Ariella and Arkus chose not to tell Vance of Zane’s misdoings for the time being.
Arkus managed to concoct a halfhearted trip-and-fall story to explain the large gauze pad on the side of his head, a story that Vance barely believed. In the following days, Ariella and her friends kept an even larger distance from Zane and Lucy in school, though this wasn’t particularly difficult; the two of them were absent for half of their classes, and Ariella rarely ever saw them around campus anymore. Julian and Rodney were both aware of Zane’s recent attack, and neither of them were much too pleased about the ordeal.
During one of the few psychology classes that Zane and Lucy actually attended, Rodney was eyeing the both of them closely after the class was over, his eyes following them across the room as the two of them headed for the exit. Ariella and her friends were already out of the room, as were many of the other students, and the professor’s eyes locked onto the back of Zane’s head as he walked away.
Rodney sauntered to the front of his desk, his fingers coiling around the matted hair of the shrunken head on the desk’s surface. He lifted it up, stared it—then launched it across the room with all his might.
The shrunken head smashed into the back of Zane’s skull with great force—making him double over and nearly fall to the ground. He straightened up and clasped his head, whipping around and shooting the professor a bizarre look.
“Hand slipped,” Rodney shrugged, giving him a cold stare.
Zane’s hands coiled into fists, looking like he wanted to fight, but Lucy quickly ushered him out of the classroom.
A couple of days later, Zane and Lucy seemed to have vanished from their classes entirely. Ariella discussed the issue of Zane deeply with her friends in the podcast room, all of them deciding not to reveal any details about the incident on their show. They wouldn’t divulge that information to their audience unless it became necessary—and, as of now, it wasn’t something that needed to be revealed to their thousands of listeners.
Things slowly returned to normal among their group, save for Tammy and Jaxson occasionally hugging each other and pecking one another on the lips. Ariella still felt a deep anxiety leftover from the altercation with Zane, but her many long evenings of cuddling with Arkus served to calm her mind. She wasn’t entirely sure where their relationship was going, but she felt for certain that it was on the right track, and it was a Godsend at calming her mind now…
The four of them continued to visit Rodney’s airstream routinely, except during their church nights. The protesters and the news kept the serial killer hype as high as ever—and Cutthroat continued watching his objects of interest from a distance, though nothing much changed until the week of the youth pastor’s lock-in.
Just a few days before the lock-in-Zane found himself at the top of the leadership pyramid inside Xi Phi Beta. David and Richard bowed to him, both of them following his every idea and swearing his plans to secrecy. Zane quite liked the two of them. They both had the same sneering, sinister smile he did. David and Richard were the types to vent out their frustrations when nobody was watching, to get away with whatever they could and to enact their every desire whenever the opportunity arose. The rest of the frat boys were something of a question mark, but these two were the allies Zane always knew he deserved.
And now, thanks to his cunning idea—David and Richard would most assuredly remain loyal to him whenever he finally sprung his real plans into action, a grand endeavor that was finally soon to come.
On this evening, a small party was taking place in the main corridor of the Xi Phi Beta house, and Zane and Lucy were both dressed in their gothic party attire.
Zane handed her a plastic cup of spiked juice, which she happily drank without hesitation.
His vacant eyes remained fixated on her intently as she drank, his mouth curling into a sly, despicable smirk. He then took her by the hand, leading her down a dark, narrow hallway.
“Where’re we…?” Lucy moaned, growing suddenly dizzy.
“I need you to do me a favor,” Zane told her, dragging her toward the far room down the hall.
“Hmn?” Lucy blubbered.
“Listen.” Zane pressed her back-first against the door, looming close to her, his nose brushing against hers. “You love me…?”
“Yeah,” Lucy smiled weakly. “Why…?”
“Because… I need a big, big favor,” Zane said sensually, his breath coasting past her ear. “I have huge plans for this week, and I need my brothers to be really on board for it. So… we… worked out a little trade.”
Lucy gazed up at him with a disoriented stare.
Zane gently swiped her bangs aside, plastering on the most charming expression he was capable of. “You love me?”
“’Course,” Lucy breathed.
“Then do me this favor… please, for me,” Zane pleaded. “Everything I’ve ever wanted to do… it’s all riding on this right now.”
He then opened the door behind her, guiding her into the darkened bedroom and closing the door behind them. He pushed her across the room, holding her against the wall beside the window, and he planted his lips to hers in a long, hungry kiss.
Lucy sank into him, her mind going entirely blank, feeling as if all her wildest dreams were finally flourishing in full.
Zane embraced her, lifting her and laying her across the nearest bed. Lucy flumped onto her back, him leaping on top of her and kissing her once more, their bodies grazing longingly against one another.
