Strange Hands E-Book

Dominik Mikulaschek

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 729

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026

Beschreibung

In **“Strange Hands: The Perfect Imprint,”** a single fingerprint becomes the beginning of a terrifying psychological nightmare. Mara Stein has already learned to distrust the world around her, but when she discovers evidence of her own touch in places she has never touched, fear turns into full-blown paranoia. What starts as caution quickly becomes survival. Doors, glass, elevators, gloves, hallways, cameras, and polished surfaces are no longer ordinary objects. In this gripping **psychological thriller**, every surface can become a trap, every trace can become evidence, and every step Mara takes may lead her deeper into a carefully designed conspiracy. After a disturbing chain of events, Mara makes a radical decision: she will no longer touch anything directly. She wears thin latex gloves, avoids direct contact, and moves through her own apartment building as if she is crossing a crime scene. But her precautions fail almost immediately. In the lobby of her building, she finds a shard of broken glass with a perfect fingerprint on it—her fingerprint. The problem is impossible to ignore: she did not touch it. She knows she did not. Yet the print is there, sharp, clean, and undeniable. In that moment, Mara realizes that someone has found a way to copy her identity and plant her traces wherever they want. This is where **“Strange Hands: The Perfect Imprint”** becomes more than a suspense novel. It becomes a chilling story about **identity theft, surveillance, manipulation, false evidence, and psychological control**. Mara is not just being watched. She is being recreated through forensic proof. Her fingerprints, the most personal and legally trusted marks of identity, are being used as weapons against her. The more she tries to protect herself, the more she begins to suspect that even her defenses have been manipulated. The gloves she thought would keep her safe may already be part of the plan. As Mara searches for answers, she uncovers deeply unsettling clues: suspicious glove sets, hidden surveillance, silent observers, coded labeling, discarded evidence, and the growing sense that this operation is systematic rather than random. Nothing feels accidental. The danger is not just physical; it is psychological, intimate, and relentless. Someone knows how to make her look guilty before any crime is even explained. In a world built on proof, what happens when the proof itself has been stolen? **“Strange Hands: The Perfect Imprint”** is a must-read for fans of **psychological thrillers, suspense novels, forensic mysteries, conspiracy thrillers, and dark crime fiction**. Readers who enjoy stories about **fingerprints, planted evidence, surveillance systems, identity manipulation, paranoia, and high-stakes deception** will be pulled into Mara’s fight from the very first page. The novel combines a haunting atmosphere with a modern, believable threat, creating a tense and claustrophobic reading experience that lingers long after the final chapter. This thriller is perfect for readers who love: psychological suspense with a strong female lead, dark and intelligent thrillers with a modern edge, forensic mystery novels about fingerprints and evidence, crime fiction about false accusations and identity theft, and page-turning suspense filled with fear, secrets, and mistrust.

Leseprobe

Dominik Mikulaschek, born in Linz in 1983, has been analysing the invisible architectures of power and the mechanisms by which truth is established or buried for over fifteen years. In “Fremde Hände” (Strange Hands), he turns this unsparing gaze upon the grim workshops of modern justice and exposes the forensic evidence room as a new scene of the crime. Without clichéd villains, but with a menacing systematicity, he depicts a battle waged not with weapons, but with fingerprints and the perfect staging of guilt.

Mikulaschek draws the reader straight into the nightmare of his protagonist Mara, who must learn that the greatest danger in a system of infallible fingerprints lies not in touching something, but in the fact that one’s own traces have long existed without her. With razor-sharp logic, “Fremde Hände” unfolds the oppressive horror scenario of total surveillance. It is more than a page-turning thriller – a gripping and unsettling wake-up call about control and the fragility of identity in a world where evidence is not found, but tailor-made.

Dominik Mikulaschek

Strange Hands

The Perfect Imprint

tredition GmbH

© 2026 Dominik Mikulaschek

Printed and distributed on behalf of the author by:

tredition GmbH, Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Germany

This work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. The author is responsible for the content. Any use without his consent is prohibited. Publication and distribution are carried out on behalf of the author, who can be contacted at: Dominik Mikulaschek, Holzwurmweg 5, 4040 Linz, Austria.

Contact address in accordance with the EU Product Safety Regulation:[email protected]

Chapter 1 – The Last Contact (Mara)

