Chapter 15
Bobby ‘Bit’ Nowacki
The fire crackled steadily in the small stone hearth, sending faint pops into the otherwise quiet cabin.
Outside, the wind pressed against the windows in long, low groans, occasionally sweeping a dusting of snow against the glass in faint, ghostly streaks.
Each gust made the old timbers creak, a tired sound that reminded Bit just how far he was from anything resembling civilization.
He shifted in his chair, trying to shake the faint unease that came with being alone in the middle of nowhere.
He wasn’t built for quiet.
He preferred the steady pulse of data streams and the comfort of background noise—the hum of servers, the chatter of networks, the static of city life.
Out here, the silence had weight. He’d reinforced their satellite connection with every trick he knew, but even that wouldn't hold forever in this weather.
“Come on,” Bit encouraged the connection as he stared at the screen.
The signal bars flickered as the satellite uplink fought the storm’s interference.
He’d rigged a dish on the roof and run extra shielding through coax lines to stabilize the signal.
He didn’t trust the setup long-term, but all he needed was for it to get through the evening and night until he could adjust the equipment in the morning. “Just another hour or two.”
The spreadsheet data he'd pulled from various social media archives was finally compiling into a searchable database.
The software would analyze connection patterns between all four victims, including their extended social networks, employment histories, and public affiliations.
If the unsub had crossed paths with any of the women before killing them, the algorithm would find it.
Bit stood and turned at the waist, stretching his lower back muscles. Eugene had warned that the cabins weren't luxury accommodations, but Bit also hadn't expected this trip to take on features of camping out in the wild.
The room flickered into darkness for a split second, though the screens remained untouched due to the additional battery backup unit he’d brought from D.C.
At least he was stocked up on instant ramen packets and a healthy supply of Skittles and Twizzlers, not that he’d touched the latter since his run-in with Paula Stillman.
What he really had a hankering for was a large pizza and garlic knots.
He’d texted Sylvie a little while ago, and she had promised to deliver.
She and Brook should be here soon, with Theo maybe ten minutes behind them, given that the weather had turned somewhat faster than the forecast had predicted.
The generator outside whined higher, the sound barely audible over the wind's persistent howl.
Through the only window in the cabin, the swirling snow was illuminated in the security lights he'd installed yesterday.
The pines at the edge of the clearing bent under the weight of fresh powder, branches dipping dangerously low.
Bit grimaced when the generator made another odd noise, but he still reclaimed his chair in hopes of finding some information on the reentry program where Heather Moore had volunteered. Theo had been provided some names, so it shouldn’t take long to produce a few background checks.
A sharp thud echoed against the back wall of the cabin.
Bit swiveled in his chair, staring at the location of the sound. It had been solid. Solid enough not to originate from the wind or some settling timber.
“Snow,” Bit reasoned before swallowing hard. Images of oversized bears and hungry coyotes formed in his mind, and he realized that maybe loose dentures weren’t all that bad. “It was probably just snow sliding off the roof.”
He turned back to his screens, muttering over and over again how there was nothing to worry about. After all, bears and coyotes were highly intelligent. They were probably hunkered down somewhere warm, waiting out the storm.
Wild turkeys, on the other hand, were feathered demons. Someone had taken a video of a tom turkey attacking some joggers on the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. Bit had shown it to Theo, but not even an entire rafter of wild turkeys could prevent that man from keeping to his daily jogging routine.
Before Bit could touch his keyboard, a second thud followed, softer than the first but somehow more deliberate. He reminded himself that the perimeter sensors would have alerted him if anyone approached within fifty yards of the cabin.
Maybe he should have made the distance at least seventy-five or one hundred, but he’d thought at the time such a large coverage area might be overboard. He should have trusted his instincts.
Bit shifted warily in the chair, his stomach tightening as he quickly minimized his work windows and pulled up the security feed.
He cycled through the cameras he'd mounted around the property.
The security cameras revealed only swirling sheets of snow.
No discernible shapes or figures interrupted the relentless fall, offering no hint of movement beyond the storm's icy grip.
“This is how every horror movie starts,” Bit whispered, letting out a nervous laugh that sounded forced even to his own ears. “Isolated cabin. Snowstorm. Weird noises. Next thing you know, there's an axe through the door.”
The generator's whine suddenly dropped in pitch again, dimming the side lamp momentarily. In that half-second of semi-darkness, he reached for his phone. Brook and Sylvie had to be minutes out, right?
“Get it together, Bobby,” he told himself, using his actual name as his sister did when she wanted him to be serious. “You're a professional. With a gun. And training.”
Something scraped against the outer wall.
The sound was different from previous noises.
He stood, not taking his focus off the security footage at the back of the cabin.
For a brief second, he thought he caught sight of a dark blur in the right corner.
It was gone as quickly as it appeared. No alarms were activated, which meant it was probably just a trick of the snow-heavy branches.
