by Montana Carr
Private investigator Marti Starova’s drug charges and her secretary’s heartbreak arrive on the same Monday. Federal Agent Heather Blair put the cuffs on Marti after a sex club raid where her friend died, and now Lori Harring, the only person who keeps Marti’s life from complete collapse, needs something Marti’s never been good at giving: help that matters.
Lori’s father, Detective Brad Harring, has spent seven years drowning in a case he can’t solve and won’t abandon. Elsa Mendoza, twenty-three, found dead in her Georgetown apartment with her organs shredded like confetti and her skin perfect as porcelain. The medical examiner called it “undetermined.” Brad calls it unfinished. Marti calls it interesting.
Marti digs into Elsa’s death with the methodical fury of someone who sees what others miss.
Between court appearances and chasing the Baker Center fraud case. A mysterious book club facilitator named Ashlie Gaston is pulling a paycheck and a fast one.
Then there’s Penelope Graham, who lives in Elsa’s old apartment and has neon-streaked hair, a camera collection that would make a stalker jealous, and an immediate interest in Marti that starts horizontal and turns homicidal. Their brief encounter spirals into bullets through Marti’s car window, a decapitated cat in her parking space, and the growing suspicion that Penelope knows more about Elsa’s death than she’s admitting.
While Marti and Lori reconstruct Elsa’s last days using visualization tech and old-fashioned legwork, Falls City does what it does best: rot from the inside out. Corrupt cops carve up territories. The rain never stops. And somewhere in the evidence everyone else overlooked, there’s a murder method that baffled experts for seven years.
As Penelope’s obsession escalates and Marti’s court date looms, the investigation reveals something worse than an unsolved homicide: proof that someone was watching Elsa for months before she died, drilling spy holes through walls, learning her patterns, waiting for the perfect moment.
In a city where the most dangerous predators are the ones you invite inside, Marti’s racing to prove Elsa’s death wasn’t impossible—just perfectly disguised. But solving it might cost her the license, the partner, and the life she’s barely holding together.
Buy Unmarked online, or at your local bookstore. This is Book 6 in the series. Check out the earlier Marti Starova Erotic Thriller books, Drowning in Broad Daylight , Shadow Work, Rain-Soaked, Almost, and The Familiar Dark.
- Coming June, 2026 to…
- Thrift Books
- Amazon USA
- Amazon Canada
- Amazon UK
- Barnes & Noble
- IndieBound
- Kobo
- Find Unmarked at your favorite bookstore or online retailer. Click here to search worldwide!
Unmarked – Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Lori’s fingers froze mid-button, caught.
“You’ve probably never had a woman do up your shirt,” she said, not backing down. “Contrario World. People put clothes on instead of tearing them off.”
She resumed her work, leaving Marti’s top button deliberately undone.
“Why?”
Marti Starova wasn’t just unhappy. She was skin-crawlingly unhappy, bristling at every point where Lori’s fingers made contact. Nobody dressed Marti. Not since she was five. She jammed her hand into her leather jacket pocket and fished out cigarettes.
“Marti, you can’t go to court half-dressed. Even your self-destructive ass knows that.” Lori tugged Marti’s collar out from under her jacket and smoothed it flat.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Marti said. She slid a cigarette between her lips and Lori huffed, that specific grating huff, and snatched it out of her mouth.
“Now what? I’m allowed to smoke.”
“You have to be in court in four—”
“Shh.” Marti’s hand shot up. She tilted her head.
Heather Blair. Federal Unified Task Force. The agent who’d busted Marti for drugs months ago, now ascending the courthouse steps, eyes on them.
“Lori, do you hear those birds? Absolutely beautiful songs,” Marti said, voice going honey-slow as Heather passed.
Lori watched as Heather ducked her head, cheeks going red, and accelerated up the stairs.
“How did you manage that?” Lori asked.
“What?”
“Making her blush.”
