“No, he was very vague.”

  Freya was silent for a few seconds. “Well… it might not be a bad thing,” she finally said, though her tentative tone gave away her concern. “I’ve triple-checked everything, and in the episodes we’ve recorded so far, we haven’t said anything that could get us in trouble.”

  I nodded slowly. “I’m really hoping it’s nothing. But yeah, I figured I needed to tell you ASAP just in case.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” She sounded a little brighter now. “Anyway… my news is seriously amazing.”

  “What is it?”

  “The teaser episode we put out… it’s blowing up. Like, full-on viral, even though we haven’t released any proper episodes yet.”

  I blinked. “Wait… what? How?”

  “Reddit, babe,” she said. “TrueCrimeJunkie subreddit. A popular user posted a link, and now people are talking, commenting, and sharing like crazy.”

  “How viral are we talking?”

  “Like… top of the subreddit. Hundreds of thousands of upvotes. And get this. I’ve already gotten three emails about advertising spots,” she said. “I know you aren’t big on the monetization idea because you think it feels exploitative, but let’s face it: you still haven’t found a new job because this economy fucking sucks, my job also sucks, and we still owe Dana for letting us use her studio and equipment. And I know my cousin said he didn’t mind designing and maintaining our website for us for free, but with all the attention we’re getting now, I feel like we should pay him something for his services.”

  I nodded slowly. “That’s a fair point.”

  “But anyway… we might not even need the ads in the end.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” Freya said, drawing the word out with dramatic flair, “we also got a sponsorship offer.”

  My brows rose. “What?”

  “It’s from some social media sponsorship company called Konnekt Media. I’ll send you the full email. But basically, they said they love what we’re doing and they believe in the potential of what we might uncover. And get this. They’re offering us a hundred thousand dollars to keep going.”

  My mouth fell open. “Based on the pre-launch episode alone?”

  “Well, that and the fact that we’ve already gotten such a huge online response,” she said. “I thought it was a scam at first, but it’s legit. They even attached a contract draft for us to look at.”

  A hundred thousand dollars.

  It didn’t feel real.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered. “This is insane.”

  “Yeah. It’s huge! And it gives us the chance to spend way more time on the next episodes, right?”

  I sat down on the end of my bed, staring at the wall as conflicting thoughts began to creep in around the edges of my excitement.

  Monetizing the podcast and getting paid to talk about my father’s murder felt… wrong. Like we were capitalizing on the tragedy. Just like all those creators I’d quietly judged for years, churning out salacious content with slick editing and dramatic music, treating human lives like storylines.

  Were Freya and I turning into them already?

  I swallowed hard and switched my mental focus to the Reddit post Freya mentioned earlier. She’d said there were thousands of strangers poring over details, theorizing, and caring. That really meant something. If we could keep it all going for as long as possible, then that could improve our chances of getting the Carver case solved.

  Also, such a large sum of money really changed things for the better. It meant I wouldn’t have to spend hours every day applying for jobs and stressing over the silence in my inbox. It also meant that Freya wouldn’t have to spend every free hour working at her uncle’s diner that only paid minimum wage. And that meant we’d both have more time and mental space to focus on the case, just like she said before.

  Money could bring attention through advertising too, and that meant even more eyes on the case. More chances that someone out there would recognize a name, or suddenly remember something weird they saw one night in 2014.

  “So…” Freya’s voice cut into my reverie. “Are you happy to look at the contract with me, or…”

  She trailed off, and I took a deep breath. “Yeah,” I said. “It sounds like a good opportunity.”

  “It is. Anyway, I’m going to go call my parents and brag a little. You should call your mom too!”

  “I will tomorrow. She’ll be in bed by now.”

  “Oh, right. Actually, speaking of family members, I saw that sexy stepbro of yours today. Is he moving back?”

  I frowned. The ‘sexy stepbro’ she was referring to was Declan Kilkenny, my stepbrother of five years. “You saw Dec here?”