I breathed in the stagnant air of my flat and knew it was over. From today onwards, I would no longer touch anything directly. The system wanted my hands, it wanted touch, it wanted traces, and I would give it none. The air trap they’d called it last week hadn’t been a trap made of metal or wire, but one of protocols and tiny, invisible imprints that clung to everything I’d looked at. Holt was gone, but his methods lived on; they had seeped into the walls of this building, and I felt them like a slight electric shock on my skin every time I saw a door handle. I put on the first pair of gloves, thin latex gloves I’d found in a box under the sink. They felt alien, tight and cool, a second skin sealing off my own. As I put them on, I noticed tiny white traces of powder on the cuffs, barely visible in the morning light streaming through the window. I rubbed them off with the thumb of my other hand, an automatic reflex, a final direct touch of my own skin, then that too was over. Everyday life was already waiting with its resistance. The door to my flat had to be opened. I used my elbow, pressing it against the cold metal knob and feeling the pressure through the thin layer of my jumper. It was awkward, it was slow, but it was safe. The hallway outside was empty and quiet; only the muffled hum of the lift could be heard in the distance. I went to the stairs; the door was heavy, I pushed against it with my shoulder. Every movement was now worth a second thought, a small manoeuvre in an invisible war. Down the steps, my hands in gloves pressed firmly against the sides of my jeans so as not to brush against anything. The lobby was on the ground floor, a large room with black marble flooring and cold, modern armchairs. Normally I would cross it with quick steps, my gaze fixed on my phone to avoid small talk with the doorman. Today I stopped at the foot of the stairs and scanned the room. Everything seemed normal. The doorman, a young man I knew only as Leo, had disappeared behind his narrow counter. The glass doors leading to the courtyard revealed the grey morning sky. And then I saw it. In the middle of the gleaming marble, in front of the lift, lay a piece of glass. It wasn’t a large shard, more of a splinter, perhaps the size of my palm. It lay there as if it had simply fallen from the sky, sharp-edged and still. Something inside me told me to turn around, go back up the stairs, return to my flat and lock the door. But another part of me, the vigilant, paranoid part that hadn’t been able to settle since the air trap, forced me to step closer. I stopped at a safe distance, leaning forward slightly. On the surface of the glass, in the pale light, an imprint was visible. A clear, clean fingerprint. The whorls and lines were clearly discernible, a perfect pattern on the clear surface. My stomach clenched. I recognised that print. I’d seen it a thousand times, on my phone screen, on glass surfaces in my kitchen, on the bathroom mirror. It was mine. A perfect copy of my right index finger. That was impossible. I hadn’t touched anything without gloves since getting up. I’d opened the door with my elbow, flicked the light switch with the back of my hand. I’d been careful, almost fearful, to avoid any direct contact. And yet there it was, this silent, irrefutable evidence of a touch that had never happened. A cold shiver ran down my spine. This was no longer a warning. This was a demonstration. Someone could plant my traces wherever they wanted. Someone had access to me, to my identity, encoded in the fine lines of my skin. I sat up, my breath shallow and rapid. I had to get rid of it, destroy it, before anyone else saw it. But even touching it with the glove was a risk. What if the glove left traces? What if that was part of the plan? I looked around. The lobby was still empty. The faint hum in the walls seemed to be growing louder. I took a step back, then another. My heart was pounding in my throat. This was the first step into a new world, a world in which I had to control not only my own actions, but also the perfect echoes of them that someone else was creating for me. The splinter lay there, a small, sharp piece of reality that changed everything. The imprint on it stared at me, demanding and clear. It told me that my caution was useless. It told me that I had already lost before the day had properly begun. I turned slowly, ready to flee to the stairs, back to the apparent safety of my own four walls. Then I heard a soft click. The lift doors slid open silently. Leo, the doorman, stepped out, a coffee cup in his hand. His gaze swept over me, then down to the floor. He stopped. His eyes widened for a moment as he saw the shard of glass. Then he looked up at me, at my hands, encased in thin, transparent gloves. His face showed no surprise, only a deep, weary vigilance. “Mrs Stein,” he said quietly, his voice echoing faintly in the vast hall. He made no move to pick up the shard. He merely looked. And in that gaze, in that passive observation, lay the full threat. It was already too late. It had been seen. The print and I, we were now linked, a piece of evidence and a suspect, right in the middle of the lobby of my own home. I could say nothing. No explanation would help here. I froze in my tracks as Leo’s gaze fixed on my gloves, then back on the glass, and I knew what he must have seen: the unnatural cleanliness of the print, the way it sat on the surface as if it had been stuck on, not pressed. A perfect picture. Too perfect. That was the first clue, a tiny crack in the façade of the crime, but it wouldn’t interest anyone else. To them, it was just evidence. To me, it was the beginning. Leo finally leaned forward, very slowly, and took a small radio from his belt. He didn’t speak into it; he just held it in his hand, a thumb over the talk button. The question hung invisibly between us: What now? Should I leave? Should I stay and pretend it was nothing? Every decision was wrong. Every movement left a trace, whether real or invented. The silence in the lobby grew thick and heavy, filled with the unspoken knowledge that this was only the beginning. The shard of glass hadn’t landed here by chance. It had been placed there, like a chess piece on a square. And my footprint was the message. I felt the control I had painstakingly built up melt away. My hands in the gloves suddenly no longer felt like protection, but like a confession. Why was I wearing them if I hadn’t done anything? The logic of the system began to close in on me, cold and relentless. I had to act, do something, but I was paralysed. Then, at last, Leo broke the silence. He didn’t say a word to me. He spoke quietly into his radio; I couldn’t make out his words. His gaze, however, remained fixed on me, watchful and neutral. He took a step to the side, blocking not the path to the stairs, but only the way to the exit. It was a subtle gesture, full of meaning. I wasn’t trapped, but I was being watched. The pressure in my chest became almost unbearable. I had to get out of here. I took a deep breath, which choked in the mask of my own fear, and took a step towards the stairs. My legs felt heavy, as if they were made of lead. Every step was a struggle against the instinct to run. I heard Leo say something behind me, perhaps to me, perhaps into the radio. I didn’t turn around. I concentrated on the steps ahead of me, on the cold metal handrail I wasn’t allowed to touch. The world had shifted. The rules had changed. Touch was no longer natural; it had become a weapon, and someone had placed my fingerprint on the trigger. When I reached the top, standing in front of the door to my flat, I hesitated. My hands trembled slightly inside the gloves. I looked down at them, at the invisible barrier between me and the world. At the cuff, where I’d rubbed off the powder residue, a light, fine film remained, almost sticky. It wasn’t ordinary powder. It felt like something designed to stick. A transfer aid. The gloves weren’t just protection. They were part of something. They had been the starting signal. This realisation hit me with the force of a baton. I had put them on, believing I was protecting myself, and in doing so had perhaps done exactly what was expected of me. I pushed the door open with my shoulder and stepped inside, letting it slam shut behind me. I leaned my back against the cold wood, breathing heavily. In the silence of my flat, the final images echoed in my head: the perfect imprint on the glass, Leo’s watchful gaze, the sticky feeling on the cuff of the glove. It was no coincidence. It had been planned. And it was only the beginning. I closed my eyes, but I could still see it, sharp and clear, as if burned into my retina. The print. My print. On the shard of glass in the lobby. And I knew, with a certainty that shook me to the core, that it would not be the last. Someone had copied my skin, and now