The conference room smelled faintly of dry‑erase markers and burnt coffee.
Mark Keller sat at the far end of the long table, a leather folder open in front of him. The folder was old, edges frayed, manila yellowed with time. On its cover, written in black marker twenty years ago, were the words:
BURLESON INCIDENT 1.
Across from him, three younger agents shifted in their seats. Fresh haircuts, crisp suits, the restless energy of men and women still climbing the Bureau ladder. Keller could almost see the skepticism in their eyes.
Special Agent Dana Whitaker, mid‑thirties, took the lead. She flipped through a thin report and then glanced up, one brow arched.
“So,” she said, “you’re telling us a hurricane victim in Florida last week is connected to a hailstorm death in Burleson back in 2005.”
Keller met her gaze. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
The room went quiet for a beat.
Whitaker exchanged a look with Agent Lopez, sitting beside her. He gave the faintest shake of his head, as if to say here we go again.
Keller tapped a photo onto the table. Mrs. Lawson, Burleson, 2005. Arms folded. Calm amid chaos. A storm‑damp claim form lying on the coffee table.
Next, he laid down the Cedar Key photo, snapped just forty‑eight hours ago. Same arrangement. Same eerie calm. Another claim form —
C‑47.
“You see it,” Keller said quietly. “Same placement. Same staging. Same calling card.”
Whitaker leaned back, arms crossed. “Mark, with respect, storms bring out chaos. Looters, accidents, injuries—”
“This wasn’t looters.” Keller’s voice cut sharper than he intended. He forced it softer. “I’ve worked looting cases.
Looters don’t fold hands across the chest. They don’t pin claim forms to the table like souvenirs.”
Lopez exhaled heavily. “And you’re basing this on two cases, twenty years apart?”
Keller’s eyes didn’t waver. “Two that you know of. I think there are more.”
He slid another paper across the table — a printed insurance record he’d dug up the night before. A flood in Missouri, 2011. Another woman, early forties, divorced, living alone. Found in her home after the disaster. The claim form attached:
C‑47‑3310.
Whitaker frowned. “Where’d you get this?”
“Cold case archives,” Keller said. “You’d be amazed what’s buried in the digital files now. Back then, nobody thought to connect them. But now… now the pattern’s clear.”
Agent Lopez leaned over the paper, reading the line item slowly. “Victim: Karen Silva, age 41. Found deceased following Joplin tornado.” He looked up. “Same… staging?”
Keller nodded. “Arms folded. Calm amid chaos. Claim form. Always women, thirty‑five to forty‑five. Always living alone. Always after a catastrophe.”
Whitaker’s lips pressed thin. “Even if what you’re saying is true, Mark, why wait twenty years? Why stop and start?”
Keller tapped the Burleson file. “Who says he stopped?”
The room went quiet again.
Whitaker finally pushed back from the table. “We’ll review the files. But don’t get your hopes up. If this is a pattern, it’s buried deep. The Bureau doesn’t chase ghosts.”
Keller gave a humorless smile. “No. But I do.”
He left the conference room and walked slowly down the hall.
The Dallas office buzzed with the energy of younger agents, phones ringing, printers spitting paper, agents hurrying between cubicles. Keller felt like a ghost drifting through a world that had moved on without him.
Back at his temporary desk — little more than a cubicle they’d let him keep since his “consultant” contract began — he spread the photos out again. Burleson, Joplin, Cedar Key.
Three women. Three disasters. Three claim forms marked
C‑47.
He leaned back, rubbing a hand over his face. Twenty years, and the bastard had never stopped. He’d just gotten smarter, hiding in the chaos of storms, leaving behind bodies that looked like collateral damage.
Keller opened his notebook, the same kind he’d used in 2005. He wrote in careful block letters:
- Burleson, 2005: Mrs. Lawson, 38. Divorced. Found staged. C‑47‑1123.
- Joplin, 2011: Karen Silva, 41. Divorced. Staged. C‑47‑3310.
- Cedar Key, 2025: Elaine Turner, 40. Single. Staged. C‑47‑2085.
Three dots. He drew a line connecting them.
He stared at the line for a long moment, then whispered to himself:
“This isn’t over.”
That evening, Keller returned to his Burleson home. The house felt too big now, the silence pressing on him. He poured himself a black coffee and sat at his oak desk, laying the files out across the surface like a grim deck of cards.
He stared at Mrs. Lawson’s photo again. He could still hear the dripping water in her living room, still see the neighbor describing the man with the clipboard.
He pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and began writing names down the margin. Not victims this time, but disasters:
- Katrina, 2005.
- Joplin Tornado, 2011.
- Hurricane Harvey, 2017.
- California Wildfires, 2018.
Every one of them had left chaos in its wake. Every one had been crawling with insurance adjusters.
And if Keller was right, every one might hide another woman staged with folded arms, a claim form marked
C‑47.
He closed the notebook and looked up at the maps on his wall, the pins marking disaster paths.
The bastard had left a trail.
Now it was up to him to follow it.
Tomorrow: Dallas, 2005 — The Bureau Pushes Back
