarely leads to belladonna poisoning,” Dash murmured, twisting his lips into a wry grin, “Though I’d argue it’s equally painful.”

“A man after my own heart,” Bunny replied, surprising herself with the warmth in her voice, “Cynical and factual.”

“I prefer ‘realistic’ and ‘evidence-based.’” He countered.

“Funny– I believe Captain Lancaster actually referred to your approach as ‘conspiracy theories’ and that you were ‘dragging me down with your delusions.’” She cracked back.

There was a pause, and Bunny suddenly felt self-conscious.

Too far?

But then the private investigator let out another laugh. Bunny laughed nervously next to him, relieved that she didn’t offend.

“I’m the one spinning conspiracy theories and yet we have something that Lancaster doesn’t.”

Dash leaned against a rack of Rockette costumes that complained under his weight, his angular features relaxing into a smile.

“What’s that?”

“Understanding of motive. If Carissa is killing to protect Glen for her own gain, she’s not driven by emotion, just cold calculation. People driven by emotion make mistakes.”

“And she hasn’t so far,” Bunny pointed out, checking her watch, “Three deaths, no arrests.”

It was nearly one in the afternoon. They’d been dissecting murders for ages in a room that seemed to be actively trying to suffocate them with historical fabric dust.

“We need to verify her connection to the federal investigation,” Dash said, “And we need to find out if there are more potential witnesses on her hit list.”

“I can ask about the investigation through the Fox’s corporate connects,” Bunny offered, “We have board members who–”

The vibration of her phone interrupted her. She pulled it from her pocket, frowning at the unfamiliar email notification.

“What is it?” Dash asked, noting her confused expression.

“An email.”

She opened it, her frown deepening.

“From Carissa Levinson.”

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read✨

At nine years old, Bunny Beaudoin established her first detective headquarters in the window seat of her bedroom, complete with a spiral notebook labeled “CONFIDENTIAL” in wobbly red letters. The Montgomery Beaudoin pen crisis had reached day three, and the household staff had given up the search.

But not Bunny.

Her father’s prized Montblanc— a graduation gift from his own father when he finished business school— had vanished without a trace. She’d watched her father’s face fall slightly each time he reached absently for his breast pocket, only to remember it was gone.

“Nancy Drew wouldn’t give up.” Bunny whispered to herself, flipping through her dog-eared copy of The Secret of the Old Clock for inspiration. Nancy always started with a timeline, so Bunny did the same, carefully ruling lines across a fresh page.

7:15 AM - Daddy used pen to sign permission slip for school trip

7:30 AM - Pen seen in jacket pocket at breakfast (witness: Mom)

8:05 AM - Daddy left for work

6:45 PM - Daddy noticed pen missing at dinner

The window seat filled with evidence: a crude floor plan of the house with red X’s marking searched locations, a list of “suspects” (mostly the family cat, Atticus, who had a history of batting shiny objects under furniture), and meticulous notes from interviews with the housekeeper (“I dusted his office but didn’t move anything”) and the driver (“No, Miss Bunny, I don’t recall seeing Mr. Beaudoin take anything from his pockets in the car”). Each afternoon after school, Bunny donned her detective outfit— her father’s old fedora that swallowed her head, and a magnifying glass borrowed from her science kit. She traced her father’s morning routine, searching for a pattern or anomaly that everyone else had missed.

“The pen has to be somewhere,” She explained seriously to her stuffed rabbit, Mr. Ears, who served as her Watson, “Things don’t just disappear. There’s always a logical explanation.”

On day four, inspiration struck while watching her father dress for work. He slipped into his navy suit jacket— the same one he’d worn the day the pen disappeared — and Bunny noticed him patting the breast pocket from the outside.

“Daddy, wait!” She cried, racing across the room.

“May I examine your jacket? I have a theory.”

Her father, amused by her determined investigation, slipped off the jacket and handed it over. Bunny carefully turned it inside out, her small fingers exploring the silk lining with forensic precision.

“There!” She explained triumphantly, feeling an unnatural weight in the bottom hem.

“The lining is torn inside the pocket. Your pen must have slipped through and gotten caught in the jacket lining!”

With surgical care, she maneuvered her tiny hand into the tear and felt the cool, smooth surface of the Montblanc. Her father’s face transformed as she extracted the pen, his eyes crinkling with the special smile he reserved just for her.

“Bunny Beaudoin, Private Eye,” He declared, lifting her onto his shoulders for a victory lap around the bedroom while her mother applauded from the doorway, “The most thorough investigator in the tristate area!”

That night, her father presented her with her very own junior detective kit, complete with fingerprint powder, a proper magnifying glass, and a small leather-bound notebook with her initials embossed in gold. The Beaudoins loved a good monogram, after all. For weeks afterward, she carried that kit everywhere, dusting for prints on doorknobs and keeping detailed logs of “suspicious activities” around the neighborhood.

But like most childhood obsessions, the detective phase gradually faded. First came competitive swimming in middle school, then debate team, then her first real boyfriend in tenth grade. The detective kit migrated from her bedside table to her desk drawer, then to a storage box, and finally to the attic alongside other relics of her childhood. By the time she left for college, Nancy Drew had been replaced by Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, the dream of solving mysteries surrendering to more practical aspirations. The leather notebook, still pristine except for those first few excited entries, remained tucked away, its remaining blank pages a silent testament to a path not taken.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Meridian, a wealthy suburb north of Magnolia Heights, announced its affluence without subtlety. Perfectly manicured lawns stretched before homes that seemed designed primarily to make visitors feel inadequate about their own living situations. The next morning, Bunny navigated her car— affectionately dubbed Dusty due to its dusty blue color— through winding streets lined with cherry blossom trees (the kind that appeared in architectural magazines but never in actual neighborhoods unless there was a homeowners association the moral flexibility of a contortionist and the enforcement powers of a small nation).

Just a casual donor check-in. Perfectly normal. Development directors do this all the time. Nothing suspicious about reaching out to a board member who witnessed a man being poisoned at my gala. Totally routine.

She pulled into the circular driveway of the Reid residence, a sprawling Georgian-style home that managed to look both historic and suspiciously new, like an Instagram filter applied to architecture. Taking a deep breath, she checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Professional. Composed. Definitely not someone conducting a secret murder investigation against her boss’s wishes.

The doorbell echoed inside, followed by the distant sound of expensive heels on hardwood. The door swung open to reveal Siobhan Reid, looking both impeccable and exhausted. Her blonde hair was pulled back in its signature bun, not a strand out of place, bangs ruler-straight across her forehead. The effect was somewhat undermined by the slight puffiness around her eyes.

“Bunny!” Siobhan’s voice carried the practiced enthusiasm of someone who’d mastered the art of performative social grace.

“What a lovely surprise. I mean, I know we scheduled this, but you know what I mean.”

“Thanks for making time,” Bunny replied, accepting the air kisses Siobhan offered, “I know things have been… difficult.”

Something flickered across Siobhan’s face– a momentary crack in the social veneer– before she recovered.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Well, not nothing. A man died. But you know what I mean.” She stepped back, gesturing for Bunny to step inside.

“Come in, come in. I’ve got tea in the sunroom. Or wine, if you prefer. Is this a tea or wine conversation?”

It’s ten in the morning. Bunny thought but sagely bit her tongue.

“Tea’s fine.” She said, following Siobhan through the foyer, which featured an unnecessarily large arrangement of hydrangeas that probably required their own maintenance staff. The sunroom certainly lived up to its name, floor-to-ceiling windows filling the space with light that bounced off white furniture too pristine to suggest regular use. A silver tea service sat on a glass table, alongside a plate of pastries that looked professionally arranged.

“I only have a few specialty leaves of white tea- baihao yinzhen in simplified Chinese- traditional English tea picked from the foothills of Nyeri, Kenya, and…” She searched judiciously amongst the various bags, tins, glass jars, and vessels, “Ah! There you are– chamomile.”

Siobhan pulled the glass container of chamomile, displaying it like a briefcase model on “Deal or No Deal.” Bunny smiled politely and pointed to the chamomile, trying not to look incredulous.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Siobhan continued as she poured hot water into delicate cups, “I asked Marisa– our housekeeper– to set this up. I’ve barely been functional since… well, since the incident.”

“Of course,” Bunny nodded, accepting the offered cup, “How are you holding up really?”

Siobhan’s hand trembled slightly as she set down the tea pot. She set the chamomile tea bags into the hot water, letting them steep gently. Sitting in the decorative chair across from Bunny, she took a sip and cradled the delicate cup in between two perfectly manicured hands.

“Do you know what the worst part is? Not the death itself, though that was–” She took another sip, “– horrific. It’s the aftermath. The way everyone at the firm looks at me, like I’m somehow contaminated by association. Like death is contagious.”

“People don’t know how to react,” Bunny offered, “They’re uncomfortable with mortality, especially when it shows up uninvited at a black-tie event.”

Siobhan let out a laugh that sounded like it might fracture into something else entirely if given the chance.

“God, Bunny. Only you could make me laugh about this.”

She settled deeper into her chair, crossing her legs precisely.

“I haven’t been back to work. I keep telling myself tomorrow, but then tomorrow comes and I just… can’t.”

