At The Plaza Majestic.

The Letter.

"Post!" Isabel bellowed up the stairs, a week or so after I had returned from Brighton.

"What?" I bellowed back from my room.

"POST!" Isabel hollered again.

"What?" I repeated, just as loudly.

"Post, blinking post, Allie!" Isabel grumbled, running up the stairs. "You've got a letter!"

"Well there was no need to shout" I grumbled, coming out into the hall and taking it out of her hands. She left me as I ripped open the envelope, and pulled out the piece of paper inside.

This was what it read.

Miss Alianna Winter,
I believe we haven't been formally introduced, as of yet. In an ideal world, that would be the way it would remain, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I have been forced to take matters into my own hands. You have crossed my path barely four times over the past eight or nine months, but you have, in short, managed to ruin far too much of my buisnesses as I should have allowed in the first place. Hence why I tried to get rid of you.
But it seems, Miss Winter, that I underestimated you. Your powers, it appears, are more like my own than I first anticipated. So, due to my generosity to those like myself, I will give you one more chance to stay out of my way. If not I will be forced to remove you in whatever way I see fit.

Sincerely,

R.M.Stephenson.

I rolled my tongue around my teeth worriedly. That was a death threat if ever I saw one. I decided, very wisely, that Isabel didn't need to know about this, as of yet. I put the letter in the back of my wardrobe, making a mental note to stay out of trouble for as long as I could possibly manage.

I'll be the first to admit, this book hasn't exactly followed my usual guidelines. But we are over halfway through the series now, and as Allie will undoubtedly find out, nothing stays the same forever. Her next case, Madame Juror, will test her abilities on a different side of the crime-solving spectrum.