The Red Notebook

Detective Laura Briggs stood in the doorway of the dimly lit apartment, taking in the scene. Blood smeared across the floor, a chair overturned, and the victim—a middle-aged man, Daniel Green—lying face-up with a gaping wound in his chest. But what grabbed Laura’s attention wasn’t the body. It was the small red notebook placed neatly on the table beside him.

No robbery, no signs of struggle. Just a dead man and a notebook.

She slipped on her gloves and picked up the notebook, flipping it open. Its pages were filled with neat, precise handwriting, the kind that looked too careful, almost staged. The first line made her heart skip.

“Detective Briggs, this is for you.”

Her hands tightened around the notebook. She quickly scanned the rest of the page.

“He was the first. There will be more. I know you better than you think.”

Laura’s stomach turned. She closed the notebook and handed it to the forensics team. She had been a detective for a decade, but never had a killer addressed her directly.

“Did anyone see anything?” she asked Officer Chen, who was standing nearby, his face pale from the gruesome scene.

“No witnesses, Detective,” he replied, shaking his head. “Neighbor heard a thud, came in and found him like this. The front door wasn’t locked.”

Laura frowned. “No signs of forced entry?”

“None,” Chen confirmed.

“So whoever did this, Green knew them,” she said, more to herself than to anyone else. She took a deep breath and surveyed the room again, trying to shake the unsettling feeling creeping over her. Why target Green? And why leave a message for her?

As she was about to leave, her phone buzzed. A text, from an unknown number.

“Do you understand yet, Detective?”

She stared at the screen, her blood running cold. The killer was watching her. She quickly looked around, half-expecting to see someone lurking in the shadows, but the room remained still. She texted the number back.

“Who are you?”

Three dots appeared, then disappeared. No response.

---

Back at the precinct, Laura sat at her desk, staring at the red notebook in an evidence bag. The forensics team had found no fingerprints, nothing useful. The writing was printed, deliberately anonymous. But the tone… it felt personal.

Her phone buzzed again.

“Look closer.”

Her heart raced as she pulled out the notebook, her hands shaking slightly. She flipped through the pages, scanning the text. Nothing stood out at first—just a series of vague, taunting notes. But then she saw it. On the last page, barely visible under a smudge of ink, was a name.

James Briggs.

Her brother.

Laura’s breath caught in her throat. James had died three years ago, a tragic accident. She’d buried the grief, thrown herself into her work, never talked about him. How could the killer know? She flipped back to the earlier pages, her mind racing.

Suddenly, her office phone rang, the shrill sound making her jump. She snatched it up. “Briggs.”

A deep, distorted voice came through the line.

“You never let him go, did you?”

Laura’s chest tightened. “Who is this?”

The voice chuckled, a low, mocking sound. “You’ll find out soon enough. But for now, I want you to remember: you’re not hunting me. I’m hunting you.”

The line went dead. Laura dropped the phone, her hands trembling. She knew then—this wasn’t just about Daniel Green. The killer was targeting her, dredging up her past, twisting the knife deeper with each step.

And whoever it was, they were far from finished.