Page 16

When she begins to sing, the room disappears.

Her voice is like aged bourbon—smooth, rich, with a burning finish that lingers long after the note ends. She doesn’t perform so much as confess, each lyric delivered like a secret shared only with you, despite the room full of listeners.

I’ve spent my adult life cultivating detachment. It’s a professional necessity and a personal preference, especially after I lost Catherine. But as I watch Lena Reid weave her spell, I feel something stir beneath that carefully maintained distance—a pull, a recognition of something familiar yet unnamed.

She moves across the stage like a woman who knows precisely the effect she has and is simultaneously amused and bored by it. There’s power in her performance, but also a subtle sadness that I suspect most miss beneath the glamour.

And there’s danger, too.

Just a whiff of it.

This woman was close to Elizabeth Short. Close enough that her name came up repeatedly in interviews, that even Virginia knew who she was. Did she know what Elizabeth was involved in? Who she was seeing? What secrets she might have stumbled upon that got her killed?

As Lena holds a final, heartbreaking note, her gaze sweeps the room and for a brief, disconcerting moment, seems to land directly on me. A jolt of something—awareness, recognition, warning—passes through me, setting off alarm bells I haven’t felt since the war.

Then she’s bowing gracefully, accepting the enthusiastic applause with a practiced smile that doesn’t quite reach those remarkable eyes.

I drain my drink, decision made. I need to speak with her tonight, before I lose my nerve or my objectivity—the latter already dangerously compromised by five minutes in her presence.

As I rise from my table, I notice my heart beating faster than usual, a strange heat coursing through my veins. Probably just the booze on an empty stomach. Or maybe it’s something about Lena Reid that affects me on a level I don’t yet understand.

Fuck, I need to get laid.

Either way, I have questions that need answers. And I suspect Ms. Reid has secrets worth uncovering—whether she’s willing to share them or not.

5

LENA

Ilet the heat of the spotlight wash over me as I linger on the final note, drawing it out until my lungs ache for release. The band follows my lead, the saxophone player watching my eyes for the signal. I give a slight nod and we finish in perfect sync, the note hanging in the air for a heartbeat before dissolving into applause.

Five days since the cops told me about Betty. Since I read her diary. Since I got the feeling I’m being stalked. Five days of smiling through performances while something cold and heavy sits in my chest. Grief and fear, all mixed up into one messy package.

I scan the crowd as I always do, cataloging the faces looking back at me. The regulars—Diamond Joe with his platinum blonde on his arm. The table of businessmen pretending they’re not slumming it. Cohen’s boys at the corner table, keeping watch. Marco himself is absent tonight—business in Burbank, he said. I don’t miss his unfeeling gaze.

Then I see him.

Back of the room, sitting alone. He doesn’t look like the usual clientele. His suit is well-tailored but understated. No flashy tiepin or gaudy ring. He holds a drink, half gone. But it’s his eyes that catch me—intense, focused, watching me with an almost predatory stillness.

I’ve been watched by countless men for most of my twenty-five years. I know every shade of male attention—desire, obsession, ownership, appreciation. This is something else entirely. Something that makes my skin prickle with awareness.

And maybe something else.

I shift my gaze away, launching into my next number. A sultry, slow piece that lets me move across the stage, tracing the microphone stand with gloved fingers. When I glance back at the stranger, he hasn’t moved, hasn’t even blinked. Just watches with those penetrating eyes.

Something about him pulls at me. A strange magnetic sensation, almost like recognition, though I’m certain we’ve never met. I would remember a face like that—strong jawline, bright blue eyes under heavy black brows, a mouth that looks like it rarely smiles. Handsome in a movie star way with undercurrent of something dangerous.

Otherworldly, some might say.

But no…that can’t be.

He’s not one ofus.

By my final song, the stranger has me rattled. I find myself performing for him, trying to elicit some reaction beyond that steady, assessing gaze. I pour everything into the closing number, hitting notes that make the room go silent before erupting in applause.

He doesn’t applaud.

Just watches, as if totally unaffected.