Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Celeste
The photograph is of me, but I don't remember it being taken.
I'm at my window, staring out at nothing, or maybe everything.
My face is unguarded in that way it only is when I think I'm alone.
There's something haunting about seeing yourself through someone else's eyes—this is how I look when I'm lost in thought, when I'm creating worlds in my head, when I'm not performing for anyone.
The angle is impossible.
Whoever took this was high up, level with my second-story window.
In a tree, maybe.
Watching me watch the world.
Beneath it, a page from my manuscript.
Not the published version, but one I deleted months ago.
My hands shake as I read my own words in someone else's handwriting at the bottom: Even your discarded thoughts are worth preserving.
This scene—it's the one where my heroine realizes she loves her stalker.
The one Juliette said would alienate readers, make them question the heroine's sanity.
I deleted it in the middle of the night after too much wine and self-doubt.
No one should have this.
I emptied my trash, cleared my cloud storage.
This shouldn't exist.
But someone saved it.
Someone thought my darkest impulses were worth keeping.
The skeleton key is antique, brass gone dark with age. It could open anything or nothing. A metaphor or a promise.
I turn it over in my fingers, feeling its weight, its potential.
There's something etched in the handle—initials maybe, too worn to read.
Someone has been in my room.
Multiple times.
They've read my deleted words, taken my picture, left me gifts that feel more intimate than any touch.
I should be terrified, should be calling my father, packing my bags, fleeing back to the city.
Instead, I'm opening my laptop.
The words come like blood from a wound—necessary, painful, beautiful.
I write about a woman who finds pieces of herself in a stranger's hands.
About the violation of being seen, really seen, and discovering you want to be visible after all.
About the difference between being watched and being witnessed.
She kept the gifts in a drawer that locked, not to hide them but to keep them sacred.
Each one a piece of evidence that someone found her worthy of study.
Her mother had always said she was too much—too dark, too intense, too hungry for things nice girls shouldn't want.
But he saw all that darkness and left her gifts anyway.
Not despite her shadows but because of them.
My phone buzzes.
Jake Bauer:
Just checking you're okay. Your dad asked me to keep an eye on things.
I don't respond.
But ten minutes later, I hear a car pull up.
Through my window, I watch Jake get out of his patrol car, adjusting his belt, checking his hair in the side mirror like he's arriving for a date.
The doorbell rings.
I save my document, considering my options.
I could pretend I'm not here, but my car's in the driveway.
He probably saw me at the window.
And ignoring a cop, even Jake, could make things worse.
"Celeste!" His voice booms through the door. "It's Jake Bauer. Just doing a welfare check."
Welfare check. Right.
I open the door but don't invite him in. "I'm fine, Jake."
"Your dad's worried. This killer's got everyone on edge." He leans against the doorframe, trying for casual but landing on presumptuousness.
He's filled out since high school, muscle gone soft around the edges.
His uniform is too tight, buttons straining. "Mind if I come in? It’s freezing out here."
"I'm actually writing—"
"Perfect. I'll be quiet." He's already pushing past me, that quarterback confidence that assumes every door opens for him. "Haven't been in this house in years. Remember when I picked you up for the Landry party?"
My stomach turns. "I drove myself to that party."
"Right, but I offered to drive you. You turned me down." He's examining the living room like he's cataloging possessions, picking up a photo of me and Dad from a few Christmases ago, setting it down wrong. "Just like you turned down everything else that night."
There it is. The thing that's been festering in him for over a decade.
"Jake, I really need to work."
"You embarrassed me that night." He turns, and his friendly mask slips just enough to show what's underneath. "In front of everyone. Tommy still brings it up sometimes. How the sheriff's daughter threw beer in my face because I tried to kiss her."
"You didn't try to kiss me. You cornered me in a bathroom and put your hands up my skirt."
His jaw tightens. "That's not how I remember it."
"That's exactly how it happened. You were drunk, you followed me upstairs, and when I tried to leave the bathroom, you blocked the door."
"You were wearing that black dress. The one with the low back. You don't wear something like that unless you want attention."
The logic of every predator—clothing as consent, existence as invitation.
He steps closer.
Not quite threatening, but not quite safe either.
The kind of positioning that gives him deniability.
