Rain in the city of Seattle does not wash this city clean; it somehow makes the grim in the alley slimy and muddy with whiffs of garbage.
The victim’s left shoe is always missing. In its place sits a pristine vintage stiletto with a pink sole—a custom-made size six, exactly two sizes too small for the victim. Forced on, the killer would have had to break the victim’s big toe, hopefully after death.
The foot is violently jammed into the shoe, making it clear it did not belong to her. It was a neon-pink lacquer so bright it bled under the streetlights. Leather was stretched, tearing the victim's heel, spilling out of the back of the shoe, resting on the cold, damp ground, as her body had. The cause of death was a neck break, clean and easy.
The media and the police frame this as a twisted psychological thriller, a killer obsessed with a twisted version of Cinderella, the story as if punishing women who do not fit the “mold.”
Detective Marcus Lance stared down at the body of Elana Lance, no relation, just a cruel coincidence. Slumped against the damp brick of the alley and the ground in the Capricorn district of Seattle, neck hanging down from the break. Like a puppet whose strings were cut, the puppet master no longer wanted
control over this puppet. The right foot was bare and had turned purple by the damp midnight chill.
The Detective was not looking at her face; he was watching the drizzle on her feet, especially the one where the toe had tried to be tugged off someone's twisting and turning continuously, had tried to rip off the body, but the ligament held on, keeping the toe in place.
They placed the shoe back on the foot, knowing still it would not fit. The pink stiletto was being bagged now. His partner was doing the bagging while the shoe was on top of the bagged body, getting wet and losing evidence.
And the other shoe, where this shoe had been missing, taken off, and who knows what area where this may be. His rookie partner asked, “Same as the others.” Killer forces the shoe on after the heart stops.
Yeah, Marcus grunted, kneeling in the mud in the alley, pink bottom, he glanced at the victim’s bag. Elana was a size eight.
How does he know the woman's size? His partner Miller asked the Detective if he must be watching them, studying them? Knows them?
Media theorists seized on the story and dubbed the killer “the prince.” The papers all but wrote the narrative themselves: a sick, misogynistic psychopath with a Cinderella fixation, punishing powerful women for failing to fit his warped mold of feminine perfection.
He is a Psychopath; he did not care about a fairytale; he wanted power, which is why he broke the neck, ending their power with a clean kill, like a wounded and trapped animal.
This was the third high-powered woman to be murdered this month, and the Detective hated the name coincidence irritated the hell out of him. But the city is full of Lances. Sure, this had nothing to do with anything, just made him feel like it was personal somehow.
He was looking for a monster born of male insubstantiality. The Detective was convinced he was hunting a man who hated powerful women. He will focus his energy on the husbands or ex-lovers; these victims would threaten these men.
Marcus sat in his dark office, and the wall was pinned with photos of the three victims: a judge, a journalist, and now the defense attorney. A legal case must connect them.
Where does this pink-bottomed shoe come from? He uses it as a calling card, Detective Marcus said, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He is humiliating these women, taking women who stand tall in society and reducing them to a trope. Telling the world they do not fit the shoes society expects them to wear. So, he puts them down to what he claims to size.
Let's track the serial numbers. Of the shoes left on the victims.
The first was purchased by a tech-billionaire, the second by a city councilman, and the third by a media mogul.
Chrislenea’s only made twelve pairs a year, sold exclusively to the ultrarich, in private auctions. All the men had purchased them as gifts for their wives and girlfriend.
The wives of the tech billionaire and the city councilman say they were stolen from their wives' closets, and the girlfriend told a similar story. One day, they were there, then when she wanted to show them off, they were gone.
Did not think of reporting to the police until now, with people in and out of their homes all the time, anyone could have taken them at any time.
The girlfriend lived in a secure building, and only she and her boyfriend, the media mogul, had keys to her apartment.
All had airtight alibis for every murder. Since she stayed in a secure building, that narrowed the list of people who could have stolen the shoes from her place. At the other two homes, the list of suspects was much longer.
This was a dragging investigation. Within the next few months, he awaited another victim, but there was not one. The city seemed to close over the “prince murders.” Marcus finally had information out of the underbelly of the city, not the one filled with drug dens or illegal gambling.
This was the underbelly of the extreme wealthy. Pink Bottoms shoes are identified as La Roseate, a hyper creative line by the reclusive designer named Chrislenea, who finally returned to town.
When he told the Detective that those were not his shoes on the victims, he found them in.
Mine has a serial number I only have access to and a designer code. I place a different one on each shoe, the left and the right. These pictures you are showing me are not my design, not my code, are serial numbers someone else has copied; these are made of some proprietary synthetic blend.
Marcus asked, " This is not your microscopic QR code embedded inside the layers of the pink lacquer. Again, Chrislenea told him no!
Marcus had a breakthrough months ago, not from the DNA department. From the digital forensics department, the QR code, which he never thought to check, thinking this was for the shoe designer.
What did he think connected them? Marcus wanted the shoe. The Detective went back to the office, and he and his partner Miller went to the evidence room, took the shoes, and pulled back the pink lacquer to the QR code.
Only three of the shoes. The Billionaire, councilman, media mogul. Detective Marcus looks at the latest shoe sole. There was no designer logo; there was a QR code inside the layer of the shoes.
Marcus scans the codes with his system design, to encase data in layers, which hides your identity and browsing habits, bypassing standard web routing through an encrypted onion network.
Marcus found the killer in the last place he expected: a brightly lit penthouse overlooking the city. Her name was Dr. Olivia Reed-Miller, a forensic accountant. She wore slightly muddy sneakers, with several pairs of pink stilettos arranged at her feet. When the police burst in, she remained at her desk, typing calmly.
Dr Reed-Miller said without looking up, Detective Marcus, you scanned the QR code.
He kept his weapon raised, his mind raced to adjust to reality. You are “The Prince.”
There is no serial killer, Detective Marcus. She finally looks up at him. The media gives the dullest of men the most poetic names. This was three separate corporate assassins.
“Three separate men hired me to silence women who had become tiresome. They were written off as greedy blackmailers. She slowly walked to him, then why leave the shoes? “He asked
When three powerful women die in one month in a financial circle, the FED becomes involved. It looks like a conspiracy.
But if it is a serial killer, if it is a psychopath with a Cinderella fetish?
Police focus on the psychology of monsters, angry men, husbands, and ex-boyfriends. The shoes are mine after I was given the original. I made mine to place in the data where it could be found in the shoes.
Pointing a finger at the detective's chest, the evidence is now safe in your locker catalog, preserved and safe forever.
The killers did not force those women’s feet or break their toes. I did to humiliate them and place the data in the synthetic sole.
She held out her hand, waiting for Detective Marcus Lance to cuff her.
