Page 172 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

Not the state police.

Me.

The realization settled over me like ice water.

This wasn't random anymore, this wasn't just a killer leaving messages, whoever was behind this knew my name, knew my email, knew I'd be the one sitting in this room.

Watching these women disappear.

Only one question remained.

Why me? Why did this son of a bitch want me to see what nobody else was ever supposed to find?

Seraphina

Two days.

Two days of absolute, unmoving silence from the end of the track.

Elias's grey truck hadn't rumbled past my clearing. No heavy boots crossing his porch. No deep voice calling Max's name through the trees. Even the gravel road leading to his cabin seemed abandoned, the tire tracks left behind by the last storm drying into pale scars beneath the weak morning light. I knew he was busy. Blackridge had been restless lately. Every few hours I would hear the distant cry of county sirens echoing over the mountain ridges before disappearing back into the forest, swallowed whole by the pines.

Still...

Knowing why someone isn't there doesn't make their absence any quieter.

The cottage always sounded different before sunrise. During the day it settled politely, creaking beneath the mountain wind like every old wooden house eventually learns to do. But in these early hours, before the birds remembered their songs and before the valley woke, every sound felt amplified. The floorboards sighed. The pipes clicked softly behind the walls. Somewhere outside, branches scraped against one another in long, whispering conversations that no human was ever meant to understand.

I liked this version of the morning.

Darkness has never lied to me.

I lay tangled in the center of my bed, one leg wrapped lazily beneath the oversized jersey I'd stolen, borrowed, if we're insisting on technical accuracy from Detective Elias Reed. The thick blue fabric had long since lost the sharp scent of him, but every now and then, if I buried my face against the collar and convinced myself hard enough, I could still pretend traces of cedar soap and coffee lingered there.

Don't judge me.

If the brooding detective who kissed you like the world was ending disappeared for forty-eight hours without so much as driving past your house, you'd probably sleep in his shirt too. We all cope differently. Some people journal. Some people meditate.

Apparently...

I collect items from a specific detective.

My fingers wandered across the stitching of the jersey, tracing invisible patterns while my mind betrayed me once again. I wondered if he'd slept. I wondered if he'd eaten. I wondered if anyone remembered to remind him that coffee wasn't a food group.

Love or whatever inconvenient biological mutation this was really an administrative nightmare. People write poetry about butterflies and fireworks. Nobody mentions lying awake wondering whether the man next door remembered to take his jacket because it looked cold when he left.

Chime.

The sharp electronic note sliced cleanly through the silence, making me blink toward the nightstand where my phone glowed softly against the wood.

"Don't do it,"

Gerald groaned without opening his painted eyes. He was slumped dramatically beside my jewellery box, one tiny ceramic arm hanging over the edge as though he'd collapsed from emotional exhaustion sometime during the night.

"The municipal grid is closed. Nothing good arrives through a screen at..." He squinted at the alarm clock.

"...six-thirteen in the morning."

Frank, meanwhile, remained half-asleep against the windowsill, his ridiculous fishing hat tipped over his face.