Silence and Stilettoes, Pt. 2 (Decided)

(Here it is, Silence and Stilettoes Part 2! Check it out now and Daring+ fans pick up the accompanying Wallpaper of Asana here too! Our Crime Board is on the way too, we just need to fill it up with more clues and characters! Be sure to check out the full story so far here at the Master Post!)

“She slowly stepped across my office’s floor… well for all I know she did, it might as well have happened in slow motion for me. I stared at her from the darkness of my dimly lit desk the whole time she moves ever closer to me. Her hair dangles down in front of her face, her body shivers with the cold, her whole being soaked to the skin from the night’s rain fall. Her dress clings tightly to her bronzed skin, making me jealous of the thinnest fabric scraps I’ve ever seen. My eyes follow her, locking with her brown pupils as she sets her ripe backside down on my desk with a creak. I flip the switch on my lamp so see her bathed in light from so close… broke or not, this is worth paying the bill for.

I clench my teeth to keep my jaw from dropping open, peering back at her with a long-trained stone-faced look. While I maintain my façade, Asana already falls to pieces before me… her slender eyes slick with tears and a quiver in her voice that makes her chest shake. Her very attempt to embrace me at our first meeting, or at all, tells me she’s not long for this town. She’s far too fragile, far too tasty to not be swallowed up by somebody. I let the harsh reality of this world roll right off my back as if it were nothing, sipping my coffee as the woman opens up.

‘You’re Royce, aren’t you? Royce O’Donnell? Please tell me you are! You are the only one who can help me now!’ she cries through a shaking lip.

‘That’s what it says on the door you just came through, and I’m the only one here. It’s a safe bet to say I am’. 

‘Oh thank goodness! Mark sent me to you, he said you’d be the only one I could rely on’. She even says it with a straight face… Goodness? Here of all places? No… That’s not what catches my attention however, instead it’s the mention of Mark that raises my brow. I wasn’t aware I was on his radar. ‘Ok then… what was your name again? Whatever, if you want my help I need to know what I’m getting involved in, what went down last night? Start at the beginning.’

We spend more than a few minutes going over it all… this woman was a witness to everything that happened in a way. Too bad she’s almost worthless to the law. An outsider to our fine city, a hanger-on to the mighty Mark, a body to warm his bed at night and so naïve to believe she was the only one. Lucky for her, I’m not the law… and for some reason that escapes me, I still somehow give a shit.

‘Tell me again the order of the events. It was Mark who told you to come meet him suddenly in that alleyway. Nobody but you was there. It was five minutes after midnight you heard the growl and the scream. You were the one who found Mark’s body first, but you fled the scene before you were caught. What else do you remember?’

‘… The clack of Heels’

With that, the woman breaks down into tears, unable to hold up any longer under the strain. Her stream of tears turns to full out balling… and I suddenly find myself holding her close to my chest.

‘Thank you… from the bottom of my heart. Mark was right about you, you really are the only other good man in this strange, awful place… if only I could go home again.’.

Mark said that? Something is rotten here. How ever he could think that about me aside, he couldn’t have thought of himself as one of the good guys among this den of liars, thieves and now literal cutthroats… even still, somebody should be that ray of hope.

‘I’ll take your case, Miss, I’ll get to the bottom of this. You can collect yourself on my couch over there, I’ll be back soon and we’ll continue our little talk. First though, if I’m to root out the truth I’ve to settle this hunch I’ve got.’

After draining my coffee cup of its liquid warmth, I grab my coat and hat as it’s frightfully chilly out there. Where I’m going, I’ll need the concealed hiding places too… you never want to be without you’re back up snub… just in case.

‘Wait! I remembered something just now! A blade, he had a blade sticking out of his… his…’

‘His throat?’ 

She nods, unable to finish the sentence. Thank you Asana, I wouldn’t have known that if not for you, the paper only mentioned a slice to the neck. The blade was gone when the police turned up. It was a stiletto blade after all, and I can already tell my ‘hunch’ is sending me on the right track. Only one person in this town, loathed as I am to face them again, will know the where I can find the origins of that weapon, and where it might be now. There is one place I know I’ll find them right now, with the murder on everyone’s lips. Time to make my way there without delay…

Soon I’ll find myself in the Rat’s Nest again, a dingy set of backstreets, alleys, corner strongholds and one bar… where the lowest scum of the city dwell, and by that I mean the ones not smart enough to run legitimate scams like Mark did. She’ll be there though, I know it.”

Be hard boiled and beWilder!