November 1945.

The coldest day of the year.

Frank Mercer is trying to survive bad coffee, dead-end cases, and the kind of rain that makes the whole city feel guilty.

Then Murph calls.

There is a body at the abandoned steelworks.

Edward Raines.

The mayor’s fixer.
The city’s cleaner.
A man who knew where the bodies were buried because he helped decide where to dig.

Now he is dead.

Torn apart beneath a ceiling full of crows, with Frank’s name written across the walls in blood.

Then the package arrives.

A blood-soaked crow feather.
An old photograph.
The Tenebris symbol.
And a message that points back to the Pandora Box Frank thought he had buried for good.

The box was never finished with him.

Neither was the city.