Elias’ desk was a battlefield.
Photos, printouts, autopsy notes, maps, timelines, and strings of red markings that refused to line up neatly.
He’d been staring at them so long, the shadows under his eyes felt permanently inked in.
One murder is tragedy. Two is coincidence. Six is intent.
He pushed back in his chair and forced himself to go case by case.
Victim 1: Local businessman. Suicide on paper. Lipstick in the note.
Victim 2: Former teacher. Same deal, different excuse.
Victim 3: Retired faculty staff. Quiet life. Quiet death. Same signature.
Victim 4 (Doctor Alano): University professor. Predator confirmed. Suicide with a lipstick kiss across his apology.
Victim 5 (Motel Boy): Current senior student, school rumor magnet. Tortured. No apology note because he wasn’t sorry.
And the pattern slapped him in the face: All five had a direct tie to the university.
Teachers, former teachers, a current student, a staff member…
All predators in their own way.
Too neat to be random. Too deliberate to be accidental.
Elias grabbed a marker and circled the school on the map.
“St. Aurelius University,” he muttered. “You’re the watering hole.”
He flicked the marker again. And then there were the outliers.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Victim 6 (Mall Guy): No formal tie to the school. But maybe a student? A drop-out? Or someone who prowled student areas?
He reviewed the CCTV again: The mall corridors, the escalator, the coffee shop entrance, the bookstore.
Then he saw it.
A flash of a silhouette. A girl. Smooth hair, familiar walk. She turned— just enough.
Seraphine.
In the grainy footage, she bumped into the victim. They spoke. She smiled. He grinned.
He followed her— and then they disappeared beyond camera range.
Minutes later, he emerged alone.
Hours later, his body turned up pulp.
Elias paused the video, zoomed in—not enough to see details, but enough to know she recognized that man.
But she didn’t look surprised. And she didn’t look scared.
She looked… neutral.
Too neutral.
He rewound. She split off at the boutique. He split toward the parking exit. Separating naturally, like strangers.
Except— that made it worse.
Why would she just walk away from a predator about to die?
Unless she wasn’t unaware. Unless she wasn’t innocent.
Unless she maybe— No.
He ran a hand roughly through his hair.
Victim 7 (Taxi Driver): Messy kill. Not staged. Not planned.
Nothing to do with the school.
Which meant: Sometimes she chose her prey, and sometimes she crumpled the map.
Maybe triggered. Maybe provoked. Maybe cornered.
But she still left her kiss mark.
Elias scribbled on a pad: “Method varies based on emotional state.”
And beneath it: “Self-control slipping.”
But he circled one detail again and again:
Every method is clean. Every escape—flawless. No DNA. No prints. No witnesses.
Except that lipstick.
Her signature. Not a mistake. A calling card? A dare?
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the open case board.
If five men had connections to the university, then the killer either: studies there, teaches there, works there or lives close enough to stalk it.
And if the killer talks to the victims before most killings— then she must have interacted with hundreds of people already.
The pool wasn’t just large.
It was a sea.
He pressed two fingers into his temples.
Then his eyes drifted back to the paused frame on the monitor— Seraphine’s silhouette turned slightly toward the lens, face hidden, body poised like she already knew where the blind spots were.
Elias swallowed hard.
What were the odds that: she was on campus, knew the professor, witnessed the doctor’s behavior, and coincidentally crossed paths with a mall predator or the day he died?
Too many threads. Too many coincidences.
Or maybe… not coincidences at all.
He dropped his pen, buried his face in his arms, and groaned into the mess of paperwork.
Because suddenly— every trail led back to the same invisible woman.
And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to catch her or save her from the world or save the world from her.
