Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YJ8YE3T2CE8A3FSGCZK5SQ

The first sign of trouble was the piano, playing softly in a house where everyone believed the pianist was dead. Detective Mara Voss stood beneath the dripping porch, listening as the final notes slipped through the storm and vanished abruptly. Inside, the guests had gathered around the library door, their candlelit faces pale with fear and something resembling guilty anticipation. Lord Ashcombe lay beyond it, sprawled across a Persian rug, with a silver letter opener buried beneath his left collarbone. The library windows were locked, the fireplace was cold, and the only key hung from a chain around his neck. Yet someone had placed a fresh white rose in his hand, its petals untouched by the blood soaking his sleeve. Mara knelt beside the body, noticing a thin crescent of wax beneath one fingernail and a smile upon his lips. Behind her, a woman whispered that the piano had played the same melody on the night Ashcombe buried his wife. Mara turned toward the music room, where the piano lid stood open and rainwater pooled beneath an empty wooden bench. Then, from somewhere upstairs, a woman’s voice called her name, followed by footsteps that stopped directly above the locked room.