The map glowed softly in the darkened office, casting pale blue light across Brian's face.
Everyone else had gone home hours ago. The station was quiet in that way police stations rarely were—no ringing phones, no radios crackling, no boots against tile. Just silence and the faint hum of fluorescent lighting.
Brian preferred it that way.
He zoomed in on the cluster of properties surrounding Table Rock Lake, carefully narrowing the search radius again. Molly's metadata coordinates from Sarah's old photograph had been vague, but not useless. Combined with Emily Harper's unexplained cell phone ping in southern Missouri and Jack's recorded leave days from Tennessee years ago, the overlap had begun forming a circle.
A small one.
Three lake properties fit the radius. All privately owned. All isolated. One had been purchased through an Indiana-based LLC less than two years ago. Cash transaction. Minimal documentation.
Indiana.
Brian leaned back in his chair slowly.
Still nothing directly tying Jack Davis to the property.
Still nothing he could walk into the Chief's office with and say, "Here."
But it was closer than he'd been yesterday.
And closer meant danger.
He shut down the search before the department system could log too much activity under his credentials. The last thing he needed was an automated audit flag raising questions.
He printed the map quietly and slid it into a plain manila folder.
He wasn't ready to knock on any doors yet.
Not until he was certain.
Because if he was wrong—
He would destroy a fellow officer's career.
And if he was right—
He might provoke a man capable of doing something irreversible.
Molly stood at the railing where Sarah had last been seen.
The Branson Landing was busy again. Families wandered past holding shopping bags. A street musician played a soft acoustic melody near the fountain. The lake shimmered in the afternoon light as though nothing terrible had ever happened along its edge.
Brian stayed a few steps behind her, watching the crowd the way only a detective could—faces, posture, proximity, exit paths.
"She stood right here," Molly said quietly.
Her fingers curled around the metal railing. It was warm from the sun.
"She probably leaned forward like this," she continued, looking out at the water. "She loves lakes."
Brian didn't interrupt.
"She wouldn't just leave," Molly whispered. "Not without telling me."
"I know," he said.
He did know.
But what haunted him wasn't the possibility that Sarah had left willingly.
It was the possibility that she had left calmly.
That someone she recognized had approached her.
Spoken softly.
And walked her away without a struggle.
Molly turned slowly, scanning the walkway behind her. "If someone grabbed her, someone would've seen it."
"Unless it didn't look like grabbing," Brian replied carefully.
Her jaw tightened.
The thought had occurred to her, too.
They walked the path she might have taken—past the shops, toward the outer boardwalk, along the quieter edge where fewer people lingered. Molly stopped at a spot where the foot traffic thinned.
"What if he told her something?" she asked. "What if he scared her into walking with him?"
Brian didn't answer right away.
The scenario was plausible.
Calculated.
Clean.
He guided her gently back toward the main area. "We shouldn't stay too long."
She nodded, but as they walked back toward the parking lot, she felt it.
That sensation.
Like eyes on her back.
She turned once.
Nothing.
Just strangers.
Still—
The feeling didn't leave.
Back at Brian's apartment that evening, the air felt heavier.
Molly sat at the kitchen table, laptop open but untouched.
"I keep thinking about her being somewhere alone," she said quietly.
Brian leaned against the counter, arms folded. "You don't know that."
"No," she admitted. "But I feel it."
He studied her for a moment.
"You're not in the way," he said.
"I don't want to complicate your job."
"You're not."
She looked up at him. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was shared.
There was something different now between them. Not rushed. Not reckless. But steady. A quiet alignment.
"You don't go anywhere alone," he reminded her.
"I won't."
"And if you see Jack—"
"I say I'm here to be close to the search."
"Nothing else."
She nodded.
"I don't think he suspects anything," she said softly.
"He doesn't," Brian replied.
And that was the truth.
Jack believed himself untouchable.
At the station the next morning, Jack laughed easily with one of the patrol officers, coffee in hand, posture relaxed.
Brian watched from across the bullpen.
Jack looked like any other detective—competent, steady, approachable.
No one would suspect him.
That was the terrifying part.
Brian retreated into his office and reopened the cold case database.
Rachel Kincaid.
Twenty-three.
Reported missing three years ago.
Last seen near a lakeside hiking trail outside Branson.
Case notes referenced possible stalking.
No suspect.
No witnesses.
Nobody.
Brian checked the timeline.
Rachel disappeared two months after Jack transferred to Branson.
His chest tightened slightly.
Coincidence again.
He told himself that word repeatedly.
Coincidence.
But he created another private folder anyway.
He wasn't accusing.
He wasn't connecting dots publicly.
He was building a pattern.
And patterns didn't lie.
At the cabin, the silence had changed.
Sarah felt it.
Jack wasn't humming anymore. He wasn't pretending this was romantic or temporary. The meals were brought in without conversation now. The tape around her wrists and ankles was replaced daily.
Tighter.
More deliberate.
She hadn't seen the outside of the bedroom in days.
The window had been reinforced.
The door now had an additional lock.
He was adapting.
So was she.
She heard him pacing in the main room. Back and forth. Back and forth. The rhythm had become irregular. Faster.
Unsettled.
The door opened abruptly.
"You're thinking again," he said.
She lifted her gaze slowly.
"I'm always thinking."
"I don't like when you're quiet."
"I don't like being kidnapped."
His jaw tightened.
"I'm protecting you."
"From what?"
"From everything."
His eyes flickered.
Something defensive moved beneath them.
"You think someone's coming?" he said suddenly.
She didn't respond.
"You think your sister's out there looking."
Silence.
He stepped closer.
"There's no one looking," he said, but the words didn't sound certain.
They sounded like reassurance.
For himself.
When he left the room again, the pacing resumed.
Faster now.
Sarah closed her eyes and counted his steps.
He was unraveling.
Just slightly.
And slight was enough.
That night, Brian stood on his apartment balcony, looking out over the parking lot below.
He replayed everything in his head.
Emily Harper.
Rachel Kincaid.
Sarah Johnson.
Three names.
Three young women.
Three patterns.
He wasn't ready to say the word serial.
But the fear had formed.
Behind him, Molly moved quietly in the kitchen.
"Tea?" she asked softly.
He turned.
"Yeah."
She handed him the mug and stood beside him.
"Do you think there were others?" she asked.
The question hung heavy between them.
"I don't know," he answered honestly.
But the possibility had rooted itself.
If Sarah wasn't the first—
Then, time was not on their side.
And somewhere by the lake, under a sky that didn't care what men did in the dark—
Jack stood on the dock again.
Staring at the water.
Certain.
Unquestioned.
Unwatched.
For now.