Marti lit her cigarette. “She really likes bird songs.”
“Jesus, why does everything you say sound dirty?” Lori glanced up at the sky. “It’s going to pour. Don’t come in soaked.”
She was already moving up the stairs.
Three years working together, and Lori had learned every one of Marti’s tells. Where she hid her drugs, how she took her whiskey, which silences meant she was thinking and which meant she was about to do something stupid. Infuriating. Also useful, but Marti would chew glass before admitting that.
She got through half her cigarette before the rain came down hard. She was about to flick the butt into a puddle when she caught the security guard watching, arms crossed, waiting. She pinched the ember out and pocketed the stub. Flashed him a smile. Darted up the stairs and through the heavy wooden doors.
Inside, projectile-proof glass stood between her and the courthouse proper, thick enough to warp the figures beyond. An anti-assassination feature installed after Mayor Seibert caught a bullet on these same steps. The fluorescent lights overhead sat behind metal grates.
Marti entered the vestibule, caged between sliding doors. The scanner crawled over her. She’d left her gun and drugs in the car.
Green light. Inner door opened.
Lori waited on the other side, jacket folded over her arm, already looking at her watch.
“Your case is in room 33C,” she said, moving.
“I still can’t believe this got to trial,” Marti said.
“No simple possession trials in four years. I checked the logs.”
They passed a row of courtrooms on the ground floor. Through one open door, Marti caught a defense lawyer pacing in front of an empty jury box, rehearsing his opening to nobody. She’d seen that before. Guys who practiced in empty rooms usually lost in full ones.
Their footsteps echoed through the corridor toward the stairwell. Elevators were never an option for Marti.
Lori dropped her voice. “What were they even doing there? Didn’t you say they were raiding that sex club?”
“Not soon enough to save Andreas.” Andreas Katsaros, murdered inside, mistaken for her. “But the place wasn’t illegal. No warrants, no complaints, nothing that justified a raid. They were lurking on Link Street, waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
She yanked open the door to the third floor. The corridor was packed. Defendants leaned against walls, chewing nails or staring at phones. Witnesses clustered near courtroom doors trying to look like they wanted to be there. Lawyers moved between groups, files under their arms, talking too fast about plea deals nobody was happy with.
Marti scanned faces out of habit. Two women near the water fountain looked like public defenders running on caffeine and resentment. A guy in an expensive suit stood apart from everyone, checking his phone every few seconds. Private counsel. Billing by the minute, probably.
Heather stood outside 33C. The moment she spotted them, she turned and went inside.
“Interesting,” Marti said.
“What?”
“She’s jumpy.” Marti watched the door swing shut. “Last time I saw her in an interview room, she held her ground for an hour. Didn’t flinch. Now she can’t look at me in a hallway.”
Lori pulled her toward the courtroom. “Maybe she just doesn’t want to deal with you.”
“Nobody does. That’s different.”
“Mark my words,” Marti said, nodding at the door, “there’s more going on.”
“There’s always more going on with you.” Lori’s fingers drifted through Marti’s hair, lingering a second too long. “There. Better.”
The courtroom smelled like floor wax and old sweat. A dozen benches stretched before them. Defendants and lawyers filled the front rows. Behind them, a handful of journalists, a few bored citizens, and a cluster of FUCT suits sitting together near the back wall. Four of them. All in navy or charcoal. All sitting straight, hands in laps, not talking to each other.
Marti and Lori took seats on the opposite side.
“See?” Marti kept her voice low. “Simple possession, my ass. Four federal agents for half an inhaler of Shadow.”
Lori leaned in. “Maybe they’re here for another case.”
“Their case numbers would be posted outside. I didn’t see any FUCT listings on the docket board downstairs. Did you?”
Lori didn’t answer, which meant she hadn’t checked.
She studied the agents. The one closest to the aisle kept glancing at Heather, who sat rigid in the front row, staring forward. He was older, gray at the temples, senior rank probably. The look he gave Heather wasn’t supportive. It was watchful.
