Detective Elise Monroe had handled her share of runaways, kidnappings, and even cult-related cases—but Mira Whitman's disappearance was something else entirely.
After three days of interviews, background checks, and combing through the Whitmans' home, she sat alone in the station's briefing room, files scattered like debris from a storm. No substance abuse, no history of violence, no strange affiliations. Amanda and Shawn Whitman were clean. She found nothing.
She closed Mira's school file. The girl was bright. No troubling behavior, no suicidal thoughts, no secrets in her phone. Only one curious note: Mira's best friend mentioned she had visited a weird antique shop just days before disappearing.
"Crooked alley. Old lady. Creepy doll," the friend had said.
"Mira said it gave her chills, but she bought the doll anyway."
Monroe had sent officers to canvas the area. They found nothing. No sign of a shop. No sign there had ever been one.
But Monroe wasn't the type to let coincidences rest.
She got in her car and drove out herself.
It was late evening when she parked outside the strip of old brick buildings downtown. The sun was dipping behind the hills, casting long, warping shadows. She paced the sidewalk until she reached the narrow passage Mira's friend described.
An alley—tight enough for her shoulders to brush both sides. Dusty bricks. A broken drainpipe.
She stepped in, half-expecting the door to be there.
There was nothing.
Just a crumbling wall with faint scorch marks, and the outline of what might have once been a doorway—long since bricked over.
But something made her stop.
A scent - same rusty smell from the doll.
Faint. Familiar.
"Mira was here," she whispered.
She leaned in and touched the bricks.
They were warm.
A sudden breeze whipped through the alley, chilling her to the bone.
Behind her, someone coughed.
She turned sharply.
It was a man—elderly, hunched, wearing a heavy wool coat despite the heat. He stood at the alley's mouth, blinking as though unsure how he got there.
"Looking for something?" he asked, voice rough.
Monroe straightened. "I'm with the police. Detective Monroe. Did you see a shop here before?"
His eyes dimmed. Then sharpened.
"You saw it too?"
She stepped closer. "What do you mean?"
"The shop. It appears when it wants to," he muttered. "I was a boy. My sister… she bought a doll."
"What happened to her?"
He didn't answer. Just raised his hands and began to shake.
"She never came back."
Monroe's heart pounded.
"Do you know the name of the woman who ran it?"
He closed his eyes.
"They used to call her… Madame Verdaline. That's all I know"
Before she could ask more, he turned and shuffled away—vanishing into the twilight.
She stood frozen.
"Madame Verdaline," she murmured, pulling out her notepad.
Suddenly, the wind changed. Behind her, the bricks rattled. A whisper curled in her ear.
"Too late for her. You are too late."
She spun.
Nothing.
The alley was silent again.