Silence didn't stop Ted.
It refined him.
That was Grace's first realization.
If Ted wasn't speaking, wasn't contacting, wasn't moving—then whatever was happening had already been set in motion long before the warehouse.
She sat at Lauren's kitchen table, laptop open, legal pads spread around her. Timelines. Names. Dates. Patterns.
Lauren slept in the bedroom, exhausted from crying herself empty.
Grace worked.
Ted didn't improvise.Ted planned.
So Grace stopped looking forward—and started looking back.
She revisited everything.
The envelope.The voicemails.The timing of the break-in.The sudden appearance of the masked man.
And then something clicked.
The silence between events.
Gaps that weren't empty—just hidden.
Grace called Detective Harris.
"He didn't start this from prison," she said. "He finished it there."
There was a pause on the line.
"You think this was prepared in advance," Harris said.
"I know it was," Grace replied. "Ted builds systems. He doesn't rely on moments."
That afternoon, Harris called back.
"We found something," he said. "Financial noise. Small transfers. Nothing illegal on the surface."
Grace closed her eyes.
"Shell pathways," she said. "Distributed. Designed not to trigger alerts."
"You've seen this before," Harris noted.
"Yes," Grace said. "In him."
Meanwhile, across the city, in a secure holding wing, Mark counted breaths.
He couldn't see much.
The light never changed.
But he could hear things.
Footsteps.A door.A distant hum.
And once—voices.
Not close.
But real.
Mark shifted in the chair, wrists burning against the restraints.
They hadn't killed him.
Not yet.
That meant something.
Back at the station, a junior analyst approached Grace hesitantly.
"We pulled archived footage from traffic cameras near the warehouse," she said. "Not from that night."
Grace looked up.
"When?" she asked.
"Three weeks earlier."
The analyst turned the screen.
A grainy image appeared.
A delivery van parked briefly behind the warehouse.
No plates visible.
The driver stepped out for only a moment.
He wore gloves.
A hood.
And an improvised metal mask.
Grace's stomach dropped.
"He rehearsed it," she whispered.
That night, Grace returned home alone.
She sat on her bed, phone in her hands.
No messages.
No threats.
No voice.
Just silence.
Her phone vibrated.
One notification.
Blocked number.
One word.
Listening.
Grace stared at the screen.
Ted was in solitary.
No calls.No devices.No contact.
And yet—
He was still watching.