“No talking in the gallery!” A uniformed guard, neck gone to fat, barked from the corner.
Marti rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, and began swinging one foot.
Lori’s fist connected with her thigh.
They sat through two cases before Marti’s name was called. The first was a DUI plea deal that took four minutes. The second was a domestic assault where the victim recanted on the stand. The prosecutor barely argued it. The judge, Wilson, dismissed with visible irritation.
Marti watched Wilson through both cases. Old school. Short-tempered. Didn’t tolerate wasted time. Good.
“Martina Starova,” the clerk called.
Marti approached the lectern. Spine straight, eyes on Wilson. The prosecutor, name plate Duncan, shuffled papers at his table.
“Your Honor, Martina Starova was found in possession of—”
“Sorry, who?” Wilson peered over his glasses.
“Mart—”
“Shh.” He studied her. “Why do I know your name, young lady?”
“I worked Homicide in Falls City about ten years ago,” Marti said. “If you oversaw homicide trials then—”
“I didn’t.”
“Then it was probably because a few months back, I helped Falls City Police catch the Monster of Falls City.”
“Sir, that’s irrelevant,” Duncan cut in.
Wilson silenced him with a palm. “Were you a homicide detective then?”
“No sir. Private investigator. Hired by mothers with missing sons. His victims.” She’d found their boys when police wouldn’t lift a finger. Found others too, buried under Police Chief Franklin’s house. “Seventeen, in all.”
Duncan stood with his eyes down, shaking his head.
Wilson’s pen tapped against his bench. “And you’re here on charges of possession of a controlled substance.” Two taps. “Why are we here, Mr. Duncan?”
Duncan straightened up. He was younger than Marti expected. Thirty, maybe. Trying to make his career off whatever this was. “Your Honor, the People have a legitimate interest in prosecuting controlled substance violations regardless of the defendant’s background. Ms. Starova was arrested with point five grams of Shadow, an illicit inhalant classified as a Schedule—”
“I know what Shadow is, Mr. Duncan.”
“Yes, Your Honor. The arrest was conducted by Federal Unified Task Force personnel in conjunction with—”
“In conjunction with what? What federal interest does half a gram of an inhalant serve?”
Duncan’s mouth opened. Closed. He glanced at his notes, flipped a page, flipped back. “The arrest occurred during an ongoing federal operation, and the People believe it is in the public interest to—”
“The public interest.” Wilson set his pen down. “You’ve brought before me a case against a former Falls City Homicide detective who, as a civilian, helped locate and apprehend a serial killer police didn’t even know existed. A former detective with half a gram of an inhalant.” He paused. “I’m waiting for the part where this is worth my afternoon, Mr. Duncan.”
Duncan’s jaw tightened. Marti could see the sweat starting at his collar. He wasn’t a bad lawyer. He was a lawyer with a bad case who’d been told to run it anyway. She recognized the look. She’d seen witnesses wear it: the face of someone following orders they didn’t believe in.
“Your Honor, we brought this forward due to irregularities during and after the arrest, involving Federal Unified Task Force agent Heather Blair.”
Marti didn’t move her head, but her eyes went right. Heather’s face slackened. The color dropped out of it fast, replaced by something Marti had seen a hundred times in interview rooms. That split second where the mask comes off and you see the animal underneath, calculating how deep the shit actually is.
The older agent, the one who’d been watching Heather, didn’t react at all. He’d known this was coming.
So that’s what this was. They hadn’t dragged Marti in to prosecute her. They’d dragged her in to get at Heather. Half a gram of Shadow was the crowbar, and Marti was just the door they were prying open.
She looked at Duncan, who wouldn’t meet her eyes. Looked at Wilson, who was already reaching the same conclusion. Looked at Heather, who sat frozen in the front row.
Marti kept her mouth shut. For once, that was the smart play.