A rogue detective breaks in to steal a stolen relic, but the mirror on the wall reveals a lethal secret.
Writer’s Prompt
The lock yielded with a soft click that sounded like a gunshot in the midnight silence of the penthouse. Detective Kent Horvath slipped inside, the heavy scent of sandalwood and leather clinging to the air.
He didn’t bother checking the wall safe behind the faux Rothko, nor did he sift through the mahogany desk drawers for ledgers or dirty money. That was rookie work. Lance Foals wasn’t an accountant; he was a narcissist who treated his reflection like scripture. Lance didn’t steal the obsidian Aztec idol to fence it in an underground auction. He took it to gloat.
Kent’s beam of light cut across the room, catching polished granite and brushed steel. There it sat. Rested openly on a glass pedestal beside a gilded, floor-to-ceiling mirror: the stolen relic, carved from volcanic glass with chips of raw emerald embedded in its sunken sockets.
Kent pulled leather gloves taut over his knuckles. A warrant would drown in legal filings and corrupt judges, but this? This would gut Foals completely. Kent would swap the idol, slip it into an evidence locker tomorrow, and leak a report claiming it was discovered wedged behind a dumpster in a rat-infested alley off 4th Street. Foals’ precious trophy, reduced to street trash. His dinner guests would laugh behind his back forever.
Kent reached out. His fingers curled around the icy, razor-sharp obsidian.
A floorboard creaked behind him. In the gilded mirror, a silhouette detached itself from the drapery, the cold muzzle of a silenced automatic leveled straight between Kent’s shoulder blades.
“Admiring the view, Detective?” Foals whispered.
Kent froze, fingers hooked into the stone. The reflection showed Foals cocking the hammer—or was he hesitating, terrified the antique glass might shatter under a stray round?
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