Ace of Maids

ACE OF MAIDS THE ELITE MULTI-AUTHOR SERIES THE ELITE BOOK 3 K. L. HIERS ACE OF MAIDS Copyright © 2023 by K.L. Hiers All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Ace of Maids Hiers, K.L. Proofread and Edited by Jennifer Griffin of Marked and Read Formatted by Delaney Rain Author Services Spade by Dolly Holmes & decorative swirl by ME from Noun Project Cover Art © Morningstar Ashley Designs Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted is a model. CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Keep Reading About the Author Also by K. L. Hiers CHAPTER 1 Dash was pretty certain that the worst thing that could happen while moving a dead body was having his nose itch. He was wearing full personal protection gear including a cap, mask, gown, elbow-length gloves, and booties. There was absolutely no way to reach his nose without risking exposure to the blood on his gloves, and no amount of wiggling against the inside of the mask provided any relief. He even tried rubbing his upper lip against his nostrils, but the itch remained elusive. Great, and now his nose was running. With a sigh, Dash added one more piece of duct tape to the plastic tarp he’d wrapped the body in and then fled out of the room. He’d left another tarp on the floor just outside the door, and there he stood to strip out of his gear. He knew he’d have to bag up the soiled items and put on a whole new set to finish the job, but he had to do something about his nose. Once the soiled gear was safely tucked into a trash bag, he grabbed his handkerchief out of his pocket. His mentor, Mel, had been right to tell him to always carry a handkerchief for exactly these kinds of situations, though it was Dash’s idea to stuff wads of toilet paper into his nostrils to stop any future drips. He adjusted his glasses and then put on a fresh set of personal protection gear, glancing into the room to gauge how much more work he had to do. It was a relatively easy cleaning job—just one body. Sometimes there were more. A lot more. But such was the life of a cleaner. Dash was the latest in a line of professionals going back almost a century who specialized in making unwanted problems—bodies—go away. Included in the purchase of said service was the very discreet disposal of said problem and eliminating any and all forensic evidence. The first cleaner was named Melvin Dashiell Purvis, and rumor had it he got his start by making problems go away for the likes of Arnold Rothstein and George “Bugs” Moran. It was an unfortunate coincidence that one of the most famous law enforcement agents of the time just so happened to also be named Melvin Purvis, so the original Melvin opted to start going by M.D. Purvis instead. This led to even more confusion, however, as M.D. was of course the abbreviation for a medical doctor. Given the nature of the work, many assumed that Melvin was indeed an actual physician and would call him to assist with patients who could not risk going to the hospital for fear of being nabbed by the police. During one such incident with a fatally wounded person, Melvin famously declared, “Ring me back in fifteen minutes and then I’ll take him off your hands!” From that came the cleaner’s motto: We only clean problems, not people. Mel, who was the third Melvin Dashiell Purvis, told Dash that it meant it was not their place to get involved with their clients outside of the job. They only required payment and an address, both of which could easily be provided through encrypted online channels. Mel often complained about the former stress of receiving jobs through fax machines and was a very big fan of modern technology. He loved sending Dash corny memes and his texts always had a slew of emojis. Dash was now the fourth Melvin Dashiell Purvis—that is to say, he was the fourth person to use the name for this very specific line of work. The original M.D. Purvis, affectionately called Doc by his descendants, insisted on passing the name down to the next cleaner. A name was everything in this business, and untrusting men needed a man they could trust, someone familiar and reliable. So, the Melvin Dashiell Purvis legacy was born. What started with Doc was passed on to Melvin Junior, Mel, and now Dash. Melvin Junior was Doc’s biological son, Mel a trusted business partner, and Dash was a young man in the right place at the right time with a strong back. He was seventeen when he saw an elderly man fighting to get something in the back of a large van. A desire to help turned into the discovery that what the man was moving had in fact been a body. Dash was not fazed by the grisly reveal and instead asked if the man had a job for him. That man was Mel, and he was happy to hire Dash to help him over at the crematory he owned. Dash learned to run the necessary machines for a cremation, like the retort and the processor, the best way to fill and package the urns, and how to navigate the sea of paperwork that came along with each cremation. He’d always had an iron stomach and the oftentimes