The rain hadn’t stopped for three days, and neither had I.
Cases like this had a way of keeping a man awake.
My name’s Jack Kessler. Private Investigator. TARITOTO Some call me a bloodhound, some call me a vulture. I call myself a realist. People don’t hire me when they want the truth—they hire me when they need it.
It started on a Tuesday night. I was sitting in my office, listening to the rain tap against the window like a nervous client. That’s when she walked in.
Tall, sharp eyes, and a coat worth more than my monthly rent. She said her name was Evelyn Marlowe, and she wanted me to find her brother, David.
“He’s been gone for a week,” she said, her voice like velvet soaked in whiskey. “The police think he just ran off. I think he’s dead.”
She slid an envelope across my desk. Inside: a retainer check and a photograph. David was smiling in it. People don’t smile like that unless they’re hiding something.
I started where I always do—by asking the people who didn’t want to be asked.
David’s apartment was small, neat, too neat. No clothes out of place, no dishes in the sink, no sign of life. The landlord said David had “plenty of visitors,” most of them wearing expensive shoes and bad attitudes.
The first real lead came from a bartender named Louie. He remembered David meeting with a man in a gray suit the night before he disappeared. “Didn’t like the look of him,” Louie said. “The kind of guy who doesn’t talk, just watches.”
That night, I followed the rain to the docks. Places like that are good for two things—smuggling and murder.
Sure enough, I found a witness. Old man named Clarence who spent more time with his whiskey than with people. He said he saw David get into a black sedan with the man in the gray suit.
I asked where they went. Clarence just pointed toward the old Riverside Warehouse.
The warehouse was a corpse—empty, cold, and smelling of rust. But I wasn’t alone.
Footsteps behind me. I turned, but too late. Something hard slammed into my skull, and the lights went out.
When I came to, I was tied to a chair. The man in the gray suit stood in front of me, cigarette smoke curling up toward the shadows.
“You should’ve stayed out of this, Kessler,” he said. “David Marlowe made a deal. He didn’t keep it.”
“What kind of deal?” I asked.
The man smiled like a shark. “The kind that gets you killed.”
He left me there, but not before setting a slow-burning fuse across the room. The warehouse was going to be my tomb.
Lucky for me, I still had a trick in my sleeve—literally. A razor blade sewn into my jacket lining. Two minutes later, I was free. Thirty seconds after that, I was running through the rain as the warehouse went up in flames behind me.
I knew Evelyn hadn’t told me everything. People rarely do.
Back in my office, I did some digging. Turns out David wasn’t just Evelyn’s brother—he was her business partner. Together, they’d been laundering money through a string of high-end nightclubs.
The deal gone bad? David had tried to cut their supplier out of the loop. The man in the gray suit? Enforcer for a crime syndicate that didn’t like being cheated.
I went to Evelyn’s townhouse. She was sitting by the fire, a drink in her hand, looking like she’d been expecting me.
“You lied,” I said.
She didn’t flinch. “I told you what you needed to hear.”
“David’s dead,” I told her.
She took a slow sip. “I know.”
It hit me then—she’d hired me not to find David, but to confirm he was gone. She’d needed certainty before she moved on with the business… and without him.
The rain outside sounded heavier now, like the city was trying to wash itself clean. But it never could.
I left without another word.
Back in my office, I poured myself a drink and stared at the city through the rain.
In this line of work, you learn quick—truth isn’t about justice. It’s about who can afford it.
And tonight, Evelyn Marlowe could.