Vanishing Point
April 20, 2025
The call came in at 4:47 a.m. A missing person. Nothing new. But by the time Detective Rowan Pierce stepped into the studio apartment on 12th Street, he knew this wasn’t a routine disappearance.
There was too much blood.
“Name’s Erica Vale,” said Officer Trent, glancing at his notepad. “Thirty-two. Freelance photographer. Friend reported her missing this morning when she didn’t show up for a shoot.”
Pierce crouched near the kitchen island. Blood smeared the tile, a trail leading toward the back hallway—but no body.
“What’s the story with the friend?”
“Name’s Lila Monroe. She said Erica hadn’t been answering calls or texts since yesterday evening. Said that wasn’t like her.”
“And no signs of forced entry?”
“Door was locked. Chain was on.”
“Inside job, then,” Pierce muttered. “Or someone she trusted.”
He looked around. The apartment was small but stylish. Black-and-white photos lined the walls—mostly street shots, candid moments, blurred strangers. But one caught his eye: a man in a trench coat, facing away from the camera, under a flickering streetlamp. The title beneath read Vanishing Point.
“Creepy,” Pierce murmured.
Lila Monroe arrived an hour later, clearly shaken.
“I knew something was wrong,” she said, arms crossed, voice tight. “Erica doesn’t just disappear.”
“Tell me about her. Enemies? Exes?”
Lila hesitated. “She… she was getting paranoid lately. Said someone was following her. She wouldn’t go out without her camera.”
Pierce raised an eyebrow. “Why the camera?”
“She said she could feel someone watching. She thought if she could catch them in a photo, they’d stop.”
“Did she?”
“I don’t know. But last week she showed me a picture she said wasn’t there when she took it.”
“What kind of picture?”
Lila frowned. “A man. Same one from that photo on the wall. The one with the coat. She said he kept appearing. Even in old shots she’d already developed.”
“Like some kind of ghost?”
Lila looked at him, dead serious. “That’s what she thought.”
Back at the precinct, Pierce had the forensics team analyze Erica’s darkroom.
“There’s something weird,” one tech said, holding up a developed negative. “We enhanced the background of one of her last photos. And there he is again.”
“The man with the coat?”
“Yeah. But get this—his face is never visible. Always turned. Always distant.”
Pierce stared at the photo. “Could be a stalker. She captures him accidentally. He finds out. Comes after her.”
The tech nodded. “Maybe. But there’s no trace of her. No drag marks. No signs of a struggle beyond the blood. It’s like she just… vanished.”
Pierce returned to the apartment that evening. Something about the photos bothered him. He scanned the room again. The same man appeared in at least five different shots—different locations, different dates.
How could one man be everywhere?
He picked up the photo labeled Vanishing Point again. The streetlamp, the fog, the man. Something about the composition…
He pulled out his phone and zoomed in.
Behind the man, barely visible in the shadow, was Erica. Half-obscured. Staring directly into the lens.
But the photo was dated two weeks ago.
“She’s in the picture,” he whispered.
And she hadn’t taken it.
Pierce brought the photo to Lila the next morning.
“Have you seen this?”
Lila’s face went pale. “That’s her.”
“But this image is from two weeks ago.”
“That’s impossible. She showed me this photo. She said she took it.”
“Then who took this version?”
Lila said nothing.
“You know something,” Pierce pressed.
She swallowed. “I think I know where she went.”
The abandoned rail yard outside the city had been closed for years. Rows of rusted cars and broken track stretched into the fog. Lila led the way silently, flashlight bobbing.
“She brought me here once,” she said. “Said she saw him here. The man. Said this is where it started.”
They found the old service shack just past the third rail. Inside, it was cold, damp, and smelled of mildew.
But the wall was covered in photos.
Hundreds of them.
Erica in various places. Standing. Watching. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with the man. Always unaware she was being photographed.
“Jesus,” Pierce whispered.
Then he noticed something else.
Some of the photos showed Erica in this shack.
Different poses. Different clothes.
Like a series.
A timeline.
Lila picked up one with shaking hands. “This one’s from the café near her apartment. She was there last Thursday.”
“But this image wasn’t taken then,” Pierce said, pointing to the timestamp on the back. “It was printed the day before.”
Lila turned to him. “How can that be?”
“I don’t know.”
The next morning, Pierce sat in his car staring at the last photo Erica had printed—left on her desk, freshly developed.
It was a photo of him.
Taken from across the street, through the window of the precinct.
He turned it over. A single word was written on the back:
“Next.”
The case was closed a week later. No new leads. No body. No suspect.
Just a missing photographer and a detective who stopped answering his phone.
When they searched Pierce’s apartment, they found his camera on the floor and a stack of photos on the kitchen table.
Each one showed him at different locations, each more recent than the last.
And in the final frame, he was walking toward a streetlamp, into the fog.
Behind him stood a man in a coat.
And Erica Vale.
Smiling.