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.
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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?
What if the person who’d painted over Glen’s blood had keys to every door?