Caleb Saye stepped out of Crestwood Police Headquarters into the gray stretch of twilight. The building's glass doors closed behind him with a heavy sigh, leaving him alone in the thin drizzle. His phone vibrated in his coat pocket. He knew before checking—Aubrey Wynter. He hesitated, thumb hovering over the green icon.
Before he could answer, another sound reached him. Not a ringtone, not footsteps, but something sharper, brittle: a half-choked voice, as if someone was calling out but cutting themselves short. His eyes snapped to the side street, narrow and shadowed, and there she was.
Aubrey.
She stood under a flickering streetlamp, arms folded tight against her chest. Her face was unreadable at first—calm, even still—but then it shifted, flickering between composure and resentment. The lamplight caught the wet tracks of tears already drying on her cheeks.
Caleb froze, the phone still buzzing in his pocket. He wanted to walk the other way. He wanted to answer her call, pretend he hadn't seen her. But her eyes pinned him in place.
So he walked forward.
"You know," Aubrey said before he could open his mouth, her voice steady but carrying the quiver of someone balancing on the edge, "ever since I was little, I felt… empty. Like something was missing. I'd look at the other kids and feel this… envy. I thought I was dumb for it. Thought I was broken. But now I know."
Her voice cracked, and fresh tears slid down her cheeks. She wiped them roughly, but kept staring at him. "Turns out all that time, I was too stupid to see I already had enough. I had my mom. She was enough for me."
Caleb's throat tightened. His face—usually set in the hard mask of a homicide detective—softened into something else. Deep regret carved into his expression, years of it pressed into the lines around his mouth and the silence in his eyes.
Aubrey's lips trembled. She pulled her phone from her pocket, flicked to a photo, and thrust it toward him.
"How long," she whispered, "were you planning to be a coward? To never face me? To never acknowledge me as your daughter?"
The photo glowed in the dark. Marlene Wynter, younger, radiant even in the pale light of a hospital room, cradling a newborn wrapped in a pink blanket. Beside her, smiling down, was a man in his twenties. Caleb.
Caleb's breath caught. His younger self stared back at him, all unscarred hope and foolish certainty.
"I found it," Aubrey said, her voice rising, "on Mom's laptop. Along with money transfers. Between her account and one named Caleb Saye. Didn't take a genius to figure it out."
Caleb shut his eyes. The drizzle chilled his face, but the real sting came from her words.
"Tell me," Aubrey demanded, stepping closer, "did you have something to do with her death? Did you get my mom killed? Because she owned the Maison salon property, didn't she? Was that it?"
Caleb staggered back a step as if struck. "Aubrey," he said hoarsely. "How can you—how can you say that? You know I loved your mom. God, I loved her."
"Save it!" Aubrey shouted, her face twisting. "If you really loved her, you'd have been there. For her. For me. You don't get to use that word."
Caleb reached out, trembling hand aiming for her shoulder. She shoved him away.
"Why weren't you there?" Her voice broke. "Why? Was I a mistake to you?"
"Aubrey—please. I can explain—"
"Save your breath," she hissed. "I got through the trauma alone. I don't need a dad now. Especially not one who ghosted me since birth, pretending he didn't have the guts to raise his daughter."
She turned, her hair clinging damp to her cheeks.
"I don't need you. What I need is to figure out why the Azaqor killer is still watching me. Why he sent me another puzzle." Her eyes cut into him, sharp and wounded. "Maybe it's the only way I'll ever learn what really happened to her."
She started away.
"Aubrey—"
But a voice broke in. "Caleb."
Owen Kessler. The detective emerged from the station doors, rain speckling his dark suit. His voice was urgent. "We've got something. You need to come. Now."
"Can it wait?" Caleb rasped.
"No," Owen said. His jaw was tight, but for the faintest flicker—so brief it might have been imagined—a smirk tugged at his mouth. His eyes followed Aubrey as she walked off, narrowing with something almost like satisfaction before he masked it. "It's an emergency."
Caleb looked back. Aubrey's figure blurred in the distance, swallowed by the dark. He wanted to run after her, but the weight of duty chained his feet. He turned, followed Owen back inside.
---
Aubrey slid into her Polestar, slamming the door. She sat in silence, breath fogging the window.
Coward. That word clanged in her head, over and over. Caleb had been a coward her whole life, and even now, even when she thrust the truth in his face, he hadn't managed an apology. Not even that.
She started the engine. The car's quiet hum filled the emptiness.
"Wasting my time," she muttered. "He'll never change."
She drove.
