Blood pooled beneath the shattered glass, its dark crimson creeping toward the doorway.
Detective Harris stood frozen, the weight of the scene pressing on him like a shroud. The air was heavy with the sharp tang of copper and the faint scent of pine cleaner, as though someone had tried—and failed—to mask the chaos.
“Earth to Harris.”
He blinked, turning toward the voice. Detective Zen Vega stood in the doorway, her silhouette framed by the cold morning light. She wore her usual look of skeptical amusement, a single eyebrow raised as she surveyed the mess.
“You’re unusually quiet,” she said, stepping carefully over the debris. “I was expecting at least one bad pun by now.”
Harris tilted his head. “You want me to say, ‘Looks like this guy had a real glass jaw’?”
Vega groaned, her boot crunching against a shard of crystal. “There it is. It’s like clockwork with you.”
Despite her complaint, she crouched near the body, her dark eyes scanning the scene with clinical precision. Oz Whitaker, a contractor in his forties, lay sprawled on the floor, his lifeless eyes fixed on the ornate ceiling above. Around him, the room was a symphony of destruction—upended furniture, slashed curtains, and glittering fragments of a shattered chandelier.
Harris’s gaze drifted to the fireplace, where bold, jagged letters written in blood stood out starkly against the white brick: “YOU KNOW WHY.”
“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” Vega muttered, rising to her feet. She adjusted her jacket, which barely held back the December chill that seeped through the broken windows.
Harris didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he walked to the mantle, where something caught his eye. A tarnished key lay among the wreckage, its once-polished surface now dull and scratched.
“Find something?” Vega asked, peering over his shoulder.
He held up the key. “Not part of the décor.”
“Looks old,” Vega said. “Not exactly a house key.”
“Maybe a safe,” Harris murmured, turning it over in his hand.
“Or a treasure chest,” Vega quipped, leaning against the wall.
Harris shot her a dry look. “You’re a real comedian today.”
“Gotta keep it light,” Vega replied with a shrug. “Otherwise, we’d all lose it.”
Back at the station, Harris sat at his desk, staring at the key as if it might offer him answers. His desk was a chaotic mess of coffee-stained papers, pens missing their caps, and a laptop that hummed faintly as it processed crime scene photos. Across from him, Vega leaned against her chair, spinning a pencil between her fingers.
“So,” she said, breaking the silence. “What’s your theory?”
“I don’t have one yet,” Harris admitted, tapping the key against his desk. “All we’ve got is a dead contractor, a bloody message, and this thing.”
“Don’t forget the shattered glass,” Vega said, gesturing to a photo of the crime scene. “Can’t solve the case without that crucial detail.”
Harris smirked despite himself. “You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.”
“Thanks,” Vega said, grinning. “You can be Watson. Or, you know, Lestrade.”
Their banter was cut short by the buzz of Harris’s phone. He answered quickly, his expression darkening as he listened.
“Another one,” he said, standing abruptly. “Get your coat.”
The second crime scene was eerily similar to the first.
Susan Lowe, a paralegal in her early thirties, lay motionless in the center of her living room. The destruction around her mirrored the previous scene—broken glass, overturned furniture, and, above the fireplace, a new message: “TIME’S UP.”
Vega’s face hardened as she surveyed the room. “Well, at least they’re consistent.”
Harris ignored the comment, his attention drawn to the mantle. There, nestled between shards of glass, was another key.
“That makes two,” Vega said, watching as Harris bagged the key for evidence. “Think there’ll be a third?”
Harris’s expression darkened. “There’s always a third.”
Two hours later, they found themselves at Whitaker’s office, a modest space tucked into a strip mall on the outskirts of town. The room was unremarkable—beige walls, a wooden desk, and shelves crammed with dusty files.
Vega sifted through a drawer, her gloved hands pulling out receipts and blueprints. “What are we looking for, exactly?”
“Anything that connects him to Lowe,” Harris said, scanning a pile of invoices.
“Maybe they both had a fondness for cryptic wall art,” Vega muttered.
Harris gave her a sharp look, but before he could respond, his gaze landed on a locked cabinet. He inserted the first key and turned it. The lock clicked, and the cabinet creaked open.
