Chapter 14 #3
Harper and Silas followed from farther back, part of a loose net of unmarked vehicles tracking Webb. The woman drove through empty streets, heading toward the Riverside Apartments. Webb stayed four car lengths back, keeping her in sight.
When the woman pulled into the apartment complex parking lot, Webb drove past, continuing down the street. The mobile units split—some following Webb, while some stayed with the woman to ensure she made it safely inside.
“She’s in her apartment, door locked,” came the report five minutes later. “Safe and unaware she was being followed.”
“Where’s Webb?” Harper asked.
“He parked three blocks away and appears to be settling in for the night in his van.”
Harper and Silas drove to the location, parking where they could observe Webb’s van without being obvious. Through binoculars, Harper could see him in the driver’s seat, reclined, possibly sleeping.
“So what is he?” Silas asked. “Serial killer casing his next victim? Or just a creepy guy with boundary issues?”
“That’s what we need to find out.” Harper lowered the binoculars. “Captain Holloway, what do you want to do?”
“Maintain surveillance. Let’s see what he does when he wakes up. If he goes back to that apartment complex, if he approaches the woman, we move in. Until then, we watch.”
They settled in for a long night of surveillance. Harper and Silas took turns on watch, two hours each, while the other tried to rest. It was tedious work, but necessary. If Webb was their guy, he wasn’t getting away this time.
As dawn broke and the city started waking up, Webb finally stirred. He sat up, rubbed his face, and started his van. Then he drove not back to the apartment complex, but to a fast-food restaurant. Ordered breakfast. Sat in the parking lot eating and scrolling through his phone.
“This is either the world’s most patient serial killer,” Silas said, “or just a guy living in his van who happened to notice a pretty woman at the grocery store.”
Harper’s phone rang. Sanchez.
“I’ve been running deeper background on Oliver Webb,” Sanchez said. “Found something interesting. He’s got a sister in Portland. She filed a restraining order against him eight months ago for stalking behavior.”
Harper’s pulse quickened. “Stalking how?”
“Following her, showing up at her work uninvited, sending excessive texts and calls. The judge granted the order. That’s about the time Webb lost his last regular job and started the transient lifestyle.”
“So he has a pattern of following women.”
“Appears so. Also pulled his financial records—what little there is. He withdrew five hundred dollars cash the day before Melissa Wagoner was killed. Another five hundred the day before Amy Thorne. Same pattern before each murder.”
“That’s not coincidental.” Harper looked at the van where Webb was finishing his breakfast. “That’s him. That’s our guy.”
“We still need evidence,” Silas cautioned. “Following women and withdrawing cash isn’t enough for an arrest on murder charges.”
“Then we get evidence. We stick to him like glue until he makes a mistake.”
But even as she said it, Harper felt uneasy. Something didn’t quite fit. The withdrawals were suspicious, yes. The stalking behavior was concerning. But the murders were sophisticated, organized, ritualistic. Did Webb really seem capable of that level of planning and execution?
“We need to search his van,” Harper said. “Look for trace evidence, fibers, anything that connects him to the crime scenes.”
“We’d need a warrant for that,” Silas said. “And we don’t have probable cause yet.”
“Then we build probable cause. We watch him until he does something that gives us grounds for a warrant.”
For the next six hours, they did exactly that. Webb drove around Blackridge, seemingly aimless. He stopped at a park and sat watching people. He went to a library and used the public computers. He grabbed lunch at a food truck.
Normal behavior. Boring behavior.
Too boring for a serial killer in the middle of an active killing spree.
By early afternoon, Harper’s earlier certainty was crumbling. “What if we’re wrong? What if Webb is just a transient with creepy tendencies but not our killer?”
“Then we’re back to square one,” Silas said, confirming the fearful voice inside of her that was whispering the same thing. “But we can’t let him go yet. Not until we’re sure.”
At three p.m., Holloway called them back to the station for a debrief. Day two of the operation was winding down, and they needed to assess whether to continue for a third day.
In the conference room, the exhaustion was palpable. Officers had been rotating through shifts for thirty-six hours. The teams were tired, the leads were thin, and morale was flagging.