they were beginning to distribute it. The hunt had begun, and I was both hunter and hunted, evidence and suspect. The air in the flat suddenly tasted of metal and fear. I opened my eyes and stared at my gloved hands. They were no longer mine. They had become tools in a game whose rules I did not know. The last link to the normal world had been severed. From now on, everything was different. From now on, every object was a potential trap, every smooth surface a potential canvas for my stolen identity. I walked slowly to the window and looked down into the courtyard. Everything looked peaceful, normal. But normality was a lie. Beneath the surface, something was creeping, something that was gathering my traces and using them against me. The day had only just begun, and I was already exhausted. The lobby lay beneath me, invisible behind the walls, but the shard of glass was still there, a silent witness. And on it, clear and full and undeniable, was the imprint of my index finger. My mantra, my new law – I would touch nothing directly anymore – had already been broken, by someone else. Control was an illusion. I was nothing more than a puppet, whose strings were made of the lines on my own fingers. The humming in the walls had fallen silent, but a new, deeper tone had begun, a vibration of menace that could be felt in my bones. I turned away from the window. The flat, my refuge, no longer felt safe. The walls seemed to be growing thinner, as if eyes could see right through them. Every object, every handle, every light switch was suspect. Where would the next fingerprints appear? On my coffee cup? On my front door? On a knife? The paranoia had become a living thing, nestling in my chest and growing with every heartbeat. I had to pull myself together. I had to think. The system, Rios, Holt – they relied on evidence, on physical traces. So I had to find evidence that would break their system. I had to find the source. I had to find out who was collecting my fingerprints and how. But first I had to get through this day, through every hour, every minute, without leaving a new, real trace. It was an impossible task. I looked at the gloves. The sticky film on the cuff shimmered slightly in the light. Perhaps that was the first clue. Not the print down there, but what was clinging to me here. The gloves themselves were a piece of evidence. But evidence of what? I pulled them off slowly, very carefully, touching only the cuff with the fingertips of my other hand. I let them fall onto the kitchen table. They lay there, limp and transparent, two empty shells. Inside, the sticky film glistened with moisture. Outside, a light dusting of powder. They looked like a medical product, but they felt like a tool from a crime. I wrapped them in kitchen roll without touching them directly. A pointless ritual. If anyone came into my flat to find them, they would find them. But it gave me the feeling of regaining a little control. A tiny act of resistance. The day dragged on, a torment of avoided contact and frayed nerves. Every sound made me flinch. Every shadow seemed to move. I drank water from a bottle without pressing my lips to the rim. I ate nothing. The thought of touching something that might later bear my stolen fingerprints turned my stomach. I was a prisoner in my own skin, in my own flat. As twilight fell and the city lights came on, the paralysing fear slowly gave way to a cold, clear rage. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t a fight with fair weapons. This was theft. Theft of my identity, my security, my peace. I couldn’t sit here and wait until the next perfect copy of myself turned up at a crime scene. I had to act. I had to go out, return to the lobby, look at the shard of glass, confront Leo. Anything. But the memory of his gaze held me back. It was too risky. I was alone. Jonah was in hospital, gone and out of reach. Kira, the security guard, was a stranger. Rios was waiting out there somewhere, with his calm, unshakeable conviction that fingerprints don’t lie. I was surrounded. Night was falling over the city, and with it came a new kind of silence, a menacing silence that seemed to herald soft footsteps and whispering voices in the ventilation shafts. I didn’t turn on any lights. I sat in the dark, by the window, watching the courtyard. The streetlamps cast long, distorted shadows. Everything looked normal. Too normal. It was the calm before the storm. I knew it. The first act was over. The mark had been made. The stage was set. Now I waited for the second act, for the next move in this perverse game. My hands, now without gloves, felt bare and vulnerable. I clenched them into fists to stop the trembling. The lines on my palms were invisible in the dark, but I could feel them, every single one. They were mine, and yet they no longer belonged to me. Someone had taken them, copied them, replicated them. The feeling of revulsion was overwhelming. It was an intrusion, more intimate than any physical assault. They had touched me without ever touching me. When the clock on my bedside table struck midnight, I stood up. I could no longer sit there. I went to the door and pressed my ear against the cold wood. Nothing. Just the distant hum of the building. Slowly, cautiously, I opened the door a crack and peered into the corridor. Empty. The neon tube on the ceiling flickered faintly. The smell of disinfectant and old carpet hung in the air. I stepped out, leaving the door open behind me, an escape route. The corridor was endlessly long, the doors to the other flats all closed, dark, indifferent. I was alone in this white, clinical labyrinth. My destination was the rubbish room door at the end of the corridor. If there was any evidence to be found, it would be where no one looked. Every step echoed softly. My bare hands were clammy with sweat. I stopped in front of the grey metal door to the refuse room. It wasn’t locked. A gentle push with my shoulder, and it gave way. The smell of stale food and cleaning products hit me. The room was dark; only an emergency light above the door cast a faint, greenish glow over the rows of rubbish bins. I hesitated. This was stupid. Really stupid. But I had to do it. I stepped inside. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. I searched for something, anything, that didn’t belong here. And then I saw it. Between two grey bins, almost in the shadows, lay a small, transparent plastic bag. It was carefully tied. I moved closer, knelt down without touching anything. Inside the bag were several pairs of gloves, just like mine. Thin latex, transparent. And on one of them, written on the cuff with a thin black pen, were clearly legible letters: MARA – SET 4. My breath caught in my throat. SET 4. So there were sets. Series. I was no exception. I was a production number. This was no longer an improvised threat. It was systematic. It had been planned down to the last detail. Production. The word hung in the stinking air of the rubbish room. Someone was producing my fingerprints, packaging them in sets and distributing them. To what end? To frame me. To overwhelm me with irrefutable evidence until any defence was impossible. I stared at the bag, at the labelled gloves inside. This was no coincidence. This was the next step. The print in the lobby was just the appetiser. This was the main course. I wanted to take the bag, take it away as evidence, but my hands jerked back. What if, by doing so, I was merely initiating the chain of custody that Rios would ultimately use against me? What if my own fingerprints were already on the bag, placed there by the same person who had left the gloves here? I was paralysed by the trap I found myself in. Every move could be wrong. Every touch a disaster. I remained kneeling on the cold, dirty floor, the bag in front of me, the green emergency light above me, bathing everything in a ghostly glow. SET 4. How many sets were there? What was in SET 5? What was the finale? The questions raced through my head, an avalanche of fear and anger. I had to pull myself together. I had to think. The bag here was evidence, but dangerous evidence. I couldn’t just leave it lying there. I couldn’t take it with me. I needed a witness. I needed someone to see it before I touched it. Kira. Security. She must have the CCTV footage. Or at least the logbooks. But could I trust her? Her nervous look this morning didn’t say much. Everyone here was a potential part of the system. Whilst I was still thinking, I heard a sound. A soft, metallic click. Right behind me. I froze. The blood was rushing in my ears. I turned my head, just a centimetre, so as not to make too much noise. The door to the bin room, which I’d left ajar, was now closed. I was sure I hadn’t closed it. A slight draught brushed against the back of my neck. Someone was here. Someone was standing right behind the door. In the dark. And waiting.