Bunny saw her opening, genuine distress creating a crack in Siobhan’s perfectly maintained facade.

“You were close to Harold? I didn’t realize.”

“Not really,” Siobhan admitted, stirring her tea though she hadn’t added anything to it, “I knew him through the Foundation. He donated to our legal defense programs. But watching someone die in front of you. It– it changes something.”

“I know what you mean,” Bunny said softly, “I keep replaying that night in my head, wondering if there was something I missed, something that could have prevented it.”

Siobhan’s spoon clinked against her cup as she set it down with more force than necessary.

“That’s what the police keep asking. ‘Did you notice anything unusual?’ As if I spend my evenings cataloging people’s behavior for potential foul play.”

She shook her head.

“I’m an immigration attorney, not Miss Marple.”

Bunny carefully kept her expression neutral at the mention of police questioning.

“They’re just doing their job, I suppose. Standard procedure.”

“There’s nothing standard about belladonna poisoning at a charity gala,” Siobhan retorted, then pressed her fingers to her temple, “Sorry. I’m still processing. The detective who interviewed me seemed particularly interested in the dynamics at our table.”

“It was an eclectic mix.” Bunny ventured.

“That’s one word for it,” Siobhan snorted, “Seating Glen Valentino next to his ex-wife was certainly a bold choice for the seating chart.”

Bunny winced internally.

“Sometimes these things slip through the cracks in planning.”

“Oh, I’m not criticizing,” Siobhan waved a hand, “In retrospect, it was quite entertaining. Until it wasn’t”

“Did anything strike you as unusual that night? Before Harold’s fall, I mean.”

Siobhan studied Bunny over the rim of her tea cup, eyes shifting to stern instead of nervous.

“Define ‘unusual.’ Glen and Carissa trying to bankrupt each other over a villa they’d never actually visit? Harold drinking like he was afraid Prohibition was making a comeback? Adrian– that’s Carissa’s boy toy– looking increasingly uncomfortable as the auction stakes rose? It was a typical gala, just with a more dramatic conclusion than most.”

Bunny hesitated, then decided on a more direct approach.

“I’m just trying to piece together what happened. For the Fox, you understand. We need to manage the narrative.”

“Ah,” Siobhan nodded, seemingly satisfied with this explanation, “Damage control. Of course.”

She set down her cup, something shifting in her posture.

“Actually, there was one odd thing. Carissa gave Harold something for his stomach. Some medication. She’d given the same to Glen earlier.”

Bunny’s pulse quickened, but she kept her voice casual.

“That seems thoughtful, actually.”

“It was weird,” Siobhan said, frowning, “Not the gesture itself, but the way she did it. Like she was, oh, I don’t know– performing a ritual she’d done a hundred times. ‘You never bring your own,’ she told Glen. She didn’t say the same to Harold, but the motion was identical.”

Like muscle memory. Bunny thought back to her observation that night.

“Have you ever seen her do that before? At other events maybe?”

Siobhan’s perfectly manicured eyebrows drew together.

“No, but Carissa and I don’t usually attend the same functions unless they’re ACLU-related. She’s more corporate litigation. I’m immigration law. Different circles.” She paused, realization dawning.

“Wait, you don’t think–”

The front door opened and closed, saving Bunny from having to address the unspoken question. A moment later, a teenage boy appeared in the doorway, backpack slung over one shoulder, eyes glued to his phone. He had Siobhan’s coloring but none of her carefully cultivated poise.

“Mom, can I–” He looked up, noticing Bunny, “Oh. Sorry. Didn’t know you had company.”

“This is Bunny Beaudoin from the Fox Theater,” Siobhan said, her voice automatically shifting to the slightly louder, more articulated tone parents used when trying to model good manners, “Bunny, my son, Tyler.”

“Nice to meet you.” Bunny offered.

“Yeah, same,” Tyler mumbled, already backing away, “I’m gonna grab something from the kitchen.”

As he disappeared, Siobhan sighed.

“Fifteen. Everything I say is either embarrassing or irrelevant. That’s actually the most words I’ve gotten out of him in days.”

“He seems like a typical teenager.” Bunny said diplomatically.

“He is, thank God. Normal teenage problems are refreshingly manageable compared to, well–” Siobhan glanced at her watch.

“I hate to rush you, but I’ve got an appointment with my therapist in forty minutes. Another new development since The Night of Horrors.”

“Of course,” Bunny said, setting down her barely-touched tea, “I just wanted to check on you, let you know the Fox is here for its community. Especially our most valued supporters.”

They moved toward the foyer, the conversation shifting to safer territory; upcoming programming, a new exhibition in the theater’s historical gallery, Siobhan’s continued place on the Executive Leadership committee “when you’re ready, of course, no pressure.” As they reached the door, Bunny paused.

“One last thing,” She said, keeping her tone light, “I’ve been meaning to reach out to Carissa as well. You two are close, right? Any advice on how to approach her? She seemed quite shaken at the gala.”

Something unreadable crossed Siobhan’s face.

“Carissa doesn’t get ‘shaken.’ It’s not in her emotional vocabulary.” She hesitated.

“We had lunch scheduled for tomorrow, actually, but she canceled. Said she’s taking a few weeks in the Bahamas. ‘Unexpected vacation,’ She called it. Coincidental timing, don’t you think?”

The way Siobhan emphasized “coincidental” made it clear she found it anything but.

“Very,” Bunny agreed carefully, “Well, if you speak to her, please send my regards.”

“I will.” Siobhan said, opening the door. As Bunny stepped onto the porch, Siobhan added, “Bunny? Whatever you’re looking for… be careful.”

“I’m learning that,” Bunny said softly, “Take care, Siobhan.”

As she walked back to Dusty, Bunny could feel Siobhan watching her from the doorway. The visit had yielded more than she’d hoped for: confirmation about the medication, and the intriguing information about Carissa’s sudden vacation. The timing was suspicious, to say the least. Sitting in her car, she pulled out her phone and stared at it for a long moment before opening her contacts. She scrolled down to ‘D’ and tapped on the entry she’d added yesterday: ‘Dashiell O’Neill.’ Her thumb hovered over the call button. This was the moment. Once she made this call, there was no going back to being just a development director dealing with an unfortunate incident.

With a deep breath, she pressed the phone icon.

It rang twice before his voice answered, somehow sounding even more world-weary over the phone.

“O’Neill.”

“It’s Bunny Beaudoin.” She said, watching the gardener trim the Reid’s perfect hedges into even more perfect shapes.

“We need to talk. Carissa Levinson has suddenly decided to take a vacation in the Bahamas.”

There was a pause.

“Interesting timing. Where are you now?”

“Leaving Siobhan Reid’s house. She confirmed that Carissa gave both Glen and Harold the same medication. And apparently, she’s supposed to have lunch with Carissa tomorrow, but it was canceled due to this impromptu island getaway.”

“Don’t go home,” Dash said, his voice taking on a new urgency, “Meet me at Inman Park, by the gazebo. Thirty minutes.”

“Why not–”

“Just trust me on this, Bunny. Public places are better right now.”

The line went dead. Bunny stared at her phone, a chill running down her spine. For the first time, the reality of what she was involving herself in truly hit home. She started Dusty’s engine, the familiar rumble oddly comforting as she pulled away from Siobhan’s perfect home with its perfect lawn and its imperfectly nervous owner. Whatever Dash wanted to tell her, she had a feeling it wouldn’t be good news. As she drove, Bunny noticed a black sedan pull out several houses down, sliding into traffic behind her.

Probably nothing, she told herself.

But even then, she found herself checking the rearview mirror more often than strictly necessary. Counting the miles of distance between her and possible doom.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read✨

The building that housed Dashiell O’Neill’s office might have been impressive in the 1970s, when wood paneling was considered the height of professional decor and smoking indoors was still patriotic. Now it was just another aging structure on 14th Street, sandwiched between a boutique selling overpriced vintage clothes and a coffee shop with more rules about ordering than the Geneva Convention. Bunny squinted up at the faded directory in the lobby. ‘O’Neill Investigations’ was listed on the third floor, the vinyl lettering peeling at the edges. The elevator doors opened with a reluctant groan that matched Bunny’s internal monologue. She stepped inside, jabbing the button for the third floor multiple times, as if her impatience might magically speed up the ancient machinery.

“Come on, you fossilized metal box,” She muttered, watching the floor numbers illuminate with glacial slowness, “I have regrettable life choices to make today.”

When the doors finally slid open, she was greeted by a hallway that smelled vaguely of furniture polish and desperation. A water cooler tragically gurgled in the corner. She followed the numbers on the doors until she reached 306, where a frosted glass door announced O’NEILL INVESTIGATIONS in chipped gold lettering. The overall effect was less “prestigious detective agency” and more “place where alimony checks go to die.” Bunny hesitated, her knuckles hovering over the glass. What exactly was she doing here? Following the advice of her screenwriting club friends to engage with a mysterious PI who essentially ambushed her outside a morgue?

Before she could talk herself out of it, she knocked.

“Come in,” called a voice from within.

