Chapter Thirteen: When Shadows Intersect
"When two long shadows cross,
light can no longer tell
which one began first."
— Edgar Wilmore
The body itself wasn't strange…
What was strange was the emptiness.
No signature.
No symbol.
No philosophical message.
Just a clean, silent death,
as if it didn't want to be understood.
Howard stood there for a long time.
"Edgar always leaves a trace…
Whoever did this wanted to be erased."
In that moment,
he understood something more dangerous than the presence of a new killer:
Someone was deliberately creating confusion.
Eliza returned to her apartment before dawn.
She took off her coat,
sat in front of the mirror…
but didn't look at her face.
She looked into her eyes.
When did I start noticing details the way he does?
When did I stop feeling disgust… and start understanding?
She opened her notebook.
Wrote a sentence…
then tore it out.
Wrote another…
then closed the notebook.
The danger isn't that I sympathize with him.
The danger is that I justify him.
Edgar was uneasy.
The last crime wasn't his.
Yet it felt disturbingly close.
As if someone had used his mind,
but without his soul.
He told himself:
"Anyone who imitates me without understanding me…
is committing an insult."
And here,
for the first time in years,
he felt a different urge.
Not to kill…
but to protect.
To protect his idea.
To protect his story.
To protect himself… from distortion.
That evening,
Eliza and Howard met by chance.
Or so it seemed.
He said as he walked beside her:
"Do you know what unsettles me?
You're the only one who never misreads his expectations."
She looked at him calmly.
"Because I study him seriously."
He stopped suddenly.
"Or because you resemble him?"
The air grew heavier.
She didn't answer.
Silence was the most dangerous answer.
That same night,
a message reached Eliza… and Howard together.
The same text.
The same handwriting.
"When minds begin to resemble each other,
the question becomes:
who leads,
and who follows?"
Howard went pale.
Eliza felt something cold settle in her chest.
He's forcing us into a direct confrontation.
The next day,
another crime.
And this time…
there was a small mistake.
A mistake only Edgar could see.
The angle of the wound.
The time of death.
The positioning of the body.
He smiled a cold smile.
"Not you…
and not me."
Someone was watching.
Learning.
But not feeling.
And that is the most dangerous kind.
Edgar: wants to reclaim control and prevent his identity from being stolen.
Eliza: is struggling to hold onto an ethical line that is slowly fading.
Howard: has begun to realize the case is no longer about a single killer… but about an intellectual contagion.
And the city?
It was breathing fear…
waiting for the next mistake.
At night,
Eliza received one final message from Edgar:
"The difference between me and them…
is that I know why I kill.
Do you know why you write?"
She closed her eyes for a long moment.
Then whispered:
"Because I'm afraid of silence."