The first thing Mara noticed was the sound.
Not the usual ambient clatter of officers securing a crime scene, or the distant wail of sirens fading into routine. No. This was different.
It was the kind of silence that wasn't really silence at all ,more like the held breath of a room trying not to remember what it had witnessed.
The dance studio stood like a glass cage,sunlight fractured through floor-to-ceiling windows, casting warped shadows across polished wood. Yellow tape fluttered like fragile wings. Officer Denton stood outside the main entrance, jaw clenched tight, eyes already turned to stone.
"She's inside," he said, his voice too soft. "The mirrors... you'll want to brace yourself."
Mara didn't respond. She simply ducked under the tape and entered.
The smell hit her first,copper and disinfectant, a clash of violence and cleanliness.
Then she saw Elise.
Or what remained of her.
The body was centered in the middle of the studio, surrounded by a ring of full-length mirrors, each propped up on wooden ballet barres. Blood splattered in precise arcs across the reflective surfaces, creating a grotesque kaleidoscope of crimson. Every angle of Elise's corpse was on display...a woman flayed open not just in flesh, but in dignity.
The killer had arranged her in a dancer's pose: arms outstretched, toes pointed, head tilted as if in frozen pirouette. Except her eyes had been removed. Her mouth sewn shut. Her abdomen carved with a single, deliberate letter: E.
Mara didn't flinch. But her pulse did something unsteady.
She stepped closer, circling the perimeter of mirrors. They creaked as the breeze from her coat disturbed their precarious balance. She looked not at the body, but at the reflections...trying to find what the killer wanted her to see.
And then she noticed it.
Every mirror bore a faint message etched in blood reversed, illegible unless viewed from the right angle. She shifted, adjusted her stance. The lines connected.
"Confession is the first mercy."
She stared at the words until the letters blurred. Her own reflection wavered behind them, eyes dark, hollowed by weeks without sleep.
Someone had taken the time to choreograph this. Not just a kill,an exhibit. A ritual.
"Detective," came a voice behind her. Forrester, her partner. He was sweating already, the heat clashing with his cheap polyester jacket. "We've ID'd the victim. Elise Mwangi. Dance instructor. Thirty-four. No priors. Lives alone."
Mara nodded, still locked on the display. "Anyone see her last night?"
"Not yet. But..
" he hesitated "...there's something you should see in the dressing room."
She followed. The scent changed as they crossed the hallway,less blood, more perfume, hair spray, eucalyptus.
Inside the dressing room, another mirror waited. This one had a single red handprint at its center. And taped to the glass, beneath the bloody smudge, was an envelope.
For her. Again.
She reached out with gloved fingers and peeled the flap open. Inside, a single sheet of paper, printed in typewriter font.
"Do you remember how we used to dance in the hallway?"
"You never looked back when you dropped your books. But I did."
"Letter two. Time's ticking."
—S
The signature was the same. The single letter. A phantom scrawl.
Her stomach coiled.
It wasn't the taunt that disturbed her...it was the question. The memory.
She had dropped her books in a hallway once. Junior year. Her hands full of calculus and tragedy. Someone had picked them up, but she never looked to see who.
It couldn't be…
"Mara?" Forrester prompted. "You okay?"
She folded the letter and slipped it into an evidence bag. "We're dealing with someone who has a long memory. And a plan."
"You think it's a serial?"
She looked back at the room of mirrors, the fractured corpse.
"No," she said. "This is a message."
Back at the precinct, Mara laid out the case files across the corkboard in her office. Two bodies. Two letters.
Jared Linwood – S
Elise Mwangi – E
What was the word being spelled? A name? A phrase?
A sick countdown?
The door opened without a knock. Captain Reyes stepped in, his face drawn in tight lines. "We've got media all over this. Someone leaked the mirror photos."
Mara didn't look away from the board. "Of course they did."
Reyes exhaled hard. "You think this has something to do with the Valentine case?"
She froze. Just for a beat.
"We don't say that name," she said.
He softened. "It's been ten years, Mara."
"Exactly."
There were no leads on that case. No answers. Only a grave with a teenage girl inside it, and a wall Mara built in her own mind ever since.
Now someone was dragging the past into the light. Piece by piece.
She stared at Elise's photo. Something stirred.
Was it possible... had they known each other? Back then?
Mara closed her eyes. Searched the recesses of memory. A dance team. A hallway. The smell of chalk and floor polish.
And music. Always music.
It was Elise who hummed the melody that day. Mara remembered now. Just a girl in tights and bruised ankles, smiling too wide.
She had been kind.
Now she was gone.
That night, Mara didn't sleep.
She sat at her kitchen table, apartment dim, walls too close.
She played the message on her phone again and again. The one she hadn't reported. The one from an untraceable number, received just after Jared's murder.
Just breathing. Nothing else.
But she knew the rhythm.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
It matched the sound of a metronome. One her little sister used to use during piano practice.
Another ghost. Another grave.
She opened her laptop. Began a new document.
Titled it: THE THREAD.
She wrote:
Linwood = "S"
Mwangi = "E"
Both victims posed deliberately
Connections to me: unknown, but likely personal
"You never looked back" ...suggests killer knew me in youth
Mirrors = reflection motif
Second envelope = implied timeline
She paused. Typed one more line:
He's not hunting randoms.
He's hunting my past.
By morning, the news was everywhere. "Mirror Killer" was the headline now. Mara hated how fast monsters got nicknames. It made them myth instead of man.
She left the apartment with her badge clipped on, gun holstered, caffeine-fueled resolve hardening her edges.
There was no time for ghosts.
Whoever this was, he had her in his crosshairs.
But what he didn't know,what they never understood,was that Mara Veil didn't flinch. Not anymore.
She leaned into the shadows.
She remembered.
And now, she was ready to hunt.