The envelope remained on the reception desk long after Blackwood had finished reading the message. Nobody reached for it. Nobody seemed willing to move. The photograph lay beneath his hand, its corners slightly curled, the image of the four investigators staring back at them from the café window. It should have been impossible for whoever had taken it to know where they would sit, when they would arrive, or even that they would be together. Yet there they were, captured in a single moment while believing themselves to be alone. Blackwood turned the photograph over again, studying the handwriting beneath the date. YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT SIMPSONS ALONE. The words seemed almost childish in their simplicity, but that was what made them frightening. Whoever had written them wasn't trying to impress them. They were warning them. Elena stood beside him, staring at the photograph, while Marcus remained near the staircase, looking toward the corridor from which they had just emerged. Bishops was the first to speak. "We're being watched." Blackwood didn't look up. "We've been watched for longer than we thought."
The words had barely left his mouth when the front doors of the hotel opened.
Everyone turned.
A woman stepped inside.
For a moment, nobody recognized her.
She stood just inside the entrance, breathing heavily as though she had walked quickly through the rain. Her hair was damp, her coat was buttoned unevenly, and one hand gripped a small brown handbag so tightly that her knuckles had turned pale. She looked toward the group with an expression that was impossible to read. Fear. Relief. Uncertainty. Perhaps all three.
Then she spoke.
"Where is Detective Blackwood?"
Blackwood stepped forward.
"You're speaking to him."
The woman's face changed.
She stared at him for several seconds before whispering the name that immediately made everyone in the room tense.
"Magdalene."
Blackwood froze.
Elena's eyes widened.
Bishops moved forward instinctively.
Marcus slowly closed the folder in his hands.
The woman looked at all four of them.
"I knew her."
Blackwood studied her carefully. "Who are you?"
"My name is Vivian."
Nobody moved.
The name seemed to echo through the lobby.
Vivian.
The woman they had already interviewed.
The woman who had known Magdalene.
The woman whose statements they had examined repeatedly.
The woman who had disappeared from their attention as the investigation became consumed by Simpsons.
But this was not the Vivian they remembered.
This Vivian looked terrified.
And she had come back.
Blackwood approached her slowly. "Why are you here?"
Vivian looked toward the windows.
"Because I made a mistake."
"What mistake?"
She swallowed.
"I lied to you."
The room became silent.
Blackwood's expression hardened.
"About what?"
Vivian's eyes moved toward the photograph on the desk.
She saw it.
Her face immediately lost what little color remained.
"Where did you get that?"
Blackwood picked it up.
"Someone left it here."
Vivian stared at the picture.
Then at the message.
Then back at Blackwood.
"You shouldn't have found that."
Elena stepped forward. "Why?"
Vivian shook her head.
"Because now they know you're looking in the right place."
Bishops exchanged a glance with Marcus.
Blackwood's voice became quieter.
"Who are they?"
Vivian looked toward the corridor.
"I don't know."
"You expect us to believe that?"
"I don't know who they are," she repeated. "But I know what they do."
"What do they do?"
Vivian looked directly at Blackwood.
"They make people disappear."
Nobody spoke.
Blackwood lowered the photograph.
"Like Simpsons?"
Vivian hesitated.
Then nodded.
"Like Simpsons."
That was when the investigation changed.
Not because Vivian had returned.
Not because she had admitted lying.
But because of what she said next.
"Mr. Simpsons wasn't the first."
Blackwood's eyes narrowed.
"What do you mean?"
Vivian looked at the walls.
"There were others."
They moved into Ms. Red's office, shutting the door behind them. The curtains were drawn, and the room felt strangely isolated from the rest of the hotel. Vivian sat opposite the investigators, her hands clasped tightly together. She looked nothing like the woman who had previously spoken to them. The confident resident who had answered their questions was gone. What remained was someone who seemed to have spent a long time carrying a secret she was no longer capable of holding.
Blackwood placed a recorder on the table.
"Start from the beginning."
Vivian looked at it.
"I don't know where the beginning is anymore."
"Then start with Magdalene."
Vivian closed her eyes briefly.
"Magdalene was frightened before anyone realized it. She told me someone was entering her room."
Blackwood frowned.
"You told us she was simply distressed."
"I know."
"Why?"
"Because I was afraid."
"Of whom?"
Vivian looked at him.
"I didn't know."
Elena leaned forward.
"What did you see?"
Vivian took a slow breath.
"Three nights before Magdalene died, I saw someone outside her room."
"Who?"
"I couldn't see their face."
"What were they doing?"
"Standing there."
"Just standing?"
