The Palm Reader's Pool

The blood had pooled around his head like a dark halo, spreading across the linoleum tiles of the breakroom. I'd seen plenty of crime scenes in my fifteen years on the force, but this one had a particular cruelty to it—the way his empty coffee mug had shattered alongside him, ceramic shards scattered like broken promises.

Detective Miller stood over the body, hands on hips, his salt-and-pepper hair catching the fluorescent lights. 'Another one,' he muttered. 'Third corporate sabotage this month. Always the same MO.'

I nodded, already knowing the pattern. The office betting pool—the one that tracked who'd be next to get axed, who'd be caught embezzling, whose marriage would collapse first. It wasn't harmless anymore. It had become something predatory, feeding on the very desperation it was meant to mock.

'Meet me in the parking garage,' Miller said, sliding his palm across his forehead. 'There's something you need to see.'

That's where she found us—Lena, the woman from Accounting who'd started doing palm readings during lunch breaks. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a severe bun, but I could still see the strain around her eyes. She clutched a leather-bound notebook against her chest.

'They're using the pool to target people,' she whispered, her voice trembling. 'I read Ms. Chen's palm last week. I told her the line... the one that meant she was in danger. She was found dead two days later.'

Miller's expression hardened. 'You think someone's using your readings to pick targets?'

'I KNOW they are,' Lena insisted. 'That's why I kept this.' She thrust the notebook at us. Inside, every palm reading she'd done for the past six months, complete with dates and names. And there, circled in red ink, were the three victims.

The pool wasn't random anymore. It was a hit list disguised as office entertainment, and somewhere in this building of glass and steel, someone was playing god with their coworkers' lives.

Miller grabbed his radio. 'We need to seal this building. NOW.'

But it was too late. The palm reader's notebook had already told us everything we needed to know: whoever was behind this had been sitting beside us in meetings, laughing at the same jokes, betting on who'd die next while planning it all along.