Chapter 2
Chapter two
Eamon
Rain hammered the roof of my rental car—sharp, relentless, the kind of Pacific Northwest downpour that turned streets into rivers and made sound travel strangely. I sat in the sudden quiet and listened—not to the weather but to what lived underneath it.
Sounds filled the night. Gutterwater rushing downhill. Distant traffic on the arterial. The stillness of a residential street after midnight, when everyone's inside pretending to sleep.
Three seconds. Five. Ten.
No dogs barking. No porch lights flicking on. No one was opening doors to see who'd pulled up.
Good.
I scanned left first. Parked cars lined both sides—Subarus and Hondas weathered by salt air and rain, bumpers held on with duct tape. It was the comfortable shabbiness of a neighborhood where people stayed because they belonged.
A recycling bin tipped against a curb. House numbers ascended in brass and painted wood, some tilted by decades of Seattle's hills trying to claim them back.
Then the gray sedan.
Two houses down. Driver's side facing me. Engine off but windows fogged from the inside—someone's breath condensing against cold glass. Oregon plates. Recent model, nothing distinctive. The kind of car designed to disappear in any parking lot, on any street corner.
Exactly what a smart predator would choose.
I memorized the plate number. Noted the angle to the McCabe porch. Calculated response time if the driver moved—twelve seconds to exit my vehicle, reach the front door, and position myself between threat and target.
Not fast enough if they had a weapon.
Probably fast enough if they didn't.
My hand drifted to the Glock holstered under my jacket, its familiar weight. I could draw, approach, and make contact. Establish presence. Show them someone was watching back.
Bad idea. Residential zone. No immediate threat. No proof of hostile intent beyond unsettling messages and surveillance positioning.
I left the weapon holstered.
Stepped out into the rain instead.
It hit harder than I'd expected—needles through my collar, soaking through the denim in seconds.
The smells hit next: wet pavement and cedar shingles, the green rot of leaves decomposing in gutters, and something warmer underneath.
Coffee. Someone in this neighborhood was awake, brewing comfort against the dark.
The storm door caught my attention. Old aluminum frame gone gray with age, moving slightly in the wind with that distinctive squeak—metal hinge grinding against metal frame.
Michael had mentioned it on the phone without meaning to: Mac stood on the porch, and the door squeaked before he came inside.
Now I knew what that sounded like.
I added it to my internal map. Threat assessment worked in layers—sight lines and exit routes first, but also sound. If someone opened that door while I was inside, I'd hear it. I'd know someone was coming before they cleared the threshold.
The front door opened before I reached it.
Michael McCabe filled the frame. I remembered him when I saw him—we'd worked a case together two years back, some tech CEO with an angry investor making threats. He still carried that cop's economy of motion, the kind of stillness that came from training you couldn't unlearn.
He was holding his phone in one hand like he'd been tracking my progress the entire drive north.
"You made it." Not thank god or I was worried—just confirmation.
I appreciated that.
"Road's clear." I wiped rain off my face, noted the porch light's coverage pattern, and the shadows where someone could wait unseen. "You said the threat's parked?"
"Gray sedan. Hasn't moved since Mac spotted it around seven." He spoke with a familiar flat procedural voice—the tone of someone managing fear through training. I'd used it myself.
I didn't look back at the car. Didn't need to. I'd already registered everything worth seeing.
"I'll need full access to his phone in the morning. Original message headers, timestamps, anything the screenshots didn't capture."
"Done."
We stood there a moment—two men who understood the weight of what I'd agreed to do. I'd failed at it once.
"Come in," Michael said, stepping back. "I'll brief you."
I followed him inside.
The kitchen was smaller than I'd anticipated—barely room for two men to stand without one backing against the counter. A half-full coffee pot sat on a warmer, the glass carafe stained brown at the waterline—evidence of a family that ran on caffeine and late nights.
I spotted a pie tin on the counter—apple, mostly gone, fork marks in the remaining filling. Christmas lights blinked in the next room, casting everything in red and green shadows.
Too bright. Too warm. My jacket was already damp against my shoulders, and the kitchen's heat made it cling.
Michael gestured at a chair. I stayed standing. Never sit when you're doing an initial threat assessment. Never give up the ability to move fast.
