The dead woman's hands don't belong to her.
Rain hammers the windshield in a steady, merciless rhythm. It's been coming down for hours. The sky hangs low and swollen, pressing against the earth with a weight that seeps into my bones. The trees along the roadside bow in silence, their limbs heavy with water. The field beside the drive is more swamp than soil now, shimmering with shallow pools that reflect nothing but gray. Fences half-collapsed lean into the storm like it's given up pretending to hold anything in, while the crows gather on the wire above us, hunched and slick with rain. Watching. Waiting. They scatter as the headlights pass beneath them.
I haven't said a word in miles.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNfxIivF9B9
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I sit in the passenger seat, eyes locked on the farmhouse ahead. The roof sags at the center. The porch slants downward as if the house is exhaling its last breath. The windows are caked in filth, smudged and streaked with rain, but I can still feel them watching. Everything about the place suggests retreat—like the building itself is trying to fold in, to pull its secrets back inside. There's a stillness to it but not peace. Not sleep. Something deeper. Older. A kind of exhaustion that lives in the bones of a place. It doesn't want us here.
I don't want to go in.
But I do. Always.
The cruiser rolls to a stop, tires sinking slightly into the ruts at the edge of the drive. Gravel shifts beneath us, wet and reluctant. The engine hums low, resisting the silence pressing in from the fields. My partner doesn't move. He's been still for the last mile—hands resting loosely on the wheel, eyes locked on the house like he's already inside it. Stillness, for Elias, is never hesitation. It's how he listens.
The headlights sweep across the porch. A broken swing stirs and the railing catches the light, cracked and sagging, held together by habit more than structure.
Elias kills the engine. The wipers freeze mid-swipe.
With a sigh, I reach for the door handle and step outside into the rain, scanning the house ahead. It's colder than I expected. Not winter cold, not yet, but the kind that carries warning.
The porch light flutters weakly, once, twice, then gives up entirely. The front door is cracked open, swaying slightly with each gust of wind. Paint peels off in wide ribbons, clinging to corners like wet paper. Somewhere beneath the decay, a life once lived. Now, only silence and the familiar cycle of blue, red, blue, red police lights painting over the scene.
I pull my leather jacket tighter around me.
Elias leans against the hood, coat already soaked. His messy blonde hair clings to his forehead, water dripping down the bridge of his nose. His stillness is practiced, grounded, like he's a statue carved from marble. The way he watches the house isn't casual. It's quiet calculation. I can tell by the line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders. He's already dissecting the scene, sketching the view in his head, measuring what kind of story leaves a door open like that.
"You ready?" he asks.
"No."
He nods. That's enough.
We move together, boots crunching over loose gravel. The wind slaps at our backs, impatient. Rain spits sideways, stinging the skin it finds between layers. I feel it slipping down the back of my neck, cold and searching. I clench my jaw and keep walking. Elias doesn't seem to notice the cold. There's a rhythm to us. Not something we talk about—just something that exists. We fall into step easily. He lets me lead, but not by much. He watches angles I don't. Fills in the spaces I leave behind. On good days, we make each other sharper. On bad ones, we don't talk about it.
The porch groans as we step onto it. The boards are soft beneath the soles of my boots, damp and splintering. The swing to the right sways in the wind, one chain groaning louder than the other. It's not moving much, just enough to catch the eye, to suggest something else has passed this way before us.
The smell hits before we're even fully inside—mildew, rotting wood, and something faint beneath it, metallic and sour. It lingers low, just above the floor. Clings to the back of the throat. I swear the air is colder here. Thick in a way that settles over the skin like dust till you can't breathe, like the house has been holding its breath. There's a presence in the threshold—something watching, but not moving. I can't name it. Only feel it.
A young officer stands inside as we walk in. Mid-twenties, maybe. Uniform sharp, nerves fraying. His posture suggests he wants to look composed, but the way his fingers twitch near the radio gives him away. He can't stop glancing at the body.
I catch his eye. "You were first on scene?"
