1 Neoni Nightclub

Detective Reynold was thinking about the case he was working on; a blond teenage girl had been choked to death and stabbed numerous times.

A few hours after the murder, her father found her body on her bedroom floor and called the police.

There was no trace of the murderer at the crime scene, and the only unusual thing that had been found was a lot of blood that had been splashed all over the room, especially on the bed.

The blood belonged to two persons; one person was the victim, and the other was probably the murderer.

The case was twisted because there wasn't any sign of conflict between the victim and her murderer in the scene.

"And all the other faint clues I've been following the last few days lead to nothing." Said Reynold to himself, "just like my sister's case, a dead-end case."

"How could these two cases be this much similar to each other? The victim looked just like Jessica; both of them were around the same age, and both scenes were covered in blood, but this time there was a corpse at the scene and at least some clues, even if they led me to and dead end, could these two cases be related? But after ten years, could it? Could it be possible?"

"Why so sad?" the bartender said, a twenty and some year old red hair girl with a childish voice that matched the freckles that covered most of her face; she was wearing a red dress that had a slit on the bottom of it, on the left side, it was long enough to cover her left knee, and then it went to the first quarter of the upper side of her right thigh, on her left foot she had a violet sparkly high hill boot that covered her foot up to her ankle and a cartoonish pictured sock with a unicorn on it.

She was wearing a long sparkly high hill boot on her right foot that went up to her knee.

The bartender gave Reynold a mischievous smile, "you know ..." she paused then continued, "it's been about three days that I haven't seen your face; I was getting worried," she winked, "after all the economy of Neoni nightclub counts on you."

All the nightclubs in the city of hope looked like each other, even the most luxurious ones in the rich neighborhoods, with a lot of neon lights all over the club, inside and outside, several tables and chairs, several dance poles, a stage for performers, a perfect audio system and a robot that made special drinks, sometimes very special drinks for very special customers.

The downtown nightclubs had the best advertisements that any club could ever have, so they always managed to encourage others to go inside and have some drinks, spend some time, and then drink some more.

Their first and best advertisement was the hot and dirty air of the downtown; it is the best encourager you could have for your nightclub.

The second best advertisement was to play a very loud song to guarantee your customers they will forget all their thoughts and emotions as soon as they entered the club, or in the most extreme cases, after a few drinks.

The third one was the attractive bartender who pays attention to you or at least pretends to pay attention to you. Neoni nightclub had all of these and even more.

Neoni nightclub was detective Reynold's favorite place in the city because it always had enough strangers to help you not feel lonely but didn't have too many strangers to make you feel annoyed.

Reynold liked the club strangers; they rarely talked to him and didn't bother him with unnecessary small talks.

For this reason, Reynold always went to Neoni nightclub and spent his nights and most of his noons and evenings there.

Reynold was sitting on his favorite sofa, one of three sofas at the corner of the club, far from strangers but not far from the bar.

"I am sad because I wonder how it is possible that such an attractive bartender has such few customers," Reynold said with a bit of annoyance in his voice because of being disturbed.

The bartender looked around with exaggerated open eyes and answered: "They are not as loyal as you are." Reynold chuckled, "When the sun is up, they are usually down."

"Lucky them, I wish I could be down too," Reynold said bitterly

"I am Nina, but my friends call me Neoni." without waiting for Reynold, Neoni bent over the table, picked up his hand that was on the table, and shook it.

"I am Reynold; nice to meet you," Reynold said while Neoni still was shaking his hand enthusiastically.

Neoni pointed at her red dress: "not because of my clothes, I guess, probably more because of my hair; well, you are a good detective, so you tell me, what do you think?" She looked at Reynold curiously.

"How do you know I'm a detective?" Reynold asked suspiciously

"I saw your badge once when you were tipping." Neoni smiled.

"And how do you know I'm a good detective?"

Neoni put her elbows on the table and looked directly into Reynold's eyes, "Well, my father used to say we have three kinds of law enforcers: the first kind are the ones who want to just do their jobs as soon and easily as possible and make money, the second kind want to do the opposite of their jobs and get way more money than the first ones and the minority, the third ones, they want to do their duties properly, and so they become loyal customers" Neoni winked and stood straight waiting for Reynolds comment.

"Well, he sure knew how to make his loyal customers feel good about themselves."

Neoni smiled, "so tell me."

"Tell you what?" Reynold asked surprised

"What is bothering you?"

"I am working on a case and reached a dead end," Reynold said sadly

Neoni went and sat beside Reynold, crossed her legs, and said, "you know, sometimes all we need to do to get out of a dead end is to stand aside for a while and look around us once more, but this time, pay attention to the details but no so much that makes us not see the point, and also we do that without any prejudgments.

Neoni smiled," sometimes the things we were looking for had been there all along, but we never paid attention to them or couldn't see them clearly because of our prejudgments, so I think the best way for you to get out of the dead end is to say the whole story out loud, it gives you a new perspective, and also I am curious to know about it, so tell me about the case and start from the beginning."