The fluorescent lights of the Gables Police Station precinct room hummed with a sound that drilled directly into the base of Maya’s skull. It was a frequency reserved for migraines and bureaucracy.
Maya sat on a hard plastic chair, her clothes damp with rain and sweat, clutching the sheaf of paper that detailed her own murder. Next to her, Chloe was shaking, wrapped in a foil emergency blanket that crinkled every time she breathed. Sarah and Elena sat on the bench opposite, looking like statues carved from shock.
They had been there for an hour.
“Mrs. Lin-Baker?”
Maya looked up. A man in a rumpled suit stood over her. He wasn’t Chief Garrett. He was younger, with the tired eyes of someone who had seen too much city crime before transferring to the suburbs for a quiet life that had turned out to be anything but.
“Detective Halloway,” he said, holding up a plastic evidence bag containing the script. “We’ve dispatched units to 5 Bittersweet Court. SWAT is en route.”
“You need to go now,” Maya said, her voice raspy. “He was there. He was in the house with us. The equipment was warm.”
“We’re moving as fast as we can,” Halloway said, though his pace seemed glacial compared to the frantic sprint Maya had just survived. “I need you to walk me through this again. You broke into the property?”
“We entered an unsecured dwelling because we had probable cause to believe a felony was in progress,” Maya recited, the journalist in her overriding the victim. “And we were right. Look at page three, Detective. Does that look like creative writing to you?”
Halloway glanced at the script in the bag. The page describing the gasoline. The match. The screaming.
“It’s graphic,” he admitted. “And specific.”
“It’s a schedule,” Maya snapped. “Midnight. Tonight. That’s in three hours.”
Halloway sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “We’re taking it seriously. Chief Garrett has authorized a full perimeter. But you need to understand… if we get there and it’s just an empty basement…”
“It’s not empty,” Chloe piped up from her foil cocoon. “There were monitors. A mixing board. Photos. Thousands of photos of us.”
Halloway nodded to a uniformed officer. “Get their statements. Separate rooms.”
“No,” Maya stood up. “We stay together. He wants us isolated. We don’t split up.”
Halloway looked at the four women—dirty, terrified, and utterly unified. He realized he wasn’t winning this one.
“Fine,” he said. “Stay here. I’m heading to the scene.”
The ride back to Bittersweet Court felt like a funeral procession, if funerals were conducted at eighty miles an hour with sirens wailing. Maya sat in the back of Halloway’s unmarked sedan, watching the familiar landmarks of her neighborhood blur past in a wash of red and blue strobe lights.
The entrance to The Gables was blocked by two cruisers. The security guard, usually asleep in his booth, was standing outside, looking bewildered as the convoy roared past the gates.
They turned onto the cul-de-sac.
It looked like a war zone.
Police cars were parked on the lawns, their tires digging ruts into the soft, wet turf. Floodlights were trained on Number 5, bathing the peeling paint and the “For Sale” sign in a harsh, white glare.
Halloway parked in Maya’s driveway. “Stay in the car,” he ordered.
Maya ignored him. She opened the door and stepped out. The air smelled of rain and exhaust fumes.
She watched as a team of officers in tactical gear moved toward the front door of the empty house. They didn’t use the key. A battering ram swung. CRACK. The door splintered inwards.
“Police! Search warrant!”
The shout echoed off the surrounding houses.
Maya waited. She watched the windows. She expected to see him. To see Elias Thorne’s face pressed against the glass, or Rick Vance running out the back. She expected gunfire. She expected fire.
Instead, there was silence.
The officers moved through the house, their flashlights cutting beams through the dark rooms. Maya tracked their progress by the light moving from window to window. Living room. Clear. Kitchen. Clear.
They reached the basement door.
Maya held her breath. This was it. The studio. The shrine. The undeniable proof that would put Elias in handcuffs and end the nightmare.
Ten minutes passed.
Halloway came out of the house. He walked down the driveway, stepping over a puddle. He didn’t look triumphant. He looked annoyed.
He approached Maya, shaking his head.
“It’s empty, Mrs. Lin-Baker.”
Maya felt the ground tilt. “What?”
“The house is empty,” Halloway repeated. “Dust bunnies. A few dead roaches. No mixing board. No photos.”
“That’s impossible,” Elena said, stepping up beside Maya. “We were there an hour ago. The walls were covered in pictures. There were servers.”
“There are rectangular clean spots on the dust in the basement,” Halloway conceded. “Someone moved equipment recently. Very recently. But it’s gone now.”
“He scrubbed it,” Maya whispered. The horror was cold and heavy in her stomach. “We left… and he stayed. He packed up. He knew you were coming.”
“Or,” Halloway said, his tone skeptical, “there wasn’t as much down there as you thought. Panic amplifies things.”
“Panic doesn’t hallucinate a server rack!” Chloe shouted. “He wiped it! He’s laughing at you!”
Halloway held up a hand. “We’re dusting for prints. We’re checking the perimeter. But right now, I have a B-and-E claim from the owner of this property against you four, and zero evidence of a serial killer’s lair.”
“The owner is the killer!” Maya screamed. “Elias Thorne grew up in that house!”
“Mr. Thorne is currently in Florida visiting his mother,” Halloway said calmly. “We checked. His flight left yesterday morning.”
Maya stared at him. Elias was gone? The poker game at the library… that was days ago. Had he fled?