Chapter 2 – The Perfect Proof (Mara)

I remained kneeling on the cold floor, motionless, my breath frozen in my throat. The metallic click of the door closing echoed in the silence of the bin room, a sharp, final sound. Someone was outside. Someone had closed the door. I turned my head slowly, millimetre by millimetre, and stared at the grey metal surface. No strip of light was coming through the narrow gap under the door. It was completely shut. The green emergency light above me cast my distorted shadow onto the bins, making me look large and menacing, but I felt small and helpless. I counted in my head, forcing myself to stay calm. Five seconds. Ten. Nothing happened. No further sound, no whispering, no breathing from the other side of the door. Perhaps it had been the wind. Perhaps the door had closed by itself. But I knew that wasn’t right. The door was heavy; it always stuck a little; you had to pull it shut properly. Someone had closed it. I stood up quietly; my knees creaked in protest. I listened, my whole body one giant ear. Only the dull hum of the cooling units somewhere deep within the building could be heard. My gaze flickered back and forth between the plastic bag containing the gloves at my feet and the closed door. I couldn’t leave the bag here. SET 4. The evidence was too concrete, too dangerous to let it disappear in the rubbish. But taking it with me was just as dangerous. If anyone caught me with this bag, it would all be over. Then I saw the rubbish bin next to me. The lid was ajar. An idea, desperate and risky, took shape in my mind. I gritted my teeth, pulled the sleeve of my jumper over my hand and carefully pushed the lid of the bin further open. The smell of rotten food and old paper hit me. I took the plastic bag containing the gloves, very carefully, using only my fingertips, which were protected by the fabric of the sleeve, and dropped it into the black depths of the bin. It landed softly on something soft. I let the lid fall back slowly until it was in the same position as before. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was hidden for the time being. I knew where she was. Now I just had to get out of here alive. I walked to the door and carefully placed my gloved hand on the cold metal handle. I hesitated. What if someone was waiting outside? What if it was a trap? I took a deep breath and pressed the handle down. The door gave way with a soft, oily squeak. The corridor was empty. The flickering neon light cast its ghostly glow onto the linoleum floor. I stepped out and quietly closed the door behind me, leaving it open just a tiny crack, just in case. The corridor seemed endless. My flat door was at the other end, a small, dark opening in the white wall. I began to walk; my footsteps were quiet, but they echoed in the silence nonetheless. Every nerve in my body was taut, ready to react to the slightest movement. When I was halfway there, I heard a sound behind me. A faint scraping, like a shoe sole on linoleum. I stopped, but didn’t turn around. The scraping fell silent. Perhaps it was just my imagination, the echo of my own footsteps. I forced myself to keep going, faster now. My flat door was getting closer. Ten steps to go. Five. My hand was already reaching for the key in my pocket when the door to the stairwell next to me opened. Kira stepped out, in her dark blue security uniform, a cup of coffee in her hand. She looked surprised when she saw me, then her gaze darted to my hands, to the thin latex gloves I was still wearing. Her expression darkened. “Mrs Stein. What are you doing here? It’s midnight.” Her voice was neutral, but her eyes were alert, scanning me, the corridor behind me. “I couldn’t sleep,” I said, my own voice sounding hoarse and strange. “Just had a walk.” Kira took a sip of coffee, said nothing. Her gaze remained fixed on my gloves. “The lobby this morning,” she said at last, quietly. “The shard of glass. Leo reported it.” I nodded, said nothing. What was there to say? “He secured the shard,” Kira continued. “Procedure. You know.” I knew. Everything was secured. Every find, every suspicion went into the system, was catalogued, registered, assigned. “The print on it,” said Kira, and now there was a strange tone in her voice, almost like admiration mixed with unease. “Leo said it was… perfect. So clean, so clear. He said he’d rarely seen such a distinct print on such a dirty surface.” Perfect. The word hit me like a blow. It was the same word that had been going round and round in my head all day. Too clean. Too clear. No smudges, no blurring, no trace of movement. A static, perfect image of my finger. “What do you mean, perfect?” I asked, though I dreaded the answer. Kira shrugged, but her eyes betrayed that she knew it meant more. “Forensics love prints like that. Easy to scan, easy to compare. No doubts. A dream piece of evidence.” A dream piece of evidence. For Rios. For the system. For anyone who wanted to see me in it. The perfection of the print made my guilt irrefutable. The cleaner the evidence, the harder it was to doubt it. The logic was simple and brutal. Kira looked me over again. “Were you already wearing these gloves when you came into the lobby this morning?” The question came straight out, bluntly. I felt my heartbeat quicken. “Yes,” I said truthfully. “I’ve always worn them, for… for some time now.” She nodded as if she’d expected that. “Then explain something to me,” she said, taking a step closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “How did a perfect fingerprint of yours end up on a shard of glass in the lobby if you’re wearing gloves?” I stared at her. The question was the crux of it all. The impossibility that turned my whole existence on its head. “I don’t know,” I whispered back. “That’s just it. I didn’t leave it.” Kira held my gaze. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. In her eyes I saw a struggle, between duty and something else—perhaps doubt, perhaps guilt. “Leo passed it on to the police,” she said at last, quietly. “Standard procedure for finds with possible biometric traces. A detective was here this afternoon. Rios.” The name made the air around us freeze in . Rios. He’d already been here. He knew. The circle had closed. The machine had started grinding. “What did he say?