Zayne
It takes us two hours to reach the property where Rourke lived. The road cuts through the far side of the Ozark woods, swallowing signal and sound from the streets nearby.
His house stands alone at the base of a hill, wrapped in trees and an empty stretch of yard that looks like no one has touched it in years. No neighboring houses, no one around. His place is the first one you reach if you drive ten minutes back toward town.
The car stops in front of the house.
Detective Mara exhales slowly, her hands tight on the steering wheel.
“What if you’re wrong?” she says. “What if he didn’t take Emily, and she escaped?”
I lift the gun, resting it against her ribs. “She’s too curious about me to run,” I say. “And Zeke is too curious about her to let her go.”
I nod toward the door. “Go.”
She opens the car and steps out. Gravel crunches under her shoes. I follow immediately, shutting my door at the same time she shuts hers. We move together toward the house, the silence pressing in from all sides.
The closer we get, the clearer it becomes. The lights are off, and the front door hangs open.
I shift the gun from Mara to the space ahead, leaning it against my arm, aiming into the dark. She falls in behind me, matching my pace, her boots careful on the floorboards as we step inside.
Nothing moves.
Papers cover the floor, scattered, and the windows are open. The wind pushes through the house, carrying dust and the faint smell of rotting trash.
I tilt my head to the left, signaling her to follow. Mara heads that way, but when I tilt my head, I turn right instead.
Two bedrooms line the hall. Both doors are open. The beds are neatly made. No one has been here in a while. The air feels stale, and beds are untouched.
I step inside the first room. Framed photographs stare back at me. Rourke and his wife, smiling at me, their arms wrapped around each other. A life that looks ordinary.Toonormal for someone like me.
“Mercer,” Mara calls out.
Her voice cuts through the house.
I leave the bedrooms and move fast toward the left side. Mara stands frozen before a white wall. It is covered, edge to edge with Polaroids, newspaper clippings, case files, and handwritten notes. Red string weaves between them, pulling everything inward.
And at the center is an old photograph of Ezra Zane.
Below it, faces stretch across decades. Victims from 1976. Others are listed as missing, some are still missing, and some were pronounced dead long ago.
The strings tighten around the center, all pointing back to the same place.
The same name.
The room feels smaller now. The walls are closing. Like we have stepped directly into his mind.
And he knows we are here.
Mara drags her fingers along the timeline, stopping at 1980. She follows the red string to 1981 and pauses.
A birth certificate is pinned there.
One boy was listed as stillborn, and the second was marked healthy.
And only one name appears on the paper,Zeke Cermer Morrell.
“Did you know about this?” she asks, turning toward me.
