As Miguel worked the radio, Angus navigated the treacherous detour through hazardous, thick fog. The familiar coastal highway had been transformed into an alien landscape where nothing looked recognizable. Street signs emerged from the mist only when they were directly in front of them, and the ocean—usually visible along most of the route—had vanished behind the gray partition.

  The irony wasn’t lost on him: while they crept through fog-cloaked roads to prevent another abduction, Martha Porter was somewhere in the darkness, counting on them to find her before it was too late. Every minute they spent chasing Kyle Easton—or whoever was behind the David persona—was another minute she remained in captivity.

  “Sheriff Reid, this is Seabreeze Unit 7. “We’re at 143 Maple View Drive. The residence appears empty, no vehicle in the driveway. Neighbors say they saw Hope Jensen leave about an hour ago, dressed up like she was going somewhere special.”

  Angus’s stomach dropped. An hour ago. Right around the time they’d discovered the message and headed toward Seabreeze. If Hope had left for her dinner meeting, she was already at the restaurant—already vulnerable to whatever their suspect had planned.

  “Any word on Ocean’s Table?”

  “Still trying to get a unit free to check it out, Sheriff. We’re responding to accidents and stranded motorists all over town.”

  Miguel caught Angus’s eye, recognizing the frustration and guilt that was building behind his professional composure. “We’re doing everything we can,” he said quietly. “We can’t control the weather or predict where this guy will strike next.”

  But Angus felt the weight of every decision they’d made, every lead they’d followed, every assumption that might have been wrong. If they’d focused on Kyle Easton sooner instead of Tom Bradley, would they have prevented this? If they’d anticipated the pattern instead of reacting to it, would Hope Jensen be safe at home instead of walking into a trap?

  The truck’s headlights struggled to penetrate the fog as they finally approached the outskirts of Seabreeze. The entire town was shrouded in mist. Streetlights created ethereal halos in the gray darkness, illuminating little beyond their immediate vicinity. Most businesses appeared to have closed early due to the hazardous conditions.

  “There,” Miguel pointed through the windshield at the dim glow of Ocean’s Table’s neon sign, barely visible through the dense fog. “Looks like the parking lot is mostly empty.”

  Angus pulled in slowly, headlights sweeping across the handful of cars that remained. They drove slowly between the rows of vehicles, searching for Hope Jensen’s white Honda Accord.

  “That’s her car,” he said, heart sinking as their lights illuminated the distinctive license plate number Tammy had provided. Hope Jensen had made it to the restaurant, but whether she was inside or had already left with her mysterious dinner companion remained to be seen.

  As they prepared to get out of the vehicle, the radio came to life with a transmission that confirmed Angus’s worst fears.

  “Sheriff Reid, this is Seabreeze Unit 12. We made it to the Ocean’s Table about five minutes ago. Found a white Honda Accord in the parking lot registered to Hope Jensen, but the restaurant staff says she left about five minutes before we arrived with a man. We just missed her. Nobody saw him clearly in the fog, but the parking lot attendant saw them get into a dark SUV. We’re scouting the area now.”

  Ten minutes. They’d missed her by ten minutes. Angus closed his eyes, picturing Kyle Easton’s DMV photo. Unremarkable. Unmemorable. Easy to overlook—even more so in fog.

  “Any description of the SUV?” Angus asked, though he already knew what the answer would be.

  “Older model, dark color, couldn’t make out the license plate in this fog. Attendant said it turned south on Route 17, but visibility is so poor they lost sight of it immediately.”

  South on Route 17—the same route they’d just traveled. If Kyle Easton was indeed their suspect, he was now on the move with Hope Jensen, repeating the same pattern that had led to Martha Porter’s disappearance and Carol Winters’s murder.

  Angus stared through the fog-obscured windshield at Hope Jensen’s abandoned car, its white shape ghostly in the mist. Somewhere in the fog cloud that had swallowed the entire coast, two women were in the hands of a predator who had proven he was willing to kill.

  But as the fog swirled around them like a living thing, Angus made a silent vow that cut through his frustration and guilt with the clarity of divine purpose.

  We will not lose another woman tonight.

  Whatever it took—however long they had to search, however many resources they had to deploy—they would find Kyle Easton. They would rescue his victims, and they would end his reign of terror before he could destroy any more lives.

  The fog might be shrouding the world around them, but Angus Reid had weathered worse challenges than this. And with God’s help, he would see this one through to the end.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The fog hung over Ocean’s Table parking lot like a shroud, transforming the familiar coastal restaurant into something alien and foreboding. Angus stepped out of his truck into the thick mist, the damp immediately seeping through his jacket. The world had been reduced to a gray circle of visibility—twenty feet in any direction—making even the simplest task feel dangerous and disorienting.

  Miguel emerged from the passenger side, his breath visible in the cool, moisture-laden air. “This fog is unreal,” he muttered, squinting toward Hope Jensen’s white Honda Accord, abandoned among the few remaining vehicles. “No wonder nobody got a good look at the suspect.”

  Officer Dan Scott from the Seabreeze Police Department approached through the mist, his uniform already beaded with water droplets. “Sheriff Reid? Glad you made it, considering the conditions.”