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to know. “Not much. Looked at the scene, spoke to Leo, checked the security protocols.” She paused. “He asked about you. Whether you’re often out at night. Whether you’d noticed anything unusual.” I felt the trap snap shut. Rios was laying the groundwork, gathering the context into which the perfect piece of evidence would later fit. The unusual behaviour of the paranoid neighbour who wears gloves and roams about at night. It all fitted together too well. “And what did you say?” Kira looked away, at her coffee cup. “I said you were a quiet tenant. That I hadn’t noticed anything unusual.” It wasn’t full support, but it wasn’t a condemnation either. A small, feeble resistance against the unstoppable logic of the system. “Thank you,” I said, and it sounded sincere. She gave a brief nod. “Be careful, Mrs Stein. Rios… he’s not like the others. He only sees the evidence. And to him, it doesn’t lie.” I’d heard that before. It was his mantra. Fingerprints don’t lie. It was a simple, elegant truth that erased all complexity. To Rios, the world was black and white, and my fingerprints were a black spot on a white background. “I need to finish my rounds,” said Kira, turning to leave. Then she turned back once more. “By the way, the CCTV in the lobby from last night… the footage is patchy. Maintenance work. Cleaning mode. There’s nothing to see.” She said it casually, but the words hung heavily in the air. Camera cleaning mode. A window in which anything was possible without being seen. A perfect window of opportunity to place a shard of glass with a perfect print. She walked away, her footsteps echoing softly in the corridor before disappearing through the stairwell door. I stayed behind, alone with the flickering light and the growing certainty that I was caught up in something far bigger than I could ever have imagined. Someone had access to the cameras. Someone knew the protocols. Someone knew how to use the system to plant evidence that the system would then take at face value. I finally reached my front door, unlocked it and stepped inside. The familiar surroundings offered no comfort anymore. Every object was suspect. I went to the bathroom, washed my face, stared into the mirror. My eyes were ringed with dark circles, filled with a mixture of fear and determination. I couldn’t just sit here and wait. The print was there. Rios knew about it. The gloves in the bin room were another piece of the puzzle. I had to take action, had to understand what was happening here before the next ‘perfect’ piece of evidence turned up. I took off the gloves and examined them. The sticky film on the cuffs was still there. I fetched a plastic bag from the kitchen, put the gloves inside and stowed them in a cupboard. Perhaps they were evidence in themselves. Perhaps I could have the sticky residue analysed. But who would do that? Who would believe me? I needed an ally in forensics, someone who spoke the language of evidence and might be able to spot the inconsistencies. The name Dr Lila Henson came to mind, a forensic scientist who had been mentioned in one of Holt’s earlier cases. She was considered proper, incorruptible. Perhaps she was a starting point. But how could I approach her without ending up back with Rios straight away? The night dragged on, hour by hour, with agonising slowness. I didn’t sleep. I sat at the kitchen table and tried to make sense of the events. The shard of glass. The perfect fingerprint. The gloves with the sticky film. The bag in the bin room. SET 4. The cameras in cleaning mode. It was like an invisible net closing in on me, every event a knot being tightened. As dawn broke, I knew what I had to do. I had to go back to the lobby. I had to take a close look at the scene before Rios or anyone else wiped out every trace. I put on a new pair of gloves, simple cotton ones this time, nothing sticky. I left the flat and went down the stairs. The lobby was deserted, only the cleaner was slowly mopping the floor. She didn’t notice me. I went to the spot where the shard of glass had been. The marble floor was clean, no sign of what had happened here. But I knew where it had been. Right in front of the lift doors. I knelt down and looked at the floor. Nothing. Then I saw it. A tiny, barely visible scratch mark in the marble, exactly where a sharp edge of glass might have come into contact with it. It wasn’t much, but it was a point of reference, confirmation that it had been here. I stood up and looked around. Where had the glass come from? There were no broken lamps, no damaged mirrors. It was a foreign object, brought here to serve a purpose. A piece of evidence in a staged scene. I felt eyes on the back of my neck. I turned around. Leo was standing behind his bar, looking at me. His face was expressionless, but his hands were hidden beneath the bar. Perhaps he was holding his walkie-talkie again. I gave him a brief nod, an idiotic, polite reflex, then headed for the exit. I had to get out of here, get some fresh air, think. Outside, the morning was cool and misty. The city was slowly waking up. I walked a few blocks, breathing in the damp smell of tarmac. The normality of the world around me felt like an insult. How could everything carry on as if nothing had happened? When I returned, a car was parked in front of the building. A plain, dark saloon. The door opened and a man got out. He was in his mid-forties, wearing a beige trench coat; his face was narrow, with calm, observant eyes. Detective Rios. He saw me coming, leaned against the car door and waited. His gaze felt like physical pressure on my skin. I stopped a few metres in front of him. “Ms Stein,” he said. His voice was calm, matter-of-fact, devoid of any emotion. “I’ve been waiting for you.” “Why is that?” I asked, and my voice sounded sharper than I’d intended. “I have a few questions. About something found in your lobby. A shard of glass.” He said it as casually as if he were talking about the weather. “Leo told me,” I replied. “An unfortunate incident.” “Not just an incident,” Rios corrected me gently. “A piece of evidence. With a very clear fingerprint.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “You’re wearing gloves.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. His eyes remained fixed on my hands in the cotton gloves. ““I have sensitive skin,” I said, a prepared excuse that sounded hollow and feeble. Rios smiled almost imperceptibly, a brief twitch of his lips. “I see. Interesting nonetheless. The print on the glass is remarkably clear. A stroke of luck for forensics.” He took a step closer, and I had to force myself not to flinch. “You know, Ms Stein, in my line of work there is a simple principle. A principle that rarely fails.” He looked me straight in the eye, and in his eyes lay an icy conviction. “Fingerprints don’t lie.” The words hung between us, a final verdict. He didn’t believe in coincidence, not in manipulation, not in complex conspiracies. He believed in what he could see. And he could see my fingerprint on a shard of glass. For him, the matter was as good as settled. Everything else was merely a formality. “Fingerprints can be forged,” I said, my last, desperate objection. Rios shook his head slowly, almost regretfully. “Theoretically, yes. In practice, with such a perfect, three-dimensional print on an irregular surface? Highly unlikely. Almost impossible.” Almost impossible. But not entirely. That was the tiny crack I could cling to. But Rios didn’t see it. To him, the world was clear-cut. He pulled a small, silver card from his pocket and handed it to me. I took it, automatically, with my gloved hand. “My number,” he said. “In case you remember anything. Anything unusual you might have seen. Or in case you… want to speak to me.” It was both an invitation and a threat. He walked back to his car, got in and drove off without looking back. I stood there, the cold metal card in my hand, and felt the words burn themselves into my mind, indelibly. Fingerprints don’t lie. As far as Rios was concerned, I was already condemned. The evidence was perfect. And perfection, I now knew, was the most dangerous enemy of all.

