Chapter 2 - Chapter 2 – The Man Who Watches

The coffee in the station machine tasted like burned plastic and old rain.Adrian sipped it anyway, sitting at the end of a long, scratched wooden table in the homicide unit. A stack of files lay open in front of him, crime scene photos clipped to thin reports, paper edges curled from years of fingers and frustration.The room around him was a low murmur of voices, phones ringing, keyboards clicking. Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, washing everything in a pale, tired blue.On the wall to his left, a digital clock read 09:42.On the wall to his right, a television played a muted news channel—bright smiles, scrolling headlines, distant disasters.Inside the room, the air smelled like recycled air conditioning, ink, and too much instant coffee. Outside, somewhere across the city, the woman in Apartment 3B was being zipped into a black bag.Adrian flipped another page.Victim: Lena Hartman. Age 34. Accountant. Lived alone. No known history of violence. No children. Parents in another city. One minor hospitalization for anxiety three years ago; prescribed medication, never refilled the prescription.A neat life on paper.Neat enough to hide in.He studied her picture—an ID photo clipped to the file. Brown hair tucked behind her ears, faint shadows under her eyes, the kind of tight, tired smile people gave cameras when they didn't want to be there."She didn't sleep for three years," he murmured, almost to himself.The words on the wall hadn't been random. He could feel that much. Whoever had written them hadn't been guessing. It had been a statement, not a metaphor.He pictured Lena's apartment again—the single coat on the rack, the silent television, the untouched cup of tea."Did you ask her employer about her performance?" he asked without looking up.Detective Lara Hayes sat across from him, elbows on the table, fingers wrapped around her own cup of coffee. She had taken off her coat, revealing a dark blouse with a faint crease where a bulletproof vest sometimes pressed. Papers were spread out in front of her in a less organized arc than his."We called them," she said. "They said she was… reliable. Precise. Worked late a lot. Never caused trouble." She took a sip, pulled a face at the taste, and put the cup down. "No complaints on record. No warnings. No drama."He hummed under his breath."Reliable, precise, quiet." He turned one of the crime scene photos slightly so the light didn't reflect off the plastic. "People like that can disappear while standing in the middle of a room full of friends.""Friends," Lara repeated. She pulled another file closer, flipping it open. "We only found two who'd actually spoken to her in the last month. Both say the same thing: she was tired all the time, but she said work was just busy. No one noticed anything… extreme.""Of course they didn't," Adrian said. "People don't like noticing things they can't fix."He closed his eyes for a moment.He saw Lena again, sitting on the floor, back against the sofa, veins emptied neatly. No signs of panic, no torn carpet, no broken nails. Old scars on her wrist—quiet, private battles no one else had seen or had chosen not to see."She didn't sleep for three years," he repeated softly. "If that's true, she didn't just have insomnia. She was at war with her own mind."A chair scraped the floor behind him."Cole."The voice was rough, bored, and carried the dry weight of too many years in the job.Adrian opened his eyes.Captain Marcus Doyle stood near the doorway, tie crooked, grey creeping into the edges of his dark hair. He had the permanent squint of someone who'd spent half his life narrowing his eyes at bad news."You playing poet with my crime scene again?" Doyle asked.Adrian set the file down. "Not my crime scene.""Feels like it's about to be," Doyle said, moving closer. He picked up one of the photos without asking. "You pulled this 'pattern' word out awfully fast this morning."Lara straightened a little. "Captain, he's just—""It's fine," Adrian said calmly. "He's right to ask."Doyle snorted. "I'm right to worry. My officers are overworked, half my budget's missing, and now I've got a body with a throat like a zipper and handwriting on the wall. You say 'serial' in front of a reporter, and the mayor starts breathing down my neck before lunch."Adrian glanced at the muted TV. The headlines hadn't caught up yet. They would."I didn't say it in front of a reporter," he replied. "I said it in front of you.""And Hayes," Doyle added. "And two uniforms who pretend they don't listen, but will repeat your words over cigarettes in the parking lot."Adrian leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking softly."You want my honest analysis, or something easier to tell your superiors?" he asked.Doyle gave him a long, flat look."I want to know if I should be expecting another body," he said. "Soon."Adrian considered the question. Not the answer—he already knew what he believed—but the weight of putting it into words."He didn't rush," Adrian said slowly. "The scene was too controlled. The room was cleaned of noise, not evidence. He brought the painting. He wrote the sentence. He took his time to create… something.""A message?" Lara suggested."A composition," Adrian corrected. "Messages are for others. Compositions are for themselves."Doyle's brow furrowed. "English, Cole.""He's not panicking," Adrian said plainly. "He's satisfied. He didn't kill in anger. He killed to make a