She pushed the door open to find a surprisingly spacious office flooded with morning light. Large windows overlooked the busy street below, and while the furniture was hardly high-end, it was clean and well-arranged. A worn leather couch occupied one wall, across from a desk that had clearly seen decades of service but was meticulously organized. Behind it sat Dashiell O’Neill, looking exactly as he had outside the morgue, except now his sleeves were rolled up and his tie was loosened. The rolled up sleeves revealed muscular forearms marked with intricate tattoos. Traditional patterns that wrapped around his left arm and what looked like script in a language she couldn't identify curling along his right. Veins traced lines beneath his dark skin, and Bunny found herself staring at his hands as he twirled a pen around his fingers, noting the way they moved with precise economy.

Huh, she thought, No ring.

She forced herself to look up and meet his eyes, hoping he hadn’t caught her cataloging the details of his body like some sort of undergraduate with her first attractive professor.

“Ms. Beaudoin,” He said, rising from his chair, “I was beginning to think my card had found its way to your trash can.”

“It nearly did,” Bunny admitted, remaining in the doorway and fixing her face into a mask of impassable ennui, “Several times.”

“But you’re here now,” He smiled politely, gesturing to the chair across from his desk, “Coffee? It’s terrible but it’s hot.”

“I had enough terrible coffee at the coroner’s office to last me a lifetime,” She replied, but took the offered seat anyway, “I don’t even know why I’m here, to be honest.”

Dash resumed his seat, leaning back with the relaxed posture of someone who had all the time in the world.

“I’d venture to say it’s because you’re curious. And probably a little scared.”

Bunny bristled.

“I’m not scared.”

“You should be,” He said simply, “Harold Finch didn’t just trip and fall. Someone wanted him dead.”

“So you keep saying. What I don’t understand is why you’re so interested. If the police aren’t taking your ‘pattern’ seriously, why pursue it?”

He assessed her with clinical detachment and she fought the urge to fidget in her seat.

“I was hired to look into the death of Maurice Katz six months ago.” He finally said.

“The name means nothing to me.” She responded, casually glancing at her nails like she had somewhere better to be.

“It should. He was Glen Valentino’s legal counsel before he collapsed at a charity golf tournament. Cause of death was officially listed as cardiac arrest, but the tox screen showed unusual compounds. Plant-based.”

“Belladonna.” Bunny said, looking up from her nail beds with practiced indifference.

Dash nodded.

“Then, three months later, Catherine Winters, Valentino’s chief financial officer, suffered an ‘allergic reaction’ at a dinner party. Same compounds, different concentration.”

Bunny felt a chill creep up her spine despite the warmth of the office.

“And you think these deaths are connected to Harold Finch?”

“Three high-ranking executives in Glen Valentino’s orbit, all dead under unusual circumstances, all with the same poison in their system? I don’t believe in coincidences that spectacular.”

Dash reached for a file on his desk.

“The police think I’m chasing shadows. Maybe I am. But I’d rather chase shadows than ignore what’s right in front of me.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Someone is systematically eliminating people close to Glen Valentino. The question is who, and why.”

“And you think I can help you figure that out?” She asked casually, raising a single arched brow.

“I think you were there when Harold Finch died. I think you saw things– you know people, details, that might seem insignificant to you but could matter to the case.” He continued, moving along to the files on his desk as if she were nothing more but another weepy client asking him to use his professional license to see if her husband was still with his mistress.

“Is this where you give me the ‘civic duty’ speech?” Bunny asked, unable to keep the edge from her voice, “Because I’ve had enough guilt for one week, thanks.”

To her surprise, Dash smiled– a genuine expression that transformed his face from handsome-but-severe to downright appealing.

“No speeches. Just an opportunity to help catch whoever did this before they add to their body count. And,” He added, “to clear your venue’s name from any lingering suspicion.”

That last part hit home. The Fox had already suffered enough publicity damage; the last thing they needed was to be forever linked to an unsolved murder.

“Fine,” She sighed, setting her purse on the floor beside her chair, “What do you want to know?”

Dash pulled out a small recorder.

“Mind if I document this? For my notes.”

“If it keeps you from writing down ‘potential suspect’ next to my name, sure.”

He pressed record.

“Let’s start with who was at Harold Finch’s table that night.”

Bunny closed her eyes briefly, recalling the seating chart that had caused so much trouble.

“Glen Valentino, obviously. Carissa Levinson, his ex-wife, and her date, Adrian Collins. Harold Finch and his wife, Eleanor. Dr. Joseph Mendelson and his partner, William. And Siobhan Reid, who’s on the board of the ACLU.”

“Interesting mix,” Dash observed, “Any interactions that stood out?”

“Besides the bidding war between Glen and Carissa? Not really. Everyone was civil, if tense. Until…”

“Until?”

Bunny frowned, a detail surfacing in her memory.

“Carissa gave Harold something for his stomach. He complained about the food, and she had these tablets. I assumed they were antacids.”

Dash leaned forward, his casual demeanor evaporating in an instant.

“She gave him medication? You witnessed this?” He questioned, all business.

“Yes. It seemed innocent at the time. Just one dinner guest helping another.” Bunny felt suddenly defensive.

“Lots of people share Tums or Pepto at events with open bars and food.” She continued, warily echoing one of Harold Finch’s final observations. She leaned back in the chair, gathering her thoughts. She laced her fingers together, suddenly awash with pity for the dead man.

“You know what his last words were? ‘My gut’s killing me,’” She sighed and shook her head, “Nothing poetic about it, not even in the very end. Poor guy.”

Dash blinked at her, his expression inscrutable.

“Did you see the packaging? What they looked like?”

Bunny shook her head.

“All I remember was the foil, like blister packaging for pills. I was busy making rounds. The only reason I noticed at all was because earlier, she’d given Glen the same thing. Some private joke about how she still kept track of his digestive schedule or something equally TMI.” Her lips turned down in mild disgust, an unwelcome image of Glen Valentino hunching over the porcelain throne filling her mind.

Dash was scribbling notes now, his recorder still running.

“She gave medication to both Glen and Harold? And Glen is still alive?”

“Unless something happened in the last twelve hours, yeah.”

“Did you notice anyone else at the table taking these pills?”

Bunny concentrated, trying to recall details from a night that had become a blur of chaos and horror.

“No… just Harold. And Glen earlier, but he’d walked away from the table by the time Harold took his.”

Dash set down his pen, studying her with renewed interest.

“Ms. Beaudoin–”

“Bunny,” She corrected automatically, “Ms. Beaudoin is– was– my mother. If we’re going to discuss poisonings and digestive habits, we might as well be on a first-name basis.”

“Bunny,” He amended, “I think you’ve just given me the first real lead in this case.”

“By telling you about antacids?”

“By confirming that Carissa Levinson had direct access to Harold Finch minutes before his death, and that she supplied him with an unidentified substance that he ingested.” Dash looked like a man who’d just found water in the desert.

“We need to talk to the other people at that table.”

“We?” Bunny raised an eyebrow, “I don’t remember agreeing to join your investigation.”

“You’re already involved, whether you want to be or not,” Dash countered, “You know the players. You can get access to people who would shut the door in my face.”

“And what exactly am I supposed to say? ‘Sorry to bother you, but do you happen to remember if the scorned attorney at our gala was slipping deadly nightshade into the appetizers?’”

“You’re a development director, right? You must be good at getting people to talk.”

Bunny couldn’t argue with that logic, much as she wanted to. Years of coaxing donations from reluctant patrons had honed her conversational skills to a fine edge.

“Even if I agreed– which I haven’t, mind you– Fenelope would never approve. She’s laser-focused on damage control.”

“Then we don’t tell her,” Dash said simply, “This stays between us until we have something concrete.”

Bunny laughed. It came out flinted and harsh.

“You’re suggesting I go behind my boss’s back to investigate a murder? Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?”

“More or less insane than letting a killer walk free because you’re worried about office politics?”

The question hung in the air between them, heavy with implication. Bunny stared at him, torn between outrage at his presumption and the nagging sense that he might be right. Harold Finch’s face flashed in her memory– not the empty mask of death, but earlier in the evening, laughing at a joke, alive and unaware of what was coming.

“I need to think about this.” She said finally, reaching for her purse.

Dash nodded, holding out his hand. She looked up quizzically.

“The business card.” He explained.

She shrugged and dug in her bag, finding purchase on the near-crumpled card. She handed it to him and he took it, scribbling something on it before turning it back to her.

My cell’s on the back. Call any time.”

Bunny took the card, her fingers brushing against his as she did, and felt a small thrill at the prospect of having his personal number. The idea of calling him, of hearing that low voice on the other end of the line, sent an unexpected flutter through her stomach that she tried to suppress. She was a consummate professional, for God’s sake, not a teenager getting flustered over a boy’s number.

As she rose to leave, he took a breath and she paused.

“One more thing,” He added, “Be careful around Carissa Levinson. If she is behind this, she’s managed to poison three people without raising suspicion. That makes her either very lucky or very good.”

“Noted,” Bunny said dryly, “Any other cheerful observations before I go?”

“Just one,” Dash’s expression softened, “Whatever you decide, watch your back. You were in that room too.”

The implication sent a fresh wave of cold through Bunny’s veins. She hadn’t considered that she might also be at risk.

“Thanks for the nightmares.” She muttered, turning toward the door.

As the door closed behind her, Bunny leaned against the wall of the hallway, exhaling slowly. That smile, crooked and knowing and entirely too handsome—

What the hell am I even going on about? She thought, shaking the image away as quickly as it came.

