I felt like a tumbleweed in a hurricane, completely out of place and overwhelmed by the storm. These recent developments threw crooked shadows over everything I’d learned thus far. Yet still, they were the only clues I had at my disposal, so I had to make due.

Kevin drove us the rest of the way to Point Blanche, leaving my beat up Cadillac parked in the lot at the Raines. The rain had stopped a few hours prior, but the sky was still as overcast as when it had started.

“Where are we headed?” I inquired.

“There’s a mansion at the top of a hill in the center of town. It’s owned by a lady named Jessica Brown. She inherited it from her father, along with a very large sum of money. Courtesy of the Mafia, but we can’t pin anything on them.” Kevin slowed the car to allow some pedestrians to cross before us. One of them stopped in the middle of the road to tie his shoe and…

My neck suddenly felt like it’d been stung by a wasp, and darkness fell over me like a piano hitting a victim of cartoon comedy.