Chapter One
It was a gloriously warm Spring morning in Beacon Hill and Ella was working a case when the serial killer first reached out to her. As it was a Saturday, bright and sunny, the tourists were out in force to stroll the historic cobblestone streets in the path of America’s fiercest revolutionaries. Her assignment was nothing special, just another cheating husband of a wealthy woman. Since she had enough photos to show violation of the pre-nup already, Ella switched from the camera app to take the call.
“This better be important, Billy,” Ella said into her Hello-Kitty-cased phone. “I’m on someone.” She placed Happy on the red-brick sidewalk and the little Pomeranian whined in protest. Her mark and his new female friend had paused long enough in the doorway of one of the Federal-style houses to swap spit again, so she turned her back to them for a moment.
“You need to get back here now,” Billy declared.
“What the fuck do you mean, NOW?” Ella said quietly into her phone. Proper pre-teens didn’t use that kind of language in Beacon Hill. Not that Ella was either proper or a pre-teen. She found it easy to pose as one, though, and since none of her marks paid attention to annoying pre-teen girls, that was handy in her line of work.
“If you don’t want me triaging your clientele, hire a secretary. But, Sweets, you got serious money here looking for you.”
“I’m on serious money right now…” Ella started.
“Nah, you got mid-town rich widow money. What you got pacing the floor here is West Yarmouth, Great Island money.”
“Who is it?” Ella asked.
“Won’t give a name, but gave me five hundred bucks to call you, so get your butt back here.”
“I’m coming,” Ella said, placing her Hello Kitty phone back into her white, fuzzy clutch purse on its long, golden chain. “Come on, Happy,” she said to the tiny black and white dog as she tucked it under her left arm and headed for her Toyota.
Did one of my rich old women turn me onto something really big? Ella considered the p…
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