Perfect. This is **Chapter 27: A Nighttime Search of the Underground and the Finding of What Was to Be Burned**—extensive, dark, and filled with tension and emotion. --

 

# **CHAPTER 27

A Nighttime Search of the Underground and the Finding of What Was to Be Burned**

The underground was silent. Even the echo, usually a faithful companion to every sound, seemed afraid to return. Radecki lay motionless beneath a rusted tank, and time seemed to have stopped, in a moment marked by terror and irreversibility.

Jakub took a deep breath. The air was heavy, saturated with dust, rust, and something else… something difficult to describe. As if the history of these walls hovered in every breath, demanding to be finally revealed.

Argo stood beside him, motionless, only his tail quivering slightly—a sign of unease, perhaps premonition.

“Okay, man…” Jacob whispered, placing his hand on the dog’s neck. “We’ll finish this. Together.”

The commissioner’s flashlight cut through the darkness with a narrow, trembling beam. Every step he took echoed loudly. Not because of the sound—but because of the weight of the moment.

He walked to the corner of the incinerator, where three large furnaces stood. Once used to burn waste paper and paper scraps. Now they looked like silent sentinels of a rusty tomb.

Jakub approached the first furnace. The door still bore remnants of burnt markings from the factory’s bygone days. He lifted the heavy hatch. The hinges squeaked shrilly, as if in defiance of what was about to be revealed.

There was only ash inside. A thick layer of old dust, hardened at the edges. Nothing more.

“Okay… first one clear,” he muttered.

Argo barked softly, as if in response. But it wasn't an ordinary bark.

The sound was laced with anxiety.

Jakub moved to the next furnace.

The door of this one was ajar. Not much. Maybe a few centimeters. That was enough.

The commissioner's heart pounded.

"Easy..." he said, more to himself than to the dog.

He switched on a more powerful flashlight. The beam fell into the furnace.

And then Jakub froze.

--

## **What was to be annihilated**

Inside, amid the ash and remnants of burned documents, there was something else.

Something bright. Something unmistakable.

A bone.

Small, but human.

Jakub knelt down. He carefully pushed aside the ash with his glove. His fingers touched another bone. And another.

And then—a piece of cloth. Dark, compressed, as if almost melted. When he moved it gently, it crumbled to dust.

"Argo..." he whispered.

The dog didn't bark. It stared with wide eyes, fur bristling. He knew that smell. He knew that feeling.

This was a place of death.

Jakub pulled an evidence bag from his pocket and placed the first remains inside.

But he knew this was only the beginning.

He moved to the third furnace, the largest, placed on a raised platform.

This one's interior was darker. Deeper.

The commissioner shone the light inside.

At first, he didn't understand what he was seeing.

And then... his mind built an image, piece by piece.

It wasn't ash.

It wasn't documents.

There lay...

two bodies.

In a state that chilled the blood. Only partially burned. As if the fire hadn't managed to completely consume them—or someone had interrupted the process.

One body belonged to a man. It retained fragments of a shirt, sewn with initials.

The other—smaller—to a woman. She still wore a metal chain with a medallion around her neck, which the fire had spared to a surprising degree.

Jakub felt his breath catch. Only after a moment did he remember how to breathe.

Argo barked, sharper than before.

"I know... I see," he replied mechanically.

For a moment he stood still, unable to move his hands.

And then he took photos. Each slight flick of the flashlight cast monstrously long shadows on the bodies.

Radecki... he had wanted to burn them. But he hadn't finished.

And now everything was coming to light.

Jakub crouched before the stove. He fell into thought.

"It's a woman and a man..." he whispered. "They must have died years ago."

But why hadn't he burned them completely? Why had he left them here?

The questions began to return in waves. One after another.

And the answers—they were yet to come.

A sound broke him from his trance.

Quiet. Barely audible.

As if someone… was walking in the distance.

Argo raised his head and growled. His back was tense. His ears—pricked.

Jakub immediately switched off the flashlight. The darkness enveloped them densely, as if he were a living creature.

He listened. His heart beat fast but steadily. The policeman's reflexes were overshadowing his fear.

Footsteps. Again.

Definitely human.

"Argo…" he whispered.

The dog backed away silently, settling beside Jakub. His eyes glittered.

Someone else was in the basement.

Someone who shouldn't be here.

---

## **Guest in the Dark**

The footsteps were getting closer.

Slow. Calculated. They didn't sound like someone lost, wandering around. It was the gait of someone who had walked here before.

Jakub ran his hand over his holster.

The gun was there. The tension was rising.

The dog let out a low, low, warning growl.

The footsteps suddenly stopped.

"Commissioner..." a male voice said. Very close. A familiar voice. "It's better not to make any sudden moves."

movements.

Jakub froze.

It was a voice he knew.

A voice he absolutely didn't expect to hear.

"I thought I'd find you here," the stranger continued. "After all, the crime scene is... the perfect stage for the next chapters of this puzzle."

Argo growled louder. Jakub didn't need to tell him to stay alert.

In the darkness, he couldn't see the intruder's face—but he could feel the man standing a few meters away.

"Come out into the light. Slowly," the commissioner said coldly, firmly. "Hands visible."

The stranger just snorted with laughter.

"Commissioner, commissioner..." he sighed theatrically. "You always want to see the truth. But this time... it won't help you."

And then a silhouette emerged from the darkness.

And Jakub felt his heart pound harder than it had all night.

The person standing before him...

shouldn't be here.

And she shouldn't have been involved.

And yet she was.

--

**Chapter 28** may reveal who this mysterious man is and why he was hiding underground.