It was late. Normally, Sunday nights saw Phoenix eating dinner, watching a little TV, and then crawling into bed at around eleven—that was, of course, unless he had an investigation to prepare for the next day, which happened to be the case tonight.
Going to the detention center on a semi-daily basis had proved useful; he’d found many potential clients, but none of them had caught his attention quite so much as the young man accused of strangling his new wife on the night of their honeymoon. There was a motive (she came from a rich family), time (they’d spent the whole night together), and enough evidence to get him convicted (a scarf found by the bed, scratch marks on his arms), but something about the whole thing seemed too convenient… The man had claimed innocence, of course, and Phoenix believed him; when questioned about what really happened that night, however, the psyche locks went up.
Phoenix sat back with a sigh. His kitchen table was a mess, and he’d gone over what little information he had more than three times, but everything still pointed to his client’s guilt. He hoped to gain a little more insight at the hotel—the Montefaire, of all places—in the morning. For now, though, he would call it a night.
As he stood, he made short work of his shirt buttons and stumbled to his unkempt bed, pulling his socks off along the way. Before he even had a chance to get comfortable, however, the ever familiar digital sound of the Steel Samurai theme song filled the apartment, and with yet another sigh, he fished his cell phone out of his pocket and glared at the display screen. The irritation didn’t last long, though. He was always surprised to see that number…
Hitting ‘talk’, he held the phone to his ear. “Hello?”