The notification arrived at precisely 11:47 AM, just as Mariko Tanaka was adjusting the audio levels on Episode 73 of "Cold Cases Revisited." The small pop-up on her second monitor read: "Dennis Blackwood, 58, killed in hit-and-run, Scarborough."
Mariko's fingers froze above the mixing board. Dennis Blackwood. She had interviewed him three weeks ago about the disappearance of tech entrepreneur Marcus Webb in 1998. A most cooperative witness, she remembered, with an excellent memory for dates and details—the sort of guest who made her work considerably easier.
She minimized the audio software and opened her production spreadsheet, a meticulously organized document containing every guest, every case, every minute detail of her podcast's three-year run. Her eyes moved methodically down the rows until they found what she feared.
Angela Morrison. Interviewed five weeks ago about the Webb case. Died in a house fire two weeks later.
Roberto Valdez. Interviewed seven weeks ago about the Webb case. Fell from a subway platform four weeks later.
And now Dennis Blackwood.
Three accidents. Three witnesses. One case.
Mariko reached for her phone, then hesitated. Who exactly would she call? The police? To report what—a pattern that existed only in her color-coded spreadsheet? She could almost hear their polite skepticism. Instead, she opened her desk drawer and retrieved the small leather notebook she used for initial observations, the kind that couldn't be hacked or deleted.
The Webb case had been her white whale, the perfect mysterious disappearance for a podcast that specialized in cold cases. Marcus Webb, thirty-two years old in 1998, founder of one of Toronto's first internet security firms, had vanished without a trace. No body, no ransom demand, no final message. The police investigation had yielded nothing conclusive, and the case had grown cold until Mariko had decided to feature it in her series.
She had been thorough—perhaps too thorough. Twenty-three interviews over two months, tracking down everyone who had known Webb, from former employees to his yoga instructor. The response had been overwhelming. Her listener numbers had tripled, and the hashtag #FindMarcusWebb had trended for three days.
But now three of those voices were silent.
Mariko's assistant, Simon Okafor, knocked and entered without waiting for a response—a habit she had been meaning to address. "Mare, we've got Dr. Frost on the line for tomorrow's recording session. She wants to know if we're still focusing on the Erikson murders or if—" He stopped, noticing her expression. "What's wrong?"
"Cancel Dr. Frost," Mariko said quietly. "Cancel everything for the rest of the week."
Simon's eyebrows rose behind his thick-rimmed glasses. Dr. Evelyn Frost was their star expert, a criminal psychologist whose insights had become a signature element of the show. "But she's already prepared her analysis, and we promised listeners—"
"Simon." Mariko turned her laptop screen toward him. "Look at this pattern."
The young man leaned forward, his expressions shifting from confusion to understanding to alarm in the span of ten seconds. "This can't be a coincidence."
"No," Mariko agreed, "it cannot."
She stood and moved to the window of her King Street office, watching the streetcars pass below. Toronto in November was grey and unforgiving, the kind of weather that made everything appear suspect. "Simon, I need you to pull everything we have on the Webb case. Every recording, every transcript, every email from listeners. Put it all on an external drive."
"You think someone's targeting them because of the podcast?"
Mariko turned from the window. "I think someone's been using the podcast to find them."
The thought had been forming since she'd connected the third death, a terrible possibility that grew more solid with each passing moment. Her podcast hadn't just investigated cold cases—it had served as a beacon, drawing out witnesses who'd remained silent for decades, people who thought enough time had passed to make their knowledge safe to share.
"But who would—" Simon began, then stopped. "Should we call the police?"
"First, we need more than a pattern. We need evidence." Mariko returned to her desk and pulled up the archived footage from their video podcast sessions. "Every episode with those three guests was filmed. If someone was watching, planning, perhaps they attended the live recordings."
Simon nodded and hurried out. Mariko remained seated, studying her spreadsheet with the intensity she'd once reserved for deadline journalism. There had to be something else, some connection she was missing.
Her phone buzzed. Dr. Frost calling.
Mariko let it ring through to voicemail, then played the message: "Mariko, dear, Simon just told me you're canceling our session. I do hope everything's all right. I've prepared such fascinating material on pattern recognition in serial crimes. Rather ironically relevant, wouldn't you say? Do call me back."
