The person outside was Mr. Peterson, checking the street after noticing an unfamiliar vehicle circle the block. Anna nearly laughed from relief when she recognized him, but the relief lasted only seconds.
He warned her that someone appeared to have been watching the house.
Anna showed him the photographs from Dererick’s notebook. Peterson studied the repeated dates and initials and said what Anna had been avoiding: the entries looked like records.
Not memories. Not private fantasies. Records.
Back inside, Anna examined the copied drive.
The first directories contained work documents. Beneath them were folders organized by dates. Inside were photographs, saved messages, schedules, and notes about people Anna did not recognize.
Some names appeared repeatedly.
Beside them were details no casual acquaintance should possess: work hours, favorite cafés, medical complaints, relationship problems, addresses, sleeping habits.
Anna felt sick.
Dererick had been studying people.
She found notes describing stages of contact: introduction, observation, dependence, isolation. The language was detached and procedural, as though human relationships could be engineered through a sequence of controlled interventions.
Another file described substances and reactions.
Anna stopped reading and pushed herself away from the desk.
Her own nightly tea suddenly belonged to a larger pattern.
When Clare arrived, still wearing hospital clothes beneath her coat, Anna met her at the back entrance. Her sister took one look at her face and stopped asking whether the situation was truly serious.
Anna showed her the photographs first.
Then the files.
Clare read in silence. Her medical training made certain entries more alarming to her than they had initially been to Anna. Dosage abbreviations and physiological observations suggested deliberate experimentation with sedating or disorienting substances.
Clare insisted that Anna leave immediately.
Anna agreed to leave, but she refused to abandon the investigation entirely. If Dererick had targeted other people, destroying his opportunity to hurt her would not stop him from harming them.
The sisters compromised. Anna would spend nights elsewhere while they duplicated the evidence and sought professional help.
Mr. Peterson accepted a sealed copy of the drive. Clare took another to her hospital locker.
Anna kept a third.
They created simple emergency signals. A particular text meant call police. Three flashes from Peterson’s porch light meant suspicious activity. No one would discuss the evidence over ordinary phone calls unless necessary.
That night, from Clare’s apartment, Anna continued reading.
She found photographs taken from social media and annotated with routines. Receipts connected Dererick to hotel rooms and supply purchases. Draft messages showed him practicing different tones of sympathy before contacting vulnerable people.
His kindness had been rehearsed.
Anna remembered how he had courted her: appearing when she needed help, remembering details she had mentioned only once, anticipating needs before she voiced them.
For the first time, she wondered how much of their marriage had been spontaneous and how much had been designed.
Then Clare found a familiar name.
It was not Anna’s.
It belonged to someone from Clare’s yoga circle.
The woman appeared in Dererick’s notes beside an entry about a social introduction and a later attempt to establish private contact.
Clare stared at the screen, anger replacing disbelief.
If the records were accurate, Dererick had already begun reaching into her world too.
Anna understood that escape alone was no longer enough.
They needed to learn how far his network extended before he realized they had found it.
