Midnight on Mercy Street

The sirens had cut holes in the city’s silence all the way up Mercy Street, but no one in this forgotten corner dared draw back the curtains. Lena Voss sat hunched in the passenger seat, boot tapping time against cracked linoleum, while Ray Hanlon killed the engine. The patrol tape fluttered in the muggy night air, more warning for journalists than residents; nobody in this block wanted to see what happened on their own street.

Ray pulled his badge, leading the way up the garbage-stained stairwell. The stench hit Lena first—gift wrap for what waited upstairs. Stale urine, spoiled food, and something darker, old rot pushed out by the sticky summer heat. “Welcome to Mercy Street,” Ray grunted, voice thin around his cigarette. He grinned like the city’s stench was a private joke, but Lena knew the look he gave the uniform posted outside apartment 5C: the quick nod, the shared understanding. Ray was a native here, a survivor. She was just passing through, badge and conscience weighing heavier every year.

Inside, flashes from the crime techs played over flaking paint, the camera snaps slicing the gloom. The body lay curled up amongst broken furniture, a grotesque tableau: Skinny Pete Alvarez. He’d been small in life; death had made him smaller. Bloody tape bound his wrists. The gaps where teeth once were drew Lena’s eye. Somebody had worked him over for answers, and then left him as a warning.

Ray moved first, squatting beside the corpse and flipping Pete’s eyelids back with gloved fingers. “Pete’s luck finally ran out.”

Lena knelt, ignoring the cameras. Pete’s face told stories—smashed knuckles, a crescent of blood at his ear, cigarette burns on the inside of his thigh. Torture, but not artless. Lena had seen Malik Torres’s handiwork before, but this was methodical. Somebody had followed a script.

She surveyed the room: smashed lamp, a cheap burner phone battered but not taken, a single bill pinned on a nail above the radiators. The bill was a twenty, folded in half.

“He always paid for information,” Lena muttered. “Somebody wanted a message left.”

Ray watched her, too still. “You think it was one of Torres’s boys, or someone on our side?”

She stood, brushing dust from her knees. “You tell me. You’ve known Pete longer.”

Ray bristled, then forced a smirk. “Wouldn’t be the first time he ran his mouth to the wrong badge. Or made up a story for the right price.”

All these years and Lena still didn’t know where Ray fit. The case file grew and shrank around him, details hidden behind a lazy grin, a word left unsaid in every statement. Lena moved to the window, looking down at the alley swimming in police red and blue. “Check the pockets.”

A silent tech handed Lena a plastic evidence sleeve: inside, a slip of paper, torn from the margin of a notepad.

“There was this—found under his tongue,” the tech said.

Lena read the scratchy handwriting by flashlight. ‘Mercy comes for honesty. Did you think you could hide?’

Her own name was written beneath, the ink shaky but deliberate: ‘Detective L. Voss.’

She let the message fall into the bag, heart working behind her ribs like a ticking clock. Ray peered over her shoulder, frowning. “You got fans.”

“No one who sends me flowers.”

The crime scene captain, Sergeant Rolle, pushed in. “We dusted for prints—gloves, maybe latex. No forced entry, so the vic knew his killer. We’ve got a neighbor says he heard two voices, recognized Pete’s, but says the other was male, sounded like they belonged.”

“Belonged?” Lena asked.

“Like they weren’t from around here. Like they wore a suit.”

Ray stood, circling the sparsely furnished room. “Pete lived hand-to-mouth, but the rent’s paid through next month. Somebody wanted him staying put.”

Lena crouched—her eye caught scarring on Pete’s wrist. Fresh, red, not accidental. “Somebody cuffed him hours before this happened. Held him somewhere, worked him, then brought him ‘home’ to finish the job.”

Her phone buzzed in her pocket—a text, blocked number. She shielded the screen from Ray out of habit.

‘You’re late. All debts are paid. Remember the alley.’

She hit delete with a trembling thumb. Ray’s shadow edged closer. “You alright, Lena?”

She straightened, face set. “Never better. Let’s get forensics to sweep the alley. Maybe our friend wasn’t as careful as they thought.”

Ray’s voice dropped. “You think Pete talked?”

“He talked his way to a shallow grave. I want to know what he said, and to who.”

The evidence spun in her mind—the tailored methods of torture, the folded twenty, the note with her name. Skinny Pete had been many things—liar, survivor, rat—but he wasn’t careless. If he had information someone killed to protect, then so did Lena. Maybe she’d been brought here for a reason less about the corpse and more about herself.

Ray held the door for her and watched the way she hesitated. “You trust me, Lena?”

She didn’t answer. In this city, trust was something you couldn’t afford. On Mercy Street, it could get you killed.

Outside, the rain had started its slow descent, weighing the police tape down with dirty droplets. Voices barked behind them—Mercer’s, no doubt, arena-polished and sharp. Ray waited beside the squad car, hands in pockets, eyes following the rain as if waiting for it to wash something away. Lena looked up at the bruised sky, the cold sting on her cheeks a reminder. She’d never learned to cry for the dead—only to hunt whoever made her want to. Tonight, Skinny Pete was owed at least that.