Chapter 4 – The Perfect Distraction
The Linwood house loomed under the heavy curtain of night. Porch lights glowed faintly, painting soft halos across the front yard, while inside, shadows moved as the family settled uneasily into their routines.
Across the street, Clara sat in an unmarked sedan with Holden, the hum of the engine off, their breath fogging faintly against the cold glass. Neither spoke much. Words seemed useless against the dread that clung to the air.
The killer had been here once. He could come back.
Clara adjusted the night-vision binoculars, sweeping over the Linwood’s quiet home. Every creak of the street, every shift of wind in the trees, tightened her chest. She hated the waiting. She hated the helplessness more.
Holden leaned back, arms folded, eyes fixed on the house. “You know what he’s doing, don’t you?”
Clara kept scanning. “Taunting us. Playing with us.”
Holden’s jaw worked. “Or testing us. Seeing how we move, how fast we react.”
Clara lowered the binoculars and glanced at him. “Then let’s not give him what he wants.”
But what if that was impossible?
Hours bled together. Midnight. 2:00 a.m. 4:00 a.m. Nothing stirred except the occasional car passing distantly on Maple Street, headlights cutting brief slices of light across the pavement. The Linwood home remained quiet, almost too quiet, as if frozen under an invisible dome.
The silence became maddening.
Clara found herself running mental circles—what if the killer never intended to return? What if the knife had been the entire move? What if they were wasting precious hours, trapped in the cage he had built for them?
By 5:30, Holden poured lukewarm coffee from a thermos, offering her a cup. Clara shook her head, her nerves strung too tightly for caffeine. The world was paling outside, the first hints of dawn bleeding into the horizon.
Then Holden’s phone rang.
He answered sharply. “Holden.”
The voice on the other end was urgent, rushed. Clara leaned closer, watching his expression shift from irritation to something darker.
“What?” Holden barked. Silence. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the phone. “When?”
Clara’s chest tightened.
He ended the call abruptly, sliding the phone back into his pocket. His eyes met hers, hard as stone.
“That was dispatch.”
Clara already knew it was bad. “Tell me.”
Holden’s voice was flat, but beneath it throbbed disbelief. “A politician’s been killed. State Senator Richard Hale. Two days before the election.”
Clara’s stomach dropped. “Killed? How?”
“Throat slit. Body left in his campaign office.” Holden rubbed a hand over his mouth, shaking his head. “Security cameras cut. No forced entry.”
The words pounded against Clara’s mind like gunfire.
They had spent the whole night watching the Linwood house, waiting for something that never came. The knife had been a trick, a lure to hold their attention here.
And while they were distracted, the killer had struck his real target.
Clara pressed her palms against her eyes, fury igniting inside her chest. “Goddamn it. We played his game.”
Holden slammed his fist against the steering wheel. “And we lost.”
They arrived at the scene just after six-thirty, the sky streaked in pale orange. The campaign office stood near the town square, a two-story brick building draped in banners and posters declaring “Hale for the People.” Now, crime scene tape fluttered across the doorway, and patrol cars ringed the block, their lights pulsing silently in the dawn.
Inside, the office smelled faintly of blood and copper. Hale’s body lay slumped across his desk, the wound at his throat vicious and precise. Papers were scattered, a toppled coffee mug bled its contents across glossy flyers. His face, once smiling down from campaign posters, was now waxen and still.
Clara knelt beside him, careful not to touch the wound at the throat. Her eyes swept his body as her mind cataloged every detail: the broken chair, the toppled documents, the way the blood pooled unnaturally on the polished surface.
Then her gaze caught it—a faint, jagged mark carved into the back of Hale’s left hand. A symbol.
Her heart raced. She leaned closer, examining it. It was the same angular symbol she had seen on Emily Hartman’s wrist and the faint outline she had once photographed on the Linwood house window. The killer’s signature.
She felt a shiver creep up her spine.
Holden crouched beside her, his voice low. “That… that’s the mark.”
Clara nodded, her lips pressed tight. “He’s leaving a calling card now. On his victims. Not just messages. Not just toys. He wants everyone to know he did this.”
The mark burned itself into her memory. Sharp angles, precise lines. Psychopathic artistry. The killer wasn’t random. He wasn’t sloppy. He was proud of his work.
And worse—he had been several steps ahead the entire time. The Linwood knife. The distraction. Now a dead senator, two days from an election, with the mark carved onto his flesh.
Clara straightened, pulling her gloves tight. “This is personal, Holden. He wants to play with us.”
Holden’s jaw worked. “He’s smart. Too smart. And he knows what we’ll do.”
The weight of it settled on Clara’s shoulders. The killer wasn’t just a murderer—he was a predator, studying her, studying the law, exploiting human instinct, and twisting it into chaos.
By late morning, the office was swarming with investigators, forensic teams, and federal agents. The governor’s press office demanded updates, and reporters crowded outside with cameras and microphones. Clara remained on the periphery, her eyes never leaving the mark on Hale’s hand.
She couldn’t shake it. The way the killer had toyed with them at the Linwood house. The knife left in Sophie’s hands. Then this. The pattern was horrifyingly clear: manipulate the detectives, distract them, and strike where it matters most.
Every instinct screamed that this wasn’t the end. It was an opening.
Clara finally stepped outside, the sunlight burning her eyes. Across the street, the world went about its morning. Cars, joggers, a delivery man with a cart. Life continued, ignorant of the death that had just struck the heart of their town.
But she knew better. Somewhere, the killer watched. Somewhere, he smiled at how neatly he had controlled the narrative, how skillfully he had toyed with her, Holden, the Linwoods, even the town itself.
The game had escalated. And Clara Reyes was at the center of it.