Lucy’s mind faded into a deep, foggy haze, and Zane pulled her arms upright—snapping a pair of handcuffs around either of her wrists and securing her to the headboard.
“There we go,” Zane smiled, reaching to the shelf above the bed and grabbing a rag he had placed there earlier in the day. “One more thing…”
“What’re… you doing?” Lucy moaned sleepily.
“I’m making a trade,” Zane told her. “My brothers help me… and they get you.”
Lucy gazed up at him in tired confusion.
He then wrapped the long rag around her head, shoving it into her mouth and tying it firmly in place. Lucy mumbled and groaned into the gag, attempting to speak and failing, her pitiful, whimpering noises muffled by the fabric, her meek, useless movements hindered by the cuffs that kept her bound to the headboard. She lay there, moaning weakly and struggling to move, simply unable to. Zane could’ve laughed at how pathetic she looked now.
He stood, ignoring Lucy’s faint whines of protest as she wiggled and squirmed helplessly on the bed, unable to break free.
Zane opened the door, slipped into the hallway, and came face to face with his brothers.
David and Richard stood before him now, giving him an expectant look.
Zane nodded at them. “You have your fun now… I have mine later this week.”
David returned the nod, Richard revealing a sick smile.
“ Look at me,” Zane said severely, his eyes shining an icy blue as he rounded on them. “You will not back out of what I have planned. Do I make myself clear?”
“Of course,” they both replied.
“If you take my offering without returning the favor—then you will both end up like that pathetic fucking hog you had me kill,” Zane glowered wickedly.
David and Richard nodded in agreement, and Zane gave each of them a final, searing glare before stepping aside and allowing them to enter the room.
At that, Zane wandered off, not able to hear Lucy’s desperate cries, and not caring to.
The day before the lock-in-Ariella and her friends were all inside the church, finishing off the decorations before the big Halloween celebration.
Once the place was fully decorated, Arkus and Jaxson were immersed in yet another heated match of basketball-dodgeball in the gym, Tammy lying across the stage and playing on her phone. Ariella and Julian both sat on the end of the stage, snickering as they watched Arkus and Jaxson’s horseplay. The double-doors were propped open, allowing sunlight to bleed into the room from the corner, as usual.
The place was serene—none of them aware that Cutthroat was observing from afar, shrouded in the woods across the parking lot, a common habit for him now. The killer stood hidden on the tree-covered hill, glaring downward fixedly and not moving an inch.
Nobody in the church was aware that Zane was strolling across the parking lot, either—but Cutthroat spotted him right away, his eyes pensively following the blond across the pavement.
Inside—Arkus suddenly stopped, wheeling around and squinting at the open double-doors, seeing a human-shaped shadow approaching the doors from a short distance away.
“Oy,” Arkus called out to the others, waving and heading toward the doors. “Somebody’s here.”
“At this hour…?” Julian said strangely.
They all speed-walked toward the doors, marching outside and seeing the blond, sarcastic-faced Zane standing a few yards away from the door, his hands pocketed, his expression blank as he returned all of their stares.
Ariella’s good mood suddenly plummeted, Arkus and Tammy shooting Zane a nasty glare, Jaxson’s hands balling into fists. But, surprisingly—the first person to step forward was Julian.
“May I ask what you’re doing here?” the pastor said, his stare and tone both empty.
Zane cocked his brow. “I thought we were all gonna decorate for the lock-in?”
Tammy scoffed loudly, trading incredulous expressions with Jaxson. Arkus and Ariella gawked at Zane as if he’d spoken an alien language, and Julian merely stared at him with a coldness that the pastor wasn’t ordinarily capable of.
“I’m afraid you’re no longer welcome here,” Julian said in a firm, flattened voice. “Please go.”
Zane let out a dry laugh. “Whoa… what ever happened to ‘come as you are?’ What the hell did I ever do to you?”
“ What did you do …?!” Tammy screamed, lunging forward. Jaxson quickly grabbed her and held her back.
Cutthroat remained as still as death, as quiet as a shadow, his back pressed against a tree as he watched and listened to the altercation from afar.
“Well, let’s see—assault, sexual assault, attempted murder —just to name a few,” Julian stated.
“Oh, bullshit,” Zane laughed. “When have I ever done anything like that before? You really believe all that BS?”
“Zane,” Julian said in a low, serious tone. “You’re not just gonna glaze over this. I think you and I both know better.”
Zane’s jaw twitched. He leered into the youth pastor with a murderous glare, Julian returning the look with an apathetic visage.
“Where’s your little girlfriend?” Tammy snarked. “Lucy finally get tired of being yanked around like a dog on a leash?”
Zane met her eyes, revealing a small, nasty smile. “No, she’s just tied up at the moment.”
