Chapter 1

Rain beat down in torrents as I drove through the night, hoping to get to the mansion before it was too late. The windshield wipers swooshed rhythmically from side to side as I sped down the country road. With every mile that passed, I knew I only had minutes left to stop a potential murder from taking place. If my suspicions were correct, and they usually were, it wasn’t the butler about to commit the heinous crime. 

It was the cook in the kitchen.

I yanked the wheel at the last second, nearly missing my turn as I pressed my foot down on the gas and roared down the drive. The house sat eerily at the top of a hill, dark and foreboding with no lights to illuminate it. And Mr. Langston sat inside with no idea that his staff was working against him, plotting his murder to gain access to his fortune that currently sat untouched, with no heir and no will.

I slammed my foot on the brakes just mere feet from the steps of the house. Shifting into park, I flung the door open and raced up the steps of the rickety porch. I didn’t bother knocking. Time was of the essence, and my lapse in judgment about the kind cook I’d met just two days before had given her the time she needed to carry out her plan. If only I hadn’t been blinded by memories of my childhood, spending my days in the kitchen with the very woman who taught me how to make a home-cooked meal and guided me through the worst days following my mother’s death.

I knew it was already too late when I shoved the door open. The stench of blood filled the air as I put one foot in front of the other, creeping through the dark house so I didn’t alert anyone to my presence. I should have informed someone I was coming out here before I raced to my car upon making the discovery that Mr. Langston had unknowingly ordered the very plant that would kill him. 

I rushed forward at the noise from the back of the house. I stood just outside the kitchen and took a deep breath as I placed my hand on the swinging door. Only the heavy wooden panel stood between me and a deadly plot to murder a kind, old man. With a firm shove, I pushed the door open and—

“Ugh!” I groaned, pulling the skin from my cheekbones down until it felt like my eyes would pop out of the sockets. My glasses sat cockeyed on my nose from the move, and I pulled them off and tossed them on the desk in frustration.

Shaking my head, I tore the paper from the typewriter and crumpled it up in a ball, tossing it in the corner and narrowly missing the wastebasket. The story wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on precisely what was wrong. I shoved back from my desk and walked over to the bookcase that held all twenty-one of my published mystery books. 

Detective Jane Blackwood was a cunning woman that always solved the mystery in the nick of time. So why did this feel so wrong? Perhaps I was tired of the good detective always being right. A smart and cunning woman, she had the ability to piece together clues that would rival the great Sherlock Holmes. But this book felt different. For once, I wanted to shock my readers in a way I had never done before. I wanted to end things differently, leave them on a cliffhanger that would have them yelling and cursing me, tossing the book across the room in anger and frustration. That was the beauty of storytelling—the idea that a story could never be too predictable. And I had a feeling the good detective was becoming just that. 

I ran my finger along the spines of all my books, stopping at my last published work Murder By Numbers. It was my greatest work to date, and maybe that was the problem. When you felt you’d already reached the pinnacle of your writing career, how did you top that? This book couldn’t be just another mystery book for Detective Jane Blackwood. I needed a twist, something to throw the reader off and leave them wanting more. Which meant that I had to rethink the way this story ended.

I picked up my squishy ball and squeezed it as I paced my living room. My slippers made a grating sound as they slid over the wood floor, which helped break me out of my writing trance and helped me think of new plot ideas. Today, however, it wasn’t helping to jar my thoughts in any way. My mind was like a black hole, wide and gaping with no clear path out. With my deadline approaching, I needed to finish this book and get it off to my publisher as soon as possible. 

“You just need to clear your mind,” I muttered to myself. I stretched my arms above my head, thinking maybe a little light exercise might help. My robe pulled around my body as I interlocked my fingers and swiveled my hips from side to side, stretching the sore muscles that had tightened up from too much sitting. A strong odor hit my nostrils and I grimaced, turning my head to smell my stinky pits that hadn’t seen a good shower in more than five days. 

Grimacing, I dropped my arms and walked through my house to the kitchen. I needed coffee…or pizza. But when I shoved the swinging door open and stepped into the enclosed space, I immediately stopped in my tracks. Days’ worth of dishes and takeout containers littered the sink and countertops. The island was covered in newspapers and food I hadn’t bothered to put away. God, I was a mess when I got caught up in writing. 

I walked over to the coffee maker, but quickly saw that making java was out of the question. Not only was I out of fresh grounds, but the empty box of filters stared at me, reminding me how I had just said I would run out today to get more supplies. That had clearly never happened. Leaving the house required me to shower and get dressed, something I hated to do when I was in the writing zone. But I was stuck, and it was imperative that I have my caffeine fix to plot out the remainder of my story. 