"Yes."
Marcus spoke for the first time.
"Were they looking at her door?"
Vivian nodded.
"Did they see you?"
"I don't know."
"Did you tell Magdalene?"
Vivian shook her head.
"Why not?"
"Because the next morning, someone left something outside my room."
Blackwood's expression changed.
"What?"
"A painting."
Elena stared at her.
"A painting?"
Vivian nodded.
"It was a portrait of me."
Silence filled the room.
Blackwood leaned forward.
"Who painted it?"
Vivian's voice dropped.
"Mr. Simpsons."
The statement forced them to re-examine everything.
The paintings.
The portraits.
The yearly tradition.
The notebooks.
The strange drawings.
The hotel.
Even Ms. Red.
For almost an hour, Vivian answered questions, but every answer seemed to create another question. She explained that Simpsons had been painting people around the hotel for years, but he never behaved like a normal artist. He rarely showed his work immediately. Sometimes paintings would appear months after the subject had been observed. Sometimes they were gifts. Sometimes they were simply hung somewhere without explanation. Vivian had always assumed it was harmless eccentricity.
Until Magdalene.
"Did Simpsons ever tell you why he painted people?" Elena asked.
Vivian shook her head.
"He once told me that a portrait remembers what a person forgets."
Marcus frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know."
Blackwood stared at the table.
"What else?"
Vivian hesitated.
"He told me not to trust mirrors."
Bishops frowned.
"Mirrors?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"He said mirrors were useful because people only looked at themselves in them. They never thought about who might be looking back."
Nobody laughed.
The statement sounded absurd.
Yet somehow, in the context of everything else, it didn't.
Blackwood stood.
"Show us where he painted you."
Vivian looked startled.
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because it's gone."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"When did you last see it?"
Vivian looked toward the door.
"The day before Magdalene died."
Blackwood slowly sat back down.
"Vivian, what happened to that painting?"
She stared at him.
"I think someone took it."
That afternoon, the four investigators separated.
Blackwood and Elena returned to Magdalene's room.
Marcus examined Simpsons' old notebooks.
Bishops began checking records of former residents.
They had no idea that the moment they separated was the moment the investigation became dangerous.
Blackwood stood beside Magdalene's window, staring at the fire escape. Elena was examining the wall when she suddenly stopped.
"Blackwood."
He turned.
"There."
She pointed toward the floor.
A tiny mark had been scratched into the wood.
The same symbol.
Blackwood crouched beside it.
He examined the mark carefully.
It was fresh.
Not old.
Fresh.
His expression changed.
"Elena."
"I know."
Someone had been in the room recently.
Very recently.
Blackwood stood and looked toward the window.
"Did you lock the door?"
"Yes."
"Then how—"
A sound came from the corridor.
They both turned.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
Approaching.
Blackwood moved toward the door.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence.
He opened it.
The corridor was empty.
But at the far end of the hallway, a door stood open.
Blackwood knew that door.
Simpsons' old room.
He and Elena exchanged a glance.
They walked toward it.
The room was empty.
Again.
But on the wall, beneath one of Simpsons' paintings, someone had written something.
Four words.
ONE OF YOU KNOWS.
Elena stared at it.
"Knows what?"
Blackwood didn't answer.
Instead, he looked at her.
Then at the message.
Then back at her.
For the first time, something uncomfortable entered his mind.
What if the warning wasn't directed at all of them?
What if it was directed at one?
They regrouped in the lobby before sunset.
Marcus had found something.
He placed a list on the table.
"These are former residents who disappeared."
Bishops stared at it.
"How many?"
Marcus pointed.
"Twenty-three."
Blackwood looked at the names.
Some had disappeared years ago.
Others had left without explanation.
Some were recorded as having moved away.
But several had no forwarding address.
No confirmed destination.
No further record.
And beside four names was a symbol.
The same symbol.
Blackwood's eyes moved down the page.
"Simpsons?"
Marcus nodded.
"His name isn't here."
"Why?"
"Because technically, he hasn't disappeared."
Blackwood looked up.
"But he has."
Marcus nodded slowly.
"Exactly."
The room became silent again.
Then Vivian walked in.
She had been speaking with Elena earlier, but now she looked different.
She was pale.
"Blackwood," she said.
He turned.
"What?"
"I remembered something."
"What?"
She stared at him.
"Simpsons wasn't painting portraits every year because they were gifts."
Blackwood waited.
"He was recording faces."
"Whose faces?"
Vivian shook her head.
"People who were about to disappear."
The sentence seemed to freeze everyone in place.
Bishops looked toward the paintings.
