A Web of Deceit

"I swear I cleared the scene…" Blair paced the length of her bedroom, the phone clutched tightly in her hand, her voice a strained whisper against the backdrop of the city's relentless hum. Her mind raced, replaying the events of the botched mission, searching for a missed detail, a slip-up, anything that could explain how she'd left behind such a crucial piece of evidence.

"There's no way they should have found it. Unless…" A chilling possibility, a seed of doubt planted by the woman in red, bloomed in her mind, its tendrils wrapping around her heart, squeezing the air from her lungs.

She punched in James's number, her finger hovering over the call button for a moment before she finally pressed it, the tone echoing through the silence of the apartment like a death knell.

"James, it's Blair," she said, her voice tight with a tension that betrayed her carefully crafted facade of calm. "I have a problem."