Something in the psychologist's tone made Mariko replay the message. "Rather ironically relevant." Why would pattern recognition in serial crimes be ironically relevant to the Erikson murders they were supposed to discuss?
Unless Dr. Frost somehow knew what Mariko had discovered.
She opened a new browser window and typed "Dr. Evelyn Frost criminal psychologist Toronto" into the search bar. The results were extensive—academic papers, conference appearances, expert testimony in numerous trials. But when Mariko refined her search to include "1998," something interesting appeared.
A small mention in an archived newspaper article about the Webb disappearance. Dr. Evelyn Frost, then a graduate student, had been interviewed as she'd attended a conference where Webb had been a speaker the day before he vanished.
Mariko's fingers drummed against her desk. Dr. Frost had never mentioned knowing Webb during any of their discussions about the case. An oversight? Or something more deliberate?
She was reaching for her phone to call Simon back when her office door opened. Detective Inspector Russell Hayes stood in the doorway, and Mariko's first thought was that he looked exactly as a detective should look in an Agatha Christie novel—rumpled raincoat, knowing eyes, and an air of having seen too much.
"Ms. Tanaka? I'm Detective Inspector Hayes. Retired, technically, but the department asked me to look into something. May I come in?"
Mariko gestured to the chair across from her desk. "If this is about Dennis Blackwood, Angela Morrison, and Roberto Valdez, Inspector, then yes, please sit down."
Hayes's weathered face showed surprise, then something like approval. "You've noticed the pattern then. Good. Saves us some time." He settled into the chair with a slight tremor in his left hand that he tried to conceal. "I worked the original Webb case in '98. When Morrison died, I didn't think much of it. Valdez made me curious. But Blackwood... well, three's a pattern, isn't it?"
"They all spoke about the Webb case on my podcast," Mariko said. "I think someone's been using my show to locate witnesses."
Hayes nodded slowly. "That's one theory. The other is that someone wants to send you a message. Stop digging into the Webb case, or more people die."
"But the case is already covered. We've published all the episodes."
"Have you?" Hayes leaned forward. "Or were you planning more? Maybe a special anniversary episode? Perhaps you've been in touch with someone who hasn't come forward yet?"
Mariko thought of the encrypted email she'd received last week from someone claiming to be Webb's former business partner, offering to share "the real story" for the right price. She hadn't responded yet, had been verifying the sender's identity.
"How did you know?"
"Because I received the same offer," Hayes said. "Someone's trying to flush out the last witness. Someone who thinks this person knows something damaging." He paused, studying her office walls covered with crime scene photos and timelines from various cases. "Ms. Tanaka, what do you really know about your regular experts? The people who appear on your show repeatedly?"
"They're all verified professionals. We check credentials thoroughly."
"I'm sure you do. But credentials can be built, histories can be created. Especially over twenty-five years." Hayes pulled out a folder from his coat. "Dr. Evelyn Frost attended McGill University from 1996 to 2000. Except there's a gap. Six months in 1998 when she supposedly took a mental health break. No one seems to remember seeing her during that time."
Mariko's mind raced through every interaction she'd had with Dr. Frost. The woman's uncanny ability to predict criminal behavior, her insistence on covering certain cases, her subtle guidance of discussions toward specific aspects of investigations.
"You think Dr. Frost is involved in Webb's disappearance?"
"I think Dr. Frost is someone other than who she claims to be," Hayes said carefully. "The real Evelyn Frost died in a skiing accident in Whistler in 1999. Whoever your expert is, she assumed that identity shortly after."
The room seemed to shift around Mariko, like a stage set suddenly revealed as cardboard facades. "She's been on my show forty-seven times. She's analyzed dozens of cases, including Webb's. She helped shape the narrative."
"Controlling the story," Hayes agreed. "Monitoring who came forward. Until you got too good at your job and found witnesses she didn't know existed."
Mariko's phone buzzed again. Dr. Frost. This time, a text: "I'm downstairs in the lobby, dear. We really must talk."
Hayes saw her expression change. "She's here?"
"Downstairs." Mariko showed him the message.
The detective's hand moved reflexively to where his service weapon would have been, finding only empty space. "We need backup."
