Chapter 7
The third body was different.
Harper knew it the moment she saw the crime scene—the way the officers were standing farther back than usual, the way Captain Holloway’s face was ashen in the work lights, the way Silas’s hand found the small of her back as they approached, protective and possessive in a way that should have annoyed her but didn’t.
“Harper.” Holloway stepped toward her, and the way he said her name made her stomach drop. “Before you look at the victim, I need you to understand something. This one is...personal.”
“Personal how?” But even as Harper asked, she was moving forward, ducking under the crime scene tape, pushing past the uniformed officers who tried to stop her.
And then she saw.
The victim was young—early thirties, Harper’s brain catalogued automatically. Dark hair, petite build, similar facial structure to Melissa and Amy. But there was something else. Something that made Harper’s breath catch in her throat.
The woman looked like her.
Not similar. Not the same type. She looked like Harper.
Same hair length and style. Same height—Harper could tell from the positioning. Same build. Same facial structure. Even the same clothing style—jeans and a simple blouse that could have come from Harper’s own closet.
“Jesus Christ,” Harper whispered.
She heard Silas come up behind her, heard his sharp intake of breath as he saw what she was seeing. “Harper—”
“He’s not killing someone he lost,” Harper said, her voice oddly calm despite the roaring in her ears. “He’s practicing. For me.”
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
Harper crouched beside the body, forcing herself to look past the horror and see the evidence. The symbols were there—carved with the same precision as the others. The positioning was identical. But the victim’s face... God, her face could have been Harper’s own.
“Who is she?” Harper asked, her voice steady through sheer force of will.
“Nicole Merrin,” Holloway said quietly. “Thirty-two years old. Works—worked—as a graphic designer. Lives about two miles from your cabin.”
Two miles from her cabin. Not a coincidence. Nothing about this was a coincidence anymore.
Harper stood, her legs unsteady. She turned to look at the other victims’ photos that Silas had pulled up on his phone—Melissa Wagoner and Amy Thorne.
She’d thought they looked similar to each other.
But now, looking at them with this new understanding, she could see it.
They all looked like her. Younger versions, yes, but the resemblance was there in the bone structure, the hair color, the petite build.
“How did I not see it?” Harper breathed.
“Because you were too close to the case,” Silas said. He was standing very close to her now, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “You were seeing the victims as individuals. You weren’t looking for yourself.”
Harper’s mind was racing backward, connecting pieces she should have seen earlier. The Nevada cases—Sarah Henderson, Jessica Paul, Pamela Gibson. She pulled out her phone with shaking hands, scrolling through the old case photos she’d saved.
There. Sarah Henderson’s driver’s license photo. Dark hair, petite, heart-shaped face. Not identical to Harper, but similar enough. Close enough.
“He’s been doing this from the beginning,” Harper said. “For five years. All of them. They all look like me.”
The realization crashed over her like a wave. Eight women—maybe more—had died because a killer was obsessed with her. Had spent years practicing, perfecting his technique, preparing for the day he could take Harper herself.
And she’d never seen it. Had investigated three murders in Nevada, written a profile, given press conferences, and never once realized the victims all resembled the profiler hunting him.
“Harper.” Silas’s hand was on her arm now, steadying her. “Look at me.”
She couldn’t. Couldn’t look away from Nicole Merrin’s face—her face—lying on the cold ground with symbols carved into the skin.
“Harper.” Silas’s voice was firmer now, commanding. “Look at me. Right now.”
She looked up, met his pale-blue eyes. They were intense, focused, worried.
“This is not your fault,” he said.
“Eight women are dead because of me—”
“Eight women are dead because a psychopath is killing them. Not because of you. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t cause this. He’s sick, and he fixated on you, and that’s on him. Not you.”
Harper wanted to believe him. But all she could see were the faces—Sarah, Jessica, Pamela, Melissa, Amy, Nicole.
Six women she knew about. Probably more she didn’t.
All dead because she’d appeared on television during the Nevada investigation.
Because she’d been good at her job. Because a killer had seen her and decided she was worth obsessing over.
“We need to go back through everything,” Harper said, forcing herself to focus. To think like a profiler instead of a victim. “The Nevada case. I was on television—local news, maybe national. Press conferences, interviews. He saw me then. That’s when he fixated.”
“Makes sense,” Silas said. “Killers often fixate on investigators. Bundy did it. BTK did it. They want to be seen, understood, caught by someone they respect.”
