Chapter 1
One
“Marcus-fucking-Ashford.”
Alex pushes her glasses up her nose with one finger, the other hand clutching her wine glass. Her long hair spills over her shoulders, and she’s wearing a muumuu in cheetah print that makes her look like a very organized jungle cat.
I’m in my dandelion one. We’re matching our traumas, apparently.
It’s Sunday night. The first of February.
This week I work one-on-one with Marcus.
We spent the day choosing the perfect outfit, aka armor. And now we are reviewing all of Marcus Ashford’s socials.
Our murder board sits just off to the right of the TV, updated since last week. Marcus’s face is now pinned under WHO IS THE CRIMINAL? alongside Dom.
Elizabeth Short still represents who is missing. The ring—her ring—sits warm against my chest under my muumuu.
And in front of us on the television, blown up to a truly horrifying size, are Marcus Ashford’s social media profiles.
“Thirty-eight. Single. Named one of Philadelphia’s most eligible bachelors just last year.” She clicks the remote. I pause mid-sip, straw still between my lips.
It’s a PowerPoint presentation.
An actual, fully formatted PowerPoint presentation with graphics and bullet points and a title slide that reads MARCUS ASHFORD: A COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATION in a professional corporate font.
“Pause.” I pull the straw from my mouth and wait for Alex to look at me. “What the fuck.”
“What do you mean, what the fuck?” Her brows pull together and her head tilts slightly. Genuinely confused.
“I mean—” I gesture at the TV with my wineglass. “—when did you have time for this?”
“Well, about that.” She begins already defensive.
“Alex. Who isn’t getting paid this week because you were making a PowerPoint instead of doing your actual job?”
“I had David cover my work.”
“Seriously?” How the hell did she keep that a secret?
“Oh yeah, so they hired a new David last week, and I convinced him to help me with some spreadsheet work.” She shrugs. “He needed mentorship. I needed answers.”
“You mean you had a presentation to create.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Definitely not what you said, but I’ll let it go.” I pick my wine back up, resigned to whatever this is. “How many Davids are there now?”
“Four? Maybe five if you count the guy who spells it D-A-V-I-D-E.”
“That’s not a David, that’s a Davide.”
“Same thing.” She waves her hand dismissively. “Can we continue now?”
“Please. I’m fascinated.”
She clicks to the next slide. Numbers appear. Big numbers.
“Two million followers.” I whistle low. “Jesus.”
“I know.” She sounds grim.
“That’s a lot of followers. Is that across all platforms?”
“TikTok alone.”
I wince. “Damn.”
“I know. It’s like he’s trying to make serial killing go viral.” Her nose wrinkles, mouth pulling down. I feel it too. The absolute wrongness of a man who strangles women having two million people watching him perform boyfriend energy online.
We sit with that for a moment.
“Instagram is a little less, but he really doesn’t post much on Facebook.” She clicks through several screenshots. “And here’s the weirdest thing—no mock accounts. Not one person has created an account claiming to be him or even a fan account.”
“Is that normal?”
“Fuck if I know, I just thought it was interesting.” She shrugs, then clicks to a new slide.
And I want to die.
“Why?” I groan, staring at the screen.
It’s Marcus. In his fur coat. Sprawled on a couch in what looks like a government building—the state capitol based on the marble columns visible in the background—wearing nothing but boxers and that fucking coat.
The photo has 847K likes.
I can’t look away. It’s like a car crash. “How did this happen? How did we miss this?”
“If I had an answer for you, it would be on the slide.” Alex sounds as disturbed as I feel.
“But how—”
“Dylan, I don’t know. It’s from eight months ago. The caption says, Late-night session at the capitol, who needs pants anyway?” She makes a gagging sound. “It has twelve thousand comments.”
“I don’t want to know what the comments say.”
“Good, because I’m not reading them.” She clicks to the next slide. “But here’s what I found.”
PATTERNS & RED FLAGS.
“He posts every single day. Multiple times a day on TikTok and Instagram. It’s all very—” she searches for the word, “—curated. Like he’s building a brand.”
“The brand being ‘America’s boyfriend’?”
“Exactly.” She clicks through examples.
Screenshots of Marcus at charity events. Marcus at the gym. Marcus making coffee in the morning with the caption “Good morning beautiful people, what’s making you smile today?”
I feel ill.
“He uses a lot of engagement bait. Polls. Questions. Should I wear the navy suit or the gray suit today? What should I make for dinner? Which restaurant should I try this weekend?” Alex’s voice drips with disdain. “Two million people think they’re dating him.”
Like my Instagram. Coffee and sunsets and carefully chosen smiles. Curating. Performing. Hiding who we really are.
