Free Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1) by BG Archer

steaming bowl of oatmeal and half a grapefruit and put on a fresh pot of coffee, which was ready around the same time the oatmeal was. He drank one cup with his breakfast and refilled it before heading into his office and turning on his computer to go over the current case files.

    T hey had located the other men at the nightclub, and had questioned them all extensively. Of the four men other than Seaborn that had interacted with Tori, two of them had hard alibis for later in the evening, and the other two did not have hard alibi’s, but it was clear they had not done it. Everything about them in their interrogations had indicated that were scared shitless about being questioned by the FBI, and in no way fit the profile of a serial killer disciple.
    The two bartenders also checked out, so just to be on the safer side of things Arthur did some digging into the waitress, Lacy Person, since aside from the men she had the most interactions with Tori Watson at the club. Arthur had found absolutely nothing of interest about her. She had attended SCU and graduated three years prior with a degree in communications, and was now putting it to good use with her bar job. She had worked as a teller at Third Union Bank for two years at several locations (one before she graduated from Katie’s school and one after), but had switched to the service industry full time thirty months ago. The strangest thing Arthur had found as his eyes scanned over his iMac's screen was she had no Facebook account. At her age, and considering her occupation, that just seemed a tad unusual. Perhaps she had an over-controlling boyfriend, but from the pictures she had been tagged in on her bar's Facebook page it did not appear so.
    Arthur made a mental note of it and he continued to think about it as he dressed. He put on a cloud grey suit from Ted Baker. Underneath it he wore a white shirt and a blue tie, and added a brown belt and shoes to match. Arthur selected one of his favorite watches, although not a particular expensive one to wear, a Citizen with a large white face that had a nice weight to it on his wrist with a brown leather band.
    He inspected himself in the mirror and found everything to be to his liking.
    For a moment the case was not on his mind and his only thought was of appearances and how much he enjoyed dressing the part, or rather, over-dressing the part.
    Before his mind could turn back to the case however, his BlackBerry went off.
    Margaret.

    M argaret Ruben was the closest thing Arthur Bell had to a real boss. Technically her title (Special Agent in charge) made that abundantly clear, but in reality, since the job had first been offered to Arthur and he had declined and suggested Ruben, it had created just the kind of relaxed atmosphere he wanted.
    Ruben and Bell had been partners for six and half years before he had been given the job offer and when she was promoted instead, he fit into his new role as chief special agent perfectly. Margaret was Arthur's solution to dealing with the ever-intruding levels of bureaucratic bullshit at the FBI.
    She was the Scully to his Mulder, always had been, and just being his partner had relieved a great deal of stress from his daily life. She was the perfect person for dealing with the slow monotony and slightly psychotic madness of the workplace politics that inevitably took over a great deal of the time of whoever was actually running the office. Her patience seemed better suited for the politics over him and, in the five and half years since she had taken over, they had continued to work well together in a much more unofficial manner. Margaret had flown out Thursday afternoon because she was supposed to be at a conference for regional managers in DC. It was the kind of four-day event that senior FBI agents always complained about being forced to attend, but secretly loved for the high quality free meals and for the occasional discreet trysts and also massive consumption of taxpayer-paid booze.

    A