Colhoun stared at the board, the smooth marble warm in his palm. He flipped open Wallace's file, running his finger down the timeline.
"His stomach contained beef," Colhoun said. "Beef from a supplier that didn't make its last delivery until after Tony Laskaris was killed."
Eric blinked. "Meaning?"
"Meaning Wallace was alive after Tony died."
The room fell silent.
Eric frowned and stepped forward. "Wait. Wallace was documented as the fourth victim."
Colhoun nodded. "Because someone made sure we believed he was."
Eric exhaled slowly. "You're saying Wallace was the first?"
"No." Colhoun tossed Wallace's file onto the table and grabbed two more. "I'm saying they were."
Three names. Three deaths.
Three stories buried beneath the more elaborate killings.
---
1. Daniel "Danny" Figueroa (32) – Gym Trainer / Bouncer
Single bullet to the forehead.
Hands bound behind him with his own resistance bands.
Jaw broken, dumbbell wedged between his teeth.
A message: Strength does not dictate authority.
2. Elias Carter (39) – Former Activist
Limbs nailed to a chair.
Spine severed, eyes stitched open.
A warning: Those who stop speaking will be made to listen.
3. Gregory Wallace (54) – Stockbroker
Coins stuffed into his throat, lungs filled with wealth.
A lesson: Drown in what you love.
---
These were the first. The real first.
Wallace, Carter, and Figueroa.
But someone had moved them—pushed them deeper into the timeline, hiding them behind the grander, more theatrical murders.
Why?
Colhoun grabbed a marker, drawing a line between the names.
"These three were killed first," he murmured. "Before Laskaris. Before Ramirez. Before Vanessa Lin."
Eric crossed his arms. "That still doesn't tell us why someone would alter the timeline."
Colhoun circled Wallace's name.
"They weren't hiding the killer."
He circled Carter's name.
"They were hiding the beginning."
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Then he circled Figueroa's name.
"And if we don't know how it started—" He lifted his gaze, eyes gleaming with something dangerous. "—we don't know what kind of ending we're walking into."
Eric ran a hand down his face, staring at the wall of crime scene photos.
"If these were the first, then what does that mean for the others?"
Colhoun didn't answer. He was already flipping through reports, scanning timestamps, inconsistencies, anything that had been subtly altered.
And then—
There.
An evidence transfer form for Gregory Wallace's file.
Dated two days after his supposed time of death.
A clerical error? No. A correction.
Someone had gone into the records after the fact. Reshuffled the sequence. Rewrote reality.
Colhoun let out a breathless laugh, shaking his head. "They didn't just want to kill. They wanted to tell a story."
Eric exhaled. "And we fell for it."
Colhoun turned back to the board. The murders made sense now. The pattern wasn't real. It was an illusion—a deliberate misdirection.
Which meant one case stood out above all the others.
The King Without a Crown.
No name. No body. Just an empty chair, a mirror, and a message scrawled on the wall:
"What is a king, when the throne is gone?"
A victim erased. A murder without a corpse. A story rewritten so thoroughly that even Colhoun struggled to remember its existence.
That was the key.
The entire sequence had been rewritten.
And the first three victims weren't just buried in the order of events—they were buried in the case itself.
Colhoun turned to Eric, flipping the silver coin between his fingers.
"Then who the hell is really playing this game?"
Colhoun smiled.
"That's the best part," he murmured.
He flicked the coin into the air, watching it spin.
"We're about to find out."
---
Eric swore under his breath. "This isn't just a cover-up."
"It's a goddamn rewrite," Colhoun agreed.
A deep, sharp weight settled in his chest—not just unease, but exhilaration. The feeling of seeing something most people weren't supposed to see.
"They didn't just move the bodies," he said. "They changed the story."
The King Without a Crown wasn't an ordinary case. It was a whisper, a rumor buried inside the mess of murders. An empty chair, a mirror, a message in charcoal on the wall:
"What is a king, when the throne is gone?"
No blood. No body. No evidence. Just a crime scene set like a stage—inviting someone to play along.
Eric exhaled. "It was dismissed."
Colhoun nodded. "Filed as an abandoned scene. No official victim. No connection to the killings."
"But if the first three were actually first—" Eric started.
"—then this wasn't just a missing person," Colhoun finished. "This was the first missing person."
The first death that wasn't counted as a death at all.
Colhoun pulled the file from the archives and flipped it open. Sparse. Almost laughably so. A single crime scene photo: the chair, the mirror, the words on the wall. No witness reports. No suspect list. No follow-up.
"There should be more," Eric said, frowning.
"There was more." Colhoun tapped the paper. "But someone made sure it disappeared."
The case hadn't been dismissed. It had been erased.
And that meant one of two things:
1. The missing person was never meant to be found.
2. Or they were never meant to be remembered.
Eric ran a hand through his hair. "There has to be some trace of them."
Colhoun reached for old police reports—complaints, missing persons, anything filed around the same time. If someone had disappeared, their name had to be somewhere.
The search took minutes. The realization took seconds.
There was nothing.
No missing persons within the timeframe.
No unofficial reports. No loved ones asking questions.
Whoever the King Without a Crown had been, they hadn't just vanished.
They had been removed.
Eric paced between the rows of filing cabinets, jaw tight.
Colhoun sat at the metal desk, flipping through the case file. It was like staring at a book with half the pages torn out—what was left wasn't enough to tell the story, but just enough to make you realize something was missing.
"You ever heard of a living ghost?" Colhoun asked, not looking up.
Eric paused. "That a real question?"
"A real one." Colhoun tapped the file.
"People disappear all the time. They leave traces—bank records, phone logs, someone still waiting for them to show up to dinner. But this guy? No traces. No reports. No one looking for him. It's not just that he vanished. It's like he was never here to begin with."
"A ghost," Eric muttered.
"A living one," Colhoun corrected.
"Someone who existed—until someone decided they didn't."
Then Eric swore under his breath. "Got something."
Colhoun leaned over as Eric turned his screen.
A list of citations—street-level charges, nothing serious. Loitering. Disturbing the peace. Petty theft.
All clustered around the same block.
All dismissed within twenty-four hours.
All issued to J.D. Calloway.
Colhoun narrowed his eyes. "Who's J.D. Calloway?"
Eric clicked through, but the profile was a dead end. No birth date. No address. No relatives. Just a name attached to a series of minor infractions—then nothing.
Like he had never existed.
Or like someone had erased him.
"Calloway's the closest thing we've got to a lead," Eric said.
"But how do you investigate someone who doesn't exist?"
Colhoun drummed his fingers against the desk. "You don't."
Eric frowned. "Then what the hell do we do?"
"You find the eraser," Colhoun said simply.
"Someone wiped Calloway out of the system. That means there's a trail. A deletion log. A bureaucratic footprint. If we can't find him, we find whoever erased him."
Eric let out a slow breath. "So we're looking for a ghost hunter."
Colhoun smirked. "Something like that."
And as they left the records room, he had the distinct feeling that someone—somewhere—was watching.
Because ghosts didn't just disappear.
Sometimes, they were made.