Chapter 5
I'm going through the other folders.
There's a text file in the folder. I open it.
My mouth is dry. I read it again.
Introduced through Amy. Kate befriended the wife. Used the wife's connection to access the husband. Same pattern. Same structure. Amy. A landscape architect.
I don't know an Amy. But Kate does. Kate knew her well enough to get invited to a work party. Well enough to get close to her husband. Well enough to get a weekend at their lake house.
And then she left. Terminated. She suspected. Moved too fast.
* * *
M.K. — sixty-three photos. Another man. Lighter build, reddish hair, smiling in most shots.
More photos than David. More locations — restaurants, a park, someone's living room.
The woman in this set appears more frequently.
Blonde, mid-thirties, always photographed from behind or in profile.
Kate never appears in frame with her — she's careful about that.
The text file:
Marcus Kline. 38. Financial analyst. Wife: Cara, 35, graphic designer.
One child (daughter, 6). Married 8 years.
Introduced through Cara at a PTA event — told her I was relocating, needed to meet people.
Access granted: playdates (I don't have a child — borrowed my neighbor's, told Cara she was my niece), book club with wives' group, five months of weekly contact before first incident with M.
Status: complete. Cara never suspected. Full extraction. M became emotionally dependent — had to cut contact abruptly. Risk: he may try to find me. Used alias: Hannah.
I lean back against the wall. My heart is beating so fast I can feel it in my throat.
She borrowed a child. She lied about having a niece to get into PTA events and playdates to befriend a wife named Cara. She spent FIVE MONTHS building the friendship before she ever touched the husband. And she kept notes like it was a client project.
And the alias — Hannah. She used a different name.
What name is she using with me?
Kate. She's been Kate with me for three years. But Kate might not be any more real than Hannah was to Cara.
* * *
J.T. — twenty-nine photos. Shorter engagement. Two months. The notes are brief:
James Thornton. 41. Attorney. Wife: Lauren, 36, marketing VP. No kids. Married 5 years. Introduced through Lauren at wine tasting — told her I was new to the neighborhood. Access: weekly lunches, helped her organize a charity auction. Four dinners with J before incident. Alias: Jess.
Status: terminated early. L found text messages. J panicked and told her "it was nothing." L appears to have believed him. Left area immediately. High risk — she works in marketing, may have resources to investigate.
Lauren. Marketing VP. May have resources to investigate. Kate was worried about this one. She thought Lauren might come after her.
And the last folder — R.B.
Ryan Burke. 33. Contractor. Wife: Rachel, 34, real estate agent.
No kids. Married 3 years. Introduced through Rachel at an open house — told her I was house-hunting.
Access: became her client (fake pre-approval), three months of weekly showings, befriended her completely.
R was accessible after happy hour at neighborhood bar — introduced myself separately, didn't mention Rachel. Five months total. Alias: Megan.
Status: complete. Rachel discovered via Venmo transaction (sloppy — never use traceable payments again). Left area. R tried to contact me — blocked.
Rachel. Real estate agent. Megan.
The names are blurring together. Rachel, Lauren, Cara, Amy.
Women with jobs and marriages and trust. And Kate — whatever her real name is — moved through their lives like a ghost. A ghost who befriends you, photographs your husband, keeps notes in a folder labeled with his initials, and then vanishes.
* * *
I close the laptop. I lie flat on the studio floor and stare at the ceiling — the same fluorescent light that buzzes, the same off-white tiles, the same crack shaped like a river near the ventilation grate. My back is cold against the concrete floor.
Five folders. Five men. Five wives. And me — number five.
L.P. — Liam Patterson. Alias used: Kate.
Except with me she didn't vanish. With me she's still here. Three years of friendship. Still texting. Still coming to brunch. Still asking me to grab dinner after her Greenfield site visit. Why?
The others were all terminated within six months. Kate moved, changed her name, disappeared. But with me she STAYED. She's been in my life for three years — longer than any of the others. She was my maid of honor. She's still my closest friend.
Why am I different?
I sit up. I grab the notebook and I draw a timeline. All five operations plotted by date.
R.B. (Rachel/Megan) — 2022. Five months.
J.T. (Lauren/Jess) — early 2023. Two months, terminated.
M.K. (Cara/Hannah) — late 2023. Five months.
D.W. (Amy/unknown alias) — mid 2024. Three months, terminated.
L.P. (me/Kate) — began late 2022.
Wait.
I check the dates again. Kate met me at the photography workshop in November 2022. The R.B. folder shows activity from March to August 2022. Kate was running the Rachel operation BEFORE she met me. She finished with Rachel in August and met me in November.
Three-month gap between targets. Enough time to relocate, establish a new identity, join a workshop where she'd meet someone trusting.
Someone like me.
The photography workshop wasn't coincidence.
I was selected. The friendship was the operation.
Three years of it — longer than any other, deeper than any other, so deep she became my maid of honor and cried at my wedding and knew the combination to my suitcase and the name of my childhood dog and the way I take my coffee.
All of it. Manufactured.
* * *
I'm back in the kitchen at home by 3 AM. Liam is sleeping. The house is dark and silent except for the hum of the refrigerator.
I don't bake. I pipe. Just practice — piping bags filled with leftover royal icing, working on a marble slab I keep on the counter for tempering chocolate. I pipe the letters of her name. K-A-T-E. Then I scrape it off with a bench knife. Pipe it again. Scrape. Again.
It's not her real name. I'm sure of that now. Kate is as much of a disguise as Megan or Jess or Hannah. The woman who zipped me into my wedding dress doesn't have a name I know.
She has a system. She has folders. She has aliases.
And she has photos of my husband in a moment he wishes never happened.
I pipe one more time — not letters now. A single rose.
Intricate, each petal layered over the last. It takes four minutes.
It's flawless. I look at it in the lamplight and I think: this is what she does.
She builds beautiful things — friendships, trust, intimacy — and they look perfect from the outside. And underneath they're hollow.
I scrape the rose off the marble.
Tomorrow I'm going to find the other women. Rachel, Lauren, Cara, Amy. They exist somewhere. They were real wives with real husbands who were targeted by the same woman who targeted mine.
If Kate kept notes on them, maybe they kept something on her too. Maybe they've been looking for her the same way I'm looking now. Maybe they already know her real face.
I wash the piping bags. I put everything away. I go to bed beside my husband and I don't touch him and I don't sleep and I watch the ceiling until the gray edge of dawn creeps under the blinds.
Five women. One predator. I'm going to find the others.
Starting with Rachel.