The sirens faded as Detective Linda Martin ducked under the tape.
The alley was quiet except for the scratch of pens and the clicks of cameras. But the smell… copper and rot. It hit her lungs like a fist. She'd been on the job less than a year, but already she knew blood had a weight to it, a presence that settled on your skin.
A man lay slumped against the brick wall, throat opened wide, shirt soaked dark. His eyes stared glassy at nothing. What made her stomach knot wasn't the wound—it was the mask.
A yellow plastic circle with two black dots and a wide smile. An emoji mask, cheap, flimsy, but mocking in its brightness.
Linda crouched beside the body. Her gloved fingers hovered near the mask, but she didn't touch it. "This is him," she murmured.
Officer Greene grunted from behind the camera. "No kidding. Same M.O. as the last two. Mask on the face, throat cut, no weapon left behind. Guy's on a roll."
"Victim ID?" Linda asked.
Greene flipped a page on his clipboard. "Darren Cole. Twenty-two. Student at Westfield College. Roommates say he was last seen leaving a bar around midnight."
Linda's gaze swept the alley—dumpsters, trash bags, brick walls scribbled with graffiti. No signs of struggle. No blood trail. Whoever did this was fast, practiced.
Her eyes landed on the mask again. The killer hadn't just left it—he'd placed it carefully, almost reverently. That stupid smile looked wrong against the pale, slack face beneath.
Linda forced her breath steady. "Bag the mask. Dust it for prints."
Greene snorted. "You really think a guy like this leaves prints?"
She shot him a look. "Everyone slips."
He muttered something about rookies, but kept working.
Linda straightened, scanning the shadows. This was the third murder in a month. Three young men, all dead, all with that same plastic grin covering their faces.
The press had already given him a name. The Emoji Mask Killer.
Linda hated the nickname, but she hated the thought of another body more.
She pulled her notebook from her coat pocket and scribbled: Why the mask?
Not a disguise. A signature. The killer wanted them to see it. He wanted them to remember.
Her phone buzzed—a text from her captain. Media's already circling. Keep it tight, Martin.
She shoved the phone back, jaw tightening. She didn't care about the press. She cared about the fact that a twenty-two-year-old kid would never walk home again because someone decided his life was expendable.
Linda took one last look at the mask. The smile stared back, wide and hollow.
This wasn't random. It was deliberate. And she wasn't going to stop until she found the ghost behind it.
PLEASE SUPPORT
THE MYSTERY WAITING TO GET SOLVED,
LINDA MARTIN.