Chapter 5
Cal
She looked so small on my couch.
That was the thought I couldn't shake as I stood in the kitchen doorway, watching her wrap her hands around the mug I'd given her.
Lucy Moreno, who I'd been watching from a distance for six months, who I'd passed in the hallway a hundred times without ever really looking at, was sitting in my apartment at midnight with terror still written across her face.
And I had no idea what to do.
The kettle sat empty on the stove. I'd made tea because it was something to do, something to offer, some small gesture that felt inadequate against the weight of what she'd just told me.
Her ex. The texts. The break-in. Three weeks of escalating threats while I'd been living twelve feet away, listening to her cry through the walls and doing nothing.
Take care of Lucy. Promise me.
Mateo's voice echoed in my head the way it always did.
But tonight it felt different. Tonight the promise wasn't abstract anymore, wasn't something I could keep from a distance by making sure she got home safe and her lights turned on.
Tonight it had shown up on my doorstep, shaking and scared, and I couldn't pretend I was just a neighbor anymore.
I crossed to the chair across from her and sat. The distance felt important. Close enough that she'd know I was there. Far enough that she wouldn't feel crowded.
"Tell me about him," I said.
Lucy looked up from her mug, startled. Like she hadn't expected me to ask. As if she'd expected me to hand her a blanket and disappear.
"You don't have to," I added. "But if someone's threatening you, I need to know what we're dealing with."
We. The word slipped out before I could stop it. I watched her register it, saw something flicker in her eyes.
"His name is Evan." Her voice was steadier now, the tea or the warmth or just the act of sitting somewhere safe working some kind of magic. "We dated in high school. Before..."
She didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to.
Before Mateo.
"He was charming at first. They always are, right?" A bitter smile crossed her face. "By the time I realized what he really was, I was already in too deep. It took me two years to get out. And even then, he didn't let go easy."
I didn't say anything. Just listened, the way I'd learned to do for work. Sometimes people needed to talk more than they needed answers.
"I thought he was gone. He enlisted, shipped out, and I thought that was the end of it.
Then I met Mateo, and everything was different.
Everything was good." Her hands tightened on the mug.
"After Mateo died, I went to Denver because I couldn't stay here.
I couldn't face the memories. And somehow, eighteen months ago, Evan found me. "
"Found you how?"
"I don't know. Social media, maybe. People we knew from high school. It doesn't matter how. What matters is that he did." She took a breath. "It started with texts. Then phone calls. Then he started showing up at my work, watching me through the windows. Then he broke into my apartment."
My hands curled into fists against my knees. "Did you report it?"
"Of course I reported it. Filed a police report, got a restraining order. And you know what he did?" Another bitter smile. "He laughed. Kept coming anyway. The restraining order just made him angrier."
I thought about the men I'd known like that. The ones who can’t take no for an answer, who couldn't accept that someone might not want them. The ones who treated other people like property to be claimed, not people that need to be respected.
"So you came back here," I said.
Lucy nodded. "The last place he'd think to look.
We never lived here together, I never talked about it much.
I used my mother's maiden name, kept my head down, tried to be invisible.
" She laughed, and it was the saddest sound I'd ever heard.
"Worked for six months. I thought maybe I'd finally lose him. "
"Until tonight."
"The texts started three weeks ago. I kept telling myself it was nothing, wrong numbers, just coincidence. But then they got more specific. He knew where I worked. Knew where I lived." She looked down at her hands. "And tonight, I found my door open, and it wasn’t me."
Silence settled between us. I could hear the building creaking around us, the distant sound of traffic, the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. Normal sounds. Safe sounds. The kind of sounds that were supposed to mean you were home.
"We're going to the sheriff tomorrow," I said.
Her head snapped up. "Cal, I told you. Reporting him made things worse. It just made him angrier, more determined—"
"That was Denver." I kept my voice even, steady. "This is West Valley Springs. Sheriff Daniels has known me for years. He takes this stuff seriously, and he doesn't let things slide because some guy thinks he's above the law."
Lucy shook her head, but I could see something shifting in her expression. Hope, maybe. Or just exhaustion finally cracking through the resistance.
