Chapter 5 #2
Juliette shouldn't tell me, but she's had three glasses of wine—I can hear it in her voice.
"She can't nail the dynamic between her hero and heroine.
Says it feels forced. She needs inspiration for authentic obsession, but all she's had lately are mediocre men who think dinner at a steakhouse counts as romance. "
"What does she want instead?"
"God, I don't know. Someone who sees her? Really sees her, not just the successful author or the pretty face. Someone who'd burn the world down for her but also challenge her. She writes these incredible antiheroes but dates men who apologize for existing."
"Sounds frustrating."
"She literally threw her laptop at the wall last month because she couldn't write a convincing stalking scene. Said she had no frame of reference for that level of focused desire."
I smile in the darkness of my kitchen. "Perhaps the mountains will inspire her."
"I hope so. Oh—she asked about Mom and Dad today."
My hand stills on the coffee mug. "What did you tell her?"
"Nothing. Just that they died when we were young. Cain... we never talk about them."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"There's everything to talk about. The therapy I've been in for fifteen years would suggest—"
"Juliette."
She sighs again. "Fine. But if Celeste asks you—"
"I'll tell her they died." Which is true.
They died screaming into pillows as carbon monoxide filled their lungs, clawing at windows they couldn't open, finally understanding what it felt like to be powerless. "That's all anyone needs to know."
"Do you ever think about them?"
"No." Every day. Every time I remove another predator from the world. Every time I protect someone who can't protect themselves. "Do you?"
"Sometimes. Mostly I dream about them. My therapist says it's my subconscious trying to process unresolved trauma."
"What do you dream?"
"That they're still alive. That they're coming for us." Her voice drops to almost a whisper. "That what happened to them wasn't an accident."
I'm silent for a long moment.
Juliette has always been too smart for comfortable lies.
"It was an accident," I say finally. "The investigators confirmed it. Faulty heating system."
"I know. I know. It's just... the timing. Right after that fight, after Dad—" She stops. We don't talk about that night.
The night before they died, when Richard went too far and I fought back for the first time.
When I promised him that if he touched Juliette again, I'd kill him.
He thought I was bluffing.
Boys don't kill their fathers, even adoptive ones. Even monstrous ones.
He was wrong.
"Get some sleep, Juliette."
"Cain? Be careful. With Celeste, I mean. She's more fragile than she seems."
"Everyone is."
After she hangs up, I move to my study.
The photo from Roy's camera is developed now, hanging to dry.
Celeste at her window, staring out at something beyond the frame.
She looks lonely.
Perfect.
Like she's waiting for something to shatter the glass and climb through.
I take out her manuscript—the real one, with all her deleted scenes and margin notes.
There's a particular passage she cut from chapter twelve, something Juliette probably deemed "too dark."
Her heroine is discovering gifts from her stalker:
Each present was a violation and a reverence, proof that he'd studied her like a holy text, finding meaning in details others overlooked.
She should have been terrified.
Should have called the police, installed cameras, bought a gun.
Instead, she displayed them.
These tokens of obsession became her treasures, evidence that someone found her worthy of such complete attention.
What did it say about her that she preferred this—this invasion, this consumption—to the safe, consensual relationships she'd known before?
Maybe it said she was broken. Or maybe it said she was finally awake.
Celeste deleted this, but I saved it.
Tomorrow, I'll leave it for her with the photograph.
Let her see that someone preserves the words she abandons, finds beauty in the darkness she fears.
But first, there's Jake to consider.
I pull up his personnel file on my laptop—easy enough to access when you know how.
Jake Bauer, graduated two years before Celeste.
Multiple complaints in high school for "inappropriate attention" toward female students, all buried by his father, who owned the local hardware store.
Joined the force at twenty-six after failing out of community college.
Three excessive force complaints, all involving men who "disrespected" women Jake felt protective toward.
A pattern of possessive behavior disguised as chivalry.
His social media is a goldmine of red flags.
Photos from high school, where he's always positioned near Celeste, even in group shots.
Comments on her author page that toe the line between supportive and obsessive.
A Twitter account where he argues with anyone who leaves negative reviews of her books.
And now he's on Celeste's protection detail.
I walk out onto my porch, violin in hand. The snow has stopped, leaving the world muffled and white.
Sound will carry perfectly tonight.
I position myself facing the direction of the Sterling house and begin to play—Paganini's “Caprice No. 24”. The Devil's Laugh, some call it.
Technical, violent, beautiful.
Let her hear this and think of me.
Let Jake hear it and know something watches from the darkness.
The music cuts through the night like confession, each note a promise.
I play until my fingers ache, until I know she's listening, until I can feel her attention like heat across the distance between us.
When I finally stop, the silence feels alive.
Waiting.
I go back inside and prepare tomorrow's gift.
The photograph, the deleted passage, and something new—a key.
Not to anything specific, not yet.
Just an old skeleton key that could open any lock, or none.
Let her wonder what doors I'm offering to open. Let her imagination do the work for now.
Around one in the morning, I make my way back through the woods to the Sterling house.
Jake's patrol car is still there, parked where he can see her window.
He's slumped in the driver's seat, but I can see the glow of his phone.
Taking pictures? Texting someone about her?
I circle wider, coming up from behind the house.
Her window is cracked open despite the cold—she likes fresh air when she writes.
The gifts slip through easily, landing silently on her desk.
As I'm withdrawing, I hear it—Jake's car door opening.
Footsteps crunching through snow toward the house.
I freeze, watching as he approaches the back door.
He tries the handle.
Locked.
He moves to the cellar doors, tests those too.
He’s looking for a way in that won't trigger the alarm.
He pulls out his phone, shining the flashlight through the cellar window.
Then he does something that makes my blood turn to ice—he takes out a small notebook and sketches the lock mechanism.
He's planning. Preparing.
He finally gives up, returning to his car, but not before looking up at Celeste's window with such naked hunger that my hands clench into fists.
Tomorrow, Sterling will ask Jake to watch the house again.
Jake will volunteer eagerly.
And eventually, inevitably, he'll find a way inside.
Men like Jake always do.
They believe their desires are permission.
Unless someone stops them.