“Go home ,” Arkus growled impatiently, stepping to Julian’s side. “Nobody wants you here.”
“Why?” Zane snickered. “Because I kissed a girl you like, and you overreacted?”
Arkus advanced on him, Julian extending his arm and nudging him back.
“Zane,” Ariella said in an unsettlingly calm voice, moving closer and meeting Zane’s icy, deadened stare. “If you don’t leave… I’m just gonna kill you, right here.”
Zane and Ariella locked eyes, both of them reaching into their pockets, hands coiling around their concealed pocketknives.
“See,” Zane smirked. “Just like me.”
“GO HOME!” Arkus erupted—bashing his hands into Zane’s chest and making him stagger several feet backward.
Zane laughed it off, swiping his hairs aside and wandering away from them. Everyone watched him go, glaring after him until he marched down the hill, vanishing from their sight.
Ariella and her friends regrouped and headed back into the church, kicking the concrete blocks aside and allowing the double-doors to swing shut behind them.
Cutthroat leaned out from his hiding spot, gazing across the parking lot and eyeing the now closed doors, coming to a silent, intense resolution. Yes, it seemed that Zane truly was capable of acting on his horrific desires—and judging by everything he had just overheard, the wicked little bastard already had acted on them.
The killer cautiously maneuvered through the trees, distancing himself from the area and plotting viciously to himself as he did.
While Ariella and her friends spent their afternoon at Gates Mill Church of God, Vance was attempting to string together a spider web of information by himself yet again.
Vance and Lumis spent the morning brainstorming in Vance’s kitchen, and now, with Lumis gone to work, he was left alone to pace around and rack his brain. The detective had forgotten his phone, which now sat on the kitchen table, occasionally ringing, as Marissa was blowing his phone up. Vance figured that Lumis would simply collect his phone from the house during his lunch break, but the constant noise was beginning to agitate him, as it continuously derailed his train of thought…
Where could the killer be? If the forensics hadn’t pinned him yet, Vance guessed it must have been someone who wasn’t in the system—someone who had a clean record before their serial killer days, someone who was living entirely off the radar now.
He thought of the many forest areas around the town, then the empty houses and buildings like the Goldwater Estate.
There were plenty of places he could hide, provided he had a way of keeping himself fed and hydrated—but where to start? Was Vance really considering searching every nook and cranny of the woods, every old shed, every vacant trailer, and every empty house?
“That’s all I can do,” he muttered to himself, walking past the kitchen table, where Lumis’s phone began to ring again.
Vance scowled at the phone, marching down the hall to get away from the noise.
The woods, the empty houses, the secretive little hideouts that only kids and teenagers knew about—those were the key points, the places the police overlooked. No one thought a killer could actually live in the woods, with no heat, no water, no electricity. Most people thought it was ridiculous, the idea that a man could survive such conditions, but Vance knew better. If he hunted or stole all of his food, if he drank from the river, and if he had a relatively secluded hideout out there, then it was possible. In fact, it was the only plausibility; if the killer was a normal person living among the town, then he surely would’ve been caught by now.
“He’s out there somewhere,” Vance determined.
But where, and where to begin the search? Vance himself once knew the town like the back of his hand, but now? He didn’t remember any of his old hangouts, any trails in the woods, or any places that would’ve made a good hideout. He knew he had lived in Gates Mill all his life, but he didn’t remember the details he most needed to.
Vance returned to the kitchen—and Lumis’s phone rang once more. He drove his fingers into his skull, shaking his head.
If anyone was watching him now, they’d probably think he was a madman, pacing, massaging his head, and uttering pieces of a mental conversation he was having with only himself.
“Mary Goldwater—her halfway house was in the woods,” he rambled. “If Cutthroat was out there, he could’ve watched her. He might’ve known what she was up to if he lived out there too, watching her from a distance. Joseph Wick—he was parked at the courthouse most of the day before he died. On the news—his truck was parked at the edge of the parking lot, I remember. The trunk was facing the woods. He could’ve watched from the trees. Could’ve followed him. There are plenty of woods around that church, too. And the dead racists were found in the woods. Every victim died after he had the opportunity to slip out of the trees. He lives in the woods somewhere… that has to be…”
Lumis’s phone rang for the millionth time, and Vance lost his train of thought yet again. Frustrated, he finally snatched the phone up and answered it.
“Marissa—for God’s sake , Bill doesn’t want to talk to y—”
“ Vance! ”
Vance stopped and fell silent, instantly knowing something was wrong; Marissa didn’t sound snide like usual. In fact, her voice was a faint, terrified whisper, not angry or passive-aggressive in the slightest.
“Mariss—”
“Vance—s-somebody’s in my house!” Marissa gasped, choking on a sob. “H-h-he attacked me in the g-garage! I’m hiding in a closet! Please—get Billy—g—get the police!”
