Chapter 8

The motel room was so small that Mara needed only three steps to walk from the bed to the window. It was a convenient resting place arranged for her after a long series of days sitting through federal police interrogations.

The rain still hadn’t stopped. Raindrops tapped steadily against the tin roof, sliding down in long streaks over the fogged glass, causing the neon lights out in the parking lot to blur into smeared rings of red and blue.

Mara sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing the sweater she had hastily bought at a convenience store down the street. In front of her sat a transparent zip pouch. This was the sole item she had failed to hand over to the police during the investigation into the Black Pines incident.

She couldn’t explain the reason behind this daring act of uncooperativeness. This was undoubtedly a crucial piece of evidence to identify the person who had rescued her while killing the serial killer Wade Mercer. Mara had lied by omitting any mention of Silas. She simply stated that during the struggle, a man had stepped in to intervene. Because of the heavy rain and the pitch-black forest at the time, she couldn’t make out his face. The ambiguity of her statement had driven the police investigation into a complete dead end.

Now, she sat examining meticulously the items Silas had accidentally left behind. Black scribbles were written on the outside:

WADE MERCER

She stared at the name for a long time, then unzipped the pouch. The scent of old paper and moisture escaped. Inside was not just one or two loose documents, but an entire case file including photos, maps, neatly clipped newspaper cutouts, names, dates, and locations.

Mara picked up the first photo. It was Wade. He looked a few years younger in the picture, standing beside a pickup truck, smiling directly into the camera. An ordinary face, so normal that it made Mara’s stomach churn.

On the back of the photo was a handwritten line: “Three missing cases. Same hunting ground. No bodies found.” Mara flipped to the next page: the names of three women, their photos, ages, and dates of disappearance. One was twenty-three, one was thirty-one, and the last was only sixteen years old. Right on the neck of the youngest red-headed girl, Mara instantly recognized the familiar necklace with the sparkling gemstone bow pendant. Beside each name were brief notes written in the same handwriting: Wade’s schedule, locations marked as cabins in the Black Pines forest, vehicle license plates, the hunting seasons he usually appeared in, and the location of the campsite by the lake.

Mara felt her scalp go cold. Silas hadn’t met Wade by chance. He had been tracking Wade long before Mara drove her RV into those woods. She kept flipping through. A map folded in four dropped onto the bed. On it was a red circle drawn around Black Pine Lake. And a small X on the opposite side of the lake where she had parked her RV to camp. That was the very cabin where she had first met Silas. Mara froze. A passing thought forced her to put the papers down. Perhaps Silas already knew Wade was there, and that was the real reason he appeared among the tall grass with an injured arm that day. Not to stalk her, but to monitor Wade and uncover the items he had amassed from his unfortunate victims.

Mara looked back at the zip pouch. At the very bottom remained a single piece of paper, not an official police report or a newspaper article, but a handwritten sheet. On top was Wade’s name, and below was a short list: “Confirmed. Tendency to repeat hunting behavior. Still alive.” And the final line: “Find him before he finds new prey.”

Mara read that sentence twice, then a third time. Outside the window, a car drove past the wet road and vanished. Silence enveloped the room once more, leaving only a tired sigh as she pressed both hands against her face.

Silas was a killer, that fact hadn’t changed. She had seen enough to know what he was capable of doing. But now, on a cheap motel bed in the middle of town, she was forced to face another far more disturbing truth: Silas didn’t pick his victims at random, he hunted the ones who hunted people. And Wade had been in his crosshairs long before Mara became part of the hunt.

She slowly gathered the file. As she placed Wade’s photo back into the pouch, Mara suddenly realized something else. Silas could have easily taken this case file with him. He could have burned it, or let it disappear along with Wade. Yet, he had “accidentally dropped” it in the pine forest, right where she was guaranteed to find it.

- Could he possibly... - Mara stared at the zip pouch in her hand.

Her faint murmur almost dissolved into the sound of the rain. And for the first time since leaving the forest, Mara began to wonder if Silas truly wanted her to run away from him, or if he simply wanted her to possess enough truth to decide for herself whether to come back.

Mara located the small attic tucked deep inside a dark alley west of Black Pines town around noon the following day. The rain had ceased, but the air remained damp and cold, enough to make her shudder slightly as she climbed the old wooden staircase that creaked ominously with every step. She stood before the door for a long while before knocking. There was no response. Just as Mara was about to knock again, Silas’s voice echoed from behind her.