*Sub-Chapter 21: Echoes in the Alley*
Detective Laura Mendes stood over the scene, jaw clenched, eyes scanning every inch of the cold alley. It was just past 3 a.m. when the call came through—three bodies, two adults, one child. Brutal. Quiet. No witnesses.
She'd seen a lot in twelve years. But this was different.
The mother's body had over a dozen stab wounds. The daughter—small, lifeless—was curled near her father's knees. And Anderson... still breathing. Just barely. He was unresponsive, eyes wide open but empty, muttering fragments they couldn't yet decipher.
The crime scene techs moved carefully. Every scrape of a glove or snap of a camera shutter echoed through the alley like thunder. The blood trail told its own story. Whoever did this knew how to make people suffer.
"Too clean," Mendes muttered to her partner, Agent Hale. "There's rage in it, but it's surgical. Like someone who's trained to control it."
Hale nodded grimly. "This wasn't random. This was personal."
They gathered samples. Interviewed what few residents dared peek outside. No one saw the killer. No security cams. No traceable footprints.
But they did find something.
A single photograph, torn and blood-specked, tucked into Anderson's coat pocket.
It was a picture of a young boy.
On the back, just three words, handwritten in ink:
*"He knows everything."*
It was the first breadcrumb. The first whisper of the storm coming their way.
They didn't know his name yet.
But they would.
And they'd call him something far worse than a killer.