  “Yeah. I had to drive down your old street because they were doing roadworks on Elmer Street, and I saw him parked up in your mom’s driveway with a big-ass moving trailer attached to his truck.”

  “Oh.” My frown deepened. “I actually haven’t heard from him in a while, so I have no idea what that’s about.”

  There was a nine-year age difference between Dec and me, so by the time our parents got married when I was sixteen, he was already married himself and living in another state with his wife. Because of that, we didn’t see each other very often, but when we managed to catch up at family events, we always got along well.

  The last time I’d heard from him, he’d told me his relationship with his wife Kaylee was on the rocks, and they were separating for a while to see how a bit of time apart would work out for them. But if he was moving back to Corwin Bay… that suggested the separation had turned permanent.

  Damn. Poor Dec. I made a mental note to text him after I was done talking to Freya.

  “When you see him, give him a very big hug from me,” she said in a mischievous tone. “And a really good squeeze, please.”

  I laughed, eyes rolling upward. All my friends had crushes on Dec when we were younger, because he was tall and muscular with a nice face to boot. I’d never seen him that way, though. To me, he was just my cool older stepbrother who had great taste in Christmas gifts.

  After I ended the call, I shot off a text to him. Hey, are you moving back here? Freya said she saw you in our parents’ driveway earlier.

  He replied a couple of minutes later. Hey, Kenny! Sorry I haven’t called sooner. It was on my to-do list, but things have been… hectic at best. Anyway, yeah, I’m moving back. I’m going to be renting Dad’s old place next door for a while, because the previous tenant left two weeks ago, so right now the place is sitting empty. But I was parked over in their drive because the trailer I hired wouldn’t fit in the other one. Hedges were way overgrown. Anyway, I’d love to see you soon. I’ve missed you!

  Me: I’ve missed you too. Let me know when you’re free so we can go out for lunch or something! PS. Sorry if this is super awkward for me to bring up, but I’m guessing things haven’t gone too well with Kaylee?

  Dec: Nope. Officially filed for divorce last month. Never thought I’d be a divorcee at this age, but hey… a lot of people have it worse, right?

  Me: I’m so sorry. I hope you’re doing okay.

  Dec: Yeah, hanging in there. I’ll tell you more when we see each other. Totally slammed with all the moving stuff right now, so maybe end of next week? Unless you feel like helping me unpack all these boxes, haha.

  Me: I can totally help with that! How’s tomorrow morning? Around 8?

  Dec: Great! In that case, I’ll see you then😉

  I made a microwave dinner and settled onto the couch to watch a movie while I ate. I was only half-concentrating on the plot, because my eyes kept snapping between the TV screen and my phone screen, where I was looking at the Reddit thread Freya sent me earlier.

  She was right. Our podcast had thousands of fans already, which was totally wild, because our first episode hadn’t even dropped yet. Only the short teaser episode.

  Part of me still couldn’t believe it. And yet, there it was, all over the internet.

  Once I was finally done scrolling through Reddit, I showered and got ready for bed, vowing to read through the sponsorship contract first thing tomorrow. Right now, my brain was too fuzzy from exhaustion to comprehend legalese.

  I was just about to shut my bedroom light off when my phone buzzed on the nightstand. I had a new message from a number I didn’t recognize.

  Curious, I tapped it open… and instantly stopped breathing.

  The photo embedded within the text message was unmistakably me: eyes squeezed shut, mouth parted, cheeks flushed. My expression was one of pure, unguarded pleasure, and it was clear from the angle that my right hand was halfway down my pants.

  The picture had obviously been taken through my laptop camera.

  A second later, another message came through. You look so pretty when you come.

  My heart slammed into my ribcage so hard I thought it might crack, and I dropped the phone like it had burned me.

  No. No. No.

  This wasn’t happening.

  I raced over to my bed and grabbed the laptop, fingers shaking as I opened the lid and stared at the tiny lens embedded at the top.

