Chapter 1 #2
"How much time?"
"Couple weeks. Maybe less." His breathing hitched. A cough he tried to muffle. "Don't worry about it."
"Have you eaten today?"
"What? Yeah. Earlier. Had some—" He trailed off. Couldn't even finish the lie. "Belle, I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine."
"Just a cold. Happens." More rustling. The creak of his recliner—the one piece of furniture he'd refused to sell when the bank took the house. "I don't want you worrying about me. You've got enough on your plate."
I pressed my palm against the counter. "Let me come by tomorrow. Bring groceries."
"No need. I'm stocked up."
"Dad."
"I mean it." Firmer now. That stubborn edge I knew too well.
The same pride that wouldn't let him declare bankruptcy.
Wouldn't let him take my help when the medical bills started piling up.
Wouldn't let him admit he'd bet everything on land deals and development projects that existed only in some con artist's imagination.
"You focus on that store. Make it work. That's what matters. "
What mattered was him not dying alone in that apartment, too proud to ask his daughter for help.
"Things are being handled," he repeated. "Trust me."
I'd trusted him before. Watched him turn Mom's insurance money into promises and those promises into ash.
"Okay," I said.
"I'll call you next week. Let you know how it shakes out."
"Sure."
"Love you, kiddo."
The line went dead.
I stood there with the phone against my ear, listening to silence.
I moved through the motions. Counted the drawer a second time—same forty-three dollars. Logged it in the notebook. Tucked the bills into the deposit bag I'd take to the bank tomorrow morning, if tomorrow still felt real after tonight.
The cart went back to the stockroom. Book by book, returned to their places. My hands moved independent of thought, muscle memory from a thousand closing shifts guiding them while my mind stayed blank and humming.
The checklist on the wall got its marks. Register: closed. Floor: swept. Bathroom: checked.
The second lamp clicked off. Darkness swallowed the store—total and immediate. Only the streetlight through the front window remained, painting everything in shades of grey and amber. The shelves became canyon walls. The reading nook disappeared entirely.
I grabbed my coat from the hook behind the counter. Canvas, worn soft at the elbows. Mom's jacket, actually—too big in the shoulders, too short in the sleeves. I'd never replaced it.
My arms slid through. One sleeve. Then the other.
Tap.
The sound came once. Clean. Precise.
Knuckle against glass.
Not the front window. Not the door.
The alley window.
My breath stopped. Not a gasp, not a hitch—just stopped, like someone had reached into my chest and gripped my lungs in a fist.
I stood frozen, one hand still holding my coat closed. The storage room door sat ten feet away. That warped window beyond it, dark and distorted.
My throat worked. Dry. Wrong.
"Hello?"
The word came out barely above a whisper. A question posed to the dark by someone who already knew the answer.
Silence pressed back.
Then—footsteps.
Gravel crunching. Slow. Measured. Each step deliberate, unhurried. Moving away from the window, away from the building. Down the alley toward the street.
Not running.
Not fleeing.
Just... leaving.
Like he'd gotten what he came for. Like this was exactly how he'd planned it. Every second calculated, every movement intentional. Like he had all the time in the world. And he wanted me to know it.
The footsteps faded. Swallowed by rain and distance until only the drumming on the roof remained.
I stood in my dark bookstore, coat half-buttoned, and listened to nothing.
My hands had stopped shaking.
I locked the deadbolt. Tested it twice. The brass felt cold under my palm, solid enough to matter. The key turned smooth—no resistance, no drama. Just metal sliding into metal, tumblers clicking home.
The alley beckoned.
Check it. Prove yourself wrong.
I rounded the corner of the building, phone clutched in my hand with 911 already keyed in. Just needed to press call. The alley stretched narrow and dark between my store and the insurance office next door. Dumpster at the far end, overflowing as usual. Puddles catching fragments of streetlight.
Empty.
No footprints in the standing water. No cigarette butts. No evidence anyone had been here at all.
I walked the length of it, anyway. Checked behind the dumpster—just cardboard boxes dissolving in the rain. Scanned the ground near my window. Nothing but gravel and wet pavement.
Stress.
I made it back to the street, my sneakers squelching.
Exhaustion.
The bank letters. Dad's voice on the phone, breath rattling in his chest. Forty-three dollars for an entire Thursday. Numbers that didn't add up no matter how many times I reworked them.
Your imagination feeding on fear.
I'd read too many thrillers, that was all. Spent too many nights alone in that store while my mind churned through worst-case scenarios. Turned shadows into threats and ordinary sounds into omens.
My car sat three spaces down. The Civic's paint had faded to a color between grey and resignation. I fumbled my keys, dropped them, retrieved them from a puddle.
And then… Black SUV. Directly across the street. Parked in front of the closed pharmacy, engine idling—I could see the faint shimmer of exhaust in the cold air.
Lights off.
I stood there, key hovering at the door lock. Staring.
The SUV sat motionless. Tinted windows reflected nothing but darkness. No silhouette visible behind the glass. No movement inside.
But someone was watching. I felt it the same way I'd felt it in the store—that pressure between my shoulder blades, that animal certainty that something had marked me as prey.
My hands worked the lock. I slid behind the wheel. Doors locked immediately. Engine started on the second try.
The SUV didn't move.
I pulled into the street. Checked my mirror.
It followed.
Not immediately. It waited—counted to three, maybe four—then eased from the curb. Headlights still dark. Just close enough to keep me in sight.
My foot pressed the accelerator.
The SUV matched my speed exactly.
I never saw the driver's face.