Page 34 of Whispers in the Night

And the answer, when it came, made Silas’s blood run cold.

The killer wasn’t just hunting random women who looked like someone he’d lost.

He was building toward something. Working up to his real target.

And that target might be the woman sitting next to him in the dark car, heading toward yet another crime scene, yet another dead woman.

He was building toward Harper.

Chapter 7

The third body was different.

Harper knew it the moment she saw the crime scene—the way the officers were standing farther back than usual, the way Captain Holloway’s face was ashen in the work lights, the way Silas’s hand found the small of her back as they approached, protective and possessive in a way that should have annoyed her but didn’t.

“Harper.” Holloway stepped toward her, and the way he said her name made her stomach drop. “Before you look at the victim, I need you to understand something. This one is...personal.”

“Personal how?” But even as Harper asked, she was moving forward, ducking under the crime scene tape, pushing past the uniformed officers who tried to stop her.

And then she saw.

The victim was young—early thirties, Harper’s brain catalogued automatically. Dark hair, petite build, similar facial structure to Melissa and Amy. But there was something else. Something that made Harper’s breath catch in her throat.

The woman looked like her.

Not similar. Not the same type. She looked likeHarper.

Same hair length and style. Same height—Harper could tell from the positioning. Same build. Same facial structure. Eventhe same clothing style—jeans and a simple blouse that could have come from Harper’s own closet.

“Jesus Christ,” Harper whispered.

She heard Silas come up behind her, heard his sharp intake of breath as he saw what she was seeing. “Harper—”

“He’s not killing someone he lost,” Harper said, her voice oddly calm despite the roaring in her ears. “He’s practicing. For me.”

The words hung in the air like a death sentence.

Harper crouched beside the body, forcing herself to look past the horror and see the evidence. The symbols were there—carved with the same precision as the others. The positioning was identical. But the victim’s face... God, her face could have been Harper’s own.

“Who is she?” Harper asked, her voice steady through sheer force of will.

“Nicole Merrin,” Holloway said quietly. “Thirty-two years old. Works—worked—as a graphic designer. Lives about two miles from your cabin.”

Two miles from her cabin. Not a coincidence. Nothing about this was a coincidence anymore.

Harper stood, her legs unsteady. She turned to look at the other victims’ photos that Silas had pulled up on his phone—Melissa Wagoner and Amy Thorne. She’d thought they looked similar to each other. But now, looking at them with this new understanding, she could see it. They all looked like her. Younger versions, yes, but the resemblance was there in the bone structure, the hair color, the petite build.

“How did I not see it?” Harper breathed.

“Because you were too close to the case,” Silas said. He was standing very close to her now, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “You were seeing the victims as individuals. You weren’t looking for yourself.”

Harper’s mind was racing backward, connecting pieces she should have seen earlier. The Nevada cases—Sarah Henderson, Jessica Paul, Pamela Gibson. She pulled out her phone with shaking hands, scrolling through the old case photos she’d saved.

There. Sarah Henderson’s driver’s license photo. Dark hair, petite, heart-shaped face. Not identical to Harper, but similar enough. Close enough.

“He’s been doing this from the beginning,” Harper said. “For five years. All of them. They all look like me.”

The realization crashed over her like a wave. Eight women—maybe more—had died because a killer was obsessed with her. Had spent years practicing, perfecting his technique, preparing for the day he could take Harper herself.