The sensible thing would be to walk away, to let the police handle the investigation, to focus on her job, to pretend this meeting had never happened. But as she pressed the elevator button, she knew with sinking certainty that sensible had left the building at the moment Harold Finch’s head had hit that glass door. Now she was operating on a different instinct altogether– one that whispered that Dashiell O’Neill, for all his noir-detective affectations, might be the only person taking this seriously enough.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read✨

The City of Magnolia Heights Medical Examiner’s Office was, in Bunny’s opinion, the architectural equivalent of an unenthusiastic handshake. All concrete and fluorescent lighting, as if designed specifically to remind visitors that mortality was not only inevitable but thoroughly bureaucratic.

“Coffee?” Fenelope offered, holding out a paper cup from the vending machine in the hallway.

The liquid inside could generously be described as brown water with ambitions.

“I’d rather drink formaldehyde.” Bunny muttered, then winced at her own tastelessness given their surroundings.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. If I had to guess, the formaldehyde here is probably fresher,” Fenelope took a sip and grimaced, “Though not by much.”

They sat side by side on molded plastic chairs outside the coroner’s office. Just two women cordoned off to the world’s coldest office, dressed in wrinkled clothes, at 8 AM on a Sunday. Bunny felt crusted over. Her face smelled like a bagel. The past weeks existed in her mind as a series of disconnected tableaus: paramedics pronouncing the man dead at the scene. Police cordoning off the Egyptian Room. Glen Valentino’s face, a study in controlled panic beneath a veneer of commanding presence. Carissa Levinson comforting a visibly shaken Adrian. Another vomiting fit. The donors being escorted out in hushed, horrified clusters. Three press releases. Two ten-second interviews on Fox 5. One funeral. It was like the world’s most fucked-up Twelve Days of Christmas.

And then the questions.

Endless questions from detectives who seemed particularly interested in why Glen and his ex-wife had been seated together, how much alcohol had been served, and whether anyone had noticed anything unusual about Harold Finch’s behavior before his fall.

“For someone who claims to be utterly exhausted, your leg hasn’t stopped bouncing since we sat down.” Fenelope observed.

Bunny forced her knee to still.

“Sorry. I keep replaying it in my head.”

“There was nothing you could have done.”

“Wasn’t there? I could have put Glen at literally any other table. I could have—”

“Harold Finch was three times over the legal limit,” Fenelope interrupted, “He tripped and hit his head. It’s tragic, but it’s not your fault.”

“Then why are we here?” Bunny asked, gesturing to the sterile hallway.

“Why did they call us in at dawn on a Sunday if this was just a tragic accident?”

Before Fenelope could answer, the door to the coroner’s office opened. Dr. Elaine Cashler emerged, a tall woman with silver streaks in her dark hair and the brisk efficiency of someone who had seen everything and found most of it tedious.

“Ms. Wilde, Ms. Beaudoin. Thank you for coming in so early. Please, come into my office.”

They followed her into a surprisingly comfortable space; walls lined with medical textbooks, a desk cluttered with files, and a potted plant that had clearly outlived several colleagues.

“I’ll get straight to the point.” Dr. Cashler said, settling behind her desk.

“Mr. Finch’s initial cause of death appeared to be blunt force trauma resulting from his fall. However, the toxicology report has revealed something rather unexpected.”

Bunny felt a chill that had nothing to do with the building’s overzealous air conditioning.

“Unexpected how?” Fenelope asked, her voice perfectly steady.

“We found elevated levels of hyoscyamine, atropine, and scopolamine in his system.”

Bunny blinked.

“I’m sorry, is that supposed to mean something to us?”

“These are the primary alkaloids found in atropa belladonna,” Dr. Cashler explained, “More commonly known as deadly nightshade.”

“Are you saying he was poisoned?” The words fell from Bunny’s mouth like stones.

Dr. Cashler held up a cautionary hand.

“I’m saying he had these substances in his system at levels well above what would be considered therapeutic. Whether they were administered with malicious intent is not for me to determine.”

“But they could have caused his fall?” Fenelope pressed.

“These compounds can cause disorientation, dizziness, and blurred vision. Particularly when combined with alcohol. So yes, they could certainly have contributed.”

Bunny’s mind raced.

“Couldn’t it be accidental? Maybe he was taking something?”

“Belladonna derivatives are used in some medications,” Dr. Cashler let up, “But not at these concentrations. And Mr. Finch’s medical records don’t indicate any prescriptions containing these compounds.”

The implications hung in the air like cigarette smoke, acrid and inescapable.

“The police have been notified, of course,” Dr. Cashler continued, “They’ll want to speak with you again, as well as all of your guests. I understand many of them are prominent individuals.”

“That’s one word for them.” Bunny muttered.

Fenelope shot her a warning glance before turning back to the coroner.

“Thank you, Dr. Cashler. Is there anything else we should know?”

“Just that I wouldn’t make any travel plans in the immediate future. Either of you.”

As they exited the building into the harsh morning sunlight, Bunny felt as though she were moving through gelatin. Everything slightly slowed, slightly distorted.

“Belladonna,” She said finally, “Like in those period pieces where the ladies put drops in their eyes to look more attractive. And occasionally murdered their husbands.”

She paused.

“Though I imagine that was considered a secondary benefit.” She finally muttered.

Fenelope remained silent, only offering an unenthusiastic simper.

They reached Fenelope’s sleek Audi, but neither made a move to get in. She’d driven them to the coroner’s office from the Fox, and both dreaded the trip back.

“So what do we do now?” Bunny asked, “Call everyone who was at the gala and say, ‘Sorry about the dead guy, also did you happen to notice anyone slipping poison into his drink?’”

“Now,” Fenelope said firmly, “We let the police do their job while we do damage control. This kind of publicity could set our fundraising back years.”

“A man is dead, Fenelope.”

“And being sanctimonious about it won’t bring him back,” Fenelope’s tone softened slightly, “Look, I’m not saying we don’t cooperate fully with the investigation. But our priority has to be the theater.”

Bunny couldn’t find fault with her reasoning, but her boss’s ability to compartmentalize crises hadn’t blown over so well in the past. She recalled the mailing of perennials to a donor who’d fallen and broken her hip, a donation request attached to the back of the potted plant. I hate perennials! The expletive laden voicemail had said, and unsurprisingly, that once-recurring check for the Fox’s children’s theater camp never came again. Bunny sighed and shrugged.

“I guess you’re right, but–”

“Hello, ladies.” A deep voice interrupted their exchange.

Bunny turned to find a man leaning against a weathered Ford Bronco parked a few spaces away, and for a moment, her breath caught. He was tall– taller than most— with rich brown skin and the kind of broad shoulders that filled out his suit jacket in a way that made her forget what she’d been saying. His hair was cropped short, revealing sharp cheekbones and a jawline covered in close-cropped beard that framed full lips. His face carried the weathered confidence of someone who’d seen a lot– too much. His suit was off the rack but well-tailored, and he wore it with the casual confidence of someone who didn’t particularly care what anyone thought– which, perversely, made Bunny care very much what he thought of her standing there in wrinkled clothes outside a morgue at eight in the morning. She found herself straightening her shoulders and wishing she’d at least run a brush through her hair.

“Can we help you?” Fenelope asked coolly, decidedly nonplussed by the stone-cut man standing in front of them..

He pushed off from his car and approached, pulling out a badge.

“Dashiell O’Neill. Everyone calls me Dash. Private investigator.” He held out a hand, which promptly went unshaken by either woman, then balled it up and returned it to his pocket.

“Working for whom, exactly?” Fenelope’s voice could have flash-frozen boiling water.

“Currently between clients,” Dash admitted, “But I have a particular interest in Harold Finch.”

Bunny crossed her arms, trying to ignore how the movement brought her closer to him, close enough to catch the faint scent of his cologne. Ambergris. Maybe cedar, too.

“And why is that?” Fenelope asked.

“Because his death makes three.”

“Three what?” Bunny asked, her voice coming out slightly breathy.

She’d been on edge for weeks thanks to the investigation, and the sudden interruption was a rather pleasant distraction. She found herself watching the way his mouth moved when he spoke, the precise way he formed his words, and had to force herself to focus on what he was actually saying rather than the rich timbre of his voice. Dash’s expression remained neutral, but something flickered in his eyes– dark, intelligent eyes that seemed to look right through her carefully maintained professional composure. A calculation being made about how much to reveal.

“Let me guess; they found something exotic in his system? Something plant-based, maybe?”

Bunny felt her heart rate accelerate.

“Why would you think that?” Fenelope pressed, her expression severe enough to warrant checking for snakes atop her head.

“Because the other two had similar findings. Nothing conclusive enough for charges, but enough to raise eyebrows,” Dash studied their faces, “I see the good doctor shared the tox screen results.”

“This is a police matter,” Fenelope said sternly, “If you have information, you should be talking to them.”

“Oh, I have. Extensively. They’re not particularly interested in what a PI thinks might be a pattern.”

His gaze shifted slowly, but not lazily, between them. Bunny suddenly felt uncomfortable and stodgy, like a school girl avoiding her crush’s gaze.

“But you two might be. Especially since your venue is now part of that pattern.”

