Chapter 7
A Detective's Doubt
Miller finds a peculiar symbol at a crime scene, matching one Sarah described from her visions. His skepticism wavers as the 'delusions' align with hard evidence, unsettling his rational world.
Detective Miles Miller stood at the edge of the taped-off perimeter, the harsh glare of the portable floodlights carving stark shadows across the damp, leaf-strewn ground. The air hung thick with the metallic tang of blood and the cloying sweetness of decay, a perfume he’d grown far too accustomed to. This was the third disappearance in as many months, each one more baffling than the last. No forced entry, no witnesses, just… gone. Like a phantom had plucked them from their lives and spirited them away into the night.
His boots crunched on fallen twigs as he moved closer to the small, dilapidated shed at the back of the property. The victim, a reclusive botanist named Arthur Finch, had been found inside, slumped against a sack of potting soil. The cause of death was a single, precise stab wound to the chest, delivered with surgical efficiency. But it was the scene itself that gnawed at him. It was too clean, too deliberate. And then there was the symbol.
His gaze fixed on the rough-hewn wooden door of the shed. Scratched into the paint, almost invisible under the grime, was a symbol that made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. It was a circle, bisected by a jagged line, with three small dots arranged in a triangle beneath it. He’d seen it before, just days ago, in the frantic, tear-filled eyes of Sarah Jenkins.
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