Monochrome Noir: Part 1 - A Gathering Storm by Jack Wells

Author:Jack Wells [Wells, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-13T22:00:00+00:00

Excerpt from Women in History: A Spotlight

Chapter 06 – Man In Motion

The streets were never empty in Angel City, even late in the evening, so it took Henry much longer to get to Freddy’s Fusion than he would have liked.

Cursing every stop light and meandering driver, he tried his best to keep his impatience in check. Yet success on that front eluded him. Crime scenes and witnesses were perishable goods, the passage of time erasing details. Causing even the most acute of minds to forget specifics. The longer he took, the more obscured and faded the clues would be. Of course, there was no guarantee that he would even be allowed into the club itself, let alone the scene of the crime.

But he would deal with that tidbit when, and if, it cropped up.

On the plus side, every obstruction that added to the trip also gave him additional time to come to grips with how irrevocably his life had just changed. True, he was not one to put much stock into celebrity and social status. But being visited by the Colorist had impacted him in ways he would never have expected. She had challenged him on every level. And had consistently come out streets ahead. He wasn’t used to coming up short in verbal sparring, let alone feeling intimidated by someone half his weight. He should have been upset, or felt slightly ashamed, but at the moment all he could feel was a sort of reverent bewilderment.

And, if he was being honest with himself, he couldn’t deny the sense of satisfaction that came with someone of her status needing his help. He was just a little fish in a big pond after all. But a little fish who got the job done. It felt good to be needed.

Of course, traditional boots-on-the-ground private investigating typically involved being late to the party, hours or days after an event happened. Sifting through pieces that had already been examined by others. And murder scenes were decidedly not his forte. Standard work for him meant hiding in the background. Following from a distance. Searching through records and discarded items, peering through a camera lens, and making the social rounds after the initial furor had died down. Which is how he preferred to operate. It was a pace he could manage. And more importantly a pace he could control. But this was not an ordinary job, and Colorist Davies was no ordinary client.

Which meant his usual methods weren’t going to suffice.

So, it was time to get a little more proactive. And the only way to do that was to head to the scene of the crime while it was still being combed over by the police. It was more direct than he was used to being, but he really did not see any other solution. He had to play catch-up, and quickly. Sometimes the best way to learn to swim was just to jump right in.

That’s also a good way to drown, his inner voice added unhelpfully.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.