Broken Alibis (ONC 2024)

Chapter One

(TW: Blood)

My palms grew sweaty, and a lump filled my throat as I watched the blonde woman's blood pour into the snow-covered concrete. It was a scene I thought I would never see happen in front of me. This may have been my first dead body, but it wasn't my first dead body with all the trips I took to the morgue whenever a young girl who would have matched Grace's description met their ends.

The faint sound of a siren was heard in the distance. I looked up to see where she could have fallen from. The building had to be at least ten stories high. Did she fall from the roof? Wasn't there a railing up there?"

I tried to replay the scene in my mind. She landed on her stomach side first. So wouldn't that mean she had to have been pushed? Was this a real-life murder was I finally getting my big break?

The woman I identified was Ella Glass. She had to have died on impact with the way her body laid there, deformed, I swear I heard the sound of bones breaking upon impact. Her wedding ring was missing, and there were scars on her arms that looked to be self-inflicted. Her feet had cuts all over them, maybe from the glass slippers she seemed to always wear. Behind her ear was a small tattoo of a bear. I have no clue what that means. A calling card perhaps? There was a name tattooed on her right inner forearm. Pied Piper? I swallowed hard; it was a name I had long tried to forget. I took a picture of the evidence I found on my smartphone.

A car door opened and closed. I looked up for a split second, seeing my cocky coworker exit his luxury vehicle. He could have at least tried to look more presentable. His fly was undone and his shirt wasn't properly buttoned. "Were you in the middle of something?" I asked as he approached. He smelled like sweat, Jasmine, and honey. Caught in 4k.

"Chase ya go home," Jasper said heavily accented as he approached smelling like sweat, Jasmine, and honey. Caught in 4k. Jasper D'Alessio. The world's best detective. Or so people seemed to believe. More like an egotistical womanizer.

"That's what I plan on doing, D'Alessio," I said nonchalantly, looking away from him. Ella Glass was my role model. She taught me that girls could come from nothing and still end up on top.

"Er, why don' ya go gey cleaned up and I'll call a yaxi for ya. Can' have a kid walking ay yhis hour," he flashed me a fake smile as I returned it still in my squatting position by the body. I checked for a pulse but there wasn't one.

"Cleaned up?" I asked my eyes met his again.

"Goy blood 'n yer shoes," he stated and pointed down to my boots. "Where woz ya clueless, or woz iy a fashion s'ayement?"

"Oh, thank you," I said as he nodded, "Your fly is down, by the way, was that a style choice or do you just have rice krispies for brains?" I asked, he glared as I flashed an innocent smile. He hated my guts and I loved how I wasn't even twenty yet but got under a thirty-year-old man's skin.

I asked the security guard the direction of the bathroom. "By the way, there's a dead person out there, so you may want to get your story straight before you get written up," he frowned, I smiled. There was something about grown men who hated teenage girls telling them how to do their job that I found so thrilling.

The floors were a nice white tile with sparkly cyan intricate designs; it was almost too tidy for a public restroom. The shade of blue on the walls matched that on the floor.

A hum escaped my rose-tinted lips, I made my way over to the sink and grabbed a handful of paper towels, I turned on the faucet to scrub my boots. My heart raced, and my mind played the scene in my head on repeat.

There was a blunt force trauma wound on the back of her head, her fingertips had a blue tint that only pointed to the illegal drug sapphire. Now why would the most beloved heiress in the country get involved with such a thing?