Chapter 2 The Voice in the Dark

The clock on the wall read 2:37 a.m. when the knock came again.

Selena Ward stood perfectly still, one hand resting on the butt of her gun, the other gripping the edge of her desk. The station was nearly empty most of the night shift had gone out on calls or were dozing at their posts.

The figure in the doorway stepped into the glow of the overhead light. Detective Callum Briggs tall, dark-haired, with the kind of confidence that came from equal parts arrogance and exhaustion. He had been her partner once, before the leave, before the nightmares.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Selena said flatly.

Briggs gave a tired smirk. “Neither are you. But here we are.”

She relaxed slightly but didn’t sit. “What do you want?”

“I heard about the girl in the alley,” he said, removing his gloves. “Red silk, silver locket, no prints. Sounded familiar.”

Selena’s heart ticked faster. “Familiar how?”

He met her gaze. “You know how.”

She turned away, unwilling to let him see her face. Ten years ago, they had worked her sister’s disappearance together and failed. The department buried the case; she buried her trust. Seeing him now was like reopening an old scar with salt still in it.

“Don’t start,” she muttered. “You had your chance back then.”

“And you walked away,” he replied quietly. “You think I didn’t look for her? You think I stopped?”

The words hit her like a slap. “You stopped calling after the second month.”

“I stopped because you wanted me to,” he said, his voice rough. “You shut everyone out.”

The silence that followed was sharp and uncomfortable. Rain pattered faintly against the windowpane softer now, like the night was listening.

Briggs took a step closer. “The locket. That engraving ‘Remember.’ It’s the same word that showed up on Evelyn’s last note, isn’t it?”

Selena froze. The note. The one she’d hidden away in her sister’s old jewelry box, the one she told no one about. She had burned half of it years ago.

“How do you know that?”

He sighed, leaning on her desk. “Because the past doesn’t stay buried in Hollow Creek. Someone’s dragging it back up. You can either face it or let it consume you again.”

Selena’s stare was cold but fragile. “You don’t get to tell me how to face it.”

Briggs didn’t respond just dropped a sealed file onto her desk. “This came in through an anonymous courier an hour ago. No return address. Marked for you.”

She hesitated, then slit it open. Inside was a black-and-white photo of a child maybe eight years old with familiar eyes and a faint scar above her lip. On the back, in neat handwriting, were three words:

“She remembers everything.”

Selena’s breath hitched. Her hands trembled.

“This is some sick game,” she whispered.

“Maybe,” Briggs said. “But you know as well as I do, whoever’s doing this knows too much. That photo” he pointed to it“was taken inside your mother’s old house.”

Selena’s pulse raced. She could almost smell the dust of that long-abandoned home the cracked wallpaper, the faint scent of lavender and grief.

“I want the property reopened,” she said abruptly. “I want every file, every photo, every report related to Evelyn’s case back on my desk.”

Briggs smirked faintly. “You’re diving right back in, huh?”

“I never got out.”

By dawn, Hollow Creek was still gray and heavy, the sky bruised with clouds. Selena drove out to the old house on Ravenwood Lane, the place her family once called home. It sat hunched behind a line of birch trees, the porch sagging, the windows opaque with grime.

She stood in front of it for a long time before going inside. The air was cold and stale, like the place had been holding its breath for years. Dust clung to every surface. The floorboards creaked under her boots, and faint echoes of laughter memories, not sounds brushed past her ears.

She stopped at the stairs, where the paint had peeled away to reveal faint pencil marks height measurements from when she and Evelyn were children. Her throat tightened.

“I told you not to come here alone.”

Selena turned sharply. Briggs stood in the doorway, flashlight in hand.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Didn’t think you’d follow.”

He shrugged. “You were never good at locking your trail.”

They explored in silence, their lights sweeping across the walls. Then, in the corner of the living room, Selena spotted something strange a small box, recently placed, too clean to belong to the ruins. She knelt and opened it.

Inside were newspaper clippings all about missing women, each one connected by subtle details. Dates, initials, colors of clothing. All red. All with a locket.

“This can’t be coincidence,” Briggs muttered.

Selena pulled out one clipping. “They all disappeared within ten miles of Hollow Creek. The earliest one” she glanced at the date “was the same year Evelyn vanished.”

Briggs cursed under his breath. “So this goes back over a decade.”

She nodded slowly. “And whoever’s doing this… they’ve been waiting.”

At the bottom of the box lay a small cassette tape labeled “For Her.”

Selena exchanged a wary glance with Briggs. “Don’t tell me you still have a player,” he said.

“I keep one for evidence logs,” she replied, slipping it into her coatpocket. “We’ll play it at the station.”

But something in her gut told her she already knew whose voice would be on that tape.

Back at the precinct, morning had begun to creep through the blinds, pale and cold. The hum of machines and faint chatter of officers signaled the start of another day. Selena sat at her desk, the cassette in the recorder, Briggs beside her.

She pressed Play.

A soft hiss, then a woman’s voice faint, trembling, familiar.

“Selena… if you’re hearing this, thenhe found me. Don’t trust anyone. Not even”

The recording cut off with a shrill burst of static.

Selena froze. She would’ve recognized that voice anywhere. Evelyn.

Briggs looked at her, eyes wide. “That’s impossible. She’s”

“Don’t say it,” Selena snapped. Her pulse pounded in her ears. “Someone wants me to believe she’s alive. Or wants me to suffer.”

She hit rewind and played it again, over and over, but the tape always ended in static.

Jamie Noor entered, holding a fresh report. “Detective Ward, we got a partial print off the silk. You’ll want to see this.”

Selena looked up sharply. “Whose is it?”

Jamie hesitated, scanning the file. “It’s… a familial match. Close to yours.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“Run it again,” she said hoarsely.

“I already did,” Jamie whispered. “Three times.”

The silence that followed was electric.

Selena stared at the recorder, then at the clippings scattered across her desk. Every instinct screamed at her that she was walking straight into a trap but she couldn’t stop now.

“Get me everything you can on the print,” she ordered, rising to her feet. “If she’s alive, I’ll find her. If she’s not…” Her jaw clenched. “Then I’ll find whoever made me believe she was.”

Briggs nodded. “You know this could destroy you again, right?”

Selena’s eyes hardened. “Then it’ll destroy us both.”