Vance’s mouth drifted open. “Okay—don’t move, and don’t make a sound. Call 911.”
“I j… I just called 911…”
“Then stay put, and stay quiet ,” Vance ordered her, flinging his overcoat on. “I’m on my way.”
“Ohk… okay…” Marissa whimpered.
Vance hung up and jogged to his room, grabbing his 45 and heading out the door. “Shit. Shit …”
It all happened in a swift, blurry motion—getting in the car, throwing the gun in the passenger seat, whipping around in the driveway, and flying over the front yard, the car jumping as he ran over the curb and rocketed down the street.
Everything that had been on Vance’s mind moments ago was gone without a trace—no leads, no ideas, no contemplations. Now, all he could think about was the angry woman and arriving to her house in time to save her.
Vance dialed 911 himself as well. He explained the situation to a calm-sounding woman as he drove with one hand, the engine roaring, his car propelling far too quickly through the neighborhoods, his heart now hammering and his blood feeling like it had all been lit ablaze. He narrowly dodged a group of kids on the side of the road, who were all face-down in their phones. He then threw his own phone aside to the passenger seat, flooring the gas pedal.
“Don’t die, goddammit,” Vance swore under his breath.
Was Marissa so rotten, so immoral, that Cutthroat would want her dead? She was certainly an aggravation, but Vance couldn’t imagine that she had any dark secrets involving murder or child abuse. If Marissa ever abused her kid, Lumis wouldn’t have stood for it—and she certainly wasn’t capable of murder. She wasn’t an abusive parent, a killer, or any kind of extremist. Why was she being targeted? No—he couldn’t speculate now, and he couldn’t jump to conclusions. This might have been a simple home invasion from a lowly thug, for all he knew.
As the police flooded out of the station on their way to Marissa’s house, and as Lumis’s maroon car tailed along behind them—Vance found himself first on the scene; his loud black car jetted up the driveway and came to an abrupt stop in front of the large suburban home.
He climbed out, gun at hand, and approached the house, the Lumis household, a place he hadn’t been welcome to visit in quite a long while.
The garage door was closed, and it wouldn’t budge when he tried to lift it.
Vance went to the front door, jerking it a few times, but it was locked as well. He reared back and planted a solid kick into it—ripping the door from its frame and slamming it open, shards of wood flying through the air as the knob bashed into the wall inside.
He stormed in, gun held low, scanning the interior. It was spacious and over-decorated, just as he remembered—but nobody was in sight.
He moved with ease throughout the house, every sense sharpening with rapt alertness, surveying the kitchen and the hallway, gently opening the closets. Marissa wasn’t in any of them.
Vance approached the side door, which led to the garage. He opened it and walked in, seeing Marissa’s shiny blue car. The shelves on either side—which were usually cluttered with tools, toys, and various household items—looked to be ransacked. Max’s old big-wheel was lying on its side, and many of the tools had been scattered around as well. On the back of Marissa’s car, on the rear window, was a long, thin scratch, as if a sharp object had been dragged across it.
Vance visualized the scenario clear as day; Marissa went out to her car, and the attacker ambushed her. There was a struggle, and the two of them knocked over everything on the shelves as they fought with each other. The attacker swung his weapon, and Marissa managed to avoid the attack, so the attacker scraped the back window of her car instead.
Afterward, Marissa presumably ran back into the house, and the attacker chased her. Knowing there was no way to slip past him and escape, she hid herself in one of the closets—but Vance had already checked the closets downstairs. She must’ve been on the second floor somewhere.
So, he returned to the house and made his way upstairs with caution. Max’s bedroom was empty, as was the guest room. There were three closets down this hall, and at the end was the master bedroom, its door standing open.
The middle closet was open as well. There were clothes, boxes, and coat-hangers lying all over the carpet, creating a trail of debris leading to the master bedroom.
Vance gulped, a horrific dread slowly overwhelming him, his chest beginning to ache. He tightened his grip, cocking the gun and taking a slow stride forward.
He knew what happened here—the vision of it played through his head clearly, just like in the garage—but this time, he hoped dearly he was wrong.
The closet was open, and everything had been dragged out of it—probably by accident, when Marissa was being forcibly escorted out of the closet and into the bedroom.
If she was still alive, Vance should have been able to hear her by now, whimpering and sputtering from her room—but he heard nothing, and the deadened silence put a sickened knot in the pit of his stomach.
He knew for certain what came next, moving closer to the master bedroom, biting his lip, and holding his breath.
“Please… God,” he breathed.
