For a moment, Mara couldn't breathe.
Not because of the darkness.
Not because of the cold voice drifting toward her from the hallway.
But because she knew it.
Knew it down to the marrow.
Knew it in the way a wound knows the blade that made it.
Evelyn's hand tightened around her arm as if she felt Mara breaking beside her.
"Mara," Evelyn whispered urgently, "don't go toward him. Please."
But Mara had already stepped forward.
"Turn the lights back on," she demanded. Her voice was steady, but her heart felt like it was cracking apart inside her chest.
A soft, low chuckle filled the darkness.
"Careful, detective. You sound afraid."
Mara swallowed hard, tasting something bitter—fear or memory, she couldn't tell.
She took another step.
Her foot touched a cold patch on the floor.
She froze.
Then the lights flicked on.
Blinding brightness flooded the room.
And there he was.
Standing at the end of the hallway like he'd always belonged there.
Daniel Ellison.
Her brother.
Mara's throat closed so violently she couldn't speak.
Daniel looked almost the same as the day he disappeared—calm eyes, neatly kept hair, the same thin scar along his jaw. But there was something new in his expression now.
A serene, bone-deep emptiness.
As if guilt, love, fear—every human emotion—had been carved out of him with a surgical blade.
"Mara," he said softly. "It's been a long time."
Evelyn stepped in front of Mara instinctively, voice trembling.
"You shouldn't be here. You promised—"
"Promised?" Daniel interrupted, amusement flickering in his eyes. "You think I care about promises anymore?"
He looked at Eve the way someone might look at a broken tool—something once useful, now in the way.
Mara's pulse hammered so loud she could barely hear her own voice when she finally forced words out.
"You're alive."
Daniel tilted his head.
"You sound disappointed."
Mara swallowed the shock twisting through her.
"Where were you? All these years—everyone thought you died. You made them think you died."
Evelyn tried to speak—"Mara, don't engage, he's trying to—"
But Daniel raised a hand and she fell silent, stepping back instinctively.
He trained his eyes on Mara, expression unreadable.
"I didn't make them think anything," he said calmly. "You did."
Mara's breath stuttered. "What?"
"You needed a ghost more than a brother," Daniel continued. "You needed someone to blame for everything that broke you. So I played along."
Mara felt her stomach twist.
"No," she whispered. "You… you killed Ruth Stone."
"I never touched her," he said smoothly. "But I did need your attention. And she got in the way."
Mara's voice came out cracking. "What did you do to her?"
Daniel smiled, thin and cold.
"Nothing compared to what she planned to do."
Evelyn stepped forward, voice shaking.
"Daniel. This isn't the time—"
"Be quiet, Evelyn," he snapped.
She went rigid.
Mara turned to her quickly.
"You knew," she breathed. "You knew he was alive."
"Yes," Evelyn said, tears filling her eyes. "But not like this. Not what he's become."
Daniel let out a soft laugh.
"What I've become? Eve, I didn't 'become' anything. I finally stopped pretending."
Mara raised her gun.
"Don't move."
Daniel didn't even blink.
"Mara. If you shoot me, you'll never know who gave me your badge number. Or why Ruth Stone was chosen. Or what they wrote in the letter they left on your desk last week."
Mara froze.
"What letter?"
Daniel's expression shifted—just slightly. Enough to show satisfaction.
"The one you didn't read."
Evelyn gasped. "Daniel—you didn't—"
"I did," he said simply.
Mara felt the floor tilt beneath her.
Because she had found a letter on her desk last week. An unmarked envelope.
She'd thrown it in a drawer without opening it—too overwhelmed, too exhausted.
Daniel stepped forward slowly.
"One more step and I shoot you," Mara said.
Daniel smiled again—small, almost affectionate.
"I always liked that fire in you," he murmured. "It's why they picked you."
Mara's blood went cold.
"…Who picked me?"
Daniel leaned his head slightly to the side, watching her with unsettling tenderness.
"You really don't remember."
She opened her mouth to respond—
—but a shape suddenly moved behind Daniel.
A shadow detached itself from the hallway wall.
Someone else was in the house.
Someone Daniel had brought.
And the moment he turned his head—
Evelyn grabbed Mara's wrist and whispered urgently:
"Run."
Then the shadow lunged.
The gunshot shattered the hallway.
The world exploded into chaos.
And Mara realized something with bone-deep certainty:
This wasn't just about Daniel.
This wasn't just about Ruth Stone.
This was about her.
She wasn't hunting the killer.
She was the target.