The morphine drip was doing its job, blurring the edges of the room into a soft, watercolor haze, but it couldn’t touch the throbbing ache in Maya’s left shoulder or the sharp, biting pain in her ribs every time she inhaled.
She lay in the dark of Room 304, listening to the rhythmic whoosh-click of the IV pump. The hospital smelled of rubbing alcohol and cafeteria gelatin—a scent profile of suspended animation. Dan had left an hour ago to relieve the babysitter, his face a mask of exhaustion and unspoken accusations. The girls—Chloe, Sarah, Elena—had been ushered out by a stern nurse who cited visiting hours with the authority of a prison warden.
Maya was alone.
Or she would have been, if her phone hadn’t buzzed on the bedside table.
It was 3:14 AM.
She reached for the device with her good arm, wincing as the movement pulled at the tape on her IV. The screen was blindingly bright in the dim room.
NOTIFICATION: THE GABLES GHOST SPECIAL BULLETIN: BROKEN GLASS UPLOADED: 2 MINUTES AGO
Maya stared at the screen. The podcast usually dropped on Tuesdays. Today was Friday. This wasn’t a scheduled episode. This was a reaction.
Her thumb hovered over the play button. Her training told her to listen, to analyze, to find the discrepancies. Her survival instinct screamed at her to throw the phone against the wall.
She pressed play.
There was no intro music. No gravelly monologue about fences or secrets.
There was only sound. Raw, unmixed audio.
The hum of tires on pavement. The rhythmic thump of windshield wipers. The soft, background murmur of NPR news.
Maya’s breath hitched. It was the sound of a car interior. Her car interior.
Then, the sound changed. A sharp, mechanical snap. A gasp—her own voice, thin and terrified. The revving of an engine fighting against gravity.
And then, the crash.
It was louder on the recording than she remembered it. The crunch of metal was sickening, a wet, grinding noise that seemed to go on forever. Glass shattering. The hiss of steam.
Silence.
Then, footsteps. Crunching on gravel. Getting closer.
A voice spoke. It wasn’t the narrator’s usual performance voice. It was whispered, close to the microphone, intimate and mocking.
“She was warned.”
The audio cut to black.
Maya dropped the phone onto the sheets. Her heart was hammering against her bruised ribs, a painful, frantic rhythm.
He had been there.
He hadn’t just cut the lines and left. He had waited. He had watched her drive off the road. He had walked up to the wreckage while she was unconscious, recorded her broken body, and whispered a tagline.
She wasn’t a victim. She was content.
The door to her room pushed open. Light from the hallway spilled across the linoleum.
Maya flinched, her eyes darting to the figure in the doorway.
It wasn’t the killer. It was a man in a rumpled grey suit, holding a paper coffee cup. He looked tired in the way that only cops and new parents look tired—a bone-deep weariness that had settled into the lines around his eyes.
“Mrs. Lin-Baker?” he asked. His voice was gravelly, but not the voice.
“Who are you?” Maya rasped. Her throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper.
“Detective Miller,” he said, stepping into the room and flashing a badge that hung from his belt. “County Sheriff’s Office. Violent Crimes.”
“County?” Maya asked. “Where’s Chief Garrett?”
Miller pulled a chair closer to the bed, dragging it across the floor with a screech that made Maya wince. “Chief Garrett has recused himself. Conflict of interest, apparently. Given the… historical nature of your investigation.”
Maya let out a short, painful laugh. Garrett was running for cover. He knew the spotlight was getting too bright.
“You listened to it,” Maya said, nodding at her phone.
“I did,” Miller said. He didn’t dismiss her. He didn’t tell her it was a prank. He set his coffee down and looked at her with a terrifying seriousness. “We had the episode flagged by Cyber Crimes ten minutes ago. We’re tracing the upload.”
“You won’t find him,” Maya said. “He uses public Wi-Fi. He uses decoys.”
“We’ll see,” Miller said. “But right now, I’m more interested in the car.”
“The brakes,” Maya said.
“Severed,” Miller confirmed. “Clean cut. Bolt cutters. Whoever did it knew exactly where to clip to ensure failure wouldn’t happen until you hit cruising speed. It wasn’t vandalism, Mrs. Lin-Baker. It was an assassination attempt.”
The word hung in the sterile air. Assassination.
“He took credit,” Maya said. “In the episode. He recorded the crash.”
“We know,” Miller said. “Tech is analyzing the audio now to see if we can pick up background noise. Passing cars. Planes. Anything to pinpoint his location when he made the recording.”