The queen-sized bed sat in the center of the room, its headboard placed perfectly against the farthest wall—Marissa lying over her fluffy red comforters, sprawled and motionless, her eyes stretched wide open, gazing lifelessly upward, mouth hanging agape, her throat cut cleanly with a wide-open split. Her shirt had been torn all the way down the middle, and in the center of her bare chest was a deep, slit-shaped wound, still pouring blood, a tiny, etched-in carving visible along her exposed stomach.
Vance covered his mouth, feeling nauseous.
He’d only just spoken to her a short while ago; she was alive, shaky and horrified, begging for help. The blood was still flowing, saturating the woman and her bed. Her eyes still shone, not yet glazed. She must have just died, right before Vance arrived. He’d showed up just a few minutes late, just in time to fail at saving her—and just in time to lose the killer.
“ Fuck … I’m sorry,” Vance exhaled, shaking his head and pressing a fist to his mouth, unable to tear his gaze from Marissa’s corpse.
A rush of guilt swept over him.
Oddly, despite the horror and nausea inside, his body guided him closer. Vance knew better; he knew not to interfere with a crime scene, but there were words carved onto Marissa’s stomach, tiny ones, and he had to know what they spelled out.
In pencil-thin scars, it read Judgmental Cunt.
Vance’s logic took over, reading every detail and absorbing them in full; the throat, sliced, not sawed, the stomach stabbed, the carved letters, and the nudity; in a fraction of a second, he understood one deep, disturbing fact about this homicide.
It was very different from all of the other Cutthroat victims.
Vance heard the sirens outside, followed by a barrage of thundering footsteps. The police were here, and they were sweeping the house.
Suddenly, his instincts caught up with him; he shouldn’t have come here, first on the scene before any official enforcers of the law.
Before any of the trigger-finger police—Lumis arrived at the top of the stairs, making his way down the hall.
Vance turned, meeting his eyes and looking extremely grim.
Lumis gulped, approaching the bedroom, a hand clamping over his mouth.
The two of them stared at Marissa’s body, saying nothing. Vance could almost feel the despair radiating off of the detective by his side, a terrible sends of shock and bereavement in the air, and it was almost too much to bear…
“I’m sorry,” Vance rasped. “She called… I tried to get here before…”
Lumis shook his head, his expression disturbingly gaunt, and he did not speak a word.
Police swarmed over the scene, and Vance was taken in for questioning, Lumis drifting through the remainder of this utterly stressful day in absolute shock, entirely on autopilot. Neither of them were home when Max got off the school bus, returning to find the Callaghan home empty, the boy simply watching Netflix in the living room, completely unaware of the tragedy that struck his family during his schoolday.
When this terrible day began to draw to an end, the sun setting on the horizon—Zane met with his brothers in the upstairs corridor of Xi Phi Beta just as he planned. He sauntered toward them with a swagger to his walk, smirking and raising his brows expectantly at them.
David and Richard both returned the nasty smile, Richard holding up his gloved hand, which was wrapped around the handle of Zane’s bloody butcher knife.
“It’s done,” Richard announced, handing the knife off to its owner.
“Good,” Zane grinned wickedly, twirling the blade around and giving them each a definitive stare. “Now the next one’s mine .”
On the evening of Marissa Lumis’s death—Ariella and her friends were sitting outside of Rodney’s airstream, listening to music and trading stories under the night sky.
Hours had passed since they all left the church, entirely unaware of the horrific murder that had taken place; Ariella sat in a lawn chair beside Rodney’s, Arkus perched on the grass, leaning on her leg and laughing as he told a perilous tale about the pranks he pulled during his high school prom. Jaxson joined in every now and then—as he was present for much of this story when it originally happened—Tammy giggling and shaking her head numerous times. She and Jaxson were seated across from the others, Rodney smirking and chuckling as he listened to their jokes and their story-telling.
This scene had become routine for them, sitting atop the hill late in the day or early in the night, Rodney’s airstream door propped open behind them, light bleeding out from inside, music echoing faintly from his radio. It was yet another peaceful night of chatter and laughter, and it carried on the same as always—until Ariella’s phone began to ring.
She pulled out her phone and answered it, standing and stepping away from the group to take the call, as Arkus’s voice was loud and bombastic during his story-telling. “Hello?”
“Ari,” Vance’s voice spoke into her ear, sounding even rougher and throatier than usual. “Where are you right now?”
“Um… hanging out with my friends,” Ariella said vaguely, glancing back at the others. “Why?”
“Good. Don’t go anywhere alone,” Vance ordered. “And… whenever you get home… just… give Bill some space. All right?”
Ariella gulped, sensing that something was awry. “What happened?”
Vance let out a long, stressed exhalation. “I just spent the majority of the day at the police station… almost got arrested.”
“ What? ” Ariella gasped. “Why?”