I would have to suck it up and get dressed. Normal people did it all the time. They put on clothes every morning and went about their day. Hell, we are a lazy society now, where yoga pants are everyday clothing and if you wear jeans you’re overdressed. I longed for the days when women wore dresses and men wore suits and fedoras. Of course, that was only in my dreams. In reality, I never wanted to leave the comfort of my pajamas.

Garbage overflowed from the trash can. Bags of garbage I had been telling myself I would take out still sat piled in the corner. Something brown was leaking onto the floor beneath one of them. I bent over and sniffed, grimacing at the foul odor. I quickly stood and walked over to the counter, shoving dirty coffee mugs and paper plates out of the way until I found the roll of garbage bags. Unrolling it, I shook out the plastic and grabbed the leaking one from the floor. It was a struggle to get the full bag inside the empty one, but after much finagling, I was able to secure it inside.

“Right,” I said, staring at the mountain of garbage. “This is disgusting, Jane. How can you live like this?”

But the little voice in my head laughed, knowing that I said this every time I got lost in a book and forgot simple things like basic hygiene and cleaning around the house. Sighing, I grabbed the bags and headed out the back door. I lived in town, surrounded by nosy neighbors that constantly watched me like a hawk. If this wasn’t a desperate situation, I might consider getting dressed first, but that wouldn’t happen unless I took a shower. 

I plopped the bags on the ground and lifted the lid to my garbage can, then hauled them inside. 

“You missed garbage day.”

I shrieked, cinching my robe as I spun around and stared at my devastatingly handsome neighbor. Tall, dark hair, bright blue eyes…the man had a winning smile that would make any woman swoon. Alexander Pierce. If I wrote romance novels, he would be the type of man I would write about. He always dressed in a suit and looked like a million dollars, whereas I stood here in my bathrobe with my hair pulled up in a knot on my head. I had bad breath and food smears on my robe from wiping my hands after I came up with a new idea mid-chew. In short, I was a mess in comparison to this man.

“Um…” I cleared my throat and stood taller, trying to appear a little less of a mess than I really was. “What are you doing home at this time? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I forgot some files I needed for a case.”

Right, that was the other amazing thing about him. He was a lawyer—a very high-profile lawyer that won like every case he ever had. All the ladies loved him, and the men wanted to be him. I’d seen a parade of women coming and going from his house over the last two years, and no men had left mine. That’s what happened when you were a mystery writer that would rather read a book than leave the house. You ended up alone, dreaming about your handsome next-door neighbor that was not only out of your league, but was also one of the nicest people you’d ever meet. 

“Are you still writing?”

“Huh?” I asked, caught off-guard by his question.

“The book.”

Oh, right. In a moment of weakness, I told him what I actually did. It was another time, similar to today, in fact. I was caught outside looking a mess, and he was handsome as ever. I didn’t want him to think I was some loser who sat around my house all day without a job, so I broke my own rules of nobody knowing who I was, and I told him about my career of choice. 

He was impressed, which made me bubbly inside, but didn’t seem to make any difference whatsoever in my dating life. Maybe he had a rule about dating neighbors. Or perhaps he was really a killer, posing as a lawyer. I could see it now. With that amazing body and charming smile, no one would ever suspect him of having an alter ego.

“Jane?”

I shook my head and smiled at him. “Yeah?”

“The book?”

“Oh, right!” I laughed. “Yeah, I’m finishing up another one now.”

“What number is this? Nineteen?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Wow, has it been that long since we’ve discussed it?”

I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. Yes, I really was that forgettable to him. Just once, I wanted him to see me when I wasn’t a mess, to look at me and say that I was beautiful and he couldn’t wait to see me. It would never happen. He was always friendly, but never anything more than that. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that I always seemed to daydream when he was around.

Realizing that I was just staring at him and not saying anything, I decided to wrap this up. “Well, it was nice to see you. Good luck with…the case.”

“And you with the book.”

 I smiled and gave a wave before scurrying back to my door. I just wanted to get inside and pretend this whole thing never happened. I turned the knob, but nothing happened. My eyes widened in horror when I jiggled the handle again and it didn’t budge. 

“Oh God,” I whispered. “This is so bad.”

I jiggled it repeatedly, then kicked the door, hoping a miracle would happen and it would open. Still, nothing. Panicking, I looked at the windows, trying to remember if any of them were open. I checked all the windows along the back, but none were unlocked. There was only one that might be open, and that was the living room window. I sometimes opened it when I needed the breeze to air out the stale smell. The front door was likely locked, and I never put one of those hide-a-keys out. 

