Run: 2026-04-24-01KQ0GB7K73W9XBPDXVCPYSJAV

The rain fell in heavy sheets across the cobblestones of Ashford Lane, drumming steadily against the windows of number forty-two. Detective Miriam Hollis arrived at the crime scene just past midnight, her coat soaked and her patience already running thin. Inside the parlor, a well-dressed man lay crumpled beside the hearth, a silver letter opener buried deep in his chest. The housekeeper stood trembling near the doorway, clutching a porcelain teacup whose contents had spilled across the polished wooden floor. Miriam knelt beside the body, noting the faint scent of almonds mingling with something sharper, something deeply and unmistakably wrong. She glanced up slowly at the housekeeper and asked, in a voice quieter than the storm, who had visited tonight. The old woman's lips parted, but before she could speak, every lamp in the house flickered and abruptly went out.