Chapter 1 The Church of Ashes

The air inside St. Brigid’s had not carried a prayer in decades. Dust clung to every surface, thick as grief, and the stained-glass saints stared down like fractured eyes in mourning. The city had long abandoned the old church to pigeons and squatters, but tonight it housed something worse—something deliberate.

Detective Elena Ward paused in the threshold, her flashlight beam trembling against the warped pews. She had learned long ago not to show nerves in front of uniforms, but her chest tightened as though the shadows themselves recognized her. The call had come just past midnight: female body, possible homicide, location sensitive. Sensitive was code for grotesque.

“Detective?” Officer Halvorsen’s voice echoed behind her. He was young, too young, the kind who looked at murder scenes the way children studied bonfires—equal parts awe and fear. He swallowed audibly, trying not to gag at the smell. The church reeked of copper and mildew.

“Stay by the door,” Elena said, her tone clipped. She didn’t need a rookie trampling evidence.

The beam of her flashlight skated forward until it caught white. A pale shimmer on the altar steps.

There she was.

The victim sat upright, back rigid against the pulpit, hands folded neatly in her lap as though in eternal prayer. A white bridal veil draped her face, falling in delicate folds that brushed her shoulders. Beneath it, Elena could just make out skin drained of all warmth, lips bluish, eyes glassy and open.

The woman had been staged. No blood pooled where she sat; she had been cleaned, arranged. Death disguised as devotion.

Elena’s boots scraped against the floor as she approached, careful not to disturb the dust patterns. Her throat tightened. She had seen murders in every imaginable form, but there was something unnervingly intimate about the veil. It was not just concealment. It was a statement.

“Jesus,” Halvorsen whispered. “Is this some kind of ritual?”

“Looks like it,” Elena said, crouching. Her glove brushed the edge of the veil, lifting it just enough to see the victim’s face. Mid-twenties, brown skin, delicate features. A faint trace of jasmine perfume lingered, absurdly out of place in the rot of the church.

Elena’s stomach turned. Jasmine.

The smell transported her back a decade, to another young woman with the same perfume—her sister, Mara. Mara, who had disappeared without explanation, her case smothered in red tape and unanswered questions.

Elena forced the memory down. Focus.

Her gaze swept the body. No ligature marks on the neck. Fingernails clean. Whoever had done this wanted no signs of struggle, only silence. On instinct, Elena pulled off the victim’s right shoe. A folded slip of paper waited inside, edges crisp despite the filth around it.

She unfolded it under the flashlight. Four words scrawled in black ink:

“She wouldn’t listen.”

Her pulse quickened. She bagged the note, masking her reaction from Halvorsen.

“Call CSU,” she ordered. “Tell them to photograph everything before anyone moves her.”

As Halvorsen fumbled with his radio, Elena’s eyes drifted upward to the crucifix above the altar. Christ’s face had long ago eroded to a blur, but tonight, in the flashlight’s trembling glow, it almost seemed to smirk.

---

Outside, the night pressed close. Rain slicked the pavement, painting the crime scene tape in streaks of yellow under the sodium lamps. Reporters hadn’t caught wind yet, but Elena knew they would. Nothing staged this meticulously stayed quiet.

She stepped into the chill, drawing her coat tighter. The clock on her phone read 2:14 a.m. She should have felt exhaustion; instead, she felt the static charge of old ghosts.

Lieutenant Gray arrived minutes later, shoulders hunched against the drizzle. His tie was crooked, his eyes bleary. “Ward,” he muttered, “tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”

“It’s worse,” Elena said. She handed him a photo of the note she’d taken on her phone. “Message hidden in the shoe. Same staging as ceremonial display. This wasn’t random.”

Gray rubbed his temples. “Goddammit. We don’t need another freakshow. You know how the press ate up the Carrow case.”

“This isn’t like Carrow,” Elena said, sharper than she intended. Carrow had been a political assassin, messy and erratic. This was different. This was intimate.

Gray studied her, suspicion etched in his face. He knew her history, knew how quickly she linked every case back to her sister. He didn’t trust her instincts, not fully.

“Don’t make this personal,” he warned. “One body. That’s all we have. Could be a one-off.”

Elena met his gaze. “No, sir. This isn’t a one-off.”

---

By dawn, the church was a hive of activity. Forensics swept every surface, their cameras flashing like lightning across the ruined pews. Officers cataloged dust prints, fiber traces, soil samples. Elena watched it unfold, detached but restless. Procedure would take weeks. Answers couldn’t wait.

She returned to the altar, standing where the victim had sat. The veil had been removed, the body zipped into a black bag. Yet the image lingered, burned into the air.

What did the veil mean? Submission? Silence? Purity? Whoever the killer was, he wanted symbolism to bleed louder than the act itself.

Elena pressed her fingers to her temples, closing her eyes. For a fleeting second, she saw Mara’s smile, jasmine lingering in a sunlit kitchen. Then the image fractured into the lifeless face beneath the veil.

Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

“You should have stayed silent too.”

Her heart kicked against her ribs. She glanced around instinctively. None of the techs had seen her phone light up. She slipped it back into her coat, masking her reaction.

If she told Gray, he’d yank her off the case for conflict of interest. If she stayed silent, she could follow the thread herself.

The choice weighed heavy, but she knew it was no choice at all.

---

By late morning, the victim’s identity came through: Angela Price, 24. Volunteer at Haven House Women’s Shelter.

Elena’s jaw tightened. Haven House. The same shelter Mara had worked at before she vanished.

Coincidence was dead in the water.

She drove to the shelter on impulse, the city blurring past in rain-washed colors. Haven House sat between two boarded-up shops, its door painted a hopeful blue already peeling in strips. Inside, the receptionist recognized Elena instantly.

“Another officer?” she asked, voice wary.

Elena flashed her badge. “Detective Ward. I need to ask about Angela Price.”

The receptionist’s eyes fell. “Sweet girl. Always stayed late to help the new residents. She didn’t deserve…” Her voice cracked.

“Did Angela ever mention threats? Strange visitors?”

The woman hesitated, then nodded. “She said someone kept leaving notes on her car. Weird phrases, biblical stuff. She thought it was just some street preacher.”

Elena’s chest tightened. Angela hadn’t taken it seriously. She should have.

“Do you still have any of those notes?” Elena pressed.

The receptionist’s face grew pale. “No. She said she burned them. She was scared.”

Elena exhaled slowly. A pattern was forming, jagged and cruel. A killer targeting women tied to Haven House. A killer who left messages about silence, obedience, listening.

And now, a killer who knew her name.

---

As dusk fell, Elena sat in her unmarked car outside her apartment building, engine idling. The weight of the case pressed down like wet concrete. She knew she should call Gray, hand over the threatening text, let the department throw its resources at this. But she also knew what would happen if she did: they’d sideline her, put someone else in charge, dismiss her instincts as emotional bias.

And maybe they were. Maybe this was personal obsession, not professional deduction.

But the smell of jasmine still clung to her coat, stubborn as memory.

She killed the engine and sat in silence, the city’s neon glow bleeding through her windshield. For the first time in

years, she whispered her sister’s name aloud.

“Mara.”

The shadows didn’t answer. But she swore she felt them listening.