He pulled out his phone. "A flurry of messages. All from the same unknown number. Forwarded to me. Started around six tonight when Mac arrived."
He handed me the phone.
I scrolled through the words. Read each message twice—once for content, once for structure.
Your condition has deteriorated since last season.
Improper handling causes irreversible damage.
847 documented images across 18 months.
Intervention timeline: 3 weeks.
The language stopped me cold.
Not "I love you" or "I need you" or any of the possessive declarations that usually showed up in obsessive fan contact. This read like field notes. Like someone documenting a specimen under observation. And then the final—it read like poetry.
A clinical stalker. I'd studied the pattern in training, read case files from colleagues who'd dealt with them. They didn't just want their targets—they wanted to preserve them. Control every variable. Remove them from what they perceived as "damaging conditions."
The eighteen-month timeline meant planning. Patience. Resources.
This wasn't someone who'd give up when faced with security measures. This was someone who'd adapt.
"Clinical obsession," I said. "Not fan behavior. The stalker's been documenting him like a research subject."
Michael's jaw ticked. "That's what I thought. Wanted confirmation."
"I need the original headers. Message timestamps down to the second. Metadata if the carrier logged it." I looked up.
"You'll have it."
I handed the phone back. "No police report tonight?"
"Not yet. I contacted one of my former colleagues, and he says they won't open a case without a physical approach or an explicit threat. These messages are disturbing, but they're not technically illegal yet." Michael's frustration bled through the professional delivery. "Yet."
"Yet," I agreed. "Log an incident number anyway," I added. "When the stalker escalates, I want the clock to start tonight. Someone who's been documenting him for eighteen months, who uses language like intervention and extraction—that's not someone making idle threats. That's someone with a plan."
The coffee pot hissed on the warmer. Overhead, someone moved—floorboards creaking, footsteps crossing a room. The sound filtered down through old plaster and joists that probably hadn't been leveled in twenty years.
Mac. The guest room was directly above us, according to the mental map I'd built from Michael's description.
I'd seen his face before—a press conference three years ago—the coming out that made national news. The camera loved him—dark hair, striking eyes, that specific blend of Irish and Japanese heritage that gave him features both sharp and elegant.
There'd been something else in those photos—something the cameras couldn't quite hide. The tension around his eyes. The way his smiles never reached them. He looked like someone performing happiness rather than living it.
The footsteps crossed the room again. Slower this time. Someone unable to settle.
Someone scared.
I pressed my palm flat against the counter. The Formica was cool under my hand. Grounding.
"What else do I need to know?"
Michael hesitated. First time he'd done that since I'd arrived.
"Mac stays in character," he said finally.
"Charm. Control. He's been doing it so long he doesn't know how to stop.
" He ran a hand through his hair—a gesture that looked habitual, something he did when he was trying to figure out how to say a tricky thing.
"Don't buy it. And don't let him flatter his way past your security protocols. He'll try."
"Understood."
"And his last relationship ended badly. A guy named Derek who loved the spotlight more than he loved Mac. It's made him—" Michael stopped and looked at me directly. "Just don't expect him to trust you right away. Or at all. He's learned not to trust people's motives."
"I'm not here to be trusted. I'm here to keep him alive."
"You want coffee?" Michael asked.
"No."
"Water?"
"Yeah."
He filled a glass from the tap. Set it on the counter in front of me. I drank half. Rinsed the glass in the sink. Dried it with the dish towel hanging from the oven handle, then set it on the rack.
Michael watched me do it.
"Habits," I said.
"Good ones."
I pulled out my phone. Started a voice memo.
"Tighter perimeter tomorrow. Full security assessment of this house before breakfast. I'll need to know every entry point, every window lock, every neighbor with a clear sight line to the front door.
Cameras installed by tomorrow night—motion-activated, cloud backup, something they can't disable if they get close. "
Michael nodded. "Whatever you need."
I stopped the recording. "The sedan outside. You get a visual on the driver?"
"No. The windows were foggy. Could be anyone."
"Could be the stalker."
"Yeah."
Outside, the rain intensified. Water rushing through gutters, drumming against windows. The sound should have been comforting, but instead felt like static—covering other noises, masking footsteps, and making everything harder to hear.