Chapter 32
The footsteps stopped. Three heartbeats of silence followed, heavy and expectant.
Matt and I exchanged a glance in the near-darkness, years of partnership allowing us to communicate without words.
We both knew who might have found us—Sarah, the police, or someone else entirely.
None of those possibilities promised anything but danger.
The latch rattled again, more insistently this time. Matt moved silently to position himself behind the door, his back against the wall, while I crouched behind an overturned fishing crate, ignoring the protest from my still-tender wound.
A gust of wind howled around the boathouse, the sound nearly masking the metallic snap of the lock giving way. Nearly, but not quite. The door flew open with a splintering crack that echoed across the water.
Moonlight spilled through the doorway, silhouetting a massive figure that filled the frame.
I recognized him instantly—Victor Reeves, "The Collector.
" The man who'd watched us escape from the motel days ago, the volatile ex-security contractor with the silver ring that left distinctive marks on his victims.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I assessed the tactical situation with cold precision.
Victor blocked our only obvious exit. His size and known combat experience made physical confrontation a last resort.
The boathouse windows were too small for a quick escape, and the water beneath offered minimal cover for a retreat.
In the dim light, I could make out the bulk of his shoulders, the military stance, the slight forward lean that suggested readiness to lunge.
Matt shifted his weight imperceptibly, angling his body to create a barrier between Victor and me despite the obvious disadvantage he faced.
The slight sound drew Victor's attention, his head turning toward Matt's position.
I seized that split-second of distraction, rising from behind the crate, standing behind him with a metal pipe pushed against his spine, a make-believe gun.
"Don't move," I commanded, my voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through my system.
Victor froze, his features becoming clearer as my eyes adjusted. His breathing was controlled, but rapid, nostrils flaring slightly with each exhale. His hands—capable of inflicting the devastating damage I'd seen in crime scene photos—hung at his sides.
Then, to my astonishment, he slowly raised them in a gesture of surrender.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said, his voice a gravelly rumble that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards beneath my feet. "I’m here to warn you. She's coming for you next."
The statement hung in the air between us, unexpected enough to momentarily disrupt my focus. Matt had emerged from his position, moving to stand slightly. I felt rather than saw his protective stance, his body angled to absorb any potential attack.
"Who's coming?" Matt demanded, though I suspected we both knew the answer.
"Sarah Winters," Victor replied, his hands still raised, palms forward.
"Why should we believe you?" I kept my fake weapon trained on him, unwavering. "Your own history with violence doesn't exactly inspire trust."
"I'm not asking you to trust me, Agent Thomas. I'm warning you." His silver ring caught the light again as he slowly lowered his hands to waist level. "Sarah Winters is not who you think she is."
"We know exactly who she is," Matt said, his voice taut with suspicion. "What we don't know is why you're really here."
Another gust of wind buffeted the boathouse, sending ripples across the water beneath us.
The moonlight filtering through the broken windows cast long, distorted shadows across the warped wooden floor, giving Victor's substantial form an even more menacing appearance.
Yet something in his demeanor had shifted—a subtle change in posture that suggested vulnerability rather than threat.
"I've been watching you," he admitted, confirming what I'd already known. "But not for the reasons you think."
"Enlighten us," I said, ignoring the growing ache in my arm as I maintained my aim. "Quickly."
“Could you lower your weapon, please?” he said.
I lowered the pipe and put it in the pocket of my jacket. “No funny business.”
Matt tensed beside me, ready to intercept any sudden movement. Water dripped steadily from a leak in the roof, marking time in the tense silence.
"Sarah hired me months ago," Victor explained, his voice dropping lower. "Said she needed security, protection from a stalker. But that wasn't the whole truth." He looked directly at me. "She wanted me to watch someone for her. Richard Collins."
The name of the murdered accountant sent a chill through me that had nothing to do with the damp night air.
"And now she's hired me again," Victor continued, urgency threading through his words. "To find you. To finish what she started."
I narrowed my eyes, searching for the lie in his statement. But what I saw instead was fear—genuine fear in the eyes of a man whose file described him as pathologically incapable of remorse or empathy.
"She killed that second woman," Victor said.
"She told me about how she shot her in the back of the head. She placed the body downtown at night in a parking lot where it would be easy to find. She left your name on the body in a letter confirming your guilt and remorse, having you ask to be stopped, that you know you’re out of control. And she's not finished."
The boathouse creaked around us, timbers protesting against the strengthening wind.
I was weighing his words against everything we'd discovered about Sarah Winters—her obsessive wall of news clippings about me, her secret connection to Collins, her carefully constructed facade of normality hiding something deeply disturbed beneath.
"How do we know you're not working with her?" Matt challenged, still positioned protectively between us.
Victor's scarred face hardened. "You can’t," he answered simply. "But I’m here, aren’t I?"
The wind howled louder, rattling the loose boards of our shelter. In that moment, I had to make a choice—trust the violent man with a history of threats against me, or dismiss his warning and potentially miss crucial information about the woman who was systematically destroying my life.