Fenelope checked her watch in a dismissive gesture.

“Ms. Beaudoin and I have a theater to run. If you’ll excuse us—”

“Those are the toxins found in belladonna,” Dash called after them as Fenelope began steering Bunny toward the car, “Suggests someone knows their poisons. Someone educated. Patient. Methodical.”

Despite herself, Bunny turned back.

“Why tell us this?”

Dash shrugged, the casual gesture at odds with the intensity in his eyes.

“Because when the police eventually connect these dots, they’re going to look at everyone in Harold Finch’s orbit. Including the people who put him in the same room as Glen Valentino and his ex-wife.”

“Is that a threat, Mr. O’Neill?” Fenelope’s voice was dangerously soft.

“Consider it a professional courtesy.” He handed Bunny a business card.

“When you’re ready to talk—really talk—call me. Day or night.”

She might have imagined it, but she could have sworn that he hesitated to pull his hand back as she grasped the card. Just for a moment, they locked eyes before he peeled away and bounded to his car.

They watched him drive away, the Ford’s engine growling in the morning quiet.

“Well,” Bunny said finally, her voice coming out quieter than she’d expected, “That was enigmatic and mildly threatening. Do we call the police?”

Fenelope was silent for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, to Bunny’s surprise, she laughed; a short, sharp sound entirely devoid of humor. She squinted at the bright sunlight before pulling a pair of sunglasses from her bag and slipping them on with practiced confidence.

“What we’ve always done, Bunny,” Fenelope slid into the driver’s seat with elegant precision, “Protecting the Fox. Now get in the car. I have work to do.”

As Bunny settled into the passenger seat, still clutching Dash O’Neill’s card, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just stepped off the edge of a very tall building.

And unlike Harold Finch, her fall was just starting.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

The double doors to the Egyptian Room swung open precisely at seven, releasing a flood of Magnolia Heights’ finest into the space like champagne bubbles escaping a freshly popped bottle. Bunny positioned herself strategically by the entrance, clipboard hidden behind her back, smile fixed so firmly it threatened to become a permanent facial feature.

“Mrs. Haverford! Don’t you look absolutely ravishing.” She cooed at a woman whose facelift was so tight it gave her the permanent expression of someone witnessing a minor traffic violation.

“Table four, right by the stage. Just as you requested!”

The woman patted Bunny’s arm with jewel-encrusted fingers.

“You’re a doll. Tell me, is that dreadful man from the symphony here tonight? The one with the unfortunate mustache?”

“Conductor Berenstein? No, thankfully he’s in Vienna this week,” Bunny whispered conspiratorially, “Your donation is safe from his sticky fingers.”

Mrs. Haverford cackled with delight before drifting toward her table, immediately zeroing in on her next gossip target.

For forty-five minutes, Bunny performed this elaborate social choreography—greeting, complimenting, directing, all while scanning the entrance for the evening’s potential disaster duo. Her cheeks ached from smiling, her feet already protesting against her stilettos.

Carol materialized at her side, champagne flute in hand.

“He’s here.” She murmured, nodding subtly toward the entrance.

Glen Valentino stood framed in the doorway like a villain in a corporate thriller. Tall, silver-haired, with the confident posture of a man who had never been told ‘no’ in his professional life.

“Glen,” Bunny glided forward, extending both hands in greeting, “I’m so thrilled you could make it!”

His handshake was firm, bordering on uncomfortable.

“Wouldn’t miss it. Though I must say, I was surprised to receive such a last-minute invitation.”

“Pure serendipity,” Bunny lied smoothly, “A patron had to cancel unexpectedly, and naturally, you were our first call.”

She lowered her voice.

“Between us, the board was absolutely ecstatic when you accepted.”

Valentino’s chest puffed slightly at this, exactly as Bunny had intended. Men like him were laughably predictable. Wave the promise of adoration before them, and they’d follow like trained seals after a bucket of fish.

“You’re at table seven—our premium positioning. I’ll escort you myself.”

As they navigated through the crowd, Bunny felt her phone vibrate against her hip while her stomach did cartwheels around itself. She discreetly pulled out the buzzing phone. A text from Carol: “SHE’S HERE. WITH THE NEW GUY. ABORT MISSION??”

Too late.

They had reached table seven, where a striking woman in her mid-fifties was already seated, a younger man with celebrity looks at her side. The woman’s gaze locked onto Glen, her expression shifting from relaxed enjoyment to steel-reinforced civility in a microsecond.

“Carissa.” Glen said, his voice dropping an octave.

“Glen,” She replied coolly, “What a surprise.”

Bunny felt the temperature around the table drop by several degrees.

“Glen, I believe you know most of everyone at the table,” She said brightly, as if blissfully unaware of the arctic front developing, “Carissa Levinson, of course, and this is...?”

“Adrian Collins.” The young man supplied, rising to shake Glen’s hand with the enthusiasm of someone who had no idea he was stepping into a minefield.

“I’ve followed your company’s work for years. That cholesterol medication—revolutionary stuff.”

“Indeed.” Glen replied, his eyes never leaving his ex-wife’s face.

“Though I believe my ex would characterize it differently. Something about ‘price-gouging vulnerable populations?’ That was the phrase you used during the divorce proceedings, wasn’t it, dear?”

Carissa’s smile didn’t waver.

“Along with ‘deliberate suppression of side-effect data.’ Don’t sell yourself short, Glen.”

Bunny cleared her throat.

“Well! Dinner will be served shortly. Glen, why don’t I introduce you to Judge Whitmore? He’s been asking about you all evening.”

“No need,” Glen said, settling into his chair, “I’m precisely where I want to be.”

He patted his pockets, grimaced, and glanced toward his ex-wife.

“For God’s sake, Glen,” Carissa muttered, loud enough for Bunny to hear, “You never remember to bring your own.”

She dug into her handbag and slid a foil packet across the table without making eye contact.

“Still keeping track of my digestive schedule?” Glen replied with a smirk.

“Force of habit after fifteen years of marriage. Nothing more.” Carissa’s tone was ice, but the gesture betrayed a lingering thread of something cryptic. Glen pocketed the foil package.

Bunny plastered a wider, more plastic smile on her face.

“Wonderful,” She clapped her hands together and hoped her eye didn’t twitch even as she internally cringed at the too-sweet, too-high pitched voice that came out of her own mouth, “Enjoy your evening!”

Is pulling the fire alarm still an option?

Bunny retreated, maintaining her composure until she was safely behind one of the massive Egyptian columns. There, she finally allowed herself a moment of silent screaming into her palms.

“That bad?” Carol appeared with another glass of champagne, which Bunny accepted gratefully.

“Worse. They’re like two cats circling each other, except one has a law degree and the other has enough money to buy this building.”

“Should we separate them?”

Bunny took a fortifying sip.

“No, we ride this out. Keep the alcohol flowing but not too freely. Have the servers hover around that table. Constant interruptions might prevent outright bloodshed.”

Carol nodded, already tapping instructions into her phone.

“On it. Also, Mickey’s asking when we’re starting the auction. He says the Patels are getting fidgety.”

“Tell him ten more minutes,” Bunny said, scanning the room, “We need everyone nice and liquored up before we start asking for six-figure donations.”

The evening progressed with the practiced rhythm of all such events. Dinner was served, wine flowed, Mickey took the stage in his green and gold jacket to uproarious applause. Bunny moved from table to table, gently massaging egos and bank accounts, all while keeping one eye on table seven. To her surprise, Glen and Carissa appeared to be maintaining a veneer of civility. They weren’t speaking to each other, but neither were they causing a scene. Someone at their table cracked a joke about an unfortunate encounter with a guest who could not stop talking about their ulcer while in the bathroom line. Glen laughed a loud and bellowing laugh, clearly inebriated.

“Must be the rich food.” Bunny overheard a tablemate– Harold Finch, Glen’s former business partner– reply to the joke, loosening his bow tie.

“My gut’s killing me too.”

Carissa, already annoyed by Glen’s theatrics and perhaps feeling charitable toward a fellow sufferer, reached into her clutch.

“Here,” She said, handing Harold two tablets from the foil packet, “These might help.”

Harold took the package and offered Carissa a generous smile. He ripped the foil open with his teeth and dropped the two dissolving tablets into a glass of water. Bunny couldn’t help but smile as she observed the interaction. Perhaps the evening would survive after all. She turned her eyes away from the table and checked her wristwatch for the start of the live auction. She needed to confirm one last thing before the auction became truly rambunctious. Then, she’d be in the clear. After a few minutes, Mickey’s voice boomed across the room.

“For the art lovers, our first item is a miniature sized replica of the Mask of Pakal- a stunning hand-crafted mask made of genuine jadeite jade. The original was found in the tomb of a Mayan king. Truly a magnificent art piece that you wouldn’t want to miss for your home collection.”

His face opened up into a magnificent, pearlescent grin. Bunny could almost hear the cartoon twinkle that bounced off of his teeth as she ducked out of the Egyptian Room.

“Let’s start the bidding at two-thousand dollars!”

Thundering applause receded behind her as the auctioneer doubled, tripled, and quadrupled the bidding price of the art piece.

It’s not even an original, Bunny thought as she smirked, glancing down at her watch again, Not that I'm diving in some Mayan tomb anytime soon.

