Detective Leo sat at his desk in the cluttered police station. The aroma of stale coffee filled the air, but his focus was on the newspaper before him. His eyes scanned the front page, and his heart sank. Slamming his fist on the table, he muttered, "Another victim."
He got up, grabbed his leather jacket, and went intently towards Alex's desk.
"Come on, Alex," he said, his voice filled with urgency. "We need to go to the crime scene. We need to gather some clues."
Alex didn't look up immediately. He was finishing a notation in a small, black ledger he kept for personal observations. His movements were precise, almost rhythmic. When he finally stood, he didn't speak. He simply grabbed his dark grey overcoat and followed Leo toward the exit. That was their rhythm: Leo provided the friction, and Alex provided the flow.
The drive to the North Side was tense. The city outside the cruiser's windows was a skeleton of its former self, draped in gray smog and neon lights that flickered like dying stars. Moral collapse wasn't a sudden event here; it was a slow rot that had finally reached the bone.
"A kid's party, Alex," Leo said, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. "Who targets a ten-year-old's birthday? It's a high-profile family. The Sterling estate. Old money, new enemies."
Alex watched the raindrops race down the glass.
"It's not about the money," he said softly. His voice was low, a rare sound that usually carried the weight of a final verdict. "The Sterling family is a symbol of order. To strike them is to tell the city that order is dead."
The Sterling mansion was a gothic monstrosity surrounded by wrought-iron gates. Now, those gates were wrapped in yellow police tape that fluttered in the wind like warning flags. Blue and red lights strobed against the white stone walls, making the scene look like a fever dream.
As they stepped inside, the smell hit them. It wasn't just the metallic tang of blood; it was the sickeningly sweet scent of vanilla frosting and expensive perfume.
The ballroom was a wreck. Colorful streamers hung limp from the chandeliers, some soaked in red. Balloons were popped, their shriveled remains scattered across the marble floor like shed skins. In the center of the room sat a long table covered in a white cloth.
At the head of the table, the birthday boy, Julian Sterling, sat upright in his chair. He was still wearing his paper crown. His throat had been opened with a single, surgical stroke. His parents were slumped nearby, their bodies positioned as if they were still watching him open gifts.
"Messy," Leo whispered, his boots clicking on the marble. He approached the boy, his jaw set in a hard line. "But look at the parents. That's not a frenzied attack. That's deliberate."
Alex didn't look at the bodies. He looked at the cake.
It was a five-tier masterpiece of blue and gold fondant, now splattered with gore. But something was wrong with the top tier. It had been hollowed out.
"Leo," Alex said, gesturing toward the confection.
Leo stepped closer. Nestled deep inside the sponge of the cake, where the heart of the dessert should have been, was a bright yellow rubber ball. It was a jarring contrast—a childhood toy in a tomb.
Leo reached into his pocket for a pair of latex gloves. He snapped them on, the sound echoing in the silent ballroom. He reached into the cake and pulled the ball out.
It was a standard-sized bouncy ball, but someone had used a fine-tipped brush to paint a face on it. It wasn't a friendly smile. It was a wide, jagged grin that stretched from pole to pole, with eyes that were mere black slits. The "Smileball."
"The media is going to have a field day," Leo growled. "They're already calling him 'The Smile.' This is the fourth one this month, and we have nothing. No DNA, no prints, no motive. Just this plastic piece of garbage."
He turned the ball over in his hand, his eyes narrowed. He was looking for anything—a manufacturer's mark, a smudge, a hair.
Alex stood back, his arms crossed over his chest. His red eyes moved slowly across the room, taking in the angles of the entries and exits. "He stayed to watch," Alex murmured.
Leo looked up. "What?"
"The blood spray on the gifts," Alex pointed to a pile of wrapped boxes. "There's a void. Someone was standing right there while the carotid artery was severed. He didn't just kill them and leave. He stood in the spray. He wanted to feel the heat of it."
Leo shivered, though he'd never admit it. He turned his attention back to the ball. He moved toward a high-powered forensic light that the CSU team had set up near the buffet.
"Wait," Leo said, his voice dropping an octave.
On the bottom of the ball, hidden within the curve of the sinister grin's chin, was a faint, etched marking. It wasn't painted on; it was carved into the rubber with a needle or a very fine blade.
Leo felt a cold sensation crawl up his spine, a feeling he hadn't felt since he was a child sitting in his father's silent house. He recognized the script. It wasn't a name. It was a series of numbers followed by a stylized monogram.
04-06-88. M.
"Leo? What is it?" Alex asked, noticing the sudden change in his partner's posture.
Leo didn't answer. He couldn't. His mind was racing back twenty years. He saw his father, Senior Detective Miller, sitting at the mahogany desk in their study, nursing a glass of scotch.
He remembered sneaking into the study and seeing a folder on the desk—a cold case that had haunted his father's career.
The '88 Slasher. A killer who had terrorized the city for six months before vanishing without a trace. His father had never caught him. It was the one failure that had turned his father from a stern man into a ghost who lived in the same house as Leo but never spoke to him.
The signature on the ball—the date and the 'M'—was exactly how the '88 Slasher had signed his crime scenes. But that killer would be in his seventies by now, if he was even alive.
"Leo!" Alex's voice was sharper this time. He moved to Leo's side, his hand hovering near Leo's shoulder but not touching.
Leo looked at Alex, his piercing green eyes wide with a mixture of professional horror and personal dread.
"This isn't a new killer, Alex," Leo whispered, his voice shaking. "Or if it is, he's playing with a ghost."
"Whose ghost?"
Leo held up the ball so Alex could see the carving. "My father's. This is the signature from the case that broke him. The one he told me I was too weak to ever handle."
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the heavy glass windows of the ballroom. One of the remaining balloons popped with a sound like a gunshot.
Leo gripped the ball so hard the rubber deformed, the painted smile twisting into a grimace. He felt the weight of the necklace beneath his shirt—the simple chain his mother had given him. He felt the silence of his childhood home rushing back to fill his lungs.
The killer wasn't just murdering citizens. He was digging up the past.
Leo looked back at the boy in the paper crown. The randomness of the killings suddenly felt a lot less random. If the killer knew about his father's cold case, he knew who Leo was. He knew where they came from.
"We need to get to the archives," Leo said, his voice regaining its edge, though it was thinner than before. "Now."
As they turned to leave, Leo's phone buzzed in his pocket. It was an unknown number. He flipped it open.
There was no text. Just a single image.
It was a photo taken from the perspective of the cake, looking out at the ballroom. In the reflection of a silver serving platter, you could see the silhouettes of two men entering the room.
Leo and Alex.
The photo had been sent thirty seconds ago.
Leo spun around, drawing his weapon in one fluid motion. "He's still here!" he yelled, his voice echoing through the house of the dead.
But the ballroom was empty, save for the corpses and the silent, staring eyes of the Smileball.
Leo's eyes darted to the heavy velvet curtains at the far end of the room. They were swaying. He lunged toward them, ripping the fabric aside, only to find a small, handheld radio taped to the windowpane. A raspy, distorted laugh crackled through the speaker, followed by a voice that sounded like grinding stones,
"Does your father still keep his secrets in the floorboards, Leo?"