The text message arrived at 3:17 AM.

Maya Reeves jolted awake, not from the notification—her phone was perpetually on silent—but from the same nightmare that had plagued her for seven years. In it, her sister Ellie was always just ahead, turning corners in an endless maze, laughing. Maya could never catch up.

She reached for her phone out of habit, the blue light harsh against the darkness of her bedroom. The number was unfamiliar, marked only as “Unknown.”

Check the dumpster behind Parkview Apartments. Unit 409. Look for the ring.

Maya stared at the message, her heart racing. She had just recorded the episode about the missing college student, Danielle Meyers, yesterday. The police had been searching for three days with no leads. Parkview Apartments hadn’t been mentioned in any news reports.

This wasn’t the first anonymous tip she’d received since starting “Cold Light”—her true crime podcast that had, against all odds, cracked the top 100 on streaming platforms in just eight months. But it was the most specific.

She should call the police. That’s what any reasonable person would do.

But Maya Reeves hadn’t been reasonable since finding her sister’s abandoned car on the side of the road seven years ago, keys still in the ignition, blood smeared across the driver’s side window.

---

“You look like shit,” said Rohan, her audio engineer and only friend, as Maya stumbled into the small studio space she rented in the basement of a former radio station.

“Thanks. Always good to start the day with a compliment.” Maya handed him a coffee and sank into her chair.

“Seriously, Maya. You okay?”

She pulled out her phone and slid it across the desk. “Got this last night. Didn’t sleep after.”

Rohan read the message, his expression darkening. “You called Detective Warner, right?”

Maya avoided his eyes.

“Maya! You can’t keep doing this. Remember what happened last time?”

“Last time wasn’t the same. Last time was just a coincidence.”

“A coincidence that nearly got you arrested for interfering with an investigation.”

Maya sipped her coffee. “This one feels different. The tip about the Hernandez case was vague. This one… it’s like they know something specific. Something nobody else knows.”

“All the more reason to let the police handle it.” Rohan ran a hand through his dark hair. “Look, I get it. You started this podcast to find answers about Ellie. But becoming some vigilante detective isn’t going to bring her back.”

The words stung, but Maya knew he was right. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this message was important.

“I’ll call Warner after we finish the edit on this week’s episode,” she conceded.

She had no intention of calling anyone until she checked out Parkview Apartments herself.

---

Unit 409 belonged to a graduate student who claimed he hadn’t seen Danielle Meyers since a party three weeks earlier. The police had already questioned him and found nothing suspicious.

Maya parked her car a block away as evening shadows stretched across the cracked pavement. The neighborhood had once been upscale, but now the buildings sagged with neglect, graffiti blooming across their facades like urban kudzu.

The dumpster was tucked into a small alcove behind the main building. Maya pulled the sleeve of her hoodie over her hand before lifting the heavy plastic lid. The stench hit her immediately—rotting food, dirty diapers, the particular pungency of urban garbage in summer heat.

Her phone’s flashlight beam cut through the darkness, revealing nothing but trash bags and discarded furniture. She was about to give up when something glinted in the corner—a small object wedged between the dumpster and the wall.

Using a pen from her pocket, Maya carefully fished it out.

A ring. Silver, with a distinctive pattern of three intertwined bands. Exactly like the one Danielle Meyers was wearing in her last Instagram post.

Maya’s hands trembled as she placed the ring in a ziplock bag she always carried—a habit born from years of obsessing over evidence in her sister’s case. Her phone buzzed.

Now you see. Keep digging.

The message came from the same unknown number. Maya spun around, scanning the empty parking lot, the windows of the apartment building. Someone was watching her.

Her phone buzzed again.

Basement storage. Unit 12.

Maya’s rational mind screamed for her to call the police. Instead, she found herself walking toward the building’s side entrance, the one with a broken security lock she’d noticed earlier.

The basement was dimly lit, the air thick with the smell of mildew and laundry detergent. Storage units lined the walls, chain-link cages filled with residents’ overflow possessions. Unit 12 was secured with a padlock that looked newer than the others.

Maya heard footsteps above her and froze. What was she doing? This was breaking and entering, at minimum. If she found something, it could compromise the entire investigation.

She turned to leave when her phone buzzed again.

You didn’t look hard enough for Ellie either.

The message knocked the air from her lungs. No one connected her to Ellie publicly. She had always used a pseudonym for the podcast, careful to keep her personal tragedy separate from her growing platform. Only her closest friends knew the truth.

With shaking hands, she dialed Detective Warner’s number.

---

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?” Warner’s voice was low and controlled, but Maya could sense the fury beneath it. They sat in an interview room at the precinct, the bright lights making her head pound.

“I found evidence,” Maya insisted.

