“Well, if you ever need to talk, you know I’m right here.”

  He gave me a faint smile. “Thanks. I’m always here for you too,” he said. Curiosity flickered in his eyes. “You’re still single, right? So we’re in the trenches together?”

  “Yup. The dating market in Corwin Bay is rough. But it’s rough everywhere, from what I hear.”

  Dec exhaled heavily and shook his head. “It shouldn’t be this hard, you know?” he said. “Finding someone loyal. Who doesn’t lie, or leave when it gets inconvenient. I mean, wouldn’t life be so much easier if the perfect person just showed up one day and said, ‘I’m yours. Always will be.’ And they actually meant it?”

  “Definitely. Too bad that never happens.”

  “Yeah.” He looked at me, giving me another faint smile. “Anyway, that’s enough negativity from me today. Let’s talk about you instead. You seem to be doing really well right now.”

  “Apart from the hacker thing, and the fact that I still haven’t found a real job?” I said with a self-deprecating grin.

  “Hey, if this podcast thing takes off like I think it will, you won’t even need to find a real job,” Dec replied, putting the last two words in air quotes. “Seriously, you’re smashing it. It’s really good.”

  I raised a brow. “You listened to it?”

  “Yup. Your mom sent me a link earlier. She and Dad are super proud of you. They keep saying how they think you and Freya might actually solve this thing in the end.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “Do you think we’ll figure out who the Carver is?”

  Dec’s brows pulled together for a moment. Then his lips spread in a slow smile. “Yeah. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

  “Thanks,” I said softly. “I really hope we can.”

  His smile lingered for a second longer before he nudged my leg with his foot. “Well, now that we’ve saved your digital soul and solved none of our romantic problems, how about we finally tackle some of those boxes outside?”

  I nodded and got to my feet. “I call dibs on not carrying anything super-heavy.”

  “No problem. Everything that’s left in the trailer should be easy enough for you to carry. So how about you work on bringing all of that inside while I work on constructing the furniture?” he suggested. “We can stop at twelve for lunch, and I’ll DoorDash whatever you want.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I headed outside, where the morning sun was already high and warm against my skin. The trailer was still parked next door in the driveway of my childhood home, stuffed to the brim with boxes labeled in thick black Sharpie. I grabbed one and started the short trek back toward the house.

  Halfway up the path, a strange sensation prickled over the back of my neck, like someone’s eyes were on me. It was the exact same feeling I had when I left Dr. King’s office yesterday afternoon.

  A second later, I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye, so I paused mid-step and glanced around.

  The street was quiet. Serene, even. Across the road, a woman was raking leaves in her obsessively-manicured front yard, and a little further down, an old man in slippers was wheeling his trash can to the curb. Neither of them spared me so much as a glance. All the cars parked on the street appeared to be empty, too.

  Still, I couldn’t shake it. I lingered a moment longer, scanning the windows, the cars, the spaces between the trees. But there was nothing.

  Get a grip, Kennedy, I told myself. It was probably just a bird flitting around, or the breeze rustling some leaves.

  With a deep breath, I turned back to the path, forcing the weird feeling down.

  A few hours slipped by in a blur of cardboard and sweat. My arms ached, and the backs of my thighs were burning from the constant up-and-down of the trailer steps, but Dec’s house was finally starting to look less like a shipping container and more like a home.

  Right now, he was hunched over a table, piecing it together with the kind of intense focus usually reserved for bomb defusal or IKEA instructions written in Swedish. An unopened bottle of water sat on the floor next to him, seemingly forgotten.

  I trudged past him with yet another box in my arms. “Only twenty more to go!” I said as I deposited the box on the floor. “I’ll do some more unpacking once I’ve got them all in here.”

  He looked up and gave me a mock salute. “Godspeed, soldier.”

  I laughed and headed back outside. Just as I reached the trailer again, a sudden wave of light-headedness hit me. My throat was dry, and my head felt cotton-stuffed.

  I really needed some water.

  I turned and headed back into the house. Dec was standing now, and he wasn’t working on the table anymore. Instead, he was holding my phone, fingers dragging slowly over the screen. He obviously hadn’t heard me come back in.

  I stood there, silent, heart pounding hard. “Uhh… what are you doing?” I finally asked.

  He flinched like I’d slapped him. The phone dropped an inch in his hand, but he caught it before it fell. “Shit, you scared me,” he said, trying for a casual laugh. “I thought you headed back out.”

  “I did. Then I got thirsty.” I took a step closer, eyes narrowing slightly. “Were you just looking through my phone?”

  “Er… sort of. But not exactly.” He set it down and lifted his palms. “It was buzzing, so I looked over and saw that Freya was calling. I figured it might be important podcast-related stuff, so I answered. But she said it’s not urgent.”

  “Uh-huh.” My brows rose. “And the rest? Because when I came in, you weren’t talking to anyone.”

  “That’s true. But I swear, I wasn’t reading your messages, or anything like that.”

  “So what were you doing, then?”

  He winced slightly, looking ashamed. “Look, I’m sorry. I know it was a dick move to start going through your phone like some stalker nutjob. But I figured if your laptop had malware, then your phone might have it too. So I decided to check.”

