“Possibly.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than before.
Finally, Duke said, “We leave tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean we stop.”
Andi looked at him. “You’re thinking we handle this remotely?”
“I say we keep pulling threads and see what unravels.”
Her shoulders eased just a fraction. “We’ll get together with everyone tonight. Then we can decide how we’re going to proceed—who does what and how we stay connected.”
Duke nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
That evening, the team didn’t gather around a table.
Instead, they stood near the edge of a narrow waterfront path instead, camera lights clipped to tripods, microphones already live, and the city humming in the distance.
They needed to record some footage for their next episode, part of which would be in video form. It was only them out here—that’s the way it always was when they recorded.
Andi tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket and faced the lens, the San Francisco Bay glistening behind them in dark, steady silence.
This was where a jogger had been killed three years ago. Early morning. No witnesses. No answers.
Ranger and Simmy were back with them now, Anastasia perched on a low concrete barrier just out of frame, bundled ina hoodie and swinging her legs as Simmy quietly coached her on staying behind the equipment. The glow from the camera lights softened the shadows, turning a stretch of path meant for movement into something static and exposed.
For a few minutes, Andi let herself slip into the rhythm of recording. The cadence. The practiced balance between empathy and restraint.
If she focused on the words, the framing, the timing, she could almost pretend this was just another episode. Just another city.
They took a break from recording, and Mariella turned toward them. Something was clearly on her mind—she’d seemed preoccupied for the entire evening.
She cleared her throat. “By the way, there’s something I’ve been meaning to show you all.”
Andi immediately felt the subtle shift in her chest, the instinctive tightening that came when a conversation veered off script. She glanced away from the camera, fingers curling against her palm.
“I’ve been going through our emails.” Mariella held up her phone. “Listener requests. Case submissions. We get hundreds every week, and most of them blur together.”
“And?” Andi prompted, her voice measured.
Mariella scrolled, then stopped. “I found one that came in when we were in Portland.”
Andi’s pulse ticked faster. Portland wasn’t that long ago. Just two weeks. Close enough to still feel warm. “What about it?”
“While we were there, a woman went missing,” Mariella said, lowering her voice even though no one else was close enough to hear except their team.
The night seemed to press in around them, the river’s movement the only thing that hadn’t stilled.
Andi thought she knew where Mariella was going with this—but she hoped she was wrong.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
“Tell us more.”Andi’s attention had shifted fully now, posture alert, eyes fixed on Mariella.
“Her name was Jen Watkins,” Mariella continued, reading from her phone. “She went out for her usual jog just after dawn. Same route she ran almost every day. She never came back.”
Andi’s chest tightened. A jog. A routine.