Marcus slowly opened the notebook again.
Elena whispered, "Then Magdalene…"
Vivian finished the sentence.
"She was already in his records before she died."
Blackwood's expression hardened.
"And you?"
Vivian looked at him.
"I was too."
The evening descended quickly.
Rain began striking the windows, turning the hotel grounds into blurred shapes of darkness and light. The investigators remained together in the lobby, going through every piece of information they had gathered. But something had changed among them. The easy trust that had developed between Blackwood, Elena, Marcus and Bishops had begun to fracture under the weight of the evidence.
They had discovered that someone had photographed them.
Someone knew their movements.
Someone knew they were investigating Simpsons.
Someone had entered Magdalene's room.
Someone had access to the hotel.
Someone knew about the old passage.
And now someone had written a message suggesting that one of them knew more than they admitted.
Nobody said it aloud, but each of them began wondering the same thing.
Could one of them be involved?
Blackwood hated the thought.
He trusted Elena.
He trusted Marcus.
He even trusted Bishops despite their history.
But investigators were trained to question assumptions.
Even their own.
He looked at each of them carefully.
Elena noticed.
"You're thinking it too."
Blackwood didn't deny it.
"I'm thinking that whoever is behind this wants us to doubt each other."
Marcus looked up from the documents.
"Which means they may not actually have an insider."
"Exactly."
Bishops nodded.
"They want us divided."
Vivian suddenly looked toward the entrance.
Her face changed.
Blackwood noticed.
"What is it?"
She didn't answer.
"Vivian?"
She stared at the glass doors.
"There."
Everyone turned.
A figure stood outside in the rain.
A dark coat.
A motionless silhouette.
Then lightning flashed.
The figure disappeared.
Bishops immediately moved toward the doors.
"Don't," Blackwood ordered.
But Bishops had already opened them.
The street was empty.
Only rain remained.
He stepped back inside.
Then they heard a noise upstairs.
A crash.
Everyone froze.
Blackwood immediately ran toward the staircase.
Elena followed.
Marcus grabbed the railing.
Bishops remained below with Vivian.
The sound had come from the second floor.
Blackwood reached the landing.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
He moved forward.
Another sound.
Then Elena shouted.
"Blackwood!"
He turned.
She was standing near the end of the corridor.
Her face had gone completely pale.
Blackwood ran toward her.
"What happened?"
She pointed toward the floor.
There was a phone lying there.
Marcus' phone.
Blackwood's heart dropped.
"Where is Marcus?"
Nobody answered.
Bishops rushed up the stairs.
They searched every room.
Nothing.
The bathroom.
Empty.
The storage room.
Empty.
The old corridor.
Empty.
The hidden staircase.
Empty.
Marcus Hale was gone.
There was no broken window.
No sign of a struggle.
No blood.
No obvious evidence.
Just his phone.
Blackwood picked it up.
The screen was still illuminated.
There was one message.
YOU WANTED TO KNOW WHERE SIMPSONS WENT.
Blackwood's breathing slowed.
Another message appeared.
ASK MARCUS.
Elena stared at the screen.
"He's alive."
Blackwood looked at her.
"For now."
Then the phone vibrated again.
A photograph appeared.
It showed Marcus sitting somewhere in darkness.
His face was visible.
He was conscious.
And behind him was a wall covered in paintings.
Dozens of them.
Maybe hundreds.
Blackwood zoomed in.
His expression changed.
Because among the portraits was one he recognized immediately.
Magdalene.
But beside hers was another.
Elena.
Then Bishops.
Then Blackwood.
And finally—
Vivian.
All four investigators had been painted.
Not recently.
Not after they joined the investigation.
The paintings were old.
Some appeared to have been painted years earlier.
Blackwood stared at the screen in disbelief.
Then another photograph appeared.
This one showed a fifth portrait.
The face was partially hidden beneath a layer of dark paint.
But Blackwood recognized the eyes.
He had seen them before.
In an old photograph on his apartment shelf.
His hands tightened around the phone.
Elena looked at him.
"Who is that?"
Blackwood didn't answer immediately.
His eyes remained fixed on the image.
Because the portrait was of Daniel Cross.
The detective who had disappeared years ago.
The detective Blackwood had believed was gone forever.
And beneath the portrait, written in fresh paint, were five words:
HE NEVER STOPPED WATCHING YOU.
Blackwood looked slowly toward the others.
For the first time in his career, he had no explanation.
And somewhere in the darkness, Marcus was waiting.
But whether he was waiting to be rescued...
Or waiting to reveal something...
None of them knew.