The Button Collector

The wind rattled the iron gates. Catherine's voice cracked on Mary's name, swallowed by factory smoke.

Gray grass crunched under her boots. The park stretched empty, desolate. Scattered garments lay like grave markers across the grounds.

She saw it among the discarded clothes. Mary's dress. The one she'd stitched herself, blue wool with pearl buttons down the front.

Catherine knelt. Her fingers traced the collar, the seams. Perfect. Undamaged.

Then she felt the threads. Severed. Every button cut away with precision.

Her breath caught. Someone had taken time with this. Deliberate. Careful.

She lifted the dress, felt the weight of it. Mary's scent lingered—lavender soap and factory lint. The buttonholes gaped like wounds.

Catherine folded the dress against her chest. Her hands shook.

The police station smelled of ink and tobacco. Inspector Graves sat behind his desk, ledger open. He didn't look up when she entered.

"Inspector." Her voice steadied. "My sister is missing."

Graves dipped his pen, made a mark. "Name?"

"Mary Ward. She disappeared three days ago. I found her dress in West Ham Park."

His pen scratched across paper. "Another factory girl."

Catherine placed the dress on his desk. The severed threads gleamed under lamplight. "The buttons, Inspector. All of them. Someone cut them away."

Graves adjusted his pocket watch. Cleared his throat. "Miss Ward, I understand your distress. But without a body, without witnesses..." He trailed off, writing meticulous notes.

"This isn't carelessness." Catherine's fingers pressed into the desk edge. "Look at the cuts. Clean. Deliberate."

"These girls often run away." Graves spoke to his ledger, not to her. "Seek better situations elsewhere."

Her nails bit into her palms. "My sister wouldn't leave her dress behind. Wouldn't cut away buttons she sewed herself."

Graves clasped his hands behind his back. Stood. "I'll file the report, Miss Ward. That's all I can promise."

The room tilted. Catherine saw it clearly now—the empty formality, the careful distance. He would write his notes, file his papers. Nothing would happen.

"You're not going to look for her." Not a question.

Graves' jaw tightened. "We follow procedure, Miss Ward. I suggest you do the same. Go home. Wait."

Catherine lifted the dress from his desk. The fabric weighed nothing. Everything.

She turned toward the door. Her hands had stopped shaking. Something else burned there now—rage, white-hot and clarifying.

Mary's justice wouldn't come from ledgers and pocket watches. It wouldn't come from men who cleared their throats and looked away.

It would have to come from her.