CHAPTER 7 — One Last Secret
For almost a year...
Life was finally peaceful.
Max and I settled into our new home on the other side of the city.
There were no strange phone calls.
No anonymous messages.
No footsteps outside my door.
The nightmares slowly faded.
I thought the story had finally ended.
Then one rainy afternoon, Detective Harris called.
"I think we found something you should see."
At the evidence warehouse, he placed a sealed cardboard box on the table.
It had been overlooked during the investigation because it belonged to the maintenance contractor.
Inside were dozens of notebooks.
Old receipts.
Maps.
Hard drives.
And one small envelope with my name written across the front.
The handwriting wasn't the attacker's.
It belonged to someone else.
Inside was a single photograph.
It showed me...
Standing outside a coffee shop.
Laughing with a friend.
The date stamped in the corner made my stomach twist.
It had been taken almost two years before the attack.
Long before I testified in court.
Long before the man had gone to prison.
"That doesn't make any sense," I whispered.
Detective Harris nodded grimly.
"It doesn't."
Forensic analysts recovered deleted files from one of the hard drives.
Thousands of surveillance photos.
Not only of me...
But of dozens of women.
Every victim lived alone.
Every victim owned a dog.
Every victim followed almost the exact same daily routine.
The investigators uncovered the horrifying truth.
The attacker hadn't chosen me because of revenge.
He had already been stalking me long before the trial.
The court testimony had simply turned obsession...
Into murder.
I wasn't his first target.
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I was only the first one who survived.
Because of Max.
