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.
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.