Navigating around service staff clad in black, she sped through the grand salon and down the stone steps of the terrace.

“Mindy?” She called, spotting the petite figure hunched over a registration tablet.

Mindy Harcourt, the night’s registration lead, looked up with a start. Despite being in her forties, she had the wide-eyed, perpetually startled expression of someone much younger. Her brown cardigan seemed to swallow her diminutive frame, and her skinny, rectangular glasses perpetually slid down her nose.

“Oh! Bunny,” She squeaked, pushing her glasses up with a nervous gesture, “I was just about to find you.”

“Please tell me everyone’s accounted for.” Bunny asked, offering what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

Mindy nodded rapidly, her mousy brown bob bouncing with the movements.

“Yes, yes. All guests present and accounted for. Every last one.” She rifled through her stack of name badges, showing Bunny the empty tray.

“Thank you– you’re a lifesaver.” Bunny squeezed the woman’s shoulder gently.

Mindy beamed at the praise, her posture straightening momentarily before collapsing back into its habitual hunch.

“Just doing my job, Ms. Beaudoin!”

With a final smile and wave, Bunny hurried up the terrace steps. She slipped into the resplendent ballroom as Mickey ran back onto the stage after having dashed through the raucous room, collecting bid numbers for his assistants. A gaggle of young women sat to the side of the stage, furiously tallying the final bids in the dim light of the ballroom.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our next item is truly special,” He announced, not a hair out of place, “A week at a private villa in Tuscany, complete with a personal chef, daily wine tastings, and exclusive access to regional art collections not open to the public.”

Bunny watched as several paddles went up, the bidding quickly escalating to twenty thousand dollars.

“Twenty thousand to Mrs. Haverford! Do I hear twenty-five?”

Glen Valentino raised his paddle.

“Twenty-five.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Bunny felt her heart hammer against her chest. Now this was a change. Glen rarely bid on auction items, preferring instead to make direct donations with his name prominently attached.

Don’t panic, She thought, He’s just changing this up to show off in front of Carissa’s Mr. Dreamy.

“Twenty-five to Mr. Valentino! Do I hear thirty?”

Carissa’s paddle shot up.

“Thirty.”

The room fell silent as every head swiveled between Glen and his ex-wife.

“Thirty thousand to Ms. Levinson! Do I hear thirty-five?”

Glen’s paddle rose again, his expression impassive.

“Forty.”

Mickey blinked in surprise.

“Jumping ahead! Forty thousand to Mr. Valentino. Do I hear forty-five?”

“Fifty.” Carissa said without hesitation.

Bunny edged closer to Fenelope, who stood transfixed at the side of the stage.

“What is happening?” She whispered.

Fenelope’s lips barely moved.

“The most profitable divorce proceeding I’ve ever witnessed.”

The bidding continued its dizzying ascent—sixty thousand, seventy-five, ninety—the audience watching with the rapt attention of tennis spectators at a championship match.

“One hundred thousand dollars.” Glen finally announced, his voice carrying across the hushed room.

He directed an arrogant smile toward his ex-wife.

“Unless you’d like to explain to your clients why you’re spending their settlement funds on personal vacations?”

A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. Adrian shifted uncomfortably beside Carissa, whose face had gone completely still, like a pond freezing over.

“One hundred and fifty thousand,” She countered, her voice glacier-cold, “Consider it an investment in mental health. A week without having to think about what a monumental mistake I made in marrying you.”

The tension in the room crystallized into something tangible. Mickey glanced desperately at Bunny, clearly at a loss.

“Sold!” Fenelope suddenly called out, sweeping onto the stage, “For one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Ms. Levinson. What extraordinary generosity!”

She began applauding, prompting the audience to join in with relieved enthusiasm. Glen stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor.

“I believe I need some air.” He announced to no one in particular.

Several of his tablemates rose automatically in response to his tone, including Harold who drunkenly stumbled to his feet. He lurched forward, tripping over a chair leg. Time seemed to slow as Bunny watched Harold’s trajectory toward the exit. For a bizarre moment, her mind recalled the Fox Theater’s last concert series, “Clair de Lune” performed by the Magnolia Heights Symphony. The way those first delicate piano notes had hung in the air, each one distinct yet flowing into the next like water droplets merging into a stream. The man’s body now moved with that same terrible, beautiful fluidity.

His arms windmilled outward, grasping at nothing, finding no purchase in the empty air. His torso pitched forward at precisely the angle she’d seen dancers achieve during the theater’s production of Swan Lake; a controlled fall that was, in this case, anything but controlled. The opening notes of “Clair de Lune” replayed in her mind. Those three simple, ascending notes that promised such tender beauty. But instead of the gentle continuation of the masterpiece, Bunny heard the sickening crack as Harold’s temple connected with the sharp edge of the glass doors.

The music in her head stopped abruptly.

A dark pool spread in a perfect crescendo, expanding with the same measured inevitability as those piano notes, but inverted, descending now into something final and irrevocable. Blood bloomed across the pristine floor like spilled merlot, obscenely vivid against the marble surface. The man lay stock still.

“Someone call an ambulance!” A member of the wait staff shouted, already pushing through the panicked crowd and yanking Bunny from her black-and-white reverie.

Bunny stumbled forward, pulling out her phone while dropping to her knees beside the fallen associate.

“Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

His eyes stared blankly upward, unfocused and dilating rapidly. Where the conductor had created light dancing on water, here was only a darkening void, pupils expanding like the universe in reverse, collapsing toward nothingness.

“I need an ambulance at the Fox Theater, Egyptian Room.” Bunny spoke into her phone, her voice surprisingly steady despite the uncontrollable shaking of her hands.

“We have a man down with a severe head injury.”

The chaos around her continued—gasps, screams, the rustle of expensive fabric as patrons recoiled in horror—but Bunny remained strangely detached, as if watching the scene from the theater’s upper balcony. In the Fox’s acoustics, even whispers carried to the back row, yet the man before her made no sound at all. Bunny felt a burning in her throat, then queasiness. As she looked closer at his increasingly blank face, a terrible certainty settled in her stomach. The final notes of the imagined piano piece faded into silence, leaving only the harsh reality of what lay before her. The commotion, the screams, Mickey trying to maintain order from the stage. It all receded as she met Fenelope’s gaze across the fallen patron.

This was no medical emergency.

A man was dead.

Before she could stop herself, Bunny turned her head towards the marble floor and vomited up the last of her champagne.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction. Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version above for a tandem read ✨

🀙🀚🀛🀜

Cue a black chyron screen. The city is Magnolia Heights. The time is early— too damn early. Fade into the morning of a perfect day in November. The leaves are turning, covering the whole city with a canopy of fiery reds and golden yellows. Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” blares as the grandiose and brassy band plays to the beat of Manolo Blahniks hitting the pavement. Cut to the face of a beaming Bunny Beaudoin, early thirties. Great hair, well-dressed. A charming smile spread across gloss-slicked lips and a sense of self possession when —

Wait a minute— she was getting ahead of herself.

It would have been self-possession if Bunny weren’t buzzing with an almost infantile excitement. Besides, all that nonsense about great hair? Maybe if this were a good screenplay for a movie with a decent wardrobe and makeup budget. But it wasn’t. This was her real life. And she could barely believe it as she stepped into the grand lobby of the Fox. Her heels clicked against the polished marble floor. The warm glow of art deco chandeliers cast a golden sheen over the brass and gold moulding, making even the most boring objects magical. Today was going to be a great fucking day.

“Oh, Teena! Teeny Teenaaaa-” Bunny sing-songed, her voice carrying a mix of breathless anticipation and triumph.

“We got Glen Valentino!”

Teena Kay, the petite front desk attendant, looked up from her conversation with Marty, an ashen sliver of a delivery man. Her eyes widened, a mix of surprise and admiration dancing across her features.

“Glen? The Glen Valentino?” Teena’s voice was tinged with disbelief, “How?”

Bunny’s lips curled into a smile as she leaned her elbows against the counter.

“We heard back today. Tomorrow, Glen Valentino will be at my gala, and Monday morning, we’ll all be eating veal!”

Teena wrinkled her nose, her excitement dampening slightly.

“Well, it was fun while it lasted. I hate veal.”

Marty cleared his throat, interrupting their exchange.

“Ma’am, the office for this package?”

Bunny turned her attention to the delivery man, her eyes falling on the large parcel in his hands.

“I’m so sorry. I can sign for that—”

“Are you ‘Fenelope Wilde?’” Marty interjected, skepticism evident in his tone.

“As far as you know.” Bunny’s eyes twinkled while Marty’s expression flattened. She turned to Teena, her voice lowered.

“Teena, you’re seeing me pick up and sign for the package, right?”

Teena nodded, barely suppressing a grin.

“Oh, yeah, sure! Marty, it’s all good.”

The delivery man’s face tightened with irritation.

“Alright, just don’t call our offices crying about a missing package.”

“You wanna make that trek up there? You can be my guest.” Bunny responded as she cocked her head towards the elevators.

He shrugged in resignation and unceremoniously thrust his clipboard at her.

“Not my circus, not my monkeys.”

She signed with a flourish, handed the clipboard back to Marty, and hefted the package into her arms.

