The ordinary house where an entire family had just been erased.
I stayed at the scene for hours. The rain kept falling, turning the front garden into a muddy swamp. More police arrived. Neighbors huddled under umbrellas, whispering. I moved between rooms, taking notes, sketching the positions of the bodies, trying to find any thread that connected this slaughter to the previous killings.
The method was different — messy, brutal, multiple weapons. But the timing, the location (close enough that I had been nearby), the way the rain had been allowed in through open windows… it felt too deliberate.
I questioned the neighbor woman again. She stuck to her story: two ordinary-looking men in dark coats. No red hair. No angelic smile. Just two men who had moved quickly and silently.
By late afternoon, exhaustion and doubt were pulling at me like weights. I left the scene and walked back toward the city center through the rain. Every step splashed black water onto my trousers. In every puddle I passed, my own tired face stared back at me.
No burning red-orange hair.
No perfect younger version.
Just me, getting older and more lost by the day.
That evening I sat in the hotel dining room with a cold cup of tea, staring at my notebook. The new crime scene details refused to line up cleanly with the previous ones. Different killers? Different method? Or the same mind using different hands?
I didn't know anymore.
The next morning I made a decision. I needed to speak with someone who might see the pattern more clearly than I could. Someone whose mind worked differently.
Lila Voss.
I knew she was performing in Cardiff that week — an opera at the New Theatre. I had seen the posters around the city. She was singing one of the lead roles. If anyone could help me untangle the threads in my head, it was her. She had always been sharp, observant, and unflinching.
I sent a note to the theatre asking if I could meet her briefly after the performance. The reply came back within the hour: Come to the stage door after the final curtain. — L.V.
That night I sat in the back row of the theatre, still damp from the rain, watching Lila perform. Her voice rose pure and powerful through the darkness, filling the hall with gold and crimson even as the world outside remained black and white. For a few hours I let myself forget the bloodstained rooms and the red-orange hair.
When the final curtain fell, I made my way to the stage door.
Lila emerged wrapped in a dark cloak, her face still flushed from the performance. She looked at me for a long moment, reading everything in my expression.
"You look like a man drowning, Elias," she said quietly. "Come. My carriage is waiting."
We climbed into the carriage together. The rain started again as the horses began to move, drumming softly on the roof. The interior was warm, lit by a small lantern that cast everything in soft gold — a rare pocket of color in the monochrome night.
I didn't know where to begin, so I began at the beginning.
I told her everything.