The police archives smell like mildew and broken dreams. You flip through yellowed case files, the flickering fluorescent light casting long shadows across the water-stained pages. After three hours and two cups of bitter precinct coffee, you find it—a pattern buried beneath the bureaucratic red tape. Five men over the past year, all vanished within two blocks of the waterfront, all leaving behind vehicles with their driver's side doors hanging open like broken wings.

Your fingers pause on a photograph of the third victim's car—a '48 Packard with the same odd scratch pattern near the door handle as Chase's sedan. The detail gnaws at you. You cross-reference the cases with the evidence locker manifests. Each file lists a single piece of jewelry found in the abandoned vehicles: a cufflink, a tie clip, and now Chase's pearl earring. All monogrammed initials that don't match the victims.

Sergeant O'Malley leans over your shoulder, his stale whiskey breath warm against your ear. 'Still digging up ghosts, huh?' He taps a thick finger on the most recent file. 'That one's fresh. Dockworker reported a black Cadillac circling Pier 17 last night—same make as the car our fifth missing guy drove.' You note the address as O'Malley adds, 'Word on the street says the Golden Dragon Society's been buying up warehouse space down there.'

The clock above the records desk ticks toward midnight. Outside, the fog has turned to drizzle, painting the precinct windows with liquid shadows. You think about Mrs. Chase's trembling hands and that lone earring glinting like a dare in the gloom.