“Webb is still our best suspect,” Harper argued. “We have him on camera following a woman who matches the victim profile. We have financial irregularities coinciding with murder dates. We have a history of stalking behavior.” Was it air-tight? No. But it was the closest they’d gotten.
“We also have no physical evidence connecting him to any crime scene,” Holloway countered. “No witnesses. No forensics. Just suspicious behavior.”
“Which is more than we had three days ago,” Harper said, throwing her hands up in frustration.
“Is it? Or are we just desperate for a suspect and Webb is convenient?” Holloway countered, making her feel like crap for pushing this angle so hard, knowing it was full of holes.
The captain rubbed his temples. “I’m not saying we drop him.
But I need more than suspicion before I can justify another day of this operation.
The mayor is breathing down my neck about the cost.”
“Give us twenty-four more hours,” Silas said urged. “One more day. If Webb doesn’t do anything more incriminating, we’ll reassess.”
Holloway considered, then nodded. “Twenty-four hours. But if we don’t have something solid by this time tomorrow, we’re pulling the plug.”
After the meeting, Harper and Silas grabbed dinner from a local Chinese place and took it back to their desks at the precinct to eat while they reviewed everything they had on Webb. The more Harper looked, the more her certainty wavered.
“Talk to me,” Silas said, reading her expression. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that everything about Webb is almost right but not quite.
He’s suspicious, yes. But is he our killer?
” Harper tapped her pen against the desk, scowling.
“Our unsub is organized, methodical, patient. He’s been killing for five years across multiple states without leaving much evidence behind.
Does that sound like a guy who lives in his van and stalks his sister? ”
Silas considered this, then said, “People can be complex. Can have different aspects to their personality.”
“True. But this feels off.” Harper tapped a few buttons on the keyboard in front of her and pulled up the crime scene photos.
“Look at the precision of the carving. The careful positioning of the bodies. The ritualistic elements. That takes practice, focus, attention to detail. I’m not sure Webb has that kind of discipline. ”
Silas’s eyes tracked every slash on the screen before meeting her gaze again. “So what are you saying? We’re wrong about him?”
“I’m saying I want to be sure before we put all our resources into Webb and miss the real killer operating right under our noses.”
Silas leaned back in his chair, those pale eyes studying her. “You’ve got good instincts. If something feels off, we should pay attention to that.”
Harper released a breath. “But we can’t just drop Webb either.”
Silas shook his head. “No. We keep surveillance on him while also keeping our eyes open for other possibilities.” He checked his watch. “It’s almost eight p.m. Night shift is taking over surveillance. We should get some rest.”
Harper glanced back at the image on the screen, at the victim who was depending on them to solve her case.
She had a driving need to keep going until she found her man, but she knew Silas was right.
It was just that the idea of sleeping while a killer was out there made her skin crawl.
Still, she was running on fumes. Another night without real rest and she’d be useless.
And Silas probably wasn’t faring much better.
“Okay. Cabin?”
He nodded, already lumbering to his feet. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
The drive was quiet, both of them lost in their own thoughts. When they arrived at the cabin, the earlier interrupted moment hung between them like a question.
Silas seemed to sense her uncertainty. “No pressure,” he said quietly. “We were both running on adrenaline earlier. If you want to just sleep, that’s fine.”
Harper thought about it. She was exhausted, yes. But she was also still feeling the pull toward Silas, the desire to finish what they’d started.
“I don’t just want to sleep,” she said. “But maybe...slow? We’ve been running at full speed for days. Maybe we just...exist together for a bit?”
Silas smiled. “I can do slow.”
They changed into comfortable clothes and settled on the couch. Silas pulled up a movie on his laptop—something light and mindless. Harper curled against his side, his arm around her shoulders, his warmth seeping into her.
They didn’t talk about the case. Didn’t talk about Webb or victims or evidence. They just existed together in comfortable silence, the movie playing unwatched, both of them slowly unwinding from days of relentless pressure.
Harper felt herself drifting, lulled by Silas’s steady breathing and the security of being held. For the first time in what felt like forever, she felt safe enough to let go.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“For what?”
“For being patient. For not pushing. For just...being here.”
Silas pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Harper fell asleep like that, wrapped in Silas’s arms, the weight of the case temporarily lifted.
Tomorrow they’d hunt killers again. Tonight, she let herself just be.