Chapter 307: Tick-Tock
The silence that followed those words—"Hello, Detective"—settled into the room like ash, coating everything in that stillness only predators can create.
I took a breath, slow, steady, the band on my wrist snapping softly as I shifted my weight.
"Who is this?" I asked, even though I knew.
A chuckle, light and dry, filtered through the phone. "Come on, Detective. You’re sharper than that."
His voice was exactly what I expected—calm, almost kind, but with that hollow emptiness in the tone, like it had been carved out of him and replaced with something else. A voice used to waiting, watching, planning.
"Hyena."
"Now we’re on the same page."
I glanced at Grant, who was watching me, eyes wide and bloodshot, waiting for any sign of what to do next. The patrolmen were frozen, shifting uncomfortably, hands near weapons they couldn’t use on a voice over a line.
"You expected us to find this place," I said.
"Of course I did." His voice was light, conversational. "You don’t do what I do for this long without assuming something will go wrong eventually. I knew you’d find this place, find the pictures, find the board. I regret making noise at Jacob’s house, truly. Maybe if I’d been quieter, you’d have never heard me in the attic."
My jaw tightened, remembering that night, the way the boards creaked above, the glimpse of pale hair in the dark before he vanished. A mistake on his part. One he didn’t usually make.