Chapter 14
The phone rang four times before Jessica Forsythe answered.
"Who is this? How did you get this number?"
The voice was sharp, hostile. Nothing like the warm-eyed woman in the photos Tom had found—the "before" photos, from when Jessica still had a brother.
Cara's mind clicked into con artist mode automatically. She'd planned this call. Knew exactly what to say, how to present herself. Start with empathy, build common ground, create connection. Standard manipulation technique.
"Jessica Forsythe?" She kept her voice gentle, non-threatening. "My name is Cara Sweet. I left you a voicemail earlier today—"
"I know who you are." Jessica cut her off. "You and your friend showed up at my condo. My neighbor told me. Then I found out you went to my work. Leave me alone, or I'll slap a restraining order on you so fast…"
Cara's stomach dropped. Adjust. Pivot. Show contrition.
"I'm sorry, I should have called first—"
"Uh, WRONG answer." Jessica's laugh was bitter. "You should have left me alone. Who do you think you are, tracking me down? Showing up at my HOME?"
"I needed to talk to you about—"
"About Blaire Mitchell. I know. You said in your voicemail." Jessica's voice rose. "And here's what I have to say about that: Leave. Me. ALONE."
Cara pressed forward, still calculating, still playing the part she'd rehearsed. "Jessica, please. Just five minutes. I'm being blackmailed by Blaire. She's asking for fifty thousand dollars. I have nine days—"
Jessica laughed again, harsh and broken. "Oh, so YOU'RE in trouble, and suddenly MY pain matters? My brother's DEATH is useful to you?"
The words hit harder than Cara expected. The calculated approach suddenly felt sick. Wrong.
"That's not—"
"You showed up at my HOME. At my WORK." Jessica's voice shook. "Like you have some kind of RIGHT to my story. Like my brother's suicide is just a data point in your little investigation."
"I'm not investigating—"
"Then what are you doing?" The question landed like a slap. "Because from where I'm standing, you're just another person who wants something from me. Another person who thinks they can USE what happened to Shawn for their own purposes."
Cara closed her eyes. All her preparation, all her careful planning of what to say—it crumbled.
"You're right."
Silence on the line. The admission seemed to catch Jessica off guard.
"You're absolutely right," Cara continued, and this time the words weren't calculated. They were just true. "I do want something from you. I want to know how to survive what you've already been through. Mostly, though, I want to know if there's any way to stop her from doing this to someone else."
"There isn't." Jessica's voice went flat. Dead. "You can't stop her. Nobody can."
"Maybe not. But I have to try."
"Why? What makes you special? What makes you think you can succeed where everyone else has failed?"
"Nothing. I'm not special." Cara looked at Shawn's photo on the table, and something in her chest cracked.
"I'm just desperate. And I have help. Friends with special…
skills. I've already talked to one of her other victims. He's managing a fast-food restaurant now after she destroyed his career.
Lost everything. And he told me the same thing you're telling me—that fighting her doesn't work. "
"He's right."
Cara waited, and it wasn't strategy anymore. It was just pain recognizing pain.
"You want to know what happened?" Jessica finally said. "You want the full story so you can feel justified in whatever stupid plan you're cooking up?"
"Only if you want to tell me."
"I don't WANT to tell you anything. But maybe if you understand—really understand—what she's capable of, you'll be smart enough to do what I'm telling you. Pay her and disappear."
Jessica took a shuddering breath. "My brother was a good man. A GOOD man. Do you understand? He coached his daughters' soccer team. He volunteered at the food bank. He was the kind of person who stopped to help stranded drivers change tires."
Cara pressed her hand over her mouth, already feeling tears start.
"His ex-wife made up the domestic violence charges during their custody fight. Completely fabricated. She admitted it later—ADMITTED she lied—but by then it was too late."
"Shawn couldn't afford bail. Couldn't afford a real lawyer. The public defender told him to plead guilty, take a deal. But he HADN'T DONE ANYTHING."
The story poured out now, years of grief and anger finally finding a target.
"So he ran. He got a job working construction under the table. Rented a room in a boarding house. Kept his head down. Just trying to survive until he could afford to clear his name. Until he could see his daughters again."
Cara's throat tightened. She'd been running too. Still was. The parallels felt too close.
"And then Blaire found him."
Jessica's voice turned cold. "She showed up at his construction site. Smiled that perfect Instagram smile and told him she'd been hired to locate him. Which was a LIE. We found out later—no client. Nobody hired her. She just... found him somehow."
Cara's chest tightened. No client. Just like with her. Blaire had hunted Shawn independently. Hunted him and destroyed him.
"She told Shawn she understood his situation," Jessica continued. "Said she felt sorry for him. Said maybe they could work something out where she wouldn't have to report his location to anyone."
"She wanted fifteen thousand dollars. Everything he had. Every penny he'd scraped together for a lawyer to clear his name."
"He paid her, and he thought it was over."
Jessica's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Two days later, she posted about him. 'Successfully reunited a family'—with photos of his old neighborhood. She TAGGED THE LOCATION."
"His ex-wife's brothers found him. They informed the police, of course. It’s not like they sent out cops immediately, but Shawn knew it was only a matter of time."
Cara was crying now, tears streaming down her face. This wasn't the calculated empathy she'd planned to show. This was real. Raw. Because she could see herself in Shawn's story. Could see her own future if she failed.