point. People like that don't finish after one point. They write essays."Silence settled for a moment.On the far side of the room, someone laughed at a joke too loudly, then fell quiet when they noticed who was listening.Doyle put the photo back down. Carefully. As if the paper might burn his fingers."How long?" he asked.Adrian blinked once. "How long until the next one?"Doyle nodded.Adrian thought of the neat line on Lena's throat. The steady, unhurried handwriting. The way the room had felt—like the air itself had been arranged."If he has a list," Adrian said, "it won't be long. If that was… an experiment, a first attempt, he might wait. Refine. Study the reaction.""Reaction," Doyle repeated. "You mean us.""Yes," Adrian said. "Us. Her. Them." He gestured toward the invisible mass of the city beyond the station walls. "Whoever he's watching."Doyle rubbed a hand over his jaw, the skin rasping against his stubble."Is he watching you?" he asked suddenly.Lara's head snapped toward him. "Captain—""It's a valid question," Doyle cut in. He looked directly at Adrian. "You think you're not famous, Cole, but people talk. 'The Mind Reader' who helps homicide. The guy who looks at a room and sees ghosts. You don't get to walk around calling killers 'composers' and not make an impression."Adrian held his gaze."I don't know if he's watching me," he said. "But I know he wants to be seen."Doyle watched him for a moment longer, then sighed."Hayes," he said, turning away. "Keep it quiet. No leaks to the press yet. Officially, this is a single homicide. Tragic, but contained.""And unofficially?" Lara asked.Doyle's eyes went back to Adrian."Unofficially," the captain said, "you and Cole are going to assume he's right. You're going to treat this like the first of many. Quietly."Lara nodded once. "Understood."Doyle started to leave, then paused near the doorway."And, Cole," he added without turning around. "If you're wrong, I'll be happy. If you're right, I'm going to hate how much I need you."He walked out.The murmur of the room grew back to its usual volume, filling the space his presence had pressed down.Lara let out a breath she'd been holding a little too long."You could try sounding less certain," she muttered. "He responds badly when you sound like you're reading from a script.""I don't read scripts," Adrian said. "I read rooms."She gave him a flat look that was only half-annoyed."Do you think he's watching you?" she asked, echoing Doyle's question but in a different tone—less practical, more personal.Adrian picked up the photo of the wall writing again.SHE DIDN'T SLEEP FOR THREE YEARS.He traced the edge of the print with his thumb, stopping where the black letters ended."I think he wants to be understood," he said. "And that usually means one of two things: he's talking to the police as an institution… or he's talking to someone specific.""And you think that someone is you," Lara said quietly.He tilted his head slightly."I think," he replied, "that I understand the need to be seen by the right eyes."Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, as if she were trying to decide whether that answer worried her."Okay," she said finally. "Walk me through your head, then. Start with the sentence. 'She didn't sleep for three years.' Why write that and not, I don't know, 'I killed her' or some manifesto rubbish?"Adrian put the photo down, then folded his hands on the table."Because he doesn't believe he killed her," he said. "Not really."Lara frowned. "Come again?""He thinks he ended something that was already dying," Adrian said. "Or something that was… broken. To him, the sentence is the justification. He's not bragging about the cut. He's underlining the suffering that came before."He tapped the file lightly."She had old scars on her wrist. Faded. Parallel. That's not attention-seeking self-harm. That's quiet, private attempts. She survived them. Lived. Kept going. But she paid for it with sleep. Night after night."Lara studied his face."You're very sure about the sleep," she said.He nodded once. "The writing isn't a guess. It's a fact, in his mind. That means he researched her. Watched her. Maybe even… talked to her.""The neighbors said she didn't have visitors," Lara said. "No regular ones, anyway.""Regular visitors are loud," Adrian said. "The kind of people neighbors remember. He doesn't seem like the regular type."A beat of silence."Do you think she knew him?" Lara asked.Adrian considered that."Yes," he said at last. "On some level. Not as 'the killer'. Maybe as a… support. A listener. Someone who understood her exhaustion."Lara's jaw tightened. "That makes it worse.""It makes it effective," Adrian said.She glared at him. "We're not grading him.""I am," he said softly. "That's my job."The silence that followed was sharper this time.He looked down at his coffee. It had gone cold. He drank it anyway.The door to the unit opened again, this time without the weight of authority. A young man stepped in, juggling a camera bag and a laptop case, hair slightly too long over his forehead, shirt one button short of professional."Detective Hayes?" he called, scanning the room.Lara pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh, no."The young man's eyes landed on their table. His face lit up with a mixture of recognition and opportunism."There you are," he said, heading over. "I've been calling your phone for the past hour.""Maybe that's because I didn't want to talk to you, Elias," Lara replied.He