Page 39 of Peak Cruelty

Marlowe

T he storm catches up to us. I can’t sleep. The bed’s too springy, the walls too thin, and the air smells like mildew and old AC—as though someone tried to cover a spill with time. Vance passed out an hour ago, the kind of sleep that looks earned. Heavy. Dreamless. He hasn’t moved since.

I’m on the floor, cross-legged. Motel lamp turned to low. Puzzle spread out in front of me like I’m six and grounded, except this time I stole it. Swiped the box off a shelf in the rental before we left. It’s missing edge pieces. I like it better that way.

Not that it matters. The notebook has my attention. It wasn’t hidden. Not really. Tucked beneath a folded shirt in the duffel he never actually zips all the way. As if he’s daring someone to look.

I did.

I didn’t mean to read it. But once I did, I didn’t stop.

It’s not a journal. Not at first glance. No dates or feelings or long-winded observations about clouds. Just names. Ages. Scrawled notes in the margins—doctor visits, diagnoses, question marks. The kind of list you only keep if you’re tracking something—or someone.

It reads like a list made by someone trying to stop a train with one hand.

I flip another page. Then another.

Behind me, the mattress shifts.

I freeze.

He doesn’t say anything. Not yet. But I can feel it—the air thinning. That unmistakable weight of being watched.

And just like that, I’m caught.

I tilt the puzzle box his way, letting a few pieces fall out. One slips between my knees, another bounces off my sock.

“You know this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when you said ‘stay put.’”

He doesn’t take the bait. Just crosses the room and plucks the black notebook from beside me. Frayed at the edges, as though it’s been carried for miles and meant to stay hidden.

“I was looking for the puzzle,” I say. “It was there.”

He freezes. Just for a second. Long enough to tell me everything I need to know.

“You read it.”

“I looked at it. There’s a difference.”

“What bullshit.” He scrubs a hand down his face, then lets it drop. “You went through my things.”

I match his tone. Calm. Flat. “You abducted me and locked me in a house. Let’s not pretend we’re in some kind of moral gridlock here.”

He shifts his weight like the argument’s physical. But he doesn’t swing back. Doesn’t bother.

“I thought it was a journal,” I say, turning a puzzle piece over in my hand. “Or some kind of revenge fantasy. You know. Normal guy stuff. But this?—”

The pages, the lists flash through my mind like photographs. Names. Ages. Schools. Doctor appointments. Disorders in scribbled margins. Crossed-out lines and question marks like someone trying to play God and losing sleep over it.

“This is real,” I say. “It’s not just my sister…”

He nods once.

“How many of them?—”

“Too many.”

He sinks down beside the wall, the motion more gravity than choice, arms resting on his knees. The kind of collapse that looks practiced. As though he does this sometimes. As though it’s the only posture where the guilt doesn’t win.

“You think I want this?” he asks. “You think I don’t know it’s fucked?”

“I think,” I say, “you’re trying to save kids. And that’s not the part that’s fucked.”

He exhales through his nose, humorless. “You know what the worst part is? It’s not just that I can’t stop them all. It’s knowing that some of them—some of the women I’ve tracked—they’ll keep going. Because I got distracted. Or waited too long. Or picked the wrong person.”

Rain needles the window hard enough to make the glass rattle.

The silence between us stretches. Thick and ugly.

I glance at the notebook again, at the names without endings.

“You ever think about giving it to someone?” I ask. “Cops. Journalists. Anybody?”

He looks at me like I just asked if he’d consider franchising.

“What makes you think I don’t?”

My brow knits. “Because it was between your underwear.”

Vance scoffs. “You act like I’m killing them.”

“Aren’t you?”

He almost looks offended. Almost. “I force confessions. Upload them online. That’s it.”

I raise an eyebrow. “And the plumber?”

“My first,” he says. Like he’s talking about an ex.

It hits. Low and quiet. “That explains a lot.”

He shrugs, unapologetic. “So far, so good. And he wasn’t just a plumber—would have done a lot of damage if given the chance. You saw what was on his phone.”

I know what he’s saying and at some level I even understand it. Or at least I want to.

“I don’t get it.” I narrow my eyes. “You kidnap them, threaten them, ruin their lives—and then what? You just…let them go?”

“Well, yeah. After a rock solid case and a very persuasive death threat.”

“Why not just become a cop? Seems easier.”

“High stress. Low pay.”

“You’re doing it for free.”

He shifts. “Yeah, but this way I don’t have to answer to anyone. No paperwork. No body cam. And no one telling me to 'de-escalate' when the mom's feeding bleach to her toddler.”

I stare at him.

He continues, deadpan. “Plus, they don’t always see it. There’s too much backlog. Too many hours. It’s easy to miss. Heavy stuff, really. And most of them don’t want to admit it, not when a woman looks like a good mother on paper.”

I tilt my head. “And you think you do?”

He doesn’t answer. Just presses the heels of his hands into his eyes like he can push the past out that way.

“You don’t have to save everyone, Vance. You can’t. ”

He doesn’t look up.

“I know,” he says. “But that doesn’t change anything.”

“Someone should have saved you,” I say. “That’s what this is about.”

“Maybe.”

And there it is. The crack.

The room shifts.

Not because of the thunder. Just with the quiet kind of grief—the kind that folds instead of shouts.

I pick up the puzzle box. Start sorting from the middle. It’s stupid. Pointless. But I do it anyway.

Eventually, he joins me.

And for a little while, we don’t talk about who we were. Or who we’re going to be.

We just try to make something fit.