The notification pinged at 3:00 PM on a Friday. It wasn’t just a text; it was a synchronized assault.
Maya was in the grocery store aisle, debating between organic and non-organic strawberries. Chloe was in the middle of filming a sponsorship deal for a teeth-whitening kit. Elena was scrubbing in for a appendectomy. Sarah was sitting in her car at the edge of the wetlands, staring at the water.
THE GABLES GHOST: EPISODE 4 - THE LIARS IS NOW STREAMING.
Maya abandoned her cart. She walked out of the store, ignoring the cashier’s call, and sat in her Volvo. She connected her phone to the Bluetooth. Her hand hovered over the play button.
She knew this was coming. Garrett had warned her. They are hunting.
She pressed play.
The familiar gravelly voice didn’t start with a poetic monologue about fences or secrets this time. It started with a laugh. A low, dry chuckle that sounded like dead leaves skittering on pavement.
“We tell ourselves stories,” the narrator said. “We tell ourselves we are good people. We tell ourselves we are safe. But some stories are just lies with better lighting.”
The background audio shifted. It wasn’t the wind in the reeds anymore. It was the sound of a cocktail party. Clinking glasses. Laughter.
“There is a club in Bittersweet Court,” the voice continued. “A little group of amateur detectives who think they can dig up bones without getting dirt on their manicures. They call themselves concerned citizens. I call them hypocrites.”
Maya felt a cold sweat break out on her neck. He was talking about them. Specifically.
“Let’s start with the leader,” the narrator sneered. “The journalist. The crusader for truth. Maya Lin-Baker.”
Maya gripped the steering wheel.
“Maya wants you to think she left Chicago for the quiet life. She wants you to think she’s a mom who just wants safe streets. But Maya didn’t leave Chicago. She ran.”
A clip played. It was a recording of a phone call. The audio was grainy, but the voice was unmistakable. It was Maya’s former editor.
“You burned him, Maya. You promised him anonymity, and you put his name in the first paragraph. He’s dead because you wanted a byline.”
Maya squeezed her eyes shut. The memory of David’s face—the source she had failed to protect—flashed in her mind. The guilt she had buried under layers of suburban boredom came rushing back, fresh and hot.
“David Russo,” the narrator said, naming him. “A father of three. Dead by suicide three days after Maya’s article ran. And now she’s here, playing with your lives. Ask yourself, neighbors: who is she willing to sacrifice to get her story this time?”
The podcast didn’t stop. It pivoted.
“And then there’s the sidekick. The influencer. Chloe Vance.”
In her pink studio, Chloe dropped her phone. It clattered onto the desk, the speaker still broadcasting.
“Chloe sells you a perfect life. She sells you beige loungewear and organization hacks. But Chloe doesn’t own any of it. The bank does.”
The narrator read a list of numbers.
“Credit card debt: forty-two thousand. Second mortgage: three hundred thousand. Status: Default imminent. Chloe isn’t renovating her kitchen for the aesthetic. She’s doing it to flip the house before the foreclosure notice hits the door. She’s selling you a dream while she drowns in the nightmare.”
Chloe sank to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest. The secret she had kept from Rick—the secret she had kept from everyone—was now public record.
“And Sarah,” the voice purred. “Poor, fragile Sarah. The matriarch. The keeper of the gate.”
In the hospital break room, Elena ripped her earbuds out, but she couldn’t stop the words from echoing in her head. She stared at her reflection in the dark window.
“Sarah knows what happened in 1994,” the narrator said. “Because she was watching. She saw the man in the blue suit. She saw the argument. But she didn’t call the police. Why? Because the police were already there. In her bed.”
The revelation hung in the air, toxic and undeniable.
“These are the women who want to solve the murder of Juniper Black,” the narrator concluded. “A failure. A fraud. And an accomplice. They aren’t heroes. They are just the next victims waiting for their cue.”
The episode ended with the sound of a door slamming shut.
Maya sat in the parking lot, the silence of the car pressing in on her. Her phone blew up.
Dan [3:14 PM]: Maya. What is this? Who is David? Unknown Number [3:15 PM]: You got him killed. The Gables Gals Group Chat [3:16 PM]: Chloe, is that true about the foreclosure? We have bylaws about financial solvency…
Maya didn’t answer. She stared at the dashboard.
He had done it. He had nuked them. He had taken their credibility, their privacy, and their dignity, and he had broadcast it to the world.
Panic clawed at her throat. She wanted to drive. Not home. Just drive. West. Until the gas ran out. Until she was someone else.
But then she looked at the rear-view mirror. She saw her own eyes. They weren’t the eyes of the woman who had run from Chicago. They were the eyes of the woman who had found the bug in the nursery.
He wanted them to run. He wanted them to turn on each other. He wanted them isolated.
Divide and conquer, she thought. Standard villain playbook.
She picked up her phone. She didn’t text Dan. She didn’t text the neighbors.
She opened the group chat with Chloe, Elena, and Sarah.
Maya: Meet at my house. Now. Chloe: I can’t. Rick is going to kill me. Maya: Rick is the least of your problems. Get over here.
She drove home. She didn’t speed. She drove with the deliberate calm of a soldier returning to the front line.
When she pulled into the driveway of Number 4, she saw them.
Chloe was sitting on Maya’s front steps, still wearing her full makeup, but her face was streaked with black tears. She looked like a broken doll.
Elena was parking her car, still in her scrubs. She looked furious.
And Sarah… Sarah was standing in her own driveway, looking across the street. She looked terrifyingly calm.
Maya got out of the car. She walked up the driveway.
“He told everyone,” Chloe sobbed. “My sponsors. My followers. Rick. He told everyone I’m a fraud.”
“He told the truth,” Maya said.
Chloe looked up, shocked. “Maya?”
“He told the truth about me too,” Maya said, her voice steady. “I did burn a source. I did run away. And Sarah did sleep with the cop.”
She looked at Sarah, who had walked over to join them.
“We’re liars,” Maya said. “All of us. That’s why he picked us. That’s why he’s winning.”
“So what?” Elena asked, crossing her arms. “We just give up? We let him write the finale?”
“No,” Maya said. “We lean in.”
She unlocked her front door and held it open.
“He thinks exposing us makes us weak,” Maya said. “He thinks shame will make us hide. But he forgot one thing.”
“What?” Chloe asked, wiping her eyes.
“When you have nothing left to hide,” Maya said, a cold smile touching her lips, “you have nothing left to lose.”
She looked at the birdhouse in the woods. She knew he was watching. She hoped he was listening.
“Come inside,” Maya said. “We have a new episode to plan.”
The women looked at each other. The shame was still there, burning hot. But beneath it, something harder was forming. A calcification of resolve.
They walked into the house, one by one.
Maya closed the door. She didn’t lock it.
Let him come.