---
Tiana Brooks' apartment was the opposite of Crestwood HQ: warm, cluttered, and alive with books, wires, and open laptops. Aubrey knew the place by heart. She also knew what Tiana would say the second she walked in.
"You know," Tiana said, not looking up from the tablet in her hand, "I'm starting to realize you only show up here when you need something."
Aubrey put on her most exaggerated pout. "What can I say? You know me too well."
Tiana finally looked up, one brow arched. Then she shook her head, set the tablet down, and crossed the room. "Damn right I do."
Aubrey smiled faintly as Tiana leaned in. The kiss was slow, deliberate, the kind of kiss that erased the outside world. Aubrey let herself sink into it, let herself forget her father, her mother, the killer, if only for a moment.
Later, wrapped in blankets, Tiana held her close. "I've missed you," she whispered.
"I've missed you too," Aubrey murmured, tracing lazy patterns on Tiana's arm.
"You know my job keeps me bouncing all over," Tiana sighed. "Field research, contracts—it eats up every weekend."
"It's okay," Aubrey said softly.
Tiana studied her face. "Are you really okay? After… everything? Your mom. The hallucinations. Is it still happening?"
Aubrey turned her gaze to the ceiling. "I thought I was okay. But it's worse now. The killer won't stop haunting me. And now…" Her voice cracked again. "…now I know my dad didn't abandon me. He's alive. And all this time, he stayed in touch with my mom. But not me. Never me. And the punchline? He's Crestwood Homicide's finest. Lieutenant Caleb Saye."
Tiana's eyes widened. For once, she had no words. Her mouth opened slightly, but no sound came. The silence was enough.
Aubrey laughed bitterly. "Forget him. That's not why I came." She reached for her bag, pulled out her phone. "I want to show you something."
Tiana frowned. "Please don't tell me this is another riddle from that psychopath."
Aubrey nodded grimly.
The text glowed on the screen:
*A man of riches held a key,
A secret chained to destiny.
The greedy feared what he could say,
So silence claimed his life one day.
Now truth is buried where he bled,
A final whisper with the dead.
Seek the place his breath was stilled,
What hides there shows who had him killed.*
They sat together, the rain tapping the window.
"Your mom," Tiana said slowly. "Remember the first riddle? 'What is bought with silver, but costs a soul?' You told me the answer was 'a lie.' Maybe this one's connected. Maybe it's about your mom's lies. The secrets she kept."
Aubrey swallowed. "I thought that too. But then I found out something else. Before she had me, she worked as a maid. For the Halverns."
Tiana blinked. "Wait—what? The Halverns? As in the Halverns?"
"Yeah," Aubrey said quietly.
"Holy—" Tiana shook her head. "Aubrey, where the hell did you get that?"
"It doesn't matter," Aubrey muttered. "What matters is this riddle. It lines up with the timeline. It might explain everything."
They bent over their laptops, scrolling through old articles, documents, fragments of lives long buried.
Minutes passed in silence until Tiana asked, "Did you ever visit him?"
Aubrey didn't look up. "Who?"
"Lucian. Do you ever think about him? About what he did?"
Her hands froze on the keyboard. Her voice was flat. "I don't want to see him. And no—I haven't gotten over it. He killed Casey. And the others in Everthorne. How do you get over that?"
"You think he's the Azaqor killer? Or just… another piece in the puzzle?"
Aubrey said nothing.
"I don't know, Aubrey," Tiana went on, frowning at her screen. "The knife they found him with—it could've just been wrong place, wrong time. Maybe he didn't kill her. Maybe he wasn't the monster. The only crime he committed was being born into the Freeman family."
Aubrey's eyes stayed fixed on the glowing screen. She said nothing more.
The room fell into silence again, the only sound the soft clatter of keys.
---
Crestwood Maximum Security Prison loomed on the edge of the county, steel and concrete rising like a fortress.
In one of its many cells, a man sat on a thin cot, dressed in standard orange. The fabric hung loose on his frame. His skin, dark and lined with wear, caught the pale fluorescent light. His eyes, sharp and restless, stared at the wall as if trying to see through it.
"Lucian!" a guard barked.
The slot in the door screeched open. A tray slid through—gray slop, a lump of bread, water.
Lucian Freeman reached for it slowly. His hand trembled just slightly. He lifted the bread, tore a piece, chewed without tasting. His gaze stayed locked forwar
d, lost in thought.
The food went down like ash. His mind stayed elsewhere.
On the silence. On the ghosts that never left him.
On the truth no one wanted to hear.