Page 18 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

But now I’m wondering if I’ve been protecting the wrong person. Or maybe the right one, in the wrong way.

Maybe it wasn’t about men like Hank. Maybe it’s about the system that would crucify her for doing what it couldn’t.

My hand hovers over the file. I should flag this. Open a new report. Start the protocol. At the very least, alert Missing Persons.

I pull the pages, fold them slow, and slide them into the drawer like a priest stashing sins he doesn’t regret.

Then I turn the key. Not to bury the evidence. To guard it. If anyone’s coming for her, they’ll have to get through me first. Because part of me, maybe the part that should’ve retired three years ago, is already rewriting the story.

Maybe she’s not the monster. Maybe she’s the answer.

Or maybe I’m already hers, and too far under to pretend otherwise.

I should stop.

I should stop right here.

Print the report, tag it for review, take it upstairs and say, “Hey, remember that dead creep? Yeah, turns out he was hanging out with a serial killer cookie fairy.”

But I don’t. Instead, I lean in and start running the app records again. Not just for Hank Johnson. Not just for Tramble.

I dig into the server pulls. Archived messages. Login IPs. Metadata. All of it.

Jennifer Lane used three dating apps over the past six years. Different usernames, different profile pics, but the same email backbone, the same device ID on the back end. She’s not even trying to hide it. That’s what fucks me up. It’s all there.

Men start stacking up. All missing. All with rap sheets a mile long, abuse, assault, stalking. One guy tried to burn down his ex’s trailer with her inside.

Jennifer matched with each of them.

Dated them. Laughed at their jokes. Let them think they were getting laid. A few dates. Then nothing. Gone. Erased.

She’s not a serial killer. She’s a fucking reckoning.

I lean back, spine ice and adrenaline, stomach curled around the sick thrill of it. This isn’t chaos. This is pattern. It’s not a mess. It’s a method. A private justice system wearing a sundress and a smirk.

And I’m fucking in awe.

And I should be horrified.

Instead, I feel like I just found the fucking Rosetta Stone. Like I’ve been squinting at pieces of a puzzle and now the picture is finally snapping into place.

Jennifer is effective. And every man she took out? Yeah. They fucking deserved it.

I exhale slow, like maybe if I do it quiet enough, the walls won’t hear.

Then I open my department login and start deleting logs. First the local app archive I just pulled. Then I flag the access as a false positive “internal error” and mark it for deletion.

I close Hank Johnson’s case, mark it “no actionable leads.”

Then I go one step further: after noting the name of her current target, Derik Putzly, I tag her dating app account as compromised, flagged for deletion in 72 hours due to “suspicious activity.” That buys time. Scrambles records. Buries the trail in red tape and low-priority tech tickets.

My hands shake. I think I’m gonna throw up or jerk off or both.

I just rewrote history for her. Not for justice. Not for duty. For her. I’m not a detective tonight. I’m hers. Just hers. A complicit, lovesick fool jerking off to justice in a sundress.

I wipe a hand down my face, heart hammering, half-sick, half-hard.

She’s dangerous. She’s divine. And maybe I’m not her protector. Maybe I’m just the next man dumb enough to die with her name on my lips and a smile on my face.

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