Chapter 98: Just a little maybe

Aiden's POV

I burst through the double doors of the precinct’s makeshift war room, oblivious to the sharp squeak of my battered leather jacket. The stale coffee, leftover pizza, and the raw-feeling metallic scent of over-done panic fills the space.

All of them are here. Captain Fallon leans over the enormous city map pinned to the cork board. Dana, her eyes still bleary from my 3 AM call, is already seated at the table, buried beneath mounds of files. Reynolds is drinking coffee, his jaw clenched.

They look at me. Not with the annoyance at tardiness — I’m never late — but with a chilling, expectant silence. They know I have something. My face must look like the city map -- pocked and re-routed with frantic and fevered lines.

I don’t wait for a question. There is a firehose spraying adrenaline in my veins.

“It’s an address,” I reveal, my voice hoarse. I make a beeline for the map, grabbing a fat red marker. “The letters aren’t an anagram. They’re a blueprint. A confession.”

I indicate the victims and their codes I have written on the board.

“He breaks it into segments. Three segments. E-A-S-T,” I announce the letters I have pulled from Veronica, Marjorie, Amira, and Greta, underlining them with a decisive swoosh. “He spells the direction.”

Tension in the room rises. Reynolds always the coffee guy sets his cup down.

“Then the number,” I pound the marker on Andrea Holt’s code. “89. That is just a number. It’s the street number. 89th.”

I can feel their resistance breaking down. They’re starting to get it now, the pattern, the twisted poetry of the mind of this killer.

“And the other victims,” I add, closing up the last gaps. “Tessa, Chacha, and Paige, Sarah.

S-T-R-E-E-T.” I underline disruptively the whole sequence of codes, joining them like a malicious game of connect-the-dots.

“It’s not ‘East Street,’ Captain,” I say, drawing Fallon’s attention to me. “It is not a vague place. It’s a particular, single location on this map, a point where he started or where he is hiding.”

I tear the map off the board and spread it out on the table, pressing the red marker firmly down near the Upper East Side, where the numbers run into the direction.

“East 89th Street,” I cry. “It’s the killer’s locus. That’s the meaning of the letters. He’s giving us a location.”

Fallon looks at the map; his weathered expression stays neutral. There is a sense of pure, terrifying validation in the air. They had their doubts—they thought I was blinded by my infatuation of Eliot, my roommate's husband. Now they know the obsession made sense.

“Let’s get a team together now,” Fallon urges, his voice grinding like stone. “We’re going to get a warrant based on the pattern and the known location of the most recent victim’s cell ping. We’re moving in in an hour.”

Dana starts barking orders into her radio. Reynolds opens a new file, hurriedly typing.

We have him. Now we have the where.

Then, Captain Fallon looks up from the map, his gaze finding mine. “Aiden. Your... your roommate. Ruthie. Where does she live again?”

The question is like a punch in the chest. Silence again falls over the room, the quiet more disturbing than the noise.

My tongue feels like a big slug in my mouth. “She... she texted me three weeks ago. Said they were moving. Her husband, Eliot.” I can barely get the words out. “He found a new place. A cheap place. He gave them a surprise move.”

I watch as Fallon’s eyes dart from my face to the red circle I just drew on the map. What he realizes first spreads across his face like a bruise.

“Aiden,” he says, his voice dangerously low. “Where did she say they moved?”

My stomach twists into a cold ball of dread. I knew the address was vital. I knew it was the killer’s home. I just never think two and two together with my home, my life.

“She said...it was East 89th Street.”

The ground collapses beneath me. The fluorescent lights seem to dim.I can’t drink, can’t smoke, can’t do anything.The room is coagulated, but it’s not foggy. My throat clamps shut. The room is dead silent.

The phone in my pocket screams.

It’s my ringtone — an absurd little ’80s synth jingle Ruthie forced me to use.

It cuts through the mute silence like a scalpel.

I yank the phone out. The caller ID is flashing: Ruthie.

“It’s her,” I choke, my hands wet. I press the speaker button, slamming the phone down on my desk.

What I hear through the small speaker is not the voice of Ruthie. It sounds like a ragged, panicked breath, a short intake of breath that quickly turns into a tornado of hysterical, nearly intelligible words.

“Aiden! Oh God, Aiden, it’s him! It’s Bartholomew! He… he’s got bodies, files, he’s not Eliot! He killed them, Aiden, he killed the lawyers! I saw him! He’s in the apartment! He’s hunting me! I’m in a… a closet! I’m under the coats, oh God he’s right outside I hear him!”

Panic erupting in the war room. Reynolds lunges for the phone, pulling it closer.