Pulling my robe closed at the top, I crept to the corner of the house and looked around the side. The street was silent, which was to be expected in the middle of the day. But that didn’t mean I could climb inside with nobody noticing. Not to mention, I was wearing flannel Scottie dog pajamas that I would prefer nobody else saw. It was bad enough that my sexy neighbor most likely saw them peeking out the bottom of my robe. 

Taking light steps to the front of the house, I paused once again at the front corner and took a quick look around the street. All appeared normal, so I scurried to the front of the house and lifted the window pane to my living room. Hoisting myself up, I didn’t even bother to raise the blinds before flinging myself over the ledge, which turned out to be really stupid. 

My hand got tangled in the blinds, making it impossible to slide in unnoticed. “Come on, you stupid…ugh!” I grunted, trying to untangle my fingers from the plastic slats.

“You know, you get yourself in the most interesting situations.”

Screaming, I slammed my head into the window pane in an attempt to quickly extract myself from the window. Instantly, I felt hands on my shoulders as tears pricked my eyes from the pain throbbing at the back of my head. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” my neighbor’s low voice rumbled. 

“It’s fine,” I said, completely mortified. “I always go in this way.”

“Really.”

I peeked over my shoulder, still attempting to extract my fingers from the blinds. My ring was caught on the string, delaying the swiftness of my departure. 

“Alexander,” I said breathily. Hell, it was practically a moan.

He flashed that gorgeous, white smile, nearly making me swoon on the spot. This was so damn unfair. He was sexy and charming and I was clearly a mess of epic proportions. Why did he have to see me like this? And more importantly, why did he have to look at me like I was the cutest creature on earth? I didn’t want to be cute. I wanted to be sexy and the type of woman men couldn’t walk away from. 

“I keep telling you to call me Alex.”

He sidled closer, placing his warm hand over mine, then his fingers deftly started to remove the string entwined with my finger. I watched in fascination as his hand slid over my skin, sending tingles everywhere. My brain misfired as it interpreted our joined hands as having finger sex. It was so damn erotic.

“There,” he grinned down at me. “All better?”

I nodded slowly, holding my hand up in the air as I stared at the spot his hand had just touched mine. “All better.”

“Do I want to know why you’re climbing in the window instead of using the door?”

I finally tore my gaze from my hand and stared up at the man in question. “Um…locked out.”

He nodded slightly, his eyes darkening as he gazed at me. My heart started thundering in my chest, and my palms were sweating out of control. And then he reached up and pushed an errant strand of hair behind my ear. I damn near lost it and jumped him right then and there. 

“Plain Jane,” he murmured, striking me where it hurt the most. 

I deflated instantly, wishing I could bound through the window and hide for the rest of eternity. But the second time around wouldn’t be nearly as graceful as the first, and I didn’t need him seeing me even more embarrassed than I already was. But then…something happened that I wasn’t expecting.

“Why can’t I keep my eyes off you?”

My head snapped up in surprise as I sank into the blue depths of his eyes. “W-what?”

“I could have any woman in the world, so why do I only see you?”

I was pretty sure there was an insult in there somewhere, but all I heard was how he saw me. Me. Plain Jane, as he called me. I was nothing like my alter ego Shayla Jacque—mystery writer extraordinaire. I was just me, the boring, plain writer that spent way too much time holed up in her writing cave, not bothering to shower most days because I was too lost in a mystery novel. 

“Do you need help getting inside?”

“No,” I croaked out, barely able to think, let alone speak.

“I’ll see you around, Jane.”

I nodded slightly as he turned and walked away. I couldn’t believe it. My dashing neighbor saw me. Images of us walking hand in hand along the river, me in a pretty dress and him in a debonair suit…it was a dream come true. We would dance along the river and he would spin me and sing to me. Except, that was a scene from a movie—An American In Paris. I was an American, but it was highly unlikely I’d ever get to Paris, or dance along the Seine River. 

Sighing as I watched him drive away in his BMW, I turned and climbed in through my window, making sure to lift the blinds first so I didn’t get tangled in them again. With my feet firmly on the ground again, I stared at the mess in front of me and grimaced. There was no way a man like him could ever want me in this state. Coffee mugs for every occasion were littered across my living room. There was my special mug for when I needed to kill someone—a bloody knife pictured on the side with the saying If at first you don’t succeed, it’s only attempted murder.

Then there was my inspirational mug for when I needed a good storyline. I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed. That one always made me laugh. And then there was the mug I used for plotting. I’m a writer. Anything you say or do may be used in a story.

There were about twenty other various mugs I used, most of them scattered around the room, half drunk and in desperate need of being washed. If Alexander had walked in here, he would have turned around and left without another word. I went around collecting the mugs and carrying them into the kitchen, which was a mistake because there was no counter space. I dropped them gently in the sink, with what little room there was, and started the long, tedious process of cleaning. Coffee would have to wait.