... - File: Malion_ivory_p_i.002.rar

The notification sat on Detective Malion Ivory’s screen like a digital ghost: File: Malion_Ivory_P_I.002.rar .

Ivory stood, his hand drifting to the holster beneath his coat. He walked to the wall and tapped the plaster. It sounded hollow. He used a heavy letter opener to pry away a strip of molding, revealing a silver-cased recording device that had clearly been there for years. File: Malion_Ivory_P_I.002.rar ...

He unzipped the archive. Inside wasn't a ransom note or a client’s plea. It was a map of his own office, rendered in blueprints he hadn’t seen since the building was constructed twenty years ago. Red dots pulsed at specific intervals behind the drywall of his north wall. The notification sat on Detective Malion Ivory’s screen

As the realization hit him—that his entire career had been a staged performance for an unknown audience—his monitors flickered. A third file began to download automatically: Malion_Ivory_P_I.003.rar . It sounded hollow

The second file in the .rar was a text document. It contained only one sentence: “You weren’t the only one watching, Malion.”

Should we continue with in the next file, or