"Wait." Mariko's mind was working now, arranging pieces like she would structure a podcast episode. "If we involve the police now, she disappears again. But if we record her, if we get her to confess..."
"That's extremely dangerous, Ms. Tanaka."
"Everything about this is dangerous, Inspector. Three people are already dead." Mariko moved to her equipment rack, fingers flying over familiar controls. "Simon can monitor from the next room. You'll be here. And everything will be recorded—video and audio, uploaded to the cloud in real-time."
Hayes was already shaking his head, but Mariko could see him considering it. "She's managed to stay hidden for twenty-five years. She won't confess just because you're recording."
"She will if she thinks she's controlling the narrative again. It's what she's been doing all along—using my show to tell the story her way." Mariko activated the cameras, adjusted the microphones. "Besides, she doesn't know we know about the real Evelyn Frost."
Before Hayes could protest further, Mariko had texted back: "Come up. Studio 2."
She turned to Hayes. "There's a observation room through that door. Simon will show you. Whatever happens, don't intervene unless absolutely necessary."
Hayes stood slowly, that tremor in his hand more pronounced. "For what it's worth, Ms. Tanaka, you would have made a good detective."
"I prefer podcasting," Mariko replied. "The dead can't object to your questions."
Five minutes later, Dr. Evelyn Frost entered Studio 2. She looked exactly as she always did—professionally elegant, silver hair pulled back in a careful chignon, wearing the kind of understated jewelry that whispered rather than shouted its value. She settled into her usual chair with practiced ease.
"Now then," she began without preamble, "we need to discuss your unhealthy obsession with the Webb case."
Mariko activated the recording equipment with a subtle gesture. The red lights remained off—she'd disabled them earlier. "I wouldn't call three deaths unhealthy. Tragic, perhaps."
"Accidents happen, dear. Toronto can be a dangerous city."
"Especially for people who knew Marcus Webb."
Dr. Frost's expression didn't change, but something shifted in her eyes. "Poor Marcus. Such a brilliant man. Did you know he was working on early blockchain technology? Years ahead of his time. The world lost a visionary when he disappeared."
"Disappeared. Not died?"
"Well, without a body, one can never be certain, can one?" Dr. Frost crossed her legs, a gesture Mariko had seen hundreds of times, but now it seemed calculated, performative. "Though I suspect if Marcus were alive, he would have surfaced by now. The tech boom would have been irresistible to someone with his ambitions."
"You sound like you knew him well."
"I attended a conference where he spoke. We chatted briefly about encryption protocols. Fascinating but ultimately forgettable." She paused. "Unlike your recent guests, who seemed to have quite detailed memories of that time."
There it was—the subtle threat wrapped in academic observation.
Mariko leaned back, projecting casualness. "Memory is funny that way. Sometimes trauma makes things crystal clear. Roberto Valdez remembered seeing Webb argue with a woman the night before he disappeared. He couldn't recall her face, but he remembered she wore a distinctive bracelet—silver, with chess pieces as charms."
Dr. Frost's hand moved involuntarily to her wrist, where a silver bracelet caught the studio lights. Different charms now—tiny butterflies instead of chess pieces—but the same distinctive style.
"Memory can also be unreliable," Dr. Frost said softly. "People remember what they want to remember. They create narratives that make sense of chaos."
"Is that what you've been doing? Creating narratives?"
"Isn't that what we all do, dear? You, with your podcast, turning cold cases into entertainment. Me, with my analyses, providing frameworks for understanding the incomprehensible." Dr. Frost stood and moved to the window, her back to Mariko. "Did you know Marcus Webb wasn't his real name?"
Mariko's finger hovered over her keyboard, ready to signal Simon and Hayes. "What?"
"Marcus Webb was a creation, just like Dr. Evelyn Frost was a creation." She turned, and for the first time, Mariko saw something raw beneath the professional veneer. "We were partners in more than just business. We were building identities for the digital age, selling clean slates to people who needed them. New names, new histories, new lives."
"You were Sophia Reeves," Mariko said, the name coming from deep in her research. "Webb's business partner who supposedly died in a car accident in Montreal."