“Have a nice day, ladies.” He said without a hint of nicety as he tucked the pen back into his shirt pocket. A close-lipped smile and wink to Teena and then he was gone.

“God, isn’t he cute?” Teena sighed as Marty retreated, his thin shoulders disappearing through the ornate doors.

“Who are you talking about, Marty?” Bunny snorted, adjusting her grip on the box, “You’re nuts. Ankles in his freezer, I guarantee it.”

“Always with the imagery, Bunny. Jesus.”

“Fine— not ankles, maybe just a finger or two. Plus, the guy never remembers me even though he’s been delivering to this address for years. Might as well go with it.”

Bunny fished a peppermint from the glass bowl on the welcome desk and tossed it to Teena.

“For your troubles.”

She tried to ignore Teena rolling her eyes as she popped the peppermint between two shiny glossed lips.

“Whatever, girly- he always remembers me,” Teena said around the large ball of peppermint and corn syrup, “This is the year he’s taking me out. I can feel it.”

Oh, he’ll definitely be taking someone out for sure, Bunny thought but only pursed her lips and gave a final wave before turning to leave. As Bunny made her way to the elevator and shifted the weight of the package from one arm to the other, she couldn’t help the anticipation that built in her chest. She slipped into the varnished gold doors and leaned against the mirrored walls, letting out a sigh. She even allowed herself a self-satisfied smirk. Glen Valentino at her gala—it was a coup, a triumph that would surely impress even the unflappable Fenelope Wilde.

🀙🀚🀛🀜

The elevator doors slid open with a soft ding, revealing the bustling world of the first floor. Bunny stepped out, her senses immediately assaulted by the chaos of renovation —the sharp scent of fresh paint, the rhythmic pounding of hammers, the low hum of voices discussing where the new sconces could go without blowing near-century old wiring.

“Nice to see those capital dollars finally in use–” Bunny muttered but her thoughts were cut short as she nearly collided with a familiar figure.

Expensive perfume, something with oud, hit her a split second before she registered who it was. The woman cut an imposing figure, standing with arms akimbo against the animus of hammering and power drilling. Fenelope stood before her like a statue carved from ice. Balenciaga glasses and an A-line bob that framed a movie-star face.

“Not so fast.”

Her voice was cool, expertly concealing the years of calcified hostility that lay behind it. A manicured hand shot out, steadying the package and plucking it from Bunny’s grasp in one smooth motion. Unlike Bunny, Fenelope showed no signs of strain as she held the heavy box.

“Marty called to tell me he was on his way - you just took the package?”

Bunny felt the heat rise to her cheeks.

“I figured it’d be easier knowing I was coming up here and all.”

“This is vintage Bacchante for the auction - not a Temu purchase.”

“I know it’s important, Fenelope, I was just trying to help the guy out.”

Fenelope’s eyes narrowed.

“By telling him that you think he keeps ankles in his freezer?”

Bunny’s stomach dropped.

“You heard that? Wait, he heard that?”

“He gave me a courtesy call after and had some rather unsavory things to say about my staff.”

She raised a perfectly arched brow.

“If you want to see auction items delivered again— without any ‘unexpected’ damage, might I add— I’d suggest you keep your thoughts to yourself.”

With that, Fenelope turned on her heel and strode away, leaving Bunny standing in stunned silence. The continued cacophony of hammering, drilling, and snippets of animated conversations about color swatches followed Fenelope as she sauntered down the hallway. The fresh paint and sawdust from the renovations mingled in the air, creating a discordance that even oud couldn’t quite cover. It was impressive how quickly that woman could pop someone’s balloon, deflating them with a single withering glance. Bunny hoped that no one saw the soured look on her face, thankful for the deepness of her skin that concealed an embarrassed flush creeping across her chest.

Slipping casually behind a contractor and narrowly avoiding a concussion by way of the heavy beam that he was carrying, she pushed open the heavy glass doors of her office. They shut seamlessly behind her, muting the chaos and the noise to a dull hum. She took a minute to lean against her desk.

“So much for winning her over.” Bunny said under her breath, shaking her head and settling into her desk chair.

Working with Fenelope over the years had never been easy, but with the stress of the gala and the reality of old donors dropping dead (literally- the average age of a donor to the Fox must have been at least 102), their relationship had only worsened. The tension between them was palpable, more than it had ever been. She wasn’t worried that she would lose her job- there were only so many people willing to schmooze with a Bush-era pharmaceutical tycoon who had a penchant for getting handsy after a few glasses of scotch- but she was worried that she was losing her verve.

She’d barely touched down on her chair when the office phone began to flash, showing the extension for Carol Kelly, executive assistant and resident Gen Z work bestie who kept Bunny young. And who had to give Bunny regular reminders about the life prison sentence that came with strangling their boss. With another sigh, and firm ending to the fantasy of triumph, Bunny picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” She answered, trying to keep the weariness out of her voice.

Carol’s anxious tones came through immediately.

“Bunny, I—” She began, “I— and before you tell me to calm down, please know that I’ve done the breathing exercises and my mental health really isn’t at its best right now and–”

“Well, damn, girl; not even a ‘how are you? Thanks for the Bordallo Pinheiro dinnerware set that you got me for my birthday- I really enjoyed regifting it to my bitch mother-in-law for Christmas’? Just straight to the CBT?”

“Ha ha. You’re a real E. Jean Carroll,” Carol interjected flatly, “This is serious. It’s about Glen Valentino.”

“Oh, shoot— you know I couldn’t even break the news to Fenelope earlier?” Bunny started, kicking back her seat and absently twirling a pen around her finger as she tucked the phone between her shoulder and her ear.

“Yeah, if I’m being honest, that was probably for the best.”

The silence that followed was unduly awkward.

“Come again?”

“There’s been an error in the seating chart- not that I know who made it but I’m sure that whoever did it is super sorry and also incredibly dedicated to her work and thinks you’re really beautiful in an unassuming way and finds you an invaluable part of the team—”

Bunny rolled her eyes so far back in her head that she thought they may be permanently stuck to the back of her skull by the time Carol got to the point.

“Please spit it out- you’re killing me here.”

She could hear Carol’s exasperated sigh on the other end of the line.

“His ex-wife- he’s been put next to his ex-wife.” She said deflatedly.

Bunny furrowed an eyebrow, first in confusion, then in amusement. Her relief was palpable.

“That’s it? Sheesh, you almost gave me a heart attack,” Bunny quipped, “We put exes next to each other’s tables all the time. They get drunk, get competitive, then spend 20 grand on the fund-a-need once they’ve forgotten their names. Easy money.”

“Not next to each other’s table, Bunny… next to each other. At the same table.”

“What?”

“And she’s bringing her new guy as a guest.” Carol’s voice was almost despairing as she blurted out this last bit of news.

“Her firm is sponsoring the whole table. Apparently, they won a massive class-action lawsuit against Samsung, something about exploding vape pens? And she made absolute bank since she’s partner now and–”

“The next sentence had better be about her decision to cancel the sponsorship and go to Cabo instead.” Bunny cut in.

“Bunny,” Carol lowered her voice, “All of our individual ticketed patrons have been assigned seats already. Every other table is sponsored and completely full with nearly all guests confirmed. The events team already has the seating arrangements and hers was the only table with one spot remaining.”

Each sentence hurt more than the last. Bunny could feel herself fading away, barely registering Carol’s voice.

“Listen,” Bunny pressed her fingers to her temple, “There has to be another option. What about the Henderson’s table?”

“Full. And before you ask- the Patels, the Goldsteins, and even the Thursday night annual ticket holders table are all completely booked.” Carol had taken on the particular tone of someone who had already explored and eliminated every possible solution.

“I’ve gone through the seating chart sixteen times. I even tried to create a complicated musical chairs scenario where we could spread the mess across multiple tables, but–”

“But that would just create more problems.” Bunny finished, slumping in her chair.

She heard Carol take a breath.

“Honestly, it’s kind of a feat. We’re gonna cross, like, $60,000 in ticket sales alone.”

“It’ll be one of the best selling galas we’ve had in five years,” Bunny let out a tight laugh, “God, I can already see Fenelope’s face when those two crazies inevitably cause a scene. She’ll do that thing where she pretends to smile while looking like she’s exploding my head in her mind.”

“Ugh, I do that all the time over Christmas dinner. It’s the only way I can survive Uncle Thorton cussing out my brother over the fishes. Maybe this will actually be worse than I thought.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Carol.”

“Hey, I’m just following your lead, Ms. Beaudoin.” Carol offered, earning a weak chuckle from Bunny.

“Look, I can keep working on it, but we only have today and tomorrow morning, and the place cards have already been sent to the printer.”

Bunny glanced at her computer screen, where Glen Valentino’s generous donation figure seemed to mock her.

“No, you’re right. We’ll just have to manage it. Maybe his ex-wife won’t show up. Maybe she’ll get food poisoning from some questionable sushi.”

“Bunny!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Mostly.” She sighed, straightening in her chair.

“Thanks for letting me know, Carol. I’ll figure something out.”

“You always do,” Carol said, her voice softening, “And hey, if all else fails, we can always pull the fire alarm.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Bunny replied, managing a smile despite herself.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“See you tomorrow night, Bun.”

