Chapter 5 – The Necklace
The text glowed like fire against the dark interior of her car.
“Run.”
Emily’s pulse thundered in her ears. She looked up again, and for a split second, she could swear Alex’s eyes were fixed on hers through the café glass.
No. It was impossible. She was parked too far, the glare too sharp, the angle too awkward. But still… the way his gaze lingered, the way his lips curved ever so slightly, made her stomach twist.
Her phone slipped in her sweaty hands as another message appeared.
“Too late.”
That was it. Her survival instinct roared to life. She jammed her car into gear and pulled away from the curb, tires screeching on wet asphalt.
She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.
~~~
By the time Emily reached her apartment, her body was trembling so hard she could barely slide her key into the lock. She slammed the door shut behind her and bolted it, leaning against the wood with shallow, rapid breaths.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Okay, it’s fine. You’re fine. Just breathe.”
But she wasn’t fine. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, her mind wouldn’t stop replaying the image of Alex sliding that velvet box across the table.
She dropped her purse, stripped off her coat, and went straight for the bottle of wine on her counter. Her hands steadied only after the first glass, though her stomach protested.
Her phone buzzed again, making her jump so violently that the wine sloshed over the rim of her glass. She nearly hurled the phone across the room before realizing it wasn’t another unknown number.
It was Sarah.
You up?
Emily hesitated, then typed back.
Yeah. Need to talk. Can you come?
The reply came almost instantly.
On my way. 15 minutes.
~~~
Fifteen minutes felt like an eternity. Emily sat on the couch, staring at her door, every creak in the hallway making her heart jump. When Sarah finally knocked, Emily nearly cried with relief.
Her best friend swept inside, shrugging off her trench coat and plopping onto the couch. “Jesus, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Emily forced a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Something like that.”
She told her everything.
The café. The woman. The necklace. The texts. The way Alex’s eyes had seemed to lock on hers at the end.
When she finished, Sarah just stared, her journalist’s mind already spinning. “Emily… that’s huge.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean it’s... ” Sarah leaned forward, lowering her voice instinctively. “If Alex really is the Rose Killer, then you might be the only person who’s seen him with a potential victim before the fact.”
Emily shivered. “You think he’s grooming her?”
Sarah didn’t answer immediately. She pinched the bridge of her nose, thinking hard. “I think it could go either way. You could be right, or… you could be letting paranoia twist things.”
Emily bristled. “I’m not paranoid. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I know. But let’s not forget your last boyfriend, Mark? You thought he was cheating every time he got a late-night work call. Remember how that ended?”
Emily winced. “That’s different. Mark was controlling. He lied constantly.”
“And maybe Alex is too. I’m not saying you’re wrong.” Sarah sighed, reaching for Emily’s hand. “But I am saying we need proof. Cold, hard proof. Otherwise this is just a hunch.”
Emily stared at their joined hands. Sarah was right, of course. But proof? Against Alex? She wasn’t sure she could stomach what proof might look like.
~~~
The next morning, Emily dragged herself to work on no sleep. She moved like a ghost through her tasks, flinching every time her phone buzzed, terrified it would be another unknown number.
By lunchtime, she cracked. She opened the group chat with Sarah and typed:
Meet tonight. Need to dig into this. I can’t do it alone.
Sarah replied with a thumbs-up emoji, but then another message followed.
Got something to show you too. You’re not going to like it.
~~~
They met that night in Sarah’s office at the news outlet, the hum of late-night printers and distant conversations filling the air. Sarah locked the door behind them and pulled up her computer.
“Okay,” she said, typing rapidly. “I pulled some strings with a buddy in the precinct. They let me see some of the files on the Rose Killer case.”
Emily’s heart skipped. “You what?”
“Relax. He owed me a favour.” Sarah clicked through folders until a series of crime scene photos filled the screen. “This is Lisa Grant’s apartment, the first victim.”
Emily forced herself to look. The images were brutal and haunting. Wine glasses tipped over, candles burned down to wax puddles, a single red petal stark against pale skin.
Her stomach churned. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Because,” Sarah said grimly, zooming in on one of the photos, “there’s something you need to see.”
The camera focused on the nightstand beside Lisa’s bed. Among the clutter, a phone charger, a book, a half-empty glass something gleamed faintly.
Sarah enlarged it.
A necklace.
Delicate. Silver. Identical to the one Emily had seen Alex fasten around the other woman’s neck.
Emily’s world tilted sideways.
Her breath came in shallow gasps. “No… no, that’s not possible.”
“Recognize it?” Sarah asked quietly.
Emily nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
Sarah’s eyes hardened. “Emily, I think we both know what this means.”
Emily clutched the edge of the desk, desperate for air. She wanted to argue, to scream, to insist it was a coincidence. But deep inside, the truth was clawing its way up, refusing to be buried.
If Alex had given Lisa that necklace… it meant he’d been with her.
It meant he’d known her.
It meant everything Emily feared might be true.
~~~
Emily staggered back from the desk, nearly knocking over Sarah’s chair. “I have to go.”
“Emily wait.”
But Emily was already moving, her body on autopilot. She shoved her coat on, stumbled down the hall, and pushed through the glass doors into the biting night air.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She fumbled it out, praying it was Sarah.
It wasn’t.
Unknown Number: “Pretty necklace, isn’t it?”
Emily froze on the sidewalk, the city spinning around her in a blur of headlights and neon.
Her vision tunnelled.
And then, slowly, she lifted her eyes.
Across the street, half-hidden in the shadows of an alley, stood a tall figure.
Watching her.
Her phone buzzed again.
“Smile for me, Emily.”