“Meanwhile, he’s murdering women.”
“Meanwhile, he’s murdering women,” she echoes. “And here’s the thing—the comments are all positive. Aggressively positive. I scrolled for twenty minutes and couldn’t find a single negative comment.”
“That’s impossible with two million followers.”
“Exactly.” She leans forward. “Either he’s deleting negative comments, or someone is scrubbing them, or—and this is my theory—the engagement is fake. Bought. He is manufacturing the interactions, even though the followers seem real.”
I sit back. “So he’s paying for the appearance of being beloved.”
“Which tracks with the lack of fan accounts or parody accounts. Real cultural phenomena generate that stuff organically. But Marcus? Nothing. Just his official accounts posting into a void of purchased engagement.”
“That’s—” I pause. “Actually really fucking smart detective work.”
“Thank you.” She grins, pleased with herself. “I’ve been working on this presentation since last Monday.”
“Again, which David covered your work?”
“PowerPoint David.”
“You’ve assigned them descriptors now?”
“How else am I supposed to keep them straight?” She says it as if I’m the weird one. “There’s Club David, Bartender David, Phone David, and PowerPoint David.”
“You know what? I’m not even going to ask.” I take a long pull from my wine straw. “What else does the presentation have?”
She clicks forward. More screenshots.
Marcus at black-tie events.
Marcus volunteering at a food bank.
Marcus with puppies at an animal shelter.
“He’s performing progressive masculinity,” Alex explains. “Posts about women’s rights. Equality. Social justice. He even has a highlight on his Instagram called Listen & Learn where he shares posts from activists.”
“The irony is making me nauseous.”
“Same.” She clicks to another slide. “But here’s what’s really interesting—his political content is actually pretty vague. He talks about doing better and fighting for Philadelphia but there’s no real policy substance. It’s all vibes.”
“Vibes and fur coats.”
“Exactly.” She takes a sip of her wine. “He’s not really a politician. He’s an influencer who just so happens to hold a position of power.”
“An influencer who murders women.”
“An influencer who murders women,” she agrees. “Which brings me to my conclusion slide—”
My phone buzzes on the coffee table.
We both ignore it. Alex is already clicking to what I assume is the last slide.
It buzzes again.
“Just check it,” Alex says without looking away from the screen. “Might be your mom.”
I pick it up casually, still half-watching the TV where Alex has brought up a slide titled, RISK ASSESSMENT: WORKING WITH SUBJECT.
My whole body goes still.
Instagram: MarcusAshfordOfficial started following you
I freeze. Hand locked around my phone. Lungs forgetting how to work.
“What?” Alex looks at me. Then at my face. “Dylan, what?”
I can’t speak. Can’t form words. Just turn the phone around to show her.
She reads it. Blinks. Reads it again.
“What the fuck.”
“How—” My voice comes out strangled. “How does he have my Instagram?”
“Is it private?”
“I—I don’t think so—”
“Why isn’t it private?!” Alex lunges for my phone, but I pull it back, staring at the notification like it might change if I look at it hard enough.
“I didn’t think—I barely use it—I just post pictures of food and—”
“Dylan, focus.” Alex grabs my shoulders. “Don’t panic. Just—”
My thumb moves. Without my permission. Just pure panic instinct to make the notification go away.
I accidentally tap “Follow Back.”
“No no no no no—” The word rips out of me before I can stop it.
“Did you just—”
“I didn’t mean to!” I’m frantically trying to undo it. Tapping everything. Making it worse. “How do I—can I unfollow? Will it tell him I unfollowed? Oh god—”
Another notification.
MarcusAshfordOfficial sent you a message
We both stare at the phone.
“Don’t open it,” Alex whispers.
“I’m not opening it.”
“Don’t even look at—”
I open it.
The message is brief. Casual. Devastating.
MarcusAshfordOfficial: Hey Dylan! Great to connect outside the office.
There’s an emoji. He used an emoji. A smiley face, like we’re friends. Like he didn’t murder a woman three weeks ago. Like I’m not wearing her ring right now while reading his message.
“I’m going to be sick.” I drop the phone like it burned me.
Alex picks it up immediately. Reads the message. Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
“Okay,” she says slowly. “Okay, actually this is good.”
“How is this good?” My voice cracks. “He’s following me. Marcus is now messaging me. He’s—”
“Dylan.” She grabs my face, forces me to look at her. “Listen to me. This is good because now you look normal.”
“I don’t feel normal. I feel like I’m going to vomit. You’re doing that thing where you find the silver lining in a horror show.”
“It’s a gift.” She doesn’t even hesitate. “Also a curse. But mostly a gift.”
“This is not a gift situation, Alex.”