Confessions of a Voyeur PT 1

Unraveling the Illusion of Perceptual Filters

Confession #1: Sometimes when I think I'm alone, I go back through my pictures of her and wonder if she knew she was being watched.

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“I’ll Just Watch.”

The call came at 3:47 AM on a Tuesday.

I recognized Tyler's ringtone—"Highway to Hell," his idea of a joke—but my brother never called this early. Something was wrong.

"Abi's missing." His voice cracked on the second word. "She didn't come home last night. Nobody's seen her since her counseling session yesterday afternoon."

Abigail Bailey. Varsity cheerleader. Dean's list. My brother's best friend since sophomore year at Hallowbrook Community College. The girl who'd spent the last two Thanksgivings at our family table, who'd helped Tyler pass Advanced Bio, who'd been there the night he made starting quarterback.

"Tell me everything," I said, already reaching for my notebook through glossy eyes.

The details spilled out in Tyler's distinctive quarterback cadence.

Last known location: Dr. Wilson's office in the Student Services building. 4:15 PM.

Last known outfit: Green Hallowbrook Hawks sweater, black leggings, white Nike running shoes.

The shoes were new. She'd just bought them last weekend, showing them off to Onyx at their weekly coffee date.

"She would've called," Tyler insisted. "She always calls. Even that time she and Onyx got wasted at Callum's frat party and ended up sleeping in Lily’s car—she still texted to let us know she was okay."

I noted the tremor in his voice, the way it rose exactly 2.7 octaves when he said her name. "Have you talked to everyone? The whole group?"

"Yeah. Lily’s been blowing up her phone. Callum checked the frat house and all their usual spots. Even Donny pulled himself out of his perpetual hotbox to help look." He paused. "Onyx is... not good. She and Abi had plans for tonight. Some art gallery opening."

The friend group had always fascinated me with its improbable dynamics. Tyler and Callum, the inseparable quarterback-wide receiver duo. Lily, the stoner who'd rather smoke with Donny than attend any Greek mixers. Ever.

Donny himself, the misanthropic philosophy major who tolerates exactly six people on Earth. Onyx, who'd transformed from Callum's preppy girlfriend into a gothic art photographer after their messy breakup, finding unexpected comfort in Abi's arms. And at the center of it all, Abi—the gravitational force that kept their disparate orbits from spinning apart.

"I need you on this, Brad," Tyler said. "Not just as my brother. As FBI."

My hand stilled over the notebook. "Tyler, I can't just—"

"It's cross-state jurisdiction," he cut in. "She's from Wisconsin. She drove home last weekend to visit her mom. That makes it federal, right? Interstate missing persons?"

He'd done his research. Of course he had—he was my brother.

The next six hours passed in a blur of precisely measured moments. My unit chief's office at 8:00 AM sharp. The weight of my badge as I laid out the facts with mechanical efficiency. Special Agent Davidson's measured stare as she considered the jurisdictional arguments.

"You're too close to this, Williams." Her words carried the weight of twenty years' experience. "Personal connections—"

"My connections give me insights no other agent has." I met her gaze, counting the seconds of silence between us. "I know these people. I understand their patterns, their relationships, their deviations from normal behavior. And my..." I paused, choosing my words carefully. Don’t make it too personal. Don’t overshare. Don’t information dump. Eye contact—but not too much. Maximize the space between shoulder and ear. "...particular way of processing information means I can track those deviations."

She studied me for exactly forty-seven seconds. I knew because I counted each one, just like I counted the four paper clips on her desk and the seven ceiling tiles between her chair and the door.

"The success rate for missing persons cases drops significantly after forty-eight hours," she finally spoke.

"37.4% reduction in probability of recovery.”

Davidson's sigh carried years of similar conversations, similar cases, similar outcomes. "If I approve this, you follow protocol exactly. Every interview recorded, every lead documented, every theory run through proper channels. The moment—the moment—I sense your personal involvement is hindering this investigation, my investigation, you're off the case. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." My fingers twitched toward my notebook, already mapping out interview schedules and evidence logs.

"And Williams?" Her voice softened almost imperceptibly. "Don't make promises you can't keep. Not to the family, not to your brother, not to yourself.”

I should have listened.

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The first twenty-four hours followed standard procedure. Interviews with the friend group yielded consistent timelines. Lily had seen Abi in Advanced Bio at 2:30 PM, noting she seemed "distracted but not, like, abnormally distracted." Callum confirmed she'd skipped their usual post-practice protein shake meetup. Donny, predictably, hadn't left his dorm room all day, but his window overlooked the Student Services parking lot—he would have seen her green Volkswagen Beetle if it had still been there after sunset.