Chapter 3 – The Window in the Night (Mara)

Rios’s metal card burned in my gloved hand as if it were red-hot. I slipped it into my jacket pocket, a tiny speck of contamination I couldn’t shake off. His words echoed in my head, a menacing, monotonous loop: Fingerprints don’t lie. I looked at the spot where his car had been parked, as if the tarmac might still provide an answer. The normality of the day breaking all around felt like a carefully maintained illusion. Cars drove past, people hurried to work, a dog was being walked. No one saw the trap that had closed in on me. No one but me. And Rios. I turned around and walked back into the building. The automatic glass doors closed behind me with a soft hiss. The lobby looked different now, no longer just a place of passage, but a stage. The marble floor, the cold leather armchairs, the gleaming surfaces – everything could be a carrier of evidence, of prints that did not come from me and yet were mine. Leo was still at his post, his gaze following me as I headed for the stairs. I could feel him on the back of my neck, that silent, watchful observation. Was he just a dutiful employee? Or was he part of it, a guardian of the threshold, recording when I came and went? The climb up the stairs seemed endless. Every step was an effort. Once I reached my flat, I leaned my back against the closed door and closed my eyes. The silence boomed in my ears. I had to act. React. But every possible movement seemed to lead in the wrong direction. The plastic bag in the bin room containing the gloves, SET 4, was the only concrete evidence I had. But I couldn’t just go and get it. Not with Leo down there, not with the possibility that the cameras might be running somewhere after all. Kira’s words came to mind. The CCTV footage from last night... the recordings are patchy. Maintenance work. Cleaning mode. That was the key. That was the window of opportunity in which everything had happened. If I wanted to understand how the ‘ ’ glass shard had got here, I needed to know more about this cleaning mode. Who had access to it? Who could activate it? And above all: was there a log, a log file, documenting this gap? I needed Kira. She was security; she knew the systems. But her behaviour was ambivalent. She’d warned me, but she was also cautious, distant. She didn’t want to be ‘in on it’; I’d sensed that. I had to question her carefully, without scaring her off. I waited an hour, drank some water, tried to gather my thoughts. Then I went back downstairs, not to the lobby, but to the security room in the basement. The room was small, crammed with monitors showing different angles of the building. The air smelled of dusty electronics and stale coffee. Kira was sitting on a swivel chair, her gaze fixed on the wall of screens. She turned as I entered, and her expression betrayed no surprise. “Ms Stein. Back again.” Her voice was neutral, but her eyes were alert. “I have a question about what you said. About the cameras’ cleaning mode.” Kira leaned back, folding her arms across her chest. A defensive posture. “What do you want to know?” “How exactly does it work? Who activates it? And is it logged?” She studied me for a long moment, as if weighing up how much she could reveal without putting herself at risk. “It’s an automatic system,” she said at last. “Every night between two and four in the morning, the cameras go into maintenance mode. The recordings are paused, the systems run a diagnostic. It’s standard procedure. It’s meant to prevent the hard drives from filling up.” “Who has access to change this mode? Or bypass it?” Kira shrugged, but it didn’t look convincing. “Technically, the system administrator. And me. In emergencies.” “And what about the logs? Is there a file showing when the mode was activated, and whether there were… any deviations?” Her gaze drifted to one of the monitors showing the empty bicycle storage room. “There are logs,” she admitted. “But they’re not accessible to the tenants. They’re internal records.” “Could you access them?” The question hung between us. Kira sighed softly. “Why should I? What do you hope to gain from that, Ms Stein? Even if there was something there, then what? Do you think someone tampered with the cameras to place that shard of glass?” “Yes,” I simply said. “That’s what I think.” She shook her head slowly, not in disbelief, but in resignation. “Even if. Even if I found something. Then what? I’d report it to my superior. He might report it to the property management. And they’d probably call the police. And which detective is in charge of this building? Rios.” The name made the room feel even smaller. “It all leads back to him,” I whispered. Kira nodded. “Exactly. So even if I wanted to help you, in the end I’d only set in motion the very cycle you fear. The only difference being that my signature would then be on a report documenting your theory. And I don’t want my signature on a report like that.” It was a clear, honest refusal. She wanted to survive, keep her job, not get caught up in the system. I couldn’t blame her. But I had the feeling she knew something else. Something she wasn’t saying. “The log gaps,” I pressed cautiously. “You said yesterday that you’d signed off on log gaps during the night shifts. What did you mean by that?” Her face barely changed, but I saw a brief twitch around her eyes, a flash of fear or guilt. “That was… an unfortunate choice of words.” “Kira,” I said, taking a step closer and lowering my voice. “Someone has my fingerprints. Someone is making sets of them and distributing them. SET 4 is written on a glove in a bag in the refuse room. This isn’t my paranoia. This is production. And if the system works the way you say it does, then you may have unwittingly opened a door. With a signature.” She stared at me, and for the first time I saw genuine terror in her eyes. Not fear of me, but of the consequences of what I was saying. ““Where is that bag?” she asked hoarsely. “Still in the refuse room. Hidden.” “You must destroy it,” she said quickly, almost pleadingly. “If anyone finds it, if Rios finds it… then it’s over. For you and for me. Because I control access to that room. Because my logs show the gaps.” Now I understood her hesitation better. It wasn’t just reluctance. It was complicity. She had done or allowed something that had made this whole thing possible. Perhaps it was just a routine signature on a maintenance log. Perhaps it was more. But now she was in it, whether she liked it or not. “I won’t destroy it,” I said firmly. “It’s evidence. The only evidence I have.” “Evidence of what?” she exclaimed, her voice almost breaking. “That someone wants to frame you? Do you really think anyone cares? Rios has your fingerprint. To him, the case is clear. Everything else is just noise.” “Then I have to turn up the volume on the noise,” I replied. “I have to prove