He knows you, Aiden! He said I should have listened to my best friend!”

I can’t breathe. I grasp the side of the desk so tightly my knuckles are like white splinters. That monster. He’s terrorizing her. He's making this personal.

Dana is instantly on the line, calm, professional, but her face is white.

“Ruthie, listen to me, honey, listen to my voice,” Dana commands, her tone a perfect blend of authority and compassion. “This is Detective Dana Cole. You have to stay calm. Stay quiet. Do not make a sound. We know where you are. Help is already moving. Tell us what you heard. Tell us what you know.”

Ruthie’s breath hitches, loud and painful. “The study! He was in the study! He had a rabbit—he was cutting it up! He said… he said that’s how he wanted to kill Chacha, but she was live on TikTok!

Every cop in this town knows Ruthie. They know she’s my friend. And I have just confirmed, much to their shock, that she is alive and living, sleeping and breathing in the belly of the monster.

Fallon waves frantically at a rookie. “Get two units in tactical to 89th and 3rd. Code Red. Quiet approach. No sirens. Wait for my mark.”

“Ruthie, can you tell us where you are in the apartment?” Dana coaxes. “Do you know where the back entrance is? The fire escape?”

“I don’t know! It’s dark! I’m in a closet near the kitchen! He’s gone quiet! I think he’s listening to the vents!”

I lean into the phone, ignoring Dana’s warning glance. “Ruthie, he’s close, baby. You need to breathe. Just breathe.”

“Aiden, no!” Dana hisses as she snatches the phone away, but I’m still pressed up against the speaker with my face.

“Aiden?” Ruthie’s voice is a ghost. “Aiden, he told me his name is Bartholomew Sanchez. He told me the lawyers sent his brother, Ronnie, back to his father and he sent them to his aunt and Ronnie died. He said no lawyers helped them. He wants them all to pay. He said I was his safe harbor, but I looked in the drawer.”

The perfect motive. The name. The link. It’s all there. We have the who, the why, and the where.

But Fallon’s eyes – the eyes of a man who has sat through a hundred murder trials – are hard and unforgiving. He shakes his head.

I know what he’s thinking. The numbers.

Dana looks at Fallon, then at me. Her face is grim. She knows the play. The most dangerous, excruciating, play in the book.

She leans into the phone, her voice lowering to an urgent whisper, making Ruthie strain to hear.

“Ruthie, listen closely. The most dangerous time for a killer is when they are close to success. They get proud. They get talkative. We have to bait him. We need him to confess his sins to you.

My blood runs cold. I hear myself say it, but it sounds like a voice that is not my own no, don’t do this. “Confess? Dana, he has a scalpel! He’s right here! I can’t!” Ruthie sobs. “You can,” Dana insists, her voice a lifeline. " You're smart, Ruthie. You’re his safe harbor. That’s what he wants you to understand. We need to hear him discussing the letters he left behind the ears of the victims. He ought to explain his code. Do you have a recording app on your phone? A voice memo?”

“Y-yes… yes, I have one.”

“You’ve got to be recording,” Dana says, her voice cold as steel. “Then, you need to come out of the closet. Come into the kitchen. Tell him you want to know why he did this. Make him proud. Make him explain the code of the EAST 89TH STREET. We’ve got a team working him but we need that tape, to be sure he never hurts anyone else, Ruthie. We need you to be brave for five minutes. Can you do that for us?”

I watch myself, the detective, nod at Dana. I am betraying the man who loves Ruthie. I send the woman I love, the woman I promised to protect, back into the lion’s jaw, for a tape recording.

I snatch the phone from Dana, trembling hands. “Ruthie, it’s Aiden. Look at me. I’m coming. I’m five minutes away from the jump-off point. You listen to Dana.”

You hit record. Tell him you need to know why the letters mean EAST 89TH STREET.” I stuff the phone back into Dana’s palm, breaking my heart with every word. “We’re coming for you, Ruthie. We love you. You just have to give us the tape.”

“Uh- okay. I’m hitting record.” I’m doing it. But Aiden… you have to be here. You have to be here.”

The line is disconnected. The phone stops ringing.

I don’t wait for Fallon’s sign-off. I snatch up my ballistic vest, fastening it at breakneck speed with frantic, nervous hands.

“Reynolds, give me the thermal schematic of that building right now!” I ordered.

I grab the door handle, ready to run. I am five minutes away from the jump-off point. I’m sending her to her death, and all I can do is hope that the killer’s pride is greater than his surgical restraint.

I ta

ke the stairwell, my feet are banging against the concrete steps. Bartholomew. I am coming for you.