Crypto Murders: Caviar
Kim and the agents seek out the latest victim. a
Lights flooded the basement. She was giving herself time to say something to him.
“Please just let me go. I’ve got money. My parents have money. Anything you want. I’ve got it.”
“Eat your food. It’s getting cold. I want you to look presentable for the cameras. If you look hungry, you’ll ruin the shoot.”
Her eyes darted to the plate. Caviar, lobster and king crab legs adorned the plate. She felt her stomach rumble. Though she was chained to a post be her leg with a chain about two feet long, she had her hands free and she scampered to the plate of seafood. It was glorious. She spooned the caviar in her mouth. The lobster she gobbled and the crab legs didn’t stand a chance.
“Don’t make a mess,” he said coldly. “It will take too much time to clean you up, darling.”
Zhao began to weep with caviar streaking her chin and bits of crab on her lips.
He walked over to her with a towel. He wiped her face and opened up a kit with makeup in it. He plucked her eyebrows, styled her lashes, and applied rouge and lipstick. He held a mirror to her face.
“I made you look pretty. I did this.”
“Yes, you did, now can you please let me go?”
“I’ve been waiting for the moment where you would join your friends. I think you’re going to like the fact that they’re waiting for you, too.”
Zhao wept even more.
“Don’t do that! Your mascara will run and ruin everything!” He sighed. “Excuse me, I didn't mean to shout. I just…I want you to be comfortable down here. I’ve given you amenities. Look! This large screen TV is entertainment. I’ve provided the best foods. What more could you ask?”
“To get the hell outta here,” she retorted. She gritted her teeth and said those words.
“It’s okay. I’m going to put you in a pretty pink houndstooth dress. You’re going to love it. Just wait!”
Zhao began to feel warm somehow. Was there something in the food? She sort of felt sorry for her captor. As much as she wanted her freedom, she still wanted to see Kently Laroi win. She stopped crying and saw her reflection on the TV. The makeup hadn’t run and she smiled at herself.
Kim rolled over and stopped the alarm on her smartphone. It was 3:30 in the morning. She woke up to about ten text messages from St. Kitts and Darby. They all concerned the fact another woman was kidnapped. Yellow, beautiful, crypto related. She leapt from her bed and put on her clothes.
“We know you’re a teacher and all but you know about serial killers and abductions. We just need your interest in the cases that are mounting.”
“I noticed your texts mounted,” Kim said wryly.
“We know you’re serious,” Darby announced.
“I’ll be at the department.”
Once she arrived, she completed the necessary forms where she had to sign as a visitor now.
“Alright, you’ve got me over here for what exactly?” She said with sarcasm. More gallows humor.
“Ha ha,” St. Kitts said. “This is the part of the story where you get to offer your genius to the case. That big law professor brain should be here, but we really need that detective. And a dash of Marine, too.”
Kim smirked. “Same story. Wherever this latest vic is, we’ve got to understand that given the timing of the capture, we can say it was just within twenty minutes of the drop off point from the airport.”
“That’s why we asked you.”
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Skyler Saunders
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Every night at exactly 2:17 AM, someone knocks on my door. Not bangs. Not frantic pounding. Just three slow, deliberate knocks. Knock. Knock. Knock. The first night it happened, I assumed it was a mistake. Someone drunk. Someone lost. Someone who would eventually realize they had the wrong apartment and go away. I didn’t check the door. The second night, I checked the clock first. 2:17 AM. The knocks came seconds later, as if whoever was outside had been waiting for me to notice the time. I froze in bed, listening. My apartment was silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator and my own breathing. After the third knock, there was nothing. No footsteps walking away. No elevator ding. Just silence thick enough to press against my ears. By the third night, fear had settled in. I live alone on the fourth floor of an old building where sound carries strangely. Pipes groan like tired animals. The walls whisper when the wind is right. But this—this was different. This was intentional. Again, I checked the time. 2:17 AM. Again, three knocks. I forced myself out of bed and crept toward the door. I didn’t turn on the lights. I don’t know why—some instinct told me I shouldn’t let whoever was out there know I was awake. I peered through the peephole. The hallway was empty. No shadows. No movement. Just the flickering overhead light and the dull beige carpet stretching toward the stairwell. I laughed quietly, trying to convince myself I was imagining things. Sleep deprivation does strange things to the mind. Then I heard it. A soft sound. Breathing. Not mine. It was right outside the door. I stumbled back, heart hammering, every nerve screaming at me to lock myself in the bedroom. The breathing stopped the moment I moved, as if it knew I had heard it. That night, I didn’t sleep again. On the fourth night, I decided I wouldn’t let fear control me. I stayed awake. Sat on the couch with all the lights on. Coffee in one hand, phone in the other, door in my line of sight. Midnight passed. Then one. Then two. At 2:16 AM, my phone buzzed. I hadn’t set an alarm. The screen lit up with a notification from an app I don’t remember downloading. “It’s almost time.” Before I could delete it, the knocks came. Knock. Knock. Knock. My entire body went cold. I didn’t approach the door this time. I shouted instead. “Who is it?” No answer. “Go away,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’m calling the police.” Silence. Then, slowly, something pressed against the door from the other side. Not a hand. Not a fist. A forehead. I could see the faint indentation through the wood, the way the door bowed inward just slightly, as if whatever was out there was leaning its full weight against it. And then it spoke. Not loudly. Not clearly. Just enough. “You’re late.” The pressure vanished. Footsteps echoed down the hall—finally, real footsteps—and then nothing. The police found nothing. No fingerprints. No camera footage. No neighbors awake at that hour. They suggested stress. Anxiety. Hallucinations. I almost believed them. Almost. The knocks continued every night. Always at 2:17 AM. Sometimes there was breathing. Sometimes there was whispering. Once, I swear I heard my name spoken in my own voice. I stopped sleeping entirely. By the seventh night, I noticed something worse. My reflection had changed. Dark circles under my eyes deepened, but that wasn’t it. When I brushed my teeth that morning, my reflection blinked a fraction of a second after I did. I laughed it off. That night, the knocks came early. 2:16 AM. Knock. Knock. Knock. I didn’t check the door. Instead, I checked my phone. Another notification. “You were supposed to open it.” I don’t remember unlocking the door. I remember standing in front of it. I remember my hand on the handle, shaking. I remember thinking that whatever was out there had already been inside my apartment long before the knocking started. The door opened. The hallway was empty. But my apartment was not. I saw myself standing in the living room, barefoot, eyes hollow, smiling in a way I never had before. It spoke first. “Thank you,” it said. “I was getting tired of waiting outside.” The clock on the wall clicked over. 2:17 AM. I wake up every night now at that exact time. Not because someone knocks. But because I hear it knocking from inside the apartment—from behind my bedroom door. And every night, I knock back three times. Knock. Knock. Knock. Waiting for someone else to open it.
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