The coffee in Maya’s travel mug had gone cold three hours ago, turning into a sludge that tasted like burnt hazelnuts and regret.
She sat in the driver’s seat of her Volvo, parked in the furthest row of the Gables Public Library lot. The engine was off to avoid drawing attention to the idling exhaust, which meant the interior temperature was slowly dropping to match the damp, grey Tuesday afternoon outside.
Next to her, Sarah Vance was vibrating. It wasn’t a figure of speech; the woman was literally trembling, her knee bouncing against the center console with a rhythmic, leather-on-leather squeak that was slowly driving Maya insane.
“He’s not coming,” Sarah said, her voice tight. She was shredding a paper napkin into confetti in her lap. “It’s 1:45. If he was coming, he’d be here.”
“He has fifteen minutes,” Maya said, keeping her eyes fixed on the library’s automatic sliding doors. “Chloe’s data says the upload hits the server at 2:00 PM sharp. That means he needs to be logged on by 1:55 to establish the handshake.”
“What if he knows?” Sarah asked, looking out the side window as if expecting Chief Garrett to rappel from a helicopter. “What if he saw us leaving the house? What if he saw Chloe drive her van around the back?”
“Chloe is in a cleaning van,” Maya reminded her. “It says Sparkle Squad on the side. It’s the best camouflage in this town. Nobody looks at the help.”
“I look at the help,” Sarah muttered. “I have to approve their parking permits.”
Maya checked her rearview mirror. Two rows back, a white panel van was parked near the dumpster enclosure. Inside, Chloe was huddled over her “pineapple” router, ready to intercept the library’s Wi-Fi traffic. She was the digital net; Maya and Sarah were the eyes.
“This is a bad idea,” Sarah said, dropping a piece of napkin. “We should be home. I should be picking up Barnaby from the groomer.”
“Barnaby is fine,” Maya said. “And we’re not going home until we know who walks into that building with a laptop from 2014.”
The Gables Public Library was a testament to the community’s wealth and its desperate need to appear intellectual. It was a sprawling structure of limestone and floor-to-ceiling glass, funded by a property tax levy that had caused a minor civil war on the neighborhood Facebook page three years ago. It was beautiful, sterile, and, according to Chloe, the digital launchpad for their tormentor.
People drifted in and out. A young nanny pushing a double stroller. An elderly man returning a stack of large-print thrillers. A group of teenagers in varsity jackets, smoking vapes near the bike rack.
“Target profile,” Maya recited softly, more for herself than Sarah. “Male. Local. Likely carrying a bulky bag to accommodate the older hardware. Headphones.”
“Everyone has headphones,” Sarah pointed out.
“Not big ones,” Maya said. “Chloe said he’d need over-ear monitors for audio editing. Not AirPods. Cans.”
1:50 PM.
The rain began to spit again, blurring the windshield. Maya reached for the wiper stalk but stopped herself. The movement might attract attention. She used her sleeve to wipe the condensation from the inside of the glass.
“There,” Sarah gasped, pointing a manicured finger.
A black BMW X5 pulled into the lot, driving too fast. It whipped into a handicap spot.
Maya tensed. “Is that Rick?”
“No,” Sarah said. “Rick drives an Escalade. That’s… oh god, that’s the tennis coach from the club.”
A fit man in athletic shorts jumped out, ran inside, and came out thirty seconds later with a DVD.
“False alarm,” Maya exhaled.
1:53 PM.
Maya’s phone buzzed. A text from Chloe.
Chloe: Network activity spiking. Someone is pinging the guest gateway. They aren’t logged in yet, just sniffing.
“He’s here,” Maya whispered. “He’s close.”
She scanned the lot. Most of the cars had been there since they arrived. The staff. The students.
Then, a car turned in from the main road.
It was a beige Toyota Camry. Sedate. sensible. The kind of car that was invisible in a parking lot, not because it was common, but because it was aggressively boring. It had a “My Child is an Honor Student” bumper sticker that was peeling at the corners.
Maya knew that car.
“No way,” she breathed.
The Camry drove slowly past the front entrance, the driver scanning the area. It circled the lot once, then pulled into a spot three rows over from Maya—far enough to be anonymous, close enough to catch the Wi-Fi signal if he didn’t want to go inside.
But the engine cut. The driver’s door opened.
Elias Thorne stepped out.
The HOA president looked exactly as he had in the shed the night before: rigid, neat, and utterly devoid of warmth. He was wearing a tan windbreaker zipped to the chin and pressed khakis that broke perfectly over his brown loafers.
He moved to the back seat and opened the door. He reached in and hauled out a bag.
It wasn’t a gym bag. It wasn’t a tote. It was a black, ballistic nylon laptop messenger bag. It was thick, bulging with the weight of whatever was inside. It looked heavy.
“It’s Elias,” Sarah hissed, sinking lower in her seat. “Maya, get down. If he sees my car…”
“He won’t see us,” Maya said, though she slouched slightly. “He’s focused.”
Elias didn’t look around the lot. He didn’t check his phone. He slammed the car door, slung the heavy strap over his shoulder, and marched toward the library entrance. His gait was fast, purposeful. He checked his watch.
1:56 PM.
“He’s on a schedule,” Maya said. “He has four minutes to get set up.”
“Is he the one?” Sarah asked, her voice trembling. “Elias? But he… he measures grass, Maya. He sends letters about trash cans.”
“He lived next to Juniper,” Maya reminded her. “He was seventeen. He watched her. And he’s obsessed with rules. Maybe he thinks what he’s doing is enforcement. Maybe he thinks he’s punishing us for breaking the moral code of the neighborhood.”
