Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
MALLORY
You don’t expect something horrifying to come gift-wrapped.
Not on your own doorstep. Not when you live in a high-security building with cameras on every angle and a doorman who was a former Marine and half Terminator.
But there it was. Neat, pristine, surgical—white plastic twisted at the top, tied like a bow. It shouldn’t have felt threatening. It looked sterile, like it had come from a medical supply store, not a psychopath.
My first mistake was touching it.
Second was opening it.
The plastic resisted at first, crinkling loudly in the silent hallway. The whole floor was asleep—ten stories up, too early for the cleaning crew, too late for visitors. My brain had already started on the rationalizations. Prank. Wrong address. Overzealous fan. I’d seen worse.
Then I peeled the bag open.
And saw the finger.
Human.
Fresh.
Blood still wet.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t even drop it. I just stood there, heart in freefall, the world closing in like a vice. Somewhere far off, I registered the weight of the thing. Not just physical weight. Symbolic. Message sent. Message received.
A small white card sat beneath the finger.
Your move.
And that was the moment the story turned.
No more headlines. No more late-night theory spirals or voiceover tracks for eerie documentary segments. This wasn’t a case I was covering. This was personal. The killer had just kicked in the fourth wall and walked into my life.
All the warnings from the earlier meetings rushed back in. The fan mail. The notes. Flint’s concern. My argument. My fight to stay on this story.
Of course, the killer knew who I was.
And he knew where I lived? Even as shock tried to sink its claws into me, the rest of me argued the point. How hard would that be to find an address for someone who killed people and got away with it regularly?
So, what was he telling me? What was the message?
Did he want me to think he was stalking me?
Maybe. And why not? He was a fan or so Flint and the FBI surmised.
I’d been digging. He knew I had been. It was the only logical explanation. It was why he reached out to me at the studio and now… He wanted this visibility. Craved it. That also made sense. I was feeding into that need. Which meant…
He wanted me to know that he knew. We were opening a channel of communication and he escalated on the terms that I set, exactly what I wanted. Except... I could have done without the body part.
For a long second, I just stared at the thing, part of me trying to decide whether I was going to vomit or compartmentalize. I chose the latter.
Barely.
Then I stepped back inside my condo, plastic bundle still in hand like some deranged party favor, and slid the door shut behind me.
Locks engaged. Deadbolt turned. Chain on. Too late for any of it to matter. But still, better to make the effort.
I stood in the middle of my living room, the bag on the counter like a bomb with a heartbeat. One wrong move and it would all detonate.
Every instinct warred inside me. Call Brewster. Call Flint. Let the professionals handle it. Let them own the moment.
But then what? Get benched while they dissect the story about me without me?
No.
No one else was covering my part of this story. The Auditor responded to me—and I wasn’t going to let that narrative belong to anyone else.
So I made a list.
1. Document the evidence.
2. Call the FBI.
3. Call Flint.
4. Record. Everything.
My hands were steady. That surprised me. Maybe it was shock, maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was just the muscle memory of years in the field. Iraq had been bad. Syria had been worse. Ukraine, too. At least this horror show had clean lighting and good Wi-Fi.
I grabbed a pair of nitrile gloves from under the sink.
The package might already be compromised.
I had to accept that. Fine. But I’d covered enough crime scenes to know better.
Once I had them on. I set my phone on the kitchen island, camera ready.
Then I turned the lights up full and pulled out a ruler, an evidence marker from a station kit I’d “borrowed” a couple of years earlier, and my oldest digital camera from the gear shelf.
The phone would work for recording each step while I also photographed. Giving a little shudder to shake off any apprehension, I started my notes.
The finger was intact, the nail short, squared. No rings. Caucasian. Male. Probably mid-thirties judging by the skin tone and ligament shape. It had been severed cleanly—bone cut, not torn. Surgical or power tool. Not a crime of passion. That kind of precision said patience. Intent. Practice.
I snapped shots from every angle. First wide. Then macro. No filters. No adjustments. Just truth, frame by frame. I photographed the card next. Thick, white stock. Embossed edges. Ink black, printed—handwritten.
Your move.
No name. No blood smears. No smudged fingerprints.
I didn’t breathe until I had backed all the images up to both cloud and drive. The FBI had every right to the evidence, but I hadn’t gotten this far by losing any leads I had. Then I logged the time: 3:47 a.m., Central. Date stamped. Location logged.
