The digital clock on the dashboard of my unmarked cruiser read 02:14 AM. It was the “graveyard shift,” that hollow stretch of night usually reserved for drunk drivers, domestic disputes, and the restless ghosts of the city. I took a sip of lukewarm coffee, the caffeine barely touching the bone-deep exhaustion that had settled into my marrow after twenty years on the force.
My name is Detective Vance, and I trade in the currency of other people’s nightmares.
The radio crackled, shattering the silence of the rain-slicked street. It wasn’t the usual rhythmic cadence of a dispatch call. It was the voice of Mark Harrison, a veteran dispatcher who had heard everything from jumpers to shootings, and his voice was trembling.
“All units, Code 3 to 42 Oakwood Lane. Possible 187 in progress. Reporting party is… a child. Male. Five years old.”
I grabbed the mic, my instincts flaring like a struck match. “Dispatch, this is Vance. Did you say a five-year-old?”
“Roger, Vance,” Mark’s voice came back, tight and strained. “The kid says his dad is ‘playing doctor’ with his mom. He says… he says the dad is using a red scalpel. He says Mom is asleep in the water, but she won’t wake up.”