Elias reached the automatic doors. They slid open. He stepped into the warm, yellow light of the lobby and vanished inside.
Maya grabbed her phone.
Maya: Target acquired. Elias Thorne. Entering now. Be ready.
Chloe: Copy. I see a new device handshaking. Intel chipset. It’s him, Maya. It matches the fingerprint.
Maya felt a surge of triumph that was instantly soured by dread. It was him. The man who had threatened them at the shed. The man who lived in the Cursed House in 1994. The man who had been watching them from the birdhouse.
“We have him,” Maya said.
“So what do we do?” Sarah asked. “Do we go in? Do we confront him?”
Maya looked at the library doors. She imagined Elias sitting at a table, opening that ancient laptop, dragging the audio file of Episode Five into the upload box. An episode that probably contained Elena’s medical records or Sarah’s secret.
If they went in now, they could stop the upload. They could grab the laptop.
But if they went in, the game ended. And if he had a fail-safe—if the files were set to release automatically if he didn’t enter a code—they would burn.
“No,” Maya said. “We don’t confront him. Not yet. We need to see exactly what he’s doing. We need Chloe to mirror his screen.”
Chloe: I’m in. I’m intercepting the traffic. He thinks he’s on the library network, but he’s routing through me.
“Is he uploading?” Maya texted back.
Chloe: Waiting… yes. Packet transfer initiating. It’s a big file. ‘Episode_05_Final.wav’.
“He’s doing it,” Maya said to Sarah. “Right now. He’s uploading the next episode.”
Sarah reached for the door handle. “We have to stop him. Maya, if that episode comes out…”
“Chloe is throttling it,” Maya said. “She’s slowing the connection down. She’s buying us time to see the file contents.”
Chloe: Wait. Something’s wrong.
Maya stared at the phone. “What?”
Chloe: He’s not just uploading. He’s multi-tasking. I’m seeing another window open.
“What is he doing?” Sarah demanded.
Chloe: Poker. Online poker.
Maya frowned. “Poker?”
Chloe: Yeah. ‘Texas Hold’em Extreme’. He just logged in. User handle: HOA_KING.
“He’s playing games?” Maya asked, confused. “While he uploads a murder manifesto?”
“Maybe it’s a cover,” Sarah suggested. “To look busy.”
Chloe: Hold on. The upload… it’s not coming from his machine.
Maya felt a chill. “What do you mean?”
Chloe: I’m monitoring his traffic. He’s playing poker. He’s checking his email—mostly complaints about mulch. But the upload stream… the heavy data packets… they aren’t coming from the Intel device.
“But you said the signal matched,” Maya typed furiously.
Chloe: The connection request happened at the same time. But the source IP… it’s different. There’s another device on the network.
Maya looked up at the library. Through the glass facade, she could see figures moving on the second floor.
“He’s a decoy,” Maya whispered.
“What?”
“Elias isn’t the uploader,” Maya said, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. “He’s just a guy who comes to the library to gamble because his wife won’t let him do it at home. He comes at 2:00 PM on Tuesdays because that’s when the tournament starts.”
“But the timing…” Sarah said. “It’s exact.”
“Coincidence,” Maya said. “Or… the real Podcaster knows Elias’s schedule. He uses Elias as cover. He waits for Elias to walk in, and then he walks in.”
Maya scanned the parking lot again. Frantic now.
“If Elias is the decoy,” she said, “then the real threat is still out here.”
Chloe: Upload is at 40%. It’s fast. It’s coming from a device called ‘Ghost_01’. And it’s not a laptop. It’s a mobile device.
“A phone,” Maya said. “He’s doing it from a phone.”
She looked around. The cars. The pedestrians.
Then she saw it.
Parked two rows behind them, facing the library, was a dark blue SUV. The windows were tinted dark—illegal tint. The engine was off.
It hadn’t been there when they arrived. It must have slipped in while they were watching Elias.
“Sarah,” Maya whispered. “Don’t turn your head. Look in the side mirror. The blue Ford Explorer.”
Sarah angled her eyes. “I see it.”
“Is there someone inside?”
“I can’t tell. The tint is too dark.”
Chloe: Upload at 60%. Maya, whoever it is, they are sitting in the parking lot. The signal strength is too weak to be inside the building.
“He’s in the lot,” Maya said. “He’s watching Elias go in, and he’s uploading from the car.”
The blue SUV sat like a shark in deep water. Silent. Still.
“Do we block him in?” Sarah asked, her hand hovering over the gear shift.
“If we move, he sees us,” Maya said. “If that’s the killer… he might have a gun. Or he might just drive away and never come back.”
Suddenly, the brake lights of the blue SUV flashed red. The engine roared to life.
“He’s leaving,” Maya said.
Chloe: Upload complete. 100%. File sent.
The SUV backed out of the spot. It didn’t speed. It moved with a casual, arrogant slowness. As it turned toward the exit, it passed right by Maya’s row.
For a second, the driver’s side window aligned with Maya’s windshield.
The glass was dark, but a silhouette was visible. A man. Watching her.
He raised a hand. Not a wave. A point.
He pointed at Maya. Then he tapped his wrist, as if checking a watch.
Tick tock.
The SUV accelerated, merging onto the main road and disappearing into the afternoon traffic.
Maya sat frozen, her heart slamming against her ribs.
“He saw us,” Sarah whispered. “He knew we were here the whole time.”
“He used Elias to draw us out,” Maya said. “He wanted to see who would show up.”
She looked at the library, where Elias Thorne was innocently losing his money on a virtual river card. He was a pawn. They were pawns.
And the game had just escalated.
“Let’s go,” Maya said, starting the car. “We need to hear what’s on that file before the rest of the neighborhood does.”