"Very good." Dr. Frost—Sophia—smiled. "Though I prefer Evelyn now. I've been her longer than I was ever Sophia." She returned to her chair. "Marcus got greedy. He wanted to sell our client list to the highest bidder. Do you have any idea what that information was worth? The people who'd paid us to disappear—criminals, yes, but also witnesses, abused spouses, whistle-blowers. He would have destroyed hundreds of lives for money."
"So you killed him."
"I stopped him." The correction was sharp. "There's a difference between murder and prevention. Ask any of your expert criminologists."
"Where's his body?"
"Where all digital pioneers should rest—scattered across servers and hard drives, his consciousness uploaded to the cloud in a way." She laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "I'm joking, of course. Marcus is buried in a forest north of Algonquin Park. I doubt anyone will ever find him."
"You've just confessed to murder."
"Have I? I thought we were discussing a podcast episode. Creating narratives, as I said." Dr. Frost stood again. "Besides, who would believe it? The respected Dr. Frost, with her spotless reputation and academic credentials, confessing to a crime from before she technically existed? It would make a good story though. Perhaps for your final episode."
"Final?"
"Oh yes, dear. 'Cold Cases Revisited' has run its course. You're going to announce that the stress of the recent accidents has made you reconsider. You'll do one last episode—a tribute to Dennis, Angela, and Roberto—and then you'll retire the show."
"And if I refuse?"
Dr. Frost moved toward the door, then paused. "Did you know Simon takes the same route home every night? Down Spadina, through Alexandra Park? So predictable. And Detective Inspector Hayes, despite his Parkinson's, still insists on living alone. Admirable but risky. Tremors can make one so unsteady on stairs."
The threat was explicit now, no longer wrapped in academic language.
"You've thought of everything," Mariko said.
"I've had twenty-five years to perfect my approach. Though I must admit, you've been my greatest challenge. Your attention to detail, your persistence—in another life, we might have been colleagues."
She opened the door, then turned back. "Forty-eight hours, Mariko. Announce the end of your podcast, or I'll write the ending myself."
The door closed with a soft click.
Mariko counted to ten, then Hayes and Simon burst in from the observation room.
"Did you get all that?" she asked.
Simon was already at his laptop. "Every word. Already uploaded to three different cloud servers and sent to my personal encrypted drive."
Hayes was on his phone, his trembling hand making it difficult. "I need units at..." He looked at Mariko.
"She's probably already gone," Mariko said. "She's survived this long by being careful."
But Hayes shook his head. "Not gone. She's waiting. She needs to know you'll comply. She'll watch your social media, your website. She needs confirmation."
Mariko moved to her computer and opened her podcast's website. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. "Simon, can you trace website visitors? See where they're accessing from?"
"If they're not using a VPN, maybe."
"She won't be. Not for this. She'll want to appear normal, just another concerned listener." Mariko began typing:
"It is with deep sadness that I announce the upcoming end of Cold Cases Revisited. Recent tragic events have made me reconsider the impact of revisiting these painful histories. Our final episode will air this Friday."
She posted it, then watched the visitor analytics. Within seconds, there was a spike in traffic. One IP address stood out—accessing from a coffee shop on Queen Street, five blocks away.
Hayes was already moving. "Keep her watching. Post updates, respond to comments. Anything to keep her at that location."
The detective disappeared, phone pressed to his ear, finally sounding like the police officer he'd once been rather than the tired retiree who'd first entered her office.
Mariko began responding to the flood of comments on her announcement, each response carefully crafted to seem genuine while buying time. Simon worked beside her, tracking the IP address, confirming it remained static.
Fifteen minutes later, Hayes called.
"We have her. She didn't run—kept watching your updates on her phone even as we surrounded the coffee shop." There was satisfaction in his voice. "Twenty-five years, and it was vanity that caught her. She had to see your surrender."
Mariko leaned back in her chair, suddenly exhausted. "What happens now?"
"Now she gets charged with three counts of murder, and possibly a fourth if we can prove Webb's death. Your recording will be crucial evidence."
"Will it be enough?"
Hayes was quiet for a moment. "It will have to be."
Three days later, Mariko sat in Studio 2 again, this time alone. The red recording light was on, and she'd already done her introduction. Now came the hard part.
"This truly is the final episode of Cold Cases Revisited," she began. "Not because of threats or fear, but because some cases, once solved, reveal truths about the danger of obsession—both mine and others."