Onyx was the hardest to interview. I found her in the art department's darkroom, developing photographs of Abi from their last shoot together. Black and white images of Abi laughing, Abi dancing, Abi looking at the camera with an expression I carefully logged as "intimate."

"She was going to model for my gallery show," Onyx said, her dark-lined eyes fixed on the images emerging in the chemical bath. "We were going to tell everyone about us that night. Make it official, you know? Guess the universe had other plans." Her laugh held no humor.

The pieces should have fit together. Every detail was documented, every movement tracked, every relationship mapped with precise lines in my notebook. But something was missing—a pattern I couldn't quite grasp, a connection hovering just beyond my reach.

Then I met Dr. Chloe Wilson.

She answered my questions with perfect clarity. Her office was a study in organized chaos that somehow made sense to me. Nothing other people did ever made sense to me.

Student artwork on the walls arranged by color rather than size. Books sorted by subject rather than author. A glass bowl of fidget toys on her desk—she noticed me staring and offered me a smooth stone to hold during the first interview.

"Abigail seemed more settled than usual during our session," she said, her voice carrying the warm authority of someone used to handling other people's crises. "We discussed her plans for transfer applications, her relationship with her mother, her excitement about some upcoming art show." She paused, considering. "Nothing that raised any red flags."

Her alibi was impeccable. Three student appointments after Abi, followed by a faculty meeting until 7:00 PM, then dinner with colleagues at a restaurant where multiple witnesses confirmed her presence until well after midnight. Security cameras tracked her movements. Credit card receipts aligned with her story. Everything checked out.

Everything except the growing certainty in my gut that I was missing something. That I wasn’t seeing Chloe. And I wanted to know her in every possible way.

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Chloe—Dr. Wilson—became a regular source of information as the investigation progressed. She offered insights into Abi's state of mind, shared relevant details from their sessions (with proper authorization), helped me understand the complex social dynamics of campus life. Somewhere between interviews and evidence reviews, case notes and witness statements, dinners began turning to breakfasts, no break between.

She didn't flinch when my fingers drummed against her desk. She noticed when the fluorescent lights buzzed at a frequency that set my teeth on edge and switched to her desk lamp without comment. She asked questions about my methods, genuinely interested in how my mind processes information differently.

"Your attention to detail is remarkable," she said one evening, as I walked her to her car after a late interview.

I should have recognized the danger then. Should have noticed how my careful documentation of our interactions had evolved from professional to personal. Should have seen how my precise timekeeping now revolved around her schedule, her habits, her patterns. Should have noticed before it became a full blown obsession.

Instead, I did the one thing I’d never been able to do. I shut my brain off, I stopped overthinking things—I made her a promise I couldn't keep.

"I'm going to find Abi. I'm going to bring her home."

Chloe's smile held a sadness I didn't understand until much later. "Some problems can't be solved, Brad. Some things just…don't have happy endings."

Three months later, she proved her point by ending things between us.

I had been up late, reviewing evidence again. One snappy comment led to an exhausted reply. Her words cut through the apartment with surgical precision: "You're too fucked in the head for even me to fix. This, us, we’re DONE.”

I added the statement to my notes with mechanical detachment.

Time of comment: 9:47 PM.

Location: Shared apartment.

Ambient temperature: 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Background noise: Rain against windows, intensity moderate to heavy.

Emotion: pain.

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Maybe she was right, maybe I am too fucked up. Either way, the investigation continued. Evidence was cataloged. Witnesses re-interviewed. Theories proposed and discarded. But Abi remained gone, her absence a hole in the pattern I couldn't fill, a mystery I couldn't solve, a promise I couldn't keep.

Some nights, I still catch myself counting the hours since Abi disappeared, calculating probabilities that grow smaller with each passing day, searching for a pattern that might lead her and the others home.

The numbers never add up.

I told myself I'd moved on. Five years of building a career at the Bureau, of telling Tyler I was working other cases, of boxing up my notes on Abi's disappearance (but never throwing them away). Five years of pretending I'd accepted that some mysteries stay unsolved.

Then Dr. Chloe Wilson transferred back to town to open her own private practice.

This time, I won't make promises.

This time, I'll just watch.

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Confessions of a Voyeur PT 1 was featured in Top in Fiction!

Until the next confession,

The Narrator 🖤🌙