CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sloane pulled the car out of the apartment complex parking lot, looking out of the corner of her eye and seeing Kate check her watch.
The disappointment between them was thick enough to touch.
They'd been so close... or so Sloane had thought. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever learn how to get used to these false leads turning to nothing.
It was a far cry from the adrenaline of undercover work, that was for sure.
“Any next steps you want to look at?” she asked Kate.
“I’m honestly not sure. We could keep questioning Crawford at the field office, but I feel confident he’s just as clueless as I feel. If we didn’t find anything in his records and files, I really don’t think he’s going to be able to offer up anything.”
“So are you calling it a day?”
"Yeah, I think I should. I made a promise to put these long days behind me. And I’ve already missed dinner. But if you’re up for it, we can start fresh in the morning."
"What time?" Sloane asked.
"Seven? We can grab breakfast and figure out our next move."
Sloane nodded, realizing that Kate was recommending they meet an our earlier than today.
The case had hooked her, that was much was clear.
Sloane wanted to say something else, wanted to somehow articulate the frustration churning in her gut, but Kate looked exhausted.
The older agent had dark circles under her eyes and moved with the careful stiffness of someone whose body was reminding her she wasn't twenty-five anymore.
"Seven works," Sloane said. "I'll text you where to meet."
"You did good work today, Sloane. I know that sounds a little cheesy, but it’s true. That detail about Hayes in the video? I would have missed that completely."
Sloane felt a flush of pride, but pushed it down immediately. "Just doing my job."
"Well, keep doing it." Kate got into the car and started the engine. "Try to get some rest tonight. We'll figure this out tomorrow."
They made their way back to the field office mostly in silence and when Kate got into her own car in the parking garage, they said their goodbyes.
Sloane stood alone in the parking garage, not sure what to do.
She could head inside and take another crack at Crawford or she, too, could go home.
She knew DeMarco had another agent questioning Crawford but she wanted to be an active part of it if she could.
She didn’t see the point in simply waiting around.
Yes, Kate had responsibilities to her family, and promises to keep. But Sloane had nothing of the sort.
Three women were already dead. Three letter openers, three stolen business plans, three families destroyed. And Sloane and Kate still had no idea who was doing it or how to stop them.
Sloane pulled her coat tighter and started walking.
Her own car was parked on the bottom floor.
She opted not to take the elevator, choosing instead to walk in the chilly air and clear her head.
The parking garage was quiet at this hour, as most of the office bodies would have pulled out by six or so at the latest and it was now nearing 7:30.
A few cars passed on the main road on the other side of the garage walls, but the side streets were empty.
Her footfalls echoed like a pleasant metronome as she considered the day and the many facets of this weird case.
Sloane had always liked walking at night.
There was something peaceful about it, the way the world felt smaller and more manageable when most people were inside.
During her year undercover, she'd walked constantly.
It was the only time she'd felt like herself, moving through dark streets while everyone else slept, trying to remember who Erica Sloane actually was beneath the cover identity she wore during the day.
That year had changed her in ways she was still processing.
Living among criminals, watching them operate, pretending to be someone who could exist in that world without flinching.
She'd gotten good at hiding her reactions, at keeping her face neutral no matter what she was seeing or hearing.
It was a skill that served her well in regular investigative work too, though sometimes she wondered if she'd forgotten how to actually feel things in real time instead of processing them later when she was alone.
Alternatively, working with Kate Wise was surreal in ways Sloane hadn't expected.
She'd read about Kate's cases, studied her methods during training.
Kate Wise was the kind of agent instructors held up as an example: brilliant instincts, methodical approach, an ability to see patterns that other people missed.
Sloane had been nervous when she'd gotten the assignment to work with Kate on this case.
Not scared-nervous, but the kind of anxious anticipation you felt before something important.
She felt like she’d hidden it well. A year of pretending to be someone else had taught her how to bury her emotions so deep that even she sometimes forgot they were there.
But they were there. When Kate had complimented her for recognizing Hayes in the video, Sloane had felt genuine pride surge through her chest. She'd suppressed it immediately, kept her face neutral, accepted the praise with a simple acknowledgment. But inside, she'd glowed.
Kate Wise thought she'd done good work. That mattered more than Sloane wanted to admit.
Sloane turned the corner toward the lower floor, where her Kia was parked all the way at the other side.
She passed a man in a button-down and khakis getting into his car while speaking on the phone.
As she passed by him, her own phone buzzed in her pocket.
Sloane pulled it out and saw a text from her sister asking if she wanted to come to dinner next weekend.
Sloane's thumb hovered over the keyboard, trying to decide how to respond.
Her sister meant well, but family dinners felt suffocating lately.
Everyone was always asking questions about work, trying to understand what Sloane did all day, offering opinions about cases they'd seen on television.
Plus, they lived in the country, a two-hour drive right into the heart of Nowhere.
She typed out a quick reply: "I'll let you know. I’m working on a case that’s pretty intense right now."
Her sister, as well as her parents, had come to expect that sort of response from her. And she responded immediately with: "Be safe. Love you."
Sloane pocketed the phone and kept walking. Her thoughts kept circling back to the case, to the framework Margaret Ellis had created, to the way Crawford had distributed it among multiple participants.
Three victims. All featured prominently in promotional materials. All using business concepts that originated with Ellis. But Ellis wasn't the killer.
