At thirty-four, Kristy had the lean, coiled look of a woman who’d stopped running but hadn’t forgotten how. Her auburn hair was pulled into a messy knot, and the shadows under her gray eyes weren't from lack of sleep—they were from lack of answers. Six months ago, she’d broken the story of the century: a sitting city councilor taking bribes from a development cartel. But a single source had recanted under pressure, the councilor had sued for libel, and the Herald had thrown Kristy under the news van to settle. Now she worked freelance, taking odd jobs for true-crime podcasts and writing obituaries for a suburban weekly.

She almost ignored it. Almost.

Outside, the rain had stopped. But the fog was rolling in, thick as a secret.

"They don't want the painting. They want what's painted underneath. The real treasure is the lie. - M.T."

Part 1 ends as Kristy steps into the night, not knowing that the blind king's supper is already being served—and she's the guest of honor.

Kristy leaned against the windowsill. She knew the piece. Seventeenth-century Flemish, a grotesque masterpiece of a king eating a feast he couldn't see, surrounded by laughing courtiers. It had vanished from a private vault in Brussels in 1999 and resurfaced once—on the black market, then gone again.

Beneath that, an address. A warehouse in the industrial district. And a time: midnight tomorrow.

Her phone buzzed. A blocked number.