Page 31 of Whispers in the Night

Harper crouched beside him, her voice gentle. “Trevor, this is important. Were there any customers who were here when both Melissa and Amy were here? Anyone who paid attention to both of them?”

“I don’t...I can’t think. There are so many people.” Trevor looked up, tears streaming down his face. “We have security cameras. Would that help?”

“Very much,” Silas said.

They spent the afternoon reviewing coffee shop footage, looking for the same hoodie-wearing man from the gym. Theyfound him. Of course they found him. Sitting in a corner booth with a laptop, positioned where he could watch the counter. Where he could watch Melissa work. Where he could watch Amy come in for her morning cappuccino.

He was careful. Never looked directly at the camera. Kept his face angled away, hidden behind his laptop screen or coffee cup. But his attention was always on the women. Watching. Learning. Planning.

“He’s been doing this for months,” Harper said, her voice tight. “Building dossiers on them. Learning everything about their lives. Where they go, what they do, who they talk to. And then when he’s ready, he takes them.”

“We need to figure out where he lives. Where he’s holding them before he kills them.” Silas rubbed his temples. A headache was building behind his eyes, the kind that came from too much screen time and too little sleep. “Dr. Reynolds said they were alive for thirty minutes or more during the cutting. That means he has somewhere private. Somewhere soundproof.”

“Warehouse, storage unit, isolated house.” Harper was making notes. “Somewhere in the area. He’s killing them at night and dumping the bodies within hours. He can’t be traveling far.”

“Let’s get a team canvassing for rental properties, storage facilities, anything that matches.” Silas checked his watch. Four-thirty p.m. “Captain wants us at the six p.m. briefing. We should head back to the station, compile what we have.”

They drove back in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Silas kept seeing the footage of hoodie man, watching Melissa and Amy with that patient, predatory focus. He’d been right there. In public. Surrounded by people. And no one had noticed.

That was the terrifying thing about monsters—they looked just like everyone else.

At the station, they spent an hour preparing for the briefing. Holloway would want progress, and they had some—the connection between victims, the security footage, the expanded search for missing women. But they didn’t have a name. Didn’t have a face. Didn’t have anything concrete enough to stop the next killing.

And according to the pattern, the next killing would be tonight.

“We need to set up surveillance,” Harper said, staring at the case board. “At gyms, at coffee shops. Anywhere that matches his hunting pattern. If he’s going to take another victim tonight, maybe we can catch him in the act.”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover with limited resources,” Silas said. But she was right. It was their best shot. “I’ll talk to Holloway about mobilizing patrol units.”

The briefing was tense. Holloway listened to their findings with a deepening frown, the other detectives and officers taking notes, everyone understanding the gravity of the situation.

“So we’re looking at potentially a dozen or more victims over the past five years?” Holloway said. “And he’s accelerating now, one victim per night?”

“That’s our assessment, yes, sir,” Silas confirmed.

“Jesus.” Holloway stood, pacing. “All right. I’m authorizing overtime. Every available officer on surveillance duty tonight. Kane, work with Agent Sinclair to identify the highest probability locations. We’ll set up teams at each one. If this bastard shows his face, we take him down.”

After the briefing, Silas and Harper worked with Morris and the other officers to coordinate surveillance positions. By seven p.m., they had teams at six locations—three gyms, three coffee shops. All places where young women matching the victim profile might be found.

“Where do you want us?” Harper asked.

Silas had been thinking about that. The killer knew Harper. Had written her a note. If he was out there tonight, he might be looking for her as much as his next victim.

“We’ll take Summit Fitness,” Silas decided. “The location with the most overlap. He watched both victims there. Maybe he’ll come back, see if there are any new prospects.”

They grabbed dinner from a drive-through—burgers that tasted like cardboard but provided necessary fuel—and headed to Summit Fitness. Silas parked in the lot with a clear view of the entrance, positioned so they could see people coming and going without being obvious.

And then they waited.

Surveillance was ninety-five percent boredom and five percent terror. Silas had done enough of it in the Army to know that. Hours of sitting, watching, waiting for something to happen. He’d once spent forty-eight hours in a sniper position overlooking a Taliban compound, barely moving, barely breathing, waiting for his target to appear.

This was different. Less life-or-death, but somehow more personal. Because somewhere out there was a killer who’d murdered at least eight women. Who’d carved symbols into their skin while they were alive and screaming. Who’d left a note specifically for the woman sitting next to him in the dark car.

Eight p.m. came and went. Nine p.m. The gym started to empty out as the evening crowd finished their workouts and headed home. Silas studied each person who left, looking for anyone who matched hoodie man’s build, his posture, his movements.

Nothing. Just regular people living regular lives, unaware that a predator might be hunting among them.

“Tell me about Afghanistan,” Harper said quietly, breaking the silence.