My mind raced, filling every blank space with possibilities I didn't want to consider. The candy, a childish, cheap little thing, suddenly felt like a signature carved into flesh. A mocking, domestic token left as a calling card. Each detail of it twisted in my mind, sharp and deliberate.
For a moment, I convinced myself that the town itself had shifted its gravity around me. Every locked door, every whispered headline, every muted siren, it all seemed drawn toward me. It wasn't the first time a victim had had some fleeting connection with me. Faces from old police reports slipped unbidden through my memory, a man I'd smiled at in the elevator, the courier who had delivered a package to our office last month, someone from the late-night meeting where I'd lingered too long, laughed too loud, felt too alive. Patterns emerged where none should exist.
I stayed silent. I couldn't, wouldn't, risk revealing that I'd had even a passing exchange with one of the victims. Not now. Not when it could entangle me in suspicion, or worse, place me squarely in the center of the killer's cruel game. Murder and kidnapping were not my stage. And yet, the thought of being involved made each breath feel thick and foreign, as if my lungs had betrayed me.
Simon William watched me closely. His gaze wasn't accusatory, it was protective, calculated, wary. "I know you won't tell anyone else," he said quietly. "And that's why I'm telling you. Don't mention any of this to anyone. Let us handle it."
I nodded, smiling in the way I'd learned to do when fear ran too deep to speak. My hands folded in front of me, cool and composed on the surface, though beneath the practiced calm, terror churned like water trapped beneath ice. Every instinct screamed to bolt, to close the blinds, never stay late again. Yet another force held me in place, curiosity, mingled with a strange, sharp ache of responsibility. If people I knew were being taken, if candy was being left like a taunt, what kind of message someone is trying to conway.
We walked on in silence, letting the city awaken slowly around us. Dawn crept across the buildings, pale and fragile as old bone. Simon's phone buzzed once but he ignored it, eyes scanning the streets with the careful vigilance of a man carrying the weight of the city on his shoulders.
"Was there anything else?" I asked. Speaking felt safer than letting the panic rise any further.
He shook his head. "Not yet. No CCTV leads, no witnesses who remember faces, nothing. The candy's the only consistent element. Whoever this is, they want us to find them, or they want us to play along with a game. Either way, they're bold as well as amart."
A bus hissed past, exhaust curling across the sidewalk. A woman hurried by with a grocery bag, oblivious to the conversation that had hollowed out my morning and replaced it with cold, precise calculations of fear.
"You spoke to Julian yesterday," Simon said softly, as though tucking fragile words into the cracks of a broken world. "Did he mention anything unusual? Strange clients? Calls that made him nervous?"
Julian's face flashed through my memory, his laugh, the way he'd smoothed his tie when deep in thought. "No," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "He was… the same as always. Asked me about Saturday, made a terrible joke about the vending machine on the third floor. Nothing that stood out."
Simon's jaw tightened. "We'll check every call log, every detail. We've got people on it."
"Please," I found myself whispering, small and earnest. "If you find anything, tell me. If there's anything I can do--"
"You can be careful," he interrupted gently. "And you can trust me to tell you when there's something you need to know. For now, let us work."
I nodded, forcing a smile that felt more like armor than expression. But beneath it, questions multiplied. Why the candy? Why the victims who had brushed past me in ordinary life? And most dangerous of all, why did my stomach sink at the thought that the killer's pattern might be message for me.
We reached the corner where our paths diverged. Simon glanced at me, and for the briefest moment, the officer's professional calm slipped into something raw, human, worry. "Don't go straight home alone tonight," he said.
"I won't," I lied. The truth was undecided, fragile, like the thin glass of the streetlamp above us. Safety was negotiable, fleeting, and I wasn't ready to claim it.
Simon hesitated, then added, "Anna, if you remember anything, anything at all, call me. No matter how small it seems."
I held his gaze, saw the earnestness there, and felt the weight of that request settle over me, heavy and real. "I will," I promised. This time, I meant it.
He turned away, shoulders squared, and walked back toward the station. I watched him go until the morning swallowed him, then headed in the other direction, my phone heavy in my pocket, the image of the candy folding into the hollow around my ribs like an accusation.
I forced a small laugh at a stranger's joke on the street, keeping my pace steady, because that's what we do when fear comes calling, we perform normalcy until normalcy is all that remains to cling to.
____________
I pushed open the office door and stepped into the low hum of conversation. The sound of laughter clipped off midstream, coffee cups clinked softly, and the familiar tide of gossip rolled through the open-plan space like an undertow. Heads turned. Whispers paused for a beat, then resumed, low and slanted, as though nothing had happened at all.
Nancy saw me first. Her brow was pinched, her expression a strange mixture of relief and alarm. She cut across the aisle between desks and reached mine in a few hurried steps.
"Anna…" Her voice came out thin, urgent. "Babe, our boss, he's missing. They think he's been kidnapped."
Her words should have knocked the breath out of me, but the sting had already landed that morning. Simon William's warning had prepared me for this, though it hadn't made it easier to swallow.
"I know," I said quietly. "Simon told me before sunrise. He asked me to be careful. He told me about Mr. Julian George."
Nancy's face folded into a mask of false bravado. "As long as we're girls, we're safe… don't worry." Her tone wavered at the edges, but she reached out and looped her arm through mine, warm and absurdly reassuring in its normalcy. Together we walked toward our desks, side by side, as we always did, like habit was a talisman that could ward off chaos.
"Who's going to replace Mr. Julian?" I asked as we sat down and I booted up my computer, the glow of the screen momentarily harsh.
"I don't know," she shrugged. "HR's handling it. They'll find someone… eligible." The attempt at casual normality sounded brittle, like a teacup tapped too hard.
The office gradually settled back into its rhythm, fingers drumming against keyboards, printers whirring in soft mechanical sighs, the low murmur of calls being taken and logged. Everything normal on the surface, as though the air itself hadn't shifted.
I turned to my own screen and began the mechanical ritual of checking my inbox, clicking through newsletters, meeting invites, endless replies, pressing through them just to keep my mind from wandering. The normal tasks felt almost violent against the strangeness clinging to the day.
Then, a new message blinked into view. Unfamiliar sender. Unfamiliar subject line.
I clicked it before I could second-guess myself.
Subject: Stay away from him if you don't want him to end up like the others.
The words sat stark and black against the pale background of my screen, pulsing like a heartbeat.
To be continued