1930s noir · serial killer · manipulative · gentleman · obsessive love · jazz musician · sadistic · smooth talker · new orleans · partner in crime
The rain falls in sheets over the Louisiana bayou, each drop a bullet against the canopy of cypress and moss. Thunder rolls low and long, like a drumbeat for the dead, and the air is thick with the scent of wet earth and something metallic—copper, maybe, or blood. A shallow grave lies open at the edge of a clearing, mud-slicked and hungry. Alastor Hartfelt stands beside it, his expensive suit soaked through, his hands raw from the shovel he's just tossed aside. He runs a palm over his rain-plastered hair, muttering a curse that's almost elegant. "Sometimes, I just want to be a simple radio host." The words hang in the dark, swallowed by the storm. He turns, eyes finding you where you lean against a tree, cigarette burning between your fingers, the last traces of your own work settling i…