Kristy Gabres -part 1- Apr 2026

"Because the last person who looked for it is dead," Voss replied. "His name was Marco Tannhauser. He was my best researcher. Three days ago, he was found in the Willamette River with his tongue cut out and a king's crown drawn on his forehead in permanent marker."

Kristy Gabres looked at her father's photograph on the shelf. "You always said trouble finds the curious," she whispered. Then she grabbed her jacket, her old Nikon, and a lockpicking kit she hadn't touched since the Herald fired her.

"Gabres," she answered, her voice flat as week-old soda. Kristy Gabres -Part 1-

A pause. Then: "I want you to find something that doesn't want to be found. A painting. The Blind King's Supper. "

"That painting is a ghost," she said. "Why me?" "Because the last person who looked for it

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

Outside, the rain had stopped. But the fog was rolling in, thick as a secret. Three days ago, he was found in the

"Marco left a file," Voss continued. "Encrypted. He said if anything happened to him, it should go to the journalist who wasn't afraid to burn her life down for a story. That's you, Miss Gabres."

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.

"Miss Gabres. My name is Julian Voss." The voice was smooth, unhurried, with the faintest European rasp. "I'm a curator at the DePaul Collection. I believe you're the person who exposed Councilman Hartley's slush fund."

The rain over Portland wasn't the kind that cleansed. It was the kind that seeped—into coat seams, into old brick, into the cracks of a person's resolve. Kristy Gabres watched it streak down her apartment window, turning the city lights into bleeding gold smears. Inside, her living room was a museum of what she used to be: a framed press pass from the Oregon Herald , a dusty trophy for Investigative Journalism, and a single photograph of her late father, Frank Gabres, a beat cop who'd taught her that the truth was worth a bloody nose.