THE FACES
She didn’t leave.
She couldn’t.
The recorder was in her pocket, but the safe was still open, and the labels were still there. Names. Dates. Years of secrets.
She walked back to the safe.
Vance was gone. She heard his footsteps retreating down the hall, then the soft click of a bedroom door.
She had time. Not much. But enough.
She pulled out her phone. Turned on the camera. Photographed every label. Every name. Every date.
Then she opened the drawers beneath the safe.
The first drawer: photographs.
Dozens of them. Women. Young. Old. Different ages, different races, different lives. But all of them had one thing in common.
They were all crying.
Maya’s hands shook as she flipped through the photographs. Some were candid — taken in his office, in his waiting room, in the church basement where the Tuesday night group met. Others were more intimate. Bedrooms. Bathrooms. Places where privacy should have been guaranteed.
She photographed them all.
The second drawer: letters.
Handwritten. Some typed. All of them from patients. All of them confessing something — fears, desires, secrets they had never told anyone else.
“I dream about dying every night. It’s the only time I feel peaceful.”
“I don’t know how to tell my husband I’m not in love with him anymore.”
“I think about jumping from the bridge. I think about the water. I think about how cold it would feel.”
“Dr. Vance says I’m getting better. I don’t feel better. I feel worse.”
Maya photographed the letters.
The third drawer: a laptop.
She pulled it out. Opened it.
It wasn’t password protected.
She found a folder labeled “PATIENTS.” Inside: subfolders for every name on the labels. Photos. Letters. Recordings. And something else.
A spreadsheet.
Columns of names, dates, and a single word in the final column.
“ACTIVE.”
“INACTIVE.”
“DECEASED.”
Maya stared at the spreadsheet.
Sarah Chen — DECEASED.
Elena Vasquez — DECEASED.
Clara Bennett — DECEASED.
Kaela Morgan — ACTIVE.
Sophie — ACTIVE.
Maya saw her own name — MAYA CROSS — under a section labeled “POTENTIAL.”
Her blood turned to ice.
He had been planning her. Studying her. Adding her to his collection before she had even walked into his office.
She photographed the spreadsheet.
Then she heard a sound.
A creak. Behind her.
She turned.
Vance was standing in the doorway again. Not in his bathrobe this time. Dressed. Jeans. A sweater. Shoes.
His eyes were no longer cold.
They were hot.
“You weren’t supposed to find that,” he said.
“I found it.”
“I can see that.”
He stepped into the room. Closer.
“You’re going to give me the laptop. The recorder. The photographs. And you’re going to leave.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’m going to make you the next DECEASED.”
Maya’s heart pounded.
“You wouldn’t. There are witnesses. My daughter. Kaela. They know I’m here.”
“Your daughter is in the car with Kaela. My car. The black SUV you saw earlier. Detective Park is with them now.”
Maya’s world tilted.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. Check your phone.”
She pulled out her phone.
A text from Danny’s number.
“Mom. He found us. Don’t come back. RUN.”
Maya looked at Vance.
“If you hurt them—”
“I won’t hurt them. Not yet. They’re leverage. You give me what I want, they go free. You don’t, they become part of the collection.”
Maya’s hands shook.
The laptop. The recorder. The photographs.
Her daughter’s life.
She set them on the desk.
“Let them go.”
“When I’m sure you haven’t kept copies.”
“I haven’t.”
“Prove it.”
Maya pulled out her phone. Deleted the photographs. Showed him the empty gallery.
“Your laptop. Show me.”
She opened the laptop. Deleted the copied files. Emptied the trash.
“Now let them go.”
Vance smiled.
“Not yet. First, we take a drive.”
“Where?”
“To the bridge.”