A/N- Hello, this story is based around the song El tango de Roxanne from Moulin Rouge. I'm taking a short break from my other story to tidy it up a bit as I'm not very happy with it at the mo but I will be returning to it. I have a couple of other ideas swimming around in my head so they might peak out sometime soon as well. Enjoy and please review as I always love to hear what you guys think.

Disclaimer: I wish I did but I DON'T OWN TMI

Excuse me while I go write a last minute English interim asssessment (groans).

~ El Tango De Roxanne ~

The handcuffs dig painfully into Jace Herondale's wrists as he looked around the bland grey room. Everything was bland here in the Constance State Police department holding cells. Everything was bland since her. Her and her life of glamorous deceit. The life she would not give up even for him.

And now there is no life left in her. Dead.

She's better off that way. Now she cant hurt anyone else.

He didn't do it. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't have. She lied after all. He loved her and she lied. Jace supposed she lied to her killer as well, that she stringed him along too. But now she's dead so it doesn't really matter. Nothing really matters now.

Bland.

What Jace did not understand is why the police cared so much. Why was he here? All she ever was was a lying prostitute who pretended to love all her victims.

Victims. The unsuspecting men that crossed her path and fell head over heels. The irony of that; Jace was once her victim but now he is the suspect to her murder. Oh, how the tables have turned.

She had it coming. But then again so did he. He knew better than to fall in love with a girl like her. What with her job. With her lifestyle. He knew better and now he is paying for his foolishness.

The web of lies she danced in must have finally caught up with her and Jace wasn't very surprised. She danced a wicked tango of deceits and betrayal. Until her song came to an end it seems.

And now he sits here in this bland interrogation room. Awaiting the time that dull door will open, exposing him to the harsh questions of whatever portly police officer they decided to send in.

Jace will tell them what he first told them when they arrested him. That he did not do it. He was not guilty. And they should know it was not a lie because Jace Herondale hates liars. He hated them strongly, even before her.

But she was the worst.

And the best. After all, he did love her. Oh, how he loved her with so much passion. But she could not deal with love. She did not know what it was, what it felt like.

And so she carried on dancing in her web of lies, the tango of betrayal and deceit.

And now she's dead.

And now the world is bland.

And now he is here.

The questioning room door creaked open but Jace did not look over to see his interrogator. Instead he stared straight ahead at the smooth cold wall, emotionless.

"Jonathan Herondale"

"I did not do it" Jace's voice is quite to his own ears.

"I have enough evidence to lock you up regardless of weather you did it or not" Jace did not look at the man as he sat down, metal chair scraping against the floor piercingly.

"look at me when I'm talking to you, boy" The older officer growled as Jace lifted his head slowly. Golden hair fell into his eyes as he starred hard on at his interrogator. The man was in his late 40's at most, with white blond and black obsidian eyes that glared at Jace coldly. His Jaw was strong and set as something ticked in it.

It appeared Jace was wrong in his assumptions of his interrogators identity.

"Right now, I don't care whether you did it or not. All I care about is the mangled corpse of a prostitute that's moulding in my city morgue." Jace flinched inside as the man carried on "I got to lock someone up for that, now don't I boy? So unless you start talking more, your luck might just run out" The man leaned forward sinisterly, placing his large folded hand on the metal desk separating the suspect and interrogator.

"I did not do it" Jace shook his head to emphasise his point, lifting his shackled hand up onto the metal table. "I was at the Hunter's Moon bar playing like I do every Friday night. I'm the fiddler, ask the bar keeper Lucian" Jace's voice was short and that seemed to annoy the older man.

"listen here boy, don't you talk to me like that" he growled, raising a finger menacingly. "My word is the difference between your freedom and a nice dirty prison cell boy so you-"

The man was cut off by the opening of the door.

"father?"

The voice was timid, careful as the officer turned towards its source sharply. A young girl with wide green eyes and burnt copper hair stood there, dressed in the compulsory police officer uniform.

"Clarissa" The man's voice was harsh and annoyed at being interrupted as Jace continued to stare. "It's Chief to you as well" he corrected her sharply.

"Sorry chief but Commissioner Carstairs called. He said its urgent. I'll take this over for now" the girl, Clarissa, motioned to Jace.

"Thank you officer" The older man spoke coldly to even his own daughter, swiftly moving past her to reach the urgent call.

