Not on your own doorstep. Not when you live in a high-security building with cameras on every angle and a doorman who was a former Marine and half Terminator.
But there it was. Neat, pristine, surgical—white plastic twisted at the top, tied like a bow. It shouldn’t have felt threatening. It looked sterile, like it had come from a medical supply store, not a psychopath.
My first mistake was touching it.
Second was opening it.
The plastic resisted at first, crinkling loudly in the silent hallway. The whole floor was asleep—ten stories up, too early for the cleaning crew, too late for visitors. My brain had already started on the rationalizations. Prank. Wrong address. Overzealous fan. I’d seen worse.
Then I peeled the bag open.
And saw the finger.
Human.
Fresh.
Blood still wet.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t even drop it. I just stood there, heart in freefall, the world closing in like a vice. Somewhere far off, I registered the weight of the thing. Not just physical weight. Symbolic. Message sent. Message received.
A small white card sat beneath the finger.
Your move.
And that was the moment the story turned.
No more headlines. No more late-night theory spirals or voiceover tracks for eerie documentary segments. This wasn’t a case I was covering. This was personal. The killer had just kicked in the fourth wall and walked into my life.
All the warnings from the earlier meetings rushed back in. The fan mail. The notes. Flint’sconcern. My argument. My fight tostayon this story.
Of course, the killer knew who I was.
And he knew where I lived? Even as shock tried to sink its claws into me, the rest of me argued the point. How hard would that be to find an address for someone who killed people and got away with itregularly?
So, what was he telling me? What was the message?
Did he want me to think he wasstalkingme?
Maybe. And why not? He was afanor so Flint and the FBI surmised.
I’d been digging. He knew I had been. It was the only logical explanation. It was why he reached out to me at the studio and now… Hewantedthis visibility. Craved it. That also made sense. I was feeding into that need. Which meant…
He wantedmetoknowthatheknew. We were opening a channel of communication and he escalated on the terms that I set, exactly what I wanted. Except... I could have done without the body part.
For a long second, I just stared at the thing, part of me trying to decide whether I was going to vomit or compartmentalize. I chose the latter.
Barely.
Then I stepped back inside my condo, plastic bundle still in hand like some deranged party favor, and slid the door shut behind me.
Locks engaged. Deadbolt turned. Chain on. Too late for any of it to matter. But still, better to make the effort.
I stood in the middle of my living room, the bag on the counter like a bomb with a heartbeat. One wrong move and it would all detonate.
Every instinct warred inside me. Call Brewster. Call Flint. Let the professionals handle it. Let them own the moment.
But then what? Get benched while they dissect the storyaboutme withoutme?
