The handle turned.
Click.
I tightened my grip on the hammer.
The door opened just wide enough for a person to slip through. Black heels came first.
I stayed flattened against the wall and waited until the woman stepped fully inside.
One step.
Two.
The moment she reached back to close the door, I raised the hammer.
“Don’t.”
Her filtered voice was barely above a whisper.
She didn’t turn around.
“If you hit me, the other two will hear it.”
I kept the hammer up.
“Close the door.”
She did.
No lock. Just the soft press of the latch.
The bathroom went nearly dark, lit only by a high frosted window.
The woman slowly raised both hands.
“How long were you under the couch?”
“Long enough.”
“You heard everything?”
“Enough to know I’m in a house with three people I shouldn’t be meeting.”
She said nothing.
“Take off the mask.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
I lifted the hammer another inch.
“Then I’ll do it for you.”
After a few seconds, she reached behind her head.
Click.
The fox mask came off. The voice filter went silent with it.
She looked late twenties, maybe thirty. Dark hair pulled low, face pale with tension. Nothing about her looked like someone who had spent the last hour relaxing with other murderers.
That didn’t mean much.
Faces are costumes too.
“Can you put the hammer down now?”
“No.”
Her eyes flicked to it. “Then let’s make this quick.”
“How did you spot me?”
“Your bag. I saw the strap under the edge of the couch as soon as I sat down. Then you hit the frame.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?”
“Because I’m not with them.”
“Convenient.”
“Believe me or don’t. But if Butcher finds you here, what do you think happens next?”
I didn’t answer.
She didn’t need one.
“Do you have a phone?” she asked.
“Why?”
“I need the police.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the sentence was ridiculous coming from a woman who had walked into a murderers’ meetup wearing a fox mask and an electronic voice.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“The woman Horseman was talking about. Lena Tran.”
My hand tightened around the hammer.
“What about her?”
“She was my sister.”
I stopped moving.
Voices drifted from the living room, too muffled to make out.
She went on. “I got onto that board because I wanted to find out who killed her.”
“You just listened to a guy confess.”
“And you know he’s lying.”
I met her eyes.
She held mine.
“Don’t pretend,” she said. “You didn’t react to the murder details. You reacted when Butcher asked about the writing on the glass.”
I didn’t like that.
“You watch people closely.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know which one of those men killed my sister.”
“You suspect Butcher too?”
“In a place like this, I don’t clear anybody.”
Smart answer.
Smart enough that I still couldn’t tell whether she was telling the truth.
“Why come alone?”
“I didn’t, exactly. I gave a detective the first meetup location before I left. Told him if I stopped responding, something had gone wrong.”
“First location?”
“Butcher changed it four times. At the second stop, he took everyone’s phones. Then we switched cars. We didn’t get the next address until we were already moving.”
She held up the fox mask. “Masks and voice filters were his idea too.”
The pieces fit.
That didn’t make them true.
“How did you get onto the board?”
“I posted.”
“A kill?”
“A fake one.”
“So you pretended to be a murderer.”
“Yes.”
“And now you want me to trust a professional liar.”
This time she didn’t argue.
She held out her hand.
“You don’t have to trust me. Just give me your phone.”
I looked at her palm.
One part of my brain said this was the cleanest exit I’d get.
Police arrive. The three people outside get arrested. I live.
The rest of my brain pointed out that I was standing inside somebody else’s house with picks, gloves, zip ties, and enough burglary tools to turn one bad night into every bad night I’d ever had.
This wasn’t my first job.
Just the first one likely to uncover the others.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“That maybe you stab me the second I hand it over.”
“You’re holding a hammer.”
“I worry about people who have reasons to lie.”
She glanced toward the door. “We’re running out of time.”
She was right.
If Fox stayed in the bathroom too long, Butcher would notice.
I pulled out my phone.
She reached for it.
I didn’t let go.
“No calls. Text only.”
She nodded.
I handed it over.
The screen lit her face in the dark. She opened messages, typed a number I didn’t recognize, and started writing.
I caught the first words.
CURRENT LOCATION –
A bad feeling rose in me.
“Hey.”
She kept typing.
“Wait.”
“I’m almost done.”
Police.
The word ran a circuit through my head.
If the message went out, they came here.
If they came here, I didn’t disappear before they checked everyone in the house.
I looked at my tool bag.
At Fox.
At the door.
I grabbed for the phone.
She held on.
“What are you doing?”
“Changed my mind.”
“Are you insane?”
“Maybe.”
“The police are the only way we get out of this house.”
“They’re the only way you get out clean.”
“You think those two men are going to let you walk?”
“They don’t know I exist.”
“Yet.”
I hated that she was right.
I hated the police option more.
“Give it back.”
“No.”
“Give me the phone.”
“You-“
I dropped the hammer hand and seized her wrist.
She reacted immediately.
We slammed into the wall in the cramped dark. Her heel scraped hard down my shin. My shoulder hit tile. She twisted for the door.
“Let go.”
“No.”
Horseman laughed loudly in the living room.
For a few seconds, the noise covered us.
I wasn’t much stronger than she was.
I had one advantage: I’d already decided what I was willing to do.
When the struggle ended, she was sitting on the floor with her wrists cinched together using zip ties from my bag.
Still conscious.
And looking at me like she wanted to kill me herself.
I gagged her before she could raise her voice.
“Sorry.”
I wasn’t.
I picked up my phone. The screen had locked. When I opened it again, the messaging app had kicked back to the conversation list.
I didn’t check further.
No time.
Horseman laughed again outside.
I looked at Fox.
Then at the mask on the floor.
An idea arrived.
A terrible one.
Still better than walking into the living room with my own face.
I pulled her farther into the shower alcove.
I didn’t need all her clothes. Her loose jacket covered most of what I was wearing. The mask, the voice filter, and the heels could do the rest.
She was only a little shorter than me. Similar shoulders.
In dim light, if no one looked too closely –
I stared at the door.
I couldn’t leave.
I couldn’t stay hidden.
That left one option.
If I couldn’t escape the meetup, I had to become someone who belonged at it.
I put on her jacket, forced my feet into the heels, and faced the mirror.
A fox stared back.
I switched on the voice filter.
Click.
“Test.”
The voice came out rough, flattened, difficult to place as male or female.
I tried again.
“Test.”
Close enough.
I adjusted the jacket, pulled on gloves, and pocketed my phone.
Before opening the door, I looked at the real Fox one last time.
She never looked away.
“I’m borrowing you for a few minutes.”
I stepped into the living room.
Butcher sat where he’d been before. Horseman lounged on the couch. Both still wore masks.
Neither could see my face.
Good.
I walked out.
The heels made a sound I immediately hated.
Tap.
Tap.
Horseman turned.
He watched me for several seconds, then laughed.
“That was a long bathroom break.”
I said nothing.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Right. We never got to you.”
I stopped.
His filtered voice sharpened with amusement.
“Fox.”
He pointed at me.
“You don’t look like you’ve ever killed anybody.”
I looked at him.
Then at Butcher.
Butcher wasn’t laughing.
He was waiting.
And I understood the problem.
The mask had only gotten me out of the bathroom.
If I wanted to stay alive, I still had to prove I deserved to be in the room.
4 thoughts on “CHAPTER 3 – FOX”