Samuel Kerr was found alive in an abandoned chapel on Old Mill Road.
Barely.
A deputy discovered his car behind the church, tires slashed, driver’s door open. Inside the chapel, candles had been arranged around the aisle in a shape that looked ceremonial until Mara stepped close enough to see the practical purpose: light for a camera. Someone had recorded what happened there.
Kerr was tied to a chair near the altar, conscious but shaking violently. The chainsaw sat on the floor ten feet away, red-stained and silent. His injuries were not as severe as Martin’s, but the message was clear. Whoever attacked him had been interrupted or had chosen to stop early.
A white card was pinned to his jacket.
Confession first. Punishment second.
Kerr kept saying one thing while paramedics worked.
“I confessed.”
Mara crouched beside him. “To what?”
He looked at her with eyes full of terror and shame.
“To everything.”
“What is everything?”
Kerr began to cry.
Not quietly.
Not with dignity.
He said he had been having affairs with patients and clients for years. Vivian Knox had discovered some of them. She photographed him. Then someone started sending him anonymous letters, demanding he add names to a private file, men he knew were unfaithful, men who confessed in counseling, men whose marriages were already breaking apart.
“You gave names?” Mara asked.
Kerr nodded.
“Why?”
“They had pictures.”
“Of you?”
“Yes.”
“Who had them?”
He swallowed.
“The woman in red.”
Vivian.
But Kerr shook his head before Mara could say it.
“No. She was scared too.”
Mara leaned closer.
“Scared of who?”
Kerr whispered, “The man who said he was purifying the county.”
That phrase would have sounded ridiculous in any other case.
Here, beside a stained chainsaw and a row of candles, it sounded like a doctrine.
Mara asked, “Name.”
Kerr’s lips trembled.
“I never saw his face.”
“Then how did he contact you?”
“Letters. Calls. Once through the road department.”
That last part sharpened the room.
“Road department?”
Kerr nodded. “He said he knew where every man drove when he wanted to lie.”
Mara stepped outside and looked toward the old highway beyond the chapel trees.
A man who knew roads.
Service lanes.
Mile markers.
Maintenance cuts.
A man who could appear ahead of Ethan because he was not using the highway like everyone else.
By evening, investigators had a suspect.
Silas Greer.
Former county road maintenance supervisor.
Widower.
Fired three years earlier after threatening a man he accused of sleeping with his wife.
Known to own yellow rain gear.
Known to keep chainsaws for storm clearance work.
And living less than a mile from an abandoned service road that connected mile marker 214 to 219.
Mara ordered surveillance.
But when deputies reached Silas Greer’s house, they found him sitting at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee.
His right leg was in a brace.
He could barely walk.
And according to two neighbors, he had not left the house all night.