The Missing Stylists

The ink had run down the page in blue veins.

Mara stared at it, then looked through the glass. The entry hall was dark except for a pale rectangle of daylight falling through the ceiling where the roof had collapsed. Plaster lay across the floor. A chandelier hung crookedly overhead, one crystal trembling whenever the wind moved through the house.

She called the number on the appointment.

The phone rang once in her hand.

Then the sound came from inside Briar House.

Mara froze.

A muffled electronic trill sounded beyond the door, followed by silence.

She tried again. The ringtone answered from somewhere deeper in the house.

“Hello?” she called.

No one replied.

The rain slid cold beneath her collar. She tested the front door. It opened inward with a swollen scrape.

“Mrs. Vale?” Mara said. “This is Mara Velez. I’m here for your appointment.”

The name had come from the booking form. Lenora Vale. Forty-eight. Full color correction. Cash payment.

Inside, the air was colder than outside. Damp wallpaper peeled in strips from the walls, exposing black plaster beneath. Her shoes sank slightly into the warped floorboards. The ringtone had stopped, but she could hear water dripping somewhere below her.

Mara lifted her phone. No signal.

“Mrs. Vale?”

A floorboard cracked upstairs.

She stepped back toward the doorway.

Then something struck the wall behind her.

Mara spun around. A framed photograph had fallen from its hook. The glass shattered across the floor, scattering silver shards over the entry tiles. In the picture, a young woman stood beside a man in a dark suit, both of them squinting into summer sunlight. The woman’s face had been scratched away.

Mara’s pulse kicked hard.

She bent without thinking, then stopped herself. The house was condemned. The client had not answered. She had no business searching it.

From somewhere to her left came the faint scrape of metal against wood.

Not a pipe. Not the rain.

A drawer opening.

Mara backed into the hall and reached for the small can of pepper spray clipped inside her coat. She did not draw it yet. Her fingers closed around the plastic canister as she moved toward the sound.

The hallway led to a parlor with tall windows and furniture draped in yellowing sheets. Water had pooled across the floor beneath a cracked ceiling. The surface shivered with each drop. Near the far wall, half-submerged in the water, sat a black stylist’s case.

Mara knew the shape before she reached it.

Every mobile stylist did.

The hard-sided case had once been glossy, but mud dulled its corners. One latch hung open. A pair of shears floated beside it, their handles caught in the fringe of a soaked rug.

Mara crouched at the edge of the flooded room.

“Mrs. Vale?” she called again, quieter now.

The only answer was the slow drip from above.

She hooked the case toward her with the handle of a fallen umbrella. Water sloshed inside as she dragged it across the floor. The smell of mildew rose from the carpet, mixed with something sharper - old chemical product, hair dye, perhaps.

The case snagged on a floorboard.

Mara pulled harder.

The board shifted with a deep wooden groan.

She released the umbrella and grabbed the case with both hands. The water was icy through her gloves. As she lifted, the floor beneath her left knee dipped.

Mara lurched backward.

A section of ceiling collapsed where she had been crouching. Plaster crashed into the water, sending a dirty wave across the room. The impact shook the walls. Somewhere overhead, glass broke in a rapid cascade.

She scrambled toward the doorway, dragging the case after her.

The floor dipped again.

“Mara!”

The voice came from outside.

She twisted toward the hall. A figure stood beyond the front door, blurred by rain and the smeared glass.

“Are you all right?” the person shouted.

“I’m coming out!”

The figure moved away from the door.

“Wait!” Mara yelled.

No answer came.

She pulled the case over the threshold just as another board split behind her. A black gap opened in the flooded room, swallowing the corner of the rug. Mara crawled into the hall, breathing hard, the case wedged against her ribs.

For several seconds she could do nothing but listen.

Rain. Dripping water. The faint settling creak of the house.

Then she pushed herself upright.

The front door stood open. The porch beyond it was empty.

Mara wiped rain and plaster dust from her cheek. “Very funny.”

Her voice sounded thin in the hall.

She should leave the case and get out. Instead, she looked down at the battered lid. A faded white label clung to it, nearly erased by water.

L. HARROW.

Mara knew that name.

She had seen it in newspaper scans, in the old case file Detective Jonah Reed had sent to her group after they began comparing the vanished appointments. Lila Harrow, twenty-six, mobile stylist. Disappeared fourteen years ago while traveling to a home-service appointment. Her car had been found near the river road. Her body had never been recovered.

Neither had the man investigators called the prime suspect.

Mara’s mouth went dry.

“No,” she whispered.

The case could have belonged to anyone. Old stock. A secondhand purchase. A coincidence.

She forced open the second latch.

Inside, the contents had fused into a wet black mass. Towels. Bottles with their labels dissolved. A comb with wide teeth. A roll of foil, green with corrosion. Beneath the ruined supplies lay a narrow leather pouch.

Mara lifted it out.

The pouch was stiff with age, its drawstring tied in a knot. She opened it over the dry portion of the hallway. A silver comb slid into her palm.

Three engraved letters caught the weak light.

L. H.

Mara stared at them.

The comb was scratched along one side, but the initials remained clear. She remembered Lila Harrow’s photograph from the case file: dark hair pinned high, one hand resting on a black stylist’s case almost identical to the one at Mara’s feet.

A sound came from upstairs.

One step.

Then another.

Mara closed her fingers around the comb.

“Who’s there?”

The house answered with a soft thump above her.

She shoved the comb into the inside pocket of her coat and lifted the case. It was heavier now, soaked through and dragging at her shoulder. She left the rest behind. The shears, bottles, and ruined towels could not matter more than getting out.

At the front door, the porch sagged under her weight. One railing post leaned away from the house, held in place by a vine. Mara descended carefully, avoiding the rotten boards.

The gate was visible through the rain.

It was closed.

She stopped at the foot of the porch.

A moment earlier, it had been open.

Mara set the case down and looked back at the house. Every window was dark. The upstairs curtains no longer moved.

“Hello?” she called.

No reply.

She crossed the driveway, mud sucking at her boots. The gate’s chain had been looped through both iron bars. A brass padlock hung from it, bright and dry beneath the rain.

Mara touched it.

The lock was warm.

She yanked the chain. It rattled against the bars, loud enough to wake the dead, but the gate did not move.

Her phone showed one bar of signal, then none.

Mara turned toward the house.

Behind the upstairs window, a shape passed briefly across the gray glass.

She grabbed the case and stepped backward, the engraved comb pressing cold against her ribs.

The lock clicked once.

Not open.

Tightening.

End of chapter one. 38 more chapters and about 87,633 words in the full book.