🀙🀚🀛🀜

When the Fox opened its doors in 1929, it represented more than just another movie palace. In an age when such theaters were becoming the hearts of their communities, the Fox stood apart. Every detail, from the intricate mashrabiya-style screens that filtered the light to the complex geometric patterns that adorned the ceilings, worked in concert to create an environment where reality and fantasy merged, where an evening out on the town could become something entirely unexpected. In the present day, its marquee cast a constellation of buttery yellow lights across the faces of hurried pedestrians.

Tonight, solid black letters read “THE FOX THEATER PRESENTS: A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM.” City dwellers walked past the sign, completely unaware of the world inside. A woman swept around the ticketing booth. Another man hauled a few chairs, stacked ten high, past the ticketing booth and up the side elevator. The crisp evening air carried the mingled scents of automobile exhaust and freshly ground coffee from the restaurant next door. A doorman leaned against the gold-plated metal barriers, the ember of his cigarette creating a small beacon in the gathering dusk.

Along the side of the theater, Bunny struggled out of a vintage Mercedes, donned in a red Adidas tracksuit and her trusty top bun. She held a dry cleaning bag in one hand, a clipboard in another, a ball-point pen between her teeth, and brittle anxiety somewhere in the middle of the three. The plastic of the bag caught inside the car door as she slammed it shut.

“You son of a piece of-UGHHHHH–”

The pen muffled her swearing as she mercilessly pulled at the hanger in an attempt to loosen the garment bag but as she grew increasingly feral, it occurred to her that she was still very much on an open street. She yanked the garment bag free with one final, frustrated tug. The plastic ripped slightly, and she winced. She smoothed back the escaped curl with the back of her wrist, muttering under her breath about cheap dry cleaning bags and expensive dresses.

“Hey, Alessandro! Can I bum one off you?” She called, spotting the doorman’s familiar silhouette.

Alessandro glanced up, pretending that he hadn’t seen all of that, his weathered face creasing into a knowing smile.

“These are Marlboro Reds, doll—they’ll burn your lungs to a crisp. Long day?”

"The longest,” Bunny sighed, shifting her weight to accommodate the awkward bundle in her arms, “You can never tell how these things’ll go.”

“Ordering my coffee in the morning exhausts me. I can’t imagine doing the whole talking thing all night. I don’t know how you do it. Kudos.”

Bunny let out a breathy laugh.

“Most days I don’t know either.”

“Break a leg out there tonight,” He said, stepping aside to let her pass, “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

The heavy doors swung open with Alessandro’s assistance, and Bunny entered the theater lobby, immediately enveloped by its grandeur. No matter how many times she walked through these doors, the opulence never failed to impress her. Tonight, though, even the gilt-edged magnificence couldn’t distract her from the gnawing anxiety about Glen Valentino and his ex-wife. She climbed the heavy marble stairs off to the side, traveling two floors before the hallway opened up into the beautiful Egyptian Room. The space hummed with preparation: event staff rushing about, shouting instructions, arranging centerpieces, and unfurling tablecloths with theatrical flourishes.

“Napkins! Napkins! Get your fresh, hot napkins!” An event staffer called out, tossing perfectly folded squares of fabric to his colleagues with the enthusiasm of a hot dog vendor at a baseball game.

On the stage stood Mickey Alden, the auctioneer, underdressed in slacks and an unpressed button-down. Despite his casual attire, his hair was impeccably styled, face fixed with the look of a man who knew exactly where his bread was buttered. He was trying on different jackets under Fenelope’s critical gaze.

“Okay, what’s the verdict? Gold and green?” Mickey asked, draping the jacket over his shoulders before flipping it to reveal another option.

“Or– wait – crowds love this one.” He showcased a fiery red variety with an expectant grin.

Fenelope’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“The green and gold, Mickey. The red one looks try-hard.”

“Oh, no. Not death by a thousand bitchy cuts,” Mickey dead-panned, feigning injury, “You always get like this when you’re nervous. Like you’ve got better taste than everyone.”

“No, no,” Fenelope offered a tight smile, “Tonight you’re the one that’s got better taste than everyone. That’s how we make the money.”

Without waiting for his response, Fenelope turned and strode toward the table numbers, leaving Mickey to roll his eyes dramatically behind her back. He shrugged, flipping his jacket across his shoulders before exiting stage left. Bunny ducked behind a pillar, hoping to avoid her boss’s radar for as long as possible. She still hadn’t figured out how to handle the seating disaster, and every minute brought the gala, and potential catastrophe, closer.

“There you are!” Carol Kelly appeared at her elbow, looking both frantic and immaculately put together in a navy sheath dress, “I’ve been calling everywhere for you.”

“Sorry about that. I was about to start changing and—wait, did something else happen?” Bunny’s face went ashen, her eyes searching Carol’s.

“No, no... well, yes, but not with Glen and his ex.” Carol said, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

“The Hendersons called. They want to know if they can bring their daughter’s boyfriend, who’s apparently some big shot at Goldman now.”

Bunny exhaled, almost laughing with relief.

“God, Carol, the second time that you’ve nearly given me a heart attack. Tell them no. We’re full up. Use me as the bad guy if you need to.”

“Already did,” Carol grinned,“Said you’d be absolutely crushed but capacity restrictions are capacity restrictions.”

She glanced around nervously.

“So... any brilliant ideas about our little seating snafu?”

“I’m working on it,” Bunny lied, straightening her shoulders, “I need to get dressed. Find me in twenty?”

Carol nodded, already distracted by her vibrating phone.

“Twenty minutes. Oh, and Bunny? Fenelope’s been asking for the final guest count. Twice in the last hour.”

“Perfect,” Bunny muttered, “Just perfect.”

As Carol hurried away, Bunny slipped into one of the small dressing rooms adjacent to the Egyptian Room. She removed the ruined plastic dry cleaning bag and hung the garment bag underneath on a hook. Unzipping it carefully, she revealed a sleek midnight blue gown with a subtle shimmer. The dress had cost a month’s worth of lunches, but tonight of all nights, she needed to look the part. She changed quickly, the cool silk sliding against her skin. A few dabs of concealer, a swipe of mascara, and a touch of red lipstick.

Later, Bunny barely recognized herself in the mirror. Gone was the frazzled fundraiser in a tracksuit. In her place stood a poised, elegant woman who looked like she could handle anything.

Even a pharmaceutical tycoon seated next to his lawyer ex-wife.

“You’ve got this," She told her reflection, “It’s just another gala. Just another night of performative philanthropy with people who have more money than sense.”

Her pep talk was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door.

“Five minutes to doors, everyone!” Shouted the event coordinator, “Positions, please!”

Bunny took a deep breath, smoothed her dress, and opened the door.

Show time.

The Egyptian Room had transformed in her absence, the chaos of preparation giving way to a scene of carefully orchestrated elegance. Crystal glasses caught the light, white linens draped perfectly over round tables, and floral centerpieces added pops of color throughout the space. Steep marble columns lit in the brilliant golden hue of the Fox’s custom lighting rose dramatically from the marble floors. Opulence wasn’t the word she was looking for. No, that wasn’t it.

Let us cavort like the gods of old, Bunny thought to herself, quoting the oft-binged “Futurama.”

Yes– now that was the feeling.

As she made her way toward the entrance to greet the first arrivals, Bunny spotted Fenelope across the room, looking resplendent in a tailored black suit with subtle gold accents that echoed the room’s decor. Their eyes met, and Fenelope gave a curt nod before turning away to speak with a board member. Bunny squared her shoulders and plastered on her most winning smile. The doors would open any minute now, unleashing a mob of wealthy patrons, including Glen Valentino and his ex-wife.

Just another gala, she repeated to herself.

What could possibly go wrong?

✨Prefer a more immersive experience? Listen to the audio version below for a tandem read ✨

Dearest readers and friends,

The Observer has been the trusted voice of Magnolia Heights, celebrating the people, stories, and moments that make our community home. From high school football victories to new business openings, from city council meetings to backyard garden parties, we believe every story in our town deserves to be told with care, accuracy, and heart.

This year, we’re proud to launch something special: our first-ever serialized mystery novel, Death Wears a Jade Mask: A Bunny Beaudoin Mystery. Drawing from the rich tapestry of our community— the Fox Theater, our local donors and volunteers, the intricate relationships that bind small-town life— this original story celebrates the amateur sleuths among us and provides that the most compelling mysteries often unfold right in our own backyard.

When a wealthy donor drops dead at her charity gala, Fox Theater fundraiser Bunny Beaudoin finds herself thrust into a murder investigation that threatens everything she's built. Teaming up with enigmatic private investigator Dash O'Neill, Bunny discovers the victim was poisoned—and he's not the killer's first target. As bodies pile up and the theater's reputation hangs in the balance, Bunny and Dash navigate a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous attraction.

Between dodging a suspicious police chief and uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Magnolia Heights society, Bunny must decide how far she's willing to go for justice—and whether she can trust the mysterious man who's stolen her heart. In a world where everyone has something to hide, the deadliest secret might be falling in love with your partner in crime.

Because in a world that moves too fast, some things like community, friendship, hidden secrets, and the thrill of unraveling a good mystery are worth slowing down to savor.

Warmly,

Cordelia Washington-Bell

Editor-in-Chief, The Magnolia Observer