Elena Vance thought she buried her past, but tonight, the past walked through her office door with a silencer.
The neon sign for “Lucky’s Lounge” flickered, casting a rhythmic, bruised purple light across Detective Elena Vance’s desk. It matched the darkening hematoma under her left eye—a souvenir from a lead that went sour in the Rain District.
The city was a graveyard of good intentions, and Elena was its chief mourner. Her office smelled of stale espresso and the ozone of an oncoming storm. On the desk lay a single manila envelope. No return address. No stamps. Just a smudge of expensive carmine lipstick on the seal that looked too much like a bloodstain.
She slid the letter opener through the paper. Inside was a photograph of the Mayor’s daughter, bound and gagged in the hull of a rusting freighter, and a wedding ring Elena recognized all too well. It was her own—the one she’d buried with her husband three years ago.
A floorboard creaked behind her. Elena didn’t reach for her holster; she reached for her glass. “I figured you’d be taller,” she rasped, watching a shadow stretch across the frosted glass of her door. The silhouette held a silenced barrel leveled at her heart.
“The ring was a nice touch,” Elena said, her voice steady despite the hammer of her pulse. “But you forgot one thing about ghosts.”
The door handle turned. The shadow stepped into the purple light, revealing a face Elena hadn’t seen since the funeral—a face that should have been six feet under.
Can you solve the mystery of the man who should be dead?
As you read this prompt, ask yourself:
Is the figure at the door a hallucination of Elena’s grief, a staged resurrection by the city’s elite, or the very man she thought she lost—now turned into her greatest enemy?
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