Run: 2026-09-29-01M3P2EX0FYCKX74YAJ5Y6SH7V

Rain hammered the windows of Blackwood Manor the night Lord Aldrich Pemberton was discovered dead in his locked private study. Inspector Mara Quinn arrived at midnight, her boots soaked, her patience thinner than the cheap umbrella she had abandoned outside. Seven guests huddled in the drawing room, each wearing the same pale expression of people who had rehearsed their innocence. The butler, a stooped man named Hollis, led her upstairs without speaking, his candle trembling against the long, crawling shadows. Lord Pemberton lay slumped across his desk, one hand outstretched toward a teacup that still steamed faintly in the lamplight. Quinn noticed three things immediately: the bolted door, the open window, and the dry floor beneath it despite the storm. She knelt beside the body and caught a bitter almond scent that made her stomach tighten with old, familiar dread. Behind her, Hollis cleared his throat and whispered that the master had received a mysterious, unsigned letter just before dinner. Quinn rose, studied the ashes smoldering in the fireplace, and found one scorched corner of paper bearing a single initial. Downstairs, someone screamed, and the entire manor plunged into darkness, as though the house itself wanted to keep its secrets.