Page 29 of Her Last Secret

"Thank you for speaking with us," Rachel said, her voice low and steady, mindful of the delicate atmosphere. "Your strength is incredibly valuable to our investigation. We’ll leave our contact information with some of the people in the living room in the event you think of anything else."

Andy nodded, mustering a hollow semblance of gratitude. "We just want whoever did this to be caught."

As Rachel and Jack made their way out of the office, a relative brushed past them, offering a somber nod before slipping into the room to comfort Patricia and Andy. The muffled sounds of consolation ebbed away as the door closed behind them.

Stepping outside, the crisp air felt like a slap to Rachel's face, jolting her back to the task at hand. Her jaw set in determination, the pieces of the puzzle scattering in her mind, seeking connection. Despite the dead-end feeling gnawing at her gut, Rachel clung to the thread of truth they had uncovered. A potential stalker—a potential lead that had come directly from the mouth of one of the victims.

"Feels like we're grabbing at shadows," Jack murmured, echoing her thoughts as they walked down the path leading away from the house.

"Maybe," Rachel replied, her gaze fixed ahead. "But shadows are cast by something real. We'll find it, whatever it takes."

“That’s pretty deep,” Jack said with a tired grin.

They got back into the car with yet another vague lead, but no clear direction. And with night falling, Rachel couldn’t help but feel that the killer was out there, planning another strike while they fumbled blindly in the darkness.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The theater was a cavern of whispers and shadows, smothered in an expectant hush. The killer sat among the murmuring crowd, a spectator cloaked in the dim lighting. Faces around him were etched with sorrow, eyes glistening as subdued conversations brushed his ears.

He picked up on some of those conversations. News of the two dead actresses was quickly making its way among the theater community. Some people were questioning the thought behind continuing with performances in the wake of such tragedy, while others thought it was the right thing to do—something of a tribute to the fallen actresses.

He sneered at their naivety. How blind and stupid were these people? How heartless and immoral?

He heard fragments of dialogue, snippets of grief and absorbed them.

"She would have wanted us here," a woman whispered to her companion, clutching a playbill like a lifeline.

"To celebrate her life, her passion for the stage."

“Ah, but the show must go on, yes?”

It made him sick to his stomach. His grip tightened on the armrest of his seat, knuckles whitening. It was a grotesque charade, he thought, a mockery of the purity of death he had delivered. These people didn't understand the artistry behind his actions, the necessity of his mission. They thought the true art was what was communicated on the stage, but his work was the truest form of art he could imagine—the purest.

As the minutes passed, a breathless tension swelled within the auditorium. It was almost time for the show to begin. He shifted in his seat, anticipation coiling in his stomach like a restless serpent. His focus narrowed to the stage as the house lights dimmed further, plunging the theater into the twilight of expectancy.

Then, the curtains rose.

The stage bloomed into view, a meticulously crafted realm separate from reality. It was an intricate set—a Victorian drawing room rich in detail, from the delicate china perched on the mantelpiece to the heavy drapes that framed tall windows. The audience exhaled as one, and the performance began.

According to the playbill in his hand and the marketing he had read before purchasing his ticket, this was to be a small production—only four cast members and a total time of fifty minutes. And though he had actually come to appreciate these smaller productions, there was only one reason he was here tonight.

And there she was, stepping out onto the stage in an elegant costume and her bright, mischievous eyes: Rebecca Clarke.

She emerged from the wings, a vision of malevolence swathed in dark velvet. Her character was a villainous specter, threading through the narrative with a dangerous grace that belied the horrors she would unfold. His gaze latched onto her every movement with an unsettling intensity.

It almost made him sad. Almost. She was very good and quite beautiful. She had that easy and effortless look of glamour from the 1970s. It was such a shame that she was wicked, that she had true darkness in her heart.

It was a shame he was going to have to kill her.

Rebecca moved across the stage, her voice a silken menace that ensnared the audience. He watched, unblinking, as she wove her duplicitous web, entrapping her fellow characters in a dance of deceit. His fingers tapped an erratic rhythm against his thigh, the beat a discordant echo of his accelerating pulse. He started to sweat, to imagine what it would be like to watch those gorgeous eyes widen in horror as she realized what was to come.

There was something about Rebecca, something that transcended the footlights and the painted backdrops. She wasn’t merely acting; she was conjuring truth from fiction, breathing life into wickedness. And it was this—this blurring of lines—that he found intolerable.

The play unfolded, each scene a step closer to the inexorable climax, and his fixation on Rebecca only intensified. What the others saw as a mere portrayal, he saw as an affront—an affront that demanded retribution. As the final act drew near, his thoughts churned with the dark undercurrents of his purpose. He could see what was coming, knew it was on the way. He could feel it brimming not only from the stage but in the anticipation of those in the crowd.

As time trickled past, the audience remained oblivious to the tempest brewing in one corner of the room. He could see the strings of the puppet show; they glinted in the stage light, invisible to all but him. The minutes stretched into half an hour, shadows playing across his vision, mirroring the darkness swelling inside him.

His hands clenched tighter around the armrests hard enough to ache as the plot wove toward its inevitable end. Rebecca's character prowled the stage, her eyes reflecting the stage lights like those of a predator in the night. His own breaths came in shallow, ragged pulls, his focus sharpening to a razor's edge as the final scene unfurled before him.

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