Run: 2026-02-16-01KHK9X3RY40BAYBKS82PBP5EN

Rain stitched the harbor's darkness, threadlike lines crossing streetlamps while gulls screamed like sirens drifting over shuttered shops at midnight. Detective Mara Kincaid arrived breathless, coat dripping, summoned by a terse call reporting disturbance at the old lighthouse just now. The keeper's door was ajar, splintered near the latch, and the wind kept tapping it like hesitant knuckles all night. Inside, lantern light wobbled across charts, spilled coffee, and a neat row of shells arranged like patient teeth on porcelain. The radio crackled with static and sea coordinates, then coughed silence, as though swallowing a confession halfway through its throat. Mara found footprints on the damp boards, two sets entering, only one leaving, smeared where something heavy had been dragged. At the base of the spiral stairs, blood threaded a curve like ink, disappearing where the shadows began their climb. The keeper lay higher, face toward the lens, eyes clouded, mouth puckered with salt, pockets turned out like pleading hands. A cracked watch ticked nearby, stubbornly faithful, though the room smelled of oil, iron, stormwater, and something newly extinguished here. There was no murder weapon in sight, only a folded letter beneath glass, beaded with spray, addressed to nobody particular. She read aloud, voice barely above the turning sea, words about debts, betrayal, and lightkeepers keeping darker secrets ashore untallied. Then the beacon shuddered, beam faltering, and distant boats answered with horns, while footsteps resumed above where no one waited.