that there’s production. That there are sets. And for that I need this bag. And I need your help to understand the camera logs.” Kira stood up and walked to the other end of the small room, turning her back on me. Her shoulders were tense. “You’re asking me to risk my job. Perhaps more.” “Someone has turned my life into a nightmare,” I said quietly. “Someone is stealing my identity and using it as a weapon. And this system that you and Leo and Rios are protecting—it’s the tool through which that’s happening. If you allow it, you’re not neutral. You’re part of it.” It was a harsh accusation, but it had to be said. She turned around slowly. Her face was pale. “I have a family,” she said simply. “I can’t afford to get involved in this.” “You’re already involved,” I said. “Through your signature. The only question is which side you’ll end up on.” The room was silent, only the soft hum of the servers and the flickering of the monitors filled the air. Kira looked at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. “The logs,” she said at last, in a voice that was barely audible. “I can look at them. But I can’t give you copies. And I can’t make anything official.” It was a small step, but it was something. “That’s enough,” I said. “I just need to know if there were any anomalies. Whether the cleaning mode was activated out of turn. Whether anyone was in the building at times they shouldn’t have been.” She gave a brief nod. “Give me until this evening. I’ll have a look during the quiet shift.” “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. Before I left, I turned around once more. “One more thing. The cleaning mode....can the cameras still record anything during that time? Even if it isn’t saved?” Kira looked at me, puzzled. “What do you mean?” “I mean, is the screen black? Or do the cameras keep running, just not recording?” She thought for a moment. “They keep running. The feed is live; you can see it here on the monitors. It just isn’t being written to the hard drive. Why?” “Because if someone uses the mode to do something without being recorded, they’d still have to know that nobody’s watching during that time. That nobody’s sitting here in the security room watching the live feed.” Kira’s eyes widened as she grasped the implication. “You mean the person knew that nobody was looking at the monitors during this night shift?” “Or they knew that the person sitting here was looking away,” I said. “Or… that they were in on it.” We looked at each other, and the unspoken knowledge was almost palpable. The possibility that someone on the security team was involved was real. Perhaps not Kira herself, but someone else. Someone who not only knew about the cleaning mode, but used it as a tool. “I wasn’t here that night,” Kira said quickly, almost defensively. “It was my day off. It was colleague Schmitz. He’s been here for years, absolutely reliable.” “I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” I reassured her. “I’m just trying to make sense of it all.” But a new idea was already taking shape in my mind. If the cleaning mode was a known time slot, then the culprit wasn’t necessarily an insider. They just had to know about it. And have access to the building. The list of suspects was suddenly not very long. I left the security room and went back upstairs. The day passed in a haze of tense waiting. I tried to read, but the words blurred before my eyes. I tried to eat, but the thought of being touched put me off my food. Every sound made me flinch. The heating creaked, and I jumped up from my chair. A dog barked outside, and my heart leapt. I was a bundle of nerves, trapped in my own skin. Late in the afternoon, I went back to the rubbish room. I had to make sure the bag was still there. The room was unchanged, the same acrid smell, the same green emergency light. I went to the bin, pushed the lid aside with my sleeve. The black abyss gaped at me. I couldn’t see the bag. A wave of panicked coldness washed over me. Was it gone? Had someone found it? I leaned forward further, risking a glance. And then I saw it, half-hidden by a thick, black bin bag, but it was still there. I breathed a sigh of relief. But the relief lasted only a moment. Because as I stood up, I noticed something else. On the dusty floor, right next to the bin, there was a faint, circular imprint. As if someone had stood there with the toe of their shoe in the dust, waiting. Someone had stood here. Recently. The dust hadn’t been blown back in yet. I froze, listened. Nothing. But the feeling of being watched was overwhelming. I let the lid of the bin drop quietly and left the rubbish room. My heart was pounding against my ribs. Someone knew about the bag. Someone had been looking for it. Or he had watched me hide it. I went back to my flat, locked the door and leaned against it. The loneliness and vulnerability of my situation weighed heavily on me. I had no weapons, no allies, except for a frightened security guard. And I had an enemy who was invisible, who used my own identity as a weapon, and who had hijacked the system that was supposed to protect me. As it grew dark, there was a soft knock at my door. I flinched. No glance through the peephole would give me any reassurance. “Who’s there?” I asked, my voice sounding hoarse. “Kira.” I opened the door a crack. She was standing outside, not in uniform, but in jeans and a dark jacket. Her face was tense. “Can I come in?” I stepped aside, and she slipped inside. I closed the door behind her. “I’ve looked at the logs,” she said, without a greeting. She stood in the middle of the living room, as if she didn’t want to stay too long. “And?” “There’s a discrepancy,” she said quietly . “The evening before the glass shard was found, cleaning mode was activated manually. An hour earlier than usual. And it wasn’t activated by the system administrator. The access ID belongs to a generic service identifier. ‘Cleaning service’.” Cleaning service. The words sent a chill down my spine. “What does that mean?” “It means that someone used the cleaning service’s login credentials to access the system and change the mode. The cleaning staff have such access for their tablets to confirm work orders. But they shouldn’t be able to use them to manipulate the security system.” “Can we trace which device it was? Or where the access came from?” Kira shook her head. “The generic identifier doesn’t allow that. It could have been any tablet, any device on which this app is installed. There are dozens in circulation.” So it was a clean, untraceable access. Someone who knew how to exploit the system’s vulnerabilities. “And the live camera feeds during that time? Was anyone in the security room who could have seen them?” “Colleague Schmitz,” said Kira. “I asked him cautiously today. He said nothing unusual had happened that night. He’d kept an eye on the monitors, but