The courthouse was a limestone building from the 1930s, its façade adorned with the kind of earnest civic sculpture that had once inspired confidence in the rule of law. Leo sat in the witness waiting room, his hands folded on his lap, staring at a faded watercolor of the Millbrook River that hung on the opposite wall. The painting was cheerful—sunlight on the water, children wading near the bank—and it bore no resemblance to the river he had come to know.
He had not slept well in the three weeks since Thorne's arrest. The nightmares had returned, but they were different now—not the vivid reenactments of the murders, but something more insidious. He dreamed of standing before a mirror, watching his own reflection speak in Thorne's voice. He dreamed of stones appearing in his pockets, in his shoes, under his pillow. He dreamed of waking to find his hands folded over his chest, as if someone had arranged him in his sleep.
The prison psychologist had called it "post-traumatic dissociation"—the mind's attempt to distance itself from overwhelming experience. She had prescribed medication and weekly sessions, but Leo had stopped taking the pills after the third day. They made him feel like a ghost, a passenger in his own body. He preferred the fear. At least the fear was his.
The door opened, and Croft entered, carrying a paper cup of coffee. He sat down beside Leo, his usual reserve softened by something that might have been sympathy. "You ready?"
Leo nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be."
"It's just a preliminary hearing. The prosecution wants to establish probable cause. They'll ask you about the journals, the therapy, the night at the cabin. Stick to what you know. Don't speculate. And if you get confused, just say you need a moment. I'll be there, right behind you."
Leo looked at him. In the weeks since the arrest, Croft had become something like a fixture—a quiet presence at the apartment, a voice on the phone, a face in the doorway. He had not replaced the absence of family or friends, but he had filled a space Leo had not realized was empty.
"I'm not confused," Leo said. "For the first time in years, I know exactly what happened. I just don't know if anyone will believe me."
Croft's expression was unreadable. "You have the journals. You have Pine's records. You have Thorne's confession on the bridge, which we recorded. The evidence is solid. All you have to do is tell your story."
Leo stood, smoothing the front of his borrowed jacket—a blue blazer that Croft had loaned him, too large in the shoulders but better than the hoodie he had worn to the cabin. "Let's go."
The courtroom was small, paneled in dark wood, with a raised bench and a single flag in the corner. The gallery held a handful of reporters, a few curious onlookers, and the families of the victims—women and men he had never met but whose faces he had seen in the news. He did not look at them. He could not bear to see their grief and know that his own hand, however unwitting, had been part of their pain.
He took the stand and swore to tell the truth. The prosecutor, a young woman with sharp glasses and a calm voice, led him through his testimony. He described his job at the records office, his discovery of the Riverbed files, his growing obsession. He described the journal, the sleepwalking, the gravel on his shoe. He described Pine's therapy sessions, the guided imagery, the gradual construction of a false history. He described Thorne's shadow, the hand over his hand, the stone in Patricia Okonkwo's palm.
The defense attorney, a silver-haired man named Cartwright, rose to cross-examine. He was smooth, practiced, his questions designed to chip away at credibility.
"Mr. Vance, you've admitted that you don't remember large portions of your childhood. Isn't that correct?"
Leo swallowed. "Yes. I don't remember everything."
"You don't remember writing the journal entries that describe the murders?"
"No. I recognize my handwriting, but I don't recall the act of writing them."
"So your testimony is based on recovered memories—memories that you yourself admit are unreliable?"
Leo felt the room grow smaller. "They're not unreliable. They're just... buried."
"Buried," Cartwright repeated, his tone skeptical. "And who unburied them? Dr. Pine, who is dead and cannot be cross-examined? Or did you unbury them yourself, through hours of therapy with the prison psychologist?"
Leo's hands began to sweat. "The memories came back naturally. After I was hospitalized. After the note from Thorne."
"Ah, the note." Cartwright picked up a copy of the hospital note, holding it up for the judge. "This note, which appeared mysteriously in your room, with no fingerprints and no witnesses. Is it possible, Mr. Vance, that you wrote this note yourself? In a dissociative state?"
Leo stared at the note. He had considered that possibility, late at night, when the doubts crept in. But he had always pushed it aside. "No. I didn't write it."
"Are you absolutely certain? Because the handwriting on the note has never been matched to Thorne. And the security footage from the hospital that night shows no one entering your room except the nurses."
Leo's heart began to pound. He had not heard that detail before. Croft had told him the note was left by Thorne, but he had never shown Leo the footage. "I don't know how it got there. But I didn't write it."
Cartwright nodded slowly, as if conceding a point. "Let me ask you another question. In your journal—the one hidden in your wall—you describe the Riverbed murders in precise detail, weeks before they occurred. How is that possible, unless you had prior knowledge of the killer's intentions?"
Leo's throat tightened. "Dr. Pine fed me the details. He had access to the crime scene files through his work as a consultant."
"And do you have any proof of that? Any document, any recording, any witness who can corroborate that claim?"
