27. Kennedy #3
“Christopher and Mark spotted it in each other right away. The same… lack. The same hollowness,” Malachi continued, relentless now.
“When the study was shut down, they kept in touch. Not publicly. Not even via email. They used a secure private chatroom that let them talk without oversight, and over the years, the conversations eventually spiraled from clinical curiosity into darker territory. Violent fantasies. Urges they’d always suppressed. ”
I felt my chest tightening. “You’re lying,” I muttered.
“It didn’t stay just the two of them,” Malachi said, ignoring me.
“Three years in, Christopher brought in someone else. Heather Voss. She was a housewife and amateur writer who went to the same church as him and his family. She knew he’d recently become a psych nurse, so she asked him for insight into criminal psychology for a novel she was working on about a serial killer.
She used the book as a cover for conversations that became increasingly darker, and Christopher eventually realized that she wasn’t just interested in darkness for fiction purposes.
She was darkness. So, he told Mark about her, and he agreed to let her join their chatroom. ”
I stared at him, horrified.
“Heather later brought in Silas Boone, her secret lover. They’d met at the PTA and started an affair, and somewhere down the line, their pillow talk turned into confessions.
Turned out he had the same hunger. The same dark fantasies.
” Malachi’s mouth twisted into a grim smile.
“Silas eventually recruited the last one, Brian Delgado. He was a legal consultant that Silas had worked with several times, and he’d sensed the same buried hunger in him.
The kind of quiet cruelty only visible to those who share it.
So he orchestrated a new contract just to spend time with him and tease out the darkness.
He soon realized he was right about him, and Brian joined the group shortly after. ”
I couldn’t speak. It felt like I didn’t even know how to breathe anymore.
“They were five high-functioning sociopaths. A surgeon. A psychiatric nurse. A writer. A businessman. A lawyer. All respected and loved. But all empty. Their online chats became playgrounds for theoretical murders, thought experiments, and debates about killing and getting away with it,” Malachi said.
He paused, leaning a little closer. “And it wasn’t just that.
All of them wanted to get away from the lives they’d built for themselves in Corwin Bay.
Families, friends, and careers they’d grown tired of.
They felt like they were just going through the motions every day, and they wanted freedom from that. Wanted out. Wanted more .”
My stomach lurched again. It wasn’t true. My father was happy with Mom, my sister, and me. Happy with his job, his friends, and his life.
Wasn’t he?
Malachi leaned forward slightly. “Christopher said that things finally shifted when Mark crossed the line. He told them he’d killed a patient.
Made it look like a surgical complication, and none of his colleagues suspected a thing,” he said.
“The others didn’t recoil when he told them.
Instead, they admired him. Told him they envied him.
And then… one of them posed two questions that couldn’t be un-asked. ”
“What questions?” I choked out.
“What if we engineered a serial killer case so perfect, so unsolvable, that we could hide behind it? What if we used it to fake our own deaths and disappear to start the lives we really wanted all along?”
I shook my head, unable to speak over the hard lump that had formed in my throat.
“The planning took years. They talked online every day, and they also met once a week to talk in person. They did that under the guise of the book club, making sure no one ever knew how close they all were to each other,” Malachi went on.
“Each detail of the Carver scheme was carefully designed—the abductions, the riddles, the ritualistic murders—to keep police chasing shadows.”
“No…” I whispered, head shaking.
“Each of them contributed something significant to the plan. Heather, the writer, wrote the riddles. Silas, the CEO worth over $400 million, funded what they called their afterlife . Brian handled the legal side of things. Hid the money and secured multiple fake identities and documents for them all. Christopher used his knowledge to create the psychological profile they’d try their best to stick to: a young, lone, male killer.
Pretty classic pathology. Believable enough to fool most profilers in the country.
And as for your father… he drew and stored the blood from them that they’d need for their fake deaths, and he also carved up the real victims once they were dead.
The eight poor souls who died to sell the illusion of the Carver. ”
“No.” I vehemently shook my head, chest heaving. “ No! ”
“Yes. And you know what else Christopher told me about those eight real victims?”
“What?” I asked, voice cracking.
“Your father and the others didn’t choose to murder them because they perceived them as deserving of it, like some killers out there.
They just picked them from the fucking phonebook,” he said, voice dripping with disgust. “That way it would be as random as possible. Any connections between them were legitimate small town coincidence, with nothing to link them all. And they chose eight to make the final body count thirteen, including them, because most people believe the number thirteen has some sort of dark significance. They thought it would add nicely to the Carver mythos.”
“Oh my god,” I murmured, blinking rapidly. “This can’t be real.”
“And of course, before those eight senseless murders happened… the five fucked-up friends helped each other disappear,” Malachi droned on. “Made themselves look like the first victims before they went into hiding, so that no one would ever suspect their culpability in the next several deaths . ”
I covered my mouth, shaking my head again. “You’re making all of this up,” I mumbled through my fingers.
He continued to ignore me. “They made their kidnappings look legitimate by ensuring there was a witness to report a six-foot-one masked man—who was actually Christopher—attacking and abducting them. Some of their stored blood would be left at the abduction scene to give it the appearance of a real attack, like in your father's case.” He paused for another beat, head tilting slightly. “He told the others about your nightly routine at the window and chose the time of his disappearance specifically so you’d see it.”
My blood ran cold. “That’s not true.”
Malachi smiled thinly. “Yes, it is. You were his star witness, Kennedy,” he said. “You were the reason everyone thought he was stabbed, kidnapped, and later killed in the woods.”
Tears burned my eyes. I didn’t want this story to be real. So why was it starting to make a sick kind of sense?
No.
