@bufbiwh719: I loved this story, so I made an interactive version on Cycle AI where you can step into any character and live it yourself！ I had planned for locks. Alarm systems. The awkward business of getting through a window without announcing myself to the neighborhood. I had not planned for a door opening when I was supposed to be alone. Under the desk, I became very interested in breathing quietly. There was somebody else in the gallery. I couldn't see enough to identify them. Moving closer for a better look would have been a remarkably stupid way to improve my night. So I listened. A movement beyond my hiding place. Footsteps. Someone leaving through the back. I waited until silence had lasted long enough to feel like an invitation instead of a trap. The guard was lying where no guard should have been lying. Wally Eastman. A person, not another obstacle on a floor plan. I checked for a pulse. His skin was still warm. That was what stayed with me afterward: the terrible closeness of it. Not an old disaster I'd stumbled into. Something that had happened almost around me. I couldn't remember wishing so fiercely that I had seen more. A face. A sleeve. Anything that would turn a sound into a person. I left with the stones. There is no flattering way to tell that part. Panic hadn't made me innocent, and taking the jewels hadn't made me his killer. The police didn't know I'd been there. A false alibi helped keep it that way. My jewelry expertise then earned me an invitation I would have laughed at on any other day: help with the investigation. Now Ron was showing me around as though this building were new to me. I watched his hands point out doors. I remembered crouching behind furniture. He described a theory. I remembered the sounds his theory didn't explain. I wanted to interrupt him. The impulse was almost physical. One correction would save so much time. One correction would also require an answer to the next obvious question. How would you know? The security panel was damaged now. It hadn't been when I left. I looked from it to Ron, carefully choosing a question an ordinary consultant might ask. Somebody had changed the scene after my visit. I could feel the investigation moving away from what I'd lived through, toward a version that left no room for the person I'd heard. I stood beside the detective and said less than I knew. Somewhere there was a person who could fill that silence. I had no idea whether they'd heard me, too. https://cycleai-link.pages.dev/J9XF1R #cycleai #BookTok #MysteryBooks #CrimeFiction #JewelryHeist Suspense

Pages of Longing

Open In TikTok:

Region: US

Thursday 22 October 2026 02:14:28 GMT