Clare did not tell Anna she was mistaken. She did not offer reassurance merely because reassurance was what sisters were supposed to provide. She locked the front door, took off her coat, and asked, “Where's Dererick?”
“Coming home.”
“How soon?”
“I don't know.”
Clare checked the window. “Then show me what you found.”
They went upstairs instead of using Dererick's study. Anna retrieved the copied drive from the planter and wrapped it in a towel before carrying it to the bedroom, absurdly conscious of the dirt beneath her fingernails.
Clare noticed.
“You buried it?”
“I panicked.”
“No. That's fine.”
That answer helped more than sympathy would have.
They sat on the floor with Anna's laptop between them.
Anna showed her the photographs first.
Notebook pages.
Dates.
Initials.
Dosages.
Observations.
Clare's medical training changed the way she read them. Her eyes moved rapidly, then returned to several entries.
“These quantities,” she said.
“What?”
“I don't know what substance he's referring to. But the way he's documenting this—weight, timing, response—this isn't casual.”
Anna swallowed. “I know.”
“No, I mean somebody is trying to measure an effect.”
The clinical wording made Anna cold.
She opened the copied files.
Clare stared at the folders.
They examined only enough images to establish a pattern. Sleeping people. Hotel rooms. Bedrooms. Camera placements.
Some faces repeated.
Others appeared once.
Clare leaned back against the bed.
“We call the police.”
Anna had expected the sentence.
Hearing it still frightened her.
“What do I tell them?”
“The truth.”
“That my husband gives me tea and I secretly copied his files?”
“That you observed him preparing a syringe beside you while recording you without your consent.”
“He'll say I misunderstood.”
Clare looked at her sharply. “Anna.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Anna closed the laptop.
“What if he gets home before they do anything? What if the files aren't enough? What if he knows I've copied them?”
Clare rubbed both hands over her face.
She was exhausted, but her voice remained steady.
“Then you don't stay here tonight.”
Anna nodded.
That decision had already been made.
The harder question was whether leaving immediately would protect the other names on the list—or warn Dererick before anyone could identify them.
Clare opened the laptop again.
“We make another copy.”
They copied the files onto Clare's drive.
Anna emailed several photographs to a newly created account whose password Dererick could not know.
Clare photographed the notebook photographs.
Redundancy became safety.
Then Mr. Peterson called.
Anna answered immediately.
“His car just turned onto the block.”
Both sisters stood.
“How long?”
“Less than a minute.”
Clare grabbed the drive.
Anna closed the laptop.
“Back door,” she said.
They moved downstairs.
Clare hesitated. “You're coming.”
Anna looked toward the front hall.
If both disappeared seconds before Dererick entered, he would know something had happened.
“No.”
Clare stared at her as though she had spoken another language.
“No?”
“You go. Take the copy.”
“Absolutely not.”
“If he finds us together with bags packed, it's over.”
“We don't know what he's capable of.”
“Exactly.”
The garage door began to rise.
Anna pushed the drive into Clare's hand.
“Go to Peterson's.”
“Anna—”
“Please.”
Clare's face tightened.
The back door closed behind her seconds before the internal garage door opened.
Anna was rinsing a cup when Dererick entered.
She turned.
“Hey.”
Dererick set his keys down.
His gaze moved around the kitchen.
For one terrible moment Anna thought he knew.
Then he smiled.
“You're dressed early.”
“Couldn't sleep.”
His eyes rested on her.
Anna felt exposed down to the pulse in her throat.
“Bad night?”
“Just restless.”
Dererick crossed the kitchen and kissed her cheek.
She let him.
His hand settled briefly at her waist.
Anna thought of latex gloves.
“Want tea?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Dererick's hand stopped.
Anna corrected herself.
“I've had enough caffeine.”
“Chamomile doesn't have caffeine.”
She smiled.
“Then apparently I don't know anything.”
Something unreadable passed through his expression.
Then he laughed.
“Clearly.”
He went upstairs.
Anna stood motionless until she heard the shower.
Her phone buzzed.
Clare.
I'm across the street. LEAVE.
Anna typed:
Soon.
She needed the notebook.
Not physically. Photographs might be enough.
But there was something else she had noticed during the rushed search: initials repeated beside symbols that did not correspond to the recordings.
If Dererick had accomplices, leaving without understanding that could expose Clare, Peterson, and anyone they approached.
Anna went to the study.
She opened the drawer.
The notebook was there.
She used Peterson's old trick without yet knowing he would later give her the tool for it: she kept the room dark and used only the weak glow from the hallway.
She photographed the remaining pages.
Names appeared beside addresses.
Some she recognized.
A woman from a boutique downtown.
Someone Clare knew from yoga.
A café employee.
A neighbor.