during the cleaning mode he’d been to the loo for about twenty minutes. Routine.” Twenty minutes. Enough time to go into the lobby, place a shard of glass and disappear again. Without being seen. It was perfect. Too perfect. “That sounds like insider knowledge,” I said. Kira nodded slowly. “Yes. Someone knew about the time window. And someone knew how to extend it. But that doesn’t prove anything. It could have been a technical glitch. Or Schmitz isn’t remembering correctly.” “But you don’t believe that,” I noted. She looked at me, and in her eyes was a mixture of fear and determination. “No. I don’t believe it. I’ve seen Schmitz’s log entry for that night. He didn’t manually activate cleaning mode, but he also didn’t log that he’d left the room. That’s a breach of protocol. And his signature is on a report stating that everything was normal that night.” So Schmitz had lied too. Or kept something to himself. The conspiracy was growing, the net was tightening. “What now?” I asked. Kira sighed. “I don’t know. If I report this officially, I’m accusing a colleague. And I’ve signed off on these gaps in the logs myself, on other days. It would all come back to haunt me.” She was in the same trap as me, just on a different level. The system had caught her too. “I need evidence that doesn’t rely on the logs,” I said thoughtfully. “Something physical. The bag with the gloves.” Kira shook her head vigorously. “No. That’s too dangerous. If you take the bag from the bin room, you make yourself the owner of a piece of evidence. You break the chain of custody. Rios will destroy you with it.” “But I have to do something!” The desperation burst out of me, loud and sharp. “I can’t just sit here and wait for the next print to turn up! Maybe on a weapon! Maybe on a corpse!” My own words made me shudder. The possibility was real. And it was the logical next step. Kira stepped closer, her voice becoming urgent. “Listen. There is one other possibility. One person who might be listening. The forensic scientist, Dr Henson. She analysed the print from the glass shard. If anyone can spot the inconsistency, it’s her.” “Rios will be keeping an eye on her,” I objected. “She’ll report back to him.” “Perhaps. But forensic scientists have their own code of ethics too. If she sees something that isn’t right, she has to at least note it internally. And I’ve heard Henson is proper. Unscrupulously proper.” It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing. “How do I get to her without going through Rios?” “That’s the problem,” Kira admitted. “You can’t just turn up at her lab. You need an official reason. Or…” She hesitated. “Or you wait until she comes here. For another sample. Rios will want to compare the print with others. Yours. He’ll order an official taking of your fingerprints. And then Henson will come, or you’ll be taken to her.” The warning hit me like a punch. Hand over my fingerprints. Voluntarily surrender myself to the system. But Kira was right— . It was inevitable. Rios would do it to bolster his ‘perfect’ evidence. It was the next logical step in his machinery. “And if I refuse?” I asked quietly. “Then it only makes you more guilty in his eyes. And he’ll get a court order. Then you’ll have no choice.” So I was in a dead end. I had to let them take my prints, in the hope that Henson would see something. In the hope that she would recognise the perfection of the print on the glass for what it was: unnatural. “When will that happen?” Kira shrugged. “Soon. Rios is efficient. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after. You should be ready.” She walked towards the door, but turned back once more. “And, Mrs Stein… be careful. Someone is playing a very dangerous game here. And you are the pawn.” After she’d gone, I was left alone with the looming certainty that the next attack wouldn’t be long in coming. Rios would come. Henson would come. And I would have to hold out my hands and let them copy the lines of my skin that someone else had already copied. The irony was bitter. I went into the bathroom and stared at my hands in the mirror. They looked normal. Unremarkable. But they had become a battlefield. Someone had turned them into weapons. Someone was using them to destroy me. Night fell, and with it came a new kind of fear, a creeping, cold dread that settled into every corner of my flat. I didn’t sleep. I sat by the window and watched the courtyard, the street. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. Around three in the morning, I noticed a movement. A dark, shapeless shadow detached itself from the wall of the building opposite and moved swiftly across the courtyard. It was too far away to make out any details, but the way it moved was strange, gliding, almost silent. The shadow vanished into the dark entrance of the neighbouring building. My breath caught in my throat. Was it the ‘cleaning service’? The shadow runner who’d planted the footprints? Or was it just a neighbour out late? I couldn’t know. But the sense of threat was overwhelming. I drew the curtains and barricaded myself in the bedroom. It was silly, but it gave me a slight sense of security. The thought of the rubbish room, of the dusty shoeprint next to the bin, wouldn’t leave me. Someone had been there. Someone knew. And that person moved under the cover of night, invisible, whilst I was trapped here in my own fear. When the first birds began to chirp and a pale grey light illuminated the sky, I knew the night was over. But the hunt was not. It had only just begun. And I was the prey, already marked. Marked with the perfect lines of my own fingers. I stood up, stiff and battered from the sleepless night. I had to prepare myself. For Rio. For Henson. For the next move in this diabolical game. I went to the door and pressed my ear against it. Nothing. Slowly, cautiously, I opened it a crack and peered into the corridor. It was empty. But on the floor, right in front of my doorstep, lay a single, thin latex glove. It was clean, unused. And on the cuff, written in fine black ink, was a number: SET 3. It was a message. A cruel, clear message. They knew where I lived. They knew I was awake. And they were telling me that the production was continuing. SET 4 was in the bin. SET 3 was at my door. SET 5 would come. And then the finale. I bent down, pulled my sleeve over my hand, and picked up the glove. It felt cold and smooth. I carried it into the flat, laid it on the kitchen table. It lay there like an obituary. A harbinger. The sun was rising, casting long, cold shadows across the room. The day had begun. And I knew what I had to do. I had to wait. But I also had to be ready. Because the next chapter would not be written by me. It would be written by Rios. And by the strange hands that bore my traces. I sat down at the table, stared at the glove, and waited for the knock at the door.