Arthur Blackwell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Arthur Blackwell stood at the edge of the forest where the bodies had been found that morning. Three years since the last one, and now this—a family of four, arranged the same way. The killer he'd been hunting had started again. He walked the perimeter while the county sheriff's people worked the scene. They hadn't noticed him yet, and that was fine. He stayed back in the trees, watching their boots trample evidence he'd already catalogued. Near the base of an oak, half-buried in leaves, he spotted it—a crumpled wrapper with pink gum still stuck to the foil. The same brand as before. The same twisted habit of chewing while he worked. Arthur crouched and slipped it into his pocket with a gloved hand. The system had let this man walk free once. It wouldn't get the chance to fail twice. By nightfall, Arthur was at the shack two miles deeper in the forest. He'd been using it for eighteen months, ever since he traced the original crime to these woods. The walls were covered in maps and photographs now. He pinned the wrapper to the center board, right beside the picture of the child from three years ago. The killer had gone quiet for so long Arthur thought he might have left the state. But this new scene—four bodies in the same configuration, the same gum wrapper left behind—meant the man was still here. Still in Brighthollow. Arthur pulled out his notebook and began writing down every detail he could remember from the morning. The hunt wasn't over. It was starting again. He studied the excavation site photos spread across the table. The police had dug shallow trenches around the markers, looking for evidence they wouldn't understand even if they found it. But Arthur saw what mattered. The placement of the bodies formed the same pattern as before—a signature the jury had called coincidence. He circled three locations on his map of Brighthollow, places the killer had visited in the weeks before the first murders. If the pattern held, the man would return to one of them. Arthur folded the map and tucked it inside his coat. Tomorrow he'd start watching those locations. This time there would be no trial, no acquittal, no system to fail. Just Arthur and the truth he'd carry to whatever end it demanded.