Chapter 6 – The Prime Suspect
731 Words
The police sirens cut through the night like blades. Red and blue lights strobed violently across the trees in Blackwood Park as officers swarmed the clearing, shouting orders, sealing off the horrific scene Damian and Isadora had discovered.
Damian stood at the edge of the chaos, jaw tight, fingers still stained with the victim’s blood from when he’d examined the body. He tried to steady his breathing, but every inhale dragged in the same choking scent of metal and rot.
Detective Rowan Pierce approached with the stiff gait of a man who already had his mind made up. “Blackwood,” he said, looking Damian up and down, “you’re everywhere you shouldn’t be lately.”
Damian exhaled sharply. “I called it in. Like any normal person would.”
Rowan’s gaze dropped to the note still sealed in a plastic bag.
“Funny,” he said, “how the killer seems to be… speaking directly to you.”
Damian didn’t respond.
Couldn’t respond.
Isadora stood several feet behind him, arms folded, face calm—too calm for someone who’d just witnessed a mutilated corpse. Rowan shifted his eyes toward her, then back to Damian.
“And who’s she? Your guide through the crime scenes?”
“Witness,” Damian snapped. “Same as me.”
Rowan’s jaw twitched. He didn’t believe it. “Stay available. Don’t leave town.”
“I live here,” Damian muttered.
Rowan turned away to bark orders, but Damian felt the weight of suspicion clinging to him like thick smoke. The officers weren’t looking for a killer anymore.
They were looking at him.
⸻
“Come on,” Damien said under his breath as he walked away from the scene, the cold air biting into his lungs. “Before they decide to cuff me.”
Isadora followed quietly, her steps soundless on the damp earth. “You handled that well.”
Damian shot her a glare. “I’m not interested in compliments.”
“Good,” she replied softly. “It wasn’t one.”
Once they cleared the woods and reached the road, Damian stopped, running a hand through his rain-soaked hair.
“That note,” he said. “Someone is framing me.”
“I know,” Isadora said.
His eyes narrowed. “You sound sure.”
“Because that’s what this is,” she replied. “A setup. A very elaborate one.”
Damian scoffed. “You say that like you know the killer.”
Her gaze held his for a moment—too steady, too knowing.
Then she looked away.
“Be careful with your assumptions, Damian. They might cost you.”
He wanted to push further, make her break that perfect composure—but her phone buzzed, slicing the tension. She glanced at the screen, her expression tightening just barely.
“I have to go,” she said.
Damian stepped in front of her. “Go where?”
She didn’t answer.
Just slipped past him silently and disappeared into the night.
Again.
⸻
Damian returned home long after midnight, exhausted, tense, and sick of breathing fear. He shut the door, leaned back against it, and dragged a hand down his face.
Then he froze.
His living room lights were on.
He never left them on.
Damian drew his gun immediately, stepping lightly across the floor. Every instinct screamed that the killer had finally crossed a line.
He scanned the room.
Everything was untouched.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
Until he saw it.
A small black box sitting in the center of his coffee table.
Damian approached slowly, gun raised. His pulse hammered against his ribs as he lifted the lid.
Inside was a single object—a Polaroid photo.
One taken tonight.
A picture of Damian in the woods.
Standing beneath the hanging body.
Holding the note.
Taken from only a few feet away.
Damian’s throat tightened. The killer had been there. Close. Close enough to see the whites of his eyes.
But the message didn’t end there.
The back of the photo had writing on it:
“You’re running out of time.”
Damian gripped the photo until it crinkled.
No more distance.
No more clues from afar.
The killer was in his home now.
Inside his world.
Watching him breathe.
And Damian Blackwood suddenly understood the truth:
The game had never been about the murders.
It had always been about him.
- Writer