"You're staying here until we know you're safe," I continued. "I'll take the couch. You can have the bedroom."
I was already grabbing a blanket from the closet. The guest room was down the hall, but I wanted to be between her and the front door. If anyone came through it, they'd have to get past me first.
"Cal, I can't—"
"You can." I leaned forward, and something in my voice must have convinced her to stop arguing. "I'm not letting you go back to that apartment for a while. Not when we don't know if he's still out there, if he's watching, if he's waiting for you to be alone."
She stared at me for a long moment. I couldn't read her expression. Couldn't tell if she was grateful or angry or something else entirely.
"Why?" she finally asked.
The question hung between us, loaded with everything we'd never said. Six months of silence. Three years of history. The dead man standing in the space between us.
Because I promised Mateo.
"Because you need help," I said instead. "And I'm here."
It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't everything.
Lucy looked at me for another long moment, searching for something in my face. I didn't know if she found it. But finally, she nodded.
"Okay," she whispered.
She took the bedroom. I took the couch, even though I knew I wouldn't sleep.
The apartment was quiet after she closed the door, just the soft sounds of her moving around, running water in the bathroom, the creak of the mattress as she lay down.
I sat in the dark living room with my back against the couch cushions and listened to every sound, cataloging them the way I cataloged everything. Making sure nothing was wrong.
An hour passed. Maybe two. The building settled around us, groaning and sighing the way old buildings do. I kept my eyes on the door, on the windows, on every shadow that moved.
Then I heard her.
Not crying, this time. Something worse. A sharp gasp, the sound of someone fighting against sheets, a voice I barely recognized saying "no, no, please" in a broken rhythm that made my chest ache.
I was on my feet before I could think about it. Across the room, down the short hallway, stopping outside the bedroom door.
Don't go in. You're not what she needs. You're just the guy who let Mateo die.
But the sounds kept coming, her voice getting more desperate, and I couldn't stand there and listen anymore.
I pushed the door open.
She was tangled in the blankets, thrashing, her face twisted in the grip of something I couldn't see. The moonlight through the window caught the tears on her cheeks.
"Lucy." I kept my voice low, steady. "Lucy, wake up."
Nothing.
I moved closer, crouched beside the bed. Didn't touch her. Just put myself in her line of sight, waiting.
"Lucy. You're safe. It's just a dream."
Her eyes flew open.
For a moment, she didn't see me. She couldn’t see anything but whatever nightmare had followed her from sleep. Her breathing came in ragged gasps, her hands clutching the blankets like they were the only thing keeping her tethered to the world.
Then her eyes finally focused and found my face. And something in her expression shifted from terror to confusion to something else I couldn't name.
"Cal?" Her voice was raw. "What are you—"
"You were having a nightmare." I stayed where I was, crouched beside the bed, giving her space to orient herself. "I heard you through the wall."
She pressed her palms against her eyes, the gesture so familiar it hurt. I'd seen her do that before, six months of hallway encounters, catching glimpses of her when she didn't know anyone was watching. The same motion. The same desperate attempt to block out whatever she was seeing.
"I'm sorry." Her voice came out muffled through her hands. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't. I wasn't sleeping."
She lowered her hands, and I saw the tracks of tears on her cheeks, the dark shadows under her eyes that I'd noticed before but never really let myself see.
"You should sleep," she said. "You have work tomorrow."
"Off shift. I'm fine."
A pause. Then, quietly: "You always say that. That you're fine."
"So do you."
Something flickered in her expression. The silence stretched, filled with all the things we'd never said to each other. Six months of hallway nods and averted eyes, and now this: me on my bedroom floor at three in the morning, both of us too tired to keep pretending.
"I heard you." The words came out before I could stop them.
Lucy stilled. "What?"
"Crying. Through the walls." I looked down at my hands, unable to meet her eyes. "I've heard you, at night. For months. And I never knew what to do about it."
I waited for her to tell me to leave, to accuse me of eavesdropping, to ask what the hell was wrong with me that I'd listen to her cry and never once knock on her door.
Instead, she said, "I heard you too."
I looked up.
"Pacing," she continued. "At night. Three in the morning, sometimes later. I always wondered what kept you awake."