“Not bad for an old key,” Vega muttered as Harris pulled a ledger from the locked cabinet. The dust-covered book felt out of place in the chaos of the office, a piece of order amid the wreckage. Whatever Whitaker was hiding, it was in these pages.
Inside the cabinet was also a single envelope, unmarked and sealed. Harris opened it carefully, revealing a stack of grainy photographs. “Bingo,” Vega said, leaning in.
The photos showed Whitaker standing in a dimly lit alley, speaking with a man in a dark coat.
“Who’s our mystery guy?” Vega asked.
Harris’s jaw tightened. “Victor Dane.”
“You know him?” Vega pressed.
Harris’s jaw tightened. His mind flicked to Aldridge’s cryptic warnings from years ago: ‘There are always bigger players. Don’t dig unless you’re ready for what you’ll find.’ Aldridge had been more than a mentor—he was the kind of detective who always seemed to know more than he let on. Back then, Harris thought it was just another lecture. Now, those words felt less like advice and more like a warning he should’ve heeded.
“Not well,” Harris said finally, though his tone suggested otherwise.
Vega narrowed her eyes, studying him for a moment before letting it drop. Her attention shifted to the ledger in his hands, its yellowed pages crinkling under Harris’s fingers.
“Congratulations, Harris,” she said with a smirk. “You’ve officially uncovered the most boring diary in existence. Riveting stuff—can’t wait for the movie adaptation.”
Harris shot her a dry look but didn’t rise to the bait. “It’s not about the writing, Zen. It’s about what it connects to.”
He flipped through the pages, pausing when his gaze landed on a location circled in red ink. “Here,” he said, tapping the page. “We pay him a visit.”
The smirk faded from Vega’s lips as she leaned closer to look. “Well, let’s hope the scenery’s better than the reading material.”
The warehouse was a husk of its former self, its walls scarred by time and graffiti. Harris and Vega stepped cautiously through the cavernous space, their flashlights slicing through the darkness.
“Do you ever feel like we’re walking into a horror movie?” Vega whispered.
“Every day,” Harris replied.
The stench hit them first—metallic and sour. Near the center of the warehouse, they found him.
Dane sat slumped against a rusted beam, a pool of dried blood at his feet and his lifeless eyes staring into the void. In his hand was a crumpled note that read: “I told you to leave it alone.”
Vega exhaled sharply. “Care to explain?”
The sight of Dane’s lifeless body sent a cold knot twisting in Harris’s stomach. He wasn’t the man who pulled the trigger, but years of unanswered questions and buried warnings weighed on him like a chain. Dane was no saint, but his death left a bitter truth: Harris wasn’t sure if he’d been too blind or too late to stop this.
Harris shook his head, his jaw tightening. “It’s complicated,” he said finally, his voice low.
“Right,” Vega said, skepticism lacing her tone. She crouched down, her flashlight sweeping over the area around Dane’s body. Something small and metallic caught her eye near the base of the beam, half-buried in the debris.
“Hold on,” she muttered, reaching out carefully. Her gloved fingers brushed against the tarnished object, pulling it free from the dust and grime. She held it up for Harris to see. “Another key.”
Harris leaned closer, his gaze narrowing as he took the key from her hand. Its surface was scratched and weathered, nearly identical to the one they’d found at Whitaker’s place.
“Why leave this behind?” he murmured, more to himself than to Vega, as he turned the key over in his hands.
Vega straightened, watching him carefully. “You’re the one with all the cryptic warnings,” she said dryly. “Any guesses?”
Harris’s grip tightened around the key. Memories clawed their way to the surface—cases left unsolved, warnings ignored. He forced them down, his voice turning grim. “Dane wasn’t exactly on Santa’s nice list,” he said finally. “We crossed paths years ago. Fraud, extortion, maybe worse. He slipped through the cracks.”
“And now he’s dead,” Vega said, her voice hardening. “Convenient timing, don’t you think?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Harris replied, pocketing the key.
“Neither do I,” Vega said, her expression darkening.
Before Harris could throw her a jab, a sound echoed through the warehouse—footsteps, light and slow.
