Threads in the Dark
913 Words
The coffee in Jessie’s mug had gone cold hours ago, forgotten beside her laptop, where photos from the latest crime scene stared back at her—lifeless eyes, mutilated flesh, the word guilty carved into the victim’s abdomen with haunting precision.
It wasn’t her work.
She leaned back on the worn leather couch in her dimly lit apartment, rubbing her eyes. The blinds were still closed even though daylight had long since broken. Sunlight had no place here today—not when someone was mimicking her.
Jessie didn’t scare easily. She had lived through hell, emerged from it sharp and calculating. But this? This rattled her in a way she hadn’t anticipated. Someone out there was speaking her language, but with a dialect that didn’t belong. She could feel it in her bones: they weren’t like her. They didn’t understand the code.
And that made them dangerous.
A knock at the door startled her—not forceful, just familiar.
She checked the peephole out of habit and opened it.
Levi stood there, wearing his usual faded jeans and an oversized hoodie, his laptop bag slung over one shoulder. He raised a brow.
“You didn’t show up for breakfast at Marlow’s,” he said. “Figured I’d find you hiding in your cave.”
Jessie gave a faint smile. “I didn’t feel like waffles today.”
He walked in without being asked and dropped his bag on the table. “Now I know something’s wrong.”
Jessie hesitated, then shut the door and locked it. The sound of the deadbolt echoed louder than it should’ve. She stood with her back to the door for a moment, bracing herself.
Levi watched her with quiet curiosity, but didn’t press for further information.
She crossed the room and sat down on the couch, motioning for him to take the armchair across from her.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
His brows furrowed. “Jess... yeah. What’s going on?”
“There’s a killer out there,” she said. “Not just any killer—a copycat. They’re mimicking a very specific style.”
Levi tilted his head. “How specific are we talking?”
Jessie leaned forward and tapped the trackpad. The photo on the screen zoomed in—a close-up of the body from the rail yard murder: the word guilty, stitched into the skin with precision, letters nearly identical to the ones in her own crimes.
Levi’s face tensed. “Jesus. you think it’s someone inside law enforcement?”
“I don’t know,” Jessie replied. “But whoever it is—they’re close. They knew exactly what to do. They knew how to leave almost no trace. Almost.”
Levi stared at her, something clicking in his eyes. “And this style… it’s not public knowledge, is it?”
Jessie’s jaw clenched. “Not unless someone found a way to get access to old case files that never made the news.”
“And you think this isn’t their first time.”
“It’s not,” she said. “This is the third body I’ve come across in the last four months that looked too... familiar.”
Levi leaned back slowly, mind working fast. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
Jessie hesitated again. “Because I wanted to be sure. And because I couldn’t explain how I knew.”
His gaze sharpened on her, but he didn’t push further. He’d known Jessie long enough to know she had her secrets.
“You want me to look into it,” he said.
“I want you to dig around. Quietly. Look at the forensics reports, see what you can pull on the timing, locations, anything consistent. Don’t flag anything officially. Not yet.”
“And if I find a pattern?”
“Then we act. Carefully. Until then, we assume nothing and trust no one.”
Levi nodded. “Not even the people we work with.”
Jessie looked out the window, where a sliver of daylight cut through the edge of the blinds.
“Especially the people we work with,” she whispered.
Later that Night
Levi sat alone at his desk, surrounded by glowing screens. He sipped on an energy drink, fingers flying over the keyboard as he cross-referenced police reports, medical examiner files, and forensic timelines. Jessie’s instincts had never been wrong before, and this time, she seemed... unsettled.
Three victims. All males. All with past criminal charges—two be acquitted, one released on a technicality. All found with guilty stitched into their skin.
But something else caught his eye.
The wounds were deep, yes, but the stitching on the most recent body was cleaner. More refined. Like the killer was improving, evolving. The technique had changed slightly—Jessie hadn’t noticed that, or maybe she hadn’t wanted to. But Levi did. The spacing between letters. The shape of the "Y"—now curved instead of angular.
Not a copycat, he thought.
An imitator trying to outdo the original.
He wrote a note for Jessie:
“They’re not just copying you… they’re challenging you.”
But Levi didn’t send it. Not yet.
Instead, he kept digging. Because somewhere in the shadows of the data, behind the blurred crime scene photos and redacted reports, was a name. A thread that connected all the murders.
He just had to find it. What he would do with that information and how could he use it to protect Jessie.
- Writer