"I told him to come home. Told him we'd figure it out together. That we'd fight the charges. Fight Blaire. Fight everyone."
"He said okay. Said he'd drive home in the morning."
The silence stretched, thick with grief.
"But he didn't. Obviously."
Cara pressed her hand over her mouth, trying to hold back a sob.
"So that's what Blaire Mitchell does," Jessica said. "That's what she's GOOD at. She finds desperate people and she destroys them."
"Jessica, I'm so sorry." The words came out broken. "I can't imagine—"
"No. You can't. Nobody can unless they've lived it." Jessica paused. "But here's what you CAN imagine: that's YOUR future if you try to fight her. That's what happens when you don't pay."
"There has to be another way—"
"There ISN'T." Jessica's voice rose again. "We couldn't survive it. And neither will you."
Cara felt the hope she'd been holding onto start to fade. "So what do I do?"
"You pay her. Whatever she wants. Empty your accounts, max out your credit cards, beg everyone you know for money."
"And then PRAY she leaves you alone. Because that's the only way out that doesn't end with you dead or broken beyond repair."
"But—" Cara started.
"No buts. No plans. No clever ideas." Jessica's voice turned harsh. "You called me for advice? Here it is: Pay her and disappear. That's it. That's the ONLY answer."
Cara wiped a hand over her face. All her con artist calculation had dissolved into genuine grief for a man she'd never met. For a family destroyed by the same woman hunting her now.
She tried one more time. "Jessica, I need to ask you something. About how Blaire found Shawn. You said no one hired her. So how did she even know to look for him?"
Jessica was quiet for a long moment. "We never figured it out. That's what made it so sick. So CALCULATED."
"Shawn wasn't on social media. He always used cash. Different name on his work documents—his boss was paying him under the table. No paper trail. But she found him anyway. It's like she has some kind of radar for desperate people."
Jessica's voice turned bitter. "That's your enemy, Cara. Not just a blackmailer. Not just someone who's good at finding people. But someone with the tools and resources to hunt the most vulnerable people and destroy them for profit."
A heavy, tear-laden sigh came over the line. "I'm done. Don't call me again. Don't show up at my home. Don't contact my work." Jessica's voice turned cold. "And if you're smart—if you want to survive this—you'll pay Blaire Mitchell whatever she wants and disappear."
Another pause. "For what it's worth, I hope you survive this. I really do."
The line went dead.
Cara sat in the silence of her apartment, phone still pressed to her ear, tears streaming down her face.
Shawn Forsythe's photo stared up at her from the table. Kind eyes. Loving father. Good man.
Dead because Blaire Mitchell had found him and squeezed until there was nothing left.
She set the phone down with trembling hands and looked at his picture—really looked at it. At his daughters' faces, so happy in their father's arms. They'd lost him. Lost him because someone had turned human suffering into profit.
The tears came harder now. For Shawn. For his daughters. For Jessica, whose voice was so dead, so hollow. For all of Blaire's victims, broken and scattered and too afraid to fight back.
"God," she whispered into the empty room. Her voice cracked. "God, I don't even know what to ask for anymore."
She pulled Shawn's photo closer, touched it gently.
"Please heal Jessica. Please give her peace. She's so broken, and I can't—" Her voice failed completely. "I can't fix what Blaire did to her family. But You can. Please."
The team chat buzzed on her phone. They were waiting for her. Counting on her.
"And please," Cara continued, wiping her face, "please give me the strength to stop her. To stop Blaire from doing this to anyone else. Because I can't let another Shawn die. I can't let another family be destroyed."
She took a shuddering breath. "I know I'm not—I know I've done terrible things. I know I'm still lying to everyone. But if You could just... if You could help me protect them. The next victims. The people Blaire's hunting who don't even know it yet."
"Please."
The word hung in the silence.
She looked at the clock. 7:29 PM.
Her phone buzzed again.
Reagan: We're all here. Waiting on you. Tom has news.
Cara gathered Tom's files with clumsy fingers. Wiped her face, though fresh tears kept coming. Took a breath that felt like broken glass.
Jessica wouldn't help. Was too damaged, too scared, too broken by what Blaire had done.
Cross her off the list of potential allies.
But Jessica had given them something. Maybe the most important thing.
Blaire had a system for hunting people. A way of identifying vulnerable targets systematically.
If they could find that system, understand it, they could maybe stop her from using it.
Stop her from finding the next Shawn Forsythe.
Cara rose, hoping her legs would hold her and grabbed the cold pastries she'd planned to bring.
At the door, she paused. Looked back at Shawn's photo one more time.
"I'm going to try," she promised him. Promised his daughters. Promised Jessica. "I know it might not work. But I'm going to try."
She opened the door and descended the stairs, each step feeling heavier than the last.
The calculated con artist she'd been at the start of that phone call was gone. Burned away by Jessica's grief and Shawn's story and the terrible understanding of what was really at stake.
This wasn't about her survival anymore.
It was about stopping a predator before she could destroy another family.
Even if that meant risking everything.
Even if that meant Cara ended up like Shawn.
Please, Lord, she prayed again silently. Give me the strength. Give me the wisdom. And please, please protect the people I care about from what's coming.
Cara wiped her face one more time, took a breath, and headed outside.