They spun around, guns drawn, but the space behind them was empty.
And then… a faint scuttle followed, and Vega’s flashlight caught a flicker of movement. A stray cat darted out from the shadows, its fur matted and eyes wide as it slipped through a gap in the rusted beams. The clang of metal it disturbed echoed eerily in the silence.
Vega let out a sharp breath, lowering her weapon. “A damn cat. Of course.”
Harris didn’t respond, his shoulders still tense. The warehouse seemed to breathe, its cold, metallic air pressing against his chest. His flashlight swept over rusted beams and warped machinery, the shadows darting like ghosts along the walls.
The precinct buzzed with energy when they returned. Harris dropped into his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose while Vega dumped the evidence bags onto the desk between them.
“Three victims, three keys,” she said, tapping a photo of the keys arranged side by side. “Any bright ideas?”
Harris stared at the tarnished metal objects, his mind churning. They were nearly identical, save for subtle scratches and worn edges that suggested years of use.
“They’re leading us somewhere,” he said finally.
“Okay, Captain Obvious, but where?”
Harris ignored her jab, instead flipping through the photographs they’d recovered from Whitaker’s office. The grainy images of Dane meeting with Whitaker now felt like puzzle pieces with no edges.
“We’re missing a connection,” Harris muttered. “Why these people? Why the keys? What’s the point?”
Vega leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Maybe it’s not about the keys. Maybe it’s about what they were hiding.”
Harris looked up, her words striking a chord. “You think they’re being silenced?”
“I think someone’s cleaning house,” she said. “And we’re stuck holding the broom.”
The break came late that night.
Vega had gone home hours ago, leaving Harris alone with the photos and notes scattered across his desk. He’d nearly nodded off when his phone buzzed, a new message lighting up the screen:
“Check Whitaker’s ledger.”
The sender was anonymous.
Harris frowned, his pulse quickening. He grabbed the ledger from his desk drawer, flipping through the yellowed pages until he found the circled location: 45 Devlin Road.
He called Vega immediately.
“You’re lucky I don’t sleep,” she answered, her tone groggy but sharp.
“We’re going back out,” Harris said.
“Oh, joy,” she muttered. “You better have coffee when you pick me up.”
Devlin Road was a forgotten corner of the city, its crumbling warehouses and abandoned lots a haven for rust and decay.
“This is the part where the dumb characters in horror movies die,” Vega said, stepping out of the car.
“Good thing we’re smart,” Harris replied, his flashlight cutting through the darkness.
They reached the address listed in Whitaker’s ledger: a squat, nondescript building with boarded-up windows and a door barely hanging on its hinges.
“Charming,” Vega said, nudging the door open.
The smell hit them immediately—stale air mixed with something metallic and foul.
“Love what they’ve done with the place,” she said, her voice muffled by the sleeve she held to her nose.
They moved cautiously through the building, their flashlights revealing piles of debris and scattered papers. In the corner of the room, Harris spotted something glinting under the beam of his light.
Another key.
Vega crouched beside Harris as he picked up the key, her expression tightening. “That makes four.”
Harris turned it over in his hand, his brow furrowing. “Four keys, three bodies. What’s the connection?”
Vega’s gaze darted around the darkened room, her voice low. “I don’t think we’re the only ones looking for answers.”
A deliberate crunch of footsteps shattered the oppressive silence. Harris’s flashlight swept toward the sound, slicing through the gloom, but the shadows seemed to shift and deepen, revealing nothing.
Vega stiffened, her hand tightening on her weapon. “Tell me you heard that,” she whispered, her voice taut with tension.
“I heard it,” Harris replied, his grip firm on the flashlight. He scanned the room again, his heart pounding. “Stay sharp.”
The silence that followed was heavier than before, charged with unseen danger… From somewhere deep in the shadows, a faint metallic clink echoed—like a key turning in a lock.
The mystery deepens, and the shadows grow darker… Who’s behind the cryptic messages? And what secrets will the fourth key unlock? Don’t miss Part 2 of Shards of Truth: Uncovering a Deadly Puzzle—coming soon, only on PodiumExpress.com!
