Hansen's apartment was a sanctuary of calculated order, or at least it was supposed to be. It was a space defined by clean lines, expensive charcoal-gray furniture, and the kind of high-end hum of a climate control system that usually blocked out the noise of the city. But tonight, the silence felt like a physical weight pressing against his eardrums. He walked into the kitchen, his boots tracking a fine, nearly invisible dust from the riverfront across the hardwood.
He didn't turn on the overhead lights. He didn't want to see his own reflection in the polished marble of the island. Instead, he just stood there in the shadows, the blue light from the digital clock on the oven casting a ghostly pallor over his hands. Hands that were still shaking from the sheer, visceral shock of what he'd witnessed at the warehouse.
"It wasn't her," he whispered, the words sounding hollow and unconvincing in the dark.
