The rain fell hard on cobblestones, echoing through the silent, shadowed streets of the old city district late one Tuesday night. Detective Mara Voss pulled her coat tighter, boots splashing through puddles as she approached the dimly lit townhouse on Willow Lane. Yellow police tape fluttered in the wind, fluttering like a warning ribbon stretched between the iron gate and a broken potted fern. Inside, the parlor was freezing, the fire long dead, but the room reeked of burnt almonds and something darker, coppery like blood. A man lay sprawled across the Persian rug, eyes wide open, mouth frozen in surprise, a silver letter opener buried in his chest. No one had heard a scream, the butler claimed, though the windows were cracked open and the clock had stopped at 9:17 exactly. Mara crouched beside the body, noting the polished shoes, the gold cufflinks, the faint smudge of lipstick on his right cheek. The victim was Charles Dunleigh, head of Dunleigh Shipping, recently divorced, currently embroiled in a scandal involving missing cargo and a mistress in Lisbon. She scanned the bookshelves, the untouched brandy glasses, the torn photograph near the hearth showing half a smiling couple violently ripped apart. Someone wanted him dead, someone close, someone who knew his routines, his secrets, his weaknesses—and who’d left behind almost no trace at all.