She looked directly at the camera, imagining her listeners in their cars, their kitchens, their offices.
"Dr. Evelyn Frost, whose real name was Sophia Reeves, killed Marcus Webb in 1998. She then assumed the identity of a deceased graduate student and built a career on understanding the criminal mind—perhaps because she knew it so intimately. She used this podcast to monitor and control the narrative of Webb's disappearance, and when that control was threatened, she killed three innocent people."
Mariko paused, organizing her thoughts with the same precision she'd always applied to her work.
"But this story is also about the responsibility we bear as storytellers. My podcast gave Dr. Frost the tool she needed to find her victims. My persistence in uncovering the truth cost three people their lives. The fourth death—Webb's—was long ago, but the others... those are partially on me."
She picked up the leather notebook that had started it all, running her fingers along its worn spine.
"Cold cases exist in a delicate balance between justice and peace. Sometimes, in our desire to solve puzzles, to create neat endings, we disturb things better left buried. Not all mysteries need solutions. Not all stories need endings."
A soft knock at the door interrupted her. Simon entered, giving her a thumbs up—the episode was streaming perfectly.
Mariko nodded and continued. "Dr. Frost was right about one thing—we all create narratives to make sense of chaos. But some narratives are designed to obscure rather than illuminate. It's taken me seventy-three episodes to learn the difference."
She reached for the console, preparing to play her final segment.
"For those of you wondering about the details of the Webb case, the evidence against Dr. Frost, and the ongoing investigation, I'm afraid those stories belong to the courts now, not to podcasts. My role as narrator has ended."
She pressed play on a prepared montage—voices of victims from all her cases, not just Webb's, reminding listeners that behind every cold case were real people, real loss, real consequences.
As it played, Mariko thought about Dr. Frost, now in custody, probably already planning her defense. The woman had been right about one thing—the story would make a compelling narrative. But it was no longer Mariko's story to tell.
The montage ended, and Mariko leaned toward the microphone one last time.
"This is Mariko Tanaka, signing off from Cold Cases Revisited. Thank you for listening, for caring, and for understanding that sometimes the most important thing we can do is know when to stop."
She ended the recording, saved the file, and uploaded it to the server. Within minutes, it would reach thousands of listeners, each processing the end of something they'd come to rely on.
Simon appeared in the doorway again. "The press is calling. CBC, Global, everyone wants an interview."
"Tell them no." Mariko stood, gathering her things. "The story's been told."
"What will you do now?"
She considered the question. "Maybe write a book. Fiction, this time. Stories where I control all the variables."
"Like Agatha Christie?"
Mariko smiled—the first genuine smile in days. "Perhaps. Though I think I've had enough of murders for a while."
She left the studio, turning off the lights behind her. The equipment powered down with soft sighs and clicks, returning to silence. Somewhere in the city, Dr. Frost was being processed, photographed, fingerprinted—reduced to data points in a system she'd once manipulated.
Hayes was waiting in the lobby, looking better than he had three days ago, the successful conclusion of his decades-old case seeming to have steadied his hands.
"Thank you," he said simply.
"For what? Three people died because of my podcast."
"Three people died because a killer decided they needed to die. You just provided the opportunity, not the motive." He pulled on his rumpled coat. "Frost would have found another way. People like her always do."
"People like her?"
"The ones who think they're authors of everyone else's story." He moved toward the door, then paused. "For what it's worth, Ms. Tanaka, you did the right thing. The ending may not be neat, but it's honest."
After he left, Mariko stood in the lobby of the building that had housed her podcast for three years. Through the windows, Toronto continued its endless motion—streetcars, pedestrians, cyclists, all moving through their own narratives, unaware of the story that had just concluded fourteen floors above.
Her phone buzzed. An unknown number, but the message was familiar: "Brilliant finale. Your best episode yet. Looking forward to what you do next."
Mariko deleted the message without responding. Some stories, she'd learned, were better left unfinished.
She stepped out into the November afternoon, the grey sky promising snow but not delivering, like a narrative thread left deliberately unresolved. The city swallowed her up—just another person with a story, walking among millions of others.
Behind her, in Studio 2, the red recording light flickered once and went dark.