Chapter 5: The Silent House and the Waiting Threat

The walk back from the river was a frantic, adrenaline-fueled blur, the cool, damp air doing little to soothe the internal fire of anxiety. I clutched the borrowed jacket, its woolen texture the only solid thing connecting me to Officer Net’s faint, unsettling kindness. The moment I left the river’s calming presence, the desperate need to verify the impossible—the text, the prophecy, the terrifyingly familiar face of Alex—became an unbearable physical ache.

I ran the final few blocks, navigating the deserted streets like a phantom. When I reached the familiar drive, I skidded to a stop.

My uncle's car was gone.

The space beside my own tired vehicle was empty, the gravel undisturbed. A cold, sick dread, far heavier than the weight of Ote’s accusations, seized my throat. My uncle was methodical. He was my protector, the quiet anchor in my chaotic life. He would never leave a cryptic text and then vanish, especially not after calling me back from the police station and supposedly ushering a dead man back into my life. This felt deliberate. Calculated. Engineered.

I hurried up the porch steps, my fingers stiff and clumsy as I fumbled with my keys. They hit the wooden porch with a sharp, echoing clatter, and the sound amplified the silence of the street. Finally, I forced the tumbler, wrenched the lock, and pushed the door open.

"Uncle?" I called out, my voice thin, reedy, and high with strain.

The small entryway was dark and silent. The air inside was still and cold, without the familiar, subtle warmth my uncle always maintained. It smelled faintly of wood polish and something burnt, perhaps a sulfur match or an incense stick hastily extinguished.

"Uncle! Are you here?" I tried again, moving cautiously, every shadow now a potential threat.

The downstairs was deserted. The kitchen was unnervingly tidy; the kettle was cold, the countertops wiped clean. The small table was set for one, untouched, suggesting my uncle had left before dinner.

I reached the living room, the spot where my sanity had fractured just hours before. I snapped the light switch. The sudden glare revealed a room perfectly normal, infuriatingly so. The leather sofa where my uncle usually sat was smooth. The rug was straight. There was no sign of a hurried departure, no overturned furniture, and certainly no evidence of the living ghost who had supposedly stood here.

I walked to the center of the room, my nerves screaming a frantic warning. I pressed my foot into the spot where I remembered seeing him. Nothing. Just the soft carpet. Had the exhaustion, Ote's psychological attack, and the shock of the cafe combined to fabricate the entire encounter? Was I finally breaking?

I was about to retreat when something small and white caught my eye. It was a note, folded neatly into a square, placed deliberately under the corner of a heavy, porcelain coaster on the small, polished coffee table.

My heart hammered against my ribs, an erratic drumbeat of fear and desperate hope. I snatched it up.

It was my uncle’s handwriting, neat and measured, but the ink was heavy, pressed down with the physical stress of urgency.

Danny,

I had to leave immediately. It’s about your parents’ case. A source called—an old contact from the hotel incident. They said they couldn’t talk on the phone.

Do not, under any circumstances, call the police or Ote. Act normal. I’ll be back very soon.

Love, Uncle.

I reread the note, the words burning into my mind, my breath held captive. Don't call the police or Ote. I kept reading this sentence over and over. Does my uncle know something about what happened today? Does he know that I have already met Ote again?

Fear grips me, a deep and primal fear that only prey can feel right before it meets its end at the jaws of its predator. What was this feeling of fear that was filling me? This feeling was not something rational; it was as if my body was trying to tell me that there was more going on behind the scenes than I could comprehend. But whatever is going on here must have been done by a human, right?

I stared at the note, relief mixing with profound confusion. He hadn't just fled; he was following a lead related to the original murder, the one that cost me Alex. The fact that the source was an "old contact from the hotel incident" confirmed that the killer, or the organization behind the killer, was the target.

But then my eyes scanned the final paragraph, the one he had scribbled quickly:

Danny, I think you need to talk to someone about your destiny. I know you've dismissed the spiritual stuff before, but I’ve been researching. Go visit the healer near your office. It may give us some clarity.

My uncle was grounding the supernatural theory in reality. He was a skeptic forced to concede the existence of the impossible.

I ran upstairs to my desk, my feet pounding against the wooden floor, demanding noise to break the oppressive silence. I pulled out the old 'PARENTS' file, its contents screaming for answers. I needed to understand what my uncle was chasing, and why he suddenly believed in fate.

I flipped on my computer. I focused on the cafe victims' names I’d scribbled down during the chaos of the precinct. Maya Sharma. A barista. I typed her name into my network search, looking for a connection to my parents' cold case.

The search results were sparse—the police had already wiped the major online mentions—but an archived local news report from over a decade ago caught my eye: Maya's father had been a local healer, a kind of lay shaman, who had suddenly vanished over a decade ago.

A healer. A shaman. The same type of person my uncle was urging me to visit.

The realization hit me: the killer's victim was connected to a hidden spiritual world. The cafe massacre wasn't random; it was targeting someone with familial ties to the occult.

If my uncle is right, and if this is tied to some dark "destiny," then the healer is the only person who can provide the context Ote will never look for.

The jacket suddenly felt heavy on my arm. The cold, logical part of my brain rebelled. I was a journalist, a photographer—a man of facts, evidence, and light. Now I was about to consult a shaman because my uncle, a lawyer, told me to, to understand why my dead boyfriend was suddenly alive. The sheer absurdity would have been hilarious if it weren't so desperately tragic.

I looked at the clock. It was still early. The healer's office might not be open, but I had to go. I had to understand the killer's ritualistic motivation before Ote finished constructing his trap, and before the killer made their next move. I grabbed my keys, leaving the jacket and the comforting scent of cedar behind.