  I could’ve sworn I stuck a piece of tape over it when I first got the laptop, because I’d seen so many thriller movies where people were spied on through their cameras. But it wasn’t there. It must’ve fallen off at some point, and I hadn’t noticed.

  A horrible taste suddenly filled my mouth, and I collapsed onto the bed. Part of me wanted to scream. Another part wanted to cry.

  Someone had been watching me. Waiting for a moment like this. And now, he or she had something to use against me. Something intimate and utterly humiliating.

  But why the hell would someone even want to have something to use against me?

  And worse… how long before they decided it was time to strike?

  Partial transcript from ‘After the Carver’ Episode 1

  [Intro music fades in]

  FREYA (host):

  Welcome to After the Carver. I'm Freya Landis—

  KENNEDY (co-host):

  —and I’m Kennedy Campbell. Thanks for joining us.

  FREYA:

  In today’s episode, we’re diving into the first known case connected to the Carver. And… it’s personal. Because the victim was Kennedy’s father.

  [Brief beat of silence. Music fades out.]

  KENNEDY:

  This one’s hard for me to talk about, but it’s where everything began. So let’s get into it.

  For those of you who aren’t from Corwin Bay, let me paint a picture of the neighborhood I grew up in. It’s a pretty idyllic area. Quiet, tree-lined streets, not far from the ocean. The kind of place where everyone knows their neighbors. It never felt unsafe… until that night.

  That’s why what happened next hit so hard. It was like evil had slipped in through the cracks of a perfect place.

  FREYA:

  Can you tell our listeners how old you were?

  KENNEDY:

  I’d just turned twelve. My younger sister was eight.

  FREYA:

  And you were the only witness to what happened that night, weren’t you?

  KENNEDY:

  Yes. But to explain that, I’ll need to give our listeners some background on my dad.

  FREYA:

  Go ahead.

  KENNEDY:

  My father was a general surgeon at Corwin Bay Regional Hospital. That meant he worked long hours, often at weird times.

  FREYA:

  Like, starting or ending shifts at midnight? That sort of thing?

  KENNEDY:

  Yeah. Pretty much what you’d expect with a career like his. Anyway, that left my mother with the bulk of the day-to-day stuff when it came to me and my sister. But we’d try our best to steal little moments with Dad when we could. And… that’s actually how I ended up being the only witness to his abduction.

  FREYA:

  Wow. Can you elaborate?

  KENNEDY:

  At the time, Dad was working fourteen-hour shifts that ended around 1:30 in the morning. So he’d get home a long time after the rest of us were asleep. Because I was so young, I still had a set bedtime of 8:30. My mom was very strict with that.

  FREYA:

  Oh, I remember that! At school, you’d complain so much about how all the ‘cool parents’ let their kids go to bed at 9:30 instead. Or they just didn’t have bedtimes at all.

  KENNEDY:

  [Laughs lightly] Yeah. Now that I’m older, I know my mom was just trying to make sure I got enough sleep. But when you’re a kid, you don’t care about stuff like that. So… I had a little rebellion scheme going on.

  FREYA:

  Mind expanding on that?

  KENNEDY:

  Sure. I’d go to sleep at 8:30, but I’d have an alarm set for 1:45. That way I’d be awake when Dad got home. I’d go to the window and wave at him as he got out of his car and walked up the front path. Sometimes I’d do a silly little dance. Sometimes he would too.

  FREYA:

  That’s so cute.

  KENNEDY:

  Yeah. [Laughs lightly again] Sometimes he’d also do this ‘bit’ where he’d pretend he saw Mom coming outside to catch us. He’d act like we were both in big trouble. Shocked gestures, fake gasps. Stuff like that.

  FREYA:

  I love that. How long did you guys keep it up?

