The house was too still.
Aubrey closed the door, her hand trembling against the wood. The chaotic echo of the day still buzzed in her veins. She dropped her keys on the table; the metallic clatter was a gunshot in the silence. This apartment, her sanctuary, felt hollow now—just a container for echoes she couldn't quiet.
She moved to the sink on stiff legs, turned the tap, and splashed icy water on her face. In the dark window, her reflection was a smudged portrait: hollow eyes, a mouth drawn tight with fear. Water dripped like stolen tears. She gripped the porcelain, knuckles bleaching white, and tried to steady the frantic rise and fall of her chest. She wanted to scream, but her throat was sealed shut.
When she finally pulled away, her damp hands left streaks on the counter. She stumbled to the couch and collapsed, the weight of the day finally pinning her down.
Then the voices came.
First as whispers, tangled in the memory of pipe-hiss. Then louder, pressing against the inside of her skull.
"Your mom died, and you're first in line to that glamorous Maison salon she owned." A female voice, slick with mockery.
Another, sharp as a blade: "My uncle was murdered by your accomplice. You think you're clean? You're not."
A third, frayed with desperation: "Where did you take my dad? Even if you had him killed—tell me where you buried his corpse!"
She clamped her hands over her ears, but it was useless. The voices were in the bone, in the nerve.
Then, one dripping with condescension: "Your mom was just a maid for the Halverns. A gold-digger who clawed her way to the top. Too greedy. Maybe she even had Theodore Halvern killed."
The words clanged inside her. Her mother—a maid? For the Halverns?
Her nails bit into her scalp. "That's not true…"
But doubt, cold and slick, wormed in. Marlene Wynter had built a myth of catering jobs and tech firm hustle. She'd never mentioned this. Never.
Her thoughts spiraled. The woman at the cemetery—who was she? How did she know about the salon? Only Aubrey and the police knew that detail.
And the riddle. The killer's taunt.
What is bought with silver, but costs a soul?
What seems to make one person whole,
While ensuring another's story is never told?
To save the hand that took the fee,
You must speak this truth to me.
The answer was "lie." Caleb had said it. The detectives agreed.
But it felt bigger. Older. A secret with roots sunk deep into a past she'd never seen.
Shaking, she drifted into her mother's room. The laptop sat on the desk, a silent black slate. She opened it. The screen glowed to life.
Password Required.
She tried her birthday. Her mother's. Rejected.
Caleb's name:Caleb Saye. Rejected.
Her throat tightened. Then she remembered a ghost of a habit—her mother's little quirk. She never wrote "my dear" in full. Always MD. A whispered "Goodnight, MD," in the dark.
Aubrey's fingers hovered, then typed: MDCaleb.
The screen blinked. Unlocked.
The desktop opened, files laid bare. Aubrey froze. The blood drained from her face, then rushed back in a hot wave, then retreated again. She leaned forward, rigid, unblinking. Her lips parted in silent shock.
---
The shift to Crestwood Police Headquarters was a cold blade.
Fluorescent lights hummed a sterile song against gray walls. In the briefing room, Caleb stood with Nia and Owen, a knot of tension between his shoulders.
Dr. Whitford from the lab, a man so thin he seemed carved from chalk, clicked through files on a monitor. "We've connected another victim. Before Karan Mehra. Not widely reported."
He slid a photo across the table. A young woman with intelligent eyes and a delicate smile. "Eszter Váradi. Hungarian. Influencer, designer, engineer. Worked with Halvern Consortium's AI-automation division. Found dumped in a sack near the woods weeks before Karan."
Nia leaned in, her voice low with urgency. "She wasn't just an influencer. She created a portable AI irrigation system—white towers with drone extensions that read soil and delivered perfect water and nutrients. It revolutionized pilot farms. Sixty percent yield increases. Halverns fronted the investment, but there was a patent war. Eszter accused them of trying to steal her blueprint. She was under severe pressure… then she turned up dead."
Owen let out a low whistle, his gaze sliding to Caleb. "Sounds real convenient for the Halverns. What do you think, Lieutenant?"
Caleb's expression remained stone, but a storm churned in his gut. Owen's tone always carried a hidden blade.
"Stay on the facts," Caleb said, his voice tight.
Dr. Whitford cleared his throat. "The facts are in the DNA. Two samples on Eszter. One hers. The other, male, unidentified… matches a profile from the Everthorne Campus murders four years ago. The Azaqor killings."
The air in the room thickened.
Nia's eyes widened. "But the current suspect for Azaqor is Lucian Freeman. This doesn't match him. It's from the unsolved batch."
"Which means," Owen said slowly, "either Lucian's a patsy, or the real Azaqor is still out there. And look at the pattern. Everthorne students tied to Halvern projects. Eszter fighting them. Victoria Lockridge—her death exposed that trafficking ring. The whistleblower who claimed Halverns owned that ring, Hefts Veldman, 'suicided' before testifying. And now Marlene Wynter." She paused, her eyes finding Caleb's. "It all connects back to Halverns, doesn't it?"
"It wasn't the Halverns!" Caleb's voice cracked like thunder, startling them both. Nia flinched. Owen's eyebrows rose.
Owen leaned back, a smirk playing on his lips. "Relax, Lieutenant. She's just connecting dots. You're acting… like the deceased was your woman or something."
The words were a lit match to gasoline.
Caleb moved in a blur of rage. He shoved Owen hard against the wall, forearm pressed to his chest. "You want to say that again?" he hissed, his eyes burning.
