The creaking floorboards of The Crow's Nest Inn groaned under the weight of its latest arrivals—a collection of drifters and oddities drawn to the fog-swathed building like moths to a dying flame. Among them moved a predator, a wolf in threadbare traveler's clothes. He blended perfectly with the nervous laughter and sideways glances, just another nameless face nursing cheap whiskey at the bar. No one noticed how his eyes lingered too long on doorways, or how his gloves stayed on despite the hearth's oppressive heat. He'd chosen this place carefully—a rotting sanctuary where screams wouldn't carry through the howling coastal storms. Enter The Dummy Detective, though nobody here would recognize the title. To the other guests, he was simply another peculiar act arriving with the bad weather: a sharp-eyed man in a slightly singed trench coat, accompanied by what appeared to be a life-size marionette slumped in a wheelchair. The dummy's chipped paint gave it the unsettling grin of a jack-o'-lantern left out past Halloween, its glassy eyes reflecting the firelight in little shards of orange. Most patrons dismissed them as carnival folk down on their luck—all except the killer. He'd studied the pair from the moment their boots tracked mud across the threshold. A detective who whispered clues to a block of wood instead of a notebook? Perfect. Amusing, even. By midnight, the trap snapped shut. Heavy cellar doors barred from the outside. Storm-blown power lines leaving the inn darker than a grave. The killer relished the metallic snick of the lock—let the detective chatter with his wooden lapdog while the shadows deepened. What he hadn't counted on was the way those painted eyes seemed to follow him in the gloom, or how the dummy's stiff wooden fingers would tap-tap-tap against the stone floor long after its master fell silent. Upstairs, guests complained about the faint sound of laughter drifting through the heating vents. Dry. Rasping. Like splinters dragged across bone.