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“Moral wounds have this peculiarity—they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart”

~The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

Chapter One

“This is a really bad fucking idea”

Shane Stephens pulled onto Terhune Alley and parked next to a section of broken chain link fence He glanced up through the windshield at the full le of dark woods to his right and the eround, rolling across the turf in a se that couldn’t fit the scenario any better

“This is so to the famous hard-boiled detective in the pulp fiction series by Mickey Spillane Late night, mysterious contact…like he’d stepped onto the set of a ns ofass to get a firearht”

Glad for the Glock he kept in an ankle holster, he stepped out of his car Muffled traffic noises sounded frohway on the other side of the dense thicket Other than the occasional birdcall and barking dog, everything rehts had grown too cool for most insects

He looked for the ive his real name “Call rin and rubbed a hand over his prickly jaw The whole cloak-and-dagger thing was silly as hell when there were plenty of public places for them to meet This empty back road in an unfa it a bit too far

Better be worth it

He’d had to cancel a date with a hot bodybuilder tonight One with tattoos fro his best to count they the rest He’d also hoped to coax out so weights

Straightening his brown suede jacket, he leaned back against his car and waited, still pissed abouthours lately and hadn’t gotten laid in weeks But he really couldn’t complain about the work

When he’d started The Merleau Detection Agency with his friend, Ethan, they’d had no idea the business would take off the way it had Especially since a lot of the investigative agencies in the area cauards

Neither of them had wanted to compete with the popular Ward Security in that respect The coed to pull itself back up after all the crazy nightclub fires and was now the leading source for personal security in the tri-state area and beyond He liked Rowan Ward and found him to be honest yet irreverent—pretty cool, actually And he welcomed the business the man threw his hen his clients neededapproach

Meeting soht was new The life of a detective wasn’t nearly as glaone du only once for evidence, and that hadn’t been nearly as exciting as the pulp novels h he was grateful for that Most of his ti at a computer But at least it wasn’t all about numbers like it had been when he’d worked as an accountant

“You came alone?”

Proud of not showing how much the voice startled hiht aimed at his face He raised his hand to try and block so me”

“Sorry” Dropping the light, the man stepped forward

Shane blinked, fighting to get his night vision back after it had been teht spilled across features younger than he’d expected The guy was no more than a boy really, with round cheeks and innocent eyes Maybe eighteen or nineteen, he still had areas of heavy acne on his cheeks and forehead His thin body was hunched in, his arht blond hair reflected brightly in the ht

“I feel like I should be wearing a fedora and s his arm toward the field “What’s with the film noir setup?”

The kid didn’t answer for a few, longfor…so” He headed toward the opening in the tall fence wrapping the baseball field