The Thirteenth Target

Chapter Three: Whispers Before Dawn

All of them left the room and went to the sitting room. Ivy did not sleep. She had tried, but every time her eyes closed, the note on the rock and the photograph she saw turned over and over in her head. She sat on the edge of the bed until the light came through the blinds and the city started to breathe again.

Gift was still asleep on the couch, covered in her thick comforter with her nebulizer laying on the side table close to her.

Ethan had dozed in his chair, phone face down, jaw tense. He looked older than he had yesterday. Ivy wanted to tell him everything and keep nothing from him, but she also wanted to keep him and Gift safe, which meant not saying too much.

She pressed the heel of her hand into her eyes and stood. Coffee, a quick change, and she was out the door.

By nine she was at her desk in the precinct. The office was busy but organized, the kind of chaos that looked controlled from the outside.

David was already standing by Ivy’s case board before she even logged in.

“You look tired,” he said without greeting.

“I am,” she said. “Five hours, at best. What have you got?”

He slid a small printout across the table towards her. “Forensics reran the samples. Same toxin family. Doctor grade. Precise dosing. The injection site was tiny, in the neck, easy to miss. Victims lived long enough to be conscious when they were marked.”

Ivy read it twice. The notion that the victims were conscious while marked did not make sense in her head. Someone who wanted to terrify them would prefer them dead first. This felt personal and cruel by design.

“Who has access to that level of stuff?” she asked.

“So many people in so many places,” Davis said. “Hospitals, research labs, private clinics. People with credentials, not amateurs. Also, CCTV shows a city fleet car parked near the location about twenty minutes before the victim arrived there.”

Ivy’s mouth went dry. “City fleet? How?”

“Yeah. Fleet sticker near the windshield. It could belong to any number of municipal services. We are running plates, but if someone wanted to move it, they could have used a rented plate or a borrowed car. The point is it was not a random passerby vehicle.”

She went into her thoughts, letting the small predictables fall into place. Everyone in the room assumed this pattern.

Captain Jax called a meeting at ten. He looked like someone who had slept poorly but forced himself to be softer than he felt. He spoke about the press, about the mayor, about how the public needed answers. Then he turned to Ivy.

“You are the one who reads patterns,” he said. “I want you leading the task force on this. Keep me informed. We will give you everything you need. And I promise you that your rank will be increased if you prove yourself worthy.”

“Okay boss.” She nodded and took the case as her responsibility.

After the meeting, she walked through the evidence room with Davis. She did not want to be the woman who panicked under pressure, so she asked a thousand small questions and catalogued each answer. Whoever had done this had access and method and the patience to make sure it looked like a professional medical personnel. That kept the city talking.

Her phone buzzed while she was in the elevators. Unknown number again. This time she answered because she wanted to know if the person on the other end was a patrol that had something to say, a tipster, anyone.

A man’s voice came through, low, clipped and sure. “You keep looking, Detective. He likes the company.”

The line went dead. No accent that mattered, no recorder noise, just a breath of a person. Her stomach clenched the way it did when she thought of Gift alone at night.

She stepped out of the elevator and saw a stack of paper on her desk. A forensics tech had left a fresh printout. She scanned it and found a small note attached, written in block letters.

Check footage for 2:10 to 2:40 a.m. Fleet car at Brightmoor Neighborhood.

Her fingers trembled as she added that message to her list of things to check. A fleet car was ordinary, but a fleet car used for a case like this felt so deliberate.

She worked through the morning and half the afternoon running clips and footages, marking times, calling labs and answering the phone when reporters tried to understand the situation. All of it felt like being underwater and trying to speak. No one looked guilty. No one’s face told tales. Everyone looked like saints. That made it worse.

At three o’clock, she stepped into her boss, Captain Jax’s office because he had asked for a quick update. He closed the door behind her because some conversations were sharper in private.

“You are handling this well,” he said. He had a folder in his hand. “I want to be careful with public messaging. Fear is the thing we cannot give away.” He looked at her like a man who trusted her more than he ever trusted another.

“I will keep it tight,” she said.

He handed her a file and folded his hands. “One more thing. There’s been chatter online. Travis Ward posted a list last night. A copy of it is in there. I want you to read it.”

She opened the file. The list had dates and names and a single phrase at the bottom, the same one people had been whispering for months. Thirteen innocent souls for one guilty soul. The last entry was blank, since the eleventh victim had not been chosen yet.

She swallowed hard. The paper felt heavier than any case file she had held.

On her way out she checked her phone. A new message, no number. A photograph. Gift asleep on the couch, mouth slightly open, a thin line of light from the television reflecting on her face. The photo was taken from an angle that meant someone had been in the room or had a camera watching the apartment. On the corner of the image, a number was written with a coffee stain or something like ink.

Eleven.

She became terrified. She had no proof of who had taken the picture or of how it had been sent. But the implication was simple, brutal, and immediate. Someone had the ability to watch her home, and wanted her to know.

She drove home. When she opened the door, Ethan looked up at her and his face folded with relief.

Gift looked exhausted from the couch as she blinked blearily. For a second everything was ordinary. Then Ivy took the photograph out and placed it on the kitchen counter.

Ethan’s face changed in the way she had seen only once before, when his mother was sick. “Who would do that?” he asked, hard and immediate.

Ivy did not answer right away. She only thought: If Travis Ward was around, then the city was right to fear him.

Her phone buzzed again. Unknown number. She read the new message.

“You were not supposed to find that picture. See you soon.”