Rodney glimpsed at her over his shoulder, his smile fading. He slowly stood from his chair, leaving the group and approaching her.
“Because, I was the first on the scene when…” Vance paused, clearing his throat. “Listen. Something really… terrible… happened today. Oh, and… Bill and I both agreed not to tell Max, for the time being.”
“Okay,” Ariella said strangely, leaning on the wall of the airstream, Rodney now looming beside her and giving her an intrigued stare. “But what happened? ”
“Marissa is dead,” Vance told her. “She called Bill’s phone right before it happened. I answered it, and she told me someone was inside her house. By the time I got there, she was…”
“Oh… my God,” Ariella breathed, trading perturbed looks with Rodney. “How did that… happen? Was it Cutthroat again?”
“That’s what everyone at the station thinks,” Vance replied. “But… I don’t think it is.”
“You don’t?”
“No. The throat was cut—not sawed. Not to mention, there were stab wounds, which hasn’t happened with any previous victim—and a colorful little phrase was carved onto her skin, too.”
“The Copycat Effect,” Rodney murmured faintly.
Ariella shot him a questioning squint, and her father continued speaking into her ear.
“I’ve come to two conclusions throughout this hellish afternoon, and you need to know both,” Vance stated. “One—this person is likely a completely different person from the Cutthroat Killer. And two—this victim was much closer to all of us than any of the previous victims, meaning that this new perpetrator is probably someone we know. Which means you need to be extra careful from now on— all of you do.”
Ariella’s mouth drifted open, a horrid realization sweeping over her. She turned and met Rodney’s eyes again, who now wore a dark, stony visage. If Vance’s hypothesis was corrent, and if another killer was rising in Gates Mill—and if this person truly was somebody that Ariella and her friends knew personally—then she and Rodney both knew exactly who fit that profile.
“Dad… when did this happen?” Ariella muttered into her phone. “When did Marissa die?”
“Around four in the afternoon,” Vance answered. “Why?”
Ariella gulped, thinking of Zane and remembering that he’d visited Gates Mill Church of God around that exact same time.
“Well… never mind,” she sighed. “I thought I might’ve had a lead for you, but… I know where he was during the time of the murder, so… it couldn’t have been him.”
“Might still be worth looking into,” Vance said. “Tell me.”
Ariella took a deep, hesitant breath, preparing to tell her father everything that she wanted to keep from him before—everything that Zane had done, everything that happened between him and the others, and the grim incident that occurred at Boomsday. Rodney watched her silently as she told her father the story, Arkus, Jaxson, and Tammy still sitting several yards away, immersed in their own conversation.
When Ariella finished talking, her father was deathly silent for several seconds. She gnawed her lip, preparing to hear a lecturing from hell; she knew this information likely infuriated her father, and she was right.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?!” Vance snapped.
“Because I knew what you’d do,” Ariella replied honestly. “You’d stalk him, and corner him, and you’d break one of his legs or some crazy shit.”
“ And? ” Vance griped.
Ariella sighed. “And… I don’t want you to go to jail?”
“Ari—this little fucker has proven what he’s capable of,” Vance retorted. “This means we have a possible prime suspect. Where is he now? Where can I—?”
“Dad,” Ariella said loudly. “Chill. There’s no way in hell you would deal with this legally, so please just leave it alone. Besides—Zane came to the church around the same time Marissa died. I don’t think he—”
“Does he have any friends outside of your little group?” Vance asked abruptly. “I’ve considered before that Cutthroat might have accomplices—and that’s a lot more likely for Zane, since he actually lives on the radar.”
“No, I don’t think he…” Ariella trailed off, something occurring to her.
The day of Zane’s betrayal, the whole reason they ended up fighting with him—it was because he planned to join a fraternity, a fraternity rumored to contain a few rough and questionable individuals within their ranks. Nowadays—according to the school gossip and Zane’s new YouTube channel—he was now a deeply-integrated member of the Xi Phi Beta brotherhood. If he had any new friends, then they would be within the fraternity, guys who shared numerous secrets and enacted various pacts with one another.
The more she thought about it, the more it seemed to fit perfectly.
Who better to solicit as criminal accomplices than a club of secrecy-sworn roughhousers?
So, Ariella inhaled deeply and explained everything even further—the fraternity, the rumors surrounding it, and Zane’s new YouTube channel, featuring all his new dark content.
Vance paused after she finished. “YouTube channel…?”
“Yes—that’s where people upload videos and stuff,” Ariella said, rolling her eyes. “Dad, will you please just let me pick out a smartphone for you? You’re not gonna be able to watch his videos on your prepaid.”
“I’ll have Bill look it up for me,” Vance figured. “Do you know anything else? Where he lives, or who he associates with in his fraternity?”
