The guy pulled the pin on the hand grenade and rolled it to me.

I dove through the trap door in the floor and clamped my hands over my ears. As the floorboards exploded above me, and pieces of wood shot like missiles into my arm, I knew this case had gotten serious.

What made me take a case that would send me racing through the streets of LA in an old muscle car, smashing into cars and getting shot at, windows bursting in my face?

Well, long red hair and legs to die for, might have had something to do with it.

I’d been working out of an office in one of those old buildings downtown. You know the type, built in the twenties with a marble staircase, a broken elevator and huge windows. Me and young Nick, my assistant, were working nickel and dime stuff: missing persons, insurance fraud, and rounding up a fugitive here and there.

And then she happened. This Sophie Devonshire case happened. I heard heels clicking on the tile landing, and looked up from my desk. Into my office walked a redhead with an envelope full of cash. As she crossed the room in that tight skirt, my mouth dropped open.

I recovered after the introductions, and allowed her to tell her story.

Mrs. Sophie Devonshire had been attacked. Her home had been broken into. I saw fear in those soft green eyes. That’s why I took the case. I mean, yeah, of course those legs were going through my head. But beyond that, I wanted to help. I knew her fear was real. I’m Private Detective Jason Dalton.

It all started, she said, when she found a metal disc covered with strange writing, among her late husband’s things.

So I began there, with her late husband. I had no idea that he had lived a deadly, double life.