It had taken a little over an hour for Lucia to be convinced to come to the safe house, and even longer to convince her husband and her children that she'd be ok.
The safe house was a non-descript Craftsman in Queen Anne, tucked between a retired professor's library and a wall of overgrown ivy. Inside, the air smelled of stale rain and industrial Steiner-brand coffee.
Lucia sat at the kitchen table, her fingers tracing the wood grain. She hadn't seen the sun in forty-eight hours. Outside, Agent Garrett was a shadow on the porch, his silhouette cutting through the blinds every few minutes as he paced.
"You're doing great, Luce," Maya said, though she looked like she was vibrating at a frequency only dogs could hear. She was leaning against the kitchen counter, her laptop open, scrolling through digitized records from the 2011 Oregon investigation.
"I don't feel great," Lucia whispered. "I feel like a ghost in my own life. I keep waiting for the kids to call, but Marcus said 'total digital blackout.' Is it really that bad, Maya?"
Maya didn't look up, but her typing slowed. "He found your number, Lucia. He sent a message to a private FBI line. We aren't just dealing with a killer. We're dealing with someone who understands the architecture of our lives. If you turn on your phone, you give him a GPS coordinate. I won't let that happen."
"But Garrett said—"
"Garrett says a lot of things." Maya finally shut the laptop, her eyes bloodshot. "He thinks we can lure him out. He wants to use the sketch you made as bait. Release a 'leaked' version to the press to see who flinches."
Lucia looked at the charcoal drawing sitting on the counter. It was a face she'd seen in her nightmares for fifteen years—high cheekbones, a slight asymmetry to the jaw, eyes that seemed to reflect light rather than absorb it. It looked like a person, but it felt like a void.
"What if he doesn't flinch?" Lucia asked. "What if he just... comes for the original?"
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Maya was moving before the sound even finished, her hand flying to the holster at her hip. Garrett burst through the front door at the same time, his weapon drawn, his eyes scanning the ceiling.
"Stay down," Garrett hissed, shoving Lucia toward the pantry.
"I heard it too," Maya whispered, her voice deathly calm. "The guest room. Directly above us."
They moved in a synchronized dance they hadn't practiced but somehow knew—Garrett taking the stairs, Maya flanking the back hallway. Lucia huddled in the dark of the pantry, the smell of flour and canned peaches surrounding her. Her heart was a drum, rhythmic and deafening.
So you'll remember me.
The whisper wasn't in the room. It was in her head. Or was it?
Above her, the sound of a struggle erupted. A crash of glass. A heavy thud that shook the light fixture in the kitchen. Then, silence.
"Maya?" Lucia called out, her voice a thin reed. "Agent Garrett?"
No answer.
Lucia pushed open the pantry door. The kitchen was empty. The back door was swinging open, letting in the mist of a Seattle midnight. On the kitchen table, resting right on top of the sketch of the killer's face, was a small, fresh bouquet of lupine and daisies.
The wildflowers.
Lucia backed away, her breath coming in ragged gasps, until she hit the hallway mirror. She turned, expecting to see her own terrified reflection.
Instead, she saw a post-it note stuck to the glass, written in elegant, designer-perfect script:
You've grown up so well, Lucia. But you still run too slow.
Underneath the note, tucked into the frame of the mirror, was a photo. It wasn't of Lucia.
It was a candid shot of Maya, taken ten minutes ago, through the kitchen window. Maya was looking at her laptop, unaware that a red laser dot was resting perfectly, silently, against the back of her head.