Chapter 3 Tom
Tom
Alfred Thorne.
Sixty-five years old.
Retired history teacher.
He carried himself with the warmth of an old storybook character—the kind of man who always had butterscotch candies in his pocket, ready to press into a child’s palm with a conspiratorial wink.
He sat in the same pew at church every Sunday, bowing his head in reverence.
After the service, he’d swing by Harlowe’s Café, a cozy little spot where all the staff knew his usual order by heart: one blueberry muffin and a black coffee, no cream, no sugar.
He’d claim the table closest to the window and crack open a book, usually a dense and weathered volume on the history of empires long since fallen.
Today, however, there’d been a small deviation in his routine. He passed on the muffin and stuck with his usual black coffee.
The bell above the entrance chimed as a gust of cold air swept in, flipping the pages of his book. Alfred Thorne glanced up at the disruption.
A woman stepped into the coffee shop, holding a little girl’s hand. Her pink rain boots, dotted with white daisies, matched the backpack slung over her shoulder. She giggled at something the woman said, her small hands clinging to the edge of the table as she climbed onto a chair.
Alfred Thorne’s fingers stilled over the book. His lips twitched, in a way that couldn’t quite be called a smile.
Beneath that grandfatherly facade, the vilest kind of predator watched and waited.
“What poor person are you creeping on now, Hayes?”
For a moment, I thought I was imagining things. But no—that was Detective Sawyer’s voice, cutting through the low hum of the coffee shop like a blade.
I tore my gaze away from Alfred Thorne, and there she was—standing a few feet away, hands tucked into her coat, dark hair damp, a few stray strands clinging to her cheek.
Outside, the storm raged on, wind driving the rain against the windows in relentless sheets.
Inside the coffee shop, however, the heat grew uncomfortably warm.
Thrown off balance completely, all I could do was stare at her like an idiot.
“Excuse me?” I managed to ask, once my neurons started firing properly again.
Detective Sawyer’s mouth quirked at the corner. “What? You think I don’t recognize that look in someone’s eyes? Intense, sharp, ravenous. It’s obvious, Hayes. You’re on a prowl.”
She closed the distance between us, one step at a time, until she was standing close enough that I could count the raindrops clinging to her lashes.
Moments like these made me think she had unraveled me completely.
She braced both hands on the table and leaned forward. “So tell me then—who’s the lucky woman that caught your attention?”
Or maybe not.
The pressure coiling inside me loosened all at once, leaving me light-headed.
Of course, she wasn’t onto me. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if she were.
“No one,” I answered, for lack of anything better to say.
Detective Sawyer arched an eyebrow, as if she didn’t believe me even for a second. She did ease back, however, giving me room to breathe more freely. “Come on now, Hayes. If you want this whole friendship thing to work, you’ll have to learn how to be more honest.”
“I am being honest, Detective. A relationship isn’t something I’m interested in at the moment.” Ironically, this was one of the few times when I wasn’t lying straight through my teeth.
She held my gaze, seemingly weighing my words. Once she seemed satisfied with whatever assessment she’d reached, she pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. Her elbows came to rest on the table, fingers lacing together.
“And why not?”
There was actual interest in her voice, which took me by surprise. It seemed that after our talk at the bar, she’d begun to warm up to me.
Well… warm up might be a strong word.
Beguilingly tolerated would be far more accurate.
Still, it was a progress.
“I can’t imagine I’d make a very good partner right now, with work and everything else going on in my life,” I said, which was putting it mildly. It couldn’t be helped, however, considering that my version of ‘everything else’ didn’t belong in polite conversation.
“Well, aren’t you considerate?” Detective Sawyer said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. She had a way of making even the simplest of statements sound like mockery, except this time, there was no real edge to it, only a light, teasing lilt.
I shook my head, but the corners of my mouth twitched despite myself. “And what about you, Detective? Is there anyone special in your life?”
“Sure. If you count my pet cactus.”
I wasn’t sure I heard it right. “Cactus?”
She shrugged. “It’s loyal, low-maintenance, and impossible to kill. What more could I ask for?”
“Does it have a name?” I asked, more curious than I’d care to admit. It wasn’t often the detective talked about herself. She tended to take control of every conversation, so the opportunity to learn something personal—no matter how trivial—was too good to pass up.
“…Roger.”
She said it so quietly that I almost missed it completely.
When I remained silent, she let out a sigh, the kind that carried the weight of instant regret. “It’s a bunny ear cactus, hence the name. You know—Who framed Roger Rabbit? Never mind…”
And just like that, I had the pleasure of witnessing the rarest of sights.
Detective Sawyer—flustered.
This moment deserved to be marked down in history.
I grinned. “You named your cactus after a cartoon bunny. That’s adorable.”
The look she leveled at me could have cut glass. “It’s a rabbit. I swear that if you tell anyone about this—”
“Oh no, Detective. This is staying with me. Forever.”
Detective Shay Sawyer—ruthless interrogator, walking lie detector, the reason hardened criminals lost sleep at night… and a proud owner of a tiny, defenseless houseplant named Roger.
Who would even believe me?
Although I had to admit, as amusing as the image was, something about her coming home after a long day at work to a lone, resilient cactus waiting on the windowsill felt… strangely fitting.
It seemed that the detective was human after all.
One had begun to wonder.
Detective Sawyer, regrettably, offered no other reaction and instead asked, “So, since you’re apparently not here to creep on women, what exactly are you up to?”
“I was in the neighborhood, visiting a friend. Plus, the muffins here are to die for.” I nodded at my plate, where only a crumpled paper wrapper remained. “What about you?”
“Just making a quick pit stop before heading back to the station.” Detective Sawyer stood up, smoothing a hand down her coat before checking her watch. “Which means that I’ve got to run. It was nice running into you, Hayes.”