So who was?
Sloane thought about the interview with Ellis.
The woman had been genuinely shocked by the murders.
Her boyfriend had backed up one of her alibis and she’d readily given other alibis, even indicating at least two other people who could back her us.
She was working as a bookkeeper now, rebuilding her life piece by piece.
She'd made peace with the business failure and moved on.
But someone hadn't moved on. Someone was angry enough about those stolen concepts to kill the people who'd benefited from them.
Sloane's analytical mind started breaking down the problem into components, the way she'd been trained to do.
She started with a very basic question: what did they know for certain?
The victims had all graduated from Second Act Success. They'd all used elements of Ellis's framework in their business plans. They'd all appeared in promotional videos. They'd all been killed with personalized letter openers that had been gifts from the program.
What didn't they know?
Well, they didn’t have a complete list of everyone who had ever been in the program…
though given the reams of information they’d gotten through Crawford and Paula, those details would be readily available if it came to that.
Also, who else had submitted business plans that might have been cannibalized for parts?
Who else might have watched those promotional videos and recognized their own concepts being credited to someone else?
Sloane stopped walking abruptly, standing just a few feet away from her Kia. Somewhere else in the parking garage, someone’s electronic locks gave way with a slight beep beep sound, but it was so far away it may as well have been on the moon.
The promotional videos…
Kate had complimented Sloane on recognizing Hayes in that brief clip. Sloane had watched that video multiple times, and Hayes's face had stuck with her even though the clip was only a few seconds long.
Sloane stopped walking, her breath visible in the cold air. She could feel a connection starting to form, some answer lurking in the mental depths.
Kate had complimented her on recognizing Hayes.
That compliment had meant something to Sloane because Kate Wise didn't give empty praise.
She'd genuinely been impressed that Sloane had caught such a brief appearance in a five-minute video.
But Sloane had only been able to recognize Hayes because she'd watched that video multiple times while looking through notes and resources.
She'd studied it, absorbed the faces, the businesses, the success stories Crawford was promoting.
What if someone else had also watched those videos multiple times? Not once or twice, but repeatedly. Obsessively.
Not a failed participant studying them with envy. That theory had led them to Margaret Ellis, and Ellis wasn't their killer. That had been a colossal waste of time.
But who else would watch Crawford's promotional videos over and over again? Maybe…
Maybe someone else who was in them.
Sloane felt something click in her mind, like a puzzle piece finally finding its proper place.
She'd been thinking about this backwards.
They'd been looking for someone who'd failed, someone who'd watched others succeed using stolen concepts while they’d floundered and lost. Someone consumed by jealousy and rage at being left behind.
But what if the killer wasn't someone who'd been left behind at all?
What if they were someone who'd succeeded?
Someone who appeared in those same promotional videos, who'd built a thriving business using Crawford's program, who'd watched those videos not with envy but with calculation.
Someone who'd studied every other success story Crawford promoted, memorizing faces from brief clips, learning about their competition.
Not just to see their own face in the light of success, but to watch and judge the others?
What if they were watching to size up their competition?
Sloane pulled out her phone and opened the YouTube app, navigating to the Second Act Success channel. She clicked on the most recent promotional video and watched it again, this time with different eyes.
There were at least fifteen different graduates featured in the four-minute video that had allowed her to find Hayes.
Some appeared for several seconds, others for just a moment.
Rachel Thornton appeared at the thirty-second mark.
Patricia Holmes showed up for maybe six seconds around the two-minute mark, standing by a clearly fake OPEN FOR BUSINESS sign.
Susan Hayes had been in the older video for an equally brief moment.
All of them bright and beaming pictures of success…
pictures if success that were apparently driving someone to kill.
But there were others too. Other success stories. Other thriving businesses that Crawford showcased as proof his program worked.
What if one of those other success stories was watching?
What if they'd recognized that their own appearance in the videos was being diluted by all these other graduates?
What if they'd started to see the other success stories not as colleagues, but as competition for Crawford's attention and promotion?
Sloane thought about the business world, about how success often meant being the standout, the memorable one, the face people associated with a brand.
If Crawford kept adding more and more success stories to his promotional materials, each individual graduate became less prominent.
Less special. Less likely to be remembered.
Unless the competition was eliminated.
At first, it felt like a stretch but then it started to make a sick sort of sense.
Sloane's hands shook slightly as she pulled up a text window—not her sister this time, but Kate. She almost didn’t send the text, not wanting to come off as jumping at every little theory.
But in the end, it felt like the right thing to do.
After all, this made more sense than the failed participant theory.
It explained why the victims had been featured in promotional videos specifically.
It explained the personalized letter openers, which had been gifts from Crawford to his most successful graduates.
The killer was using them because they meant something to the killer, too.
She typed in: I’m thinking a new angle, maybe. What if the person we’re looking for isn’t a program failure or reject, but a SUCCESS that wants to get rid of other successes? She sent the text and then followed it with: I’ll let you know if I find anything.
And as soon as she sent those texts, the theory somehow started to seem more viable. The killer wasn't someone Crawford had wronged; they were someone Crawford had helped.
Sloane pressed the button for the elevator and when the doors opened, she practically hopped on.
Going through the video and comparing the faces to names from Crawford’s files shouldn’t be too hard.
And if she was right, she had not only already seen the face of their killer, but pretty soon, she might also have a name.