THE SHADOW BETWEEN US

The rain hadn't stopped for six days.

Cora Evans stood at her office window, watching water stream down the glass in rivulets that distorted the world outside. She preferred it this way—reality slightly warped, kept at a distance. Port Blackwood looked better through the rain anyway; the perpetual gray washed away the town's flaws and softened its edges.

Her phone vibrated against the mahogany desk for the fourth time in twenty minutes. Detective Lambert again. She let it go to voicemail, just like the previous three calls. The Hanover case file lay open beside it, photographs and notes spread in a careful pattern that made sense only to her. Victim number three in eight months, each one vanishing without explanation, each one found weeks later with the same peculiar arrangement of items surrounding the body: a bird's feather, a smooth river stone, and a polaroid photograph faded to white.

The authorities were calling it coincidence. Cora knew better.

She picked up the crime scene photo from the most recent victim, thirty-two-year-old Marina Hanover. Something about the placement of the body nagged at her—a familiarity she couldn't place. It stirred memories she'd spent years locking away, threatening to bring them flooding back.

The phone buzzed again. With a sigh, she answered.

"I'm working on it, Lambert."

"We've got another disappearance," the detective said, skipping the pleasantries. "Caroline Webb, 34, hasn't been seen since Tuesday night. Her husband reported it this morning."

Cora's fingers tightened around the phone. "Pattern match?"

"Too early to tell. But there was a feather on her pillow. Her husband swears it wasn't there before."

The familiar pressure built behind Cora's temples—the beginning of a migraine, or something worse. "I'll be there in twenty minutes. Text me the address."

"There's something else," Lambert said before she could hang up. "We've got a PI nosing around. Says he has information about the cases. Name's Reid—Mason Reid."

The name hit Cora like ice water. A flash of memory—fragmented and distorted—pushed against her consciousness. Dark eyes. A hand reaching for hers. Blood on snow.

"Cora? You still there?"

She forced herself back to the present. "Yes. Tell him to stay away from my crime scene."

"Too late for that. Director wants you two to collaborate. Reid's got a reputation for solving the unsolvable."

"So do I," she snapped.

"Look, I don't make the rules. Just meet him there, alright? Play nice."

The call ended. Cora stood motionless, trying to place the name that seemed to echo from somewhere deep in her past. Mason Reid. She should know him, but the connection remained just beyond her grasp, like a word on the tip of her tongue.

Whatever it was, it made her uneasy. And Cora Evans had learned long ago to trust her unease.