THE SEARCH
They searched for three days.
State police. Local police. Search and rescue. K-9 units. Helicopters. Drones. Nothing.
Elias Vance had vanished into the woods and not come out.
Maya sat in Rachel Bennett’s apartment, watching the news coverage. Her hands were healing. Her back still ached. But she couldn’t rest. Not while he was still out there.
“Turn it off,” Danny said.
“I need to see.”
“See what? The same footage you’ve been watching for three days? They’re not going to find him on TV.”
“They might. Someone might see something. Call something in.”
“Maya.”
Danny rarely used her mother’s first name.
Maya looked at her.
“You’re not a cop. You’re not a detective. You’re a reporter. Your job is to report. Not to chase.”
“I can’t just sit here.”
“Then don’t sit. Write. Tell the story. The real story. What he did. Who he was. How he got away with it for so long.”
Maya looked at her laptop.
She had been avoiding it. The words were too heavy. The pain too fresh.
But Danny was right.
She opened a blank document.
She began to write.
THE FOURTH VICTIM
By Maya Cross
For three years, women have been dying in Barrow Falls. Not from illness. Not from accident. From a man they trusted.
His name is Dr. Elias Vance. He is a therapist. He is beloved. He is a monster.
This is his story. And theirs.
She wrote for six hours.
When she finished, her hands were shaking.
She sent the article to her editor.
Then she waited.
THE CONFESSION
Dr. Marcus Webb broke on the fourth day.
Maya heard about it from her source at the state police. Webb had been in custody since the fire, held on charges of conspiracy and medical fraud. He had refused to talk for days.
Then they showed him the photographs of Sophie Chen’s body.
He broke.
“He told us everything,” the source said. “The referrals. The therapy sessions. The dreams. The bridge.”
“How long?”
“Years. Decades. He’s been doing this since the nineties.”
Maya’s blood ran cold.
“Nineties?”
“He started in Boston. Moved to Barrow Falls in 2005. Webb referred patients to him for twenty years. Dozens of women. Maybe more.”
“Maya hung up.
She sat in the dark.
Dozens of women.
Decades of death.
And no one had stopped him.