Page 8

8

EDEN

T he carnival’s history unfolds before me like a twisted tapestry as I pour over newspaper archives and police reports. My laptop screen casts an eerie glow across my desk at two a.m., but I can’t stop—I won’t stop. Each article leads to another breadcrumb, another piece of this dark puzzle.

“Found another one,” I mutter, adding a red pin to my digital map. A nineteen-year-old girl vanished from Springfield last summer. The carnival had been there that week.

My fingers fly across the keyboard, cross-referencing dates and locations. My heart races with each new connection. Two are missing in Cedar Rapids, 2021, and another in Oakwood, 2020. The pattern emerges like a terrible constellation.

“This can’t be a coincidence.” I pull up my recording software, speaking into my microphone. “Pattern analysis shows eight disappearances in the past three years, all within a five-mile radius of the carnival locations.”

I reach for my coffee cup. The liquid inside has long gone cold, but I barely notice. The thrill of discovery burns hotter than any caffeine rush.

“Correlation doesn’t equal causation,” I remind myself, but my gut tells me differently. These aren’t random acts. Someone’s using the carnival’s movement as cover, and they’re good at it.

I again pull up Remy’s employee file, studying his arrival dates at each location. My breath catches. He was there. Every single time.

“Oh, you beautiful monster,” I whisper, tracing my finger across his photo on the screen. “What secrets are you hiding?”

I grab my black messenger bag, checking that my lockpicking tools remain in the hidden compartment. The weight of my camera and recorder provides comfort as I sling the bag over my shoulder.

I slip into my car, the leather seat cold against my skin. The digital clock reads two forty-seven a.m. Perfect timing—the carnival will be dead now.

The drive takes fifteen minutes, my headlights cutting through the darkness. I park two blocks away, not wanting to risk detection. The gravel crunches under my boots as I approach the carnival grounds.

Moonlight bathes the silent rides, casting eerie shadows across the grounds. The office trailer sits dark and still. I pause behind a booth, scanning for any movement.

Nothing.

The lock yields easily to my picks. A soft click, and I’m in. The door creaks as I ease it open, making me wince. I fish out my small flashlight from my bag, keeping the beam low.

Filing cabinets line one wall. My fingers trail across the labels until I find what I’m looking for; financial records. The drawer slides open smoothly.

“What the hell?” I whisper, pulling out a stack of papers. These aren’t carnival receipts. They’re shipping manifests, coordinates, and what looks like payment schedules.

I’m looking at a ledger filled with dates and locations. Each entry lists weights, prices, and initials.

My stomach churns as I realize what I’m looking at. This isn’t a carnival—it’s a front for an illegal operation. Human trafficking? Drug running? The evidence points to something of that nature.

I carefully return everything to how I found it, leaving no trace. Whatever’s happening here, I need to be smart about proceeding because one wrong move could ruin my investigation.

Realizing what Remy might be capable of sends heat coursing through my body. I press my thighs together, trying to control the ache building.

“What’s wrong with me?” I whisper, even as images of his powerful hands flash through my mind.

I smooth out the stack of papers, ensuring they lay exactly as I found them. My breath comes in short gasps as I imagine Remy orchestrating these shipments, these disappearances. The clinical part of my brain catalogs the evidence. Still, another part—a depraved part—is thrilled at each new revelation.

Eight people. Eight lives. Did he end them himself? The thought should horrify me. Instead, I feel a rush of arousal so intense I have to grip the filing cabinet to steady myself.

“Focus,” I mutter, wiping down any surfaces I might have touched to remove fingerprints. But my mind keeps circling back to Remy—to his quiet intensity during our interview.

Was he studying me while I studied him? Did he recognize something in me that mirrors the darkness in himself?

I make sure everything in the office is exactly as I found it. Each piece of evidence I’ve uncovered points to something more sinister than I imagined, and Remy stands at the center.

The sickening twist excites me. I want to understand the psychology behind these acts and witness them firsthand, to be close enough to feel the power, the control.

I ensure the door is locked behind me, leaving no trace of my presence. However, I can’t hide the thrill stoked within me or deny how much I want to dive deeper into Remy’s psyche.