And in the next breath, she was gone.
The coffee shop came alive around me once more.
Voices spilled over each other, threads of conversation tangling and slipping away.
The espresso machine let out a low, continuous hiss.
Ceramic clinked against ceramic. For a moment, I just sat there, staring at the empty seat across from me before forcing my gaze elsewhere—back to Alfred Thorne, who was sliding his book into the worn satchel at his feet.
I pushed Detective Sawyer to the back of my mind for now.
She had her business. I had mine. It was time to get moving.
* * *
Alfred Thorne didn’t fight back.
They never did, when I planned it right.
There was no need for brute force. Strength wasn’t the key; it was control, precision, timing.
The human body was nothing more than a system of chemical reactions and electrical impulses.
Disrupt those reactions, override those impulses, and the whole thing would shut down like a faulty circuit.
In the corner of the room, the lamp flickered, casting fractured shadows across the planes of Alfred Thorne’s face. He was slumped in a high-backed armchair, its muted damask worn soft with age. On the low lacquered table beside him, his tea quietly cooled.
His reading glasses had slipped halfway down his nose, one of the lenses smeared with a faint impression of a thumbprint. Behind them, his pupils were dilated, but unseeing—caught in that brief moment between awareness and oblivion.
I pressed two fingers to his radial artery, just beneath the wrist. Even through the glove, his skin felt paper-thin to the touch, the veins delicate yet pronounced. His pulse was a sluggish thing, slowing down with each passing second.
From the moment Alfred Thorne pressed the insulin pen against his skin, the countdown had begun.
That was the beauty of it.
A gunshot would draw attention. A knife would leave evidence. Blood spatter, defensive wounds, fiber transfer—all forensic trails impossible to erase.
This, however? This was quiet and unassuming. Almost elegant in its simplicity. By the time he’d even realized something was wrong, the damage was already done.
Alfred Thorne’s lips parted, trembling with the effort to speak. His jaw worked uselessly, muscles straining against the fog descending over his mind.
Was it to argue? Beg? Curse? I couldn’t help but silently wonder. Not that it mattered. Hypoglycemia was setting in.
Good. That meant I’d timed it right.
I crouched beside him, careful not to knock over the stack of books teetering at his feet. A rasping sound escaped him, more breath than voice. Still, I figured it would be rude not to answer.
“You must be feeling it now. The confusion, the weakness. A little dizziness, maybe? Your blood sugar is crashing.”
But even if he somehow managed to hear me, his brain was no longer equipped to process the meaning.
His body was locked into a desperate struggle against the biochemical storm tearing through his system.
Every shallow breath, each twitch of his fingers told the same story—he was fighting a losing fight.
Neuroglycopenia.
The brain starved first. The confusion, the drowsiness, the panic were all part of the process.
Alfred Thorne was a diabetic. That made it easy. There’d be no suspicious puncture marks where they didn’t belong; only a slow, undetectable collapse.
Elders were always so forgetful. A few missed meals here, a miscalculated dose there, a pill taken twice by accident. Little slips that could happen to anyone. All harmless errors, until they weren’t.
Alfred Thorne’s limbs continued to spasm as though they no longer belonged to him, his body giving a last feeble attempt at resistance before it finally shut down.
The fight was fading.
It wasn’t long until he went completely still. His mouth went slack, his final words swallowed by the silence that followed.
I waited.
Thirty seconds.
A full minute passed.
There was no pulse.
I retrieved the insulin pen from where it had rolled beneath the side table and slipped it into the inner pocket of my jacket.
From the other, I pulled out a duplicate and placed it neatly within his reach.
The teacup and saucer went with me into the kitchen, where I rinsed them under hot water before leaving them on the dish rack to dry.
I gave the rest of the place one final assessment before quietly shutting the door behind me.
Outside, darkness had settled over the yard like a heavy cloak.
A narrow stone path led to a gurgling fountain, where water spilled in steady rivulets over its sculpted basin.
Perched at the center stood a statue—an angel carved from pale marble, hands pressed together in silent prayer, gaze turned upward toward the stars.
By tomorrow morning, Alfred Thorne would be nothing more than another unfortunate statistic—a footnote in a medical report about the dangers of mismanaged diabetes.
The drive back home was a long one, but I didn’t mind it. The road stretched ahead, empty and quiet, broken only by the low hum of the engine. When the asphalt beneath my tires began to give way to the familiar grind of gravel, I turned the car into the driveway.
However, it seemed that my day wasn’t over just yet.
As I stepped onto the porch, I spotted another envelope waiting at my doorstep, its edges slightly damp from the high humidity in the air. Inside, the note read—
I’ve been wondering… Do you ever regret it?
I don’t.
Most people use their morality as a shield, allowing them to keep their hands clean.
I tried being like that once—pretending I could ignore the filth around me.
It didn’t work.
It’s strange, isn’t it? How quickly the line disappears once you step across it.
—A friend
My thoughts drifted back to the grainy footage from my security camera.
A kid—face still round with baby fat, swallowed by a jacket several sizes too big—walking up to my front door. Trouble was, trying to find someone like that in a city this size was like searching for a needle in a haystack. It was going to take some time.
I was curious about the timing, though. Both notes had been dropped off when I wasn’t home, which meant that whoever was behind them wasn’t just guessing—they were both close enough to learn my habits and confident enough to test them out.
I went down a few steps and scanned the tree line.
The wind carried the scent of wet grass and pine, dashing through the branches and coaxing them into a rhythmic sway. A couple of leaves tore loose and whirled across the clearing. Somewhere in the distance, an owl let out a low, solitary hoot.
Other than that, the woods were quiet.
Still.