Harper pulled out her phone, already dialing Ellery. He answered on the second ring, groggy with sleep.
“Sinclair, it’s two a.m.—”
“I need everything from the Nevada case. Every press conference I did, every interview, every time my face appeared in connection with the investigation. He saw me then. That’s when this started.”
“Jesus.” Ellery was awake now. “You think he’s been obsessed with you for five years?”
“I think all the victims look like me,” she pressed on.
“I think he’s been killing surrogates, working up to taking me.
” Harper’s voice was clinical, detached.
Easier to treat this like any other case than to acknowledge what it meant for her personally.
“I need to know where he saw me, how he learned about me, everything.”
“I’ll pull it together and send it over within the hour.”
Harper hung up and turned back to the crime scene. Dr. Reynolds had arrived, was examining Nicole’s body with her usual professional efficiency. Harper watched her work, forcing herself to see this as evidence, not as a preview of her own potential death.
“Time of death?” Silas called out.
“Preliminary estimate, between ten p.m. and midnight.” Dr. Reynolds looked up, her eyes finding Harper’s. There was sympathy there, and something else. Understanding, maybe. “Same cause of death as the others. Same symbols. But Detective Kane, Agent Sinclair…you should see this.”
They approached. Dr. Reynolds pointed to Nicole’s hand, positioned carefully above her head in that familiar sixty-degree angle. Clutched in her fingers was a piece of paper, folded neatly.
Harper’s blood went cold.
Another note.
Dr. Reynolds carefully extracted it with tweezers, unfolding it inside an evidence bag. The same precise block letters as before:
GETTING CLOSER, HARPER. DO YOU SEE IT NOW? DO YOU UNDERSTAND? THEY’RE ALL PRACTICE. YOU’RE THE MASTERPIECE. I’LL BE READY SOON. WILL YOU?
The words blurred in front of Harper’s eyes. She felt Silas’s hand on her arm again, anchoring her to reality.
“We need to get you somewhere safe,” Holloway said. “Now. Agent Sinclair, I’m ordering protective custody—”
“No.” Harper’s voice was stronger than she felt. “That’s what he wants. He wants me scared, hiding, waiting for him to come. I won’t do it.”
“Harper—” Silas started.
“I said no.” She pulled away from his grip, straightening her spine. “We use this. We use his obsession against him. He wants me? Fine. Let’s give him the opportunity. Under controlled conditions. With backup.”
“Absolutely not,” Silas said flatly. “We’re not using you as bait.”
“We already had this conversation—”
“And my answer hasn’t changed.” Silas moved to stand in front of her, blocking her view of the body. “You’re not putting yourself in danger. I won’t allow it.”
Harper felt anger flare, hot and sharp. “You won’t allow it? Last I checked, you’re not my keeper, Detective Kane.”
“I’m the lead investigator on this case, and you’re a consultant under my authority. If I say you’re off the streets, you’re off the streets.”
Harper’s hands balled into fists at her sides. “Try it and I’ll go over your head to the FBI. I’m a federal agent—”
“On leave,” Silas cut in. “Which means you’re not operating under FBI authority. You’re here as a consultant to local PD. My jurisdiction. My rules.”
They glared at each other, tension crackling between them. In Harper’s peripheral vision, she could see Holloway and the other officers watching the standoff with undisguised interest.
“Captain,” Harper said, not breaking eye contact with Silas. “With all due respect, pulling me off the streets sends the wrong message. It tells the killer he’s winning. It tells him he’s successfully terrorized his target.”
“It also keeps you alive,” Holloway pointed out.
“For how long?” Harper finally looked away from Silas to address the captain.
“He’s escalating. Three victims in four nights.
He’s building toward an endgame, and that endgame is me.
If we don’t stop him now, he’ll keep killing women who look like me until he feels ready.
How many more have to die while I hide?”
Holloway was quiet for a long moment. Then, “Kane, Sinclair, my office. Now. Everyone else, process the scene. I want everything—DNA, fibers, anything that might give us a lead.”
They followed Holloway to his car. The drive to the station was silent, tense. Harper stared out the window, watching Blackridge slide past in the darkness. Somewhere out there, a killer was planning his next move. Planning for her.
And she’d brought him here. By coming to Blackridge, by being visible, by existing, she’d drawn him to this place. These women’s blood was on her hands as surely as if she’d carved the symbols herself.
No, she thought firmly. Silas was right. This is on the killer. Not me.