“He was at the curve,” Maya said, closing her eyes, trying to summon the memory through the fog of painkillers. “On Ridge Road. The ditch. There’s a drainage pipe there. He must have been hiding in the pipe.”
Miller took a notebook from his pocket. “We’re sweeping the area for footprints. But with the rain… it’s muddy.”
“He wears boots,” Maya said. “Heavy tread. Size eleven, maybe twelve.”
Miller paused, pen hovering. “You saw him?”
“No,” Maya said. “I heard him. In the HOA shed. And I saw the footprint in the wetlands. He’s big. Careful. He likes to watch.”
Miller wrote it down. “We’re treating this as an active manhunt now. The Podcaster—whoever he is—has crossed the line from harassment to attempted murder. We have a warrant for the IP addresses. We’re subpoenaing the hosting platform.”
“He knows that,” Maya said. She struggled to sit up, fighting the wave of dizziness. “Detective, you need to understand. He isn’t running from you. He’s playing with you.”
Miller looked at her, his expression softening slightly. “Mrs. Lin-Baker, I know you’re scared. And I know you’ve been looking into this cold case. But you need to let us handle it now. You almost died today.”
“That’s the point,” Maya said, her voice gaining strength. “I almost died because I got too close. He didn’t want to kill me. If he wanted me dead, he would have cut the line closer to the caliper. He wanted a crash. He wanted a cliffhanger.”
“A cliffhanger?”
“For the show,” Maya said. “He scripted this. She was warned. It’s a plot point. He’s escalating the narrative.”
Miller sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t a TV show, ma’am. It’s a felony. And we’re going to catch him.”
“Like you caught the killer in 1994?” Maya snapped.
Miller’s jaw tightened. “I wasn’t here in 1994. And frankly, from what I’ve seen of the file, the investigation back then was a joke. I’m not Chief Garrett. I don’t care about the Gables’ reputation. I care about putting bad guys in cages.”
He stood up. “I have an officer posted outside your door. Another one is at your house watching your husband and son. You’re in protective custody until we get a lead.”
“He’ll hate that,” Maya murmured. “Dan. He hates being watched.”
“He’ll hate being a widower more,” Miller said bluntly.
He walked to the door. “Get some rest. We’ll need a formal statement in the morning.”
“Detective,” Maya called out.
He stopped.
“The blue SUV,” she said. “Ford Explorer. Tinted windows. He drove it to the library on Tuesday.”
Miller nodded. “We’re pulling traffic cam footage. If he’s in the county, we’ll find him.”
He left, the door clicking shut behind him.
Maya lay back against the pillows. The pain in her shoulder was a dull throb now, a constant reminder of the impact.
The police were involved. Finally. They had warrants. They had manpower. They had guns.
But as she looked at the notification on her phone—Special Bulletin: Broken Glass—she felt a cold knot of dread tighten in her stomach.
Miller was a good cop. She could tell. He was thorough. He was angry.
But he was playing by the rules of law enforcement. He was looking for fingerprints and tire tracks.
The Podcaster didn’t care about the law. He cared about the story. And bringing the police into the third act was a classic trope. It raised the stakes. It added tension.
And usually, in stories like this, the police were just obstacles for the villain to outsmart.
Maya picked up her phone. She opened the group chat.
Maya: I’m alive. Police are here. They know it was him.
Chloe: Oh my god, Maya. We heard the episode. I can’t stop shaking.
Elena: Did you tell them about the poison? About the shed?
Maya: I told them enough. But they don’t get it. They think he’s a fugitive.
Sarah: Isn’t he?
Maya: No. A fugitive runs away. This guy is moving closer.
She typed the next message slowly, her fingers heavy.
Maya: He used my crash for content. He’s not going to stop until the season is over. We have to finish it.
Dan [Direct Message]: The police are sitting in our driveway. Leo is terrified. Are you happy now? You got your story.
Maya stared at Dan’s text. The bitterness in it stung more than the broken rib.
Are you happy now?
She looked at the dark window of the hospital room. Her reflection was a pale ghost against the glass.
No, she wasn’t happy. She was vindicated. She had proven that the threat was real. She had proven that the suburbs were a hunting ground.
But vindication tasted like blood.
She put the phone down and closed her eyes. She needed to sleep. She needed to heal. Because when she got out of this bed, she wasn’t going to be the victim in the crash. She was going to be the one cutting the lines.
In the silence of the room, the notification light on her phone blinked. Once. Twice.
A steady, rhythmic pulse. Like a heartbeat. Or a countdown.