Run: 2026-02-16-01KHKAV28EBGPWTVVYZV1XC9DD

Rain stitched the harbor with needles as sirens shredded midnight. The lighthouse blinked once, then watched everything without blinking again. I arrived late, pockets damp, notebook hungry for answers tonight. Police tape fluttered like jaundiced ribbons across the boarded storefront. Inside, a bell chimed after footsteps that should've been gone. The body lounged behind the counter, sprawled like careless merchandise. Blood threaded between tiles, finding drains with troubling determination below. A brass clock had stopped at twelve, hands locked together. Next to it, a postcard whispered: Wish you were elsewhere. The shopkeeper's eyes stared ceilingward, reflecting flickers from patrol cars. No shattered window, no forced door, only silence behaving politely. Yet perfume drifted almond-sweet, a warning dressed like dessert tonight. Neighbors clustered outside, their umbrellas grazing like uncertain sea creatures. Someone whispered arsenic, and everyone immediately stopped whispering altogether there. I noted smudged ledgers, empty tracks, and missing frames everywhere. The register mouthed zeros, as though yesterday had never paid. On the threshold lay salt, arranged carefully into curling symbols. I photographed everything, while the harbor kept wettening the world. Then a gull screamed, and somewhere inside, a latch answered. Whoever left remained here, hiding behind certainty and careful timing. I closed my notebook, opened my eyes, and knocked politely. Murder, I thought, prefers company almost as much as shadows.