  KENNEDY:

  Not long. Just for a few minutes, and then I’d crawl into bed and go back to sleep. But those few minutes really helped me at the time, because Dad was hardly ever home on weekdays for dinner or after-school events—through no fault of his own, of course—so our silly little nighttime ritual made me feel like we still had something special to share every day. Even if it was just for a few minutes.

  FREYA:

  I totally get it. And I think we’re all starting to see why you were the only witness to the abduction.

  KENNEDY:

  Yup. He was taken from the front of our house, around 1:50 in the morning, on January the 13th, 2014. I guess the Carver assumed there’d be no witnesses.

  FREYA:

  Because how many people are awake and staring out of their windows at that time of night, right?

  KENNEDY:

  Exactly.

  FREYA:

  Could you run us through everything that happened on the night of the 13th?

  KENNEDY:

  My alarm woke me at 1:45, and I ran straight to the window to wait. A few minutes later, Dad pulled into the driveway.

  Now, a quick description of my childhood front yard. The driveway was on the right with an attached garage at the end, and next to it, there was a garden and a patch of lawn with a cobbled path leading up to the front door.

  You can enter the house through the garage once you’re inside it, but Dad never did that. Instead, he’d park in the garage, and then he’d walk back outside to check the mail before coming up the front path and entering the house through the front door.

  FREYA:

  And that’s when you’d catch each other’s eye through your upstairs window and do your little dance routine.

  KENNEDY:

  Yep, that’s right. But that night, things were different.

  FREYA:

  How so?

  KENNEDY:

  A car pulled up across the road while Dad was walking toward our mailbox. A black sedan.

  FREYA:

  Sorry to butt in here, but a few people have questioned this over the years, wondering how you knew for sure that the car was black when it was the middle of the night. They say it could’ve been dark gray or dark blue. So I thought it might be useful for you to explain to our listeners how you knew for certain.

  KENNEDY:

  Good point. I could tell it was black because the moonlight was so bright that night. Also, our neighbor across the street had two cars that were always parked outside their garage. One was very dark gray, and the other was dark blue.

  FREYA:

  So you could tell the difference between those cars and the one that pulled up, because they were all in your line of sight.

  KENNEDY:

  Yup, exactly. The car was definitely black.

  FREYA:

  So what happened after it pulled up?

  KENNEDY:

  My dad noticed it and looked over. A man got out and approached him. He was tall and wearing dark clothing with his hood pulled up. From the angle he was walking at, and also because I was on the second floor looking down, I couldn’t really see his face. Just a few brief flashes of his jawline. I could tell he was white, but that’s it.

  FREYA:

  How did you feel in that moment?

  KENNEDY:

  Right then? I wasn’t scared yet. In fact, I didn’t think much of it at all, because as the man approached my father, he gestured in a way that made it seem like he was lost and looking for directions. My father clearly interpreted it the same way, because he lifted his hand in a casual, friendly sort of wave, and then he pointed down the street before making a ‘turn right’ sort of gesture.

  As for the hood pulled all the way up… that wasn’t suspicious either, because it was the middle of winter.

  FREYA:

  Ah. So you thought it was just some guy who happened to get lost in the middle of a freezing night. Then he saw your dad and decided to stop and ask for directions.

  KENNEDY:

  Yep, that was all I thought at the time. So I wasn’t worried.

  FREYA:

  What happened after that?

  KENNEDY:

  The guy waved like he was saying thanks. Then he turned around, like he was going to head back to his car. My dad checked the mailbox, found it empty, and turned around too, so he could head up the front path toward the house. I waved at him from the window, and he stopped and looked up, smiling at me.

  Just as he lifted his hand to wave, I noticed something. The hooded man had turned back around and entered our front yard.

  FREYA:

  He was following your dad?

  KENNEDY:

  Yes. Even then, I didn’t really know what to think. I definitely thought it was strange, but I figured he might’ve forgotten the directions my dad gave him, or something like that. So I still wasn’t scared. More like… ‘Huh? What’s happening now?’.