I was just talking to her, Sheriff. Just checking on your daughter like you asked.
"You were always such a cocktease. Acting all superior with your books and your big words. Writing in that journal like everyone else was beneath you. Now you write porn for bored housewives."
"I write dark romance."
"Same thing. All those sex scenes, all that violence." His eyes are glassy, and I smell whiskey under his cologne. He's been drinking. At ten in the morning. "You write about women wanting dangerous men. Being forced. Liking it."
"That's fiction, Jake. Fantasy. Not reality."
"But it comes from somewhere, right? These desires?" He moves closer. I back up until I hit the wall. "I've read your books, Celeste. All of them. Bought them hardcover, full price. Your heroines always end up with the psychos. The stalkers. The killers. Is that what you want? Someone dangerous?"
"I want you to leave."
"Like that freak Lockwood?" His face twists with disgust. "Yeah, I saw you two at Stella's. Cozy little coffee date. Your dad know you're hanging out with the prime suspect?"
"Cain's not—"
"Cain?" He laughs, ugly and sharp. "First name basis already? That's quick. But then, you always did like the weirdos. The outcasts. That's why you spent high school writing in corners instead of going to games, supporting the team. Supporting me."
"I didn't owe you support, Jake."
"I was quarterback. I was somebody. You should have been grateful I even noticed you."
"Grateful?" The word tastes like poison. "You assaulted me."
"I tried to kiss you! Jesus, you make it sound like—" He stops, runs his hand through his thinning hair. "Look, we were kids. I was eighteen, hormones and beer and bad decisions. But I'm trying to apologize here."
"No, you're not. You're trying to rewrite history so you're the victim."
His hand shoots out, slamming against the wall beside my head.
I don't flinch, but my heart races.
I can see the veins in his neck, the flush spreading down from his face.
"You think you're so fucking special. So much better than everyone else.
But you're here, aren't you? Back in this shithole town, alone in this house while daddy tries to catch a killer.
" His breath is hot on my face, sour with alcohol and rage.
"Writing your sick fantasies while a real psycho leaves you presents. "
I go cold. "What do you know about presents?"
He pulls back slightly, realizing he's said too much. "Your dad mentioned the book. The feather. We're monitoring the situation."
They know.
My father knows about the gifts and hasn't said anything.
"I'm trying to protect you," Jake says, his voice softer now, manipulative. "We could be good together, Celeste. I've grown up. I've got a good job, stability. I could give you a normal life."
"I don't want a normal life."
"No," he says, bitter again. "You want a killer. Someone who'll treat you like the whores in your books. Someone who'll stalk you and obsess over you and probably end up strangling you in your bed."
"At least that would be interesting."
The words slip out before I can stop them.
His face goes red, then purple.
"Interesting? You want interesting?" His hand moves to his belt, and for a terrifying moment I think he's going to—but no, his hand goes to his gun, resting on the holster.
Not drawing it, but the threat is clear.
"I could show you interesting. I could show you exactly what you write about.
The forcing. The taking. Bet you'd stop romanticizing it real quick when it's actually happening. "
"Get the fuck out."
"Or what? You'll tell daddy? He trusts me. I'm the one watching his precious daughter. Keeping her safe from the big bad killer." He leans in close, his lips almost touching my ear. "But who's keeping you safe from me?"
The slap happens before I decide to do it.
My palm connects with his cheek hard enough to snap his head sideways.
For a moment, we both freeze.
Then his hand tightens on his gun.
"You always were a bitch," he says quietly. "But that's okay. I like a challenge. And I've got time. Your dad's gonna be working this case for weeks, maybe months. Lots of long nights. Lots of opportunities for welfare checks."
He leaves without another word, but I see him sit in his patrol car for another twenty minutes, just watching the house.
Finally, he drives away, and I realize I'm shaking.
I need to get out.
Need air.
Need to be somewhere that doesn't smell like Jake's cologne and desperation.
I grab my keys and drive without thinking, but I know where I'm going.
The Lockwood estate.
I need to see where Cain came from, need to understand the darkness that shaped him.
The road winds up the mountain, gravel giving way to dirt, then barely a path at all.
The trees press close, branches scraping my car like fingers.