“No, I… I don’t know anything about the fraternity, but he lives…” Ariella hesitated. “Dad, if I tell you where he’s staying, you’re gonna attack him.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because I’ve met you before.”
“Just tell me where he’s staying.”
“Are you gonna attack him?”
“No. Probably not…”
“Dad… I don’t want you to get thrown in jail. Please don’t attack him.”
“I won’t. Unless I have to.”
“For fuck’s sake…”
“Ari—I just wanna keep an eye on him, watch for any suspicious behavior. That’s what a private investigator is supposed to do.”
“He knows what you look like… and he knows your car, too.”
“Ari,” Vance laughed dryly. “I thought you knew me by now.”
Ariella sighed again. “He lives on the campus right now, the male dorms, same building as Jax, but on the bottom floor. He’s at the school most of the time, as far as I know. Oh—Jax’s roommate, Richard, he’s also in the same fraternity. He’s the one who got Zane into it. You might wanna keep an eye on him, too.”
“Hm…” Vance mumbled thoughtfully, pacing around his house as he talked on the phone. “If he made loyal followers out of his little brotherhood… oh, that’s brilliant .”
“What?” Ariella asked.
“Ari, let me ask you… in the time you’ve known Zane, did he ever come across as manipulative? Or… charming?”
“Yeah. All the time. We all figured he was a sociopath.”
“That’s it… that’s it , then,” Vance uttered, his eyes igniting as several connections clicked together in his mind. “He came to your church on purpose, right at the time he needed to. He made an alibi out of all of you just so he couldn’t be pinned for this murder. Granted, this is all hypothetical right now—but if he managed to manipulate his new followers into doing his dirty work for him, then he might’ve sent one of his boys out to do the murder while he was at the church. He knew he wouldn’t be pinned for the murder if he was out in public with several witnesses. He might still get pegged as an accomplice, but he won’t get the brunt of all the consequences, even if the trail does lead back to him. He’s a manipulative little bastard…”
“And… that night,” Ariella murmured, yet another grave realization occurring to her. “That night, when I hit Marissa in the mouth… Zane told me she deserved it.”
“He’s copying the Cutthroat Killer,” Vance surmised. “He’s killing people who he believes deserve to die… only, his bar is set a lot lower. It doesn’t take murder, or rape, or child abuse. All it takes is a bitchy attitude, or someone to tick him off…”
Ariella gulped heavily, sharing another dreadful stare with Rodney.
“If Zane really is trying to kill people now… you think he’s gonna come after us?” she asked, though she very much didn’t want the answer.
Vance sighed deeply into the phone. “Like I said, you and your friends need to stay together at all times. Go to some new hangouts. Stay in places that Zane isn’t aware of.”
“We got that covered right now…”
“Good. Either that, or you can all just hang out at home. With the guns.”
“Yeah… oh, but Dad,” Ariella said, suddenly remembering her plans for tomorrow. “Julian’s holding the lock-in at the church tomorrow. We’re gonna be spending the night there… but Zane’s been going to that church, too. You think we’ll be safe…?”
“What’s a lock-in?” Vance inquired.
“It’s basically a giant slumber party in the church,” Ariella replied. “He’s throwing a Halloween party, and he’s gonna lock the doors at 10 pm. Everyone spends the night inside.”
“So… you’ll be in one big group, and the doors will be locked?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it should be all right. But keep your guard up, just in case.”
“I know. Also, Maria’s sorority is gonna host a big Halloween party on the actual day of Halloween, and we planned to go to that party, too. You think that’s okay?”
“As long as you and your friends stick close to each other, you should be fine.”
“All right. What’s going on now?” Ariella wondered. “With the whole Marissa thing…”
“Nothing,” Vance replied grimly. “They hammered me with questions all day, then brought the neighbors in for questioning. They put another detective on this case, since Bill’s judgment would be compromised for obvious reasons…”
“No new intel?”
“Just a bit. One neighbor said they saw a bright green car drive away from the area around the same time, but they didn’t manage to get the plate numbers. Road surveillance didn’t get the plate numbers, either. Zane doesn’t happen to have a green car, does he?”
“Nope…”
“Well… we’re at a standstill, then. We’ll have to wait for forensics, or for me to find something interesting while I’m keeping an eye on Zane.”
“Okay. One more thing,” Ariella said intensely. “When we do the podcast… do you think we should reveal any of this?”
Vance was silent for several seconds, pondering deeply on the question.
“Ari, tell your audience the truth,” he decided. “But not the speculation.”
Ariella narrowed her eyes at Rodney, adjusting the grip on her phone. “Whaddo you mean?”