  “Oh. Right. Was it clean?”

  Dec nodded. “Yup, it’s all good.”

  I swallowed hard, still a little peeved that he went through my phone without my permission. “How did you know my code?”

  “You’ve had the same once since you were in high school, so I’ve seen you type it in at least twenty times.” He paused and shook his head, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “Fuck, I’m really sorry, Kenny. I know I should’ve asked first. But my head is just all over the place right now, so I acted without thinking. I’m an asshole, I know.”

  I sighed. “No, it’s okay. You’re not an asshole. You were just trying to look out for me,” I said. “But just ask me next time, all right?”

  “Of course. I know it’s not cool, but it’s a force of habit, I think,” he said. “Kaylee used to lie about everything, and eventually I just… started checking. And because of that, I guess I got way too used to casually invading people’s privacy. Not an excuse, by the way. Just an explanation.”

  My face softened. “I get it. Shitty relationships can really blur the lines, huh?”

  “Yup. But it won’t happen again, I swear.” Dec stooped to grab the bottle of water from beside him. “Anyway, here’s that water you needed. Gotta stay hydrated!”

  I accepted the bottle and twisted the lid off. Dec returned to the table, crouched low, screwing a leg into place like nothing had happened.

  I drank slowly. Let the water cool my throat as I let the moment pass. Then I turned and headed back outside.

  The air had cooled slightly, the early afternoon casting longer shadows across the street. I crossed the lawn toward the trailer, arms swinging loose at my sides, trying to shake off the odd weight in my chest. But that feeling from earlier… it was back again.

  I paused near the curb and turned my head slowly, scanning my surroundings.

  The neighbor from directly across the street was still in her front yard, crouched in the garden with a trowel. Across the way, a middle-aged man was checking his mailbox. Neither of them looked at me, and no new cars had pulled up.

  I let out a shaky breath and tried to push the weird tension away. It was probably just paranoia after the laptop hacking. After all, anxiety was nothing new to me, and that creepy photo and message had only made it worse.

  But it wasn’t personal, I reminded myself. Like Dec said, it was probably just a random hacker trying to scare me for a quick buck. Not some insane stalker watching my every move.

  I glanced at the houses around me one last time, heart still pounding a little faster than it should’ve. Then I stepped inside the trailer, exhaling heavily.

  Nothing bad was going to happen.

  Right?

  4

  ‘K’

  Kennedy talked too fast when she was nervous. Swallowed way more often than was necessary. Overcompensated with a light laugh that never quite reached her gray-blue eyes.

  Of course, I knew all of that before her first podcast episode went online. But hearing it without even seeing her; hearing that little tremble she tried to bury beneath practiced polish… fuck, it turned me on like crazy.

  Then again, everything about Kennedy turned me on, as much as that bothered me sometimes.

  It wasn’t just the way she looked, with those big doll-like eyes and plump pink lips, or the way her perfect tits rounded out the tight sweaters she favored. It was the way she tucked her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear when she was thinking, the way she chewed the inside of her cheek when she was unsure about something, the way she always smelled faintly of vanilla. Even her little quirks and neuroticisms were like a drug to me.

  The more I watched her, the deeper I sank. Every gesture, every nervous tic, every false smile… I’d memorized them all.

  She always tried so hard to act like she was in control, but she wore her fear like a second skin. If other people paid attention, they’d see it too. But they weren’t me. I was the only one who really saw her. Understood her.

  At the end of her first podcast episode, when she and Freya were discussing an apparent mistake in the police investigation, she said that she didn’t believe in coincidences.

  I’d never believed in them either. Especially not when it came to Corwin Bay and the Carver case. It was always going to bring the two of us together, given that we were both involved in some capacity. One of us a lot more than the other.

  She thought the sudden success of her podcast signaled a fresh start for her. Something finally going right in her life after months of floundering. But it was just another step in a path I’d been laying for years. A path that led straight to her.

  The poor girl never stood a chance against me. Not really.

  I knew everything about her by now. Her passwords. Her playlists. The medications in her drawer. What made her laugh, and what made her cry. What made her wet.

  I also knew that she was an anxious little thing. Fidgety. Hyper-aware. But there was something else linked to those nerves. Something she’d never say out loud.

  She liked fear.

  Not the safe, distant kind that was wrapped in fiction. Real fear. The kind that scraped against her ribs and curled into her spine. The kind that breathed on the back of her neck when she thought she was alone.

  I’d already suspected it after observing her behavior for so long, but last night, she proved it in more ways than one.

  8:56 p.m. Laptop open. Lamp dimmed. Jeans partially unzipped. She thought no one could see her, but she was wrong. The webcam caught everything for me.

  She was reading slasher movie fanfiction at the time. Not the amusing parody kind, but the dark, erotic kind where the killer kept the mask on and the girl ran, then begged, then moaned.

  Kennedy was touching herself over those words. Eyes wide. Chest heaving. Free hand clenched while the other moved slow and steady between her legs.

  Right then, it was clear as day what she wanted.

