Chapter 33: The Approach
I saw him before the Detection fully stabilized.
A figure moving through the tree line on the opposite side of the property, dressed in dark clothes, carrying a backpack. Joe Goldberg, crossing private land with the careful steps of someone who knew exactly what he was doing.
He wasn't coming up the driveway. He wasn't announcing himself. He was approaching through the woods, staying hidden, using the same terrain I'd used for my surveillance.
This wasn't reconnaissance. This was action.
My hands tightened on the binoculars until my knuckles went white. The Detection screamed cold focus, the hunting intensity I'd learned to recognize over weeks of surveillance. Joe had made his decision. Joe was executing his plan.
And Peach was inside, oblivious, thirty yards from the man who'd come to kill her.
I shifted position, moving around the perimeter to keep Joe in sight while staying hidden myself.
He was good at this. Patient, methodical, the way he'd been patient and methodical with Beck—only here the goal wasn't seduction. Here the goal was elimination. Each step was calculated to minimize noise. Each pause was strategic, letting him scan for threats before proceeding.
He didn't know I was watching. Couldn't know. The Social Invisibility helped, but distance and caution helped more.
I tracked his circuit around the property. He was mapping exit points, checking windows, looking for the easiest entry. The front door was too visible. The garage was locked. But the back of the house—
There. A door I couldn't see from my original position, partially hidden by a utility shed. Joe tested it. The handle turned.
Unlocked.
Shit.
The math was simple and terrible.
Joe was thirty seconds from entering the house. Inside, Peach was alone, unarmed, unaware. By the time she heard him, it would be too late. By the time she called for help, it would be over.
I had thirty seconds to stop this.
Direct confrontation meant revealing myself to Joe. It meant sacrificing the anonymity I'd maintained for two months. It meant potentially dying if Joe was faster or stronger or better prepared.
But indirect intervention—a distraction, something to spook one or both of them—might buy time without destroying my position entirely.
I scanned the ground around me. Rocks, fallen branches, the debris of autumn. Nothing useful as a weapon, but plenty useful as a noisemaker.
A rock through a window would shatter the silence. Peach would react—lock doors, call police, do something. Joe would hesitate, reassess, maybe retreat.
Or Joe would accelerate, kill her before help arrived, disappear into the woods.
The variables were too many. The time was too short. I had to choose.
I picked up a rock the size of my fist.
The weight felt wrong in my hand—too light for what I needed it to do, too heavy for the confidence I wanted to feel. My fingers trembled around it, adrenaline making fine motor control difficult.
Across the property, Joe's hand was on the unlocked door.
I drew back my arm.
This has to work. This has to—
The rock flew.
I'd aimed for the window of the study where Peach had been working—loud enough to shatter glass, startling enough to draw attention. But my arm was cold, my muscles were tired, and the throw went wide.
The rock struck the stone wall beside the window with a crack that echoed across the property like a gunshot.
Joe froze mid-motion, hand still on the door handle.
Inside the house, I saw a silhouette move—Peach, reacting to the noise, turning toward the sound.
For a moment, everything hung suspended.
Then Joe pulled his hand back from the door and stepped into the shadow of the utility shed. The Detection wavered—hunting focus shifting to calculation, adapting to unexpected variables.
He wasn't leaving. But he wasn't entering either.
I'd bought time. Maybe minutes. Maybe seconds.
Not enough.
Peach appeared at the study window, looking toward where the rock had struck.
I saw her expression through the binoculars—confusion, concern, the beginnings of fear. She scanned the grounds, looking for the source of the sound. Her phone was in her hand.
Call someone. Call the police. Call anyone.
But she didn't dial. She just watched, trying to make sense of what had happened.
In the shadow of the utility shed, Joe waited. I could feel his cold focus recalibrating—not panicked, not fleeing, just adjusting. He was too professional to abandon the operation at the first sign of complication. He'd wait, watch, identify the source of the disturbance.
And then he'd continue.
I needed to escalate.
Another rock, larger this time. I threw it toward the driveway, making sure it landed on gravel—a crunching sound that could be footsteps, could be a car, could be anything.
Peach's head snapped toward the new noise. She stepped back from the window, disappearing deeper into the house.
Joe's position shifted. Through the trees, I could see him moving—not toward the house anymore, but laterally, trying to find a new angle, trying to identify who was out there.
The Detection tracked him like a beacon. Cold, searching, frustrated.
He knew something was wrong. He just didn't know what.
I kept throwing. Rocks into bushes, sticks against trees, any noise I could generate to create the impression of multiple threats from multiple directions. The property filled with sounds that didn't make sense—too random to be animals, too scattered to be one person.
Joe's movement became erratic. He couldn't pinpoint the source. Couldn't advance safely. Every step forward meant potentially walking into an ambush he couldn't predict.
The cold focus began fragmenting into something else. Not fear—Joe didn't seem capable of fear—but caution. Uncertainty. The calculating mind hitting variables it couldn't resolve.
Peach finally dialed her phone.
I watched her through the window, talking to someone, gesturing, clearly describing the situation. Probably not police—the response time to Greenwich was too slow, and she didn't seem panicked enough. Maybe Helena, the friend she'd copied on her emails. Maybe security staff who could be here within the hour.
Either way, she wasn't alone anymore. Someone knew something was wrong.
Joe saw her on the phone too.
The Detection spiked—frustration layered over cold calculation. The window was closing. The opportunity he'd planned for was dissolving in real-time.
He could still move. Could still force entry before anyone arrived. But the noise, the uncertainty, the phone call—they'd changed his equation.
He stepped back.
Another step. Another.
Moving away from the house, away from the unlocked door, away from the opportunity he'd come here to exploit.
I tracked him through the woods as he retreated toward the road. His pace was controlled, professional—no running, nothing that would attract attention. Just a man walking through the forest, abandoning a plan that no longer worked.
The Detection faded as he moved out of range. Cold becoming distant. Hunting focus becoming something duller, more resigned.
Not defeated. Joe wasn't capable of defeat. But deterred. Temporarily.
I stayed in position for another three hours.
Peach moved through the house with new urgency, checking doors, locking windows. A car arrived around five—a woman I didn't recognize, probably Helena or another friend. They embraced in the doorway, talked intensely, went inside together.
She wasn't alone anymore. Whatever Joe had planned for tonight couldn't happen now.
The weekend stretched ahead, and I didn't know what it would bring. But this moment—this afternoon—had been won.
Peach Salinger was alive. She would fly to LA. She would meet Candace Stone. She would get the evidence that could finally expose Joe Goldberg.
I'd bought that future with thrown rocks and improvised chaos.
Tomorrow, I'd figure out what came next.
Tonight, I'd allow myself a single moment of satisfaction before the cold and the exhaustion took over.
One life. Protected for one more day.
The mission continued.
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