I couldn’t let myself believe this bullshit. I wouldn’t .
That was the insidious way men like Malachi got into people’s heads: with half-truths and poisoned logic dressed up like facts. And if I let myself fall for even a fraction of it, I might never claw my way back to reality.
I had to stay grounded. Had to hold onto what I knew was true. Even if part of me—the smallest, darkest part—was starting to wonder.
“It was the same with the next three,” Malachi continued.
“Silas, Heather, Brian. They played out staged abductions with witnesses they knew would be there at just the right moment. Christopher didn’t need one for his own supposed kidnapping.
Because by then, the fear in Corwin Bay had already taken hold.
The Carver myth had become self-sustaining. ”
He leaned in closer, and in a voice that sent a shiver down my spine, he said, “Your father never died, Kennedy. He left to build the life he really wanted for himself, because a fake death is the ultimate escape. You helped him do it. And you’re still helping him now.”
All the fear, disbelief, and anger suddenly boiled over inside me.
“That’s not true!” I screamed. “None of it! You kidnapped all of them! You killed them, along with the original eight too, and then you made up this whole story to try and justify what you did! And you’re so fucking crazy that you probably actually believe it! ”
He didn’t flinch. Just calmly stared at me. “You’re good, you know,” he said. “Probably one of the best actresses I’ve ever met.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered, seething.
“Let’s continue,” he said, straightening his shoulders. “I think I was telling you how I had Christopher Miles for so many years, right here in this cell.”
“You’re sick,” I whispered, skin prickling with horror as I looked around the cramped cell. Had Christopher lain here, chained and broken, counting the days until he finally begged for death? Was I sitting in the same spot where he’d screamed and cried?
Malachi ignored me again. “Christopher told me many useful things, but unfortunately, he couldn’t tell me where the others ended up once they were done with the Carver scheme. But he gave me en—”
I cut him off, lifting a palm. “Wait, what ?” I said, voice dripping with scorn. “You tortured all that other stuff out of him, but no locations for the other four? That doesn’t make any sense!”
Malachi still looked unfazed. “He genuinely didn’t know where they were, because the five of them decided to go their separate ways after the Carver scheme was complete.
That way, they could all go off and live the exact lives they truly wanted with their newfound wealth and freedom.
Like Christopher, who spent his days teaching skiing and his nights preying on young tourists, as I mentioned before,” he said.
“The only two who stayed in contact with each other were Heather and Silas, as they were a couple.”
I almost laughed at that. “You expect me to believe that five extremely close friends, who’d been in constant contact for twelve years and planned out a whole serial killing scheme together… just decided to split up and ghost each other the second it was over?”
“They no longer needed each other, so that was that. You don’t understand it because you aren't a sociopath, so you can’t relate to their decisions and actions,” he replied, rubbing his jaw.
“Your brain just isn't wired like theirs.
Didn't you say something like that in one of your podcast episodes?”
I pursed my lips and looked away, annoyed that he was quoting my own words back to me. “Different context,” I muttered.
“Not really. It’s the same concept,” Malachi said.
“The way the five of them saw it was like this: they’d all gotten everything they wanted out of their friendship, and once they were finally free of their old lives, they no longer needed each other.
But you … you don’t think like that. You love people.
You miss them. You can’t just cut things off when you’ve gotten what you wanted or needed. Can you?”
“No. But surely they’d still have some sort of emergency contact method. Like their old chatroom,” I said woodenly, unsure why I was even trying to argue with Malachi’s deranged story. “Just in case something happened. Like if one of them got caught.”
He nodded slowly. “I figured they’d have a failsafe too. A chatroom, or burner phones. But I found nothing. And I tried everything to make Christopher talk. Everything ,” he said. “So I’m inclined to believe that the five of them really split up and ceased contact.”
“Right,” I murmured.
“Anyway, Christopher was at least able to tell me enough about Brian, Heather, and Silas to give me a vague idea of where they might’ve ended up. It took a very long time, but I finally found Brian around eighteen months ago, and then I found Heather and Silas four months ago.”
“I know you already killed Christopher, Silas, and Heather, but where’s Brian right now?” I asked, frowning. “Are you holding him in another cell?”
“I was, but…” Malachi trailed off and grinned. “He’s in the mail now.”
My stomach lurched. “You mean you killed him and sent pieces of him to my house like you did with the others?”
“The arrangements were made two days ago,” he said, sinister grin widening.
“A few hours before Jacob King was put under surveillance. So, once the courier finally delivers Brian’s tongue along with the next riddle, King will still be a prime suspect.
That’s a nice little bit of revenge for him getting handsy with you, isn’t it? ”
“Wow, thanks, ” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “You didn’t mention my father before. Does that mean you haven’t found him?”
“Yes. I knew it was going to be near impossible to find him, because according to Christopher, he’d told the others that he didn’t plan on settling in one place.
He’d always wanted a nomadic sort of lifestyle, changing locations every few months or so,” he said.
“Brian, Heather, and Silas all told me they genuinely had no idea where or how to find your father. And like I said earlier… I did everything to make them talk. Their stories never changed.”
I bit down on the bitter remark that rose to my tongue. Now wasn’t the time for sarcasm. Not when I didn’t know what Malachi would do next.
He took a step forward and crouched to meet me at eye level. “Ready for the really interesting part?”
I swallowed thickly. “What is it?”
“Even though none of them could give me a location for Mark, every single one of them, starting with Christopher four years ago, had the exact same thing to tell me.”
“What?” I asked in a ragged whisper.
Malachi stared at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he leaned in slightly, voice low. “It was you, Kennedy,” he said. “They wanted to tell me about you. ”