“You contaminated a crime scene. You potentially compromised any evidence that might have been there.” The detective ran a hand over her close-cropped gray hair. “And you put yourself in danger.”

“But the ring—”

“Yes, the ring appears to belong to Danielle Meyers. Forensics is processing it now. But how do I know you didn’t plant it there yourself? For your podcast?”

The accusation stung. “I would never—”

“Podcasters have done worse for ratings.” Warner’s tired eyes studied her. “Who sent you those messages, Ms. Reeves?”

“I don’t know. They’re from an unknown number.”

“And it didn’t occur to you that someone might be setting you up? Using you?”

It had, of course. But the mention of Ellie had short-circuited her judgment.

“The tech team is trying to trace the messages,” Warner continued. “In the meantime, I need your word that you’ll stop playing detective. The next message you receive, you come straight to me. Understood?”

Maya nodded, though something inside her rebelled at the thought. These messages were the first real connection she’d felt to finding answers—not just about Danielle Meyers, but possibly about Ellie too.

---

The next message came three days later.

They’re looking in the wrong places. Check the recordings. Second voice.

Maya had been working late in the studio, piecing together her next episode—carefully avoiding any mention of her misadventure at Parkview Apartments or the ongoing Meyers investigation. The police had found more evidence in the basement storage unit: a scarf belonging to Danielle and traces of blood. The graduate student had been arrested but wasn’t talking.

“Second voice?” Maya muttered to herself, scrolling through her phone. What recordings? She’d interviewed dozens of people for her podcast.

Then it hit her. The listener voicemails. Each episode of “Cold Light” ended with selected messages from her audience—tips, theories, personal stories related to the cases she covered.

Maya pulled up the audio files from her last three episodes. She listened to each voicemail carefully, focusing not on the primary speakers but on any background noises. In the third message, a woman discussing the Johnson case from 2018, there was something—a barely audible murmur in the background.

Maya isolated the audio, enhanced it, cleaned it up using the techniques Rohan had taught her.

“…not what she thinks…Ellie knew…connection…”

The voice was distorted, possibly deliberately muffled, but there was something eerily familiar about it. And it had mentioned Ellie.

Her phone buzzed.

Getting warmer. The connection is there. You’re not seeing it.

Maya’s heart raced. “What connection? Who are you?”

No response came. She went back to the audio file, straining to hear any other clues in the background voice. There was something else, a sound like water, or maybe…

Her phone buzzed again.

Look at the cases. All of them. The pattern.

Maya pulled out her notebook where she’d meticulously documented every case she’d covered on the podcast. Twenty-seven in total, spanning decades and various cities. She’d chosen them seemingly at random, following her instincts and listener suggestions.

She began arranging them chronologically, then geographically, searching for any connection. Nothing obvious emerged.

Then she tried something else. She color-coded them by type of crime, victim profile, method…

A pattern slowly emerged, subtle but undeniable. Six of the cases—spaced among the others—shared peculiar similarities: young women, all with some connection to academia, all disappeared with minimal evidence, all found in locations different from where they were taken.

And one of them was Ellie.

Maya had never covered her sister’s case directly on the podcast. It was too personal, too painful. But she’d included elements of it in an episode about unsolved disappearances in the state.

Her phone buzzed again.

Now you see. It was never random. It was always about Ellie. About you.

Maya’s hands trembled as she typed back: “Who are you?”

Someone who knows the truth. Someone who’s been watching. Listen to your latest submission. The professor’s theory.

Maya frantically searched through her emails, finding a voice submission she’d received yesterday but hadn’t yet listened to. It was from a Professor Malcolm Reed, criminology department at the state university, offering insights on serial crime patterns.

She played the recording, her skin crawling as the measured, academic voice filled the studio.

“…what we often miss in these analyses is that killers frequently insert themselves into the narrative. They become part of the investigation, the media coverage, the public discourse. They crave the connection, the dance of pursuit. Sometimes, they even reach out to those covering their crimes…”

Maya stopped the recording, her blood turning to ice.

She searched the name online. Professor Malcolm Reed had published several papers on serial crime psychology. His university profile showed a man in his fifties with steel-gray hair and glasses, his biography listing decades of work in the field.

Including a stint as a consultant for the police department that had investigated Ellie’s disappearance.

Maya’s phone rang—an actual call, not a text. Unknown number.

Her hand hovered over the screen. She should call Warner. She’d promised.

Instead, she answered.

“Hello, Maya.” The voice was the same as on the recording, cultured and calm. “I think it’s time we met in person, don’t you? I have so much to tell you about your sister.”

---

The café Reed had chosen was busy enough to be safe but quiet enough for conversation. Maya had texted Rohan her location and the name of who she was meeting, ignoring his frantic responses.

