Chapter 54
CHAPTER
FIFTY-FOUR
The moment the door to Mariella’s suite closed behind them that night after the show, the tension snapped. Everyone began talking at once, voices sharp and clipped.
Duke hadn’t even taken off his jacket when Matthew’s phone buzzed.
Matthew’s face drained of color as he stared at the screen.
Duke stepped closer. “What is it?”
“Another episode of Cold Truth just dropped,” Matthew said.
Mariella sucked in a breath. “We need to listen to it.”
They crowded around the phone as Matthew queued it up. The rival podcast’s intro music spilled into the room—slick, confident, almost smug.
The host’s voice followed, measured and amused.
He didn’t name The Round Table members outright. He didn’t have to.
Instead, he talked about coincidence. About patterns. About storytellers who always seemed to arrive just before tragedy struck.
At one point, he laughed softly. “I’m not saying these people are responsible. I’m just saying . . . it’s something to consider.”
Duke’s jaw tightened.
The comments scrolled beneath the audio—speculation already spiraling, people connecting dots with reckless certainty.
From the corner, Rupert’s phone started ringing.
He answered it, pacing as he listened. “No, this is not a publicity stunt. No, absolutely not—”
He turned away, voice dropping as another call came in.
Duke didn’t need to hear the rest.
Pressure was already mounting.
Whoever was behind that podcast—whether it was the killer himself or someone being manipulated—was tightening the net.
Rupert ended his call and looked back at them, shaken. “We’re going to need to pivot. Fast.”
Andi sat on the edge of the hotel bed, her laptop balanced on her knees.
Too much had happened. Too many near misses. Too many women dismissed because their fear didn’t fit a neat narrative.
The thought gnawed at her as she scrolled through tabs she’d already opened once tonight and sworn she was done with.
She wasn’t.
Her cursor hovered over a search bar.
Unreported disappearance in Los Angeles found later.
She hit enter.
Most of what came up was noise—blog speculation, broken links, half-written forum posts. Andi filtered it down, narrowing dates, jurisdictions, keywords that felt familiar now in a way they hadn’t before.
Then she saw it.
A small local paper. No glossy headline. No photo carousel. Just a plain column of text buried halfway down the page.
She clicked.
The story was six months old.
A woman had gone missing. There was only a brief mention. No press conference. No interviews.
The woman had been found a month later—alive, shaken, refusing to speak publicly. The article didn’t even say where she’d been found. Just that authorities had “closed the matter.”
Two inches of coverage.
That was it.
Andi’s pulse quickened as she scrolled.
Then she saw the photo.
Her breath caught.
The victim stared back from the grainy image, unsmiling, her features partially shadowed by poor lighting and cheap ink. But the resemblance was unmistakable. Same narrow face. Same hairline. Same eyes that seemed to be watching rather than posing.
It was Fake Pam.
Andi was sure of it.