Bit switched to the perimeter camera feed, enlarging the window to fill his central monitor. The high-definition display showed nothing but a white sheet of snow, pixels blurring as the wind whipped flakes against the lens. He leaned closer, eyes straining as he toggled between camera angles.
The northeast corner, facing the tree line.
The south side, overlooking the path to the other cabins.
The western approach from the main road.
Nothing but snow and darkness in every frame.
He pulled up the motion detection logs just to be certain. Since no alerts had been triggered, that meant whatever had passed by the camera hadn't crossed the invisible parameter line he'd programmed.
Or there had never been anything there at all.
He drummed his fingers against the desk, considering his options. It was probably nothing, and his imagination had gone into overdrive. Yet his unease persisted to the point of initiating a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. He reached up and shifted his knit hat.
Sylvie would never let him hear the end of this, should he fess up...which he usually did at some point.
“Shit,” Bit groaned, pushing off the desk. “I hate being the responsible one.”
The expletives continued under his breath as he shoved his phone into his front pocket.
He shrugged into his heavy winter jacket, zipping it to his chin before wrapping a scarf around his neck.
Gloves, hat pulled lower, boots laced tight, and flashlight in hand.
Each item was another layer between him and whatever waited outside.
As an afterthought, he wrote on a sticky note that he’d left the cabin to walk the perimeter. If anything happened to him, at least the team would know there was foul play by another individual or a feathered demon.
Bit drew a deep breath, gloved hand on the knob, and counted down from five before yanking open the door.
His eyes watered instantly upon stepping outside into the frigid air.
Wind clawed at his clothes, somehow managing to find every gap in his layers.
He squinted against the assault of snowflakes, sharp as needles against his exposed cheeks.
The security lights cast yellow pools across the snow, but beyond their reach lay impenetrable darkness.
Bit's flashlight beam cut through the whiteout in jittery arcs as he swept it across the clearing.
His first step sank him ankle-deep in fresh powder, requiring an awkward high-step to advance.
Each subsequent footfall created a sucking sound as the snow compressed beneath his weight.
“This is insane,” Bit muttered, the words visible as puffs of vapor that the wind immediately shredded and carried away.
He trudged around the corner of the cabin, sweeping his light across the casing.
The generator’s hum was louder out here, and he kept his beam steady in front of him, searching for whatever had made that noise.
He even took time to check each camera mount.
The third camera, the one that had captured the dark blue, was tilted slightly downward. Its field of view had been slightly altered by accumulated snow on its housing. He carefully brushed it clean and readjusted the angle, scanning the tree line so he wouldn’t be ambushed out of nowhere.
His toes were beginning to numb despite the insulated boots, and each breath was like inhaling shards of glass. There was nothing out here, and he could now pat himself on the back for a job well done in securing the perimeter.
Bit followed his own rapidly disappearing footprints.
The wind had already begun filling them in, smoothing the depressions he'd made just minutes before. He increased his pace, the beam of his flashlight bouncing erratically across the snow as he moved. His teeth were beginning to chatter, and the tip of his nose had lost all feeling. He wasn’t a coffee drinker, but he might steal one of Sylvie’s hot chocolate packets.
He finally rounded the last corner. Two things happened at once. His cell phone immediately started to vibrate, and had his gaze not been on the ground in front of him, he would have missed the irregularity in the snow.
There was a depression where none should be, but there was no denying it was a footprint.
A boot print, to be precise.
Bit didn’t need his flashlight once he stepped beneath the pale wash of the security lights. The divergence in the snow was unmistakably a second set of tracks branching off from his own. The footprints were distinct, leading away from his path toward the dense tree line.
No movement.
No sound beyond the steady hum of the generator.
Whoever had been out here had chosen their moment carefully, waiting until Bit was on the far side of the cabin before making a move.
He crouched low, breath ghosting in front of him as he studied the tracks.
A man’s boot, size eleven or twelve, the tread deep and clean with a small notch in the heel—distinct enough to match later, if they ever found the shoes.
A sharp gust swept through, flinging icy crystals against his face. Already, the edges of the prints were softening beneath the relentless fall of snow. Five more minutes and the trail would vanish completely, as if it had never existed.
“Evidence disappears, memory distorts, but documentation persists,” Bit muttered, tugging off his glove with his teeth.
He retrieved his phone, opened the camera, and began taking pictures. Some with a flash, and some without. Once he finished, he didn’t linger. There also hadn’t been a need to click on the notification that someone had triggered the sensors.
Bit turned and trudged back through the drifts, the wind snapping at his coat. Inside, the warmth was almost like a sweltering sauna, but he didn’t bother peeling off his layers before heading straight to his monitors.
“Got you,” Bit muttered as the footage made his pulse kick.
A dark figure, ski mask pulled tight over his face, sprinted alongside the far side of the cabin. It was obvious the intruder hadn’t anticipated Bit’s sudden emergence into the cold night, and in his panic, he had veered into the cameras' line of sight.
Brook had been right all along.
The first victim was most always key—and somewhere inside the cold silence of Harrowick, Heather Moore was still holding the answers.