stopped at the edge of the table, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet.Elias Ward. Crime reporter. Too clever for his own good, according to half the department. Useful, according to the other half.He glanced at Adrian, pupils sharpening."And you brought your favorite brain," Elias said, smiling. "Perfect."Adrian stared back, unblinking."You shouldn't be in here," Lara continued. "This is a restricted area."Elias lifted both hands in mock surrender. "Relax. I'm not recording. Yet." He dropped his hands and leaned forward a little. "But since you're both here and not out chasing burglars, I'm going to assume the rumors about the 'interesting' body this morning are true.""There are no rumors," Lara said evenly. "And even if there were, you'd be the one starting them."Elias grinned. "I'll take that as a compliment."He shifted his attention fully to Adrian now, curiosity bright in his eyes."So," he said. "Adrian Cole. The man who sees monsters in wallpaper patterns. What did you see today?"Adrian looked at him for a long moment, as if weighing his mass, his intentions, his utility.Then he said, "A woman who lost a war in slow motion. And someone who decided to write the last line for her."Elias's expression flickered. He hadn't been expecting something that grim, that quickly.He recovered with a small, nervous chuckle."Cryptic as always," he said. "But that confirms at least one thing: it was interesting."Lara's eyes hardened."Elias," she said warningly.He lifted a shoulder. "Relax. I'm off the record. For now. I just came to ask you both to… be careful what you don't say.""That's a new one," Lara said. "Reporters telling us to be careful, not the other way around."Elias glanced around, then lowered his voice."If this is what I think it is," he said, "it won't stay quiet. People talk, officers talk, neighbors talk. You keep it too tight, and the first headline that hits the public won't be from me. It'll be from someone who doesn't care how much they scare people."Adrian watched him with renewed interest."And you care?" Adrian asked.Elias met his gaze."I care about truth," he said. "And about being first with it. In that order. Most days."Adrian almost smiled."What do you think it is?" he asked.Elias hesitated, then said, "I think it's the beginning of a story people will want to read. Or be terrified to read. Which is the same thing, really."He straightened, tapping the edge of the table with his fingertips."I'll stay out of your way—for now," he said. "But when you're ready to talk, I want you to talk to me first. Because you know as well as I do, Cole—"He tilted his head."—monsters love an audience."He left before Lara could throw something at him.The door closed behind him with a soft click.Lara exhaled slowly. "I hate that he's good at his job," she muttered.Adrian looked back down at the files."He's not wrong," he said. "About the audience."She rubbed her temples. "You think the killer wants fame, then? Attention? Headlines?""Not headlines," Adrian said. "Not yet. He wants the right pair of eyes. The right mind. One that won't dismiss him as noise."He paused."He wants to be understood," he repeated. "And he's willing to kill for that."Lara's voice dropped. "You're talking like you know him."Adrian's fingers tightened around the edge of the file, the paper bending slightly."I know the type," he said quietly.He stood, gathering a smaller pile of papers."Where are you going?" Lara asked."To meet someone who might have watched her not sleep," Adrian said. "Her building has a convenience store on the corner. A night clerk, if I remember the sign right. Someone had to sell her coffee, cigarettes, whatever she used to stay awake.""And you think the clerk is going to just… tell you deep psychological truths?" Lara asked."No," Adrian said. "But he's been counting the nights too. He just doesn't know it."He slid the files into a thin folder."I'll call you if I find anything.""You will call me," she corrected. "Or I'll send Doyle to drag you back."He gave a faint nod and headed toward the door.As he stepped out of the unit, the station noise thinned into a more distant hum. The corridor smelled faintly of cleaning chemicals and worn linoleum.He walked past bulletin boards layered with old notices, missing persons posters, charity leaflets curling at the corners. Faces stared back at him from grainy photos, frozen mid-laugh, mid-blink, mid-life.He didn't look at them for long.On the exit door, someone had stuck a small sticker near the handle: a cartoon ghost saying, I'm watching you.Adrian pushed the door open and stepped out into the grey daylight.The city greeted him with the same tired traffic, the same impatient horns, the same people moving through their morning routines as if nothing had shifted beneath their feet.He knew better.Somewhere in the web of streets and windows and anonymous rooms, someone was watching this ordinary day with a different kind of attention.Calculating.Judging.Waiting to see who would understand the shape of his first sentence.Adrian pulled his coat tighter—not against the cold, but against the thin, invisible line that ran from that quiet apartment to somewhere he hadn't seen yet.He crossed the street toward his car.Behind his calm expression, behind the measured pace of his steps, the lock in his mind turned another small, precise notch.The game had started.And whether the killer knew it or not, Adrian Cole was already reading his handwriting.