Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCRCSR8FBQ9CDHZVV9V9BMT

Rain hammered the greenhouse roof like impatient fingers on glass. Detective Mara Voss stepped over the threshold and stopped breathing. The orchids had been arranged around him with obvious care. Nine white blooms, one for each finger he still had. Ambrose Whitlock, seventy-one, lay dressed for a formal dinner party. His dinner jacket was pressed, his shoes polished to mirrors. Someone had folded his hands across his chest like prayer. Mara crouched, knees protesting, and studied the dead man's face. He looked less surprised than a murdered man should look. Behind her, Constable Pike was trying not to be sick. The gardener found him at six, watering the tomato beds. Nobody else in the house admits hearing anything last night. Mara studied the glass walls, every one of them intact. The door had been locked from inside with a key. That key now sat in the dead man's jacket pocket. Somewhere in this house, someone was keeping the tenth flower. Rain kept falling, and the orchids kept their white silence.