Chapter 4 Midnight Whispers

The Elmswood Hotel was quiet again-too quiet. The guests who once filled the rooms with laughter and late-night arguments had mostly checked out after the murder. Only a handful remained, eyes cautious, footsteps careful.

Detective Mara Velasquez returned at precisely 11:43 PM. She needed to walk the same hallway under the same conditions, retrace the final moments leading up to Juliana Croix's death. The corridor leading to Room 213 was dimly lit, the wallpaper peeling slightly under years of dampness. Every creak of the floorboards beneath her boots echoed like a whisper from the past.

She paused outside the door. The number "213" still hung crooked, as though the murder had bent it out of place. She took a breath, the air heavy with mildew and something else-unease.

Her phone buzzed.

Private Number.

She hesitated, then answered.

"Velasquez."

A man's voice, low and composed, came through.

"You should stop asking questions you don't want answers to."

Her pulse spiked. "Who is this?" she demanded.

"You already know," he replied. And then, silence.

Mara stared at her phone screen as the call ended, her breath caught in her throat. The voice was unfamiliar-but the confidence in it chilled her. He knew her. Knew where she was. Knew what she was doing.

Someone was watching.

Heart pounding, she rushed to the hotel lobby. The clerk on duty was a woman this time, new and startled by Mara's urgency. She stammered as she provided the night's phone log-there were no official records of the call. Whoever it was had masked their signal perfectly.

Still shaken, Mara returned to the second floor, scanning for any sign of intrusion. That's when she noticed it: something small and dark against the patterned carpet near Room 213.

A single rose petal.

She knelt beside it, lifting it gently with gloved fingers. It wasn't there earlier in the day-she would've seen it. Which meant only one thing.

The killer had been back.

Her eyes swept the hallway. No security camera had been restored. No witnesses. Whoever this was moved like a shadow.

She pocketed the petal and stood slowly, her mind racing. The rose wasn't just a calling card anymore. It was a message.

A game had begun. And she had just made her first move.