Once the door is shut again, the new officer took a seat. "So Mr Herondale" her voice was sweat with a rustic edge to it like burnt sugar. Nothing like her voice. Her voice was sultry and inviting. But it could be cold, Jace reminded himself. Oh, how her voice was so harsh and cold when she told him there was another man. That she no longer loved him. Jace's heart hurt at that thought.

"It says here you alibi was that you where performing at a bar at the time of death, yes?"

Jace nodded affirmative at the young officer's questions, studying the splattering of freckles along the bridge of her small nose.

The officer read from the brown folder her 'father' had left. "what act do you do?"

"pardon?" Jace's eyebrows creased in confusion.

"what were you performing at the bar that night Mr Herondale?" The girl repeated, lips tilting up slightly as she read the folder.

"The fiddle. I am a violinist" Jace held his shackled hands up as proof, turning them until the girls could see his callused finger tips. She nodded.

"My fa- chief seems to think you are Miss Aline Penhallow's murder. You want to tell me why he thinks that?"

This girl had a very different approach to interrogation than her father, Jace reflected.

"I did not do it, even though I had all the reason to" His voice was solemn, the only sound asides from their breathing and the slight hum of the air vents.

"Why would you say that? You and Miss Penhallow where in a relationship but a friend of her's said she broke it off?" she questions, clicking her pen and looking up at his in interest. Her eyes widened slightly, a fraction, as Jace realised it was the first time she had looked directly at him. A blush settled on the girls cheeks before she shook her head, resuming her questioning.

"Did you seek revenge on her for breaking of your relationship?" Jace's heart hurt again, thinking of the woman who he had dearly loved. If only she had given up her lifestyle of sex and lies like he had begged when things got bad, maybe she would still be with him now…

"No. I loved Aline even though I shouldn't have with her background. I knew what kind of woman she was but I hoped she would change for us. I like to think that at one point she loved me or maybe I'm just being foolish. I asked her to give up that life so we could be together, just us two, but she said no, that she was seeing someone else. She was a prostitute after all so I should have know it would never have lasted, but I loved my Aline so very much I was prepared to look past that."

" But then she shattered my heart, said she did not love me. I could not look at her any longer, speak of her. Aline had lied to me all along when I had loved her like I had never loved anyone else. She weaved a web of lies, her victims- men- trapped in the middle. She danced the tango of deceit with all of her victims. I was one. She was good at it , lying. It was part of her job, I suppose. But she must have tripped up somewhere along the line."

"what do you mean?" Clarissa looked at the broken voiced man curiously, noting how he spoke of his love with so much passion. She expected he was a very good violinist. An even better lover, she cursed herself for thinking. This man was a suspect in a murder and she was thinking of him in bed?!

It was clear Clarissa needed to see the precinct's shrink again.

"Another one of her lovers is the man who killed her I suppose. Jealousy will drive you mad." His solemn words hung in the air as Clarissa studied him. Something within told her this man was innocent. Maybe it was how his passionate words stirred her emotions or how his handsome beauty made her mind wander deviously.

"Did you know any of her lovers?" She probed softly, not wanting to upset the golden man.

"Sebastian Verlac, Raphael Santiago, Dimitri Solovak… Aline had us all stringed along." Jace rested his forehead against his shackled hands.

"Did you know of anyone else who had a personal grudge against her?" The room was suspended in silence.

Jace shook his head, golden curls tousling.

"I did not do it".

"I don't really think you did, Mr Herondale" Clarissa admitted, looking down again.

"Jace" he said softly, wishing she would look up again so he could see those green eyes. They were most captivating.

"Clary" she said back, smiling slightly. "I'll look into you alibi and those men you mentioned. Hopefully we can close this case quickly" Jace was disappointed to notice her voice swiftly turn back to business-like.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me, Jace" she used his name hesitantly, as if unsure about saying it out loud. Jace thought carefully…

"Thank you Clary. Your father wants someone held accountable for Aline's murder. That's why he suspected me as her killer. But I did not do this" Jace hoped his eyes conveyed his pleading to the girl across from him.

'Goodbye Jace" her burnt-sugar voice was a whisper of air as she left him alone again, silently shutting the door behind her.

"Goodbye Clary" Jace breathed to the still air.

Maybe life wasn't so bland anymore.

Jace had a lot to do.