Chapter Twenty-Four #3
She hesitates, looking at me, then looks back at the dress. ‘I can cancel,’ she signs.
I shake my head immediately. “No,” I say out loud.
She frowns.
“No,” I repeat, slower this time. “You’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.”
‘Not if you need me.’
God, that almost undoes me.
I take both her hands. “You have spent months worrying about me.” She starts to interrupt, but I squeeze gently. “You deserve one night where you don’t.”
Her eyes search mine for a long moment, and finally, reluctantly, she nods.
By the time Piper leaves an hour later, the sun has disappeared behind the mountains. She hugs me again at the front door, lingering just long enough to make sure I’m really okay before signing, ‘Call if you need me.’
“I will.”
She points a finger at me. ‘Promise.’
“I promise.”
I watch until her taillights disappear from the street below.
Only then do I lock the door.
Ghost texts while I’m halfway through highlighting the third page of the complaint.
Toothpick: Church running late. You okay?
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth despite myself.
Me: I’m okay. Behave yourself.
His reply arrives before I’ve even set my phone back down.
Toothpick: No promises.
I shake my head, smiling into my wine. “Dork,” I mutter to the empty apartment, and the smile fades almost as quickly as it came. The file waits patiently on the coffee table. So do the lies inside it.
Hours disappear without me noticing, and one page becomes five. Five become twelve.
The wine bottle grows steadily lighter while my notebook fills with circles, arrows, and half-finished theories that all seem to end in the same impossible conclusion.
Calloway hasn’t accused us because he thinks we’ll lose.
He’s accused us because he knows proving we’re innocent takes time.
And time is all he needs.
I scrub a hand over my face and lean back from the dining table, my neck protesting after hours bent over notes and spreadsheets. When I glance toward the window, the glass has turned into a mirror, my own exhausted reflection staring back at me against the darkness outside.
How long have I been sitting here?
The microwave answers before I can. 11:57 p.m.
Almost midnight.
The apartment has settled into that strange stillness that only seems to exist this late at night.
I’ve lived here long enough that most of the building’s noises stopped meaning anything months ago.
The pipes complain, the old timber shifts, somebody out on the street slams a car door harder than they need to, and it is all part of living here.
The creak outside isn’t.
My pen stills against the page before I even realize I’ve stopped writing.
I hold my breath.
Nothing.
For a second, I almost laugh at myself. It’s an old building, and old buildings make noise. Ghost would probably tell me I’m catastrophizing.
Then the metal staircase groans again.
Not loudly.
Just enough.
The sound crawls straight down my spine, every instinct I have latching onto it before my brain catches up. Somebody is putting their weight on those stairs one careful step at a time, moving slowly enough that it feels deliberate.
I stare toward the kitchen even though I can’t see the back door from where I’m sitting.
Please be a neighbor.
Please be someone coming home late.
Another step.
My pulse kicks so hard it makes my fingers tingle.
Piper is out.
Ghost is still in Church.
Nobody should be coming up to my apartment this late. The thought lands like a stone in my stomach.
I don’t know who’s out there, but suddenly I know with terrifying certainty they aren’t here by accident.
Where the fuck is Liam?
My brain runs through the possibilities the way it always does, offering me every innocent explanation available. Maintenance checking something. My own paranoia, worn thin after months of messages I never told anyone about and a threat I have been carrying alone since the day it arrived.
It could be anything.
It isn’t.
The handle begins to turn, so slowly I almost convince myself I’m imagining it. The quiet click of the latch echoes through the apartment, impossibly loud against the silence.
My stomach drops.
They’re not trying to break the door down.
They’re seeing if they have to.
Every muscle in my body seizes. For a heartbeat, maybe two, I simply stare at it, my brain scrambling to make the picture in front of me fit a version of reality that isn’t terrifying.
Piper forgot something… no.
She always comes through the front.
Maybe one of the neighbors… no.
But they wouldn’t be trying the back door.
Liam doing a rounds check… no.
He always messages me first to tell me he’s coming.
Another slow turn of the handle steals the last fragile thread of denial I have left.
Cold floods through me so quickly it almost hurts.
Only moments ago, this apartment had been home, safe and familiar.
Now all I can see are entry points—windows, doors, hallways.
Every corner suddenly feels as though somewhere somebody could be hiding.
The silence presses in around me until I can hear my own heartbeat pounding inside my ears, then…
Move!