“I mean… tell them exactly what he did to you and your friends,” Vance said flatly. “But don’t reveal that he might become the prime suspect in a murder. Now’s not the time for that. All the speculative information needs to stay quiet for now. None of it is proven, and we don’t wanna tip him off. If it turns out he’s guilty, then revealing the speculation about him on the podcast will let him know we’re onto him. We don’t want that. We just want your audience to know the basic truth, and to draw their own conclusions from that. Besides, half the police precinct is listening to that podcast now. If the cops hear about Zane assaulting you guys, that will make our case against him stronger later down the road. But if you start mixing truth with speculation, that would dampen your credibility in the eyes of the law. You understand?”
“Yeah,” Ariella nodded. “I getcha. I know what I’m gonna do now.”
“Good,” Vance concluded. “Be careful— extra careful. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
“Oh—wait a second, Ari. There’s one more thing I wanted to ask,” Vance said, only just remembering his peculiar thought. “You remember that recurring dream you used to have a long time ago?”
Ariella was silent for a few seconds. “Um… yeah. Why?”
“Well… I… ah, never mind,” Vance dismissed. “Seeya later. Love you.”
“Love you too…”
They both hung up, Ariella staring oddly into her phone before sliding it into her pocket. Arkus, Jaxson, and Tammy were still deep in conversation across the yard, Rodney leaning on the airstream with his arms crossed, his eyes pensively fixed onto her.
Ariella met his gaze, sighing heavily. “Did you hear most of that?”
“All of it,” Rodney nodded.
They both paused, Ariella resting her back against the airstream, her face riddled with thoughtful confusion.
“What the hell’s he asking about that dream for…?” she muttered, totally bewildered.
Rodney blinked. “That’s the part you’re focusing on…?”
“Well, it’s just… weird,” Ariella told him. “Me and him haven’t talked about that dream in years, and it had nothing to do with…”
Rodney squinted at her. “What was this dream?”
“I don’t know, it… it’s some stupid dream I used to have all the time when I was little,” Ariella sighed, sitting on the stairs of the airstream’s entryway. “It’s me, looking out and holding onto something… a couple of people laying on the floor of a house… and I kinda… I don’t know…”
Rodney stared at her silently for a moment, his visage entirely unreadable.
Ariella glanced up at him. “That has nothing to do with Marissa and Zane. Why would he bring that up?”
Rodney gulped, shaking his head and looking away. “No idea…”
“Fuck… Marissa’s dead,” Ariella said glumly. “This is getting scary. It’s getting close to us…”
“Ariella…” Rodney sighed, sitting beside her. “Do you really wanna go to this lock-in? If Zane’s still showing up at the church, it might not be the best idea…”
“Yeah, but… Julian’s really looking forward to it,” Ariella replied. “Preparing for the lock-in is the only thing that’s been able to distract him from… everything else. Besides, in the off-chance that something does happen, it’s better if we’re all there. We can all look after him.”
Rodney observed her curiously. “What makes you think that’s necessary?”
Ariella glared forward, surveying her friends from afar and feeling a dark sense of Deja-vu.
“Because it was necessary last time,” she mumbled gravely. “Only I couldn’t do anything last time. But I can now…”
Rodney stared at her with an empathetic expression. Before he could inquire further, Ariella spoke on.
“What did you say before?” she asked. “Copycat Effect…?”
“Oh… yeah. A copycat crime is a criminal act that was inspired by another criminal act,” Rodney explained. “It’s a psychological phenomenon that happens when a criminal’s actions are sensationalized throughout a society, inspiring someone else to do the same thing out of imitation. Yet another thing that the media makes worse…”
“So… if there’s a new killer, he’s copying Cutthroat,” Ariella determined.
“Well… to a loose extent, but yes,” Rodney nodded. “And that little psycho, Zane… he fits the bill way too well.”
“You really think Zane is…?”
“He very well could be. It’s happened numerous times before. Between movies and media, the crazies in our society end up getting inspired to kill if they absorb too much of the propaganda. It’s happened with fake killers in movies, and it’s also happened with real killers in the news. And… considering the level of notoriety Cutthroat has attained, and the fear and the urgency that’s taken over this entire damn county because of him… it doesn’t surprise me at all that it’s happened here now.”
Ariella folded her arms over her legs, gazing directly ahead as her mind ventured into dark realms. Her heart gave a hard thump, her stomach churning.
“It’s Zane,” she grumbled. “I know it’s Zane…”
“You feel it in your gut, huh,” Rodney said softly, studying her closely.
Ariella nodded quietly.
Rodney nodded as well, both of them gazing into the darkness for a minute.
“Well,” he said, patting her on the back. “You and your friends can always come here. Zane won’t find you this far out.”
Ariella smirked at him, nodding in agreement as the two of them reached their feet, meandering off to join the group once more.