I was late again.
The kind of late that makes your chest tight before you even walk through the door.
The newsroom was already buzzing when I slipped in. Phones ringing, keys clacking, and that constant hum of gossip and breaking news. claire spotted me the second I sat down, gasping for air and clutching my bag.
"The boss was looking for you," she said, eyes wide.
My heart dropped. "What? Why?"
"She didn't say. But, girl…" She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "She looked pissed."
I didn't even bother replying. I just grabbed my notepad and walked straight to Mrs. McWell's office, praying under my breath.
I barely stepped in when her voice sliced through the air.
"Well, look who decided to show up."
She was standing by the window, back turned, shoulders stiff. When she faced me, her eyes had that cold shine — the kind that came before something bad.
"Have you read the news this morning, Zelder?" she asked.
I swallowed hard. "No, ma'am. I just got in."
She gave a humorless laugh and walked to her desk.
"Then let me help you catch up. Another body was found last night — same woods, same pattern." She leaned forward, palms flat on the table. "And guess who broke the story?"
I already knew the answer.
"Sophie," she said, the word like venom. "She had the full report, the photos, the police statement — everything. Right under your nose, Zelder. While you were what? Sleeping in?"
"Ma'am, I—"
"Save it." Her voice was calm now, too calm. "I've tried to keep you, but you've made it impossible. You're dismissed. Pack up your desk."
My throat closed up. "Please, Mrs. McWell, just one last chance. I've been working—"
She cut me off with a sigh. "No tears. No excuses. Just… go."
Her words left me hollow. I nodded, blinking back tears, and walked out before she could see me break.
The second I stepped into the hallway, my phone buzzed with notification after notification — every outlet posting the same name: Clifford Welch
CEO. Philanthropist. Killer.
I clicked one article, and my breath hitched. His photo stared back at me — smiling, polished, evil in hindsight..
All while posing as the man funding "women empowerment programs" through his company, Welch Dynamics. The supposed non-profit he started — The Future She Foundation — had been a cover. Millions of dollars in fake grants and sponsorships funneled through offshore accounts also revealing huge scam scandal
And Sophie… Sophie was everywhere. Her face. Her quotes. Her name under the exclusive.
She'd taken me off the case forum, deleted my access, and used my research as her own.
He'd murdered all of them: Teneshe, Kimberly, Joan and Emma—his new victim, he went on a dinner date with her they had met on a dating site and after the date he killed her .
I didn't want to stay inside of the office but I also didn't want to leave. I knew what happened when people were fired, how people whispered about them. A couple of years prior, someone was fired for sexual harassment and everyone knew about it. The harassment itself wasn't what got him fired; rather, it was that he tried to retaliate after the woman he harassed reported him to HR. He wrote her an email warning her to never do it again. "Learn to take a compliment," he said. It was that email, more than the constant texts and phone calls, the cornering in small rooms demanding that she go on a date with him, that got him fired. Surely, I was less bad than him. I hadn't hurt anyone. I had merely been negligent, distracted.
I imagined claire talking about me once I was gone, if she wasn't talking about me already.
Zelder wasn't really up to the task ," she would say, her voice lowering to a whisper. She would say "I knew it from the beginning " like it was the ultimate crime.
The comments, though manifested entirely by my imagination, were hurtful. I wished I could wither away and disappear.
I left my the office with a cardboard box in hand. I had recently watched the entirety of the show Vampire Diaries while working on a knitting project. Aside from bloodlust and immortality, what differentiatedthe vampires from the humans was that they had the ability to turn their emotions off. That was what I pretended to do as I carried my box back to my desk and loaded any personal items inside. I didn't take much. A couple of coffee mugs, some pens, and Post-it notes that probably technically were company property, but I didn't care. I didn't take the time to sort through the desk drawers or riffle through the filing cabinet. I didn't say goodbye to any of my coworkers, not even claire , whom I had been sitting next to for years.
The concept of "work friends" suddenly seemed meaningless. I was made of stone, impenetrable.
On my way to the car, the box slipped out of my hands and the coffee mugs broke. It seemed symbolic in the way that all tiny tragedies seem symbolic when a larger bad thing is occurring. I left the box outside of the building.
"Let them clean it up," I muttered.
I cried in the car, big gulping sobs that were so heavy that I couldn't drive.
"I need to go home," I said out loud to myself after a few minutes.
"Things will feel better at home."
I managed to stop crying long enough to make it out of the parking lot, but the tears came back each time I was stopped at a light, which made it difficult to drive. Somehow, I made it back to my building, and a new flood of tears arrived as I realized that without a job, I wouldn't be able to pay rent much longer.
"What am I going to do?" I wailed.
I contemplated the life in front of me. I would have to move home to my parents' house, admit to them all the ways in which I had failed.
When I got home from work I was so pissed to the extent I couldn't stop crying and I needed someone to blame so i poured it out on Clifford Welch if he hadn't killed those women I might still have my job by now so I took a pen and a book and I start with
You're a man who has everything. You're rich, you're educated, you have a full head full of hair I guess the conundrum is where you go from there. Some men like you decide to climb Mount Everest or run a marathon if they're so bored, other people volunteer but you you decide to kill a women. There must be something that you get out killing . Is it a sexual arousal or something else ? Maybe it's a revenge on someone who hurt you ,an ex girlfriend or your mother ? But guess what Clifford? Everybody gets hurt only monsters become murderers .
I have been in Emma's position of course and I didn't die but I know what if feels like putting your hopes and dreams into a date now thanks to you I will never be able to go out on a date without thinking of you .
If there is karma in this world you will suffer the way you made others suffer and as your name you deserve to jump off a CLIFF .
I wrote until my hand cramped up and my bowl of macaroni and cheese was empty. It was the way that I'd always longed to write. I liked to think of myself as an aspiring novelist who was restricted by the forty-hour workweek and the lack of inspiration around me. Clifford provided inspiration where before there was none.
I didn't think I would send the letter, not really. I figured I would stuff it in a drawer, forget about it, find it again when I moved apartments, and laugh at my younger self who was so stupid as to write a letter to an accused serial killer. But then, the next day, I got into researching where and how to send a letter to someone in jail and I thought, Why not?
What was the very worst that could happen?
I sent the letter the same way that I sent Max strings of unanswered text messages long after it was clear that he was done with me. I didn't send it for the recipient. I sent it for me because I wanted to. Because there was something that I needed to get off my chest, even if I never heard back. Sending the letter felt good, like kissing a stranger that I knew I would never see again at a bar. I thought it was closure to the whole Clifford Welch thing.
But who was I kidding. It was raining the day that the response came, and I wasn't thinking about William. Men had a way of doing that. It was like they knew when I was finally focused on myself, eating right and exercising, and they squirmed their way back into my life.