  She wanted to be the girl in the slasher story. Wanted to feel the thrill of a gloved hand closing around her throat, choking her airway until she was on the brink of passing out. Wanted to feel the sting of a knife on her bare skin, making her wonder if she’d survive the encounter. Wanted to be fucked hard and thoroughly through all of that, screaming so hard when she came that her throat ached.

  She loved the danger, the threat, the way the story blurred the line between fear and lust. I could literally see the fiery, desperate struggle in her eyes as she tried to stop herself, but she couldn’t resist in the end… because that line didn’t really exist for her anymore.

  She never even closed the story tab afterward. It was still sitting there in the background, waiting for her.

  Just like me.

  Before all that, she’d posted to Deepest Desires. Said she fantasized about being taken by a brutal killer in real life. Stripped of all choice by a psychopath. She said it turned her on like nothing else, and that she worried it made her sick in the head.

  It didn’t. It made her mine.

  The way she phrased her dark, twisted admission made it seem like she intended it as a cry for help… but for a guy like me? It was a goddamn invitation.

  Not that I’d ever needed an invitation to be in Kennedy Campbell’s life. Oh, no. I was always going to be a part of her life, whether she liked it or not. If she had a problem with that, then she should’ve just told the truth about everything from the start.

  But she never did, so now, here we were…

  I drew in a slow breath, imagining the sting of her nails digging into my back as she arched beneath me. I pictured her mouth open, desperate for my cock, kneeling on the ground, pants tugged down her thighs.

  Jesus. This girl was going to consume me. Body, soul, and whatever the hell was left of my sanity.

  As she strolled down the driveway on Fletcher Drive for the thirty-fourth time today, I ducked my head before she had a chance of spotting me watching her. The trailer door creaked open, and I registered the faintest echoes from her sneakers as she stepped inside, heading for the back to retrieve another box.

  She was alone. Vulnerable. And utterly unaware of me. This time, anyway.

  She’d almost caught me earlier, because I’d grown a little complacent in my mission. Started letting things slip. Thankfully, I got away with it in the end, and as far as I knew, she still didn’t suspect anything.

  The close call was a good reminder for me, though. A reminder to never get comfortable. Never be reckless. And certainly never underestimate Kennedy. Especially given some of the things I knew about her… like what a conniving little liar she was.

  For now, I’d allow her to keep on thinking that everything was normal. That today was just another day. That she was still safe. Still free. Still in control.

  She’d lived her whole life without realizing a monster was lurking in the shadows beside her. That someone had been studying her for years, cataloguing every breath and blink, learning her like a language.

  I had a good reason for it, of course. I had serious plans for Kennedy Campbell. Plans that would unravel her and bend her into something broken and worshiped in equal measure. Something that belonged to me.

  But I wouldn’t rush it. Right now, she was still wearing that false armor of composure. I needed her cracked. Fragile. Desperate.

  And she would be. Soon.

  All it took was one perfect moment. One wrong turn. One whispered word in the dark. And when it happened—when she finally realized what was coming for her—

  it would already be too late.

  Partial transcript from ‘After the Carver’ Episode 2

  [Intro music fades in]

  KENNEDY:

  On our last episode, we told you about the first victim. My father.

  FREYA:

  Unfortunately, his abduction and murder was just the beginning.

  KENNEDY:

  Over the next four months, the Carver killed twelve more people. And today, we want to talk about them.

  FREYA:

  This won’t be a full breakdown of each case. Those are coming later in the season, when we can talk to friends and family.

  KENNEDY:

  This episode is more about giving them space. Saying their names out loud before we give you a brief rundown of their cases.

  FREYA:

  And if you’re expecting a pattern… don’t. That’s part of what makes the Carver case so disturbing.

  KENNEDY:

  Yup. Many serial killers target a certain ‘type’. Like Ted Bundy, for example. He generally went after young women with long, dark hair. And Jeffrey Dahmer targeted young men, often people of color, many of whom were gay.

  FREYA:

  The Carver’s victims were nothing alike. Different ages, races, genders. Some were rich, and some were living paycheck to paycheck. Some were strangers to each other, and others knew each other. That last one makes sense in a city as small as Corwin Bay.

  KENNEDY:

  For those unfamiliar with the city, its population is around fifty thousand people. So not everyone knows each other, but everyone knows someone who knows someone. But still, nothing really tied all thirteen of the Carver’s victims together.

  FREYA:

  Nothing... except the way they died.

  KENNEDY:

  The lack of a pattern in victims was really unsettling, and it terrified everyone in Corwin Bay. Because without a pattern, it meant no one was safe.

  FREYA:

  Yeah. If you can’t figure out why they were chosen, how do you even begin to figure out who might be next?

  KENNEDY:

  Exactly. So… let’s get into it. We’ll go in the order the victims disappeared, after my father.

  FREYA:

  The Carver’s second victim was Silas Boone, forty-two-year-old CEO of BooneTech Solutions and father of one. He was at home preparing for a Christmas party on the day he was taken, packing gift bags with his seven-year-old son in the main living room while his wife and housekeeper were in the kitchen working on the food. Someone rang the doorbell, and Silas answered. His son later told police that he heard a scuffling noise at the door, but he didn’t see anything. He thought it was probably a guest arriving early and taking their coat or shoes off.