“Then it’s someone else,” Maya insisted. “Someone with access. Look, the script says he’s coming for me at midnight. He’s going to burn my house down. You can’t leave.”
“I’m not leaving,” Halloway said. He gestured to the circus of lights around them. “We’re setting up a protection detail. Two units will remain on the street. One officer at your front door, one at the back. We’ll patrol the perimeter until we get answers.”
“Is that enough?” Sarah asked, looking at the dark tree line of the wetlands. “He comes from the woods.”
“We’ll have a unit on the service road behind the marsh,” Halloway promised. “Nobody gets in or out of this circle without a badge.”
He looked at Maya. “Go inside. Lock your doors. Try to sleep. Let us do our job.”
Maya looked at Number 5. It stood dark and hollow, its secrets swallowed by the night. He had been faster. He had been smarter. He had turned their escape into his window of opportunity.
“He’s not gone,” Maya said softly. “He’s just moved the stage.”
She herded the women toward her house.
Inside Number 4, the atmosphere was suffocating. The police presence outside didn’t feel like safety; it felt like containment. The flashing blue lights strobed through the living room blinds, creating a disorienting, rhythmic pulse on the walls.
Maya paced the kitchen. The digital clock on the microwave read 10:45 PM.
Seventy-five minutes to midnight.
“They didn’t find the photos,” Chloe said, sitting at the island with a mug of tea she wasn’t drinking. “All those pictures of us… he took them with him.”
“He’s relocating,” Elena said. “He has a backup site.”
“Or he’s done recording,” Sarah said from the sofa. She was hugging a throw pillow. “The script said this was the finale. Maybe he doesn’t need the studio anymore because the show is over.”
Maya stopped pacing. She looked at the sliding glass door to the sunroom. Outside, a uniformed officer was standing on the patio, his back to the glass, watching the woods. He looked bored. He was checking his phone.
“Do you feel safe?” Maya asked.
“No,” the three women said in unison.
“Good,” Maya said. “Because Halloway is wrong. A perimeter doesn’t stop a narrative. If the script says fire, there will be fire.”
“But there are cops everywhere,” Chloe argued. “How can he get close?”
“He doesn’t need to get close to start a fire,” Maya said. “Not if he planted the accelerant days ago. Not if he rigged the gas line.”
She looked at the stove.
“Elena, check the basement. Check the furnace,” Maya ordered. “Chloe, check the garage. Sarah, check the windows.”
“We swept for bugs,” Chloe said. “We didn’t sweep for bombs.”
“We’re sweeping now,” Maya said.
They moved through the house with frantic energy, ignoring the exhaustion that dragged at their limbs. They checked the utility closets. They checked the attic access. They checked the crawl space vents.
Nothing.
The house was clean.
Maya returned to the living room as the clock ticked to 11:30 PM.
“Maybe he’s bluffing,” Sarah suggested, hope creeping into her voice. “Maybe the police scared him off.”
Maya stood by the front window, peering through the slats of the blinds. The cul-de-sac was a parking lot of cruisers. Officers were drinking coffee by the gazebo. It looked like the safest place on earth.
But Maya knew better. She knew that in a story, the moment the heroes felt safe was the moment the monster struck.
“Where is Dan?” Maya asked suddenly.
“At the hotel,” Chloe said. “With the kids.”
“Did you call him?”
“I texted,” Maya said. “No reply. He’s probably asleep.”
She pulled out her phone and dialed him. It went straight to voicemail.
She dialed the hotel front desk.
“Marriott Suites, how can I help you?”
“This is Maya Lin-Baker. My husband is in room 304. Can you connect me?”
“One moment.”
The hold music was a cheerful jazz flute. It grated on Maya’s nerves.
“Mrs. Lin-Baker?” the receptionist returned. “I’m sorry, but there’s no one in room 304. Mr. Baker checked out two hours ago.”
Maya’s phone slipped from her hand and hit the rug with a dull thud.
“Maya?” Elena asked. “What is it?”
“He’s not at the hotel,” Maya whispered. “Dan checked out.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know,” Maya said, staring at the flashing blue lights outside. “But if he’s not there… and he’s not here…”
The lights flickered.
Once. Twice.
Then, the house plunged into darkness.
“The power,” Chloe gasped.
“It’s not just us,” Sarah said, pointing to the window.
Outside, the streetlights had gone dark. The porch lights of the neighbors were out. The only illumination came from the police light bars, cutting through the sudden, absolute blackness of the neighborhood.
The officer on the patio turned around, shining his flashlight into the sunroom. He tapped on the glass, mouthing something. Stay inside.
Maya didn’t look at him. She looked past him, to the edge of the wetlands where the police spotlight couldn’t reach.
“He didn’t need to get in,” Maya said, her voice trembling. “He just needed to cut the line.”
A new sound rose over the idling engines of the police cars. A notification sound.
Not from Maya’s phone. From the Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen counter—the one that had battery backup.
Ding.
The gravelly voice filled the dark kitchen.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the season finale. Please ensure your seatbelts are fastened. The exit signs are… unavailable.”
“He’s broadcasting,” Chloe shrieked. “He’s on the local frequency!”
Maya grabbed a heavy flashlight from the drawer.
“Midnight,” she said.
The clock on the microwave was dead, but Maya felt the time in her bones.
The police were outside. The women were inside. And somewhere in the darkness between them, the script had just begun.