Task one: complete.
Task two: I stared at my phone. Brewster or Flint?
Flint would demand a lockdown. Pull me off the air, pull me off the story. It had already been an uphill battle to stay on the air. At this point, he’d probably try to pull me out of my place and into some surveillance-friendly safe house with gray walls and bad coffee.
But Brewster?
He would want intel. Precision. Control. He wouldn’t pull punches—but he also wouldn’t waste time with paternalistic lectures. He’d see this for what it was.
War.
I hit his contact. He picked up on the second ring.
“Agent Brewster.”
The man must not sleep. I resembled that feeling.
“It’s Mallory McBryan. I’ve received a package. On my doorstep.”
“Tell me what’s in it.”
“A finger. Human. Male, I think. Still fresh. Bagged in sterile plastic with a note.”
Pause. A breath, deliberate and audible.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes. Doors are locked. I’ve documented the evidence. No one else has touched it.”
“I’ll dispatch a team immediately. Stay inside. Don’t answer the door for anyone who doesn’t show you my ID on a live call. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Mallory,” he said before I could hang up, his voice lower now. “This is confirmation. You’ve crossed his line.” He really didn’t have to tell me that. I was stubborn, not stupid.
“I know.”
“We’ll talk soon.”
I hung up.
Then, finally, I called Flint.
He answered with a grunt and a rustle of sheets. “This better be worth the heart attack.”
“It is.”
I told him, flat and fast. Package. Finger. Note. FBI’s on the way.
“You’re off the air, Mallory.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I’m not doing this with you right now—”
“I documented everything. Photos, notes, timestamps. I’ll give the Feds a full copy. But I’m recording this, Flint. For the story. No one’s covering my angle but me.”
“You’re a witness now—”
“I’m the target. That makes me the most qualified person to tell this story. I’ll redact anything they need, but this is mine.”
Silence. I could practically hear the resignation rising in his breath, thick and tired. He didn’t want to agree. But he didn’t say no, either. As much as I wanted to keep moving, I waited him out.
“Dammit,” he swore and I had to fight against the gust of relief slamming out of me. “Put coffee on. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Flint…”
“Don’t thank me,” he ordered. “This isn’t over.”
When he finally hung up, I sat down at my desk, hit record on my mic, and looked straight into the camera.
“My name is Mallory McBryan. And tonight, someone left me a message. Not a warning. A challenge. I’ve covered murderers before, but this one? This one’s different. Because this time, he’s watching me.”
I took a beat. Let the silence settle.
“This is where the story changes. You’ve seen me walk the beat with the local police, interview politicians from the campaign trail to the court trials, and followed me as I went into war zones to bring you the stories. I’ve covered killers before, but now you’re going to hear it as I face one.”
I kept the mic hot and the lens steady.
“People like to think evil is loud. Obvious. That it announces itself in screams and violence and red lights. But I’ve spent the last year of my life chasing the opposite—monsters that slip through cracks, that leave just enough behind to make you question what you think you saw. What you think you know.
“This finger? It’s not just a message. It’s a signature. A shift. He wants to be seen now. That likely means I found something he didn’t want me to. Or I’m about to.”
I paused, staring into the lens.
“I’m recording this in case something happens. Not because I think it will. But because I know how this game is played—and the only way to win it is to keep control of the narrative. To tell the truth while I still can.
“So here’s the truth: I’m not scared. Not yet. I’m angry. Someone has decided I’m a piece on their board. That I’m part of their story. But they made a mistake.”
Another pause. I leaned forward, voice quieter, more intimate.
“I write my own.”
I hit stop.
The silence afterward felt artificial. Staged. Like the set had gone dark but the audience hadn’t left.
I stood, stretched out the tension in my shoulders, and crossed to the kitchen.
Despite my espresso machine, sometimes I just wanted strong black coffee.
Right now, I needed it. The coffee machine clicked audibly as I switched it on.
My hands shook—not from fear, not really.
From the comedown. My adrenaline crashed.
Everything in the condo was suddenly too sharp. The ticking of the wall clock. The hum of the fridge. The faint buzz of the city, still restless even at four a.m.
The hiss and slow, bitter drip.
Then—
BZZZT.
The sound cut through the stillness like a razor across glass.
My head snapped toward the intercom. The front desk.
That was fast.