Chapter 38: Police Can't Help

Chapter 38: Police Can't Help
The sun bled through a low ceiling of clouds as Lena stepped into the precinct. A sick weight sat in her chest like she'd swallowed concrete. She clutched her phone tightly, the new recording downloaded and time-stamped, waiting like a dagger on her screen.

Detective Ray greeted her with a nod, waving her into a back office they’d used before—quiet, away from the buzz of the floor. She sat down without a word. The tightness in her throat had choked her since last night.

“I got it,” she said. “He said her name. Kara. He described the red silk. The river. The numbness. He confessed.”

Ray opened a notepad. His face, always composed, seemed heavier today. “I listened to it. Three times. It’s chilling, no question. But…”

That pause. That damn pause.

“But what?”

“Sleep talk is inadmissible in court, Lena. Even if it’s him speaking about a crime, without context or a voluntary statement, it’s not a confession. It’s not actionable. It’s just...dreams.”

Lena blinked. “Are you kidding me?”

“If we had a video of him confessing? Done. But him talking in his sleep? The defense will shred that. It’ll never make it to trial.”

Her voice cracked. “So what—you’re telling me we do nothing?”

Ray didn’t look at her when he said, “I’m telling you the law doesn’t move on suspicion. Even strong suspicion. It moves on proof.”

She stood too fast. Her chair screeched across the floor.

“What about the shrine? The emails? The profiler?”

“They all point in the right direction,” Ray said calmly. “But none of it proves Ethan committed murder. He’s smart, Lena. He never put his hands on anything directly. No fingerprints at any scene. No DNA. Nothing physical.”

“He talks in his sleep about drowning Kara—”

“That’s not physical evidence,” Ray cut in. “That’s interpretation. Even the profiler said as much: Ethan’s building a fantasy, not necessarily acting on it—at least not in ways we can trace.”

Lena’s hands trembled. She wanted to scream. She wanted to tear the walls down.

“He did it, Ray. You know he did it.”

Ray’s voice softened. “Yeah, Lena. I believe he did it. But believing isn’t proving. We don’t get to prosecute on belief.”

She slumped back into the chair. The rage drained from her like water from a cracked vase.

“He’s going to walk,” she whispered.

“Unless something new comes in, yeah.”

Ray leaned forward.

“He’s watching you. We know that now. But you need to be careful. We can’t protect you if you act alone.”

Her laugh was bitter. “Then who protects the rest of us from him?”

That night, Lena sat alone in her apartment, her phone in her hand. The recording still there. So was the profiler’s analysis. So was Eliza’s whispered story. The shrine. The pendant. The perfume bottles. The emails.

All of it real.

All of it not enough.

She played the message again. Ethan’s voice, soft and sleepy:

"Red silk… like Kara. No bruises. She liked it."

Her hands clenched.

She thought of Kara’s laugh. Of her warning. Of the way she fought for Lena when nobody else would.

Then she thought of the cold body pulled from the Hudson. And how Ethan smiled over scrambled eggs the next morning.

She made a choice.

If the police couldn’t stop him, then she would.

She wasn't a cop.

She wasn’t bound by the same rules.

The next day, Lena returned to Hermetica Self-Storage. She stood outside Ethan’s old unit, now locked and sealed with crime scene tape. They’d catalogued it. Photographed it. But none of it proved murder.

She walked the perimeter anyway. Took photos of the alleyways. The gate security. Memorized the angle of the surveillance camera she’d seen earlier.

Next, she visited the running path by Riverside Park where the fourth woman had died.

She ran it herself.

She timed how long it took from the waterline to Ethan’s apartment by car.

She built her own map of his habits—every bar, every alley, every place he liked to visit.

If the cops couldn’t trap him…

She would.

By the third day, Lena wasn’t eating much. She wasn’t sleeping well either.

But she was watching.

Ethan didn’t suspect a thing.

He still smiled when they talked. Still wrapped his arm around her at night. Still whispered good morning in her ear.

But Lena wasn’t smiling anymore.

She was studying him.

At the precinct, Ray pulled her aside again.

“What are you doing, Lena?”

“Working.”

“You’re not on the payroll.”

“Neither is Ethan.”

He sighed. “If you get hurt, I can’t protect you.”

She met his eyes. “Then help me get what you need to protect all the other women he’s targeting next.”

Ray handed her a small thumb drive. “One of the girls we interviewed before Kara... she came forward. We have her statement. Not enough to convict. But enough to maybe get Ethan to crack—if he thinks the world is closing in.”

That night, Lena asked Ethan over for dinner.

She made pasta. His favorite.

She laughed when he told a story about Paris, touched his arm when he mentioned a tough meeting.

She waited.

And then, casually, she said, “You ever hear from that girl you dated? What was her name? The one before Kara.”

Ethan froze.

Just for a second.

Then smiled. “I dated a lot of women.”

“Sure,” she said. “But this one… she had a scar.”

That smile faltered. Just a little. “You’ve been asking questions.”

“Of course I have,” Lena said lightly. “I like to know who I’m sleeping next to.”

He didn’t speak after that.

Just chewed slowly. Swallowed carefully.

When he left, she watched from the window.

He didn’t walk down the street.

He stood there.

Just stared up at her window.

Then turned and vanished into the dark.

Lena whispered to herself: “They can’t help me. But they can’t stop me either.”

If the law wouldn’t move…

She would.