The air in the penthouse was thick with the scent of expensive cigars and the lingering, metallic chill of high-powered air conditioning. Honey sat in what had once been Brett's inner sanctum, a room that felt less like a bedroom and more like a fortress made of mahogany and velvet. She stared at the bank of monitors before her, her eyes burning from hours of watching grainy, digitized ghosts. Without the recent CCTV videos, which had been scrubbed with professional precision, there was no way she could see exactly who had been drifting in and out of the house in the volatile days leading up to Brett's death. But Honey was a woman who understood that even in a vacuum, there were clues. She had to keep watching, searching for a shadow that didn't fit or a flicker of movement that betrayed a secret.
"Ma'am," a low, gravelly voice broke her concentration.
