Chapter 1 – Ellie #2
“That’s…actually fascinating.”
Samantha sighs dramatically. “Oh, my god.”
Neither of us looks at her.
“So even if someone is trying to sound professional,” Adrian says slowly, “their real speech patterns leak through.”
“Exactly.”
He leans back in his chair, impressed. “That’s terrifying.”
Samantha waves her hands in the air between us. “Nope. Nope. Conversation hijacked.”
We both look at her.
She points toward the hallway. “I’m trying to discuss Professor Ben’s sweater.”
Adrian snorts. “Why?”
“Because it looked like a depressed Christmas tree.”
I bury my face in my hands. “This isn’t important.”
“It’s extremely important.”
“I’m working on identifying a criminal.”
“And I’m identifying a fashion crime,” Samantha replies smoothly.
Adrian bursts out laughing.
I groan again. “Please tell me you two are leaving in twenty minutes.”
“Thirty,” Samantha corrects. She pops a chip into her mouth and smiles sweetly. “And we are absolutely discussing the sweater.”
We do.
Against my will.
For the next half hour.
Samantha offers an extremely detailed analysis of Professor Ben’s catastrophic sweater choice—apparently it featured geometric shapes, muted greens, and, as Adrian insists, a tragic attempt at “academic chic.” Adrian offers unhelpful commentary and several dramatic reenactments of Professor Ben walking down the hallway like a confused woodland elf.
I try to care.
I fail.
Eventually, I manage to shove Adrian out of the lab with the promise that if he stays one minute longer, I’ll start analyzing his speech patterns for hidden psychological trauma.
He claims that’s threatening.
Samantha says it’s accurate.
When the door finally closes behind him, the room immediately feels quieter.
Better.
We both return to our desks.
By four p.m., Samantha begins packing up her bag.
She leaves at the same time every day—one of the few people in this department who believes in the radical concept of work-life balance.
She glances at me over her shoulder. “Ellie.”
“Hmm.”
“You’re not staying here until eight p.m.”
“What?” I frown at her. “No. Of course not.” I wave a dismissive hand. “I would never do that.”
I absolutely plan to.
I’m not leaving until I’ve solved this and sent the case back to the client.
Samantha narrows her eyes.
She knows me far too well.
Then she rolls her eyes and leans down to kiss my cheek.
“I’m serious,” she says. “I’ll call you by eight, and you better be home, or I’ll stage an intervention.”
I laugh. “Duly noted.”
She shoulders her bag. “Good.” Then she points at me. “Eat something that isn’t chips.”
“No promises.”
She shakes her head, smiling faintly, and heads toward the door. “See you tomorrow, Ellie.”
“Bye.”
The door closes behind her. The lab becomes very quiet.
The kind of quiet I like.
No gossip.
No sweaters.
Just the soft hum of computers and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights.
I roll my shoulders once and turn back to my monitor.
My fingers hover over the keyboard as I pull up the linguistic comparison database the client sent earlier this week—internal communications from their senior staff.
Emails.
Memos.
Meeting transcripts.
Hundreds of samples.
Most people would search for vocabulary matches.
I don’t.
I search for patterns.
Sentence compression.
Article omission.
Prepositional shortcuts.
My algorithm begins running a structural comparison.
One by one, the profiles scroll past.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing—
Then one entry stops the scroll.
My eyes narrow.
I lean closer to the screen.
There it is.
The same syntactic compression.
The exact same missing article pattern.
You have been warned before.
Matches with a previous internal message:
Report needs to be finalized today.
No article before “report.”
Not an accident.
A habit.
My pulse quickens.
I open the employee profile attached to the writing sample.
Senior operations manager.
Has access to the executive to whom the threat was sent.
More importantly, I pull up the spectrogram analysis of the attached voice message that accompanied the email.
The vowel stress pattern spikes exactly where the written compression occurs.
Speech pressure.
Anger under control.
Everything lines up.
I sit back slowly.
Well.
That was easier than expected.
I type the name into my report.
The evidence stack writes itself from there.
Case closed.
At exactly 7:30 p.m., I hit save.
A burst of excitement shoots through me so fast I can’t stop myself.
“Yes!”
The shout echoes through the empty lab.
I grin at the screen, grabbing my phone.
First thing I do is text Samantha.
Me: Solved it.
Three dots appear almost instantly.
Samantha: You’re still there, aren’t you?
I ignore that part.
Instead, I open a new email and attach the report.
My fingers move quickly across the keyboard.
Subject: Linguistic Attribution Report – Case File Attached
I include the analysis summary, the matched syntactic patterns, and the identified sender.
Then I hit send.
The email disappears into the client’s inbox.
I lean back in my chair, stretching my arms over my head.
The lab is silent again.
But now it feels different.
Victory quiet.
I glance at the clock.
7:32 p.m.
I really should go home.
I still live in the apartment I used to share with my best friend, Raelyn. She moved out years back after marrying a Bratva boss, something that still sounds surreal when I say it out loud.
Funny how unpredictable life is.
One day, you’re sharing grocery lists and complaining about laundry. The next day, she’s living in a mansion surrounded by armed security and men who look like they could snap someone’s spine in half.
Meanwhile, I’m still here.
Same apartment.
Same routine.
Same quiet life.
