Run: 2026-02-16-01KHKAP4EPTP54JY9R26V20KRV

Rain battered the sleepy harbor town as the night ferry arrived late, its horn echoing across fog-choked water and alleys. Detective Mara Leland stepped onto the slick pier, collar raised, already regretting answering the chief's midnight summons from her apartment. The ferry's gangway groaned downward, revealing anxious passengers clustered together, faces lit ghostly by swaying bulbs and emergency exit signs. At the edge of the crowd, Captain Rourke waited alone, white-knuckled grip crushing his cap, eyes avoiding Mara's approach entirely. She smelled copper beneath diesel fumes even before seeing the stretcher, sheeted shape too small for the fussing paramedics nearby. Rourke's voice cracked as he explained the passenger list showed thirty names, yet thirty-one bodies now waited onshore for identification. The extra corpse, uncovered with reluctant ceremony, displayed a single puncture beneath the ribs, shirt soaked black despite torrential rain. According to Rourke, every cabin door had been bolted from inside at docking, security cameras looping harmless seascapes all night. Mara studied the shivering line of travelers, calculating alibis and grudges while gulls screamed overhead like impatient, hungry jurors nearby. Somewhere among them, she knew, stood a killer who murdered in a locked room and added themselves to nobody's list.