Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Echo
I scroll through the text thread. Stop. Then scroll again.
Same result.
The questions are fine. Neutral. Designed to invite elaboration without pressure.
What’s your favorite way to spend a day off?
What did you want to be when you were younger?
What do you value most?
She answered every one of them, and still gave me nothing.
No emotional hooks. No leverage. Not even a pattern I could trace with any kind of certainty. Every response was a closed door disguised as politeness.
Most people need to be understood. They fill the silence when you give them space, and mistake undivided attention for safety. She didn’t, and that’s a problem.
I lock the screen and toss the phone aside, my jaw tight enough to ache.
Across from me, Better Than Fiction is still open, its lit front windows softening the edges of the otherwise dark city street. Every other storefront on the street is closed, only hers is open.
I don’t like that.
From here, I can see her clearly enough to follow the rhythm of her movements. The way she leans over the shelves as she dusts them. The way her shoulders stay tense even when nothing notable is happening.
I settle deeper into the driver’s seat, adjusting just enough to keep her in view without drawing attention. Anyone passing by would assume I belong here.
Bambi doesn’t know I’m watching her.
I should feel guilty about that, but I don’t. She gave me an open invitation into her world; it isn’t my fault for accepting it.
Movement on the sidewalk pulls my attention away from the window.
A man has stopped three storefronts down from hers.
He's average height, lean, and his hood is pulled up despite the weather being mild enough not to warrant it.
He stands there with his hands in his pockets, peering through the dark window. My gaze tracks him automatically.
He moves on after a moment and stops at the next window. Leans against the glass and looks longer than necessary. Then the next.
The street is quiet enough that I can hear the soft scuff of his shoes against the pavement. I straighten slightly in my seat.
This time he pauses directly across from Better Than Fiction, close enough that the light from the windows brushes his face. I can’t see his expression clearly, but I can tell his attention is fixed on the inside of the store.
On her.
Annoyance settles low in my chest. Her shop shouldn’t be the only one open this late. It’s careless. An invitation for trouble she doesn’t even realize she’s extending.
The man glances down the empty street, then back at her windows, and starts crossing the street. I get out of the car and follow. I don’t rush or announce myself, and when I stop beside him, he startles.
“They’re closed,” I say mildly, following his line of sight to the storefront. “Everything on this block is.”
His eyes flick to me. Narrow and assessing. “I was just looking.”
“Don’t,” I reply.
He shifts his weight, shoulders tensing. “Didn’t realize that was illegal.”
“It doesn’t need to be.”
Up close, he smells wrong. Stale and nervous.
“Why are you still here?”
His weak jaw tightens. “I’m leaving.”
“Good.” I step closer, just enough to make my point land. “Do that.”
He hesitates, and my patience wears thin.
I grab him by the collar of his sweatshirt and lift him off the ground.
“Listen carefully,” I say quietly. “You don’t come back to this street. You don’t look into these stores. You don’t even think about the woman inside that shop.”
His eyes widen, like he wasn’t expecting me to know.
“And if I see you anywhere near here again—” I lean in close enough that he can feel the heat of my breath. “I won’t just make you disappear. I’ll leave your body so unrecognizable, no one will be able to identify it. Do you understand?”
He nods frantically.
I lower him to his feet and pat his shoulder hard enough to make him stumble. “Good. Now get the fuck out of here.”
He turns and jogs away, disappearing around the corner of the block without looking back.
I wait until I’m sure he’s gone, then I return to my car.
I’m not sure how much time passes as I continue to watch her move around the bookstore. The rhythm of it settles in. She dusts, pauses, adjusts, pauses again. Until the details blur together.
Before I even realize she’s finished, the last set of lights are flickering off and she’s stepping outside into the night.
She locks the door behind her, and when she turns around and her gaze lifts, her eyes land straight on me.
My body reacts before my brain has the decency to catch up. I duck down instinctively, despite the tint being dark enough to hide me, and my foot slams on the brake before I can stop it.
Shit.
Her attention snaps to the red glow of the taillights, and her eyes narrow.
I turn the engine over, its roar loud on the quiet street, and slam my foot against the accelerator.
The car jumps forward, and the tires screech against the asphalt as I pull away from the curb and floor-it past her.
In the rearview, I catch her standing there, watching me leave with her keys clenched in her hand and her head tilted slightly.
I planned on following her home to make sure she got home safe, but being seen changes the equation. I need her comfortable, not paranoid.
I pull up the tracker I installed on her car earlier today, the one I slipped under her rear bumper while she was opening the store, and track the blue dot as it starts moving toward her apartment.
There.
Problem solved.
I have other things to handle tonight anyway. Things that actually matter. Things that don’t revolve around an evasive brunette with a propensity for danger.