My place is also far from campus, which means the earlier I leave, the better.
Besides…lately, I’ve had this strange feeling.
Like I’m being watched.
It’s probably paranoia.
Who would watch me?
I’m not that interesting.
Seriously.
Everyone reminds me of that about a hundred times a day.
Boring Ellie.
Predictable Ellie.
Pathologically organized Ellie.
Not exactly the profile of someone worth stalking.
I shut down my computer, grab my bag, and switch off the desk lamp.
By the time I step outside the building, dusk has already settled across campus.
The air is cool, and the sky is fading into that deep blue that comes right before full night.
Most of the campus parking lot is empty.
A few scattered cars.
A couple of distant headlights pulling away near the exit.
My footsteps echo softly on the pavement as I walk toward my car.
I’m halfway across the lot when something catches my attention.
Two rows over, a black sedan is idling. Engine running. Headlights off.
I slow slightly.
Probably nothing.
Delivery driver.
Uber waiting for someone.
Campus security patrol.
I keep walking.
My car chirps when I unlock it, the sound unusually loud in the quiet lot.
I slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine.
The black sedan doesn’t move.
I pull out of my space and head toward the exit.
Still nothing.
See?
Paranoia.
I roll onto the main road that leads out of campus.
And then—
Headlights flick on behind me.
The sedan pulls out of its spot.
My stomach tightens.
Coincidence.
Probably coincidence.
I drive another block.
The car stays behind me.
I make a sudden right turn onto a side street I never take.
The sedan turns too.
My pulse begins to spike.
Okay.
Still coincidence.
Maybe they’re going the same direction.
I switch lanes abruptly.
The sedan mirrors the movement almost instantly.
A cold sensation spreads down my spine.
Now I’m certain.
I grip the steering wheel harder.
My hands start to shake, but I force myself to breathe.
Panic won’t help.
Think.
I glance at the rearview mirror again.
Dark vehicle. Tinted windows. The headlights sit slightly lower than my car. Older model sedan. Partial license plate—
I repeat the numbers quietly under my breath so I won’t forget them.
The driver taps the brakes. Twice. Short rhythm. Then again, a few seconds later.
I notice everything.
Even now.
Even with my heart hammering in my chest.
Observation is instinct.
I could call Raelyn.
Her husband would likely send a convoy of armed men within ten minutes.
But that would also raise…questions.
And chaos.
So instead, I reach for my phone and hit the call button for campus security.
The phone rings through the car speakers.
Once.
Twice.
Before it can ring the third time—
Blinding headlights explode in my rearview mirror.
“What—”
The impact hits a second later.
The black sedan slams into my rear bumper with brutal force.
My car jerks violently forward, the steering wheel ripping sideways under my hands.
“Shit—!”
The tires screech as the car spins halfway across the road. The world turns into a blur of asphalt, headlights, and flashing dashboard lights.
Then—BOOM.
The airbag detonates.
White fabric bursts into my face like a punch from a ghost.
My head snaps back against the seat.
For a moment, everything goes silent.
Not quiet.
Silent.
My ears ring with a high, sharp whine.
The world tilts strangely around me.
I’m conscious.
Disoriented—but conscious.
My hands tremble on the steering wheel as I try to understand what just happened.
The car sits crooked across the road.
The engine sputters.
And the hazard lights begin blinking. Slow. Rhythmic. Orange flashes cutting through the dark.
Then, movement appears outside the window.
My stomach drops.
The sedan’s doors open.
Two men step out.
They move fast. Too fast.
Not confused drivers checking damage.
Not people panicking after an accident.
They move with clean, practiced efficiency.
Like they’ve done this before.
Like they expected this.
A cold realization crawls up my spine.
No.
No, no—
One of them reaches my door and yanks it open.
The interior light floods the car.
I suck in a breath. “Help—!”
A gloved hand clamps over my mouth before the scream can leave my throat.
The grip is iron.
I thrash instinctively, panic detonating in my chest.
“Alive,” one of them says sharply.
The voice is deep, rough, and accented. Slavic.
That detail lodges itself in my brain instantly.
“Boss said alive.”
Alive?
What—? Who’s “Boss?”
I kick wildly, my heel slamming into someone’s shin.
He grunts. “Hold her!”
Strong hands grab my arms and yank me out of the seat.
Pain shoots through my shoulder as they drag me across the pavement.
“No—!”
The scream comes out muffled under the gloved hand.
I claw at his wrist, digging my nails in as hard as I can.
He swears under his breath.
Another man grabs my legs.
The world spins violently again as they haul me toward their car.
I bite down.
Hard.
The man holding my mouth jerks back with a sharp curse.
For a split second, his grip loosens.
I suck in a desperate breath. “HELP—!”
A hand slams over my mouth again, harder this time. “Quiet.”
The word is cold. Commanding.
They shove me into the back seat of the sedan.
My shoulder hits the leather door with a painful thud.
Before I can react, someone climbs in beside me and locks his arm across my chest like a steel bar.
The door slams shut.
The last thing I see through the window—
My abandoned car sitting crooked on the roadside.
Hazard lights blinking steadily into the dark.
Orange.
Orange.
Orange.
Then the sedan lurches forward.
And the road disappears behind us as the car speeds away into the night.