Run: 2026-02-16-01KHKAGZE3VTYZHW26CAWQD3MC

Rain hammered the old train station roof as midnight passengers clustered beneath flickering lamps, whispering about missed connections and ghosts. Detective Mara Quinn stepped from the last carriage, coat dripping, eyes narrowed, measuring the room before anyone noticed her arrival. A scream rode the wind down the platform, raw and rising, curdling chatter into silence and tightening every spine there. Porter Elias staggered from the ticket booth, face ashen, pointing past track three where a body sprawled beneath advertisements peeling. The businessman lay immaculate except his throat, which gaped like a second mouth, red smile shadowed by a fallen hat. Steam from a parked engine drifted over him, softening edges, while the station clock wheezed midnight again like tired testimony. Mara knelt, resisting the urge to touch, and sent the porter sprinting for constables, her gaze harvesting unsettled faces nearby. A blood bead clung to the victim's earlobe, drying to rust, while his cuff showed a thumbprint smeared in ink. Two travelers argued quietly about luggage ownership, each insisting ignorance of the trunk between them, its brass corners newly scratched. Mara noticed the arrival board frozen on delayed, cities stalled, as though the murderer had paused time to exit unseen.