  Angus greeted him with a quick nod.

  “What do we know?” he asked, falling into step beside Officer Scott as they walked toward Hope’s car.

  “One of the restaurant staff was on a smoke break, over there, just out of sight of the patrons. He confirms she arrived around seven-fifteen, met someone in the parking lot—they never made it inside. The few witnesses we have are frustratingly vague about the man she left with. Average height, wearing what looked like a baseball cap and dark jacket. Could describe half the men in New England.”

  They reached the Honda Accord, its white paint ghostly in the fog. Angus circled the vehicle slowly, noting the same careful positioning they’d seen with Martha’s car—parked normally, no signs of haste or struggle.

  “Any security footage?” Miguel asked.

  Scott shook his head grimly. “That’s the bad news. The parking lot camera’s been offline for two days. Not weather damage exactly—prolonged fog exposure caused condensation buildup inside the wiring housing. Water got into the electronics and fried the system.”

  Angus felt the familiar pressure of investigative frustration. Every break they needed seemed to be systematically eliminated, as if their suspect were always one step ahead.

  “So we have nothing.”

  “Well, not exactly nothing,” Scott said, leading them toward the restaurant’s dumpster area. “We found this just a few minutes before you arrived.”

  Behind the dumpster, hidden by fog and shadow, lay the scattered remains of a smartphone. The device had been thoroughly destroyed—screen shattered, back panel separated, battery removed. It wasn’t the kind of damage that came from an accidental drop.

  Miguel crouched beside the debris, careful not to disturb potential evidence. “This was deliberate. Someone took their time to make sure this phone would never work again.”

  “Same pattern as Martha’s phone except this time, he took it one step further,” Angus observed, studying the methodical destruction. “Our guy doesn’t just want to eliminate communication—he wants to make sure there’s no digital trail to follow.”

  “Which suggests he knows we’re getting close,” Miguel added. “Maybe close enough to make him nervous.”

  The supposition hung in the foggy air between them. If the predator was accelerating his timeline and becoming more destructive, it meant he felt pressured. But it also meant he was becoming more dangerous, more willing to take risks that might lead to violence.

  “Any witnesses see him destroy the phone?” Angus asked.

  “Negative. The fog’s been this thick since about five o’clock. Anyone walking through this parking lot would be focused on not walking into cars, not watching someone fifty feet away.”

  As they processed the scene and coordinated with the crime scene technician who’d arrived to collect the phone debris, Angus kept circling back to the same troubling question: How had their suspect known to target Hope Jensen tonight? The forum moderator had only discovered the message that afternoon, but somehow David had convinced Hope to meet him with almost no notice.

  “Miguel,” he said quietly, “this guy’s not just patient anymore. He’s operating under pressure, making moves that would have seemed too risky a week ago.”

  “You think he knows we’re hunting him?”

  “I think he’s smart enough to recognize when law enforcement starts sniffing around online forums and asking questions about missing women.” Angus looked through the fog toward the unseen ocean. “The question is whether that makes him more dangerous or more likely to make a mistake.”

  Back at the Weyport Sheriff’s Office, Tammy sat surrounded by the organized chaos of an active investigation. Multiple computer screens displayed databases, forum pages, and digital files, while printed reports and photographs covered nearly every surface of her desk. Her coffee cup had been refilled so many times she’d lost count, but the caffeine couldn’t quite compensate for the bone-deep fatigue of racing against a ticking clock.

  Her phone rang with the distinctive tone that indicated an official call from another law enforcement agency.

  “Deputy Simmons, Weyport Sheriff’s Office.”

  “This is Jessica Wagner from the Crime Scene Unit. We’ve finished processing the Tahoe you requested from Rock Harbor.”

  Tammy straightened, her focus sharpening. Karen Bradley’s blue Tahoe had been their strongest physical link to Tom Bradley. If CSU had found additional evidence, it could change everything about their investigation.

  “What did you find?”

  “Interesting results. We confirmed that Tom Bradley’s fingerprints aren't present on the exterior door handles and steering wheel, which is consistent with his previous access to the vehicle. But we also found a partial print on the inside of the back passenger door that doesn’t match Bradley.”

  “Does it match Kyle Easton?”

  “Negative. We ran it against Easton’s prints from his contractor’s license, and it’s definitely not him. The print is partial but clear enough to run through AFIS. I’ve submitted it with a priority flag, but results could take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days.”

  Tammy made careful notes, considering what it all pointed to. A third set of fingerprints meant either their investigation had missed a crucial player, or someone was deliberately muddying the waters to confuse their pursuit.

  “Any other evidence from the vehicle?”

  “Some carpet fibers in the back seat that don’t match the vehicle’s original upholstery. Could be from clothing or something the suspect used to transport someone. We’re analyzing those now.”

  After ending the call, Tammy stared at her notes, feeling the investigation shift once again. Tom Bradley had access to the Tahoe, Kyle Easton’s fingerprint was on Martha’s car, but now a third unknown person had been inside the vehicle presumed to have been used in at least one of the abductions.

  Three suspects. Three different sets of evidence. And two women whose lives depended making sense of it all before it was too late.