Nia stood frozen, her mind racing. He's breaking. I've never seen him like this.
The door burst open.
"Lieutenant Saye! Stand down!"
Captain Lily Cassandra filled the doorway, her presence a cold shock to the air. Sergeants flanked her. "Get away from him. Now."
Caleb released Owen, stepping back, his breath ragged.
Owen smoothed his shirt, and as the others dispersed, he leaned in, his whisper a poison meant only for Caleb's ear. "One of these days, old man, that facade of yours is going to crack. You'll lose everything. And I'll be there. Smiling."
For a split second, Caleb saw it—the cruel, sharp grin. Then it vanished, replaced by blank neutrality. Had he imagined it?
"My office. Now," Lily commanded, her voice leaving no room for argument.
---
In her office, Lily paced like a caged tiger. Caleb waited, the anger still simmering under his skin.
"It's getting ugly," she said, not looking at him.
"Define ugly."
"The feds are circling. We ignored the Halvern dirt for too long. Lockridge's ring, the whistleblower suicide… they think we're compromised. If they connect Karan Mehra to Halverns—and to us—it's over. Our arrangement. Our careers. Everything."
"So what's the move?" Caleb asked, his voice flat.
"We silence loose ends. But it's complicated. Karan had family. A brother, Arjun Desai. A niece, Rhea."
She tossed photos onto the desk. Caleb's eyes locked on Arjun's picture. His breath hitched. Recognition, sudden and violent, flashed across his face.
Lily saw it instantly. "You know him."
Caleb opened his mouth, but no sound came. His phone buzzed on the desk, lighting up with a name that felt like a physical blow.
Aubrey Wynter.
Lily's eyes dropped to the screen, her jaw tightening. "Answer it."
---
Lily's Flashback
The memory hit Lily not like a thought, but like a sudden plunge into cold water.
Night shift. The Colesac neighborhood. A street so quiet it felt abandoned. An elderly couple huddled by their mailbox, faces pale under the porch light. Her cruiser's engine ticked as it cooled.
The call had been a disturbance. Something off.
She saw him on the front porch. A man in his fifties, rough-looking, greasy hair hanging over his face. He was bent at a wrong angle, posture distorted, funny in a way that made her skin crawl. He was rhythmically, violently, banging his forehead against a metal trash can. Thud. Thud. Thud.*
Procedure took over. She exited the cruiser, using the door as cover, and drew her service pistol. Her voice was clear, professional, cutting the suburban silence.
"Step away from the house! Keep your hands where I can see them! Surrender now!"
He didn't stop. Thud. Thud. Thud.*
She fired a warning shot into the night sky. The report echoed. No reaction. She fired two more.
Her patience snapped. She re-aimed, the barrel centering on his torso. Her voice turned to ice, louder, stripping away all pretense. "I won't repeat myself again. Step back. Very slowly. Or else."
He stopped. Slowly, he turned. Greasy hair parted, revealing a wide, evil grin. He spoke, and his voice was a giggling, sarcastic thing that didn't match the scene.
"Oh… you're different from the others. You have guts. But face it, you're just like every other person—a scared fellow playing pretend heroism. I can smell it… the doubt, the worry. The fear of letting this escalate."
And then she saw it. Not with her normal sight, but with a deeper, terrified sense. A shimmering energy—like heat haze tinged with the colors of fear and rage—was seeping from her. It bled from her pores, her trembling hands, the soles of her feet, and flowed toward him across the damp lawn.
He inhaled deeply, as if swallowing the very air around her. The energy streamed into him. His grin widened, becoming impossibly large. "You seem to be a fine specimen. Maybe I'll keep you as one of my thousands of toys to play with."
Terror and defiance exploded in her. She squeezed the trigger, aiming directly at his center mass.
His form blurred. Not a dodge—a disappearance. In the space between heartbeats, he was no longer on the porch.
He was standing directly in front of her, close enough to touch, having moved faster than sight.
---
Lily jolted awake in her office chair, a gasp tearing from her throat. Her heart hammered against her ribs. The sterile gray of her office walls swam into focus, replacing the dark suburban street. She was breathless, disoriented, the sensory ghost of the memory clinging to her—the smell of damp grass, the metallic taste of fear, the sound of that thud, thud, thud.
What was that? A dream? A forgotten memory? It felt too real, too visceral to be just a nightmare.
A firm, urgent knock rattled her office door.
She straightened, swiping a hand over her face, forcing the lingering dread down into a locked box deep inside. "Come in."
Caleb entered, the storm from the briefing room still dark in his eyes, but now banked, controlled. The sight of him grounded her back in the present crisis.
She exhaled slowly, the memory receding like a tide, leaving only its cold residue. The matter at hand was all that mattered now.
"The move is complicated," she repeated, her voice steady once more, pushing the strange flashback aside. She gestured to the photos. "Karan's family. They're liabilities. But they're also…"
"Innocent people," Caleb finished, his gaze still on the image of Arjun Desai.
"In this game, innocence is a vulnerability," Lily said coldly. "The feds are the immediate threat. We need to get ahead of this. Before Aubrey Wynter," she nodded toward his silent phone, "or that family, or anyone else, connects the dots in a way we can't control."
Caleb finally looked up from the photo, his eyes meeting hers. The silent understanding between them was heavy, fraught with the weight of all their hidden deals and buried sins. "What do you need me to do?"
Lily's smile was thin, without warmth. "What you've always done, Lieutenant. Whatever it takes."