Leo thought of Pine's notes, the binder labeled "SUBJECT 4 – VANCE, LEO." But Pine was dead, and the notes were circumstantial. They showed Pine's observations, but they did not prove that he had fed Leo the details. They were just words on a page, like everything else in this case.
"No," Leo admitted. "I don't have proof. Only my memory."
Cartwright spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. "Then we are left with a man whose memory is fragmented, whose testimony is based on recovered recollections, and whose written work predates the crimes he describes. Is it not possible, Mr. Vance, that you were the Riverbed Killer yourself? That your dissociative episodes allowed you to commit these murders without conscious awareness?"
The room went silent. Leo felt the weight of every eye upon him. He opened his mouth to deny it, but the words would not come. Because Cartwright had touched the one fear that Leo had never been able to shake: what if the memories were not false? What if he had been the one, all along?
"I didn't kill anyone," he finally said, but his voice was thin, unconvincing.
Croft stood, his face flushed with anger. "Objection, Your Honor. The defense is speculating without evidence."
The judge—an older woman with a tired expression—sustained the objection. But the damage was done. Leo could see it in the faces of the reporters, the families, the jurors who would eventually hear this case. He was not a victim. He was a suspect. A man who had written the script, even if he had not acted it out.
He stepped down from the stand, his legs unsteady. Croft met him in the hallway, his jaw tight. "That was a low blow. He had no grounds for that accusation."
"He's right," Leo said quietly. "I don't have proof. I don't have anything except my word. And my word is the word of a man who can't trust his own mind."
Croft grabbed his arm. "Don't let him get inside your head. That's what he wants. He wants you to doubt yourself so he can create reasonable doubt in the jury."
Leo pulled away. "But what if he's right, Croft? What if I did it? What if all of this—the therapy, the manipulation—is just a story I made up to avoid facing the truth?"
Croft stared at him, and for a moment, Leo saw something flicker in his eyes—not certainty, but the same doubt that lived in Leo's own chest. It was a small thing, barely perceptible, but it was enough. Croft did not know. He could not know. No one could.
"I need to go," Leo said. "I need to think."
He walked out of the courthouse, past the photographers and the onlookers, into the gray afternoon. He did not know where he was going. His feet carried him down familiar streets, past closed shops and empty lots, until he reached the river.
It was the same river, the same dark water, the same cold stones. He stood at the edge and looked down at his reflection. The face that looked back was his own, but it was also the face of the boy who had written the journal, the young man who had placed the stone, the man who had stood on the bridge and watched Thorne disappear into the depths. He could not separate them anymore.
He knelt and picked up a stone—smooth, gray, cold. He held it in his palm, feeling its weight, its solidity. It was just a stone. It had no power except the power he gave it.
But as he held it, a memory surfaced—not of the river, not of the murders, but of his mother. He was a boy of ten, sitting on her lap, and she was telling him a story. "There's a river in every family," she said. "It carries the secrets we don't want to face. But you can't cross a river by pretending it isn't there. You have to wade into it, feel the cold, and come out the other side."
He had not understood then. He was beginning to understand now.
He dropped the stone and walked back toward the courthouse. He had no proof, no certainty, no solid ground to stand on. But he had his mother's words, and he had his own determination to wade into the cold and come out the other side.
When he re-entered the courtroom, Cartwright was still at the table, shuffling papers. Croft was speaking quietly with the prosecutor. The judge was reviewing a document. Leo took his seat, and as he did, he caught a glimpse of the families of the victims—their eyes, their tears, their silent accusations.
He looked at them, and he did not look away.
The judge announced a recess until the following morning. As the room emptied, Leo walked toward the families, his heart pounding. He stopped in front of a woman who had been identified as Margaret Doyle's sister. She looked up at him, her face hard, her eyes red.
"I'm sorry," Leo said. "I know that doesn't help. I know it doesn't bring her back. But I'm sorry for what happened, and I'm sorry that my—my broken mind has made this harder for you."
The woman stared at him. For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper: "My sister was a good person. She helped people. She didn't deserve what happened to her."
"No," Leo agreed. "She didn't."
"She used to bring me stones from the river. When we were children. She said they were magic, that they held the memory of the water." The woman's voice broke. "I kept them. All of them. I still have them."
Leo felt a tear roll down his cheek. He did not wipe it away. "I don't have any magic stones. I have only words. And I will keep saying them, until someone believes me."
He turned and walked away, leaving the woman with her grief and her stones. He did not know if he had helped, or if he had only made things worse. But he had done the only thing he could: he had told the truth, as best he knew it.
Outside, the sky had cleared, and the sun was setting over the river. Leo watched the light play on the water, and for a moment, he felt something he had not felt in weeks: peace.
Then his phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number.
"Your mother was right about the river. But she forgot to tell you that the current carries secrets both ways. Check the wall behind your bookshelf again. There's a second journal. The real one."
Leo's blood went cold. He looked up at the river, but the sun had set, and the water was black.
The forgetting had begun.
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