He jerks a nod. "Yes, ma'am. Deputy Knox. Neighbor flagged it. Said the place hadn't seen a soul in weeks. Smelled something off."
His voice is too loud in the quiet house. He tries to dial it back, but the echo is already there, floating down the hallway like a ripple in water. I step in closer, hands in pockets. "Alone?"
"I did a quick sweep of the downstairs. Didn't touch a thing. Called it in soon as I saw her."
"Good."
His shoulders tighten—only slightly, like something under his skin has started to crawl. His eyes flick to the victim, stay there. Then shift away, as if just glancing burns. He looks like he wants to speak. His lips press together, hard. "Her hands. They ain't right. Don't look like they belong to her."
He's right. But he's still hoping I'll say otherwise, for some reason.
"They don't," I confirm.
Knox's jaw clenches. He doesn't ask what else I see.
Smart.
"Take a breather," I tell him.
I don't need to say it twice.
He nods once, then steps back, boots shuffling softly on the rug. The air seems to pull tighter with every inch he retreats. He hesitates for a second, eyes flicking again toward her, like the image might call him back. Then he turns. Walks. The door clicks shut behind him.
And then—nothing.
This kind of silence that doesn't let you breathe too deeply, not without feeling like you've broken something. I let it settle, let the stillness press in against my skin without a fight. Then I step further inside, slow and measured. The lights from the police cars outside continue their slow rotation, casting long, flickering shadows across the room. Blue, red. Blue, red. The rhythm of it tugs at my pulse. Elias steps in behind me, quiet as breath. I feel him more than I hear him. The weight of his presence is familiar—never loud, never abrupt. Just there. Solid.
We're both looking now.
The woman in the chair doesn't move. Can't. She's seated near the center of the room, back perfectly straight, hands folded in her lap. The way her body is positioned... it's careful. Like she was told to sit and did exactly that, and never stopped. Her eyes are closed, face pale but clean. No bruises, no blood that I can see from here.
A ribbon in her hair, ironed flat. Sky blue. The dress is ivory, vintage, high-necked with sheer sleeves and tiny pleats stitched precisely down the front. The fabric glows faintly in the dim light—far too bright for the room around it. Pristine. Pressed. Preserved. The hem stops just above her ankles. Shoes are missing.
Elias steps to my side, crouching without a word. I smell rain, leather, the faint trace of something sharp—his soap maybe, or the cheap cologne he insists he doesn't wear. He says it's the laundry detergent. It isn't.
He's staring at her hands.
"You don't stitch someone like that," he says, breaking the silence.
The rain drums steadily on the roof, but it's distant. Muffled, like the house doesn't let sound in unless it chooses to. I step closer. Her hands are folded at the wrists, positioned neatly in her lap. They're not hers. One is larger, the skin tone darker, veined and calloused in a way that doesn't match the rest of her. The other, smaller, almost delicate, nails painted a chipped red. The stitches are thick, crude—black nylon thread punched in with no attempt to hide the seams.
Whoever did this took time. Patience. This wasn't panicked. It wasn't rage. It was... A ritual?
Elias tilts his head, his gaze narrowing. He leans in slightly, eyes scanning the folds of her skirt, the lines of her knees, the angle of her neck. He's looking for balance. Disruption. He's always done that—mapped people out like architecture. Found where something didn't line up.
Then he stops.
"There," he says.
He points to the floor near the leg of the chair, just beside her foot. I follow the line of his hand and lower myself slowly. My knees crack softly as I crouch. I pull out my penlight and click it on. A faint smear of black—not quite soot, not quite charcoal—drawn in one long, fluid stroke. Another line joins it, looping gently inward. And then another. A spiral.
"Incomplete?" I whisper the question.
Elias lowers beside me, boots flat, elbows resting on his knees. His breath is steady but shallow. He doesn't say anything at first, just stares at the symbol like it might speak if he looks long enough. The lines are clean. Not perfect, but deliberate. They arc in slow turns, pulling toward a center that isn't there.