She recognized Reed immediately from his photo, sitting in a corner booth with two cups of coffee already on the table.

“Ms. Reeves,” he stood as she approached. “Thank you for coming.”

“You said you have information about my sister,” Maya said, remaining standing. “And about the other cases.”

“Please, sit. What I have to share will take some time.”

Maya sat reluctantly, positioning herself for a quick exit if needed. “You’ve been sending me anonymous tips.”

Reed nodded, his expression unreadable behind his glasses. “I’ve been following your work with great interest. ‘Cold Light’ has become quite the phenomenon.”

“Why the games? Why not come to me directly?”

“Would you have believed me? A stranger claiming connections between cases spanning years and jurisdictions?” Reed sipped his coffee. “I needed you to see the pattern yourself.”

“And what pattern is that, exactly?”

“Your sister wasn’t a random victim, Maya. None of them were.” Reed’s voice dropped lower. “They were chosen because of their connections to specific research at various universities. Research that someone wanted to suppress.”

“What research?”

“Biochemical compounds that could be used for memory manipulation. Ellie was working as a research assistant in a lab studying neurochemical responses to trauma.”

Maya’s mind raced. Ellie had been a graduate student in neuroscience. She’d mentioned her lab work occasionally but never in detail.

“The others were connected to similar projects,” Reed continued. “Different aspects of the same field. Danielle Meyers was dating a postdoc in the same department where Ellie worked.”

“How do you know all this?”

Reed’s eyes met hers. “Because I’ve been tracking these cases for years. After your sister disappeared, I noticed similarities to an old case I’d consulted on. I started looking deeper.”

“And you found what, exactly?”

“A killer who targets people associated with this research. Someone with access to both academic circles and law enforcement.”

Maya felt a chill run down her spine. “Someone like you?”

Reed’s smile was sad. “I wondered when you’d make that connection. It’s why I approached you this way. Why I needed you to see the evidence yourself.”

“You’re saying you’re not the killer.”

“I’m saying there’s someone else. Someone who uses their position to access information about these projects and the people working on them. Someone who’s been watching you since you started the podcast.”

Maya’s phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number—but not Reed’s. He was sitting across from her, hands visible on the table.

He’s lying. Ask him about the ring.

Maya looked up sharply. “The ring. Danielle’s ring. How did you know where it would be?”

Something flickered across Reed’s face. “I didn’t. I told you to look at the connection between the cases. I never mentioned a ring.”

Maya stood abruptly. “I never told you what was in the texts. I just said you sent me anonymous tips.”

Reed remained calm. “You’re confused, Maya. I understand this is overwhelming—”

“What was the name of the lab Ellie worked in?” Maya demanded.

Reed hesitated, just a fraction too long.

Maya turned to leave when Reed grabbed her wrist. “You don’t understand what you’re walking into.”

A new voice spoke from behind them. “I think she understands perfectly.”

Detective Warner stood there, two uniformed officers beside her.

“Professor Reed,” Warner said coolly. “Or should I say Dr. Allen Kravitz? Former research lead at Northlake Pharmaceutical, dismissed for ethical violations related to human testing.”

Reed’s—or Kravitz’s—face contorted with anger. “You don’t know what they’re doing. What they’re creating.”

As the officers moved in to arrest him, Maya’s phone buzzed one final time.

Check your email. Ellie’s case file. I’ve had it all along.

Maya looked at Warner. “Did you send this?”

The detective shook her head, looking at the message. “No. But I think I know who did.”

“Who?”

“Someone on the inside. Someone who’s been feeding information to both of us.” Warner’s eyes were troubled. “Someone who knew we needed to find each other to catch him.”

Maya thought about the voice on the recording—the second voice—and the pattern of cases that had led her here. Someone had been orchestrating this all along, using her podcast as a vehicle for their own justice.

As they left the café, Maya felt her phone buzz one more time. She expected another cryptic message, but instead found a simple voice memo. She pressed play, her heart stopping as the voice—distorted but unmistakable—filled her ears.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you directly. They’re still watching. But you did it, Maya. You found the connection I couldn’t prove. I’ve been following your podcast from the beginning. I’m so proud of you.”

Maya felt tears sting her eyes as the voice continued.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come home. But know that I’m alive. And I’m still fighting to expose them. Keep shining your cold light, little sister. Keep whispering the truth.”

The message ended. Maya stood frozen on the sidewalk, the city noise fading around her as the implications washed over her.

Ellie was alive. Ellie had been her anonymous tipster all along.

And somewhere in the shadows of the city, her sister was still watching, still whispering, still waiting to be found.

Feature Photo by Seej Nguyen