  She turned back to Martha’s bakery laptop, determined to find something concrete in the digital evidence that had been frustrating her for days. The encrypted folder had taunted her since the moment she’d discovered it, its sophisticated encryption far beyond anything Martha would have known how to create.

  Tammy had been running a decryption program in the background for hours, using every tool available to law enforcement. The progress bar had crawled forward all evening, and finally, at seven twenty-three p.m., her computer chimed with success.

  “Finally,” she whispered, her pulse quickening as she clicked to open the folder.

  It began to load, revealing a directory structure with several files. Partial file names appeared on her screen: Target_List.doc, KC-47_Profile, and what looked like screenshot files labeled with dates. Her heart raced as she realized she was about to uncover crucial evidence.

  She caught a glimpse of additional files—chat_export_MarthaP_05‑21.html, SweetHaven_sched.xlsx, and a coded script ominously titled wipe_on_unauthorised.py.

  The filenames hinted at just how deeply someone had wormed into Martha’s personal life—reading her private messages, tracking her work schedule, even scripting some kind of automated function Tammy didn’t yet understand.

  She flagged the script—wipe_on_unauthorised.py—for deeper review once she’d finished examining the rest of the folder.

  But as she moved to open the first file, her screen flickered.

  A command prompt window appeared suddenly, lines of code scrolling rapidly across the black background. Tammy’s breath caught as she recognized what was happening: a deletion script was executing, systematically wiping the folder in real time.

  “No, no, no!” She frantically tried to interrupt the process, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she attempted to copy files, screenshot the directory, anything to preserve the evidence before it vanished.

  The deletion script was faster than her reflexes. File names disappeared one by one, as if she were watching a house burn down, room by room. She managed to grab a single partial file—a document fragment that appeared to be a list of usernames—just before the script overwrote it.

  “HopeForTomorrow,” she read quickly, her heart pounding. “CarolWGrace, FaithfulMarthaP…”

  The names matched the patterns they’d been tracking, but before she could read more, that file vanished too.

  Within thirty seconds, the folder was empty. Thirty seconds after that, it was gone completely—leaving no trace it had ever existed, except for the tiny fragment Tammy had managed to copy to her clipboard.

  She stared at her screen in shock, her hands trembling. The sophistication of what she’d just witnessed was far beyond anything a lonely Weyport baker would know how to implement. This was the work of someone with serious technical expertise—someone who’d anticipated that law enforcement might break through the encryption and prepared accordingly.

  From the metadata she’d glimpsed before the wipe, the folder had been created at 2:47 p.m. on a Tuesday—during the bakery’s busiest hours, when Martha would have been serving customers, not working on her computer. Someone else had accessed the device, planted the encrypted folder, and installed the self-destruct mechanism.

  But why leave evidence at all if you’re just going to destroy it? Unless …

  Tammy’s mind raced. The folder could have been planted to mislead them. Or to waste their time. Or even to confirm they were getting close enough to warrant drastic countermeasures. The predator wasn’t just technically sophisticated—he was monitoring their investigation and responding in real time.

  The partial username list she’d saved was tantalizing but incomplete. HopeForTomorrow was obviously Hope Jensen, confirming that tonight’s abduction wasn’t random. “CarolWGrace likely referred to Carol Winters. And “FaithfulMarthaP had to be Martha Porter.

  The pattern suggested their predator was tracking multiple targets simultaneously, possibly across platforms and under various aliases. But without the rest of the files, they had no way of knowing how many other women were in danger or how to find them.

  Tammy ran every data recovery tool available to her, but the deletion script had been thorough—military-grade wiping that overwrote the data multiple times, preventing exactly what she was trying to do. Whoever had created this system knew how law enforcement digital forensics worked and had designed countermeasures accordingly.

  She grabbed her phone and called Angus. He answered on the second ring, the sound of fog-muffled traffic in the background.

  “Sheriff, I got into the encrypted folder, but it wiped itself almost immediately. I was only able to save part of one file. But whoever created it—it wasn’t Martha. Someone planted that folder, Sheriff. And they didn’t want us finding it.”

  She heard the faint sounds of traffic in the background as Angus processed what she’d told him.

  “What did you recover?” he asked.

  “A partial list of usernames. Hope Jensen was on it, along with Carol Winters and Martha. The format suggests our predator is tracking multiple targets simultaneously.” Tammy rubbed her tired eyes. “Sheriff, whoever we’re dealing with … he’s not just slick. He’s one step ahead of us—and he’s covering his tracks.”

  The silence stretched long enough that she wondered if the call had dropped.

  “Sheriff?”

  “I’m here. Just thinking.” His voice carried the weight of a man who’d been chasing shadows all evening. “If there’s a chance he’s monitoring our investigation closely enough to trigger a deletion script, then he knows we’re closing in. That could make him more dangerous.”

  “Or more desperate,” Tammy added. “The question is whether desperate makes him careless—or more willing to eliminate witnesses.”

  Even as she spoke the words, they were thinking the same thing: Martha Porter and Hope Jensen were counting on them to answer that question correctly. And somewhere in the fog-shrouded darkness of coastal Maine, time was running out for both women.