"They took their time," he says finally. "Even here."
I nod. "It's unfinished. Or maybe it's exactly how they wanted it."
He doesn't look at me. His eyes stay locked on the spiral, as if it might twitch. "There's symmetry to it."
He's right. I straighten slowly, letting my knees protest. The carpet beneath me muffles the sound, but I hear it anyway—fabric shifting, bones realigning. The body doesn't move. Everything around her feels like it's leaning in, a black hole at the center of this farmhouse. I scan the room again, more carefully now. Not just for detail but for pattern.
The way the light from the window cuts across her lap like it was measured. The rug, a faded floral, doesn't match the rest of the house, but it's clean. Newer. It wasn't always here.
There's a strange shadow in the middle of the floor—just left of the body. The sun's too low to reach that far, and yet something's casting it. I take a step to the side. It follows.
"The whole space is folding toward her," I murmur. Elias stands beside me, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat. I can hear the water dripping from his cuffs. The steady, slow rhythm of it. One drop, then another. The kind of sound that's only loud because everything else refuses to speak.
"Everything about this..." he begins, then trails off. I wait. He doesn't finish the sentence.
I turn toward the far wall, eyes skimming along the molding, the baseboards, the frame of the door leading to the hall. My flashlight catches something just behind the chair leg. A break in the wood. Not obvious, barely there.
I crouch again, this time slower, letting the beam of light drag across the seam.
There it is.
A cut. Small. Purposeful. I tilt my head, trying to find the angle. My shadow falls across it. I shift again. The shape becomes clearer. Not a spiral but close. A curve—one, maybe two turns.
"They left more," I say.
The cut is shallow, made with something sharp. Not recent. The dust settled differently in that corner, like the house had tried to forget it.
Behind us, the crime scene techs move with quiet efficiency. One leans in with a camera—click, flash, click again. The shutter sound pops like gunfire in the hush. Another mutters coordinates to someone behind him. Evidence bags crinkle as they're sealed, labeled, sealed again. The sound of tape peeling away from the dispenser is sharp, clean, and final.
I stay low for a few more seconds, watching the faint curve in the wall, trying to feel out its intent. It doesn't speak. When I rise, Elias is already standing near the central spiral again. He's not just looking at it—he's holding something in his posture, a kind of tension that's gone still. Like his body already knows something his brain is still catching up to.
I feel it too.
"This wasn't improvisation," he says. "None of it."
"No," I agree.
His jaw flexes once. "She was prepared. Dressed. Posed. Left like an answer to a question no one asked."
I look back at the dress—the pressed pleats, the ironed ribbon, the way her body remains untouched but entirely manipulated. Or maybe it's a warning. I don't say that part yet.
He moves to the far end of the rug, eyes scanning the edges like the floor might offer up a second clue. I hear the floor creak once under his weight. Then nothing. He stops walking.
My radio crackles softly against my hip, but I don't answer. Not yet. Not until this room is done with us.
The techs move behind us like shadows, latex gloves whispering against plastic bags. Brushes tick softly over the legs of the chair. Another page turns on a clipboard. It all sounds too routine.
"Occult?" Elias asks, barely above a whisper.
I shrug. "Maybe. No clear symbology. The spiral could be anything."
He nods once. Absorbing. Not agreeing.
I scan the walls again. Bookshelves, mostly empty. Some water-stained hardcovers lie in stacks on the floor—nothing strange, nothing obvious. No blood. No signs of struggle. No fingerprints where they shouldn't be. Every surface we've checked so far has been wiped, or left untouched on purpose. Too clean.
"I don't think this is the first," he says.
My throat goes dry. I look at the woman again—whoever she was, she's a message now. A translation. Not of her, but of something larger. We shouldn't be saying these things yet. Not until autopsy. Not until forensics. Not until we have something more than shadows and stupid instincts fried by exhaustion.
Tape rips, loud and sudden.
Elias looks at me and I meet his gaze.
We leave without another word.
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