The sleepy town of Blackwood was not the kind of place where people got murdered. It was the kind of place where neighbors brought each other pies, where kids rode their bikes until sunset, and where nothing ever really changed.

  That’s why, when Eleanor Hayes was found dead in her study, the town was shaken to its core.

  Detective Samuel Grayson stood in the doorway of the grand old house, the scent of rain and aged paper filling his lungs. Eleanor had been one of Blackwood’s wealthiest residents—sharp-witted, well-respected, and, according to some, feared.

  She sat slumped over her mahogany desk, a single gunshot wound to the chest. No sign of forced entry. No weapon in sight. And on the desk in front of her, an unfinished letter.

  Grayson picked it up carefully.

  "I know what you did. And I won’t stay silent anymore."

  No signature. No recipient. Just a promise that someone had something to hide.

  The suspects weren’t hard to find. Eleanor had no shortage of enemies.

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  Her nephew, Daniel Hayes. The only heir to her fortune. But Eleanor had recently changed her will—cutting him out entirely.

  Her business partner, Margaret Lane. Their antique shop had been struggling, and rumors swirled that Eleanor planned to sell her share, leaving Margaret in ruins.

  Her maid, Ruth Carter. Loyal for years, until Eleanor discovered she had been stealing from the house. Eleanor had fired her that very morning.

  Three motives. Three lives tangled in lies.

  Grayson stepped into the dimly lit study, his eyes scanning the room. The rain tapped softly against the window, and then—he saw it.

  The reflection.

  A glass cabinet in the corner, positioned perfectly to catch the scene behind Eleanor’s desk. He stepped closer, his own image warping in the antique glass. And there, faint but unmistakable, was a shadowed figure—standing behind Eleanor, arm outstretched.

  The murderer had been here all along.

  Grayson turned back to the suspects, his gaze locking onto the one who had been too quiet, too careful.

  Ruth.

  She saw the realization dawn in his eyes and bolted. But she never made it past the front door.

  As the cuffs clicked around her wrists, she trembled. "She was going to ruin me," she whispered. "I had no choice."

  But there was always a choice.

  And now, in the quiet town of Blackwood, where nothing ever happened… everything had changed.