Anna's private nightmare widened until it touched ordinary people she had greeted without knowing they occupied Dererick's records.
Then she found a heading.
Monitoring.
Beneath it were categories.
Routine.
Isolation.
Trust.
Access.
Anna's skin prickled.
The notes did not describe random attacks.
They described a process.
Dererick studied people.
He learned where they went.
Who they trusted.
When they were alone.
What made them vulnerable.
The tea had been one piece of something much larger.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Anna closed the notebook.
Too late.
Footsteps entered the hallway.
She locked the drawer, replaced the key and moved toward the door.
Dererick appeared.
Wet hair.
Clean shirt.
Bare feet.
“What are you doing?”
Anna's mind emptied.
Then she held up the printer paper she had grabbed without thinking.
“Printer's out again.”
Dererick looked at the printer.
Then at her.
“It has paper.”
“Apparently it hates me.”
He walked past.
Anna forced herself not to retreat.
Dererick opened the tray, adjusted the stack and pressed a button.
The machine hummed.
A page emerged.
“There.”
Anna smiled.
“My hero.”
The phrase almost made her sick.
Dererick glanced at the desk.
Nothing was out of place.
Anna had made certain of that.
Still, he lingered.
“You sure you're okay?”
“Yes.”
“You seem nervous.”
“Didn't sleep, remember?”
He studied her for another moment.
Then his phone rang.
Anna had never been so grateful for a sound.
Dererick answered and walked into the kitchen.
She left the study.
Minutes later he announced he needed to go out again.
“Work?”
“Something like that.”
Anna nodded.
She did not ask where.
At the window, she watched his car leave.
Across the street, Peterson raised his book slightly.
A signal.
Clare returned through the back door almost immediately.
“You're insane.”
“I got more.”
“Anna.”
“Look.”
Clare wanted to argue.
Then she saw the photographs.
They spent the next hour cataloguing what Anna had captured.
The same vocabulary repeated.
Approach.
Observe.
Isolate.
Introduce.
Contain.
Beside certain names were notes about insomnia, medication, grief, loneliness, work schedules and family conflicts.
Clare's expression hardened.
“He's building profiles.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
Anna looked at the sleeping figures on the computer.
“I think we already know part of the answer.”
Clare pointed toward a name.
“I know her.”
Anna leaned closer.
The woman had attended one of Clare's yoga workshops.
The connection was slight but real.
Suddenly Clare was not simply helping her sister investigate a dangerous husband. Dererick's records had reached into her own social circle.
“We're leaving,” Clare said.
This time Anna agreed.
Before they went, she crossed to Mr. Peterson's porch.
He listened while Anna explained enough to make the danger clear.
The old man did not interrupt.
When she finished, he said, “I've seen him outside at strange hours.”
Anna's pulse quickened.
“Doing what?”
“Trash sometimes. Carrying that black bag once or twice.”
“You saw the bag?”
“I didn't know it mattered.”
Peterson frowned toward Anna's house.
“There was something else. A car used to stop near your place after midnight. Never long.”
“What kind?”
“Dark sedan. Couldn't tell you the make.”
“Who was driving?”
“Never got a good look.”
Anna and Clare exchanged a glance.
Another person.
Possibly.
Peterson disappeared inside and returned with a small penlight and a folded sheet of paper.
The paper contained numbers for local shelters, a legal clinic and several emergency services.
“Keep both,” he said.
Anna took them.
“You've had this list?”
“I've lived seventy-two years. You collect useful things.”
He looked at Clare.
“Don't let her come back here alone.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
Anna almost protested.
She stopped herself.
The instinct to preserve normality had kept her trapped long enough.
They loaded the tote into Clare's car.
Before leaving, Anna looked back at the house.
The curtains were open.
The kitchen window reflected morning light.
From outside, nothing distinguished it from any other home.
That disturbed her now.
How many houses contained lives that looked harmless from the pavement?
Clare started the engine.
“We go somewhere safe, then the police.”
Anna nodded.
Her phone buzzed.
Dererick.
She opened the message.
Where are you?
Anna stared at the words.
Another appeared.
And why was Clare here?
Her blood went cold.
Clare saw her expression.
“What?”
Anna turned the screen toward her.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Peterson, still standing beside the car, looked toward the corner.
His face changed.
“Drive.”
Clare shifted into gear.
Anna twisted in her seat.
A dark sedan had turned onto the street.
It slowed in front of their house.
Not Dererick's car.
The driver remained indistinct behind the windshield.
Then the sedan continued toward them.
Clare accelerated.
Anna clutched the copied drive inside her coat.
Until that moment, she had believed she was trying to escape one man.
Watching the sedan remain behind them through the first two turns, she understood that assumption might have been dangerously wrong.
